loosely based on the pebble test

[Payne]

As it says on the tin, I was messing around with the pebble test idea in my head. I hope I didn't hurt it too much.



I was talking the other day with some people about a "major news story". One of those things that gets splashed all over the papers and TV screens. In this case, it was the disapearance of Madeline "Maddy" McCann, in Portugal, kidnapped from her hotel room while her parents were out.

Now for one person, it was a tragedy and her "heart went out" to the parents.

For the next, there was a certain amount of anger at the girls parents, for leaving her alone in the apartment when there was perfectly good child minding services available in the hotel.

For another it was a bleak portrayal of a world gone mad, were not even your kids are safe. Back in his day you never even locked your door, fer chrissakes.

I found myself considering that all of these were perfectly valid viewpoints. From one point of view, it looks like this, from another it looks like that.

I also found myself thinking that perhaps one of our biggest problems is the tendancy to look at things in a very two dimensional way, like a chart with two variables. Everyone seems to use whatever variables suit best (cause/effect, order/time any other combination you can think of, really). Of course it's possible for one person to see these things from different angles, but still it always seem like one of those CAT scan things where you only see a "slice" of the big picture at a time.

Why don't we just stand back sometimes and see the big picture? Why do we feel the need to break things down so much for analysis that we lose view of the object? Why is it that when we break things down in this way that inevitably we impose some of our own perceptions on it?

Of course, the answer probably boils down to being "only human", a perfectly valid excuse. In some sense.

We tend to base our perceptions of events and issues on our past experience, on our beliefs. We make patterns from this and impose them on events and issues as they arise, immediately jumping into the analysis stage without even looking at the big picture.

Our concepts are pre-conceived, and will only be changed by random events that force a readjustment of our thinking. (as when faced with something that fits no pattern, we don't know when to START analysing, we HAVE to look at the big picture first)

This fresh and innocent approach to what we find commonplace and "in fitting with the pattern" can be very rewarding, but it's a lot of work...

[Triple Zero]

I found myself considering that all of these were perfectly valid viewpoints. From one point of view, it looks like this, from another it looks like that.

funny how the "discordian" point of view usually is to "rise above" (not suggesting superiority here) all those viewpoints and take the wide angle perspective view of it.

I also found myself thinking that perhaps one of our biggest problems is the tendancy to look at things in a very two dimensional way, like a chart with two variables. Everyone seems to use whatever variables suit best (cause/effect, order/time any other combination you can think of, really). Of course it's possible for one person to see these things from different angles, but still it always seem like one of those CAT scan things where you only see a "slice" of the big picture at a time.

hm could it also be three instead of two?

because it reminds me of some psychological trick when haggling/convincing people:
when weighing pros and cons on a certain decision, people cannot take into account (on average) more than three of them at the same time and weigh them against eachother in a sensible manner.
if there are more arguments pro and con than three, a person has to select which three s/he deems most important and use that selection to make the decision.

(the idea for convincing people is to make give more arguments "for" the decision and make them sound more important than the few arguments "against")

Why don't we just stand back sometimes and see the big picture? Why do we feel the need to break things down so much for analysis that we lose view of the object? Why is it that when we break things down in this way that inevitably we impose some of our own perceptions on it?

Of course, the answer probably boils down to being "only human", a perfectly valid excuse. In some sense.

yes it's a sort of tunnel view. another part of our BIP. with some effort you can probably overcome it for some time, but it takes a lot of energy to continuously do it. too much information, i suppose.

we are really the blind leading the blind.

stumbling around in this nightly forest, with a map, and only a very small flashlight.

Our concepts are pre-conceived, and will only be changed by random events that force a readjustment of our thinking. (as when faced with something that fits no pattern, we don't know when to START analysing, we HAVE to look at the big picture first)

This fresh and innocent approach to what we find commonplace and "in fitting with the pattern" can be very rewarding, but it's a lot of work...

sounds like it would grow very tiresome very quickly.

i think the more important trick is to be able to switch consciously and at will from one mode to another.

again, as with most bars in the BIP, the choice, decision, will, consciousness is (ok, seems) more important than overcoming/breaking the actual bar.

[Payne]

funny how the "discordian" point of view usually is to "rise above" (not suggesting superiority here) all those viewpoints and take the wide angle perspective view of it.

Yeah, I'm not really surprised that it took that kind of tone though, lifting important elements of it directly from the PD. Notexactly trying to break new ground entirely which I'll happily announce. 

hm could it also be three instead of two?

because it reminds me of some psychological trick when haggling/convincing people:
when weighing pros and cons on a certain decision, people cannot take into account (on average) more than three of them at the same time and weigh them against eachother in a sensible manner.
if there are more arguments pro and con than three, a person has to select which three s/he deems most important and use that selection to make the decision.

(the idea for convincing people is to make give more arguments "for" the decision and make them sound more important than the few arguments "against")

Actually, three instead of two works a hell of a lot better than two, that way you can maybe also factor in, and quantify somewhat, someones point of view on a specific "object" (be it a news story or a tasteless joke. Or both!)

It also describes the imagery I had in my head while writing this a lot clearer

yes it's a sort of tunnel view. another part of our BIP. with some effort you can probably overcome it for some time, but it takes a lot of energy to continuously do it. too much information, i suppose.

we are really the blind leading the blind.

stumbling around in this nightly forest, with a map, and only a very small flashlight.

Yes, also an inescapable thing, as the BIP (as far as I can see) Is built on our perceptions, it probably also follows that our perceptions will also be affected by the BIP.

