Stigma
The origin of the word stigma meant a 'tattoo' burned or cut onto the skin of criminals, slaves or traitors to visibly identify them as blemished. They were shunned or avoided in public.
Modern use means an invisible sign of disapproval drawn by 'insiders' to mark off 'outsiders' from inclusion in any group.
Identifying important differences to label stigmatic is a social process. An oversimplification is needed to create a group; black or white, young or old, hetero or homosexual, the sane or mentally ill. Secondly, those differences have changed over time, in the 19th century the size of the forehead indicated a criminal nature.
Members of the labeled group can be disadvantaged of life chances, income, education, mental well-being, health, medical treatment and housing. Some can escape the disadvantages, but the principle is sound when broadly applied.
The use of stigma promotes the 'us and them' mentality. This mentality can label someone less than human and, at the extreme, not human, at all.
Erving Goffman's theory defines stigma an attribute, reputation or behavior socially discrediting someone undesirable, rejected by stereotype.
The stigmatized are those who bear the stigma, normals are those who don't and the wise are among the normal who are accepted by the stigmatized as 'wise' to their condition. The wise special situation has made them priviledged to the secret life, sympathetically 'honorary members' of the stigmatized. Toward the wise, the stigmatized feel no shame nor show self-control, feeling they will be accepted. Goffman notes the wise can be stigmatized for being wise.
There is a positive stigma, you can be too smart or too rich. Because leaders have contributed far above expectation, they are given license to deviate from some behavioral norms.
Wikipedia
Thursday, December 30, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Lookism
Do looks matter?
Our vision of justice is the blind-folded woman holding the scales aloft. Since this country began justice has struggled with the tendency to peek beneath the blindfold.
Standards of beauty vary among and within cultures; Japanese women want oval eyes, Ubangi tribesmen value stretched lower lips, among others.
Naomi Wolf, in the Beauty Myth proposes Western culture is one of beauty fed by the media's incessant barriage of images of 'perfect' beauty.
The evidence clearly indicates that not only is there a premium for prettiness in Western culture, there is a penalty for plainness.
Studies find males who see themselves as more attractive cooperate more often than those who see themselves as less attractive, while females who see themselves as more attractive cooperate less often than those who see themselves as less attractive.
Apparently self-perception has an effect on success. Perhaps it would be better to teach people to value their own attractiveness, regardless of how others saw them.
Angela C. Stalcup
Do looks matter?
Our vision of justice is the blind-folded woman holding the scales aloft. Since this country began justice has struggled with the tendency to peek beneath the blindfold.
Standards of beauty vary among and within cultures; Japanese women want oval eyes, Ubangi tribesmen value stretched lower lips, among others.
Naomi Wolf, in the Beauty Myth proposes Western culture is one of beauty fed by the media's incessant barriage of images of 'perfect' beauty.
The evidence clearly indicates that not only is there a premium for prettiness in Western culture, there is a penalty for plainness.
Studies find males who see themselves as more attractive cooperate more often than those who see themselves as less attractive, while females who see themselves as more attractive cooperate less often than those who see themselves as less attractive.
Apparently self-perception has an effect on success. Perhaps it would be better to teach people to value their own attractiveness, regardless of how others saw them.
Angela C. Stalcup
God forbade...must reading!
The Sacred
We live in a culture that has created a 'concentration camp' of reason that denies the sacred. Because the culture has tremendous powers of bitter and banal persuasion, we can be intimidated out of a profound relationship with God. Modern life is incredibly stressful. Many live lives of financial and emotional insecurity. Combined with a worldview that denies the absolute and reality of the miraculous and the mystical makes it very hard for people to believe and trust the divine.
God can give you the necessary signs to show you he is with you; you are protected, that you are being instructed by your life and not defeated by it.
Many go through a spiritual life to find detachment, to avoid the pain of reality. By seeking solace you're asking God to be a drug pusher to give you the bliss and consolation you need to get by.
God is not only love, but a love that creates and serves. If you make an authentic connection there your whole being can undergo a painful revolution. Few want to go through that. They want all the glory without the grit, all the gold without the blood, sweat and tears. The divine will not sell itself cheaply. The way is through abandoning the ego's games and petty satisfactions.
Nature is burning, two-billion people live in poverty, half the earth's species have been destroyed, television is an avalanche of trash and vulgarity, our quality of life is degrading beyond belief.
We have work to do.
Burning for God
Andrew Harvey
Love of God- Shield and Carlson
We live in a culture that has created a 'concentration camp' of reason that denies the sacred. Because the culture has tremendous powers of bitter and banal persuasion, we can be intimidated out of a profound relationship with God. Modern life is incredibly stressful. Many live lives of financial and emotional insecurity. Combined with a worldview that denies the absolute and reality of the miraculous and the mystical makes it very hard for people to believe and trust the divine.
God can give you the necessary signs to show you he is with you; you are protected, that you are being instructed by your life and not defeated by it.
Many go through a spiritual life to find detachment, to avoid the pain of reality. By seeking solace you're asking God to be a drug pusher to give you the bliss and consolation you need to get by.
God is not only love, but a love that creates and serves. If you make an authentic connection there your whole being can undergo a painful revolution. Few want to go through that. They want all the glory without the grit, all the gold without the blood, sweat and tears. The divine will not sell itself cheaply. The way is through abandoning the ego's games and petty satisfactions.
Nature is burning, two-billion people live in poverty, half the earth's species have been destroyed, television is an avalanche of trash and vulgarity, our quality of life is degrading beyond belief.
We have work to do.
Burning for God
Andrew Harvey
Love of God- Shield and Carlson
God forbade...must reading!
Heart Talk
Give yourself time to listen to your heart.
Have you ever had a feeling about something, ignored it and ended up in big trouble?
Each day, notice those feelings and honor them. Messages, calls and directions are always appearing if we pay attention. If you navigate by the map of your heart, miracles can happen in your life. If you let your mind talk you out of things that aren't logical, you're going to have a very boring life. Grace is not logical. Love is not logical. Miracles are not logical.
The fellowship of like-minded people is a magnet that attracts grace. When you are around people who are committed to spiritual awakening, you begin resonating at the same level. Go to places that, not only represent, but you get what you're looking for; like-minded people with similar values, whether friends, family, a church or meditation group, whatever feels right for you.
An Invitation to God- Barbara DeAngelis, Ph.D
Love of God- Shield and Carlson
Give yourself time to listen to your heart.
Have you ever had a feeling about something, ignored it and ended up in big trouble?
Each day, notice those feelings and honor them. Messages, calls and directions are always appearing if we pay attention. If you navigate by the map of your heart, miracles can happen in your life. If you let your mind talk you out of things that aren't logical, you're going to have a very boring life. Grace is not logical. Love is not logical. Miracles are not logical.
The fellowship of like-minded people is a magnet that attracts grace. When you are around people who are committed to spiritual awakening, you begin resonating at the same level. Go to places that, not only represent, but you get what you're looking for; like-minded people with similar values, whether friends, family, a church or meditation group, whatever feels right for you.
An Invitation to God- Barbara DeAngelis, Ph.D
Love of God- Shield and Carlson
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Feminine Diety
I have always been drawn to the Virgin Mary because she was the only remnant of the great goddess. She who gives life to all of us, including the male divinity. She was, still, the mother of God, wasn't she?
I was in a miserable situation if I only have a God who's a Father, a King, a Lord. It implies that the only relationship I can have with the male diety is indirect. If we, as women, have access to the divine in us, then a female diety, a divine mother, is essential.
Similarly, in the course of the history of 'a man's world' we have shifted from a 'partnership' to a 'dominator' model. We have lost, and must regain our sense of connection.
I believe denial of our connection with the mother aspect, the feminine aspect of the deity, is one of the major obstacles to finding a meaningful and fulfilling relationship with the diety and each other.
To be deprived of a motherly dimension reflects something in our dominator society. It means a deadening of empathy and caring, a denial of the feminine in men and can extend to a contempt for the feminine, for women, in general.
We are just beginning to see the conquest mentality, with men who dominate over women, children and the rest of nature could be the swan song for us as a species.
Modern institutionalized religions have ignored the feminine dimension of God. Many women, looking for something real find it in the Virgin of Guadalupe. You may come to know the mother the opposite of the expression of ultimate judgment. Unlike an abstract, distant and hard-to-find male God, the great mother is always, in every moment with us. She is the expression of the ultimate freedom to be exactly who you are.
Riane Eisler
For the Love of God- Shield and Carlson
Aztec Virgin- John Mini
I have always been drawn to the Virgin Mary because she was the only remnant of the great goddess. She who gives life to all of us, including the male divinity. She was, still, the mother of God, wasn't she?
I was in a miserable situation if I only have a God who's a Father, a King, a Lord. It implies that the only relationship I can have with the male diety is indirect. If we, as women, have access to the divine in us, then a female diety, a divine mother, is essential.
Similarly, in the course of the history of 'a man's world' we have shifted from a 'partnership' to a 'dominator' model. We have lost, and must regain our sense of connection.
I believe denial of our connection with the mother aspect, the feminine aspect of the deity, is one of the major obstacles to finding a meaningful and fulfilling relationship with the diety and each other.
To be deprived of a motherly dimension reflects something in our dominator society. It means a deadening of empathy and caring, a denial of the feminine in men and can extend to a contempt for the feminine, for women, in general.
We are just beginning to see the conquest mentality, with men who dominate over women, children and the rest of nature could be the swan song for us as a species.
Modern institutionalized religions have ignored the feminine dimension of God. Many women, looking for something real find it in the Virgin of Guadalupe. You may come to know the mother the opposite of the expression of ultimate judgment. Unlike an abstract, distant and hard-to-find male God, the great mother is always, in every moment with us. She is the expression of the ultimate freedom to be exactly who you are.
Riane Eisler
For the Love of God- Shield and Carlson
Aztec Virgin- John Mini
God forbade...must reading!
Solipsism
Solipsists argue there are, indeed, no minds but your own and attempting to prove the existence of another mind is futile. Proponents argue the world outside your own can not be known and indeed might be nonexistent.
Arguments against solipsism include, Bertrand Russell,
"The most logically consistent theories are unbelievable and the most believable theories are inconsistent".
Existence is everything I experience--physical objects, other people, events and processes-- anything seen as part of the space and time I coexist with others and anything I see as part of my consciousness.
The true solipsist understands the word "pain" to mean "my pain". He can not, accordingly, conceive how this word can be applied in any other sense than this exclusively egocentric one.
What I know, immediately and certainly, are the events in my mind- my thoughts, my emotions, my perceptions, my desires and the like. These are not known, in this way, by anyone else. By the same token, I do not know other minds in the way I know my own.
The question is how am I different from or similar to others? The answer, I am neither. I am a living being as are others. I see others around me and assume they are like me. However, the truth is, I don't have any reason to believe others are living human beings- there is no difference between the two.
To say others learn of my pain from my behavior is misleading, because it suggests I learn of them some other way, I don't- I just have them.
The thesis all experience is private lends itself to the belief because of the secret nature of experience it can never literally be shared. This gives way to the problem how can anyone know other's experience, how can you know others have experience, at all?
Its because others have consciousness and mental lives we find the solipsistic notion others are 'automatons', machines devoid of of any conscious thought, bizarre and bewildering. We can't seriously entertain the idea others are 'automatons'.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Solipsists argue there are, indeed, no minds but your own and attempting to prove the existence of another mind is futile. Proponents argue the world outside your own can not be known and indeed might be nonexistent.
Arguments against solipsism include, Bertrand Russell,
"The most logically consistent theories are unbelievable and the most believable theories are inconsistent".
Existence is everything I experience--physical objects, other people, events and processes-- anything seen as part of the space and time I coexist with others and anything I see as part of my consciousness.
The true solipsist understands the word "pain" to mean "my pain". He can not, accordingly, conceive how this word can be applied in any other sense than this exclusively egocentric one.
What I know, immediately and certainly, are the events in my mind- my thoughts, my emotions, my perceptions, my desires and the like. These are not known, in this way, by anyone else. By the same token, I do not know other minds in the way I know my own.
The question is how am I different from or similar to others? The answer, I am neither. I am a living being as are others. I see others around me and assume they are like me. However, the truth is, I don't have any reason to believe others are living human beings- there is no difference between the two.
To say others learn of my pain from my behavior is misleading, because it suggests I learn of them some other way, I don't- I just have them.
The thesis all experience is private lends itself to the belief because of the secret nature of experience it can never literally be shared. This gives way to the problem how can anyone know other's experience, how can you know others have experience, at all?
Its because others have consciousness and mental lives we find the solipsistic notion others are 'automatons', machines devoid of of any conscious thought, bizarre and bewildering. We can't seriously entertain the idea others are 'automatons'.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Societal practice
The subject matter of John Rawl's theory is societal practice and institutions. Some social institutions can provoke envy and resentment. Others can foster alienation and exploitation. Is there a way of organizing society that can keep these problems within livable limits? Can society be organized around fair principles of cooperation in a way people would stably accept?
Rawl's suggestion is, in effect, that we should put all our effort into seeing that the rules of the game are fair. Once society has been organized around a set of fair rules, people can set about freely playing the game without interference.
Recognizing social institutions distort our views (by sometimes generating envy, resentment, alienation or false consciousness) and bias matters in their own favor (by indoctrinating and habituating those who grow up under them).
What principles of social justice would be chosen by parties thoroughly knowledgable about human affairs, in general, but wholly deprived- by the veil of ignorance- of information about the particular person they represent? Would rational parties behind a veil of ignorance choose average utilitarianism? Economist John Harsanyi argues they would because it would be rational for parties lacking any other information to maximize their expectation of well-being. Since they do not know who they will be, they will want to maximize the average level of well-being in society.
The veil deprives the parties of any knowledge of the values- the conception of the good- of the person into whose shoes they are to imagine stepping into. The veil of ignorance, however, prevents the parties from knowing anything particular about the preferences, likes or dislikes, committments or aversions of those persons. They also know nothing particular about the society for which they are choosing.
Rawls suggests we should ascribe to them a 'thinner' or less controversial set of committments. The core of which, he calls, 'primary' goods, rights, liberties, opportunities, income, wealth and the social bases of self-respect.
