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⫸STICKY⫷ The Delphic Oracle- Know Thyself: P&S Social Ampitheatre of Doom

^ That doesn't prove that delusion causes happiness, though, or that it's impossible to be happy without being deluded.

How is any one perspective on things judged to be demonstrably less 'real' than another? If I've lived it, it's real to me. There's many different angles with which one can view any situation. Choosing the one that best improves your relationship with this situation isn't the same as lying to yourself, necessarily. Thinking positively is putting the best possible spin on things, key word possible. There's definitely no shame in being the willow that sways and bends to accommodate the wind that blows through it. Wishful thinking, on the other hand, is deliberately deciding not to think about something, so that you're not forced to face the conclusion you know in the back of your mind is inevitable. For example, consider two murderers. The first murderer thinks, 'Well, at least I've stayed alive long enough after what I did to be able to reflect on it and come to terms with it. I'm going to pay the ultimate price for it, but I can't say I won't be getting exactly what I deserve, so I might as well be at peace with the consequences'. This guy is thinking positively. The second murderer comes up with justifications in his mind for why it wasn't 'really' murder and wasn't 'really' wrong, and he's not 'really' guilty of anything. This is sheer delusion, because it's patently false and he knows it. Guy number one, I'd say, has a higher chance of dying a happy man than guy number two.
 
The delusion comment was kind of a joke. But when I say that a positive outlook is a "fundamentally a distorting process" I do mean it, though just in so far as we can look at our predictions of where we'll be in the future, or of what good things will befall us, and show that these ideas rarely match up with actual outcomes. When I say "facing reality," I mean thinking in a way that frequently does match up with actual outcomes. This is the opposite of coping, which can be both adaptive and maladaptive (in which case delusion causes sadness or problems or whatever), as facing reality can be, too.

There's a now famous psychological experiment that was done by Daniel Gilbert at Harvard with anterograde amnesiacs (they constantly forget new info as it leaves their short-term memory, think "Memento") that shows that delusion (and I don't mean fooling ourselves, see why in a moment) is fundamental to happiness. The amnesiacs were asked to rate five paintings from their favorite to their least favorite. The experimenters left and the ratings they gave were forgotten about. Then the experimenters gave the amnesiacs the painting they deemed their least favorite and told them it was theirs to keep. The painting was remove from the amnesiacs rooms while they were gone, and of course the amnesiacs never knew it was missing. Then they were asked to rate the same five paintings again. This time, the picture they had "owned" was rated as much more favorable.

The amnesiacs couldn't have been lying to themselves since they couldn't even remember the painting. In humans, what happens is an unconscious reorganization of preference an emotional orientation to fall in line with what we possess or have access to. The emotional re-orientation is a genuine one, and results in happier emotions in a way subjectively indistinguishable from happiness that we imagine extends from the internally consistent reality of our environmental conditions. Part of that re-organization had nothing to do with memory, and so it could still impact the amnesiac's choice. These unconscious perceptual distorting processes extend to many other realms, and they are a huge part of what has allowed people who we think live or lived in miserable conditions to make it through life happy. Happiness may not be entirely synthetic, but 'real happiness' and synthetic happiness can't be distinguished purely from the subjective experience of each either.
 
^ Ah I see what you mean now. Psychology is not my area; I'd probably phrase this same idea one of two ways:

1) We are resilient enough beings to make a comfortable nest for ourselves in whatever we're given
2) As we embrace the world around us, we blur the boundary between ourselves and those things immediately adjacent to us, and in so doing make these things an extension of ourselves by very act of ownership / embracing / accepting.
 
is gravity a law or theory? i am perplexed.

Both. :\

There is Newton's Law of Gravity and Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

They both explain different aspects of gravity.

A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. A theory is valid as long as there is no evidence to dispute it. Therefore, theories can be disproven. Basically, if evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, then the hypothesis can become accepted as a good explanation of a phenomenon.

A law generalizes a body of observations. They are generalizations about what has happened, from which we can generalize about what we expect to happen. The ability of the ancients to predict eclipses had nothing to do with whether they knew just how they happened; they had a law but not a theory.

One way to tell a law and a theory apart is to ask if the description gives you a means to explain 'why'.

Newton's Law of Gravity predicts rather well the behavior of a dropped object, but it couldn't explain WHY it happened.

Einstein's theory attempts to explain the WHY, but is still very much open to change. We are still trying to figure out exactly how gravity works. It's a theory in progress that is constantly evolving.

