Thursday, July 31, 2014

It would be odd if we have it backwards

I am a fan of Sarah Bakewell, a London librarian who wrote "How to Live or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer".  I follow her on Twitter.  Since I write a blog most days and I use writing to look at my life from other angles, I am interested in Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) since he did much the same thing with pen and ink.  Bakewell explains in her introduction that Montaigne's essays about his life and feelings and experiences has collected many fans and admirers over the centuries.


The question is "How to live" and his first answer in Bakewell's book is not to worry about death.  Having listened to Thomas Hager's history of the development of antibiotics, I tend to divide human history into before and after 1940, which is approximately the year in which antibiotics were available to humans.  Before that, any scratch could cause death.  Dying was more associated with all parts of life equally, since it was not just an old age thing.  That is, of course, true today, too but less so with more people living into their 90's and beyond.


However, since both innate biological forces and social forces point us toward fear of death, we resist death as a matter of course.  A typical question that comes up with death is about what happens after death.  Do we go to heaven, to some hot and tortuous place, or what?  I have read that our minds are constructed in such a way that it is very difficult for us to imagine ourselves gone, absent, not present, missing, deleted, etc.  We have ashes from some of our deceased relatives here in the house.  I see dead and decaying animals around.  I suspect that theological and eschatological speculations are off and that my atoms will dissipate into the earth and its atmosphere over time.


But what if we, as mammals, are just not capable of perceiving the extreme joy, the mirth and hilarity that atoms experience?  What if our perpetual forms, which were collected momentarily into our bodies and brains, were already sentient and lively and quite happy?  What if we discover that after having lived, we will be in different, smaller forms that are much more fun than bodies?  What if we have the concept backwards, that life as a human is low and only a stepping stone to a higher, far more stellar existence?




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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Six seconds

Six seconds seems like an odd period, don't you think?  We usually deal in multiples of 5, except for the six degrees of separation and friendship that are said to chain from anyone individual to any other.  But I keep running into six seconds.


I think the first was the overlooked and underrated book "QR: The Quieting Reflex"(1982) by Charles Stroebel, MD.  Quieting and relaxing are one aspect of many practices for health and self awareness.  The books "The Inner Game of Tennis" (1974) by Timothy Gallwey and "The Relaxation Response" (1972) by Herbert Benson, MD relate the subjects of lack of physical and mental tension to the ability to see my internal states and feelings for what they are. But Stroebel emphasized that in any handy interval of just 6 seconds, waiting for a red light to change or a phone to be answered, I can practice searching out tension in my body and relaxing it away.


Then, I ran into six seconds again when reading about isometrics, squeezing my muscles just as tightly as I possibly can.  Doing so strengthens the muscles I tense.  I read that German researchers found that 6 seconds of the tightest possible tension was enough to increase strength.


Then, the other day, I searched "six seconds" with Google and was surprised to find quite a few results.  Among them was some sort of emotional assessment that I could perform or maybe others can perform on me or for me in 6 seconds.  Evidently, I can be certified or trained or tested or something for a fee of $150.


Another possible type of six seconds activity has to do with the emerging interest in "interval training".  An old idea in physical training but a new one for elders is a series of bursts of high intensity "trying very hard" physically for a run or biking or swimming or some other activity for a short period.  Usually more than 6 seconds, I admit, but the very peak of effort might be about that short.  Repeatedly reaching maximum effort and then slacking off but not stopping can achieve high levels of fitness.


Some of the Google search results state research that book, movie and questionnaire reviewers and those holding job interviews tend make up their minds yea or nay in 6 seconds.  


During the past year, I have read of people from the US, Britain and Russia who believe that slowing one's breathing rate is good for the mood, the mind and the body.  If I inhale slowly for 6 seconds and exhale at the same speed, that comes out to 12 seconds for a complete breath or 5 breaths a minute which is a slow rate.



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Regular observations of my life

On each page of my blog, there is a tool in the lower left corner to find any of the 1812 posts I have written.  That time/outline shows that the first pages were written and posted in 2008 but I didn't start posting regularly until April, 2009.  By now, I am accustomed to asking myself what has been happening in my life and what I have been thinking about lately.  I grasp the fact that cutting the lawn can be described in those three words or it can be sketched and stretched into several hundred words, getting into subjects of lawns, grasses, native species, water use and conservation, ethics, landscaping and all sorts of extensions and imaginative developments.


