Read Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell several years ago, which is now becoming a film direct by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis, of Matrix fame, with big name actors such as the ever sinister Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry & Hugh Grant . It has a narrative structure that I would have thought would make it difficult to film but given the relative success of movies like "Inception" I guess that more complex narrative structures are a genre that have greater appeal now, as compared to David Lynch's (1997)  "Lost Highway" in which you have the film divided in two as two narratives that are distorted mirror images of each other, which has a cult following. Given there is a chronological order to "Cloud Atlas", in which each story breaks off halfway through with its central post apocalyptic future, it should be fine, in fact I kind of wish I had not read the book so I could enjoy the movie more. There are plot twists and scenes that could be great if you don't know about them.

Willfull ignorance of a novel and appreciating its content in other media is something that I "achieved", if by passively not doing something is an "achievement", with the whole "Game of Thrones" thing thats been popular for the last two years, despite having acquired two copies of George RR Martins "A Game of Thrones". I am assured they are good and will read them when I have more spare time in a couple of months.

One thing I found about the novel is its "nature red in tooth and claw" portrayal of human compeditiveness, the grand narratives that provide meaning to the more personal relationships of people and provides validity to exploitative social relations, there is supposed to be hope but I pretty much took in its bleak portrayal of human nature. Perhaps the movie version will be more "hopeful".

The Dominion Road Issue.

Dominion Road is a long road in Auckland, New Zealand that stretches through several suburbs, at the moment (from 2010) there is a project to widen Dominion Road called the "Auckland Transport Dominion Road Upgrade", and of course "Upgrades" are always a progression  of an inferior state to a superior state. Such is the language used.

The issue with widening Dominion Road in Auckland, as described to me, is that this would remove parking spaces, cycle lanes and footpaths for the sake of increasing traffic flow from the suburbs to the city center and back. This  would negatively effect local businesses and disrupt the community that exists on Dominion Road. There is an argument that Dominion Road has historically been culturally significant and is associated with a  middle class community of storeowners and people living in the area. On the top of my head, evidence in support of this would include that it was the subject of a Mutton Birds Song "Dominion Road", but of course proving its cultural significance and the existence of community is complex and political, see figure 1.

Figure 1: A flyer put in local letter boxes to raise local awareness

My exposure to the arguments against the widening of Dominion Road have been interesting discursively, although this is possibly due to the individuals involved, which have featured the argument that many of the new shop owners, who are immigrants, don't have a sense of its history and don't have a sense of community and thus will not adequately oppose this idea. This of course has racial dimensions, New Zealanders are relatively quite sophisticated in their approach to non western cultures but the new form of racism tends to be supported with "common sense" propositions of reality that have value statements that are embedded within a wider set of moral values (Augoustinos et al 1999 : 90). In this case "community" is arguably being used as part of a set of moral values that the "immigrant" shop owners do not have. Associated with this is the argument that the immigrant run  businesses are only being run for the purposes of obtaining New Zealand citizenship. Apparently one of the current Immigration/ Permanent Residence pathways is the Long Term Business Visa (LTBV)/ Entrepreneur visa pathway which requires the business to be run for two years minimum, so the argument is the shop owners are holding out for two years before folding and doing something else for the immigration purposes and thus are not really interested in the community and/ or what is to the benefit of business on Dominion Road.

When I first heard this argument, I found it compelling and asked questions such as how do you know? Part of the answer was, "They have poor English, they are isolated". My next question should have been  "Is it possible that there exists an equally valid community  of people who don't speak English as their first language", but the reality is, in the situation one has the motivation of just getting along and not causing unnecessary fallout.

