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InterestedParticipant
02-28-2010, 05:16 PM
Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception
Daniel Goleman
http://www.amazon.com/Vital-Lies-Simple-Truths-Self-Deception/dp/0684831074


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51J495GAHRL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg

Video Interview
http://www.archive.org/details/openmind_ep574


Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self Deception- 1985 – Vital Lies, Simple Truths is a penetrating analysis of the ways we deceive ourselves. Daniel Goleman draws on evidence of all kinds—from brain function to social dynamics—to reveal how we skew our most intimate relationships, our day-to-day lives, and our common reality by burying painful insights and memories. This self-deception is our means of psychic self-preservation, the currency of survival in which an entire society colludes. But although self-deception is sometimes benign, it can also be dangerous and life-diminishing. This important book both illuminates and raises challenging questions about a subject that is central to our psychological existence.


Goleman states his thesis using three premises in the early pages of his book (p. 22):
The mind can protect itself against anxiety by dimming awareness.
This mechanism creates a blind spot: a zone of blocked attention and self-deception.
Such blind spots occur at each major level of behavior from the psychological to the social.


Employing these principles, Goleman explains why we cover our anxieties with delusional behaviors, focusing on the many ways in which our minds play tricks on us. Goleman uses a series of short vignettes, from business, political and family scenarios, to illustrate his arguments. For example, he shows us how Nixon aide John Dean seemed to drive from his awareness the fact that he was not as important to the President as he asserted in his Watergate testimony.

Goleman touches on perception, self-esteem, projection, rationalization, sublimation, and the links between the psychic numbing of awareness and the addiction to materialism as an opiate. On a collective level, it becomes quite challenging when viewing the mirage realism or deception that some multi-national corporate and government leaders create. Perhaps a book who's subject matter is more applicable to world affairs than most of us realize.

It dovetails nicely into the findings from quantum science which shows its our consciousness which creates the filters through which we transform our reality.

It is so clear that humans have incredible capabilities, and yet we cannot seem to use them in many cases, especially on the social or cultural level ... and part of the reason has to be out ability to lie to ourselves or be manipulated by our tendencies to keep us stunted. This book dissects and explains the mechanism used.

adamant
02-28-2010, 05:44 PM
You must have an awesome reading room, IP.

MelissaWV
02-28-2010, 06:00 PM
I read that whole thing and there was nothing about lubrication.

LibForestPaul
02-28-2010, 09:32 PM
This seems more analytical (journal). What of applied theory? Using the proposed hypotheses to protect oneself as well as exploit others?

InterestedParticipant
02-28-2010, 11:03 PM
This seems more analytical (journal). What of applied theory? Using the proposed hypotheses to protect oneself as well as exploit others?
The goal here is to guard against self-deception.

Reason
03-01-2010, 01:22 AM
I read that whole thing and there was nothing about lubrication.

:cool:

squarepusher
03-01-2010, 03:11 AM
I read that whole thing and there was nothing about lubrication.

wow 1 track :eek:

TruckinMike
03-01-2010, 07:09 AM
[QUOTE=InterestedParticipant;2573796]Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception
Daniel Goleman

The mind can protect itself against anxiety by dimming awareness.
we cover our anxieties with delusional behaviors
numbing of awareness and the addiction to materialism as an opiate
It is so clear that humans have incredible capabilities, and yet we cannot seem to use them in many cases
its our consciousness which creates the filters through which we transform our reality


Is this the official Ron Paul Forums self-help thread??

TMike:D

Kotin
03-01-2010, 07:24 AM
thanks alot for posting, IP.. I always enjoy your posts.

sevin
03-01-2010, 08:31 AM
You must have an awesome reading room, IP.

He must.

IP, do you teach psychology or philosophy or anything like that?

InterestedParticipant
03-01-2010, 08:40 AM
I read that whole thing and there was nothing about lubrication.
People have to supply their own lubricant .....in the form of thinking.



Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception Daniel Goleman

The mind can protect itself against anxiety by dimming awareness.
we cover our anxieties with delusional behaviors
numbing of awareness and the addiction to materialism as an opiate
It is so clear that humans have incredible capabilities, and yet we cannot seem to use them in many cases
its our consciousness which creates the filters through which we transform our reality



Is this the official Ron Paul Forums self-help thread??

