Joel mentioned three different dimensions of psychological time. Each person either is past oriented, present oriented or future oriented. What he may not know is that these are actually archetypes of happiness.
Those who dawn on the past are known as nihilists. There is a blurry line between psychological nihilism and philosophical nihilism. This is mostly due to the fact that there are many different definitions of nihilism. In philosophy, it could be the thought of nothingness; nothing is of value or matters and there is no comprehensible truth. In psychiatry, it can be a delusion in which the person feels like their own existence isn't real. Nihilists in this sense, can't get over their past and feel that no matter what they do, their life is never going to get any better. Behaviorists refer to this as "learned helplessness."
Those who are present oriented are called hedonists. In philosophy as well as psychology, a hedonist is someone who focuses on the here-and-now, they are pleasure seekers and don't care about the future consequences. A psychological hedonist flees from what causes them pain (Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan"). These people are damned because they will end up in debt, jobless, or other significant societal problems.
Those who are future oriented are known as rat racers. I'm not sure if philosophy has an equivalent term. The rat racer is always focusing on the future, and puts them self through pain now so that they will be happy in the future. When they achieve a goal there is only a little happiness, and then they are on to the next. In this process, they have little fun.
There is also a fourth archetype called the happiness archetype. Although you may think that this archetype is just in between a hedonist and a rat racer, it isn't. This doesn't make you happier because given a situation, you have to choose whether to be happy now or in the future. This archetype focuses on having pleasure now and in the future. For example say someone decided to go on a diet. The hedonist would give up right away; the rat racer would eat food that they hated, but was healthy; and the"happier" would eat the fattening food they liked in moderation. An other, probably better example, is that of musicians. Yes, scales and repeating a passage over and over again can be tedious, but they are still having fun and getting quick gratification by getting that passage right after a few minute while also making themselves better musicians.
At the end of his post Joel asked, "what would reality look like without the institution of time?"
Psychologically, time effects us in so many ways, even in ways that you would not think of like happiness mentioned above. Yet, If we had no sense of the past or present our minds might would kind of work like the way they do when we are under certain aesthetics. There is a certain type of aesthetic (I'm not sure which one) which works in a way that you are conscious, but you can't feel pain because the moment the signal gets to your brain, your focus is on the present. So your thought process is literally, "wait, what just happened?" If you got smacked in the face and fell to the ground you wouldn't feel the pain, you would just wonder why you were on the ground.
Time is an evolutionary development that is required for our survival. Even animals have a sense of psychological time. If we had no conception of the past, we would not be able to progress in anything. With no capacity to remember what we learned previous to any given moment we wouldn't have memories. And if it wasn't for memories we wouldn't be able to read, talk, or even walk. If we couldn't walk, we wouldn't be here. Therefore, memories, and a sense of time is necessary for our existence.
How do radial constructivists' view time?
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Language gone wild
A little confused at first, I realized (okay, I was told) that we changed the topic to language and it's correlation to ideas on Wednesday.
The first thing that came to mind was the case study of Genie. Genie was a girl who was strapped to a toilet by her Father from when she was 14months old until she was 13. She never learned to speak, whenever her father fed her he only growled and barked at her. Genie's partially blind mother did nothing to stop the abuse. When officials found her, Psycholinguists and language accusitionists went wild for this "wild child." (at first anyways) No one had ever seen a case of a human so isolated from social interaction or a teenage that never heard a word in their life. "This child could be the answer to so many questions" researchers thought. Questions that are unethical for the researchers to find themselves.
Genie moved into the house of her new teacher, Marilyn Rigler a graduate student in human development. At first, whenever Genie would get angry she would engage in self-mutilating behaviors. Marilyn taught her how to turn that frustration outwards by stomping or slamming doors. And eventually genie was able to use language to an extent and exhibit her frustrations in words.
If this isn't an answer, or supporting evidence that ideas, thoughts and emotions are possible without words then I don't know what is. Genie obviously had ideas, thoughts, and emotions, but she didn't know language so she was unable to communicate and share them. The same is with animals, they have thoughts they just can't say them. They prove that they do through their actions.
Yet, on the other hand when brain activity was recorded they saw almost no activity. Her brain waves were extremely undeveloped and her brain was lopsided! She could easily do tasks that involved primarily the right side of the brain and it took a little while for her to learn things that involved both, but when it came to the left side it was impossible. There is something called a critical period, it's like a window of opportunity and different tasks have a different time frame at which they are best learned. If a human has not heard language by the age of four, that window is almost completely shut.
