I’ve noticed how, at times of stress, people do the things which once comforted them when they were a child, or other things which feel certain to give them pleasure.
Sure, we use this as a general mechanism to protect oneself, for prolonged stress and some other negative states are damaging to one's health. People usually do something which is distracting, or something which feels good, by virtue of having positive associations attached to it...or by habit, doing something which they once enjoyed doing (but may no longer provide them any utility).
Rubbing one's face, Curling up or having a bath if it is raining, Eating one's favourite food, Biting one's nails, Sucking thumb, Re-watching old movies that they loved or re-reading old books, Praying, Touching genitalia?, Slurping soup, Watching/listening to comedy they find funny, Lying close to the fireplace cuddling the dog. Or other manic behaviours to relieve other conditions, like checking email in times of boredom.
The problem is, that doing all of the above does not solve the problem, and sometimes creates others (eg in the case of eating to make oneself feel happy). Oone needs to analyse the cause of why one become stressed in the first place, and correct that.Treat yourself to things that are guaranteed to cheer you up every now and then. But it's better if you do so after you've achieved something, so you will come to associate achievement with positive feelings.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Monday, May 7, 2007
Rationality & Empathy
There's something wrong with how our brains work
Consider that somebody who couldn't kill somebody from a distance of 1m can pick off dots using a machine gun mounted on a helicopter and see it more as a game. It's indicative that the brain is able to deal with images without processing what it rationally knows about reality and allowing the empathetic part of the brain to register this event.
Now consider all the other problems that this aspect of our brain activity creates.
Now hear this joke about what it is like to be rational:
"A lot of people imagine astronauts would be quite sick at the thought of drinking their own recycled urine. But if you don't mind being launched in to space, you probably won't mind drinking water obtained from your urine"
Consider that somebody who couldn't kill somebody from a distance of 1m can pick off dots using a machine gun mounted on a helicopter and see it more as a game. It's indicative that the brain is able to deal with images without processing what it rationally knows about reality and allowing the empathetic part of the brain to register this event.
Now consider all the other problems that this aspect of our brain activity creates.
Now hear this joke about what it is like to be rational:
"A lot of people imagine astronauts would be quite sick at the thought of drinking their own recycled urine. But if you don't mind being launched in to space, you probably won't mind drinking water obtained from your urine"
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Brains
The human brain must be a raw computer, because of the remarkable things that autistic savants can achieve with numbers...eg calculate the square root of 83534251 to 10 decimal places.
They must be accessing a lower-level structure in the brain that is a number-crunching machine. With normal human experiences such as recognising your mum's face, or the sound of her voice being a representation of those number patterns.
They must be accessing a lower-level structure in the brain that is a number-crunching machine. With normal human experiences such as recognising your mum's face, or the sound of her voice being a representation of those number patterns.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Morality
Morals aren't out there, the world contains trees, chairs, and galaxies, but not morals. Moral statements are statements of desire. Eg "it is morally wrong to kill" means "(most of us) desire that the law removes killers from society" or "if we want society to look like [insert description], then killing ought to be outlawed".
The Marquis de Sade pointed this out chillingly:
Similar to the concepts of virtue and vice, [the concepts of justice and injustice] are purely local and geographical; that which is vicious in Paris, turns up, as we knowm, a virtue in Peking (Beijing), and it is quite the same thing here: that which is just in Isfahan they call unjust in Copenhagen. Amidst these manifold variations do we discover anything constant? Only this: ....self interest...is the single rule for defining just and unjust.Justice has no real existence, it is the deity of everty passion....so let us abandon our belief in this fiction, it no more exists than does the God of whom fools believe it the image: there is no God in this world, neither is there virtue, neither is there justice; there is nothing good, useful, or necessary but our passions, nothing merits to be respected but their effects
My question to those who insist that morality is objective: How do you answer such a question:
What is the morally just tax rate, in Australia ?
Friday, May 4, 2007
The word "Love"
I analyse the lyrics of songs. Ben Lee is often found wanting in such inquiries. First there was his song WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, which unpersuasively argued (What is a song but a statement of emotional "logic"); "ask a scientist, it's quantum physics....We are all in this together", which totally misinterprets Quantum Physics. Harmless in comparison to the imploration in his "Gamble everything for love!".
