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tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
Okay, I deliberately tried to cheat and get Kakashi, but I got Sasuke instead:
Take the What Naruto Character are You? quiz brought to you by Danseibi.net.
Not fair. Anyway, before I go and cross-reference my math notes, I wanted to half-rant/half-discourse extensively in boring fashion on two subjects:
First of all, I used to think that I had a pretty good memory for names and an even better memory for faces. Case in point: all those people I knew in high school that didn't seem to know me so well (outside my grade, I mean). I am now told by L.P. that most people knew who I was even if they never actually talked to me. Freaky. Anyway, I immediately came to realize that I didn't really have such a good memory after all after coming to college and still not knowing half the boys in my entryway. I recognize all of their faces now--I think--but I definitely forget their names or mix them up with other Greenough people half the time. I do know all the girls though (well, not too difficult, since they're on my floor after all). And anyone else that I've talked to more than once is definitely fixed in the face directory in my head.
Nevertheless, though my memory isn't as good as I thought it was, when I meet a person in a specific context, I usually remember them pretty well. There were three girls that I met at the Korean language placement test at the beginning of the year, and I remembered their names and faces when I saw them again at various extracurriculars and Annenberg meals. What is disconcerting is that none of them remembered me. I've talked to two of them again, and one, who is on HIR staff, now recognizes me and knows my name, but apparently has forgotten/never known that I was Korean. (I bumped into her at breakfast today, and she asked me about that.) I am not particularly bothered by this fact, but it calls to mind all the other repeated reintroductions I've had, pretending to meet the other person for the first time even though I actually remember them. For example, during orientation week, I had an absolutely wonderful conversation with a boy I randomly met at breakfast about Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy and was vaguely cheered to be in a school where I could talk about books like that with someone. He later popped up in my math class and promptly reintroduced himself, apparently having forgotten that he'd ever seen me before. Well, he remembers who I am, now, but it's sort of exasperating to be the only one remembering the conversation.
(And before Angelette starts teasing me, nope, not my type at all, and stop hoping that I'll get a boyfriend in college, oniichan. Tari's just about given up on being capable of having a crush on any person. I'm sorry, even the remotest interest in guys only lasts until the next exam/paper/project. I think I'll just get married to my schoolwork, since my capacity for infatuation runs out so quickly. Can't understand how you guys maintain it for so long.)
Ugh, and this whole subject reminds me, during pre-frosh weekend, L.P. and I ran into Moira, who according to Liz actually read and liked my HUNS application paper, since she was a HUNS officer my first two years in the model UN club, and she didn't appear to know who I was at all! Argh. Okay, so she probably knows L.P. better than she knows me, but she was a bloody club officer and it was her responsibility to place names with faces--I know I certainly did as a head delegate! Not to mention all those tenth graders (well, juniors now), whose papers I read and edited, and didn't even wave back at Homecoming. (Except for Danica, of course. Well, at least one person in my former delegation still loves me. ;_;)
I've been under the impression for the past four or five years that I'm a pretty forgettable person and have used that to my advantage numerous times. I mean, very typical Asian face, quiet demeanor, not-very-outgoing personality--easy to fade into the background, right? Still, now that I'm going to a big school for the first time, I'm getting kind of tired of pretending I don't know people while they politely introduce themselves to me again and again. Argh. I'm also annoyed by all the faux pas I've made when I think that the person will know me and act accordingly, but they don't! I think it's all the wavering that makes it worse. From now on, until I've had one reintroduction, I will just assume that the other person will not remember me, no matter how long we've talked, and after that point, I will expect that they know me and let them be embarrassed if they don't.
Second...okay, I understand the evolutionary basis for nausea. It's actually very necessary for survival, and there's a very good psychological test somewhere on the BBC web site about what things we find disgusting, vomit-inducing, etc. Nausea goes back a long way--I forget how long, but you know, rats refuse to touch any substance that they've smelled on the body of another dead rat. We tend to find bodily fluids disgusting because they're usually infected. We tend to find certain animals like bees, snakes, worms disgusting because they're potentially dangerous. Essential for survival, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But I maintain that somewhere along the way, possibly when humans stopped evolving morphologically, nausea has developed into something utterly unnecessary, and if we were still at the mercy of natural selection in its cruelest form, it would definitely be a disadvantage. I mean, especially with the way our nerves are wired--whenever there's a sudden change in hormonal balance, nausea. Sure, it alerts us to a change in our internal body state, but this has gone to an extreme. Females, unfortunately, have to experience the worst of this regrettably faulty mechanism, not only in the case of morning sickness, but at least for me, an abiding urge to throw up whenever the, ahem, estrogen levels go through their monthly flipflopping. (Yes, I resort to scientific euphemisms, more for the sake of the few males on my friends list than mine.) Yes, I know that not all girls go through surges of nausea when it's "that time of month", but the precise reason why there's such individual variation is that we're no longer in an environment where experiencing the urge to throw up everything you eat during a certain time each month doesn't lead to starvation and death before reproduction. I feel like cursing my genetic ancestors who have, through the miracles of human intelligence and ability to manipulate the environment, survived and passed this stupid predilection down to me.
