Two Points of View

[Peter]

Whether you see a "soul" or a "being" when you speak to another human, you instinctually or in your own most intimate being, know you are talking to "someone." We have been sure about that for about a million years.  

[anthony]

7 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

Why does the "why" in this case differ from the "why" in any other scientific observation? Do you look at other chemical changes and come up with a "why" in the same way?

 

Why can't neuro-chemicals be the first cause of emotions? It doesn't follow that they "randomly pop up," unless you consider EVERY physical (or metaphysical) phenomenon to be "random." You can't have free-will without imposed costs and benefits... there is no "good for me" without the "me" <--the thing that feels.

The "why" presupposes a conscious mind that wants to know how something works, not only its constituent parts (the what).

Causality is also identity.

You'd prefer we are determined by chemicals?

You've come full circle - the "me" is the individual consciousness that sees, thinks, finds value and has emotions. That's my argument - to know what's good for one is preceded by knowing that one exists and has important value. The me is the consciousness and has a specific nature. To be effective, it "works" a particular way.  Emotions are practical in nature, the defense mechanism of the body and mind. They supply you an instant read-out of what's good for you and not. And they are pre-programmed, rightly or wrongly, by this individual. But studying the consciousness-emotions by way of the biology of the brain and nervous system, is reductive and materialist, like dissecting an organism down to analyzing its atomic particles to find signs of life. You won't get there.

Why can't n-chemicals be "first cause"? you ask. And what causes THEM to react? If nothing and they have no need of a cause - then they DO, by that definition, behave randomly, spontaneously and unpredictably and would be harmful to an individual, not beneficial. He is at their mercy, has no free will. If "something", perhaps you believe they have inexplicable properties which reliably guide one's thinking and actions. iow, one's emotions are always "right" - accurate tools of cognition and action. This claims a supernatural 'cause'. Both positions are false, you, your volitional consciousness, is the cause.

You will see how the errors of emotional materialism/mysticism generally play out in society. Look at the results in many people recently: "My feelings are all what count!". i.e. Feelings have primacy, and any cause I deem proper (or no need for a cause at all). Check out the overt emotionalism of New Leftism and its logically-consistent consequences - raging mobs. People who seize on a "cause" to hatefully display their righteous - um, "empathic" - emotions. Is this the sign of humanity, which you advocated earlier?

Remember, any argument for emotions ignoring individual responsibility, implicitly justifies vicious behavior. You can't pick and choose "good" emotions from "bad". They are all chemically determined, right?

[Dglgmut]

5 hours ago, anthony said:

You'd prefer we are determined by chemicals?

No, I don't see a disconnect between us and the chemicals. It's a tautology, you're thinking of the same thing in two different ways and comparing it to itself. We are a collection of chemicals. We are part of reality just like everything else. We are determined by what we are, and yet what we are is not determined until we are dead... Why is life emerging on Earth any more or less amazing than our own consciousness? It's all connected.

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They supply you an instant read-out of what's good for you and not. And they are pre-programmed, rightly or wrongly, by this individual.

This is another "crux of the disagreement" line. And I have to point out a redundancy in your system: if emotions are the result of thoughts i.e. "this is good for me/not good for me," then what is the function of this "instant read-out"? Why do we need emotions to tell us anything if we can just think all of these things to ourselves?

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But studying the consciousness-emotions by way of the biology of the brain and nervous system, is reductive and materialist, like dissecting an organism down to analyzing its atomic particles to find signs of life. You won't get there.

Material is what we can observe, it's either that or nothing. That doesn't mean you have to stop theorizing, but your theory should not contradict what we see in the material, which brings me to the question: What about the evolutionary theories that also correlate to the materialist analyses? Understanding that our emotions are there for an evolutionary reason is very helpful in finding the actual value of those emotions in a particular situation. Also knowing how to predict how behavioral and environmental changes will affect our emotions... this is a biggie that you don't get with the theory that we think-up our emotions. Knowing that sunlight and exercise will help with depression, for example.

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You will see how the errors of emotional materialism/mysticism generally play out in society. Look at the results in many people recently: "My feelings are all what count!". i.e. Feelings have primacy, and any cause I deem proper (or no need for a cause at all).

Feelings being primal and feelings being all that matter are two completely different ideas. You should know that these people do not like biological or evolutionary explanations for why they feel the way they feel... part of their philosophy is that you can change your gender at will.

