I wonder in the Dalai Lama case if the child was just intuitively reacting to the reactions of the adults that were presenting the objects. Other than random chance it seems like the most reasonable explanation.
I agree. I would only trust the test results if they were double-blinded, such that the testers didn't know items which were authentic and which weren't.
McCloske's advice is sound for us mortals, but some writers have a knack for invective. Christopher Hitchens comes to mind. Sam Harris has a touch of it too.
I feel that yelling writers inevitably write for the choir: they don't want to persuade anyone, they engage in performative outrage/criticism/hatchet-jobs whose audience is already "on their side", so it's much more about in-group/out-group dynamic (and I think there's quite a bit of data that shows evoking negative emotions towards the outgroup is the best way to engage and increase cohesion of the ingroup) than actual debate. Hundred times more so in anything even remotely adjacent to "social media".
I'm not sure the religious examples are the same as typical psychological essentialism (if I understand it correctly). Speaking as someone who once believed in particular objects being holy, I'd say that in a religious context the belief is just that there are non-material properties that objects can have. These properties are not necessarily immutable (most holy objects have to *become* holy at some point), and don't require thinking that there are "essences" that suffuse all objects.
Perhaps you could argue that in order to believe that an object has a non-material property you need something to point to to claim that there is an object here rather than just a bunch of atoms that are near each other. And so the belief in an essence is implied by the belief in objects that can "contain" properties. But if you asked a religious person whether, if a small sliver of a holy object broke off, would both the object and the sliver still be holy, I believe they'd usually answer in the affirmative. Which means that "holiness" could just be a property of atoms rather than a property of an essence that's contained in the boundaries of the original object.
Agreed. Especially good with "relics" example (medieval Europe had probably enough slivers of the Original Holy Cross to build a palisade). The holiness of objects -- from how people think of them and treat them -- feels more akin to something like radioactivity, or other kinda of invisible contamination (I can't think of examples of desirable infusion of object with an actually existing invisible characteristic) and the fact that -- at least in Catholic rite, dk about other denominations or religions -- you can deconsecrate a church for example, before selling the building to be turned into a nightclub -- suggests that too. So in this analogy, demon acts as a Geiger counter of sorts.
Ask me anything? I seem to have figured out a number of years ago, how not to relapse with schizophrenia… most people don’t believe me and yet I think it’s very significant and I can prove it! Wondering what to make of this and how best to communicate is it and maybe this is a way I can help?
Ask me anything question! About 10 years ago, I had $250,000 expropriated by the liberal government when they outlawed natural gas development. I owned a small part of a successful natural gas company in New Brunswick which sold natural gas of a high quality into the Boston market and the company paid a lot of taxes to the New Brunswick government - the company was virtually made worthless overnight. I was thinking of doing crowdfunding to recover some of this personal capital which was basically expropriated with no discussion or recourse. Our government seems to like to seize assets! I feel like I can’t win in Canada as an entrepreneur? Suggestions……..
Ask me anything question! My two main emails are gmail.com. I seem to have trouble registering for conferences and getting a reasonable price because I’m not connected to an institution? And this may be a good thing I’m not really sure but anyway conferences would cost me a lot more. also, Google scholar won’t accept me so I can check my citations on my schizophrenia bulletin article from 2009 “The psychological causes of schizophrenia”….. how can I unpack this to solve these problems?
Ask me anything question! With my complex lived experiences and my eclectic education, how can I best help going forward with contributions to well-being and mental health? I’m a bit overwhelmed with choices and I don’t think I completely understand the big picture? I love to learn and create solutions for the real world!
Malcolm, woke with clarity of mind today on my projects! Planning to move forward this week and have a travel day today - home! I’m working on my small potatoes “ask me anything” questions and I hope to post some soon plus as the two weeks evolves. Loving it.
re: McCloskey and "don't be unpleasant", isn't Donald Trump a great counterexample of a man who's angry all the time, and who's thereby managed to persuade a good chunk of the voting public to be angry at his enemies rather than to be annoyed at him? Not that I think "be angry" is good writing advice, but really, how much faith should we have in any generalization one way or the other?
More generally, it's striking to me how little writing advice even purports to be evidence-based. Is there any evidence that following the advice in one manual or another actually makes you a better writer? A lot of the advice does seem plausible, but that's just the price of admission for a hypothesis. It's also maybe important that the vast majority of great writers never opened a style manual, and there are few reports -- even completely anecdotal ones -- of someone's writing improving markedly after reading one. My guess is that good writing can be trained (to some extent), but probably can't really be taught.
