scientificamerican--2020-09-15--How to Be a Mystical Materialist

How to Be a Mystical Materialist

I interviewed psychologist Susan Blackmore 20 years ago while doing research for my book Rational Mysticism .
Here , lightly edited , is my description of her : “ Her hair was dyed orange , red , and yellow , dark-rooted , cut short as a boy ’ s , with sideburns plunging like daggers past each multi-ringed ear .
Words spewed from her pell-mell , accompanied by equally vigorous hand signals and facial expressions .
She was keen on onomatopoeic sound effects : Ahhhhh ( to express her pleasure at finding other smart people when she entered Oxford ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DUN ( the galloping noise she heard as she sped down a tree-lined tunnel in her first out-of-body experience ) ; Zzzzzzt ( the sound of reality dissolving after her second toke of the psychedelic dimethyltryptamine ) .
We were talking in the dining room of the inn where she was staying , and twice we had to move to a quieter spot when employees or patrons of the inn started talking near us .
One side effect of her spiritual practice , she explained , is that she has a hard time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is one of the bad effects of practicing mindfulness .
I 'm so aware of everything all the time.
’ ” Blackmore began her career as a parapsychologist , intent on finding evidence for astral projection and extrasensory perception .
Her investigations transformed her into a materialist and Darwinian ( one of her best-known books describes humans as “ meme machines ” ) who doesn ’ t believe in ESP , God or free will .
And yet she is a mystic , too , who explores consciousness via meditation and psychedelics .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the trick of being both a hard-nosed skeptic and an open-minded adventurer .
What more can one ask of a mind scientist ?
Curious about how her thinking has evolved in our mind-boggling era , I e-mailed her a few questions .
An edited transcript of the interview follows .
Horgan : Do you ever wish that you were less skeptical ?
Blackmore : No , absolutely not .
If by “ skeptical ” you mean curious , questioning , asking for evidence , and being willing to shift one ’ s opinions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aspire to be .
But if by “ skeptical ” you mean being a close-minded , lazy disbeliever who isn ’ t even interested in finding out , then I know how easy it is to slide into and I try to avoid it .
Horgan : My skepticism toward extrasensory perception and other parapsychological phenomena sometimes wobbles when I meet believers like Rupert Sheldrake , Freeman Dyson or Stuart Kauffman .
Does that ever happen to you ?
Blackmore : No .
It is precisely with people like this that I try @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he saying ?
Does it make sense ?
Do I need to find out more ?
In the case of Sheldrake , I looked into his work thoroughly a long time ago , including collecting data for one of his experiments .
I became disillusioned by that early work and not convinced of his claims , but I have not studied his later work in the detail I would need to come to a firm conclusion .
Whenever I meet him , we enjoy wide-ranging , friendly discussions and continue to disagree .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s very different .
They challenge fundamental ideas about the universe , not by making psychic claims which take us nowhere , but by exploring deep ideas about matter , information , the origins of life , order and complexity , and ( although limited by my poor maths and physics ) I love their work .
I too speculate endlessly about the nature of the universe , and people like these two are inspiring .
Horgan : What ’ s your take on the recent popularity of panpsychism and other challenges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is hopeless because as soon as it confronts the problem of consciousness it becomes dualist .
Dualism is hopeless because it can not explain the close relationship between matter and experience .
When neuroscientists go looking for the “ neural correlates of consciousness , ” they treat consciousness as though it is something created by or arising from the brain and become mired in the “ hard problem.
” Defined in terms of how subjective experience arises from objective brain activity , it ’ s the wrong problem .
It ’ s insoluble @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At the other extreme are believers in “ mind beyond the body , ” “ endless consciousness ” and “ consciousness first.
” These are doomed in the opposite way ; they can not explain the brain/consciousness relationship either , nor can they explain how we seem to have a shared material world .
The problem is deep and interesting .
Materialism can not account for consciousness ; idealism can not account for matter .
We need a nondual understanding of the world and , as yet , we do not have that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , help but has certainly not proved itself yet .
For me , traditional panpsychism ( e.g.
, every atom , molecule , stone or house has experience ) makes no sense .
Philip Goff ’ s interesting version does not seem to work either .
Where I find panpsychism attractive is an idea I have often played with , and even wrote about in a conference paper back in the 1980s !
In consciousness studies , we ask , “ What is it like to be a bat ?
” I say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There is nothing it is like to be the actual physical bat—there is only what it is like to be the bat ’ s model of itself as a bat .
“ What it ’ s like ” for bats ( or any creature ) is whatever those representations say it ’ s like .
Simple !
?
As for human animals , we build even more complex representations and at multiple levels , through sensory systems , motor systems , memory and imagination .
Lording over them all is our false sense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a central , controlling , experiencing self which does not really exist—so that ’ s what it ’ s like to be “ me.
” Yet underlying that self-model are multiple other representations .
My kind of panpsychism implies that at all these levels from the simplest ephemeral constructions to that great illusory self-model , there is something it is like to be them—whatever those representations say it ’ s like .
I play a lot with such ideas , both in very disciplined and structured thinking , and in my daily meditation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not convinced that this , or any other version of panpsychism , yet solves the great mystery of our minds !
Horgan : Daniel Dennett ’ s claim that consciousness is an “ illusion ” makes no sense to me .
What am I missing ?
Blackmore : Ha ha .
You are indeed missing a lot !
I make that claim too , as do many people who study their own minds with deep perplexity .
You are missing taking a good hard look at your own assumptions about consciousness—what you take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question because it seems so obvious .
You may be as deluded as most people are , but of course I do not know what you are assuming .
You might , for example , imagine that you are some kind of inner self that has consciousness and free will , that “ you ” can direct your consciousness to some things and not others , that some processes in your head are conscious ones and others are unconscious , that you need consciousness to do some things and not others , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it must have evolved for a purpose .
There are excellent reasons for rejecting every one of these very natural assumptions .
In other words , consciousness , as normally imagined , is an illusion .
What does “ illusion ” mean ?
Take a dictionary ( as I resorted to when people started telling me that I didn ’ t believe in consciousness ) .
An illusion is something that is not what it seems to be .
And that fits our problem precisely .
My claim is that we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theory of consciousness until we throw out all these false assumptions and start again .
Horgan : I suspect we will never find a single , completely satisfying solution to the mind-body problem .
What do you think ?
Blackmore : The solution seems to be right there in certain meditative or psychedelic states .
Nonduality is obvious , everything is clearly one , experience needs no experiencer—no duality .
Yet , for me at least , this clarity of insight disappears on returning to ordinary states and doesn ’ t leave me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , completely satisfying solution to dualism.
” Will it ever ?
I like this question—would an enlightened person who studied neuroscience and philosophy get that complete solution ?
Would a neuroscientist/philosopher who had such deep insight get it ?
What do you think ?
Horgan : I think the problem is unsolvable , even for a fully enlightened person with multiple Ph.D.s .
Next question : The field of memetics , which Richard Dawkins founded and to which you have contributed , has been sharply criticized .
Care to defend it ?
Blackmore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just explain it because so many people misunderstand it , or are afraid of it , or both .
When you fully grasp the idea , you can judge for yourself whether it ’ s worth defending .
It ’ s simple—if a bit scary .
A replicator is information that undergoes the evolutionary algorithm .
That means it is copied , varied and selected , and this mindless , repetitive process creates novel design .
Genes are considered the first replicator on Earth ; they are selfish replicators , evolving for their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information—anything we copy around in culture—is like that too .
So , he proposed that memes are a second replicator .
In The Meme Machine , I explored how memes compete to use us as their copying machinery , and the winning memes are not always the ones that benefit us .
Think of the explosion of internet memes , the flourishing of fake news , the awfulness of religions that trap people in lies , or the contagion of suicide and anorexia .
These memes all use us for their propagation while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a recent study ( see Further Reading ) found that the European witch persecutions benefited no one and nothing but the witch trials themselves .
This is the key point—memetics is useful and important if it is true that selfish ideas propagate for their own benefit and not for us , the meme machines .
Horgan : I can ’ t live without free will , but you ’ ve said that rejecting it gives you a sense of freedom .
What are you seeing that I 'm not ?
Blackmore : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lifetime working to give up the sense of having free will , and I have .
You could live without it if you really wanted to—it just takes a lot of letting go , and I ’ m still working on it .
I long ago concluded that everything a human being does is caused by underlying processes we can not see , and that the self that seems to be in charge is not .
So , I had to find out how to live with that .
The new freedom is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the midst of enjoying a long back and forth argument with Dan Dennett over this issue .
I hugely admire his work on consciousness , and the illusions he exposed , but on this we differ fundamentally .
To be consistent , I say he should declare free will to be part of the illusions of self and consciousness , but he disagrees .
Horgan : Our existence often seems so improbable to me , so weird , that I have a hard time believing it is the result of chance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Blackmore : No , I don ’ t .
Not at all .
Why would I try ?
And why would you even ask such question unless it ’ s just to provoke me ?
Of course , our amazing existence is not the result of chance—at least not just chance .
That would make you like one of those Christians who argue that because a wind blowing through a scrapyard could not construct a Boeing 747 , there must be a God who created us .
No .
Like every other living @ @ @ @ @ @ @ natural selection requires three processes to create design without a designer : information must be copied , the copies must vary , and then only some of them survive to be copied again .
Chance is just one source of the necessary variation .
Chance on its own obviously can not produce our improbable existence ; natural selection can and did .
We are not made in God ’ s image .
Horgan : I have a love-hate relationship with Buddhism .
How would you describe your relationship ?
Blackmore : Love the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve worked with since 1981 ; hate the way Buddhism as a religion is mired in doctrine , theory , rules , vows and ceremony .
My special hate ( I ’ m using that word only because you did ! )
is this : the Buddha taught that the self is illusory ( not the continuing entity it seems to be ) and yet many branches of Buddhism adopt the ever-popular belief in personal reincarnation .
Bonkers !
This is one of many reasons why , despite 40 years of Zen practice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will not take those vows .
Horgan : What has meditation done for you ?
Or not done ?
Blackmore : Oh , ha ha .
How can I know ?
Maybe I would be just the same as I am now , merely through aging .
There ’ s no control group .
But I can say what it seems to have done .
I think I am happier , less caught up in stupid thoughts and worries , more flexible about life and ( maybe and most importantly ) less troublesome @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that I can easily sit completely still for an hour or more , observing what goes on .
I know my own messy mind better , and I can enter specific states of consciousness such as “ silent illumination ” or the jhanas , through decades of training attention .
That ’ s all meditation really is—training attention .
Horgan : Have psychedelics given you any enduring insights into the nature of existence ?
Blackmore : Yes .
The emptiness of self , the underlying nonduality or nonseparation , the wild and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the ready availability of mystical experience through chemistry , and the vacuity of the “ consciousness beyond death ” theories when psychedelics can provide all this through effects on a living brain .
Horgan : Do you believe in the state of permanent mystical awareness called enlightenment ?
Have you ever met someone who seems to be enlightened ?
Blackmore : 1 .
No .
As far as I have learnt , enlightenment is not a “ state of permanent mystical awareness ” ; it ’ s not a state at all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or seeing through , or letting go of , the delusions of self and agency , and the acceptance of impermanence , suffering and nonself .
It sounds like not being human at all , but I don ’ t think it is .
2 .
Yes , some Zen teachers .
In this tradition the word “ enlightenment ” means many things ; there are enlightenment experiences that happen along the way , and there are degrees of enlightenment as well as being an “ enlightened one ” or “ fully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were really “ fully enlightened , ” I have no idea , and they certainly would not say so , nor would others about them .
So , I am not going to say any more .
Horgan : For a serious scholar , you seem to have lots of fun .
Is my view of you accurate , and if so , how do you pull it off ?
Blackmore : Hmmmm .
I ’ ve never been a fun-seeker—though I ’ m happy if I appear to be having lots of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 18 my cousin saying , “ Let ’ s go and have some fun !
” and my replying , “ I don ’ t like having fun , ” and then feeling really embarrassed at what I ’ d said .
But it ’ s true .
Excitement yes , risk-taking yes , but fun—not sure .
As a student I would spend evenings analyzing stats for my psychic experiments rather than go to parties or see friends .
I still don ’ t like going out—if that ’ s supposed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fun playing in a samba band , but my main pleasures in life are rather calmer—writing and research , exploring my own mind through drugs , meditation or just thinking , gardening and playing with my grandchildren—now that is fun !
Blackmore : No idea .
I fear human nature makes us incapable of utopia .
We are good at dystopias though .
As a woman , living in an Islamic state under sharia law is the very worst I know of .
Let us not ever descend to such depths .
Blackmore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Living without free will.
” In Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility .
Ed G. Caruso , Lexington Books , 161-175

