Following up on previous post on ants and superorganisms and my call for a wide net in modeling cognition…

Here’s Christof Koch in 2009 setting the stage for Giulio Tononi‘s integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness.

The truth is that we really do not know which of these organisms is or is not conscious. We have strong feelings about the matter, molded by tradition, religion and law. But we have no objec­tive, rational method, no step­by­step procedure, to determine whether a giv­en organism has subjective states, has feelings.

The reason is that we lack a coherent framework for consciousness. Although consciousness is the only way we know about the world within and around us— shades of the famous Cartesian deduc­tion cogito, ergo sum—there is no agree­ ment about what it is, how it relates to highly organized matter or what its role in life is. This situation is scandalous! We have a detailed and very successful framework for matter and for energy but not for the mind­body problem. This dis­mal state of affairs might be about to change, however.

The universal lingua franca of our age is information. We are used to the idea that stock and bond prices, books, photographs, movies, music and our genetic makeup can all be turned into data streams of zeros and ones. These bits are the elemental atoms of information that are transmitted over an Ethernet cable or via wireless, that are stored, replayed, copied and assem­ bled into gigantic repositories of knowl­ edge. Information does not depend on the substrate. The same information can be represented as lines on paper, as elec­ trical charges inside a PC’s memory banks or as the strength of the synaptic connections among nerve cells.

So as a recovering mathematician eager to keep up with developments in the field of cognitive science, I realize now I’m at least a couple years behind. It looks like Tononi’s work is heading down the line I’ve wanted to see for a while.

Ah well, at least I’m no further behind with my favorite branches of science as I am with the latest music. And I’m a professional musician!

I just came across AntBlog.co.uk via Twitter and I’m glad I did.

Are Ants Conscious? (Part 1)

Bullant ant head detail, Taken by Fir0002, flagstaffotos.com.au, shared under GNU Free Documentation License

On questions of animal consciousness (or the nature of human consciousness), I find myself in the camp which cries, “wrong question!”. I think we overprivilege the notion of consciousness to the detriment of cognition, intelligence, sentience, ego… or other complex phenomena making up the self.

I also think it’s high time we develop more models of animal intelligence—or intelligences even more alien to our quotidian personal experience, such as superorganisms. I want to hear good ideas about how we would even recognize sentience or intelligence… nascent self-awareness… if and when we find it staring us in the face.

Blue sky here… I even want a branch of cognitive science to investigate how to remove—or abstract away—the time component from naive notions of intelligence, so we at least have the capability to recognize whether a virus complex or fungal mat might be modeled as some form of intelligence in the (chemical, genetic, sexual-reproductive) messaging between parts of its network. As a non-specialist, I keep looking for developments in this area.

Are Ants Conscious? (Part 2)

The Honey Bee has a brain one cubic millimetre in size, but in this space it crams just shy of a million neurons, giving it almost 10 times the density of its mammalian counterparts. Ants have fewer neurons, with (still impressive, given their size) 250,000; two and a half times as many as a lobster. Contrast this with a human’s one billion neurons, and we see that the ant and the bee are some way off in the synapse stakes. That said, it pays to remember that an Elephant has twice as many neurons as a human.

The neurons in a bees brain, as with other species, are interconnected in ways that we are yet to fully understand. Neuroscientist Christof Koch works on the neural basis of consciousness and has this to say on the subject of Bee intelligence; “Bees live in highly stratified yet flexible social organisations with group decision-making skills that rival academic, corporate or government committees in efficiency. They communicate information about the location and quality of food sources and can fly several kilometres and return to their hive. A remarkable navigational performance. Their brains seem to have incorporated a map of their environment”. He goes on to comment about the possibility of bee consciousness “Given all of this ability, why does almost everybody instinctively reject the idea that bees or other insects might be conscious?”

I’m interested in notions of selves (minds, psyches) as interacting complexes with strong feedback loops and intercommunication: both networks within a single brain, and networks of signaling between multiple brains.

At Peer Reviewed By My Neurons a pointer to a fascinating little article in Journal of Consumer Psychology about the psychology of pricing.

[T]he study found that when a price includes a comma (e.g. $1,426 rather than $1426), people are more likely to pronounce it “fourteen-hundred and twenty-six” than “fourteen-twenty-six.” Because there are more words, more auditory processing time is needed, and the increased processing time creates the perception that the magnitude of the price is greater. The same effect occurred when cents were added to a price (e.g. $1426.85 was perceived to be of a significantly higher magnitude than $1,426).

