Category Archives: Science and Society

New regulations aim to end gender stereotypes in adverts – but I suggest they could go further

Remember the infamous “beach body ready” campaign from 2015 for the supplement brand Protein World? It’s the one that challenged passersby with a steel-gazed, bikini clad, perfectly toned model and the slogan: “Are you beach body ready?”. And what about the ad by fashion retailer Zara in 2017, where skinny teenage girls encouraged women to “love” their curves?

It turns out many consumers have had enough of this sort of advertising. Some were quick to take to graffiti and tweak the Protein World slogan to “every body is ready”. Similarly, people tweeted that there were fewer curves on Zara’s models than on EU approved bananas. But, thanks to this public backlash, such ads may soon be a thing of the past, with the new advertising rules coming into effect on June 14.

The decision follows a report into gender stereotypes by the UK’s Advertising Standard Authority (ASA), published in 2017. This concluded that gender-biased advertising may have negative effects on consumers and that new regulations were needed to prevent them. As a result, the new ruling states that “advertisements must not include gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence”.

This means that advertisers will no longer be allowed to portray a woman struggling to park a car or a man incapable of changing nappies solely due to their gender. Depicting a woman as the only family member responsible for cleaning up after others, especially while the man has his feet up, will also be banned.

It will also no longer be allowed to ridicule men performing stereotypically “female jobs”, such as cleaning, or imply that something is “so easy, even a man can do it”. In fact you can’t even do it jokingly – the ASA recognises that humour does not make gender-biased advertising less harmful.

The new rules will affect children in advertising too. For example, an ad that portrays girls as caring in opposition to boys being daring will be deemed inappropriate as it reinforces gender stereotypes of personalities. However, children can still be depicted performing gender stereotypical activities as long they are not dismissive of, or excluded from, a given activity.

The new ban regulates gender stereotypes of physical appearance too. For example, an ad implying that a person’s romantic or social failure is down to their looks will be challenged. This includes ads targeting new mothers, suggesting that they should prioritise idealised looks (of themselves and their house) at the cost of their emotional well-being. Similarly, campaigns such as the “beach body ready” will be a no-no.

Don’t stereotypes sell?

Gender-biased ads are bad both for consumers and for brands. As I have written elsewhere, psychological research shows that viewing gender-biased advertising leads to a number of negative effects for women. These include lower ambition, reduced interest in politics and underperformance on maths tests. But they affect men too, making them more sexist and leading to lower self-esteem.

Advertisers and their clients pay a price too. Consumer backlash leads to negative brand image and risks lower sales. Consumers (both male and female) say they are less likely to want to purchase products or services from companies that produce ads which portray idealised or unachievable standards as they threaten the social identity of consumers. Women are also put off buying products such as financial or car services when these are portrayed as masculine, because they find them threatening.

Given these negative effects for consumers, advertisers and their clients, the new rules are certainly needed. But are they sufficient?

Is it enough?

ASA explicitly states that their ruling does not aim to ban all gender stereotypes. For example, ads can still show healthy, glamorous, successful, attractive and aspirational people. Portraying one gender only (especially in ads for products targeted at one gender) will also be permissible. In fact, ads can still portray gender stereotypes if they aim to challenge the negative effects of such stereotypes.

Ultimately, the aim of the ASA is not to eradicate gender stereotypical portrayals but to identify and prevent harmful advertising – one which implies that certain roles and characteristics are exclusive to one gender.

This means that more subtle gender bias is probably here to stay. I propose the ASA rules need extending in a number of ways. For example, relying on “general accepted moral, social or cultural standards” against which the current rules identify “serious or widespread offence” may overlook the fact that many gendered practices have historically been deemed acceptable and yet were harmful. Think about binding women’s feet in China, for example.

Given that media effects can be cumulative, regulatory bodies also need to monitor the volume of permissible gender stereotypical depictions, such as portraying one gender only. For example, you might be able to show women shaving their legs if the product is a women’s razor, but that still sends a message that women – and not men – should shave their legs. This is especially the case in the digital space, which seems more gender biased than traditional media.

So what should advertisers do to flourish in this new environment? Given the ongoing disconnect between social reality and gender content in advertising, the increasing consumer backlash and scrutiny from regulators, they would do well to embrace the new rules. The good news is that research by others and I offers robust empirical evidence for the economic profitability of socially responsible, non-biased, ads. Some famous examples of successful cause advertising include the Dove’s “Real Beauty”, Always’ “Like a Girl” and Cheerios’ “How to Dad” campaigns. We can only hope that companies take this to heart.

The new rules are certainly a move in the right direction. But unless the industry itself is ready to genuinely and fully embrace the battle to reduce sexism, gender stereotypes may well not die just yet.

Magdalena Zawisza receives funding from BA/Leverhulme, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, Innovation UK and European Regional Development Fund .

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/new-regulations-aim-to-end-gender-stereotypes-in-adverts-but-i-suggest-they-could-go-further-118812

Life on Jupiter’s moon Europa? Discovery of table salt on the surface boosts hopes

Europa, a frozen moon around Jupiter, is believed to be one of the most habitable worlds in the solar system. It was first imaged in detail by the Voyager 1 probe in 1979, revealing a surface almost devoid of large craters. This suggested that water regularly floods up from inside, resurfacing the satellite. Europa is also criss-crossed with long troughs, folds and ridges, potentially made of icebergs floating around in melt-water or slush.

But it was in the late 1990s that Europa got really interesting. The Galileo mission found evidence that it had a sub-surface liquid salt water ocean. The fact that it is salty gives us clues that the water may be in contact with rock – a process that could provide energy in the water to feed microbial life.

But the observations were too few and limited for us to separately tell how deep and how salty the ocean is – let alone what kind of salts there are. Now a new study, published in Science Advances, shows it may well be normal table salt (sodium chloride) – just like on Earth. This has important implications for the potential existence of life in Europa’s hidden depths.

Scientists believe that hydrothermal circulation within the ocean, possibly driven by hydrothermal vents might naturally enrich the ocean in sodium chloride, via chemical reactions between the ocean and rock. On Earth, hydrothermal vents are thought to be a source of life, such as bacteria. Plumes emanating from the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which has a similar ocean, have been found to contain sodium chloride, making both Europa and Enceladus even more enticing targets for exploration.