When reading about the LTBV/ Entrepreneur visa to Permanent Residence pathway it has the criterion that the business has to be "successfully established" and provide benefit to New Zealand, creating employment, increasing foreign exchange earnings or exports, revitalizing existing businesses or introducing new products, services or technology. Not to immediately discount the two year minimum argument on the basis that this criterion was not mentioned, because the gap between a reasonable sounding goverment statement and the reality can be significant but even if they are only trying to meet the two year minimum business period for Permanent Residence purposes, wouldn't some kind of positive involvement in the wider community, in which they could provide some kind of documentation and personal narrative be useful for that Permanent Residence. Could this not be a basis for an interest in this issue if they are presented with the facts?

The community argument is also being used against the  Project Director, who is of Dutch origin, thus it is argued that this person does not have a sense of community on the basis of being foreign and thus does not know what he is destroying. This is a logical fallacy in the sense that it is an "Ad hominem argument" and thus not evaluating the effects of the road widening approach on the community or what the road widening will do to the cultural value of Dominion Road. But these types of arguments are part of the general "common sense" discussion over the issue and possibly are part of a tradition of resistance that exists in the wider New Zealand culture, the kind of language used in Union and Dock worker strikes.. The community argument is embedded in a wider set of moral values and the concept of community is vague enough to be used  in problematic ways. I like the concept of community and it is something I value but I have problems in the way the concept is being used discursively but perhaps the ways it is being used is more in line with the political realities.

Bibliography

Augoustinos, Martha: Keith, Tuffin & Sale, Lucinda. (1999). Race Talk. In the Australian Journal of Psychology. Volume 51. No 2. Pages 90 -97.

Utterly inadequate Notes on the Social & Cultural construction of emotion

Emotion is an important aspect of human motivation, there are biological, cognitive and social & cultural construction aspects. Arguably most understandings of the topic of emotion are culturally bound and there are cultural and personal processes to the construction of emotion but on the basis of facial masculature there are at least 5 biological dimensions of emotion and these can compose other subordinate emotions that can further be interpreted in the context of circumstance, other or self cause, wether they are understood as positive and negative (good or bad value) and the degree of potential of control, and this is not going into discursive processes. So big topic, unlikely to be adequately covered here, but here we go. 

On the basis of facial musculature there are a minimum of 5 basic families of emotion, this is linked to a facial feedback hypothesis, that when transformed into conscious awareness, is a major part of the personal experience of emotion (Reeve 2009 : 339). This is arguably the 5 basic families of emotion that are universal to the human experience and are five dimensions without social & cultural construction.

          Figure : Eight Major facial muscles involved in the expression of emotion
                                                                                                 (From Reeve 2009 : 339)

There are universal dimensions of emotion that have specific meanings in social interaction and a cultural context. This tends to be evident in the emotional repertoire of people, for example in cultures heavily influenced by American culture "Love" is constructed to mean a form of happiness while in Chinese culture "Love" is constructed as a form of sadness, the meaning of love to people of these two different cultures is different (Reeve 2009 : 358). There are economic and cultural explanations for this, love as meant in the American meaning as "Romantic love" and relationships are formed in this context, irrespective of the reality, this is how it will be interpreted and is constructed in major forms of media. In traditional chinese culture "Romantic love" has the potential to break down respect and deference that is shown in the traditional relationships composing community. Situations define what emotions are most appropriate and expected, thus people tend to select a setting and construct a particular emotional experience for themselves, aspects of situation include interpersonal status and are significant in creating, maintaining and dissolving interpersonal relationships.

                                      Figure : Cluster Analysis of Basic Emotion Families
                                                                                      (From Reeve 2009 : 357)

Emotional contagion is the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures and movements with those of another person, thus converging emotionally.

Aspects of this topic include emotion knowledge, expression displays, expression management and emotion control.

Emotion management involves internalizing strategies for emotion control, can include

• Transforming the meaning of the situation
• Use of the situation, such as projection or blame
• Resolve inconsistencies through humour
• Avoid contact 

Each situation, or communication event, putting this within a discursive approach will have an emotional component that may involve emotion management and an internalized strategy.

Bibliography

Reeve, Johnmarshall. (2009) . Understanding Motivation and Emotion. (5th Edition). Published by John Wiley & Sons. Pages 357-363.

