Some Notes/Meaning and Anger.

I literally intend this to be a note of sorts. I am currently working on three different posts.

One is on my thoughts on my experience with reiki/yoga and how I sorta deal with it today after reading about quantum physics and neuroscience and other stuff. One is on Foucault's Discipline and Punish and how I see it being similar to Clausewitz's On War. Unfortunately I haven't been reading a lot the last two days cause I have been busy. But I'll be moving forward in D&P soon. The last post is on the 'everyday a priori imagination.' I explored the possible role of Collingwood's notion of the a priori imagination in a compassionate world view in my post of 3/30/10. At the time, however, I was just exploring some experiences that I had with road rage and thinking about the imagination, so I was surprised to make the connection. But now I think it seems pretty worthwhile, and I would like to pursue that idea more explicitly and more in depth.

Lastly, the note that initially spawned this post. In my post of 5/25 I think I made some statements that don't really pay attention to the effects of stress. I am very curious about the imagination and how we can craft it. I talked about becoming the crafter of your own world of meaning. It is about meaning. Many things in society feel good or bad because of the meaning that is associated with it. Anger, however, I'm not sure. We certainly assign meaning to anger after the fact. But in the actual moment of anger, are we capable of overcoming it through exercising power over meaning? Umm, my sense is that anger on some level must be essential. It must just happen. It doesn't need society's world of meaning to be a thing. Sometimes I have been pretty mad an it didn't feel like there were many words between me and that anger. But I don't think meaning operates entirely in the world of words. Definitely not. So I'm not sure. But at the same times, the 'essential' expression of anger can often be triggered by meaning in the social world. I want to explore this at some point. Right now it feels hard to think about and I'm going to eat.

Ethical Behavior, the Internalization and Simulation of Perspectives, and the Idea of God

So, I am kinda curious about how it is that people are able to act ethically, how people have certain moral understandings, and how it is that people engage with those ideas to transform it into behavior. I am interested in pursuing this idea along the lines of simulating and internalizing certain perspectives. I can think of certain instances where behaving ethically involves internalizing a certain perspective, and being able to simulate thoughts about yourself from that other perspective. For example, God. An always present, judgmental observer that helps us imagine our own thoughts and actions in a different light.

Anyways, I think that internalization and simulation of a moral perspective may have something to do with a lot of ethical behavior.

I started this post quite a while ago, 4/11/10. But now maybe I'll just explore it and write a little bit.

So, when someone is alone in a room and they are thinking about doing something considered immoral (drugs, killing animals, anything at all), how do they gauge themselves? How do you understand the meaning of your own behavior even when you are alone?

Cause I guess that is one of the main things that seems strange to me. That people can be alone yet still feel critical of themselves. Still maintain some sense of moral perspective despite their aloneness.

I think simulation theory of mind can at least help account for this.

Simulation theory of mind basically argues that people understand other people and themselves by internally simulating the thoughts and feelings that other people have expressed through words, body language, etc.. Simulation has a lot to do with self-recognition. As a child we learn to understand our own facial expressions because of interactions with others. We smile as babies, mothers and others smile back and we thus learn what smiling is. Mirror neurons are also a way in which we learn to gauge our own behavior. Mirror neurons are pretty fascinating. But onward. How could simulation theory of mind account for ethical behavior?

Let me just run with the example of God, cause it is the easiest to think about. So, if I am alone in a room, or I am in a crowd, how do I think of myself as behaving ethically? How do I make myself behave ethically? Well, the idea of God provides a constant perspective that I can inhabit at anytime and think of myself in relation to. God supposedly has a strict moral code, he is always watching, and he is always judging. So, if I ever need to gauge my own behavior I can think, 'well God is watching, what would he do?' or 'what would Jesus do?'

Religion offers a moral perspective that we can always imagine in order to understand our own behavior better. It is about having a perspective simulate/imagine. God is a straightforward case, that is probably why it was so popular for so very long. It offers the quickest moral fix.

But prisons and other forms of social justice (similar to religion) also enable their own forms of internalization and simulation. Prisons for example, give us an understanding of what it would be like to go to jail, or to experience being arrested or punished. So, when we are about to commit a crime or do something illegal, we can imagine/simulate what it would be like to go to jail. Clearly it would be bad, so our ability to imagine/simulate possible consequences can deter us from acting immorally.

I'm really not doing a very good job explaining this.

In order to do this well I would need a full blown discussion of simulation theory of mind, and I would need to do research into religious and legal practices. But I don't want to do that right now. If you want to understand this (my invisible/non-existent audience) then go and read some of my other posts (there are many) on simulation theory of mind, and these fragments might make sense.

Summing up.

I think that ethical behavior has something to do with internalization and simulation. I bet that moral codes allow us to imagine and simulate certain perspectives, and create an outside perspective on ourselves that allows us to gauge our own behavior. God is supposedly an all present and moral observer, and therefore we can imagine a moral being who is watching us at all times. It lets us see ourselves in different ways when we can imagine/simulate a certain perspective. Prisons and other modern institutions of morality also give us a certain perspective on ourselves.

It is about simulating perspectives beyond the self. I think that is what moral codes allow us to do. They give us a way of imagining a view beyond our own. It lets us shape our own behavior by having an outside view. Anyways, bad post. Not very clear.

I think that this idea could be very worthwhile to explore in the future. I have an incomplete grasp of what is up with this idea. I will say two things, I know two authors who are skirting these issues, Alvin Goldman and Michel Foucault. Goldman, in Simulating Minds, concludes with a section on moral philosophy as it is relevant to simulation, so I know there is more to say. Foucault, in Discipline & Punish, is spending a fair amount of time talking about the people are how they witness public torture and execution. He mentions how it gives them a way to imagine the power exercised by the state, and how they may experience pain if they choose to subvert the state. It seems like it could involve the internalization of someone else's experience to attain a sense of their experience, which would allow you to behave in a different way. It sounds like internalization and intuitive simulation.

In conclusion, I think that these ideas are legitimate and are grounded in my reading, but I can't really explain them very well yet.

Customer Service: What the Heck is Goin' on Here?

So I'd like to spend a little time reflecting on my experiences with customer service jobs. Mainly how much I enjoy them. What is that all about?

My first thought is of small talk. I've had quite a number of people tell me that they are anti-small talk. Totally anti-small talk. They really dislike it.

I often enjoy small talk. More importantly, though, I think it is essential. Literally indispensable for social life. We need it. We need a way to engage with people. Perhaps people thing small talk should lead to big talk. More so, people associate small talk with superficial talk, and think that they should get to real talk ('big talk'). Whatever. I am going to leave this questions on the nature of 'small talk' for the end of this post. I just wanna talk about some of my past experiences in customer service and try to clarify why it is that I seem to gain so much pleasure from them.

So first things first, the most obvious thing that I find satisfying about customer service: I am in a social situation in which it is acceptable for me to say hello to anyone at any moment. I can start talking to literally anyone I want. Old people, peers, couples, cute girls, watch out, cause if I feel like I will totally say hello to you. And I suppose in the real world, at any moment, this is the case. Social situations, however, often compel to not say hello to someone because it feels inappropriate. I can't very well say hello to some couple or some girl on the street and feel comfortable just starting a conversation. Perhaps I should work on that. But in any case, working a customer service job it is expected that I will say hello to people, so I do, and I enjoy it.