If we look at the spectrum (the breakdown of light according to wavelength) of light reflected from the surface, we can infer what substances are there. This shows evidence of water ice. But there are also two other materials: “hydrated” sulphuric acid and sulphate salt. Where do they come from? For scientists studying the interior of Europa, or those examining the astrobiological potential of the moon’s ocean, the really interesting question is: do they come from inside Europa?

Like our moon and Earth, Europa is tidally locked to Jupiter, meaning that it always presents the same side to the giant planet. Galileo observations revealed the presence of “hydrated” sulphuric acid on the side of Europa that faces backwards along its orbit, the trailing hemisphere. To make sulphuric acid in water ice you need a source of sulphur, and energy to drive the chemical reaction. Some of this may come up from inside the moon in the form of sulphate salts, some of it can be delivered by meteorites, but the most likely explanation is that it comes from its sibling volcanic moon, Io.

Sulphur would be ejected into space from volcanoes on Io and eventually make its way to Europa. Moving faster than Europa, the sulphur would most likely hit the trailing side of Europa and implant itself in the ice. The energy required for it to do this would come from electrons in Jupiter’s radiation belts. For the most part, they go around Jupiter faster than Europa, hit its trailing side and deliver tonnes of energy.

Measurements have also shown evidence for sulphate salts, such as magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts) but it has remained unclear where it comes from.

The team behind the new study reasoned that the side of Europa facing along its orbit, the leading hemisphere, which is shielded from the sulphur bombardment, might be the best place to look for evidence of what salts actually exist inside Europa.

In the visible part of a spectrum there are distinct features called “colour centres” that appear when irradiated by very energetic electrons. The researchers used the powerful Hubble Space Telescope to look for evidence of these colour centres in Europa’s spectrum and discovered a feature located exclusively on the side of the moon facing along its orbit, showing evidence for sodium chloride.

Type of salt

Although there were some hints of salts in the Galileo observations, the newer Hubble data has allowed the scientists to narrow it down to a region on the leading hemisphere called the chaos terrain, and not in regions where the sulphur chemistry could be driven by radiation. That means they really are likely to come from Europa’s interior.

Life, as we know it, needs liquid water and energy. That Europa has a liquid ocean at all tells us that there is liquid water and a source of energy to stop it from freezing. But the chemical make-up of the ocean is also crucial. Brine, “salty water”, has a lower freezing point than pure water, meaning it makes the water more habitable.

Salt, specifically the sodium ions in table salt, is also crucial for a whole range of metabolic processes in plant and animal life. By contrast some other salts, such as sulphates, might inhibit life if present in large quantities. The researchers were keen to point out that they might just be seeing the end-point of a complicated chain of sub-surface processes – the salt might just be part of the natural ice layers. But, for those hoping there is life on Europa, the discovery of sodium chloride is good news.

Chris Arridge receives funding from the Royal Society and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/life-on-jupiters-moon-europa-discovery-of-table-salt-on-the-surface-boosts-hopes-118661

Ethics of AI: how should we treat rational, sentient robots – if they existed?

Imagine a world where humans co-existed with beings who, like us, had minds, thoughts, feelings, self-conscious awareness and the capacity to perform purposeful actions – but, unlike us, these beings had artificial mechanical bodies that could be switched on and off.

That brave new world would throw up many issues as we came to terms with our robot counterparts as part and parcel of everyday life. How should we behave towards them? What moral duties would we have? What moral rights would such non-human persons have? Would it be morally permissible to try to thwart their emergence? Or would we have a duty to promote and foster their existence?

Intriguing ethical questions such as these are raised in Ian McEwan’s recent novel, Machines Like Me, in which Alan Turing lives a long successful life and explosively propels the development of artificial intelligence (AI) that leads to the creation of “a manufactured human with plausible intelligence and looks, believable motion and shifts of expression”.

As intellectual speculation, to consider the ethics of the treatment of rational, sentient machines is interesting. But two common arguments might suggest that the matter has no practical relevance and any ethical questions need not be taken seriously.

The first is that such artificial people could not possibly exist. The second, often raised in the abortion debate, is that only persons who have living and independently viable human bodies are due moral respect and are worthy of moral consideration. As we shall see, these arguments are debatable.

Mind, matter and emergent properties

We might suppose that mental phenomena – consciousness, thoughts, feelings and so on, are somehow different from the stuff that constitutes computers and other machines manufactured by humans. And we might suppose that material brains and material machines are fundamentally different from conscious minds. But whether or not such suppositions are true – and I think that they are – it does not follow that sentient, consciously aware, artificially produced people are not possible.

Read more: Artificial intelligence can now emulate human behaviors – soon it will be dangerously good

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim has argued very convincingly that we should beware of simplistic arguments in social science. Social phenomena, such as language, could not exist without the interaction of individual human beings with their particular psychological and biological features. But it does not follow that the resultant social phenomena – or “emergent properties” – can be completely and correctly explained solely in terms of these features.

The same point about the possibility of emergent properties applies to all sciences. There could not be, for instance, computers of the sort I am now working at without the pieces of plastic, wires, silicon chips and so forth that make up the machine. Still, the operations of a computer cannot be explained solely in terms of the features of these individual components. Once these components are combined and interact in particular ways with electricity, a phenomenon of a new sort emerges: a computer. Similarly, once computers are combined and interact in particular ways, the internet is created. But clearly, the internet is a different sort of phenomenon from a tangible, physical computer.

In a similar way, we need not suppose that minds are reducible to brains, molecules, atoms or any other physical elements that are required for them to function. They might be entities of a different sort that emerge from particular interactions and combinations of them.

There’s no obvious logical reason why conscious awareness of the sort that human beings possess – the capacity to think and make decisions – could not appear in a human machine some day. Whether it is physically possible and, therefore likely to actually happen, is open to debate.

Do machines deserve our consideration?

It doesn’t seem controversial to say that we shouldn’t slander dead people or wantonly destroy the planet so that future generations of unborn people are unable to enjoy it as we have. Both groups are due moral respect and consideration. They should be regarded as potential objects of our moral duties and potential recipients of our benevolence.

But the dead and the yet to be born do not have viable bodies of any sort – whether natural or artificial. To deny conscious persons moral respect and consideration on the grounds that they had artificial rather than natural bodies would seem to be arbitrary and whimsical. It would require a justification, and it is not obvious what that might be.

One day, maybe sooner than we think, a consideration of the ethics of the treatment of rational, sentient machines might turn out to be more than an abstract academic exercise.

