quest


I am a woman born 1949 and my quest is to find a mindmate
to grow old together as a mutually devoted couple
in a relationship based upon the
egalitarian rational commitment paradigm
bonded by intrinsic commitment
as each other's safe haven and secure basis.

The purpose of this blog is to enable the right man
to recognize us as reciprocal mindmates and
to encourage him to contact me:
marulaki@hotmail.com


The entries directly concerning,
who could be my mindmate,
are mainly at the beginning.
If this is your predominant interest,
I suggest to read this blog in the same order
as it was written, following the numbers.

I am German, therefore my English is sometimes faulty.

Maybe you have stumbled upon this blog not as a potential match.
Please wait a short moment before zapping.

Do you know anybody, who could be my mindmate?
Your neighbour, brother, uncle, cousin, colleague, friend?
If so, please tell him to look at this blog.
While you have no reason to do this for me,
a stranger, maybe you can make someone happy, for whom you care.

Do you have your own webpage or blog,
which someone like my mindmate to be found probably reads?
If so, please mention my quest and add a link to this blog.


Thursday, June 9, 2011

327. Dopamine, Risk and Migration

Dopamine, Risk and Migration

In the entry 326 I attempted to explain, why I fill the gaps of my knowledge with speculations to complete my theory of mind.   
But once in a while, I find delayed justification for my speculations.   In entry 106 (on Migration, Evolution, Cultural Differences), I was wondering, if what I perceived as a cultural difference between the higher risk tolerance in the USA compared with Germany, could be explained by the self-selection being a consequence of migration.   

Today I watched course 16 of the lecture by UCLA Prof. Jay Phelan on Life, Concepts and Issues.   He mentions a genetic difference in the effect of dopamine receptors in the brain upon the personality influencing the risk taking tendencies.
http://www.cosmolearning.com/video-lectures/lecture-16-20/  

His mentioning a study on migration made me curious and I found the research paper connecting DRD4 (DR=dopamine receptor) polymorphism with migration:
http://www.cbd.ucla.edu/downloads/Chen_et_al-DRD4_&_migration.pdf
According to the authors, the genetic disposition was found in 22% of Europeans in the US, but only in 16% of Danes, 19% of Swedes, 10% of Finns and 18% of Spanish.


I have crudely distinguished between Hedonists and Epicureans as being more or less driven by instinct rather than guided by their cognition (entries 131, 157, 158, 222).   I called it instinct, but it seems also connected with the DRD4 polymorphism.   I have to ponder about this.  
Posted by Unknown at 09:49
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