John Rawls
Political philosopher
The subject matter of John Rawl's theory is societal practice and institutions. Some social institutions can provoke envy and resentment. Others can foster alienation and exploitation. Is there a way of organizing society that can keep these problems within livable limits? Can society be organized around fair principles of cooperation in a way people would stably accept?
Rawl's suggestion is, in effect, that we should put all our effort into seeing that the rules of the game are fair. Once society has been organized around a set of fair rules, people can set about freely playing the game without interference.
Recognizing social institutions distort our views (by sometimes generating envy, resentment, alienation or false consciousness) and bias matters in their own favor (by indoctrinating and habituating those who grow up under them).
What principles of social justice would be chosen by parties thoroughly knowledgable about human affairs, in general, but wholly deprived- by the veil of ignorance- of information about the particular person they represent? Would rational parties behind a veil of ignorance choose average utilitarianism? Economist John Harsanyi argues they would because it would be rational for parties lacking any other information to maximize their expectation of well-being. Since they do not know who they will be, they will want to maximize the average level of well-being in society.
The veil deprives the parties of any knowledge of the values- the conception of the good- of the person into whose shoes they are to imagine stepping into. The veil of ignorance, however, prevents the parties from knowing anything particular about the preferences, likes or dislikes, committments or aversions of those persons. They also know nothing particular about the society for which they are choosing.
Rawls suggests we should ascribe to them a 'thinner' or less controversial set of committments. The core of which, he calls, 'primary' goods, rights, liberties, opportunities, income, wealth and the social bases of self-respect.
John Rawls
Political philosopher
God forbade...must reading!
Elbow Room
The idea of fate is older than philosophy itself. Since the dawn of the discipline philosophers have been trying to show what is wrong with the idea that our fates are sealed before we are born.
The Stoics urged a certain freedom found not in struggling against the inevitable, but adjusting desires downward to meet one's circumstances. The Stoics explained their 'apathetic' doctrine we are all assigned a role to play in the tragedy of life, there is nothing more for us to do but say our prescribed lines as best we can, there is no room to ad-lib.
Why are we afraid of not having free will? Its analagous to being in prison, being hypnotized, paralyzed or being a puppet.
In The Cosmic Child Whose Dolls We Are, Nozick writes, "Without free will we seem diminished, merely the plaything of external forces. How undignified to be a mere plaything, a toy".
In the idea of the disappearing self we are looking at a world that seems to be cleverly designed, but then deserted by its designer. The birds and bees, ants and fish are just going through the motions. They don't understand or appreciate what they are up to and no one, who can, can be found in the neighborhood.
In body 'english' we use a signature spin that's usually futile, sometimes comical and other times pathetic, and often irresistible. What science threatens to show us, all our striving is so much body english. Wouldn't it be sad if all our mental gymnastics, deliberations, strivings, resolutions and struggles were just so much body english?
Consider the idea of follow-through, the only way to achieve the goal is to look ahead and fix a more distant goal. It could make all the difference. Sometimes the only way to get what you really want, is to try to do something else.
Elbow Room- Daniel Dennett
The idea of fate is older than philosophy itself. Since the dawn of the discipline philosophers have been trying to show what is wrong with the idea that our fates are sealed before we are born.
The Stoics urged a certain freedom found not in struggling against the inevitable, but adjusting desires downward to meet one's circumstances. The Stoics explained their 'apathetic' doctrine we are all assigned a role to play in the tragedy of life, there is nothing more for us to do but say our prescribed lines as best we can, there is no room to ad-lib.
Why are we afraid of not having free will? Its analagous to being in prison, being hypnotized, paralyzed or being a puppet.
In The Cosmic Child Whose Dolls We Are, Nozick writes, "Without free will we seem diminished, merely the plaything of external forces. How undignified to be a mere plaything, a toy".
In the idea of the disappearing self we are looking at a world that seems to be cleverly designed, but then deserted by its designer. The birds and bees, ants and fish are just going through the motions. They don't understand or appreciate what they are up to and no one, who can, can be found in the neighborhood.
In body 'english' we use a signature spin that's usually futile, sometimes comical and other times pathetic, and often irresistible. What science threatens to show us, all our striving is so much body english. Wouldn't it be sad if all our mental gymnastics, deliberations, strivings, resolutions and struggles were just so much body english?
Consider the idea of follow-through, the only way to achieve the goal is to look ahead and fix a more distant goal. It could make all the difference. Sometimes the only way to get what you really want, is to try to do something else.
Elbow Room- Daniel Dennett
Monday, December 27, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Leisure
The wise use of leisure, agreeably, is a product of our civilization and education. A man who has worked long hours all his life will become bored if he suddenly becomes idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things in life. There is no longer any reason why the bulk of the population should suffer this deprivation; only a foolish self-denial, usually perceived by what others do, makes us continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.
The individual, in our society, works for profit; but the social purpose of his work lies in the consumption of what he produces. It is this divorce between the individual and the social purpose of production that makes it so difficult for men to think clearly in a world where profit-making is the incentive to industry. We think too much of production, and too little of consumption. One result is that we attach too little importance to enjoyment and simple happiness, and that we do not judge production by the pleasure that it gives to the consumer.
When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent on pure frivolity. I mean that four hours' work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit.
It is an essential part of any social system that education should be carried further than it usually does now, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently. I am not thinking mainly of the sort of things that would be considered 'highbrow'. Peasant dances have died out but in remote rural areas, still, the impulses which caused them to be cultivated must still exist in human nature. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: watching movies or football games, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.
University life is so different from the real world that men who live in academic milieu tend to be unaware of the preoccupations and problems of ordinary men and women. Their ways of expressing themselves usually rob them of their own influential opinions that they should have about the general public.
In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; making it oppressive, limiting their sympathies, and causing them to invent theories to justify their privileges. These facts profoundly diminished their excellence, but in spite of this drawback, it contributed nearly the whole of what we call civilization. It cultivated the arts and discovered the sciences; it wrote the books, invented the philosophies, and refined social relations. Even the liberation of the oppressed has usually been inaugurated from above. Without the leisure class, mankind would never have emerged from barbarism.
Bertrand Russell
In Praise of Idleness
The wise use of leisure, agreeably, is a product of our civilization and education. A man who has worked long hours all his life will become bored if he suddenly becomes idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things in life. There is no longer any reason why the bulk of the population should suffer this deprivation; only a foolish self-denial, usually perceived by what others do, makes us continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.
The individual, in our society, works for profit; but the social purpose of his work lies in the consumption of what he produces. It is this divorce between the individual and the social purpose of production that makes it so difficult for men to think clearly in a world where profit-making is the incentive to industry. We think too much of production, and too little of consumption. One result is that we attach too little importance to enjoyment and simple happiness, and that we do not judge production by the pleasure that it gives to the consumer.
When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent on pure frivolity. I mean that four hours' work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit.
It is an essential part of any social system that education should be carried further than it usually does now, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently. I am not thinking mainly of the sort of things that would be considered 'highbrow'. Peasant dances have died out but in remote rural areas, still, the impulses which caused them to be cultivated must still exist in human nature. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: watching movies or football games, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.
University life is so different from the real world that men who live in academic milieu tend to be unaware of the preoccupations and problems of ordinary men and women. Their ways of expressing themselves usually rob them of their own influential opinions that they should have about the general public.
In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; making it oppressive, limiting their sympathies, and causing them to invent theories to justify their privileges. These facts profoundly diminished their excellence, but in spite of this drawback, it contributed nearly the whole of what we call civilization. It cultivated the arts and discovered the sciences; it wrote the books, invented the philosophies, and refined social relations. Even the liberation of the oppressed has usually been inaugurated from above. Without the leisure class, mankind would never have emerged from barbarism.
Bertrand Russell
In Praise of Idleness
Saturday, December 25, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Sense and attention
Sensing is something animals and some plants and machines can do. Sensing involves a sensing organ or device to actively respond to environmental circumstances. A system may sense light, sound, water, prey or a predator. The sensing is usually manifest in behavior. Though everything responds passively to outside forces, the system for sense is active. The system's discriminations inform your senses. Careful experimental design goes into predicting migratory birds and fish sense navigating their long courses.
Secondly, sentience, sensation or feeling and qualia, the sense of 'what kind' involves information treated by the system to develop a subjective character. By having the sense of cold, sound and pain we understand the reference of having a sensation.
David Cole
What are you doing when you aren't doing anything at all? If you said “nothing” you've passed a test in logic... but flunked a test in neuroscience. When performing mental tasks-- adding numbers or identifying faces-- different areas of the brain become active. Brain scans show active areas as brightly colored squares on an otherwise dull background. Researchers have found when these areas light up, other areas go dark.
The dark network is off when we seem to be on, and on when we seem to be off. If you climbed into an MRI, while waiting for instructions, the dark area would be as active as a beehive. But the moment your task began, the bees would freeze and the network falls silent. We appear to be doing nothing, but we are clearly doing something. But what? Time travel?
The human mind can move through time in any direction and at any speed it chooses. Our talent for this is unparalled in the animal kingdom. We are time travelers capable of visiting the future or revisiting the past whenever we wish. If our neural time machines are damaged by illness, age or accident, we may become suspended or trapped in the present. Alzheimer's disease specifically attacks the dark network, stranding many of its victims in an endless now unable to remember their yesterdays or envision their tomorrows, or is it remember their marriages, but forgot what they had for breakfast?
Time travel allows us to pay for an experience once and have it again and again at no additional charge, learning new lessons with each repitition. When busy with life's experiences-- herding children, signing checks and battling traffic-- the dark network is silent, but after completion we move across the landscape of our history to see what we can learn-- for free.
One of the most startling facts about the dark network isn't, so much, what it does, but how often it does it. Neuroscientists call it the brain's default mode, which is to say we spend more of our time away from the present than in it. People overestimate how often they're in the moment because they rarely notice when they take leave. Its only when the dog barks, a child cries or the phone rings our mental time machines switch off and we get a bump in the here and now. We stay long enough to take a message and we slip off, again, to where the dark networks awash in light.
Stumbling on Happiness- Gilbert and Buckner, Harvard.
Sensing is something animals and some plants and machines can do. Sensing involves a sensing organ or device to actively respond to environmental circumstances. A system may sense light, sound, water, prey or a predator. The sensing is usually manifest in behavior. Though everything responds passively to outside forces, the system for sense is active. The system's discriminations inform your senses. Careful experimental design goes into predicting migratory birds and fish sense navigating their long courses.
Secondly, sentience, sensation or feeling and qualia, the sense of 'what kind' involves information treated by the system to develop a subjective character. By having the sense of cold, sound and pain we understand the reference of having a sensation.
David Cole
What are you doing when you aren't doing anything at all? If you said “nothing” you've passed a test in logic... but flunked a test in neuroscience. When performing mental tasks-- adding numbers or identifying faces-- different areas of the brain become active. Brain scans show active areas as brightly colored squares on an otherwise dull background. Researchers have found when these areas light up, other areas go dark.
The dark network is off when we seem to be on, and on when we seem to be off. If you climbed into an MRI, while waiting for instructions, the dark area would be as active as a beehive. But the moment your task began, the bees would freeze and the network falls silent. We appear to be doing nothing, but we are clearly doing something. But what? Time travel?
The human mind can move through time in any direction and at any speed it chooses. Our talent for this is unparalled in the animal kingdom. We are time travelers capable of visiting the future or revisiting the past whenever we wish. If our neural time machines are damaged by illness, age or accident, we may become suspended or trapped in the present. Alzheimer's disease specifically attacks the dark network, stranding many of its victims in an endless now unable to remember their yesterdays or envision their tomorrows, or is it remember their marriages, but forgot what they had for breakfast?
Time travel allows us to pay for an experience once and have it again and again at no additional charge, learning new lessons with each repitition. When busy with life's experiences-- herding children, signing checks and battling traffic-- the dark network is silent, but after completion we move across the landscape of our history to see what we can learn-- for free.
One of the most startling facts about the dark network isn't, so much, what it does, but how often it does it. Neuroscientists call it the brain's default mode, which is to say we spend more of our time away from the present than in it. People overestimate how often they're in the moment because they rarely notice when they take leave. Its only when the dog barks, a child cries or the phone rings our mental time machines switch off and we get a bump in the here and now. We stay long enough to take a message and we slip off, again, to where the dark networks awash in light.
Stumbling on Happiness- Gilbert and Buckner, Harvard.
God forbade...must reading!
Is-Ought Problem
That self-evident truth which the moral cognitivist claims to exist upon which all other prescriptive truths are ultimately based is:
One should desire what is really good for themselves and nothing else.
The terms “real good” and “right desire” cannot be defined apart from each other, and thus their definitions would contain some degree of circularity. The stated self-evident truth indicates a meaning particular to the ideas sought to be understood. It is (the moral cognitivist claims) impossible to think the opposite without a contradiction.
Thus combined with other descriptive truths of what is good (goods considered whether they suit an end and the limits to the possession of such goods compatible with the general end of the possession of the total of all real goods throughout a whole life), a valid body of knowledge of right desire is generated.
The is-ought fallacy occurs when a conclusion expressing what ought to be so is inferred from premises expressing only what is so, in which it is supposed that no implicit or explicit ought-premises are needed. There is controversy in the philosophical literature regarding whether this type of inference is always fallacious.
Example: He’s torturing the cat. So, he shouldn’t do that.
This argument clearly would not commit the fallacy if there were an implicit premise indicating that he is a person and persons shouldn’t torture other beings.
Ethics must somehow be based on an appreciation of human nature—on a sense of what a human being is or might be, and on what a human being might want to have or want to be. If that is naturalism, then naturalism is no fallacy. No one could seriously deny that ethics is responsive to such facts about human nature. We may just disagree about where to look for the most telling facts about human nature—in novels, in religious texts, in psychological experiments, in biological or anthropological innovations. The fallacy is not naturalism, but rather, any simple-minded attempt to rush from facts to values.
– Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea
David Hume
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
That self-evident truth which the moral cognitivist claims to exist upon which all other prescriptive truths are ultimately based is:
One should desire what is really good for themselves and nothing else.
The terms “real good” and “right desire” cannot be defined apart from each other, and thus their definitions would contain some degree of circularity. The stated self-evident truth indicates a meaning particular to the ideas sought to be understood. It is (the moral cognitivist claims) impossible to think the opposite without a contradiction.
