Discourse 15: The Trail of the Feedback Loop...

[Trollax]

The feedback loop of the human brain is not an abberation inherent in us, it is the result of society, and possibly deliberate manipulation.
Now... I must first explain a few things about my theories to you...

Premise 1:
Human behaviour is a series of premises arising from conclusions about information.

Premise 2:
Said information is filtered through basic behaviours: i.e. the four F's: Fight, Flight, Food, F*** and others. Conclusions based upon this information are then drawn, determining an initial direction of one's thoughts.

Premise 3:
Filtering is also determined by premises i.e. a feedback loop of judgement caused by prior experience and associations. Premises nested inside premises.

Premise 4:
Logic and thought processes are simply an outgrowth of this basic stucture, a linear continuum of ideas is simply a group of ideas we rationalise as being coherent and consistent with one another.

So that said... the feedback loop...

The feedback loop is emotional castration and mental dessication, leaving an individual as a mentally static emotionally immature and highly sophisticated automaton. A domesticated animal in other words. It is learned through the basic programming of the logic filters (the basic behaviours) and the working of these switches into specific patterns or types of patterns that promote self-denial far ahead of self-acceptance.
This leads to a war between our conditioning and our own opinions, when they conflict we get problems, the severity of the conflict determines the severity of the problem.
The conflict itself is highly complex and it's basic format takes the form of a circular argument...
"Why?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because."

This is essentially a distortion of the social contract and the placement of it far ahead (i.e. as always or nearly always ahead of) the self. "Society is important people are not."

OK... My brain's frying... digest this and I'll be back tomorrow...

[Penumbral]

That was WAYYYYYYY... over my head. Ill read it again... later...

[Sir Lyall]

"Why?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because."

I've had this conversation with superiors before. Most up and coming youth generations have it, although the overwhelming pressure of society on the individual gets them to accept almost all of the "Becauses" of the older generation and settle on different conclusions for a minority of things (these conclusions are usually just "Becauses" by another name.) This way society maintains its survival at the expense of individuals. It changes slowly over time, but rarely are pardigms radically changed within the course of a generation (Although the cycle may be speeding up, and totally reshapings of society may be happening more and more often, depending on who you ask.)

[Trollax]

OK... To continue.....

The feedback loop's basis for a hold on us relies on power, we must be addicted to it, we must crave, need, desire, and lust after power; any sort of external influence. Once that happens all there needs to be is a mechanism. (anyone else seeing why I feel there's probably a deliberate manipulation?) This mechanism -in our world today- takes any number of forms, the main ones being wealth and influence over large groups of people (duh, power). But the trick with the feedback loop is not in these things themselves but in telling people they must have them, and for some strange reason, the more abstract the concept of power the more we are likely to want it. Originally it was gold, and you had your secret hiding place for your gold, you kept it under the floor in your house or in that little hole in the wall behind your bed.
Then people started using secure storehouses to keep their gold in, as gold could be easily stolen, and hey, the storehouses were so big and linked together so they could afford to compensate you if the gold was stolen. Soon people started saying: 'why do we even have to go to the bank to get our gold out? can't we just use the receipt?' So then people were leaving their gold in the banks and exchanging letters of credit for fnords. Then some bright spark said: 'Why do we even need gold at all? I mean, this money stuff is selling like the blazes!' So we went from exchanging rare and precious metals (memetic constructs) to exchanging little bits of woven paper (rareified memetic constructs) for fnords.
Then some bright spark 30 years ago says: 'hey we've got these gigantic calculators that talk to each other! Why don't we let them handle all our money transfers?' soon enough people were relying on electromagnetic patterns to tell them how much money they have, and the brilliant thing was, how much easier it became, not only to steal it, but also to erase it.

What is the value of a $5 note? about 0.00000001 cents. But then what is the value of gold? it is essentially useless except for scientific purposes. What is the value of water, essential to all life? oh, it's basically a hundredth of a cent per litre.