I would think that waking up to the need each morning to decide what to write, getting into a topic, writing, listening to it read aloud in a search for errors and omissions would implant all that effort in my mind. But surprisingly, I can spend an hour or two researching, composing, checking and then 4 to 8 hours later, I can't even remember the subject that I wrote about.  Like many other people, I am hoping I never lose my good memory, my understanding of my native language, my ability to use a keyboard and to observe my own life and experiences, internal and external.  I don't like to measure things or worry about my health unless I have some call to do so.  I don't know any good reason to suspect my memory is much worse than it was when I was 10 or 20 years old but it may be.

 

In the extreme upper right corner of each blog post in the online form of Blogger,

the Google blogging service that hosts my blog pages, there is a search window that is quite useful.  When you have written 93% of the days since April, 2009, you have written down many comments and mentioned many books and notions.  It may be that I have actually emptied my brain and that I cannot think of any new thought.  I don't mind reruns and revised opinions, just as I don't mind boring friends with re-telling old stories that I have already told, often to the point that the friends can tell the story as well as I can.


I have confidence that I can write a post of 200-400 words on just about any subject but I like to write on things that matter to me, that my heart is in.  When an idea comes to mind that seems like it would make a good blog post, I add it to my blog ideas lists.  I have 4 lists since I start a new one once it gets too long and unwieldy.  The four together hold 635 notes for blog posts.  The first one was a look at formal names, nicknames and family names, such as Grandma that can all refer to the same person.  The most recent one is a reminder that if you let a bonobo ape (smaller version of a chimpanzee) kiss you, you will get a "French" kiss.



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Monday, July 28, 2014

Working with change and time

Our choices in life are not just passive acceptance or flat resistance.  We can also use analysis, what Socrates called for in his statement "The unexamined life is not worth living." When we use our capacities to wonder, to speculate, to question, to use our curiosity, we get interesting and provocative results.


Plus, we can throw in a little respect for time.  Internal change is working in us, on us and around us all the time.  It may just take a decade to see it and even then, pictures and journals may be needed.  After we see change, we have our first round of reaction, usually negative: oh, no, overcrowding!  Advertising for stuff I don't need! Deterioration!  


After a little reflection and a little intense questioning, we find that some aspects of the change are positive and hopeful.  Beyond that, we realize that we have actually achieved some things of worth.  Also, we have benefited from some very good breaks.  Among other things, we have had experiences of not liking a person, a food, some art or tv but coming, over time, to develop a fondness or maybe even a reliance on that same person or food or art or device.  Sometimes, we are fickle but sometimes, it just takes a while to learn the good side, or the use, or the way to fit a change into our lives.


There is a difference between acquiescence and learning to benefit from changes. We can make use of both, adjusting to a new arrangement and actually employing new tools, engaging with gusto in new activities, seeing with new eyes, living with new understanding




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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Sunday, July 27, 2014

My inner critic

My inner critic: I don't like people who go on and on about themselves when I want to go on and on about my life. But my inner critic immediately steps in when I start to write.  Are my life and activities sufficient as a topic?  Shouldn't I at least make my statement a rhyming one?  Should I add a sound track, maybe rap or Mozart?  I could add a sparkly effect with the most important words flashing on and off.


I am not fair since I find everything you put in your grocery cart fascinating.  I am impressed with the cosmic significance of your choice of TV and books.  And, damnit, I put as much thought into my reading as you do.  I get as upset by shooting down innocent planes and money worries as you do.  So, how come my inner critic welcomes every little detail about you but bars my revelations or always dumps doubts and grumps all over my pages?


A friend often complains that my blog is about geothermal activity or probability theory but never about my aches and pains.  How about a little ME once in a while?  My inner critic and I have an appointment with a counselor next week to work on our issues.




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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Saturday, July 26, 2014

Wishing for a better shape

Don't you wish we had a better shape?  I am not talking about your waistline or silhouette or mine.  I am talking about the physical shape of our nation, the shape it makes on maps.  And don't get me started on the shape of my state.  I mean, a fingerless glove?  How are we going to lead the nation with a shape like that?


