Saturday, June 25, 2005
Intuition or eccentricity?
Interesting, isn't it, how people are always telling you to listen to your instincts, trust your instincts, go with your instincts... unless of course said instincts point you to doing something they disapprove of, at which point they'll tell you to "use your head." That exception applies x10 where the unknown is concerned; the general opinion is that, in this area, instinct is ALWAYS wrong... although how instinct could have this inexplicable lapse in just one area they can never explain.
I've been thinking about this because I saw the movie "White Noise" tonight; it circles around the concept of EVP (electronic voice phenomena, which is when voices from an unknown source are heard on electronic media; I posted about it on 5-18-05), which is vaguely interesting since it could be authentic at least some of the time, and there were some cool effects and plot twists, but it was ultimately disappointing because they gave no hint of explanation of who the 3 evil supernatural creatures were, or how and why they made the things happen that they did, or... anything, really, and I don't like it when a movie creates mysteries and then gives no explanation. More important than my mixed emotions about the movie is that, although some of it WAS scary, particularly the effect where out of the blue something dramatic happens reallyreallyfast (also used very effectively in "The Forgotten"), I got no sense that the concept of there being possible danger from studying EVP's had any truth to it (aside from the danger of being frustrated to death), even though they had a psychic warn the hero against meddling to create just that belief, and the last bit of the movie was a claim that 1 in 12 EVP's are overtly threatening. I know that spirits exist, and that they can at least be mischievous and bothersome, and my mind is staying open about the possibility that they do sometimes try to contact us via electronic media, but I get no feeling that this is a source of possible harm... perhaps because I've come to believe that evil people are literally soulless, or at least have very impaired souls, and thus wouldn't be likely to form spirits after the death of their bodies, OR, perhaps because my instinct, which taps into my subconscious and naturally has access to far more information than my conscious mind does, has decided that reality just doesn't work that way.
Ok, so I didn't believe a horror movie premise to be factual; so what? Don't we all usually disbelieve the concepts that these often-silly films are based on? Sure we do... but for me, there's an exception, and, when I'd gotten far enough into "White Noise" to be sure that it wasn't setting any alarms off, that other movie came into my mind:
"The Mothman Prophecies."
As I posted on 4-5-04, the supernatural creatures in this movie, which is based on actual events and claims, have from the moment they started being referred to the 1st time I saw the film given me the creeps so intensely that I've felt unable to research them; when they showed the scene where the expert on the mothmen warns the hero that to focus attention on them will draw THEIR attention, with possibly dangerous consequences, the reptile portion of my brain was screaming "YES!! YES!! HE'S RIGHT!!", and at no time in the years since then have I been able to pursue a train of thought about them without my mind veering off, and the admonition to not even THINK about them in an inquisitive way coming forth to forestall further attempts.
Nothing else in my entire life has created this sort of reaction, and now more than ever I have to wonder; is this some sort of odd eccentricity deep in my brain, or... an intuition?
I've been thinking about this because I saw the movie "White Noise" tonight; it circles around the concept of EVP (electronic voice phenomena, which is when voices from an unknown source are heard on electronic media; I posted about it on 5-18-05), which is vaguely interesting since it could be authentic at least some of the time, and there were some cool effects and plot twists, but it was ultimately disappointing because they gave no hint of explanation of who the 3 evil supernatural creatures were, or how and why they made the things happen that they did, or... anything, really, and I don't like it when a movie creates mysteries and then gives no explanation. More important than my mixed emotions about the movie is that, although some of it WAS scary, particularly the effect where out of the blue something dramatic happens reallyreallyfast (also used very effectively in "The Forgotten"), I got no sense that the concept of there being possible danger from studying EVP's had any truth to it (aside from the danger of being frustrated to death), even though they had a psychic warn the hero against meddling to create just that belief, and the last bit of the movie was a claim that 1 in 12 EVP's are overtly threatening. I know that spirits exist, and that they can at least be mischievous and bothersome, and my mind is staying open about the possibility that they do sometimes try to contact us via electronic media, but I get no feeling that this is a source of possible harm... perhaps because I've come to believe that evil people are literally soulless, or at least have very impaired souls, and thus wouldn't be likely to form spirits after the death of their bodies, OR, perhaps because my instinct, which taps into my subconscious and naturally has access to far more information than my conscious mind does, has decided that reality just doesn't work that way.
Ok, so I didn't believe a horror movie premise to be factual; so what? Don't we all usually disbelieve the concepts that these often-silly films are based on? Sure we do... but for me, there's an exception, and, when I'd gotten far enough into "White Noise" to be sure that it wasn't setting any alarms off, that other movie came into my mind:
"The Mothman Prophecies."
As I posted on 4-5-04, the supernatural creatures in this movie, which is based on actual events and claims, have from the moment they started being referred to the 1st time I saw the film given me the creeps so intensely that I've felt unable to research them; when they showed the scene where the expert on the mothmen warns the hero that to focus attention on them will draw THEIR attention, with possibly dangerous consequences, the reptile portion of my brain was screaming "YES!! YES!! HE'S RIGHT!!", and at no time in the years since then have I been able to pursue a train of thought about them without my mind veering off, and the admonition to not even THINK about them in an inquisitive way coming forth to forestall further attempts.
