tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29938642024-03-13T04:01:59.780-07:00Glimpse - For People Interested in Language and the Brain<br><br><br><br><b>A brief look at things for people interested in Language and the Brain</b><br><br>
<br>
"Facts as we see them are little more than quick glimpses of a ceaseless transformation..."<br>
--Wendell Johnson, People in QuandariesNora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.comBlogger268125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-65791018445382584582013-01-20T11:38:00.003-08:002013-01-20T11:38:30.199-08:00More on bacteria and a new way to talk about themI find, to my amazement, that I did not make a single post here in all of 2012, although not for a lack of interesting topics. Since 2013 promises more of the same, I hope to do a little better this year.<br />
<br />
However, I'm starting the year off by returning to a <a href="http://glimpse.blogspot.com/2011/08/file-under-unintended-consequences.html" target="_blank">post from 2011 about the unintended consequences</a> of our misperceptions about bacteria. Here's an excerpt from that post:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The medical profession has begun to recognize the negative consequences of trying to eradicate pathogens, such as "super-bugs" and rapidly evolving drug-resistant forms. This article describes another, less obvious but potentially more severe consequence--the permanent loss of strains of beneficial bacteria, which could contribute to the rising incidence of diabetes, bowel disease, asthma and obesity. </blockquote>
<br />
Since that post, the research on bacteria has progressed significantly. We now have the term "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiome" target="_blank">microbiome</a>" that encompasses the various colonies of microbes that we acquire over our lifetimes.<br />
<br />
In a rational world, the microbiome might turn out to be the number one cover story for 2013. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/22/121022fa_fact_specter" target="_blank">An October 2012 article in the New Yorker magazine</a> notes that our bodies harbor more bacteria cells than body cells and provides ample examples of how these fundamental and balanced colonies sustain our health far more than they harm it. And the process starts right at the beginning of life:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px;">We inherit every one of our genes, but we leave the womb without a single microbe. As we pass through our mother’s birth canal, we begin to attract entire colonies of bacteria. </span></blockquote>
<br />
and by the time we reach adulthood:<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px;">[w]e are inhabited by as many as ten thousand bacterial species; these cells outnumber those which we consider our own by ten to one, and weigh, all told, about three pounds—the same as our brain. Together, they are referred to as our microbiome—and they play such a crucial role in our lives that scientists like Blaser have begun to reconsider what it means to be human.</span></blockquote>
<br />
This "reconsidering" will require a fundamental change in how we think about health, and I'm not sure how long it might take for that change to reach day-to-day understanding. Largely through the efforts of scientists from the past two centuries, the large majority of the world's population have finally come to thoroughly embrace the simple encomium that "bacteria are bad." Thanks to modern advertising and the impulses of capitalism, we each have access to an overwhelming arsenal of antibacterial products to protect ourselves from the relentless onslaught of rampant nature. We also have increasing susceptibility to asthma, obesity, and MRSA. The New Yorker article suggests the potential for new treatments based solely on the regulation and reintroduction of healthy colonies of microbes. It sounds quite new-age-y, but these "miracle" cures have solid science behind them<br />
<br />
And along with the new approaches to treatment, science faces an additional challenge--how do we dial back the fears of the average human and encourage people to embrace a new paradigm in which we LOVE our bacteria and take steps to husband and protect the various health-giving commensals that inhabit every square centimeter of our bodies? Perhaps that's one benefit of the new term, microbiome. It gives us a handle that does not immediately conjure up the now-entrenched bias we acquire from our mothers along with the load of microbes.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-51288133431680153402011-12-15T13:27:00.000-08:002011-12-15T13:44:42.221-08:00Neuroscience: Programming the MachineWhile we have seen a lot of discussion about whether we can effectively model the brain as a computer, there's plenty of evidence that brains do act like "black boxes": present a particular input and you will get a related output. How the input relates to the output may vary, but the two do seem related.
<br><br>
In <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8058541/Neuroscience-free-will-and-determinism-Im-just-a-machine.html">this article from The Telegraph</a>, we learn that an external stimuli applied to the head can produce a tic in the body that the owner of the body did not will, either consciously or unconsciously. This phenomenon is interpreted as evidence that we have no free will--if someone else can push a button and cause us to jump or dance, then we cannot have control over our own bodies. Extend this to our seemingly autonomic reaction to the verbal stimulus of an insult or a tear-jerker movie, and we do seem to devolve into the feared state of automaton.<br /><br />I think this view lacks a critical dimension, namely <i>time</i>.
<br><br>
As I see it, yes, an input does produce an output, and perhaps even reliably so. But not necessarily the same every time, and certainly not the same for every person. The author quotes Professor Patrick Haggard of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience:<blockquote>"If you see a light go green, it may mean press the accelerator; but there are lots of situations where it doesn't mean that: if the car in front hasn't moved, for example. The same stimulus sometimes makes me press the accelerator, but sometimes the horn. We are not one output-one input beings; we have to cope with a messy world of inputs, an enormous range of outputs. I think the term 'free will' refers to the complexity of that arrangement."</blockquote>
<br>
This seems to me to capture the heart of the issue. We condition our responses based on context. But how do we do that?