Ok, leaving aside the state, what is the shape we should have if we are going to lead the world?  That is what we want to do, right?  Lead the world?  Ok, the earth, I mean.  I guess it could be a circle, a perfect circle.  That would be distinctive and maybe inspirational.  I don't know, though.  In no time, our detractors and maybe even countries that like us would think a circle is indicative of zero.  Sometimes we are said to have no discipline, or no history, or no patience.  Maybe we are low on maturity and even wisdom.  Scratch the circle.


What about a five-pointed star?  It's true that quite a few nations beside the USA use stars but it looks like many of the Commonwealth nations (related to Britain) use 7-pointed stars.  Well, of course, making the USA contiguous states into a five-star shape will be a large engineering project.  I doubt if we want to go to the bother of moving Alaska, Hawaii and other US territories, so let's just stick to the main 48.  Our graphic designers could get to work laying out the best way to lay a five-pointed star onto the current shape.  It is roughly a rectangle in landscape mode as depicted on many maps.  


Let's each kick in a dollar or so and maybe get the project started.  It will need some careful and sensitive political shepherding but in the long run, it could unite us into greatness.


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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Friday, July 25, 2014

Ways to see your life

Meditation can improve your ability to be aware of what you have decided to think about.  We can't always control or predict what thoughts will arise.  But we can be aware that we have fallen into a rant about some habitual irritant or into worrying about a relative.  It can be a valuable change to ask Byron Katie's question (Is it true?) about the rant or to take a moment to remind ourselves that life unfolds in many ways and most of them are not under our control.  But running parallel to all our thoughts and issues, our lives continue on.  


Henry David Thoreau moved to the woods and wrote about his experience and ideas in "Walden" (free on Kindle).  One of the most famous passages in this 1854 account of a bachelor who purposely moved into the woods goes:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."


Thoreau, Henry David (2009-10-04). Walden (p. 66). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.


When you think about your life, you will find you have lived, no matter how you spent your time.  You may regret not weeding more or reading more but such regrets may well be wispy thoughts that omit the inclinations and reasons you had at the time.  You could have weeded more or written to your friend more, but you had other goals and demands at the time.  Writing about your life as it is lived, or photographing it or adding a new goal or activity you have been wanting to get to, may reveal some of the surprising complexity and beauty of the minutes and the years you have been in, are in, and are coming up.



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Thursday, July 24, 2014

various ideas

flipped classroom - often described as flipping the purpose of homework and class time, where basic learning takes place at home or outside of the classroom while activities inside class are designed to apply, explore and extend the basic learning


tension level - maybe the same as arousal level, when I am tense, elevated, excited, I am ready to fight, flee or freeze but I may not be ready to learn or to sense how I am feeling.  I was impressed by this table from Pennebaker's "Opening Up":

from "Opening Up" by J. Pennebaker p. 8



Topic

Heart Rate

Warren's comments

Girlfriend

77

Some disagreements about sex

College courses

71

Most are interesting

Failing exams

76

It's been hard on my ego

Parents

84

We were close until the divorce

Parents' divorce

103

It was no big deal

The future

79

I'm scared of failing again

best of all possible worlds, it is all for the best and bullshit - I didn't realize the other day when I wrote about optimism vs. accuracy that I was dealing with a theme that has preoccupied people for a long time, including minds of the level of Leibnitz and Voltaire.  There is good evidence that having a positive outlook is associated with being healthy and happy but nobody believes that smiling complacently in the face of a tornado and believing all will be well is a good strategy.


secure in the past as opposed to varying and slippery interpretations of the past - in America today, we have occupations and teams devoted for various financial, political and occupational reasons to more or less continuous examination and re-examination of the past. Many people are uncomfortable or take insult from revised interpretation of the past.  If I learn that President X or CEO Y was a hero, I may be hurt and upset to learn that evidence now indicates that she or he wasn't such a hero, after all.


distractions of words - Frans de Waal says that people in a ward for a certain sort of brain damage which prevents understanding of spoken language found a given televised political speech hilarious.  They detected big discrepancy between the speaker's tone, timing, facial expression and gestures and his words.  People who could understand spoken words found the speech perfectly normal but not at all funny.



