Grieving, friendship, family and philosophy

I grieved for

The closure that would never happen,

Even though closure is a myth

 

I grieved for

The childhood fear and anger

Of him, and about him

That I could never more fully express to him,

Never more get him to understand,

Never again try to make him understand.

 

I grieved for

The fact that he never would abandon

The myth of control

Over his family, his fatherhood

And the narratives he had spun to himself

About all of this.

 

I grieved for

The fact that he had walled himself up

Over the bits of my childhood fear and anger

That I had told him about,

As he built that wall of control higher

Against the perceived Mongol invaders,

Or whatever he thought of these challenges.

 

I grieved for

Any form of an “us”

That growing or changing, could have continued.

 

But

I grieved for

Me

Most of all

Because I still hadn’t gotten past that fear enough.

 

Real friends,

Friends for life,

Whether in families or not

Let their friends grow

In ways that are good for them,

And, offer suggestions first,

Stronger comments second,

And maybe rebukes next,

When they see friends growing in unhealthy ways.

 

— As inspired by Kieran Setiya

What Searle, Turing, AI thought experiments etc get wrong, part two

Two months ago, I talked about John Searle's famous Chinese room thought experiment, and said what Searle's critics, and to a degree, Searle himself, got wrong, was in not thinking of consciousness as embodied cognition.

I added that embodied cognition needed to include embodied affect.

Well, I'm going to look at this more now.

Imagine that Searle's translation book has a glitch or something. Or a lack of linguistic nuance, better yet. (Save some of this for a part three.)

For example, say that a literal phrase in Chinese is an insult in English or vice versa. (I don't know Mandarin, but I DO know Spanish enough to offer up the word "pendejo" as an example.)

Searle's machine, or human inside the black box, might produce a perfect literal translation, but, by the fact it offered no affect to having translated something into an insult, might give itself away.

(Per a comment at MeWe, I've always understood the Chinese room, especially with person and book substituted for a computer, to be pretty much straight-up translation. While the book might allow idiom in a narrow sense, Searle's idea seems to be, though being unexpressed, to be against idiom in a broader sense. To put it another way, it seems to be about purely and only denotative translation, not connotative.)

Turing himself hinted at something somewhat like this, at least on the matter of affect, when laying out the test:

Interrogator: In the first line of your sonnet which reads ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’, would not ‘a spring day’ do as well or better? Witness: It wouldn’t scan. Interrogator: How about ‘a winter’s day’? That would scan all right. Witness: Yes, but nobody wants to be compared to a winter’s day.

But he doesn't seem to fully follow up. This is just the tip of the affective iceberg.

But, as with cognition, it's embodied.

What will it feel like, to move from Searle to Nagel's bat-world, for a robot (since a computer without locomotion is, if animalian not plant-like, a sponge at best) to "hug" steel? Wood? Human flesh? And, feel not just in the tactile sense, but primarily in the affective sense? What will it feel like for a robot to "hug" another robot? What will it say? 

"I love you"?

"God, I thought I was over you"?

Or, to tie linguistic nuance to affect?

Many psychologists have argued that fear, not hate, is the opposite of love. Setting aside the dubiousness of an emotion as complex as love in its types as well as its affect having a single opposite, I'd argue that the opposite of love is often frustration. Now ... a computer or robot that wanted to have a shot at passing the Turing test would be able to cogently participate in an argument such as this.

A little DABDA will do ya — outside of death and dying

A little DABDA

A little DABDA will do ya,

Or so, the grieving are told.

But there’s no right way, or wrong way, to mourn

Even if there are more common, and less common, ways.

Sometimes, loss doesn’t involve denial.

A death, a divorce, or similar, has been long anticipated.

Likewise for anger; it’s been wrestled with

And exhausted,

Before the loss.

Likewise for bargaining.

Depression? More common, and more normal,

Even before acceptance, which may never fully come for some.

Sometimes, they overlap.

Emotions, after all, aren’t discrete.

Sometimes, one emotion is experienced

Two or more times, even if others aren’t.

And maybe, just maybe

A little DABDA will do ya,

For things besides loss.

Like depression, even if it’s a “D” itself.