Thus combined with other descriptive truths of what is good (goods considered whether they suit an end and the limits to the possession of such goods compatible with the general end of the possession of the total of all real goods throughout a whole life), a valid body of knowledge of right desire is generated.
The is-ought fallacy occurs when a conclusion expressing what ought to be so is inferred from premises expressing only what is so, in which it is supposed that no implicit or explicit ought-premises are needed. There is controversy in the philosophical literature regarding whether this type of inference is always fallacious.
Example: He’s torturing the cat. So, he shouldn’t do that.
This argument clearly would not commit the fallacy if there were an implicit premise indicating that he is a person and persons shouldn’t torture other beings.
Ethics must somehow be based on an appreciation of human nature—on a sense of what a human being is or might be, and on what a human being might want to have or want to be. If that is naturalism, then naturalism is no fallacy. No one could seriously deny that ethics is responsive to such facts about human nature. We may just disagree about where to look for the most telling facts about human nature—in novels, in religious texts, in psychological experiments, in biological or anthropological innovations. The fallacy is not naturalism, but rather, any simple-minded attempt to rush from facts to values.
– Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea
David Hume
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
God forbade...must reading!
John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
[He was in the world] From its very beginning he ruled the universe, spoke by his prophets and often, as the angel or messenger of Jehovah, appeared to them and the partiarchs. Now, he had become flesh and taken up residence among those whom he wished to save. verse 14.
[The world knew him not.] Did not acknowledge him; for the Jewish rulers knew well enough that he was a teacher come from God; but they did not choose to acknowledge him as such. Men love the world and this love hinders them from knowing him who made it, though he made it only to make himself known. Christ, by whom all things were made and by whom all things are continually supported, is continually manifesting himself by his providence and by his grace, yet the foolish heart of man regards it not!
God's View. com
Concordance
[He was in the world] From its very beginning he ruled the universe, spoke by his prophets and often, as the angel or messenger of Jehovah, appeared to them and the partiarchs. Now, he had become flesh and taken up residence among those whom he wished to save. verse 14.
[The world knew him not.] Did not acknowledge him; for the Jewish rulers knew well enough that he was a teacher come from God; but they did not choose to acknowledge him as such. Men love the world and this love hinders them from knowing him who made it, though he made it only to make himself known. Christ, by whom all things were made and by whom all things are continually supported, is continually manifesting himself by his providence and by his grace, yet the foolish heart of man regards it not!
God's View. com
Concordance
Friday, December 24, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Christianity’s reach
The long history of the aid and welfare activity in Christianity is truly impressive in its immense scope, systematic nature and determination. One of the greatest, if not the greatest social systems, Christian aid reaches almost every corner of human distress and responds to every disease across the globe. There is almost no place – from famine and plague-stricken Africa to the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of Sao Paulo and Mexico City, to the gutters of Bombay and Calcutta- where Christian priests, missions, shelters, medical workers or some other presence or activity for the needy cannot be found. The Christian aid system encompasses almost every known form of social institution known to man from birth ‘til death: hospitals, medical clinics, schools, institutes of higher education, soup kitchens, shelters for the poor, needy, abused and homeless, the elderly- the list is endless.
Traditions of Compassion- Khen Lampert
The long history of the aid and welfare activity in Christianity is truly impressive in its immense scope, systematic nature and determination. One of the greatest, if not the greatest social systems, Christian aid reaches almost every corner of human distress and responds to every disease across the globe. There is almost no place – from famine and plague-stricken Africa to the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of Sao Paulo and Mexico City, to the gutters of Bombay and Calcutta- where Christian priests, missions, shelters, medical workers or some other presence or activity for the needy cannot be found. The Christian aid system encompasses almost every known form of social institution known to man from birth ‘til death: hospitals, medical clinics, schools, institutes of higher education, soup kitchens, shelters for the poor, needy, abused and homeless, the elderly- the list is endless.
Traditions of Compassion- Khen Lampert
God forbade...must reading!
Marshal McLuhan
Marshal McLuhan, communications theorist, is known for the expressions the medium is the message
and global village.
McLuhan understood medium in a broad sense. He identified the light bulb as a clear demonstration of the concept of the medium is the message.
A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces at night that would otherwise be enveloped in darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence.
Hence in Understanding Media, McLuhan describes the "content" of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information, but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time.
Today, the term "Global Village" is mostly used as a metaphor to describe the Internet and World Wide Web. On the Internet, physical distance is even less of a hindrance to the real-time communicative activities of people, and so social spheres are greatly expanded by the openness of the web and the ease at which people can search for online communities and interact with others that share the same interests and concerns. This technology fosters the idea of a conglomerate yet unified global community. Due to the enhanced speed of communication online and the ability of people to read about, spread, and react to global news very rapidly, McLuhan says this forces us to become more involved with one another from countries around the world and be more aware of our global responsibilities.
Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother has come inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence. Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the time. In our long striving to recover for the Western world a unity of sensibility and of thought and feeling we have no more been prepared to accept the tribal consequences of such unity than we were ready for the fragmentation of the human psyche by print culture.
In the seventeenth century Pascal tells us that the heart has many reasons of which the head knows nothing. The Theater of the Absurd is essentially a communicating to the head of some of the silent languages of the heart which in two or three hundred years it has tried to forget all about.
The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction, written by European playwrights in the late 1940s through '60's. Their work expressed the belief that, in a godless society, human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence. The absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by an invisible outside force.
The mode of most "absurdist" plays is tragicomedy. Comedy alone is suitable for us ... but the tragic is still possible even if pure tragedy is not. We can achieve the tragic out of comedy. We can bring it forth as a frightening moment, as an abyss that opens suddenly; indeed, many of Shakespeare's tragedies are already really comedies out of which the tragic arises.
Wikipedia
Marshal McLuhan, communications theorist, is known for the expressions the medium is the message
and global village.
McLuhan understood medium in a broad sense. He identified the light bulb as a clear demonstration of the concept of the medium is the message.
A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces at night that would otherwise be enveloped in darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence.
Hence in Understanding Media, McLuhan describes the "content" of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information, but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time.
Today, the term "Global Village" is mostly used as a metaphor to describe the Internet and World Wide Web. On the Internet, physical distance is even less of a hindrance to the real-time communicative activities of people, and so social spheres are greatly expanded by the openness of the web and the ease at which people can search for online communities and interact with others that share the same interests and concerns. This technology fosters the idea of a conglomerate yet unified global community. Due to the enhanced speed of communication online and the ability of people to read about, spread, and react to global news very rapidly, McLuhan says this forces us to become more involved with one another from countries around the world and be more aware of our global responsibilities.
Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother has come inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence. Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the time. In our long striving to recover for the Western world a unity of sensibility and of thought and feeling we have no more been prepared to accept the tribal consequences of such unity than we were ready for the fragmentation of the human psyche by print culture.
In the seventeenth century Pascal tells us that the heart has many reasons of which the head knows nothing. The Theater of the Absurd is essentially a communicating to the head of some of the silent languages of the heart which in two or three hundred years it has tried to forget all about.
The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction, written by European playwrights in the late 1940s through '60's. Their work expressed the belief that, in a godless society, human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence. The absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by an invisible outside force.
The mode of most "absurdist" plays is tragicomedy. Comedy alone is suitable for us ... but the tragic is still possible even if pure tragedy is not. We can achieve the tragic out of comedy. We can bring it forth as a frightening moment, as an abyss that opens suddenly; indeed, many of Shakespeare's tragedies are already really comedies out of which the tragic arises.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Philosophical Zombies
A philosophical zombie or p-zombie is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, a sense of 'what kind' or sentience, feeling. When a zombie is poked with a sharp object, for example, it does not feel any pain. While it behaves exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say "ouch" and recoil, or tell us that it is in intense pain), it does not actually have the experience of pain as a putative 'normal' person does.
The notion of a philosophical zombie is mainly a thought experiment used in arguments (zombie arguments) in the philosophy of mind.
According to physicalism, the physical facts determine all other facts. It follows that, since all the facts about a p-zombie are fixed by the physical facts, and these facts are the same for the p-zombie and for the normal conscious human from which it cannot be physically distinguished, physicalism must hold that p-zombies are not possible, or that p-zombies are the same as normal humans. Therefore, zombie arguments support lines of reasoning that aim to show that zombies are possible.
One might distinguish between various types of zombies, as they are used in different thought experiments, as follows:
A behavioral zombie, a neurological zombie and a soulless zombie, each with no conscious experience, as such.
But there is a possible world in which all the physical facts are the same as those of our world but in which there are additional facts. For example, it is possible that there is a world exactly like ours in every physical respect, but in it everyone lacks certain mental states, namely any phenomenal experiences or qualia. The people there look and act just like people in the actual world, but they don't feel anything.When one gets shot, for example, he yells out as if he is in pain, but he doesn't feel any pain.
Artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky claims that the argument is simply circular. By proposing the possibility of something which is physically identical to a human but has no subjective experiences, the argument implies the physical characteristics of humans are not what produces those experiences. But that is exactly what the argument was claiming to prove.
Daniel Dennett coined the term zimboes (philosophical zombies that have second-order beliefs) to argue that the idea of a philosophical zombie is incoherent. Consider the case of zimboes, who are behaviorally just like us conscious human beings, but have no inner lives.
Zombies are the mindless malevolent minions in a Boris Karloff movie; zimboes, when villainous, are more in the Sidney Greenstreet line but, by hypothesis, they show just the same range of heroism, vice, and moral muddle that we do.
Zimboes, creatures with sophisticated sensitivities to the external world and their inner environment, enjoy just as much consciousness as there is to be had, they only insist nothing is wrong.
Consciousness is "more like fame" --- coming in degrees, possibly patchy or restricted and transitory, but not, in the nature of things, instantaneous or confined to a single point --- "than like being on television" --- a thoroughly unambiguous, on-or-off thing.
Wikipedia
A philosophical zombie or p-zombie is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, a sense of 'what kind' or sentience, feeling. When a zombie is poked with a sharp object, for example, it does not feel any pain. While it behaves exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say "ouch" and recoil, or tell us that it is in intense pain), it does not actually have the experience of pain as a putative 'normal' person does.
The notion of a philosophical zombie is mainly a thought experiment used in arguments (zombie arguments) in the philosophy of mind.
According to physicalism, the physical facts determine all other facts. It follows that, since all the facts about a p-zombie are fixed by the physical facts, and these facts are the same for the p-zombie and for the normal conscious human from which it cannot be physically distinguished, physicalism must hold that p-zombies are not possible, or that p-zombies are the same as normal humans. Therefore, zombie arguments support lines of reasoning that aim to show that zombies are possible.
One might distinguish between various types of zombies, as they are used in different thought experiments, as follows:
A behavioral zombie, a neurological zombie and a soulless zombie, each with no conscious experience, as such.
But there is a possible world in which all the physical facts are the same as those of our world but in which there are additional facts. For example, it is possible that there is a world exactly like ours in every physical respect, but in it everyone lacks certain mental states, namely any phenomenal experiences or qualia. The people there look and act just like people in the actual world, but they don't feel anything.When one gets shot, for example, he yells out as if he is in pain, but he doesn't feel any pain.
Artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky claims that the argument is simply circular. By proposing the possibility of something which is physically identical to a human but has no subjective experiences, the argument implies the physical characteristics of humans are not what produces those experiences. But that is exactly what the argument was claiming to prove.
Daniel Dennett coined the term zimboes (philosophical zombies that have second-order beliefs) to argue that the idea of a philosophical zombie is incoherent. Consider the case of zimboes, who are behaviorally just like us conscious human beings, but have no inner lives.
Zombies are the mindless malevolent minions in a Boris Karloff movie; zimboes, when villainous, are more in the Sidney Greenstreet line but, by hypothesis, they show just the same range of heroism, vice, and moral muddle that we do.
Zimboes, creatures with sophisticated sensitivities to the external world and their inner environment, enjoy just as much consciousness as there is to be had, they only insist nothing is wrong.
Consciousness is "more like fame" --- coming in degrees, possibly patchy or restricted and transitory, but not, in the nature of things, instantaneous or confined to a single point --- "than like being on television" --- a thoroughly unambiguous, on-or-off thing.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Personalism
One of the main points of interest of personalism is human subjectivity or self-consciousness, experienced in a person's own acts and inner happenings—in "everything in the human being that is internal, whereby each human being is an eye witness of its own self".
Many philosophical schools have at their core one particular thinker or even one central work which serves as a canonical touchstone. Personalism is a more diffused and eclectic movement and has no such universal reference point.
In describing experience we are enjoined to remember always the difference between our conceptual suppositions and our genuine evidence. The primary function of logic is the normative clarification of thought, and the function of clear thinking is to bring to the fore knowledge, understanding or appreciation of what we value. Abstractions are tools, not principles of the real.
The first point is the volitional and practical nature of belief. Persons living on the plane of instinct and hearsay have no intellectual difficulty here, but those entering upon the life of reflection without insight are sure to lose themselves in theoretical impotence and practical impudence. The impotence seen in a paralyzing inability to believe, owing to the fancy that theoretical demonstration must precede belief. The impudence shows itself in ruling out with an airy levity the practical principles by which men and nations live, because they admit of no formal proof. These extremes of unwisdom can be escaped only by an insight into the volitional and practical nature of belief.
Of the structural fallacies of uncritical thought, spontaneous thought is pretty sure to take itself as the double of reality. Thus arises the fallacy of the universal, the parent of a very large part of popular speculation. And when to this are added the omnipresent imposture and deceit of language, there results a great world of abstract and verbal illusion against which we cannot be too much on our guard, seeing that it is the source both of so much theoretical error and of so much practical menace and aberration.
Author and psychotherapist Thomas Moore associates spirit with "afterlife, cosmic issues, idealistic values and hopes, and universal truths", while placing soul "in the thick of things: in the repressed, in the shadow, in the messes of life, in illness, and in the pain and confusion of love." Hillman believes that religion and humanistic psychology have tended to the spirit, often at the unfortunate expense of soul. This happens, Moore says, because to transcend the "lowly conditions of the soul ... is to lose touch with the soul, and a split-off spirituality, with no influence from the soul, readily falls into extremes of literalism and destructive fanaticism."
The Baha'i Faith affirms that the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men has failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel.
