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Post by shawnhartnell on Nov 16, 2012 6:52:53 GMT -6
An old video I put together.
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Post by thorgrim on Nov 16, 2012 9:05:36 GMT -6
very cool.
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Post by sin on Nov 16, 2012 12:49:24 GMT -6
How do you feel about #17?
A trend I notice, is that people seem to enjoy surrounding themselves with failures, rather than inspirational success stories. Misery loves company?
Thoughts?
CS
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Post by shawnhartnell on Nov 16, 2012 14:49:26 GMT -6
How do you feel about #17?
It makes sense on many levels. In Fourth Way terms, what Eben's talking about is consciously choosing influences.Can you give an example?
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Post by sin on Nov 17, 2012 8:16:48 GMT -6
I get that. Making conscious choices. This would take self-awareness, especially in the cases when you are not using conscious Will to choose those influences.
Facebook is a perfect example of this, that I can think of. The network platform seems to enable people to be around people that aren't exactly the best influences. Groups form with a set of influencers, and people seem to allow it, even when it's doing them harm.
CS
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Post by shawnhartnell on Nov 17, 2012 16:40:37 GMT -6
I get that. Making conscious choices. This would take self-awareness, especially in the cases when you are not using conscious Will to choose those influences.
Before that can happen a person has to realize the effect of influences and that better choices are possible. It's exactly the same kind of thing as realizing that what they eat has an effect on their energy level and also that better foods can be eaten for this purpose. The only difference is that it's a different kind of digestion. Just as we're hardwired to eat and an apple is a package of food processed through digestion, we're also hardwired for a certain kind of social influence and the package of that sort can be called a 'reference group' which is processed through a subconscious process.
For a person to have an influence on someone in the way we've been talking about in this thread, that person has to be included in the influencee's reference group. Otherwise the 'influencer' doesn't go through the subconscious process which causes the actual influence in the influencee's mind.
Not everyone on my facebook friends list is in my reference group, but some are. I disagree with this. I think that in the wild groups form simply through the chaos of nature, which then the groups produce a leader.
In the human zoo, I think that artificial groups are created by leadership of purpose, and sometimes, other kinds of groups are formed by bullshit and the cunning use of flags.
BTW, this is the condensed version of my original response to this thread, which was more like a dense tech manual than a forum post. If anything is unclear, seems irrelevant, or a bit bat shit crazy, just let me know.
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Post by sin on Nov 17, 2012 18:42:47 GMT -6
Sometimes, people are just avid 'joiners'. They join things, simply because a person has extended an invitation. A bad case of helium-hand, and 'me to!' complex is also at work there. I see it all the time.
A person that begins a group with a focal interest, isn't always a leader. Sure, they take the lead in forming the group but sometimes people are just in groups because they joined. I do agree with you about the influences, I guess they have to realize it's unhealthy for them to make changes. Sometimes those same people just choose much of the same, they replace the influence with the same thing in a new package.
I'm not sure if it's hard-wired though, seems more of a psychological issue rooted in an individual's pathology. Just my observation, anyway.
CS
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Post by shawnhartnell on Nov 17, 2012 22:59:16 GMT -6
What you seem to be describing is as the 'avid joiner' is someone stuck at Type 2 or Type 7 on the Enneagram of Personality. Both the mindspaces are natural and useful for those who are free to inhabit either of them when they're appropriate to the situation. The problem is being stuck in one of them no matter the situation.
I see a difference between 'focal interest' and purpose. The difference doesn't matter. I think that both of us lack a catalog of all the possible types of groups and we could argue about it all day from our incomplete knowledge, confusing one type for another while discovering a third. It would be an interesting thing to do but not something I'm willing to put the time and energy into at the moment.
I don't understand how you're agreeing with me about 'influences' , with the confusion being my own fault, because I've been confusing the issue using what I think is your direction of influence and sometimes using the direction of influence as defined by the mechanics of the process. I'm going to try to clear up this ambiguity, and then hopefully we can continue from there.
What I think you mean by 'influence' is that a person can be an influence that can directly influence another person. In this case the direction of influence is pointed at one person to another person.
In the mechanics view, a person can't directly influence another person anymore than an apple can. In both cases, they're just food for a hardwired, black box process that takes them as input, does some kind of process with them, and then produces an output which is the only real direct influence on a person. (Unless, of course, that output is the input of another process.)
