Nick,
What if you're not actually in an ice cream store. But, some
combination of:
1) when you believe you're hungry for hot fudge sundae, everything looks
like an ice cream store.
2) you believe in the equivalence of ice cream stores to be all capable
of producing a hot fudge sundae.
3) you somehow believe all hot fudge sundaes themselves are equivalent
in their capability to produce happiness.
4) you're not really clear on how the relationships between HFS elements
fit together in some simple or convoluted way to make you theoretically
happy.
I think all parties to a psycho therapy q'est que c'est cup-o sessions
figure this out early on. A client may come in wondering why the hell
they can't get an ice cream sundae, but it may become rather soon about
how they can behave sincerely in the world composed of largely of
stories they've been habitually telling themselves about why they can't
get an ice cream sundae. At which point, some new stories may be in
order. So, I'm a bit skeptical that we can say that these kinds of
endeavors are primarily about various kinds of goal-pathologies. Any
pathology occurs in the way (not necessarily how much) people *adhere*
to their models, rather than jolly-good-ness of the model itself. Which
seems to be an uncommon different kind of abstraction.
One may be content to be a fool if one can devote some of one's best
energies to figuring out how to become a *sincere* fool. That may yet
inform the way scientists make contributions to the scientific
enterprise in interesting ways.
Carl
On 5/18/12 8:54 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Gill,
I am watching a series called "In Treatment" which seems to me, as
somebody who has worked around therapists all his career, and even
seen a few in my time, to be a very, VERY accurate portrayal of the
possible perils and benefits of psychotherapy.
The show has made me aware that the working model of good human
functioning to a psycho therapist goes something like this:
I want a hot fudge Sundae
I go to the ice cream store, I order ice cream, I order fudge, I order
whipped cream, and I order a maraschino cherry.
I eat it. I am happy.
What if I don't have money for a hot fudge sundae. Well, I go to the
bank, or I borrow the money, or I get a job, etc. In other words, I
organize my sub-goals, under some superordinate goal, like wanting a
hot fudge sundae.
And so forth.
Not functioning in accordance with that model is called
psych-pathology. In other words, people /should/ know what will
please them, and if they don't, they /should /figure that out, and
then they /should/ how to find that thing, and if they don't, they
/should/ problem-solve until they do, and then they /should/ get what
they want and then they /should/ be happy. If none of this is
happening for them, then they need help, according to the model.
I won't consider now whether this model has anything to do with how
human beings ARE. Now that I write it out it seems a bit absurd. For
one thing, as an evolutionary psychologist, I can't quite figure out
what the function of "happiness" might be. However, what I will say
is that, granting the model, people who, in various ways, keep
defeating themselves are probably embedded in a larger pattern which
satisfies some goal they are not fully aware of. Or they are aware of
the goal of that pattern, but not aware that it conflicts with the
embedding goal-pattern. So, they somehow never get the hotfudge
sundae, and they don't know WHY? Psycho therapy is supposed to line
up their goal structures so they get some of what they want.
A lot of public dumb stuff seems to be the result of projecting family
relations onto situations that bear no relation to that situation.
Road rage is probably an example of a kind of behavior borrowed from
one context where it works in some way and applied to another where it
just gets you killed.
Nick
*From:*friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]
*On Behalf Of *Gillian Densmore
*Sent:* Friday, May 18, 2012 7:12 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology
I might add to it underpaying and overworking.
On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Gillian Densmore
<gil.densm...@gmail.com <mailto:gil.densm...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I might be seeing where this could be going but the general technical
term Dumb Stuff might be defiend as one or of the following: Bad
manered drivers, procstratinating on tasks,not willing to properly
fund education and science-just as examples.
On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<nickthomp...@earthlink.net <mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote:
Well, in my psychology, the answer to such a question takes the form
of, "what is the larger pattern of which my dumb stuff is a part?"
N
*From:*friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>
[mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>]
*On Behalf Of *Gillian Densmore
*Sent:* Friday, May 18, 2012 6:09 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology
Oh oh I have a potentialy unsolvable problem: how come people (me
included) constantly do dumb stuff?
On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 4:13 PM, Bruce Sherwood
<bruce.sherw...@gmail.com <mailto:bruce.sherw...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Newton famously said about action at a distance, "I frame no
hypotheses". I take this to mean something like the following:
"I completely agree with you that I haven't explained gravity. Rather
I've shown that observations are consistent with the radical notion
that all matter attracts all other matter, here and in the heavens,
made quantitative by a one-over-r-squared force 'law'. On this basis I
have shown that the orbits of the planets and the behavior of the
tides and the fall of an apple, previously seen as completely
different phenomena, are 'explainable' within one single framework.
I propose that we provisionally abandon the search for an
'explanation' of gravity, which looks fruitless for now, and instead
concentrate on working out the consequences of the new framework.
Let's leave it as a task for future scientists to try to understand at
a deeper level than 'action-at-a-distance' what the real character of
gravity is. There has been altogether too much speculation, such as
maybe angels push the planets around. Let's get on with studying what
we can."
I think Newton doesn't get nearly enough credit for this radical
standpoint, which made it possible to go forward. And of course we
know that eventually Einstein found a deep 'explanation' for gravity
in terms of the effects that matter has on space itself. There are
hints in the current string theory community of even deeper insights
into the nature of gravity.
Bruce
On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Russ Abbott <russ.abb...@gmail.com
<mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> John, I like your gravity question. If this were Google+, I'd click
its +1
> button. My wife, who studies these things, says that one of the
> fiercest contemporary criticisms of Newton's theories was that they
depended
> on a mysterious (magical?) action at a distance.
>
> -- Russ Abbott
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
