Rest stop at the End of the World

Moving LJ

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 21:39:42 GMT

I forgot to post here (not that anyone cares) oO But this journal is closed, and i've moved to http://www.livejournal.com/users/asimovfan/ After a little while i'll probably delete this journal.

The dust in here is really something

Wed, 01 Dec 2004 18:19:53 GMT

It's hard to get across exactly how out of date this journal is. I'd practically forgotten I had one until I saw erf_ linked me. Obviously I haven't posted in a long time, but more than that, I've been working on some new theories, and a lot of the old ones need to be re-written for consistancy. Plus, I might even start another account where I actually use it as a journal. (How Amazing)

Journal on Hiatus

Mon, 12 Apr 2004 17:37:37 GMT

Journal on hiatus until summer.

Events and Circumstance - Part 2 - The Temptation of Fate

Tue, 03 Feb 2004 06:50:40 GMT

Major Aspect: 2
Minor Aspect: 1-6 [varies]

On the extreme opposite of the simplicity of blaming the victim- a belief in free will- is "fate". You might think that there would be no attraction to believe such an idea- that the outcome will be the same no matter what the choices made. But there are some temptations to believe in this line of thinking-

If everything is fate, 1) I can't be blamed for my actions, 2) There was nothing else I could have done, 3) the uncertainly of decisions, and/or 4) no missed opportunities. The appeal of the first is pretty obvious- the person cant be blamed or have to take responsibility for that action, or perhaps even feel regret. The second, though, says that the decision made was the only possible choice- here, a justification of action(s) and also lack of responsibility (or feeling.)

The third and fourth are a bit more complex. As people go throughout life, it is not uncommon for a person to wonder if they have made the "right" choices. While everyone can to some degree see the results of their own actions they have taken, they can only guess as to the results of the actions they didnt. So... what would have happened if you had taken that other job offer? Or hadn't said what you did to someone else? Went to a different school? Took courses in another field? And so on... The appeal is to say that if your life was already decided for you- then there is no need to worry about such things as missed opportunities, or maybe better decisions than the ones you have made. You had no choice, so to speak.

In any case, those main four points are the appeal of the idea of fate- though people certainly can use any combination of those points, and to different degrees. Again, fate and blaming the victim are both extreme ends of the issue- free will and predetermined. Things are not so simple to say it is all one or the other. In life, there are some things a person has control over- and some he/she does not. Black and White, if you will, and reality is in shades of grey.

Fate has been proposed to be determined to come from everything from god(s) to your genes. In the past particularly, many people thought their fate was determined by the stars- to them, seemingly mystical, impressive things- that some still believe in today. [note: astrology will be the next topic] In modern day, we realize that it's really quite unlikely that the apparent movement of some celestial bodies of plasma will affect whether we have a bad day or fall in love etc. No respectable academic would even think of trying to draw such a conclusion.

In modern day, the frame has shifted to instead blame actions and etc. on the genetic code, DNA. This is for many reasons I won't cover here- "belief" in science, lack of understanding of basic biology, and etc. It is a well known fact that your DNA is set- from what you get from each parent. It is also known that the DNA encodes a person. From that, some people are tempted to say- it's fate! Though in more subtle ways than the stars of old- blaming hormones for a bad decision, blaming evolution (which is linked to genes, though not as most would think) for actions of adultery or rape, saying that your genes- gender in particular- determines what you should be doing in life- i.e. raising children, and so on. Pseudo-science at its best, unfortunately, for many throughout history

If you have taken some intro biology, you would know:

Things DNA do encode:
- Your eye color
- Your blood type
- Skin color
- Widow's peak or lack of one
- and so on...

Things DNA does not encode:
- How successful you are at dating
- How well you did on your math test
- What job you got
- What you ate yesterday
- and so on...

You might even go as far as to say that your genes encourage tendencies to certain behaviors- which is possible. But you can't blame your actions on DNA, at least the average person cant. The list is a pretty crude distinction, but hopefully you get the idea. What people's actions are influenced by are a combination of many things- your genes, your brain, upbringing, influence of society, and other stimuli that have affected them. Im sure there are some that I havent listed, but in any case, there is certainly no one factor that is dominate for everyone in every situation. Also note that some genetic things can change depending on your environment- social, physical and etc.