I interviewed psychologist Susan Blackmore 20 years ago while doing research for my book Rational Mysticism. Here, lightly edited, is my description of her:
“Her hair was dyed orange, red, and yellow, dark-rooted, cut short as a boy’s, with sideburns plunging like daggers past each multi-ringed ear. Words spewed from her pell-mell, accompanied by equally vigorous hand signals and facial expressions. She was keen on onomatopoeic sound effects: Ahhhhh (to express her pleasure at finding other smart people when she entered Oxford); DUN da la DUN da la DUN (the galloping noise she heard as she sped down a tree-lined tunnel in her first out-of-body experience); Zzzzzzt (the sound of reality dissolving after her second toke of the psychedelic dimethyltryptamine). We were talking in the dining room of the inn where she was staying, and twice we had to move to a quieter spot when employees or patrons of the inn started talking near us. One side effect of her spiritual practice, she explained, is that she has a hard time ignoring stimuli. ‘I think it is one of the bad effects of practicing mindfulness. I'm so aware of everything all the time.’”
Blackmore began her career as a parapsychologist, intent on finding evidence for astral projection and extrasensory perception. Her investigations transformed her into a materialist and Darwinian (one of her best-known books describes humans as “meme machines”) who doesn’t believe in ESP, God or free will. And yet she is a mystic, too, who explores consciousness via meditation and psychedelics. In other words, Blackmore pulls off the trick of being both a hard-nosed skeptic and an open-minded adventurer. What more can one ask of a mind scientist? Curious about how her thinking has evolved in our mind-boggling era, I e-mailed her a few questions. An edited transcript of the interview follows.
Horgan: Do you ever wish that you were less skeptical?
Blackmore: No, absolutely not. If by “skeptical” you mean curious, questioning, asking for evidence, and being willing to shift one’s opinions, then that’s how I aspire to be. But if by “skeptical” you mean being a close-minded, lazy disbeliever who isn’t even interested in finding out, then I know how easy it is to slide into and I try to avoid it.
Horgan: My skepticism toward extrasensory perception and other parapsychological phenomena sometimes wobbles when I meet believers like Rupert Sheldrake, Freeman Dyson or Stuart Kauffman. Does that ever happen to you?
Blackmore: No. It is precisely with people like this that I try to be most skeptical. What is he saying? Does it make sense? Do I need to find out more? In the case of Sheldrake, I looked into his work thoroughly a long time ago, including collecting data for one of his experiments. I became disillusioned by that early work and not convinced of his claims, but I have not studied his later work in the detail I would need to come to a firm conclusion. Whenever I meet him, we enjoy wide-ranging, friendly discussions and continue to disagree.
As for Dyson and Kauffman, that’s very different. They challenge fundamental ideas about the universe, not by making psychic claims which take us nowhere, but by exploring deep ideas about matter, information, the origins of life, order and complexity, and (although limited by my poor maths and physics) I love their work. I too speculate endlessly about the nature of the universe, and people like these two are inspiring.
Horgan: What’s your take on the recent popularity of panpsychism and other challenges to conventional materialism?
Blackmore: Materialism is hopeless because as soon as it confronts the problem of consciousness it becomes dualist. Dualism is hopeless because it cannot explain the close relationship between matter and experience. When neuroscientists go looking for the “neural correlates of consciousness,” they treat consciousness as though it is something created by or arising from the brain and become mired in the “hard problem.” Defined in terms of how subjective experience arises from objective brain activity, it’s the wrong problem. It’s insoluble because it starts from false premises.
At the other extreme are believers in “mind beyond the body,” “endless consciousness” and “consciousness first.” These are doomed in the opposite way; they cannot explain the brain/consciousness relationship either, nor can they explain how we seem to have a shared material world. The problem is deep and interesting. Materialism cannot account for consciousness; idealism cannot account for matter. We need a nondual understanding of the world and, as yet, we do not have that.
Panpsychism may, or may not, help but has certainly not proved itself yet. For me, traditional panpsychism (e.g., every atom, molecule, stone or house has experience) makes no sense. Philip Goff’s interesting version does not seem to work either. Where I find panpsychism attractive is an idea I have often played with, and even wrote about in a conference paper back in the 1980s! In consciousness studies, we ask, “What is it like to be a bat?” I say that’s the wrong question. There is nothing it is like to be the actual physical bat—there is only what it is like to be the bat’s model of itself as a bat. “What it’s like” for bats (or any creature) is whatever those representations say it’s like. Simple!?
As for human animals, we build even more complex representations and at multiple levels, through sensory systems, motor systems, memory and imagination. Lording over them all is our false sense of “me”—a model of a central, controlling, experiencing self which does not really exist—so that’s what it’s like to be “me.” Yet underlying that self-model are multiple other representations. My kind of panpsychism implies that at all these levels from the simplest ephemeral constructions to that great illusory self-model, there is something it is like to be them—whatever those representations say it’s like. I play a lot with such ideas, both in very disciplined and structured thinking, and in my daily meditation and psychedelic self-explorations. But I am not convinced that this, or any other version of panpsychism, yet solves the great mystery of our minds!
Horgan: Daniel Dennett’s claim that consciousness is an “illusion” makes no sense to me. What am I missing?
Blackmore: Ha ha. You are indeed missing a lot!
I make that claim too, as do many people who study their own minds with deep perplexity. You are missing taking a good hard look at your own assumptions about consciousness—what you take for granted and don’t even question because it seems so obvious. You may be as deluded as most people are, but of course I do not know what you are assuming.
You might, for example, imagine that you are some kind of inner self that has consciousness and free will, that “you” can direct your consciousness to some things and not others, that some processes in your head are conscious ones and others are unconscious, that you need consciousness to do some things and not others, that consciousness has powers and effects, and that it must have evolved for a purpose. There are excellent reasons for rejecting every one of these very natural assumptions. In other words, consciousness, as normally imagined, is an illusion.
What does “illusion” mean? Take a dictionary (as I resorted to when people started telling me that I didn’t believe in consciousness). An illusion is something that is not what it seems to be. And that fits our problem precisely. My claim is that we cannot even begin to build a viable theory of consciousness until we throw out all these false assumptions and start again.
Horgan: I suspect we will never find a single, completely satisfying solution to the mind-body problem. What do you think?
Blackmore: The solution seems to be right there in certain meditative or psychedelic states. Nonduality is obvious, everything is clearly one, experience needs no experiencer—no duality. Yet, for me at least, this clarity of insight disappears on returning to ordinary states and doesn’t leave me saying “Aha—now I have the perfect, completely satisfying solution to dualism.”
Will it ever? I like this question—would an enlightened person who studied neuroscience and philosophy get that complete solution? Would a neuroscientist/philosopher who had such deep insight get it? What do you think?
Horgan: I think the problem is unsolvable, even for a fully enlightened person with multiple Ph.D.s. Next question: The field of memetics, which Richard Dawkins founded and to which you have contributed, has been sharply criticized. Care to defend it?
Blackmore: No. I’d rather just explain it because so many people misunderstand it, or are afraid of it, or both. When you fully grasp the idea, you can judge for yourself whether it’s worth defending. It’s simple—if a bit scary. A replicator is information that undergoes the evolutionary algorithm. That means it is copied, varied and selected, and this mindless, repetitive process creates novel design. Genes are considered the first replicator on Earth; they are selfish replicators, evolving for their own benefit. Dawkins realized that cultural information—anything we copy around in culture—is like that too. So, he proposed that memes are a second replicator. In The Meme Machine, I explored how memes compete to use us as their copying machinery, and the winning memes are not always the ones that benefit us.
Think of the explosion of internet memes, the flourishing of fake news, the awfulness of religions that trap people in lies, or the contagion of suicide and anorexia. These memes all use us for their propagation while harming us.
As to your question, a recent study (see Further Reading) found that the European witch persecutions benefited no one and nothing but the witch trials themselves. This is the key point—memetics is useful and important if it is true that selfish ideas propagate for their own benefit and not for us, the meme machines.
Horgan: I can’t live without free will, but you’ve said that rejecting it gives you a sense of freedom. What are you seeing that I'm not?
Blackmore: You have not spent most of a lifetime working to give up the sense of having free will, and I have. You could live without it if you really wanted to—it just takes a lot of letting go, and I’m still working on it. I long ago concluded that everything a human being does is caused by underlying processes we cannot see, and that the self that seems to be in charge is not. So, I had to find out how to live with that. The new freedom is freedom from that illusion.
I am in the midst of enjoying a long back and forth argument with Dan Dennett over this issue. I hugely admire his work on consciousness, and the illusions he exposed, but on this we differ fundamentally. To be consistent, I say he should declare free will to be part of the illusions of self and consciousness, but he disagrees.
Horgan: Our existence often seems so improbable to me, so weird, that I have a hard time believing it is the result of chance. Do you ever feel this way?
Blackmore: No, I don’t. Not at all. Why would I try? And why would you even ask such question unless it’s just to provoke me? Of course, our amazing existence is not the result of chance—at least not just chance. That would make you like one of those Christians who argue that because a wind blowing through a scrapyard could not construct a Boeing 747, there must be a God who created us.
No. Like every other living thing, we evolved. Evolution by natural selection requires three processes to create design without a designer: information must be copied, the copies must vary, and then only some of them survive to be copied again. Chance is just one source of the necessary variation. Chance on its own obviously cannot produce our improbable existence; natural selection can and did. We are not made in God’s image.
Horgan: I have a love-hate relationship with Buddhism. How would you describe your relationship?
Blackmore: Love the training in Zen practice that I’ve worked with since 1981; hate the way Buddhism as a religion is mired in doctrine, theory, rules, vows and ceremony. My special hate (I’m using that word only because you did!) is this: the Buddha taught that the self is illusory (not the continuing entity it seems to be) and yet many branches of Buddhism adopt the ever-popular belief in personal reincarnation. Bonkers!
This is one of many reasons why, despite 40 years of Zen practice, I am not a Buddhist and will not take those vows.
Horgan: What has meditation done for you? Or not done?
Blackmore: Oh, ha ha. How can I know? Maybe I would be just the same as I am now, merely through aging. There’s no control group. But I can say what it seems to have done. I think I am happier, less caught up in stupid thoughts and worries, more flexible about life and (maybe and most importantly) less troublesome to other people.
The only certainty is that I can easily sit completely still for an hour or more, observing what goes on. I know my own messy mind better, and I can enter specific states of consciousness such as “silent illumination” or the jhanas, through decades of training attention. That’s all meditation really is—training attention.
Horgan: Have psychedelics given you any enduring insights into the nature of existence?
Blackmore: Yes. The emptiness of self, the underlying nonduality or nonseparation, the wild and endless realms discoverable in a single mind, the ready availability of mystical experience through chemistry, and the vacuity of the “consciousness beyond death” theories when psychedelics can provide all this through effects on a living brain.
Horgan: Do you believe in the state of permanent mystical awareness called enlightenment? Have you ever met someone who seems to be enlightened?
Blackmore: 1. No. As far as I have learnt, enlightenment is not a “state of permanent mystical awareness”; it’s not a state at all. Rather it is a loss of, or seeing through, or letting go of, the delusions of self and agency, and the acceptance of impermanence, suffering and nonself. It sounds like not being human at all, but I don’t think it is.
2. Yes, some Zen teachers. In this tradition the word “enlightenment” means many things; there are enlightenment experiences that happen along the way, and there are degrees of enlightenment as well as being an “enlightened one” or “fully liberated.” Whether these very impressive people were really “fully enlightened,” I have no idea, and they certainly would not say so, nor would others about them. So, I am not going to say any more.
Horgan: For a serious scholar, you seem to have lots of fun. Is my view of you accurate, and if so, how do you pull it off?
Blackmore: Hmmmm. I’ve never been a fun-seeker—though I’m happy if I appear to be having lots of fun. I remember when I was 18 my cousin saying, “Let’s go and have some fun!” and my replying, “I don’t like having fun,” and then feeling really embarrassed at what I’d said. But it’s true. Excitement yes, risk-taking yes, but fun—not sure. As a student I would spend evenings analyzing stats for my psychic experiments rather than go to parties or see friends. I still don’t like going out—if that’s supposed to be fun. It’s certainly fun playing in a samba band, but my main pleasures in life are rather calmer—writing and research, exploring my own mind through drugs, meditation or just thinking, gardening and playing with my grandchildren—now that is fun!
Horgan: What’s your utopia?
Blackmore: No idea. I fear human nature makes us incapable of utopia. We are good at dystopias though. As a woman, living in an Islamic state under sharia law is the very worst I know of. Let us not ever descend to such depths.
Postscript: This column was originally published with the headline "How to Be a Mystical Materialist," but Blackmore says that she is NOT a materialist for reasons that she explains in the Q&A.
Further Reading:
By Blackmore
Consciousness: An Introduction, Third Edition, Routledge, April 2018. Companion website
Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press 2017.
Blackmore, S. 2016, “Delusions of consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23, 52-64
Blackmore, S. (2013), “Living without free will.” In Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility. Ed G. Caruso, Lexington Books, 161-175
Hofhuis, S. T., & Boudry, M. (2019). “‘Viral’ Hunts?: A Cultural Darwinian Analysis of Witch Persecutions.” Cultural Science Journal, 11(1), 13-29.
By Horgan
Meta-Post: Posts on Psychedelics
Meta-Post: Posts on Buddhism and Meditation
Meta-Post: Posts on the Mind-Body Problem
Rational Mysticism


