3 ms·

Direct link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.htm...

by cletus 14y ago

Direct link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.htm... (IMHO this post adds very ltitle) The poster is quite skeptical that books change us. I don't understand why because the truth is this (IMHO) is blatantly self-evident. Even our machine learning models are capable of taking inputs and changing the internal structure creating or modifying the ability to make inferences. Why do you think our brains are any different? When a conversation happens, at first you remember the exact words that were spoken. Soon you think you do but those details will change between different participants (they will in fact probably be different from the first moment for any non-trivial exchange). Then you're left with the gist of what was said and then later typically an emotion or association with a person, time, place or some other stimulus. Books are no different. You may remember key quotes. After awhile you'll struggle to remember all but the broadest plot elements. Most often you'll remember that you liked or didn't like the book and often won't be able to quantify why (in any kind of specific way). Reference books or books that teach you anything are more "obvious" in this regard. Read "Effective C++" or "Effective Java" and it'll essentially reprogram your brain (to varying degrees) by a change in habits, preferences, etc. Fiction is harder to pin down. Sometimes it's pure entertainment. It may not necessarily change you. But there is something about human development that is particularly receptive to the meme of fiction. The greatest ability we evolved is the ability to teach our young significant skills such that one generation is building on the fruits of the last and we've all learned something beyond how to crack nuts open with rocks. Fiction often has a moral. Books are capable of changing our behaviour and attitudes (although many don't). All of this just seems so obviously analogous to reprogramming a computer (albeit an incredibly complex one) that it baffles me that people would think otherwise.

billswift 14y ago
>particularly receptive to the meme of fiction Actually, our minds and memories are particularly receptive to narrative. Which can also result in problems, both the narrative fallacy ("Our need to fit a story or pattern to a series of connected or disconnected facts" which leads us to overvalue "facts" embedded in a story format) and undervaluing of statistical and other numerical data.
- FreakLegion 14y ago
  Of course all narratives have a whiff of fiction about them by dint of giving thrust and bearing to what are otherwise inert facts. It doesn't much matter whether we're talking about a sci-fi novel, a political speech, a research report or a simple slogan. As Chaïm Perelman put it: "The study of argumentation compels us to take into account not only the choice of data but also the way in which they are interpreted, the meaning attributed to them. It is to the extent that it constitutes a conscious or unconscious choice between several modes of meaning, that the interpretation can be distinguished from the data being interpreted, and can be opposed to them. . . . It is precisely when incompatible interpretations make us hesitate as to how we are to conceive the datum that the problem of interpretation is very important." -- Treatise on Argumentation
jacobr 14y ago
I agree, and I believe it would be equally true if applied to video games. You don't become violent by reading crime novels or by playing violent games, but it could potentially change some of your general attitudes and your view of society.
JonnieCache 14y ago
Doesn't everything reconfigure our neurons? Isn't that the essence of conscious experience? To claim otherwise implies dualism as far as I can see. We know that the dynamic electrical state can't have much to do with it, because you can cool the brain to the point where all electrical activity ceases and it doesn't have any significant effect when you wake them up. That only leaves the configuration of the brain's parts. I suppose that there is so much of the biology we don't understand that we can't make strong claims at all, what with microtubules and the like.
- aaronblohowiak 14y ago
  IIRC, electricity is used to activate the release of neurotransmitters (intercellular communication is actually chemical, not electrical); the more interesting things are what governs the activation potential, the weights of the inputs and the connections between neurons. assuming that you can modify the activation potential across an axon, you still won't change the relative weights of its inputs or the neuron's connections...
  - JonnieCache 14y ago
    >(intercellular communication is actually chemical, not electrical) Passing sodium ions around still sort of counts as electrical though doesn't it, because you're transferring charge? Or have I misunderstood?
    - hderms 14y ago
      it's definitely an electro-chemical gradient of sorts. at the cellular junction i believe the messages being transmitted are mostly receptor based (neurotransmitters) but there possibly some external ionic messages as well. I believe what you're referring to is when an action potential of ionic charge moves up a neuron and triggers the release of neurotransmitters. The message inside the neuron is due to the behavior of ions, and the message externally by receptor-binding neurotransmitters.
    - CognitiveLens 14y ago
fakelvis 14y ago
The original NYT article was posted to HN almost two years ago. The comments from that post are worth a read: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1743513 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1743513
Dn_Ab 14y ago
Some researchers are finding evidence that fiction improves a person's ability to empathize by sharpening their theory of mind. And by empathy I mean more than just being able to comfort people well. I mean the ability to know that She knew that he knows that they think she thinks they know about her top secret project. This level of intentionality is useful for making optimal decisions and navigating complex social scenarios, the best authors have one or 2 more levels than the average of 4 . Reading a sensory description actually activates the respective areas in the brain, a bona fide simulation of reality. The reason reading can absorb one so much is that the brain is actually generating signals that are essentially the same as if the person was actually experiencing the phenomenon* . Better than common sense, scientific evidence is actually showing that reading has measurable beneficial effects. ( * ) What’s more, this activity was concentrated in one part of the motor cortex when the movement described was arm-related and in another part when the movement concerned the leg. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neurosc...

