Apocalypse Neuro: Why Our Brains Don't Process the Gravest Threats to Humanity

[Loren Pechtel]

Sticking your head in the sand won't make it go away.

Didn't say do that did I. OK extremes exist we cant survive as you point out. What is it about current trends that give us pause to consider those as relevant? Then what can we do about those as humans, perhaps even through sacrificing ourselves to such as nuclear holocaust, to put earth on a life supporting path again.

See, my point is unless we can point to what are potential life killers in today's trends we're talking coffee table talk about human quality of life and little else.

You post some extreme markers which 'almost' eradicated life. What in current trends do you see as man's responsibility to cease and desist specific activities that likely threaten such again? Like I wrote I don't see it in man's behavioral effects on earth conditions. All I see is the potential for ending existence of man beyond a stone chipping top predator.

I don't subscribe to life must become more complex, more technologically competent, to persist.

The high end IPCC estimates plus the release of the trapped methane hydrates (note that the IPCC estimates do not include this because they aren't well enough understood) might drive the Earth to as warm as that period virtually devoid of fossils.

 

[skepticalbip]

Didn't say do that did I. OK extremes exist we cant survive as you point out. What is it about current trends that give us pause to consider those as relevant? Then what can we do about those as humans, perhaps even through sacrificing ourselves to such as nuclear holocaust, to put earth on a life supporting path again.

See, my point is unless we can point to what are potential life killers in today's trends we're talking coffee table talk about human quality of life and little else.

You post some extreme markers which 'almost' eradicated life. What in current trends do you see as man's responsibility to cease and desist specific activities that likely threaten such again? Like I wrote I don't see it in man's behavioral effects on earth conditions. All I see is the potential for ending existence of man beyond a stone chipping top predator.

I don't subscribe to life must become more complex, more technologically competent, to persist.

The high end IPCC estimates plus the release of the trapped methane hydrates (note that the IPCC estimates do not include this because they aren't well enough understood) might drive the Earth to as warm as that period virtually devoid of fossils.

We don't know that the great extinction events were caused by the Earth being too warm. In fact most theories postulate that impactors and/or volcanism left dust in the atmosphere that blocked the sun enough to stop photosynthesis and cool the planet so disrupted the food chain, causing extinctions. We do know that life flourished when the Earth was much warmer than today. The Cretaceous Period was warm enough that there were no permanent polar ice caps and life flourished. We know that life is much more abundant in today's equatorial and tropical regions where it is warmer than in higher latitudes, even the temperate zones, where it is cooler.

 

[Angry Floof]

You keep talking about subconscious responses as if they are conscious thoughts and behaviors.

You're right that indirect and long term threats will not trigger a subconscious threat reflex. That isn't the problem. Most of the useful behaviors that people could be engaging in to reduce the long term threat of climate change are not "subconscious responses" but conscious and deliberate actions. There are no reflexive responses that would be helpful. We don't need people literally running and hiding in the bushes from gas pumps. We need them voting for people who prioritize long term solutions, make lifestyle changes that reduce their direct and indirect consumption of fossil fuels, etc..

I'm not arguing that. I'm asking questions: is it possible to engage more immediate responses with long term, global problems, and if so, would it be useful and how would we even do that? Reflexive responses don't necessarily result in people running and hiding.

The problem is that even our conscious assessments of threats and behavioral responses to them are not merely limited by cognitive abilities but are variably limited by people's emotional and pragmatic biased motives for denying the reality or refusing to do anything about the reality that their own subconscious mind actually accepts on some level. Many people who deny climate change probably have subconscious associations and knowledge that implicitly supports the reality of climate change but their conscious mind overrides this and they actively engage in self-deceit and suppression to avoid the conclusion and actions their mind would otherwise favor.

Which is what you said in the previous paragraph is not the problem. The article linked in the OP explains exactly that. "Immediate" associations with a threat are not necessarily the kind that bypass the problem solving skills and make you jump.

The only thing I claim to know here is that we are plastic and quite brilliant in our ability to adapt to just about anything that doesn't kill us.

Is it worth pondering to ask if our power of neuroplasticity could in any way help us to overcome this shortcoming, or to frame it more positively, to train ourselves for longer term responses that feel real to the organism and not just processed as faraway abstractions?

While the older, more reflexive brain is better at adapting to an immediate environment (and cannot understand all the bruhaha about faraway nonsense that doesn't hurt and can't be eaten), that plasticity also applies to the slower, but more complex new brain.

Our human created systems take very little account or notice of the forces of nature, including many aspects of human nature. Those complicated social and economic systems get a lot of our attention while nature moves and breathes and changes around us in powerful ways.

We already have a ton of intelligent knowledge about what is happening and what to do about it. This thread was not intended to be a rehash of what people should be doing to save the planet. We got that. Apparently, people are not doing those things in numbers that will make a difference.