Experiments done years ago on higher-order pimates (i.e. gorillas, bonobos, chimps etc.) where the chimps were trained to do wok to earn tokens so they could put them in a machine to get bananas. at first the chimps excercsied their regular behaviours and would put their tokens in the machine and run off with the banana's and horde them. But soon enough, they started to horde and fight over and collect the tokens. Why?
Well in their case it's a kind of miss-association, raccoons did a similar thing and would continuously wash their tokens. With humans, it's simple, the more compact and rareified wealth is, the easier it is to store, to hide and to keep track of. The local tyrant's wealth in the early days was visible for miles around, he had 5 wives 38 kids 12,000 cattle 200,000 hectares of land and 40,000 loyal subjects at his disposal. Today, wealth is stored in you pocket and on a computer, the end result can be replaced if stolen, a few zeros here or there make a world of difference. Soon enough, everyone's carefully washing their money because even wealth is a created concept, an external influence.

OK I realised I've waffled, but consider this statement...

"Under no circumstances may one employee punch another employee's timecard. Punching will result in termination."

Simon moon knew this was they key to the whole damned thing. Do you know why?

~Digital Trollax~

[seanfish]

The feedback loop of the human brain is not an abberation inherent in us, it is the result of society, and possibly deliberate manipulation.
Now... I must first explain a few things about my theories to you...

Premise 1:
Human behaviour is a series of premises arising from conclusions about information.

Premise 2:
Said information is filtered through basic behaviours: i.e. the four F's: Fight, Flight, Food, F*** and others. Conclusions based upon this information are then drawn, determining an initial direction of one's thoughts.

Premise 3:
Filtering is also determined by premises i.e. a feedback loop of judgement caused by prior experience and associations. Premises nested inside premises.

Premise 4:
Logic and thought processes are simply an outgrowth of this basic stucture, a linear continuum of ideas is simply a group of ideas we rationalise as being coherent and consistent with one another.

So that said... the feedback loop...

The feedback loop is emotional castration and mental dessication, leaving an individual as a mentally static emotionally immature and highly sophisticated automaton. A domesticated animal in other words. It is learned through the basic programming of the logic filters (the basic behaviours) and the working of these switches into specific patterns or types of patterns that promote self-denial far ahead of self-acceptance.
This leads to a war between our conditioning and our own opinions, when they conflict we get problems, the severity of the conflict determines the severity of the problem.
The conflict itself is highly complex and it's basic format takes the form of a circular argument...
"Why?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because."

This is essentially a distortion of the social contract and the placement of it far ahead (i.e. as always or nearly always ahead of) the self. "Society is important people are not."

OK... My brain's frying... digest this and I'll be back tomorrow...

All agreed, but:

Premise 5: Culture is a part of the information that human nature acts upon to produce behaviours that include more cultural acts. (Culture is here defined as acts that embellish upon, or move away from the four "Fs". For example, a war dance embellishes upon "fight" but doesn't actually kill anyone; Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Bach is a highly mathematical and technical piece of music that for all it's beauty owes as much to pure thought and a knowledge of the patterns harmonics make when echoed within the human neural structure as it does to the religious dominance of classical music in history).

Premise 6: Culture is a synthesis, a distillation that can teach us far more quickly and efficiently (about) than trial and error through action and self-reflection. If we have to learn absolutely every lesson for ourselves, we end up paralysed as to which lesson to learn first.

Discussion: There are a good many things in culture that serve to oppress us - particularly mainstream culture, particularly corporate-funded marketing culture that seeks to force us into a life of brand-identification.

There are also a vast amount of inspirational works existing in all forms, including other living humans around us all the time, that can lead us out of the nasty feedback loops and into higher levels of thought and consideration (and inevitably at times higher level feedback loops   )

For me this leads to the following conclusion: it is our duty to find that path, to seek out by ourselves and with the help of others that which will help our internal translation-and-filtration machine grow and develop and thereby (a) find more in what we see (beauty in the path of a raindrop, wisdom in the everyday conversations of those around us, truth in everything) (b) see more around us, and (c) become even more successfully self-directing in the above-described path.

[Trollax]

Premise 2:
Said information is filtered through basic behaviours: i.e. the four F's: Fight, Flight, Food, F*** and others. Conclusions based upon this information are then drawn, determining an initial direction of one's thoughts.