Hugh McLachlan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/ethics-of-ai-how-should-we-treat-rational-sentient-robots-if-they-existed-118647

As cars become increasingly driverless, people are already seeking analogue motoring experiences

According to those in the industry, and researchers too, driverless cars will totally revolutionise the way we think about individual transport. They will change the way we work and rest. They could herald the end of traffic jams, and have the potential to change the lives of disabled people, to give a few examples. But as the push to get autonomous vehicles on the roads accelerates, there is one factor that deserves more consideration – the changing role of the human driver.

For many, driving is about getting from A to B, but even for those who wouldn’t class themselves as “petrolheads”, driving can be enjoyable. In fact, researchers argue that drivers can develop emotional connections to their cars and the experience of driving. Others have shown that this emotional connection to cars is important for brand loyalty, and for many manufacturers emotion, or the emotive aspect of the driving experience, is a key part of their brand.

But we are moving closer and closer to a world where cars will not need drivers. Many new cars on the market, such as the Nissan Leaf or the Volvo V90, already contain some of the elements needed for “conditional automation”, where technology can control speed, steering and other functions within specific conditions.

The most advanced systems allow cars, such as Audi’s A8, to take full control in certain situations. But as computers take the wheel, what will happen to human relationships with cars?

The ‘driver-car’

Building on existing research into car cultures, my PhD theses looked at how the driven car is more than just a vehicle. It can be understood as a hybrid of human and machine. Drivers use their arms and hands to turn the steering wheel, while legs and feet press the pedals. The human body is an integral component of the driven car, as important as the engine or the wheels.

Thinking about the connection between car and driver as a “driver-car” hybrid is one way of remembering the people in driverless cars. After all, as MIT transportation researcher Ashley Nunes recently said, “driverless will not mean humanless”. These cars will still be used to transport people, even if they are not driving them.

Until relatively recently, removing the human from the driver-car would be just as drastic as removing the wheels, but increasingly we are moving towards a future where people take a more passive role. Where arms and hands previously kept a car in lane, now a programme can take over. And where legs and feet once accelerated and braked, a computer can control speed. For better or for worse, the human is increasingly being written out of the story of driving.

New car enthusiasms?

The driver-car also describes a complex relationship between humans and their cars, a connection which goes beyond embodiment to include emotional attachments to vehicles. Discussions of increasingly humanless cars have already caused some to reflect on the joys of driving which transcend the niches of petrolheads. Commenting in The Guardian, writer and presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell noted that driving can be a “liberating and therapeutic activity”, which we may lose if we are no longer in the driving seat, as it were.

Of course, there is the possibility that new enthusiasms for non-automated cars will arise out of the move towards fully autonomous vehicles. Across a number of technologies, more and more people have sought analogue experiences as digital has grown. Sales of vinyl records, for example, have risen despite the popularity of music downloads and streaming.

These non-automated cars could take the form of classic cars from a time before assisted driving, such as the original VW Beetle, or newer vehicles designed to give control more to the human driver and less to computer systems, such as the Ruf CTR.

Already some motoring commentators are talking of analogue driving, building a movement focused on driving experience and connection between the driver-car and the road, and manufacturers are picking up on this too. Alois Ruf, owner of Ruf, mentioned above, has said that their, “customers want an analogue car … a driver’s car”.

This analogue driving movement in part stems from the perceived negative impacts of technology on the haptic experience of driving. However, some manufacturers use language similar to that of the analogue driving movement in their promotion of driverless cars, suggesting that automated vehicles could in fact contribute to an improved connection between driver-car and the road.

Jaguar Land Rover, for example, say that, “self-driving vehicles will enhance the driver’s experience — not replace it”. Similarly, BMW presents the driverless car as something which “expands the driver’s range of perception and transforms him or her into the ultimate driver”.

One thing is for certain: as we move towards a near future where driverless cars become more common, human attitudes towards cars and driving will change dramatically. Only time will tell whether that will end our emotional relationships with our vehicles, or change it into something entirely new.

Will Andrews received funding for his PhD from the Doctoral Career Development Scholarship at Aberystwyth University.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/as-cars-become-increasingly-driverless-people-are-already-seeking-analogue-motoring-experiences-114884

The neuroscience of terrorism: how we convinced a group of radicals to let us scan their brains

The young man sitting in the waiting room of our neuroimaging facility wearing skinny jeans and trainers looked like a typical Spanish 20-year-old of Moroccan origin. Yassine* was bouncy, chatting up the research assistants, and generally in good spirits. He was like so many other Barcelona youths, except he openly expressed a desire to engage in violence for jihadist causes.

As we took him through a battery of tests and questionnaires, we were barely able to keep him in his seat as he kept proclaiming his willingness to travel to Syria to kill himself. “I would go tomorrow, I would do it tomorrow,” he said. When we probed for the sincerity of his claim, he responded, “only if we go together. You pay for the tickets”, with a wink and a smile. Less budding foreign fighter and more extremist provocateur, he enjoyed insulting us with impunity and showed us the middle finger as he left. And yet, Yassine agreed to let us scan his brain – for the first ever brain scan study on radicalisation.

Imagine being a young Muslim man, walking down the street in Barcelona, when you’re approached by a stranger asking if they can do a survey with you. The survey is on your religious, political and cultural values. This might sound fine, if it weren’t for a few details: we were at the height of Islamic State’s reign in Syria and Iraq and the survey questions included questions about creating a worldwide caliphate, being ruled by strict Sharia law and engaging in armed jihad.

You’re then told the reason for the survey is to find people suitable for a brain scan. And those few people would be the most radicalised ones we could find; a fact that would only be revealed in the post-experiment debrief. To our surprise, the part about the brain scans piqued people’s interest.

The responses varied from concerned: “You think there’s something wrong with my brain?”, to pride: “There’s definitely something different about my brain.” Even the most hardcore jihadist supporters tapped into their nerdy side and started asking questions about how the brain works, what we’ve found in other studies, and what might the implications be of this research. Some would even ask us for medical advice (we had to explain that we weren’t those kind of doctors). Once satisfied about the scientific merit of the work, most consented to participate.

As Ahmed*, a 31-year-old Pakistani immigrant and staunch supporter of Al Qaida, told us: “People like us, our brains are so different. You can’t compare us to others. But go ahead and try. It’s interesting what you’re doing.”

But he had one very important condition to be satisfied before agreeing to participate. He leaned in close, as if there could be someone listening, and whispered: “Can I get a picture of my brain? Just to prove to my mother that I have one.” Humour was never in short supply among our participants.

