Project Reason

Privacy vs. intimacy

2013-06-17T08:48:43-08:00

Anonymous and Disconnected or Known and Vulnerable. It’s the Niclynn ponderous theme of the week.

I’ve been wondering about this in a variety of ways in relation to this NSA news story. I think privacy issues get to the heart of such psychological quandaries. Of course the “big issues” that people care about on a national level are terrorism, crime, potential for blackmail, etc. The government, granted, probably doesn’t care about that horrible break-up you went through in the tenth grade. Even so, I think it puts a weird psychological specter in the background. How would you feel about anyone, at least potentially, being able to know anything about you? That kid who bullied you or who you bullied in the 7th grade getting a government job and having access to your heartfelt emails to Memaw? Your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend (or hell, your current one,) reading a text exchange where you asked a friend for relationship advice regarding them? Someone listening to a phone call where you lost your temper and sputtered ridiculously at a callous airline employee? That awkward question about sex you once Googled. Whatever. The examples I’m going for are not of the “I know better than to ever say / do such a thing online!” variety - if you’re Googling murder tactics, running an online drug ring, or sending your secret lover porn on the internet and think “Aha! I will now cleverly hit ‘Clear History’” - you probably don’t have a bright future as a career criminal ahead of you. Just the examples, in an ordinary life, where one wouldn’t one every single person to have unfettered access to everything about themselves.

Then there’s the idea of journalists in general. I never thought much about journalists up to this point, but as I’ve said with obnoxious repetitiveness, Greenwald intrigues me. And, I think, exemplifies my Theme of the Week as well. A good journalist, to some extent, has to combine intimate seeing of another human with almost callous objectivity, a combination that, while I recognize as necessary, is sort of anathema to me. There is something that feels both tantalizing and potentially (potentially!) wicked about someone who can scrutinize the heart, mind, motivations and ego of another human with therapeutic accuracy, but treat that information with the calculated eye of a strategist. I suppose it’s a necessary ecological niche, of course, when others on the playing field have far more tangible resources, like money, power, and influence. Even so. It’s like having a fuzzy puppy who will bite your face off, if he deems it necessary. Or maybe shoot a rather well-aimed, precise arrow into your heart would be a better analogy. And one never knows what “necessary” looks like, in the narrative of any single human.

On a more personal level, the idea intrigues me in that its often central to ego-destruction in various sundry practices. Roshi whacking you with a stick, and all that. It’s something I like to play with, in meditation. What are the sacred cows in one’s own mind, the seemingly innocuous but “just the wrong thing” type things that anyone can still say to get me all riled up? And the degree to which I could see getting riled up as just “something happening”, a la the whole mindfulness thing, vs. core to identity. Shifting frames in interpretation vs. some absolute truth, if that makes any sense (i.e., any human interpretation of your acts, motivations, or ego is just that - an interpretation, a phantom.) I try to watch for those things in daily life - the small things that have more bite than they seemingly should. I don’t know that this path leads to some sort of psychological enlightenment so much as total relativism, but it’s a way for me to pass the time at least!

Anyways. Any thoughts? When does privacy begin to preclude intimacy? When does intimacy become stupidity? Would you rather be known and vulnerable or cloistered and impervious? Nietzsche or Gautama? Sorry if this topic is a wee bit touchy-feely for this board, but I like it.

Trioonity and the DSM

2013-06-13T08:28:22-08:00

Ever since Dennis and Dave started posting about the DSM diagnostic mental health manual thingie, I’ve been considering how trioonity might inform the diagnostic process. Granted, this is like asking Bozo to diffuse an atomic bomb. But he might get lucky. Hold the balloons.

It’s easy to discuss delusions or miss-perceptions… those are static, definable and in the brain’s internal data base somewhere. That is not the only delusable parameter in our brains ops. There is also the way our perception are connected to each other or in how we sequence them or, most interestingly, how our brains sequence them for us. That inner sequencing is called narrating.

