Are we becoming neuropolitically self-conscious?

[joft]

It seems like brain science is converging on the political scene; check out the cat fight between George Lakoff and Steven Pinker that broke onto the public scene when Pinker wrote a review of Lakoff's new political books, and Lakoff wrote a reply (the reply seriously sucked, i think Pinker is an introvert, probably INTx, and writes with excellent organization and logic, and Lakoff is probably an extrovert and just spews)

Scroll down to where it says "Pinker's Salvo" (http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2006/10/pinker_vs_lakoff.php)
(and you might wanna follow the link to the "mixing memory" blog and read what a cognitive science blogger wrote about it)

then you have these other books like The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neurosociety is Changing How We Live, Work, and Love (http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Brain-Emerging-Neurosociety-Changing/dp/1400098084/sr=1-1/qid=1160697627/ref=sr_1_1/002-8493316-8272030?ie=UTF8&s=books) and other similar ones i've seen/skimmed/forgotten the titles of/am too lazy to keep searching amazon for.

anyway i'm fantasizing about a world in which people know the reasons why they think certain things and can consciously adjust their thoughts to be rational and stuff, but forget it, most people are probably on the level of O'Reilly's rebuttals of Lakoff and couldn't even finish reading Pinker's without falling asleep

[Leftfield]

I didn't read the links to compare but from a validity standpoint, I own two of Steven Pinker's books:

"How the Mind Works" and "The Blank Slate", these are very thorough and well written books, and the reason I know Pinker is that he was named something along the lines of Top 100 Innovators of the 20th century, or to that length.

Pinker has to be INTP, that's what attracted me to him... philosophically :joft:

Edit: To answer your question, yes I believe we are. Too tired to go into depth but I may add-on to this tomorrow when I think about it more.

[Oculus Sinister]

:offtopic: Have you read A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink? Tiz a fine book for a Pinker fan. http://www.danpink.com/

[Serotonin]

This made me laugh:


What about the conservative conception of freedom? Here Snidely Whiplash pauses long enough from beating his children to explain it to us.

[Serotonin]

Finished reading it. Lakoff really did take the criticism personally.