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Frans de Waal, chimps, bonobos and humans

I have recently begun listening to "Our Inner Ape" by Frans de Waal, a primatologist, specializing in studying apes.  The chimpanzees are very close to us with 98% of their DNA identical to ours.  In the past 30 years or so, bonobos have been observed and they also have 98% of their DNA the same as ours.  The chimps are quite war-like and wage deadly battles between groups.  They also have a basically male-dominated society and the leaders are always fighting among themselves for the top position. 


The bonobos have a more female dominated society and use their sexual parts all the time to give each other and themselves pleasure.  A little difficulty, even such as wanting to pass each other on a narrow branch, can be an opportunity for a little sexual rubbing, caressing and stimulation. It doesn't matter whether it involves two members of the same sex or of opposite sex, making friends, getting into a blissful mood, settling an argument - all can be instances of using genitals to soothe and to create good feelings.


Some primatologists have felt that the chimps were a model of the inner, basic drives and habits that humans would show without culture, training and restraint.  But when the bonobos were recognized, scientists had two different models of humans.

 

When I first started reading "Our Inner Ape", I thought it was a little far-fetched to think that much insight into humans could come from the study of apes.  But I have recently finished "What Hath God Wrought?" by Howe, a history of the US from 1815 to 1848, a early time in our history when politicians were just getting a picture of how to conduct themselves and the government.  De Waal's discussions of chimp politics and political alliances and scheming to gain power sounds exactly like Howe's descriptions of political maneuverings among our parties, senators and presidents.



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Tuesday, July 22, 2014

From "Redirect" by Timothy Wilson - writing to heal

The next day Gary Felice saw a picture of the victim in the paper and realized that, to his horror, he had known him—it was Tommy Schuppel, forty-two, a popular X-ray technician at a local hospital. The fact that Felice had seen his friend die haunted the officer, so much so that he had trouble eating and sleeping. His bosses sympathized and wanted to help, so they did what many police departments do: they scheduled a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) session for Felice.


The premise of CISD is that when people have experienced a traumatic event they should air their feelings as soon as possible, so that they don't bottle up these feelings and develop post-traumatic stress disorder. In a typical CISD session, which lasts three to four hours, participants are asked to describe the traumatic event from their own perspective, express their thoughts and feelings about the event, and relate any physical or psychological symptoms they are experiencing. A facilitator emphasizes that it is normal to have stressful reactions to traumatic events, gives stress management advice, answers questions, and assesses whether participants need any additional services. Numerous fire and police departments have made CISD the treatment of choice for officers who, like Gary Felice, witness horrific events—indeed, some departments require it.


It is also widely used with civilians who undergo traumatic experiences. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, more than nine thousand counselors rushed to New York City to help survivors deal with the trauma and prevent post-traumatic stress disorder, and many of these counselors employed psychological debriefing techniques.2 Psychological debriefing sounds like an effective intervention, doesn't it? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and surely getting people to talk about their feelings, instead of bottling them up, is a good thing. Or is it?


Let's put CISD aside for a moment and consider another approach. Instead of asking Officer Felice to relive the trauma of Tommy Schuppel's death, suppose we let a few weeks go by and see if he is still traumatized by the tragic event. If so, we could ask him to complete, on four consecutive nights, a simple exercise in which he writes down his deepest thoughts and emotions about the experience and how it relates to the rest of his life. That's it—no meetings with trained facilitators, no stress management advice—just a writing exercise that Felice does on his own four nights in a row.


Which approach do you think would be more effective—CISD, in which people express their thoughts and feelings right after a traumatic event with the help of a trained facilitator, or the writing technique, which people do in private weeks after the event? If you are like me (and the hundreds of police and fire departments that use it), you would put your money on CISD. Surely early interventions are better than later ones, and offering people the services of a trained professional is better than asking them to sit and write by themselves.