Gamble EVERYTHING. Woooooow. Gamble your education, gamble your sanity, gamble your health. Quite a subersive idea, although practically, I can understand why it passed censorship, whereas 'fuck' wasn't so fortunate.
OK, Ben Lee is really wealthy and doesn't have that much to do, so perhaps he can afford to sacrifice everything for some ideal. People do the same thing for "God". Perhaps Lee doesn't care if he loses all of the above, or perhaps he isn't currently sane, so he can't lose his sanity. More likely, he just hasn't examined the concept of love very hard.I think it's a peculiarity of language. The existence of "Love", like "God", is to many people, what has accurately been termed "the sacred". Some people find it harder (emotionally, or cognitively), to make sense of life without such a concept. When lack of evidence or reflection refutes or challenges an element of "the sacred", the sacred retreats to lower ground. When reality forces people to re-examine their beliefs about love, "love" tends to undergo a paradigm shift, as people constantly re-define love as they age, rather than excise it from their lexicon.
For a teenager, it is one of those irrational, reality-overpowering emotions and obsessions, a willful blindness, a deep illusion about another person that one is under. To somebody old, it probably means for them a feeling of comfort and companionship, a dedicated support structure, a human being that you can admire,respect,trust,complement, and somebody compatible. Depending on how much a person re-examines their idea of "love" and constantly re-defines it, will determine the frequency of times that they say they are in "love", and the importance that they place on "love" existing in their relationship(s). It'd be interesting to do a survey of people of different ages and chronicle how their ideas of 'love' have changed.
At the opposite extreme is matching based on compatibility alone...although this process is itself fraught with errors (and people sometimes grow apart)! I am taking this to be some englightened selection of an acceptably compatable marriage partner for your son/daughter, based on matching of personality, hopes, flaws, intelligence, attractiveness, wealth/class etc. Or, more accurately, on the perceived closeness of the trajectory that the word "love" will assume for the two people for the intelligent matchmaker.
Like all such ideas involving a tension of misinterpretation, "love" has a dubious connection to reality, which is apprehended and interpreted by people with varying intelligence/skills, perspectives. More critical, I think, is the choice of how to modulate the everyday interactions between our rational and emotional brains. Fuck, that in itself I think determines so much about a person. when is the right time to convey the strength or type of your emotions, and hope that the other understands what you mean. The word, I think, is important. In Lee's case, the reflection of the feelings and how much in control of his emotions he is will also determine whether he will "be alright" if his love finds itself disappointed.
Gamble EVERYTHING. Woooooow. Gamble your education, gamble your sanity, gamble your health. Quite a subersive idea, although practically, I can understand why it passed censorship, whereas 'fuck' wasn't so fortunate.
OK, Ben Lee is really wealthy and doesn't have that much to do, so perhaps he can afford to sacrifice everything for some ideal. People do the same thing for "God". Perhaps Lee doesn't care if he loses all of the above, or perhaps he isn't currently sane, so he can't lose his sanity. More likely, he just hasn't examined the concept of love very hard.I think it's a peculiarity of language. The existence of "Love", like "God", is to many people, what has accurately been termed "the sacred". Some people find it harder (emotionally, or cognitively), to make sense of life without such a concept. When lack of evidence or reflection refutes or challenges an element of "the sacred", the sacred retreats to lower ground. When reality forces people to re-examine their beliefs about love, "love" tends to undergo a paradigm shift, as people constantly re-define love as they age, rather than excise it from their lexicon.
For a teenager, it is one of those irrational, reality-overpowering emotions and obsessions, a willful blindness, a deep illusion about another person that one is under. To somebody old, it probably means for them a feeling of comfort and companionship, a dedicated support structure, a human being that you can admire,respect,trust,complement, and somebody compatible. Depending on how much a person re-examines their idea of "love" and constantly re-defines it, will determine the frequency of times that they say they are in "love", and the importance that they place on "love" existing in their relationship(s). It'd be interesting to do a survey of people of different ages and chronicle how their ideas of 'love' have changed.
At the opposite extreme is matching based on compatibility alone...although this process is itself fraught with errors (and people sometimes grow apart)! I am taking this to be some englightened selection of an acceptably compatable marriage partner for your son/daughter, based on matching of personality, hopes, flaws, intelligence, attractiveness, wealth/class etc. Or, more accurately, on the perceived closeness of the trajectory that the word "love" will assume for the two people for the intelligent matchmaker.
