[FRIAM] /Topic Latent in: Latent Topics was: enough sleep?

[Marcus Daniels]

Here is an example.   It's come up in different ways over the years and I always find it strange.   I recently was ask to fill in a form where I state what my role on project is.   The project is not well defined and much should be debated IMO.   But there is desire to get on with the business of doing the poorly-defined thing.   In terms of skills, I could do different tasks on such a project.   Should I write down the thing I expect people will expect me to write down (mimic their prejudices) in order to reduce cognitive dissonance and friction, or assert the thing I think is important, or even the thing I like, without regard to the shortest path to having the team `gel' (sarcasm).   My experience is that there a part of any team that just wants consensus, and doesn't care one iota what or why they are doing the thing, or if it is even a good idea.    It is a hunger for social order that I find incomprehensible and unnecessary.

On 4/11/19, 12:35 PM, "Friam on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣" <friam-bounces at redfish.com on behalf of gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

    
    What you seem to be describing is a kind of social "flow", where some say the ego disappears in the midst of it.
    
    Google presented this:
    
    Optimal Experience and Optimal Identity: A Multinational Study of the Associations Between Flow and Social Identity
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00067/full
    
    which seems to argue to the contrary, that flow facilitates identity.  I suppose it might be counter-intuitive to some.  But it makes sense to me if we think of teamwork as a type of reinforcement learning, an entrainment to be a member of the team.
    
    Whatever, though.  The question it raises to me is the (canonical?) difference between ego and identity.  Do any of you psych  people care to provide distinguishing definitions for a lazy dilettante like me?
    
    On 4/11/19 12:07 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
    > Among engineers, especially young ones, one way the ego-centric individual presents herself is via Not Invented Here (NIH).  She simply cannot imagine studying and using another work.    The tribe permits it so long as the tribe can be impermeable to criticism and that they can get her to associate the work with the group.   It doesn't matter if it is grossly wasteful of time or money.   Also NIH superficially makes the engineer appear more instrumental because she is solving a simpler problem than if she rationalized the state-of-the-art before beginning her venture.
    
    -- 
    ☣ uǝlƃ
    
    ============================================================
    FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
    Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
    to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
    archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
    FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove