Et tu Neural Linguistic Programming?

Is Neuro-Linguistic Programming Illiberal?

Kant advised that we should cultivate the capacity to act in freedom by applying the courage and determination required to use one's own intelligence rather than relying on the guidance of others. Mill thought life was best lived in a path of reflective self-direction.

As scholar David Johnston puts it

The perfection of our capacities as agents capable of shaping our own lives by pursuing projects and attempting to realize values that we conceive for ourselves is a task of first importance for human beings.

Let's examine this quote in comparison with Neural Linguistic Programming. NLP is a method for success in dealing with others or in accomplishing your goals. It teaches tactics and mindsets to employ or inhabit that will allow you to achieve your goals more successfully. One such tactic is to read people's body language accurately. If we can get an accurate reading of person X with body language X, we can speak in jargon Y that is purported to be psychologically proven to allow us to communicate with person X.

Simply as a tactical approach, NLP does not seem to be illiberal. NLP allows us to autonomously form our goals and than simply use the suggested tactics to achieve them.
The danger of NLP being illiberal comes from the tactic becoming a mindset. Let X be what I really believe. If I always alter X when communicating the content of X with person of type Y or Z or C .... personality, then I am failing to act autonomously. I am unable to speak clearly and directly on a given issue, and to choose words and body language based on their veracity to Belief Set X. My expression of my ideas are over burdened by the need to have them conform to a given situation.

NLP teaches a hyper-awareness of the social or inter personal environment at the risk of intra-personal development and integrity. In a way, it teaches Westerners to be a little bit Japanese.

Now some may argue that we must not always alter X when communicating with others. But, that does not ring true with the psychology of tactical learning. When one learns a tactic, it becomes habitual. Habituating a process is a step in learning. We have learned the tactic of writing the alphabet, its very difficult after the fact to go back and forget that we know it. Same with someone who knows how to return a tennis serve. It is a game of acting to return to a lower level.

But knowing how to return a tennis serve could never be called mindset and therefore it it just a means to the end of playing a good game of tennis. (though I suppose when we play a game of tennis we do enter a mindset). Mindsets are things we enter in for extended periods of time that affect our decisions and formulate our ends rather than just serving as means as tactics do. Returning a serve is a single action that is too brief to affect our autonomy. Is practicing NLP just a series of habits not amounting to much with regards to autonomy?

Playing a game of tennis is a set of actions occupying an extended period. A mindset applies here. This mindset may guide decisions not only on the court but also off-court. We may begin to formulate ends about tennis which serve not our initial pre-tennis mindset interests; but our current tennis mindset This is natural. For example, we may eat healthier and do cross training to nurture our burgeoning game. There is nothing illiberal about this.

But with the mindset-tactic distinction in mind, let's look at NLP. NLP is used in social situations; which, unless we are Robinson Crusoe's, are the most extended aspects of our lives. In this way, the tactic becomes a habit which becomes a mind-set that we inhabit when we are in social situations – which is the vast part of our lives. Now inhabiting a tennis mindset is in no way illiberal. But what about inhabiting an NLP mindset? Instead of relying on our own beliefs and integrity, we are now adjusting set X to become a better communicator. Initially, this effects our external behavior. Does it effect our internal behavior? I suspect most likely. People who are committed to tennis may engage in behavior they would otherwise not like, such as dieting. Likewise people engaged in NLP may begin to alter their belief-set to deal with the contrast with their hyper-socially conforming behavior. People find contrasts between external behavior and internal behavior to be psychologically troubling. Hence, the negativity poured into terms like “faker” and “insincere”.

Further, we have often heard that the best way to convince people when communicating is to truly believe that you believe what you are saying - even if you don't really believe it. People can spot liars easily, and the best way to convince someone of something is to convince yourself that you have no doubt in what you are saying. If you have to alter the content of your expression to suit others, eventually, the best way to come off convincingly is to act like you believe it. Your brain does the rest of the work for you. Eventually, you don't just believe that your believe X. Your always-streamlining brain just begins to believe X.