<br><br>
Here's where time comes into the picture, in my view. We *learn*, by trying, failing, trying, erring, trying, succeeding. Over time, we develop the black box mechanism that determines our outputs for a given input. We get programmed.
<br><br>
I would contend that we can reclaim free will, in part, by coming to recognize the time dimension and choosing how we become programmed. We can adjust our understanding of a situation, thus tapping a different pathway through our brains, producing a different reaction that might have otherwise occurred.
<br><br>
We do this by mindfully attending to the input-output process of our daily lives, by evaluating how we feel about the relation and the outcome of that relation, and by reinforcing, replacing or redefining the significance we assign to the input to modify the resulting output. Time provides us with our own personal psychology lab, if we will choose to use it.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-22160217281630461672011-10-27T10:14:00.000-07:002011-10-27T10:14:30.394-07:00Science and NaiveteIn this <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/white-noise/2011/10/27/if-you-could-improve-your-personality-with-a-hallucinogenic-drug-would-you/">blog post on the Scientific American site</a>, writer and former chemist Cassie Rodenberg asks if we would take a risk-free version of psylocibin, "magic mushrooms", as a "mystical experience", or maybe just for the fun of it. Setting aside for the moment the different perception my generation might have on the question, I was struck by her questions about the potential ramifications:<blockquote>Would we still be ourselves then? Would this be a new, improved me or an artificial version? Would my mom still be herself if she lost her narrow Southern view of religion? I’m not so sure.</blockquote><br />My first reaction to this was "What do you mean? and How do you know?" I'm not posing a deep philosophical argument about the self and how it develops. I'm simply talking about the rigidity of abstracting these questions suggest. Do you think you have developed without outside influence up until now? Do you think your reading, interpersonal experiences, diet, medical treatments, etc, had not an "artificial" effect on your existing "self"? Do you think your mom has not changed at all from what you imagine her to be based on your child's perceptions of her? <br /><br />My second reaction was "How ironic that the author responds to the potential for increased "openness" by exhibiting a certain closed-mindedness about the self and what shapes personality."Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-11142711334995137622011-10-06T08:30:00.000-07:002011-10-06T08:30:21.142-07:00Knowledge increases powerThis <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-hypothetically-tweaking-behavior-bias.html">article from Physorg</a> reports on research about the effects of hypothetical questions. Juries often hear hypothetical questions before they are selected, and Sarah Moore, University of Alberta Business researcher, found that these questions can plant a bias. Jurors told ahead of time that they might hear such questions and not to let them influence opinions are far less likely to absorb the intended bias.<br /><br />Thomas Hobbes said "scientia potentia est" = Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more likely you can develop your own opinion rather than adopting an opinion someone else would like you to have.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-16465706481433740362011-09-17T11:12:00.000-07:002011-09-17T11:12:14.035-07:00Who, exactly, made Sarah Grunfeld feel bad?You might have heard about the recent <a href="http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Jewish+scandal+that+wasn/5404471/story.html">Jewish scandal that wasn't</a> wherein a professor at York University has been criticized for how he chose to illustrate a point that there is a difference between acceptable and unacceptable opinions in public discourse:<blockquote>Reaching for an example, he settled on one that seemed beyond dispute.<br /><br />"All Jews should be sterilized" is an opinion that is simply not acceptable, he noted.</blockquote>A student in the class, Sarah Grunfeld, took umbrage at this "outrageous" idea (only the quoted part, apparently, not the part about how this is not an acceptable view...) and slapped the professor with a complaint of anti-Semitism.<br /><br />She, and the B'nai Brith, are persisting in demanding sanctions, even though they have been told that a) Prof Johnston is Jewish, and b) IT WAS AN EXAMPLE OF AN UNACCEPTABLE OPINION!<div><br /></div><div>Sadly her poor attention, flawed half-baked perception and unthinking irrational reaction are all reminiscent of the very prejudices that she claims to have suffered. She contends that her reaction was triggered by generations of inaccurate and unfair insults against Jews. So she adopts the loathsome behavior of her perceived oppressors and treats her professor to an inaccurate perception and an unfair complaint. </div><div><br />Rather than taking responsibility for her reaction to her own erroneous perception of his statement (um, maybe texting while listening to the lecture?), Ms. Grunfeld blames the professor for her dismay. According to the National Post article: <blockquote>in a statement released wednesday evening [Grunfeld said] that <b>it was Prof. Johnston's fault if she got the wrong impression</b> and complaining that the university has failed to discipline him.</blockquote>Alas, we have all done this at one point or another--heard with half a brain and reacted as if what we *think* we heard can "cause" us to feel pain. Some people believe that if you say something they find objectionable, it's your fault if they feel angry. Others think that if a person hears something they think is objectionable and they feel anger or shame or dismay, they produced their own reaction and could have reacted differently if they chose. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said:<blockquote>Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.</blockquote>I might amend that to "without your direct complicity via misplaced attribution of where your feelings come from!"<br /><br />Seems to me that rather than attending classes on social sciences, which are clearly beyond her ability to follow, Ms. Grunfeld might want to start with some classes on critical thinking and cognitive behavior, where she might learn that how she "feels" about what others say is not "their fault", but rather her responsibility and hers alone. She might also learn to pay attention in class and learn to check her perceptions before reaching out to smack somebody else for her foolish and faulty interpretations.<br /></div>Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-38068101319013755732011-08-27T17:19:00.000-07:002011-08-27T18:05:15.791-07:00Accuracy? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Accuracy!You gotta love journalists who can't resist making some interesting story just a *little bit* hotter for the reading public. Today's case in point: a <a href="http://www.gizmag.com/diamond-planet/19630/">report at GizMag</a> about the discovery of a (pant pant) "planet made of diamond"! Now that would be news. We might even get a boost in the space budget if we could go after a "planet made of diamond", right?
