Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: mhcarlin on 10/07/2007 04:55:04
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i'm brand new to this. Therefore, attempt to exercise patience with me in my antiquated communication systems.
My desired goal is to expand the language with which we think and communicate. I believe we're capable of deeper levels of thought.
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i'm brand new to this. Therefore, attempt to exercise patience with me in my antiquated communication systems.
My desired goal is to expand the language with which we think and communicate. I believe we're capable of deeper levels of thought.
Welcome to the forum!
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i'm brand new to this. Therefore, attempt to exercise patience with me in my antiquated communication systems.
My desired goal is to expand the language with which we think and communicate. I believe we're capable of deeper levels of thought.
What do you mean by "deeper"? If you mean "more profound", then I would agree that most people do not think about things as much as they could (or should?).
If, on the other hand, you mean thinking about more complex things then I'm not sure that's correct. Although, having said that, exercising the brain does help it to work better.
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If you agree that we are limited in what we can possibly conceive of, without having an aneurysm, based on the translation (our personal translation) of each and every word we hold dear, you become as rare as myself.
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I'll certainly agree that each of us has a limit beyond which we are incapable of going. Unfortunately, though, all too few people actually get anywhere near their limit. They're content to meander along thinking about nothing much in particular.
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I think we all do have deeper levels of thought, the problem we have is communicating those thoughts in a way that is understood by others
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I think we all do have deeper levels of thought, the problem we have is communicating those thoughts in a way that is understood by others
In my case it's alcohol-induced incoherence! [;D]
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In my case it's alcohol-induced incoherence! [;D]
so why am i the only one that get a drunk as a picture reply? Also, i think a lot of people are too busy to think. Or make themselves busy. they have no time to just sit, relax and ponder. Blame the TV or modern life, but people do tend to fill their time and thoughts of what is happening on tv soaps and the like.
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I think a lot also just can't be bothered or don't see why they should.
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What do you mean by "deeper"? If you mean "more profound", then I would agree that most people do not think about things as much as they could (or should?).
Maybe related to Paul's later response, but there is the maxim that thought is the death of action (it is something that I often find myself, that I am so good at thinking about every possible angle to something, that I can think of all the risks in every possible action, so tend to avoid taking any of the risks, instead of just turning a blind eye to some of the risks, and not thinking about them).
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I think we all do have deeper levels of thought, the problem we have is communicating those thoughts in a way that is understood by others
Are we also maybe wrong in assuming that concious thought is the sum of all thought?
In a different context - there are some people who are good at mental arithmetic, and will consciously imagine the numbers they are operating upon; while other people can do the same sum without any concious thought, where you give them two numbers, and they will just come back with the answer without any concious effort whatsoever. Which of them has thought more about what they were doing (they both started from the same place, and ended up with the same answer)?
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My desired goal is to expand the language with which we think and communicate. I believe we're capable of deeper levels of thought.
Is it possible to really expand language?
If one looks at the history of language, it is certainly true that language has consistently accumulated new words, and with them, often new ideas; but as fast as it has done so, has it not lost the regular use of old words, words that expressed ideas that were no longer fashionable, or considered unimportant to the modern world?
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Maybe related to Paul's later response, but there is the maxim that thought is the death of action (it is something that I often find myself, that I am so good at thinking about every possible angle to something, that I can think of all the risks in every possible action, so tend to avoid taking any of the risks, instead of just turning a blind eye to some of the risks, and not thinking about them).
I think we have discussed this before George. This is something we both share, i also tend to overthink situations, actions and even thoughts in the hope of avoiding risk and pit falls. Generally the (my) thinking goes way beyond the actual situation and has the opposite effect - ie, leads to further complications due to over thinking things through.
this is something i have tried to change, but i still do it.
what would you put this down to?
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By, "what would you put this down to" i mean do you think it's a personal trait, a form of neurosis, personal defence mechanism or what, there must be a reason why people do this.
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By, "what would you put this down to" i mean do you think it's a personal trait, a form of neurosis, personal defence mechanism or what, there must be a reason why people do this.
It is arguable that any habit, if it is taken to an extreme, is a form of neurosis - but no doubt DoctorBeaver will have an opinion about that.
I think it is more about each of us having different talents, and we use the talents we are given to offset the areas where we lack talent. We are good thinkers, so we use that as far as we can take it to allow for other areas where we may be less adequate, and sometimes we take it too far, because it is still what we are most comfortable doing.
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By, "what would you put this down to" i mean do you think it's a personal trait, a form of neurosis, personal defence mechanism or what, there must be a reason why people do this.
It is arguable that any habit, if it is taken to an extreme, is a form of neurosis - but no doubt DoctorBeaver will have an opinion about that.