We carried out two brain studies in Barcelona between between 2014 and 2017. Spain ranks among Europe’s top countries for failed and completed terror attacks and the greater Barcelona region is the country’s primary recruitment hotspot. In fact, it was during our fieldwork that the Islamic State-inspired attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils took place in August 2017, killing 16 civilians and injuring 152 others.

Given that our aim was to study willingness to engage in violence for cultural and religious values, we needed a sample of people with the same cultural background and language. So, we recruited Sunni Muslim men of Moroccan and Pakistani origin (the two largest groups of Sunni Muslims in the province of Barcelona) to participate in our studies.

This article is part of Conversation Insights

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Despite years of research to the contrary, two oversimplified categories of thinking about violent extremism still continue to hold sway in public opinion. On the one hand are those who want to reduce radicalisation to an individual pathology. In this view, people who become terrorists are all mentally ill, have a low IQ, or a personality disorder. On the other are those who ignore the individual altogether and explain away those who become terrorists by purely environmental factors – whether it’s poverty, marginalisation, or being “brainwashed” by online propaganda.

So radicalisation tends to either be seen as caused by individual characteristics or purely social factors. And of course, neither of these depictions are true. We are instead trying to get to the bottom of the interplay between these factors.

Sacred values

We’re part of an international research team, Artis International, that’s been studying something called “sacred values” and their role in violent conflicts around the world. Sacred values are moral values that are non-negotiable and inviolable. You certainly wouldn’t trade them in for material incentives. Despite the label “sacred”, these values don’t have to be religious.

For example, most readers would likely consider individual liberty a basic right. If it could be guaranteed that the entire world would experience untold levels of economic prosperity and individual wealth, and to achieve this all we would need to do is enslave a tiny fraction of the world’s population, would you agree to it? If not, anti-slavery is a sacred value for you.

We’ve studied sacred values across a range of conflicts, from nation states such as Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan and Iran and the US to sub-state groups, such as Kurdish militias and Islamic State/al-Qaeda. We also looked into non-violent conflicts like the Catalan independence movement. The sacred values that drive these conflicts are those that are perceived as (or actually are) being contested.

From Israel’s right to exist, to Palestinian sovereignty, or the future of Kashmir, to the resurrection of a caliphate, when people feel their sacred values are under threat, they muster the will to fight for them. This can happen for both long-held values or new values that people adopt as part of their radicalisation process. These threats can even be as abstract as cultural annihilation. As an imam in Barcelona who was implicated in a thwarted terrorist attack in 2008 told us:

Say what you will about al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or others. If our culture survives modernity, it will be precisely because of these groups.

In the case of radicalisation, the adoption of extremist values are concerning enough. But as more of these values become sacred, the propensity towards violence increases and the chance of de-radicalisation decreases.

Social exclusion

For our brain scans we used a tool called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which records and identifies which areas of the brain are active during specific tasks. Our first fMRI study explored what could make non-sacred values become more like sacred values.

After conducting 535 surveys of young Moroccan origin men in Barcelona, we recruited 38 participants who openly said they would engage in violent acts in defence of jihadist causes. The young men were asked to play “Cyberball”, a video game where they and three other young male Spanish players would pass a virtual ball to each other. Unbeknown to them until the debrief, the Spanish players were purely virtual.

Half of these participants were “socially excluded” as the Spanish players stopped passing to the Moroccan players and only played among themselves. The other half continued getting passed the ball. Then, both the excluded and included participants got into the brain scanner, where we measured their willingness to fight and die for their sacred values (for example, forbidding cartoons of the prophet, banning gay marriages) and their important but non-sacred values (women wearing the niqab, Islamic teaching in schools) which were ascertained beforehand in the surveys.

Unsurprisingly, participants rated higher willingness to fight and die for sacred rather than non-sacred values. Neurally, sacred values activated the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) – an area associated with rule processing and previously correlated with sacred values in American university students. But those who were excluded increased their willingness to fight and die for their non-sacred values, and the left IFG became activated even during non-sacred value processing.

In other words, social exclusion made non-sacred values more similar to sacred values. This is an alarming shift as it suggests that social exclusion contributes to making attitudes less negotiable and increases a propensity towards violence. As values become fully-held sacred values, prospects are grim: no research has been able to demonstrate how to de-sacralise them.

Highly radicalised

Even if we can’t de-sacralise a value, perhaps we can still pull a highly radicalised person back from the edge of violence. This is what our second neuro-imaging study explored. After surveying 146 Pakistani men from the small and tight-knit community in Barcelona, we recruited 30 participants who explicitly supported al-Qaeda associate, Lashkar-e-Taiba, endorsed violence against the West, endorsed armed jihad and stated they would be willing to carry out violence in the name of armed jihad. These participants were more radicalised than our previous study participants.

In the first part of the study, they were scanned while rating their willingness to fight and die for their sacred and non-sacred values. These participants showed a different pattern of neural activity from the Moroccans in our first study, who exhibited the same patterns as US university students.

As the highly radicalised Pakistani men rated their sacred values, there was deactivation in a network that includes the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a part of the brain which is associated with deliberative reasoning and integrating cost-benefit calculations. When they rated a high willingness to fight and die for their values, we found increased activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a part of the brain that is associated with subjective valuation (how much value does this have for me?). In daily life, the DLPFC and vmPFC work in tandem when making decisions.

A follow-up analysis found that these two regions of the brain were highly connected when participants rated low willingness to fight and die – that is, subjective value was regulated by decision control mechanisms. But when they rated high willingness to fight and die, we found that these two regions were more disconnected. This suggests that, when someone is ready to kill and be killed in defence of an idea, they are no longer using decision control mechanisms typically involved in deliberative reasoning.

They essentially disengage this part of their brain. But, their willingness to fight and die lowers as their deliberative and subjective valuation regions reconnect. So what mechanisms bring people to lower their willingness to fight and die for a cause?

The influence of peers

In the second part of the study, while still in the scanner, the participants were shown each value again with their own original rating but this time they could press a button to see the average willingness to fight and die ratings of their peers. What they weren’t told was that these average ratings were an invention and were evenly split between lower, the same, or higher ratings to serve as an experimental manipulation.

When they got out of the scanner they rated their willingness to fight and die for each value again. In post-scan interviews and surveys, the participants stated that they were surprised and even outraged when their peers were not as willing to engage in violence as they were.

