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originally posted by: minkmouse
I tend to see it as television in some ways because of the way it totally hypnotizes people but now, it's interactive...twice the addictive punch. You raise some interesting points in your argument that I'll have to think about. We are "Dedicated followers of fashion" en mass but how that argument applies to what I observe is still unclear. The fodder you bring to chew is worth consideration.
originally posted by: BO XIAN
a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe
I think you make many excellent points about the technology.
What do you think about the reinforcing aspects of the technology?
What is the most reinforcing aspect of using the technology in those ways?
Why is it sooooo reinforcing?
originally posted by: BO XIAN
a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe
AGREED.
Would you please elaborate on your perspective about such experiences with the tech and people via the tech
BEING AN EGO STROKER.
originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: BO XIAN
The first we saw of personal phones, they were used by characters in movies then TV. Rich characters, 'important people'. Movers and shakers. Early on as they filtered their way down the economic ladder and Mr. Everyday began affording them, I used to notice a certain cockiness, a bit of "I'm better look at me" from the users. And as might be expected. . . .
Our economic system, being built on increasing consumption of, more and bigger and better, is constantly seeking fancier geegaws with which to tantalize the consumer. No, the unconscious consumer.
You mention the 97% figure in pointing out how so many of us react in a Pavlovian way to the ringing of the bell. This to me suggests that the 3% are either just immune to these unconscious tuggings or have managed to consciously withstand those Pavlovian pressures.
I find it interesting that that figure of 97% bears a close resemblance to the figures being arrived at by George Lakoff in determining how much behavior and thought of each individual can be categorized as conscious and unconscious. As I recall his findings and assumptions, 97 or 98% of human thought and action is patterned behavior. Stuff we do without thinking first. Indeed from my reading, this conjecture is still edging ever higher in those studies being done.
Taking this premise, that most of what we as humans think and do is just repetition without real, cognizant consideration, I can suppose the sense of worthiness you mention goes deeper and is indeed a constant reinforcement that we exist at all. And to conjecture even further, in the face of a cosmos which is increasingly depicted as a a whole lot of whirling nothingness, with birth in chaotic explosion and death in cold dispersal, what ever that small percentage of what we might consider to be consciousness will cling to whatever hopes of existence we can drum up, even if it is Pavlovian.
As you mention Jesus several times up there near your avatar, I guess you may consider yourself a Christian. I would be interested in your understanding of clinical psychology and how so much of what we think and do, Lakoff aside, seems to be Pavlovian and how the devil fits into this picture. I would seem to me that with all of the breakthroughs in psychology and neuro-psychology and the rest of the "consciousness" schools of study, which to my mind explain our Ecclesiastical weaknesses, that the need to explain our faults as caused by a devil would just fade away.
Philippians 4:8 New Living Translation
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.