Comment by arpa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arpa | Hacker News Reader

Wait, how exactly perception of "personal space" is a response; secondly, please drop the pretense that "fear is bad, mkay". It is perfectly fine to feel fear when a red hot poker enters your personal space (i.e. it can harm you). There's nothing to be fixed here, system self-preservation subroutines work just fine, thank you.

Oh, and, edit, just because amygdala is partial to fear responses, it doesn't make all the actions that it takes part in "fear". It controls a lot of other functions, such as pleasure, sexual behavior, aggression, memory consolidation; not to mention that a lot of information passes through it both into the brain and out of it. Please, age of phrenology is over. It's not coming back. Human brain and human behavior is not "black and white" anymore, it's never going to be. It's a complex system of neuron junctions and pathways some of which are more specialized than others, sure, but, to reiterate, the incredible malleability and the sheer number of connections in human brain make neuroscientists even doubt the necessity of well established "centers" such as Broca's area. God. Damn. It.

> Oh, and, edit, just because amygdala is partial to fear responses, it doesn't make all the actions that it takes part in "fear".

Yeah; this article (or at least the headline) seems to be engaging in the reverse inference fallacy [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_magnetic_resonance_...

>Human brain and human behavior is not "black and white" anymore, it's never going to be. It's a complex system of neuron junctions

Aren't those neurons fundamentally firing on and off, like that of a binary system? On and off is analogous to "black and white"

Oh no! Not at all. They modulate amplitude, frequency, phase. They have recharge times and duty cycles and limits and hysteresis. Each neuron is like some FM radio station. Not remotely like binary.

Ah, forgive my ignorance. But when you speak of amplitude and frequency, you are referring to wave-like phenomenon correct? Are not waves binary, or "black and white" in the sense that they go up and down and that the these two dualities are relative and dependent on each other for their definition?

They aren't binary. They don't have two values, they have a multitude of values (theoretically infinite if it's truly continuous and not stepped between the minimum and maximum).

If neurons only responded to each other at the min and max value (or a couple thresholds/ranges rather than strictly matching values), then it could be seen as binary. But they respond differently along the range of their inputs to produce a range of outputs, so not binary.

Their outputs may also differ over time when given the 'same input'.

Right! They are stateful and can even have variable gain/time constants etc.

Sure, just like your computer monitor is only ever solid black or solid white because the picture is made of binary bits.

My question was in regards to fundamental basis and not the abstractions built on top of that basis.

Someone took the article personally.

I like my personal space, and, well, since the article violated my perceived personal belief space, of course, flight-or-fight response was triggered; you can see the outcome pretty clear I suppose. It was not "fear".

The article only talks about physical space

Right you are! But think about it - we have personal space in our minds as well. It's where beliefs are stored. Now we don't want them to get hurt, so we protect them. This is not that different from physical personal space.

I mean. If you can't substantiate that claim with anything more than "think about it," I'm not sure how to answer.

I get that "space spaces" and "personal space" both have the word "space" in it. But if we're discussing scientific studies, it's not constructive to compare the two. Unless you have something really substantial (and accurate) that adds to the conversation, I think it's time better spent to discuss the article at hand.

I personally think it's a fascinating insight into how humans interpret physical space and the implications in social situations.

Well okay, you got me and my unscientific reasoning. I mean, it's not like the perception of personal space is in the head or something; it's clearly physical. Okay, we got off the wrong foot here. I am an angry and unpleasant person. Please, let's not antagonize eatch other.

What is wrong with that?

The article happens to pattern match a current politically-charged argument in which opposition to some particular position is labeled as coming from fear, which is labeled a -phobia, which is therefore labeled as being irrational and whoever has it is mentally ill. Unsurprisingly, people rarely respond to this by saying "Oh, yes, you are correct, you have cogently shown me I am mentally ill, thank you so much for pointing this out!" and instead develop a rather hostile response to anything that even smells like the argument.

I actually somewhat carefully read the article to see if it ever suggested that fear in response to personal space violation was bad, and I don't think it did. I do think that it poorly supported its case, as a couple of other people are arguing, because just because certain activations look the same doesn't mean they are the same, but it never claimed this was a bad response.

Personally, based on how it feels from the inside, I can well believe that personal space is related to fear, and may activate some of the same circuits as fear, but that it "is" a fear is going beyond the evidence. Especially given the overloading of the word "fear". I am "afraid" of touching a hot oven, but I'm not running around in constant fear. It's a perfectly rational, controlled, situational "fear", not "a fear". Personal space violations strike me as rather more like the rational, controlled, situational case even if we are going to call that a "fear" response, which is perfectly fine scientifically, but serializes into conventional English poorly.

For me, I was reading "fear response" as physiological. A ball comes flying towards my face, my body releases adrenaline, my heart rate spikes, I tense or flinch. In that case I also experience the emotion of fear.

But sometimes the emotion is absent, see generalized anxiety disorder. I wasn't afraid, but if you observed my heart rate, breathing, blood pressure two summers ago you would've thought I was having a constant panic attack. I wasn't experiencing any fear (emotion), if anything it was confusion (I'd not experienced anxiety on that level in years so I wasn't prepared for it again).

A well-written, thought out response. Thanks!

This seems to be a spectacular Rorschach test.

Isn't almost anything that is open to interpretation a Rorschach test then?

Actually it looks to me as if you are the one that took the parents response personally.

The parent gave a few arguments why he/she dislikes the article (if they are valid or not is another question), that's something you did not do.

Neither did you engage in any follow up comments to yours.

Parent used language highly associated with taking something very personally:

-"Wait, how exactly is [...]?" as if indignant.

- Scare quotes, as in "personal space"

-The "First, [...]. Secondly, [...]." dialectical pattern, suggesting someone feeling attacked on multiple fronts.

- "drop the pretense", suggesting said author was ostentatiously holding up a lie.

- "fear is bad, mkay", characterizing the author as a South Park hick.

- "[...] work just fine, thank you.", subtextually suggesting the person had crossed a boundary of decorum.

- "Oh, and, edit, just because", which is a common semantic pattern of emotional self-defense, e.g. "And another thing!"

- "Please, age of phrenology is over.", a red herring, attempting to undermine a theory by associating it with a formally disproved theory.

- "God. Damn. It.", resorting to frustrated cursing post-rant, suggesting the person has more feelings they'd like to elate.

Generally, when someone responds with language of that sort it suggests the idea struck a chord. My interest in the parent's comment was purely jocose.

I disagree with many of your characterizations here.

...are you sure you're not reading way too much into it because you feel attacked? :)

I am quite sure that I do not feel attacked.

Also, parent admitted as much: "histrionic", "the article violated my perceived personal belief space", "I am an angry and unpleasant person."

Cherrypick much?

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