Despite this, we found that people lowered their willingness to fight and die for both sacred and non-sacred values to conform to the responses of their peers. This change was correlated with increased DLPFC activation in the brain. Their deliberative pathways were reopening.

The ‘normal’ radicals

So – what does all this imply as to the various explanations for radicalisation often touted?

Let’s take the contention that it all comes down to individual characteristics. All the participants in our studies were given a battery of tests from measuring their IQs, to assessing mental illness, to personality scales. They were all considered “normal”.

We also found that the idea that radicalisation derives solely from social or environmental conditions is flawed. Our studies did not find any relationship between economic factors like poverty and support for extremist ideas or groups. The picture that started to emerge from our research paints a more complicated image – one that has a variety of policy implications.

Our first study suggests that social exclusion can contribute to the hardening of values and increased willingness to engage in violence. This is consistent with other research on social exclusion such as survey findings, which showed that when marginalised American Muslims faced discrimination, they increased their support for radical groups.

But social exclusion does not merely mean the experience of discrimination. Social exclusion is a much broader and more complex phenomenon – a person’s feeling that they do not have a seat at the table in their own society.

Terrorist groups recruit new members throughout the world by capitalising on this feeling. Previous research in Syria, Somalia and Nigeria has shown that among the grievances that drive individuals and tribes towards joining terrorist organisations are those of religious, ethnic or political exclusion.

A feeling of not having a voice doesn’t lead to radicalisation on its own, but rather creates social cracks that local extremist groups can exploit by claiming they are fighting on the behalf of these disenfranchised groups.

Feelings of social exclusion by Sunni Arabs in post-invasion Iraq were an important factor in laying the groundwork for Islamic State’s territorial victories. Our research into post-Islamic State Mosul and preliminary investigations into post-Islamic State Raqqa suggests that there were lingering feelings of social exclusion among those who were the most vulnerable to Islamic State recruitment. This will help to lay the groundwork for a resurgence of a similar organisation.

Western countries contain marginalised communities who are recruitment targets of both jihadist and extreme right-wing groups. It is in these countries where disenfranchisement is felt particularly strongly because the narratives of these societies are supposed to be based on unbiased access to social mobility and equality.

But in reality, the lived experiences of marginalised communities in the West make them see these claims as hypocritical. Extremist groups exacerbate these feelings with other narratives that polarise them from the rest of society while empowering them with offers of joining a revolution against those who are excluding them. As one British member of Islamic State stated in another of our ongoing research projects:

I had a choice of either selling merchandise for a corrupt system or being part of a revolution against it.

All this implies that both foreign and domestic policies that facilitate social inclusion could have a variety of benefits, including stripping violent extremist groups of one of their most exploitable issues.

Counter-messaging

Our research also points to potential problems in mainstream anti-terrorism communications policies. One tool that many governments use is that of alternative and counter-messaging, such as France’s Stop-Djihadisme campaign. There are a multitude of such campaigns by civil society organisations that are discretely funded by governments. These are mostly online messages that attempt to subvert the appeal of extremist groups by, in some cases, prompting self-reflection.

Our research suggests that if areas of the brain associated with deliberative reasoning are disengaged for sacred values, then messages aimed at these issues may not work as intended. In addition, sacred values are unique to the individual. This adds an additional difficulty for mass distributed online alternative and counter-messaging.

Successful radicalisation, even online, usually contains an element of person-to-person interaction. Recent investigations into Western foreign fighters who went to Syria found that 90% were recruited through either face-to-face or online social interaction. No compelling evidence shows that disembodied online messages play a determining role. Radicalisation is a deeply social process that promises a sense of belonging and a purposeful role in social change.

The impulse to become an agent of social change need not be negated. It should instead be re-channelled towards positive ends. So instead of simple counter-messaging, policies should seek to counter-engage by encouraging activities that foster a sense of purpose and belonging.

This is exactly what we’re finding in our ongoing research in Belgium into why some youth networks remained resilient to Islamic State recruiters. One of the main differences was how engaged non-radicalised peers were in their communities. They were involved in socially beneficial activities, like youth mentoring, helping the homeless, assisting refugees, or social activism like political advocacy for their own or other communities. While some were still frustrated they nonetheless felt they had the power to effect social change. The greater sense there is of being able to make a difference in the current system, the lower the appeal of violent anti-establishment movements.

Feeling involved

Our experiments indicate that creating inclusive societies that offer pathways to purpose and a sense of belonging to all its citizens has to be a priority in the fight against political violence. Radicalisation is a social phenomenon that must be socially combated with the help of inclusive governance, friends and families, and media.

Policies aimed at disengaging extremists from violent pathways might, for example, benefit from enrolling the help of their non-radicalised friends. Additionally, any strategic communications that can enhance the perception among vulnerable youth that their peers do not consider political violence to be acceptable may help in preventing future breakouts of violent extremism.

The importance of this was highlighted to us by the example of Fahad, a charismatic young man we came across during our fieldwork. Every other week he had a new life goal: becoming an athlete, a scientist, an artist, even a politician. At every turn his conservative parents rejected his ambitions. He soon began to turn inward, spending less time with friends and more time roaming the streets of Barcelona alone.

One day he came in contact with a former acquaintance who was now radicalised. Within weeks Fahad’s starry-eyed demeanour changed. Shortly after, he disappeared. His social media accounts and other forms of communication were shutdown.

But the worst-case scenario had in fact not emerged. His parents became aware of his nascent transformation and offered him an alternative: if he worked part-time in a relative’s business then he could spend the rest of his time pursuing his career ambitions. As the possibility of a purpose-driven life re-emerged it washed out his flirtation with extremist ideology. In a later communication he told us how well his life was going and how he finally felt that he “really belongs here”.

The process of radicalisation remains a complex system that cannot be reduced to the brain, behaviour, or environment. It exists at the intersection of these elements. Simplistic explanations that call people “crazy”, blame a whole religion or ethnicity, or cast local communities as the villains only obscure practical solutions and provide a recruitment boost to terrorist groups. An inclusive society with pathways to purpose must be an aim for policies that seek to counter violent extremism.

* All names have been changed to protect participants’ anonymity. Our research undergoes the strictest of academic ethics reviews which sets in place protocols that protect the researchers, the participants and the general public as established by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Part of what convinces radicalised people to speak with us is the guarantee of their anonymity. However, if we ever felt that the public were in danger we would follow the appropriate protocols to ensure their safety.

