Orgasm – Color

Posted on 2016-04-11 by arjaybe
Credit Michael Maggs - CC-BY-SA

Credit Michael Maggs – CC-BY-SA

Synesthesia of the Day – Orgasm – Color

Since synesthesia (my first post on synesthesia) is a major element in the Green Comet series of novels, I thought it would be a good idea to write a series of posts about synesthesia. What better way to start than with orgasm – color synesthesia? Color because it is the best known and probably most common synesthetic effect, and orgasm because, well, orgasm.

Where to start was actually a problem, and not because there is a lack of choice. When I went looking for a definitive list of the types of synesthesia, I couldn’t find one. I found references with a few examples, and others with graphs and tables, but none with a straightforward, well organized list. Another problem was the lack of standardized naming. For instance, the first example of synesthesia that most people learn about is where the letters of the alphabet have their own distinctive colors. So, that would be letter – color synesthesia, right? Well, it turns out that numbers have their own colors, too. So now it’s grapheme – color. And combinations of letters or numbers have theirs. And words. And parts of words. And the sounds of parts of words. Once we begin finding them, we don’t seem to be able to stop. It reminds me of the fundamental particle problem, where every time theory predicted one, it was only a matter of time before experiment confirmed it. That was a burgeoning mess until the quark model simplified it by making all the particles just combinations of a few quarks. Synesthesia is at that point now. Every time we think of a new possible form of it, someone finds it. Synesthesia needs its quark model, to tame this mad proliferation. I won’t be presenting that theory. I’m not that smart. So for this series of blogs I’ll be picking from the large, and growing, list of types of synesthesia that I have been able to compile. Beginning with orgasm – color.

The descriptions of the colors experienced leading up to and during orgasm seem like a cliche. Like the scenes of bursting fireworks that the family-oriented movie will cut to at the crucial moment. It turns out that the euphemism probably has a basis in fact. “… colours of increasing intensity.” Walls bursting with, “ring-like structures … in bluish-violet tones.” So it seems that a lot of what we assumed were just metaphors for an indescribable experience are, in some cases at least, descriptions of real sensations.

More women than men experience synesthesia. The ratio persists for experiencing orgasm – color synesthesia.

rjb

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The Spread of Ignorance

Posted on 2016-04-03 by arjaybe

Businessmen putting their heads in holes in the ground. Image shot 2011. Exact date unknown.

I often post on the dangers of ignorance and fallacious reasoning. You can see some examples here, here and here. Science has learned a great deal about our tendencies when it comes to how we perceive reality, and has even been able to categorize the typical errors we make. For example, type I and type II errors. A type I error is detecting an effect that is not present, while a type II error is failing to detect an effect that is present. For a list of the most common logical fallacies, check this list at the University of Idaho. Our tendencies are so predictable and reliable that people can use them to influence our beliefs. Now the science historian, Robert Proctor, has created a new word for the study of this practice. The study of the deliberate spread of ignorance and confusion is agnotology. It’s a combination of agnosis and ontology. If you don’t want to follow the links, agnosis is “not knowing,” or ignorance. Ontology is the philosophical study of being.

The classic example of deliberately creating ignorance and confusion is the campaign by the tobacco industry to hide the dangers of smoking. This was revealed by a secret memo showing how they manufactured doubt and artificial controversy to quash the growing evidence of the danger. The strategy is being used today against the growing evidence of climate change. Keep people ignorant and suggestible to doubt, and create the impression of controversy where there is none.

See this article by Georgina Kenyon at the BBC for more.

— How do people or companies with vested interests spread ignorance and obfuscate knowledge? Georgina Kenyon finds there is a term which defines this phenomenon.

— Proctor explains that ignorance can often be propagated under the guise of balanced debate. For example, the common idea that there will always be two opposing views does not always result in a rational conclusion. This was behind how tobacco firms used science to make their products look harmless, and is used today by climate change deniers to argue against the scientific evidence.