But we would be wrong. It took research psychologists a while to test CISD properly, in part because it seemed so obvious that it was beneficial. When they did, they found something unexpected: not only is CISD ineffective, it may cause psychological problems. In one study, people who had been severely burned in a fire were randomly assigned either to receive CISD or not. Over the next several months, participants completed a battery of measures of psychological adjustment and were interviewed at home by a researcher who was unaware whether they had received CISD. Thirteen months after the intervention, people in the CISD group had a significantly higher incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, were more anxious and depressed, and were less content with their lives. Similar results have been found in studies testing the effectiveness of CISD among emergency workers. It turns out that making people undergo CISD right after a trauma impedes the natural healing process and might even "freeze" memories of the event. (This may have been the case with Gary Felice—according to a journalist who interviewed him four years after the fire, Felice seemed unable to get rid of the mental image of Tommy Schuppel lying dead on the floor.)


In 2003, after reviewing all tests of the effectiveness of psychological debriefing techniques, Harvard psychologist Richard McNally and his colleagues recommended that "for scientific and ethical reasons, professionals should cease compulsory debriefing of trauma-exposed people." Unfortunately, this message has not been widely disseminated or heeded. In 2007, after a disturbed student at Virginia Tech University killed thirty-two students and faculty, students and emergency workers underwent stress-debriefing techniques similar to CISD.3


What about the writing exercise? This technique, pioneered by social psychologist James Pennebaker, has been tested in dozens of experiments in which people were randomly assigned to write about personal traumas or mundane topics such as what they did that day. In the short run, people typically find it painful to express their feelings about traumatic experiences. But as time goes by, those who do so are better off in a number of respects. They show improvements in immune-system functioning, are less likely to visit physicians, get better grades in college, and miss fewer days of work.4


Wilson, Timothy D. (2011-09-08). Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change (Kindle Locations 40-63). Hachette Book Group. Kindle Edition.



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Monday, July 21, 2014

Does he understand?

Teachers want to have students understand but how can they tell when their students do understand?  One way is to ask the student to explain what they have learned.  What criticisms did Andrew Jackson's political opponents say about his tendencies and abilities?  If the student has memorized the words of the teacher or the text, he is usually considered to have a lower sort of knowledge, a more limited and fragile kind than if he can explain what Jackson's critics said in his own words.  The phrase "in his own words" covers various difficulties.  Today, there are several different pieces of software that try to help the teacher verify that the student's explanation, if written, is his own choice of words and not memorized from another source.


In cooking, mathematical calculation, some aspects of science and other subjects, what is learned is a procedure that can be carried out.  So, instead of an explanation, a demonstration is a different indication that learning has taken place and mastery has been achieved. 


In some instances, the student accepts that the teacher is just doing her job when she uses one method or another to check for understanding.  In other instances, the student may lack confidence in his own learning and fear failure when trying to show that he has learned.  The teacher often has a pretty good idea before the checking whether or not the student understands.  She may have confidence herself in the honesty and self-knowledge of the student, and depending also on her estimate of his maturity level, she may just ask him if he understands.


Depending on the attitudes of both teacher and student about learning and its uses in life, she may ask if the student is interested in further learning about this topic.  Sometimes it is evident that the student is hungry for more knowledge on this subject and sometimes it is apparent that he is eager to stop working with it.  When I was a college student, I thought much of the US history I was being taught was about the best example of totally useless, inapplicable knowledge that existed.  At the same time, I could explain just how much fun and insight I gained about human life and social and political power from my other history teacher's lessons on the history of France and the French king.  Now, I feel differently about US history (in reasonably small doses).



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Sunday, July 20, 2014

Prescriptions from Mom and others

Ever have a time when your mother or somebody offered advice that you really did not accept?  She thinks you should go out for football and you hate the idea.  Or, she thinks you should not go out for football and you hate that idea. I can think of advice my mother gave me that genuinely helped me and other advice that I refused.  So far as I can tell, I took the right path in both cases.  I wonder if she would agree.

Daniel Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist who specializes in people's predictions of their future happiness.  In books, TED talks, and articles, he explains that most people expect to be more affected by a given future gain or loss, positive or negative event, than they turn out to be.  He attributes this inaccuracy to our inability to experience a future event in the context of our whole, busy, active life.  When we think of the Packers winning or lightning striking the chicken coop, we can only think of that event.  We are not able mentally to think of the event embedded in the need to plan that wedding, attend a conference and do all the other things that will be on our minds and in our lives at that time. People tend to overestimate the mental acreage that a particular event will occupy in their lives.