Stupid, But Dangerous, But Awesome (?) Sports and their Social Implications

Ripped Directly from The Globe and Mail

Next, the Olympics?
“Blood trickles from a gash below Paul Bedard’s left ear, a wound that could have been worse considering that he incurred it while kissing a 2.5-metre alligator under water,” Jacqui Goddard writes for The Times of London. “… He resurfaces holding the alligator over his head before hauling it to the side of the pool, staggering onto the adjoining sandy beach and flopping it onto its back, a move that renders the creatures immobile.” The event was staged by the Seminole Indian Tribe of south Florida as part of a push to get alligator wrestling recognized as a professional competitive sport. The hope is that Freestyle Alligator Wrestling Competitions (FAWC), a body co-founded by tribe member James Holt, might one day become the alligator equivalent of World Wrestling Entertainment.

What exactly are the barriers to getting alligator wrestling classified as a professional sport? Perhaps its a question of paternalistic welfarational concern for the anthro-combatant. Should the gov't care about its citizens in this way? I guess its kind of nice that they do. But, why do they care? Its not as if those participating in alligator wrestling are the best and the brightest. They're clearly not. Not incredibly smart guy = Alligator Wrestler is like the closest thing you are going to get to a tautology in the Human Sciences with 2 non-synonyms. Even if it is a valued cultural activity, its still probably best belongs to history.

Further, the gov't probably will find some other way to screw over those people's lives economically anyway as the oppresed southern underclass is a usual target. So why care for them in this instance?

Turning to the question of the social ramifications of the state legitimating this sport by bestowing it a professional ... Imagine a nation where all laws were the same as now but where issues of leisure suffered no state intereference. Xtremadelphiaopolissstanyork - where all was game, and no one could blame anyone but themselves. Would society suffer? We could still ban kids from doing certain sports or activities (even libertarians probably want some paternalism for kids). But no bans for adults.

Possible social ills

• lost grief days at work for friends and relatives of the extreme sport dead




• psychological trauma resulting from this




• thrill seekers would need to find something even more extreme and potentially dangerous to others if previous thrill achieved through the now legalized sport was through participating in a dangerous and illegal activity

The list would go something like this. Its not a huge list. The list for nearly any activity, even one as banal as knitting probably has its fair of resultant social ills (as well as benefits).

So does the state ban these activities because of the minimal social ills to others outlined or because they care about the individual participant? And - even if the gov'ts intentions are the best - how would care be defined by a cold, bureaucratic thing like a state. Remember, all political vocabularies justify niceties accorded by the state to its citizens within the language of cool, calcuable rights. Rights mention nothing about caring. And, can a thing, like a state, care in any anthromorphic sense of the word?

Phrenology (The Reckoning)

Discredited science is often inhumane, racist, erroneous with dubious attention to research. But, on the rare occasion, it gets it just right.

Look at Phrenology. It is the discredited science of intelligence. Derived from two Greek words—Phren intelligence Logos “discourse” or science, it is pronounced like friend without the 'd' plus 'ology'. But basically, its just the mocking study of people with obtuse heads labelled as science so as to be extra cruel and to give it some additional weight.

But sometimes even phrenology throws out some undeniable descriptions of head sizes for consideration. Personal favorite for me: The Idiot. Shrunken backside of head, mouth agape. This is confirmed to such a degree, it could be the dictionary entry next to said word.

I especially like the skull cap.

The Marriage of Morality and Religion

Christians may be inclined to assume that morality and religion are inexorably intertwined. You could even question the purpose of religion if it wasn't intended as the conveyor of morality and the punisher of those in err. Honestly, if your whole idea of religion is praying to a statue so it will rain or so your enemy will get the gout, then, you are, my heathonous friend, a little greedy. With this in mind, let's look back at a time before religion and morality were so connected to get some perspective to see just how circumstantialnesseses of the present situation.