scientificamerican--2020-09-15--High-Elevation Hummingbirds Evolved a Temperature Trick

If a hummingbird has ever visited your garden , you ’ ve no doubt seen it flit from flower to flower , hovering midair as it sips on nectar .
That activity requires plenty of energy .
So hummingbirds need a lot of nectar to feed their hungry metabolisms .
“ In fact , some of them probably drink two or three times their body mass in nectar each day.
” Andrew McKechnie , an ornithologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa .
McKechnie and his colleagues have studied hummingbirds at extreme elevations in the Peruvian Andes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ have developed a few tricks .
For one , their blood cells are unusually efficient at transporting oxygen .
Also , it ’ s more difficult to hover in the high-altitude thin air .
And so ... “ The hummingbirds at those high elevations are much more prone to perching while they feed .
And that does seem to be one way they try and reduce energy expenditure.
” Now McKechnie and his colleagues have found another energy-saving adaptation : the high-mountain hummingbirds can lower their body temperature by extreme amounts at night—going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For all intents and appearances , they ’ re essentially dead .
They ’ re that unresponsive.
” The scientists caught six species of Andean hummingbirds and monitored their temperatures through the night and day .
And they found that all six species could enter some type of torpor—they lower their body temperatures from about 100 degrees Fahrenheit by day to as low as 38 degrees Fahrenheit at night .
And being “ essentially dead ” conserves energy .
The details are in the journal Biology Letters .
[ Blair O. Wolf et @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high-elevation Andean hummingbird species ] Although some of the birds ’ low body temperatures are on par with those of hibernating mammals , it ’ s important to note that this isn ’ t full-fledged hibernation—which is a longer-term response .
True hibernation has only ever been documented in one bird , so far at least : the common poorwill in the U.S. Southwest .
“ One of my career goals is to find a second hibernating bird.
” And the Andes , he says , is going to be the first place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a transcript of this podcast . ]

Full Transcript
If a hummingbird has ever visited your garden, you’ve no doubt seen it flit from flower to flower, hovering midair as it sips on nectar. That activity requires plenty of energy. So hummingbirds need a lot of nectar to feed their hungry metabolisms.
“In fact, some of them probably drink two or three times their body mass in nectar each day.”
Andrew McKechnie, an ornithologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
McKechnie and his colleagues have studied hummingbirds at extreme elevations in the Peruvian Andes. To survive there, the tiny birds have developed a few tricks. For one, their blood cells are unusually efficient at transporting oxygen. Also, it’s more difficult to hover in the high-altitude thin air. And so ...
“The hummingbirds at those high elevations are much more prone to perching while they feed. And that does seem to be one way they try and reduce energy expenditure.”
Now McKechnie and his colleagues have found another energy-saving adaptation: the high-mountain hummingbirds can lower their body temperature by extreme amounts at night—going into a state called torpor.
“For all intents and appearances, they’re essentially dead. They’re that unresponsive.”
The scientists caught six species of Andean hummingbirds and monitored their temperatures through the night and day. And they found that all six species could enter some type of torpor—they lower their body temperatures from about 100 degrees Fahrenheit by day to as low as 38 degrees Fahrenheit at night. And being “essentially dead” conserves energy.
The details are in the journal Biology Letters. [Blair O. Wolf et al., Extreme and variable torpor among high-elevation Andean hummingbird species]
Although some of the birds’ low body temperatures are on par with those of hibernating mammals, it’s important to note that this isn’t full-fledged hibernation—which is a longer-term response. True hibernation has only ever been documented in one bird, so far at least: the common poorwill in the U.S. Southwest.
“One of my career goals is to find a second hibernating bird.”
And the Andes, he says, is going to be the first place he looks.
—Christopher Intagliata
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]


scientificamerican--2020-09-15--This 'Small World' Is Packed with Animated Beauty

In 1665 British scientist Robert Hooke published his book Micrographia : Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made with Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon .
It was one of the first scientific works to illustrate plants , insects and animals through the lens of a microscope .
In the book , Hooke wrote : For the limits , to which our thoughts are confined , are small in respect to the vast extent of Nature itself ; some parts of it are too large to be comprehended , and some too little to be perceived .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not having a full sensation of the Object , we must be very lame and imperfect in our conceptions about it , and in all the propositions which we build upon it ; hence we often take the shadow of things for the substance , small appearances for good similitudes , similitudes for definitions ; and even many of those , which we think to be the most solid definitions , are rather expressions of our own misguided apprehensions then of the true nature of the things themselves .
Today we are still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thoughts , especially when it comes to the subject of things that are so small that they are invisible to our eyes .
But Hooke could have scarcely imagined capturing riotous motion in the microscopic worlds he saw through his lens .
Doing so is what Nikon ’ s Small World in Motion competitors have all accomplished , 355 years later .
Microdroplets coalesce into a mushroom-shaped bloom , visible when the footage is slowed down by 200 times .
A river of cytoplasm streams through onion cells .
A zebra fish ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of tumbling cells .
Melanoma dances as if driven by some mad , destructive music .
In all the winning and notable entries , formerly invisible life and its movement is fully on display .
The yearly contest , now in its 10th year , is the technological offspring of the camera maker ’ s nearly half-century-old microphotography competition Small World .
As imaging has evolved , so has our ability to capture the microscopic world actually moving rather than just dead and fixed to a thin sheet of glass .
“ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says Dylan Burnette , one of the contest ’ s judges and an assistant professor of cell and developmental biology at Vanderbilt University .
“ When you can take a beautiful image and intrigue someone enough to think about that image and to ask questions about that image , that starts a dialogue that is very valuable .
”

Full Transcript
In 1665 British scientist Robert Hooke published his book Micrographia: Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made with Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon. It was one of the first scientific works to illustrate plants, insects and animals through the lens of a microscope. In the book, Hooke wrote:
For the limits, to which our thoughts are confined, are small in respect to the vast extent of Nature itself; some parts of it are too large to be comprehended, and some too little to be perceived. And from thence it must follow, that not having a full sensation of the Object, we must be very lame and imperfect in our conceptions about it, and in all the propositions which we build upon it; hence we often take the shadow of things for the substance, small appearances for good similitudes, similitudes for definitions; and even many of those, which we think to be the most solid definitions, are rather expressions of our own misguided apprehensions then of the true nature of the things themselves.
Today we are still trying expand the limits of our confined thoughts, especially when it comes to the subject of things that are so small that they are invisible to our eyes. But Hooke could have scarcely imagined capturing riotous motion in the microscopic worlds he saw through his lens. Doing so is what Nikon’s Small World in Motion competitors have all accomplished, 355 years later.
Microdroplets coalesce into a mushroom-shaped bloom, visible when the footage is slowed down by 200 times. A zebra fish’s spinal column materializes from a slurry of tumbling cells. Melanoma dances as if driven by some mad, destructive music. In all the winning and notable entries, formerly invisible life and its movement is fully on display.
The yearly contest, now in its 10th year, is the technological offspring of the camera maker’s nearly half-century-old microphotography competition Small World. As imaging has evolved, so has our ability to capture the microscopic world actually moving rather than just dead and fixed to a thin sheet of glass.
“The videos are very powerful tools,” says Dylan Burnette, one of the contest’s judges and an assistant professor of cell and developmental biology at Vanderbilt University. “When you can take a beautiful image and intrigue someone enough to think about that image and to ask questions about that image, that starts a dialogue that is very valuable.”
Correction: This video has been updated to reflect the following information: After announcing the Nikon Small World in Motion winners in September it was brought to Nikon’s attention that our third-place video had been entered by someone other than the video’s owner. After a thorough investigation, Nikon confirmed the claim was valid and subsequently disqualified the video.


scientificamerican--2020-09-18--The Pulsar Chart That Became a Pop Icon Turns 50: Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures

Fifty years ago this month Harold D. Craft , Jr. , published a remarkable black-on-white plot in his Ph.D. dissertation at Cornell University .
A stacked series of jagged lines displayed incoming radio waves from pulsar CP1919 , as detected at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico .
Several months later the chart appeared as a full-page visualization in Scientific American , this time with white lines on a field of cyan .
A pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits a radio-frequency beam that sweeps through space like a lighthouse beacon .
In the graphic , 80 consecutive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stacked .
One pulse ( shown from left to right ) lasts about 0.04 second , with peak intensity near the center .
Pulses occur every 1.337 seconds .
In 1979 the chart took a big step into public consciousness .
Designer Peter Saville featured a white-on-black version as cover art for the English rock band Joy Division 's Unknown Pleasures album , with no band name , album title or other identifiers—a bold move .
On Scientific American 's 175th anniversary we honor Craft 's work and a data visualization that made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ culture icon .