Like all such ideas involving a tension of misinterpretation, "love" has a dubious connection to reality, which is apprehended and interpreted by people with varying intelligence/skills, perspectives. More critical, I think, is the choice of how to modulate the everyday interactions between our rational and emotional brains. Fuck, that in itself I think determines so much about a person. when is the right time to convey the strength or type of your emotions, and hope that the other understands what you mean. The word, I think, is important. In Lee's case, the reflection of the feelings and how much in control of his emotions he is will also determine whether he will "be alright" if his love finds itself disappointed.
Random
-People use Facebook too much. It can be useful to organise things, but it's become just another site to log on to. It's being used by people to show how cool they are,
-People pose for photos to make out as if they're having SUUUUUCH a great time, when it is evident that they're not. Do they want to be able to look back when they're old and imagine what a great time they were having? Hey, if you want to preserve a memory, preserve what you were really like on the night anyway.
-I do not, as goes around, have an Asian girl fetish.
-Google Analytics is pretty mad, it's cool to see whereabouts people access my blog from. But the web is truly the new wild West, and Google raises so many perplexing privacy issues.
-People pose for photos to make out as if they're having SUUUUUCH a great time, when it is evident that they're not. Do they want to be able to look back when they're old and imagine what a great time they were having? Hey, if you want to preserve a memory, preserve what you were really like on the night anyway.
-I do not, as goes around, have an Asian girl fetish.
-Google Analytics is pretty mad, it's cool to see whereabouts people access my blog from. But the web is truly the new wild West, and Google raises so many perplexing privacy issues.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Annabel and Feminism
For all those guys out there who think taht they're really, really secure:
I had to admit, when I first heard about it a few years ago, knowing that Annabel Chong had been screwed by 251 guys in 6 hours made me a little uncomfortable.
This Annabel Chong is no Sex and the City character.
Annabel proves that a woman can really pursue as much sex as she wants, as indiscriminantly, aggressively and as dangerously (that not good!) as she liked. Without deference to the demands of her family, and challenging any future boyfriend to rise, to be secure enough to want somebody of such a high profile, criticised everywhere in Singapore as the "world's biggest whore".
Thinking about it, I think Annabel really makes her point. She'd say that SHE 'screwed' all those guys, that they didn't screw her (consider the modern connotations of the word 'screwed'). And all those who watched some segment of the film and couldn't believe their eyes.
Her act, which has been called a great many different things, certainly makes guys who claim to stand behind women in their goals to realise total equality (but who really are a little uncomfortable with this) re-examine their 'neutralised' attitudes and opinions on such matters. I have done so, but it's harder than many think. It can't be done, you know, at the drop of a hat.
On a side note. I found out some of my friend's dads weren't actually so much the womanisers that they so proudly claim to be. Many of these guys, who grew up in the conservative South Africa of the 1960's have only slept with their wives (unless they have had affairs, of course).
And as for some of these guy's choices of woman - I love some of these mothers, but many of them aren't the intellectual equals of those men (and vice-versa). Many men and women have chosen an intellectual inferior - someone who will submit to their superior intelligence. I know I'm getting in to deep water here, criticising personal tastes. However, I can't pretend that I don't have a little contempt for this.
Men, even if you like a submissive girl in bed, why is it that you don't search for an intellectual equal? Is it really that satisfying to have somebody let you do their thinking for them?
Where does everyone get their kicks from?
I had to admit, when I first heard about it a few years ago, knowing that Annabel Chong had been screwed by 251 guys in 6 hours made me a little uncomfortable.
This Annabel Chong is no Sex and the City character.
Annabel proves that a woman can really pursue as much sex as she wants, as indiscriminantly, aggressively and as dangerously (that not good!) as she liked. Without deference to the demands of her family, and challenging any future boyfriend to rise, to be secure enough to want somebody of such a high profile, criticised everywhere in Singapore as the "world's biggest whore".
Thinking about it, I think Annabel really makes her point. She'd say that SHE 'screwed' all those guys, that they didn't screw her (consider the modern connotations of the word 'screwed'). And all those who watched some segment of the film and couldn't believe their eyes.