Or anxiety.

Don’t we deny our own emotions at times,

Or longer moods,

Or more complex psychological states?

Of course, especially if there’s reason for us to do that.

Don’t we get angry at being depressed,

Or frustrated at being anxious?

Yes.

Unfortunately, bargaining aside,

Depression or anger don’t fully disappear.

A little DABDA

A little DABDA will do ya,

Or so, the grieving are told.

But there’s no right way, or wrong way, to mourn

Even if there are more common, and less common, ways.

Sometimes, loss doesn’t involve denial.

A death, a divorce, or similar, has been long anticipated.

Likewise for anger; it’s been wrestled with

And exhausted,

Before the loss.

Likewise for bargaining.

Depression? More common, and more normal,

Even before acceptance, which may never fully come for some.

Sometimes, they overlap.

Emotions, after all, aren’t discrete.

Sometimes, one emotion is experienced

Two or more times, even if others aren’t.

And maybe, just maybe

A little DABDA will do ya,

For things besides loss.

Like depression, even if it’s a “D” itself.

Or anxiety.

Don’t we deny our own emotions at times,

Or longer moods,

Or more complex psychological states?

Of course, especially if there’s reason for us to do that.

Don’t we get angry at being depressed,

Or frustrated at being anxious?

Yes.

Unfortunately, bargaining aside,

Depression or anger don’t fully disappear.

Good-better-best haiku

Sometimes the good is

Enemy of the better;

An impatient move.

Sometimes better is

The enemy of the best

Also impatient

But at other times

Rather than wait, strike quickly

While iron is hot.

Wisdom is knowing

What is impatient, what is

Prudent and timely

Or foot-dragging fear,

Perfectionism, or just

Procrastination.

Wise self-honesty

After that, we may never know

What the best move is.

Procrastination

Is still a move, anyway

And so we move, move.

Fear the enemy

Of good, better and best all

But it cuts both ways.

Fear of sitting still

And waiting in the silence

Is just as deadly.

Gratitude without god

When I first heard of this idea, a decade or more ago, I was in a psychological place where I was learning more and more about the idea of gratitude.

But, at the same time, I was pretty well down the road to my secularist, contra-metaphysical philosophical naturalist stance of today. I had tried “working with” ideas of “spirituality” but found what I was seeing promoted under that guise was New Agey-type metaphysics that, even if technically not religious, was indeed metaphysical and impossible to square with my re-emerging philosophical naturalism.

But, I was still trying to wrestle with this issue.

Having heard the phrase “an attitude of gratitude” in both New Age-type settings and from traditional ministers, and it being, for various reasons, an idea that I agreed with, I was trying to figure out how to be grateful if there wasn’t anyone to whom to be grateful.

Finally, I realized that I was mentally enshackled by the New Agey “present situations” that I had recently been in, plus my childhood religious preacher’s kid background.

Instead, why couldn’t I simply have an “attitude of gratitude” without a personal object for my gratitude?

And, so I do today. Little mental tools such as reminding myself of three good things that have happened for/to me today, especially if I had an active part in any of them, help this process.

The new job I have is reason to be grateful. I don’t have to listen to a boss asking me to resign (and himself not being grateful for me not doing so, since another person did leave a week after I would have completed my 30 days notice), threaten to “forget” my paycheck, or other things. I have work that’s fairly easy, still OK on pay, and fairly non-stressful while leaving open a growth curve.

I have the possibility of thinking about new work-creative outlets with the “timing” of the economy continuing to improve, as seems likely, albeit still slowly.

I have a life free from debt, the ability to live frugally without living stingily. That includes being a smart grocery shopper and knowing how to cook healthily while on a budget.

I’m grateful for modern medicine, including psychological counseling and medications as needed. Being a methodological and philosophical naturalist, I’m grateful for the scientific mindset behind it.

I’m grateful for the Internet. I’m grateful for the skeptical, critical thinking ability to recognize the dark side of the Internet itself, as well as seeing through most all of the spam, urban legends and such to which the Internet has given impetus.

Anyway, I don’t need to show you all my “gratitude list,” though I do believe journaling like this is a helpful psychological tool.