I used to enjoy being a cashier when I worked at the UBC. I used to tell people that I like it because I would get an instant glimpse at a face, and then I would immediately find out what that person was like (on some level). I see someone, I say hey how are you, etc., and then we are interacting. As soon as I perceive their face, demeanor, etc., I am interacting with them. Conceptions based on appearance are immediately entangled with real live speech and interaction. Sure, sometimes it is superficial interaction with customer service/cashiering, but whatever, sometime it isn't.

I often find myself torn between the worlds of appearances and reality, though. I think that I've always like to watch people and think about people. I would like to think I like to pay attention. But for a long time I think I was a lot shyer. So it was easy for me to see someone randomly for a long time, and to completely mentalize that person. They exist in my mind only as this appearance and all these random and uninformed conceptions I have about them. It seems hard to avoid thinking things about people, or speculating about people. Basically, I think my mind likes to think about people a lot even when I haven't met them, and that can be a very strange experience to know someone only as an appearance.

A college campus is a pretty ideal environment to have a lot of this. You see certain people on a very regular basis (class, food, etc.) and you may never talk to them. It is easy to see all kinds of people and to have thoughts about them even though you know nothing of them at all. Perhaps your like the way they dress and think they are probably cool. Or you like the way they walk, you think they carry themselves well and that makes you curious.

Well, I will say, I have had many instances in which I have seen a person on the regular, and managed to remember them and have an imagined sense of them. I have also, however, had instances in which I met those people. Not too many, but definitely there have been some occasions where I had seen someone for a long time and then ended up meeting them in person.

It can be really fascinating.

Sometimes they are totally cooler than you could have anticipated. Sometimes they are just whatever. I mean. It is fascinating how appearances totally don't line up with personality all the time. I mean, it seems obvious. But I just find people to be very unique. It is always fun to meet new people. It's true.

But anyways, customer service. With these jobs the amount of time between the first sight of a person and the moment of first interaction is really short. You see someone and then you are saying hello to them. That is cool. That doesn't happen all the time.

When it comes to meeting new people, I prefer my imagination to have as little time as possible. I'd prefer to spend a fair amount of time with someone and get to know them. It is really difficult to meet people only vaguely or in passing, and then have my imagination create some wild and complex picture of them.

I like my imagination a lot, but when it comes to people, I don't trust it to work super well unless I have some evidence of what a person is like.

Anyways, I like customer service because I like talking to people.

Especially where I am working now, I am a little bit less knowledgeable on what I am dealing with, so it is really dynamic and interesting. I just talk to people. They want to know what the deal is with these products. What is the difference. What is better. Sometimes I just straight up don't know. I ask if it seems like I should. But you just gotta go from person to person. Every customer is a different experience. Sometimes it just breaks down into long conversations. That only happens sometimes. But I enjoy it.

Also, I read something the other day. Religious leaders were asked to give their thoughts on how to be happy. It was a hindu, or a Buddhist, I forget, but he said the best way to be happy was to make other people feel happy. When you help someone it feels pretty good. Someone needs something and you can totally help them out. It feel good.

Plus, I am a huge fan of simulation theory of mind. Thinking about other minds is like being that mind for yourself. So making other people happy, you bring happiness to your own mind. It is cool.

Well, the customer service thing seems pretty straight forward. I like talking to people, it lets me talk to lots of new and different people, and its about helping people. Also, I think that the simulation theory of mind explanation could be quite strong. I feel like that is something I should explore at length, but this isn't the time.

But I suppose I'll return briefly to small talk vs. big talk. I want to say first that I don't even know what I mean by these terms really. It is hard to say. I think the distinction of superficial talk vs. personal talk might be better. But personal talk. I dunno. I don't know how to define this stuff exactly.

But here is what I'll say for now. I really like making small talk. It feels really nice to just be able to interact with someone on any level. You can just react and be with that person. Talk to them. See them react. Then react again. It's just dynamism. Reaction.

Ah, an example. Is it enjoyable to talk to people about the weather? Isn't that like the barest small talk? But I still think their can be satisfaction in that.

Talking is about sharing experience with people. And I can do that with the weather. You and me both feel this heat. It sucks. Right on, bro.

So why does it bother some people to engage in small exchanges of experience (small talk)? I will pose a wild and not thought of sort of thought.

Basically, I think that some people find small talk frustrating because of the current social/cultural/historical situation. Again, this is bs speculation. But, what if living in America gives us a hyper awareness of how it is that people are 'supposed' to interact. I think I am generalizing based on my own experience. I felt a weird social awareness in college. Like, I already had an understanding of what typical college social interactions were like. The kinds of things people talked about, the kinds of things they did or said, the way people were. I already 'knew' what people were supposed to be like. So acting in an organic way felt strange. I couldn't make my mind lose its awareness.

But these days I think I feel a lot more organic. A lot more intuitive.

I put it all on history. Or I think about it in historical terms. I think of the student culture of the university's in the last 70 years. I think about what American social life is like for young people. I think about the media that has been producing images. I think about my exposure to these images.

I think about the historical contingencies of my own thinking.

The idea is to realize that I am only thinking I should be certain ways because of the particular standards that have emerged in this unique cultural moment. Once I can see the historicity of my thought then I can start approaching the frontiers of my thought.

It's about thinking differently. And so I think at some point I started thinking differently about social interactions. I started thinking about dynamism and intuition and reaction. About flow and people.

Who knows, this post took some strange turns. But the bottom line is that I like interacting with people. Customer service jobs let me do that. I really like doing it in general too, but sometimes find myself averse to it. But as usual I would like to think historically about the way I am thinking about socializing. Ultimately because I don't want to think about socializing so much. I wan't to do it.

Expressing Surprise and Being Surprised by Expression: Words and Identity

I feel disconnected from my blog posts. Rob feels like he sees where his music goes, I feel like I am bearing my core. Maybe he does too.

Either way me and Rob were having a conversation about how it is that we relate to the things that we produce creatively. Rob is a musician, I would like to be a writer/philosopher.

I told rob that with my writing I was often trying to capture some sort of surprising thought that I had. I often have very strange moments where all of a sudden I'm thinking something I've never thought before. My post of 4/6/10 'Planning and Remembering' was me trying to understand why I was so surprised by Efron's false memory. My post of 4/8/10 'Anticipating Moments, Anticipating Memories' tried to explore the surprise and shock I felt at my graduation dinner with my parents where I was thinking about memory in brand new ways.

Even my longer posts, my post of 4/30/10, my post of 3/19/10, are all me trying to deal with the surprising way in which my thoughts present themselves to me. My thought surprises me all the time.

Rob, I think, said he was trying to express emotional surprise with his music. But I don't know if I understand. He isn't here.

But I will say a bit more about feeling disconnected from posts.