Where a religion was bound up with the government of an empire, political motives did much to transform its primitive features. A god or goddess became associated with the State, and had to give, not only an abundant harvest, but victory in war. A rich priestly caste elaborated the ritual and the theology, and fitted together into a pantheon the several divinities of the component parts of the empire. Through association with government, the gods also became associated with morality. Lawgivers received their codes
from a god; thus a breach of the law became an impiety. The oldest legal code still known is
that of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, about 2100 B.C.; this code was asserted by the king to
have been delivered to him by Marduk (A GOD!). The connection between religion and morality became
continually closer throughout ancient times.

This analysis, direct from Bertrand Russell's blog, shows a) a time before morality and religion were all bound up with one another and b) that the emergence of state religion (to justify the ruling class's authority) is the origin of morality's role in religion. This doesn't mean that morality through religion is necessarily corrupt, though it is the sort of beginings you would want to keep in the closet. And it makes the whole thing seem a bit suspect.

Personally speaking, I think the connection between morality and god(s) is necessarily a good thing. Without the connection, its all just overblown voodoo; which, though cool, shouldn't really guide large populations in the key areas of life. And, as I said before, it reeks a bit of greed.

Possible equations:

Religion - Morality = Voodoo

Religion multiplied X by State Control + Religious Based Justification for State Authority = Morality becoming Intertwined with Religion

Germans and Cruelty

Perhaps WWII was no fluke. Perhaps it was the not the inevitable result of circumstance set in historical motion. Perhaps, what we've come to expect all along is true: Germans are cruel.

A slapstick childhood?
“Berlin leaves me baffled,” Joanna Robertson, a mother of two, writes for BBC. “True to the spirit of the Brothers Grimm, childhood here is filled with wonders, but is unexpectedly grim. There are toy shops by the hundreds. And puppet theatres. Sweetshops. Playgrounds with terrific slides. Ice creams scattered with gummi-bear jelly sweets. Sledging in winter, cycling in summer, tree-climbing and swimming in lakes. But should a little child fall off her bike, passersby will laugh out loud. … Take my elder daughter Lilli’s junior school. The reward for keeping quiet in class? The teacher gives out a balloon filled with freezing water to burst upon the head of a fellow pupil of one’s choice.”

There it is; that curious mix of cold misanthropism and socially-minded humanism defining the Fatherland. And, What's up with the frigid sense of existential angst, staring off into the middle distance? Are they never not serious? And, if they are sometimes not - how does one tell?

The Pursuit of Happiness: Bed-Making, Ironing, or Weeding

A little comparative analysis on how to be happy ...

Make the bed and sing
Gretchen Rubin’s bestselling The
Happiness Project chronicles her pursuit of certain philosophical, psychological
and organizational precepts in order to be happier, Meghan Daum writes for the
Los Angeles Times. “Chief among her findings: Make your bed every morning.

There may be some truth to this. Making the bed gives you some since of order and accomplishment both key elements to what the Greeks called eudamonia. It gives a little control over a chaotic world. Of course, messing the bed up again creates the reminder that all problems inevitably return, but its important not to think about things too much.

Possible Equation:

Easily Manageable Chore + (resultant sense of) Accomplishment + (resultant sense of) Control + (resultant sense of predictability derived) Peace from an established Daily Routine minus - Discomfort (resulting from time taken away from other more pressing tasks) equals = Happiness

But which Easily Manageable Chore works best? A case for weeding by American philosopher Jack Handy ...

If you ever go temporarily insane, don't shoot somebody, like a
lot of people do. Instead, try to get some weeding done, because you'd really be surprised.

Originally, a joke, but, still, not bad advice. Plus, you get the natural sunlight which is boost to happiness. And, you get your hands in the dirt like our evolutionary forefathers which is important if the new evoluionary exercise and healthy living programmes - which prescribe us to live like its 100,000 years ago on the Sahara - turn out to be true.

Personally, a favorite is ironing. It fulfills all the criteria of the above equation. Further, your clothes represent your most public face, so you reap the social rewards of people recognizing the fruits of your labor. The same can't be said for gardens or beds. This social recognition may, in turn, result in getting a job or getting action, which in turn, increases happiness. As a chore, it has many multi-generative facets for producing happiness indeed.