 

Please do not misconstrue what I say as me saying we cannot control our emotions. I have already stated that behavioral and environmental changes can affect how we feel over time (and this is really what it comes down to, short-term vs long-term), not just here but in an earlier post. But the evolutionary theory that the human brain was developed piecemeal would tell us that our ancestors could feel before they could think.

[anthony]

18 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

No, I don't see a disconnect between us and the chemicals. It's a tautology, you're thinking of the same thing in two different ways and comparing it to itself. We are a collection of chemicals. We are part of reality just like everything else. We are determined by what we are, and yet what we are is not determined until we are dead... Why is life emerging on Earth any more or less amazing than our own consciousness? It's all connected.

 

 

Please do not misconstrue what I say as me saying we cannot control our emotions. I have already stated that behavioral and environmental changes can affect how we feel over time (and this is really what it comes down to, short-term vs long-term), not just here but in an earlier post. But the evolutionary theory that the human brain was developed piecemeal would tell us that our ancestors could feel before they could think.

A "disconnect", who said? You misread me. I keep returning to the point that the biological organism and the consciousness are inseparable. The animal who is rational is still an animal. If one can bridge that (apparent and traditional) gap, but keep the physical and the mental integrated, one might discover something new. Many thinkers haven't and fallen on one side or other. The mind-body split can't be supported by this philosophy.

Those physiological responses are the physical manifestations of an experience/activity within the conscious mind - I've also repeated, in essence.

It is then silly to maintain that brain chemicals are the 'cause' of emotions. Like someone whose fist has connected with another's face claiming it was his hand that caused it, not he.

I am not by this espousing emotional "control". nor especially "emotional repression". What I'm saying is you create them, subconsciously, every time you experienced and assessed - anything.  An emotion has nil inherent intelligence but simply follows those judgments of reality you made. You don't and can't rely on them to do your further identifying of reality, that's all.

One had an experience with violence, once? (for example) and one judged it "bad"? -- then one feels sickened by seeing a violent act occur again.. And get this, you didn't have to stop and think about it, identify and assess it - now. A subconscious response is that rapid. And so on - and for the positive emotions, equally.

It is "all connected". A metaphysical one. That's why Wilson's book [Consilience: The unity of knowledge] begins promisingly. But he tried to connect mankind to it "all" through human culture, "heritability", myths, dreams, emotionalism, brain science, and other ways - and went off track. None of those happen, are possible, without the individual, conceptual consciousness. Which presupposes the rest. The human mind is an existent, too.

btw, "long term" in this philosophy relates only to the individual's life duration.

[Dglgmut]

20 hours ago, anthony said:

One had an experience with violence, once? (for example) and one judged it "bad"? -- then one feels sickened by seeing a violent act occur again.. And get this, you didn't have to stop and think about it, identify and assess it - now. A subconscious response is that rapid. And so on - and for the positive emotions, equally.

This is not the order of events. Let's use a different example: music. There is no experience that tells us that certain sounds are better than others, an infant can tell which music is meant to make him feel happy and which is meant to make him feel afraid... and it does. Why? Certain frequencies, harmonies, and changes in pitch might be a sign of safety or danger in a state of nature, and this is instinctual in us.

 

You believe animals have instincts, right? You believe we are animals, right? So you don't think the first thought came after an emotion?

[Dglgmut]

If I could touch on the original point of this threat once more and try to simplify it:

 

Why is it that some people want to get to the root of a problem, while others would prefer an ad hoc solution? Unfortunately I don't think this is as nuanced as "there is truth in both sides..." because one side is definitely more correct than the other.  Anyone can come up with an ad hoc solution, but it takes thought, intelligence, and work to seek out and possibly find a true solution.

[anthony]

8 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

This is not the order of events. Let's use a different example: music. There is no experience that tells us that certain sounds are better than others, an infant can tell which music is meant to make him feel happy and which is meant to make him feel afraid... and it does. Why? Certain frequencies, harmonies, and changes in pitch might be a sign of safety or danger in a state of nature, and this is instinctual in us.

 

You believe animals have instincts, right? You believe we are animals, right? So you don't think the first thought came after an emotion?