— “This ‘balance routine’ has allowed the cigarette men, or climate deniers today, to claim that there are two sides to every story, that ‘experts disagree’, creating a false picture of the truth, hence ignorance.”

— Proctor found that ignorance spreads when firstly, many people do not understand a concept or fact and secondly, when special interest groups — like a commercial firm or a political group — then work hard to create confusion about an issue. In the case of ignorance about tobacco and climate change, a scientifically illiterate society will probably be more susceptible to the tactics used by those wishing to confuse and cloud the truth.

Source: BBC – Future – The man who studies the spread of ignorance

rjb

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Growing the Commons

Posted on 2016-04-01 by arjaybe

Thanks to Cat Johnson at Shareable for making me aware of this. Ryan Merkely, CEO of Creative Commons, has written a series of blog posts about sharing and growing the commons. As you know, if you’ve followed my blog, Creative Commons is all about giving the creators of cultural goods a way to use their copyright to share their work under their own terms. You know that I have published my work, Green Comet and Parasite Puppeteers, under a Creative Commons Attribution and Share-Alike license (CC-BY-SA.) This license means that you can take those stories and do whatever you like with them, including re-releasing them, as long as you give attribution to me, the original creator (BY) and you share your version in the same way (SA.) My reward is in the sharing, and in seeing people enjoy and expand upon my work. Unfortunately, unless people take the time to tell me they’ve enjoyed it or used it to further their own creativity, my reward is largely theoretical. Ryan Merkely and Creative Commons are planning on making it more tangible.

Here are some quotes from Cat Johnson’s article:

We’re now faced with the most restrictive copyright laws in history, not to mention that much of the world’s scientific knowledge is locked behind paywalls.

Recently, numerous medical publications opened up papers related to the Zika virus. It was an acknowledgement from the medical establishment that openness leads more quickly to solutions.

“What if we were to say, ‘Let’s open cancer,'” (says Merkely.) “What if we opened up all the research that relates to this work? Let’s shine a bright light on this disease that we’ve allowed to hide in the shadows and behind paywalls, and crush it with innovation. What would that look like?”

Merkely’s blog posts are here, here and here. And here is an article that he contributed to the Globe and Mail in September 2015. Very brief summary: Sharing does not expect compensation, as in the so-called sharing economy. That is a transaction, not sharing. In true sharing the return is to the reputation of the sharer, and in the gratitude of the receiver. So the receiver gets the immediate benefit of whatever is shared. And the sharer gets long-term benefits: reputation, gratitude and the stimulation of more sharing as their gift is paid forward.

This is good, and it appears to be enough. After all, there are already over a billion works being shared under a Creative Commons license. But Creative Commons is planning to make it even better. In the welter of information that we live in today, a creator’s work is easily lost. While the people benefitting from the sharing might want to reward the sharer, it’s too easy for it all to get lost in their hectic daily lives. So the creator can be left in a partial vacuum, with little or no feedback to let them know how their work is received.

Ryan Merkely says that Creative Commons is going to work toward “ensuring that the legal, technical and policy infrastructure we create is designed to foster cooperation and sharing.” They want to make the Internet sharing-friendly. They want to make the works in the commons “easy to discover and curate, to use and remix,” and to make the creators “feel valued for their contributions.” To do that, Creative Commons should “do more to offer tools, education, advocacy, and community-building.”

For the next 3-5 years CC will focus their efforts on three things: discovery, collaboration and advocacy. Discovery means making the commons more usable. CC works need to be found, and then easily used. This means, for example, search, curation, meta-tagging, analytics and one-click attribution. Collaboration means just that. Developing ways for users of the commons to work together. Advocacy means CC continuing to use their position to grow and improve the commons.

Sharing is not about Uber or Airbnb. It’s about creators sharing their work, and the recipients being able to show their gratitude. It’s about growing the commons, and rewarding those who help it grow.

rjb

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