Argh!
Now that that rant's done, back to the question of current human evolution, or lack thereof. My statements so far on the subject have not precisely been correct. We generally assume that humans are no longer evolving in the ordinary manner--from what we can tell from the skeletons of the archaic subspecies of Homo sapiens, we aren't morphologically different at all (no, not even a larger braincase). The common, or at least what I believe is common, interpretation tends to go along the lines of: humans evolve intelligence, which gives them the capacity to make tools and eventually alter their environment, so that despite less than optimal physiological characteristics, environmental stressors do not provide any significant selective pressure on the human population. We have adapted to nearly every environment on earth, not by significant changes in our own phenotype, but by adapting the environment to our needs. Furthermore, with the evolution of complex societies and culture, survival of individuals no longer depends significantly on inheritable qualities but more on cultural factors, which leads to the phrase "cultural evolution". That is, humans still evolve and change, I suppose, but because these changes are not particularly reflected in any major consistent shift in allelic frequencies of our gene pool but rather changes in the culture of a society, the human species as a whole isn't really diverging into seperate subspecies or seeing any broad differences in physical phenotype. (Don't bring race into the matter, especially since it's utterly irrelevant, i.e. scarcely any genetic basis for race.)
Of course, this is just a common interpretation, and when you really think about it, we could just be in a period of equilibrium, and natural selection won't come back into play until the next catastrophic event. And just considering how old the human race is (i.e. not very) and how long evolutionary change takes, it's really presumptuous and possibly anthropomorphic of us to assume this interpretation and say "intelligence is the culminating point of natural evolution". Still...it's one of the reasons given by SETI enthusiasts for the inevitability of intelligent life outside the solar system. As long as life begins, ultimately it'll stumble on "intelligence"--whatever we mean by that--as the best mechanism for survival.
(And then there's the whole cynical reaction that says, "Oh, look what our so-called intelligence brought us--war and the capacity for the destruction of not only the entire human race but the rest of the biosphere as well." The pastoral-nostalgic-hippy reaction adds, "So why don't we all go back to nature and give up on this stupid 'civilization' thing." ::rolls eyes:: Civilization is the only thing that allows overpopulation to even be an issue--we keep finding ways to increase our local environment's capacity to support us. It's stupid to label the old nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle as simply "barbarous" (I don't believe that at all, myself), but most of us would die, if we lived like that.)
I just realized what a whole barrel of social issues I've opened up with this topic--haven't even touched on eugenics (which is absolute nonsense anyway, since artificial selection never breeds for increased fitness, just increased montrosities and phenotypic extremes, oh the philosophical conundrums of self-awareness) and the question of what intelligence is (capacity to learn? curiosity about the environment? self-awareness and emergent properties thereof?), but I'm no expert on the issue, and my background knowledge is not nearly interdisciplinary enough for the subject.
Right. Back to cross-referencing mathematical proofs with actual application of the theorems. Without starting any paraphrased exegeses on discovery/creation of mathematics. Oh, look, I used unnecessarily fancy polysyllabic words to purposely obscure my meaning, never mind that writing is supposed to be a means of communication. How Harvardian of me! Aren't I so ready for Expos next semester? But that's a whole another set of rants in itself.
My goodness, I spent an hour and twenty minutes typing all this out. O_O And it's all in my own cognitive shorthand too. My attention span is getting shorter and shorter, isn't it? Kudos to you, if you had the patience to read through all these incoherent self-analyses and generalizations.
...Tari
Okay, I deliberately tried to cheat and get Kakashi, but I got Sasuke instead:
Take the What Naruto Character are You? quiz brought to you by Danseibi.net.