<br />
<br />Of course, the story itself tells a different story...<blockquote>"With the planet <span style="font-weight:bold;">likely </span>to be made <span style="font-weight:bold;">largely</span> of oxygen and carbon, its high density means it is <span style="font-weight:bold;">almost certainly </span>crystalline, meaning that a <span style="font-weight:bold;">large part </span>of the planet <span style="font-weight:bold;">may be similar</span> to diamond." [Emphasis mine] </blockquote>
<br />Oops. That's a lot of hedging, none of which made it into the headline.
<br />
<br />Twas ever thus.
<br />
<br />(edited to change "can" to "can't"--one of the banes of my existence is my uncanny ability to overlook the missing "n't"!Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-52789207655967713412011-08-24T11:40:00.000-07:002011-08-24T11:40:03.053-07:00File Under "Unintended Consequences"This <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-eradicating-dangerous-bacteria-permanent.html">Physorg science article about the loss of beneficial bacteria</a> also illuminates what I would consider a language problem. Early in the discovery and development history of antibiotics, researchers and doctors immediately comprehended that these medicines could save millions of lives by vanquishing what til then were unstoppable infections. In the time between the discovery of bacteria and the discovery of ways to kill bacteria, scientists focused on the ways bacteria threaten life at the expense of understanding how bacteria support life. The critical services bacteria perform for us, in our guts, in our soil, in our immune systems, etc., were unknown and unacknowledged. The medical profession has begun to recognize the negative consequences of trying to eradicate pathogens, such as "super-bugs" and rapidly evolving drug-resistant forms. This article describes another, less obvious but potentially more severe consequence--the permanent loss of strains of beneficial bacteria, which could contribute to the rising incidence of diabetes, bowel disease, asthma and obesity.
<br />
<br />This qualifies as a language problem because due in part to the way bacteria were described in the previous century, the vast majority of people today equate "bacteria" with "bad". This has given rise to a huge and growing market in products that offer to eliminate "99.9%" of bacteria on inert surfaces as well as on our skin. People appear to believe that killing bacteria is a completely positive act, with no negative consequences. Marketing ignores, or perhaps hides, the broader definition of "bacteria" as including a spectrum of biota ranging from deadly in all cases to positive and critical for life in all case. This leads directly to the overuse of antibacterial products, since most people would agree that if killing bacteria is unequivocally "good", then killing MORE bacteria must be better. Unfortunately, it looks like killing bacteria may be the short road to killing ourselves....
<br />
<br />Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-60832899316262439952011-08-11T09:25:00.000-07:002011-08-11T09:28:12.567-07:00Prepare for the Worst....<a href="http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/4051ff809c54012e2f8200163e41dd5b?width=450.0">Great cartoon</a> that kind of sums up why I practice general semantics and related thinking processes: <blockquote>Try to prepare for your spontaneous reactions</blockquote>
<br />I think this will become my new "elevator speech" about gs!Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-64558630965891988192011-07-19T16:29:00.000-07:002011-07-19T16:29:01.624-07:00"Being" a voter motivates more than a solicitation "to vote"This<a href="http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-voter-turnout-simple-word.html">report from PhysOrg</a> presents a twist on the GS dictum we avoid identifying someone as "being an X". The researcher in the report significantly improved voter turnout in participants asked if they would "be a voter", versus those who were simply asked if they were "going to vote". Apparently people found it more appealing to imagine themselves as "a voter", while they found the idea of having to *do* something, ie, vote, less appealing. Food for thought for those of us who might want to influence the behavior of others.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-65929814194600303802011-06-17T07:56:00.000-07:002011-06-17T08:07:27.307-07:00Quote and comment<blockquote>Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? <br />-T.S. Eliot, poet (1888-1965) </blockquote>We typically think of information as the source of knowledge and knowledge as the source of wisdom. But inevitably, as we process one into the next, we reduce the complexity and variety of the source to distill the product. We discard information that seems irrelevant to the knowledge we desire, and dismiss knowledge that does not seem to support the wisdom we seek. <br /><br />At any given moment, we necessarily ignore far more than we attend to. We overlook far more than we observe. In many cases, we do not suffer for the oversight. But Eliot understood the critical importance of asking what we might have lost in those unattended moments. <br /><br />While we physically cannot attend to every single thing in our experience, it seems likely that we can benefit simply from considering, at any given moment, what we might have missed, and ask ourselves if knowing something different might change how we act or feel or what we think we have come to understand.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-78105688724929694472011-05-21T09:22:00.000-07:002011-05-21T09:22:36.981-07:00Imagine a World with No TimeIf you have no words for a concept, does it "exist"? This <a href="http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-necessarily-deeply-rooted-brains.html">story from Medical Express</a> describes a tribe in the Amazon whose language has no vocabulary for time-related concepts--no yesterday, no age, no since, no longer, etc. While they are born, age, and die as all humans do, they do not talk or think about time the way most other cultures do:<br /><blockquote>For the Amondawa, time does not exist in the same way as it does for us. We can now say without doubt that there is at least one language and culture which does not have a concept of time as something that can be measured, counted, or talked about in the abstract. This doesn't mean that the Amondawa are 'people outside time', but they live in a world of events, rather than seeing events as being embedded in time.