Theory of Human Experience

[East Coast Hustle]

Felix, I think you may be approaching the point where you're just being obstinate because you like the theory, regardless of whether it is actually intellectually useful or not.

Just my 2 cents. I know what it's like to have what strikes you as a really cool train of thought leading to a profound conclusion, but sometimes they're perfume-covered crap and you've just gotta recognize that and get on to the next idea. This is likely to be one of those times.

[Triple Zero]

And thus, people become statistics.

What do you mean by that?

Just that statistics is one of the many useful angles for looking at people doesn't mean that people "become" [only] statistics.

So you must mean [correct me if I'm wrong], thus people are sometimes viewed as statistics. What's so bad about that?

First of, it completely depends on the context in which they [we] are viewed as statistics, and second it depends on whether we are only [ever] statistics.

This is also the part where I [strongly] disagree with Nicholas Taleb. He disregards [and makes fun of] all the "statisticians", especially if they are wearing a suit and a tie. I was personally surprised that when I looked them up to check, I couldn't believe it when he just told me in the book [his citations have been utterly wrong before, after all], that indeed the formulas for predicting economic flows are constructed from at their base a Gaussian distributed random variable. I thought, well, only a dumb shit idiot can do that, someone who, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, wants the world to be predictable (a true greyface?), because financial random variables, like the inbound degree of social graphs, are the fucking classroom example of exponential distributions, where everything in nature is based on Gaussians*.

Statistics is a science, Kai. There's a right and a wrong way to go about it. Just the fact that the statistical analysts in financial institutions are morans doesn't mean the science is invalid. In fact, they're not entirely to be blamed either, just like a scientist's pay shouldn't be based on the correctness of his hypotheses [after all, disproving a hypothesis, a negative result is a result too], statisticians shouldn't be paid based on the correctness of their predictions, because with enough survivorship bias you get bullshit.

*just an interesting thought I had. you know how basically humans are also part of the ecosystem, the ecosphere, etc yeah? and how they are really just another part of Nature. yet we still wonder about where the difference lies. because we feel something is different about us. I say look for the exponential probability distributions. They are fairly rare in the rest of Nature most of it is Gaussian, but humans seem to be producing them in their world all over the place. I think it's tied to us having Language, somehow, but I dunno.

[Kai]

And thus, people become statistics.

What do you mean by that?

Just that statistics is one of the many useful angles for looking at people doesn't mean that people "become" [only] statistics.

So you must mean [correct me if I'm wrong], thus people are sometimes viewed as statistics. What's so bad about that?

First of, it completely depends on the context in which they [we] are viewed as statistics, and second it depends on whether we are only [ever] statistics.

This is also the part where I [strongly] disagree with Nicholas Taleb. He disregards [and makes fun of] all the "statisticians", especially if they are wearing a suit and a tie. I was personally surprised that when I looked them up to check, I couldn't believe it when he just told me in the book [his citations have been utterly wrong before, after all], that indeed the formulas for predicting economic flows are constructed from at their base a Gaussian distributed random variable. I thought, well, only a dumb shit idiot can do that, someone who, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, wants the world to be predictable (a true greyface?), because financial random variables, like the inbound degree of social graphs, are the fucking classroom example of exponential distributions, where everything in nature is based on Gaussians*.

Statistics is a science, Kai. There's a right and a wrong way to go about it. Just the fact that the statistical analysts in financial institutions are morans doesn't mean the science is invalid. In fact, they're not entirely to be blamed either, just like a scientist's pay shouldn't be based on the correctness of his hypotheses [after all, disproving a hypothesis, a negative result is a result too], statisticians shouldn't be paid based on the correctness of their predictions, because with enough survivorship bias you get bullshit.

*just an interesting thought I had. you know how basically humans are also part of the ecosystem, the ecosphere, etc yeah? and how they are really just another part of Nature. yet we still wonder about where the difference lies. because we feel something is different about us. I say look for the exponential probability distributions. They are fairly rare in the rest of Nature most of it is Gaussian, but humans seem to be producing them in their world all over the place. I think it's tied to us having Language, somehow, but I dunno.

The issue is of averages. If I just go up and talk to a person on the street, I'm not talking to a statistic, I'm talking to an individual, and my actions should be suited to the individual. That is it, simply.

[LMNO]

I would like to take this opportunity not to shit on one of Felix's ideas:


"Breath control is the key to a great deal of human nature."


The biology of all humans (this is one of those rare instances where we are well inside the realm of human experience) includes the need for oxygen to ensure proper function of all organs, from the circularory to the nervous system.  The primary way of obtaining oxygen is through the lungs, using many core muscles working in specific combinations, depending on the amount of need for oxygen.  For example, a body sleeping breathes in a different way than a body which is panicked, or exhausted.

