randform

I decided to translate the part in the last randform comment, which deals with democracy and social media, because it is of a more general nature.

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“Dreimäckriges Blauquallendrachengespenst verwandelt sich in einen Kugelblitz um die ausgecyborgte, zweigebeinigte “Jeanne die Arge”, zu töten”. Artwork by Hugo Buster, acrylic paint and pencil

Just a quick link to what seems to be an interesting study about biodiversity with the title Experiment gives insight into how species maintain diversity (via physorg.com). In the study it was investigated how biodiversity could be maintained despite dominance. Experiments with male voles, ordered by testesterone level, were performed:

when they released just a few of the high testosterone males and lots of low testosterone males into the same area, the males once again reigned supreme with the ladies. But when they released lots of high testosterone males with lots of lots of low testosterone males, the males with the lower levels actually did better than those with the high levels, indicating that there was something clearly at play. The researchers suggest that such results came about because the high testosterone level males spent more time fighting or showing off than mating, which gave the low testosterone males more of a chance to mate.

Maggie Koerth-Baker was today blogging about an interesting popular science video in the field of neuroscience. In the video Stanfort professor Robert Sapolsky explains experiments with monkeys which investigate the role of anticipation and dopamine levels.

In the experiments monkeys got a signal upon which they had to perform some task which was then in the turn rewarded. Measurements showed that high levels of dopamine occurred not as some people may suspect after the reward, but before the task – right when the signal was sent out. The experimenters then lowered the rate of getting a reward. It turned out that the monkeys had even higher levels of dopamine when there was only a fifty percent chance of getting a reward. Sapolsky also mentioned that humans seem to take a unique role in this “social engineering” experiments. That is if I understand him right then humans may even keep on working entirely without reward, when tuned “correctly”.

Unfortunately the talk is very, very short and I couldnt find a longer version. There was also no information given on how important the “rewards” were to the monkeys. Likewise I would have liked to hear something about the rapidity of lowering the reward with respect to the levels. That is I had suspected in this blogpost that it may not only be the dopamine level per se which appears to be important but the rate of change (and eventually the form of the rate of change) of the dopamine level which may be important (as this may eventually even lead to inhibiting the activation of the nucleus acumbens). That is I could imagine that e.g. lowering the reward levels too much or too fast, or to change the levels too often may result in different results than the ones given in the video.

Some “real life social engineering occurences” may point into that direction.

“HirniKoppic”, Copic Markers on paper, by artist “nettwürg” on the occasion of the rumors about the possibility of closing the Medizinhistorisches Museum (Berlin Medical Historical Museum) of the Charité.

Using Digital Holographic Microscopy (DHM) researchers of EPFL gathered quite some interesting images from inside the brain:

->Holograms Reveal Brain’s Inner Workings.

When do we get to see brain images from image imaginations? and when can others recognize these?

Photography: Pal Lindlund

This post is like the previous post a comment to the discussion about human-machine hybrids in the recently uploaded game-scheme article.
In a passage from human to a human-machine hybrid the tolerance towards body modifications plays an important role.
There was recently an interesting interview in the english newspaper “The Guardian” wether cosmetic surgery does help or damage people.
The interview however didn’t really touch the issue of how strongly plastic surgery (and other body modifications) is influenced by cultural predispositions (which are of course often influenced by economic considerations, but not only by these). In particular it also didn’t touch upon the question in how far the design of the human outer appearance via cosmetic surgery (especially its current boom) etc. might be seen as a step in a human-machine-hybrid transition.

An upload of an updated version of the article draft “New economic schemes in games” is at the corresponding randform blogpost.

In the blogpost on the return of investments I proposed to use games for testing new economical scenarious. I currently try to make an article out of that.
In the draft I sofar have given an overview about games and roughly motivated why I think that it may be a good idea to introduce new economical schemes. In particular I talk about the limitations of this planet, design and in particular about something that I dubbed “recycling-run-away effect”.

Amongst others I also try to line out why I think that the nuclear waste problem may be a worse problem than the safety of reactors (see also the first post on Fukushima).

Comments are appreciated, here is the draft:
update (06072015) :
It currently looks as if an article format is rather not suited for the writings and findings made within the context of the game draft article. It is also still not clear wether this project will ever be finished and if in which form. You may though still find on and off some informations in this context, likethis blog post is an example.

update (06072011) : This blog post is now used as a referrer URL for the game scheme article, thus newer versions of the article and comments will be uploaded more or less regularily. Please note that this offer to our randform readers costs our private money. Since randform is currently purely financed by Tim Hoffmanns income as a math professor, we may eventually be forced to reduce or close this offer, depending on download rate, inflation, etc. Most of the content of the article is also spread on the Azimuth project like the section about the Game environment. The Azimuth updates are usually more current.

->version July 06, 2011

The most essential content article of the article was presented on July 1st at the open knowledge conference 2011 in Berlin:

Talk: “Testing new toy economies/political structures in MMOGs” at slideshare.net

older versions of the article:

->version May 25, 2011

->version april 26, 2011

-> New economical schemes in games, version march 25, 2011

In a randform comment section there is currently a little discussion about parenting, Amy Chua, education and self directed learning. This goes together with something which Tim called a “crazy plan”. That is he is currently voluntarily forcing himself to produce one music track per day for a whole month!

-> Tims tracks

Just a little supplement to the last post. It may be interesting to think about the following:

Imagine there are three people on a boat being in an emergency situation. One person has lost all his food, the other two still have all their food. The two who still have their food are in a quarrel about which route to take. Donating a quarter of the food would impair your strength and power to a great amount. Regardless which of the two proposed routes one takes – for either route it is assumed that by donating one half of your food you could in principle survive, but only if everything goes all right.

Imagine the same situation but instead of two quarreling competitors with food you have just one person with food.

Do you think the actions taken with regard to sharing food would be the same in both cases?

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