Perceptions can trigger thoughts, emotions and other percetions. They can also trigger inner sequential narrations and auto-narrators to deliver them. That makes two more opportunities for delusionality.

I have read many patient interviews and while I am not a thorough researcher, one pattern always leaped out at me… a constant, unintentional and un back-and-forth across the Chunk Limit. One question is un-narrative. The next one is. One question requires a narrative response. The next one doesn’t. One moment, the interviewer is narrating for the patient, the next moment, they expect to get one back. Doctor and patient joust over the Libet Bridge without knowing its there.

All the real Trioon knowhow is found in courtroom drama. Perry Mason is a Trioon hero. Using his intimidating physical and intellectual presence, he bullies his way on to the culprit’s Libet Bridge and hammers them in chunk limited short burst of questions and leads them to an inevitable narration that drowns them in their own Nyeep Pool. Mason squeezes out the confession by commandeering their machinery of deception- narrative ability. In the modern world, nothing else has more impact on human perception. Maybe call it “perceptual health”.

The first problem with mental health is the thought there is “something” in there to be healthy. Many conditions are better defined as “brain health” in that they are rooted in biological machinery. That still leaves a vast amount of observed conditions that seem more like bad software running on competent hardware. This category of affliction is noted in how one perceives and reacts to the outside world. As if there are conditions that can have an impact on one’s perception. Trioonity says that all these conditions are condition of perception and that the resulting sensation of perception is merely a manifestation of the condition. So, what can go wrong with perception that doesn’t show up in an eye exam? What does mental health have to do with YOUR EYEBALLS?

Trioonity suggests that there is nothing our “minds” can do that YOUR EYEBALLS didn’t learn to do first. And, that there is something that eye examiners have been blind to… sight over time. Narrative ability comes originally from our vision. Narrated sight, or Post-Cinema Perception, sequenced what we were looking at. Now, we can sequence what we are thinking about. That is… some of us can, and some can better than others. And some can’t stop doing it no matter how hard they try.

In examining someone’s observable personality, nature and nurture must make way for a third component- narrative ability. Starting with knowing the difference between a narrative question and a chunk limited question.

A Chunk Limited question or answer is short and un-narrated. That means no more than four beats both rhythmically and conceptually. The order of the words is unimportant. Any ambiguity is avoided with this or that word being enhanced with an inflection, a pinch of some face muscle, or a bend of a wrist. Whole conversations can play out without ever exceeding the chunk limit of four. The talk will zig and zag on no particular course because there is no particular course, agenda or narration being pursued.

A narrative question or series of questions is invisible within the chunk limit. There is a course or agenda that must play out, in order and in full, to be completely expressed. This involves the answerer’s ability to perceive continuities beyond the chunk limit or, in some cases, requires that they generate a narration to respond.

The first patient exam should be a test of their narrative ability… and that exam should be the basis of all further communication and treatment. A thoughtful series of chunk limit-sized questions could test a patient’s ability to detect continuities in real time. Do they see where you’re going? Right then and there? Is it a reasonable or accurate perception? That indicates a healthy flexibility in the possession of their Libet Bridge. They are unthreatened by the questioner’s brief use of it. The answers come straight from Mr. Now. Their immediate perception is untainted and un-delayed Cinema View. Eye contact should seem reflexive, unconscious and undirected.

If the response is coherent but twisted in some way or goes off on a tangent, that indicates a patient who is firmly planted on their Libet Bridge. They are, after a short delay, creating a coincident narration that is best described as the sum of the question’s narrative plus the internal narrative that is “running” already. The examiner has engaged Mr. Flashlight. All immediate perception is post-cinema. Mr. Now may as well have a sack over his head. Eye contact may include several others in the immediate vicinity that the interviewer cannot see. Self-directed EYEBALL STEERING comes in pulses only a few seconds in duration.

