Romancing the Stone: on the joys of being an intern

I scored an internship with Rosetta Stone’s Endangered Language Program at their global headquarters in Harrisonburg, VA, instead of going to grad school this semester. It’s weirdly relaxing. I work full time and finished the 6-month research project that got me my master’s degree a couple of weeks after I got here, and it is still so, so much less stressful than going to class. The people here are precisely my vibe of crazy. It’s truly wonderful.

I designed my PhD from the beginning so that Rosetta Stone would hire me when I finish it, that or I’ll be able to write my own grants to do primary endangered language documentation with tribes that really need it – a choice I’ll make when I’m done, depending on how important paychecks are at that point in my life. Since Rosetta Stone makes software that teaches language, my degree is joint/double in Linguistics and Cognitive Science, focusing on user-centered pedagogical linguistic interface design – how to design language-teaching software specifically for a certain demographic (in my case, native communities; in Rosetta Stone's case, people who can afford it).

The thing is, I’m half-way through the PhD, but I’m a lot more than half-way to working for Rosetta Stone. And it’s fun here – terribly fun. The work is fascinating, since they’ve taught me to constructively critique the lessons as they design them. It means I play, all the time – I get paid to learn languages, and to think and watch very closely to catch aberrations they don’t want, that might make the game less efficient or less fun. It’s strange to me that working in industry is so fun, since I come from academia, where industry is generally considered rushed and stressful. Not remotely, man; not here… just more lucrative.

Controvertial Conclusions: to Abort or not to Abort?

My little brother Kelson has been asked to write an objective analysis of abortion for one of his 10th grade classes, very likely Language Arts, in response to a satirical essay by Somebody Schwigg around 1800 that said no we shouldn't abort them, we should give birth, feed them well for a year, skin them, use the meat to feed the hungry, and turn the skins into wallets and lampshades. Writing an unbiased, unemotional response to that sounded challenging. What follows is the email I wrote him to that end, my logic, and here's my conclusion: if you think the U.S. Legal System's assessment of the environment more closely reflects the Will of God (religion) or more perfectly maximizes the utalitarian benefit of the society in which it occurs (science) than does the assessment of the pregnant mother, then abortion should be illegal in all cases not approved of by the U.S. Legal System. If you think the mother's assessment does a better job, then abortion should be legal in all cases, point blank.

Here's why.
**
You said that guy's name was Schwigg? 1798 or something, eating babies?

Have you seen the Southpark where Cartman sells aborted fetuses so Superman can eat them and get Super again? Harvesting stem cells after fertilization is seen by the political right in this country (i.e. my father) as equivalent to skinning babies, eating them since the population needs it, and making (useful) wallets etc. with their skin. Not having read Schwigg's satire, I can't say from your description whether he suggested that stuff with enough sarcasm to put his stand as for or against abortion. My guess would be against -- but actually the first time I wrote that sentence I wrote for, so I'm not exactuly sure.

My personal stand -- which is irrelevant to your essay, but may provide enough food for thought for you to see a perspective sufficiently objective to include -- is that the difference between to Murder and to Kill lies not in the act of ending cellular respiration (though stem cell removal actually MUST preserve cellular 'aliveness' to work) but rather in the human-like or non-human-like nature of the thing whose life is being ended, in conjunction with the societal benefit of ending the life. Does a cat murder a mouse? No; in my opinion, a cat can only kill a mouse. Does a human murder a mouse? No; a mouse can only be killed. Does a human murder a human? Depends, in my opinion, on the intention of the person ending the life of another person. Capitol punishment stands any chance whatsoever of being morally admirable solely on the societal conviction that a person can be so morally fucked up that it is not murder to end their life; it is morally justifiable by the utalitarian benefit to society of the cessation of the criminal's presence. If the criminal is on death row for ending the life of another human (never a dog, a mouse, or a monkey) then some judge decided the ending of life was "manslaughter" or "murder" as opposed to "justifiable self-defense," which is legally known in Colorado as the Make My Day Law (which you can google for facts if you find it appropriate). One of the ten commandments is Do Not Murder; in the old testament God commanded the Israelites to attack a village and kill every man, woman and child; God cannot violate His own commandments. According to my father, Christianity (and Christians who've bothered to think about this) effectively conclude that God disapproves of murder, but condones "killing", at least when He approves (whatever the hell that means, usually defined functionally as agreeing with whatever extremist faction, of whatever religion, race, or political standing, is currently telling themselves they are doing the Will of God).