Fifty years ago this month Harold D. Craft, Jr., published a remarkable black-on-white plot in his Ph.D. dissertation at Cornell University. A stacked series of jagged lines displayed incoming radio waves from pulsar CP1919, as detected at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Several months later the chart appeared as a full-page visualization in Scientific American, this time with white lines on a field of cyan.
A pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits a radio-frequency beam that sweeps through space like a lighthouse beacon. In the graphic, 80 consecutive pulses—recorded at a frequency of 318 megahertz—are stacked. One pulse (shown from left to right) lasts about 0.04 second, with peak intensity near the center. Pulses occur every 1.337 seconds.
In 1979 the chart took a big step into public consciousness. Designer Peter Saville featured a white-on-black version as cover art for the English rock band Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures album, with no band name, album title or other identifiers—a bold move. On Scientific American's 175th anniversary we honor Craft's work and a data visualization that made the leap from student research to pop culture icon.
Credit: Harold D. Craft, Jr.; Source: “The Nature of Pulsars,” by Jeremiah P. Ostriker, in Scientific American, Vol. 224; No. 1; January 1971, modified from “Radio Observations of the Pulse Profiles and Dispersion Measures of Twelve Pulsars,” by Harold D. Craft, Jr.; September 1970


scientificamerican--2020-09-18--A Grassroots Effort to Fight Misinformation During the Pandemic

During the height of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic , with misinformation permeating every form of media , members of the public were growing increasingly concerned for their health and seeking answers about the virus , its mode of transmission and how to protect themselves and their loved ones .
Five organizations came together , recruited hundreds of volunteer scientists and built a new tool to get the best scientific information in plain language to millions of people around the world .
This is the story of that project .
In March , with the help of other organizations , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ launched Ask a Scientist to enable the public to literally ask a scientist any question related to SARS-CoV-2 .
The site is loaded with information from reputable scientific and public health sources such that it recognizes questions and provides an automated response .
But for more custom-made questions , the public can send an email to a network of hundreds of scientists and get a response back in their inbox .
Throughout the pandemic , the site was viewed by millions of users as our expert volunteers , made up of graduate students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ answered thousands of questions , making Ask a Scientist one of the go-to resources online .
What began as a small project to combat rampant misinformation about the pandemic quickly grew into a large effort that brought together experts in virology , medicine , public health and more to help the public access up-to-date information .
In early February , news of the spread of a novel and deadly coronavirus had the U.S. , and the world , on edge .
Social media was rife with conspiracy theories and misinformation regarding the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and its severity .
FAS , whose mission in part is to connect scientists with policy makers and the public , formed a small group of researchers to tackle this misinformation .
The group collected and analyzed the most pervasive myths surrounding SARS-CoV-2 , and then used sound reports and the scientific literature to debunk them .
We then launched a Web site to bring the up-to-date information to the public .
It included answers to commonly asked questions and also catchy and simple PSAs on how to best protect oneself and loved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information on social media .
We included ways for the public to interact with our researchers to get their questions answered .
Soon after , news of our efforts spread in media outlets , on social media , and by word of mouth .
Our researchers were flooded by queries from a hungry public and the demand was far bigger than our small team at FAS could handle .
The solution was simple : if you ca n't handle the incoming volume of questions , build a Web site that can automatically answer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York University GovLab and the State of New Jersey Office of Innovation to build an entirely new Web site to make it easier to find answers to the most pressing questions about COVID-19 , and rebranded the project as Ask a Scientist .
We preloaded the site with answers to hundreds of questions researched by us , or taken directly from the CDC , the WHO and other established public health entities .
This new Web site also contained an answer-bot that automatically loads answers to questions typed in the search bar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about tangentially relevant issues , and even share each answer onto social media .
Additionally , through a partnership with Amazon , we enabled users to interact with the site through their Alexa home device .
Notably , we added a feature to the site allowing those who did not find an answer to their question to send us a question and receive a response .
But this time we were ready for the deluge , thanks to a partnership with the National Science Policy Network , an organization of hundreds of graduate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involvement and impact of early-career scientists and engineers in public policy .
This diverse group of scientists looking to make a difference during the pandemic was critical to the project ’ s success because they could field questions quickly and respond to a concerned public .
By March 15 , the Ask a Scientist volunteer network contained 150 graduate students ( 140 Ph.D. candidates and 10 master ’ s students ) , 100 Ph.D.s , 18 medical doctors , 50 with degrees in public health , 30 in virology , 30 in immunology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expertise in science , health or risk communication .
Interest in the project only increased from this point forward , and a skilled editing team was recruited to ensure all of Ask a Scientist ’ s answers passed strict quality control measures .
To increase Ask a Scientist ’ s ability to reach as many members of the public as possible , the project ’ s Web site was translated into Spanish by a dedicated team of bilingual scientists .
By the end of May , Ask a Scientist partnered with hundreds of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ epidemiology and public health , as well as scientists from leading institutions who wanted to give back to their communities as the virus spread throughout the U.S .
Answers crafted by Ask a Scientist ’ s team of experts were also appraised for their value to others and , after removing any personally identifying information , were vetted by senior , Ph.D.-level scientists and made publicly available in the initiative ’ s comprehensive knowledge base .
By doing this , the Ask a Scientist “ answer bot ” continued to get smarter and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to provide an easy-to-navigate database of information about the COVID-19 pandemic for the general public .
By mid-April , Ask a Scientist was featured on the National Governors Association ’ s Web site as a resource for state and local officials during the COVID-19 pandemic , as well as embedded in the New Jersey and Alabama state government Web sites where it was being viewed by millions on a weekly basis .
In an April press conference , New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called Ask a Scientist a “ truly unique feature ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to protect their families ; he noted there had already been over two million visits to the New Jersey site at that point .
Ask a Scientist expanded so quickly that it outgrew its original organizational structure .
Questions flooded in from the public and the number of volunteer scientists swelled to over 500 .
The team reached out to Accenture to help build a completely new back-end system to categorize and respond to questions .
Both groups collaborated closely to construct a portal for the volunteers to make it easier to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public , as well as communicate with each other to ensure that volunteers answered questions that aligned with their expertise .
Ask a Scientist also grew in popularity in other countries .
Our team received questions from 10 foreign nations , including Russia , India , Italy , the United Kingdom , New Zealand , France , Canada , Switzerland , Germany and Spain .
By May , the Ask a Scientist project had grown to not only provide the public with sound information , but also inform policy makers .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Response Task Force , is based on a similar notion : crowdsource expertise from those who work across U.S. research institutions to inform the work of policy makers .
To do this , FAS gathered some of the brightest scientific minds , in subjects such as virology , testing , big data , public health , treatments and vaccines , supply chain management , infectious disease medicine and international public health policy , to provide the best information as quickly as possible to federal and state lawmakers .
Ask a Scientist has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communication , as experts from all over the world worked together to translate cutting-edge research for the public and deliver the most accurate advice .
It is an effort to combat misinformation and provide individuals with the information they need in their everyday lives .
This pandemic has clearly shown that effective science communication is essential to keep people safe .
Collaborative , grassroots initiatives like Ask a Scientist can make a real impact in these efforts .
This effort would not be possible without support from the Rita Allen Foundation , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hewlett Foundation , Schmidt Futures , and individuals who support FAS .