- End Part 2 -

Events and Circumstance - Part 1 - Blaming the Victim

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 02:05:03 GMT

Major Aspect: 2
Minor Aspect: 1-6 (varies greatly)

Blaming the Victim for their deaths, poor circumstances, loss of jobs- whatever the case may be. Blaming the victim is a very easy thought loop/trap to fall into. In a way, it's also a kind of coping. In reality, circumstances vary, and things are rarely so clear cut as to be 100% that person's fault. You could have family troubles influencing you, the background you're born into, and then there are choices to consider, from direct action, to lack of action and so on.

The convenience of the argument is not obvious at all, it's quite subtle.

First of all, If you assume it was the victim's fault, as in they caused their (unintentional) misfortune by their own poor judgments, abuse of alcohol, drugs, whatever- then there's no need to feel guilty about their misfortune. No need for action, to feel sympathy, to offer them a helping hand- After all, they deserved it. They had it coming to them. That justification has implications, like I said, are easy to fall into. In addition to that, it's easy to just brush their misfortunes away and ignore the whole thing.

This particularly applied to older times, when natural disasters happened- hurricane, crop failure, locusts, poor rainfall, plague and etc. seemingly without reason. Back then, before anyone knew about how weather works, or how plagues spread, blaming the victims was easy. Their attitude was something similar to "God was angry at you" for your actions or "You deserved it"... and so on.

In present day, you can see this "it's your fault, you deserved it" attitude towards the poor, and other parts of society. Sometimes it is their fault.. but that doesn't mean that society shouldn't take responsibility for these people, and hopefully help them back onto their feet. I can't cover this as well as I would like, but the poor are certainly still people, and our society certainly has enough food/housing etc. to spare.

That brings us to the next reason for that justifications: namely, 2) If it was caused by their own actions, then I can avoid the same situation, and so 3) It can't happen to me because I will not make those poor choices. If this justification/mind-set is wrong, then it is the same to them as admitting that they have no control over their "fate" so to speak- a fearsome prospect to many. All too often, people will blame the victim automatically, unless it was very clearly out of thier control- which will be covered in Part 2.

- End Part 1 -

Additional notes and the modifying aspect

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:26:01 GMT

I went back and edited the previous two entries to include their aspects. In addition, there is a third usage of aspect I will be using:

Modifying Aspect - An Aspect is a sort of generalization. Even If it's something that affects almost everyone, and influence their lives to a large extent, it's still not going to apply to exactly everyone, just because of the "law of really large numbers." All kidding aside, let's say I make the statement- All Humans Have Two Arms and Two Legs. Sure, it's going to be true for your average person. But for a smaller portion of the population, it would be very, very wrong- limbs lost to war, accidents, disease, etc.

The original statement is not wrong, especially if I were to modify it to make it more true. So, the modifying aspect- is an idea, or here, an entry that explains a different way and explanation than the original idea, and always for a smaller group of people. Or more practically, if ideas here are linked, the "smaller" one will have modifying aspect:

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I went back and edited the previous two entries to include their aspects. In addition, there is a third usage of aspect I will be using:

Modifying Aspect - An Aspect is a sort of generalization. Even If it's something that affects almost everyone, and influence their lives to a large extent, it's still not going to apply to exactly everyone, just because of the "law of really large numbers." All kidding aside, let's say I make the statement- All Humans Have Two Arms and Two Legs. Sure, it's going to be true for your average person. But for a smaller portion of the population, it would be very, very wrong- limbs lost to war, accidents, disease, etc.

The original statement is not wrong, especially if I were to modify it to make it more true. So, the modifying aspect- is an idea, or here, an entry that explains a different way and explanation than the original idea, and always for a smaller group of people. Or more practically, if ideas here are linked, the "smaller" one will have modifying aspect: <the essay it's modifying>. If it is not modified or modifying, it will not be mentioned.

Additional Notes: I will have more time to update this now, thanks to a philosophy class that only occupies half of my attention and thinking.

Also- while you can probably guess that I am a person with observes and thinks, I am also a person who lives, who goes to class, does homework and all other sorts of mundane things. So, In an attempt to give this journal some vague academic credibility, I will not be posting personal things here. At the moment, I am thinking of having another journal for personal things, in which I will not speak quite so formally, heh.

Another Note: <whine> The more I look at this journal, the longer it looks like it will take me to finish. In addition to the fact that humans and society are far from static things, I already have listed some future 50+ topics for me to write about.. and I've covered maybe 5 so far. This is more homework than what I actually am assigned.. And in addition to that, I can see that some of the topics I have been planning can easily stretch out to 2-3 posts each- the one about God could easily take 4, in fact. Differentiation of Human Beings in Modern Society could take 2.. and so on. </whine> In any case, the next several posts will be talking about perception of events, namely things like fate, blaming the victim, horoscopes and such.

