PhiloPsycho Freedom

Hypnagogi-what?

2010-11-11T13:06:00.001-08:00

Today in PhiloPsycho Freedom, I shall be discussing that little area of consciousness between waking and dreaming! It's a peculiar area where weird psychological effects can come about. The brief area you experience between waking and sleeping has been labeled as the Hypnagogia (AKA Hypnogogia) and can lead you to have a wide array of experiences – including seemingly supernatural ones.

Supernatural Phenomenon?

Some of the seemingly supernatural phenomena that can manifest in this threshold of consciousness can be out of body experiences, sleep paralysis, hallucinations, and lucid dreaming. Out of body experiences have often been thought of as spiritual experiences, or some sort of psychic experience, but have been attributed to this particular part of consciousness. They also have been connected to Dissociating from reality.

More Examples

Visually, people can see things, particularly in their peripheral vision. One time I was working in a factory, I was exhausted due to an all-night party the night before, and it was pushing 40 hours awake. I was falling asleep walking, which was the only way I could keep myself awake when there was a lull in the work. Out of the corner of my eyes, I continuously saw brief instances of bats or figures hiding in the shadows (though they were probably entirely comprised of those very shadows). Similar things can happen with sounds. Both senses can have hallucinations happen that are either very subtle, or quite robust in their expression, from tiny speckles of light to a very loud bang from a particular direction.

Hypnagogic memories are thought to be attributed to the hallucinatory effects found within the Tetris Effect.

Why might this be?

It is thought that these hallucinations and other phenomena can occur during Waking Life due to a brief lapse in the wakefulness. These lapses are known as Microsleep, which are short episodes of sleep that happens suddenly and often briefly due to sleep deprivation or other sleep-related disorders. When microsleep happens, it can result in impaired cognition (confusion, etc.) and amnesia.

Are there Benefits to Hypnagogia Happening?

There have been several impactful occurrences where people have solved difficult problems while falling in between wakefulness and sleep. One such occurrence could be when Archimedes solved the problem of whether the King’s crown was made with enough gold or not while in the bath. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, this would be the one that concluded with him running through the streets – naked – shouting “Eureka!”. Another, as described in the wikipedia article, tells of how August Kekulé realized that benzene was a closed ring. There are doubtlessly millions of examples of problems being solved by people while dozing off after spending hours on a problem, though they probably aren’t as monumental as the two just mentioned.

Just one last bit before I finish: The alternative period between sleeping and moving into waking is known as the hypnopompic state, just in case you were wondering. That’s all for today. This is BoxMonkey of Philo-Psycho Freedom signing off. Have a great day!

If you liked this article, you might like:

Tetris, Anyone?

Forer Effect

Forer or For Him?

2010-11-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

For this post, allow yourself to envision a sterile, lab environment. You're sitting in a hard, uncomfortable chair in front of a stainless steel table, all of which is in a room with white walls. The walls are barren, with a desk in the far left corner of your field of vision. A few moments pass and an experimenter comes in with a sheet labelled "Personality Test", which you are expected to fill out. You comply and wait a while longer for your results to come back. The experimenter returns and hands you a form that reads the following specifically tailored personality description:

“ You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.”
Now, after reading your results, you're asked to rate the accuracy of the description on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being entirely inaccurate, and 5 being perfectly on). Most likely, you'll place the accuracy of the scale on 4, if not somewhat higher. This is, of course, assuming you didn't see through the weak ruse of this result being actually tailored to you. The actual experiment found a mean rating of 4.2!

The fact that this description is so accurate, or feels so accurate, is known as The Forer Effect (aka the Barnum effect, after The famous showman P.T. Barnum ("There's a sucker born every minute", "We've got something for everyone!"). According to this theory, when people are given a number of both vague and specific claims about themselves, they tend to remember and give significance to the ones that are accuarate or favourable - while dismissing as insignificant/forgetting claims that are not. This is the foundation for an area of Mentalism known as "Cold Reading". More on this in future posts!

Digital Detox - Day 7

2010-06-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

Worked in the morning, drank most of the rest of the day to celebrate the solstice. Fireworks in Windsor at the night.

The running soundtrack of my life had his pause last Tuesday and finally resumed as of today to celebrate the solstice. It's not the same to hang by the pool without music. This is why I've excused the use of an iPod and speakers.

You know that Ke$ha song? Yeah, you know it. See if you can guess which one I mean. Phenylethylamine (PEA) is what we associate with the feeling of love. It is a neurochemical which quite literally gets us high. My friend and I got to wondering about it: if it's a drug, it'll act like a drug - addiction, capacity, tolerance, withdrawals, and all. Thinking like that, I realized the addictive capacity for different forms of relationships. With functioning long-distance relationships, you get a quick, strong fix, then a long break between exposures in comparison to their non-long distance counterparts. This would keep the strength of the dose relatively constant and not dwindle in intensity over time. In contrast, close-distance relationships should dwindle quickly due to overexposure of the drug, and probably build dependence.

Then, if we take each type and watch them as the convert (long-to-short distance (LtS); short-to-long distance (StL)), they should act differently, also. LtS should get a huge boost from coming closer, which might dwindle at a relatively fast rate due to their ability to metabolize the drug from their history with it. StL should go into withdrawal, as they're suddenly cutoff. Either of these could cause the relationships to get better or fail, as far as I can see. LtS might think the new situation is great in comparison to the old, but may eventually decide to end it because "the spark is gone". StL might rightly think that the negative feelings are caused by the lack of their partner and miss them intensely - or it could cause them to get into more fights depending on withdrawal effects (such as irritability). This is all entirely speculation and I don't really know how PEA acts. Just some thoughts on the topic.

Digital Detox - Day 6

2010-06-27T12:38:00.001-07:00

As I previously mentioned, I'm afraid of falling into the old habits of overindulging in entertainment. As an article I read asked: are we raising citizens or consumers? Our culture encourages discomfort, dissatisfaction, and the lack of a critical mind. Equipped with this mind set, we are fully prepared to "buy this car to drive to work; drive to work to pay for this car." Even I, someone who likes to think that they regularly embrace in the practice of meta-cognition, have bought into this set and had not fully comprehended the extent of it until I've removed myself as best I can fathom.