Newton's Law of Gravity is pretty reliable on explaining gravity here on Earth. Works great. It's not constantly evolving. But once you get into describing the movements of celestial bodies, it doesn't work so well. That's when you need Einstein's equations, which build on Newton's original ideas.

Hope that helps. I'm not the best at explaining nor is my name Zorn. :(
 
no, you did an awesome job, but considering gravity is only a law here on earth, isn't the fact that it is a law an error right there?
 
gravity is not a law solely on earth: we can observe its workings in the motion of planetary bodies in our solar system and stars (and other interstellar objects) elsewhere. It is the law of acceleration of objects falling towards earth (9.8 meters per second per second, excepting friction) that only holds on earth.

ebola
 
his post implied (to me):

coping techniques let you realize, things will be okay in the future of your life

religion lets you realize that things will be okay forever and ever, even after your life

To expand upon this, theistic religions apply a personal order to existence. Naturally, things that happen are a result of cause and effect that is indifferent to the feelings of people. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Religious people often say 'there is a reason for everything' or 'everything happens for a reason'. They are coping with their vulnerability to the chaotic nature of cause and effect. However, they sacrifice their ability to clearly understand why things happen, and their ability to effectively respond to tragedy.

psoodonym said:
Psychologically healthy people have a positive outcome bias, as we tend to overestimate the likelihood of good things happening to us.

How is this determined? Isn't there a good chance that the evidence supporting this conclusion is misleading. I would think that people with a positive outcome bias would be more likely to describe themselves as psychologically healthy. Isn't it likely that people with such a bias would be incapable of admitting that they are psychologically unhealthy?
 
How is this determined? Isn't there a good chance that the evidence supporting this conclusion is misleading. I would think that people with a positive outcome bias would be more likely to describe themselves as psychologically healthy. Isn't it likely that people with such a bias would be incapable of admitting that they are psychologically unhealthy?
Regarding how it's determined, I don't know for sure, but it's probably not too far from having lots of people answer questions about their perceived likelihood of a large number of different things they rate as good happening to them, and then having followup interviews conducted throughout their lifetimes to see how likely the average person really is to experience what the average person considered "good things" at the time of the first questionnaire. (Of course, longitudinal studies are typically designed to measure and re-measure a wide variety of things, not just one theory like positive outcome bias).

I'd also guess that what labels someone "psychologically healthy" is simply their not having ever been diagnosed with some kind of psychologically pathological condition, rather than a self-report that they are psychologically healthy. So I'm not sure your question applies in the way you seem to indicate it may. Someone who knows they are bipolar and that their condition has caused them to lose every job they've ever had could know they are psychologically unhealthy while at the same time having a positive outcome bias simply because they're experiencing a manic episode at the time! I do recall that the clinically depressed have, on average, more realistic, that is more accurate, outlooks on their own futures and their ability to influence certain events than "psychologically healthy" people.
 
I'd say it's hard to establish a universal human baseline for 'good mental health'.

I tend to take a Structuralist approach when assessing a person's mental health. If the person is able to homeostatically maintain a mental state which makes life bearable for them, and is sustainable in the long term (taking into account their social millieu), I'd deem them mentally healthy.

Granted I'm a physician, not a psychologist.
 
who eles thinks

1984's title should have been the last man
 
i've always been partial to "humanity's gonna get fucked but i have to bills to pay now."
 
liljon.jpg
 
has anyone ever gotten angry at how bored they were?
 
^made my 25 years

i would say millenium, but im a futurist and i think we are close to the vertical part of the graph reflecting our technological development, so i think that soon and in my lifetime, something (like colonizing our solar system), will perhaps maybe be able to surpass even that jpg
 
Hey technology, your asymptote is showing... can I touch it?
 
^I climbed an asymptote once, it was an excruciatingly boring experience. The epitome of "Are we there yet?"
 
jesus
unexplainedface.jpg


have you seen jesus today? The photo above may be a good chance. Sent by jessica lundgren from sweden to paranormal.about.com, you can see the clear profile of a giant bearded man with closed eyes. It does resemble common representations of a fellow named jesus. Even though that enormous jesus head doesn’t quite fit into the rest of the image. What’s going on there? Jessica writes that “the child died short after the photo was taken”.

Child?

If you look carefully you may recognize that the photo is of a victorian couple, with a small child sitting on the knee of the man. And then you may realize that that child is jesus. Or rather that the big white hat of the little one is jesus’ forehead and his tiny right forearm is lord’s upper beard. Jesus’ hair is the vegetation in the background. Simply amazing.

In simpsons’ colors:

jesussimpsonized.jpg

:)
 
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