TMike:D
Liberty is self-help, isn't it? Or is it self-help is Liberty?

Anyway, what you have bulleted (in blue) is so critical for people to learn. We have to stop deceiving ourselves if we are going to reach our goals.


thanks alot for posting, IP.. I always enjoy your posts.
Thank you.


He must.

IP, do you teach psychology or philosophy or anything like that?
I only teach to myself, and maybe any one else who will listen.

ScoutsHonor
03-01-2010, 10:15 AM
This seems more analytical (journal). What of applied theory? Using the proposed hypotheses to protect oneself as well as exploit others?

What I take from this book is that = Honesty is the path to mental health.
(Even though the author suggests that lies have "utility", which short-term they *do*, I think long-term, they are destructive.)

So so far, I think the path to avoiding delusional states lies in maintaining a determination, with every ounce of our awareness, to be honest with ourselves. NOT an easy path, but the RIGHT path, IMO.

InterestedParticipant
03-01-2010, 11:37 AM
What I take from this book is that = Honesty is the path to mental health.
(Even though the author suggests that lies have "utility", which short-term they *do*, I think long-term, they are destructive.)

So so far, I think the path to avoiding delusional states lies in maintaining a determination, with every ounce of our awareness, to be honest with ourselves. NOT an easy path, but the RIGHT path, IMO.
Yes, I disagree with this author that lies are somehow "acceptable". Once that line is crossed and acceptable, it can be moved with no baseline.

I agree with you that avoiding delusion requires real determination and focus... a decision to see what one choose not to see. In the video interview, linked to in the OP, the author discusses an experiment where "socially conservative" people we're show a picture that included a man reading a newspaper (in one corner) along with an outline of a naked human (in the other corner). They found that the "socially conservative" test subjects claimed that they did not "see" the naked figure. Hence, we don't see what we don't want to see, this is our greatest challenge.

Unfortunately, I would argue that the majority of focus of time and energy, for what I witness at this forum, is invested in activities that result from delusional perception..... for example:
We hope that a 70+ year old man will give us back our liberty.
We work to get people who are relatively unknown to us elected hoping that the political system will save us.
We think that supporting (by listening to and emailing) media actors will some how get out "message" out to others, convincing them of the merits of our "thinking".

ScoutsHonor
03-02-2010, 08:12 AM
As you will see, some "experts" out there, so called Professors of Philosophy, are trying to tell us that we are not really living in the real world, but, instead, are living in a Simulation--:eek: ...like The Matrix...and NOTHING is real.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE THIS?
They think you WILL.....as in the following report:
*****

THE SIMULACRUM IS REAL?
by InterestedParticipant

I see now that we're supposed to believe that the Simulacrum is real. Even though Nature is real, and their system is phony bologna, they are attempting to turn reality on its head, for they can't control nature, but they CAN control a Simulacrum.... or a precession of models (ie simulations) as Baudrillard might say.

Let's start-off this thread with a MSNBC interview of William Irwin, the author of Philosophy and the Matrix (which is referenced in the Forum Library) and a piece in the NYTimes.


William Irwin on MSNBC



YouTube - Irwin on MSNBC (on The Matrix) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DMWxSuYqsg&feature=player_embedded)

First the interviewer claims that there is a 20% Chance We're Living Inside a Computer Simulation, according to a study by London School of Economics trained, and current Oxford professor, Nick Bostrom (we'll refer to his work later in the thread).
Second, just prior to the 6-minute-mark you can listen to Irwin threaten those who do not believe in the Simulacrum.
Next, we have a NYTimes piece called "Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch", which provides a review of Nick Bostrom's work, who says "it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation." We'll discuss this in greater detail as the thread progresses and add additional work from Bostrom.

August 14, 2007
Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch
By JOHN TIERNEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?_r=1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?_r=1)

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,” in which most humans don’t realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits.

You couldn’t, as in “The Matrix,” unplug your brain and escape from your vat to see the physical world. You couldn’t see through the illusion except by using the sort of logic employed by Dr. Bostrom, the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford.

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century, but it doesn’t matter for Dr. Bostrom’s argument whether it takes 50 years or 5 million years. If civilization survived long enough to reach that stage, and if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors.