During the height of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, with misinformation permeating every form of media, members of the public were growing increasingly concerned for their health and seeking answers about the virus, its mode of transmission and how to protect themselves and their loved ones. Five organizations came together, recruited hundreds of volunteer scientists and built a new tool to get the best scientific information in plain language to millions of people around the world. This is the story of that project.
In March, with the help of other organizations, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) launched Ask a Scientist to enable the public to literally ask a scientist any question related to SARS-CoV-2. The site is loaded with information from reputable scientific and public health sources such that it recognizes questions and provides an automated response. But for more custom-made questions, the public can send an email to a network of hundreds of scientists and get a response back in their inbox.
Throughout the pandemic, the site was viewed by millions of users as our expert volunteers, made up of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members, answered thousands of questions, making Ask a Scientist one of the go-to resources online. What began as a small project to combat rampant misinformation about the pandemic quickly grew into a large effort that brought together experts in virology, medicine, public health and more to help the public access up-to-date information.
IN THE BEGINNING
In early February, news of the spread of a novel and deadly coronavirus had the U.S., and the world, on edge. Social media was rife with conspiracy theories and misinformation regarding the virus’ origin, how it spreads, and its severity. FAS, whose mission in part is to connect scientists with policy makers and the public, formed a small group of researchers to tackle this misinformation. The group collected and analyzed the most pervasive myths surrounding SARS-CoV-2, and then used sound reports and the scientific literature to debunk them.
We then launched a Web site to bring the up-to-date information to the public. It included answers to commonly asked questions and also catchy and simple PSAs on how to best protect oneself and loved ones. We also pushed out this information on social media. We included ways for the public to interact with our researchers to get their questions answered.
Soon after, news of our efforts spread in media outlets, on social media, and by word of mouth. Our researchers were flooded by queries from a hungry public and the demand was far bigger than our small team at FAS could handle.
ENTER NYU AND NEW JERSEY
The solution was simple: if you can't handle the incoming volume of questions, build a Web site that can automatically answer them. So FAS partnered with the New York University GovLab and the State of New Jersey Office of Innovation to build an entirely new Web site to make it easier to find answers to the most pressing questions about COVID-19, and rebranded the project as Ask a Scientist.
We preloaded the site with answers to hundreds of questions researched by us, or taken directly from the CDC, the WHO and other established public health entities. This new Web site also contained an answer-bot that automatically loads answers to questions typed in the search bar. Users can go in-depth, read about tangentially relevant issues, and even share each answer onto social media. Additionally, through a partnership with Amazon, we enabled users to interact with the site through their Alexa home device.
ASK A SCIENTIST
Notably, we added a feature to the site allowing those who did not find an answer to their question to send us a question and receive a response. But this time we were ready for the deluge, thanks to a partnership with the National Science Policy Network, an organization of hundreds of graduate students and postdocs aiming to promote the involvement and impact of early-career scientists and engineers in public policy.
This diverse group of scientists looking to make a difference during the pandemic was critical to the project’s success because they could field questions quickly and respond to a concerned public. By March 15, the Ask a Scientist volunteer network contained 150 graduate students (140 Ph.D. candidates and 10 master’s students), 100 Ph.D.s, 18 medical doctors, 50 with degrees in public health, 30 in virology, 30 in immunology, 20 in epidemiology and 15 with expertise in science, health or risk communication. Interest in the project only increased from this point forward, and a skilled editing team was recruited to ensure all of Ask a Scientist’s answers passed strict quality control measures.
To increase Ask a Scientist’s ability to reach as many members of the public as possible, the project’s Web site was translated into Spanish by a dedicated team of bilingual scientists. By the end of May, Ask a Scientist partnered with hundreds of NSPN members with expertise in virology, epidemiology and public health, as well as scientists from leading institutions who wanted to give back to their communities as the virus spread throughout the U.S.
Answers crafted by Ask a Scientist’s team of experts were also appraised for their value to others and, after removing any personally identifying information, were vetted by senior, Ph.D.-level scientists and made publicly available in the initiative’s comprehensive knowledge base. By doing this, the Ask a Scientist “answer bot” continued to get smarter and smarter. These answers were frequently updated to provide an easy-to-navigate database of information about the COVID-19 pandemic for the general public.
By mid-April, Ask a Scientist was featured on the National Governors Association’s Web site as a resource for state and local officials during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as embedded in the New Jersey and Alabama state government Web sites where it was being viewed by millions on a weekly basis. In an April press conference, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called Ask a Scientist a “truly unique feature” that helps people get the answers they need to protect their families; he noted there had already been over two million visits to the New Jersey site at that point.
Ask a Scientist expanded so quickly that it outgrew its original organizational structure. Questions flooded in from the public and the number of volunteer scientists swelled to over 500. The team reached out to Accenture to help build a completely new back-end system to categorize and respond to questions. Both groups collaborated closely to construct a portal for the volunteers to make it easier to sort, answer and edit responses for the public, as well as communicate with each other to ensure that volunteers answered questions that aligned with their expertise. Ask a Scientist also grew in popularity in other countries. Our team received questions from 10 foreign nations, including Russia, India, Italy, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France, Canada, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.
A NEW PHASE
By May, the Ask a Scientist project had grown to not only provide the public with sound information, but also inform policy makers. The new initiative, called the COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force, is based on a similar notion: crowdsource expertise from those who work across U.S. research institutions to inform the work of policy makers. To do this, FAS gathered some of the brightest scientific minds, in subjects such as virology, testing, big data, public health, treatments and vaccines, supply chain management, infectious disease medicine and international public health policy, to provide the best information as quickly as possible to federal and state lawmakers.
LOOKING AHEAD
Ask a Scientist has been an effort of collaborative science policy and communication, as experts from all over the world worked together to translate cutting-edge research for the public and deliver the most accurate advice. It is an effort to combat misinformation and provide individuals with the information they need in their everyday lives. This pandemic has clearly shown that effective science communication is essential to keep people safe. Collaborative, grassroots initiatives like Ask a Scientist can make a real impact in these efforts.
This effort would not be possible without support from the Rita Allen Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and individuals who support FAS.


scientificamerican--2020-09-18--Can an Algorithm Help Solve Political Paralysis?

Dave Johnson refuses to eat fish farmed near Minneapolis .
The retired construction worker , who lives in a rural area 150 miles north of the Twin Cities , claims “ tourists ’ garbage , salt runoff and fertilizer ” make the metropolitan area ’ s farmed fish inedible .
But for Johnson , the “ divide between city people and rural people ” is about much more than fish : it ’ s about how individuals relate—or don ’ t relate—to the environment .
“ People in cities are busy living in the fast lane , while rural communities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going on in nature , ” explains Johnson , who says he voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and links the country ’ s bitter urban-rural divide to bad policy making : “ A lot of the politicians at the state capital pass laws because there ’ s peer pressure , ” he says .
“ But they don ’ t really know what life is like up here—and they don ’ t care about us.
” Shona Snater cites a different kind of divide .
Instead of geography , the 31-year-old soil-health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interests [ are ] dictating how politicians think and act , ” especially when it comes to the environment .
“ There ’ s progress at the grassroots level , ” she adds .
“ But when farmers are using half of the fertilizer they used to use , that ’ s terrifying for agribusinesses.
” A registered Democrat , Snater says she believes both of the dominant U.S. political parties can be “ bought out.
” She blames corporations for supporting “ terrible policies ” that favor “ economies of scale ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Small and midsize farmers say , ‘ These politicians aren ’ t representing my best interests , ’ ” Snater says , noting that Minnesota has been losing dairy farms at a rate of nearly one a day .
Such frustrations around the usual mechanics of policy making are rife throughout much of the U.S .
In a 2018 Pew Research Center survey of 10,000-plus Americans , 75 percent said trust in the federal government has been shrinking .
