Why Do Subject-Topics Mutate on OL?

[thomtg]

[...]

I am confident of this also, gulch. I just find it amusing how subjects mutate on OL.

Bill P

Lectures 1 and 2 of BB POET mentioned that this is a problem of inefficient thinking in controlling subconscious thoughts--i.e., of not having a cognitive purpose, not maintaining specificity, not asking subquestions. So what comes up and gets typewritten is the associative stream-of-consciousness style of writing, which may be cute for younger, less experienced writers, but not so for adults. Whenever you see this in others, Bill, know that it came from decades of unconscious habits of inefficiency.

[Alfonso Jones]

[...]

I am confident of this also, gulch. I just find it amusing how subjects mutate on OL.

Bill P

Lectures 1 and 2 of BB POET mentioned that this is a problem of inefficient thinking in controlling subconscious thoughts--i.e., of not having a cognitive purpose, not maintaining specificity, not asking subquestions. So what comes up and gets typewritten is the associative stream-of-consciousness style of writing, which may be cute for younger, less experienced writers, but not so for adults. Whenever you see this in others, Bill, know that it came from decades of unconscious habits of inefficiency.

Yes. That letter Barbara Branden reads is quite funny. Funny because many of us know people who have written documents like that, or who converse like that.

I think that posting on discussion boards, much like email, is a much less formal form of writing. Far more informal than letter writing, etc. That contributes also.

Bill P

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have been studying cognitive science a bit (from an Internet marketing perspective). One thing I found is true. We think in snippets.

Setting a cognitive purpose means guiding and organizing those snippets, not imposing a new extension on them.

If you want to see an Internet explosion of snippet-thinking, go to Twitter. This is called a "mini-blog" system in the jargon. You only get 160 characters per post and you get to read the 160 character snippets of oodles of other people. In our current remote-control culture where you can change the channel on almost anything once you get bored, people are eating this up.

I am going to have to develop my Twitter account since it is important for marketing, but I just can't make myself get enthusiastic about it. I work too hard to keep the distraction snippets from derailing my cognitive purposes in my mind. It is very easy for a snippet of thought to pop into my head and totally interrupt my train of thinking as I go off on a tangent. It's like falling into a hole on the street. If you aren't constantly looking, you only know the hole is there after you fall in.

I think this is because the world fascinates me on a very basic level. There are so many things I want to know about and these strong desires are on a premise-level. So I have to keep a tight reign on the random snippets that pop up in my head while I am working or studying and dismiss ones that are irrelevant to my cognitive purpose at the time. I can't eliminate them entirely, but God knows I have tried.

In this respect, Twitter is like a fully stocked bar to an alcoholic. I'm staying away for now.

Posting on forums is bad enough...

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

We think in snippets.

Speak for yourself, Michael.

The hijacking of threads is not unique to Objectivist fora.

There is something to be said for moderation. I would happily pay to subscribe to a forum as good as Kirez Korgan's Cornell discussion list.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ted,

It would be better if you looked at some of the enormous body of scientific knowledge cognitive science has accumulated before getting snarky.

Your remark "speak for yourself" hit me humorously, sort of like me saying "we drink liquids" and someone else getting offended and saying, "speak for yourself."

You can't even integrate a concept without thinking in snippets of experience or language. Integration of smaller units into larger ones, and constantly interconnecting small units, is just the way the human brain works. As a general pattern, the scientists say "brain cells that fire together wire together," but that does not imprison each cell. They can and do make other connections. That goes for clumps of them.

Snippets.

Here is one fact that floored me. Reading is essential to abstract thinking. This fact stunned me a few days ago, but I am still feeling the impact.

I am reading a fascinating book called Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story by Kendall Haven. This guy, a West Point graduate, was challenged by NASA to prove his theories on story, how they derive from the way the brain works, how they impact the brain (in all forms of knowledge), and how they essentially are our most effective means of communication. So he researched over 350 scientific studies (about 100,000 pages according to him). Here is a paragraph from p. 30 to get a gist of his most impressive bibliography. It is from Chapter 4.

Much of this chapter is based on the work by a handful of giants in the fields of developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, neural biology, and cognitive sciences: Pinker, Bransford, (see Bransford and Brown or Bransford and Stein), Bruner, Schank, Turner, Egan, Applebee, Anderson, Kotulak, Crossley, Lakoff and Johnson, and Fischer. I refer you to their excellent work for more general treatises on mental functioning. I have had to cull through the broader research by these scientists to locate the limited gems that pertain to the intersection of mind and story.

