Project Reason

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.

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.

GAD

2013-05-23T19:20:29-08:00

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). .

Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by persistent, excessive, and unrealistic worry about everyday things.

People with the disorder, which is also referred to as GAD, experience exaggerated worry and tension, often expecting the worst, even when there is no apparent reason for concern. They anticipate disaster and are overly concerned about money, health, family, work, or other issues. GAD is diagnosed when a person worries excessively about a variety of everyday problems for at least 6 months. Learn more symptoms.

Sometimes just the thought of getting through the day produces anxiety. They don’t know how to stop the worry cycle and feel it is beyond their control, even though they usually realize that their anxiety is more intense than the situation warrants.

Bummer of initials, GAD.

Antisocial Personality

2013-05-18T20:12:39-08:00

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/hiding-in-plain-sight-20130509-2ja9p.html

Is this person really a sociopath or just a narcissistic wanker? Would a sociopath publicly label themselves as such?

The bit about being a Sunday School teacher is intriguing.

Bullying

2013-05-20T22:02:48-08:00

Does anybody have references to studies of bullying. In particular regarding questions like: who bullies who (e.g., who is the bully, is it an individual or a group, in each of these cases what characterizes the person chosen to be bullied, what gender differences are involved, etc.)

I’ve been reading some anthropological work on hunter-gatherer societies which indicates that they are very egalitarian and when a man stands out (through being an especially good hunter or such) he will be treated in ways to discourage him from trying to use this to become a “big man” or chief. Likewise, if a male uses strength or other means to try and bully his way to power in a group he will be attacked by a coalition of other males and even killed if he is exceptionally arrogant. This started me wondering about the questions on bullying today.

bumping the last thread “Stepping out on Jesus”

2013-05-08T18:55:16-08:00

don’t like reading the previous topic over and over again

DSM-5, tending to increase “mental illness”

2013-05-15T14:07:10-08:00

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/15/18278841-psychiatrists-critics-face-off-over-psychiatric-manual?lite

I’m inclined to agree that some of these classifications only serve to increase drug company profits and pathologize quite normal behavior.

Stepping on Jesus

2013-04-06T17:54:52-08:00

An exercise in symbolism set off a national controversy:

Stepping on Jesus

What is so ironic is that the people offended by the exercise don’t understand that was the point!

As someone wrote in Psychology Today, “Belief in voodoo…is still alive and well in this modern world.”

Are these forums a social experiment

2013-03-11T04:42:19-08:00

Just curious

For those here longer than myself, have you ever considered the forums a great (if limited) source of human interaction.

Do you have any thoughts on reviewing topics within the forums on who has been successful on delivering a message and who has failed.

Do forums deliver data that can be used for studies on reason.

safewing

Norms for Norms sake, or it’s too hard to change…

2013-03-28T13:58:05-08:00

This is something that’s always galled me about psychology, and when I was in psych 101 I had a question I posed that’s never really been satisfactorily answered.

Now, since I see the level intelligence here is generally greater than that of the average adjunct lecturer, I’d like to pose the same question here. I think the answer is really a microcosm of our largest societal and cultural failing as well, and holds relevance

If psychology has learned, which was asserted in all my psych textbooks and materials, that humans generally learn best when studying in 20 minute intervals followed by a break, why aren’t our schools, especially psychology classes, practicing that method?

I understand there’s a myriad of reasons why not. We don’t have time to properly teach that way, yadda yadda yadda. These material reasons for not making changes to our educational systems worldwide, when we know for a proven and reproven fact that there is a much better way. The answer lies in the cultural tendency to accept normative society as it is and live within those norms.

My question then, what is the rational argument for ignoring what we essentially know is the best method to educate. Given the importance of education in all aspects of life, this should be a very basic proposition. Is there a rationally defensible opposing viewpoint?