so the fuck what?! the first thing i thought of when this hardwired circadian rhythms business was brought up was the countless number of people i know who don't think life is better if they are sleeping at night. me included. I used to go to bed around 4 a.m., get up to get the kid off to school, etc. Did that for a few years. By choice. Personally, my preferred life is getting up at 3 or 4 a.m. *shrug* But I also think of the guy who opened a communal coffee shop art space for people who want to work at night, who want somewhere to go at 3 a.m. around here - and not just because it's after last call. some place to get coffee and draw murals on the wall and other hipster shit.
so what does this mean, if we determine we are hardwired for sleeping from 10 pm to 6 am? Outlaw employers making people work graveyard shifts.
so what if language is softwired or hardwired or not at all?
what social policies are dictated by such discoveries. anything?
i've never quite understood why people get so twisted up about this topic -- from the anti-social-constructionist side that is. the social constructionist have made pretty clear what they think the political consequences of such a view are. shag
At 03:45 PM 8/7/2011, // ravi wrote:
>On Aug 7, 2011, at 4:29 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> > Example: the fallacy that circadian rhythms are "hard wired". In fact,
> the sleep/wake cycles for mammalian species are a historically contingent
> product of evolution. Certain species had greater reproductive success
> with a night waking cycle (e.g., raccoons), and other had greater
> reproductive success with a day waking cycle (e.g., chimps). Over time,
> the circadian rhythms that helped a particular species survive and
> reproduce transformed neural anatomy and function.
> >
> > Note however, that there is nothing permanent and immutable about the
> specific circadian rhythm of a particular species. If environmental
> conditions shifted, a different waking/sleeping cycle could lead to
> greater reproductive success, and the brains of that species--over
> evolutionary time-frames--would be transformed.
>
>
>So, if someone were to say the circadian rhythm, or the language
>"instinct", are "soft-wired" you would have no problem with it? "Soft
>wired" to mean that it ain't changing in my brain, but perhaps in a future
>descendant's version of a brain?
>
> —ravi
>
>
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