For those who like name-dropping, he has a lot more in the book.

After a long discussion, in this chapter, of how snippets run in our brains (mostly unconsciously, but many surfacing—and Haven does not use the word "snippet" although what he describes is identical), I came across the following astonishing tidbit on the prerequisite of being able to read in order to engage in abstract thinking. The implications for understanding concept-formation are staggering to one as deeply steeped in Objectivist epistemology as I am. From pp. 31-32:

As another example of the new insights that arrive annually, Kotulak (1999) reported on extensive research showing that "the ability to form abstract thoughts is now seen as a consequence of the brain's learning to read." Abstract thought and reading wouldn't seem to be linked. However, cultures who do not read do not abstract thought. Once they do learn to read, they are capable of, and use, abstract thought. Consider the following:

All bears in Yellowstone are black. Bernard is a bear in Yellowstone. What color is Bernard the Bear?

Easy. Right? Bernard is black. It's simple logic based on your ability to conduct abstract thought and deductive reasoning. However, when even the most intelligent members of nonliterate societies are asked, they can't answer. Typically, they say, "I have never been to Yellowstone and I have never met Bernard the Bear. How could I possibly know what color he is?" (This phenomenon was also reported by Egan 1997, Bertelsen and DeGelder 1988, and Scholes and Willis 1991.)

Perry (1995), a Baylor College of medicine neuropsychiatrist, said, "A thousand years ago in medieval England most people did not think abstractly. How superstitious they were is not dissimilar from the way eight- and nine-year-old children today view the world."

Obviously he is using the term "abstract thought" in a more traditional sense than we do in Objectivism. For the record, here are the works he referenced (in the order he mentioned them):

Kotulak, R. Inside the Brain: Revolutionary Discoveries of How the Mind Works, Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1999.

Egan, K. The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Bertelsen, P., and B. DeGelder. "Learning about Reading from Illiterates." In From Neurons to Reading, Galaburda, S., Ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.

Scholes, R., and B. Willis. "Linguistics, Literacy, and the Intensionality of Marshall McLunan's Western Man." In Literacy and Orality, D. Olsen and N. Torrance, eds. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Perry, B. "Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopment Factors in the 'Cycle of Violence.'" In Children, Youth, and Violence: Searching for Solutions, Perry, B., ed. New York: Guilford Press, 1995.

This book is making me rethink a lot of what I learned. The good part to me is that it is having a huge impact on a work I tried to do on musical epistemology when I was younger. I now see a light at the end of the tunnel and I just might resume work on that thing in the not-so-distant future.

(btw - You can use all this stuff to make great sales letters in Internet marketing, too. )

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

Ted,

It would be better if you looked at some of the enormous body of scientific knowledge cognitive science has accumulated before getting snarky.

Your remark "speak for yourself" hit me humorously, sort of like me saying "we drink liquids" and someone else getting offended and saying, "speak for yourself."

You can't even integrate a concept without thinking in snippets of experience or language. Integration of smaller units into larger ones, and constantly interconnecting small units, is just the way the human brain works. As a general pattern, the scientists say "brain cells that fire together wire together," but that does not imprison each cell. They can and do make other connections. That goes for clumps of them.

Snippets.

Here is one fact that floored me. Reading is essential to abstract thinking. This fact stunned me a few days ago, but I am still feeling the impact.

I am reading a fascinating book called Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story by Kendall Haven. This guy, a West Point graduate, was challenged by NASA to prove his theories on story, how they derive from the way the brain works, how they impact the brain (in all forms of knowledge), and how they essentially are our most effective means of communication. So he researched over 350 scientific studies (about 100,000 pages according to him). Here is a paragraph from p. 30 to get a gist of his most impressive bibliography. It is from Chapter 4.

Much of this chapter is based on the work by a handful of giants in the fields of developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, neural biology, and cognitive sciences: Pinker, Bransford, (see Bransford and Brown or Bransford and Stein), Bruner, Schank, Turner, Egan, Applebee, Anderson, Kotulak, Crossley, Lakoff and Johnson, and Fischer. I refer you to their excellent work for more general treatises on mental functioning. I have had to cull through the broader research by these scientists to locate the limited gems that pertain to the intersection of mind and story.

For those who like name-dropping, he has a lot more in the book.

