Mindy Newton

Members
  • Posts

    254
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About Mindy Newton

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://
  • Yahoo
    mindynewton@yahoo.com
  • ICQ
    0

Profile Information

  • Interests
    Mind-Body problem, theory of Introspection, Epistemology, Cognitive psychology, psychodynamics, natural language comprehension, theory of grammar, number theory: prime numbers and divisibility tests, .petrography, poetry, music composition, horse-back riding/dressage, tennis, invention and intellectual property rights
  • Location
    Long Island, NY

Previous Fields

  • Full Name
    Mindy Newton
  • Looking or Not Looking
    not looking
  • Relationship status
    Married, have one child, dogs, cats, ferrets, birds, and a horse. That's the family.
  • Favorite Music, Artworks, Movies, Shows, etc.
    Rachmaninoff's second Piano concerto and the "...Paganini,"; Law and Order; As Time Goes By; Mystery
  • Articles
    In preparation, not specifically to be published here: A Universal Divisibility Test No Mystery to Primes Pepper's Ghost: A Theory of Introspection Transduction, Propagation, and Adaptation: A Theory of Consciousness Invariance in Human Cognition: A Theory of Perception and Grammar What It Is To Think Quartz Banding, In-filling or Porphyrization?
  • Description
    I am a mature, married woman with one child. I studied psychology and philosophy, practiced psychotherapy, psychological testing and evaluation. Did a stint in academic adm. as Director of Admissions to "MBA" program at major university. I write and edit for businesses, on a consulting basis. "Clarity Editing" My specialties are "Forms Analysis" and "Useability Editing."

