| Saw that description on netflix and it made me laugh, and I'm still processing why. It's like a zen koan. It sounds so dumb! Why? Is it because B&B's dialog is so stupid, when you try to summarize it, it sounds even stupider? Like trying to describe the oft mundane plot of Seinfeld, "It's a show about nothing." Or when somebody asks me what I did today, and it doesn't make a great narrative, I say, "Ah nothing much." And that line fascinates me because it's also a description of so many conversations I have. We're all collectively processing the news, pop culture, whatever thing comes down the reality tunnel into the perceptual field. Most processing happens on the first circuit of consciousness. Either you eat it (cool) or you run away from it (sucks). Approach or avoid. We add a lot of data to that decision but at its core it's very basic. I heard that the kernel of inspiration for Beavis and Butthead was a moment when Mike Judge was eating lunch in a mall food court, and he was listening to these two teenagers talking, and they sounded so stupid, so utterly moronic, that he had to draw a cartoon about them----and the rest is history. And meanwhile, I'm sitting in a living room having a spirited debate about Obama Drones Syria NSA etc etc etc, and what do I have to say about it? If you boil it down, I'm either saying "that's cool" or "that sucks". | (http://24.media.tumblr.com/a80076abfc34a013dd9446a83801108e/tumblr_msw1b54dRs1rjfsvzo1_400.gif) |
Quote from: Cramulus on September 20, 2013, 04:30:20 PM
Yeah, it's like
Your "Reactive Mind" is the robot-like part of you that just reacts to stimulus. I think that if such a thing as free will exists, it only happens when you can hush that part of you that is programmaticly sorting the world into "approach" and "avoid" boxes.
That's part of zen too, quieting the judgmental part of you which insists on labeling everything as good or bad and just trying to see things as they are.
Quote from: The Johnny on September 21, 2013, 03:58:22 AM
Yes, everything can be boiled down to "that's cool" or "that sucks" but... the difference resides in the criterions one utilizes to define each of them - it can involve things like critical thinking, examining an idea against what reality shows and experimentation - or it can be something so basic as instincts and what is convenient in a short-sighted manner.
Quote from: Mean Mister Nigel on September 21, 2013, 05:52:29 AMQuote from: The Johnny on September 21, 2013, 03:58:22 AM
Yes, everything can be boiled down to "that's cool" or "that sucks" but... the difference resides in the criterions one utilizes to define each of them - it can involve things like critical thinking, examining an idea against what reality shows and experimentation - or it can be something so basic as instincts and what is convenient in a short-sighted manner.
Yes, I was going to say that the reaction may boil down to "that's cool" or "that sucks", but the processes we use to arrive at that conclusion come in varied levels of complexity, and additional complexity is piled on when/if we re-evaluate our original conclusion from time to time. In addition, there is a vast shaded middle area, that of "that might suck/be cool but I'm not really sure".
Quote from: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jx/we_change_our_minds_less_often_than_we_think/I realized that once I could guess what my answer would be—once I could assign a higher probability to deciding one way than other—then I had, in all probability, already decided. We change our minds less often than we think. And most of the time we become able to guess what our answer will be within half a second of hearing the question.
How swiftly that unnoticed moment passes, when we can't yet guess what our answer will be; the tiny window of opportunity for intelligence to act. In questions of choice, as in questions of fact.