Not fair. Anyway, before I go and cross-reference my math notes, I wanted to half-rant/half-discourse extensively in boring fashion on two subjects:
First of all, I used to think that I had a pretty good memory for names and an even better memory for faces. Case in point: all those people I knew in high school that didn't seem to know me so well (outside my grade, I mean). I am now told by L.P. that most people knew who I was even if they never actually talked to me. Freaky. Anyway, I immediately came to realize that I didn't really have such a good memory after all after coming to college and still not knowing half the boys in my entryway. I recognize all of their faces now--I think--but I definitely forget their names or mix them up with other Greenough people half the time. I do know all the girls though (well, not too difficult, since they're on my floor after all). And anyone else that I've talked to more than once is definitely fixed in the face directory in my head.
Nevertheless, though my memory isn't as good as I thought it was, when I meet a person in a specific context, I usually remember them pretty well. There were three girls that I met at the Korean language placement test at the beginning of the year, and I remembered their names and faces when I saw them again at various extracurriculars and Annenberg meals. What is disconcerting is that none of them remembered me. I've talked to two of them again, and one, who is on HIR staff, now recognizes me and knows my name, but apparently has forgotten/never known that I was Korean. (I bumped into her at breakfast today, and she asked me about that.) I am not particularly bothered by this fact, but it calls to mind all the other repeated reintroductions I've had, pretending to meet the other person for the first time even though I actually remember them. For example, during orientation week, I had an absolutely wonderful conversation with a boy I randomly met at breakfast about Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy and was vaguely cheered to be in a school where I could talk about books like that with someone. He later popped up in my math class and promptly reintroduced himself, apparently having forgotten that he'd ever seen me before. Well, he remembers who I am, now, but it's sort of exasperating to be the only one remembering the conversation.
(And before Angelette starts teasing me, nope, not my type at all, and stop hoping that I'll get a boyfriend in college, oniichan. Tari's just about given up on being capable of having a crush on any person. I'm sorry, even the remotest interest in guys only lasts until the next exam/paper/project. I think I'll just get married to my schoolwork, since my capacity for infatuation runs out so quickly. Can't understand how you guys maintain it for so long.)
Ugh, and this whole subject reminds me, during pre-frosh weekend, L.P. and I ran into Moira, who according to Liz actually read and liked my HUNS application paper, since she was a HUNS officer my first two years in the model UN club, and she didn't appear to know who I was at all! Argh. Okay, so she probably knows L.P. better than she knows me, but she was a bloody club officer and it was her responsibility to place names with faces--I know I certainly did as a head delegate! Not to mention all those tenth graders (well, juniors now), whose papers I read and edited, and didn't even wave back at Homecoming. (Except for Danica, of course. Well, at least one person in my former delegation still loves me. ;_;)
I've been under the impression for the past four or five years that I'm a pretty forgettable person and have used that to my advantage numerous times. I mean, very typical Asian face, quiet demeanor, not-very-outgoing personality--easy to fade into the background, right? Still, now that I'm going to a big school for the first time, I'm getting kind of tired of pretending I don't know people while they politely introduce themselves to me again and again. Argh. I'm also annoyed by all the faux pas I've made when I think that the person will know me and act accordingly, but they don't! I think it's all the wavering that makes it worse. From now on, until I've had one reintroduction, I will just assume that the other person will not remember me, no matter how long we've talked, and after that point, I will expect that they know me and let them be embarrassed if they don't.
Second...okay, I understand the evolutionary basis for nausea. It's actually very necessary for survival, and there's a very good psychological test somewhere on the BBC web site about what things we find disgusting, vomit-inducing, etc. Nausea goes back a long way--I forget how long, but you know, rats refuse to touch any substance that they've smelled on the body of another dead rat. We tend to find bodily fluids disgusting because they're usually infected. We tend to find certain animals like bees, snakes, worms disgusting because they're potentially dangerous. Essential for survival, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But I maintain that somewhere along the way, possibly when humans stopped evolving morphologically, nausea has developed into something utterly unnecessary, and if we were still at the mercy of natural selection in its cruelest form, it would definitely be a disadvantage. I mean, especially with the way our nerves are wired--whenever there's a sudden change in hormonal balance, nausea. Sure, it alerts us to a change in our internal body state, but this has gone to an extreme. Females, unfortunately, have to experience the worst of this regrettably faulty mechanism, not only in the case of morning sickness, but at least for me, an abiding urge to throw up whenever the, ahem, estrogen levels go through their monthly flipflopping. (Yes, I resort to scientific euphemisms, more for the sake of the few males on my friends list than mine.) Yes, I know that not all girls go through surges of nausea when it's "that time of month", but the precise reason why there's such individual variation is that we're no longer in an environment where experiencing the urge to throw up everything you eat during a certain time each month doesn't lead to starvation and death before reproduction. I feel like cursing my genetic ancestors who have, through the miracles of human intelligence and ability to manipulate the environment, survived and passed this stupid predilection down to me.