That is why my post of 4/30/10 feels so strange to me in hindsight. I'm not sure how I relate to it. I'm not sure what part of me produced it. Is that what I think? Where did that come from? How did I think that? Do I still think that? These outputs come so sporadically to me. They escape my sense of identity in a way, though. I often feel like they have come from somewhere other than myself.

So much of my thought has a sort of disconnect between parts of the mind. I definitely am not in favor of seeing myself in a unified identity. I am not some singular coherent being. My anger takes me different places. Maybe that is why I identified so much with my paper on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which I posted on 5/21/2010. That book is pretty incredible in terms of what types of challenges it is posing, what types of questions it is asking about science, evolution, language, and identity. Suchhh a tight book.

Claxton and emotions as personalities. If an identity/personality is all about goals, perspectives, etc., then don't emotions give us different personalities? Emotions are there to help us achieve a wide variety of goals. They change what we want. My emotions change me into a different thing.

But I'm about to give up on this post. All I know is that I like the way I think. I think that it pops differently all the time. I think I change. I think I am often surprised by how I think. If I surprise myself, how can I have a coherent sense of intellectual identity? Any type of identity?

I think I do identify with myself, and with my writing. But the process of expressing my thoughts feels so different from living with them. My emotions feel very different than my analytical writing does. But they are the same thing. They come from the same place. They are all part of my general brain/mind.

Luckily, I kinda like Buddhism and stuff, so I don't have too much of a stake in a coherent identity.

Me and rob talked about this a bit later. A few hours later. Came to a few more clear conclusions.

Basically, creative output, whether its music or writing, can happen very fast and very unexpectedly. It can be jarring. When I first write something fast it is so strange to see it in front of me that I don't know how I relate to it.

But, when I take the time to really get to know an idea, or really refine a paper, I suppose then I feel like I know it a little better. My Jekyll and Hyde paper I feel like I can identify with. I feel like I know it pretty well and it says a lot of things that I want to say.

So its all about getting to know the things that I have created very quickly and spontaneously. It seems interesting that I would have to get to know myself by reading something I wrote. Lots of famous quotations come to mind. Flannery O'Connor, ahem.

But it is true. Writing comes fast and it feels like it has come from somewhere other than myself, or at least somewhere that I don't understand or have access to. So, I get to know myself through my own writing? Sure.

Academics and Connecting with Other People: Empathy in Life and the Humanities

Me and Rob were sitting outside and I saw two hispanic men and started thinking about all the culture and language that separated us. And the academic world and how it simultaneously brings me closer to people and distances me from them. It brings me closer to them when I am alone in my room. Articulation and people and pain. Can I get closer to their experiences? yes no?

The bulk of the academic work that I am interested in has to do with experience. With living. With feeling and breathing without a choice. I really like getting close to other people. I like feeling other people's pain and love. I'd like to think of myself as being pretty sensitive. I try to embrace it and make it into a good thing rather than something that overwhelms me or troubles me. But I'll be honest, my sensitivity can overwhelm me and sometimes it troubles me. But more so, much more so, I think of it as a way to feel closer to other people.

I think it has to do with the imagination. Last night my friend Efron asked me if my imagination was running away with me, or something like that. I said typically.

I like my imagination. I like thinking about it. I like writing about it.

I'm now gonna transition to my major discussion here, but basically what I have said is that I think I am really sensitive and have a really strong imagination, and that this leaves me open to feeling a lot of other things. It makes me very empathetic. Further! all of my favorite disciplines (history, philosophy, literature, sociology), are all about getting closer to other people's experiences with the imagination. My favorite disciplines all involve a more complex form of empathy. Empathy is what I'm all about.

So this question (does academics enable me to connect with more people or does it alienate me from them) feels like a very serious question to me. I will state my (very preliminary) answer in plain language now then I'll discuss it.

I believe that my academic work ultimately lets me connect with other people more. But it does it in a counter-intuitive way. By engaging in really serious academic work, thinking about taking it to the PhD level, you are in many ways separating yourself from the bulk of people. You are learning to read and think things that most people have no interest in doing. There is no denying that it separates you. But, at the same time I think that some academic work can enhance your ability to connect with other people. It gives you an awareness of the limited scope of your own perspective. It can strengthen your imagination to let you empathize with people in a wide range of situations despite your lack of personal experience. You can become the crafter of your own world of meaning once you've realized somethings about yourself and about your imagination.

So, turns out I don't really feel like exploring this question at too much length right now because I believe so much of my other writing has it covered.

The humanities can indeed give you the ability to empathize with lots of other people who are very far removed from our situation. The key is synthetic experience. You read other things and you can feel for other people. You can get a sense of other things even if you don't go through them yourself.

But at the same time it can feel alienating. Expending mental effort to get in touch with people who are out of touch with me. That sounds arrogant and silly. But I think it can be a thing. Sometimes people don't care. And if I push myself to understand why they don't care, it hurts. Because I am expending lots of effort to be like a mind that is expending no effort, and it feels bad to make my mind be that way.

But hey my post from April 30th totally covers so much of this stuff in depth and more technically. How do you like your pain? is a section of that post. Do you like it as the absence of understanding or do you like it as a process of painful understanding? The latter. Always the latter. maybe not sometimes though.

Feeling and Not Feeling: I Don't Know What to Think, but Here is a Summary of my Current Reading and my Thoughts on Violence and Social Order

I'm not quite sure how to make sense of my inconsistent thinking and behavior.

This statement is really broad and can apply to a lot of different things. But the one thing that I feel the most curious about is my tendency to flip between lots of reading and writing, and not quite so much reading and writing.

I think these days I am feeling more things than I am thinking things. I mean, I'm thinking lots of things. But I have more curiosity about the social world. About other people.

Ummmm.

I still just feel like since I finished my essay of April 30th I don't quite know how to gauge my thinking.

But the 30th post was a beast. An absolute beast. Just in terms of how it felt for me to produce it. It felt beastly. Confusing. Exciting.

Lol also I am eagerly anticipating The-Dream's new cd. All 4 songs he has released so far are tighttt. So good. Can't wait. Very excited.

But I am reading slowly.

I am reading W.G. Sebald's Vertigo. A novel that is written like it is a memoir. It is just one guy reflecting on himself and other people he knows. He has been traveling over Europe. Spent some time talking about a guy in the Napoleonic wars. I read Sebald's Austerlitz, which my dad loved, and I thought was pretty good. Sebald's style is meandering and reflective. He takes his time. A paragraph, or even a single sentence, might go on for a couple pages. It just toddles. Plus, I like to read in bed when I'm tired, and I find it really hard to follow when I'm tired.

I am also reading Michel Foucault's Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Foucault is always a challenge, so I have been taking it slow. I finished the first chapter. So I am done the intro and getting ready to go into the rest of it.

After the first 30 pages, it seems like Foucault's major questions are, why did social discipline change from public torture to confinement in an elaborate prison system? What elements of torture remain in modern prison systems? If the body is no longer involved, then what is it that prisons torture? Is it the soul? How is the exercise of power (prisons as the specific example) related to forms of knowledge?

The last one, the power/knowledge question, is something Foucault is quite well known for, and a part of his work that I am pretty familiar with from other books, essays, and interviews. But, I would like to say a few things about the way Foucault describes power within society.