Nothing else in my entire life has created this sort of reaction, and now more than ever I have to wonder; is this some sort of odd eccentricity deep in my brain, or... an intuition?
Friday, June 24, 2005
How easily our eyes are fooled about looks
I just saw "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and saw a major example of something amazing; how little difference there actually is between beautiful and ugly. As a woman who's been known to do a full face of makeup, and with friends who wear makeup (including some drag queens), I'm well aware of what a radical transformation it can make, and we've all seen people get bad haircuts and look dreadful, or get a perm or highlights and suddenly look far more attractive (when you think about it, these things shouldn't make a big difference, but they do), but I was still amazed at how the babelicious Johnny Depp, who was voted People's Sexiest Man Alive in 2003, manages to look homely to the point of unrecognizability in this movie... and withOUT a prosthetic big nose or bad teeth or other added-on deformity. If I hadn't known Depp was in the movie, I think it would've been a while before I realized it was him (my husband said the same thing); in the 1st scene, I wasn't sure it WAS him, that's how extreme the situation was.
What made this radical transformation of one of the most recognizable actors in the world? His usually-ample hair was cropped short, which both reduces his level of looks and alters the perceived contours of his face, he had big, gaudy sunglasses that totally obscured his most stunning feature, those deep, dark eyes, and made his face look cartoonish and sort of top-heavy, and he had a goofy hat squashed down on his head, throwing his proportions off... and when he did NOT have the hat on, he was very bald, and that high dome REALLY made him look like a whole different person, and not a very pretty one-can you imagine? His face was exactly the same, but just with hair and accessories, and probably some acting (my husband commented that he was doing some unusual facial expressions, which may have been intended to keep his face from having its normal harmonious appearance), he managed to look dopey (in both senses of the word, lol) and unattractive.
I'm sure it's not a coincidence that I saw this concept at work earlier in the evening on this week's episode of "Beauty and the Geek," in which we saw that an improved hairstyle and some less dreadful clothes could make the guys look wildly better; the clothes had ALOT to do with that, granted, but the hair made a big difference too, and it's amazing how making even the typical short hair of men a little fuller, sleeker, taller or flatter could change the way their faces looked.
What we see as beauty depends largely on angles and shapes and proportions all working a certain way on a face; fellas, if you've never given any thought to how your hair, and hats and/or glasses if you ever wear them, are affecting how you look, you really should. Beauty also depends on whether you've got any features that're particularly lovely, so if you've got great teeth, smile, if you've got gorgeous hair, don't get a crewcut, and if, like Johnny Depp, you've got dreamboat eyes, don't hide 'em under glasses (especially ones with brightly-colored lenses like in the movie, ICK) or bangs... if you haven't been paying attention to this stuff, you may actually be far better looking than you think.
What made this radical transformation of one of the most recognizable actors in the world? His usually-ample hair was cropped short, which both reduces his level of looks and alters the perceived contours of his face, he had big, gaudy sunglasses that totally obscured his most stunning feature, those deep, dark eyes, and made his face look cartoonish and sort of top-heavy, and he had a goofy hat squashed down on his head, throwing his proportions off... and when he did NOT have the hat on, he was very bald, and that high dome REALLY made him look like a whole different person, and not a very pretty one-can you imagine? His face was exactly the same, but just with hair and accessories, and probably some acting (my husband commented that he was doing some unusual facial expressions, which may have been intended to keep his face from having its normal harmonious appearance), he managed to look dopey (in both senses of the word, lol) and unattractive.
I'm sure it's not a coincidence that I saw this concept at work earlier in the evening on this week's episode of "Beauty and the Geek," in which we saw that an improved hairstyle and some less dreadful clothes could make the guys look wildly better; the clothes had ALOT to do with that, granted, but the hair made a big difference too, and it's amazing how making even the typical short hair of men a little fuller, sleeker, taller or flatter could change the way their faces looked.
What we see as beauty depends largely on angles and shapes and proportions all working a certain way on a face; fellas, if you've never given any thought to how your hair, and hats and/or glasses if you ever wear them, are affecting how you look, you really should. Beauty also depends on whether you've got any features that're particularly lovely, so if you've got great teeth, smile, if you've got gorgeous hair, don't get a crewcut, and if, like Johnny Depp, you've got dreamboat eyes, don't hide 'em under glasses (especially ones with brightly-colored lenses like in the movie, ICK) or bangs... if you haven't been paying attention to this stuff, you may actually be far better looking than you think.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
"What The Bleep Do We Know?"
I'm periodically asked if I've seen this movie and/or been influenced by it, since my worldview blends physics with metaphysics; I've also been accused several times of having garnered/stolen my entire spiritual belief system from it, which, although a rude and ugly thing to suggest, always amused me because I'd never SEEN the movie... and enjoyed telling the accusers so. It's also amusing how people can be so eager to be insulting that they don't take the time to make SENSE; after all:
(A) People don't get their spirituality from movies.