What changes is the encoding of price in the viewer’s memory. From the original article:

In this paper, we demonstrate that including commas (e.g., $1599 vs. $1599) and cents (e.g., $1599.85 vs. $1599) in a price’s Arabic written form (i.e., how it is perceived visually) can change how the price is encoded and represented verbally in a consumer’s memory. In turn, the verbal encoding of a written price can influence assessments of the numerical magnitude of the price. These effects occur because consumers non-consciously perceive that there is a positive relationship between syllabic length and numerical magnitude.

Just as the field of design—broadly writ—means building things to interact smoothly with our perceptions, especially the unconscious; as an outsider I guess I’d call this sort of study merchandising, the design of the consumer experience with the products. As I write this, it all sounds terribly obvious. But I suppose just as design (or good writing for that matter) comprises dozens or hundreds of technical rules, merchandising is partly built from an arsenal of technical principles—hidden from but operating on the consumer.

Merchandising and the fine art of pricing remind me of the equally slippery field of compliance techniques. I enjoyed Cialdini’s slim volume on persuasion and compliance and I learned a lot I about how salespeople get us to do their bidding. (The book is shamelessly promoted at Wikipedia. I’ll omit a more direct pointer here.) As a result, I now routinely refuse free samples (see Reciprocity). After reading about the reflexive, uncontrollable power of the reciprocity drive, I also believe Congress cannot be trusted not to promote their donors’ interests above those of the electorate.

Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely, is by far my favorite source on promotion and irrational behavior. After all, isn’t irrationality the soul of PR, merchandising, compliance gaining, and sales? The whole point of these methods is to spoof the expected-value model of the rational consumer from classical economics. Ariely’s book is worth ten Freakonomics and Persuasion volumes put together.

Coulter, K., Choi, P., & Monroe, K. (2011). Comma N’ cents in pricing: The effects of auditory representation encoding on price magnitude perceptions Journal of Consumer Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jcps.2011.11.005

As the year wraps up, it’s time for lists. I personally like end-of-year lists MUCH better than New Year’s Resolutions. Ugh. I really, really hate New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t think they work. But back to a more worthy cause…

This end-of-year list is out of the ordinary. It’s not time sensitive or tied to the year 2011. Instead this is a valuable attempt at addressing the worst of the disinformation and myths around vaccines. Much fake controversy and folk conspiracy theorizing has been swirling around vaccines.

True… to most of us with a science background, anti-vaxxer nonsense seems as persuasive as ghost stories or UFO chasing. If science-phobic, anti-vaxxer snake-oil salesmen had been alive to witness the ravages of polio or smallpox, they’d have no audience for their uninformed and paranoid rantings. It’s a shame that these mindworms of antivaxxer nonsense have infested the ranks of the college educated, who really should know better.

So now a link and the list itself. Down with pseudoscience and folk conspiracy theorizing. Here’s Dr. O’s work at dispelling the nonsense and cutting straight to the core facts of the matter. I’m figuratively voting this post up and hoping you’ll visit Dr. O’s work over at Scientopia.

Five dangerous myths about vaccines

1. Vaccination cause autism. WRONG. This is possibly the most pervasive myth about vaccines, instigated by two unfortunate correlations. Firstly, brain disorders, including autism and epilepsy, are often diagnosed the same age as the administration of certain vaccines. Secondly, the rise in autism rates over the past few decades follows the increase in vaccine development and availability. As a result, many studies have investigated the possibility of a link between vaccines and autism, yet found none. Further fueling this myth is a study repeatedly cited by anti-vaxxers, even though it was retracted due to findings by a British medical panel that the publishing doctor “had been dishonest, violated basic research ethics rules and showed a ‘callous disregard’ for the suffering of children involved in his research.” Evidently, the doctor had his own vaccine that would have been implemented upon MMR being taken off the market in Britain – no conflict of interest there or anything.

2. Vaccine additives are linked to autism and other neurological disorders. WRONG. Many vaccines used to contain small amounts (0.001 to 0.03%) of thimerosal, a vaccine preservative composed of ~50% mercury, to prevent the growth of microorganisms, which can and have caused lethal infections in vaccine recipients. Opponents of vaccination proposed that the levels of mercury in thimerosal caused epilepsy, autism, and other neurological disorders in vaccine recipients. No data has yet supported or refuted this claim, as correlative epidemiological findings are often difficult to prove or disprove. However, the elimination of thimerosal as a preservative in many vaccines in 2001 has not been met by a reduction in childhood autism rates, reducing support for this claim. Other theories have since been proposed by anti-vaxxers, NONE of which are supported by ANY existing scientific evidence.

