[FRIAM] Your personal truth

Fri May 9 17:38:26 EDT 2025

Anytime in the afternoons, Nick.  I play tennis in the mornings on Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday.  Then there's Friam.

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 9, 2025, 10:35 AM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,  Frank,
>
> I missed your b'day.  I'm a bad person.  We saw the crowds in the streets
> and we knew, saw them carrying signs down to the state house.    Happy
> Non-Birthday!  Really, if you think of it , it's the more powerful wish.
> There are so many more of them.
>
> Any time you want to explore the epistemology underlying your comment, I'm
> your guy.
>
> NIck
>
> On Fri, May 9, 2025 at 7:01 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You have quite an emotional response to Lamia, Nick.
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/140+Calle+Ojo+Feliz,++Santa+Fe,+NM+87505?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>> On Fri, May 9, 2025, 4:17 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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