On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:06:57 -0400, Tim Cook wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:27:38 -0400, Warp wrote:
>> 
>>> Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>>>>         You can't have a marriage where there won't be reasons to
>>>>         argue.
>>>   Why not? Says who?
>> 
>> In general, if you always agree on things all the time, no boundaries
>> get pushed, and that would make things (I imagine) quite dull.
> 
> So it's not impossible--just boring.  And sometimes, people are ok with
> boring.
> 
> If you'll excuse me, I have a few hundred nested glass spheres to
> render.

LOL, fair point. :-)

Jim

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Darren New wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>> The problem with #3 and NLP, is that they missed several of the other
>> things Derren Brown did,
> 
> I thought the subliminal advertising bit he did (farther down on the
> right of that page) was brilliant.  Of course, it's possible it's all
> 100% staged, but I don't think *all* of NLP is bogus.  It's pretty easy
> to read someone to tell if they're lying or not, for example, when you
> get good at it. There's a reason professional poker players wear hats
> and sunglasses.
>

Lots of his stunts are fun to watch. Paying with blank paper, and
switching people in the middle of conversations are my favorites.

>> Does pattern re-enforcement, word association and mirroring work?
>> According to any psychologist I have asked, the answer has been yes. And
>> not on the subconscious mind, but on the conscious mind alone.
> 
> So it only works if you notice the person is doing mirroring?
> 

Kind of, yes. Humans naturally respond with mimicking actions,
especially for feelings of empathy. So, to make someone feel more
empathetic towards you, mirror their actions and then take the lead and
make them mimic yours.

This works for other emotions as well. Get in a conversation with
someone, and take note of what you naturally do and how you feel.** Take
the other side in a conversation, and watch what other people do. Anger,
empathy, joy, sadness; all of them have a few body clues that the second
person in a conversation will adopt to make the emotional person feel
more comfortable. Assuming both people in the conversation are within
the normal ranges of behavioral and social responces and blah blah lorem
ipsum normal disclaimer. In other words, you won't spot those behaviors
in a conversation with someone who exhibits any of a variety of
behavioral or mental disorders, the most common in the media is autism.
Except sociopaths, who can fake most of the correct behaviors.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subconscious
It explains why the 'subconscious mind' doesn't have the definition or
clarity to make a good scientific term. The simple explanation is that
if it affecting decisions and behavior, it must be affecting the
conscious mind.

**I take no responsibility for making anyone self-conscious by this.
Over thinking it makes you wonder if you are doing all the correct
'human' things, and you don't want to over think it. Observe, not
manipulate.

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> On 08/25/09 12:27, Warp wrote:
> > Neeum Zawan<m.n### [at] ieeeorg>  wrote:
> >>          You can't have a marriage where there won't be reasons to argue.
> >
> >    Why not? Says who?

>         Married people.

  Have you considered that, like those things in that cracked.com page,
this might also be a common belief which may, in fact, not be so true?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:35:05 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>> On 08/25/09 12:27, Warp wrote:
>> > Neeum Zawan<m.n### [at] ieeeorg>  wrote:
>> >>          You can't have a marriage where there won't be reasons to
>> >>          argue.
>> >
>> >    Why not? Says who?
> 
>>         Married people.
> 
>   Have you considered that, like those things in that cracked.com page,
> this might also be a common belief which may, in fact, not be so true?

Well, and in my own defense, I had read "disagreements" when I see now it 
really was "arguments" - and I can agree with you that arguments are not 
necessarily a part of married life.  My wife and I have been married for 
13 years and I think we had our first serious argument about 2-3 years 
ago - and it's the only one we've had (and it turned out to be a total 
misunderstanding).

So while we disagree about things, we very very very rarely actually 
argue about things.

Jim

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> if it affecting decisions and behavior, it must be affecting the
> conscious mind.