And when the survey asked who Americans trusted to “ act in the best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majority of respondents revealed they had the most confidence in scientists and the military—and the least in elected officials .
Brett Hennig , an advocate for alternative ways of conducting democracy , says he can understand why .
“ If you believe an ideal democracy involves informed deliberation among a representative group of people , the current electoral system fails on both counts , ” says Hennig , who has a Ph.D. in astrophysics .
He believes something called “ citizens ’ assemblies ” offer a better way to elicit policies in line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little help from an algorithm .
Hennig explains citizens ’ assemblies using simple logic : society is made up of people who are young and old , rich and poor , and mostly in between , so decisions governing it should more directly involve a group proportionally representing these kinds of characteristics .
But because many ordinary citizens may lack technical knowledge of the issues at hand , citizens ’ assemblies invite these individuals to make decisions in a “ deliberative environment ” —in which they can consult experts to “ reduce the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ignorance ” when learning about a problem and assessing possible solutions , Hennig says .
From there , these citizens collaboratively craft recommendations for policy makers to consider .
Philipp Verpoort , a Ph.D. candidate in physics at the University of Cambridge in England , is another scientist who advocates for citizens ’ assemblies .
“ Everyone ’ s talking about the three P ’ s : pessimism , populism and polarization .
And we ’ re at this point where people split up into groups , don ’ t trust their politicians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he says .
“ But when people see a decision being made by people like them , they trust it.
” To turn their theories to practice , Hennig , Verpoort and their colleagues co-direct the Sortition Foundation—a nonprofit organization that offers “ selection and stratification services ” for citizens ’ assemblies and similar deliberative bodies .
The foundation ( which is financed largely by payments received for its services ) has supported about 20 such projects among the roughly 200 that various organizing bodies have hosted around the world , according to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most famous efforts , which the Sortition Foundation was not involved in , was held in Ireland , where a 99-person assembly prompted the nation in 2018 to repeal a law that had effectively banned abortion .
But much of the buzz today surrounds climate change and the U.K. : after a series of smaller city-based gatherings in 2019 , 110 citizens were selected earlier this year for the country ’ s Climate Assembly UK project .
Through this deliberation , participants were invited to recommend ways the U.K. government could meet its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emissions by 2050 .
After meeting in person and virtually over six weekends between January and May , the participants recently published their final report of policy recommendations , which range from levying a tax on frequent air travelers to investing in low-carbon public transportation .
Using an Algorithm to Build a Scale Model of a Society With a mathematician ’ s precision , Hennig explains how an algorithm he created generated the 110-person “ mini public ” from the U.K. ’ s population of 67 million .
The process began by sending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s postal database .
Hennig says completely random selection would have skewed the responses toward people with higher incomes ( who are more likely to have the time and money to participate ) .
So 20 percent of the sampled individuals were randomly invited from the “ most deprived areas , ” and 80 percent were chosen at random from every region .
To further reduce the effects of income-related selection bias , participants were promised a small stipend and travel reimbursements .
Out of the 30,000 people invited , nearly 2,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seven characteristics : their gender identity , age , ethnicity , educational attainment , location , description of their residence as urban or rural , and level of concern about climate change .
Hennig applied his algorithm to those 2,000 respondents to select 110 participants who would proportionally represent the U.K. with respect to those seven categories .
To begin the process , the algorithm went through the survey answers and randomly and repeatedly selected from the “ hardest category to fill , ” Hennig says .
He adds that it was initially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respondents among those who reported they were “ not very concerned ” or “ not at all concerned ” about climate change .
The algorithm continued by selecting for the “ most in need ” demographic— “ determined by the maximum of the ratio between number of people still required for fill a category quota and the number of people available for selection in that category , ” Verpoort explains—until it drew 110 names .
In the end , though the Climate Assembly UK Web site cautions that the algorithm “ slightly over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group ’ s distribution of the seven categories very closely matched that of the U.K .
But Jonathan Mattingly , a Duke University professor of mathematics who is also using algorithms in an attempt to help fix democracy , takes issue with that framework .
“ Who ’ s determining which categories inform decision-making ?
Maybe it ’ s your family income before you turned 16 , or whether your parents were immigrants , ” Mattingly says , referring to the seven characteristics used by Hennig and Verpoort .
“ How do we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ empathy and decisiveness ?
” Geoff Bedford , a participant in a “ citizens ’ jury ” ( a smaller kind of citizens ’ assembly ) on climate , in the city of Leeds , England , also expresses concerns about how such assemblies are run .
He points specifically to the expertise process .
“ Most [ participants ] seemed to rely solely on the opinion of so-called climate scientists , ” says Bedford , who doubts that humans cause climate change .
The participants , he adds , “ don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of [ the experts ’ ] reports and , understandably , accept sound bites from the mainstream media.
” Verpoort and Hennig counter that , for practicality ’ s sake , most assembly organizers prioritize experts whose research is peer-reviewed—and the vast majority of such research confirms anthropogenic global warming .
But to make sure people like Bedford were still a part of the conversation , another algorithm was used during Climate Assembly UK .
“ Once you 've got a diverse group of people representing society together in a room , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ climate skeptics to end up on the same table and talk to nobody else , ” Verpoort says .
To avoid this clustering , he created an algorithm to divide the 110-person sample into tables of eight individuals , among whom the seven categories—age , location , and so on—were proportionally represented .
Can Citizens ’ Assemblies Work in the U.S. ?
Even if citizens ’ assemblies prove effective elsewhere , some doubt they would work as well in the U.S.—and that the country ’ s federal and local governments would take the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chissell , vice President of operations and engagement at the nonprofit environmental organization Project Drawdown , says she is “ absolutely ” convinced that ordinary Americans can help craft actionable policies .
She points to Cincinnati , where hundreds of residents participated in developing the Green Cincinnati Plan of 80 evidence-based strategies to reduce the city ’ s carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 .
“ ‘ Ordinary people ’ are very savvy when it comes to seeing the co-benefits of climate solutions , ” Chissell says , explaining that many simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and finances while also addressing climate change .
One of the U.S. ’ s prominent champions of people-powered policy making is James Fishkin , a professor of communication and political science at Stanford University .
He is known for developing Deliberative Polling , a process that—like citizens ’ assemblies—uses stratified random sampling to gather a representative group of citizens , facilitate informed deliberation among them , and highlight “ actionable priorities ” for governments .
In the past , Fishkin ’ s polls have been used to advance policies such as sustainable energy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And he says that America in One Room , a recent national gathering of 523 citizens ( a stratified , random sample that was representative of the American electorate in terms of attitudes and demographics ) showed they can also build understanding across political ideologies .
“ When a candidate wants to win an election , they deploy one-sided arguments just to generate outrage , ” Fishkin says .
“ But when you empower people to go beyond tribalism and consider an issue under the best possible conditions—in an evidence-based discussion with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and less gravitation toward extremes.
” Johnson , the retired construction worker , may offer some proof of that theory .
He recently attended the Rural Climate Dialogues , a series of Minnesota-based “ citizens ’ juries ” that were hosted by the nonprofit Jefferson Center , which was one of the earliest adopters of such juries in the U.S. After taking part , he says he now firmly disagrees with Trump ’ s position on climate change and better understands its effects .
“ To hear how climate change is behind polar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forests and the heavy rains that keep my construction buddies from working—I just learned so much , ” Johnson adds .
Snater , the soil-health organizer , also says the Rural Climate Dialogues opened her mind to new perspectives .
Although she says she has spent much of her life researching climate change , Snater believes the jury helped her better understand how the phenomenon relates to the on the ground experiences of her neighbors .
“ This woman [ from the dialogues ] told a story about running out of fuel and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ couple of weeks with her kids , ” she says .
“ It was a real moment where I realized , ‘ Not everyone is in the same position I am .
’ ”