3. Not vaccinating MY child won’t hurt YOUR child. WRONG. Vaccines work by challenging your immune system, with a harmless bug or bug component, so that your body immediately recognizes and destroys the corresponding virulent bug later on. Thus, an active immune system is necessary for vaccine function. Vaccines are less effective on infants, elderly, and individuals with compromised immune systems. Additionally, some individuals are allergic to components of certain vaccines (eggs, for instance, in the case of the flu shot). Therefore, vaccine efficacy depends on herd immunity, the vaccination of a certain proportion of the population (about 90%), to prevent the spread of disease to those who are unable for any number of reasons to be. Herd immunity only works if all the people who CAN be protected by vaccination GET vaccinated. Otherwise, my young son, who won’t be vaccinated against measles, mumps or rubella for another few months, is at increased danger of getting sick with a very nasty and deadly disease.

4. Vaccines are ineffective. WRONG. I don’t know how the hell this ever became a thing, but I’ve actually heard this statement spewed in numerous comment threads of late. Vaccines prevent disease, plain and simple. It’s because of vaccination that we no longer have to fear diseases as deadly as smallpox, and it’s due to the refusal of anti-vaxxers to immunize their children that infants are dying from measles and whooping cough. Our toddler has a LOT of vaccines on his immunization schedule over the next few years, and that, my friends, is a miracle. The scientific cooperation, drive, and and ingenuity that has made possible the prevention, and even eradication, of certain infectious diseases gives me hope in humankind. Our little Monkey will get every last one of those immunizations, one tear and blood drop at a time.

5. But I keep reading and hearing about all these people who got their child vaccinated and all of a sudden they started having seizures and acting weird and they’ve never been the same since! ANECDATA IS NOT THE SAME AS SCIENTIFIC DATA. The most dangerous aspect of the internet is its microphonic property for fervent believers in pseudoscience. A cancer patient starts taking some homeopathic snake oil and subsequently finds out s/he is in remission. An coworker’s family doc gives him/her antibiotics on the third day s/he is suffering from a mild cough, and two days later s/he is feeling much better. Your child gets the MMR vaccine, then weeks or days later begins displaying characteristics of autism. Isolated, these coincidences are powerful for the individual. In an internet chat room filled with other cancer patients, victims of the common cold, or parents of autistic children, the power of these stories is amplified. The fact is the cancer patient was also receiving life-saving chemotherapy, the employee’s immune system could have cleared the infection in the same time frame without antibiotic intervention, and your toddler would have begun showing symptoms of autism regardless of MMR vaccine administration. Anecdata is powerful, especially when amplified by internet forums and tangled with the ever-echoing fears of parents. But anecdata does not compare to scientific evidence. One desperate mother’s story on a parenting forum may sound convincing, but it can’t, hasn’t, and won’t stand up to the scrutiny of the scientific method.

Published by Dr. O over at http://scientopia.org/blogs/guestblog/

Ortegocactus has an unusual, lumpy surface and distinctive, pale-green skin.

Ortegocactus, a genus with only one species: macdougallii

It’s not very scientific to sort plants by how interesting they look. After all, why should a plant’s place in science—the accidents of its evolution—also tickle our human sense of beauty? Why should a plant with scientific interest also match the desires of home growers of cacti and succulents?

Ortegocactus closeup. Note the furrows in the tubercle tops in this mature individual.

What does surprise me is how often plants which stick out in the science of plant naming—plants from a monospecific genus—are also interesting to look at.

Ortegocactus in habitat, photo by Amante Darmanin at cactuscristatemania.blogspot.com

A monospecific genus is a genus with only one species. Sometimes this is an isolated population with millions of years of adaptation to a particular evolutionary niche—long enough to diverge from other genera. In other cases, plants from a monospecific genus may be highly variable in size and shape (or habit) and may occur over a wide region. The physical differences between populations are simply too slight, too insignificant to warrant different species names (aka specific epithets).

Ortegocactus habitat. Photo by Amante Darmanin at CactusCristateMania.blogspot.com

Ortegocactus is a monospecific genus thought to be isolated for much of its recent evolution. In habitat, Ortegocactus macdougallii is known from one small area—the limestone scree and escarpments of a hill known as El Cántaro, 4km west of San José Lachiguiri, Oaxaca, Mexico.