Buddhist teaching holds that a notion of a permanent, abiding self is a delusion that is one of the root causes for human conflict on the emotional, social, and political levels. They add that an understanding of anatta provides an accurate description of the human condition, and that this understanding allows us to pacify our mundane desires.
Personalists are concerned to investigate the experience, the status, and the dignity of the human being as person, and regard this as the starting-point for all subsequent philosophical analysis[Thomas D. Williams, 2009].
Borden Parker Bowne’s ethical philosophy is characterized by its guarded meliorism, to make things better; an emphasis on practicality and on learning to be circumspect about human nature and possibilities.
Wikipedia
One of the main points of interest of personalism is human subjectivity or self-consciousness, experienced in a person's own acts and inner happenings—in "everything in the human being that is internal, whereby each human being is an eye witness of its own self".
Many philosophical schools have at their core one particular thinker or even one central work which serves as a canonical touchstone. Personalism is a more diffused and eclectic movement and has no such universal reference point.
In describing experience we are enjoined to remember always the difference between our conceptual suppositions and our genuine evidence. The primary function of logic is the normative clarification of thought, and the function of clear thinking is to bring to the fore knowledge, understanding or appreciation of what we value. Abstractions are tools, not principles of the real.
The first point is the volitional and practical nature of belief. Persons living on the plane of instinct and hearsay have no intellectual difficulty here, but those entering upon the life of reflection without insight are sure to lose themselves in theoretical impotence and practical impudence. The impotence seen in a paralyzing inability to believe, owing to the fancy that theoretical demonstration must precede belief. The impudence shows itself in ruling out with an airy levity the practical principles by which men and nations live, because they admit of no formal proof. These extremes of unwisdom can be escaped only by an insight into the volitional and practical nature of belief.
Of the structural fallacies of uncritical thought, spontaneous thought is pretty sure to take itself as the double of reality. Thus arises the fallacy of the universal, the parent of a very large part of popular speculation. And when to this are added the omnipresent imposture and deceit of language, there results a great world of abstract and verbal illusion against which we cannot be too much on our guard, seeing that it is the source both of so much theoretical error and of so much practical menace and aberration.
Author and psychotherapist Thomas Moore associates spirit with "afterlife, cosmic issues, idealistic values and hopes, and universal truths", while placing soul "in the thick of things: in the repressed, in the shadow, in the messes of life, in illness, and in the pain and confusion of love." Hillman believes that religion and humanistic psychology have tended to the spirit, often at the unfortunate expense of soul. This happens, Moore says, because to transcend the "lowly conditions of the soul ... is to lose touch with the soul, and a split-off spirituality, with no influence from the soul, readily falls into extremes of literalism and destructive fanaticism."
The Baha'i Faith affirms that the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men has failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel.
Buddhist teaching holds that a notion of a permanent, abiding self is a delusion that is one of the root causes for human conflict on the emotional, social, and political levels. They add that an understanding of anatta provides an accurate description of the human condition, and that this understanding allows us to pacify our mundane desires.
Personalists are concerned to investigate the experience, the status, and the dignity of the human being as person, and regard this as the starting-point for all subsequent philosophical analysis[Thomas D. Williams, 2009].
Borden Parker Bowne’s ethical philosophy is characterized by its guarded meliorism, to make things better; an emphasis on practicality and on learning to be circumspect about human nature and possibilities.
Wikipedia
Thursday, December 23, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Perception
The processes of perception routinely alter what humans see. When people view something with a preconceived concept about it, they tend to take those concepts and see them whether or not they are there. This problem stems from the fact that humans are unable to understand new information without the inherent bias of their previous knowledge. A person’s knowledge creates his or her reality as much as the truth, because the human mind can only contemplate that to which it has been exposed. When objects are viewed without understanding, the mind will try to reach for something that it already recognizes, in order to process what it is viewing. That which most closely relates to the unfamiliar from our past experiences, makes up what we see when we look at things that we don’t comprehend.
Wikipedia
The processes of perception routinely alter what humans see. When people view something with a preconceived concept about it, they tend to take those concepts and see them whether or not they are there. This problem stems from the fact that humans are unable to understand new information without the inherent bias of their previous knowledge. A person’s knowledge creates his or her reality as much as the truth, because the human mind can only contemplate that to which it has been exposed. When objects are viewed without understanding, the mind will try to reach for something that it already recognizes, in order to process what it is viewing. That which most closely relates to the unfamiliar from our past experiences, makes up what we see when we look at things that we don’t comprehend.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence, by claiming to be able to recreate the capabilities of the human mind, is both a challenge and an inspiration for philosophy. Are there limits to how intelligent machines can be? Is there an essential difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence? Can a machine have a mind and consciousness?
Artificial Intelligence is a common topic in both science fiction and projections about the future of technology and society. The existence of an artificial intelligence that rivals human intelligence raises difficult ethical issues, and the potential power of the technology inspires both hopes and fears.
In fiction, Artificial Intelligence has appeared fulfilling many roles, including a servant, R2D2 in Star Wars, a law enforcer, K.I.T.T. in “Knight Rider”, a comrade, Lt. Commander Data in Star Trek; The Next Generation, a conqueror/overlord , The Matrix, a dictator, With Folded Hands, an assassin in the Terminator, a sentient race, Battlestar Galactica/Transformers, an extension to human abilities, Ghost in the Shell and the savior of the human race, R. Daneel Olivaw in the Asimov's Robot Series.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein considers a key issue in the ethics of artificial intelligence: if a machine can be created that has intelligence, could it also feel? If it can feel, does it have the same rights as a human? The idea also appears in modern science fiction, including the films I Robot, Blade Runner and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, in which humanoid machines have the ability to feel human emotions. This issue, now known as "robot rights", is currently being considered, for example, by California's Institute for the Future although many critics believe that the discussion is premature.
Andrew Kennedy, in his musing on the evolution of the human personality, considered that artificial intelligences or 'new minds' are likely to have severe personality disorders, and identifies four particular types that are likely to arise: the autistic, the collector, the ecstatic, and the victim. He suggests that they will need humans because of our superior understanding of personality and the role of the unconscious.
Martin Ford and others argue that specialized artificial intelligence applications, robotics and other forms of automation will ultimately result in significant unemployment as machines begin to match and exceed the capability of workers to perform most routine and repetitive jobs. Evidence to support this contention may be found in the fact that real wages for new college graduates have been flat or even declining since 2000.
Joseph Weizenbaum wrote that AI applications can not, by definition, successfully simulate genuine human empathy and that the use of AI technology in fields of customer service or psychotherapy is deeply misguided. Weizenbaum was also bothered that AI researchers and some philosophers were willing to view the human mind as nothing more than a computer program (a position now known as computationalism). To Weizenbaum these points suggest that AI research devalues human life.
Many futurists believe that artificial intelligence will ultimately transcend the limits of progress. Ray Kurzweil calculates desktop computers will have the same processing power as human brains by the year 2029. He also predicts that by 2045 artificial intelligence will reach a point where it is able to improve itself at a rate that far exceeds anything conceivable in the past, known as technological singularity.
Robot designers have predicted that humans and machines will merge in the future into cyborgs that are more capable and powerful than either.
Pamela McCorduck writes that all these scenarios are expressions of the ancient human desire to, as she calls it, "forge the gods".
Wikipedia
Artificial intelligence, by claiming to be able to recreate the capabilities of the human mind, is both a challenge and an inspiration for philosophy. Are there limits to how intelligent machines can be? Is there an essential difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence? Can a machine have a mind and consciousness?
Artificial Intelligence is a common topic in both science fiction and projections about the future of technology and society. The existence of an artificial intelligence that rivals human intelligence raises difficult ethical issues, and the potential power of the technology inspires both hopes and fears.
In fiction, Artificial Intelligence has appeared fulfilling many roles, including a servant, R2D2 in Star Wars, a law enforcer, K.I.T.T. in “Knight Rider”, a comrade, Lt. Commander Data in Star Trek; The Next Generation, a conqueror/overlord , The Matrix, a dictator, With Folded Hands, an assassin in the Terminator, a sentient race, Battlestar Galactica/Transformers, an extension to human abilities, Ghost in the Shell and the savior of the human race, R. Daneel Olivaw in the Asimov's Robot Series.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein considers a key issue in the ethics of artificial intelligence: if a machine can be created that has intelligence, could it also feel? If it can feel, does it have the same rights as a human? The idea also appears in modern science fiction, including the films I Robot, Blade Runner and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, in which humanoid machines have the ability to feel human emotions. This issue, now known as "robot rights", is currently being considered, for example, by California's Institute for the Future although many critics believe that the discussion is premature.
Andrew Kennedy, in his musing on the evolution of the human personality, considered that artificial intelligences or 'new minds' are likely to have severe personality disorders, and identifies four particular types that are likely to arise: the autistic, the collector, the ecstatic, and the victim. He suggests that they will need humans because of our superior understanding of personality and the role of the unconscious.
Martin Ford and others argue that specialized artificial intelligence applications, robotics and other forms of automation will ultimately result in significant unemployment as machines begin to match and exceed the capability of workers to perform most routine and repetitive jobs. Evidence to support this contention may be found in the fact that real wages for new college graduates have been flat or even declining since 2000.
Joseph Weizenbaum wrote that AI applications can not, by definition, successfully simulate genuine human empathy and that the use of AI technology in fields of customer service or psychotherapy is deeply misguided. Weizenbaum was also bothered that AI researchers and some philosophers were willing to view the human mind as nothing more than a computer program (a position now known as computationalism). To Weizenbaum these points suggest that AI research devalues human life.
Many futurists believe that artificial intelligence will ultimately transcend the limits of progress. Ray Kurzweil calculates desktop computers will have the same processing power as human brains by the year 2029. He also predicts that by 2045 artificial intelligence will reach a point where it is able to improve itself at a rate that far exceeds anything conceivable in the past, known as technological singularity.
Robot designers have predicted that humans and machines will merge in the future into cyborgs that are more capable and powerful than either.
Pamela McCorduck writes that all these scenarios are expressions of the ancient human desire to, as she calls it, "forge the gods".
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Thought experiments
Some philosophers believe that all science-fiction thought experiments should be viewed with suspicion. They argue that when a thought experiment describes a state of affairs that is radically different from the actual one (or what we think it to be), our intuitions become unreliable, and significant philosophical conclusions cannot be drawn from them. Daniel Dennett, for example, calls these experiments "intuition pumps", which play on a strong but ultimately illusory intuition. Indeed, Phil Hutchinson notes that a. if one looks at Putnam's own later criticisms of others (for example his criticisms of Jaegwon Kim in his book The Threefold Cord) one finds that implicitly he critiques his own earlier self; and b. that the persuasive power of thought experiment/intuition pump relies on our turning a blind eye to aspects of the experiment in order that it establish that which Putnam claims it to. In short, the thought experiment is set up in such a way that one's intuitions will be pumped in the desired direction.
Wikipedia
Some philosophers believe that all science-fiction thought experiments should be viewed with suspicion. They argue that when a thought experiment describes a state of affairs that is radically different from the actual one (or what we think it to be), our intuitions become unreliable, and significant philosophical conclusions cannot be drawn from them. Daniel Dennett, for example, calls these experiments "intuition pumps", which play on a strong but ultimately illusory intuition. Indeed, Phil Hutchinson notes that a. if one looks at Putnam's own later criticisms of others (for example his criticisms of Jaegwon Kim in his book The Threefold Cord) one finds that implicitly he critiques his own earlier self; and b. that the persuasive power of thought experiment/intuition pump relies on our turning a blind eye to aspects of the experiment in order that it establish that which Putnam claims it to. In short, the thought experiment is set up in such a way that one's intuitions will be pumped in the desired direction.
Wikipedia
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Pre-established harmony
Gottfried Leibniz's theory of pre-established harmony is a philosophical theory about causation under which every "substance" only affects itself, but all the substances (both bodies and minds) in the world nevertheless seem to causally interact with each other because they have been programmed by God in advance to "harmonize" with each other. Leibniz's term for these substances was "monads" which he described in a popular work Monadology as "windowless".
The monads are "substantial forms of being" with the following properties: they are eternal, indecomposable, individual, subject to their own laws, un-interacting, and each reflecting the entire universe in a pre-established harmony. Monads are centers of force; while space, matter and motion are merely phenomenal.
Although Leibniz says that each monad is "windowless," he also claims that it functions as a "mirror" of the entire created universe.
Leibniz casts God as a kind of "optimizer" of the collection of all original possibilities: Since He is good and omnipotent, and since He chose this world out of all possibilities, this world must be good—in fact, this world is the best of all possible worlds.
On the one hand, this view might help us rationalize some of what we experience:
Imagine that all the world is made of good and evil. The best possible world would have the most good and the least evil. Courage is better than no courage. It might be observed, then, that without evil to challenge us, there can be no courage. Since evil brings out the best aspects of humanity, evil is regarded as necessary. So in creating this world God made some evil to make the best of all possible worlds.
On the other hand, the theory explains evil not by denying it or even rationalizing it—but simply by declaring it to be part of the optimum combination of elements that comprise the best possible Godly choice. Leibniz thus does not claim that the world is overall very good, but that because of the necessary interconnections of goods and evils, God, though omnipotent, could not improve it in one way without making it worse in some other way.
Under pre-established harmony, the preprogramming of each mind must be extremely complex, since only it itself causes its own thoughts or movements, for as long as it exists. In order to appear to interact, each substance's "program" must contain a description of either the entire universe, or of how the object is to behave at all times, during all "interactions" which will appear to occur.
In Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time Michael Shermer relates to Voltaire's character Pangloss to show how smart people deceive themselves. Shermer explores the psychology of scholars and businessmen who give up their careers in their pursuit to broadcast their paranormal beliefs. In his last chapter, Shermer explains that "smart people" can be more susceptible to believing in weird things.
Pangloss’s philosophy of life is that all is for the best in the “best of all possible worlds.” This optimistic philosophy actually is the key element of Voltaire’s satire. Pangloss’s philosophy is against the ideas of the Enlightenment period. Pangloss believes that a powerful God had created the world and that, therefore, the world must be perfect. When creatures of the world, see something as wrong or evil, it is because they do not understand the ultimate good that will come out of it. Voltaire satirically shows the reader that Pangloss is not a believable character. Voltaire illustrates this by showing us that he keeps his optimistic thought even when he is imprisoned. Pangloss ignores any evidence that contradicts his initial opinion. He also uses illogical arguments to support his beliefs. Pangloss’s philosophy tries to impose a passive attitude toward all that is wrong in the world. If the world is the best one possible, then there is no reason to make any effort to change things.
