We made TV again...

[Fat SAM]

On "American Dad" tonight, Burning Man got several mentions - it was referred to as an experiment in peace, free expression, and community. Imediately after that, it was referred to as a naked, drunk, drug festival.

Interesting that those are the two interpretations I always seem to hear. People are so binary.

[Fat SAM]

and then they went...by the way...and it looked like a good time. There was what looked like a commercial concert, though, which I thought was interesting. The animation looked as if it had been done by people who had been there. There were bunny people and geodesics and hang gliders...Even the man was there.

I wonder what Mr. Fancyhat has to say about the mass-media use of name/image etc...

[Otisserie]

Fortunately they portrayed it as a bunch of drugged out hippies in the desert.
OK by me; as long as they don't do anything to encourage anyone to go.

[robbidobbs]

The porta-potties were even shown! Perhaps someone on their staff has been there.

I wasn't at all impressed at how they portrayed the event generally however. I was offended, really. The background scenery was a disney-fied version of what some punk animator might imagine it would be like, having lived his whole life in Suburbia.

Ralph Bakshi or Tim Burton should have been consulted.

[joel the ornery]

People are so binary.

Dare i say; "Life is binary."

[EvilDustBooger]

Binary, Gaynary, Hetronary.....it`s all good.

[joel the ornery]

seriously....

life is a series of 1-yes or 0-no decisions, streaming one after another...

[d6]

my tender sensibilities were morally offended by the "pagan" remark.

SAVE ME JEEBUS !

d6,
audiobot

[EvilDustBooger]

seriously....

life is a series of 1-yes or 0-no decisions, streaming one after another...

...........Maybe. teehee.

[theCryptofishist]

life is a series of 1-yes or 0-no decisions, streaming one after another...

Um. I disagree. I think it's a domininant metaphor, given the recent coputerization of our culture and that there are parts of the human brain that seem to have on/off switches, but a great deal is continuum.

YMMV

[joel the ornery]

what you seem to be disagreeing with is not obvious to me.

[EvilDustBooger]

Wheeze, slurf, Puff-Puff-Puff(draws a deep breath)
"Ought...or....Not"..???
I say cast off the chains of the dull routine of existence and Live !
Love every second of this precious gift !
Love is what matters.
Everything else is just flotsam or jetsam .


Stay tuned for more from/about Speaker`s (Freaker`s) corner.

[HughMungus]

It was great. Now, when I tell people about "Burning Man" they won't think I said "Birmingham." Well, people who watch Fox...

[theCryptofishist]

what you seem to be disagreeing with is not obvious to me.

Okay, I guesss I can see what you mean about disicions. I just don't think that most things are either/or. There's a lot of both/and plus a great many multiple guess questions that life may throw us.

[joel the ornery]

what you seem to be disagreeing with is not obvious to me.

Okay, I guesss I can see what you mean about disicions. I just don't think that most things are either/or. There's a lot of both/and plus a great many multiple guess questions that life may throw us.

multiple guess?

nope. not in my humble opinion.

i'll stick with the binary 1 or 0 explanation.

[Fat SAM]

Most things aren't "either/or." That's why it is recognized as a fallacy, the "either/or" fallacy, amazingly enough. Not a terribly original name, but it sure is descriptive. Humans seem really prone to binary thinking, which initially doesn't sound that bad. Like Joel said, it seems like a 1-yes, 0-no stream or decisions. It's interesting, I think, to find such a seemingly narrow worldview here, but he is Joel "the Ornery" and so we should be charitable .

Generally, when people are presented with two choices (this is psychologically validated), they tend to view the choices as being opposite. Day and night, for instance, are commonly thought of as opposites and are also quite often referred to in a binary fashion. The concepts can be taken down into smaller elements, however, and shown to be things which are quite poorly described in a binary fashion. Sun - up, mid-morning, noon, afternoon, dusk, twilight, sunset, evening, midnight, dawn...What part of the binary set "Day/Night" do dusk and dawn belong in?

I'm glad that life isn't either/or (or at least I'm pleased to be able to view life in a different way...). It seems to me to be quite limiting to thought and creativity.

[EvilDustBooger]

Though the Answers may be only positive or negative. . . 1 or 0

The Questions can remain limitless. . .thereby effecting the Answers. . .

. . . but what I really want to know is. . .

. . .what came first...the question?...or the answer??

[Elemental666]

EITHER Dusk belongs to night (its beginning)
OR Dusk belongs to day(its end)



Still a binary situation, but its relative to your perspective. Is the glass half empty or is it half full? I'd agree with the binary decision as far as action goes. Either you do something or you don't. What this leaves out is abstract though. When you create art for example. Is the process of painting a sureal landscape binary? The choice to paint in the first place was, either you will or you won't. But once you start painting you move into abstract threads of logic intermingled with emotion. EITHER that OR I'm just full of it...

[Fat SAM]

http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/fallacies.htm#Black-or-White

This is a link to an analogous explanation on the either/or falacy. I'm trying to find something a little more explanatory, though, and when I do, I'll post it.