It's kind of like the old scientific problem of removing the observer from the eqaution.

However, I didn't want to dwell TOO much on the BIP, because I fancied throwing something a bit different out there.

Question: It's impossible to seperate this entirely from the BIP, but would it be possible to examine this as a new "angle" on perception? Or has this already been explored here, and I missed it?

sounds like it would grow very tiresome very quickly.

i think the more important trick is to be able to switch consciously and at will from one mode to another.

again, as with most bars in the BIP, the choice, decision, will, consciousness is (ok, seems) more important than overcoming/breaking the actual bar.

Well I did say it would be nice SOMETIMES, not as a constant thing.

It would prolly be like someone making their eyes point in a different direction for two long- it starts to hurt, a lot (I've been to a lot of eye exams with masochistic opticians).

[Triple Zero]

Question: It's impossible to seperate this entirely from the BIP, but would it be possible to examine this as a new "angle" on perception? Or has this already been explored here, and I missed it?

well it seems we can stretch the BIP to fit anything.

it's kinda like goatse, in a way.

and whether it has been explored or not, we can go into it again as long as there's ppl willing to contribute to the discussion.

also my parrot was murdered with a new angle on perception, so i'm offended by this (lovely plumage, though)

[Payne]

Yeah I'm hoping that some more people will want to get involved, I don't mind shredding the OP to bits and see if it still fits back together after.





oh and fuck you! My Great Uncle Jim was killed by a "Hey fuck you, my _____ was killed by a ______" joke!

[Darth Cupcake]

The large majority of things are subjective, or can be viewed from different perspectives.

This can be both good and bad.

On the happy side, this gives a lot of potential to rehash ideas/experiences/etc and be constantly learning new things, having new experiences, broadening your mind, etc. On the sadface side, you run into the problem of how to reconcile often contradicting views. Subjectivity can make any debate into one hell of a bitch. You can argue any stance into the ground without necessarily figuring out which is the "best" or "right" one.

I do not know that this post is necessarily adding anything to this, but just throwing that in. I am exhausted as hell, so this may have come out poorly. Sorry. You have brought up a good point for discussing, though.

[Payne]

Nah, thats alright. Subjectivity is the essence, I think, of the Pebble Test.

It's a kind of Applied Subjectivity. It takes as much of the variables out of something, but still leaves enough for your perspective and symbol recognition to be measured against it. It is after all, only five dots arranged in a familiar pattern.

The reason why I wanted to revisit it was to see if there are any thoughts on taking this applied subjectivity and using it in other ways. Maybe not as a sole tool to perception, or even a primary one, but as an added one. And not as a tool for reducing something down to managable chunks, but as perhaps a way to look at the interplay of meaning, symbols and patterns.

I dunno, I'm waiting on a bigger debate on this, to see what comes up.

[LMNO]

I'm gonna build a time machine & go back & kick Aristotle's ass, while chanting in Ancient Greek, "The Universe contains a Maybe!  The Universe contains a Maybe! The Universe contains a Maybe!"

[Cain]

Aristotle wasn't as bad as Plato.

Nearly as bad, but he also redeemed himself in a lot of places.  Which Plato did not, and in fact, only makes him look even worse.

Also, it should be remembered one off events are not accounted for under scientific game rules.  The aim of science is to find rules, which is why things must be repeatable.  If something happens as a one off, science literally cannot deal with it because it is not contained within its own game rules.

Like that Cold Fusion experiment, which was total win and fucked up everything for a while.

[AFK]

I still remember how excited my middle-school science teacher was when that was announced.  And how very disappointed he was shortly thereafter when he had to explain to us why it was a crock. 

[Payne]

Are these last three posts telling me that I'm being a dumbass?

Not sure, maybe using the word Applied brought to mind science, though I wasn't really thinking about it that way TBH.

In any case, if I am being a dumbass, I'll leave you all to it ITT. 

[AFK]

Well mine wasn't.  To be honest I was just riffing off of Cain's post. 

As for your example in your OP, I'd say an element you are dealing with is emotion and attachment.  People are going to view what happened differently based upon emotions and their relationship to this person.  A family member, distraught with emotion is only looking at a certain set of variables while some bloke reading the newspaper is going to be further detached and less emotional.  In other words, it's easy to analyze from a distance, but when you are in the thick of it, do you even have the time and mental capacity to consider it?  If you aren't an emotional void then the answer 9 times out of 10 is going to be no. 

[Payne]

Well mine wasn't.  To be honest I was just riffing off of Cain's post. 

As for your example in your OP, I'd say an element you are dealing with is emotion and attachment.  People are going to view what happened differently based upon emotions and their relationship to this person.  A family member, distraught with emotion is only looking at a certain set of variables while some bloke reading the newspaper is going to be further detached and less emotional.  In other words, it's easy to analyze from a distance, but when you are in the thick of it, do you even have the time and mental capacity to consider it?  If you aren't an emotional void then the answer 9 times out of 10 is going to be no. 

This is true, certainly for the people directly involved, but what about the people who don't have a direct emotional involvement? Or haven't even had something similar happen to them?

I might try a different example later on though, see if I can expand on it a bit.

EDIT: to make one sentence a bit clearer

[Cain]

I was replying to LMNO.

I didn't read your post Payne.  Not because it was bad, but because I have a self-created censor, so that whenever Madelaine McCann is mentioned in any sort of serious and honest way, I immediately go blind until the post ends.

[Payne]

 


Maybe I should do as I suggested earlier and choose a different example then.

Sorry for the temporary blindness dude.