2009-07-10
sHiFt
I, lately or as of now, want this journal to be a more diversified domain for my thoughts.
I've never really wanted it to be an accurate representation of my understanding of my self; I've never particularly strived to faithfully represent myself as the complex person I am in my entirety-- this journal is a particularly compartmentalized glimpse into my thoughts and feelings. I don't even know if it is possible to provide an fully accurate representation of your "whole" self, I'm not even sure what that means, your "whole" self, but I can intuit the idea of such a thing.
I think it's become more compartmentalized in recent years though- it's become this obscure outlet for some of my yearnings, desperately skewed from or unfaithful to my "whole" self as they may be. Now I'm not too bent on being accurate here- this is all a matter of self exploration and self expression, and there's truth embedded in that. But I think I want, maybe just now or maybe also in the future, to write about other stuff too, besides just such highly specialized warped versions of my sublime impulses. I think it used to be less like that when I first started, but then things kind of snowballed starting the summer before my junior year, and I never really shifted gears once I identified some semblance of a function for this place. And I'm not even sure what I mean by that. It's weird to trace the development of this place. I don't really see the use in that- it's not interesting enough, and honestly it just seems a tad egocentric too. But I kind of feel like changing things up a bit. Not sure what that means. Not really feeling like trying to be eloquent right now-- maybe it's just my mood. But anyway.
I don't owe anyone a transition or explanation for this, least of all myself, but that's my clunky attempt at some kind of clarity for how I'm feeling or why I'm sensing any sort of shift. It's kind of like a metaphorical template change, I guess. I'm just going to plunge in at this point.
I am astounded by our automatic cognitive processes, and the ways that we are not necessarily oriented around any sort of objective reality.
Our schemas provide us with shortcuts- with scripts that suggest how events will occur- and may even dictate how events come to fruition.
Once our biases are set, confirmation error does us in: you find what you are looking for.
We make things so coherent, when they are anything but. Do we really need these mental constructs in order to make sense of it all? We speak of things not only as a coherent date on the calendar, but objects and people of being of our possession (ie �my mom�)- the subtlety and self- deception of "owning" a memory, but not the person or the event.
We are egocentric with an inflated, unjust (?) sense of importance in the grand scheme of the world- our perspective is anything but objective, and we cushion reality with our personal skewed world view.
It's too easy to get stuck in inaccurate yet pragmatic frames.
There must be some amount/level of imposed coherence. The world is a buzz and swirl of stimuli- infinitesimal inputs, sensations, particles to attend to. Our physiological sensory organs parse these stimuli into something coherent that we can operate upon. Without some minimal level of organization (and therefore selection, bias, external imposition), we can't even begin to make sense of anything. It is adaptive, it makes living possible. So sensory organization at least must be allowed (and is downright impossible neglect- there is no way I can stop perceiving objects as objects, attending to consistencies in colors and contours; it seems innate) because it provides a baseline plane for operation. Selection is necessary. There is no way to attend to everything. Maybe this is part of why an objective truth is inaccessible- you can never get to the "whole" truth. If you could somehow attend to all of that- which is cognitively impossible as well as limited by time and place and many outside physical factors beyond anyone's control- perhaps you could gain equal (maybe not?) knowledge of all truth. But what would it be but an incoherent mess? Perhaps selection isn't inherent to organization- at least not in the sense that organization inherently involves omission. But doesn't it? Even if all the data/stimuli are still present somewhere in the organized layout, there are then not present somewhere else. Physically speaking, a stimuli, as matter, cannot occupy two locations simultaneously. Maybe this wouldn't apply to thoughts- thoughts are not matter, they can occupy many levels at once, they are not bound by physics due to their abstraction.
So we need at least physical organization to even begin to think/exist/be an engaging organism in some coordinated system. This can even be seen as a testament to the value of imposing coherence at the risk of losing some data/truth/understanding: we are willing to give up the acknowledgement of some stimuli (or some stimuli in certain places rather than in others) in order to ultimately gain a greater understanding- the ends justify the means.
It is difficult to take this beyond sheer physiological perception, because then we get into the shades-of-gray line-drawing business that can't ever be resolved.
And even our sensory perceptions can fail us: hallucinations, illusions, etc.
What we immediately attend to on the most fundamental physiological level provides us with baseline interaction with our surroundings. The distinction is immediately made via sight (contours), touch (our nerves allowing us to feel), and taste/smell/sound to a lesser extent as well: this is me, and that is everything else.
Our sensory organs immediately make that distinction, and while we cannot know it to be empirically true (due in part to the organization of stimuli and the physical impossibility of attending to all of them), we work with it, not against it. It would be neither adaptive nor practical to view ourselves as an amorphous blend with all of our surroundings- to not draw the lines with our brain and eyes, to not make distinctions that are wholly necessary to function and operate in a coordinated reality.
I want to move beyond the physiological organization, at least in exploration, but I am not going to draw any lines, not yet.
Take schema. These scripts are cognitively efficient: they allow us to shortcut experiences with certain useful and predictive expectations about how a series of events will unfold based upon their similarity to other events. You have a restaurant schema: the menu, getting your order taken, appetizers first, desserts last, then the check. Many of these expectations are adaptive: they cut down on the cognitive effort required to process each stimuli as they are being presented- planning reduces later cognitive workload. And most importantly, these expectations are often accurate. You expect the waiter to take your order before bringing you your food- and you're always right.