Neurotransmitter circuits

Neurotransmitters act as chemical messengers in the synapse between neurons, there exist neurotransmitter pathways that are clusters of neurons and projections that communicate using a particular neurotransmitter. Four motivationally relevant neurotransmitters are

1.  Dopamine, generates good feelings of reward
2.  Serotonin which influences mood and emotion, serotonin deficiency is associated with depression.
3. Norepinephrine which regulates  arousal and alertness
4. Endorphin which inhibits pain, anxiety and fear by generating positive affect.

For Dopamine the ventral tegmental area is associated with the "want" to do one course of action over another, generally with biologically significant  events. The ventral tegmental area releases dopamine into other brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex and the pattern of release is predictable in proportion to the events expected outcome and actual outcome (hippocampus). Dopamine release is greatest when rewarding events occurs in ways that are not expected, it facilitates the learning of an events motivational significance.

Hormones  such as cortisol are released in response to stress via the hypothalamus- pituary-andrenocortical physiological pathway due to social-evaluative threats.
Testosterone is associated with high sexual motivation.

Oxytocin is a hormone produced by the hypothalamus and is colloquially known as a bonding hormone,"tend and befriend" stress response that enhances  reponses associated with counsel, support and nurturance (Reeve 2009 : 67) . This makes it sound like a wonder molecule for prosocial behaviour, of course the reality is more complex.

Amusingly,  IO9 which occasionally tries to be funny like Cracked.com with "lists" did one on why oxytocin is such a great molecule  but also features another more balanced article. The hype surrounding oxytocin  began with a study by Kosfield & Heinrichs (2005) in which participants played games of trust while sniffing Oxytocin. In fact its influence is dependent greatly on the orientations of the individual and is one of many interactions.

Bibliography

Kosfeld, Michael: Heinrichs, Markus: Zak, Paul J: Fishchbacker, Urs & Fehr, Ernst. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. In the International Journal of Nature. (June 2005). Pages 673- 676.

Reeve, Johnmarshall. (2009) . Understanding Motivation and Emotion. (5th Edition). Published by John Wiley & Sons. Pages 62- 71.

Sketch while drinking coffee on Symonds Street.

Bought The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Steven Baxter, (2012) published by Doubleday.






















In it someone publishes schematics of a simple device, consisting of three wires, a switch and is powered by a potato that facilitates people "stepping" (or sliding aka the TV series) into alternate realities, with a directional component that is purely abstract, east & west. The novel notes that "Americans tend to step west" (Go west young man) and the "Chinese step east", a inference on the way people make choices. They find the alternate realities do not feature human population and so the original earth becomes depopulated as people immigrate and natural resources are in abundance which causes a drop in the value of resources in the original earth.

There is a lot of subtle humour, some of the characters and ideas are comparable to characters and ideas in Pratchett's Disk World series but they are interpreted in a science fiction context. The hard science, such as explanation of the other "long earths" is only lightly touched upon but there is a sense of statistical probabilities in the idea of "belts" of long earth, which have ecological and evolutionary differences, changes in flora & fauna, this is to its credit as the more interesting social and cultural implications of the technology is more thought out and has implications to situations of the characters and humanity in general. Some of the worlds are "Jokers" that have had some major ecological catastrophe, such as a massive asteroid impact, changes in geological formations which have massive weather effects and are not safe for human colonization.

Some of the characters are able to step without the device, in the course of the book it indicates a particular percentage of humanity has this ability and  explores the implications of being able to step in an evolutionary context. The development of the ideas are like a good H.G. Wells novel with the advantage of the more modern world view. I initially approached this novel as a Terry Pratchett fan but looking into Stephen Baxters novels there are a lot of big idea science fiction titles that I will check out. Checking Baxter out I notice he wrote "Time Ships" which is a  continuation of H.G. Well's novel the "Time Machine" which I read when I was in high school and it had a lot of ideas comparable to this novel, so my comparison is not just incidental.