How do we change that? We already educate and disseminate and repeat information, yadda yadda yadda, and that can work to change whole cultures, but it doesn't happen fast enough. Mindfulness practices are coming into widespread use throughout the Western world, which reduces mindless behaviors that contribute negatively to the world and also fosters a cosmic view that pushes the edges of cultural myopia and selfishness. The environmentalist mantra from the 70s still applies as an effective global game-changer: "act locally, think globally," but clearly doesn't hit home for enough people to change population-wide behaviors if it hasn't done so in 50+ years. It's come a long way, absolutely, but again, we need to act faster.

IT isn't unlike that young earth creationists, many of whom have the knowledge and associations that without their active suppression would lead them to accept evolution. Their emotional defensiveness and aggression toward doubters is a byproduct that this awareness of the reality of evolution is just below the surface and thus anything that enables it is a threat to their consciously preferred alternative.

You're probably right about that. Creationists are also responding to immediate concerns to a great extent: culturally myopic social environments that often punish them for questioning.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The high end IPCC estimates plus the release of the trapped methane hydrates (note that the IPCC estimates do not include this because they aren't well enough understood) might drive the Earth to as warm as that period virtually devoid of fossils.

We don't know that the great extinction events were caused by the Earth being too warm. In fact most theories postulate that impactors and/or volcanism left dust in the atmosphere that blocked the sun enough to stop photosynthesis and cool the planet so disrupted the food chain, causing extinctions. We do know that life flourished when the Earth was much warmer than today. The Cretaceous Period was warm enough that there were no permanent polar ice caps and life flourished. We know that life is much more abundant in today's equatorial and tropical regions where it is warmer than in higher latitudes, even the temperate zones, where it is cooler.

I didn't say the great extinction events. There was only one that left the fossil record basically barren.

 

[fromderinside]

Didn't say do that did I. OK extremes exist we cant survive as you point out. What is it about current trends that give us pause to consider those as relevant? Then what can we do about those as humans, perhaps even through sacrificing ourselves to such as nuclear holocaust, to put earth on a life supporting path again.



See, my point is unless we can point to what are potential life killers in today's trends we're talking coffee table talk about human quality of life and little else.

You post some extreme markers which 'almost' eradicated life. What in current trends do you see as man's responsibility to cease and desist specific activities that likely threaten such again? Like I wrote I don't see it in man's behavioral effects on earth conditions. All I see is the potential for ending existence of man beyond a stone chipping top predator.

I don't subscribe to life must become more complex, more technologically competent, to persist.

The high end IPCC estimates plus the release of the trapped methane hydrates (note that the IPCC estimates do not include this because they aren't well enough understood) might drive the Earth to as warm as that period virtually devoid of fossils.

Maybe because we know live persists at over 100 C, at below 5 C, and with only 0.9 percent salt. No fossils, but life never the less. Very little we know about life before 600 million years ago because other than colony there is almost no evidence about free single cell organisms because they don't leave fossils or they aren't around in places where such cellular forms could leave fossils.

Still, the question is whether life is threatened not whether man is threatened when it comes to any possibility of there being some genetic drive toward inheriting or encoding conditions at which life ceases to be viable. In fact we might find some evidence in these extreme species living at the edge of viability.

 

[skepticalbip]

We don't know that the great extinction events were caused by the Earth being too warm. In fact most theories postulate that impactors and/or volcanism left dust in the atmosphere that blocked the sun enough to stop photosynthesis and cool the planet so disrupted the food chain, causing extinctions. We do know that life flourished when the Earth was much warmer than today. The Cretaceous Period was warm enough that there were no permanent polar ice caps and life flourished. We know that life is much more abundant in today's equatorial and tropical regions where it is warmer than in higher latitudes, even the temperate zones, where it is cooler.

I didn't say the great extinction events. There was only one that left the fossil record basically barren.

Are you talking about the suspected "snowball earth" period a little over two billion years ago or the Permian extinction about 250 million years ago? Of course any fossils traces before the Cambrian explosion around 550 million years ago were only bacteria. There were little to no fossils after either for quite a while. The "snowball earth" obviously wasn't due to the Earth being too hot. The Permian extinction when 96% of species went extinct is a mystery. Some blame a sudden drop in sea levels (evident at that time) which would mean the Earth got cold enough for massive ice caps. Others blame basalt floods which would make the atmosphere and oceans highly acidic - predominately sulfuric acid. Perhaps it was both - massive basalt floods putting dust and sulfur compounds in the air that blocked the sun, cooling the Earth forming massive ice caps lowering the oceans, and the sulfur compounds raining down as acid rain. Then there are a few who have suggested an impactor that cracked the mantel causing the basalt flow that then caused the cooling, drop in sea levels, and acidic oceans and atmosphere.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I didn't say the great extinction events. There was only one that left the fossil record basically barren.