Through the poorly-defined yet anectdotally powerful concept of body/brain feedback, the way you breathe can affect your state of mind.  The mind can also be affected by the amount of oxygen the brain receives.

So, you can say with a fair amount of safety that if more people were aware of how they are breathing, and how to alter their breathing in response to certain anxiety states they encounter, they would act differently.


This may not be the meaning you intended, but that's the meaning I took away.

[Jasper]

Okay, maybe the idea is poorly formed, but I think I'll keep revising it because I'm tired of my habit of getting an idea, liking it, and dropping it after I find out it needs work.

The breath control thing is supposed to show a codependent link between mind and body, and how they can profoundly influence each other, and unless the mind is actively influencing breath control, the body will use it to take control of parts of your mind.  To me this is a seriously heavy concept in the framework of understanding human experience, because so much of what it means to be human is built on top of the notion that if you're actively being aware and in control of yourself, you get a much richer experience of reality, but if you're passive about your own thinking, you can hardly claim to have ever existed.

My original idea completely failed to account for its limits.  It can't include everything, and it can't describe everything.   Whoever said that was absolutely right.  Human experience is staggeringly broad, yet it is composed of a number of types of experiences.  As far as I'm concerned**, the list of things a human can experience are:

Smell
Taste
Touch
Sight
Sound
Proprioception
Recollection

and a few types of cognition, such as visceral*, rational, social, and meta-cognition.*** 

* (strong cognitions with a physiological counterpart, such as emotions and "gut" intuition)

If you're willing to go with the notion that cognitions are experiential phenomena.  My newest revision of the original idea is that any theory of human experience need only describe experiences within the list I've made, but due to combinatorial explosion, it cannot account for high degree multi-modal experiences.  For instance, it is within reason to attempt to convey or model an experience in terms of recollection and visceral cognition, but it is beyond anyone to accurately model any experiences that combine our 5 sensory apparatus and several modes of cognition.

**Meaning I'm probably mistaken, but there is definitely a finite number of types.

***I count dream experiences in these same categories, because in a dream we hallucinate vivid experiences while we are less likely to scrutinize them.  The only way our brains are able to fool us about these sensations is by what amounts to stage magic.  Only creating things for us to look at in the direction we are going to be looking.  Ever notice how, as soon as you start to think about reasons and reality the dream starts to break down?  It's because the charade is ruined.  It's as if the camera pointed away from the recording stage.


The "seven breaths" clause came from the Hagakure, I admit.  I wanted to include something from it because it seems to me a book that dignifies and crystallizes so much of what it means to be a human.  In retrospect, it doesn't really fit into what I want to do with this idea, so I'll cover it some other time.

tl;dr  I'm abandoning the notion of expressibility in the OP, in favor of a more limited means of description.  The breath control thing is meant to illustrate a mind-body utility, which can be seen as one of many instances where human experience is delimited by subjective/objective constraints.   

[LMNO]

You lost me.  The only thing I picked up on is that you anthropomorphized the body as an entity that is conscious and separate from the brain, and works against it, which is...


...wait for it...







...A Cartesian Duality.

[Jasper]

Not what I mean. 

The body isn't a conscious entity, it's just a reactive organism.  It reacts to a situation, and if you're not at the helm when it turns on the increased breathing rate and quickened pulse, you might get caught up in a program you may not like.

I'm not positing that the mind is separate from the body, I'm positing that they are an interdependent whole.

[East Coast Hustle]

I do agree with the idea that breath control, as complex a process as it is, is responsible for and intricately linked to what causes us to separate "man" from "animal".

Possibly even to the point of being equally as important as opposable thumbs.

[Jasper]

Definitely "more".  Try saying words without consciously controlling your breathing sometime.  It sounds a lot like when dogs try to "talk".

[East Coast Hustle]

well, I'm not sure where we'd be if we were a bunch of yammering bipedal primates who couldn't use complex tools, but we're in basic agreement anyway.

[Jasper]

Hmm. 

I still feel the need to improve the idea. 

Maybe I should look for ways to put it to use.

[LMNO]

I'd suggest moving away from the speech/breath thing. It's not the ability to communicate that's so great, it's the time-binding ability of writing shit down that makes a bigger difference.

[East Coast Hustle]

yeah, but surely you're not suggesting that we'd have developed written language without a spoken analogue to base the writings on?

[Jasper]

I think the theory needs to touch on synesthesia, and how low levels of it are present in everybody- we look at the word "hello" and we hear it in our heads.

[Triple Zero]

I'd suggest moving away from the speech/breath thing. It's not the ability to communicate that's so great, it's the time-binding ability of writing shit down that makes a bigger difference.

I'd say language in general.

Even without writing, oral tradition had decent time binding ability as well. Not as much as writing, but still.