Nafees Hamid is a Fellow at Artis International. He received funding from the Minerva Research Initiative and the Frederick Bonnart-Braunthal Trust.

Clara Pretus is affiliated with Artis International. She received funding from the Minerva Research Initiative and the BIAL Foundation.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/the-neuroscience-of-terrorism-how-we-convinced-a-group-of-radicals-to-let-us-scan-their-brains-114855

Cricket’s Duckworth-Lewis method: how to work out who wins when rain interrupts

When both teams involved in a one day international cricket match have their full allocation of overs, the team scoring the most runs is the winner. There is, however, a regrettable tendency for the weather to intervene – especially in England, as the World Cup 2019 teams have been finding out – and to deprive one or both teams of a portion of their allotted time. The solution, as it turned out, lay in statistics.

Early attempts to compensate for the lost overs, such as the average run rate or the most productive overs method, were perceived as favouring one or other of the two teams. But in the mid-1990s, the original Duckworth-Lewis method was formulated by two cricket-loving statisticians, Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis, in an effort to ensure that the target score for the team batting second in a weather-affected match was neither unreasonably hard nor unreasonably easy to achieve.

The central principle underlying the method is that a team’s score should be judged in the context of the “resources” available to them. So a team begins an innings having used 0% of the resources. As balls are bowled, or as wickets are lost, their resources are used up. Duckworth and Lewis came up with a formula that used the exponential function to calculate the proportion of resources used in terms of the number of overs still to go and the number of wickets taken.

The illustration above shows how the Duckworth-Lewis calculation works in a specific case. The team batting first (in red on the diagram) bats for 20 overs, during which time two wickets are lost (from point A to point B). There is then a break for rain, after which the match is reduced to 40 overs per side, so the team resumes with the expectation that they have 20 more overs to bat (point C). They get through 15 of these overs, losing a further three wickets, but then the rain returns and puts an end to their innings at 150 for five (point D).

The diagram shows that the first period of batting used up 32% of the resources and the second batting period provided them with a further 37%, with the result that the team had only 69% of an uninterrupted innings. The team batting second has just 22 overs to bat by the time the rain has stopped, but of course has lost no wickets, so starts from point E in the diagram (in blue). As a consequence they are left with 63% of their full innings and their target is calculated as 150 x 63%/69% = 137 runs to win in their 22 overs.

The curve helps to compensate for any advantage which might accrue to the team batting second, which knows from the start of its innings exactly what the target number of runs is and can set out to achieve that with its full complement of ten wickets. The team batting first, of course, will have started its innings believing it had 50 overs to set a target and will have paced its innings accordingly.

The drawback

The exponential shape of the curves in the diagram illustrates a drawback in the original Duckworth-Lewis method: it assumes that the scoring rate increases steadily.

A team chasing 200 would be considered on target if it had scored 76 for two after 25 overs, leaving 124 from the last 25, but (just doubling the numbers) a team chasing 400 with 152 for two on the board after 25 overs, leaving 248 from the last 25, would equally be considered to be on target according to the formula, although in reality this team would be much less sanguine about their chances of winning.

An adjustment was introduced in 2004, which had the effect of flattening the exponential curves in high-scoring matches, making intermediate targets more realistic. The downside, however, is that instead of being able to use a single Duckworth-Lewis diagram for every match, you have to redraw the diagram for the second innings depending on how many runs were scored by the team batting first.

Data science professor, Steven Stern, proposed a further adjustment in 2009 to take account of differences in scoring patterns between the first and second innings. Stern was appointed the custodian of the method in 2014 on the retirement of Duckworth and Lewis.

Duckworth and Lewis’s decision to use exponential curves was to a certain extent arbitrary: there is no particular reason why a parabolic or other convex shape could not have been used instead, and perhaps in this case the adjustments would have been unnecessary.

Another possible variation might relate to how the method is applied, rather than the method itself. It is standard practice to ensure that, in shortened matches, each side is allocated the same number of overs. If, for example, rain comes after 30 overs of the first innings and there is only enough time when the weather clears for a further 30 overs of play, they are all allocated to the second team – even though the team batting second will have 77% of its resources available and the team batting first might have used as little as 41% of its resources (if no wickets have been lost).

Allowing the first team to bat for a further five overs, leaving 25 overs for the second team to bat, might redress the balance somewhat.

Russell Gerrard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/crickets-duckworth-lewis-method-how-to-work-out-who-wins-when-rain-interrupts-118442

Relationships: yes, you do have a type – and it’s likely to be your ex, new study suggests

“They’re just not my type.” Whether during private conversation with a trusted friend, or while watching a favourite romantic comedy, we’ve all heard these words spoken about a potential suitor. But for all its prevalence in conversations about modern day relationships, hardly anyone has investigated whether “my type” actually exists.

Recent work has suggested that we do have go-to preferences when it comes to demographic and physical characteristics such as education, age difference, hair colour, and height. However, no previous research has provided strong evidence that we consistently seek a particular personality type across partners. Now, a group of researchers have found just that – and if you’re not sure what your type is, you might want to look in a mirror.

In a newly published study, researchers used the longitudinal German Family Panel study to assess where more than 12,000 survey participants fitted with the “big five” personality traits – openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Over nine years, the researchers tracked the relationship status of these people, who had to pop the rather unusual question to partners of whether they would mind filling out the same personality questionnaire for the good of science.

After nine years and thousands of questionnaires, the researchers ended up with 332 participants who had been in relationships with at least two different romantic partners who were both happy to participate in the study. That’s a pretty hefty drop in sample size, but more than enough to draw firm conclusions from the data.

The results showed that the current partners of participants described their personalities in ways that were similar to former partners. So while people tend to believe that their personality preferences change over time, it appears that people do have a specific “type” that persists across relationships. In most cases, similarity was only tested across two partners, but for the 29 participants who had more than two willing partners, the results were the same.

Like it or not, your type might be closer to your own personality than you’d like to admit. The research showed that the personalities of the partners were not only similar to each other, but to the participants themselves.

Seeking out a little of yourself in your partners may help explain why our own personalities tend to be relatively stable when interacting with friends and loved ones. It’s a lot easier to seek relationships that allow us to hold onto our existing ideas of what we are like.

That is, unless you’re an extrovert in search of new experiences. Participants who scored highly in openness to experience and extroversion were much less likely to choose partners with similar personalities to both ex-partners and themselves. So while our relationships can entrench who we think we are, if we are willing to step outside of what we know, they also offer the opportunity to discover new ways of seeing the world.