Your appeal to "order of events" - in mankind's evolution and one's value-judgments - is dubious. What one can deduce is that over some lengthy period Early Man found that they could think and that it was necessary to do so to survive. Prior to that, I infer they gradually lost most and then all, animal instinct. What was the province of instinct and simple emotions (for advanced mammals) became determined by their thought processes. And emotions followed suit.

But remember that it's the sensory pleasure-pain mechanism which remains fundamental to emotion. Something gives physical pain, being burned in a fire perhaps, and one identifies the cause - fire, dis-values it and is fearful afterwards of any fire. But a specific emotion is not fixed and unchangeable. One is able to readdress that first judgement by further acquaintance with e.g. fires - i.e. you find they are highly beneficial as well as painful. When you've been often warmed by and have cooked on a fire, your emotional experience adjusts and adapts, you re-identify and re-assess it, consciously or subconsciously and revert to a positive feeling.

An animal can't change its initial emotional response, by contrast.

The child constantly 're-learns' his early emotions this same way, by deeper thinking and re-evaluating of things. That's part of growing up.** Proof indeed that specific types of emotions are not 'given'. They depend on your thinking and judgment.

Music you cleverly pick as a very complex example; but certainly, nearly always, music (in general) heard from early in a person's life conveys positive emotions: the result of - "this is good for me". As his understanding of music improves he becomes more discerning, and likely finds that certain music causes pleasure and other kinds not so much, or are painful.

And "instinct" - none I can see. In any human being.

 

**haha, That defines the Left for you! Delayed adulthood, stuck in a child's emotions...

 

[anthony]

4 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

 So you don't think the first thought came after an emotion?

I think that one thinks after an emotion all the time. A mind doesn't stop. Like with the fire example it's essential to introspect and reappraise, at times. What emotion did I feel just then? Was my guilty feeling at what I said or did, appropriate? Was that emotion fitting to my convictions, values and professed integrity? Why did I feel anger at some innocent remark? Why did I feel pleasure at my friend's discomfit? If the emotion is out of whack with what you think you live by, there's a signal of error. Introspection and re-assessment of an entity, situation or individual solves most of that and will eventually modify the emotion accordingly. Not forcing a 'proper' and conventional emotion, never faking it - mind you. But by going back to its root cause.

Yes, as I said, very early on, instincts plus raw emotions ruled animals' and our pre-rational, primitive forefathers' behavior. Are you suggesting they still do and should?

[Peter]

I found 51 threads from OL or the Atlantis era that discussed instincts in humans. Here is the briefest.

From: "Dennis May To: atlantis Subject: ATL: Instincts [Premises and emotions] Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 15:20:27 -0500. Barbara Branden wrote: >Dennis, would you explain what you mean by << instincts>>? And why you think they exist in human beings? There are many different concepts of instincts that I don't know what you're referring to.

The concept of "instincts" refers to a continuum of behaviors exhibited by animals.  Lower creatures exhibit behavior largely genetically preprogrammed.  As creatures become more complex their preprogrammed behavior is augmented by learned behavior.  Note I said augmented, not replaced.

As much as some philosophers don't want to believe it, humans are animals not far removed from those in the wild. The list of instinctual behaviors exhibited by humans to some degree or another is quite large.  Some have been studied more than others, some are obvious, some subtle, and many are controversial to those who wish to place humans outside of their place in evolution.

Some examples:

Fear of snakes, spiders.

Deep terror created by the sounds of some predators.

Face recognition/beauty [Bill Dwyer mentioned].

Sexual attraction related to scents.

Other aspects of sexual attraction.

Fear of heights [some people genetically don't have it].

Infants sucking.

Revulsion/attraction to certain tastes and smells   and their changing nature with age or pregnancy.

Blinking when an object approaches.

Fear of inhaling fluids [some man-made fluids can   be breathed].

The primary lesson in all of this is: you cannot ignore evolutionary biology when you are talking about humans.  We are a product of that evolution and we are far from pure-reasoning creatures. Reason [learned behavior] can overcome some instincts.  Many phobias or other mental anomalies are the result of genetic error involving instincts.  If these anomalies are helpful they are passed on to offspring, if not they are a burden which may impair reproduction.