My personal faith is composed of evidence strong enough to tilt my logical conclusion one direction more than the other (codified as the professional pursuit of science). In the case of abortion, and in most other cases, the strongest piece of evidence for me is utalitarian value: which choice does the most good for the most different people in the most different ways. My understanding is that the joining of monocellular gametes (known as a sperm and an ovum, an egg) do not fit the definition of "human" until they have enough cerebral cortex to reflect neural activation that matches what science has identified as corresponding systematically to our subjective experience of "consciousness", so the harvesting of stem cells is not murder, and given that they can literally cure neurological disorders like Parkinsons, the utalitarian best choice is to harvest them, despite the fact that choosing not to harvest them would lead to the same blob of cellular tissue eventually developing enough brain matter to be conscious and therefore considered a human (a fetus). If the blob of cells has passed that line and has neural activation -- which is around the same time as a detectable heartbeat, I think, some time after the tail and the gills transform into lungs and a spinal cord -- then it falls into the same category as whether it is murder or not to execute a convicted serial murderer on deathrow: which choice most benefits the society in which the choice is being made? Most women who opt for abortions do so not only for their own wellbeing (which the Christian Right would consider selfish enough to qualify abortion as murder) but largely because they deeply believe that their environment or their own personal maturity are such that they would do a "bad job" mothering and the child would suffer. In my opinion, those women are choosing to protect their children by postponing reproduction -- which results in the survival only of those fetuses with a good chance of being emotionally healthy, societally productive, and possibly even loving, generous, and kind adults. Even Christian Right extremists most often agree that cases of rape, incest, and harm to the mother's life justify abortion -- they are also utalitarian, we just disagree about which path leads to the most societal benefit.

Conclusions: Fourier analysis and the World at Large

January 10th, 2009, Travel Diary

Plane #2, Sao Paulo a LAX

Brazil cultivates kindness like no other country I can remember being in. Every country has its specialty, it seems to me – the calming forests and beautiful waterfalls, the lush living gentleness, have fostered sensitivity and caring. In Germany the dark winters and cold weather have fostered efficiency in meeting needs; the cars go fast, the trains are sleek and smooth, the subways are calm, and the people are subdued and gentle. In France indulgence is unquestionably a virtue of highest regard – the food is delicious, the museums abound with history and talent, and the Moulin-rouge-style passion is both exquisite and infamous. Ghana celebrates the primal rhythms of human nature with music, dance, and clothing so colorful it seems to shine with joy – as does their passionate and joyful vibe of Christianity. Britain’s strong patriarchal heritage is evident not only in its history but in its profound respect for everyone’s right to enjoy the inheritance of all cultures – the British museum is gorgeous, and not only is it free, it’s the only museum I remember that lets you not only touch many precious relics but even photograph them all. Wales treasures the well-being of its populace over material appearances, as did their passionate druid ancestors whose culture of passion and poetry survives in jousting festivals and the annual Eistedfodd. Mexico specializes not only in family but in generosity as well; wedding celebrations are virtuallyt conflagrations of joyous affection, but those who provide the income are willing to leave the world they cherish for one they know full well is hostile to outsiders so they can find

Plane # - ?

**Peace.

Outside the window the world floats by, fluffy piles of cumulous clouds below, soft swaths of blue and grey stretching above. The sound of a movie whispers from the headphones of the passenger beside me; the screen of his seat, turned toward me since I lowered my windowshade when I saw him blocking the light with his hand, has subtitles in Japanese and English with a soundtrack in Brazilian. I love this airline, but as I awaken to the validity of my own truth it is becoming clearer that I love not only all ways of traveling but also all travelers, all destinations, and perhaps, at least in retrospect, all travels.

The truth is trippy, but the way is simple, and the light is the foundation of everything we can see and touch – but by no means is it the crux of who we are. From the cohesion of atomic particles to the amplification of electromagnetic power – from the peace in a child’s eyes to the tingling thrill of a deeply moving symphony, the energy that makes order from chaos follows the same fundamental principles: tension is cold, arousal is hot, and symmetry is the balance of it all. How could it not be? Science does describe the truth; belief does empower it; ignorance, or at least the willingness to relax and re-focus, does define what we perceive. The culture of our origin seeds our truth; the nature of our destination defines its trajectory; our willingness and abi8lity to change our perspectives shape our growth – but in the end the result is invariable: peace.

A child across the plane from me is screeching at a pitch whose frequency, whose wavelength, causes my stomach to tighten – but the child’s crying is not causing my discomfort. My brain is, not hers. My nervous system has been calibrated by the myriad details of my life to respond to the precise sound of her wailing with annoyance – tension, excessive activation, negative emotion – but if I breathe, relax, and pay attention to the tenor of the voice rather than the fist it curls in my stomach, the tension dissipates into compassion, the unpleasant arousal into sympathy, my own suffering into understanding. If I focus on the external stimulus instead of my internal reaction to it, her screeching melts into an emotion I empathize with very well: frustration. In the absence of words, her neuronal design clenches her throat with the same grip that dictates nearly all human interaction: she says what she feels, speaks her truth. If I focus on her emotion instead of mine, the exquisite tuning of the human perceptual systems correctly reinterprets my annoyance as her pain, not mine. Then my tension melts into sympathy, my clenching discomfort into understanding, my angry dislike of the dissonance into a very real compassion.