Let’s get back to my main point. Just as one can be moral without god, religion or metaphysically-oriented spirituality (karma is just as evil a “stick” as hell), one can be grateful as a state of being without needing a good to whom to tell that.

Failure is an option, and not (necessarily) an orphan

This is a poem inspired by the column in the previous blog post of mine:

Failure IS an option

I am not a failure,

And I am not the sum of my failures

But I am a person who has failed, and will fail,

Many, many times.

I am also anxious, fretful, and pessimistic –

A toxic brew.

Accepting that failures are not moral faults

Is not always easy to do;

Even harder to accept

Is that because of luck and the actions of others

Failure says little about my skills in many cases.

But self-flagellation

Is a means of trying to assert control

Rather than feeling powerless from its lack.

But that’s not reality.

The truth?

Many of my actions

Have countless outside tangential influences.

But even that is not all of reality.

Even my most important actions, most consciously decided

Have many subconscious influences

From chaotically driven, chaotically competing subselves.

Kennedy and others were all wrong here.

Failure has just as many fathers as victory,

Even if they scurry for dark corners

After the lights of the mind are turned on.

Haiku: The Tell-Tale Boss

For your Poe-etic reading pleasure:

The glassy blue eye
Glances, no glares, balefully;
His intruding boss.

Stressed he is for time
As are we, the underlings;
But, no sympathy.

But, that eye, that eye!
Poe saw it, that glassy eye
That drove a man mad.

I'll not kill my boss
Though I fear no tell-tale heart;
I'll just remember.

The glassy blue eye
Windowless window of soul,
Haunted, tired, burdened.

But, no sympathy?
A two-way street, a highway;
Too bad, glassy eye.

Sometimes the trouble does never happen

Mark Twain has a famous quote, which has been botched a bit here and there, but which I believe is authoritatively rendered as, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened."

Well, I can personally relate to that.

I had a notice from the Postal Service in my box Tuesday night, to sign for a certified letter at the post office. My mind was racing.


Did my old apartment complex suddenly decide it wanted additional money from me somehow? (Even as I have two noncertified letters, one from the complex, one from the parent company, both of which came in the last week, on my table. But, I know what I signed, and signed for, when I moved.)


Did that traffic ticket I got lawyered out of two of three counts, but paid the remaining one, have the money order incorrect? 


Something worse?


Well, it was from the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, which made me more nervous at first, since they're the folks who pulled me over in 2009.


What was it actually for?


I had a applied for a PR job, public information officer, with the office. I was being notified I didn't make the final cut - notified by certified letter.


I've played Twain's quote in my head many a time, but never before have I had this concrete of confirmation.

Moved ... and grateful

I am at a Starbucks in Austin. Took my laptop, equipped with wi-fi antenna (part of why I bought it years ago) when I drove into Cedar Park, suburban Austin, to turn in my rental truck, not knowing if I would get back to the Starbucks in Marble Falls before it closed tonight, not having checked hours before I left there.

That said, I'm grateful for a Starbucks there. I'm grateful that, on the phone connection, Verizon got out this afternoon, said it had fixed what was outside, and contacted my apartment complex to do what it needed to do inside. So, between high-speed at work, wi-fi at Starbucks, and good old dial-up at home, assuming it's fixed by early next week, I'll be fine on Internet.

I'm grateful for not only Whole Foods but the even better Central Market (a Texas-only chain) in Austin. I've stocked up on good coffee, great dehydrated split pea soup, black bean stew and curry lentil stew mixes, three types of curry powder, charsalt-type dry hickory smoke flavor, some sparkling waters, some high-ginger ginger ale and such. (And, the bulk food stuff I mentioned is actually relatively inexpensive.) Oh, and I had to get some non-inexpensive cheese, an indulgence of mine.

Halfway between Marble Falls and Cedar Park, northwest suburban Austin, is the Balcones National Wildlife Refuge. So, you can guess where I will do some hiking! The road winds a bit, in a good sense, following Texas' Colorado River through hills, with a mix of red oaks, white oaks, live oaks and cedars (could get rid of a few of those!).