This is not terribly useful so far in that this second description may describe 90% of the people some of us run into every day. Especially if you work in a business that relies on the perception of sequences or are surround by excessively educated co-workers.

Likewise, we are all surrounded by normal people who rarely narrate and find exceeding the chunk limit uncomfortable when they have to. In other pieces, I have called them Shorts and competent narrators are Longs. The difference is mostly in training and education, which is where our civilized super-narrative ability comes from.

While this represents two opposing polarities of type, both are equally normal and capable of being healthy. The shortest shorts and the longest longs are equally irritating to everybody. If there’s trouble, it’s usually with the auto-narrators.

Sometimes our narrative ability needs to work unpossessed (unconscious) and automatically like organizing our speaking as we speak. That means the Libet Bridge is up but just as a piece of perceptual processing machinery. Even though we are not on it, there is still an apparent persona in its operation. The machinery puts a phantom on the bridge based on impressions and memories of other people or even a composite of people. We seem to be just organizing words in a row but we are mimicking a delivery that we have heard somewhere before. In letting it control or “run” our expression, we are sublimating to a visiting internal narrator. That’s just an operational metaphor… there is no spooky spirit of someone in your head, just a lot of remembered perceptions that have boiled together into a composite personality. It’s like a host folder for a speech algorithm. Depending on how a person perceives this function internally can vary from a benign sensation of some kind of machinery operating to a tangible, dominant personality that commands from somewhere beyond their reach.

In an interview, there should be some point where the subject is encourage to answer something in the form of a story that the interviewer will passively listen to and follow. This can demonstrate how readily one can get a directed narration started and how long they can sustain one. Their narrative ability may become exhausted, or a point will come where a self-directed narration suddenly defaults to an auto-narrator. EYEBALL STEERING becomes relaxed and less often directed.

Some cannot self-narrate and steer their EYEBALLS at the same time. Some can self-direct their narration only so long before they are bullied off their Libet Bridge by an internal auto-narrator with a dominating personality. Often, the auto-narrators can make much better eye contact.

That’s Bozo’s take on it. More later when all the purple spots go away.

Computer stuff

2013-06-18T16:53:54-08:00

Not sure where to put this. Have had a contract with “Iyogi” for close to 2 years now. They provide on-line tech support for software problems. My cost, given how much I’ve used them on 2 computers at $125 per year each, has been maybe .50 an hour. Not a bad deal. They have been useful. Until now. Now I’ve been flooded with phone calls from them, in India, to increase the subscription considerably, asking for $399 for 2 computers to 2016. Turned them down, since my current subscription goes to 2014 as it is, and I do not wish to spend more ahead. They just helped in eliminating a “Trojan Horse,’ which was identified by my McAfee software and removed, so they may well have not been needed, as McAfee removed it. It was hypertexting PR text with ads.

Point is, I do not now recommend this company. Look up “Iyogi reviews” on Google. Be warned, beware. Hard sell pitches, rapid speaking, unsolicited calls. If you want or need on-line support for software issues, try a local service. Geek Squad, Best Buy, might be worth considering. Also 24/7 service. Or someone more local. Can be a great service. Bu not I-yogi.

Where am I

2013-06-18T10:45:37-08:00

Hello everyone I’m Ellissia,
I would say I’m a humanist skeptic
I enjoy discussing and debating the obvious flaws in all religion, spiritualism, Aliens visitation or astrology. I do have an Achilles heal though and that is my politeness, I am happy to discuss anything and love doing so but the religious people I meet have me at a disadvantage, I care if I offend and they don’t. Though they are very often nice they are viewing me as in need of something that they have, as if I’m lost. I don’t see myself that way. I feel extremely found. I have known that religion was a white wash since childhood and have not participated in a religious festival since the millennium

I am certain that I don’t know and the faith they have, I would have once found admirable, I now view as irritating, I think I’m becoming a fundamentalist because I’m increasingly angry about the rubbish I hear and the ignorance people spout under the guise of religion.