After a long discussion, in this chapter, of how snippets run in our brains (mostly unconsciously, but many surfacing—and Haven does not use the word "snippet" although what he describes is identical), I came across the following astonishing tidbit on the prerequisite of being able to read in order to engage in abstract thinking. The implications for understanding concept-formation are staggering to one as deeply steeped in Objectivist epistemology as I am. From pp. 31-32:

As another example of the new insights that arrive annually, Kotulak (1999) reported on extensive research showing that "the ability to form abstract thoughts is now seen as a consequence of the brain's learning to read." Abstract thought and reading wouldn't seem to be linked. However, cultures who do not read do not abstract thought. Once they do learn to read, they are capable of, and use, abstract thought. Consider the following:

All bears in Yellowstone are black. Bernard is a bear in Yellowstone. What color is Bernard the Bear?

Easy. Right? Bernard is black. It's simple logic based on your ability to conduct abstract thought and deductive reasoning. However, when even the most intelligent members of nonliterate societies are asked, they can't answer. Typically, they say, "I have never been to Yellowstone and I have never met Bernard the Bear. How could I possibly know what color he is?" (This phenomenon was also reported by Egan 1997, Bertelsen and DeGelder 1988, and Scholes and Willis 1991.)

Perry (1995), a Baylor College of medicine neuropsychiatrist, said, "A thousand years ago in medieval England most people did not think abstractly. How superstitious they were is not dissimilar from the way eight- and nine-year-old children today view the world."

Obviously he is using the term "abstract thought" in a more traditional sense than we do in Objectivism. For the record, here are the works he referenced (in the order he mentioned them):

Kotulak, R. Inside the Brain: Revolutionary Discoveries of How the Mind Works, Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1999.

Egan, K. The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Bertelsen, P., and B. DeGelder. "Learning about Reading from Illiterates." In From Neurons to Reading, Galaburda, S., Ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.

Scholes, R., and B. Willis. "Linguistics, Literacy, and the Intensionality of Marshall McLunan's Western Man." In Literacy and Orality, D. Olsen and N. Torrance, eds. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Perry, B. "Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopment Factors in the 'Cycle of Violence.'" In Children, Youth, and Violence: Searching for Solutions, Perry, B., ed. New York: Guilford Press, 1995.

This book is making me rethink a lot of what I learned. The good part to me is that it is having a huge impact on a work I tried to do on musical epistemology when I was younger. I now see a light at the end of the tunnel and I just might resume work on that thing in the not-so-distant future.

(btw - You can use all this stuff to make great sales letters in Internet marketing, too. )

Michael

I'm sorry, what was your point? I think in snippets, you see, so ... what was I saying?

Michael, the problem with such jargon is that it is either trivially true (we all speak only one syllable at a time - it doesn't make us "monosyllabic") and hence pointless, or it is an oversimplification that is made with motives which are sensationalistic or worse. The sensationalists are nothing more than

, windbags and hacks touting their shiny "new" theories for grant money.

The scary ones are serious academics, like Noam Chomsky, who speak as theorists of mind, all the while denying that men do have the capacity to integrate their thoughts voluntarily, even if many chose not to do so. Yes, some people think in snippets and nothing more. Some people are unaware of the actions of their minds, or how to think efficiently. And yes, if you want to be a marketeer, there is nothing wrong with taking this statistical fact about human mental laziness into account. If you don't want to be thought a nerd and a killjoy it helps not to pay too close attention to what you and those about you are saying. But surely saying that "people think in snippets" on this website is asking forsome qualification.

I fully support your efforts in educating yourself on marketing and on the mind. (And I assume you are looking at these matters with a very critical eye.) If you want an example from marketing as to the sort of snippeteering I find laughable, and obvious to those who actually listen to what they hear, consider GM's new advertising campaign with its new "Total Confidence Plan" for America. Sure, only people who don't think only in snippets will catch that they are literally offering us a complete con scheme.

Sure, you can read about "fuzzy concepts" and "family resemblances" and all sorts of ideas about unclear minds and poorly integrated thought. Being 20 credits short of a third major in linguistics I know all about such fashionable nonsense. Linguists pride themselves on being descriptive, not prescriptive - but they check their own published works for proper spelling and grammar nonetheless.

Having denied the objectivity of concepts and the possibility of (contextual) certainty, all sorts of people form Wittgenstein to Lakoff have made careers out of telling us how we don't really think. Myself, I prefer to integrate, to think in paragraphs, and to look at the implications of what people are saying.

And I prefer to tell such people as Lakoff, etc., and those who quote them, to speak for themselves.

[Selene]

Michael:

It is the same with legal argumentation, 98% of the process is paper and that paper is run through the main gatekeeper, the jurist's law clerk or law secretary or secretary.