Interestingly, the study could hold potential for online dating. While previous research has struggled to predict romantic desire from personality traits and preferences, this research suggests that just as music streaming services use our existing library to make personalised recommendations for exciting new sounds, dating apps could use our relationship history to help us find future flames.

Of course, given that we don’t know how long the relationships in the study lasted for, there’s no guarantee that such a strategy will keep the fire burning. Too much similarity in a relationship can make partners feel unable to grow and develop. Married people can have a particularly low tolerance for behaviours that their new spouse shares with the former, and such similarity can generate anxiety and hopelessness.

On the other hand, having a current partner that resembles an ex-partner can ease bonding processes and help establish positive patterns of interaction. So don’t go blaming high divorce rates on a tendency towards a type just yet.

Research like this isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to the search for a soulmate. There are plenty of other factors that influence who we enter into a romantic relationship with. But don’t be surprised if the next update in your relationship status is really just a return to the status quo.

Stanley Gaines does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/relationships-yes-you-do-have-a-type-and-its-likely-to-be-your-ex-new-study-suggests-118532

Children are likely to misread fear in dogs – making a bite more likely

The benefits of growing up with a pet are well documented – these days dogs are even used in the classroom. That said, we sometimes forget that dogs can still present a risk.

Children under the age of 10 are most at risk of being bitten by a dog. It’s difficult to accurately estimate how often children are bitten, as not all bites result in children being taken to accident and emergency units, but bites can often lead to serious injuries with unpleasant psychological effects, including symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Children may be at greater risk of being bitten by a dog because they struggle to recognise emotions in dogs and can’t interpret their warning behaviour. Many children may know little about how to behave safely around dogs and risk bites more often than adults.

Read more: Dogs in the classroom – coming to a school near you soon?

When researchers have studied how to prevent dog bites, they found that children can be taught to recognise a dog’s emotional state more accurately and to recall safety rules, like not approaching a dog when they’re eating or chained up. But knowing this didn’t make the children more likely to behave safely around dogs. Despite educational campaigns, the incidence of bog bites continued. Clearly, something was missing.

The fear factor

New research could prove key to preventing bites. More than 100 children between the ages of four and six were shown images and video clips of dogs showing happy, frightened and angry behaviour. Children were asked what emotion they thought the dog was feeling and would they “pat, play, cuddle, brush or sit next to each dog?”

Although most of the children said they wouldn’t approach an angry dog, they were as likely to say that they would approach a frightened dog as they would a happy one. This desire to approach frightened dogs and cuddle them could explain why children are at a high risk of being bitten.

Dogs were classified as fearful when they held their head low, dropped their tail and possibly tucked it between their legs. Some wrinkled their nose and curled their lips to show their teeth. Dogs doing this are likely to react aggressively if approached, especially if they feel threatened by the approach. A child might approach a frightened dog with kind intentions, but the dog may perceive their advance as a threat and respond aggressively, putting the child at risk.

Among young children, dog bites commonly follow positive interaction initiated by the child, such as a hug. This could include a well-intentioned approach to a dog showing some signs of fear. It’s vital to teach children to be cautious about approaching dogs that look scared. This may seem strange to the child, who might think that the dog experiences emotions in a similar way to themselves and would find physical comfort reassuring.

This finding is especially important, as children are most commonly bitten by a dog that is known to them and while under the supervision of an adult. Educating parents about the risks of approaching frightened dogs – and the importance of teaching their children about them – could prevent dog bites.

Of course parents want to teach their child to be kind to animals – especially the family pet – but this research suggests that it is even more important that parents teach their children to recognise that the way a dog experiences emotions and may behave is quite different to a child’s own experiences. Teaching this could improve the well-being of dogs and help keep our children safe.

Sarah Rose does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/children-are-likely-to-misread-fear-in-dogs-making-a-bite-more-likely-118405

Tech companies collect our data every day, but even the biggest datasets can’t solve social issues

At almost every point in our day, we interact with digital technologies which collect our data. From the moment our smart phones wake us up, to our watch tracking our morning run, every time we use public transport, every coffee we purchase with a bank card, every song skipped or liked, until we return to bed and let our sleep apps monitor our dreaming habits – all of these technologies are collecting data.

This data is used by tech companies to develop their products and provide more services. While film and music recommendations might be useful, the same systems are also being used to decide where to build infrastructure, for facial recognition systems used by the police, or even whether you should get a job interview, or who should die in a crash with an autonomous vehicle.

Despite huge databases of personal information, tech companies rarely have enough to make properly informed decisions, and this leads to products and technologies that can enhance social biases and inequality, rather than address them.

Microsoft apologised after its chatbot started spewing hate speech. “Racist” soap dispensers failed to work for people of colour. Algorithm errors caused Flickr to mislabel concentration camps as “jungle gyms”. CV sorting tools rejected applications from women and there are deep concerns over police use of facial recognition tools.

These issues aren’t going unnoticed. A recent report found that 28% of UK tech workers were worried that the tech they worked on had negative consequences for society. And UK independent research organisation NESTA has suggested that as the darker sides of digital technology become clearer, “public demand for more accountable, democratic, more human alternatives is growing”.

Traditional solutions are making things worse

Most tech companies, big and small, claim they’re doing the right things to improve their data practices. Yet, it’s often the very fixes they propose that create the biggest problems. These solutions are often borne from the very same ideas, tools and technologies that got us into this mess to begin with. The master’s tools, as Audre Lorde said, will never dismantle the master’s house. Instead, we need a radically different approach from collecting more data about users, or plugging gaps with more education about digital technology.

The reason biases against women or people of colour appear in technology are complex. They’re often attributed to data sets being incomplete and the fact that the technology is often made by people who aren’t from diverse backgrounds. That’s one argument at least – and in a sense, it’s correct. Increasing the diversity of people working in the tech industry is important. Many companies are also collecting more data to make it more representative of the people who use digital technology, in the vain hope of eliminating racist soap dispensers or recruitment bots that exclude women.

Read more: Six ways (and counting) that big data systems are harming society

The problem is that these are social, not digital, problems. Attempting to solve those problems through more data and better algorithms only serves to hide the underlying causes of inequality. Collecting more data doesn’t actually make people better represented, instead it serves to increase how much they are being surveilled by poorly regulated tech companies. The companies become instruments of classification, categorising people into different groups by gender, ethnicity and economic class, until their database looks balanced and complete.