The exact position of Ortegocactus in the cactus evolutionary tree has been debated. Recent molecular phylogenetic work by Butterworth places it close to genus Neolloydia and Cochemiea and to the series Ancistracanthae within the enormous genus Mammillaria, now seen to be polyphyletic.

The municipality of San José Lachiguiri lies between 16 ° 22' north latitude and 96 ° 21' west longitude at 1670 meters above sea level.

See Also

Ortegocactus at Desert-Tropicals.com

Ortegocactus at Cactus-Art.Biz

Ortegocactus at WelcomeToCactusLand.Com

Ortegocactus at CactusCristateMania.blogspot.com

San José Lachiguiri at the Encyclopedia of Mexico Municipalities, State of Oaxaca

Butterworth, Charles A. and Wallace, Robert S. 2004. Phylogenetic studies of Mammillaria (Cactaceae)—insights from chloroplast sequence variation and hypothesis testing using the parametric bootstrap. American Journal of Botany. 91:1086-1098.

Addendum: quote from Butterworth’s paper and commentary:

Clade A [a group which appears to have evolved from a single population] includes sampled members of the genera Coryphantha, Escobaria, and Pelecyphora, which form sister lineages to sampled taxa of Hunt’s and Lu ?thy’s series Ancistracanthae and subgenus Cochemiea, respectively, thus clearly demonstrating paraphyly within Mammillaria. Furthermore, within the core group of series Ancistracanthae sensu Hunt and subgenus Cochemiea sensu Lu ?thy, our phylogeny places Ortegocactus macdougallii and Neolloydiaconoidea. Discovered by MacDougall in the early 1950s and described by Alexander (1961), Ortegocactus macdougallii has been contentious in its placement in relation to other members of tribe Cacteae. Bravo-Hollis and Sanchez-Mejorada (1991) sank this genus into Neobesseya, members of which are now commonly accepted as species of Escobaria (Hunt, 1992, 1999; Barthlott and Hunt, 1993). Hunt and Taylor (1986, 1990) suggested that Ortegocactus may be referable to the genus Mammillaria, although an official transfer to Mammillaria was not made. Barthlott and Hunt (1993) also commented on the similarities of Ortegocactus and Mammillaria, going so far as to suggest that Ortegocactus is reminiscent of M. schumannii. Butterworth et al. (2002) also suggested that Ortegocactus shared a greater affinity with members of Mammillaria than with Escobaria or Coryphantha. The data presented in this paper do indeed show that O. macdougallii is embedded within members of Mammillaria, its closest Mammillaria relatives including M. schumannii. However, at present the transfer of Ortegocactus to Mammillaria would be inappropriate because of the polyphyletic nature of Mammillaria as seen in our analyses.

Translation: Ortegocactus appears to share the same lineage of many Mammillaria, so much so that its DNA (and the model we reconstruct from this DNA of Ortegocactus evolution) would justify calling it a Mammillaria… EXCEPT that other genera also have this same problem, too—Neolloydia, Cochemiea, some Coryphantha and Escobaria. They all seem to be closely embedded within the evolutionary tree of what we otherwise call Mammillaria. So it would be hasty to rename Ortegocactus until we figure out what to do with ALL these naming problems.

I used to buy FM jogging radios every few years, hoping they’d finally work while… well… jogging. Or hiking. They never did. Reception was always spotty and full of static. All in all, they were exercises in consumer frustration—broken promises and technological impotence.

With the iPhone’s radio apps, that’s changed. I use NPR’s iPhone app all the time, and Sentient Meat has previously profiled the (very simple) KPCC app version 1. It did only one thing—play KPCC’s live stream—and it did it well. It wasn’t flawless but it did a good job.

KPCC’s new app has hit iTunes App Store, and it looks very good. In version 2.0, KPCC appears to have leapfrogged other radio apps, going from one of the smallest sets of features to one of the richest.

Sleep Timer

When I travel, I sometimes use my phone as a clock radio. Now KPCC does an even better impression of a clock radio with a sleep timer and alarm clock.

Member Benefits, including location sensing

I like KCRW’s app and it used to put KPCC’s to shame. But now KPCC’s has pulled ahead. One way is Member Benefits which shows you KPCC sponsors near you offering special deals.