There are two things that I'm not quite sure how to reconcile right now. First, Foucault's claim (which I know he believed and makes sense) that every use of power comes along with a certain form of knowledge that enables that power. Further, the exercise of power creates knowledge. This is a complicated idea and I don't feel like explicating it heavily right now. I just don't. Also, I think reading D&P I feel a bit like I am in the process of coming to a fuller understanding of the idea of power/knowledge, so I'll write about it later.

In addition to the idea of power/knowledge, I want to understand how Foucault believes war plays into the exercising of power. I know he took Clausewitz's phrase (war is the continuation of politics by other means), and said the inverse: 'Politics is the continuation of war by other means.' Foucault said in an interview from the volume "Power/Knowledge" that he was trying to figure out how fundamental war was. Did it stand at the center of everything? Is it really the basis of all other power relations? Does violence, or the idea of it, the implication of it, stand at the heart of all power relations? I sorta like this idea.

Reading the intro of D&P I wrote something in the margins that I have been thinking about for a long time. I was a military history major, so I have read a lot about war and I tend to think about it in relation to a lot of things. But anyways, Foucault said that with the decline of torture and the rise of government juridical institutions the idea of punishment changes. "it is the certainty of being punished and not the horrifying spectacle of public punishment that must discourage crime; the exemplary mechanics of punishment changes its mechanisms. As a result, justice no longer takes public responsibility for the violence that is bound up with its practice." I italicized that line. I want to reflect on this.

In the margins I wrote, 'society's implicit war.' For a while I have been thinking about how the rise of stable governments corresponds with the rise of stable military institutions (Jon Sumida, you changed the way I think). Why do these things correspond? What is the link between society at large and the government's ability to monopolize armed force?

Well, I have thought for a while that society rests on violence far more than people are aware. Police carry guns. The government gets very worried when anyone tries to buy a lot of guns. So much of the American budget is spent on the military. Historically, governments have spent so much money on their military. Often over 50% sometimes over 75%, I have 85%? But that was like 18th century. Anyways, I think that society is the way it is because we have people with guns that will hurt anybody that breaks the social order.

The idea of the social contract I guess I have a problem with. I don't think that people are just engaged in an agreement with a government where they sacrifice and exchange or whatever. I don't understand the idea very well, so forgive me if I am misrepresenting it. But, I think it is about violence. It's about being able to hurt people if they don't do what you want.

Once I had a conversation with a friend about how we could find a more peaceful way to help the Middle East. They went so far as to say that we shouldn't even have people on the ground with guns. That we should be able to find a way to help them without all that. She admitted it was probably a pipe dream. I think it is a full blown pipe dream.

If you don't have guys there with guns, other guys with guns are gonna take your shit. Why were so many tons of U.N. aid diverted by warlords? Why did people with guns manage to take so much stuff from an international institution that was trying to help? People with guns take things, and you need people with guns to stop them. Sounds kinda terrible. But it seems hard for me to think otherwise.

The first step to creating social order is to have guys with weapons that can kill anyone who tries to break your idea of social order. You can't have a society unless you have a stable means of killing or hurting.

In March I was sitting in a hotel lobby reading The Order of Things and I started daydreaming about something. I was thinking, what if someone took this book from me and refused to give it back. What if I asked them and they refused? How would I get it back? I would perhaps tell the front desk staff, and they would tell him to give it back. And if he refused they may call security, then they may call the police.

The bottom line is someone has to get physical.

If someone really refuses to give you something that is yours you have to take it. This seems like what the use of power is. Forcing another person to do something. It is a relationship with another.

Now, I think that this last example I gave of myself to hotel staff to security to police. A hierarchy of power. The hotel and legal rights, security and legal rights, the police. Power is very much facilitated through modern institutions these days. But I think at its most basic element it still comes back to physicality and violence.

If someone refuses to give me my property then someone has to make him. How do you make other people do things? Power? Sure, but what type? Well, at its most basic it is physical, but again, modern power is facilitated by these institutions. I can make someone do something by calling security or police, both whole hold the implicit threat of violence.

I have gone astray. Let me try to just wrap up.

I think all society rests on the implicit threat of violence. The government has a monopoly on armed force for a reason. Their police need to be able to hurt us if we step out of line, and the military needs to be able to hurt people if nations step out of line.

Interestingly, in America, the line of what is appropriate behavior seems to be so broad and flashy that we don't notice the armed guards standing on either side of us. We have lost touch with society's implicit violence in America, I think.

Anyways, a closing thought that I find somewhat interesting.

If the maintenance of the social order is contingent upon violence, then how should political leaders think or talk about violence? Well, I think they should embrace it. They need to recognize the centrality of violence and war. If politicians are reflective and intelligent individuals, then they need to handle the issue of violence straight up.

In other words, society's most brutal and violent decisions should be made by the most thoughtful and sensitive people.

My Taste in Music, Playing it in front of others, changing opinions, explained by simulation theory of mind

Sometimes when I like a cd I want to play it in front of someone else.

Sometimes when that person doesn't like the music, though, I find my taste for the music waning.

I think I am very strongly inclined to simulate the thoughts of people around me.

Simulation theory of mind has helped me get a grip on this in a lot of ways.

But I would say it is an interesting case when I am playing someone music I like, but then I see that they don't like it (facial expressions, words, etc.) and my mind imagine a mind that dislikes it and then I don't like it quite as much.

In Goldman's Simulating Minds he quotes Hume, I think, when he said that when the novelty of a story of poem has worn on us, we can show it to a friend. By having our friend experience the novelty of it for the first time we too can enter his mind and reexperience the piece as fresh, as original. We see the novelty of the work from our friends eyes, and get closer to the novelty we felt.

This is the other way around I suppose. We like a song, we want to play it for someone to reexperience the novelty of it, but then they don't like it. For me, and again I think I am simulatively/empathetically inclined, and when someone didn't like a song I could feel myself liking it less. Very interesting stuff.

I like using simulation theory of mind to facilitate my reflections on my own memories, or in my daily observations of people. It seems to explain a lot, actually.

I was thinking of how as a a kid I really like the cd by the band Cake, and how I played it for my dad and could see he didn't like it, then I felt myself liking it less. This has happened with my dad a couple times. We have different taste in music, so when I play him something I like that he doesn't, which happens often, then I feel my mind bending to be like his mind. I feel myself drifting towards simulation. I experience what it is like for him not to like the music I like. This happens less these days. But when I was younger I was less comfortable differing in opinions with my dad.

But yeah, simulation theory of mind is fascinating and I think can shed light on a lot of stuff.

My last post, 'Narrative as an Investigatory Tool," is much more interesting than this post. But I had this one in mind about a month ago and wanted to do it quick.

Narrative as an Investigatory Tool: History, Science, and the Social Sciences

Now this post is inspired by John Lewis Gaddis's book The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. I finished this book some time in the last week or two and was very impressed by what he had to say. The thing that I liked the most was his ability to show how some twentieth century sciences has started to adopt methods that resemble the historical method.