Playing Civilization 5 Gods & Kings while sick for past 3 days.

This is before the technology victory. While playing the game to make sense of it, it becomes a narrative. I suspect this is common to many who like this series.

We are the Purple, "Romans" with a Zoroastrian religion, who eventually expanded to control the Northern American continent, thanks to the success of our Legions and had a colony in South America around 1000 AD, exploring the world in caravels. 

Around 1300 AD we were in a trade/ defense treaty with Light Green, who occupied around the Arabian Peninusla and India. The White who occupied Europe invaded Light Green around 1400AD and took their capital city, we had no military presence in the area and could do nothing. After a series of skirmish wars with the Blue, they invaded but they could not defeat our Legions and invading them was problematic, no borders changed and we were happy with peace with our eastern brothers (Blue).

                                    (Civilization V : Gods & Kings 1090 AD)
                                           
With the memory of our Light Green brothers, around 1400 AD we crossed the sea with the best units of the day Musketmen with cannons protected by Caravels and slowly reduced Whites cities and incorporated them as puppet states. We eventually made it to the Light Green capital city and liberated them around 1600AD. There were civilian and infrastructure issues in trying to control populations so far from our central government that we relied on puppets states and decided to cede some of the conquered territories to the Light Green to administer.

Given the success of our overseas military expeditions it was deemed that incorporating African territories into our sphere of control was a realistic objective, so we invaded the African civilization which had a number of significant resources and historical achievements, this was done with our best and newest units of the time, World War One Infantry. This objective was achieved with a diplomatic cost. Instead of being viewed as "protectors against villans" by most world civilizations we regrettably acquired a reputation for being blood thirsty, this effected our ability to trade with them but at least they seemed scared.

The Light Green became our allies with trade and defence pacts but were threatened by the Yellow who occupied Central European/ Asian area. It became neccessary to support militarily the Light Green guys and maintain a presence in the area for stability, by this time our technology was early 1900 with Gatling guns, Artillery and World War One infantry while the general technology level of the world was late Medieval/ early Renaissance.

The pacification of the Yellow was problematic, they had muskets and cannon against our World War One Infantry and Artillery but overtime was acheived, we took one of their minor cities to use as a Military  Base to maintain a permanent presence in the region and ceded most of the conquered territories to Light Green. We also transferred 2 World War One Units to Light Green to support their military operations, this aid eventually became a tank brigade and destroyer as well.

                                   (Civilization V : Gods & Kings 2008 AD)

By the end of the game the general world technology level was late industrial, the major power blocks were Dark Green in Asia and India, Light Green in Central Asia and Arabia with Purple controlling North America and Southern America with Colonies in Australia, Africa and puppet states in Europe. We had Atlantic and Indian fleets with aircraft carrier capabilities and troops along the Light Green/ Dark Green Border ready to protect Light Green. Despite a diplomatic failure with Dark Green, who sadly characterised Purple as blood thirsty aggressors, there was no available cause for military operations against Dark Green, despite growing tension between Light Green and Dark Green. The Blue had become an Industrial society in their isthmus but despite diplomatic aid were insular and had not engaged in any military operations against purple for over 1000 years. If we could have formed a defense pact with them we would have but they were allied with Dark Green. The dominant religion amongst the Purple populations was Zoroastrianism which had beliefs that emphasized pilgrimage, a religious community and defender of the faith

I sort of imagine the society to be similar to the one portrayed in the book "Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, at least the "Roman" influenced technologically advanced society centered around North America. Well finished that, that was three days..

Localised areas of the Central Nervous System with function.

                                                                                                  (Reeve 2009 :47 CNS)

The current paradigm concerning motivation holds that motivation interpretations of human behaviour can be made at multiple levels, that include local neurological, cognitive, cognitive-social, cultural processes and from an evolutionary perspective.