(B) There's no actual belief system put forth in this movie.
(C) My beliefs bear little resemblance to what's said in it.
How do I know the last 2 things? Because I've finally seen it, thanks to Blockbuster... and am at a loss as to what the fuss is all about, either + or -, because there's not much to it. The movie is a bunch of disconnected quotes from scientists, vague mystical ideas, and a great deal of odd special effects; it's also full of utter nonsense, like about how you "can't see" a thing if you're not familiar with it (and I mean PHYSICAL things, NOT esoteric concepts), which any child knows is NOT the case, and how water crystallizes differently if certain words are wrapped around containers of it, which would be VERY easy to prove scientifically if true but significantly has NOT been either tested or proved.
Given the accusations, I expected elaborate descriptions of the workings of the engine of karma to be shown, but this concept, the one on which my spirituality IS based, is never even mentioned, nor are ANY of the associated concepts I've discovered or incorporated. Yes, the movie mentions quantum physics and ideas that are mystical/metaphysical in nature, but those things cover alot of ground... heck, they didn't even mention string theory, which sort of negates their having a remotely similar science/spirituality connection to mine, and is, when you think about, a very odd thing for them to NOT include.
I find it vaguely scary that, by suggesting that this movie "must be" the source of my spiritual ideas, a person would have to be assuming that this is the 1st time that the connection has been made between physics and metaphysics... despite the fact that Jung, for example, saw it and wrote about it nearly half a century ago, and despite it being a fairly obvious connection to make for anyone who reads about quantum or theoretical physics, whether or not they use that thought as the basis for their spirituality.
Anyways, the movie was vaguely entertaining, but what little truth it contained is old hat for me; the primary value of having seen it will be an enhanced ability to rebut the next accusation that my in-depth spiritual analysis bears any resemblance to it.
Just FYI; to the best of my knowledge, no one, NO ONE, but me possesses my exact belief system, or even more than bits and pieces of it. If you've ever wondered how I come up with all this stuff, rest assured that it's all based on my own experiences, my studies of science, a sprinkling of interesting ideas picked up from different sources, and a great deal of skull sweat. Is it possible that it's all wrong? Sure... but either way, it's all MINE.
(A) People don't get their spirituality from movies.
(B) There's no actual belief system put forth in this movie.
(C) My beliefs bear little resemblance to what's said in it.
How do I know the last 2 things? Because I've finally seen it, thanks to Blockbuster... and am at a loss as to what the fuss is all about, either + or -, because there's not much to it. The movie is a bunch of disconnected quotes from scientists, vague mystical ideas, and a great deal of odd special effects; it's also full of utter nonsense, like about how you "can't see" a thing if you're not familiar with it (and I mean PHYSICAL things, NOT esoteric concepts), which any child knows is NOT the case, and how water crystallizes differently if certain words are wrapped around containers of it, which would be VERY easy to prove scientifically if true but significantly has NOT been either tested or proved.
Given the accusations, I expected elaborate descriptions of the workings of the engine of karma to be shown, but this concept, the one on which my spirituality IS based, is never even mentioned, nor are ANY of the associated concepts I've discovered or incorporated. Yes, the movie mentions quantum physics and ideas that are mystical/metaphysical in nature, but those things cover alot of ground... heck, they didn't even mention string theory, which sort of negates their having a remotely similar science/spirituality connection to mine, and is, when you think about, a very odd thing for them to NOT include.
I find it vaguely scary that, by suggesting that this movie "must be" the source of my spiritual ideas, a person would have to be assuming that this is the 1st time that the connection has been made between physics and metaphysics... despite the fact that Jung, for example, saw it and wrote about it nearly half a century ago, and despite it being a fairly obvious connection to make for anyone who reads about quantum or theoretical physics, whether or not they use that thought as the basis for their spirituality.
Anyways, the movie was vaguely entertaining, but what little truth it contained is old hat for me; the primary value of having seen it will be an enhanced ability to rebut the next accusation that my in-depth spiritual analysis bears any resemblance to it.
Just FYI; to the best of my knowledge, no one, NO ONE, but me possesses my exact belief system, or even more than bits and pieces of it. If you've ever wondered how I come up with all this stuff, rest assured that it's all based on my own experiences, my studies of science, a sprinkling of interesting ideas picked up from different sources, and a great deal of skull sweat. Is it possible that it's all wrong? Sure... but either way, it's all MINE.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
How can we test telepathy?
Thanks to seeing the story of the telepathic parrot (see my post of 6-19-05), I've been thinking about how human telepathy works, and why attempts to "prove" it have been spotty at best; the short answer is, the tests used, without exception, fail to mimic the circumstances that nature developed this ability to be used for... it's as if aliens landed and wanted to test our ability to move ourselves from place to place by asking us to flap our arms and fly.