In particular, he discusses how certain sciences have embraced narrative as a way of exploring possibilities when evidence proves inadequate. The best examples are astronomy, geology, paleontology, and evolutionary biology. None of these disciplines have enough factual data to establish a definite or predictive understanding of how things came to be. Observations of outer space, rock samples, and fossil records do not reveal nearly as much as the observation of the physical or molecular world (physics and chemistry). Gaddis says, instead, these sciences must observe contemporary structures and try to determine the processes that created them. Narrative is the tool that allows these scientists to see process and continuity despite the gaps in their information.

This use of narrative is very similar to historical study, but stands in contrast to chemistry, physics, and the social sciences. First I'll talk about history and how historians utilize narrative. Then I'll run through the sciences and how they engage with narrative, starting with chemistry and physics which don't really need it, and moving to astronomy and paleontology and other sciences that utilize narrative. Last I'll talk about the social sciences and Gaddis's arguments on how they relate to other forms of science. Particularly, Gaddis claims that the social sciences have lost touch with 20th century sciences that explain processes through narrative. Instead, he thinks, the social sciences have stuck to the 19th century model of science that is based on reduction, theorizing, and attempts at prediction.

History and Narrative

As far as I know, narrative has been one of the cornerstone tools of historical method for quite a long time. My general historiographical knowledge isn't super strong, it seems. But, narrative seems indispensable to any modern form of history that claims accuracy.

History's reliance on narrative comes from two aspects of historical study. One is the incomplete nature of historical evidence. Narrative is required to fill in the gaps. Second, history is about the study of humans thoughts and actions, and narrative is the best way to communicate the continuity of experience that we know people feel. So, history uses narrative to expand in the incomplete picture provided by the evidence, and to fully capture the experiences of those we study.

So, why does historical evidence need narrative? Well, historical evidence can be very fragmented. We are left with expressions of thought from past eras and it is the historians job to find the continuity in the time, place, and individuals. A narrative allows historians to build a more complete picture of what people did, what they were thinking when they did it, and what was going on in the world that could make them think that particular way. Narrative allows historical explanation. Narrative itself becomes a way of investigating thoughts and actions from the past.

When I think of historians using evidence to construct narratives of thought and action, I think of R.G. Collingwood. Collingwood is very clear on the role of the imagination in writing history, and in the connection between writing history and writing a novel. He believes that both historians and novelists try to structure a narrative in which characters act in accord with their personalities and their environment. If a character in a novel or a character in a historical narrative acts out of accordance with their times or their general character, their will be faults in the novel or history. The major difference between the two is that historians are trying to write about things that actually happened. Novelists have the liberty of making their characters do whatever they want, but historians have to try to enter other (real) people's minds.

I think Collingwood's treatment of the imagination is very interesting. He discusses something he calls the a priori imagination. By this he means that the narratives are often produced in the mind of a historian or a novelist without their direct construction of the narrative. It is something that comes out naturally, that falls into place on its own. Novelists may say they don't feel like they write the endings to their stories. They simply create characters and the novel has to turn out a certain way based on how they understand those people. The imagination is not deliberately controlled, it is something that unfolds, that produces itself.

Collingwood says it can be much the same with historians. They will read lots of documents or writings produced by a certain person, and the continuity of that persons thought becomes apparent in some deeper part of the mind. The a priori imagination simply unfolds and provides the historian with a narrative that he did not exactly produce on his own.

I'm not sure how this relates to the use of narrative in science exactly, but I have a few ideas. It seems that it would 1. make the imagination a crucial concept for both disciplines, and 2. it implies that the imagination works at some unconscious level. We can't have direct control over all of the things we imagine. We have to sort through them rationally once they have been 'dreamt,' so to speak. In The Principles of Art, which I have only skimmed briefly, Collingwood says the imagination is responsible for creating different worlds that reason can deal with.

So science could perhaps embrace this model. They observe contemporary structures, rock formations, fossils, etc., and they allow an unconscious process of imagination (a priori imagination) create possible processes that could have given rise to these structures. Science should embrace the usefulness of narrative and the unconscious nature of the a priori imagination.

Science and Narrative

Now I want to discuss the sciences as they relate to narrative. First I will discuss the reductionist scientific approach, which doesn't utilize narrative because it has no real need for it. Reductionist science is about reducing reality to its smallest components, and creating models that can predict behavior. Then I'll discuss the ecological scientific approach, which needs narrative and imagination due to the limited nature of the evidence available. An ecological approach focuses on structures and processes. Again, I'm mostly summarizing Gaddis in Landscape.

Reductionist Scientific Approach

Chemistry and physics are the best examples of a reductionist scientific approach that has no need for narrative. With both disciplines reality is reduced down to its smallest possible component, down to the molecular level. In these experiments it is typically clear what the independent variable is. Chemists and physicists typically know what variables they are removing or inserting, and so it is easier to attain results that allow forecasting or prediction.

Attempts at forecast and prediction are perhaps the key difference between reductionist and ecological scientific approaches. Reductionist methods have to attain a state of prediction in order to be correct. Chemists and physicist have to break down reality to the point that they understand it like clockwork, so to speak. An ecological scientific approach, however, cannot break down its evidence into its smallest components, and must rely on imagination and narrative.

Ecological Scientific Approach

The best examples of an ecological scientific approach are astronomy, paleontology, meteorology, and geology. In all of these disciplines scientists must focus on structures and processes. They must observe present day structures (stars, fossils, rocks, etc.) and dry toimagine the processes that could have shaped them. Paleontologists have to examine the incomplete fossil records to determine how and why species evolved as they did. Astronomers have to examine existing cosmic structures to determine how they came to be that way. The subject of these sciences are not timeless. These sciences have to understand dynamic processes that have given rise to things that exist now. Independent and dependent variables are not clear. Everything is interconnected. These scientists have to use their imagination to construct a narrative that can explain contemporary structure. Contemporary structures are clues to the past, but the imagination is indispensable, and narrative is the only way to explore possibilities.

These disciplines, therefore, do not aim at prediction, but of accurate understanding of past processes. This makes these disciplines very akin to history. Both are examining dynamic processes, contingent structures. Both use incomplete evidence to build their narratives of process that can explain structure. Interesting stuff. Now Gaddis uses this to draw some interesting conclusions about the social sciences and how they relate to contemporary science.

The Social Sciences and Narrative

Gaddis's main concern is that the social sciences have not kept up with the diversification of scientific method that took place in the 20th century. Namely, he thinks social scientists have not incorporated the creative use of narrative seen in paleontology, geology, etc.. Moreover, Gaddis thinks that social scientists have stuck to the 19th century positivist scientific model, which aims to predict reality. This is essentially the reductionist/Newtonian model of physics in which perfectly round spheres effect other spheres in predictable ways. It was thought most sciences could obey this model of description and prediction. Sciences concerned with change(ecological view), however, are incapable of predicting the future. There concern is different, they want to understand past change that has created present structures.