</blockquote>Researchers attribute this difference in the language in part to the associated lack of numbers beyond four or five. If you don't have numbers, it's hard to quantify anything, including time.<br /><br />What would it mean to think about your life, your family, your society, your activities, without thinking about the time something takes, the time your project is due, the sequence of a set of events, the numeric significance of age? What would a day be like if you didn't think of it as a day? How would you experience the company of your friends if you didn't think about time passing?<br /><br />I think that psychology and neuroscience might suggest that if your native language includes words for time, you will have a hard time answering those questions. Language influence the connectivity in our brains. We think what we say, our language frames our thoughts, and vice versa. The older and more socially embedded the concept, the more fundamental it feels to us, and thus the greater the difficulty we will face if we try to step outside it or look past it and its implications.<br /><br />You may never quite find a way to imagine a world with no time. But because you have language to think with, you now can at least imagine that the world might operate like that for someone. That's a step....Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-22092790268215354372011-01-18T21:56:00.000-08:002011-01-18T21:58:36.673-08:00ContextActions speak louder than words, they tell us, but words create the context in which action unfolds.<br /><a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/article/921510--hume-the-sudden-importance-of-language-in-city-politics"><br />--Christopher Hume, thestar.com</a>Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-25200735229037099382010-12-17T07:57:00.000-08:002010-12-17T08:15:46.725-08:00Coming Full Circle on WhorfWith <a href="http://snipurl.com/1lpxq7">this interesting study on English and Mandarin speakers</a>, the research on the influence of language on thought has come full circle. Researchers at Stanford have found that Mandarin speakers were far more likely than English speakers to view time vertically, with earlier events above later ones. They conclude that this is due in part to differences in the words used by the two languages to refer to time and events.<br /><br />You'll no doubt recall that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Lee_Whorf">Whorf's original research</a> focused in part on differences between of English and Hopi subjects in terms of how they spoke about and conceived of time. For years, linguists discounted and derided his findings based on everything from prejudice about the conclusions to claims that his work was shoddy and his conclusions self-motivated.<br /><br />Now we have a modern, well-designed study that arrives at the same conclusion Whorf did-- that the structure of your native language can influence the structure of your thinking and conceptualization.<br /><br />Now can we start taking the implications of that conclusion seriously and consider implementing changes in our educational system to accommodate?Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-62892389802393879882010-12-13T07:38:00.000-08:002010-12-13T07:38:06.246-08:00Who will Reframe the Reframers for Us?In <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-stigmatised-workers-creative-job-titles.html">this report </a>on people in the "stigmatized" role of debt collector, researcher Madeleine McKechnie found that reframing the way they describe their work helped these workers feel more positive and therefore stay in their jobs longer. They called themselves financial counselors or information detectives or negotiators. These substitutions in wording help them change their self-image and give them a way to feel helpful rather than predatory.<br /><br />The researcher notes that "Not a lot of research looks at these professions that are necessary for a functioning society."<br /><br />In the comments section after the report, one wag noted: <blockquote>The author is using the phrase "functioning society" as a substitute for more accurate words so she can feel positive about the validity of her conclusions and continue disseminating propaganda as is necessary to maintain her role in a "functioning society."</blockquote>Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-44062348043535184852010-12-07T10:44:00.000-08:002010-12-07T11:03:59.428-08:00Researchers catching up with GSA <a href="http://snipurl.com/1lpxq7">recent study in Europe</a> has found that language has an effect on both verbal and nonverbal number processing in first-graders. The researchers looked at number comprehension in children who spoke German, Italian or Czech, and found that differences in how the language handles placeholders had a significant effect on how well the children comprehended two-digit numbers. Their conclusion:<br /><blockquote>The data corroborate a weak Whorfian hypothesis in children, with even nonverbal Arabic number processing seeming to be influenced by linguistic properties in children.<br /><br /></blockquote> The more linguists study language in real-life settings, the more they achieve these kinds of results. Many recent studies have found similar results, and headlines often grudgingly acknowledge the earlier discoveries. The mention of Whorf in a research, rather than amounting to an academic kiss of death, now indicates a modern, forward thinking study. How nice.