[FRIAM] Your personal truth

Fri May 9 12:42:08 EDT 2025

Ah, Russ.  How could I forget you.  You are the origin of one of my best
pieces of writing.  Also, thank you for putting me on your substack
output.  I should do more than lurk, but at the very least, I should let
you know I am lurking.

Nick

On Fri, May 9, 2025 at 10:15 AM Russ Abbott <russ.abbott at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nick, After you were kind enough to remember me, how can I not reply?
> Unfortunately I have nothing to say other than I enjoyed the pictures
> Jochen's post created in my head.
>
> -- Russ
>
> On Fri, May 9, 2025, 3:17 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Oh Gosh, Jochen.  On the one hand I am deeply indebted to FRIAM members
>> for allowing me to noodle in areas of thought where I have no business; on
>> the other hand, I feel obligated not to hide from you how very, very bad I
>> think Mary C. Lamia’s thinking is.  In the first place, lover of metaphors
>> that am, I think the anthropomorphism of the brain is one of the most
>> dangerous metaphors a human can bring to psychology, because it sets off an
>> eternal loop of thought from which there is no escape.   Meteorology and
>> Psychology have much in common.  They both have to do with objects with
>> innards operating in environments.  With Psychology, the objects are human,
>> the innards are the guts and brain, and the environment is the people and
>> things around us.  In Meteorology, the objects are the storms, the innards
>> are the fronts and other structures of cyclones, and the environment is the
>> earth’s surface and the larger circulation of its atmosphere.  Perhaps I
>> feel drawn to Meteorology just because it seems so like a behavioral
>> science.  (Or, to get the order of events right, I was drawn to Psychology
>> because it was so like Meteorology.)   But we must keep our levels of
>> organization straight.  And if we, like Mary C., are to make metaphors
>> between the whole (the person) and the part (the brain) and then to say
>> that the part is manipulating the whole, she ought to be damn clear what
>> kind of metaphorical world she his let herself into or she will never get
>> out alive. I don’t think she knows anything she is talking about.  I would
>> be terrified if one of my college-aged grandchildren were to fall into the
>> hands of such a person.
>>
>>
>>
>> I am deeply sorry if I am being a jerk.  (And will no doubt deeplier
>> sorrier when one of you points out both that I am both being a jerk and
>>  that I am wrong).  If you were tempted to carry on this conversation
>> further, now I have been a jerk, I would love to explore with you how some
>> aspect of Mary’s thought accorded with your experience and perhaps gave you
>> comfort or insight because of that.  When she talks of the brain, what is
>> she actually talking about for you.  Because, if one thing is damned sure,
>> it is that when people talk about their brains, they are talking about
>> something they have never touched or seen or heard or felt.  They are
>> talking about a beetle in a box, a nothing.  Or they are using the brain as
>> a model of behavior.
>>
>>
>>
>> OK, Russ, Dave, Glen, Marcus, Erics, have at me.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Jochen Fromm
>> *Sent:* Thursday, April 24, 2025 2:10 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] Your personal truth
>>
>>
>>
>> If Nick shares his struggles with weather I can share my unqualified
>> thoughts about psychology :-P I was thinking about the orange menace, how
>> he deceives everyone and how he manipulates his followers by controlling
>> their emotions and I was wondering if emotions deceive us in general. Do
>> emotions deceive us by creating a reality distortion field that paints the
>> objects they have identified as desirable (primarily food & mates for
>> supper and pairing time) in the brightest colors?
>>
>>
>>
>> Emotions certainly need to manipulate us in order to control us. Their
>> purpose is to influence our behavior and interactions. Psychologist Mary C.
>> Lamia writes "Without any deliberate effort on your part, your brain
>> evaluates every situation you encounter and decides if an emotion should be
>> activated to alert and protect you" [1]. They are in a sense the PR machine
>> and advertising agency of the body. As if the body would create an
>> advertising agency that highlights the objects it should seek.
>>
>>
>>
>> Emotions deceive us because they exaggerate. If we are in love they turn
>> the desired object of person into some kind of wonderful dream. We only
>> perceive positive traits while negative ones are overlooked. If we hate
>> something we only perceive negative traits. These distortions act on top of
>> your beliefs which "create a cognitive lens through which you interpret the
>> events of your world" [2]
>>
>>
>>
>> They exaggerate to alert and protect us. Mary C. Lamia writes "By
>> creating anxiety, anger, sadness, fear, guilt, shame, disgust,
>> embarrassment, or any number of emotional responses that your brain has at
>> its disposal, your emotional system attempts to inform and protect you by
>> making you feel whatever it is you need to know." [1]
>>
>>
>>
>> Emotions deceive us because they can be misguided based on your previous
>> experience, for example in anxiety disorders or addiction: "Your emotional
>> system has no reason to lie, although it can be misguided based on your
>> previous experiences in the world that have informed it." [1]
>>
>>
>>
>> Apparently emotions create a personal truth for each of us which shows us
>> the world as they (on behalf of our selfish genes) want us to see it. A
>> kind of personalized, distorted version of reality that reflects the
>> importance of each object based on our personal longings and desires. Mary
>> C. Lamia writes "nevertheless, your emotions will tell you the truth - your
>> truth - even if you don't want to listen." [1]
>>
>>
>>
>> [1]
>> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201208/do-emotions-lie
>>
>>
>>
>> [2]
>> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-forward/202009/how-your-thinking-creates-your-reality
>>
>>
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
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-- 
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
nthompson at clarku.edu
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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