The question remains: what should the average person do? Should we buy in and try to claw at the doors of happiness, attempting to bribe the doorman with our selfish, petty, superficial attempts? Far from it. What I'm about to propose has been stated a disgustingly large number of times by a disgustingly large number of people. Educate yourself, question everything - even the mundane -, and challenge those in power. This is disgustingly cliché. It's disgusting that it is cliché. Something of such great insight and power is often met with a shrug, a sigh, and a roll of the eyes for good measure. Some have likened me to a conspiracy theorist (for some reason) for promoting this line of thought. Others have compared me to a teenage anarchist who is protesting, but has no substitution. I reject both, and resent the latter even more. I'm not promoting or rejecting any particular ideas other than activism and apathy, respectively. Take back what is yours, and don't lay down to institutions or people simply because that's the way it's always been done. To end with a quote from Paul Buchheit:

If someone says "that's impossible", you should understand it as "according to my very limited experience and narrow understanding of reality, that's very unlikely"

***

Recently, I've been playing a lot of chess, a game to which I've never been very much into or adept with. As I've begun to understand the game better, I've learned that our first instincts can often be misleading and often detrimental. You took my pawn? I'll take yours! You spited me? How do you like me now! As I've witnessed in myself as well as others, this is often the case. To make a false dichotomy of this, as people will, am I proposing that we completely ignore our instincts? No. What I'm suggesting is that we examine our reactions and initial instincts before getting ahead of ourselves and acting upon them. As Socrates put it:

The unexamined life is not worth living

A personal example of this is how I used to consistently act with people. I would almost exclusively discuss philosophy, particularly existentialism. For those of you who are familiar with existentialism, you know that this is some heavy shit - shit that most people would rather not discuss on a regular basis. It took me some time of fumbling with my personal relationships before this came to my attention. I was being selfish in my pursuits to understand, and had closed my heart to the other in my everyday exchanges. I was alienating them and being alienated at the same time. In a similar way, we all shut out the other in our daily interactions by relying on our initial instincts. Someone callously made a remark that upset us? Stop and consider their intent, which was likely not to hurt you, and what probable consequences of our actions will arise. Let us attempt at transforming the foreign "other" into a more familiar "fellow".

***

Why is it that upon hearing confusing information, we tend to turn and cock our heads slightly to the side? This appears to be a relatively universal instance of body language that even extends as far as dogs. It's as if we're attempting to physically shake the symbolic into place, or to change how we view the information as we would a physical painting. We could also be attempting to disrupt the flow of confusing facts, trying to slow or stop the stream to allow for deeper processing.

***

It's as if I've been living somewhere else, a sort of vacation, this past week. It's been one of the longest weeks I can remember, but also one of the most productive. I find it very strange that this past week has been spent in the exact same geographical location as I normally am, yet it's had a completely different feel. The only reasons I can think of for this are that my mental location has shifted and I've frequented different parts of the house. What I mean by the "mental location" is that I am normally online, capable of cognitively being anywhere, talking to anyone. I'd normally have the alternative option of escaping my immediate surroundings by absorbing my consciousness into that of the main character of a movie or video game. This is better and reminds me of an article I read about pot use in high school, written by a high school student named Morgan Macnevin:

Sitting here in class, I find myself wondering why everyone around me is so desperate for an altered perception of reality. As I gaze at my classmates stifling their giggles, checking one another's bloodshot eyes, I wonder if they realize their entire existence depends on that which distracts them from living a real life. (Adbusters #90, volume 18, number 4)

Similarly, I feel we may be doing the same thing with our virtual life. I remember looking at my budgie in his cage who is infatuated with his mirror. No, he's not incredibly vain, but he is under the impression that that's another bird. He spends his days talking to the mirror, hitting it, feeding it, and defending it. His life is entirely a fiction. I remember feeling bad that he was so deceived, then made the leap of seeing my own delusions. It reminds me of Plato's allegory of the cave.

Cheated:

First contact with a Kindle - had to play around with it.

Digital Detox - Day 5

2010-06-26T11:27:00.001-07:00

6:00: Wake up and go to washroom to find my retired dad up and watching TV in the living room. Why the hell is he up?!

12:00-2:50: Get up, eat, play piano, read, and journal log. (this log, that is)

3:00: Lift weights

3:40-5:30: Piano, mostly readings (Cog Sci.. wooh..)

5:30-6:00: Drive to work

6:00-11:00: Work

11:30: Home

Today I've felt rather drained, energy-less. I think it's the lack of any screen time that's doing it. I need the glow of a monitor in order to be refreshed. I move outside to see if sunlight can be a makeshift monitor. Combining it with coffee should scrounge enough energy together to successfully lift weights. At least, I hope it will do...

***

Lately, I've been thinking about the concept of sexual objects. No, not sex toys, but people. In sentence structure, there is the subject - the actor - and the object - the acted upon. It seems that there is some consistency in the way that people speak about sexual experiences. Typically, one gender is consistently the object and the other is the actor. Stop for a second and see if you can guess which is which. Why exactly is this so consistent? I'm only thinking of heterosexual couples, as this doens't directly apply to same-sex couples.

So, who fucked whom? I use the verb "to fuck" as it is the most active verb that connotes this meaning (or the lesser form "to screw"). "To have sex with" appears rather neutral in activity, which is fine, but not the most commonly used phrase when talking about this subject (and if it is, it's probably closely followed by "to fuck"). Was it she who fucked him? In the sexual context, that sentence seems a little off from my perspective, as people typically place the male as the actor. Why is this? One idea I've had is that it has something to do with the fine line of defining when two women can be said to have had sex. I've yet to discuss this with any lesbians, but from most people that I've spoken to, they seem to think that it only classifies as sex when a penis is involved. Take this line of thought wherever you will, that's as far as I've gotten. As for now, the sun and caffeine have successfully replaced the familiar glow.

***

I've noticed that my behaviour is somewhat consistent with ego-depletion theory. Ego-depletion theory states that we have a sort of self-control resource that we need to spend on things. If you have to pull a huge feat of self-control in one area, other areas of self-restraint will be less likely to succeed. I'm spending a lot of resources keeping myself from doing my common behaviour, so I've had a little more junk food. But this isn't entirely in line with ego-depletion because I'm trying to gain muscle, so I have to eat more than normal anyway. Only reason I place it in line is because there is probably more sweets in there than need be.

***

There's always the looming threat - and fear - That I'll have learned nothing from this venture. Falling into old habits, kick started by a binge in the suppressed tendencies, as these ventures sometimes do. Of course, it's only natural to want to gorge in what was temporarily forbidden, but I'll have to try and resist. Currently, my plan is to only use entertainment after night fall, and occasionally drive in silence to clear my head. Cell phone use will return to normal, which is minimal in my current situation (max 3 calls, max 10 texts).

Something I've noticed is the eye-capturing ability of television. I will find myself absent-mindedly staring at it if it's left on in the room I happen to be in. I'm not even processing what is being shown, not consciously at least. But there I am, like a moth to the flame.

***

Today I noticed that the silence has become comfortable. Such a strange thought - that what was so familiar to countless generations before us has become strange and ominous to the people of today. The constant nattering of TV in the background used to ease the tension of being home alone, now has become a nearly unbearable annoyance (especially if it's global or fox news). It's a great relief to not have your thoughts intruded upon and commandeered by the talking heads. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes by Aleister Crowley:

To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.

(by the way, the picture is one I photoshopped of my friend. I didn’t feel like finding anything related today.)

Digital Detox - Day 4

2010-06-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

The experience of driving is evolving; It started as a boring, silent burden and is slowly becoming a near-meditative state, both outwardly and inwardly focused. It toggles back and forth. Today, I saw a herron flying and smelled the fields as the wind whipped through my hair at 80km/h - all of which I would have missed if I'd been listening to music or the radio.

10: Wake up
10:30: Renew health card
10:45: Buy new chess board from value village to replace the missing one ($2.00!)
11-3: Bum around, read, play chess, lift weights.
3:30-6: Leave house, hang out with a friend at a coffee shop. Play chess. Walk around town for a bit, then head home.
6:15: Hang out with relatives
6:45: Swim
7:00: Pick up food
8-10:30: Eat, play piano, read, play more piano, journal this.

Today has been rather difficult to maintain the solid front of no digital tech, mainly because I have no plans. Pushing yourself while lifting weights in silence is quite a challenge. It's difficult to maintain the energy between sets. A major challenge today has been my parents leaving the TV on, even when we're visiting with relatives. It's on in the background! I shut it off and they ask me why I turned it off. I've realized that it's not just our generation (*Generation Y) that would find it difficult to unplug, that's for sure. Lately, I've been noticing these insurance company bill boards around that seem to encourage an OCD frame of thinking: "Did you leave the iron on?", "Have you checked your tire pressure lately?", Did you forget to turn the lights on and off 3 times before leaving the house?, Forget to check how many ceiling tiles in your living room? It's like: "Here! We'll cause you to worry about your things, then replace them when you fuck up!". As if that's entirely reassuring after you just worried for a while whether you left the garage door open or your house is potentially burning down. It's such a ridiculous ploy that it would cause me to change insurance providers, or never choose them. The sad thing is that I'm pretty sure that this marketing strategy works. Again, today's been a tough day and being forced to read writings on cognitive science (for an upcoming exam) is not helping. At all. Time to leave the house again.

10:30: Go into town again.

*=That's right, I'm not a baby-boomer. Some person attacked me for criticizing Generation Y-ers, saying that I must be a baby-boomer because they are the only ones who write those kinds of articles. In their eyes, the article was shifting all the baby-boomer's blame to generation Y. It was very ironic that they were getting mad at the baby-boomers for blaming everything on someone else when he was blaming everything on them. He even went so far as to say that he's never met a baby-boomer he liked.

Digital Detox - Day 3

2010-06-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

6:45: Woken up by co-Digital Detoxer (co-DD), went back to slept since I didn't have to get up for another hour and a half
8:20: Got up
9:00: Left for Windsor
9:30-12: Attended University of Windsor convocation (Co-DD was graduating)
12:30-2: Cora’s for brunch
2:30-4:10: Mall (this time frame is a bit off, and I mostly hung around outside the mall since I didn't want all the advertisement exposure and had no money)
6-9: Work

When you're busy, you don't' have time to sit and dwell. This is a widely used approach to distressing situations, which can vary widely. To compare what I'm doing to distressing situations in people's lives is ridiculous, so I'll stop the comparison there. Today, I decided that I would continue with this digital famine until I could have one pure day - One day where I can live truly digital-less. I'm hoping, desperately, that that day will be tomorrow since I have no plans and work won't be able to force the usage of things on me. Starting to crack a little bit, really craving Facebook, Reddit, and e-mail. I feel a little bit of pressure from ignoring my e-mail in case something important comes up, but I then realize that they'll probably get in contact with me by some other means if it's that important. Typical craving, though: grows until it comes to a head, then it terminates.

The general upside of this is that I'm forced to have a more normal sleep schedule because I'm too tired to read at night and I wake up with the sun. Getting a lot of reading done, though.

Cheated:

Mall Adverts
Texted Co-DD (he allowed the use of his cell phone for work purposes) during his convocation to tell him he should shake Peter Mansbridge's hand (who was an honorary grad for this convocation)
cell phone as camera
One phone call that I promptly ended

Digital Detox - Day 2

2010-06-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

10:30 - Woke up naturally, without an alarm (curtains open, somehow I was able to sleep for almost 5 hours with sunlight)
11:00-2:00 - Got out of bed, ate breakfast, read, played piano and guitar for my bird. I obviously have a lot to do with my time (I'm not getting many hours at work)
2:00-5:15 - Worked out, read more. Tried to find the chess board, but it seems to have been misplaced
5:30 - Left for work after beating my dad at makeshift chess (using pocket change and checkers on a (checkers board)
11:30 - Made a test run of sangria
12:30 - Beat my co-Digital Detoxer at chess
1:30 - Slept on co-DD's floor among the articles littering his floor

I'm starting to learn to cope with the lack of constant electronic entertainment. The most difficult thing is time spent driving because I'm driving in silence, sans radio. to fill the void, I either get lost in thought or experiment with beat boxing. I find that I'm having more and more diverse songs popping into my head, from "Don't stop me now" by Queen to "Immigrant Song" by Zepplin. I'm not sure if theses songs are occurring at a higher frequency from before or it it's just more noticeable due to the lack of actual music (aside from what I've played, myself). I also find that I keep dreaming about the internet, which is particularly abnormal because I normally don't dream (Yes, yes! We all dream every night for most of the night. I mean that I don't remember them, fool!).

Digital Detox - Day 1

2010-06-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago, I came into contact with the idea of doing a digital detox. The thought process seems to be something along the line of seeing what effect these devices have on our daily lives, experiences, and our sense of self. I've heard of people doing something similar when they attempt vegetarianism. I thought I'd give it a go and started it a day after hearing about it.

The Details of the Digital Detox:

No cell phone
No Ipod or car radio
No computer
No TV
Deactivating Facebook
Avoiding digital devices whenever possible (had to switch to an analog clock for this, too)

Note that it’s digital, and not technological. I considered technological, but that would be quite impossible due to work, transportation, and the like. I quickly recruited my friend, who isn't that digital to begin with, to join me on my endeavor for support and to help work out the kinks of what should and should not be allowed, why exactly we were doing this, and what we were hoping to gain from it.

Like, I said, When I started, I began in the same vein to when people decide to do a trial run of vegetarianism; Do you feel any different from eating meat? is there a difference in living costs? Does eating meat affect energy levels? Similarly, I decided to see if there were any effects on how I live in and experience the world. The idea was brought to my attention through a magazine known as Adbusters (which is extremely worthwhile, by the way).

One thing you'll notice is that the style of each day's entry does not remain consistent, as I either got lazy, forgot, didn't like the previous format, or an assortment of other reasons. I'm going to put up what I wrote untouched just so you can see the progress through a week (which takes a different direction somewhere in the second half of the week). I decided to keep my thoughts on a pad of paper during the week in the absence of a computer to record it on. Here's the first day:

Day One:

Up at ten, bored by one-thirty. I had an interview at noon that was a half hour drive away. The trip there and back was not interesting, to say the least; No radio, mildly sleep deprived, entirely rural surroundings (which means windows up due to wind from driving speeds, and to cut down on the smell of manure).

At home, I played some piano and started collecting various liqueurs that might mix well in the sangria I was planning on making, particularly for the solstice. I started considering getting drunk, but what the hell is the point of being drunk, alone, in silence? My parents have left town for the day and I'm trying to avoid using my cell phone, even if it's just as a phonebook.

At this point, It makes me reminisce about the many other times I've done things to test my will for some end: eating right, exercise, lent, etc. Stage one: withdrawal that creates an intense yearning for what you currently cannot have, which will eventually brake way for stages 2 and 3: indifference, then seeing your connection to the forsaken thing for what it is (a crutch, an addiction, the benefits and detriments, etc.)

I tried to read, but ended up falling asleep until four, with brief interruptions for the phone (I allowed the phone, but tried to avoid cordless ones). I dreamt that I was on the computer, going automatically to Facebook and reactivating my account. I got mad at myself, reshut it down, and repeated the process again. Bizarre dream.

Went out for the rest of the night with friends, which distracted me from the lack of tech. Bed early, as there is nothing to do at night by myself.

Cheated:

Calculator for the interview
Text received, but not answered

Afterthought: At this point, I didn’t really have a clear definition of what I was planning on doing, or trying to achieve. So I was clear cutting certain technologies which don’t make sense to cut by my later definition.

Secular Reincarnation

2010-05-28T11:29:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been thinking about Thomas Huxley's idea of infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters for an infinite amount of time. As the theory goes, they'd eventually recreate Shakespeare's works in their entirety simply due to random hitting of the keys. Don't argue this point, it's true. In fact, they'd not only recreate Shakespeare's works once, but would do so an infinite number of times. The same goes for every other literary work, supposing that they phonetically write out other scripts (like oriental, Cyrillic, Sanskrit, etc.)) and ignore accents that aren't available.

An easier way to wrap your head around this problem is to envision a keyboard that has pebbles being dropped on it, hitting only one key at a time and no others. Given that each key has an equally probably chance of being struck, it will produce every work if left doing this processes for unlimited time. The reason I find this example to be clearer is because most people seem to think the monkeys would have some sort of intent behind their actions, as if they're actually trying to recreate Shakespeare or whatever. This isn't the case - they're simply mashing keys and accidentally making novels.

Expanding from this, I realized that secular reincarnation is capable of happening. It is entirely possible that one or all of three things are infinite: time, space, and/or alternate dimensions. As long as one of these is unlimited, it's quite possible that when we die, our consciousness in its exact form could re-manifest somewhere else. This pulls a lot of things into question, of course. Where does consciousness rest? Is it possible to transmit it? Even if something is structurally identical, will you, as you are now, be part of it? What about a/the soul? Too many questions, really. But, it is promising for any non-religious person who's despairing at the afterlife.

To clarify where I'm coming from, probability theory states that nothing has a 0% chance of happening (aka everything has a chance greater than 0). Even if it's infinitesimally small, it will express itself somewhere in an unlimited number of trials. The real mindfuck here is if you consider omnipresent beings. If every possible combination of things must happen, then somewhere an omnipresent god must exist, and in another place it must not, which violates the first one's power. This clearly demonstrates that there is a limit to the probability curve in practice - we don't have gods walking among us and intervening, as some interventionist religions would believe.

Thus, we should refine the statement to be:

In an infinite universe, anything that is possible must happen.

Note: Do not attempt to actually create the monkey's on typewriters. Only a fucking idiot would expect to see similar results when comparing an infinite sample and an extremely small, finite sample.

Perfect Vision

2010-05-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Somewhere at sometime you've probably heard the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20". For those of you who haven't, this phrase is describing how much clearer events are once they're over with. We have the ability to gain some distance between us and the problem or choice of the time. This is all descriptive of something called "hindsight bias" which is how we're biased to think that things were obviously going to turn out as they did when they may not have been at the time. Enron's huge success that eventually ended the utter downfall of the energy giant? Obviously that was doomed! Their hiring description was basically the DSM-IV-TR's criteria of a sociopath. The people in the 2nd tower on 9-11? They should have expected another plane coming! The bay of pigs? Clearly JFK should have known better than to go through with such a shoddy plan! In fact, none of these cases would have been easily identified as a failure from the perspective of the decision makers (stockholders, people in the 2nd tower, JFK and staff, respectively). From our cushy position right now, it is quite obvious that these things would happen, but at the time, you can never be certain how things will work out.

There are too many factors at any given moment to clearly see everything that's relevant to a given circumstance.

Similar to me in every way!

2010-05-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

A common bias that comes up in even the most fair-handed of people is what is referred to as the "similar-to-me bias" (also known as the similar to me error). I suppose you could view this as a form of error, but bias seems more apt. This bias happens when we judge someone who seems like us, whether in appearance or behaviour, more favourably than we should.

This makes sense, right? We've thought out the world, we think we know how things work, and we tend to think we're smarter than someone who has a differing opinion from ours. They just haven't seen everything we have! We have better powers of deduction! Of course! So when we find someone who is similar to us, particularly in their views, we view them as a more capable person, more likeable, and all the rest.

One of my professors this term pointed out how this bias can play out in everyday life: If you look at people lined up somewhere (a grocery store, say), you'll notice that the more similar two people appear, the closer they'll stand. I don't mean this in an intimate way, or that they even know each other, either. Two strangers who look like they have similar backgrounds tend to stand close together. Though, this is only anecdotally shown, but not experimentally.

One of the more detrimental areas that this bias can show up is in job interviews. Though managers are usually trained to watch for such biases, they can still pop up. There's not much you can do with this. You'll be hard-pressed to imitate an interviewer with features you can't change (gender, race, socioeconomic status, etc.), but making an effort can’t hurt, right?

So, keep this bias in mind when making judgments of other people. The message is in the neighbourhood of Mr.Rogers, but just because something is different doesn't mean it is bad. Embrace our differences, people! That's all for today.

High Self-Esteem: Not always a good thing

2010-05-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

This post is in line with my previous one regarding the problem of narcissism in more recent generations.

As many of you may have probably noticed over the years, teachers and parents seem to equate high self-esteem with good grades. Uncanny that there is a correlation between the two, but not quite in the direction they saw it.

Maybe you already know this, but I feel it's important to emphasize: correlation does not mean causation. Just because two things happen together, doesn't mean one necessarily makes the other happen. In this instance, teachers and parents assumed that kids with high self-esteem were more determined, confident, and successful because of it. As it seems to be dawning on us, it's the other way around, if anything. What we ended up with was a group of people with a fragile sense of self who believe that the world is effortlessly theirs for the taking, eventually leading to a breach of their self-image when someone points out a flaw. Their view of the world might not be a bad thing if these people are some form of royalty or in some social experiment where this was actually an accurate view of their situation, but clearly it isn't.

No, what we have are people who demand reverence and awe in their presence. What happens if you don't bow before their greatness? Well, there's a number of outcomes, none of them good: they could throw a tantrum, they could violently lash out, and/or they could pout. All very irritating, especially if you're somehow lucky enough as to have to work with them.

Yes, we've come to a sad realization that not everyone deserves self-esteem. Those who do not earn it through hard work have a fragile veneer of a self. People should feel good about themselves, but within reason. If you've gained a degree of success and you've worked hard to get there, feel good! If you've not done much and have nothing to show, don't despair, just aspire to achieve!

Moral of the story: When trying to get someone - or yourself - to feel better about themselves, don't excessively compliment when there's nothing worth complimenting. This detracts from your compliments severely and leads to the above problem. Rather, encourage them to pick up a hobby or to do some self-improvement (tactfully) to bring about something actually worth being proud of.

A Dip into Personality

2010-03-28T21:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't dipped much into personality theory yet, and I thought it was high time that I did so!

In 1902, Charles Horton Cooley came up with the concept of the Looking Glass Self. To Cooley, a person is comprised of many different selves which we portray to the world. The way we decipher which self to present in any given moment is dependent on the social situation that we are in. One way of looking at this is to watch and become aware of how you act around your dad, and compare it to how you act around your best friend. Clearly, "who you are" changes dramatically from one situation to the next. Why was this? It was because, according to the Looking Glass Self theory, you thought that these people viewed you in a different light and you felt it necessary to have to live up to their expectations. Cooley's theory is ripe with the concept of self-fulfilling prophecies. If I perceive you to think that I'm an asshole, I'm going to be resentful of that and fulfill your belief of me being an asshole to you. The sum of this theory can be found in the following statements:

I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I'm who I think you think I am.

So, as stated, we become what we believe others expect us to be, as illustrated in the picture. Think about a time when you were in the company of someone who you think respects you. You will do all in your power to be consistent with their expectations, doing your best not to let them down. Knowing this theory may give you some freedom to alter your actions; if you're aware enough of your motivation for your actions you can alter how you act around someone in order to change their opinion instead of playing into it, which most people have tried to do without knowing this theory. Dale Carnegie would adamantly agree with this theory; in one of his books, he said that the only way to make someone trustworthy is to treat them as if they already are. Don't misconstrue this. He's not saying it's guaranteed to make someone trustworthy, but it's the only situation that will bring forth such qualities. To turn it around, you can't make someone trustworthy by treating them suspiciously.

The Looking Glass Self is consistent with one of Carl Jung's theories of the archetypes of personality. There are many archetypes, but one in particular is related to Cooley's theory: the persona. To Jung, the persona is the mask that we wear in different situations. When at work, we're our working selves, with our kids, we're our parental selves, etc. Jung felt that these masks could become pathological if we ended up becoming too committed to any particular one. For example, If we became too committed to the introversion mask, we become awkward in social settings, unable to communicate effectively, and even more withdrawn due to our social awkwardness; conversely, if we become too committed to the extroversion mask, we become too flexible with our self, producing glaring inconsistencies from situation to situation that will produce other problems.

Overall, I found this to be a generally accurate and intriguing perspective to take on how behaviour changes from situation to situation. Our survival depends in large part to our co-operation with others, so it is wired specifically to read others well. This theory doesn't apply solely to negative reactions either, as demonstrated by Carnegie above. So, who are we, in general, you might ask? Well, personality is defined in the realm of psychology as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and behaviours in various situations. One of the key parts of personality, though, is its pervasiveness, which is not mentioned in that definition. We are the commonalities that appear between these social situations. Where does the isolated self - the self when you're alone - play into this? Well I'm not quite sure, so I'll throw that your way. Feel free to enlighten me in your comments.

For more current ideas and writing, please check out:

www.HittingEject.Blogspot.com

Motivation Theory and Video Games

2010-03-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

I came across this post the other day and thought it was a great analysis of the habits we gravitate towards, namely genres of video games for you gamers out there. I fully support the following message:

It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform - to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master - to improve their skill or knowledge.

Say you take a person with a performance orientation ("Paul") and a person with a mastery orientation ("Matt"). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. Paul will complete it quickly and smile proudly at how well he performed. Matt will complete it quickly and be satisfied that he has mastered the skill involved.

Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle.

While a performance orientation improves motivation for easy challenges, it drastically reduces it for difficult ones. And since most work worth doing is difficult, it is the mastery orientation that is correlated with academic and professional success, as well as self-esteem and long-term happiness.

This is only a fraction of the post, so if you like what you read, check out the full article here.

Persuasion

2010-03-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

So far, I've looked at a fair bit of existentialism and general psych theories, but haven't looked at directly applicable strategies that you can use in your daily life. So, if that's what you're looking for, then you're in for a treat! Time for a few persuasion techniques!

First up is the Door-In-The-Face (DITF) technique. DITF technique is when you ask for something ridiculous, then back it off to what you really want. You bluff by pushing the person much further than they're willing to go, and much further than you need them to budge, followed by a 'compromise' of backing off and suggesting closer to what you're really requesting. An example of this would be if you needed to borrow $50 from a friend, who we'll name Bill. When you first approach Bill, you ask him to lend you $100, which he'll refuse. You say "Fine! How about just lending me $50?", far increasing your chances of borrowing money from Bill than if you walked up and asked for $50 straight up because it appears you've made a huge compromise, and it's much smaller than you originally requested.

Next is the Foot-In-The-Door (FITD) technique. FITD builds off of a psychological principle of consistency. Consistency can be seen as building off of our personal concepts and cognitive dissonance; when we do something, we view ourselves as people who do that activity. The more we do something, the more incorporated into our self-concept that is. When we do something that breaks that new self-concept, or we know we're doing something we shouldn't be doing, we feel cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling when you hold two conflicting ideas simultaneously, which can only be resolved by mentally resolving the conflict. An example of this would be smokers: they know they smoke, they do it on the daily. They realize that it may end up killing them, and, at the very least, is not at all beneficial to them. Most people don't like to view themselves as self-harming, so this would challenge that assumption. They have two options: quit smoking, or challenge the assumption that it's harming to smoke. Which do you find is more common? Anyway, the skinny on consistency is that people to keep in line with their self-concepts, therefore, if you get them to do one thing, they're more likely to do a similar thing that is in line with that original act. For example, ask to borrow $5, then pay them back. They will start building a concept of seeing themselves as someone who lends money - more importantly, they will view themselves as someone who lends money to you in particular. If your ultimate goal is to borrow the acclaimed $50 from Bill, then borrowing and paying back that $5 earlier will make him more likely to lend you an even larger amount. Hurray!

Now, this last one may seem a little cynical, but bear with me. In order to get anyone to do anything, you must get them to want to do it. There is no other way. None. I repeat, you must make them want to do it. How do you get someone to want to do something? The first - and only - way I'm going to be covering is to open up, foremost, by telling them how whatever you're wanting is going to benefit them. Quite obvious, right? Obvious or not, people seem to try to sell their points by explaining why they, the seller, want something. Why should the buyer care? Think of the last time you did something for someone else: was it out of pity for their situation? Or was it for some sort of personal gain, tangible or not? My main point is that the mass majority of people are going to be far more persuaded into doing or wanting something by seeing how it will help them than by pleading to them to take pity on you or giving your reasons why you want it.

Keep these things in mind and try them in practice when you next want something from someone else, which will be soon. Give them a shot, I promise you won't be disappointed!

Bonus: The sweetest sound anyone can ever hear is their own name. Keep this in mind when you're trying to get on someone's good side!

For a Psychological Perspective on Australian or Chinese Culture, or tips on lifestyle design and development, check out my new blog:

www.HittingEject.Blogspot.com

Hiatus

2010-03-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

To whom this may concern,

As some of you know, I'm in my last term of University and have been quite busy. In line with that, I have had very little time; I ended up being forced to put this on the back burner and stop publishing posts for quite a while. In everyone's best interest, I decided it would be best if I put off coming back until I was able to fully commit myself to a regular updating schedule.

Look forward my hiatus being over when we hit late April/early may.

Thanks for your interest and concern!

Take care!

Reaction: 5 Psychological Experiments

2010-02-02T17:29:00.000-08:00

Alright, this post is going to be a reaction to an article published my Cracked.com. Cracked is known to do many lists similar to this. Usually I'll just read them, letting them slide if I disagree with them. This time is not such a case because it's so very frustrating to read this because they make such a faulty conclusion based on these studies. The article is titled 5 Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed.

The introduction is equally ridiculous as the rest of it: "Psychologists know to be careful ... because [they're] never sure what [they'll] find in there." Right. Specifically Psychologists? Not biologists, chemists, physicists, environmental sciences, economics, nor sociology? Oh, that's right. Psychology is somehow set apart because it studies people directly and can come across scary things that apply directly do us (unlike the rest just listed).

Experiment #5. The Asch Conformity Experiment

This experiment, if anything, proves that humanity will be more likely to survive. As much as we don't like to admit it, conformity is a good thing for a species' survival. Think about it: humans are communal beings who rely on one another to survive. If this weren't true, we would all be doing whatever we damn well please, and there would be no society or group to speak of. That kind of framework would ultimately lead to our destruction and we would be picked off by more organized groups of predators, or ones that were physically stronger. Sure, if we did that from the get-go, we could've become lone predators, but then we wouldn't be humans, would we? Furthermore, some participants did hold out given the immense social pressure for this experiment, despite the obvious signs of anxiety that manifested. If you're so anti-conformity to think that conformity equates to doom, your hope lies within these people.

Experiment #4. The Good Samaritan Experiment

Alright, this one may prove their case a bit more than the last one. Here, though, the study was most likely run in western society. Why does this matter? We're very individualistic in the West. Generally speaking, people believe that we get what we deserve; hard work and perseverance wins out no matter what! Plainly speaking, this is a load of shit, but that's another post altogether. My point here is that people with such a worldview will be less likely to help someone in need when they don't have the luxury of time to spare, despite being seminary students (not that priests-in-training are especially moral, anyway). A cross-cultural study of this has probably been done, but I don't feel like digging through archives to find it. Needless to say, people don't feel responsible for things that they aren't directly involved in.

This is related to the old moral dilemma: You're standing at a switch in a railway station. If you don't throw the switch, 10 people are going to die; If you throw the switch, only 1 person will die because it'll change the track that the train will go on. When presented with this problem, the majority of people will flip the switch. Now we change the situation: 10 people are still on the tracks, but instead of standing at a switch you're standing by a really large fat man. You can guarantee that this fat man will stop the train enough to save these 10 people; Do you push him onto the tracks? Most people say no, despite the same outcomes present are the same as last time.

Experiment #3. Bystander Apathy Experiment

This study also has some merit to their conclusion, but education about this should be able to bring it more under control. Like they teach in First Aid training: take charge, assign specific people to do certain things. If you need someone to call 911 (and you probably will if you're using your mad first aid skillz), you don't yell out "someone call 911!", you say "You! In the Blue shirt! Yeah, you! Call 911!" By doing this, you're assigning 100% of the responsibility on this poor sap, dramatically increasing the chances of the job getting done. Also, you may notice that this experiment was based off of something I covered earlier: the Kitty Genovese tragedy. Bottom line for this experiment: Discovery is the first step to mastery; knowing about this problem is a major step in fixing it. I find their conclusion that we're all seeking reasons to not step in to be faulty. As discussed in the Kitty Genovese post, there are alternative explanations other than people being self-centered assholes who live and let die.

Experiment #2: The Stanford Prison Experiment

This experiment also gives some merit that we're screwed, but it falls into a similar category as experiment #5: It's simple in-group, out-group views where we conform to what we think we need to do to satisfy, and remain in, the group we're part of. Yes, it got out of hand because power corrupts, but this isn't anything new that this experiment had brought to light. It's not like we're often given absolute power with no checks or balances to keep us from doing whatever we please, is it? Unless you're a sociopath, you'll still follow social norms. Ironically, the very fact that we conform to social norms will stop us from doing things like this, generally speaking, because it's not socially acceptable to abuse others in such a way.

Experiment #1: The Milgram Experiments

They come to a faulty conclusion, yet again, due to the fact that conformity is actually a good thing! Sure, when put to use for perceived evil acts, this is be a bad thing. But consider the flip side: when under the rule of someone with good intentions, people will be more likely to do good things instead of evil. As with the prison experiment, social norms will actually stop us from acting like assholes.

By the way, I question the credibility of the puppy torturing experiment they reference at the very end; Doesn't seem like it would get ethics clearance, and would likely get the full wrath of PETA. It's overly simplified to say that "all it takes to get 8 out of 10 people to torture a puppy is to wear a lab coat and ask them to."

Hey! Want to torture a puppy? Right..

My main reaction to this: Even if every experiment they sited showed the darkest sides of humans (and believe me, there are worse ones than these), it wouldn't prove anything. It's all up to interpretation, as any experiment is. Though, you could also say that science doesn't prove anything, it just disproves things and makes certain conclusions more likely.

Random Chance and Imposed Meaning

2010-01-26T20:22:00.000-08:00

Humans are pretty crazy things, aren't they? They can take random events and patterns and force order and meaning onto it. We not only want order; we need it. This is no better illustrated than in a study I referenced in another post (last paragraph of it). Participants needed to take back some of that control and meaning in their environment, so much so that they saw a pattern in a randomly changing arrangement of black and white pixels.

We also feel a need to attribute performance to people's abilities when it may be entirely independent of such factors. This has been illustrated by looking at Hollywood production companies, stock brokers, coaches, and basketball players. Statistically analyzing the data collected from each of these groups has shown that a person's performance was more controlled by random factors than by the people themselves: The producer didn't influence the success of the studio; the stock broker who has chosen the correct stock enough times in a row is lucky, more than anything; coaches had little influence on the ability of the team; basketball players on "hot streaks" didn't perform significantly better than average.

There's a basic stats principle called "regression", or "regression to the mean", which says that people will vary around their average performance, but won't stray too far from it. In the above cases (not including the stock broker), each group was performing around their mean. The producer who got fired for lack-lustre choices in projects may get fired, but it simply could've gone from one extreme (the high side of the mean) to the other (the low side of the mean), making it appear like he's a terrible chooser. When the next hot shot comes along and performance does better, it's a simple regression to the mean, meaning that it went from the low side back to the average. Same for the coach, and basketball player.

The stock broker is slightly different though. Say there are 10 stock brokers and they all pick random stocks to invest in. Let's give them a running chance and say that they all have a 50-50 chance of gaining or losing money. From the first pick, 5 will appear to be good brokers. Replay this again, 2.5 appear to be better choosers. Run again, and now it's 1.25. It may seem ridiculous to be looking at 1.25 stock brokers, but if we take a much larger number, it becomes more clear. Of all the hundreds of thousands of stock brokers, a few are going to be consistently successful in their stock ventures. People will look at them in amazement saying "they must have talent! They've been successful for years and never picked a bad stock!", but that isn't the case. These people aren't psychic.

Of course, people are going to argue with me saying that players really do go on hot streaks, or that producers play a huge part in the companies, but in reality we're just creatures who are terrible at intuitively analyzing statistical principles and need to impose meaning and order on "patterns" we see. The performance of these companies or groups is more a sign of the overall workings of the company and less about the leader, deal with it.

Apologizing Free Will and Determinism

2010-01-24T11:39:00.000-08:00

When I say Free Will, I'm taking a purely secular stance on the idea. I'm not taking into consideration any God(s) or Goddess(es), I'm looking at it entirely from a non-religious stance.

In a previous post I briefly covered how the determinism works, but I feel that there's more to say on the subject. I used to take the stance that everything is simply action-reaction (or stimulus-response, for you behaviourists), but I've come to realize that it doesn't really change anything. There is always a factor of chance in the world and, supposing things have some uniformity to them, we could see exactly what is going to happen at any given point. This is a very strenuous burden to pose as a possibility because we will likely never be able to figure out exactly how everything works. As Richard Dawkins puts it:

"What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don't feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do. None of us ever actually as a matter of fact says, 'Oh well he couldn't help doing it, he was determined by his molecules."

Though he's right that people rarely, if ever, take that stance, it could be strongly argued in favour of that. But as he said, we need to believe that events are within our control or else we'll develop cases of learned helplessness, and have an entirely external locus of control. I've recently had a radical change in my approach to things, gaining a feeling that whatever comes my way is manageable and within my control to handle. It's a very empowering feeling to be sure, but from a deterministic stance, this was meant to happen because of how things were put together; I was determined to gain this new perspective from the beginning of time. Be that as it may, it doesn't take away any of the perceived freedom I've derived from my environment. I would like to close by calling upon Sartre, yet again, with one of my new favourite quotes:

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you"

For more information on Determinism, here is an interesting video.

The Freedom to Choose

2010-01-15T17:28:00.001-08:00

A couple days ago, I struck up a conversation with a stranger and it lasted well into the two hour range. While talking to them, we covered a broad range of topics, and one of them was regarding marriage and relationships. I told them that, in my first year of university, I challenged everything I had previously assumed would happen in my life as well as large number of my views. I attacked them viciously to see if I believed them for what they were or because it had always been impressed on me to hold these values, believing them without any merit of their own. Among these was, as I segued in from, marriage and relationships: whether I'd ever want to get married; whether it'd be traditional; the possibility of polygamy; sexual orientation, etc. Some came more automatically than others, but when I mentioned to my conversation partner that I'd given thought to the possibility of polygamy/open-relationships, they were surprised that I'd ever considered that and wondered why I was even thinking about that.

One common response that most people throw at me when they hear that I've considered obscure or often unrelated-to-everyday-life things is that I have too much time on my hands and/or that I think too much. I don't understand the concept of thinking too much unless the person doesn't act. But I act! Oh baby, do I ever act! Sorry, that's another can of worms altogether. I answered their query about why I was thinking about such a topic by referencing a philosopher I'd recently been introduced to (though, he's never going to meet me): Sartre.

Sartre believed firmly in a person's freedom and was adamant about people asserting said freedom. We cannot choose whether to participate or not; we are still a part of everything was a sentiment often expressed by Sartre. He felt that in every activity, we have a choice to act and respond in any of an infinite number of ways. It was not only an option to act, it was forced upon us, condemned to the freedom of choice where inactivity was still an activity. In many ways he is right, which may be surprising to hear me say considering I am a determinist. He believed that we had the responsibility and ability to choose how to react even to things that were inevitable to happen. Take the most inevitable thing possible: our own death. He held that we could choose, at least to some degree, how we would die (e.g. through how we lived, suicide, etc.). It is through this theory through which I explained why I was thinking about polygamy; It is our responsibility to consider our view on something and how we may act in the face of it, or else be surprised when we act in a way we'd never before considered. In such a circumstance, you could surprise even yourself with a reaction that could betray your intentions or give away information about yourself you'd prefer you hadn't. I'd liken it to saying things in anger.

Now, I don't want to hear anyone whining and complaining about how "Oh, but I didn't have a choice! I had to do it!"; I'm not condemning you for anything, but Sartre would have held that we had the choice to go against what we did, and whatever consequences that came with such actions. We have ultimate choice, regardless. We can still choose to kill someone, do drugs, stand up for someone despite a huge mob, scream obscenities in the street at 3am, and the like. Despite what can come from it, the option is still open to us. That's all I'm taking from what he's saying at this time at least, and it's the very reason I like to weigh my opinions on obscure matters.

Now, what can you take away from this? Well, who am I to tell you that? I suppose that if you truly buy into Sartre's theories, it's an ultimately freeing way to think of things. You have the choice to act in any way you want, so take that and run with it.

The Meaning of Life Found!

2010-01-11T21:12:00.000-08:00

Really! No.. Not really.

This post is a reaction to what someone commented on one of my other posts that I feel was good fodder to write about. Initially I was surprised by the comment, but what should I expect from writing on such a touchy, personal topic? What they said was this:

I think the Internet has given a voice to someone who needs more experience in what life truly means before he can comment on it in his recently learned University speak.

Now don't misunderstand why I'm centering this comment out. It's not becuase of his disagreement with my opinion that I'm drawing attention to it, but I am doing so for two reasons: first, it is a nice seguay into what I'd like to discuss, and second, it is probably the most useless, subjective and completely-void-of-thought comment you could make (it's entirely gut feeling; emotional). I welcome dissention as long as they're well thought out, nicely constructed arguments, but to merely make a speculation about what you think I'm like, well, that's an entirely different - and unwelcome - story.

Focusing on what the comment says, they claim that I need more experience in what life truly means. Saying this implies that the author of the comment must have some idea, if only vague, of what life is "truly" about. This also implies that life has only one main purpose or meaning behind it, both assertions I have a problem with.

I'm not claiming to have any idea about the meaning life, nor did I ever claim anything of the sort in any of my previous (nor, hopefully, future) posts. In fact, I've been hovering somewhere between the realm of absurdism and nihilism for quite some time now, which means that I'm having a problem even seeing any possible meaning from the universe at all. You see, nihilism says that there is no objective nor subjective meaning at all. That's it, no meaning. Yet we, as logical beings, are looking for some meaning, forever to be frustrated in such endeavors. Absurdism, which I now identify more with, says that this clash is called the Absurd; the fact that we keep looking for meaning where there is none is utterly ridiculous (aka absurd). Where it differs from Nihilism is that the individual can find some subjective meaning that is not at all objective, since there is no objective meaning (their relations to each other, theism, and atheism is nicely laid out here). Having said all of that, I think this critic may have found some form of meaning, but to assert that I lack the experience to have come to my own conclusion is a faulty one becuase they're saying that I haven't come to the one meaning (that is, the true meaning) which would stop me from making such faulty claims. Whether I have or have not come to a conclusion about the meaning of life could not be derived from what I had said. All they can conclude is that I haven't reached the same conclusion as them.