Hence, the Importance of Ironing.

Noise, Mosquitoes, and Mild Totalitarianism

From the Globe and Mail:





"Matsumi Suzuki is a former employee at the National Research Institute of Police Science, where he made award-winning advances in the field of voiceprints. One of his proudest achievements was the development of a synthetic mosquito noise that is inaudible to Japan’s over-60s, but supposedly discourages teenagers from ‘congregating in parks at midnight.’ ”





Politically speaking, as a liberal, how should I view this?



People should be free to congregate in public places but, even public places have curfews. People should also be free to enjoy silence at midnight, even if they choose to live next to a park.




I think what is most scary about this is not that teenagers are being kept from loitering. Only the most leather-jacketed of rebels would think that's something worth fighting for. People are quite accepting of police making the occasional rounds and kicking out the kids. The most frightening thing: the effectiveness of the measure. Using sound to drive the kids out is 100% effective, unless its a gang of deaf kids. Police get lax, tolerant, outrun, fat, and couldn't be bothered. But using sound to disperse a crowd will not fail.





This also mirrors the truly frightening aspect of A Clockwork Orange that was unfortunately missed by the author himself. No one cares if young Alex accepted his imposed morality; which served as the basis of Burgess's centrally-themed social commentary. If someone is a socio-path; why would we really want him to express his freedom? It's like asking to be punched in the stomache. Better non-autonomous morality than none at all. We value most that the key laws of a state are followed; that it is followed autonomously is necessary in the main but not for each and every person. The effectiveness of Alex's rehabilitation; the completeness with which it is carried out is what is frightening. It is frightening because it works so well. If it only worked 20% of the time with a high chance of relapse; people wouldn't have been so fussed.

A completely effective behavioral altering measure hints at a risk to the freedom of the average citizen. These measures could be used against us; and resistance would be futile. That's dystopic. And, I'm not suprised its a Japanese invention. They are just so good at this type of stuff.

Possible equation:

Effectiveness of Measure + Capability of that Measure being used on the Avg. citizen + Likelihood of that Measure being used on an Avg. citizen = Degree of Totalitarianesque Fear when we read news snippet about the Measure being introduced in Japan on its incredibly socially-compliant citizenry

Perfect Spring Weather

Sure, people say 'its a perfect day' all the time.

Question: But how many people take the time to then escape from said perfect day to go indoors to google the exact metereological quantitative data to measure said perfect day?

Answer: the few, the great and the now.

I present the exceptionally swell spring day ...

Temperature: 15degrees
Humidity: 31%
Wind: 17km/hr
Disposition: Sunny

Enjoy

Hour By Hour Report

14 Mar 10:00
Passing clouds. Cool.
11 °C
7 km/h
38%
1029 millibars
N/A
14 Mar

11:00
Passing clouds. Cool.
12 °C
9 km/h
35%
1029 millibars
N/A
14 Mar

12:00
Passing clouds. Refreshingly cool.
14 °C
9 km/h
33%
1028 millibars
N/A
14 Mar

13:00

Passing clouds. Refreshingly cool.
14 °C
13 km/h
31%
1028 millibars
N/A
14 Mar

14:00
Sunny. Refreshingly cool.
16 °C
6 km/h
29%
1027 millibars
16 km

15:00
Passing clouds. Refreshingly cool.
16 °C
9 km/h
29%
1026 millibars
N/A

16:00
Passing clouds. Refreshingly cool.
16 °C
7 km/h
25%
1026 millibars
N/A

17:00
Sunny. Refreshingly cool.
16 °C
7 km/h
25%
1026 millibars
16 km

Ancient Greece Exceptionialism

Let's look at Ancient Greece's achievements through a perspective of population demographics. In terms of achievement, Bertrand Russell says

IN all history, nothing is so surprising or so difficult to account for as the sudden rise of civilization in Greece. Much of what makes civilization had already existed for thousands of years in Egypt and in Mesopotamia, and had spread thence to neighbouring countries. But certain elements had been lacking until the Greeks supplied them. What they achieved in art and literature is familiar to everybody, but what they did in the purely intellectual realm is even more exceptional. They invented mathematics * and science and philosophy; they first wrote history as opposed to mere annals; they speculated freely about the nature of the world and the ends of life, without being bound in the fetters of any inherited orthodoxy.