It seems to relate to the matter of the happiness set point, again.  In their memorable book, "Healthy Pleasures", Robert Ornstein and David Sobel explain that people who became paraplegics and people who won a lottery both tended to return to their previous levels of happiness within six months to a year of the big event.


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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Saturday, July 19, 2014

John Brockman, Edge.org and my brain

I have written about John Brockman before.  He is the founder and manager of Edge.org, which, by the way, is totally different from Edge.com.  Edge.org has earned the reputation of being the smartest web site there is.  Since there are millions of web sites, probably in many of the languages of the world, it would be an enormous research job to verify which one is "smartest".  Let's just agree that Brockman invites some truly excellent scientists, thinkers and writers to write for his site.  Each year he has a theme and he selects some of the articles written on that year's theme for inclusion in a book.  Some of his books don't appeal to me.  His volume "What Should We Be Worried About?" doesn't attract me.  I don't feel I need any help in better worrying.

However, his "Thinking: The New Science of Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction in Life and Markets" is pretty cool, to say the least.  Some of his collections seem to do a very good job of including many of the primary voices in a field and "Thinking" is one of them.  I was reading in chapter 5 this morning.  This chapter was written by the famous V.S. Ramachandran, the scientist who figured a way to help people who suffered from pain in a limb that had been amputated.  The problem has been reported for more than 400 years.  People who lost a limb still had pain in it!  Turned out to be a brain and brain map of the body problem.  

In his chapter, Ramachandran discusses a related problem, rare and perplexing. Otherwise normal people had a very strong urge to have an arm or leg amputated.  The limb works fine but it doesn't feel right and never has. The condition, called apotemnophilia, is not well understood but someday may be.  It too may well have more to do with the brain's map of the body and input and output from the body.



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Friday, July 18, 2014

Some things have changed and some haven't

I have pretty well come to the end of the audio book "What Hath God Wrought?" by a retired professor of history, Daniel Walker Howe, who was a professor simultaneously at Oxford University in Britain and UCLA here.  I learned listening to the tales of endless squabbles between US politicians in the years between 1815 and 1848 that, for an outside amateur like me, not much has changed.  The politician that I came to know best often said that what seemed to be the issue was never the actual issue that occupied the thinking and energies of the decision-makers.  I urge others who feel that our country is in terrible shape to read or listen to Howe's history.  We do not currently have politicians dueling to the death with swords or pistols or punching each other out in the halls of the legislature.


Many of the issues that occupied the minds of the legislators and judges back there are still with us today.  What does the constitution allow?  What does it forbid?  Should the federal government engage in this or that practice?


Professor Howe often returns to the theme of transportation and communication.  The invention of the steam engine and its widespread use in railroads changed what can be accomplished and how quickly to a very great extent.  It was mind-boggling that people and goods could now be transported over distances at speeds that had never been possible before.  Sure, today's speeds are much greater but we have come to expect rapid transport so a plane flight of 23 hours is indeed a long, cramped performance but it is still true that we can travel around the globe in less than a day.  


The telegraph was used by Samuel Morse, inventor and artist, to transmit information much more quickly than people had ever experienced before.  Again, today's speeds of chatting and instant messaging and use of satellites for continuous tv from the other side of the globe seem like old news and what we have come to expect.  The speeds of information travel provided by the new telegraph were not expected, were unprecedented and were astonishing.  Just this evening, we watched on a web cam(era) as friends in Key West chatted with buddies in a bar.  We are impressed but we are not astonished.



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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Thursday, July 17, 2014

(late today) Chats, Tweets and Text Messages

If your cellphone is "on", it is ready to receive a little signal that you have an incoming call.  The system that deals in those little signals is especially stripped down but it is rich enough and powerful enough to carry a little information.  In Gmail, there are options for chats (as well as video "hangouts").  Many businesses invite chatting online with their operators.  Once you open a chat with someone, your instant message appears instantly on their screen and their's does so on yours.