Dave Johnson refuses to eat fish farmed near Minneapolis. The retired construction worker, who lives in a rural area 150 miles north of the Twin Cities, claims “tourists’ garbage, salt runoff and fertilizer” make the metropolitan area’s farmed fish inedible. But for Johnson, the “divide between city people and rural people” is about much more than fish: it’s about how individuals relate—or don’t relate—to the environment. “People in cities are busy living in the fast lane, while rural communities are really attuned to what’s going on in nature,” explains Johnson, who says he voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and links the country’s bitter urban-rural divide to bad policy making: “A lot of the politicians at the state capital pass laws because there’s peer pressure,” he says. “But they don’t really know what life is like up here—and they don’t care about us.”
Shona Snater cites a different kind of divide. Instead of geography, the 31-year-old soil-health organizer in southeast Minnesota says “corporate interests [are] dictating how politicians think and act,” especially when it comes to the environment. “There’s progress at the grassroots level,” she adds. “But when farmers are using half of the fertilizer they used to use, that’s terrifying for agribusinesses.” A registered Democrat, Snater says she believes both of the dominant U.S. political parties can be “bought out.” She blames corporations for supporting “terrible policies” that favor “economies of scale” and leave many people behind. “Small and midsize farmers say, ‘These politicians aren’t representing my best interests,’” Snater says, noting that Minnesota has been losing dairy farms at a rate of nearly one a day.
Such frustrations around the usual mechanics of policy making are rife throughout much of the U.S. In a 2018 Pew Research Center survey of 10,000-plus Americans, 75 percent said trust in the federal government has been shrinking. And when the survey asked who Americans trusted to “act in the best interests of the public,” the majority of respondents revealed they had the most confidence in scientists and the military—and the least in elected officials. Brett Hennig, an advocate for alternative ways of conducting democracy, says he can understand why.
“If you believe an ideal democracy involves informed deliberation among a representative group of people, the current electoral system fails on both counts,” says Hennig, who has a Ph.D. in astrophysics. He believes something called “citizens’ assemblies” offer a better way to elicit policies in line with people’s real interests—with a little help from an algorithm.
Hennig explains citizens’ assemblies using simple logic: society is made up of people who are young and old, rich and poor, and mostly in between, so decisions governing it should more directly involve a group proportionally representing these kinds of characteristics. But because many ordinary citizens may lack technical knowledge of the issues at hand, citizens’ assemblies invite these individuals to make decisions in a “deliberative environment”—in which they can consult experts to “reduce the effect of biases, misleading information and ignorance” when learning about a problem and assessing possible solutions, Hennig says. From there, these citizens collaboratively craft recommendations for policy makers to consider.
Philipp Verpoort, a Ph.D. candidate in physics at the University of Cambridge in England, is another scientist who advocates for citizens’ assemblies. “Everyone’s talking about the three P’s: pessimism, populism and polarization. And we’re at this point where people split up into groups, don’t trust their politicians, and nothing gets done,” he says. “But when people see a decision being made by people like them, they trust it.”
To turn their theories to practice, Hennig, Verpoort and their colleagues co-direct the Sortition Foundation—a nonprofit organization that offers “selection and stratification services” for citizens’ assemblies and similar deliberative bodies. The foundation (which is financed largely by payments received for its services) has supported about 20 such projects among the roughly 200 that various organizing bodies have hosted around the world, according to Verpoort and Hennig. One of the most famous efforts, which the Sortition Foundation was not involved in, was held in Ireland, where a 99-person assembly prompted the nation in 2018 to repeal a law that had effectively banned abortion. But much of the buzz today surrounds climate change and the U.K.: after a series of smaller city-based gatherings in 2019, 110 citizens were selected earlier this year for the country’s Climate Assembly UK project. Through this deliberation, participants were invited to recommend ways the U.K. government could meet its legally binding target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
After meeting in person and virtually over six weekends between January and May, the participants recently published their final report of policy recommendations, which range from levying a tax on frequent air travelers to investing in low-carbon public transportation.
Using an Algorithm to Build a Scale Model of a Society
With a mathematician’s precision, Hennig explains how an algorithm he created generated the 110-person “mini public” from the U.K.’s population of 67 million. The process began by sending invitations to 30,000 households from the nation’s postal database. Hennig says completely random selection would have skewed the responses toward people with higher incomes (who are more likely to have the time and money to participate). So 20 percent of the sampled individuals were randomly invited from the “most deprived areas,” and 80 percent were chosen at random from every region. To further reduce the effects of income-related selection bias, participants were promised a small stipend and travel reimbursements.
Out of the 30,000 people invited, nearly 2,000 accepted and completed an online survey indicating seven characteristics: their gender identity, age, ethnicity, educational attainment, location, description of their residence as urban or rural, and level of concern about climate change. Hennig applied his algorithm to those 2,000 respondents to select 110 participants who would proportionally represent the U.K. with respect to those seven categories.
To begin the process, the algorithm went through the survey answers and randomly and repeatedly selected from the “hardest category to fill,” Hennig says. He adds that it was initially (and unsurprisingly) hardest to find respondents among those who reported they were “not very concerned” or “not at all concerned” about climate change. The algorithm continued by selecting for the “most in need” demographic—“determined by the maximum of the ratio between number of people still required for fill a category quota and the number of people available for selection in that category,” Verpoort explains—until it drew 110 names. In the end, though the Climate Assembly UK Web site cautions that the algorithm “slightly over sampled” certain demographics, the selected group’s distribution of the seven categories very closely matched that of the U.K.
But Jonathan Mattingly, a Duke University professor of mathematics who is also using algorithms in an attempt to help fix democracy, takes issue with that framework. “Who’s determining which categories inform decision-making? Maybe it’s your family income before you turned 16, or whether your parents were immigrants,” Mattingly says, referring to the seven characteristics used by Hennig and Verpoort. “How do we know which factors account for clarity, empathy and decisiveness?”
Geoff Bedford, a participant in a “citizens’ jury” (a smaller kind of citizens’ assembly) on climate, in the city of Leeds, England, also expresses concerns about how such assemblies are run. He points specifically to the expertise process. “Most [participants] seemed to rely solely on the opinion of so-called climate scientists,” says Bedford, who doubts that humans cause climate change. The participants, he adds, “don’t have time to read the conclusions of [the experts’] reports and, understandably, accept sound bites from the mainstream media.”
Verpoort and Hennig counter that, for practicality’s sake, most assembly organizers prioritize experts whose research is peer-reviewed—and the vast majority of such research confirms anthropogenic global warming. But to make sure people like Bedford were still a part of the conversation, another algorithm was used during Climate Assembly UK. “Once you've got a diverse group of people representing society together in a room, you don’t want all of the climate skeptics to end up on the same table and talk to nobody else,” Verpoort says. To avoid this clustering, he created an algorithm to divide the 110-person sample into tables of eight individuals, among whom the seven categories—age, location, and so on—were proportionally represented.
Can Citizens’ Assemblies Work in the U.S.?
Even if citizens’ assemblies prove effective elsewhere, some doubt they would work as well in the U.S.—and that the country’s federal and local governments would take the resulting recommendations very seriously. But Crystal Chissell, vice President of operations and engagement at the nonprofit environmental organization Project Drawdown, says she is “absolutely” convinced that ordinary Americans can help craft actionable policies. She points to Cincinnati, where hundreds of residents participated in developing the Green Cincinnati Plan of 80 evidence-based strategies to reduce the city’s carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. “‘Ordinary people’ are very savvy when it comes to seeing the co-benefits of climate solutions,” Chissell says, explaining that many simply want policies benefiting their health, well-being and finances while also addressing climate change.
One of the U.S.’s prominent champions of people-powered policy making is James Fishkin, a professor of communication and political science at Stanford University. He is known for developing Deliberative Polling, a process that—like citizens’ assemblies—uses stratified random sampling to gather a representative group of citizens, facilitate informed deliberation among them, and highlight “actionable priorities” for governments.
In the past, Fishkin’s polls have been used to advance policies such as sustainable energy choices in Texas, Nebraska and Vermont. And he says that America in One Room, a recent national gathering of 523 citizens (a stratified, random sample that was representative of the American electorate in terms of attitudes and demographics) showed they can also build understanding across political ideologies. “When a candidate wants to win an election, they deploy one-sided arguments just to generate outrage,” Fishkin says. “But when you empower people to go beyond tribalism and consider an issue under the best possible conditions—in an evidence-based discussion with multiple perspectives—there’s more policy consensus and less gravitation toward extremes.”
Johnson, the retired construction worker, may offer some proof of that theory. He recently attended the Rural Climate Dialogues, a series of Minnesota-based “citizens’ juries” that were hosted by the nonprofit Jefferson Center, which was one of the earliest adopters of such juries in the U.S. After taking part, he says he now firmly disagrees with Trump’s position on climate change and better understands its effects. “To hear how climate change is behind polar bears losing their homes, our changing forests and the heavy rains that keep my construction buddies from working—I just learned so much,” Johnson adds.
Snater, the soil-health organizer, also says the Rural Climate Dialogues opened her mind to new perspectives. Although she says she has spent much of her life researching climate change, Snater believes the jury helped her better understand how the phenomenon relates to the on the ground experiences of her neighbors. “This woman [from the dialogues] told a story about running out of fuel and living in a cold house for a couple of weeks with her kids,” she says. “It was a real moment where I realized, ‘Not everyone is in the same position I am.’”