We can have higher order maps based upon our inferences... but rarely, do we have premises and influences that cannot be brought back to the four F's. I'm not saying that our choices in chosing a partner aare based burley on sex, our choice in this case is several orders of complexity removed from the four F's. i.e. choice of partner is based on emotions which are based on experiences whose inferences are based on past experiences befoire that, where reactions were determined by combinations of premises 1-4...

the concept of beauty can be mathematical, or spiritual, or cullinary. but in human terms (i.e. earthly, here and now, physical terms) there is some connection (no matter how far-removed) to those four F's

So perhaps premise five would be...

Premises can depend on premises which are in turn dervied from other premises, thus producing maps of maps of maps etc.

which is basically an expansion of what I was getting at with premise four...

cool stuff too...

[seanfish]

Mmmm... but I'm talking self direction here. You set up a maze, I say lo there is a way out of the maze. Maybe not all the time, and maybe not every dimension of it, and maybe not every version of it but there are paths that lead to greater freedom and paths that lead to lesser.

I find myself to be a consistent arguer against absolutism - viewing "transcendence" as a jerking, wrenching, I'm gonna punch my way outta this cultural trap, kind of affair is to me a wrong view.

When you walk freely through the walls of the maze, you may be in it or not in it, of it or not of it but it has ceased to be a maze for you. Putting your feet carefully is the key. As I wrote above, learning how to walk (swim, fly, teleport, temporally transpose etc) metaphysically and metaphorically is the key.

[Trollax]

I find myself to be a consistent arguer against absolutism - viewing "transcendence" as a jerking, wrenching, I'm gonna punch my way outta this cultural trap, kind of affair is to me a wrong view.

That's one of the rationalisations for the use of psychoanalysis..... the maze is important and by smashing our way out of it we are doing more harm than good. Skinner discovered this and wrote all about it, but he just thought that generalisation was unimportant to the grand scheme of things.

hmmn... what would the premise about this be?

[Trollax]

I find myself to be a consistent arguer against absolutism - viewing "transcendence" as a jerking, wrenching, I'm gonna punch my way outta this cultural trap, kind of affair is to me a wrong view.

That's one of the rationalisations for the use of psychoanalysis..... the maze is important and by smashing our way out of it we are doing more harm than good. Skinner discovered this and wrote all about it, but he just thought that generalisation was unimportant to the grand scheme of things.

hmmn... what would the premise about this be?

[seanfish]

Ummm...

Premise 7: Changing the system is necessary, changing the system too fast too soon can have more negative than positive consequences. Feedback loops must be walked out of. Adding energy to them may make them seem to dissipate but actually usually gives them energy to bind on a higher or wider level.

[Trollax]

Ummm...

Premise 7: Changing the system is necessary, changing the system too fast too soon can have more negative than positive consequences. Feedback loops must be walked out of. Adding energy to them may make them seem to dissipate but actually usually gives them energy to bind on a higher or wider level.

+µ points to seanfish...

you have been paying attention haven't you?

[Argh]

Ok, this may be a bit off topic, but I would like to discuss your second premise (I don't know how to do the nifty quoting thing, so I'll do it the old fasioned way).

St. Trollax said,
"Premise 2:
Said information is filtered through basic behaviours: i.e. the four F's: Fight, Flight, Food, F*** and others. Conclusions based upon this information are then drawn, determining an initial direction of one's thoughts."

I contend that there are not four but five F's.  Fight, Flight, Food, F***, and Fellowship.  This makes the theory better on two levels, practical and theoretical.  