Martin is more believable than Pangloss, not because he is more sophisticated, but because he is smarter and more likely to draw conclusions with which we can identify. Martin had been robbed by his wife and beaten by his son and deserted by his daughter and also endured financial setbacks, and therefore he’s a pessimist whereas Pangloss is an optimist. He uses his experiences to judge the world whereas Pangloss was merely using a theory. As a result, Martin is more insightful than Pangloss to foresee events that will happen. Even though Martin’s philosophy is more believable than Pangloss’s, he’s still not good at predicting how some people will behave because his philosophy is coming from extreme pessimism. Therefore it might not be wrong to say that Voltaire is trying to prove that we need flexible thought in our lives based on real evidence.
Wikipedia, OpPapers
Gottfried Leibniz's theory of pre-established harmony is a philosophical theory about causation under which every "substance" only affects itself, but all the substances (both bodies and minds) in the world nevertheless seem to causally interact with each other because they have been programmed by God in advance to "harmonize" with each other. Leibniz's term for these substances was "monads" which he described in a popular work Monadology as "windowless".
The monads are "substantial forms of being" with the following properties: they are eternal, indecomposable, individual, subject to their own laws, un-interacting, and each reflecting the entire universe in a pre-established harmony. Monads are centers of force; while space, matter and motion are merely phenomenal.
Although Leibniz says that each monad is "windowless," he also claims that it functions as a "mirror" of the entire created universe.
Leibniz casts God as a kind of "optimizer" of the collection of all original possibilities: Since He is good and omnipotent, and since He chose this world out of all possibilities, this world must be good—in fact, this world is the best of all possible worlds.
On the one hand, this view might help us rationalize some of what we experience:
Imagine that all the world is made of good and evil. The best possible world would have the most good and the least evil. Courage is better than no courage. It might be observed, then, that without evil to challenge us, there can be no courage. Since evil brings out the best aspects of humanity, evil is regarded as necessary. So in creating this world God made some evil to make the best of all possible worlds.
On the other hand, the theory explains evil not by denying it or even rationalizing it—but simply by declaring it to be part of the optimum combination of elements that comprise the best possible Godly choice. Leibniz thus does not claim that the world is overall very good, but that because of the necessary interconnections of goods and evils, God, though omnipotent, could not improve it in one way without making it worse in some other way.
Under pre-established harmony, the preprogramming of each mind must be extremely complex, since only it itself causes its own thoughts or movements, for as long as it exists. In order to appear to interact, each substance's "program" must contain a description of either the entire universe, or of how the object is to behave at all times, during all "interactions" which will appear to occur.
In Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time Michael Shermer relates to Voltaire's character Pangloss to show how smart people deceive themselves. Shermer explores the psychology of scholars and businessmen who give up their careers in their pursuit to broadcast their paranormal beliefs. In his last chapter, Shermer explains that "smart people" can be more susceptible to believing in weird things.
Pangloss’s philosophy of life is that all is for the best in the “best of all possible worlds.” This optimistic philosophy actually is the key element of Voltaire’s satire. Pangloss’s philosophy is against the ideas of the Enlightenment period. Pangloss believes that a powerful God had created the world and that, therefore, the world must be perfect. When creatures of the world, see something as wrong or evil, it is because they do not understand the ultimate good that will come out of it. Voltaire satirically shows the reader that Pangloss is not a believable character. Voltaire illustrates this by showing us that he keeps his optimistic thought even when he is imprisoned. Pangloss ignores any evidence that contradicts his initial opinion. He also uses illogical arguments to support his beliefs. Pangloss’s philosophy tries to impose a passive attitude toward all that is wrong in the world. If the world is the best one possible, then there is no reason to make any effort to change things.
Martin is more believable than Pangloss, not because he is more sophisticated, but because he is smarter and more likely to draw conclusions with which we can identify. Martin had been robbed by his wife and beaten by his son and deserted by his daughter and also endured financial setbacks, and therefore he’s a pessimist whereas Pangloss is an optimist. He uses his experiences to judge the world whereas Pangloss was merely using a theory. As a result, Martin is more insightful than Pangloss to foresee events that will happen. Even though Martin’s philosophy is more believable than Pangloss’s, he’s still not good at predicting how some people will behave because his philosophy is coming from extreme pessimism. Therefore it might not be wrong to say that Voltaire is trying to prove that we need flexible thought in our lives based on real evidence.
Wikipedia, OpPapers
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Mary's Room
Mary's Room is a proposed thought experiment that attempts to establish that there are non-physical properties and attainable knowledge that can be discovered through conscious experience. It attempts to refute the theory that all knowledge is physical knowledge.
The thought experiment was originally proposed by Frank Jackson as follows:
Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces by way of the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?
In other words, Jackson's Mary is a scientist who knows everything there is to know about the science of color, but has never experienced color. The question that Jackson raises is: once she experiences color, does she learn anything new?
Thompson questioned the premise that Mary, simply by being confined to a monochromatic environment, would not have any color experiences. Furthermore, would it not be a possible case that Mary, upon release, still would not be able to see colors?
Nemirow claims that "knowing what an experience is like is the same as knowing how to imagine having the experience". He argues that Mary only obtained the ability to do something, not the knowledge of something new. There have been arguments against this ability hypothesis as well, namely that being able to imagine having a particular experience is neither necessary nor sufficient for having the knowledge of exactly what it is like to have that kind of experience.
Thomas Nagel takes a slightly different approach. In an effort to make his argument more adaptable and relatable, he takes the stand of humans attempting to understand the sonar capabilities of bats. Even with the entire physical database at one's fingertips, humans would not be able to fully perceive or understand a bat's sonar system, namely what it's like to perceive something with a bat's sonar.
Wikipedia
Mary's Room is a proposed thought experiment that attempts to establish that there are non-physical properties and attainable knowledge that can be discovered through conscious experience. It attempts to refute the theory that all knowledge is physical knowledge.
The thought experiment was originally proposed by Frank Jackson as follows:
Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces by way of the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?
In other words, Jackson's Mary is a scientist who knows everything there is to know about the science of color, but has never experienced color. The question that Jackson raises is: once she experiences color, does she learn anything new?
Thompson questioned the premise that Mary, simply by being confined to a monochromatic environment, would not have any color experiences. Furthermore, would it not be a possible case that Mary, upon release, still would not be able to see colors?
Nemirow claims that "knowing what an experience is like is the same as knowing how to imagine having the experience". He argues that Mary only obtained the ability to do something, not the knowledge of something new. There have been arguments against this ability hypothesis as well, namely that being able to imagine having a particular experience is neither necessary nor sufficient for having the knowledge of exactly what it is like to have that kind of experience.
Thomas Nagel takes a slightly different approach. In an effort to make his argument more adaptable and relatable, he takes the stand of humans attempting to understand the sonar capabilities of bats. Even with the entire physical database at one's fingertips, humans would not be able to fully perceive or understand a bat's sonar system, namely what it's like to perceive something with a bat's sonar.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Chinese room
The Chinese Room is a thought experiment by John Searle which first appeared in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980.
In the artificial intelligence experiment, Searle imagines himself in a room acting as a computer by manually executing a program that convincingly simulates the behavior of a native Chinese speaker. People outside the room slide Chinese characters under the door and Searle, to whom "Chinese writing is just so many meaningless squiggles", is able to create sensible replies, in Chinese, by following the instructions of the program; that is, by moving papers around.
The experiment is the centerpiece of Searle's Chinese room argument which holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave.
He concludes that "programs are neither constitutive of nor sufficient for minds."
"I can have any formal computer program you like, but I still understand nothing."
The Chinese room is an argument against certain claims of leading thinkers in the field of artificial intelligence.
Searle argues that without "understanding", we cannot describe what the machine is doing as "thinking". Because it does not think, it does not have a "mind" in anything like the normal sense of the word.
Although the Chinese room argument was originally presented in reaction to the statements of AI researchers, philosophers have come to view it as an important part of the philosophy of mind.
"The Chinese room argument ... assumes complete success on the part of artificial intelligence in simulating human cognition," Searle writes. This leaves open the possibility that a machine could be built that acts more intelligent than a man, but does not have a mind or intentionality in the same way that brains do.
"The study of the mind starts with the facts that humans have beliefs, while thermostats, telephones, and adding machines don't ... what we wanted to know is what distinguishes the mind from alarm clocks and livers."
Brains must have something that causes a mind to exist.
John Haugeland wrote that "AI wants only the genuine article: machines with minds, in the full and literal sense. This is not science fiction, but real science, based on a theoretical conception as deep as it is daring: namely, we are, at root, computers ourselves!"
Wikipedia
The Chinese Room is a thought experiment by John Searle which first appeared in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980.
In the artificial intelligence experiment, Searle imagines himself in a room acting as a computer by manually executing a program that convincingly simulates the behavior of a native Chinese speaker. People outside the room slide Chinese characters under the door and Searle, to whom "Chinese writing is just so many meaningless squiggles", is able to create sensible replies, in Chinese, by following the instructions of the program; that is, by moving papers around.
The experiment is the centerpiece of Searle's Chinese room argument which holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave.
He concludes that "programs are neither constitutive of nor sufficient for minds."
"I can have any formal computer program you like, but I still understand nothing."
The Chinese room is an argument against certain claims of leading thinkers in the field of artificial intelligence.
Searle argues that without "understanding", we cannot describe what the machine is doing as "thinking". Because it does not think, it does not have a "mind" in anything like the normal sense of the word.
Although the Chinese room argument was originally presented in reaction to the statements of AI researchers, philosophers have come to view it as an important part of the philosophy of mind.
"The Chinese room argument ... assumes complete success on the part of artificial intelligence in simulating human cognition," Searle writes. This leaves open the possibility that a machine could be built that acts more intelligent than a man, but does not have a mind or intentionality in the same way that brains do.
"The study of the mind starts with the facts that humans have beliefs, while thermostats, telephones, and adding machines don't ... what we wanted to know is what distinguishes the mind from alarm clocks and livers."
Brains must have something that causes a mind to exist.
John Haugeland wrote that "AI wants only the genuine article: machines with minds, in the full and literal sense. This is not science fiction, but real science, based on a theoretical conception as deep as it is daring: namely, we are, at root, computers ourselves!"
Wikipedia
Monday, December 20, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Self plagiarism
Is it possible?
Self plagiarism, also known as recycling fraud, is the reuse of significant or identical parts of your own work without saying so and without citing the original work. This can be illegal if copyrighted work has been transferred to another entity.
Typically, self plagiarism is a serious issue in academic publishing or educational assignments. It doesn't apply to public-interest texts like social or professional opinions published in newspapers and magazines.
Identifying self-plagiarism is difficult because limited reuse of material is legally accepted as fair use and ethically accepted. In order to disseminate work to the widest possible audience university researchers commonly rephrase and republish their own work, but obey limits: if half the article is the same it will usually be rejected.
One of the functions of peer review in academic writing is to prevent this type of recycling.
Wikipedia
Is it possible?
Self plagiarism, also known as recycling fraud, is the reuse of significant or identical parts of your own work without saying so and without citing the original work. This can be illegal if copyrighted work has been transferred to another entity.
Typically, self plagiarism is a serious issue in academic publishing or educational assignments. It doesn't apply to public-interest texts like social or professional opinions published in newspapers and magazines.
Identifying self-plagiarism is difficult because limited reuse of material is legally accepted as fair use and ethically accepted. In order to disseminate work to the widest possible audience university researchers commonly rephrase and republish their own work, but obey limits: if half the article is the same it will usually be rejected.
One of the functions of peer review in academic writing is to prevent this type of recycling.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Free Art license
The Free Art license is a 'copyleft' license that grants the right to freely copy, distribute and transform creative works without the author's explicit permission.
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright, a general method for making a program or other work free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.
The free art license recognizes and protects these rights, to allow everyone to use creations of the human mind in a creative manner, regardless of their types and ways of expression.
The invention and development of digital technologies, Internet and free software have changed creation methods: creations of the human mind can obviously be distributed, exchanged, and transformed. They allow to produce common works to which everyone can contribute to the benefit of all.
Plagiarism is defined as "the wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or stealing and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work. The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, while in the previous centuries authors and artists were encouraged to "copy the masters as closely as possible" and avoid "unnecessary invention."
Plagiarism is not a crime but is disapproved more on the grounds of a moral offence.
Wikipedia
The Free Art license is a 'copyleft' license that grants the right to freely copy, distribute and transform creative works without the author's explicit permission.
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright, a general method for making a program or other work free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.
The free art license recognizes and protects these rights, to allow everyone to use creations of the human mind in a creative manner, regardless of their types and ways of expression.
The invention and development of digital technologies, Internet and free software have changed creation methods: creations of the human mind can obviously be distributed, exchanged, and transformed. They allow to produce common works to which everyone can contribute to the benefit of all.
Plagiarism is defined as "the wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or stealing and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work. The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, while in the previous centuries authors and artists were encouraged to "copy the masters as closely as possible" and avoid "unnecessary invention."
Plagiarism is not a crime but is disapproved more on the grounds of a moral offence.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Spirit, Letter
The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis, that is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings, as kick the bucket or hang one's head and an opposition or contrast of them.
To obey the letter of the law but not the spirit, is to obey the literal interpretation of the law, but not the intent of those who wrote the law. Conversely, to obey the spirit of the law but not the letter, one is doing what the authors of the law intended, though not a literal adhering.
"Law" originally referred to legislative statute, but may refer to any kind of rule. Intentionally following the letter of the law but not the spirit may be accomplished through exploiting technicalities, loopholes, and ambiguous language. Following the letter of the law but not the spirit is also a tactic used by oppressive governments.
Gaming the system, also known as 'rules lawyering' is the following of the letter- over, or contrary to- the spirit of the law. Negatively, it is manipulating the rules to achieve a personal advantage or acting in an antisocial, irritating manner while still in the bounds of the rules.