I fully expect that some version of autism allowing fantastic memory or calculational abilities will become part of what it is to be human many generations from now. Dennis May

From: "William Dwyer" To: Subject: ATL: Re: Instincts [Premises and emotions] Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 00:04:54 -0700

Barbara Branden asked Dennis May what he means by the term "instincts."  Dennis replied:  > The concept of "instincts" refers to a continuum of behaviors exhibited by animals.

This is not a satisfactory definition, because it is simply too broad.  But perhaps Dennis didn't intend it to be.  He continues.

 > Lower creatures exhibit behavior largely genetically preprogrammed.  As  creatures become more complex their preprogrammed behavior is augmented by learned behavior.  Note I said augmented, not replaced.

So is Dennis saying that instinctive behavior is "genetically preprogrammed"?

> As much as some philosophers don't want to believe it, humans are animals not far removed from those in the wild.

Even the emotional responses of animals can be learned.  A dog will feel fear, if it is beaten and abused, but will be friendly and affectionate if treated well, although some breeds are obviously more aggressive and others more friendly by nature.

> The list of instinctual behaviors exhibited by humans to some degree or another is quite large.

I don't know whether this is true or not, since we still don't have a satisfactory definition of "instinct."

> Some have been studied more than others, some are obvious, some subtle, and many are controversial to those who wish to place humans outside of their place in evolution.

Still no definition.  What is the defining characteristic of "instinct"?  Dennis has yet to tell us with any clarity or precision.  But in what follows, he doesn't hesitate to give us examples.

I'll assume that by "instinct", Dennis means a response that is not learned or acquired through experience.

> Some examples: Fear of snakes, spiders.

I'm not afraid of spiders nor of snakes that I know are not poisonous or dangerous.  So how could this be an instinct?

 > Deep terror created by the sounds of some predators.

As Barbara pointed out, unless one associates the sound with animals that one has ~learned~ are predators, it is unlikely that there would be any fear.

 > Face recognition/beauty [Bill Dwyer mentioned].

Here I think that there may be a learned basis for one's response to beauty that we're not fully aware of.  The reason is that people from different racial groups have different standards of beauty, which are probably based on familiarity.  It was reported by anthropologists that black African men found white English women, upon first encountering them, to be the ugliest women they had ever seen.

> Sexual attraction related to scents.

This is interesting.  There may be a biological basis for pleasant versus unpleasant scents, in the same way that there is a biological basis for a sweet or sour taste.

 > Other aspects of sexual attraction.

As Barbara has pointed out, this probably has a learned component.

 > Fear of heights [some people genetically don't have it].

I think that fear of heights results from our recognition of the danger of falling.  If we had no knowledge that falling from a great height could hurt or kill us, I don't think we'd feel the same fear.  I definitely don't think this is instinctual.

 > Infants sucking.

This may be reflexive, and therefore not learned.

 > Revulsion/attraction to certain tastes and smells.

Yes, this may be innate in the same way that pleasure and pain are.

> and their changing nature with age or pregnancy.

There may be a learned component to this, however.

 > Blinking when an object approaches.

Undoubtedly  reflexive.  So if by instincts, Dennis means "reflexive," then yes, there are instincts.  No question.

 > Fear of inhaling fluids [some man-made fluids can be breathed].

This has to be learned or else is simply the result of caution around something unfamiliar, since the only thing we typically breathe is air.

>The primary lesson in all of this is: you cannot ignore evolutionary biology when you are talking about humans.  We are a product of that evolution and we are far from pure-reasoning creatures. Reason [learned behavior] can overcome some instincts.  Many phobias or other mental anomalies are the result of genetic error involving instincts.

I don't agree with this last point regarding phobias.  Fears are learned responses. Bill

[Dglgmut]

12 hours ago, anthony said:

What emotion did I feel just then? Was my guilty feeling at what I said or did, appropriate? Was that emotion fitting to my convictions, values and professed integrity? Why did I feel anger at some innocent remark? Why did I feel pleasure at my friend's discomfit? If the emotion is out of whack with what you think you live by, there's a signal of error.

The error is that our emotions are designed to keep us alive, to attract a mate, and to successfully keep our children alive, all in a state of nature. We are not designed for this world... Both the way we survive and our expectations for quality of life have changed, so our emotions are not always helpful.

The way you "eventually modify" the emotion is by changing your behavior, your routine, your environment. You aren't going to think your way out of a pattern of certain emotions, but thought is a necessary part in making those changes.