After a few years Genie had lost her funding, and she was swapped from foster home, to her mother, to foster home again. To learn more about Genie check out
Feral children never learn enough language to give the answers that scientists need! 200 years ago they found a boy they named "victor" in the woods, he had no ability to speak language. A psychologist took him in and tried to teach him language and raise him but he was so wild and wouldn't comply that the psychologist put him in a mental institution. He was there for the rest of his life.
Is it better to take these feral children in and try to teach them human culture, or just let them be?
The first thing that came to mind was the case study of Genie. Genie was a girl who was strapped to a toilet by her Father from when she was 14months old until she was 13. She never learned to speak, whenever her father fed her he only growled and barked at her. Genie's partially blind mother did nothing to stop the abuse. When officials found her, Psycholinguists and language accusitionists went wild for this "wild child." (at first anyways) No one had ever seen a case of a human so isolated from social interaction or a teenage that never heard a word in their life. "This child could be the answer to so many questions" researchers thought. Questions that are unethical for the researchers to find themselves.
Genie moved into the house of her new teacher, Marilyn Rigler a graduate student in human development. At first, whenever Genie would get angry she would engage in self-mutilating behaviors. Marilyn taught her how to turn that frustration outwards by stomping or slamming doors. And eventually genie was able to use language to an extent and exhibit her frustrations in words.
If this isn't an answer, or supporting evidence that ideas, thoughts and emotions are possible without words then I don't know what is. Genie obviously had ideas, thoughts, and emotions, but she didn't know language so she was unable to communicate and share them. The same is with animals, they have thoughts they just can't say them. They prove that they do through their actions.
Yet, on the other hand when brain activity was recorded they saw almost no activity. Her brain waves were extremely undeveloped and her brain was lopsided! She could easily do tasks that involved primarily the right side of the brain and it took a little while for her to learn things that involved both, but when it came to the left side it was impossible. There is something called a critical period, it's like a window of opportunity and different tasks have a different time frame at which they are best learned. If a human has not heard language by the age of four, that window is almost completely shut.
After a few years Genie had lost her funding, and she was swapped from foster home, to her mother, to foster home again. To learn more about Genie check out
http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie
Feral children never learn enough language to give the answers that scientists need! 200 years ago they found a boy they named "victor" in the woods, he had no ability to speak language. A psychologist took him in and tried to teach him language and raise him but he was so wild and wouldn't comply that the psychologist put him in a mental institution. He was there for the rest of his life.
Is it better to take these feral children in and try to teach them human culture, or just let them be?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Re: Whiping the World Clean
In Joel's latest post he questioned time's existence and if it exists without humans. He ended by asking if time flows or do we flow through it?
In the article by Bradley Dowden talks about the flow of time and how there are two main theories. The first theory is known as the, "Myth-of-passage theory." This theory basically states that the flow of time is all in our heads. There is not an objective flow of time, but there is a possibility that our minds tell us there is. The second theory is known as the, "dynamic theory." This theory states that "the flow of time is objective, a feature of our mind-independence."
I'm not sure I see the difference in the two theories but, I believe that the flow of time is perceived by the events that you are doing and your feelings towards them. If you are doing something you love for 3 hours oppose to something that you hate for an hour, that hour is going to flow a lot slower than the 3 hours, possibly to the point where the 3 hours seemed like it was less time than the one.
So to answer Joel's question I think that time flows atomically, but it doesn't affect how fast or slow it feels. Depending on what we are doing determines how fast or slow time is passing. So in reality time flows automically, but it seems as though we flowing through time and our actions determine the speed of that flow.
What is the difference between the "myth-of-passage theory" and the "dynamic theory"?
In the article by Bradley Dowden talks about the flow of time and how there are two main theories. The first theory is known as the, "Myth-of-passage theory." This theory basically states that the flow of time is all in our heads. There is not an objective flow of time, but there is a possibility that our minds tell us there is. The second theory is known as the, "dynamic theory." This theory states that "the flow of time is objective, a feature of our mind-independence."
I'm not sure I see the difference in the two theories but, I believe that the flow of time is perceived by the events that you are doing and your feelings towards them. If you are doing something you love for 3 hours oppose to something that you hate for an hour, that hour is going to flow a lot slower than the 3 hours, possibly to the point where the 3 hours seemed like it was less time than the one.