Mother Nature gave us telepathic ability for the same reason she gave us every other ability; because it provided us with a survival advantage... and that advantage does NOT come from being able to reach out and "read" whatever and whoever we want at will, or to see minute details, so why do people expect psychics to be able to do those things, and why does every test of telepathic powers include them? From where comes the dead-wrong assumption that if you have any telepathic ability at all, it means that you can do things like read playing cards that a random tester is looking at, which has no connection whatsoever to survival, and thus to what we were designed to perceive? Most telepathy that I've heard about from reasonably trustworthy people doesn't involve sight at all, just a sudden surge of knowledge, so why does testing always focus on visuals, on people trying to send and receive images? Am I the only person who realizes that when they say, in essence, "It's just a coincidence that you knew the exact moment your sister was in a car crash, and the exact parts of her body that were injured, because we did a bunch of tests with the Zener ESP cards
http://skepdic.com/zener.html
that show abstract symbols that didn't even EXIST in the world of early humans, and didn't find anyone able to do better than random chance with them," that they're comparing apples to oranges, or rather apples to elephants?
Telepathy emerged to bring us information that could protect our lives and those closest to us (who can in turn help us survive, and probably also share the DNA that we're biologically programmed to perpetuate); the element of telepathy that's to our biggest and primary advantage is the one I used above, the one you non-coincidentally hear about the most... the ability to know if a loved one is in extreme pain and/or emotional distress (think how many times you've heard people report being hit like lightning with the certainty that a loved one has been hurt, or even has died). Primitive humans depended on their little family groups for their lives, therefore it was clearly to their benefit to know if something had gone very wrong with one of those individuals, so that they could offer help, escape a similar fate, prevent their children from meeting that fate, or all 3; the catch is that if it goes much beyond that, if everyone were getting signals all the time, they'd be overwhelmed... we already screen out the vast majority of sensory input that we take in, and if we had input regularly coming from other people our minds couldn't handle it, and in fact would likely automatically block it... and come to think of it, that may be WHY we don't pick up readings from people that often, because our minds are designed to block all but the most powerful (eg emotionally charged with feelings like pain and fear), and thus important, readings.
If we want to do VALID testing for telepathy, we have to replicate the circumstances it was designed to work in as closely as possible. First, we need to pair the test subject with a loved one, the closer to them the better; twins, mother and child, or siblings close in age (and probably of the same gender) would seem to be the best bets... forget using a stranger to "project" information, or expecting folks to read what's on the other side of a piece of cardboard. The next part is trickier; obviously, we don't want to kill or harm anyone, and it'd be unethical to subject a person to, say, a non-injurious level of electric shock even if they were willing to endure it, so how do we create the intense emotional state generally necessary for someone to project a telepathic signal, and what sort of signal can we send... which of the 5 senses would be the most effective? The best I've been able to come up with is to have the prospective "sender" watch a really scary movie, to get their adrenaline pumping and their brain buzzing, and then surprise them with a stimulus of some sort; grab them from behind, yell in their ear, or, if all else fails, I guess we'd have to fall back on them sending images, but images of simple, natural things, NOT complex scenes or abstract symbols... maybe we could stick a big pic of an attacking lion in front of them and play a loud lion's roar at the same time? Assuming that things were set up so that the prospective receiver had absolutely no chance of seeing or hearing the sender or what was going on with them, if the randomly-done attempted sends caused a simultaneous reaction in the receiver even some of the time, we'd have some concrete proof at last; this is still so far from creating the actual circumstances under which telepathy usually works that it may be doomed... it's like trying to test how we can get superhuman strength and lift cars off of our kids when their lives are in danger-nothing producible in the lab could generate that sort of emotional intensity, or the corresponding adrenaline boost.
Still, we should TRY; we can't go around patting ourselves on the back about how self-aware we are compared to other animals if we can't even figure out the extent of our own abilities.
Mother Nature gave us telepathic ability for the same reason she gave us every other ability; because it provided us with a survival advantage... and that advantage does NOT come from being able to reach out and "read" whatever and whoever we want at will, or to see minute details, so why do people expect psychics to be able to do those things, and why does every test of telepathic powers include them? From where comes the dead-wrong assumption that if you have any telepathic ability at all, it means that you can do things like read playing cards that a random tester is looking at, which has no connection whatsoever to survival, and thus to what we were designed to perceive? Most telepathy that I've heard about from reasonably trustworthy people doesn't involve sight at all, just a sudden surge of knowledge, so why does testing always focus on visuals, on people trying to send and receive images? Am I the only person who realizes that when they say, in essence, "It's just a coincidence that you knew the exact moment your sister was in a car crash, and the exact parts of her body that were injured, because we did a bunch of tests with the Zener ESP cards
http://skepdic.com/zener.html
that show abstract symbols that didn't even EXIST in the world of early humans, and didn't find anyone able to do better than random chance with them," that they're comparing apples to oranges, or rather apples to elephants?