[theCryptofishist]

Good to see you, Fat SAM! Of course my father used to teach math at U.C. Berkeley, and once pointed out his collegue "Mr. Fuzzy Logic" so naturally, I'm a dissenter on the on/off view of reality. I am not a disenter on the worth of Joel--both as a person and as a board member. Fine example of both catagories.

[joel the ornery]

i am still for binary...

and binary doesn't imply black or white (both of which have associated values)

regarding abstract thought... i believe the bianry choices happen so fast, they (the choices) are imperceptable to most.

so in my humble opinion, even artitistic expression is binary, albeit imperceptable.

[theCryptofishist]

Do you remember that old hippie art of lots of wires each a little different line that would make curves? The different points of a circle. That would be like what you are discribing.

[Clownsuit]

Korzybski did some interesting work in a book called General Semantics. Robert Anton Wilson references him quite a bit. There's a model called Quantum Psychology that uses the theory of non-aristotlian value-weighted logic as a way of breaking out of non useful belief systems. Basically, as I understand it, It's a lot more accurate to evaluate the world around you in varying degrees of probability rather than either/or simplicity. I've tried it and found that at first, it's complicated and unwieldly. But with use, it becomes second nature and helps me prevent the traps of overgeneralization. Sometimes.

[theCryptofishist]

helps me prevent the traps of overgeneralization.

Dang, I'm always swimming into these.



Ordinarily, I'm happy to appropriate images without crediting them, figuring you can trace back if you care. This is from a Flathead Indian Reservation, and we've carelessly appropriated or destroyed too much of tribal culture for me to feel easy about letting it slide in this case.

[Fat SAM]

Quantum psychology is a great example of the trouble with reductionist views. It's a misapplication of a physical concept at a psychological level. I ran into the same problem when speaking to a professor of mine about a metaphysical application of another physical concept. Newton postulated that there is no action without an equal and opposite reaction (which is not semantically correct, but we all get the idea). From Newton's theory, I derived the notion that if Newton is correct, then no good deed goes unpunished. He pointed out to me that this is an example of the reductionist fallacy. I agree, but I still think it's a fun thought. Anyway, my point is that reduction is a naughty thing, too....

I happen to rather believe that a for every action, there is an equal and balancing[i/] reaction...It's kind of derivative of Leibniz and his Clockmaker theory and of the Yin and Yang and a bunch of other stuff...

[robotland]

helps me prevent the traps of overgeneralization.

Dang, I'm always swimming into these.



Ordinarily, I'm happy to appropriate images without crediting them, figuring you can trace back if you care. This is from a Flathead Indian Reservation, and we've carelessly appropriated or destroyed too much of tribal culture for me to feel easy about letting it slide in this case.

Fishy, I think you'd enjoy Matin Puryear's work....he's a sculptor who takes major inspiration from the art/craftwork of indigenous peoples.

[Clownsuit]

"Quantum psychology is a great example of the trouble with reductionist views. It's a misapplication of a physical concept at a psychological level."

I don't think your misapplication of newtonian ideas necessarily equates to an across the board debunking of quantum psychology. Using very basic ideas, such as the map not being the territory, it's pretty easy to show how QP can be useful. Essentially, that's what I consider to be the point: a model that can provide some utility. I try to speak and write in E-prime, though I fail most of the time. I guess to me, it's closer to the truth to know that you're not as close to the truth as you think.

[Fat SAM]

You misinterpret me. Quantum psychology is a reductionist misapplication of a physical principle to a non-physical concept. I used the analogy because it was another example of the same idea and it comes off the tongue more easily than my last sentence.

[Clownsuit]

Ok. I didn't mean to misinterpret you. I suppose that I'll just disagree with you as far as the misapplication thing goes. I'm a bit slow on some of the terminology you've used, and to dive into any deeper of a disagreement could find me flailing a bit.

[Chronon]

You misinterpret me. Quantum psychology is a reductionist misapplication of a physical principle to a non-physical concept. I used the analogy because it was another example of the same idea and it comes off the tongue more easily than my last sentence.

So, maybe what you are complaining about is the nomenclature. Probably, if you delve into the details the analogy will fall apart -- what is the quantum of psychology? However, I find the idea of representing ideas as a sort of sum over possibilities to be intriguing, which is what Clownsuit was going for, I think.

Also, it may not be as much of a misapplication as you think. There exists an interpretation of quantum mechanics arising in the new field of quantum information science which says that the wavefunction is not a universal object describing the state of the system. Instead it codifies the knowledge that a particular observer has about the state of a system. Each observer carries his own wavefunction around with him (or her, for that matter). This means the wavefunction is local and gets around the non-locality issues that many interpretations are subject to. (This is taking the non-real rather than the non-local option regarding violations of Bell's inequality.)

If the wavefunction codifies knowledge by a particular observer, as this interpretation asserts, then the notion of quantum psychology may not be so far off the mark. Here, I only want to suggest that there is some possible connection. I am not defending any explicit assertions within quantum psychology.