By following the reductionist model too closely, Gaddis claims, the social sciences rely too heavily on the theoretical side of their work. They tend to favor the rigidity of theory than accurately represent their subject. Gaddis says many social scientists insist on determining the independent variable in a case study, even though it may be impossible. Over reliance on theory and the notion of an independent variable, the social sciences present theory heavy narrative. Historians and ecological scientists, on the other hand, present theory laden narratives. The narrative is the primary mean of exploration and explanation, and theory is their to augment and enhance the data. Narrative, however, is always the driving force behind history and ecological science.

The social sciences, therefore, need to embrace narrative as a means of exploring reality. Predictive or forecast based theories are not necessarily attainable in the study of human affairs. It is not always clear what is an independent variable, and trying to make that data fit into a theory may lead to a distorted picture of reality. Accurate description of reality must be the most important thing. Describing human reality, however, can't be done on the model of the reductive sciences. We can't break down human interactions into the smallest possible categories because we function beyond the molecular level. We can't determine what the independent variables are in society because everything is far too interconnected. Predictive science cannot guide the social sciences.

Ecological science, though, has some valuable lessons to offer. Examine contemporary structures, use contemporary evidence, and try to determine process. Explore that process through narrative. This isn't very clear. I don't want to draw lots of conclusions right now. But narrative is a fascinating subject. It can tap us into experience, and the social sciences need more of that. Science uses it too, its tight. Didn't know until Gaddis how crucial the imagination was in the sciences. This adds a lot to what Heidi Scott is talking about in her work. I dig it.

Relaxing

Right now I am totally taking it easy.

Still feel very much expended/reeling from my post of April 30th. I am considering editing it, adding footnotes to it, legit citations and quotations, and using as my writing sample for when I apply to graduate school.

The bottom line is that it is the most coherent statement I have made of my philosophical interests and their interconnections.

It was written, however, entirely outside of any academic institution. No one has graded it. No one has really read it. I have no idea what kind of feedback I could possibly get from anyone.

That is why it would feel bold and interesting to do the citations and bibliography and make it legit.

Might as well send it to a journal if I do that.

I am just about done the final edits on my long paper on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Then I'll be sending that off and I hope someone publishes it.

It could happen.

I finished two books recently. John Lewis Gaddis The Landscape of History and David Shields The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead. Both of them really good, in different ways, obviously. I plan on writing a post about both of them. I def have lots of ideas brewing from them. But I am relaxing for a little. Finishing up Jekyll and Hyde and working. No need to rush it. I am brewing.

Some Fire Amidst the Words

Post script of 5/29/10 - 2:20 pm- I wrote this post fast, in about 20-30 minutes without stopping. I've read it since and have realized how very quickly I produced it. I am shocked by many of the things I write when I read them later, and this post is particularly emotional and interesting to me. Then I was looking at W.G. Sebald's Vertigo and I read a line that I felt like I wanted to associate with this post. A character is seeing couples while reflecting on the death of his partner and he writes "How it is beautiful, he wrote, with an exclamation mark, in one of those somewhat awry formulations in which language for a moment gives free reign to the emotions. How it is beautiful and how we undervalue it!"- That is how I want this post to feel. Like my words are giving free reign to my emotions.

Sometimes these blog posts are too damn heavy for me.

They are practically essays. They take a lot out of me. I read and I read and I read and I finish some book and suddenly I have great new ideas about things I have never thought of before. I feel flaming and outraged. I love the way I feel these days.

It is far beyond my ability to explain, however.

School is done and I am eating away at my own soul constantly. In a good way. I eat at myself. I pick at my beliefs. I pick at the things that I don't understand.

There is so much I don't understand.

I love walking and living and working and breathing and writing. I just feel so upset sometimes. In a good way.

This writing is so fast, so frantic, so scared. Because I want to vomit forth things. I want to bleed words. But I don't. Writing is not like bleeding. Writing is like surgery. Maybe.

But I don't think it is as effortless as bleeding. Absolutely not. I work so hard to think. I have to fight for words and sentences. I have to swing in the dark for sense.

The frontiers of my thought.

I try to find them and then I transgress them. I'm never sure if I really do. But I want them. I want them everywhere. I want to march all over my own mind. I want to turn it into my field.

But no. It's not a field. It isn't something manageable.

The mind is not some field and I am not some fucking farmer.

I am a legless individual sitting in the middle of an overgrown marsh. I sink into the muck and I watch things grow around me. I watch my mind gather experience and I watch that experience feed the weeds.

The more I think and feel and live the more I know my experience is overwhelming me with its incoherency.

Then I cut down the weeds. I try to make sense of it. I attack myself, my cluttered inner space. I swing wildly with words (which are like blades).

Experience as weeds, words as blades.

Your lawn, your mind, your grass, will be overrun with growth. You will never turn your mind into a farm.

You can only hope to harvest some things every now and then.

You feed it. You read. You write. You try to make sense. But then you have to let the experiences of life overwhelm your tools.

Then you try to prune back all the weeds. You use words to make sense of your experience.

David Shields' The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead is really exciting to me. He is such an interesting writer. I love how he blends memoir, narrative, and non-fiction.

Facts about bodies. Their death. Their breakdown. Their decay. Their sexual maturity. All of these facts intertwined with appropriate moments of memoir.

I find it incredibly compelling.

I am writing this post because I am bursting with flame that I can't articulate.

I feel something so strong and intense right now.

Had a really nice visit with my family today for mothers day and my birthday celebration. And I liked it a lot. We had a really good time, and I feel so fired up.

All my blog posts are so hard for me to write. I read and read and read. Then I write and write and write. I try to make sense of these things for myself because no one else reads them. And I don't care.

That isn't what I do this for.

Some people have read them. They are unwieldy I hear. Inaccessible? Call it whatever, I don't expect anyone else to get pleasure or interest from these things I write.

Though that won't defeat my fantasy that someday someone will read it and then they will have a lot to say and we will have a great conversation about a range of personal and philosophical topics.

I am incredibly open. To most things. Can't say everything.

But I was thinking about people more than anything else. I love people. I get so much satisfaction out of being with other people. Especially other people who like to be with me.

Unfortunately, my reading and writing is a solitary activity. And I spend time alone, because I like doing it.

But come on. Give me a break.

I could just feel and feel and feel all day every day. Then sometimes maybe I don't feel a lot.

What am I even trying to communicate in this writing? What do I feel? It is beyond me to explain precisely.

I am in a dynamic time in life. I started a new job and I like it a lot. I have plans to move in the relatively near future. My reading has been self-directed and I am extremely happy with the things I have been reading.

I feel a fury that I have never seen in anyone else. Not because other people don't have it. But because it is so goddamn hard to get close enough to someone that we can unleash everything we have.

How much fire do all these people have? Do these people love and hate as many things as I do? Do their emotions floor them? Does life feel so dynamic that it hurts in a good way? I feel all these things and I can't wait until I get close enough to people to really unleash this fire, and to feel their fire.

Life is so goddamn alone.

Who was it. What did I read? Was it Reality Hunger? Shields again? I forget. I think it was someone else that I can't remember.

But someone was talking about how many millions of people there are, and how many of them feel so alone. How it would be great if these millions of people could cure each others loneliness. But they can't. They don't want each other. They want one. Who do they want?