Telepathy emerged to bring us information that could protect our lives and those closest to us (who can in turn help us survive, and probably also share the DNA that we're biologically programmed to perpetuate); the element of telepathy that's to our biggest and primary advantage is the one I used above, the one you non-coincidentally hear about the most... the ability to know if a loved one is in extreme pain and/or emotional distress (think how many times you've heard people report being hit like lightning with the certainty that a loved one has been hurt, or even has died). Primitive humans depended on their little family groups for their lives, therefore it was clearly to their benefit to know if something had gone very wrong with one of those individuals, so that they could offer help, escape a similar fate, prevent their children from meeting that fate, or all 3; the catch is that if it goes much beyond that, if everyone were getting signals all the time, they'd be overwhelmed... we already screen out the vast majority of sensory input that we take in, and if we had input regularly coming from other people our minds couldn't handle it, and in fact would likely automatically block it... and come to think of it, that may be WHY we don't pick up readings from people that often, because our minds are designed to block all but the most powerful (eg emotionally charged with feelings like pain and fear), and thus important, readings.
If we want to do VALID testing for telepathy, we have to replicate the circumstances it was designed to work in as closely as possible. First, we need to pair the test subject with a loved one, the closer to them the better; twins, mother and child, or siblings close in age (and probably of the same gender) would seem to be the best bets... forget using a stranger to "project" information, or expecting folks to read what's on the other side of a piece of cardboard. The next part is trickier; obviously, we don't want to kill or harm anyone, and it'd be unethical to subject a person to, say, a non-injurious level of electric shock even if they were willing to endure it, so how do we create the intense emotional state generally necessary for someone to project a telepathic signal, and what sort of signal can we send... which of the 5 senses would be the most effective? The best I've been able to come up with is to have the prospective "sender" watch a really scary movie, to get their adrenaline pumping and their brain buzzing, and then surprise them with a stimulus of some sort; grab them from behind, yell in their ear, or, if all else fails, I guess we'd have to fall back on them sending images, but images of simple, natural things, NOT complex scenes or abstract symbols... maybe we could stick a big pic of an attacking lion in front of them and play a loud lion's roar at the same time? Assuming that things were set up so that the prospective receiver had absolutely no chance of seeing or hearing the sender or what was going on with them, if the randomly-done attempted sends caused a simultaneous reaction in the receiver even some of the time, we'd have some concrete proof at last; this is still so far from creating the actual circumstances under which telepathy usually works that it may be doomed... it's like trying to test how we can get superhuman strength and lift cars off of our kids when their lives are in danger-nothing producible in the lab could generate that sort of emotional intensity, or the corresponding adrenaline boost.
Still, we should TRY; we can't go around patting ourselves on the back about how self-aware we are compared to other animals if we can't even figure out the extent of our own abilities.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Musings on the Mafia
I'll never get answers to any of these questions, because nothing on this Earth could induce me to get near enough to killers to ask them anything, but they're still worth contemplating:
Is there any shred of similarity between how wiseguys are portrayed in movies
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9880/movies.html
and what they're really like, I mean other than very basic things like them being Italian and criminals? We Americans find them glamorous and fascinating, to our everlasting shame, but are they REALLY more so than any bunch of thugs that operate in this country who're NOT being the theme in a steady stream of films and HBO series, or is that just the myth that's inexplicably developed around them?
Very few Mafiosos die of old age... so why does anyone not born into one of the families ever even THINK of joining? Can people really believe themselves to be so invincible that they're certain they'll have a long and happy life in La Cosa Nostra?
Tangentially, why would anyone enter into any sort of business agreement with a Mafia family? I don't mean the businesses that're forced into paying protection $, I mean the accountants, lawyers and others who could choose to NOT take dirty $ but don't make that choice. Is there anyone whose stress level is so low in the fast-paced modern world that they need to have that constant fear of ending up dead, or wishing they were dead, because they ticked off some guy in a shiny suit whose last name ends with a vowel?
And the really big one; knowing that the Mafia will pursue anyone who steals from them until the end of time, with a hideous death to follow in the very likely event that the thief is found, why, WHY, is anyone stupid enough to cook the books or hold $ back or in any other way appropriate their funds? If you've got a death wish, there've gotta be easier ways of fulfilling it; what's the psychology of those who convince themselves that they're going to cheat the Mafia and get away with it?
I'd be interested to know how Mafia types see US. Do they view everyone outside their circle as weak, foolish, maybe less than human? Are they amused or disgusted at our obsession with them, or just indifferent? Do they ever wish they had normal lives and could hang around with us, or would they never want to mingle with us even if they could?
What's it like to be one of them, to be inside their heads? How do they incorporate thoughts of who they're going to murder that day with their mental reminders to pick up their dry cleaning and buy some wine for dinner? How little of an excuse do they generally think they need to kill someone... how do they reason through the pros and cons of, say, blowing away someone who gets into a fender bender with them? Are there certain crimes that're beneath them, such as stealing a pack of gum? How do they view women other than their sainted mothers, when the women they get to know tend to be from Mafia families, or prostitutes? Given their patriarchal-ness, do they automatically look down women? Do they have female lawyers, for example, or do they only trust men? Do any of them watch cartoons, or eat Captain Crunch, or are they all "dead serious" because of what they do for a living? Are they allowed any individuality, like if one of them loved rap and wanted to dress accordingly, could they do that, or is there an explicit rule for everything... or a desire to all be alike? Do any of them enjoy things like fine art and poetry, or is that sort of appreciation unable to coexist with the necessity of being a killer?