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><br /></blockquote>Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-3766038841728572562010-08-07T10:34:00.000-07:002010-08-07T10:34:50.124-07:00Knowing What We Know (or Not)The movie "Inception" imagines a technology that allows agents to enter the subconscious of a target and manipulate their memories and thus their beliefs. David Sirota, in this<a href="http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/147701/a_lesson_from_inception_how_the_rightwing_and_corporate_media_brainwash_americans?page=entire"> Alternet article titled "A Lesson from "Inception": How the Right-Wing and Corporate Media Brainwash Americans"</a> contends that our 24/7 mediation by politically-oriented media outlets produces a similar frame of mind. If we only hear things that align with our prior information and beliefs, we get to a point where contradictory evidence cannot make a dent. Sirota quotes Cal State Fullerton's Nancy Snow, who wrote in 2004 that:<blockquote>today's most pervasive and effective propaganda is the kind that is "least noticeable" and consequently "convinces people they are not being manipulated." </blockquote>Few things show more resistance to contradiction than a "fact" that we believe we discovered on our own.<br /><br />As Wendell Johnson put it, we become our own "most enchanted listener". When that happens, we have less motivation to ask "what do I mean?" and "how do I know?" which increases the likelihood that we will not recognize the possibility or validity of contradictory information.<br /><br />So what did you NOT notice today?Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-62431571043160696882010-06-15T09:50:00.000-07:002010-06-15T10:21:27.562-07:00How We Change and How We Don't<blockquote>There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592) </blockquote>Montaigne wrote a lot about recognizing the differences among people, but this quote suggests he also understood that we ourselves do not maintain a single "self" over our lifetimes.<br /><br />In GS readings, you might encounter the term RIOT, standing for Relative Invariance Over Time. This concept accounts for our ability to simultaneously recognize ourselves in baby pictures and in the mirror, despite the years between the two images. GS considers our "selves" to represent a different level of abstraction than our bodies at any given moment. RIOT represents a chain of evidence, if you will, that links that child to this adult, a chain we can grasp conceptually as a single entity due to our skill at categorization. <br /><br />But while that gives us the ability to carry on from day to day and still pay the bills and visit the in-laws, we do well to retain an awareness of the underlying, less continuous, less consistent, less conceptual being that changes minute by minute and hour by hour. While the *concept* of "I" recurs every day as the "same person", the *fact* of "I" changes--we age, we fall ill, we learn a new skill, we forget an old friend. We think one thing one day and a different thing another day. We find ourselves unable to decide something because we can see both sides, or all sides, and part of us wants one thing and part wants another. We differ from ourselves. <br /><br />That covers the first part of Montaigne's quote. <br /><br />As for the second part, we face similar but different issues. RIOT accounts for our ability to recognize others as a) humans like us; and b) strangers or acquaintances. We can easily grasp the benefits of RIOT here--we can operate in our society without continually have to retest our perceptions of those around us.<br /><br />On the other hand, when we do not retest our perceptions of those around us, we fail to detect changes that might have significance for our interactions with them. We do not notice that we may not agree on how to conduct civil discourse, how to govern, how to share resources, etc. Overlooking disagreements about how to do something in a shared environment usually leads to discord, disharmony, divorce, even war. After all, while we are overlooking differences, so are the other folks, and who decides which side of the difference "is right"?<br /><br />More than anything, Montaigne wanted to encourage us to recognize that no "right" exists, to recognize that we do things the way we do them because we learned to from our ancestors, who learned from their ancestors. We revere our ancestors because they produced us and told us what to hold true to, but we have no basis for saying that what they taught us has any independent validity. And the other guys have just as many ancestors with just as many beliefs, equally without independent validity, but still cherished as true. So we differ from others too.<br /><br />So, without thinking about this, we war amongst ourselves and we war within ourselves.<br /><br />Can understanding the mechanisms for these wars help us avoid them? Perhaps, if we incorporate that awareness into our deliberations, if we account for both the RIOT and the changes it obscures, both within our selves and between us and others. If we know we cannot require ourselves or others to remain unchanged, if we accept that what we know and what we learned may not match up with what others know and learn, if we grant ourselves and others the leeway to change and differ, we have taken steps closer to a saner, more accurate map, and that seems like a good way to find our way.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-82852603114888226032010-03-11T14:56:00.000-08:002010-03-11T15:19:18.987-08:00Writing about Doing<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4J12t-Km3Mw/S5l6KA5tJJI/AAAAAAAAD1g/cxtskFK3CBA/s1600-h/gmship-book-cover.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4J12t-Km3Mw/S5l6KA5tJJI/AAAAAAAAD1g/cxtskFK3CBA/s320/gmship-book-cover.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447519536740639890" /></a><br />GIST Publishing and Multi-Dimensional Press announce the publication of <span style="font-style:italic;">Graymanship: The Management of Organizational Imperfection</span>, by Bob Eddy. <a href="http://www.gistinc.org/mdp_graymanship.html">See more at the GIST website.