Guess whose papers are more favorably received? Of course, the ones that tell a "story" from the fact pattern through the arguments in support to the conclusion.

The best "story" wins because most of the time the other side has 3 fricks and you have 4 fracks in terms of case law and either you have the better story or you were the designated loser.

Good stuff Michael, that book looks worthwhile I scanned the table of contents and it looks promising.

Thanks.

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

We think in snippets.

Speak for yourself, Michael.

The hijacking of threads is not unique to Objectivist fora.

There is something to be said for moderation. I would happily pay to subscribe to a forum as good as Kirez Korgan's Cornell discussion list.

Just ignore the hijacker if the mutation is displeasing. After all, mutation is how we got here.

Look, moderation may or may be the value you impute, but here at OL what we have is what we got and I like it. Be free to start your own moderated forum. I won't show up for I'm a mutator at heart--that is I like to go where the intellectual winds blow for the new sights to see.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

This guy Haven has a very specific meaning for "story," since it is a word with an enormous number of meanings and usages. He considers a story to be (to quote him): "A detailed, character-based narration of a character's struggles to overcome obstacles and reach an important goal."

There are three main parts of a story in this meaning—at least one each of the the following: (1) a character, (2) a goal, and (3) an obstacle. The story involves how a character deals with the obstacle in striving for the goal.

A story is actually a concept involving action, when you think about it. A same story represents countless situations.

According to some of the sources Haven mentioned, stories have been in human history for far longer than recorded language (over 100,000 years). He contends that one of the main drivers in the development of language was for people to be able to tell stories. In fact, I am beginning to believe that stories are integral to the formation of normative abstractions. I can see where they are referents of value concepts, the countless referents that are implied in definitions but not mentioned as a genus or differentia, when the stories are not concepts in their own right.

In genus-differentia form, it could play out several ways. The most basic is for character action to be the genus, and dealing with an obstacle to reach a goal to be the differentia. When we get to metaphors it gets really interesting to think about.

A lot of things are clicking into place for me. I certainly like this guy's meaning of story as a complement to Rand's plot and plot-theme for novel (although they are very similar, and although I am not too happy with Rand's "plot-theme" idea). Just like we use the snippets that run in our minds and direct them to make longer narratives (in a manner similar to integrating percepts and lower-level concepts), which we further group on up the conceptual chain, so a novel takes many small stories and weaves a large work out of them.

I think of snippets (and the many stories in a novel) like the bricks of a house. There is no brick house without bricks, but the bricks alone do not make the house. Still, they are fundamental.

I also like the fact that Haven based his conclusions on solid research without going off into the more goofy conclusions some of the researchers hold. That is a refreshing change—both the solid research and the common sense. (Both are at a high premium in our little Objectivist world.)

Ted,

Whatever it is you are discussing, it is not what I am discussing. From the way you presented you ideas, it shows clearly you have no intention of even finding out what I am discussing. I'm fine with that. I weary of people putting their meanings on my words and ideas, then bashing their own meanings while calling them mine. So I'll just not play, not even to correct the wrong meanings...

Anyway, whatever it is you are discussing (other than emphasizing that you study linguistics academically), from your zeal, it certainly sounds like nonsense that needs to be condemned. Go for it and knock yourself out.

I don't see much of a tie-in with what I am talking about, though, and I find no value in bashing qua bashing. So I will leave that endeavor to you...

Michael

[thomtg]

[...]

Yes. That [lecture] Barbara Branden reads is quite funny. Funny because many of us know people who have written documents like that, or who converse like that.

I think that posting on discussion boards, much like email, is a much less formal form of writing. Far more informal than letter writing, etc. That contributes also.

Bill P

I agree that the medium does contribute, and perhaps induce, this scatter-brained form of mental activity: Twitter more so than emails, which in turn are more so than discussion fora, moderated lists, journals, and so on. But ultimately, it is the speaker or writer who is responsible for what gets said or written. Perhaps he follows his emotional winds to bring forth whatever in his subconscious, or not. Perhaps he speaks his mind regardless of whatever subject-topic has been said before by anyone else, or not. Or Perhaps he writes for the sake of taking his turn, filling the awkward silences, as it were; or not. It is a personal choice, one guided either by conscious intention or by unconscious habits.

I too find this phenomenon of topic morphing by others to be amusing, but only to a certain extent. I make another judgment though. In the form of subquestions, I wonder whether there is any attempt on their part to correct the defect, or whether they actually revel in this psycho-epistemological "ability." I raise the point here because it is especially relevant for anyone who subscribes to this forum, whose motto I take seriously: "Dedicated to Ayn Rand and the Art of Living Consciously."

[Rich Engle]

Just ignore the hijacker if the mutation is displeasing. After all, mutation is how we got here.

Look, moderation may or may be the value you impute, but here at OL what we have is what we got and I like it. Be free to start your own moderated forum. I won't show up for I'm a mutator at heart--that is I like to go where the intellectual winds blow for the new sights to see.

--Brant

Agree, and prefer.

There's hijacking, then there is digression, extrapolation; and this can lead almost anywhere. It is often useful in extended discussions--makes for a fun intermission. We don't get much in the way of true hijacking 'round hyeah--no one will put up with grandstanding, forced administration of agenda-enemas. I find things usually get reeled back in, or broken off to a new thread.

But, to a highly analytical, linear-type thinker, this often comes off as an irritant. You get a lot of people in Objectivism who go through a thing where they think this somber, hyper-serious demeanor is required. Looking at the uber-moderated O-boards over the years, well...they smell like fucking coffins when you go in there.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There is an interesting fact of human nature: we are all individuals.

There was a big whoopteedoo once from communist Russia about a truly "communist" orchestra—one that did not need a conductor. The practical result was that it took far longer to rehearse works than an orchestra with a conductor and the interpretations were lackluster.

People imagine that the primary purpose of a conductor is to lead, but that is only secondary. The primary purpose is to get people playing to the same time and within the same basic parameters of volume and a few other aspects. It has been proven over and over that if you leave two people tapping along with a metronome, then mute the metronome, but ask them to continue tapping without hearing each other, they will diverge in short order and ultimately both will be off from the metronome if you turn its sound back on.

Forum threads are a bit like an orchestra without a conductor. People approach topics from widely different contexts and with a huge difference in the amount of time each can take over a post. Mistakes get made, some people do not value what others do, some posters use elaborate reasoning while others are more contained, some people are patient while others are hotheads by nature, etc. There are many reasons a thread veers off on a tangent. The idea that it can only be due to poor or undisciplined thinking, or ill will, could only happen in the Objectivist world. I totally reject that view, although I do see undisciplined thinking and ill will happen at times.

I have no wish to impose my control on the thinking of others in an informal setting like a discussion forum. I will leave that for those who value control. May they make their own forums and control people to their heart's content. From what I have seen, it doesn't work too well.

The nature of a discussion forum is vastly different than a closed content management system (like a personal web site). Blogs work as closed systems, but they are more flexible than truly closed systems and they will go haywire through interaction with guests and members if a person is not careful.

You have to look at the nature of the medium (in relation to human nature) before you set the rules for use if you wish to be successful at it. I believe people interested in controlling forum threads mistake the nature of the medium.

People find value in the informal nature of discussion forums. The medium reflects one aspect of the way they are made and that aspect gets public expression. There is a mental engagement state (a focus if you will) that operates very much like sleep in one respect: you only know your attention got hijacked after you come out of it. You don't know the exact moment it happens. Blair Warren called it "the Achilles heel of the mind" which people who use persuasion techniques exploit. I touched on that here. (This is allied to the snippet behavior of our minds, but different.)

Forums offer a structured environment for that mental engagement to happen more frequently. I think that's cool.

There is no law saying that a forum must be a book and must replace books (which are closed content management systems par excellence). When people need more structured information, there are many places to seek it.

Forums allow people to work through ideas, interact with like-minded people, feel visible to others on an intellectual level, allow their minds to get captivated by something cool or interesting and talk about it, and several other benefits. Peikoff criticized forums because he said it allows people to blurt out what is on their minds. I think having a place to blurt (with good will) is cool. You learn a lot about yourself when you blurt out an idea. You can see if you are really on to something almost without realizing it, or if you have a deeply held idea that you really need to change, but one which you suppress when you think more carefully.

Forums even allow snarky people to see what insulting others feels like without running the risk of getting popped in the nose.

On the downside, forums certainly allow bullies to try to intimidate others without risk of a physical fistfight. And they can turn into closed-off tribes if the owner wishes to use it as a pulpit for preaching. (Isn't it strange how preaching and bullying are kissing cousins? )

As for my policy here on OL, I try to control excesses, bullying and general directions. For instance, this is not a porn site, so posting videos from Porn Tube will get deleted. I value civility, so I interfere with excessive nastiness and bullying.