I guess it all boils down to; how does their psychology differ from that of ordinary people? What's the mentality of a member of a group dedicated to a rule of terror, not from a military or political standpoint, not in reaction to poverty and deprivation, but because... I can't even give a because, other than the desire of evil to express itself. Is that why this has been in the back of my mind all day, because I've finally noticed that with evil people of any variety we only hear about what makes them do violent, anti-social things, and nothing about how their minds work in general? Why do we think we can figure them out without the big picture? To understand the nature of evil, you need to know more than just what might have led directly to them doing evil deeds, you need to know everything about how being evil (not crazy, which complicates things, but "just evil") makes a person different in EVERY aspect of mental functioning from a normal person; is this why evil so often goes unchecked, because we simply don't understand evil people and so can't outthink them?
As far as I know, no study's been done about that sort of thing; isn't that odd, when you think of it? And a little scary...
Is there any shred of similarity between how wiseguys are portrayed in movies
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9880/movies.html
and what they're really like, I mean other than very basic things like them being Italian and criminals? We Americans find them glamorous and fascinating, to our everlasting shame, but are they REALLY more so than any bunch of thugs that operate in this country who're NOT being the theme in a steady stream of films and HBO series, or is that just the myth that's inexplicably developed around them?
Very few Mafiosos die of old age... so why does anyone not born into one of the families ever even THINK of joining? Can people really believe themselves to be so invincible that they're certain they'll have a long and happy life in La Cosa Nostra?
Tangentially, why would anyone enter into any sort of business agreement with a Mafia family? I don't mean the businesses that're forced into paying protection $, I mean the accountants, lawyers and others who could choose to NOT take dirty $ but don't make that choice. Is there anyone whose stress level is so low in the fast-paced modern world that they need to have that constant fear of ending up dead, or wishing they were dead, because they ticked off some guy in a shiny suit whose last name ends with a vowel?
And the really big one; knowing that the Mafia will pursue anyone who steals from them until the end of time, with a hideous death to follow in the very likely event that the thief is found, why, WHY, is anyone stupid enough to cook the books or hold $ back or in any other way appropriate their funds? If you've got a death wish, there've gotta be easier ways of fulfilling it; what's the psychology of those who convince themselves that they're going to cheat the Mafia and get away with it?
I'd be interested to know how Mafia types see US. Do they view everyone outside their circle as weak, foolish, maybe less than human? Are they amused or disgusted at our obsession with them, or just indifferent? Do they ever wish they had normal lives and could hang around with us, or would they never want to mingle with us even if they could?
What's it like to be one of them, to be inside their heads? How do they incorporate thoughts of who they're going to murder that day with their mental reminders to pick up their dry cleaning and buy some wine for dinner? How little of an excuse do they generally think they need to kill someone... how do they reason through the pros and cons of, say, blowing away someone who gets into a fender bender with them? Are there certain crimes that're beneath them, such as stealing a pack of gum? How do they view women other than their sainted mothers, when the women they get to know tend to be from Mafia families, or prostitutes? Given their patriarchal-ness, do they automatically look down women? Do they have female lawyers, for example, or do they only trust men? Do any of them watch cartoons, or eat Captain Crunch, or are they all "dead serious" because of what they do for a living? Are they allowed any individuality, like if one of them loved rap and wanted to dress accordingly, could they do that, or is there an explicit rule for everything... or a desire to all be alike? Do any of them enjoy things like fine art and poetry, or is that sort of appreciation unable to coexist with the necessity of being a killer?
I guess it all boils down to; how does their psychology differ from that of ordinary people? What's the mentality of a member of a group dedicated to a rule of terror, not from a military or political standpoint, not in reaction to poverty and deprivation, but because... I can't even give a because, other than the desire of evil to express itself. Is that why this has been in the back of my mind all day, because I've finally noticed that with evil people of any variety we only hear about what makes them do violent, anti-social things, and nothing about how their minds work in general? Why do we think we can figure them out without the big picture? To understand the nature of evil, you need to know more than just what might have led directly to them doing evil deeds, you need to know everything about how being evil (not crazy, which complicates things, but "just evil") makes a person different in EVERY aspect of mental functioning from a normal person; is this why evil so often goes unchecked, because we simply don't understand evil people and so can't outthink them?
As far as I know, no study's been done about that sort of thing; isn't that odd, when you think of it? And a little scary...
Monday, June 20, 2005
Father's Day
This one's a toughie; my father is a genuinely sick and evil person, who was pretty grim during my early childhood, and by the time I was 12 had decided that I was a "monster not fit for human company" and treated me accordingly. Still, only a 2-dimensional comic book villain never has a single positive moment ever, and here's what I've come up with:
We were at a mall shopping for Christmas gifts for my mother, and he was inexplicably willing to go into a t-shirt shop; I can't remember how it happened, but he ended up buying me a t-shirt, which he said he'd "surprise Mom" with by putting it under the tree for me... and that was probably the 1st cool shirt I ever had.