So I don’t want to become bitter so Where are the people that care about the state of the world and are not waiting for God to come fix it. I have tried to discuss these thoughts with the non religious people around me but it actually annoyed me more than the Christians because they don’t care about scientific progress or religion harming people, they are just getting on with things without it ever occurring to them that it is a dangerous thing, Even my Gay friends are speaking in defense of the thing in principle , I’m expected to and do give respect to people that think I’m lost, Stupid and most offensively going to hell or not hell if they are Jehovah’s witnesses apparently.

What can I say i just don’t see how a mixed race, C of E raised girl like me, from a poor housing estate in Oxford and with an education that leaves a lot to be desired, can see it but others can’t what did they miss?

This is where I’m at right now. There is a lot of frustration without a solution

It’s Getting Better All the Time

2013-05-06T09:29:41-08:00

I thought this was pretty interesting and wanted to share.

It’s Getting Better All the Time

Women are the superior Gender of the Human species…

2013-06-18T13:12:59-08:00

With 52 complete chromosomes (XX) on the sex linked one vs the males 51 (XY is male and the “Y” is a blank, and all expressions
of maleness are produced by this blankness) females are statistically more complex than males. Each cell
in their bodies contains 1/52nd more information, and by the definition of scientific complexity, Females would be the superior organism.
It is true that historically males have been larger and are programmed for physical prowess to protect the mother
and child through evolution. Those traits are quickly becoming meaningless. (The Lesbian professional women’s basketball
player Brittney Grineris 6’8” tall and would be intimidating physically to most males on the planet, especially on a basketball court)
There now are top performing women marines in the Marine Corp and will soon, no doubt, bring their precision and superior
left/right brain integration to the field of warfare. Was it not a woman in the film “Zero Dark Thirty” who tracked down and
located Osama Bin Laden? Yes probably it was males in the Navy Seals who did the actual deed, but armed with her
information, their functions, were almost ceremonial.
One of the three most advanced technocracies on the planet (Germany) has had a woman at the top of the Political pecking
order (Angela Merkel) now for several years and little doubt the United States soon will (Hillary Clinton)..

Men are still cute though.
At least human males don’t share the fate of the male black widow spider, once
he mates with her she bites off his head.

What do you think?

Who says that violence is NOT islamic?

2012-02-25T20:19:49-08:00

I’ve heard more and more lately from both muslims and non-muslims that the violence we see in the Arabic & MiddleEastern world is actually cultural and not a product of the muslim faith. The murder of 4 female Afghanis in Canada recently and the guilty verdict against the father, mother, and brother of 3 girls and a first wife, is denounced in the strongest language but a point is always made that this sort of “honour killing” and the absolute control of women is not part of islam but rather that it is part of the cultural beliefs of these people.

However the recent reaction to the US Army’s burning of the quran (just like the madness over the cartoons of Mohammed) plainly and explicitly proves that violence is absolutely derived from the religion of Mohammed. How it is even possible to conclude that in islam women are not rated as second-class citizens (or as the essential property of men) is beyond reason. And much of this violence within the faith is based upon its inherent inhumanity against women, and from there it spreads out to other aspects of the islammic world view.

Now one more question on this topic: How is it possible that people (mostly men) can be so enraged and so violent in their reaction to the “desicration” of their holy book, the quran? Why would the mere existence of certain words incite such craziness and insanity as a reaction to their destruction? What’s in the power of those words that would make grown men turn into raging madmen? Could it be that in those words it breathes life to the subjugation of women and men know deep inside that the frailty of their supposed superiority rests on the overzealous protection of the words contained in the Quran? Is that what makes them rage and murder when someone burns their book?

Why no religion makes sense to me

2013-06-11T14:16:22-08:00

Technically, you could say that even Christianity is about Karma, you do the right thing and good things happen to you, you do the wrong things and not so good things happen to you.