I think it is more about each of us having different talents, and we use the talents we are given to offset the areas where we lack talent. We are good thinkers, so we use that as far as we can take it to allow for other areas where we may be less adequate, and sometimes we take it too far, because it is still what we are most comfortable doing.
well, that does make sense George. I suppose i should get comfy on the couch and await the good doctor.
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By, "what would you put this down to" i mean do you think it's a personal trait, a form of neurosis, personal defence mechanism or what, there must be a reason why people do this.
It is arguable that any habit, if it is taken to an extreme, is a form of neurosis - but no doubt DoctorBeaver will have an opinion about that.
I totally agree. One only has to look at how disruptive to the sufferer's life OCDs are. But is what you & Paul have described a habit?
Thinking too much (?) about something rather than acting could be a sign of indecision, caution, or even fear. I certainly would not class those as habits.
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I totally agree. One only has to look at how disruptive to the sufferer's life OCDs are. But is what you & Paul have described a habit?
Thinking too much (?) about something rather than acting could be a sign of indecision, caution, or even fear. I certainly would not class those as habits.
OK, how about this for an example:
you have a job interview, you spend days planning what you think will be asked, your responce and their anticipated reply and so on. you end up totally planning an hours conversation. yes, that is a job interview and planning for it is a good, but what if you do this to all aspects of general life?
why did he/she do or say that, i think this is why. then spend ages assessing the context of the action and what your counter should have been? Then you doubt your reasoning and form another possibility like a flow chart with your "reasons" why an action was taken and possible yes, no answers branching off for different reasons you think of.
that is my everyday life, am i mad?
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There was a study recently that highlighted some differences between people who thought long and hard about a give thing, weighing up all the options and making a fully researched decision, as opposed to those who made shorter, instinctive decisions. It turns out that while the relative quality of the result for the thinkers may be higher than for the instinct thinkers, the subjective quality was not. The deep thinkers did not feel as happy with the result of their thought process as did the instinctive thinkers, even though the relative value was higher. This may imply that the deeper thinkers are more likely to be generally less happy then instinctive decision makers, and there may indeed be a feedback loop, in that deepers may respond to the situation "I've thought it all through, and I'm still not happy with the situation. This needs more thought..." and so on.
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Those are good points!
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I totally agree. One only has to look at how disruptive to the sufferer's life OCDs are. But is what you & Paul have described a habit?
Thinking too much (?) about something rather than acting could be a sign of indecision, caution, or even fear. I certainly would not class those as habits.
OK, how about this for an example:
you have a job interview, you spend days planning what you think will be asked, your responce and their anticipated reply and so on. you end up totally planning an hours conversation. yes, that is a job interview and planning for it is a good, but what if you do this to all aspects of general life?
why did he/she do or say that, i think this is why. then spend ages assessing the context of the action and what your counter should have been? Then you doubt your reasoning and form another possibility like a flow chart with your "reasons" why an action was taken and possible yes, no answers branching off for different reasons you think of.
that is my everyday life, am i mad?
I have been exposed to this over the last couple of weeks from my mother in law. She tends to work in this way..."But what if this happens. It might upset so and so...." and so on. I think that she has been doing it all her life, and now comes across as a negative personality, in that she will always voice the probability of something going wrong. This leads to inactivity and procrastination. Of course, some things need to be thought about, but sometimes you should just get on and do them........I tend to fall into the other category in that I tend to do things because they "feel right" rather than spending hours chewing them over. This of course means that I'm incredibly shallow and whimsical!
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I am there somewhere in between about how I think things through!
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Sometimes I think too much, and I definitely should never start thinking when I'm drunk..........that often leads to me having a conversation with myself.........my housemate told me so [;)]
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I totally agree. One only has to look at how disruptive to the sufferer's life OCDs are. But is what you & Paul have described a habit?
Thinking too much (?) about something rather than acting could be a sign of indecision, caution, or even fear. I certainly would not class those as habits.
OK, how about this for an example:
you have a job interview, you spend days planning what you think will be asked, your responce and their anticipated reply and so on. you end up totally planning an hours conversation. yes, that is a job interview and planning for it is a good, but what if you do this to all aspects of general life?
A lot of people would simply class that as making contingency plans. I've done similar myself when I was lecturing. It doesn't do for a lecturer to be caught out by a question so I would try to anticipate what students might ask and try to ensure I was pre-armed with a response.
Also, when I had to represent myself in the County Court for a custody case I tried to anticipate everything that might be said in the witness box.
However, I accept that it can be taken a bit far. What are you like if you fancy a hot drink? Do you sit there for hours working out what you could have or just go to the cupboard (or wherever) & grab a jar of coffee?
Or what if you make a journey? Do you consider everything that could go wrong and pre-plan a way round it?
I totally agree. One only has to look at how disruptive to the sufferer's life OCDs are. But is what you & Paul have described a habit?