[anthony]

11 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

The error is that our emotions are designed to keep us alive, to attract a mate, and to successfully keep our children alive, all in a state of nature. We are not designed for this world... Both the way we survive and our expectations for quality of life have changed, so our emotions are not always helpful.

The way you "eventually modify" the emotion is by changing your behavior, your routine, your environment. You aren't going to think your way out of a pattern of certain emotions, but thought is a necessary part in making those changes.

So you say.

"Behavior" (etc.) causes modification of emotion, and which in turn precedes thinking. I haven't convinced you that thought dominates.

Simply: Identifying - valuing  - an emotion - physiological responses.

The causality has been reversed by other intellectuals. The theory, behaviorism, is not anything new.

The behaviorist William James:  ("We feel angry because we strike")

Our natural way of thinking about these standard emotions is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion. Common sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state is not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily manifestations must first be interposed between, and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. Without the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might then see the bear, and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem it right to strike, but we could not actually feel afraid or angry.

[anthony]

"The bodily manifestations must first be interposed between".

Why?

Does the body then control and dictate the emotion? Yes, that's what he says.

Here's someone who, contrary to "common sense" believed that physical disturbances, elevated heart rate etc., (caused by brain chemistry, we know) are the determining factor of - and precede - emotions.

Why?

Well clearly, he recognised emotions are what you most strongly FEEL in the moment. That is why the person responds instantly, and is 'designed' that way by Nature. But how can you feel fear if you have no experience whatsoever, not even anecdotal - of e.g,. a bear? And there, in his notion of cause and effect, he went wrong.

Better he'd have gone with common sense.

What he's saying outright is that the first perception of an 'exciting' fact directly corresponds with the body. Which somehow causes the relevant emotion. No interposed consciousness required, of what it is or what value it has for you. For him, you feel the fear ~because~ you run. (We lose our fortune ~because~ we weep? Well...) And you strike someone for no apparent reason, but feel the anger afterwards..?

"Purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth". That sums up James' dismissive attitude to the human intellect, detached from and inferior to emotions.

 

[Dglgmut]

9 hours ago, anthony said:

So you say.

"Behavior" (etc.) causes modification of emotion, and which in turn precedes thinking.

No... it's not a simple circuit. It's not straight forward causality, there are multiple causes. There are different parts (based on 3 brain theory) of our brain that give us conflicting information... emotions are one form of information. Sometimes they are right sometimes they are wrong.

[Dglgmut]

On 6/3/2020 at 9:08 AM, Dglgmut said:

If I could touch on the original point of this threat once more and try to simplify it:

 

Why is it that some people want to get to the root of a problem, while others would prefer an ad hoc solution? Unfortunately I don't think this is as nuanced as "there is truth in both sides..." because one side is definitely more correct than the other.  Anyone can come up with an ad hoc solution, but it takes thought, intelligence, and work to seek out and possibly find a true solution.

Sorry to derail this thread back to the original topic, but I think this can be simplified further... something I brought up in a pretty recent post, being time preference.

 

This may be the BIGGEST difference in the two ways of thinking (obviously I don't think there are only two ways of saying, but there is a approximate line where people separate themselves into one camp or another), short-term vs long-term.

 

The Austrian explanation for the business cycle comes down to an ARTIFICIAL low time-preference created by artificial stimulus. If you take the amount of stimulus being injected, not just in America, but globally, you can use it as a measure for the inverse being the truth: that is that we are in a VERY HIGH time-preference economy. This is why you hear Austrian economists predicting a dramatic rise in interest rates as the only alternative to hyper inflation.

 

The people who have a problem with the economic policy of the last several decades? They have low-time preference. Everyone reading this, most likely, has a relatively low time-preference. Anyone thinking long-term.

 

So  I change my question to: How do you get people to start thinking long-term? Is it something you have to practice (goes back to real life experience having a big role in which type of thinking a person has) or can it be isolated to a specific issue (like climate change)?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

32 minutes ago, Dglgmut said:

How do you get people to start thinking long-term?

D,

That's easy.

Storytelling.

btw - That's also how all wars happen. 

Michael

[Dglgmut]

What do you mean, that's how wars are started?

 

Story telling or thinking long-term? I think people with lower time-preference are less likely to want to go to war. But I guess that depends on the circumstances. Low-time preference would be more risk averse.