A very interesting approach to evil possession. But I think it took too much time. For instance, most witchcraft cases were resolved with a confession, just by applying a little pressure. And what about the undeniable proof of throwing someone—usually a woman, coincidentally, I suppose—tied to rocks, expecting her salvation by the devil? Theology and science working together in an effective spectacle.
I’m also learning about the Deloitte events in Ontario and participating in those. I’ve been on the last two. I read the Deloitte report. The first event was with the CEO of CAMH. The second event featured Jane Philpott, and her new book. I’m just learning and listing at these events.
People diagnosed with schizophrenia, especially if they have a growth mindset, can do quite well, be in recovery and live a life with meaning and well-being! They need to take responsibility for themselves, so that they can move forward day by day and live a life of optimism. They can learn and grow by doing…..
Fundamentally, I believe by working together, we can prove the causes of schizophrenia, or at least subsets of schizophrenia, if it’s not just one illness! I think we can create a pathway to a simpler recovery as it seems more clear what’s involved. I would like to be part of this process……..we can do it!
On event brite, I booked a psychiatry research day with the University of Toronto at the Courtyard Marriott on Yonge Street in Toronto … it’s a free conference day sponsored by the University. I saw it advertised about six weeks ago and registered? Just to get a big picture of medical leader ship. Any suggestions on how to prepare or what I should look for it’s on June 20 8 AM. I have a hotel booked at the hotel for the 19th but it’s $550 so I think I’ll cancel that. I can make alternate arrangements with a friend - the big thing with vulnerabilities is I will have to pace myself and find a few places so I can rest throughout the day. I don’t think people take that into account - these kinds of needs at intense events like conferences. I haven’t been to a mental health conference since 2001. Except the odd morning event? So I’ll just go with an open mind with a view to listening and learning.
Jean Twengy’s book on “generations” is very relevant and important! When you look at what generation people were born in sheds a lot of life on their behaviour or why they do things? For example, my dad was great generation, born 1919, and grew up in silent generation, and his father died when he was seven years old. It seems harsh when he expected me to make it on my own? When you look at great generation and silent generation that’s what was expected of them, so it just seems logical that he would have the same viewpoint especially if he did not explore or investigate. He was still very supportive of developing his marine engineers and me - like teaching work habits when I was in grade 6…….
I wonder in the Dalai Lama case if the child was just intuitively reacting to the reactions of the adults that were presenting the objects. Other than random chance it seems like the most reasonable explanation.
I agree. I would only trust the test results if they were double-blinded, such that the testers didn't know items which were authentic and which weren't.
McCloske's advice is sound for us mortals, but some writers have a knack for invective. Christopher Hitchens comes to mind. Sam Harris has a touch of it too.
I feel that yelling writers inevitably write for the choir: they don't want to persuade anyone, they engage in performative outrage/criticism/hatchet-jobs whose audience is already "on their side", so it's much more about in-group/out-group dynamic (and I think there's quite a bit of data that shows evoking negative emotions towards the outgroup is the best way to engage and increase cohesion of the ingroup) than actual debate. Hundred times more so in anything even remotely adjacent to "social media".
I'm not sure the religious examples are the same as typical psychological essentialism (if I understand it correctly). Speaking as someone who once believed in particular objects being holy, I'd say that in a religious context the belief is just that there are non-material properties that objects can have. These properties are not necessarily immutable (most holy objects have to *become* holy at some point), and don't require thinking that there are "essences" that suffuse all objects.
Perhaps you could argue that in order to believe that an object has a non-material property you need something to point to to claim that there is an object here rather than just a bunch of atoms that are near each other. And so the belief in an essence is implied by the belief in objects that can "contain" properties. But if you asked a religious person whether, if a small sliver of a holy object broke off, would both the object and the sliver still be holy, I believe they'd usually answer in the affirmative. Which means that "holiness" could just be a property of atoms rather than a property of an essence that's contained in the boundaries of the original object.
Agreed. Especially good with "relics" example (medieval Europe had probably enough slivers of the Original Holy Cross to build a palisade). The holiness of objects -- from how people think of them and treat them -- feels more akin to something like radioactivity, or other kinda of invisible contamination (I can't think of examples of desirable infusion of object with an actually existing invisible characteristic) and the fact that -- at least in Catholic rite, dk about other denominations or religions -- you can deconsecrate a church for example, before selling the building to be turned into a nightclub -- suggests that too. So in this analogy, demon acts as a Geiger counter of sorts.
Radioactivity is a very apt analogy.
