Internet-Pornography:

There is a lot discussion if pornography addiction is a real addiction or a pseudo-addiction. But there are more interesting questions: (A) does internet-pornography have any influence on the mating patterns of Western societies? ... and if it does: (B) how strong is that influence?

Speculation about the effects of pornography consumption: (o) a weakening of the urge for romantic attachment + a stregthening of the urge for sexual pleasure;  (o) a weakening of long-term mating strategies + a strengthening of short-term mating strategies / promiscuous tendencies; etc.

[Mating patterns are of great interest, because from a biological point of view the future of societies is primarily determined by their mating patterns.]

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-> Mangan's: Marriage rate declining due to porn; Pornography;

"Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose."

Immanuel Kant

Invention versus Discovery:

"Scientific truth is universal, because it is only discovered by the human brain and not made by it, as art is."

Konrad Lorenz

"Invention is quite different from discovery. When we say that someone discovered a thing, we mean that it already existed beforehand: it was just not well-known - for example, America before Columbus. But when someone invents a thing - gunpowder, for example - that thing was not known at all before the artist who made it."

Immanuel Kant

Humans & Language:

Humans (A) perceive the world through verbal glasses; and (B) co-evolved with those glasses.

Genetic Distance and Similarity:

There is a much bigger genetic distance between dogs and humans than between humans and other primates, but humans and dogs are certainly a better match than humans and many primates. Probably genetic distance alone is only a very rough estimate for mental similarity.

Mental Exercises

(A) think about something 

(B) try to find out if your thoughts match reality / try to test your thoughts

(A) observe something (or remember an observation)

(B) try to interpret / to understand the observed phenomenon

“Mental laziness” leads to a neglect of step (B). A mental lazy person doesn't think much about the phenomena he/she sees and does not care much if his/her thoughts are closely related to reality or not.

Why is thinking necessary?

Thinking allows us to spot order (rules, laws, principles, relationships, patterns, redundancies, ...), to spot regularities and irregularities in our external and internal environment.

What does an IQ-test measure?

How effectively someone processes information. How fast and clear someone thinks (in comparison to others). Zu Deutsch: die Denkbegabung einer bestimmten Testperson.

On Logic In General - Arthur Schopenhauer:

"It seems to me that the doctrine of the laws of thought might be simplified if we were only to set up two, the law of excluded middle and that of sufficient reason. The former thus: >Every predicate can either be affirmed or denied of every subject.< Here it is already contained in the >either, or< that both cannot occur at once, and consequently just what is expressed by the laws of identity and contradiction. Thus these would be added as corollaries of that principle which really says that every two concept-spheres must be thought either as united or as separated, but never as both at once; and therefore, even although words are brought together which express the latter, these words assert a process of thought which can not be carried out. The consciousness of this infeasibility is the feeling of contradiction. The second law of thought, the principle of sufficient reason, would affirm that the above attributing or denying must be determined by some thing different from the judgment itself, which may be a (pure or empirical) perception, or merely another judgment. This other and different thing is then called the ground or reason of the judgment. So far as a judgment satisfies the first law of thought, it is thinkable; so far as it satisfies the second, it is true[.]"

"Mir dünkt, daß man die Lehre von den Denkgesetzen dadurch vereinfachen könnte, daß man deren nur zwei aufstellte, nämlich das vom ausgeschlossenen Dritten und das vom zureichenden Grunde. Ersteres so: »jedem Subjekt ist jegliches Prädikat entweder beizulegen oder abzusprechen.« Hier liegt im Entweder-Oder schon, daß nicht Beides zugleich geschehen darf, folglich eben Das, was die Gesetze der Identität und des Widerspruchs besagen: diese würden also als Korollarien jenes Satzes hinzukommen, welcher eigentlich besagt, daß jegliche zwei Begriffssphären entweder als vereint, oder als getrennt zu denken sind, nie aber als Beides zugleich; mithin daß, wo Worte zusammengefügt sind, welche Letzteres dennoch ausdrücken, diese Worte einen Denkproceß angeben, der unausführbar ist: das Innewerden dieser Unausführbarkeit ist das Gefühl des Widerspruchs. – Das zweite Denkgesetz, der Satz vom Grunde, würde besagen, daß obiges Beilegen oder Absprechen durch etwas vom Urtheil selbst Verschiedenes bestimmt seyn muß, welches eine (reine oder empirische) Anschauung, oder aber bloß ein anderes Urtheil seyn kann: dieses Andere und Verschiedene heißt alsdann der Grund des Urtheils. Sofern ein Urtheil dem ersten Denkgesetze genügt, ist es denkbar; sofern es dem zweiten genügt, ist es wahr[.]"

"Folk Art" versus ...

According to Christian Lehmann in its origins the main function of singing/music was the emotional bonding (and behavioral synchronization, respectively) of mother and infant, of families, and of groups. Probably aesthetic preferences vary widely across the world. So it sounds unreasonable to suggest that an art (or high culture) could be created that truly bonds whole humanity.

Mating Preferences & Racism:

Geoffrey Miller:

>Yeah. It’s a time to experiment, so don’t have tunnel vision about, “Oh, I have to date just the college girls and not the secretaries.” Don’t have tunnel vision about age. You’re allowed to date grad students if they’re into you. And don’t have tunnel vision about ethnicity, either. I had the same thing in college. Like, there were all these Jewish girls who I got along with really well. I’m not Jewish, but the Jewish guys at Columbia were all chasing the blonde Midwestern girls who all seemed new and exciting to them, leaving the Jewish girls neglected. The Jewish girls were really into guys who were smart, and I was kind of smart, and that just worked. If I had preconceptions, like, “Well, I’m kind of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Midwesterner and I should stick to my people,” that would’ve been just stupid. So, broaden your horizons.<

Tucker Max:

>Not only is it pretty racist, which is ridiculous to begin with, but listen. ...<

[If it is racist to have a mating preference for one's own ethny, it's also sexist to have a mating preference for the other gender. That's nonsense. If you look at the literature about optimal outbreeding you will see that both preferences are adaptive.]

[The people from the Near East may have developed something like an "instinct" for the avoidance of excessive outbreeding. (Which could explain why cousin marriages are so wide spread in the Near East.) In historical times their societies were much more diverse than northwestern European societies. So there were stronger selection pressures against outbreeding tendencies. In comparison, Northwestern Europeans only show a weak tendency to avoid excessive outbreeding, because in historical times those societies were relatively homogeneous. Perhaps from a biological point of view extreme/excessive outbreeding makes as much sense as the marriage of siblings. But while the opportunity for the latter was abundant throughout human history, the opportunity for the former was not.]