With this in mind, let's look at the population of that town along the Aegean ...

There were no proper population censuses in ancient Athens, but the most educated modern guess puts the total population of fifth-century Athens, including its home territory of Attica, at around 250,000 - men, women and children, free and unfree, enfranchised and disenfranchised. Of those 250,000 some 30,000 on average were fully paid-up citizens - the adult males of Athenian birth and full status. Of those 30,000 perhaps 5,000 might regularly attend one or more meetings of the popular Assembly, of which there were at least 40 a year in Aristotle's day. 6,000 citizens were selected to fill the annual panel of potential jurymen who would staff the popular jury courts (a typical size of jury was 501), as for the trial of Socrates.

A mere 30,000 people set the Western world on its current course cementing and inventing our rational disposition and our most ingrained conceptual frameworks. Its difficult to imagine where we would be without the Greeks because our whole method of thinking is oriented by their contributions whether it be scholastically or everyday, practically.

Examining some comparably large cities illustrates the unlikely happenance of the emergence of Ancient Greece.

• Baton Rouge, Lousiana




• Rochestor, New York




• Windsor, Ontario

And this list isn't even fair because 100% of their populations of 250,000 are free citizens. How could such a concentration of knowledge and original curiosity occur in one tiny area? Is it because of genetics? There would be no evidence of that in the Greeks I met. Was it just a matter of luck and timing? Was it inevitable? I doubt history has any inevitabilities save for death. Is Rochestor next?

Ode To Those Cave Art Guys

The birth, maturity and death of Europe's first great artisitic period marked by those French Cave Paintings streches from 35,000 years ago to 9000 BC. This period starts with decorated and colored bone and ivory utilized to be tools, followed by figurative art, and hitting a peak with the painted cave 'sanctuaries'. This period had little change within main styles. This is an amazing 25000 years of singular stylistic coherence. As historian JM Roberts has said

so long a period - almost has long as the whole history of civilization on this planet - illustrates the slowness with which that tradition changed in ancient times and its imperviousness to outside influence.

Given the fact of how quickly changes are made now, this slow intense burn of culture seems fascinating. Where were the neighbours to come in and add something new? The tribes were likely so geographically isolated that no such exchange of ideas was possible. Also, what kept that proto-culture going for so long, when other greater cultures have vanished in less than a blink of that time?

And, maybe most interestingly, why did it dissappear? After 9000 BC, the culture that followed produced only some colored pebbles for a few thousand years. And that's just sad.

Japanese Train Stations

Trains play an integral part of Japanese life, much more so than in most countries. A matter of demographics, there is just simply too many people crammed into to small an area to make driving - except on weekends - remotely optional. To this, I offer some criteria that determines the worth of a train station.

1. Raised view from platform. View must be appropriately Japanese Blade Runner dystopian, concrete, bright commercial lights futuristic orgy of pleasure and loneliness; or, simple elegant, green, volcanic, Nippon beauty reaching back to simpler times. Concrete overload or sparse aestheticism. Almost any station on the Kansai Hanshin Line represents the former and Yamadera Station represents the latter. JR Kyoto Station is an interesting mix of both.






2. At least a single copy of the International Herald Tribune. The IHT is an international edition of the New York Times with some minor Japanese coverage. No offense to English translations of Jpn's newspapers, but you just can't compete with reading a NYT so far away from its original home. Really makes you feel international. Goes great with a cold convenience store beer on a warm slightly less crowded than usual train.