Ask me anything? I seem to have figured out a number of years ago, how not to relapse with schizophrenia… most people don’t believe me and yet I think it’s very significant and I can prove it! Wondering what to make of this and how best to communicate is it and maybe this is a way I can help?
Ask me anything question! About 10 years ago, I had $250,000 expropriated by the liberal government when they outlawed natural gas development. I owned a small part of a successful natural gas company in New Brunswick which sold natural gas of a high quality into the Boston market and the company paid a lot of taxes to the New Brunswick government - the company was virtually made worthless overnight. I was thinking of doing crowdfunding to recover some of this personal capital which was basically expropriated with no discussion or recourse. Our government seems to like to seize assets! I feel like I can’t win in Canada as an entrepreneur? Suggestions……..
Ask me anything question! My two main emails are gmail.com. I seem to have trouble registering for conferences and getting a reasonable price because I’m not connected to an institution? And this may be a good thing I’m not really sure but anyway conferences would cost me a lot more. also, Google scholar won’t accept me so I can check my citations on my schizophrenia bulletin article from 2009 “The psychological causes of schizophrenia”….. how can I unpack this to solve these problems?
Ask me anything question! With my complex lived experiences and my eclectic education, how can I best help going forward with contributions to well-being and mental health? I’m a bit overwhelmed with choices and I don’t think I completely understand the big picture? I love to learn and create solutions for the real world!
Malcolm, woke with clarity of mind today on my projects! Planning to move forward this week and have a travel day today - home! I’m working on my small potatoes “ask me anything” questions and I hope to post some soon plus as the two weeks evolves. Loving it.
re: McCloskey and "don't be unpleasant", isn't Donald Trump a great counterexample of a man who's angry all the time, and who's thereby managed to persuade a good chunk of the voting public to be angry at his enemies rather than to be annoyed at him? Not that I think "be angry" is good writing advice, but really, how much faith should we have in any generalization one way or the other?
More generally, it's striking to me how little writing advice even purports to be evidence-based. Is there any evidence that following the advice in one manual or another actually makes you a better writer? A lot of the advice does seem plausible, but that's just the price of admission for a hypothesis. It's also maybe important that the vast majority of great writers never opened a style manual, and there are few reports -- even completely anecdotal ones -- of someone's writing improving markedly after reading one. My guess is that good writing can be trained (to some extent), but probably can't really be taught.
A very interesting approach to evil possession. But I think it took too much time. For instance, most witchcraft cases were resolved with a confession, just by applying a little pressure. And what about the undeniable proof of throwing someone—usually a woman, coincidentally, I suppose—tied to rocks, expecting her salvation by the devil? Theology and science working together in an effective spectacle.
I’m also learning about the Deloitte events in Ontario and participating in those. I’ve been on the last two. I read the Deloitte report. The first event was with the CEO of CAMH. The second event featured Jane Philpott, and her new book. I’m just learning and listing at these events.
People diagnosed with schizophrenia, especially if they have a growth mindset, can do quite well, be in recovery and live a life with meaning and well-being! They need to take responsibility for themselves, so that they can move forward day by day and live a life of optimism. They can learn and grow by doing…..
Fundamentally, I believe by working together, we can prove the causes of schizophrenia, or at least subsets of schizophrenia, if it’s not just one illness! I think we can create a pathway to a simpler recovery as it seems more clear what’s involved. I would like to be part of this process……..we can do it!
On event brite, I booked a psychiatry research day with the University of Toronto at the Courtyard Marriott on Yonge Street in Toronto … it’s a free conference day sponsored by the University. I saw it advertised about six weeks ago and registered? Just to get a big picture of medical leader ship. Any suggestions on how to prepare or what I should look for it’s on June 20 8 AM. I have a hotel booked at the hotel for the 19th but it’s $550 so I think I’ll cancel that. I can make alternate arrangements with a friend - the big thing with vulnerabilities is I will have to pace myself and find a few places so I can rest throughout the day. I don’t think people take that into account - these kinds of needs at intense events like conferences. I haven’t been to a mental health conference since 2001. Except the odd morning event? So I’ll just go with an open mind with a view to listening and learning.
Jean Twengy’s book on “generations” is very relevant and important! When you look at what generation people were born in sheds a lot of life on their behaviour or why they do things? For example, my dad was great generation, born 1919, and grew up in silent generation, and his father died when he was seven years old. It seems harsh when he expected me to make it on my own? When you look at great generation and silent generation that’s what was expected of them, so it just seems logical that he would have the same viewpoint especially if he did not explore or investigate. He was still very supportive of developing his marine engineers and me - like teaching work habits when I was in grade 6…….