So to answer Joel's question I think that time flows atomically, but it doesn't affect how fast or slow it feels. Depending on what we are doing determines how fast or slow time is passing. So in reality time flows automically, but it seems as though we flowing through time and our actions determine the speed of that flow.
What is the difference between the "myth-of-passage theory" and the "dynamic theory"?
Monday, April 5, 2010
Re: Emily's: Human's Imperfect Construction of Time
Emily talked about free-running (when there are no light cues and our circadian rhythm operates on a 25hour cycle) and the fact that a year is actually 325.25 days. She ended by asking, "Does anyone have any insight to why our interpretation of time is skewed? Is there a way to make it more accurate?"
Is our interpretation skewed of time because of the clock? If it is skewed because of the clock then what should our interpretation be? Whose to say that it is skewed when we don't know what the real answer is?
As for time being more accurate let's see, if there is 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour then that's 3,600 seconds in one hour. There is 24 hours in one day, 6 hours is 1/4. 6 x 3,600 = 21,600. 21,600/365 = approx. 59.18. So the most accurate way to make time would be adding 59.18 seconds to everyday(... I think, I'm not the best at math.) But are we going to change this leap year system that's been going on since 50-45 B.C. just to make time more accurate? No. We have time for our convinence, so we can plan and schedule events in a "timely manner." Why does it matter if it takes us four years to catch up on 43,200 seconds?
So my question is: Whose to say that our time is skewed when we don't even know what time is or if it even exsists?
Is our interpretation skewed of time because of the clock? If it is skewed because of the clock then what should our interpretation be? Whose to say that it is skewed when we don't know what the real answer is?
As for time being more accurate let's see, if there is 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour then that's 3,600 seconds in one hour. There is 24 hours in one day, 6 hours is 1/4. 6 x 3,600 = 21,600. 21,600/365 = approx. 59.18. So the most accurate way to make time would be adding 59.18 seconds to everyday(... I think, I'm not the best at math.) But are we going to change this leap year system that's been going on since 50-45 B.C. just to make time more accurate? No. We have time for our convinence, so we can plan and schedule events in a "timely manner." Why does it matter if it takes us four years to catch up on 43,200 seconds?
So my question is: Whose to say that our time is skewed when we don't even know what time is or if it even exsists?
Monday, March 29, 2010
The need to need and the need to deserve
In class toady we talked a lot about needs and what exactly makes a need. When I think of needs I automatically think of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid.
It's pretty self explanatory. We first need to breath, drink, sleep -- have our physiological needs met. Then we need to feel safe, then loved and so on. The bottom of the pyramid is the most needed and most essential.
I feel like this answers Jake's question, "Can you end the sentence?"
But like I said in class the things we need are a lot of the time shaped by our society and what they tell us we need. Or even a lot of the time we feel that we need the things we are used to having. But no matter what we are accustomed to the mind's appetite always needs more. We are always going to need something. This is just like envy, not to say that you are always going to be envious of something, but if you get it, it will only make you happy for a little while until you occupy your mind on something else.
When it comes to deserving we feel that we deserve the things we need and the things we work for. I certainly don't need or deserve to win the lottery (yet who really does?) but I do deserve good grades because I need to work hard. Yet sometimes we feel that we deserve things that we don't. Just because I work hard, does that necessarily mean I deserve good grades? Probably not, but I think so anyways.
This leads me to my question: Does our pride determine what we feel our needs are and the level of which we feel we deserve?
It's pretty self explanatory. We first need to breath, drink, sleep -- have our physiological needs met. Then we need to feel safe, then loved and so on. The bottom of the pyramid is the most needed and most essential.
I feel like this answers Jake's question, "Can you end the sentence?"
But like I said in class the things we need are a lot of the time shaped by our society and what they tell us we need. Or even a lot of the time we feel that we need the things we are used to having. But no matter what we are accustomed to the mind's appetite always needs more. We are always going to need something. This is just like envy, not to say that you are always going to be envious of something, but if you get it, it will only make you happy for a little while until you occupy your mind on something else.
When it comes to deserving we feel that we deserve the things we need and the things we work for. I certainly don't need or deserve to win the lottery (yet who really does?) but I do deserve good grades because I need to work hard. Yet sometimes we feel that we deserve things that we don't. Just because I work hard, does that necessarily mean I deserve good grades? Probably not, but I think so anyways.