scientificamerican--2020-09-18--These Small Mammals Snort To a Different Tune

They grow to about twenty inches long and weigh less than ten pounds .
So you might not think they ’ d be the closest living relatives to elephants .
Meet the rock hyrax , sometimes called the rock rabbit or the dassie , common in rocky areas of Africa and the Middle East .
They live in groups of up to 80 individuals .
`` The hyraxes are a mammal that has a rare phenomenon , which is singing .
We know a lot of birds sing , but we do n't have many mammals that actually perform a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ syllables coming in bouts .
And these bouts are complex , and along the song they get more and more complex , they get longer , they include more sounds . ''
Biomusicologist Yishai Weissman from Bar-Ilan University and Hebrew University in Israel .
`` We 've tried to understand the meaning of all this , why a hyrax would waste time and energy and expose himself to predators by singing such a loud song ? ''
Weissman and his team recorded the songs of male hyraxes during mating season , and they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the song is an advertisement for male quality .
And in the song , the rarest thing , most interesting element , is the snort .
It sounds like this , just like a snort .
The whole song seems to be an introduction for these snorts . ''
In the earliest parts of the song , snorts are relatively rare .
But as the song continues they become more common , resulting in a snort crescendo .
The increase in snorts reflects the animals ' inner emotional state : as they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their songs become , well , snortier .
And those snorts , according to Weissman 's findings , also become louder and harsher .
The snorty study is in the journal Animal Behaviour .
[ Yishai A. Weissman , et al .
A crescendo in the inner structure of snorts : a reflection of increasing arousal in rock hyrax songs ? ]
Weissman thinks that the snort crescendo , together with the increasing harshness , make the songs impossible to ignore—and grabs the attention of other hyraxes .
Which makes sense .
Harshness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of crying newborns , barking dogs , and frightened piglets .
Acoustic harshness is routinely used in movie soundtracks to increase tension—and attention .
`` It might be that these snorts are what 's keeping the listeners listening .
A lot of times the hyrax is just busy eating leaves , and they do n't even turn their heads to someone that 's singing .
The snorts might be what serves as an attention grabber , and getting harsher and harsher might keep the listeners from droning off . ''
For Weissman , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nuances of hyrax communication .
He believes that understanding why hyraxes sing , and how they construct their songs , could reveal something about the evolutionary origins of human speech – and human music .
Which is no snorting matter .

Full Transcript
They grow to about 20 inches long and weigh less than 10 pounds. So you might not think they’d be the closest living relatives to elephants. Meet the rock hyrax, sometimes called the rock rabbit or the dassie, common in rocky areas of Africa and the Middle East. They live in groups of up to 80 individuals.
“The hyraxes are a mammal that has a rare phenomenon, which is singing. We know a lot of birds sing, but we don’t have many mammals that actually perform a song, a complex song with different syllables coming in bouts. And these bouts are complex. And along the song, they get more and more complex, they get longer, they include more sounds.”
Biomusicologist Yishai Weissman from Bar-Ilan University and Hebrew University in Israel.
“We’ve tried to understand the meaning of all this—why a hyrax would waste time and energy and expose himself to predators by singing such a loud song.”
Weissman and his team recorded the songs of male hyraxes during mating season, and they analyzed their structure.
“We found that the song is an advertisement for male quality. And in the song, the rarest thing, most interesting element, is the snort. It sounds like this—just like a snort. The whole song seems to be an introduction for these snorts.”
In the earliest parts of the song, snorts are relatively rare. But as the song continues, they become more common, resulting in a snort crescendo. The increase in snorts reflects the animals’ inner emotional state: as they become more excited or more aggressive, their songs become, well, snortier. And those snorts, according to Weissman’s findings, also become louder and harsher. The snorty study is in the journal Animal Behaviour. [Yishai A. Weissman et al., A crescendo in the inner structure of snorts: A reflection of increasing arousal in rock hyrax songs?]
Weissman thinks that the snort crescendo, together with the increasing harshness, make the songs impossible to ignore and grabs the attention of other hyraxes—which makes sense. Harshness is a salient feature in the sounds of crying newborns, barking dogs and frightened piglets. Acoustic harshness is routinely used in movie soundtracks to increase tension—and attention.
“It might be that these snorts are what’s keeping the listeners listening. A lot of times, the hyrax is just busy eating leaves, and they don’t even turn their heads to someone that’s singing. The snorts might be what serves as an attention grabber. And getting harsher and harsher might keep the listeners from droning off.”
For Weissman, this work isn’t only about understanding the nuances of hyrax communication. He believes that understanding why hyraxes sing, and how they construct their songs, could reveal something about the evolutionary origins of human speech and human music—which is no snorting matter.
—Jason G. Goldman
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]