A new covenant found in Jeremiah 31 is a theme built on an old theme, first, it will not be broken, but will last forever and not just written in stone, but written on our hearts. According to Luke and Saint Paul this prophesy was fulfilled only through the work of Jesus who did not come to destroy the old covenant, but to fulfill it. It was always about love. All the law can be summed up in this, to love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself!
Wikipedia
The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis, that is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings, as kick the bucket or hang one's head and an opposition or contrast of them.
To obey the letter of the law but not the spirit, is to obey the literal interpretation of the law, but not the intent of those who wrote the law. Conversely, to obey the spirit of the law but not the letter, one is doing what the authors of the law intended, though not a literal adhering.
"Law" originally referred to legislative statute, but may refer to any kind of rule. Intentionally following the letter of the law but not the spirit may be accomplished through exploiting technicalities, loopholes, and ambiguous language. Following the letter of the law but not the spirit is also a tactic used by oppressive governments.
Gaming the system, also known as 'rules lawyering' is the following of the letter- over, or contrary to- the spirit of the law. Negatively, it is manipulating the rules to achieve a personal advantage or acting in an antisocial, irritating manner while still in the bounds of the rules.
A new covenant found in Jeremiah 31 is a theme built on an old theme, first, it will not be broken, but will last forever and not just written in stone, but written on our hearts. According to Luke and Saint Paul this prophesy was fulfilled only through the work of Jesus who did not come to destroy the old covenant, but to fulfill it. It was always about love. All the law can be summed up in this, to love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself!
Wikipedia
Sunday, December 19, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Brain in a Vat
Have you heard the saying,
“You are a brain in a vat, and I am not”?
This saying comes from thought experiments to draw out certain features of our ideas of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, and meaning. In the story a machine or mad scientist removes a brain and puts it in a life-sustaining vat. The brain's neurons would be connected to a supercomputer. Through impulses the computer could simulate reality, the brain would have perfectly normal experiences independent of real world events.
Since the brain gets the same impulses as in a skull, it could not tell the difference.
Since, the argument says, one cannot know whether they are a brain in a vat, then he or she cannot know whether most of his or her beliefs might be completely false. Since, in principle, it is impossible to rule out oneself being a brain in a vat, there cannot be good grounds for believing any of the things one believes; one certainly cannot know.
This brings to mind the Tao story,
Once upon a time, I, Chang Tzu dreamt I was a butterfly flitting around and enjoying myself. I had no idea I was Chang-Tzu. Then suddenly I woke up and was Chang-Tzu again. But I could not tell, had I been Chang-Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or was I a butterfly dreaming I was Chang-Tzu? However there must be some sort of difference between Chang-Tzu and the butterfly. We call this the transformation of things.
Similarly,
Continuity, and not content, is the difference between dream and waking experiences.
Imagine, every morning Smith gets up, gets dressed, has bacon and eggs, goes to work at the factory, works all day, goes home, eats supper, watches TV and, at midnight goes to sleep. At that point, he really wakes up, gets dressed, has bacon and eggs, goes to work, etc. until, at midnight, he goes to sleep and dreams that he wakes up, gets dressed, eats breakfast… In other words Smith has two streams of experience. One is ‘real’ in waking life, the other his illusory ‘dream’ life. But imagine both lives have continuity, the experiences of each dream day have continuity with all those other dream days, unlike ordinary dreams.
Would Smith be able to tell the dream from real experiences? Continuity or regularity is the essential difference between dream and waking experiences. The experiences must be of the same sort of things. And so, see no difference in the two worlds.
Now to quote Aerosmith,
Dream until your dreams come true!
Wikipedia
Have you heard the saying,
“You are a brain in a vat, and I am not”?
This saying comes from thought experiments to draw out certain features of our ideas of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, and meaning. In the story a machine or mad scientist removes a brain and puts it in a life-sustaining vat. The brain's neurons would be connected to a supercomputer. Through impulses the computer could simulate reality, the brain would have perfectly normal experiences independent of real world events.
Since the brain gets the same impulses as in a skull, it could not tell the difference.
Since, the argument says, one cannot know whether they are a brain in a vat, then he or she cannot know whether most of his or her beliefs might be completely false. Since, in principle, it is impossible to rule out oneself being a brain in a vat, there cannot be good grounds for believing any of the things one believes; one certainly cannot know.
This brings to mind the Tao story,
Once upon a time, I, Chang Tzu dreamt I was a butterfly flitting around and enjoying myself. I had no idea I was Chang-Tzu. Then suddenly I woke up and was Chang-Tzu again. But I could not tell, had I been Chang-Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or was I a butterfly dreaming I was Chang-Tzu? However there must be some sort of difference between Chang-Tzu and the butterfly. We call this the transformation of things.
Similarly,
Continuity, and not content, is the difference between dream and waking experiences.
Imagine, every morning Smith gets up, gets dressed, has bacon and eggs, goes to work at the factory, works all day, goes home, eats supper, watches TV and, at midnight goes to sleep. At that point, he really wakes up, gets dressed, has bacon and eggs, goes to work, etc. until, at midnight, he goes to sleep and dreams that he wakes up, gets dressed, eats breakfast… In other words Smith has two streams of experience. One is ‘real’ in waking life, the other his illusory ‘dream’ life. But imagine both lives have continuity, the experiences of each dream day have continuity with all those other dream days, unlike ordinary dreams.
Would Smith be able to tell the dream from real experiences? Continuity or regularity is the essential difference between dream and waking experiences. The experiences must be of the same sort of things. And so, see no difference in the two worlds.
Now to quote Aerosmith,
Dream until your dreams come true!
Wikipedia
Saturday, December 18, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Love w/ Will to Power
Nietzche gives a view to his 'Will to Power' looking at love. He writes;
People are cheered by the sight of another and quickly fall in love with him. They are well disposed toward him and their first judgment is “I like him”. In rapid succession is, first, the wish to appropriate, and a quick appropriation, at that, not judging or assessing the other. They delight in their new possession and consideration for the benefit of their latest conquest.
What Nietzche Really Said- Solomon and Higgins
Nietzche gives a view to his 'Will to Power' looking at love. He writes;
People are cheered by the sight of another and quickly fall in love with him. They are well disposed toward him and their first judgment is “I like him”. In rapid succession is, first, the wish to appropriate, and a quick appropriation, at that, not judging or assessing the other. They delight in their new possession and consideration for the benefit of their latest conquest.
What Nietzche Really Said- Solomon and Higgins
God forbade...must reading!
Harm principle
John Stuart Mill's On Liberty addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. The harm principle holds that each individual has the right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others. If the action is self-regarding, that is, if it only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself. He does argue, however, that individuals are prevented from doing lasting, serious harm to themselves or their property by the harm principle. Because no-one exists in isolation, harm done to oneself also harms others, and destroying property deprives the community as well as oneself.
Mill argues that free discourse is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he contends, that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. He also argues that allowing people to air false opinions is productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of ideas. Second, by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from declining into mere dogma. It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an unexamined belief that happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is the true one.
Social liberty for Mill was to put limits on the ruler’s power so that he would not be able to use his power on his own wishes and make every kind of decision which could harm society. In other words, people should have the right to have a say in the government’s decisions. He said that social liberty was “the nature and limits of the power which can be exercised by society over the individual”.
"Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression. Though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”
Ayn Rand, philosopher and novelist, wrote against the idea of tyranny of the majority. She says that individual rights are not subject to a public vote, and that the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and that the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
American political theorist John C. Calhoun developed the theory of concurrent majority to deal with the tyranny of the majority. It states that great decisions are not merely a matter of numerical majorities, but require agreement or acceptance by the major interest in society, each of which had the power to block federal laws that it feared would seriously infringe on their rights. That is, it is illegitimate for a temporary coalition that had a majority to gang up on and hurt a significant minority. The doctrine is one of limitations on democracy to prevent the tyranny.
Wikipedia
John Stuart Mill's On Liberty addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. The harm principle holds that each individual has the right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others. If the action is self-regarding, that is, if it only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself. He does argue, however, that individuals are prevented from doing lasting, serious harm to themselves or their property by the harm principle. Because no-one exists in isolation, harm done to oneself also harms others, and destroying property deprives the community as well as oneself.
Mill argues that free discourse is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he contends, that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. He also argues that allowing people to air false opinions is productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of ideas. Second, by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from declining into mere dogma. It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an unexamined belief that happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is the true one.
Social liberty for Mill was to put limits on the ruler’s power so that he would not be able to use his power on his own wishes and make every kind of decision which could harm society. In other words, people should have the right to have a say in the government’s decisions. He said that social liberty was “the nature and limits of the power which can be exercised by society over the individual”.
"Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression. Though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”
Ayn Rand, philosopher and novelist, wrote against the idea of tyranny of the majority. She says that individual rights are not subject to a public vote, and that the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and that the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
American political theorist John C. Calhoun developed the theory of concurrent majority to deal with the tyranny of the majority. It states that great decisions are not merely a matter of numerical majorities, but require agreement or acceptance by the major interest in society, each of which had the power to block federal laws that it feared would seriously infringe on their rights. That is, it is illegitimate for a temporary coalition that had a majority to gang up on and hurt a significant minority. The doctrine is one of limitations on democracy to prevent the tyranny.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Tactics
How anxious people are to get out of place! Think what would happen if each bone and each muscle of the human body wanted to occupy some position other than its own.
There is no other reason for the world’s discontent. Continue where you are, my son; right where you are…how much you’ll be able to work for the true Kingdom of our Lord.!
Rush, rush, rush! Hustle and bustle! Feverish activity! The mad urge to dash about. Amazing material structures…
On the spiritual level…shams, illusions: flimsy backdrops, cheesecloth scenery, painted cardboard…Hustle and bustle! And a lot of people running hither and thither. It is because they work thinking only of “today”; their vision is limited to the “present”.
But you must see things with the eyes of eternity, “keeping in the present” what has passed and what has yet to come.
Calmness. Peace. Intense life within you. Without that wild hurry. Without that mad urge for change. From your own place in life, like a powerful generator of spiritual energy, you will give light and vigor to ever so many without losing your own vitality and your own light.
unattributed
How anxious people are to get out of place! Think what would happen if each bone and each muscle of the human body wanted to occupy some position other than its own.
There is no other reason for the world’s discontent. Continue where you are, my son; right where you are…how much you’ll be able to work for the true Kingdom of our Lord.!
Rush, rush, rush! Hustle and bustle! Feverish activity! The mad urge to dash about. Amazing material structures…
On the spiritual level…shams, illusions: flimsy backdrops, cheesecloth scenery, painted cardboard…Hustle and bustle! And a lot of people running hither and thither. It is because they work thinking only of “today”; their vision is limited to the “present”.
But you must see things with the eyes of eternity, “keeping in the present” what has passed and what has yet to come.
Calmness. Peace. Intense life within you. Without that wild hurry. Without that mad urge for change. From your own place in life, like a powerful generator of spiritual energy, you will give light and vigor to ever so many without losing your own vitality and your own light.
unattributed
God forbade...must reading!
Fire in Love
Love is found on pleasure and so, is more full, lively and sharp, a pleasure inflamed by difficulty, there must be sting and smart in it. It’s no longer love without fire and darts.
Women are not to blame, at all, when they refuse the rules of life introduced in a world that men made without their consent.
Michel De Montaigne
Love is found on pleasure and so, is more full, lively and sharp, a pleasure inflamed by difficulty, there must be sting and smart in it. It’s no longer love without fire and darts.
Women are not to blame, at all, when they refuse the rules of life introduced in a world that men made without their consent.
Michel De Montaigne
Friday, December 17, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Hunter boy
Love is a hunter boy,
Who makes young hearts his prey.
And in his nets of joy,
Ensnares them night and day.
In vain, concealed they lie,
Love tracks them everywhere.
In vain, aloft they fly,
Love shoots them flying there.
And ‘tis his joy most sweet,
At early dawn to trace
The print of Beauty’s feet
And give the trembler chase.
As if through virgin snow,
He tracks her footsteps fair,
How sweet for Love to know,
None went before him there.
Irish folklore
Love is a hunter boy,
Who makes young hearts his prey.
And in his nets of joy,
Ensnares them night and day.
In vain, concealed they lie,
Love tracks them everywhere.
In vain, aloft they fly,
Love shoots them flying there.
And ‘tis his joy most sweet,
At early dawn to trace
The print of Beauty’s feet
And give the trembler chase.
As if through virgin snow,
He tracks her footsteps fair,
How sweet for Love to know,
None went before him there.
Irish folklore
Thursday, December 16, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Law of unintended consequences
The law of unintended consequences is an adage or idiomatic warning that an intervention in a complex system always creates unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes. Akin to Murphy's law it is commonly used as a wry or humorous warning against the arrogant belief that humans can fully control the world around them.
Unintended consequences can be roughly grouped into three types:
A positive, unexpected benefit, usually referred to as good fortune or a windfall.
A negative, unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy (e.g., while irrigation provides water for agriculture, it can increase waterborne diseases with devastating health effects).
A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when an intended solution makes a problem worse), such as when a policy has a perverse incentive that causes actions opposite to what was intended.
Naseem Taleb says what we call here a black swan is an event with the following three attributes. First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.
A small number of black swans explains almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.
Nikola Tesla noted: "A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in nature".
An argument in support of capitalism and the wealth disparity it creates is that even if the gap between rich and poor widens, the poor themselves are actually better off than they would have been in the more equal state without capitalism. This view is expressed in the saying, a rising tide lifts all boats.
Supporters of capitalism point out that wealth condensation theory applies less strongly to democratic countries. They argue that the United States is a counter-example of the theory, on the grounds that its middle class is materially the most prosperous in recorded human history, with America's poor being as economically well off as the middle class of other, less industrialized countries.
The Overton window, in political theory, describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
At any given moment, the “window” includes a range of policies considered to be politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too “extreme” or outside the mainstream to gain or keep public office. When the window moves or expands, ideas can accordingly become more or less politically acceptable.
The Overton Window is a means of visualizing which ideas define that range of acceptance by where they fall in it. Proponents of policies outside the window seek to persuade or educate the public so that the window either “moves” or expands to encompass them. Opponents of current policies, or similar ones currently within the window, likewise seek to convince people that these should be considered unacceptable.