Argh!
Now that that rant's done, back to the question of current human evolution, or lack thereof. My statements so far on the subject have not precisely been correct. We generally assume that humans are no longer evolving in the ordinary manner--from what we can tell from the skeletons of the archaic subspecies of Homo sapiens, we aren't morphologically different at all (no, not even a larger braincase). The common, or at least what I believe is common, interpretation tends to go along the lines of: humans evolve intelligence, which gives them the capacity to make tools and eventually alter their environment, so that despite less than optimal physiological characteristics, environmental stressors do not provide any significant selective pressure on the human population. We have adapted to nearly every environment on earth, not by significant changes in our own phenotype, but by adapting the environment to our needs. Furthermore, with the evolution of complex societies and culture, survival of individuals no longer depends significantly on inheritable qualities but more on cultural factors, which leads to the phrase "cultural evolution". That is, humans still evolve and change, I suppose, but because these changes are not particularly reflected in any major consistent shift in allelic frequencies of our gene pool but rather changes in the culture of a society, the human species as a whole isn't really diverging into seperate subspecies or seeing any broad differences in physical phenotype. (Don't bring race into the matter, especially since it's utterly irrelevant, i.e. scarcely any genetic basis for race.)
Of course, this is just a common interpretation, and when you really think about it, we could just be in a period of equilibrium, and natural selection won't come back into play until the next catastrophic event. And just considering how old the human race is (i.e. not very) and how long evolutionary change takes, it's really presumptuous and possibly anthropomorphic of us to assume this interpretation and say "intelligence is the culminating point of natural evolution". Still...it's one of the reasons given by SETI enthusiasts for the inevitability of intelligent life outside the solar system. As long as life begins, ultimately it'll stumble on "intelligence"--whatever we mean by that--as the best mechanism for survival.
(And then there's the whole cynical reaction that says, "Oh, look what our so-called intelligence brought us--war and the capacity for the destruction of not only the entire human race but the rest of the biosphere as well." The pastoral-nostalgic-hippy reaction adds, "So why don't we all go back to nature and give up on this stupid 'civilization' thing." ::rolls eyes:: Civilization is the only thing that allows overpopulation to even be an issue--we keep finding ways to increase our local environment's capacity to support us. It's stupid to label the old nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle as simply "barbarous" (I don't believe that at all, myself), but most of us would die, if we lived like that.)
I just realized what a whole barrel of social issues I've opened up with this topic--haven't even touched on eugenics (which is absolute nonsense anyway, since artificial selection never breeds for increased fitness, just increased montrosities and phenotypic extremes, oh the philosophical conundrums of self-awareness) and the question of what intelligence is (capacity to learn? curiosity about the environment? self-awareness and emergent properties thereof?), but I'm no expert on the issue, and my background knowledge is not nearly interdisciplinary enough for the subject.
Right. Back to cross-referencing mathematical proofs with actual application of the theorems. Without starting any paraphrased exegeses on discovery/creation of mathematics. Oh, look, I used unnecessarily fancy polysyllabic words to purposely obscure my meaning, never mind that writing is supposed to be a means of communication. How Harvardian of me! Aren't I so ready for Expos next semester? But that's a whole another set of rants in itself.
My goodness, I spent an hour and twenty minutes typing all this out. O_O And it's all in my own cognitive shorthand too. My attention span is getting shorter and shorter, isn't it? Kudos to you, if you had the patience to read through all these incoherent self-analyses and generalizations.
...Tari
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 09:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 09:17 am (UTC)...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 01:42 pm (UTC)Anyway. Why can't I tease youuu?! Teasing is fun. =D~
Memory stuffs. Yeah. That annoys me, too -.- Lucky for me, most people remember me. Even people I assume wouldn't remember me. (I just talk to many of them... >__>) You know who are the ones that usually forget... the guys... So, your example fits, neh?
=/
Go study.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 03:21 pm (UTC)And no, I forget the guys--both girls and guys forget me. I'm just a forgettable person.
And I took medicine but it does nothing for the nausea. Although that's died down a little, I think I'll eat some rice and kim, and I'll be better.
...Tari