We're not influenced by the apple, we're influenced by what digestion produces from the apple. In the same way, we're not influenced by people, but by what 'social digestion' produces from what it can digest from the people in a reference group.
Though the apple and the reference group are not direct influencers, they are influencers of the influencers. They have a direct impact on the final output of their respective black box processes. The upshot of this is that by being able to change the input of the process (say, add or subract fructose or members of a reference group), the input then acts as a control point, or a point of leverage where we can activate the little rudder that turns the large rudder which steers the boat (if your remember that conversation.)
With regards to whether or not black box processes are hard wired, it's implicit in my definition of what a black box process is when used in the context of the 'human system'. To be a black box process it must meet the following criteria :
1. The operation of the process must itself be invisible to our awareness. 2. The process must take an input and produce an output, both of which we can be aware of. 3. If the process requires regular input and if the input is restricted, it causes an increasing reduction of the effectiveness of other processes according to the degree of deprivation of input below the requirement of the process,, up to and including the eventual death of the organism if left to it's own devices without outside intervention, . (Whew.)
The short version of criteria 3 is that the input is lowered a little below what is needed for the process to perform it's function, then the effects tend to be a little harmful, while complete cessation eventually kills ya, but at different speeds depending on the process deprived.
From criteria 3 alone three black box processes can be identified using simple common knowledge of the restriction of their inputs: air, water, and food, all of which result in death at their respective rates.
'Social digestion' can be deprived of it's 'food' input of it's reference group by forced social isolation, the effects of which has been known and studied by psychology for a long time now, the most destructive being observed in prisoners kept in solitary confinement for years at a time.
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Post by sin on Nov 18, 2012 11:05:32 GMT -6
If the modeling helps you, use it. I am addressing the problematic trends, not the useful ones.
Groups don't always have a purpose, sometimes it's just an interest. Staying with the Facebook network groups, say a person creates a group to talk about shoes. People may be interested in shoes and be there to talk about it. The purpose can then just be to talk about shoes. The influencers come in when they are coercing people to think a certain way about shoes, buy certain shoes, or not wear shoes at all. If they are enjoying themselves and stick around daily to talk about the various subjects involving shoes, it could be a headspace thing, but if they complain constantly about the group, the people in it, the topics, wtf are they doing in there? Are they there to just suffer? Seems to be a daily exercise in self-immolation, but especially if they are being ineffective in holding up the burden of compromise to change the group from the inside.
General discussions are like that. If you don't have a point of reference you end up running around in circles with scissors.
Influence can be anything really, hence the need for a point of reference.
Ok. Let's go with that.
Another model.
I follow. In essence, you are saying we are hard-wired to 'allow' the influence in, it involves the internal processing of data (i.e. a person has a forceful opinion, the subject allows the opinion to influence their own minset).
I don't know that Newton would agree but I follow.
I do. The real question is, why do people 'allow in' the negative influences more frequently, than they allow the more positive inspiring influence?
Understood.
Ok, take an alcoholic for instance. If they are really trying to kick the habit, why then would they surround themselves with people that encourage them to drink, rather than be more self-disciplined not to?
Solitary confinement is a good example, but as we know, it is forced. The voluntary act of depriving oneself from the social influence, takes Work. So we could say it's just easier for an alcoholic to hang with people who drink than it is to starve the box, yes?
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Post by shawnhartnell on Nov 19, 2012 4:21:26 GMT -6
Here's the short answer to your questions about the alcoholic: Reading a book about knitting written by someone in his reference group who was never been addicted to anything and he will never meet is infinitely more effective than having face to face social contact with a supportive group of alcoholics who give him the best encouragement humanly possible and who are not in his social group, quite possibly worse if they are.
The best I can tell form my own experience, and from what I've read about forced, long-term solitary confinement is the that there's no difference between solitary confinement and not having a reference group except the level of physical comfort and the possible variety of the scenery.
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Post by sin on Nov 19, 2012 8:11:51 GMT -6
Food for thought.
CS
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Post by shawnhartnell on Nov 19, 2012 15:17:29 GMT -6
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Post by shawnhartnell on Nov 19, 2012 16:02:59 GMT -6
Here's a strange example for you. Larry Blackmon is in my reference group. Why? Because anyone who intentionally cultivates crotch identity is obviously both a Mad Scientist and Droog of the highest order. The question is: Is Larry Blackmon a positive or negative influence?
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