There was a Mexican restaurant that we used to go to that had a blended fruit drink (licuado) that, because it cost more than the soda I'd usually have, my mother didn't want me to get, despite it having nutritional content that a parent should WANT a kid to consume, and my father voted her down, admonishing her to "not be cheap about food," and to let me have it.
I could only think of one more, but it's a biggie, because he actually went well out of his way for me; in the days before we had a VCR (we were the last people in the Western hemisphere to get one), there was a very special program that was coming on towards the end of a school day that I was naturally still desperate to see. The timing of the show was such that all I had to do to see it was leave school during last period, which was study hall, so I wouldn't miss any classes... but my mother refused to come and get me early. I was willing to part with some of my precious birthday and Christmas $ from my grandparents to pay a senior to drive me home, but my mother declared them unable to safely drive a child around (despite the DMV thinking differently), and vetoed that as well. There was no public transportation available, and a cab ride was outside my reach, so I was out of luck, as always... until I saw my father walk into the library. Once the shock wore off enough for me to move my legs, I gathered up my books, went home with him and watched the show, which was frankly enhanced by my mother hanging around with her lower lip out, sulking because she'd failed to prevent me from seeing the show and him from taking an action against her wishes.
He didn't manage to carry off the day perfectly, as he lied to my mother and told her that I'd been "rolling around on the floor" with my boyfriend when he showed up, which, ignoring the fact that it would NEVER occur to me to do anything that would surely get me in trouble, was physically impossible in the narrow walkway we and a bunch of other kids were lined up along the floor in, AND we were under the ever-watchful eyes of several adults at all times, who could hardly be imagined to be willing to ever let us do such a thing even if it WERE possible; fortunately, my mother was a library volunteer, and, although she automatically discounted any protestation of innocence I ever made, she knew that what he was claiming simply could never have happened, but he sure TRIED to convince her otherwise. Why he'd make such an outrageous accusation on a day he'd felt kindly enough towards me to make a once in a lifetime effort on my behalf is best left to psychologists; what's most astonishing was that he made the effort itself.
If YOUR father made at least a cursory effort to raise you decently, I hope you showed him a little love today; if you yourself are a father, I hope you're making sure YOUR kids never have to make posts like this, and that your Father's Day made you feel happy to be a dad.
We were at a mall shopping for Christmas gifts for my mother, and he was inexplicably willing to go into a t-shirt shop; I can't remember how it happened, but he ended up buying me a t-shirt, which he said he'd "surprise Mom" with by putting it under the tree for me... and that was probably the 1st cool shirt I ever had.
There was a Mexican restaurant that we used to go to that had a blended fruit drink (licuado) that, because it cost more than the soda I'd usually have, my mother didn't want me to get, despite it having nutritional content that a parent should WANT a kid to consume, and my father voted her down, admonishing her to "not be cheap about food," and to let me have it.
I could only think of one more, but it's a biggie, because he actually went well out of his way for me; in the days before we had a VCR (we were the last people in the Western hemisphere to get one), there was a very special program that was coming on towards the end of a school day that I was naturally still desperate to see. The timing of the show was such that all I had to do to see it was leave school during last period, which was study hall, so I wouldn't miss any classes... but my mother refused to come and get me early. I was willing to part with some of my precious birthday and Christmas $ from my grandparents to pay a senior to drive me home, but my mother declared them unable to safely drive a child around (despite the DMV thinking differently), and vetoed that as well. There was no public transportation available, and a cab ride was outside my reach, so I was out of luck, as always... until I saw my father walk into the library. Once the shock wore off enough for me to move my legs, I gathered up my books, went home with him and watched the show, which was frankly enhanced by my mother hanging around with her lower lip out, sulking because she'd failed to prevent me from seeing the show and him from taking an action against her wishes.
He didn't manage to carry off the day perfectly, as he lied to my mother and told her that I'd been "rolling around on the floor" with my boyfriend when he showed up, which, ignoring the fact that it would NEVER occur to me to do anything that would surely get me in trouble, was physically impossible in the narrow walkway we and a bunch of other kids were lined up along the floor in, AND we were under the ever-watchful eyes of several adults at all times, who could hardly be imagined to be willing to ever let us do such a thing even if it WERE possible; fortunately, my mother was a library volunteer, and, although she automatically discounted any protestation of innocence I ever made, she knew that what he was claiming simply could never have happened, but he sure TRIED to convince her otherwise. Why he'd make such an outrageous accusation on a day he'd felt kindly enough towards me to make a once in a lifetime effort on my behalf is best left to psychologists; what's most astonishing was that he made the effort itself.
If YOUR father made at least a cursory effort to raise you decently, I hope you showed him a little love today; if you yourself are a father, I hope you're making sure YOUR kids never have to make posts like this, and that your Father's Day made you feel happy to be a dad.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Crunches and the telepathic parrot
I think that may qualify as my coolest title ever.