I have tuned in Austin's 24-hour classical music station. I've already visited the Austin Symphony website. The Austin Classical Guitar Society, I knew about years ago.

I am grateful; grateful enough to start tearing up when I got in. I don't have to make a lot of money in life, if I can have amenities like this.

Marble Falls is not your typical small town, either. There's old Texas rancher money and at least reasonable-money retirees there. Not many towns of 7,000 have a Home Depot and a Lowe's. And two Thai restaurants, as I discovered today. So, even without going into Austin, I think life will be at least OK if not better there.

I'm grateful the job came open and other things, to make this possible.

Finally, I am grateful for the people on this list, some of whom go beyond acquaintances to friends, whether I've met you in person or not.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Splendid Saturnalia and best of the new year to everyone.

'No regrets'? I have plenty in my life

Time and time again, I hear people claim they have no regrets about how they’ve lived their life up to this point.

Taken literally, that means to me that they’d live their entire life the same way if they had a chance to live it over. Really?

There’s three problems here, as I see it. One is viewing “good/bad” (in a growthfulness, not a moral sense) as two polarities, not a continuum. The second is “no regrets” is imprecise, and probably doesn’t mean what it literally says in such cases. The third relates to the first second and impinges upon issues of free will.

The first issue? I believe life, and life issues, can be more, or less growthful. Even ones I regret going through because of bad decisions on my part. (Although I may guilt-trip myself, I can’t honestly be regretful about issues where my range of choice was constrained, or I was reacting to a bad decision/choice by another person; that’s the free will angle.) So, “regret” isn’t totally a bad thing. If I can look back, and see something to learn from the situation, to see how I didn’t handle it as well as I could have, or as well as I could have with more knowledge, then regret’s not bad.

At the same time, that “more knowledge” is another key. If there’s no way I could have known more at the time, whether conscious or unconscious knowledge, that is that. I’ll get to that more in a minute, too.

The imprecision of language? This is one of the few areas where I have fairly substantial agreement with Plato, with the caveat that I don’t limit myself to writing as a way of allegedly obscuring, or even bending or destroying meaning. Oral communication, contra him and the pre-Upanishad Brahmin priests of India, can be manipulated just as well, even when in a mnemonically-driven sacral structure.

I think what people really mean is, “I don’t have any regrets about past actions to which I am too attached.” That’s much healthier – if true. But … maybe it isn’t always true?

Maybe it isn’t so bad to retain a modicum of regret as a learning tool NOT as a “kick myself” tool but as a learning tool.

Finally, there's all sorts of free will aspects.

To the degree free will even exists, it may not exist on a conscious level. To the degree it exists within semiconscious subselves, it's constrained by past elements in our lives and how they've shaped the psyches of those subselves, as well as the fictitious unitary self that claims to be in the driver's seat. The idea of regret may be the right idea in one sense, but not at all in another sense. How can we regret an action that was not undertaken or done with full freedom? There may be a partialness of regret, but, can there be anything more?

"Emotional dissonance" - a term that needs more use?

I have briefly mentioned the phrase, as a parallel to "cognitive dissonance," with support groups and friends.

In a comment on a SkepticBlog post about The Amazing Meeting 9 and cognitive dissonance, I mentioned the idea there.

As cognition is not done as a sterile intellectual exercise ... I think we need to stress this more.

One person responded that s/he thought that "emotions" were included in cognition, and in cognitive dissonance. I responded:

Understood on what “cognitive” entails. That said, it’s my guess that the “average Joe/Jane” thinks “intellectual” when they hear the term “cognitive,” though, or may at the least think the “intellectual” is being emphasized to the degree of less to much less attention on the emotions.

And, that, in term, gets to the “image of skepticism,” if you will. My skepticism (or better yet, per David Hume, my empirical stance) is driven by the interaction of the passions and reason.

Obviously, emotions are visible when one is being a dick, rather than when one is not … but showing positive emotional reasons for skepticism is the “hearts” of the “hearts and minds” battle.

This person then, in my opinion, undercut her previous comment. I will quote this person:

“(E)motional dissonance” implies that emotions are to blame for poor reasoning, which is usually not the case.

I humbly but firmly beg to differ.