On the basis of neurological activity in brain structures that are monitored during motivational or emotional experience and with associated cognition an arguable classification of brain activity has been mde in terms of Approach, Avoidance and Arousal orientations.

These orientations do fit in with drive theories and ultimately an evolutionary origin but proximately describe 3 observable clusters of neurological activity, the Approach orientation can be conceptualised as describing "Interest, engagement and affirmation", the  Avoidance orientation describes "To avoid, fear, unpleasant, inhibition" and the Arousal orientation is to do with waking and attention, and is associated with the reticular formation.

The reticular formation is significantly associated with waking, it is part of the spinal cord and has ascending nerves into the cortex and descending nerves from the cortex that regulate muscle tonus.

Approach-Orientated Structures

• Hypothalamus associated with pleasureable feelings to do with feeding, drinking and mating.
• Medial forebrain bundle associated with pleasure and reinforcement.
• Orbitfrontal cortex associated with the incentive value of events and choice making
• Septal area associated with sociability and sexuality
• Nucelus accumbens associated with the experience of reward (dopamine) and “liking things”.
• Anterior cingulate cortex associated with mood, volition and making choices.
• Cerebral cortex (frontal lobes) associated with planning, goal setting and the formulation of intentions
• Left prefrontal cerebral cortex associated with approach motivational and emotional tendencies
• Medial prefrontal cerebral cortex associated with learning response-outcome contingenceis that underlie perceived control beliefs and mastery motivation

Avoidance Orientated Structures

• Right prefrontal cerebral cortex associated withdraw motivational and emotional tendencies
• Amygdala associated with the detection and responding to threat and danger
• Hippocampous associated with behavioural inhibition system during unexpected events

Arousal Orientated Structures.

• Reticular formation associated with arousal
  

Structures indicated in the diagram

The Hypothalamus

The hypothalamus controls the sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic nervous system and the pituary gland, which means it is involved in the regulaton of the endocrine system, it regulates the anterior pituary gland through releasing hormones and secretes AVP and oxytocin stored in the posterior pituary gland.

The pituary gland regulates the endocrine system and plasma osmolality (Gaw et al 2003 : 73). The anterior pituary gland produces Adrenocorticotropic hormone, Follicle Stimulating hormone,  Growth Hormone, Lutenizing Hormone and Thyroid Stimulating Hormone which act on other tissues and are involved in feedback cycles. Adrenocorticotropic hormone is significant in this discussion because it acts on the Adrenal cortex to regulate cortisol and stimulates the production of adrenaline precursors. The sympathetic systemic via spanchnic nerves to the adrenal medulla stimulates the release of adrenaline a non selective agonist on andrenogenic receptors.

 The Hypothalamus produces arginine vasopressin and oxytocin which is passed along axonal nerve fibers to the pituary stalk of the posterior pituary gland and are stored as granules. Secretion of arginine vasopressin regulates plasma osmolality, is released with severe blood volume depletion via cardiac baroreceptors and in situations of stress and nausea. Oxytocin is released in response to suckling and uterine contraction (Gaw et al 2003 : 76).

Therefore the Hypothalamus's role in approach responses appears to be arousal through the sympathetic nervous system and relaxation throught the parasympthatic nervous system and regulation through endocrine control.

Medial Forebrain Bundle

The medial forebrain bundle is a collection of pathway like fibers that connects the hypothalamus to other limbic structures, including the septal area, mammillary bodies and the ventral tegmental area. It is described as being heavily involved in reinforcement, a "pleasure center", in humans it seems to be associated with positive feelings.

Orbitofrontal Cortex

This area is associated with processing incentive related information, to decide what is desirable or not and the comparison of alternatives

Amygdala

The Amygdala is a collection of interconnected nuclei associated with emotion and motivation, such as fear, anger and anxiety and is involved in the perception of other peoples  emotions, reading facial expressions and awareness of our own moods (positive or negative affect different from emotions). It is involved in the role of learning new emotional associations, such as learning to feel fear in situations that potentially involve harm. It sends projections to many areas of the brain, significantly in the direction of away from the Amygdala to other regions and it has been hypothesized that this is why emotion tends to overpower cognition, significantly negative emotions.