 

Listening to a YouTube video as I type this and "sentimentalism" was brought up... which might even be more pin pointing of the separating factor (let's say the divide is between authoritarian vs classically liberal).

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

6 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

What do you mean, that's how wars are started?

D,

You don't read carefully.

That's not what I said.

I said that's how wars happen.

But even so, I'll take it. That is how wars are started. No core story. No war starts.

 

The following remark is for the reader in case this sparked anyone's interest.

The difference between "start" and "happen" when talking about war is huge. This is not just hair-splitting.

We can start something one way, continue it another, and end it another.

When we say "happen," we are including the beginning, middle and end.

A war needs a core story in place in the society of each side to start, to continue and to end.

This is a long discussion and those who have read me for a while know basically what I mean.

Let's just say, Ayn Rand understood this. That's why she wrote Atlas Shrugged in mythological form and not, say, using Lenin or Stalin in her story along with historical events. Atlas Shrugged might be modern in its setting, but it is still mythological. That's one of the reasons it persists in the mainstream whereas many good books have fallen into the footnotes of history.

It is also why she wrote about Howard Roark and reverence, worship and other religious emotions, using the story of Roark to elicit those emotions in the reading public. (See the Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition of The Fountainhead for her discussion of this--you can read it online here.) She is providing a core story for people to use to guide the decades of their very lives in their professions.

On the story wars level, a core myth that is used as a widespread frame for social organization and action cannot be destroyed. It can only be replaced by another core myth. There is no way to eliminate storytelling--especially this kind of storytelling--from human nature.

A story is the only way to access the future and make it seem like the present so it can be examined. Stories bring the past, present and future into a form of awareness that humans can use to exchange ideas and share knowledge.

Storytelling is what allows humans to think long-term. Horses and chickens don't think long term. Why? They can't tell stories.  

Michael

[Dglgmut]

I've read you talking about stories probably several years ago. Can you point me to the thread or part of the thread (if it's very long) where you talk about the theory of why this is the case--perhaps evolutionary reasons why we are attached to stories?

[Dglgmut]

You will also find that people on different sides on political debates will almost always have conflicting versions of history.

This is to raise the question that I asked previously: are certain people more drawn to some stories while certain people are drawn to others (does the ultimate story, the story of one's own life--one's experience) precede everything else? Or is it about how much they are exposed to one story over another that makes them choose the story they have chosen?

[Dglgmut]

I think the "story" is a POSSIBILITY. It's not that the story convinces the person of anything, but that it is MEMORABLE and therefore the truth behind the story will make its way into the person's life. They may not identify with the story at all, but over time they may see correlations between the story and their own experiences. Before the story they have only had one explanation for why things happen, now they have another option (possibility) which gives them something to think about and potentially change their mind.

 

Truth reveals itself in all sorts of ways, but saying something memorable creates more circumstances for that truth to be verified.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

I've read you talking about stories probably several years ago. Can you point me to the thread or part of the thread (if it's very long) where you talk about the theory of why this is the case--perhaps evolutionary reasons why we are attached to stories?

D,

This is a long topic and it is interspersed all over the forum. I tried to look up some of my previous discussion and something weird is happening with the search function. (IPB integrates with Google at some point, so this is probably Google mucking around and playing political games.)

So I will give you some things off the top of my head for you to look up on your own if you so desire.

1. DARPA. About eight years ago, DARPA did a project on storytelling (called Narrative Networks). It was trying to develop story weapons for soldiers landing in environments where the culture was vastly different (like Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.). It did not use the term propaganda, but this was obviously a huge interest. If you can influence the enemy with predictable results through story, you don't have to use as many bullets.

I have gathered some of this research, but most of it is hellishly difficult to obtain as a layman. At least it was when I was doing a deep dive for it. Two excellent published books came from this research by two of the scientists DARPA hired, though.

Paul Zak: The Moral Molecule: How Trust Works.

An introduction (a very brief and superficial one) to Zak's DARPA work on story can be seen seen in the following video.

Another excellent work that came out of DARPA's project is:

Kendall Haven: Story Smart: Using the Science of Story to Persuade, Influence, Inspire, and Teach.