Look at the religious right segment of the GOP, which continually votes on emotion even though the party's corporatist leaders really don't care about it that much. Ditto on tea partiers letting themselves be astroturfed and not starting a third party. Many "moderate" antivaxxers who aren't into conspiracy theories let themselves be swayed by emotions even though they know, intellectually, that expert medical opinion is usually right.

Hume reminded us, after all, that reason needs to follow the passions, not the other way around. This doesn't mean that reason accepts what the passions within us say, but it does mean it accepts as a starting point what the passions are saying to us.

If we want to take "emotional dissonance" more narrowly .... it affects our decision making all the time. We're conflicted about going to a family gathering because we like some people but hate others. We're emotionally conflicted about taking a new job. Etc.

Updating T.S. Eliot's "Hippopotamus" - "The Hippocampus"

Updating TS Eliot, on the hippocampus and fearmongering. I kept in the "god" references so I didn't have to edit more, to change more rhymes, but I was actually thinking more of secular fearmongering such as the "War on Terror."

The broad-backed hippocampus
Rests on its axis in the brain;
Although it seems so firm to us
It is hard to explain.
Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Fear can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo's feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Fear need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The 'campus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Fear from over sea.

At mating time the hippo's voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Fear, at being one with God.

The hippocampus's day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way --
The Fear can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the 'campus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr'd virgins kist,
While the True Fear remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.

THE GREATEST IS HOPE

St. Paul was wrong,
Especially if we remove religious and metaphysical overtones
From “faith, hope and love.”
Love cannot abide without hope,
Whether the hope that a lover, or an adult child,
Will change bad behaviors.
Or the hope that a parent will accept an adult child
With different values and beliefs.
Without such hope, love cannot abide.
And faith, not metaphysical faith in things unseen,
But, faith in the sense of trust?
Faith cannot abide, either,
Without hope that a person, or a place,
Will improve, even if we don’t yet know how.
Even faith in our own selves cannot abide,
Without hope that we have some degree of control,
If but in a small corner,
Over our own lives and selves.
The greatest, and most basic, of these
Is hope.

Happy 300th, David Hume!

Think philosophy is dull? Want personal insight into Hume's claim that reason is and needs be "the slave of the passions"?

Here's a great column-essay in the New York Times which will take care of all of that.

ANGER IN THE KEY OF C-SHARP MINOR

Minor keys often have melancholy, plaintive laments,
More so than jarring stridency,
Unless a sudden dissonance intrudes;
And, so it is with my anger.
Slow to form, with an undercurrent of counterpoint,
Spoken and developed in individual voices,
Like a late Beethoven quartet,
Or, maybe, even more, one by Shostakovich.
I don’t even realize that I am angry until the score plays out,
Usually about halfway through the third movement.
Then, a diminished seventh lingers, a four-part pedal point, if you will,
Until the cello transitions out, into a growling presto ostinato,
And I can no longer deny to my conscious self that I am angered,
As my emotions now move attacca, without pause,
Into a final movement,
Where resolution is supposed to be found,
But, per the style of musica moderna,
Is not guaranteed.
— Dec. 14, 2010

Petrified wood, petrified psyche

PETRIFIED

Massive, towering trees
Were transformed into stone
In the twinkling of a geological eye.
All the remains petrified 300 million years.
As Heraclitus’ permanent change
Hit a wall of geochemical inertia.
So, too, can human attitudes, emotions and states
Suddenly and sharply change,
Then become frozen in the face of many a further assault —
Petrified.
Death is the final dissolve
But short of that, few life acids can eat away
Frozen fear, lithified anxiety, calcified cowering.
But the hurts themselves remain liquid,
Even if partially congealed;
Only the reaction and the framings become concretized.
And so, like marrow inside bone
New psychological antibodies still spew forth,
Even if fighting the wrong issues the wrong way —
Petrified to do anything else.
Life is often neither growth nor regression.