These processes have a limiting effect on personal freedom by eroding privacy and forcing people to self-censor – hiding details of their lives that, for example, potential employers may find and disapprove of. Increasing data collection has disproportionately negative affects on the very groups that the process is supposed to help. Additional data collection leads to the over-monitoring of poorer communities by crime prediction software, or other issues such as minority neighbourhoods paying more for car insurance than white neighbourhoods with the same risk levels.

People are often lectured about how they should be careful with their personal data online. They’re also encouraged to learn how data is collected and used by the technologies that now rule their lives. While there are some merits to helping people better understand digital technologies, this approaches the problem from the wrong direction. As noted by media scholar, Siva Vaidhyanathan, this often does little more than place the burden of making sense of manipulative systems squarely onto the user, who is actually often still left powerless to do anything.

Access to education isn’t universal either. Inequalities in education and access to digital technologies means that it’s often out of reach from just those communities that are most negatively affected by social biases and the digital efforts to address them.

Social problems need social solutions

The tech industry, the media and governments have become obsessed with building ever bigger data sets to iron out social biases. But digital technology alone can never solve social issues. Collecting more data and writing “better” algorithms may seem helpful, but this only creates the illusion of progress.

Turning people’s experiences into data hides the causes of social bias – institutional racism, sexism and classism. Digital and data driven “solutions” distract us from the real issues in society, and away from examining real solutions. These digital tasks, as French philosopher Bernard Stiegler noted, only serve to increase the distance between technological systems and social organisations.

We need to slow down, stop innovating, and examine social biases not within the technology itself, but in society. Should we even build any of these technologies, or collect any of this data at all?

Better representation in the tech industry is vital, but their digital solutions will always fall short. Sociology, ethics, and philosophy have the answers to social inequality in the 21st century.

Doug Specht does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/tech-companies-collect-our-data-every-day-but-even-the-biggest-datasets-cant-solve-social-issues-118133

Spiritual science: how a new perspective on consciousness could help us understand ourselves

Scientists have long been trying to understand human consciousness – the subjective “stuff” of thoughts and sensations inside our minds. There used to be an assumption that consciousness is produced by our brains, and that in order to understand it, we just need to figure out how the brain works.

But this assumption raises questions. Apart from the fact that decades of research and theorising have not shed any significant light on the issue, there are some strange mismatches between consciousness and brain activity.

For example, as the neuroscientist Giulio Tononi has pointed out, brain cells fire away almost as much in some states of unconsciousness (such as deep sleep) as they do in the wakeful conscious state. In some parts of the brain, you can identify neurons associated with conscious experience, while other neurons don’t seem to have any affect on it. There are also cases of a very low level of brain activity (such as during some near death experiences and comas) when consciousness may not only continue, but even become more intense.

If you held a human brain in your hand, you would find it to be a soggy clump of grey matter, a bit like putty, weighing about 1.3kg. How is it possible that this grey soggy stuff can give rise to the richness and depth of your conscious experience? This is is known as the “hard problem” of consciousness.

As a result, many eminent philosophers (such as David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel) and scientists like Christof Koch and Tononi have rejected the idea that consciousness is directly produced by brain processes. They have turned to the alternative view that it is actually a fundamental quality of the universe.

This might sound far fetched, but think about the other “fundamentals” in the universe we take for granted, such as gravity and mass. Consciousness would have the same status as those.

Fundamental explanations

One of the reasons I’m in favour of this approach is that the idea of consciousness as a fundamental quality offers elegant solutions to many problems which are difficult to explain using the the standard scientific model.

First, it can explain the relationship between the brain and consciousness. The brain does not produce consciousness, but acts as a kind of receiver which “picks up” the fundamental consciousness that is all around us, and “transmits” it into our own being.

Because the human brain is so sophisticated and complex, it is able to receive and transmit consciousness in a very intense and intricate way, so that we are (probably) more intensely and expansively conscious than most other animals.

One of the arguments for assuming that the brain produces consciousness is that, if the brain is damaged, consciousness is impaired or altered. However, this doesn’t invalidate the idea that the brain may be a receiver and transmitter of consciousness. A radio doesn’t produce the music that comes through it, but if it is damaged, its ability to transmit the music will be impaired.

The puzzle of altruism can also be explained. If, as many scientists believe, human beings are just genetic machines, only concerned with the survival and propagation of our genes, then altruism is difficult to account for.

It makes sense for us to be altruistic to people who are closely related to us genetically, but not so much to strangers, or to members of different species. In the latter cases, from the conventional point of view, there must be some benefit to us, even if we’re not aware of it.

Perhaps being kind makes us feel good about ourselves, impresses other people, or encourages people to be kind to us in return.

But these explanations seem unable to explain the full range and depth of human altruism. If we are fundamentally selfish, why should we be willing to risk our own lives for the sake of others? Altruism is often instantaneous and spontaneous, particularly in crisis situations, as if it is deeply instinctive.

From a “spiritual” perspective (which sees consciousness as fundamental), though, altruism is easy to explain. It is related to empathy.

Human shared fundamental consciousness means that it is possible for us to sense the suffering of others and to respond with altruistic acts. Since we share fundamental consciousness with other species, too, it is possible for us to feel empathy with – and to behave altruistically towards – them as well.

One of my main areas of interest as a psychologist is in what I call “awakening experiences”, when human awareness intensifies and expands and we experience a sense of oneness with other human beings, nature or the world as a whole.

I see awakening experiences as encounters with fundamental consciousness, in which we sense its presence in everything around us, including our own selves. We experience a sense of oneness because oneness is the fundamental reality of things.

Conventional science also struggles to explain the powerful effect of mental intention and belief on the body (as illustrated by the placebo effect and the pain numbing effects of hypnosis). If the mind is just a byproduct of matter, it should not be able to influence the form and functioning of the body so profoundly.

That would be like saying that images on a computer screen can change the software or hardware inside the computer. But these effects are comprehensible if we presume that mind is more fundamental than the matter of the body, a more subtle and fuller expression of fundamental consciousness. As a result, it has the capacity to alter the functioning of the body.

I believe the idea of consciousness as a fundamental quality of the universe has a great deal of weight. As I point out in my book Spiritual Science, it may be that the best way to understand the world is not through science or spirituality alone – but through an approach which combines them both.

Steve Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/spiritual-science-how-a-new-perspective-on-consciousness-could-help-us-understand-ourselves-116451