There would be no way for any of these ancestors to know for sure whether they were virtual or real, because the sights and feelings they’d experience would be indistinguishable. But since there would be so many more virtual ancestors, any individual could figure that the odds made it nearly certain that he or she was living in a virtual world.

The math and the logic are inexorable once you assume that lots of simulations are being run. But there are a couple of alternative hypotheses, as Dr. Bostrom points out. One is that civilization never attains the technology to run simulations (perhaps because it self-destructs before reaching that stage). The other hypothesis is that posthumans decide not to run the simulations.

“This kind of posthuman might have other ways of having fun, like stimulating their pleasure centers directly,” Dr. Bostrom says. “Maybe they wouldn’t need to do simulations for scientific reasons because they’d have better methodologies for understanding their past. It’s quite possible they would have moral prohibitions against simulating people, although the fact that something is immoral doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

Dr. Bostrom doesn’t pretend to know which of these hypotheses is more likely, but he thinks none of them can be ruled out. “My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

My gut feeling is that the odds are better than 20 percent, maybe better than even. I think it’s highly likely that civilization could endure to produce those supercomputers. And if owners of the computers were anything like the millions of people immersed in virtual worlds like Second Life, SimCity and World of Warcraft, they’d be running simulations just to get a chance to control history — or maybe give themselves virtual roles as Cleopatra or Napoleon.

It’s unsettling to think of the world being run by a futuristic computer geek, although we might at last dispose of that of classic theological question: How could God allow so much evil in the world? For the same reason there are plagues and earthquakes and battles in games like World of Warcraft. Peace is boring, Dude.

A more practical question is how to behave in a computer simulation. Your first impulse might be to say nothing matters anymore because nothing’s real. But just because your neural circuits are made of silicon (or whatever posthumans would use in their computers) instead of carbon doesn’t mean your feelings are any less real.

David J. Chalmers, a philosopher at the Australian National University, says Dr. Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis isn’t a cause for skepticism, but simply a different metaphysical explanation of our world. Whatever you’re touching now — a sheet of paper, a keyboard, a coffee mug — is real to you even if it’s created on a computer circuit rather than fashioned out of wood, plastic or clay.

You still have the desire to live as long as you can in this virtual world — and in any simulated afterlife that the designer of this world might bestow on you. Maybe that means following traditional moral principles, if you think the posthuman designer shares those morals and would reward you for being a good person.

Or maybe, as suggested by Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University, you should try to be as interesting as possible, on the theory that the designer is more likely to keep you around for the next simulation. (For more on survival strategies in a computer simulation, go to www.nytimes.com/tierneylab (http://www.nytimes.com/tierneylab.).)

Of course, it’s tough to guess what the designer would be like. He or she might have a body made of flesh or plastic, but the designer might also be a virtual being living inside the computer of a still more advanced form of intelligence. There could be layer upon layer of simulations until you finally reached the architect of the first simulation — the Prime Designer, let’s call him or her (or it).

Then again, maybe the Prime Designer wouldn’t allow any of his or her creations to start simulating their own worlds. Once they got smart enough to do so, they’d presumably realize, by Dr. Bostrom’s logic, that they themselves were probably simulations. Would that ruin the fun for the Prime Designer?

If simulations stop once the simulated inhabitants understand what’s going on, then I really shouldn’t be spreading Dr. Bostrom’s ideas. But if you’re still around to read this, I guess the Prime Designer is reasonably tolerant, or maybe curious to see how we react once we start figuring out the situation.

It’s also possible that there would be logistical problems in creating layer upon layer of simulations. There might not be enough computing power to continue the simulation if billions of inhabitants of a virtual world started creating their own virtual worlds with billions of inhabitants apiece.

If that’s true, it’s bad news for the futurists who think we’ll have a computer this century with the power to simulate all the inhabitants on earth. We’d start our simulation, expecting to observe a new virtual world, but instead our own world might end — not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a message on the Prime Designer’s computer."

wwws.forummotion.com
__________________
N.B. THIS, then, is the reason we need to be able to trust ourselves. Because malevolent ideas like this one are being foisted upon us, and without honesty to give us confidence in our own judgment, we will be shaken and terribly at sea.....lost.

I suggest that we arm outselves against these insidious assaults on our rationality by doing as the author of the book suggests: start to be AWARE, as if your life depends upon it, because, it really does.