Um, OK. That must mean I don't know what those words actually meant. If 
something is affecting you and you don't know it's affecting you, I thought 
that meant it was subconciously affecting you. As in, below the concious level.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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Warp wrote:

>   In the example in that page the most probable direction of cause and
> consequence is, indeed, that success causes high self-esteem. However,
> popular physchology has completely reversed this and claims that high
> self-esteem causes success. If you think about it logically, it really
> makes more sense in the former than the latter case.

I suspect the truth is less simple.

People with low self-esteem generally don't bother trying in the first 
place, which causes a distinct lack of success. (Welcome to my life, 
BTW.) I think you need to have a sufficient level of self-esteem to 
start with.

In other words, high self-esteem doesn't "cause" success, but rather low 
self-esteem /prevents/ success - which is a different statement. 
Self-esteem is a necessary but insufficient condition.

The idea that success causes high self-esteem is apparently 
self-evident, but also not the entire story. Plenty of people who by any 
reasonably metric have "failed", yet have high self-esteem. Plenty of 
people who are insanely successful yet still hate themselves.

Humans are, in general, complicated.

The thing *I* noticed is this: The article complains about "pop 
psychology", people making up stuff off the top of their heads. It then 
goes on to make up a bunch of reasons why several things are wrong. 
Rather than, you know, present hard evidence...

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4a9406aa@news.povray.org...
> Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> >
http://www.cracked.com/article/85_6-bullshit-facts-about-psychology-that-everyone-believes_p1

>   I wonder why it is so common for people to reverse the direction of
> causality in so many things.
>
>   In the example in that page the most probable direction of cause and
> consequence is, indeed, that success causes high self-esteem. However,
> popular physchology has completely reversed this and claims that high
> self-esteem causes success. If you think about it logically, it really
> makes more sense in the former than the latter case.

I still would not so readily dismiss the latter. Success in general is hard
to quantify, so I'll focus on economic prosperity: On first approximation,
it's not hard to concude that risk takers will end up in a broader spectrum
than non risk takers as far as end wealth is concerned. While some will fail
spectacularly, some will succeed spectacularly as well. Now, assuming that
many people somewhat learn from mistakes and have more than one shot (not
unreasonable assumptions), that spread spectrum in most likelihood will bias
towards the positive in successive iterations.

In practical terms, if you continue to work for somebody else all your life,
you are not going to go bankrupt, but nor will you amount to much in the
end. If you, instead, go on to establish a business for yourself, you might
hit some rocky patches, but people who establish their own businesses will
amass substantial wealth in the end, certainly by the mean, if not by the
median. Establishing a business, needless to say, requires a high self
esteem, among other things.

High self esteem enables people to take real (or perceived) risks. Even when
we are not talking about entrepreunership, someone with a high self esteem
might apply for jobs that someone with low self esteem won't. Job
specifications are often exaggerated anyway, so a lot of times, seemingly
underqualified applicants get the prized job, even if it means them having
been turned down numerous times before. After all, you need to be accepted
only once, so such failures (that discourage people with low self esteem)
don't count. Same principle works with dating. And since happiness is mostly
about your relative status (job, spouse, house... etc) amongst your peers,
high self esteem can be a major contributing factor.

>   This happens all the time, in all areas of life. Just as an example,
> think about certain countries forcing democracy on other countries in
> the hopes that democracy will bring peace to that country. Again, the
> causality has been completely reversed here: It's not democracy which
> brings peace. It's the other way around. You need peace *first*, and then
> you might be able to build a democracy. It doesn't work in the other
> direction.

Prosperity is really what brings both peace and democracy. Democracy or
peace without prosperity is always on shaky ground, and while people may
revolt occasionally in undemocratic regimes with the mistaken assumption
that democracy will bring them prosperity, it almost never works that way
and they get caught in a cycle. Conversely, while we like to think that
western democracies stand on some kind of enlightenment, take away the
prosperity and watch the peace and democracy crumble. Democracy is basically
a fairly good regime for people who have a lot to lose.

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