Thinking too much (?) about something rather than acting could be a sign of indecision, caution, or even fear. I certainly would not class those as habits.
why did he/she do or say that, i think this is why. then spend ages assessing the context of the action and what your counter should have been? Then you doubt your reasoning and form another possibility like a flow chart with your "reasons" why an action was taken and possible yes, no answers branching off for different reasons you think of.
that is my everyday life, am i mad?
I don't see much wrong with that. Don't we all consider things after the event and think "What I should have done/said was..."?
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I've just re-read the original post & I think we've wombled off topic a bit [:-\]
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A lot of people would simply class that as making contingency plans. I've done similar myself when I was lecturing. It doesn't do for a lecturer to be caught out by a question so I would try to anticipate what students might ask and try to ensure I was pre-armed with a response.
Also, when I had to represent myself in the County Court for a custody case I tried to anticipate everything that might be said in the witness box.
However, I accept that it can be taken a bit far. What are you like if you fancy a hot drink? Do you sit there for hours working out what you could have or just go to the cupboard (or wherever) & grab a jar of coffee?
Or what if you make a journey? Do you consider everything that could go wrong and pre-plan a way round it?
I would do that a lot when i was in County Court for the same reason, 6 years that is possibly where it all started. well, if not started definitely got worse.
As for the coffee analogy, no i only drink coffee so no problem there. but other aspects of daily life, yes.
I don't see much wrong with that. Don't we all consider things after the event and think "What I should have done/said was..."?
The problem is i do this before each and every event, it is very rare that i have spontaneous conversation. i rarely just bump in to people and start chatting, so the vast majority of my face to face or even phone conversations are on a predetermined date and time. the conversation is then planned and all possible deviations thought through and appropriate responses considered, evaluated and memorised.
Even if someone passing by says or does something, i never take that on face value, i always have to know why it was done or said. then the process of dissecting their demena, tone of voice etc can last for days.
that is why i have tried to stay away from the topic "Does Moon exist if you don't look at it? " because this is how i approach everything.
i can feel the comfy leather couch calling.
I agree that we have deviated from the original topic, but i bet mhcarlin finds it fascinating.
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I don't only analyse situations after they have gone wrong, but think it at least as important to analyse situations when they go right (to asses what I did right, and to asses by what margin was the success, and were there things I could have done to improve the margin between success and failure).
If all you are doing is analysing failure, then you can never avert failure, but only correct for it after the event (and maybe prevent a repeat of two similar failures, but never anticipate a failure that you have not previously experienced).
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I agree that we have deviated from the original topic, but i bet mhcarlin finds it fascinating.
I would rather we did not presume what other people might think, but await his own response on the matter - if he wishes to bring this topic back to where it started, it is for him (or her) to provide guidance on that.
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I don't only analyse situations after they have gone wrong, but think it at least as important to analyse situations when they go right (to asses what I did right, and to asses by what margin was the success, and were there things I could have done to improve the margin between success and failure).
If all you are doing is analysing failure, then you can never avert failure, but only correct for it after the event (and maybe prevent a repeat of two similar failures, but never anticipate a failure that you have not previously experienced).
i too analyse all situations, good or bad. i do think i take it to the extreme, but it is such a way of life now that no matter how hard i try i just can not stop. this is quite often the cause of my lack of sleep.
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I don't only analyse situations after they have gone wrong, but think it at least as important to analyse situations when they go right (to asses what I did right, and to asses by what margin was the success, and were there things I could have done to improve the margin between success and failure).
If all you are doing is analysing failure, then you can never avert failure, but only correct for it after the event (and maybe prevent a repeat of two similar failures, but never anticipate a failure that you have not previously experienced).
I quite agree. I only used the failure scenario as an example.
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I don't only analyse situations after they have gone wrong, but think it at least as important to analyse situations when they go right (to asses what I did right, and to asses by what margin was the success, and were there things I could have done to improve the margin between success and failure).
If all you are doing is analysing failure, then you can never avert failure, but only correct for it after the event (and maybe prevent a repeat of two similar failures, but never anticipate a failure that you have not previously experienced).
i too analyse all situations, good or bad. i do think i take it to the extreme, but it is such a way of life now that no matter how hard i try i just can not stop. this is quite often the cause of my lack of sleep.
If it's causing you problems to that extent then I think you should seek help. There's a drug called Flupenthixol that stops you thinking too much about things. Don't ask me how it works as I don't have a clue.
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I agree that we have deviated from the original topic, but i bet mhcarlin finds it fascinating.
I would rather we did not presume what other people might think, but await his own response on the matter - if he wishes to bring this topic back to where it started, it is for him (or her) to provide guidance on that.
But I'm a psychologist; so presuming what others may think or do is what I do! [:D]
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There is a good 10 point article in a recent New scientist, about how we make decisions. i had a read last night andit was quite interesting.