Why is it so hard to connect with other people?

Let me get a little bit more personal.

I find few things more satisfying than a genuine emotional or intellectual connection with another person. Nothing else has the ability to set me ablaze. To make me love myself and love the world. When I engage with a person who likes to engage with me, my mind enters a delightful space. I feel good. I feel okay. I feel okay.

David Shields said a good book makes him feel 'human and unalone.' Books offer a window into people, and I love books as a way to connecting with other people. Authors I really like, they are my friends. I know their styles, I know them as a mind.

But why is it so hard to find minds around me? I mean, they are all around me. What is it that I feel that I want when I'm alone? What is it that I want? Who is it that I want? I don't want anyone.

But I wan't everyone. I love people. I reject society. Meh. I don't really do either of those things all the way, I do both sorta.

Let me drop a little arrogance. I think I have a certain intensity in my thoughts and feelings. I think I have a pretty good command of the English language, and I think I am in touch with my feelings enough that I can clearly articulate them despite the difficulties.

I want to unleash the full power of my mind. I want to bring everything I have to the table.

Unfortunately, I don't know where to do that. I quite a number of people that I express some pretty heavy stuff to. But I don't know.

It is rare that I feel like I bear my soul to someone and they feel the gravity of what I am saying. Honestly, I guess the bottom line is that I don't know that many people who want me to bear my soul in front of them.

But I like bearing myself.

I am more fascinated by pain than anything else.

Life hurts. And I have spent a long time looking at that, and thinking about it. I want to talk about pain.

But I mean, I also want to talk about love and happiness and all that. But pain. Pain is the realness.

Seriously, I could explore. I feel such a fury. Not an anger. A passion. A fire. An explosion swirling in me that I can't help but contain because all I have is these goddamn words.

I imagine anyone who read all of this may not have felt my words. Fuck these words. Forget these words. Feel my flame. Feel my excitement for every dynamic day. Feel me rejecting the perceived monotony of life in America.

That is not where I am.

Feel me going absolutely insane because I can't express myself enough. And more importantly, no one is listening enough. How silly and dramatic that last sentence sounds, yeah?

Oh well.

Who is listening? My friends, my family.

Who do I want to talk to? I don't know yet.

I want to explode

I want to set myself on fire. Because I think I will produce gold.

My mind is a form of alchemy.

In the pond of minds I will be king amoeba.

I will eat the world.

I will throw it up.

I couldn't deal with any academic writing right now.

So instead I decided to write without stopping or thinking. And now I think I am at the end.

And I don't like it.

I think I feel alienated like I have for quite a while.

I think I am going to throw myself a party where I do everything I want all the time. The party of my life. Unlikely.

But anyways. Perhaps I'll conclude since I am clearly losing direction.

My blogs, my essays, seem a little bit dense and inaccessible to me. I don't think they speak to other people. I don't think that others take things from them. I don't think anyone has tried a ton and I don't think they should necessarily.

But these blogs. They are everything to me. I take so much pride in them. I think my reading has come so far. I think my writing is improving. I think I am working with ideas that I will import to graduate school. I think I am breaking ground for myself and ideally for others. Pipe dreams, ahoy.

Yet, I despise these essays because I don't think they do justice to how intense my emotions are. To how intense my life feels to me. To how much I love living every day. How much I love reading and writing and thinking. I don't think they do me justice.

I want people to feel me. I want to look people in the eye and tell them exactly how I feel. And I think that I am more than capable of doing it. I look people in the eye and I tell them how I feel.

So why do I have so many and so few confidants? I know all kinds of people I can talk to. And I do talk to them. Yet so often I want more. MORE MORE MORE. GIVE ME MORE OF YOUR MIND.

The National: 'I was afraid I'd eat your brains. Cause I'm evil.'

I really want to know other people. I want to eat brains. I want to know know know. I want to feel feel feel.

Let me inside your mind. I want to see what is happening in there. Because my mind eats me alive. It takes me everywhere and it tosses me back and forth.

It drowns me in itself.

I love my mind.

RAH!

Oh how this text fails to communicate what I am feeling.

But, anyways. Moving on. Two blog posts on the way once I finish my edits to my literary paper and send it off to Notre Dame.

First, 'Narrative as an Investigatory Tool: Science, History, and Fiction.' Based a lot on John Lewis Gaddis' The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. Fascinating book. Science embraces narrative, not just experimentation. Think of evolutionary biology, astronomy. The scale goes beyond the lab, so the imagination has to pick up the slack.

Second, 'The Dance Between the Ego and the Quantum Self.' Based on ideas in quantum physics about transcending the perceived separateness between living things. Consciousness, some claim, is more fundamental than matter, and therefore, is the unifying substance. The ego, I, as a perceived separate individual, must prepare myself to attain the quantum self, and then I must actualize it. This will be heavy. Reiki and yoga were very influential for me in my late high school years. Now I don't know how to grapple with them. But quantum physics is very much shaking up the way I think about things.

When was the last time I cried? I forget. Perhaps a little bit ago. Maybe the last episode of Lost made me cry. I don't think so.

But I want this post to reek of tears and pain and ecstasy. I am so happy these days. I feel like I am boundless. I feel like I am moving in the exact direction I need to be.

But if you read this, do me one favor: try to feel for me. Know that my words are not words, they are a feeling that overwhelms me and has no precise form of articulation.

Read my words and feel my love for the pain of life.

To conclude: if I had it my way, I would be the baddest motherfucking intellectual of the 21st century.

(Goldman's) Low-Level and High-Level Simulational Mindreading, and (My) Pedagogical Simulational Mindreading

This morning I finished Alvin Goldman's Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading. In terms of how it substantiates and contributes to much of my own thinking, it is by far one of the most important books I've read lately.

He is arguing that the human mind attributes mental states to other people (mindreading) primarily by simulating other people's thoughts in their own minds. Simulation, however, is buttressed by tacit psychological theory, and human reasoning capabilities. Goldman's theory of mind, therefore, is a simulation-theory hybrid (with heavy emphasis on simulation as the most basic, fundamental, and important).

Goldman distinguishes between two forms of simulational mindreading: low-level and high-level.

Low-level simulational mindreading is defined by two interchangable terms resonance or mirroring. Low-level mindreading heavily relies on a group of neurons known as mirror neurons. When we see someone experience pain, see someone making a sad face, or grasping an object, are brain activates its centers responsible for pain, sad facial muscles, and grasping. Mirror neurons literally resonate with what we perceive in other people. This is an instantaneous and often subconscious process, but neuroscience testing confirms the functioning of mirror neurons. So, low-level mindreading involves the simulation of other people's thoughts and feelings on the subconscious level of resonance and mirroring.

High-level simulational mindreading, on the other hand, is a more conscious process that involves taking the perspective of others, or the use of the enactment-imagination. Most of high-level mindreading rests on what Goldman calls the enactment-imagination (E-imagination). The E-imagination is a form of imagination in which we actually feel (to a quasi, but substantial degree) what we are imagining. We imagine being on a beach and we can sorta hear water, or feel the ocean. We imagine being in pain and our body may twinge with the idea of it. Goldman holds that when we imagine pain, happiness, sadness, or fear, we produce within our minds a state of quasi-pain, quasi-happiness, quasi-sadness, and quasi-fear. It is a form of imagination that invokes the actual qualities of experience. In many instances there is actually significant neurological overlap between imagination and experience.