It is not the child’s crying that forces me to be uncomfortable, it is just my nervous system’s response to her absolutely honest, wholeheartedly innocent way of expressing her own reaction to her experience of the world. If I redirect my focus to her experience rather than mine, my brain responds by mirroring her suffering with a harmless trace of my own. Instead of tension, I tune in to the precise wavelength of her pain – and I feel in my gut that she is not suffering at all. She is frustrated that the world, her immediate environments, is not providing what she strongly feels she deserves to be given. There is dissonance between her desires and her immediate experience, but she is not suffering. If I allow my perception – or truly my own reaction to her perception – to override how innately I empathize with it, my emotion reflects hers rather than mirroring it. As soon as her mother’s behavior shows she is listening, shows the child’s mind that she is understood, she stops crying – the inequity of valence dissolves, her out-of-kilter emotion resolves into the peace of knowing she is understood, and she stops screeching (which she actually did about halfway through this sentence). Until her mother’s body really does come in line with the child’s nervous arousal – for as long as she hears frustration or anger in the mother’s voice instead of the helpless discomfort felt by the child herself – the dissonance will amplify, and whatever wavelength most provokes her mother’s system to respond with sympathy is the wavelength to which the baby’s voice will migrate. With enough arousal, a perfect mirror-mind will gravitate to sympathy. A mind springing from a non-mirror nervous system will respond with whatever emotion is triggered within it. So long as the person on the receiving end is focusing on the message rather than its source or its destination, arousal of the sympathetic nervous system (tension) will trigger mirror neurons in the listener’s brain to recreate the source intension: which is felt by the mother as the suffering it is, so the child’s mind perceives that it has been met with understanding. When the child’s arousal is met with the mother’s empathy, the dissonant wavelengths do what dissonant wavelengths do across the spectrum: they resolve into harmony, and the discomfort dissipates. Pain met with empathy resolves into peace; heat met with cold resolves into the temperature of its equilibrium; agitation joined to its exact opposing frequency returns to baseline. As soon as the mother shows the baby she understands – as soon as their perceptual systems come into harmony, the frustration ceases and both parties fall silent.

The only pain is in the message. Discomfort is the invariable response to discomfort, in exact and perfect ratio to the mismatch, the misunderstanding. Great passion m et with great gentleness resolve into flawless kindness. Passion met with poassion amplifies the nervous reaction until the dissonant wavelengths resolve, which they invariably do. A flat-line apathetic numbness looks exactly the same spectrally as does perfect harmony. They look like peace. They feel like understanding. They sound like they were exquisitely designed to get along. They were.

My annoyance at the squeal results directly from my focus on the endpoints rather than the message, the emotional correlate of the neural mismatch in activation; if I redirect my attention to the message itself, I naturally perceive and respond appropriately.

Pain results from focusing on the source, the speaker, or its destination, the listener. If we pay attention before we respond, we empathize, and we experience neither fear nor anger. If we focus on the message instead of our reaction, we have no biological option but understanding. Passion plus passion equals peace. Fourier analysis can clarify every misunderstanding.

Empathy manifests as widened eyes; so does attraction; so does what we call love. Fear triggers contraction of pupils; I suspect anger does the same. Pupils respond to pupils like mirrors; dilation evokes contraction until the pupils reflect each other perfectly, which is when we feel understood, when we feel safe, when we feel loved.

So why can’t we just get along? We can; we eventually have no choice. Eventually we see eye to eye, no matter how convoluted or intense the process may be. Fear and anger, joy and mourning, agony and empathy reflect each other so perfectly that they are literally predestined by physics to come to terms with each other. Pain, discomfort, is just misperception. Focus on the message and no damage can possibly be done.

Choices for the New Year

This new year finds me at the spiritual retreat of John of God, a very loving and gentle way to begin again. I would translate the poem below but it loses its... the resonance of its soul in translation. Suffice to say my trajectory is intentionally different this evening from what it was the night before, and my wish for you is that you also find the peace so pervasive here.

Cachoeira de espíritu
é la vida.
A luz de bondade brilla
tras as gotas des olhos.
O medo revolva nos espacios secretos,
fazendo vortexa de enojamento i desesperação.

Não eligo oscuridade.
Agora saio do crepusculo das dudas.
A minha alma se faz parte
de harmonia
entre a agua vital
i os ventos esperações.