3. The right kind of people. Short-legged, overly made-up girls can be perfect; not too many as they are noisy and I'm easily intimidated. One classy, long-legged NHK type girl. Only one though because they are high-class and I'm easily intimidated. Also, some uber-curious big headed Japanese three year olds are a must. They look like little ridiculous grown-ups. The more of them, the merrier. Plus, they have a grand look of joy because they know not the System that will eat them up. Potentially, at this point they could have the sunny disposition of a Thai or Italian, though we know with time, this is not to be.








4. No crazy homeless guys inside the station. Though outside the station these same people if not obstructing the stairs add a bit of charm.





5. Though this is not essential, it is helpful if one can see the large glowing lights of an all-you-can-eat tabehodai restuarant from the platform or within a 10 second range of departing or arriving at a station. These signs flag an area as worthy of future exploration. Even if the town around the station sucks, an intense session at an all-you-can-eat place can be very satisfying.

Cape Breton - Japan - The Differences that Lie Therein Between

I am from Cape Breton.
I now live in Japan.
Shocking Difference of the day:

Actual Universe
Japan: Seen someone using a Starbucks bag to transport their lunch to work.
Possible Reason: They want to be seen with such a fashionable bag (Starbucks within Japan = cool)
My gut reaction: Who you be fooling? Pretensiousnessesesssesss.

Alternate Universe where I live in Cape Breton
Cape Breton: Seen someone carry their lunch to work using a Nova Scotia Liqour Commision bag.
Possible Reason: They want to be seen with such a fashionable bag (NSLC within Cape Breton = cool)
My gut reaction: Pride in man as there is no pretense here. Though slightly worried about what this could hold for such an island in such a market oriented go-meets-go world. Cape Breton - you are too perfect for this world.

Subjective and Objective

Subjective and Objective is a title of a well-known paper by Thomas Nagel. In this paper, Nagel explores irreducibility of reducing qualitative subjective views of the world to quatitative objective facts about the world. Should we reduce our experience of Red to the phsyical explanation of what happens when one agent standing at spot X at time X reports seeing Red.

Nagel says it is a folly to expect this reduction to be complete. Some pieces of the qualitative experience will not be explained in the terms of physics - specificly all the pieces that are qualitative.

In my opinion, a partial reduction is desirable. After all, reducing and seeking to explain qualitative experiences of red to measurable, calcuable ones just is itself the scientific game. And it has done us much good. As a matter of fact, this could be a simple definition of science: The reduction of experienced phenomenon into measurable units.

But, these explanations will always leave often the most human, interesting things behind. Nagel says we should be in a sense comfortable with this. I add that we shouldn't be too comfortable. The fools desire to chip away at the qualitative experience in order to bring it into the quantitative fold is fruitful as we gain knowledge; though the task can not, by its defintion, be complete.


Perhaps Nagel would agree.

One thing to think about: Should we think of the qualitative and quantitative phenom as two seperate worlds or two perspectives on one world. Since one is irreducible to the other, the answer is one we will never know. We so fallibile....

Calvinism, Fallibility, and the Scientific Revolution

John Calvin doesn't seem like much of a good man. He lent his miserable personality to his view of humanity which in turn fueled his take on humanity. It's testament to humanity's ability to be self-loathing that he should have any followers at all willing to adopt his misanthropic Gospel.

I thought this way until reading an article on Liberal Christianity in America. There it stated that Calvin's view of humanity's fallibility. Calvin takes Paul's Epistle that 'we see in the mirror dimly' to mean that our knowledge will always be incomplete and imperfect. Understanding will always be piece meal and somewhat short of the truth. This is what it means for humanity to be Fallen.

Widespread acceptance of Calvin's doctrine of Human Fallibility, it was argued by this author, lead to the scientific revolution. He argues that fallibility is compatible with tolerance and a search for truth. Calvin himself personally did not have much taste for tolerance as he had his one-time friend Michael Servetus burnt alive for heresy.

But, perhaps there is something to this doctrine.

Maybe, the belief in human fallibility lead to a more democratic view of knowledge - that it was not something owned exclusively by the Church. Maybe it gave a more sobering view of knowledge as something obtainable not through pristine and precise mathema-logical methods of the Scholastics, but through the dirty business of scientific experimentation.