 

2. I am merely going to embed part of a post (with video) on the work of David JP Phillips.

On 5/12/2020 at 2:21 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

The next thing is an amazing course I am taking on the neuroscience of story: The Magical Science of Storytelling by David JP Phillips. Rather than give an overview, David has a TED Talk with millions of views that does a great job of it. (I posted this video above, but it's worth seeing again. It's that good. And the course is far deeper.)

Obviously, there are things here that apply to Rand's form of fiction writing. And there are many more in the course. I can't wait to think through, then show how she prompts dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, etc., in the reader's brain through her literary techniques.

 

 

3. In terms of evolutionary biology and story (and some more neuroscience and psychology), here are some excellent resources:

Jonathan Gottschall: The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. A bestseller that kicked it all off in the mainstream.

Brian Boyd: On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. A modern classic.

William Flesch: Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction. This one is hellishly difficult to read since it is written in one of the worst academic styles I have ever encountered. But the information is great once you understand it. But, goddamit, the cost in effort just to read a friggin' page! It make you want to throw the damn thing agaisnt the wall.  This book is where I became aware of the fundamental cognitive function of tracking and how this runs through stories. Also, why comeuppance is so important to social cohesion and story.

Alex Rosenberg: How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories. This one is somewhat flawed, but there is lots of fascinating and solid information you don't get at one place anywhere else. I highly recommend it, flaws and all. (Rosenberg sometimes gets too infatuated with his own brilliance and tries to make something that is specific and restricted universal just because he is so awesome.  )

Will Storr: The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better. This is lighter and less complete in its scope, but still has a lot of solid information in it.

Paul Joseph Gulino and Connie Shears: The Science of Screenwriting: The Neuroscience Behind Storytelling Strategies. This has important information about schemas in it, whereas most of the other works I am giving here don't cover this. Gulino is a screenwriting guru in Hollywood and Shears is a neuroscientist.

Hugh Crago: Entranced by Story: Brain, Tale and Teller, from Infancy to Old Age. This made me aware of how age was super-important for the kind of story that can generate a story trance. As a bonus, I became aware of why poetry is with us and is so powerful (it stems from the way babies start learning language).

Jonah Sachs: Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future. This is lighter fare than the others, and is horribly progressive politically, but it is still a kick-ass book. I read this when it first came out in 2012. I was already doing a lot of research into story, but when I read this book, I ramped up my approach to focus on story and epistemology, that is, story as a manner of thinking, processing information, recording information in memory, making the narrative the base of neural pathways and networks, influencing others with story on a broad scale through mirror neurons (although I don't believe Sachs covers mirror neurons--if I remember correctly, this was a connection I started making at the same time I was reading this), etc.

 

I believe this is enough to get you started. It only scratches the surface of what I have studied so far. And there is still so much more I need to get through--for example, the work of Uri Hasson, a neuroscientist who studies the brain and story through fMRI scans.

I didn't even get to right and left brain stuff. If you ever want to get you mind blown, look up neuroscientist, Michael Gazzaniga, and his identification of the left-brain interpreter. This is the part of the brain where almost all stories come from. Gazzaniga discovered this working with people who had literally had their corpus callosum severed by surgery to help with epileptic seizures. The corpus callosum is a thick set of nerves that connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain. And speaking of left-right brain, each manages to see and interpret the world from vastly different worldviews, which is probably what gave rise to the need for the left-brain interpreter, thus the need for story. I have started a cinder-block of a book about this, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist. (Holy crap! Looking up this book to provide a link, I just saw that there is an Audible version of the second edition that just came out. I have an Audible credit I haven't used, so now I will have none.  I use audiobooks a lot along with my reading. They are great to keep me from being bored when I want to get familiar with something.)

Also, there's the animal and neurochemical stuff of Robert Sapolsky, who is thorough, long and interesting (more cinder-block books), but always looks like he came in from a Woodstock rock concert in the 60's--on a rainy day at that.  Check out a video of his on YouTube and you will see what I mean. There are several. This stuff is the foundation of story epistemology.

OK, no more.

There is still a ton of stuff I haven't mentioned.

Good luck and I hope you go down this path. Man, will it straighten out a lot of your thinking. I mean that in a good sense, not as a put-down. (I used to think a lot like you do now, so I am saying this from that perspective.) I suggest you take it slow, though. Shifting gears like this can be disorienting until the pieces start falling in place. But once you see how easily things can be replicated from story to human behavior, a strange hunger for knowledge rises up. Here's how it felt to me when it installed:

Finally! Things make sense! And I can know them with certainty without fudging! I don't have to guess anymore if a person is bullshitting...   