Are you talking about the suspected "snowball earth" period a little over two billion years ago or the Permian extinction about 250 million years ago? Of course any fossils traces before the Cambrian explosion around 550 million years ago were only bacteria. There were little to no fossils after either for quite a while. The "snowball earth" obviously wasn't due to the Earth being too hot. The Permian extinction when 96% of species went extinct is a mystery. Some blame a sudden drop in sea levels (evident at that time) which would mean the Earth got cold enough for massive ice caps. Others blame basalt floods which would make the atmosphere and oceans highly acidic - predominately sulfuric acid. Perhaps it was both - massive basalt floods putting dust and sulfur compounds in the air that blocked the sun, cooling the Earth forming massive ice caps lowering the oceans, and the sulfur compounds raining down as acid rain. Then there are a few who have suggested an impactor that cracked the mantel causing the basalt flow that then caused the cooling, drop in sea levels, and acidic oceans and atmosphere.

Snowball is cold. There was also a heat-based extinction.

 

[skepticalbip]

Are you talking about the suspected "snowball earth" period a little over two billion years ago or the Permian extinction about 250 million years ago? Of course any fossils traces before the Cambrian explosion around 550 million years ago were only bacteria. There were little to no fossils after either for quite a while. The "snowball earth" obviously wasn't due to the Earth being too hot. The Permian extinction when 96% of species went extinct is a mystery. Some blame a sudden drop in sea levels (evident at that time) which would mean the Earth got cold enough for massive ice caps. Others blame basalt floods which would make the atmosphere and oceans highly acidic - predominately sulfuric acid. Perhaps it was both - massive basalt floods putting dust and sulfur compounds in the air that blocked the sun, cooling the Earth forming massive ice caps lowering the oceans, and the sulfur compounds raining down as acid rain. Then there are a few who have suggested an impactor that cracked the mantel causing the basalt flow that then caused the cooling, drop in sea levels, and acidic oceans and atmosphere.

Snowball is cold. There was also a heat-based extinction.

Which would that be? I don't know of any of the extinction events known to paleontologists that they blamed on the Earth becoming too hot. It wouldn't be the most dramatic (the Permian Extinction where 96% of species went extinct) known as "The Great Dying" since the evidence we have for the conditions on Earth at that time is massive volcanic activity and dramatic sea level drop (meaning a lot of water being locked up in ice caps and glaciers). It was the Permian Extinction that was followed by a period of very sparse fossils. The other extinctions resulted in primarily a decrease in the varieties of fossils left.

There was the period of heavy bombardment that resulted in much of the Earth's surface becoming molten but then we don't know that there was any life on the planet yet to die from that, though that early in Earth's history there probably wasn't.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Snowball is cold. There was also a heat-based extinction.

Which would that be? I don't know of any of the extinction events known to paleontologists that they blamed on the Earth becoming too hot. It wouldn't be the most dramatic (the Permian Extinction where 96% of species went extinct) known as "The Great Dying" since the evidence we have for the conditions on Earth at that time is massive volcanic activity and dramatic sea level drop (meaning a lot of water being locked up in ice caps and glaciers). It was the Permian Extinction that was followed by a period of very sparse fossils. The other extinctions resulted in primarily a decrease in the varieties of fossils left.

There was the period of heavy bombardment that resulted in much of the Earth's surface becoming molten but then we don't know that there was any life on the planet yet to die from that, though that early in Earth's history there probably wasn't.

I keep forgetting when this one happened and I'm not thinking of the right terms to make Google cough it up.

 

[DBT]

Which would that be? I don't know of any of the extinction events known to paleontologists that they blamed on the Earth becoming too hot. It wouldn't be the most dramatic (the Permian Extinction where 96% of species went extinct) known as "The Great Dying" since the evidence we have for the conditions on Earth at that time is massive volcanic activity and dramatic sea level drop (meaning a lot of water being locked up in ice caps and glaciers). It was the Permian Extinction that was followed by a period of very sparse fossils. The other extinctions resulted in primarily a decrease in the varieties of fossils left.

There was the period of heavy bombardment that resulted in much of the Earth's surface becoming molten but then we don't know that there was any life on the planet yet to die from that, though that early in Earth's history there probably wasn't.

I keep forgetting when this one happened and I'm not thinking of the right terms to make Google cough it up.

Maybe you mean the extinctions during the early Triassic period?

 

[fromderinside]

I keep forgetting when this one happened and I'm not thinking of the right terms to make Google cough it up.

Maybe you mean the extinctions during the early Triassic period?

How about earlier say just before the  Cambrian explosion at the  End-Ediacaran extinction