But what about when you have an inaccurate expectation, one that is not as solidified as the restaurant example? By the method of selection, these expectations would be expected to fall out or at least be given a "variable" flag.
Expectations are tricky, because like physiological perception, we can see how they are adaptive and useful for coordinating a collective existence. But what happens when we let these expectations dictate our lives?
You expect it to happen, and then it is so.
Do you forsee it? Or do you create it?
How often to things that people predict happen because they expect them to, and thereby coerce/influence the act into existence even if it was not what they wanted/intended? Confirmation bias could lead to highly selective attention to certain stimuli while neglecting others, and thereby make it seem like the act came to fruition, and maybe it did, but maybe more happened too, more that would compromise the predicted/selected act.
We get distracted by a line of thought, attend to that line, and neglect the surrounding, potentially contradictory evidence. And in the end, our expectation is fulfilled, even if it would have once been abstractly deemed inaccurate.
Much of this may be related to the longing humans have for coherence- to make sense of the world. myself am doing it now. We are uncomfortable with a state of doubt and strive to attain pleasure through uncontested beliefs (Peirce's fixation of belief). "It is...easy to be certain. One only has to be sufficiently vague" - C.S. Peirce
"Our beliefs guide our desires and shape our actions. The feeling of believing is a more or less sure indication of there being established in our nature some habit which will determine our actions. Doubt never has such an effect.�
�Doubt stimulates us to inquiry until it is destroyed.�
"The irritation of doubt is the only immediate motive for the struggle to attain belief. It is certainly best for us that our beliefs should be such as may truly guide our actions so as to satisfy our desires; and this reflection will make us reject every belief which does not seem to have been so formed as to insure this result. But it will only do so by creating a doubt in the place of that belief. With the doubt, therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it ends."
Peirce says that in doubt, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt, struggle ends. Doubt is an unpleasant state, an irritation. To avoid the unpleasantness of doubt, people seek answers, solutions, constructs, consistencies, coherencies, to help them make sense of their world and abolish (or at least try to) any irritating or provoking doubt. Peirce as well acknowledges the adaptive value of seeking belief, both societally and for our own personal goods.
Constant skepticism is not practical when it negatively impedes upon our "everyday functions"; doubt ceases to be doubt when it is overtaken by belief fixation, or by apathy and complacency.
But it is in this doubt that there is great potential for perhaps not answers (at least not false ones swayed by and overtaking desire for the contentment of belief fixation) but for insight- what Peirce's argument especially suggests human folly in reasoning is in abolishing this state of doubt. While it may be unpleasant, perhaps it is necessary in order to come around to a more natural, accurate belief in the end. Perhaps the irritation of doubt is the impetus for seeking a belief- but should it be? Can we control this? Shouldn't the impetus rather be seeking veracity? It's reminiscent of the indulgent weakness of humans that the Bible shuns yet also acknowledges as Original Sin- guttony, indulgence, the seeking of pleasure and gratification, the banishing of pain and discomfort (all of which can be adaptive).
At the risk of belittling or oversimplifying Peirce's ideas, does this desire to remove doubt suggest great potential for rushing through skepticism, and not necessarily to seek insight or "truth," but to remove the irritation and allow for the pleasing contentment of belief? He says it�s our impetus, at least humanistically, even when we try to pretend it's not. Can we overcome this? Or are we doomed to live in an inaccurate yet livable world, swayed by our yearning to achieve happiness over truth.
Our mental constructs- the imposed organization and regulation, it allows us pleasure and happiness, it allows us to adaptively function and survive. But despite their "irritation," these questions press on. Maybe we don't want to see the world "for what it really is," not that we ever can. But I'd at least like glimpse, something that I can grapple onto, something to propel through the illusion we all bring upon ourselves and have constantly reinforced by our surroundings (is it actually reinforced? or is this just more selection bias so it seems like it is?)
The notion of self-fulfilling prophecy is baffling- it ties into trying to abolish the doubt to get at the contentment of belief (like I said, whether the irritation is a virtuous impetus or not I can't say). You make something become so by thinking it. That provides astonishing insight into the control/discretion that an individual has over their own life, especially considering that sociologist Robert Merton defines a self-fulfilling prophecy as: "in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning." I'll consider the latter part of that definition more later, but just consider that pronounced amount of possible discretion: new behavior, consciously/intentionally or not, makes something which was originally false come "true." This has many possible applications: the pygmalion effect, the placebo effect, etc.
It ties into cognitive dissonance theory- how people try to avoid the "uncomfortable feeling" that results. This is probably also related to denial.
But interesting to Merton's definition- how do you determine if something was once true or not? What made it false then, true now, and who is to say that is the case? To call something a self-fulfiling prophecy seems like a cop-out, because there is not empirical way to define it. Yet the effects of it still are evident- due to confirmation bias, perspective-taking and framing, selective language/thoughts/attitude/approaches, the pygmalion effect, placebo effect, expectancy effect, cognitive dissonance, these are all very "real" things.
I miss talking to Julian, I think, and I wanted to at least attempt to get some of this out, to see how it fit when I removed it from the fourth dimension (my thoughts) and put it into the second dimension (this computer screen), when I flattened it out and tried to do it justices with words-- it's hard, maybe even harder than expressing some intense emotions. But it's a try. Domain diversified.
leesah-likes at 12:14 a.m.