People are more vulnerable in the mentally engaged state and they will turn off if they are constantly attacked. That's another strong reason for insisting on civility. I value independent thinking allied to good will in others more than anything else in public life, especially more than agreeing with a party line. There is only one way for a person to work through ideas: focus on them in active mode, not passive mode (simply absorbing information). I try to provide an environment where that can happen in public.

As there is no independent thought without independent people and independent contexts, thread topics sometimes go in different directions than what they started out to be. I'm cool with that. I even like the variety if the posts are insightful or intelligent or tell good stories.

If I needed to use one non-thematic word to sum up my approach, it would be "balance." It took me many years to learn the wisdom of the old saying, "Everything in moderation, including moderation itself."

As a general policy, that's the kind of moderation I try to use on this forum, not the other kind of moderation (screening posts and banning users at whim)...

Michael

[Rich Engle]

Yeah, what he said.

[Selene]

You are rich Rich.

Thanks again for running this forum as you do Michael, Kat, et al.

"If I needed to use one non-thematic word to sum up my approach, it would be "balance." It took me many years to learn the wisdom of the old saying, 'Everything in moderation, including moderation itself.'"

Never heard that one and under O'Biwan's expropriation of anything he wants program, I am going to use your quote Michael.

Adam

[DavidMcK]

I like the way your mind works too Michael; I was interested in your quote about GB 1000 years ago being about where an 8 or 9 year old child is today. I remember in NB 's memoir he said Ayn Rand felt like she had been condemned to live in a society of children....maybe progress consists of a society at large becoming more like an adult individually and as a group...however you might measure that. This looks like a huge subject that could be the basis for a fascinating book.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If you want to see an Internet explosion of snippet-thinking, go to Twitter. This is called a "mini-blog" system in the jargon. You only get 160 characters per post and you get to read the 160 character snippets of oodles of other people. In our current remote-control culture where you can change the channel on almost anything once you get bored, people are eating this up.

I am going to have to develop my Twitter account since it is important for marketing, but I just can't make myself get enthusiastic about it. I work too hard to keep the distraction snippets from derailing my cognitive purposes in my mind. It is very easy for a snippet of thought to pop into my head and totally interrupt my train of thinking as I go off on a tangent. It's like falling into a hole on the street. If you aren't constantly looking, you only know the hole is there after you fall in.

There is a mental engagement state (a focus if you will) that operates very much like sleep in one respect: you only know your attention got hijacked after you come out of it. You don't know the exact moment it happens. Blair Warren called it "the Achilles heel of the mind" which people who use persuasion techniques exploit. I touched on that here. (This is allied to the snippet behavior of our minds, but different.)

The following (hilarious) parody of how people are with Twitter by Jon Stewart is an exaggerated, but perfect, concrete example of how the cognitive snippet hijack that I allude to above works.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Twitter Frenzy
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Michael

[thomtg]

[...]

The following (hilarious) parody of how people are with Twitter by Jon Stewart is an exaggerated, but perfect, concrete example of how the cognitive snippet hijack that I allude to above works.

[...]

Michael, your point integrates well with Ed Hudgins's Point 2 in another thread about the poor education we Americans are now getting on how to think.

[...]

That is right to the point. There's a speech I give about why Americans are confused about freedom.

Point One is that the schools do an especially pathetic job of educating students about history and economics. Point Two is that they do an even worse job teaching critical thinking skills.

So now we live in a nation of adults who are victims of government schools, who have no conception of why America's Founders decided on a government that divided power between three branches, between federal and state, and why a Bill of Rights was added on top of it all. They have little appreciation for the fact that government can't just create wealth out of thin air to rain down on them like manna from heaven. And many have attention spans that limit them to sound bits and shows like "Today" and "Good Morning America."

A paternalist regime can only exist with a deluded, dumbed-down population.

[...]

Ed's conclusion can very well apply to and may even explain the trend you highlight: Twitter's ubiquity can only exist with a deluded, dumbed-down population.

[Rich Engle]

Twitter is the uber-application in the march to total idiocracy. God, just what we need: more ways for people to put out their random impulses, brain farts, and other mini-flashes that they suddenly find to be of great import.

It was bad enough what the cellphones did. Suddenly, a thought strikes the monkey, and it is so vital that he will immediately contact his other monkey friends so as to share said epiphany.

Yikes.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I disagree that the reason Twitter took off is that the population is dumbed down. (I don't disagree that the population is dumbed down, especially considering the level of reading skills I see coming out of public high-schools.)