This leads me to my question: Does our pride determine what we feel our needs are and the level of which we feel we deserve?
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Responce to Michelle's post: Envy
Michelle asked, "Would you say that envy is a never ending cycle and that it is done unconsciously?"
I'll start by posting the social psychology term in class that I couldn't remember. Counter factual thinking - mentally stimulating what might have been. The bronze is happier than the silver because the bronze's thought process is, "I just made it into the top three;" whereas the silver's thought process is, "I was so close to getting first." You are more upset when your favorite basketball team loses by one point than you are if they got murdered (points wise). You are more upset if your lottery ticket number was one off from the jackpot than if the winning numbers were totally different. This is because the more actual the event the more counter factual thinking. The closer you are to getting something you want and then you do not, the more you think "what if?"
This relates to envy, if you were so close and then fail, you will be more envious to the person who did achieve whatever it is that you desired. A homeless man is not envious of the rich man, he is envious of the other homeless man who found a beat-up pillow. Envy is relative to what we have, and yes, an unconscious emotion. Yet, I do not feel like it is a never-ending-cycle, so that one envious emotion goes away when another starts. You can be envious of two things at once, or not envious of anything.
I also believe that the capacity to feel envy is a predisposition. Some people have natural personalities that make them compare themselves to others more than the average. It also deals with how you were raised, if you were raised to be thankful for what you have, you are a less envious person.
This leads me to my questions: Can it be taught to not be envious?
I'll start by posting the social psychology term in class that I couldn't remember. Counter factual thinking - mentally stimulating what might have been. The bronze is happier than the silver because the bronze's thought process is, "I just made it into the top three;" whereas the silver's thought process is, "I was so close to getting first." You are more upset when your favorite basketball team loses by one point than you are if they got murdered (points wise). You are more upset if your lottery ticket number was one off from the jackpot than if the winning numbers were totally different. This is because the more actual the event the more counter factual thinking. The closer you are to getting something you want and then you do not, the more you think "what if?"
This relates to envy, if you were so close and then fail, you will be more envious to the person who did achieve whatever it is that you desired. A homeless man is not envious of the rich man, he is envious of the other homeless man who found a beat-up pillow. Envy is relative to what we have, and yes, an unconscious emotion. Yet, I do not feel like it is a never-ending-cycle, so that one envious emotion goes away when another starts. You can be envious of two things at once, or not envious of anything.
I also believe that the capacity to feel envy is a predisposition. Some people have natural personalities that make them compare themselves to others more than the average. It also deals with how you were raised, if you were raised to be thankful for what you have, you are a less envious person.
This leads me to my questions: Can it be taught to not be envious?
the seven deadly sins
I have watched the History channel's segment on the Codex Gigas (the devil's bible) a couple of times, and it mentions the history of the seven deadly sins. To the contrary of many people's beliefs the seven deadly sins are not mentioned in the bible. The seven deadly sins were actually once eight deadly sins written by an exiled monk in the 1300's. It wasn't until the 1500's when Pope Gregory changed the eight deadly sins into the seven deadly sins (omitting sadness and changing other slight things) and inducted it into the Christian religion.
The four Cardinal virtues : Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, and prudence, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity helped to form the seven heavenly virtues. The seven heavenly virtues contrast directly with each deadly sin.
Pride-Humility
Gluttony-Temperance
wrath-patience
sloth-diligence
lust-chastity
greed- charity
envy-kindness
Pride is considered the most deadly sin and contrasts with humility. Humility is modesty. Pride includes: arrogance, self-interest, and narcissistic/histrionic traits. A prideful person according to this depiction feels like they are too good to do the dirty work in life. This is considered a sin mostly because a prideful person considers themselves better than everyone else, almost at the level of God. Pride is also known as, "the sin of Lucifer," since Lucifer was so prideful in himself that he thought he could compare to God, resulting in him becoming the ruler of hell.
Gluttony is over eating and it contrasts with the heavenly virtue temperance. Temperance is moderation (notice how I only said it once). It is a sin because eating too much is wasting food and being greedy towards those who don't have as much as you. This relates a lot to the idea of egalitarianistic cultures, an even amount of food distributed to everyone and not the extreme of 300lbs rich people and people the weigh 72lbs dying of famine.