by cletus 14y ago

billswift 14y ago

>particularly receptive to the meme of fiction Actually, our minds and memories are particularly receptive to narrative. Which can also result in problems, both the narrative fallacy ("Our need to fit a story or pattern to a series of connected or disconnected facts" which leads us to overvalue "facts" embedded in a story format) and undervaluing of statistical and other numerical data.

FreakLegion 14y ago
Of course all narratives have a whiff of fiction about them by dint of giving thrust and bearing to what are otherwise inert facts. It doesn't much matter whether we're talking about a sci-fi novel, a political speech, a research report or a simple slogan. As Chaïm Perelman put it: "The study of argumentation compels us to take into account not only the choice of data but also the way in which they are interpreted, the meaning attributed to them. It is to the extent that it constitutes a conscious or unconscious choice between several modes of meaning, that the interpretation can be distinguished from the data being interpreted, and can be opposed to them. . . . It is precisely when incompatible interpretations make us hesitate as to how we are to conceive the datum that the problem of interpretation is very important." -- Treatise on Argumentation

jacobr 14y ago

I agree, and I believe it would be equally true if applied to video games. You don't become violent by reading crime novels or by playing violent games, but it could potentially change some of your general attitudes and your view of society.

JonnieCache 14y ago

Doesn't everything reconfigure our neurons? Isn't that the essence of conscious experience? To claim otherwise implies dualism as far as I can see. We know that the dynamic electrical state can't have much to do with it, because you can cool the brain to the point where all electrical activity ceases and it doesn't have any significant effect when you wake them up. That only leaves the configuration of the brain's parts. I suppose that there is so much of the biology we don't understand that we can't make strong claims at all, what with microtubules and the like.

aaronblohowiak 14y ago
IIRC, electricity is used to activate the release of neurotransmitters (intercellular communication is actually chemical, not electrical); the more interesting things are what governs the activation potential, the weights of the inputs and the connections between neurons. assuming that you can modify the activation potential across an axon, you still won't change the relative weights of its inputs or the neuron's connections...
- JonnieCache 14y ago
  >(intercellular communication is actually chemical, not electrical) Passing sodium ions around still sort of counts as electrical though doesn't it, because you're transferring charge? Or have I misunderstood?
  - hderms 14y ago
    it's definitely an electro-chemical gradient of sorts. at the cellular junction i believe the messages being transmitted are mostly receptor based (neurotransmitters) but there possibly some external ionic messages as well. I believe what you're referring to is when an action potential of ionic charge moves up a neuron and triggers the release of neurotransmitters. The message inside the neuron is due to the behavior of ions, and the message externally by receptor-binding neurotransmitters.
  - CognitiveLens 14y ago

fakelvis 14y ago

The original NYT article was posted to HN almost two years ago. The comments from that post are worth a read: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1743513 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1743513

Dn_Ab 14y ago

Some researchers are finding evidence that fiction improves a person's ability to empathize by sharpening their theory of mind. And by empathy I mean more than just being able to comfort people well. I mean the ability to know that She knew that he knows that they think she thinks they know about her top secret project. This level of intentionality is useful for making optimal decisions and navigating complex social scenarios, the best authors have one or 2 more levels than the average of 4 . Reading a sensory description actually activates the respective areas in the brain, a bona fide simulation of reality. The reason reading can absorb one so much is that the brain is actually generating signals that are essentially the same as if the person was actually experiencing the phenomenon* . Better than common sense, scientific evidence is actually showing that reading has measurable beneficial effects. ( * ) What’s more, this activity was concentrated in one part of the motor cortex when the movement described was arm-related and in another part when the movement concerned the leg. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neurosc...