I think it has more to do with the remote-control habit that is one of the pitfalls of the Information Revolution. We have such an excessive amount of information instantly available that people have adopted a short attention-span habit as the good. If you don't like something or it gets boring, push the button and change the channel.

People in evidence even encourage this with statements like "Don't work hard, work smart" and so forth. That's not a bad idea within a certain context, but it also is a beautiful justification for mental laziness and changing the channel often.

(All this leads to some serious problems, but that is another discussion.)

Also, Twitter's success is partly epistemological. It has to do with the way our mind gets hooked into—and settles on—a new issue by distraction.

There's also the voyeur thing of seeing what other folks are doing, and people's inner exhibitionist crying out for expression...

Twitter is perfect entertainment for this profile of person.

Michael

[thomtg]

I disagree that the reason Twitter took off is that the population is dumbed down. (I don't disagree that the population is dumbed down, especially considering the level of reading skills I see coming out of public high-schools.)

I think it has more to do with [...]

Twitter is perfect entertainment for this profile of person.

Michael

But that is precisely my point:

Most people in Ed's dumbed-down population (on account of his Point Two) don't integrate those things with which they inform themselves. They leave them as tidbits, snippets. They don't see the connection of one conversation thread to another. After all if they can't read well, which you agree is a consequence, then, according to Kendal Haven, whom you cited earlier, they can't do abstract thinking: activities such as differentiation, integration, inference, and so on.

And as a further consequence of Ed's Point Two, you get the psycho-epistemological habits of inefficient thinking, which you name: remote-control habit, short attention-span habit, mental laziness, hijacked distraction for lack of the habit of mental purpose, and even the habit of social metaphysics to follow voyeuristically what others think and do.

Thus, Ed's population has the very psycho-epistemological profile that finds Twitter perfectly entertaining.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Thom,

I think we are on the same page except for your attributing distraction to lack of mental purpose. We are prone to distraction in the same manner our stomachs growl when we are hungry. It is how the mind is.

Some people deal with this better than others, but all experience it. My gripe with Twitter is that it caters to it and seduces people into allowing it to happen too much.

As another metaphor, we all need to crouch over at times. But if you stay in that position too often and too long, you eventually become deformed. You need to do other stuff along with crouching—and crouching anyway should only be sporadic to be properly balanced.

The same with instantaneous distractions.

Michael

[thomtg]

Thom,

I think we are on the same page except for your attributing distraction to lack of mental purpose. We are prone to distraction in the same manner our stomachs growl when we are hungry. It is how the mind is.

[...]

Michael, we were on the same page from the start, even when you disagreed. Notice:

I disagree that the reason Twitter took off is that the population is dumbed down. (I don't disagree that the population is dumbed down, especially considering the level of reading skills I see coming out of public high-schools.)

I think it has more to do with [...]

Also, Twitter's success is partly epistemological. It has to do with the way our mind gets hooked into—and settles on—a new issue by distraction.

[...]

Michael

But that is precisely my point:

[...]

And now, to this other remaining bit about my attributing distraction to a lack of mental purpose. Check your Post #19 above. You stated that distraction is an epistemological problem. Anything epistemological is a volitional issue. Distraction may have some neurological basis, but it is ultimately in the volitional agent's power to control. Yet, in your immediately above post, Post #21, you imply that being distracted is akin to the growling of the stomach--akin to an automatic, deterministic process, uncontrolled by volitional means. So now which is it? Is distraction a volitional issue or not?

I would go with your Post #19. If so, then by the rest of Post #21, we are in complete agreement. Inefficiency in thinking does become habitual, if one does not consciously correct it. And as BB in POET points out, that takes constancy of purpose, which, by the way, is another reason why Ayn Rand identifies Purpose a cardinal value. (TVOS 25)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Anything epistemological is a volitional issue.

Thom,

This is not correct.

Without going into Rand's idea that all concept formation is volitional (which is an overreach), integrating percepts from sensations is an epistemological issue and volition is not at all involved in that.

Epistemology deals with the manner we obtain information and the validity of it and consciousness in general. Not all consciousness is volitional either.

We have innate mental processes.

We have an overlap where innate processes and volition both work.

And we have volition.

We can guide our concept formation with volition. We can't turn concept formation off, though, and start living on the mental level of a dog. That part is not volitional. This fact means many concepts get integrated automatically.

Michael

[thomtg]

Anything epistemological is a volitional issue.

Thom,

This is not correct.

Without going into Rand's idea that all concept formation is volitional (which is an overreach), integrating percepts from sensations is an epistemological issue and volition is not at all involved in that.