Michael

[Dglgmut]

I'm posting this before reading your reply. I'm going to read it soon and before posting again.

 

I just was thinking and reading about a priori reasoning and I think I have my answer to why some stories attract one audience over another: bias. Simple answer, yes, but the root of that bias is THEORY. That is to say that they don't look for a story they agree with, they accept the stories that agree with them.

 

That's not to say that empiricism is not the final arbiter of what is true and false, BUT we do not look for evidence unless we have already made up some sort of theory. It gives value to what would be neutral information. You cannot break down someone's beliefs, but only build on a competing belief and let them break down the false belief on their own. For someone to believe anything they must first believe that they are capable of knowing the truth. That means the most important appeal is an appeal to someone's intellect.

 

For example I might start a discussion with a leftist by asking, "Do you believe we should be allowed to own property at all? Should I be allowed to walk into your house and use your possessions?"

 

More libertarian leaning people are relatively more tolerant (less authoritarian) of other people's choices and lifestyles, and I think the defining theory they hold is that their own ability to know is not as reliable as it seems: they are skeptical of their own theories. This is to say that although the ultimate belief is someone's belief in their own capacity to know, there is also the belief that simply feeling like you know something is not enough. This is such a big difference in the two sides.

[Peter]

2 minutes ago, Dglgmut said:

and I think the defining theory they hold is that their own ability to know is not as reliable as it seems:

Siri Plus? You have heard both our explanations. Which is correct?

Well Dave, you made two logical and one factual error, and James was always right except for the conclusion he reached. So, I would say both of you are wrong.   

[Dglgmut]

Thank you for the thorough reply, Michael.

 

I read it and watched the videos and it has got me thinking. One problem I'm having trouble getting over is the imprecision in the term/concept of a "story." The story arc as a definition uses imprecise language also. "Rising action," etc. This is fine to use as a guide in creating a story, but as a crucial concept in explaining how people's minds are changed I just don't like it.

 

What is the difference between a "story" and a situation? You could say that a story has a beginning, middle and end. But why can't you say that of a situation? And what's more, could you not argue that the beginning of the story isn't really the beginning and the end is not really the end? Doesn't the beginning and end both exist in the listener/reader's mind? The beginning is the person's preconceived view of reality. The end takes what happened in the story and combines it with that view of reality to take it farther (a woman might think a romantic story ends with the couple living happily ever after where a man might wonder when certain things the woman does start to become annoying). You could say the beginning of the story is the listener/reader's entire life leading up to this story, and the end will play out for the rest of their life--my point being that there is no way to prevent someone's lived experiences and beliefs from seeping into the story.

 

For example, take the recent video of the man with the sword defending a local bar from a mob of rioters. This is a situation, not a story, but it definitely gets people hormones going. And yet some people react to it callously. I read one girl's response: "Looks like self-defense to me." Then consider the criticisms of Atlas Shrugged. They argue that Rand is a bad author; that the STORY is bad. Perhaps the impressive effects stories have on the mind depend on what I said above, that you can only build on top of someone's existing beliefs.

 

I love the example in the Ted Talk of the James Bond movie, though. It ties in to my other thread about persuasion. It has NOTHING to do with the watch, and everything to do with the man/person. But the story did not convince the viewer that James Bond is a cool guy, it created a story around the already existing idea of "coolness" and fleshed it out. So as much as story-telling influences what we think is true, perhaps a good story must be rooted in truth to begin with.

 

What I think stories and situations do, by raising hormones, is they create stakes in real-time. Now we do not just have theories floating around that we can think about at our leisure, but a specific set of circumstances in which to put those theories to the test. The story may make us think, "Oh, I'm wrong about that," or, "That's SO true."

 

But the ultimate goal of HONEST persuasion must be to get the person to THINK. The only way people are going to be skeptical of what they hear and see is if they have competing theories in their head. If they have one theory, like it seems a lot of people do right now, they get crazy.

[Dglgmut]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 I don't have to guess anymore if a person is bullshitting...   

Michael

Maybe this is the key? "This" being reading the other person. Not being able to tell what they know, but being able to tell when they are being honest and when they are covering up an inconvenient gap.