Other formulations of the process created after Overton's death add the concept of moving the window, such as deliberately promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous "outer fringe" ideas, with the intention of making the current fringe ideas acceptable by comparison. This might be a form of the “door in the face technique" of persuasion. Compliance with the request of concern is enhanced by first making an extremely large request that the respondent will obviously turn down, with a metaphorical slamming of a door in the persuader's face. The respondent is then more likely to accede to a second, more reasonable request than if this second request were made without the first, extreme request.
Anarcho-syndicalism is the industrial version of anarchism, and the anarchist version of syndicalism.
In industrial societies, the appropriate body to conduct revolutionary or transformative politics consists
of workers organized around their industry, rather than their trade.
Since social power is at root economic rather than political, power can therefore be seized at its root.
Wikipedia
The law of unintended consequences is an adage or idiomatic warning that an intervention in a complex system always creates unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes. Akin to Murphy's law it is commonly used as a wry or humorous warning against the arrogant belief that humans can fully control the world around them.
Unintended consequences can be roughly grouped into three types:
A positive, unexpected benefit, usually referred to as good fortune or a windfall.
A negative, unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy (e.g., while irrigation provides water for agriculture, it can increase waterborne diseases with devastating health effects).
A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when an intended solution makes a problem worse), such as when a policy has a perverse incentive that causes actions opposite to what was intended.
Naseem Taleb says what we call here a black swan is an event with the following three attributes. First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.
A small number of black swans explains almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.
Nikola Tesla noted: "A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in nature".
An argument in support of capitalism and the wealth disparity it creates is that even if the gap between rich and poor widens, the poor themselves are actually better off than they would have been in the more equal state without capitalism. This view is expressed in the saying, a rising tide lifts all boats.
Supporters of capitalism point out that wealth condensation theory applies less strongly to democratic countries. They argue that the United States is a counter-example of the theory, on the grounds that its middle class is materially the most prosperous in recorded human history, with America's poor being as economically well off as the middle class of other, less industrialized countries.
The Overton window, in political theory, describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
At any given moment, the “window” includes a range of policies considered to be politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too “extreme” or outside the mainstream to gain or keep public office. When the window moves or expands, ideas can accordingly become more or less politically acceptable.
The Overton Window is a means of visualizing which ideas define that range of acceptance by where they fall in it. Proponents of policies outside the window seek to persuade or educate the public so that the window either “moves” or expands to encompass them. Opponents of current policies, or similar ones currently within the window, likewise seek to convince people that these should be considered unacceptable.
Other formulations of the process created after Overton's death add the concept of moving the window, such as deliberately promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous "outer fringe" ideas, with the intention of making the current fringe ideas acceptable by comparison. This might be a form of the “door in the face technique" of persuasion. Compliance with the request of concern is enhanced by first making an extremely large request that the respondent will obviously turn down, with a metaphorical slamming of a door in the persuader's face. The respondent is then more likely to accede to a second, more reasonable request than if this second request were made without the first, extreme request.
Anarcho-syndicalism is the industrial version of anarchism, and the anarchist version of syndicalism.
In industrial societies, the appropriate body to conduct revolutionary or transformative politics consists
of workers organized around their industry, rather than their trade.
Since social power is at root economic rather than political, power can therefore be seized at its root.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
law of the small number
Theory of the German social scientist Max Weber (1864-1920) regarding the influence of small groups in key positions.
'The ruling minority can quickly reach understanding among its members; it is thus able at any time quickly to initiate that rationally organized action which is necessary to preserve its position of power.'
Power and initiative have always been and will always be exercised by a cohesive minority who are marked off from the mass of the population by some particular skill, or quality, or insight.
As soon as people form organizations, power in those organizations gravitates upwards towards the permanent officials or officers. A second, subordinate law suggests that whatever purpose an organization was originally established to serve, the preservation of the organization itself, and of its oligarchy, will come to take precedence.
Elitism, law of oligarchy
Politcal Professor
Theory of the German social scientist Max Weber (1864-1920) regarding the influence of small groups in key positions.
'The ruling minority can quickly reach understanding among its members; it is thus able at any time quickly to initiate that rationally organized action which is necessary to preserve its position of power.'
Power and initiative have always been and will always be exercised by a cohesive minority who are marked off from the mass of the population by some particular skill, or quality, or insight.
As soon as people form organizations, power in those organizations gravitates upwards towards the permanent officials or officers. A second, subordinate law suggests that whatever purpose an organization was originally established to serve, the preservation of the organization itself, and of its oligarchy, will come to take precedence.
Elitism, law of oligarchy
Politcal Professor
God forbade...must reading!
Overkill
Theory in military strategy which asserts that if a state has so much weaponry that it can defend itself, destroy any aggressor (and perhaps the world) and still have weapons to spare, it is capable of overkill.
Not surprisingly, the concept has been met with a mixture of derision and dismay, and has passed into common usage as a synonym for an unnecessary and excessive response in any situation; not so much a sledgehammer to crack a nut, as a flamethrower which defeats the object of eating the nut.
Politics Professor
Theory in military strategy which asserts that if a state has so much weaponry that it can defend itself, destroy any aggressor (and perhaps the world) and still have weapons to spare, it is capable of overkill.
Not surprisingly, the concept has been met with a mixture of derision and dismay, and has passed into common usage as a synonym for an unnecessary and excessive response in any situation; not so much a sledgehammer to crack a nut, as a flamethrower which defeats the object of eating the nut.
Politics Professor
God forbade...must reading!
Frederick Nietzche
Nietzche aims to get us to appreciate a very different conception of morality, one born within us, not imposed on us, one that celebrates life and doesn't promise another one, one that acknowledges the unavoidability of suffering in life without drawing the pessimistic conclusion : life is no good.
Amor fati
The love of fate can simply refer to a free and easy attitude toward life – free of anxiety and worry, that is, easy in acceptance of circumstances and other people.
To love fate is to accept calmly and even enthusiastically whatever happens, whatever people do.
Nietzche further defines amor fati;
“One wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary...but love it. The love of fate is the love of necessity, a keen eye for essences”.
Destiny allows multiple interpretations. Fate has seemed like a mandatory plot outline, engraved in the heavens.
Heraclitus insisted 'character is fate', and, so, not so much a narrative imposed from the outside, but an itinerary determined from the inside, by the person and her heredity, upbringing, situation and response.
Do not regret or resent. Do not worry or live in fear. Do not curse your life, but accept it, whatever it may be. For it is life itself, not the pleasures and successes that are enjoyed in life, that give life its ultimate meaning.
Among other affirmative doctrines Nietzche sums up amor fati as something of a mantra, part of a continuous 'pep talk' he gave to himself and to us, too.
What Nietzche Really Said- Solomon and Higgins
Nietzche aims to get us to appreciate a very different conception of morality, one born within us, not imposed on us, one that celebrates life and doesn't promise another one, one that acknowledges the unavoidability of suffering in life without drawing the pessimistic conclusion : life is no good.
Amor fati
The love of fate can simply refer to a free and easy attitude toward life – free of anxiety and worry, that is, easy in acceptance of circumstances and other people.
To love fate is to accept calmly and even enthusiastically whatever happens, whatever people do.
Nietzche further defines amor fati;
“One wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary...but love it. The love of fate is the love of necessity, a keen eye for essences”.
Destiny allows multiple interpretations. Fate has seemed like a mandatory plot outline, engraved in the heavens.
Heraclitus insisted 'character is fate', and, so, not so much a narrative imposed from the outside, but an itinerary determined from the inside, by the person and her heredity, upbringing, situation and response.
Do not regret or resent. Do not worry or live in fear. Do not curse your life, but accept it, whatever it may be. For it is life itself, not the pleasures and successes that are enjoyed in life, that give life its ultimate meaning.
Among other affirmative doctrines Nietzche sums up amor fati as something of a mantra, part of a continuous 'pep talk' he gave to himself and to us, too.
What Nietzche Really Said- Solomon and Higgins
God forbade...must reading!
Nikola Tesla
The life of the bee will be the life of our race, says Nikola Tesla, world-famed scientist.
"Through countless generations, from the very beginning, the social subservience of women resulted naturally in the partial atrophy or at least the hereditary suspension of mental qualities which we now know the female sex to be endowed with no less than men.
"This struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end in a new sex order, with the female as superior. The modern woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomena the advancement of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and more potent fermenting in the bosom of the race.
The female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose. Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.
Imagination falters at the prospect of human analogy to this mysterious and superbly dedicated civilization of the bee; but when we consider how the human instinct for race perpetuation dominates life in its normal and exaggerated and perverse manifestations, there is ironic justice in the possibility that this instinct, with the continuing intellectual advance of women, may be finally expressed after the manner of the bee, though it will take centuries to break down the habits and customs of peoples that bar the way to such a simply and scientifically ordered civilization.
When Woman Is Boss- Nikola Tesla
The life of the bee will be the life of our race, says Nikola Tesla, world-famed scientist.
"Through countless generations, from the very beginning, the social subservience of women resulted naturally in the partial atrophy or at least the hereditary suspension of mental qualities which we now know the female sex to be endowed with no less than men.
"This struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end in a new sex order, with the female as superior. The modern woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomena the advancement of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and more potent fermenting in the bosom of the race.
The female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose. Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.
Imagination falters at the prospect of human analogy to this mysterious and superbly dedicated civilization of the bee; but when we consider how the human instinct for race perpetuation dominates life in its normal and exaggerated and perverse manifestations, there is ironic justice in the possibility that this instinct, with the continuing intellectual advance of women, may be finally expressed after the manner of the bee, though it will take centuries to break down the habits and customs of peoples that bar the way to such a simply and scientifically ordered civilization.
When Woman Is Boss- Nikola Tesla
God forbade...must reading!
Lovebomb
Love bombing is the deliberate show of affection or friendship by an individual or a group of people toward another. Critics have asserted that this action may be motivated in part by the desire to recruit, convert or otherwise influence.
Dr. Geri-Ann Galanti writes: "A basic human need is for self-esteem.... Basically love bombing consists of giving someone a lot of positive attention."
Wikipedia
Love bombing is the deliberate show of affection or friendship by an individual or a group of people toward another. Critics have asserted that this action may be motivated in part by the desire to recruit, convert or otherwise influence.
Dr. Geri-Ann Galanti writes: "A basic human need is for self-esteem.... Basically love bombing consists of giving someone a lot of positive attention."
Wikipedia
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Constructive apathy
Theory of the political inaction of the majority in democracies, developed by American political scientists in the second half of the 20th century.
Only a small number, an elite, are politically active in democracies.
Any great degree of activism on the part of the masses would be destabilizing, and subversive of democracy. Therefore the political apathy of the mass of the population, far from being regrettable, is a necessary condition of political stability.
Sociology Professor
Theory of the political inaction of the majority in democracies, developed by American political scientists in the second half of the 20th century.
Only a small number, an elite, are politically active in democracies.
Any great degree of activism on the part of the masses would be destabilizing, and subversive of democracy. Therefore the political apathy of the mass of the population, far from being regrettable, is a necessary condition of political stability.
Sociology Professor
God forbade...must reading!
Semantic shift
The fallacy of equivocation is often used with words that have a strong emotional content and many meanings. These meanings often coincide within proper context, but the fallacious arguer commits a semantic shift, slowly changing the context by treating, as equivalent, distinct meanings of the term.
The following sentence is a well-known equivocation:
"Do women need to worry about man-eating sharks?", in which "man-eating" is construed to mean a shark that devours only male human beings.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The fallacy of equivocation is often used with words that have a strong emotional content and many meanings. These meanings often coincide within proper context, but the fallacious arguer commits a semantic shift, slowly changing the context by treating, as equivalent, distinct meanings of the term.
The following sentence is a well-known equivocation:
"Do women need to worry about man-eating sharks?", in which "man-eating" is construed to mean a shark that devours only male human beings.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
God forbade...must reading!
Black-or-White
The black-or-white fallacy is a false dilemma fallacy that unfairly limits you to only two choices.
For example,
"Well, it’s time for a decision. Will you contribute $10 to our environmental fund, or are you on the side of environmental destruction"?
A proper challenge to this fallacy could be to say,
“I do want to prevent the destruction of our environment, but I don’t want to give $10 to your fund. You are placing me between a rock and a hard place.”
The key to diagnosing the black-or-white fallacy is to determine whether the limited menu is fair or unfair. Simply saying, “Will you contribute $10 or won’t you?” is not unfair.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The black-or-white fallacy is a false dilemma fallacy that unfairly limits you to only two choices.
For example,
"Well, it’s time for a decision. Will you contribute $10 to our environmental fund, or are you on the side of environmental destruction"?
A proper challenge to this fallacy could be to say,
“I do want to prevent the destruction of our environment, but I don’t want to give $10 to your fund. You are placing me between a rock and a hard place.”
The key to diagnosing the black-or-white fallacy is to determine whether the limited menu is fair or unfair. Simply saying, “Will you contribute $10 or won’t you?” is not unfair.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
God forbade...must reading!
Simulacra
Simulacra and simulation are known for their discussion of images, signs, and how they relate to contemporaneity.
Jean Baudrillard theorizes that the lack of distinctions between reality and simulacra originates in several phenomena:
1. Contemporary media including television, film, print and the Internet, which are responsible for blurring the line between goods that are needed and goods for which a need is created by commercial images.
2. Exchange value, in which the value of goods is based on money rather than usefulness.
3. Multinational capitalism, which separates produced goods from the materials and processes used to create them, plants, minerals.
4. Urbanization, which separates humans from the natural world.
5. Language and ideology, used to obscure, rather than reveal reality when used by dominant, politically powerful groups.
A specific analogy Baudrillard uses is a fable derived from On Exactitude in Science by Jorge Luis Borges. In it, a great Empire created a map that was so detailed it was as large as the Empire itself. The actual map grew and decayed as the Empire itself conquered or lost territory. When the Empire crumbled, all that was left was the map. In Baudrillard's rendition, it is the map that people live in, the simulation of reality, and it is reality that is crumbling away from disuse.