Because the light message system is indeed light, it can only carry messages that amount to about 140 characters of print, including spaces.  So, Twitter makes use of that limit.  It amounts to about a headline's worth of text.  These days, most of the Tweets I see use part of their symbol allotment to include a link to a longer story or article.  Enter the need for link shorteners, such as Goog.gl, which is Google's shortener. So, here is a link to Nancy Lublin's TED talk on Texting:

https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/nancy-lublin-s-ted-talk-on-texting

Here is a link to the same page that has been shortened by Goo.gl

http://goo.gl/E4kfB5 

You can see the savings in characters.  I still have room for a word or two extra.


When I heard about texting, and chats, I thought "Big deal!  Just like email: one person writes and the other quickly gets the message and reads."  However, I recommend looking at Nancy Lublin's TED talk or using either link above to read the transcript of what she says.  She gave me a new respect for texts and interest in them.  Just reading that,for instance, texts have 100% opening record, that unlike email, you don't get a text message without seeing what it says, makes me feel that it is understandable that texts are a modified form of communication and matter in their own right.


I also recommend looking into Google Voice.  That service can allow over-the-Internet voice transmissions like Skype does but since Google does everything on web pages and it well-known and trusted, you probably have a better chance of connecting with others using Google Voice.  I have used Google Voice many times and have never once used it for a voice call.  That is because Google Voice can also text and it allows you to use your regular computer to text that teen of yours.  It is fast and free for you, although the teen may be charged for receiving a text.  All you need is the teen's cellphone number and you can use it to text "Hi, __________ Thinking of you.  Love, Grandpa".  Many teens will answer texts but don't have time for voice calls.  If you use Gmail and have inserted phone numbers into your Contacts, they will be available in Google Voice already.  Just type in your teen's name and his number will pop up from your Contacts.


--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Fantastic!

Novels aren't real!  Are they a waste of time?  Let's hold ourselves to things that are improving, like good Victorians of the last century or the one before or good Puritans from before that.  Let's stop buying novels for the public library since we are using taxpayer funds for dreamy stuff that isn't true, just fantasies.


One of my frequently read blogs is "The Annoyed Librarian".  In her blog (and it is a 'her') and other places, I sometimes come across the idea that fiction is childish, it is not real and public libraries should not waste time and taxpayer funds buying it.


Such a position more or less implies that books on carpentry and electricity deal with "real" things.  But in truth, my ideas of you and of me and of the world are fictions.  Scientists and researchers, including those investigating juries and eye witnesses, are finding overwhelming evidence that our minds do not take pictures like a camera and then store the result as in a filing cabinet.  What my own mother looked like, the woman into whose face I looked very often and for extended time, is not deeply engraved in my mind.  I can recognize Mom's picture as being her when I see one but without the prompt, I only have a rough memory of her face.


Not only do we not have a perfect picture of something or someone we really knew and looked at and spent time with.  It turns out that each time, we recall a memory, we change what is stored a little.  It seems that we literally cannot recall a memory and keep it without distorting it a bit.  I don't know if you have had the Gigi phenomenon happen to you but I have.  I recall that my first date with my wife was on a Friday but it was a Saturday.  I recall that it was a cloudy day but it was sunny.  She recalls that I couldn't keep my hands to myself but that is not what I remember.  

We deal with fictions all the time.  Quite often, they serve us well.  It does help if we can avoid getting too picky about their correspondence to reality.



--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Laying it on

I am interested in the power of the mind to affect my body, my mood and my life.  I recently worked on arranging for a professor of psychology to speak on the subject of placebos.  Quite a lot of research has been conducted on placebos, including what color is most effective for what ailment or condition.  I also found the book "You Are the Placebo".


I get weekly summaries of his blog from Eric Barker.  He tends to take popular topics and link them to specific books and authors.  This week's summary emphasized the research and results of optimism.  Being optimistic is not easy.


The media work hard to keep us frightened and worried.  The schools work hard to teach critical thinking, which is approximately the same as skeptical, doubtful thinking.  Our own minds and mirrors work hard to convince us we are too fat and too wrinkled and getting more so.  Our clocks and calendars work steadily to demonstrate that hours and years are evaporating out of our lives.


Here is a link to what to do about these downers.



--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


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