Eclectic Amateur

[Hat Tip: Clayton Cramer]

Current scientific research is showing that first-person shooter games do generate specific alterations of the brain’s activity:

“This is not just a game,” German scientist Klaus Mathiak concludes in a new study of the brains of video game players.

The University of Tubingen neuroscientist analysed the brains of men aged 18 to 26 who are avid players of “first-person shooter” games. These are the most popular game category for young men: The players assumes the role of a character in a violent world, seeing his surroundings through that character’s eyes, and blasting away at all the bad guys who try to kill him.
…

As each player entered a dangerous parts of the game, his brain “lit up” with activity in a brain area associated with aggression, called the dorsal portion of the anterior cingulate cortex.

This high level of activity shows the players has a feeling of reality and “being there,” says a summary of the research by the University of Southern California, which worked with the German team.

But as the fighting actually began, there was a drop in activity in another part of the brain — the amygdala.

This is an emotion centre, where a person feels empathy with others, among other things.

Mr. Mathiak’s conclusion: It’s possible that reinforcing the circuits the brain uses to respond to a crisis with aggression, even violence, may prime the brain to act the same way in real life. [emphasis mine] After all, to the brain the video game itself seems to be real.

As well, the brain becomes accustomed to switching off — or at least dulling — feelings of empathy for others.

Past studies of young men who love these games have found higher levels of aggression, but haven’t come up with a direct cause-and-effect explanation for it.

I wrote about this on Slashdot back in 1999:

I suppose it’s too much to ask Jon Katz and the /. readership to actually consider the idea that Doom, Quake, etc. might in reality desensitize people to violence and gore, and be dangerous to the psyche of folks who are already too close to the edge?

Boneheaded, fascistic responses by school administrators (probably lawyer-driven) do not exonorate anything. It’s not an either-or, zero-sum equation — it’s quite possible that school is hell, administrators are fascists and Doom and Quake help set those kids at Columbine off.

I fully expect to hear “But I play Quake, and so to my friends, and we’re OK.” That may be true. But that makes about as much sense as arguing that alcoholism must not exist because you yourself are a moderate drinker.

Oh, well. Better to moan about clueless parents and administrators, get a thrill from reliving one’s own high-school angst, and feel noble by validating the the angst of current high-schoolers, than to actually reflect on one’s own life to see if anything should change on acount of this tragedy.

Do I want to see Internet censorship and banning of shooter games? No. But exactly what to you Doom/Quake players think you’re accomplishing by burning in those particular neural pathways?

File under “science gets around to confirming common sense.”

God have mercy.

From Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationshiop with God by Dallas Willard (p. 106-107):

Barbara Nicolosi has a wonderful bit of pre-gallows humor, “Songs for the Post-Modern Scaffold?”:

And then, as we start to sing the refrain again, the persecutors will shoot us all down on the spot for our horrible music. And this will wreak havoc with our beatification processes, because it won’t be clear if we died for Jesus, or to spare our persecutors having to listen to our dreadful music.

Read it all.

Finally!

After far too long, and far too many “we should really do something with the families together sometime”s, we actually managed to meet in the real world with Dale and Heather Price and clan.

Plan: meet at the Detroit Zoo. Wander around. Let kids have fun. Try to squeeze in some grownup conversation while we’re at it. Let those of the respective clans who aren’t compulsive bloggers get (re-)acquainted. 🙂

Dale’s version of the outing is here.

I think I’m going to frame the comment about our children being “perfectly well behaved” and pull it out on those days when we need it. As to specific points made:

1) It’s big. I re-learn this every visit. With toddlers, it turns into an exercise in cat-herding.

You know, we did suggest Toledo as a more toddler-friendly destination, but noooo …

(2) Madeleine likes giraffes most of all. Giraffes are waaaaaaaaay toward the back of the zoo. See Toddlers, Tired, supra.

It’s not so much the walk to the back of the zoo as the return trip.

(3) Dale likes peacocks. He’d very much like to catch one. Peacocks do not enjoy being chased by toddlers.

“Dale, watch out! He’s bigger than you!” “And better armed, too!”

(4) Rachel has formed no firm opinion as to a favorite animal as of yet.

Why would Rachel have formed such an opinion? She was having too much fun having new people (big and little) gawking over her and making a fuss.

(5) If jacuzzi jets existed in the wild, seals would never move. True story–we saw a seal in the Arctic Ring of Life exhibit (it’s very cool–you walk under water and can see the critters through plexiglass) swimming with its head two feet in front of the water circulator. Watching its face blubber flap in the current was one of the highlights of the day.

Agreed. Seal was Way Cool™. Maybe that was its attempt at Botox?

(6) Gorillas are cooler than chimps. The latter had stagefright and/or narcolepsy. The silverbacks were ready for primetime. One of them strode up to the viewing window, extended its massive arms to either side of the glass frame, and looked straight in at us. It then purposefully gamboled off, as if to say, “That’ll give ’em a thrill.”

Um … that weren’t no silverback. That was one of the juveniles. The silverback is about twice that size. The keeper told me that one was about 8 or nine years old, and so the equivalent of a teenager.

(7) I’m getting older. I was in bed by 9:30.

Heh.

Thursday night I was OK, but spent Friday and Saturday struggling with The Headache That Wouldn’t Die™ and a complete lack of energy. Wondered if I was getting sick or if I was finally succumbing to allergies. It even crossed my addled mind that this almost felt as bad as that time I had to drastically reduce my caffeine intake all at once and suffered withdrawal.