Wrath is anger and contrasts with patience. Patience is not being restless and quickly annoyed when someone bothers you or there is a wait. It is a sin because if we are quick to act and don't think first there can be bad and regrettable consequences.
Sloth is laziness and contrasts with diligence. Diligence is having a good work ethic. It is a sin to not have a good work ethic and to be lazy because you are wasting the life God gave you. Also, by being a diligent worker you are not allowing temptations or other evil thoughts to consume your time.
Lust is sex without love/marriage and contrasts with chastity. Chasity is remaining sexually abstinent. It is a sin because it is being self-indulgent in the temptations of the flesh before committing yourself to that person.
Greed is desiring more than you need and contrasts with charity. Charity is selflessly giving to others what they need. Greed is a sin because it is being selfish and not caring about the needs of others. It resembles gluttony, except greed is more general whereas Gluttony only entails food.
Envy contrasts with kindness. Being kind and happy for others will conceal envy. If I were to pick my own direct contrast with envy I would use satisfaction. Those who are thankful for what they have and are satisfied with who they are/what their status is, and are not envious people.
When you look at all of the seven deadly sins, there is one characteristic that they all share, (with the exception of wrath) and that is selfishness. Like I mentioned in class on Wednesday, before I even started to research, I mentioned how envy is correlated with low levels of empathy and high levels of selfishness. When you are envious -- selfish; greedy--selfish; lustful -- selfish; sloth -- selfish; gluttonous -- selfish; and the worst of them all, prideful --selfish. I find it ironic how pride is considered the most deadly sin and it is the one that contains the most selfishness. Would that make selfishness the most deadly characteristic/emotion?
The four Cardinal virtues : Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, and prudence, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity helped to form the seven heavenly virtues. The seven heavenly virtues contrast directly with each deadly sin.
Pride-Humility
Gluttony-Temperance
wrath-patience
sloth-diligence
lust-chastity
greed- charity
envy-kindness
Pride is considered the most deadly sin and contrasts with humility. Humility is modesty. Pride includes: arrogance, self-interest, and narcissistic/histrionic traits. A prideful person according to this depiction feels like they are too good to do the dirty work in life. This is considered a sin mostly because a prideful person considers themselves better than everyone else, almost at the level of God. Pride is also known as, "the sin of Lucifer," since Lucifer was so prideful in himself that he thought he could compare to God, resulting in him becoming the ruler of hell.
Gluttony is over eating and it contrasts with the heavenly virtue temperance. Temperance is moderation (notice how I only said it once). It is a sin because eating too much is wasting food and being greedy towards those who don't have as much as you. This relates a lot to the idea of egalitarianistic cultures, an even amount of food distributed to everyone and not the extreme of 300lbs rich people and people the weigh 72lbs dying of famine.
Wrath is anger and contrasts with patience. Patience is not being restless and quickly annoyed when someone bothers you or there is a wait. It is a sin because if we are quick to act and don't think first there can be bad and regrettable consequences.
Sloth is laziness and contrasts with diligence. Diligence is having a good work ethic. It is a sin to not have a good work ethic and to be lazy because you are wasting the life God gave you. Also, by being a diligent worker you are not allowing temptations or other evil thoughts to consume your time.
Lust is sex without love/marriage and contrasts with chastity. Chasity is remaining sexually abstinent. It is a sin because it is being self-indulgent in the temptations of the flesh before committing yourself to that person.
Greed is desiring more than you need and contrasts with charity. Charity is selflessly giving to others what they need. Greed is a sin because it is being selfish and not caring about the needs of others. It resembles gluttony, except greed is more general whereas Gluttony only entails food.
Envy contrasts with kindness. Being kind and happy for others will conceal envy. If I were to pick my own direct contrast with envy I would use satisfaction. Those who are thankful for what they have and are satisfied with who they are/what their status is, and are not envious people.
When you look at all of the seven deadly sins, there is one characteristic that they all share, (with the exception of wrath) and that is selfishness. Like I mentioned in class on Wednesday, before I even started to research, I mentioned how envy is correlated with low levels of empathy and high levels of selfishness. When you are envious -- selfish; greedy--selfish; lustful -- selfish; sloth -- selfish; gluttonous -- selfish; and the worst of them all, prideful --selfish. I find it ironic how pride is considered the most deadly sin and it is the one that contains the most selfishness. Would that make selfishness the most deadly characteristic/emotion?
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