Simulation, Baudrillard claims, is the current stage of the simulacrum: All is composed of references with no referents, a hyperreality. Progressing historically from the Renaissance, in which the dominant simulacrum was in the form of the counterfeit—mostly people or objects appearing to stand for a real referent (for instance, royalty, nobility, holiness, etc.) that does not exist, in other words, in the spirit of pretense, in dissimulating others that a person or a thing does not really "have it" -- to the industrial revolution, in which the dominant simulacrum is the product, the series, which can be propagated on an endless production line; and finally to current times, in which the dominant simulacrum is the model, which by its nature already stands for endless reproducibility, and is itself already reproduced.
His pictures of society portray societies always searching for a sense of meaning — or a "total" understanding of the world — that remains consistently elusive.
He therefore argued that, in the last analysis, a complete understanding of the minutiae of human life is impossible, and when people are seduced into thinking otherwise they become drawn toward a "simulated" version of reality, hyperreality. This is not to say that the world becomes unreal, but rather that the faster and more comprehensively societies begin to bring reality together into one supposedly coherent picture, the more insecure and unstable it looks and the more fearful societies become. Reality, in this sense, "dies out."
We live, he argued, not in a "global village," to use Marshall McLuhan's phrase, but rather in a world that is ever more easily petrified by even the smallest event.
He wrote that there are four ways of an object to get value.
1. Functional value, its instrumental purpose. A pen writes, a refrigerator cools. Similar to Karl Marx “use-value”.
2. Exchange value, its economic value. One pen could be worth three pencils and one refrigerator is worth three months work.
3. Symbolic value, a value assigned to an object in relation to another subject. A pen could mean a graduation gift or a commencement speaker's gift or a diamond ring may be a symbol of publicly declared marital love.
4. Sign value, value within a system of objects. A pen could have no other functional benefit but to signify prestige relative to another pen.
Baudrillard argued that meaning (value) is created through difference - through what something is not (so "dog" means "dog" because it is not-"cat", not-"goat", not-"tree", etc.). In fact, he viewed meaning as near enough self-referential: objects, images of objects, words and signs are situated in a web of meaning; one object's meaning is only understandable through its relation to the meaning of other objects; in other words, one thing's prestige relates to another's mundanity.
Baudrillard wrote that the speed society moved at had destabilized the linearity of history: "we have the particle accelerator that has smashed the referential orbit of things once and for all."
Wikipedia
Simulacra and simulation are known for their discussion of images, signs, and how they relate to contemporaneity.
Jean Baudrillard theorizes that the lack of distinctions between reality and simulacra originates in several phenomena:
1. Contemporary media including television, film, print and the Internet, which are responsible for blurring the line between goods that are needed and goods for which a need is created by commercial images.
2. Exchange value, in which the value of goods is based on money rather than usefulness.
3. Multinational capitalism, which separates produced goods from the materials and processes used to create them, plants, minerals.
4. Urbanization, which separates humans from the natural world.
5. Language and ideology, used to obscure, rather than reveal reality when used by dominant, politically powerful groups.
A specific analogy Baudrillard uses is a fable derived from On Exactitude in Science by Jorge Luis Borges. In it, a great Empire created a map that was so detailed it was as large as the Empire itself. The actual map grew and decayed as the Empire itself conquered or lost territory. When the Empire crumbled, all that was left was the map. In Baudrillard's rendition, it is the map that people live in, the simulation of reality, and it is reality that is crumbling away from disuse.
Simulation, Baudrillard claims, is the current stage of the simulacrum: All is composed of references with no referents, a hyperreality. Progressing historically from the Renaissance, in which the dominant simulacrum was in the form of the counterfeit—mostly people or objects appearing to stand for a real referent (for instance, royalty, nobility, holiness, etc.) that does not exist, in other words, in the spirit of pretense, in dissimulating others that a person or a thing does not really "have it" -- to the industrial revolution, in which the dominant simulacrum is the product, the series, which can be propagated on an endless production line; and finally to current times, in which the dominant simulacrum is the model, which by its nature already stands for endless reproducibility, and is itself already reproduced.
His pictures of society portray societies always searching for a sense of meaning — or a "total" understanding of the world — that remains consistently elusive.
He therefore argued that, in the last analysis, a complete understanding of the minutiae of human life is impossible, and when people are seduced into thinking otherwise they become drawn toward a "simulated" version of reality, hyperreality. This is not to say that the world becomes unreal, but rather that the faster and more comprehensively societies begin to bring reality together into one supposedly coherent picture, the more insecure and unstable it looks and the more fearful societies become. Reality, in this sense, "dies out."
We live, he argued, not in a "global village," to use Marshall McLuhan's phrase, but rather in a world that is ever more easily petrified by even the smallest event.
He wrote that there are four ways of an object to get value.
1. Functional value, its instrumental purpose. A pen writes, a refrigerator cools. Similar to Karl Marx “use-value”.
2. Exchange value, its economic value. One pen could be worth three pencils and one refrigerator is worth three months work.
3. Symbolic value, a value assigned to an object in relation to another subject. A pen could mean a graduation gift or a commencement speaker's gift or a diamond ring may be a symbol of publicly declared marital love.
4. Sign value, value within a system of objects. A pen could have no other functional benefit but to signify prestige relative to another pen.
Baudrillard argued that meaning (value) is created through difference - through what something is not (so "dog" means "dog" because it is not-"cat", not-"goat", not-"tree", etc.). In fact, he viewed meaning as near enough self-referential: objects, images of objects, words and signs are situated in a web of meaning; one object's meaning is only understandable through its relation to the meaning of other objects; in other words, one thing's prestige relates to another's mundanity.
Baudrillard wrote that the speed society moved at had destabilized the linearity of history: "we have the particle accelerator that has smashed the referential orbit of things once and for all."
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Collusion Theory
Co-operation between two or more companies producing similar goods may mean similar pricing or output levels.
These competition conditions indicate a monopoly market.
Collusion is outlawed in most capitalist economies.
Economy Professor
Co-operation between two or more companies producing similar goods may mean similar pricing or output levels.
These competition conditions indicate a monopoly market.
Collusion is outlawed in most capitalist economies.
Economy Professor
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Negotiation leverage
Normative leverage is the use of standards and norms that are good for both parties (buyer and seller).
For example, a buyer says he only pays blue book value for cars. You, the seller, show him that the blue book value is what you are charging him.
Positive leverage is the sellers ability to provide what the buyer wants.
For example, the seller has positive leverage when the buyer says, ”I want to buy your car”.
Negative leverage is the seller's ability to make the buyer suffer.
For example, “Buy from me or I'll ruin your reputation”. Negative leverage is usually the seller's last resort or 'nuclear' option.
Buyer leverage is the bargaining power the buyer has purchasing goods and services, including
the scarcity and abundance of the product, similar products and more. The relative buyer's leverage determines the nature of the business and the price and terms of transactions.
Procurement managers use their past purchases to get better deals from sellers vying for their business.
Wikipedia
Normative leverage is the use of standards and norms that are good for both parties (buyer and seller).
For example, a buyer says he only pays blue book value for cars. You, the seller, show him that the blue book value is what you are charging him.
Positive leverage is the sellers ability to provide what the buyer wants.
For example, the seller has positive leverage when the buyer says, ”I want to buy your car”.
Negative leverage is the seller's ability to make the buyer suffer.
For example, “Buy from me or I'll ruin your reputation”. Negative leverage is usually the seller's last resort or 'nuclear' option.
Buyer leverage is the bargaining power the buyer has purchasing goods and services, including
the scarcity and abundance of the product, similar products and more. The relative buyer's leverage determines the nature of the business and the price and terms of transactions.
Procurement managers use their past purchases to get better deals from sellers vying for their business.
Wikipedia
God forbade...must reading!
Interconnectedness
There is an even deeper level to the whole than the interconnectedness of everything in existence. At that deeper level, all things are one. It is the source, the unmanifested one Life. It is the timeless intelligence that manifests as a universe unfolding in time.
The whole is made up of existence and Being, the manifested and the unmanifested, the world and God. So, when you become aligned with the whole you become a conscious part of the interconnected of the whole and its purpose; the emergence of consciousness into this world. As a result, spontaneous helpful occurences, chance encounters, coincidences and synchronistic events happen more frequently.
Eckhart Tolle- A New Earth
There is an even deeper level to the whole than the interconnectedness of everything in existence. At that deeper level, all things are one. It is the source, the unmanifested one Life. It is the timeless intelligence that manifests as a universe unfolding in time.
The whole is made up of existence and Being, the manifested and the unmanifested, the world and God. So, when you become aligned with the whole you become a conscious part of the interconnected of the whole and its purpose; the emergence of consciousness into this world. As a result, spontaneous helpful occurences, chance encounters, coincidences and synchronistic events happen more frequently.
Eckhart Tolle- A New Earth
God forbade...must reading!
Free Rider Problem
The free rider problem happens when people enjoy the benefits of goods provided by the government whether or not they pay for them. Free riders are actors who take more than their fair share of benefits and do not shoulder their share of the costs. The question is how to prevent free riding from taking place, or, at least, limit its effects.
Because the notion of 'fairness' is so subjective, free riding is considered an economic problem when it leads to under or non-production of public goods or excessive use of common property resource.
The classic example is national defense. I am protected whether or not I pay, so there is no reason for me to pay unless forced to do so. The government must provide the good itself and force the public to pay for it with taxes.
Economics Professor
The free rider problem happens when people enjoy the benefits of goods provided by the government whether or not they pay for them. Free riders are actors who take more than their fair share of benefits and do not shoulder their share of the costs. The question is how to prevent free riding from taking place, or, at least, limit its effects.
Because the notion of 'fairness' is so subjective, free riding is considered an economic problem when it leads to under or non-production of public goods or excessive use of common property resource.
The classic example is national defense. I am protected whether or not I pay, so there is no reason for me to pay unless forced to do so. The government must provide the good itself and force the public to pay for it with taxes.
Economics Professor
God forbade...must reading!
Invisible hand, foot
As everyone tries, as best he can, to put his money to support the domestic industry, that the industry might produce the most good, everyone works hard for the betterment of society. Adam Smith said the individual neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By supporting domestic, not foreign industry, he wants only for his own security, he intends only his gain and is led by an 'invisible hand' to promote an end he never intended to. Smith said society is not always worse for what the individual was no part of. By pursuing his own interest effectively he promotes society more than he intended to.
If we assume the entrepreneur in the free world of economics and we assume the government establishes markets and property rights whenever a disadvantage is found, each man will soon find out, by contriving, he can put external disadvantages on others, knowing he will be better off bargaining in the new market. The more significant the social cost imposed, the greater his reward. It follows the entrepreneur will create the maximum social costs to put on others. D'Arge labels this process the 'invisible foot' of a laissez faire market. The 'invisible foot' ensures, in a free market, everyone pursuing only his own good, will automatically and most efficiently do his part maximizing the general public misery.
Wikipedia
As everyone tries, as best he can, to put his money to support the domestic industry, that the industry might produce the most good, everyone works hard for the betterment of society. Adam Smith said the individual neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By supporting domestic, not foreign industry, he wants only for his own security, he intends only his gain and is led by an 'invisible hand' to promote an end he never intended to. Smith said society is not always worse for what the individual was no part of. By pursuing his own interest effectively he promotes society more than he intended to.
If we assume the entrepreneur in the free world of economics and we assume the government establishes markets and property rights whenever a disadvantage is found, each man will soon find out, by contriving, he can put external disadvantages on others, knowing he will be better off bargaining in the new market. The more significant the social cost imposed, the greater his reward. It follows the entrepreneur will create the maximum social costs to put on others. D'Arge labels this process the 'invisible foot' of a laissez faire market. The 'invisible foot' ensures, in a free market, everyone pursuing only his own good, will automatically and most efficiently do his part maximizing the general public misery.
Wikipedia
Monday, December 13, 2010
God forbade...must reading!
Narcissism
The narcissist can not view himself objectively. Incapable of insight or self-criticism, he bases his identity on the illusion that he is unique, that there is no one in the world with his special gifts and talents. This arrogance combined with blind ambition permits him to follow a chronic pattern of deception in all of his relationships. Deceit is a part of him, like the length of his fingers or the cadence of his speech. If he was not deceitful, he would not recognize himself. Deception defines the narcissist as much as compassion and truth identifies the saint.
The narcissist is inevitably preoccupied with the impression he is making. More than the quality of his character, it is how others perceive him that matters most. High-level narcissists tend to spend a lot of money on themselves. They demand the very best. Everything in their environment- homes, cars, personal appearance, clothing must reflect a flawless persona. Walking through some of their homes, one wonders if anyone lives there. There is no sign of human habitation: no footprints on rugs or carpets, no finger marks on furniture or mirrors, no body or cooking aromas, no whiffs of faded perfumes, no towel askew, no cushion indentations, no stain, no dust, no scuff, no smudge. Every aspect of their outward surroundings- personal possessions, clothing, homes, cars, planes- is kept in pristine condition at all times.
Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in your life- Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.
The narcissist can not view himself objectively. Incapable of insight or self-criticism, he bases his identity on the illusion that he is unique, that there is no one in the world with his special gifts and talents. This arrogance combined with blind ambition permits him to follow a chronic pattern of deception in all of his relationships. Deceit is a part of him, like the length of his fingers or the cadence of his speech. If he was not deceitful, he would not recognize himself. Deception defines the narcissist as much as compassion and truth identifies the saint.
The narcissist is inevitably preoccupied with the impression he is making. More than the quality of his character, it is how others perceive him that matters most. High-level narcissists tend to spend a lot of money on themselves. They demand the very best. Everything in their environment- homes, cars, personal appearance, clothing must reflect a flawless persona. Walking through some of their homes, one wonders if anyone lives there. There is no sign of human habitation: no footprints on rugs or carpets, no finger marks on furniture or mirrors, no body or cooking aromas, no whiffs of faded perfumes, no towel askew, no cushion indentations, no stain, no dust, no scuff, no smudge. Every aspect of their outward surroundings- personal possessions, clothing, homes, cars, planes- is kept in pristine condition at all times.
Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in your life- Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.
Narcissistic individuals are very focused on what goes on in their own head. They have minimal ability to hear the other has his own thoughts, feelings and preferences.
Narcissists are confusing. Because they can figure out what others want, they make good sales people. These understandings are used to manipulate others, rather than be genuinely responsive to their concerns. The narcissist’s goal is to get others to do what he wants them to do. Others are there for his benefit, not to live their own lives.
Psychology Today
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