</a><br /><br />Drew Carey once joked, "Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." Surveys show that job dissatisfaction and cynicism are at an all-time high. Why have we let our jobs become so toxic? Bob Eddy's book, Graymanship: The Management of Organizational Imperfection delivers a mind-boggling, out-of-the-box approach that shatters common sense concepts about how to manage businesses and employees. Other books, focusing on one-minute leadership and relocating cheese, may contain interesting viewpoints, but they have not succeeded in reversing, or even lessening, the negativity of our work lives. What can we do about miscommunications, incompetence, disorganization, disruption, disobedience, inequity, disloyalty, politics, unethical behavior, conflict, and cynicism? We obviously need a deeper analysis of why we suffer these ills. Graymanship suggests that we take a new and different look at the assumptions we have bought into that keep us prisoners of old paradigms and worldviews. Eddy compares the Realist's black-and-white viewpoint that most of us grew up with to a more balanced Constructivist worldview that embraces shades of gray, shifting our language away from dividing and blaming, and toward more nuanced, results-oriented evaluations. With this new mindset, Eddy proposes 66 concrete actions that managers, employees and organizations can take to restore sanity and enjoyment to our organizational membership. "Graymanship works in the world because it reflects the queasy, hard to pin down, flexible reality we live in." Bill Conner, educational administrator. "It's professional, persuasive, provocative, surprisingly concise, and very, very readable." Dave Kimball, retired CEO.<br /><br />The book will be available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other major book sellers.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-16180765257175376832010-03-07T10:45:00.000-08:002010-03-07T10:57:21.986-08:00Words don't mean....The appropriately beautiful or ugly sound of any word is an illusion wrought on us by what the word connotes.<br />-Max Beerbohm, writer, critic, and caricaturist (1872-1956)<br /><br />I might have said, "by how we have experience the word in use." As I understand it, words don't actually "connote," any more than they "mean." Instead, we encounter words as used by people in our environment, we observe the effect of the word on those around us, construct a meaning, and and we go on to apply the word in situations we believe similar to the original experience. Thus a given word may strike one person as beautiful and another as ugly, due not to the dictionary meaning of the word, but rather to the circumstances surrounding their experiences of the word in use.<br /><br />But that explanation doesn't make for a handy little aphorism.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-52599329736475623072010-02-18T05:49:00.000-08:002010-02-18T07:21:13.915-08:00Word Magic Alive and Well in Utah<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/12/utah-climate-alarmists">This article in the UK Guardian </a>reports on the passage of a non-binding resolution in the Utah State Assembly with quite amazing language encouraging the US EPA to cease all efforts to rein in CO2 emissions "until a full and independent investigation of <b></b><!-- WP Style End: lineno --> <!-- WP Style End: lineno --> climate data <b> </b>and global warming science can be substantiated."<br /><br />First off, one wonders where they plan to look for scientists who have not already staked out an opinion on climate change. As I understand it, the vast majority of climate researchers, indeed, of scientists in all relevant fields, supports the conclusion that human activity has profoundly and negatively affected the world's environmental balance, and further, that the sooner we take action to reverse these problems, the better.<br /><br />For example, the director of the <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/project/56/harvard_project_on_international_climate_agreements.html">Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements</a>, Robert Stavins, recently told an audience: <blockquote>Climate change is an important threat meriting serious attention by policy-makers in California and around the world.</blockquote>According to Wikipedia's article on climate change concensus:<blockquote>No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Statements_by_dissenting_organizations" title="Scientific opinion on climate change">dissenting opinion</a> since the American Association of Petroleum Geologists adopted its current position in 2007.</blockquote>Utah seems unconcerned about their minority position. <a href="http://le.utah.gov/%7E2010/bills/hbillamd/hjr012.htm">The final bill as passed</a> contains a laundry list of "whereas" statements to support their conviction that the whole "global warming" thing is just a conspiracy by left-wing eggheads intent on tricking Americans into giving up their way of life, rather than a scientific effort to save both the planet and the world's economies from decline due to indiscriminate energy consumption and its aftereffects. For example (deletions from the original wording shown in bold):<blockquote>WHEREAS, global temperatures have been level and declining in some areas over the past 12 years;<br /> <!-- WP Paired Style On: lineno -->WHEREAS, the "hockey stick" global warming assertion has been discredited and climate alarmists' carbon dioxide-related global warming hypothesis is unable to account for <!-- WP Style End: lineno --> the current downturn in global temperatures;<br />WHEREAS, emails and other communications between climate researchers around the <!-- WP Style End: lineno --> globe, referred to as "Climategate," indicate a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate <!-- WP Style End: lineno --> <b> H. [ <!-- End of font TimesNewRomanRegular with size 12 --> <!-- Font changed to TimesNewRomanRegular with size 3 --><strike>and incorporate "tricks" related to</strike> <!-- End of font TimesNewRomanRegular with size 11 --> <!-- Font changed to TimesNewRomanRegular with size 3 -->] .H</b> global temperature data in order to produce a global <!-- WP Style End: lineno --> warming outcome;<br />WHEREAS, global governance related to global warming and reduction of CO2 would ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty....<br /></blockquote>This despite abundant information that the "warming" part of "global climate change" does not mean EVERY temperate EVERYWHERE will go up FROM NOW ON, and despite wide agreement in the view of many climate scientists that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy">the "hockey stick" graph </a>has NOT "been discredited."<br /><br />Apparently a majority of the assembly believes that if you simply "say it isn't so", it won't be so.<br /><br />However, I think we get a glimpse into the heart of the issue in this "whereas":<blockquote>WHEREAS, <b> H. [ <!-- End of font TimesNewRomanRegular with size 12 --> <!-- Font changed to TimesNewRomanRegular with size 3 --><strike>the climate change "gravy train," estimated at</strike> <!-- End of font TimesNewRomanRegular with size 11 --> <!-- Font changed to TimesNewRomanRegular with size 3 -->] .H</b> more than $7 billion <!-- WP Style End: lineno --> annually in federal government grants, may have influenced the climate research focus and <!-- WP Style End: lineno --> findings that have produced a "scientific consensus" at research institutions and universities;<br /></blockquote>Given the economic importance of oil and coal production in Utah, the "gravy train" slur that appeared in the original wording points, this clause clearly means to say "Keep your hands off OUR gravy train!"<br /><br />In other words, the short-term economic boon of dirty coal and oil far outweighs the likely economic, health, social and scientific FUTURE disaster of filthy skies and a dying planet, as long as it holds off until after *we* die, right?Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-27127038412803765822010-01-31T07:02:00.000-08:002010-01-31T08:00:11.015-08:00Applying Science to ScienceGS suggests that terms like "global climate change" and "economic depression" and "political action" fall into the category of large, multifaceted, heavily-laden abstractions lacking specific meaning when used generally without specific context. This can make it difficult to discuss various facets of those terms in a reasoned scientific way, since one person's <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.asp#7">"major polluter"</a> may look like an <a href="http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40670/story.htm">"economic necessity"</a> to someone else. Based on these over-under-generalized terms, our global society has found it difficult to come to grips with not only how to act regarding these issues, but whether to act at all.<br /><br />This YouTube video offers an interesting, if somewhat simplistic, proposal:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zORv8wwiadQ&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zORv8wwiadQ&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Basically, the speaker demonstrates that we can come to a conclusion about whether to act without resolving the question of whether global climate change "is really happening" or not. He shows that, regardless of how you define the potential outcomes of the "is it real" debate, you can estimate the relative cost of acting or failing to act sufficiently well to decide which course makes sense. <br /><br />While someone could attack the potential outcomes he assigns to various possible actions as oversimplified, his logic seems pretty reasonable and straightforward. If the worst risk of not acting appears to exceed the worst risk of acting, why would we not act? <br /><br />Of course, one might answer, "because *I* face the risks of our acting now, while future generations face the risk of our not acting now." But that's an argument for another day.<br /><br />For now, I would agree with the video maker: what's the worst that could happen?<br /><br /><a href="http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/79143">Maybe this?</a>Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-84668620699927760132010-01-16T04:21:00.000-08:002010-01-16T04:53:08.669-08:00A Rare Notice of a Rare GS IdeaEvery once in a while, somebody rediscovers or remembers some GS-related idea or practice and writes about it in the world press. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/16/e-prime-change-your-life">Today's example</a> comes from Oliver Burkeman, Life and Style columnist for the British newspaper, the Guardian, who writes a fair and generous article on the topic of e-Prime.<br /><br />Burkeman appears to know his GS. He says:<blockquote>in this anniversary year [of Bourland's original article on e-Prime], his eccentric vision deserves celebrating. Because in theory at least, E-Prime aimed at nothing less than using language to make our insane lives a little more sane.</blockquote><br />While some of his explicit examples of e-Prime come out a little stilted ("To live or not to live, I ask this question" and "The Lord functions as my shepherd"), Burkeman's articulate posting shows he has a fairly competent handle on e-Prime. For example, he notes:<blockquote>"I am a failure" feels permanent, all-encompassing, hopeless. Restating it in E-Prime – "I feel like a failure" or "I have failed at this task" – makes it limited, temporary, addressable.</blockquote>and:<blockquote>To think about and function in the world, Korzybski said, we rely on systems of abstract concepts, most obviously language. But those concepts don't reflect the world in a straightforward way; instead, they contain hidden traps that distort reality, causing confusion and angst. And the verb "to be", he argued, contains the most traps of all.</blockquote>Burkeman also notes that neuroscience has begun to catch up with Korzybski's and Bourland's understanding of the connection between the words we use and the thoughts we think:<blockquote>as cognitive therapists note, thoughts trigger emotions, and "finalistic, absolutistic" thoughts trigger stressful emotions.</blockquote>Despite having used e-Prime to produce a clear and easy-to-read article extolling the value of e-Prime, Burkeman seems to dismiss his own point, when he says "in fairness Bourland never meant it as a serious replacement for English", as if someone promoting e-Prime needs an excuse for such wacky thinking.