Septo-Hippocampal Circuit

The septo-hippocampal circuit involves  the integrated action of several limbic structures including the septal area, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, fornix, thalamus, hypothalamus and mammillary bodies. It includes cereberal cortex interconnections thus a significant amount of cognitive activity from memory and imagination are input into the circuit, thus the septo-hippocampal circuit forecasts emotion with upcoming events, pleasure and anxiety.

The nucleus accumbens  is involved in deriving pleasure from naturally reoccuring reinforcement, such as good food and social acceptance, relational needs and also addictive drugs. It is involved in liking certain types of food.

The hippocampus constantly compares  incoming sensory information with expected events from memory, if everything happens as expected (things are ok),  then it does not generate signals from the septo-hippocampal circuit to produce anxiety. When the unexpected does not occur the septo-hippocampal ciruit sends out signals to produce an anxious high arousal state. Anti-anxiety drugs such as alcohol and barbiturates quieten the  septo-hippocampal effect. Dissapointment, failure and punishment, because they involve the generation of unexpected events or at least counterfactual thinking, generate anxiety ridden behavioral inhibition (things are not ok). Coping attempts to deal with environmental stressors, when successful, generate the release of endorphins, which shuts down the septo-hippocampal circuit, generating anxiety releif and positive counter feelings.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex

The anterior cingulate cortex is associated with the processes of day to day mood control (positive & negative affect), volition and making choices. Sadness and depression  is associated with decreased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, mental activity and choice making is associated with an increased blood flow.

Reticular Formation

The reticular formation is involved in arousal and the process of awakening the brains motivational and emotional engagement. The antomy of this area of the upper spinal cord, which goes into the medulla and pons, consists of the ascending reticular activating system, which has nerves in the brain to arouse the cortex and the descending reticular formation to regulate muscle tonus. Thus it is involved in regulating peoples behaviour when asleep. It is involved in pain modulation and damage to the reticular formation can induce permanent coma.

The Prefrontal Cortex

At the very least,the cerebral cortex has left right distinctions and a medial, temporal and occiptal distinctions. The frontal cortex is associated with peoples conscious goals, that are routinely opposing, involve multiple factors and can be high order, such as those described in McClellands Needs theory or Murrays Psychogenic Needs. Thoughts that stimulate the right prefrontal cortex generate negative and avoidance -orientated feelings, whereas thoughts that stimulate the left prefrontal cortex generate positive and approach-oriented feelings. Basic personality differences exist between people as some people have especially sensitive right prefrontal lobes that tend to make them vulnerable to negative emotionality, while others have especially sensitive left prefrontal lobes that leave them vulnerable to positive emotionality.

Positive emotionality is not necessarily the advantage it might seem, in social psychology being in a good mood is associated with an increased willingness to help others, which means they are more susceptible to social influence. People in a good mood are more likely to use heuristic thinking and increased reliance on general knowledge with availablility heuristics (Baron, Byrne & Branscombe 2006 : 71).

This leaves me with questions on the significance of handidness and the significance of language and spatial awareness left-right hemispherical orientation of the cerebral cortex. I will edit this as find answers, this is heavily from Reeve 2009.


References

Baron, RA: Byrne R. & Branscombe, N.R. (2006). Social cognition, Chapter 2 in Social psychology, (11th Edition). Published by Boston: Pearson. Page 71.

Gaw, Allan : Cowan, Robert: O'Reilly, Denis; Stewart, Michael & Shepherd, James. (2003). Clinical Biochemistry. (2nd Edition). Published by Churchill & Livingstone. Pages 73 to 94.

Reeve, Johnmarshall. (2009). Understanding Motivation and Emotion. Published by John Wiley & Sons. Pages 47- 74.