Practical:
    Fellowship (aka: love) is at least perhaps more of a biological need that F***.  Now, you may say that love is just a by product of the need for sex, but to you nay sayers I say NAY.  Firstly, neither one of them is actually, in the strictest sense of the word, a "need".  Without food, you will die.  The end.  You will NOT die without sex. (Some of us may need to take a deep breath here and get our minds around this.)  In the same way, you will not die without fellowship.  However, they are both still biological needs, in that in order to be a well adjusted person and not an uptight prozac-popping Thuddite, you must partake.
    A child in its early devolopment "needs" love from its parents.  As the child grows older it begins to "need" love from its peers.  Some of you may say, in the style of the true Ayn Rand individualist, "I don't need nobody but myself so PHTHTTTT!!"  This is obviously not true.  For one, I have friends who are male.  This greatly reduces my chances of ever propigating with them.  For another, as I know from experiance, go to a place where nobody speaks your language and see how long it takes before you start to go crazy for lack of a friend.
    In our society, there is much confusion about basic needs.  For example, 70% of Americans are so chronicly dehydrated that they mistake thirst for hunger.  The fight/flight reflex is so screwed up by the constant barrage of displays of street violence on TV news and other places that you can hardly go outside your home without your sympathetic nervous system going off resulting in nervousness, tension, cold sweat, carrying a gun around in the trunk of your car, etc.  And then faced with a situation where the reflex might actually come in handy, most of us have such jaded and worn down fight/flight reflexes that we just stand there like stupid deer in the head lights.  Finaly, I come to F***/Fellowship.  How many people do we know who mistake the need for sex with the need for love.  Just about damn everybody.

Theory:
    This is where I prove that Fellowship is the Fifth "F".  Firstly, to include Fellowship into the F's is in accord with the Law of Fives, making it automaticaly a better theory.  Second, it makes the whole thing much prettier.  Food (representing any basic biological need.  There is no need to include sleep and water and whatnot) stands alone.  It has no opposite.  Also, there are two sets of two F's which are opposite but complementary.  Fight/Flight, F***/Fellowship.  If you set this in a graphical sense, you get a five pointed star with Food at the top, Fight opposing Flight, and F*** opposing Fellowship.
    Also, it is no coincedence that each of the five F's correspond so easily with the five basic elements (stop me if you think I'm taking this too far.  oh wait, you can't!  Muah Ha Ha!  I win!) Food coresponds to Orange, Fight corresponds to Boom, Flight corresponds to Prickle, F*** corresponds to pungent, and Fellowship corresponds to Sweet.

Anyway, if this isn't proof enough to you that there are five F's and that Fellowship is one of them, there will never be enough.  As for the rest of the argument, Yay!  Have fun.



Freedom for Quebec from the Iron Hand of Canada!

[SMFabal]

Acually, I feel that the basic needs are:
FIRST: Food/Drink
SECOND: Shelter/Protection
THIRD: Sex/Reproduction
FOURTH: Companionship

And the must be dealt wiht in order.

For example, 70% of Americans are so chronicly dehydrated that they mistake thirst for hunger.

Cronic dehydration is a MYTH invented by the makers of "Extra-Hydrating Water" (like H3O) to sell their usesless crap. if they wern't so serious about it, I'd call it a Mindfuck. The REAL medical folks arew now saying you don't even need 8 glasses of water a day; that you can get a large pertcentage of your fluid intake from vegatables and even meat.

Ahving dealt with that, it is possible to argue that the human need for compainionship is simply a part of the SECOND point "Shelter/Protection" as a simple pack mentality. It can aslo be argued that the need for sex is utterly independant from the need for fellowship, but in EVERY relationship, the issue of sex is raised. It is then only a question of how said issue is resolved.

[Trollax]

Isn't most of this splitting hairs? Actually I only said the four F's because That's the first thing that came to mind, there are many basic behaviouirs, If you like you could say that ther are 5 F's or 6 or 297.4 F's It doesn't really matter, what I was talking about however are the basic drives, and yes I'll concede that in humans, community is one of them.

What I've said is not set in stone, that's why I said it...

~Fluid Trollax~

EDIT: And how can you mnistake dehydration for hunger? I'm dehydrated right now and I sure as hell am not hungry...

[seanfish]

Ummm...

Premise 7: Changing the system is necessary, changing the system too fast too soon can have more negative than positive consequences. Feedback loops must be walked out of. Adding energy to them may make them seem to dissipate but actually usually gives them energy to bind on a higher or wider level.

+µ points to seanfish...

you have been paying attention haven't you?

*bows*