The problem with the idea of karma is that technically we all deserve everything that happens to us, it’s our karma, which means that the people doing those otherwise horrible things to us never get bad karma for doing those things to us!

If one is to take the idea of karma to it’s logical end, no matter what we do, we have automatically burned all of our karma. And nobody goes to hell after all this, no matter what they do.

Another tenet of many religions that have come our way is the idea of not killing, One of the ten commandments is not to murder.

Even a vegan is causing a being to suffer in order to be relived of the suffering of getting hungry when they eat a plant (which they are killing). The only way to follow this commandment is to not eat food, ever.

Another very large problem that I don’t think many people really sit and think about when they think about religion is the idea of grace, which is to say that Krishna ate some butter and by doing so he ate all the sin of the world, or Jesus “died for our sins”. Now come on. What does it mean to “Die for a sin”, it actually sounds like something that would give someone very bad karma, maybe the way the universe actually works is that if you forgive something, you have to endure it until you stop forgiving it which means that nobody is ever forgiven and we all burn in hell forever, however if we forgive, we still all burn in hell forever.

Hmm… it does say in the Bible that heaven and earth shall one day pass… it never said anything about hell passing.

Just some thoughts on religion. Actually, I think religion has developed some of the scariest ideas that have ever been, causing many people who are just doing very basic and kind things to be absolutely terrified that they were ever born, because it doesn’t really make much sense (as in my example of hell if you forgive, hell to the other if you don’t forgive (the other being you from someone elses perspective).

In both scenarios we all go to hell forever.

My failed experiment, what now?

2013-06-15T17:55:29-08:00

Hi Guys,

I find Sam and Christopher to be quite compelling. As an experiment I joined an Islamic forum and a Christian forum.

I tried patiently and mightily to engage in reason-based conversations on topics such as “minimizing dogma”, with predictable results.

I suspect it’ll be great fun to spend time on this forum, mostly for the purpose of resuscitation, but I’m really looking for ways to go out into the world and gently shift our more dogmatically-oriented co-humans.

Does “personhood” apply to a carpool lane violation?

2013-01-07T10:02:53-08:00

Some wise guy with money and time thinks he has found a way to expose the silliness of corporate “personhood” by intentionally getting a ticket for a carpool lane violation.

http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2013/01/04/corporate-personhood-advances-in-carpool-lane/

Corporate personhood takes a new leap forward Monday as a Marin County (California) motorist challenges his traffic ticket by arguing it was OK to drive in the carpool lane because his corporation was with him.

Jonathan Frieman, a local activist and nonprofit consultant, was ticketed Oct. 2 for driving in the carpool lane during restricted hours; the officer apparently wasn’t impressed when Frieman showed him his incorporation papers. A traffic court hearing is scheduled for Monday afternoon.

The fine for such a violation is $478, but Frieman, 59, of San Rafael, says that if the court rules against him Monday, he’s prepared to appeal the case all the way to the California Supreme Court in an effort to expose the impracticality of corporate personhood.

. . .

California Vehicle Code section 470 defines a “person” as “a natural person, firm, copartnership, association, limited liability company, or corporation.” Section 21655.5, under which Frieman was cited, states that “no person shall drive a vehicle upon lanes except in conformity with the instructions imparted by the official traffic control devices.”

For readers who don’t know what a “carpool lane” is, it’s a lane on a freeway restricted to vehicles with two or more occupants. The restriction is often in effect during rush hour, with the times specifically noted on road signs.

I wish him luck. I get the feeling the definition of corporate personhood will remain but he may get the vehicle code changed.

Another semi-related thought just came to me, but I don’t mean it to hijack my own thread. If the pro-life movement succeeds in defining an embryo as a person then every woman of child-bearing age may fight carpool lane violations by claiming to be pregnant, and by the time it comes to prove her pregnancy then she can claim she had a miscarriage.

(Edit: corrected misspelling in title)