Here’s some of KPCC’s rundown of their new features:

What’s New in Version 2.0

A completely re-imagined, re-designed KPCC iPhone app that dramatically expands your access to all of KPCC’s news and information. The new app goes way beyond live streaming– here’s a quick list of some of the major new features:

Enhanced Live Streaming

– An interactive program schedule
– Live stream radio bookmarks let you listen to a program once it is available on-demand
– You can now pause the live stream and start from where you left off.

On-Demand Audio

– Access to on-demand audio for all KPCC programs and our partner content. Listen to archived episodes of AirTalk, Marketplace, This American Life… whenever and wherever you want!

News Headlines

– You can now read our latest digital news stories online. Our best content from the web is served up fresh daily; read the latest local news and listen to KPCC at the same time.

KPCC Videos

– Watching the latest KPCC videos inside the app.

Member Benefits Directory

– Quickly find businesses nearby that offer Member Benefits discounts. It only takes a few taps to find a discount nearby, get directions on your phone, or call to make a reservation.

Quick Mobile Pledging

– Tap the Pledge button to become a member and support the KPCC voices you know and trust!.

 

This Argyroderma startled me the other day. I hadn’t noticed the bud forming until it I saw its shocking purple petals fully unfurled and sticking straight up.

Argyroderma grown by Mr Sentient Meat

You’ll have to take my word that this flower is a purple of such intensity and depth that I’ve rarely seen a color to rival it. Cameras have a hard time capturing intense magenta and deep purple; my camera is no exception. In real life the petals are a much darker, deeper purple—rather than the hot magenta in this photo. You almost begin to doubt your own eyesight… as if someone has fiddled with the color knobs of the world.

Argyroderma, same bloom, fully open

Argyroderma is native to the quartz fields of the Knersvlakte north of Vanrhynsdorp in southern Namaqualand, in South Africa’s Northern Cape. All known species in Argyroderma are from this same region.

Like all its relatives known by “split rock” or “living stone” monickers, Argyroderma is a mesemb—a member of the ice plant family Aizoaceae, formerly Mesembryanthemaceae. Try saying that 3 times fast. I have yet another geeky confession: sometimes I walk around the house repeating this family name to myself: mess-emm-bree-ann-them-AY-see-ee. If I had to explain myself, I guess I’m practicing so that I don’t stumble if I have to say it in public. Try it again yourself: meh-semm-bree-ann-theh-MAY-see-ee.

This particular plant was sold to me as Argyroderma ‘Purple’. I’m guessing it’s cultivated from Argyroderma delaetii, a solitary species which in Nature can have white, yellow, purple, or occasionally red flowers—even in the same population.

Argyroderma blooming in habitat, photo by Etwin Aslander

See Also

Argyroderma delaetii at Cactus-Art.Biz

Court, Doreen. (Third Edition, 2010). Succulent Flora of Southern Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Struik Publishers. ISBN-10: 1770075879. ISBN-13: 978-1770075870.

Today was my local plant club’s holiday party. I was called on to offer a little light entertainment, so I sang my favorite secular holiday tune: “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch”.

For the plant exchange—an ingenious ceremony, really—I contributed a rather handsome little Agave xylonocantha. Handsome… but not showy. I confess with a little chagrin that my little A xylonocantha was not an early pick from the table; larger, more beautiful plants were on offer.

As soon as my plant finally was picked up from the table, it was my turn to pick my choice of the remaining plants. Luckily this terrific little Monadenium ellenbeckii forma caulopodium was still available. It took me a while to notice it, but the more I focused on it, the more it grew on me. Pretty!… and well grown.

It even bears a slight resemblance to Himself, that very villainous Grinch.

See also
San Gabriel Cactus and Succulent Society, my local club

SPEAKING of falling under the influence of our future cephalopod overlords…

This just in—GIANT SQUID seen as pawns in the global homosexual agenda:

I must have missed that meeting. –Mr S M

A lesson from Dante Shepherd at Surviving the World.

Brilliant little video, It Getteth Better, showing how you can satirize something and still love it. Draw your own conclusions, but it’s pretty clear the video’s makers are on the same side as the It Gets Better series of videos.

Critics of the video say it’s against God. That’s silly. It’s against simpleminded and bigoted theology.

—Video from Simon & Schuster marking of publication THE LAST TESTAMENT: A Memoir by God, co-written with David Javerbaum, the 11-time Emmy Award-winning former head writer and executive producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.