Her act, which has been called a great many different things, certainly makes guys who claim to stand behind women in their goals to realise total equality (but who really are a little uncomfortable with this) re-examine their 'neutralised' attitudes and opinions on such matters. I have done so, but it's harder than many think. It can't be done, you know, at the drop of a hat.
On a side note. I found out some of my friend's dads weren't actually so much the womanisers that they so proudly claim to be. Many of these guys, who grew up in the conservative South Africa of the 1960's have only slept with their wives (unless they have had affairs, of course).
And as for some of these guy's choices of woman - I love some of these mothers, but many of them aren't the intellectual equals of those men (and vice-versa). Many men and women have chosen an intellectual inferior - someone who will submit to their superior intelligence. I know I'm getting in to deep water here, criticising personal tastes. However, I can't pretend that I don't have a little contempt for this.
Men, even if you like a submissive girl in bed, why is it that you don't search for an intellectual equal? Is it really that satisfying to have somebody let you do their thinking for them?
Where does everyone get their kicks from?
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Politicians open up
ABC screened a pretty cool documentary, called “What Our Leaders Believe”, examining the ethical and religious opinions of Australian political candidates. It was an interesting program, in which the leaders opened up about their true opinions impromptu, with a startlingly frank honesty in which you never typically see from them. Given how many people they could potentially have alienated, it didn't seem politically scripted at all.
he Greens leader openly declared himself an atheist, as did Mark Latham (former Labour leader), and the Democrats leader, Andrew Bartlett.
Disappointingly, John Howard (Liberals leader) and John Andersen (Nationals), appeared to be the most closed-minded of all five on various aspects. Including their seemingly set views on the “positive impact of Judeo-Christian ethical systems on society". Hmmmm hmmm. Anyway, even many of Howard's opinions weren't expressed in a politically advantageous way. Very refreshing.
he Greens leader openly declared himself an atheist, as did Mark Latham (former Labour leader), and the Democrats leader, Andrew Bartlett.
Disappointingly, John Howard (Liberals leader) and John Andersen (Nationals), appeared to be the most closed-minded of all five on various aspects. Including their seemingly set views on the “positive impact of Judeo-Christian ethical systems on society". Hmmmm hmmm. Anyway, even many of Howard's opinions weren't expressed in a politically advantageous way. Very refreshing.
University of YouDontLearnFuck
James studied B.Crap/Dip Shit at the University of YouDontLearnFuck.
First Year Courses:
Learning Why Knowledge Should be Avoided
Kabbalah/Numerology 1A
Astrology 1A
Respecting Old People No Matter What
Creation Science
Driving Slowly In The Right Lane
Physics For Poets
Second Year Courses:
Intermediate Superstition
Unnecessarily Wasting Resources
How To Have Simplistic Ideas About Everything
Extension Bible Studies
How To Ignore Reason
Eastern Medicine Method
Third Year Courses:
How To Entertain Guests
How To Put On 10kg In 10 Days
Beginner Fashion
Psychic Practical: Contacting The Dead
Fourth Year Courses:
Palm Reading
How To Only Be Interested In Stupid Things
How To Read Only Fiction & Biographies
Buying Rip-Off Goods
Fifth Year Courses:
Advanced Spirituality XXX
Being A Luddite
Religious Ethics & Anti-Abortion
Selecting Shitty Movies To See
How To Spend Money You Inherited
First Year Courses:
Learning Why Knowledge Should be Avoided
Kabbalah/Numerology 1A
Astrology 1A
Respecting Old People No Matter What
Creation Science
Driving Slowly In The Right Lane
Physics For Poets
Second Year Courses:
Intermediate Superstition
Unnecessarily Wasting Resources
How To Have Simplistic Ideas About Everything
Extension Bible Studies
How To Ignore Reason
Eastern Medicine Method
Third Year Courses:
How To Entertain Guests
How To Put On 10kg In 10 Days
Beginner Fashion
Psychic Practical: Contacting The Dead
Fourth Year Courses:
Palm Reading
How To Only Be Interested In Stupid Things
How To Read Only Fiction & Biographies
Buying Rip-Off Goods
Fifth Year Courses:
Advanced Spirituality XXX
Being A Luddite
Religious Ethics & Anti-Abortion
Selecting Shitty Movies To See
How To Spend Money You Inherited
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