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

Mindy Newton's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

0

Reputation

  1. Mindy. I'm sorry I wrote this! I got carried away. It was cowardly sexism on my part in that, as has been pointed out to me off list, I don't let myself go like this with the male posters. I probably owe you more than this apology. --Brant Not a problem. But the significance of this issue couldn't be greater! It is parallel with Kant's starting place, as I mentioned before. For the efficacy of the mind, it is absolutely crucial. = Mindy It's about twenty minutes later than my last post, and I find myself thinking that I've worn out my welcome here.
  2. I thought I saw a facility here for creating a private group. If so, how does one set it up? Thanks! =Mindy
  3. Mindy. I'm sorry I wrote this! I got carried away. It was cowardly sexism on my part in that, as has been pointed out to me off list, I don't let myself go like this with the male posters. I probably owe you more than this apology. --Brant Not a problem. But the significance of this issue couldn't be greater! It is parallel with Kant's starting place, as I mentioned before. For the efficacy of the mind, it is absolutely crucial. = Mindy
  4. Mindy, I don't know what value you hold for dogmatic statements, but that is what I was objecting to. I object to statement in lieu of fact regardless of who claims it. In the case of Rand, she makes a few, calls them "premises" and builds from there. (Not all her premises are dogmatic, but a few are.) If you don't think Rand did that, bring it on. I am interested to see where she backed up her more dogmatic statements, like the one I cited about sensations not being stored in memory (and that is merely one out of others). I have read her extensively and I have found practically no discussion of this particular subject by Rand other then dogmatic claims presented as if they were facts, then reasoning developed over top of them. I personally see no attack in this. But I go from the premise of correct identification in first place, then everything else. I check premises of the concepts I use. I do not defend Rand in first place, then try to make it all fit. I build my normative abstractions from cognitive ones, not the reverse. Frankly, if you want top talk about defending Rand, I believe I have done more to do that with protesting against the boneheaded methodology by Valliant in dealing with her intimate affairs than most people who claim to defend her. At least a lie about her will not be presented to the world as fact without serious investigation and objection. Rand deserves to be presented truthfully to the public and not in a distorted manner, principally when her own writing is presented. Please define ability and define content. I realize that growth is not the issue in your position (which comes from Rand whole from what I have read so far). But growth of ability is totally ignored as an epistemological issue in that position. There are a few speculations by Rand in ITOE about how an infant first integrates concepts, but she treats the issue not as organic growth, instead as merely the mind needing to learn and catch up, so to speak. In other words, from her treatment, if an infant has had the proper experience, it's mind would be able to handle complex concepts with no problem. The only real problem (in that view) is experience and getting the new equipment (the mind) properly primed. Rand does not treat the infant's lack of conceptual ability at that stage as the mind not being biologically ready to act yet. There is precious little discussion of biological maturity of ability in her writing and outright denial at times when she discusses talent. She also dealt with growth a bit in The Comprachicos, but she dealt more with indoctrination and education than maturing biological mental ability. That is a premise I have checked in Objectivism and found wanting. But my conclusion is not that Objectivism is flat-out wrong. I see a problem of scope. The part that is right is right. (Experience does provide content for the mind, for example.) It does not tell the whole story, though. Some content develops innately just as surely as a tree branch grows from a seed. (Left-handed and right-handed are other examples. This can be overridden by training, but if left unchecked, it will develop on its own without specific learning to be that way.) On examining this issue in another light, I see no reason to believe that the mind is not organic. I believe that it is organic. This means that, like all organic things, it gets born, it grows and gets bigger and more complex and develops new parts as it matures, then it withers after peaking and finally dies over time (if no disease or accident cuts its existence short). Trying to imagine that the mind does not go through these phases (i.e., that it is not organic) in my present view is nothing short of claiming that there is a soul similar to the one presented in most religions that ties the mind to the body. I can't go there without some kind of evidence. My observations and readings contradict this. (How to work with this and strengthen the mind in old age is another issue—a related one, but beside the point on the premise level. Either the mind is life and emerges from life and is intimately connected with it, or it is a thing set apart from the rest of existence that obeys a different set of natural laws. Hmmm... that almost sounds like Kant's starting point... ) Inductively, I cannot claim that the mind is life, but contradicts some fundamental parts of life without experiments and testing to confirm such a speculation. I have seen none so far. Michael Define "ability" and "content?" I use the standard dictionary definitions, and I believe we both have been doing so for some time, no? Itchiness is a content, green and red are also, the sights, sounds, feels, etc. that experience consists in, and then the memories, general ideas, plans, thoughts, etc. are contents. Having two eyes is not content. Biological growth is not content. Biological changes such as reproduction and aging are not content. Yes, the mind goes through phases of growth. To do so is not having innate content. = Mindy
  5. There is a reason to defend a value if one sees it attacked. Growth isn't the issue, Michael. Nature isn't the issue. The structures and growth dictated by DNA are not innate content. The ability to learn a language is not innate content. If we do not stay focused on the original point, all our discussion so far will be wasted. = Mindy