Sunday morning, I discovered that I had made a terrible stocking error in the kitchen and filled the regular tea backet with decaf.

Did I mention that Nancy was out of town for a homeschooling convention this whole time?

Amazingly, the house did not burn down, and the trains (i.e., sports practices, etc.) even sort of ran on time during Management’s absence. And I’m now back on my regular maintanance dose, thankyouverymuch.

Back to the zoo trip: blog readers may not believe this, but when the Eclectic One™ and the Dyspeptic One™ were together, there was hardly any mention of regular blog topics like liturgical and theological goofiness in our respective churches. In fact, I think the only blog topic we covered was my new-found fannishness for S. M. Stirling, which is entirely his fault. And Dale just had to mention that the lastest sample chapter of The Protector’s War was online, the b******.

Afterward, it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God,
but they live in great strife due to ignorance,
and they call such great evils peace.

For whether they kill children in their initiations, or celebrate secret mysteries,
or hold frenzied revels with strange customs,

they no longer keep either their lives or their marriages pure,
but they either treacherously kill one another, or grieve one another by adultery,

and all is a raging riot of blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury,
confusion over what is good, forgetfulness of favors,
pollution of souls, sex perversion,
disorder in marriage, adultery, and debauchery.

For the worship of idols not to be named
is the beginning and cause and end of every evil.

For their worshippers either rave in exultation, or prophesy lies,
or live unrighteously, or readily commit perjury;

for because they trust in lifeless idols
they swear wicked oaths and expect to suffer no harm.

But just penalties will overtake them on two counts;
because they thought wickedly of God in devoting themselves to idols,
and because in deceit they swore unrighteously in contempt for holiness.

— Wisdom 14:22-30

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

Not something one hears much about as an Episcopalian these days … I think the highest ethic that can be eeked out is

• Be “respectful” (be nice about using one another for pleasure)
• Be “responsible” (condoms and contraceptives)
• And above all, DON’T BE “JUDGEMENTAL”!!!! (meaning, thinking that there are moral standards for sex beyond the previous two)

[Apolgies to the brave exceptions fighting the good fight for sexual sanity within the ECUSA these days …]

Dawn Eden has a very nice meditation on the meaning of chastity,
The Innocence Mission.

Also:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Appetite for Destruction
Reform School, Why I Oughta, Meals on Heels

[This was going to be part of a longer post, where I quoted Dawn more extensively to show how excellently witty and insightful she is, and tried to put some insight of my own into it. Sadly, it has languished in my ‘Drafts’ folder for far too long. So, this is just going to be a plug for Dawn’s blog with some older links. Go, read — she does good work.]

“No one expects the Unitarian Inquisition!”

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Jackhammer of Quiet Reflection.

Get yours.

Of course, there’s already a faction, the Popular People’s Front First Reformed Unitarian Jihad Name generator, according to which:

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother/Sister Quarterstaff of Contemplation.

What’s yours?

I really like “Brother Jackhammer of Quiet Reflection” …

Wouldn’t it just be simpler and cheaper to give a tenth of my crops to the Church and a third to the Lord of the manor?

(OK, so the taxes and obligations on medieval serfs weren’t quite that simple …)

… asks Fr. Sibley.

My response:

Don’t discount the value of apologetics. It will never be sufficient apart from a lived life of love in Christ, but it can be a powerful tool.

Take it from someone who is coming from the “other side” — as a “fundamentalist” Protestant, I was raised (a) with a profound ignorance of Church history, and (b) impressed with the meme that “Catholicism is un-Biblical”.

So, the viewpoint is that where Protestants differ from each other, it is because we interpret the Bible differently. Where Protestants differ from Catholics, it is because we follow the Bible and they do not. :-/

It can be a worldview-shaking thing, then, when one finally encounters the (too-rare) Catholic who knows, not just the content of the Church’s teaching, but why the Church teaches what she does, and can match with “chapter and verse” (Matthew 16:18! Isaiah 22:15-24! 2 Thess. 3:6!). It’s like meeting a unicorn or gryphon or faerie — such creatures are not supposed to exist!

Writers like Mark Shea, Steve Ray, and Scott Hahn do a tremendous service here — by knowing the “chapter and verse” and being able to translate Catholic teaching into “evangelical-ese” so that it is comprehensible.

And yes, you will find that it is more often than not water off a duck’s back. And even with those who have “ears to hear”, it is likely to be a slow process — I’ve been “apologized” to for lo, these ten to fifteen years now, and I still, though I’ve moved much closer theologically and philosophically to Rome, have not swum the Tiber.

Yet.

Last fall, I found that some words from Wendell Berry expressed how I felt about the murder of children at Beslan.

Today, The Morning’s News is the completion of the murder of Terri Schiavo, and the words are fresh again:

...

And I am sickened by complicity in my race.

To kill in hot savagery like a beast

is understandable.  It is forgivable and curable.

But to kill by design, deliberately, without wrath,

that is the sullen labor that perfects Hell.

...

The morning's news drives sleep out of the head

at night.  Uselessness and horror hold the eyes

open to the dark.  Weary, we lie awake

in the agony of the old giving birth to the new

without assurance that the new will be better.

I look at my son, whose eyes are like a young god's,

they are so open to the world.

I look at my sloping fields now turning

green with the young grass of April.  What must I do

to go free?  I think I must put on

a deathlier knowledge, and prepare to die

rather than enter into the design of man's hate...

— Wendell Berry, The Morning’s News, from Farming: A Handbook

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
God have mercy.