Epistemology deals with the manner we obtain information and the validity of it and consciousness in general. Not all consciousness is volitional either.

We have innate mental processes.

We have an overlap where innate processes and volition both work.

And we have volition.

We can guide our concept formation with volition. We can't turn concept formation off, though, and start living on the mental level of a dog. That part is not volitional. This fact means many concepts get integrated automatically.

Michael

Michael,

I don't deny there are inborn capacities. What I deny is that conceptual activities employing such capacities are automatic. So although distractions do have some automatic, neurological basis, they can be managed volitionally. Isn't that why we can say that some people have better concentration level than others. If distractions are beyond our volitional control, why are there so many books about time management and so on?

Now consider your view that many concepts get integrated automatically. I don't think that can work efficiently. Focused awareness has many levels. At the dazed level, as in turning on the TV in the room without paying attention to it, you are not going to get anything meaningful from it. And if you do get something out of it, your integration will not be high quality abstractions; you'll get the osmotic version, the second-hand version, the distracted version.

In a way, a focused awareness at a higher level is the key to managing distractions. If let's say your awareness level is at 2, then when a distraction comes in, it may wipe away your first-level activities and may direct you to another. But since your awareness level is at 2, you are able to catch yourself, to notice your being distracted, and to redirect your faculties to your original activities or your original topics or your original purposes. So a higher-level focus mitigate a lower-level distraction. On this basis, for example, the number of mutations that happens on a thread is an indication of the level of focused attention OL readers and posters on that thread put into maintaining the topic.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Thom,

I think we are talking about 2 different things. The first is the capacity itself and the second is levels.

For instance, you said, "So although distractions do have some automatic, neurological basis, they can be managed volitionally.Isn't that why we can say that some people have better concentration level than others. If distractions are beyond our volitional control, why are there so many books about time management and so on?"

I could turn that around and ask if they can be totally managed volitionally, why don't people simply eliminate them altogether?

I think it is more complex than this. In the short version, a person who is good at focusing on A will less likely to be distracted by B than at other times. But he has to be focusing on A. If he is in normal mind-drift, say going from one place to another while letting his mind wander, it will be easy for his mind to get "hooked" into B if B appears.

But even on a light focus, this is present. I see focused volition as a biological thing. Since it is biological, it must obey normal biological reality. A good biological comparison is with running and walking. You can only run at full steam in spurts, then you have to stop and rest. The same goes for focusing at full steam. You can also walk to a specific destination for hours with practice, but you still have to stop and rest your legs (and aerobic system). The same with focusing on a job, for instance.

You mention Level 2 and so forth. That is a good way to measure within very specific parameters, but it is not good for overall focus. There are simply too many variables for it to mean anything other than a general level of mental intensity.

For instance, when a person comes to a forum, suppose he is focused on paying his bills instead of what the topic is about and he decides to read the thread because he wants some time off from worrying. The level of intensity he has when thinking about his bills will not automatically get transferred to the thread's topic. It's not like flipping an On-Off switch. The mind is organic and needs warming up, just like muscles do. As the new things start coming before his eyes and he starts getting settled into thinking about the discussion, "B" suddenly pops up out of nowhere. Bingo. Instant distraction.

That's just one case. And it is a mistake to treat such a person as if he were focusing at full steam on the topic and simply has poor cognition.

I am not saying we are powerless before distractions, but I am saying we are powerless to change our nature. We have to accept the reality of what exists before we can discipline it (or "stylize" it if dealing with art).

On your observations about automatic integration of concepts, we agree that when you do it on purpose, you are more efficient than when it runs on autopilot. I even agree that we can train the autopilot somewhat. You cannot turn the concept-forming capacity off, though. It will run whether you want it to or not. A very good example (and I am indebted to a harsh Rand-critic for this, Greg Nyquist) is a baby learning how to speak (i.e., communicate concepts). If learning how to speak were totally volitional, then there would be cases of babies who refused to learn how to speak. (We are discussing normal healthy babies, not sick ones.) The fact is that a baby has no choice in the matter. He must learn how to speak because that is his nature. He adds to it with volition, often choosing when he wants to concentrate on that, but he does not choose whether he will do it at all. He will and there is no escaping it.

Just because nature added volition to things (automatic processes) that already existed and we can control those things with our volition up to a certain point, that does not mean we can eliminate them altogether by volition.

I claim that it is a mistake to eliminate those automatic things from epistemology. That strikes me as a stolen concept.

Michael