Nostalgia, time, feelings, and the difficulties of language

NOSTALGIA AND THE FIERCE URGENCY OF THE NOW

I looked in Carefree, and found coffee,
But not that Starbucks where you and I sat.
I moved on down the road,
To Anthem, and fond the place of which nostalgia sang.
Kevin, I remembered our time there,
And several visits to Phoenix
And hiking with you
And receiving your insight,
Including on some new issues and decisions,
Even if my time is limited,
And the road calls again.
I think you with thoughts
And a secular blessing,
Knowing, as my friend Paula said
That “we” sometimes struggle for the right language
For such things, to speak deeply yet nonmetaphysically.
But, I cannot tarry;
The fierce urgency of the now calls to my intuitional mind
And so, I prepare to click the pen shut,
Gather up this notebook, and hit the road —
While taking nostalgically warming coffee with me.

The Donner Party, struggle and motivation

California was a land of lore and lure even before John Marshall found gold traces in 1848.

Farming, ranching, mild climate and vast unclaimed, untamed acres all called across the Sierras to Americans, even before the land had been wrested from Mexico.
Among those listening?

Jacob Breen and family. George Keseberg. And, the eponymous Donner family.

Unlike the Founding Fathers, these people had no fortunes to give. But they did give most of what money they had to make the trip. And, they certainly, in cases such as Jacob Breen, had honor, whether sacred or not, to pledge to their fellow travelers.
While on vacation recently, I visited some Donner Party sites. Though I had driven I-80 before through the area, I had never gotten off the freeway at the Donner State Party site. And, since I had come from the north, on a California state highway site, about 7-8 miles north of the interstate, I saw the Donner Meadows, where the Donners themselves wintered in 1846-47.

I asked myself, rhetorically, what would I be willing to do to get to California today? How much work would I be willing to expend? How much of my current “baggage” would I be willing to discard? What is my goal in getting to California — am I moving to something or just away from something?

I haven’t pondered those questions too much yet. Maybe I’m deliberately avoiding them a little bit. Maybe, like many other things in life, I want a surer goal before committing to them more.

That said, let me look at the Donners more. Yes, they knew about California the potential agricultural paradise. But, gold had not yet been discovered. They were simply looking for a better life, not to get rich.

Beyond that, how much am I willing to surrender of my old self for change today, in general? As I get older, do I get more attached to what I already have? Less willing to take risks?

How much is pain in my current life, combined with hope for the future, going to be a motivator?
And, by the time I had gotten back home, or soon afterward, I had at least one additional question for myself.

Is the desire to move to California a search for a “geographic cure” for issues that need help in other ways?

All good questions. To some of them, I don’t yet consciously know the answers, though I may have partial answers in my subconscious. Others I can answer more fully right now.

As for a geographic cure? No. I’ve been interested in moving to California for years.
As for pain as a motivator? It may continue to grow, and maybe I need that.

And, “surrender,” or another term? How much am I willing to let go of old attachments, such as what job or career path I should or should not follow, how much anxiety I can tolerate in daily life and more? At least at the conscious level, I don’t have answers here, though I suspect that I have more letting go to do — letting go of preconceptions about myself, letting go of attachments to old emotional patters, and things like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_party

Talk deeply, be happy

Hey, fellow history, philosophy or political science geeks! Don't be afraid to talk about what you love; it's probably making you happier than just talking about weather or sports.

Pop Ev Psych goes off the rails on depression

The idea that clinical depression was evolutionarily selected for is why many real evolutionary biologists laugh at something like this as a classical "Just So Story."

It's caveated, has little real explanatory power, doesn't allow for alternative explanations, doesn't well explain away counterexamples and is generally weak.

Beyond that, Andy Thomson and Paul Andrews undercut their own theory, and at a grade-school level.

In response to criticism, they admit that, in essence, "We don't know what depression is."

Well, if you don't know what a trait is, how can you even claim it's selected for, in the first place? You've just said you don't know what it is, so you don't know what is being selected for.

Duh.

And, of course, given the present (but growing) state of cognitive science and neuroscience, this is the case about ev psych, or rather, Pop Ev Psych, claims about just about any mental or emotional state.

Meanwhile, on his blog, Jonah Lerner, the author of the NYT Mag story, actually defends the general line of thinking of Thomson/Andrews, though in the story, he was good enough to marshal plenty of opponents of their claims.