Something happened tonight that's left me spooked and distracted. I did 1500 abdominal crunches (no, that's not a typo-not bad for a woman pushing middle age, don't you think?), which is my normal #, and towards the end my lower back was feeling sort of odd, but I wasn't paying attention, as the crunches kill my neck and I have to focus on holding it steady to minimize the pain. When I was done, I stood up, and discovered to my dismay that my lower back was NUMB, and that pins and needles were shooting down my backside, which was also a little numb. I've never had any hint of this happen before, and it's making me nervous, because I don't know if I'm suddenly pressing on a nerve the wrong way or some such thing, or if next time it'll be worse, or if I'm doing actual damage, or... well, I can come up with all sorts of scary scenarios, but I'm going to stay rational and try to find a site that lets you ask exercise-related medical questions and see what I can figure out.
Also tonight, there was a Jane Goodall special on Animal Planet called "When Animals Talk," which featured, among other interesting critters (such as giant rats that locate land mines), an African gray parrot called N'Kisi, who has a vocabulary of 1077 words, speaks in sentences, and shows the ability I've read of before in parrots to demonstrate that he knows what the words he's using mean (see the article "Polly Wanna Ph.D.?" in the January 2000 issue of Discover)... all of which pales beside what double-blind testing (using photos in sealed, unlabeled envelopes) shows is an astounding ability to know what's in his owner's mind:
http://www.sheldrake.org/nkisi/
http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v17n4a1.php
They did full-on scientific testing here, and N'Kisi wildly outperformed what he could have done by random chance, even though, being an animal that couldn't understand that he was being tested, he tended to chatter on about things other than what they wanted him to focus on when they were doing some of the tests. Makes you wonder if maybe some of the other people who think their pets are reading their minds might be onto something; after all, it'd be pretty odd if only this one creature had developed telepathy... that'd be a heck of a mutation. From my own experience as an animal communicator, I know that we humans can pick up on their mental state, and send simple commands, but it's fascinating to have some scientific confirmation that they can read US.
Goodall's explanation of why an animal might have telepathic ability will sound familiar to my long-time readers; since a creature's survival depends in large part on its ability to sense what's going on around it, and with its fellow creatures, telepathy would have clear benefits. Maybe we'll see some more tests being done on telepathic animals now that they've achieved such impressive results, and maybe, just maybe, that'll lead to some brave scientist somewhere being willing to do some real testing on humans, not with nonsense like trying to guess playing cards, which involves tiny, precise details that our telepathy would NOT be designed to pick up (as that sort of thing would NOT confer an additional survival advantage), but with simple photographic images sent between, say, twins, or mothers and children ... and who knows what they might discover we're able to do if they just TRY.
Something happened tonight that's left me spooked and distracted. I did 1500 abdominal crunches (no, that's not a typo-not bad for a woman pushing middle age, don't you think?), which is my normal #, and towards the end my lower back was feeling sort of odd, but I wasn't paying attention, as the crunches kill my neck and I have to focus on holding it steady to minimize the pain. When I was done, I stood up, and discovered to my dismay that my lower back was NUMB, and that pins and needles were shooting down my backside, which was also a little numb. I've never had any hint of this happen before, and it's making me nervous, because I don't know if I'm suddenly pressing on a nerve the wrong way or some such thing, or if next time it'll be worse, or if I'm doing actual damage, or... well, I can come up with all sorts of scary scenarios, but I'm going to stay rational and try to find a site that lets you ask exercise-related medical questions and see what I can figure out.
Also tonight, there was a Jane Goodall special on Animal Planet called "When Animals Talk," which featured, among other interesting critters (such as giant rats that locate land mines), an African gray parrot called N'Kisi, who has a vocabulary of 1077 words, speaks in sentences, and shows the ability I've read of before in parrots to demonstrate that he knows what the words he's using mean (see the article "Polly Wanna Ph.D.?" in the January 2000 issue of Discover)... all of which pales beside what double-blind testing (using photos in sealed, unlabeled envelopes) shows is an astounding ability to know what's in his owner's mind:
http://www.sheldrake.org/nkisi/
http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v17n4a1.php
They did full-on scientific testing here, and N'Kisi wildly outperformed what he could have done by random chance, even though, being an animal that couldn't understand that he was being tested, he tended to chatter on about things other than what they wanted him to focus on when they were doing some of the tests. Makes you wonder if maybe some of the other people who think their pets are reading their minds might be onto something; after all, it'd be pretty odd if only this one creature had developed telepathy... that'd be a heck of a mutation. From my own experience as an animal communicator, I know that we humans can pick up on their mental state, and send simple commands, but it's fascinating to have some scientific confirmation that they can read US.
Goodall's explanation of why an animal might have telepathic ability will sound familiar to my long-time readers; since a creature's survival depends in large part on its ability to sense what's going on around it, and with its fellow creatures, telepathy would have clear benefits. Maybe we'll see some more tests being done on telepathic animals now that they've achieved such impressive results, and maybe, just maybe, that'll lead to some brave scientist somewhere being willing to do some real testing on humans, not with nonsense like trying to guess playing cards, which involves tiny, precise details that our telepathy would NOT be designed to pick up (as that sort of thing would NOT confer an additional survival advantage), but with simple photographic images sent between, say, twins, or mothers and children ... and who knows what they might discover we're able to do if they just TRY.