We can also look at this from an agnostic sense that ties nicely in with nihilism and absurdism. Let me be clear, agnosticism is not a religious stance by itself. It's just not. Agnosticism is saying whether something is knowable/provable or not. That's it. Do you believe toast is better with jam or butter? You believe it's jam, but you're still forced to be an agnostic on the matter because the truth is that we're dealing with something that is so subjective that it's inherently improvable objectively. In such circumstances, all we have is our opinion. Apply the same argument to God; Do you believe? Yes, no, regardless of facts. Now, Do you think we can ever prove or disprove their existence? Yes? then you're a pure (a)theist; No? Then you're an agnostic (a)theist. To say that you're an agnostic is sidestepping the question while hardly addressing it.

Now that that's clear, I could take the stance that the meaning, there or not, can never be found. I'm agnostic on the meaning of the universe, which would make me an Agnostic Absurdist.

So there you have it, Annonymous Critic. Despite your best efforts to hit'n'run with a mind numbing thought vacuum, I've managed to use your "criticism" in a productive way. Thanks again.

Gym Ettiquette

2010-01-07T20:14:00.000-08:00

So this post isn't going to be entirely along the subject matter of my other posts, but I figure it falls into the area of philosophy. What doesn't really fall into some area of philosophy, at least in part? The topic is, as the name implies, about Gym Etiquette, or Etiquette at the Gym if you prefer.

What spurred such an occasion? Well, I was just at our school gym, and it was utterly packed. Not surprising, considering the top two new years resolutions are to get fit and to lose weight, respectively. So, I'm in there looking for a seated bike machine, and there is a lineup for most every cardio machine in the joint (this particular gym is cardio focused). So, I'm next in line to get a bike and I notice this girl, who has been there from the start, biking incessantly slowly and studying. She's not sweating, and the bike she's on is urging her to go faster because it can barely register any activity. I wait ten minutes, and decide my time is better spent doing a rowing machine until someone finishes. Five minutes later, someone gets off and I get a bike directly behind this girl. Any cardio machine in this place has a thirty-minute time limit. So here I am, behind her, reading my book while pedaling very hard and getting a good sweat on. She's continuing her nonchalant workout/studying, emphasis on the studying, causing me to start fuming behind her as I realize beyond a doubt that she's not only wasting a machine during a really busy time, she's also going over the time limit. So I finish up, get off the machine, and someone who was waiting takes mine. I was ready to walk away, but this shit has got to stop here.

Such foul etiquette, such disrespect to everyone around her, and such selfishness! Long story short of witty retorts from me and bitchy, selfish retorts from her cause me to walk away shaking my head and face-palming all at the same time. From hearing this story, people will make comments like "people are selfish" and "I hate people at the gym for things like that" but somehow I have more hope for mankind. Sure, some people are selfish, but not everyone. There are selfless people out there who are capable of being selfless while still maintaining a strong boundary of respect, disabling them from being walked all over. I like to think we're social beings for a reason and this self-centeredness is bred a large part from the individualistic society we've been raised in. I wonder if it's any worse in the states.. This also reminds me of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but it doesn't quite directly apply unless you see social etiquette as a skill.

The message behind this is: be considerate, especially if the place is packed. Wipe down your machines after you're done; put back your free weights on their respective trees; don't yell in excess when lifting (it makes you look stupid, not strong); don't overly socialize (your group gets in the way); bathe (you stunk before you even started working out, boii); don't rest on the machines; do not study while use the machines essentially as chairs. That is all.

Miraculous!

2010-01-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Over this Christmas break, I was in the mall and saw a decorative wall-block that had Only those who believe in miracles will find them inscribed into it. So, upon reading this I began thinking about the validity of such a claim. Ultimately, I broke it down to multiple psychological processes attempting to explain it, though I'm not entirely - though generally - against the idea of miracles.

For starters, such a claim is unfalsifiable - one of the requirements for any theory to have any value for it. It's in the same realm as one of Freud's defense mechanisms known as denial: If we think you have something wrong with you and you disagree.. Denial! Essentially, if you are labeled with something and you don't agree, well, you still have it (according to the diagnoser), you just don't want to admit that unpleasant little fact. Same goes for this little stone-inscribed gem: something good happens to someone who believes in miracles: Hey! It could be a miracle!; Something good happens to someone who doesn't: Hey! Something good happened! But, no miracle. The main problem with this is that it applies to everything, which makes it have no value. Seems kind of counter-intuitive that a theory which is so encompassing is worthless, but it's because it doesn't tell us anything new or of use. Everyone has undetectable parasites in their body? Great, nothing we could do about that, then. Right?

It's self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. I say "of sorts" because it doesn't quite fall into the simple game of provoking the outcome that it predicts, but seems related, doesn't it? Maybe this should be considered under the labels of confirmation bias and flashbulb memory. Confirmation bias acts the same way my example at the end of the previous paragraph goes; it's unfalsifiable. People who choose to see miracles may see them everywhere, in specific places, or only very rarely, but they are the only ones who are able to set their own subjective criteria. They will only look for confirming information and not dis-confirming information, but in the realm of the spiritual/supernatural, neither are to be found, really. For flashbulb memory part, well.. people tend to remember events of personal significance. This could be just something out of the ordinary, or a very emotionally charged event. In this case, a miracle would probably have both of those qualifications and would be much more memorable than other things. To illustrate how this works, your first kiss with someone is probably more memorable than any other kiss in that same relationship. Or, suppose you're walking down the street and a street lamp goes off over your head - strange, isn't it? No, in fact, it isn't; you only remember the bulb going out because it's out of the ordinary, but you neglect to pay attention to all the times that the lights stayed on (falls a little into the realm of availability heuristic)

My final thought on this block is one I don't have a label for, but falls under evolutionary psychology. According to evolutionary psychology, we'll sometimes see something that's not there because it's safer to do so. For example, it's safer to jump at a shadow, thinking it's a predator, than to dismiss a predator as a shadow. Humans also have a psychological need to make sense of the world around us. We are constantly constructing hypotheses about how the world works, looking for consistencies to help us out in our search. My professor made a joke yesterday related to this: young children will drop items over and over in an attempt to construct an idea of how things work; they're testing the gravity theory, if you will. But, if you were able to make the spoon (the one that they repeatedly drop) float in the air... Well, you'd have the makings of a very early psychotic. This is also why paranoid schizophrenics have the most hopeful outlook for treatment of the types of schizophrenia: they are still able to construct a story, despite things not necessarily making sense. If you keep seeing/hearing things, either you admit to yourself that you're crazy, or you make sense of what information you've been given. And who wants to admit that they're crazy?

A study related to this had two experimental groups: one who had a solvable problem, and one who had an unsolvable one. They were then given a screen with static on it and asked if there was a pattern to it. People in the unsolvable one were more likely to see a pattern, whereas the solvable problem one's didn't normally find anything. Researchers explained this by talking about control: the unsolvable problem took control away from the participant, frustrating them. By finding a pattern in something with no pattern, they were taking some control back. As they say, discovery is the first step to mastery.

Anyway, I've talked long enough. Share your thoughts, if you would.

Illusions of Superiority

2009-12-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

Here is a video I found recently that has to do with perceptions of our own performance and discrepancies between actual performance and perceived performance:

I find it very interesting that they hypothesize that the very skills required to do well are the same skills to see the true quality of a performance. It's rather ironic, really.