  6. Mindy, Isn't the very act of integration, which is an innate capability, such an imposition on sensory data? So what is your criteria to say that one is innate and another is not, when evidence of both is repeatedly observed and measured? I see you making declarations, but that is not a good criterion, at least a simple declaration does not meet my own standard of knowledge. Rand did this a lot, i.e., "man's needs are..." or "sensations, as such, are not retained in man's memory..." etc., and this habit is one of the weakest parts of her arguments. She basically says something is so because she says it is so. (Often she was right, but that is not what I am discussing, which is her method of discourse.) These kinds of declarations are premises I used to accept—on faith, in fact, since I used to believe there was something I was missing that would be explained later in the literature. But it isn't. Now I check any and all premises when I perceive a clunker. It's my mind for me, now, not anyone else's. Nowadays I need more than simple statements to become convinced by anything. Michael Innate capabilities are not innate ideas. Integration of sensory data does not falsify it. As to the latter, it might help to note that some integration is a logical necessity. Everything impinging on a nerve within the briefest time you want to specify is integrated into one signal. I would like to defend Rand against that allegation separately. As to being convinced, it was you who asserted a characterization, and thus who bears the onus of supporting it. I am arguing that you have not met that burden. = Mindy
  7. I don't understand the hostility toward Rand here, Brant. The woman was a truly great thinker. She was a magnificent writer. She had the scope of vision to structure (not invent) a complete philosophy, her analyses of cultural and political affairs were continuing proof of the activity and accuracy of her take on things. You must believe that she had a superior grasp of all that is involved in these intellectual achievements. You surely realize that only excruciatingly precise intellectual standards could achieve these things. Don't you consider that what you term being a control freak might actually be manifestations of that ruthless mind? To say, (paraphrased) Remarkably, she let herself be creative in spite of being a control freak, is startlingly uncalled-for. Do you remember the Thanksgiving scene at Reardon's, with his wife, brother, and mother sitting down to dinner? Rand describes the beautiful table settings, and the decorations. Then she has the brother comment on the table, saying that all the china, silver, and crystal were just bought, while Lillian's decorations were "creative, or 'took real thought?'" Here she's obviously thinking of "creative" as the anything-goes nonsense that is popular today. Perhaps that's why she doesn't praise her characters' creativity more. But, if you didn't think of that scene at all, perhaps you don't realize how she dealt with the subject. For example, when Dagny is alone at the cabin in the woods, and starts moving boulders around, re-designing the yard, etc., Rand is showing how a mind such as hers acts productively whether there is pressing need or not. Dagny's efforts in that situation were creative, whether Rand used the term or not. I'm assuming nobody here uses "creative" only in relation to artistic practices, maybe that's not a warranted assumption? = Mindy
  8. We are born blabbermouths. Ba'al Chatzaf Blabber for yourself, Baal. :baby: Mindy
  9. The only innate thing that counts, for this issue, is innate content. Can you explain "The wave (a 2 or 3 event)?" Our perceptual mechanism is a specific, limited capability. Perception integrates, yes. Experience is perceptual, yes. None of that means we have innate forms which we impose on sensory data. That is the issue. Perception is highly sensitive to symmetry. Symmetry is very common in nature. That doesn't mean we have an innate structure which we impose on sensory data. At the lowest level, we extract from sensory energy forms, patterns, or templates. We store these and use them in perceiving more things, as they are relevant. Before long, we are using patterns for nearly all our perceptions. When we can't get a stimulus to fit any pattern, we are taken aback, we look again, we say, "I can't make that out..." As we go, we extract new patterns, but mostly we use our liberal store of already-acquired ones. All of your top-down processes are simply our using stored patterns. If nothing else, parsimony forbids assuming some patterns are innate. =Mindy
  10. Kids are born with IQ, or IQ-correlates, and I don't see why his geometrical insight as to the concave egg half and the projection of the rod doesn't count as creative. I'm happy with Simon's definition of creativity, that something new and valuable is a creation. If that isn't satisfactory, how would you define it? =Mindy
  11. This is only an anecdote, but it is apropros: A 2+ year old boy is sitting in a tiny wading pool at a pre-school. He has a few toys in the pool, including plastic, graduated-size rings and the wooden rod they get stacked on, and a couple of plastic Easter eggs that come apart across the middle. A bored college student is "minding" this child and a few others. The kid picks up a half of an egg, and pulls the rod over to himself. Slowly, he puts the egg half over the top of the rod. He seems unsure whether to let go of it, when the "teacher" looks over at him. "Billy," she says, in a bored voice, "that doesn't go there." Whether or not we can measure the potential kids begin with, you can be sure there is a huge loss due to their "nurture." = Mindy
  12. Mindy, So you believe that patterns exist innately where they don't exist by instrument measurement? Or that it is merely an arbitrary coincidence that everybody does 2 and 3? If neither, where do the universal patterns of 2 and 3 come from in your conception? I'm confused. Michael I emphatically do not believe that patterns exist innately. We possess familiar patterns of beats, 2/4 or 4/4, 3/4, or 6/8 mostly. As you know, the 2/4 and 4/4 are equivalent for a simple rhythm, as are the 3/4 and the 6/8. So the dominance of 2 or 3-beat perception is not surprising. It encompasses most of musical rhythm. Rhymes and songs are the source of those patterns. Having such patterns already in our minds when we go into the experimental lab, we hear a metronome's beat as fitting one or another of them--2 or 3 beat units. There are several factors I can think of right away that are relevant to this sort of stimulus, that is, a monotonous one. There is the fact that nerves adapt under steady-state stimulation. There is the Gestalt need to establish a figure and ground. There is neurological integration, which has its own time-frame, and such neurological tendencies as the flicker-fusion threshhold. If you speed up or slow down the metronome by a large measure, you get different perceptual responses from subjects, also. I do not claim that anyone has sorted out these factors. But they don't need to be sorted out for present purposes. I will grant, for the sake of this argument, that this is a case of top-down perception. However, the patterns used are not innate, but rather abstracted from earlier experience. = Mindy
  13. I always miss irony. That is one of the effects of being an Aspie. Galloping literal-mindedness and all that. As to your main assertion, can you produce empirical evidence to support it? If you can, please do. Ba'al Chatzaf I would put it differently, Ted: most people are born creative, and it is stunted by... =Mindy
  14. You don't need to look up the metronome research. As an aside, I actually did a psy. experiment with metronomes, and had to read the major metronome-related research at that time. We don't disagree about the facts. We disagree about their interpretation. = Mindy
  15. I heard him talk about it at some lecture, maybe even a Q & A session. I'll see if I can come up with a reference. = Mindy