High-level mindreading is utilized when we have more complex interpersonal behavior to make sense of us. When we are upset how someone has treated us, or when we are trying to figure out unusual or disconcerting behavior, we often use imaginative simulated scenarios to attribute possible mental states to individuals. High-level mindreading is also involved in imagining future hypothetical scenarios, or when actively remembering a certain incident. I can say for myself (and I hope others also do this, I know some who do) that I regularly reenact hypothetical social situations when I am either about to enter one, or if I have recently had a memorable one. In both cases I use my imagination to simulate possible scenarios. I run through imagined conversations, I think of potential replies. Or in the case of memory, I think of what I should have said, and I imagine myself saying it. A fairly common thing, I think. In all of these instances, the E-imagination would be invoking the approximate effects of experience.

I find Goldman's distinction between low and high-level mindreading to be extremely useful. In particular, I am interested in how high-level mindreading can be used to provoke the effects of actual experience, creating a 'synthetic experience.' In terms of effects, I am particularly interested in experience's ability to improve intuitive decision making, and to cultivate social sensitivity. I believe that if equipped with the conceptual tools of simulation and synthetic experience studying history and fiction would be a way to generate a wide range of synthetic experience that would be able to improve judgment and sensitivity.

This is what I want to discuss under my own category of 'pedagogical simulational mindreading.' I think this phrase captures my meaning really well, and it builds on Goldman's work, which is what I will be interested in doing in graduate school. So I really think/hope that I will be working with this concept/phrase for some time. Tough to predict my future thoughts, but at this point I like it a lot.

Anyways, so pedagogical simulational mindreading is the idea is that specific forms of simulation, conceptualized as such, when directly applied in an educational setting, could provide many forms of synthetic experience that would cultivate social sensitivity and intuitive judgment. This applies to the bulk of the humanities. In particular, I am going to discuss historical, fictitious, and philosophical simulation.

I am only going to run through these three forms very quickly. I have already explicated them in my post of april 30th, and will likely explicate them in much greater detail in the future. So a few sentences for each will suffice now.

Historical

Historical simulation, as I see it, is inspired by Clausewitz, Collingwood, and Foucault, probably others that I don't know of yet. But the basic idea is that historical knowledge is achieved by rethinking the thoughts that others have expressed in the past. So historians collect evidence of past thought that was expressed, then they simulate or reenact those thoughts in their own minds. Not only does this lead to historical understanding, but it provides a synthetic experience. And if reflected on, this synthetic historical experience can invoke the actual effects of experience (i.e. increased sensitivity and judgment). History, in particular, gives us access to a wide range of emotions and situations to draw synthetic experience from. When we use Goldman's E-imagination in historical study, we get close to actual experience.

Fictitious

History, however, cannot enter the same realms as fiction. Fiction is capable of depicting things, experiences, emotions, that never occurred in actuality. There is some freedom to this. It opens up uses of the E-imagination that are intense and fantastic. Surrealist literature (a la Steve Erickson), for example, has made me feel some of the most intense feelings, despite that it is completely impossible. The E-imagination can bring fictitious experiences to life, and provide a useful form of synthetic experience that differs from synthetic historical experience.

Philosophical

Philosophical reading would also provide a specific form of synthetic experience. While history and fiction are more likely to fall under the umbrella of emotional experience, philosophy provides more of an intellectual synthetic experience. When we read works of philosophy we are imagining why the person wrote the way they did, what questions they were trying to answer, why they thought their answers were good. So, we are gaining access to forms of thought (experience) that we never accessed before.

One quick experimental example. In Mirroring People Marco Iacoboni cites an experiment in which groups of individuals were told to imagine a very intelligent professor they knew, and to write down everything that came to mind as if they were that professor. Another group was told to imagine a group of soccer hooligans, and to write. After the imagining of other people they were given a general intelligence test. Those imagining professors mind's performed better. The moral: imagining intelligent people makes you more intelligent. This finding applies to all three of these types of pedagogical simulational mindreading. But it seems most specifically applied to philosophical simulation.

Conclusion

Goldman's distinction between low and high-level simulational mindreading seems extremely useful for me. I can build on the notion of high-level simulational mindreading, and in particular the idea of the E-imagination, to espouse my own views on 'pedagogical simulational mindreading.' I think this is a new phrase, I think this is a new idea. I want to reconfigure the educational systems using these ideas. Experience is the most important aspect of learning. The imagination can provide something like synthetic experience. And it turns out the humanities as a whole is fraught with different forms of synthetic experience that can be invoked to produce different effects. Booya.

But anyways, this is such impossible thinking. It seems impossible to change the way things are, or to implement these ideas on some meaningful level. I guess I'll see what happens before I die.

Thoughts on my last post

My lost past feels a little overwhelming in my mind right now. I feel very excited about what I wrote, and about how I wrote it. The order I wrote it. Sorta. I'm not sure.

It feels strange because the more I keep reading the more I feel like my interests are coming together. I want to figure out what my dissertation project could potentially be. Most of the programs I am interested are interdisciplinary and want you to have some sense of that.

And what I just wrote about, (informing [historical] simulation theory of mind with a historical ontological perspective as a way to re-conceptualize the humanities around the concepts of simulation, synthetic experience, and intuition), feels like something that I could pursue in a dissertation length work. Most of my posts already correspond to it in one way or another, and would play a certain role. That excites me. I should perhaps start compiling them in a word document that is segmented to be elaborating for more than 100 pages. I think I have that much material by now.

So much more research to do in the future.

One thing i am considering, however, is attempting to change the direction I am taking. The last number of books I have been reading have been really close to my favorite ideas. Collingwood, Foucault, a book on self directed neuroplasticity, Goldman's Simulating Minds, all of it pertains extremely closely to simulation and synthetic experience and historical thinking and all of that.

I am considering reading The German Ideology by Marx and Engels I think that is what I will read next. It is pretty far removed, in a sense, from my direct interests. It might be a little related since I have heard Marx utilizes a sort of historical sociology. I really don't know much about Marx, it's a shame. Jeffrey Herf told me not to finish undergrad without reading Marx. I suppose I should read it now then.

I also want to finish my major edits on my expanded version of my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde paper. I am close.

I also want to read/am reading The Landscape of History. And I want to read David Shield's The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead. I liked Reality Hunger.

The bottom line is that I am reeling a little bit from my last post. It is so large. And it marks such a major connection for me to make and express. I have been contemplating an essay on combining Clausewitz, Collingwood, and Foucault for quite some time now. Then at some point, I forget how actually, the connections solidified and I had to write it.

It feels like such a large and substantial expression of the core of my thought that I feel exposed.

I am not sure what direction to take next with my reading and writing because I feel like I have just expressed something so massive for me that I'm not even sure what it means in the much bigger picture (of a potential dissertation, or something like that).