<br /><br />In my view, any tool that exposes the biases and errors in understanding hidden in our day-to-day speech can only help improve communication. Most people reject e-Prime either because it makes writing difficult (it does, but only because you have to stop and think what you might really mean to say) or because it results in stilted, awkward phrasing (it can, but usually only while the writer unlearns the thought processes that rely on the far easier to-be structure.)<br /><br />For example, Burkeman offers "The Lord functions as my shepherd" as an example of e-Prime. In my view, this only substitutes non-to-be words without actually rethinking the meaning of the sentence. I would suggest "The Lord guides me as a shepherd guides his sheep," which clears away the labelling of the original while exposing the actor and identifying the action. <br /><br />That, to me, represents the value of a tool like e-Prime. In the years since Bourland's article, others have come to recognize that just rejecting "to be" doesn't quite cover the various pitfalls of unthinking speech. Allen Walker Read suggested using e-Ma, "English minus absolutisms", implemented by avoiding false-to-fact words like "every", "all", "always" and "never."<br /><br />I prefer my own blend of these ideas, which one might call "e-MaP", English minus "to be", minus absolutisms, and minus "prescriptives", meaning words like "should", "must" and "need". To say "I must go to work today" obscures the choice I make. To say "I need a new car" obscures the fact that I can certainly live without one, but would prefer something new and shiny in my driveway.<br /><br />Give it a try. You have only your implicit prejudices to lose!Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-1411085355286147802010-01-14T17:06:00.000-08:002010-01-14T17:26:09.858-08:00Words We Use DO Make a Difference?!More corroboration of the connection between the words we use and the meanings we make comes in an article from the International Journal of Drug Policy, <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news182604133.html">reported here</a>. <br /><br />Researchers developed two different texts about a man who was "having trouble keeping to his court-ordered treatment program requiring abstinence from alcohol and other drugs." In one version, the man is labeled as "substance abuser" while in the other, he is described as "having a substance-abuse disorder". These two texts were presented to mental health workers, after which the subjects were asked their opinions on how to treat the "patient".<br /><br />The PhysOrg blog poster, apparently associated with Mass General Hospital, reports:<blockquote>participants who received the paragraph describing [the patient] as a "substance abuser" were significantly more likely to agree that he should be punished for not following his required treatment plan. They were also more likely to agree with statements implying that that he was more to blame for his difficulty adhering to the court requirements.</blockquote>The posting continues:<blockquote>"We found that referring to someone with the 'abuser' terminology evokes more punitive attitudes than does describing that person's situation in exactly the same words except for using 'disorder' terminology," says John F. Kelly, PhD, associate director of the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine, who led the study.</blockquote>GS has long made a distinction between the application of a label and the reporting of observed process-oriented conditions. As the researchers found, the label inevitably reduces the individuality of the person labeled, enabling erroneous or prejudicial inferences to cloud the evaluation of the situation. Conversely, the use of scientific terms and phrases that describe the behavior or actions of person provide some distance between the person and the behavior, allowing the evaluator to treat the behavior with less prejudice and inference.<br /><br />What we say about someone or something can influence not only how others react, but how we ourselves react to the words we have just used. Awareness of this interaction, and the effects it can have, can reduce the potential damaging effects of inadvertent prejudice and improve the outcome of treatment.<br /><br />As Kelly says, ""There's an old proverb that states, if you want something to survive and flourish, call it a flower; if you want to kill it, call it a weed."Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-61634089317996378482009-12-20T10:16:00.000-08:002009-12-20T10:25:17.188-08:00Looking for Help with Burr Removal?The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs. <br />-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)<br /><br />When we reach a certain age (different for each of us, but usually in the early 20s) we feel pretty sure that we make up our own "minds" about what we think and believe. Thoreau thought differently (as he did about many things) and contends that our verbal skin provides a good surface for the prickly words of others. We bristle with these words without realizing, in many cases, where we picked them up. They just "seem right" and we defend them as our own even when presented with plausible evidence that we have picked up somebody else's questionable cockle burr instead of the wise fruit of experience plucked by our own hands.<br /><br />Wendell Johnson encouraged us to ask two questions about beliefs: What do you mean? and How do you Know? While these can prove quite useful in conversation, we can also benefit from asking ourselves the same questions. If we have trouble explaining what we mean, or showing how we know, we might suspect the presence of a cockle burr. With that awareness we also acquire the ability to evaluate the belief and decide, deliberately, whether we want to keep believing or brush the burr from our "mental" clothes.Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2993864.post-25073788529280056172009-12-04T21:04:00.000-08:002009-12-04T21:06:44.776-08:00Change HappensAll conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone, you leave it to a torrent of <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">change</span>.<br />- G. K. Chesterton, English essayist, novelist, and poet, 1874-1936Nora Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05690938219773877575noreply@blogger.com0