Accepting things as true - the World View and other related - Part 1

Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:46:01 GMT

Major Aspect: 1
Minor Aspect: 1

It doesn't really seem to occur to many people how much of what they hold as true was taken and accepted as true from others, who are also probably doing the same thing. For example, I accept that Asia, Antarctica and all the other continents exist, even though I've never been off this one. I accept that matter is made of atoms, even though I can't see them. I accept that the world is an oblate spheroid, that the earth goes around the sun- even though from personal experience, I would not know. It is very true, that if I or someone else had the mind to, they could prove that these are true. And far more than that is accepted as true, for example- history- places, people and events that are long gone, or changed. Other foundations of fields of science; medicine, architecture and so on.

To reject these widely accepted views would make a person only subject to mockery. It seems amusing in a way, when people say things like- how could anyone in the past have ever thought the world was flat? When, after all, they know no more how to prove the world is round and accepted it just like those past laypeople accepted it was flat. Your average person doesn't know why it's accepted that the earth is round, only that it is. Depending on your job, education and such, you might be able to say how the experiment to prove this was done. Or, a sharp eyed person might be able to note that ships disappear, bottom first at the horizon.

Certainly, it makes sense in all fields to build on past ideas. There would be no progress in say, Chemistry, if individuals all started from rediscovering the atom, and then only building on their own work- they wouldn't get very far at all. Same goes for other fields and such.

And interesting side effect of this, is that since people do not have any truly conscious knowledge of how things happened, why things are the way they are- it's not too hard to convince them they are wrong. The best recent example of this is probably the whole "Did we really go to the moon" public frenzy, fed by distrust of the government, belief in conspiracy theories, and such. All of them accepted that we did go to the moon, without any reason, and so when confronted with what appears to be a realistic argument that we did not, many of them changed their minds, so to speak.

- End Part 1 -

Sterotypes

Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:08:01 GMT

It is somewhat aggravating to post some re-written ideas I came up with years ago. I'd rather be posting the theories and essays that I have thought of, and continue to think about, recently. Unfortunatly, many of the ideas are highly interconnected- and I can hardly reference another essay I haven't written yet, correct?

So.. Sterotypes.

Major Aspect: 1 [Applies to a majority. And don't forget the impact this has had on history.]
Minor Aspect: 1-3 [Damn few people who don't use them at all- though they might not be aware of it. Don't forget, that racism aside, categories like jocks, nerds, etc. are also sterotypes.]

From the physcology textbook, it says the following about sterotypes: Created by people in an effort to minimize the time and effort required to attempt to understand a person. However, I do not believe this to be completly true. Not only does this imply that people who use sterotypes are doing so out of laziness, but I believe the basis of this is unfounded.

My suggestion is that instead people use sterotypes and other examples of categorization as a method to filter perception. By that, I mean without a way to simplify and deal somehow with all the information, (and other raw stimulus) a person would be overwhelmed. A person who follows racist or incorrect ideas is not nescessarily malevolent themseleves, rather they do it to keep some kind of order or pattern to their thoughts. Coping, if you will.

The book suggests that people reinforce sterotypes by ignoring any information that doesn't fit and matching what does into that catergory. However, I also believe that people insecure in their identities, (self, cultural, etc.) may reinforce these sterotypes unknowingly by beileving that if they do not act in a certain way, how they look, etc. then they are not a member of that group. This applies to gender as well.

For example, a girl who feels most like a girl when she wears a dress. In this case, the girl is matching herself to what she percives how a girl should act. Of course, this is still in a minor sense. It is also traditional and accepted for girls to to wear dresses.

Sterotypes differ greatly. It can be reasons for members of a certain group to feel superior to other, it can be based on cultural bias and misconception, and all sorts of things too vast to name them all. Ideally, a sterotype is supposed to be an average of the people in that group. Sometimes you can find sterotypes that have a core of truth at them, or a true propensity towards certain actions. Even without the things named earlier- superiority of one group over another, cultural bias etc. the idea of an "average" is too inexact and vague to have much significance, even if it had some portion of truth to it.

There is a saying that goes something like this: The average person has one breast and one testicle. Crude yes, but it gets the point across- the larger the group of people you're trying to "average" the fewer people that will actually be that average. In this case, i don't even think it's physically possible, or, even if it was, it would be in the extreme minority. Even in small groups- say you take 10 caucasians, or 10 blacks, or 10 surfers, 10 scientists- whatever- individuals will still vary a lot from each other. Again, while some patterns can repeat in people, in groups- by no means are people so simple to be categorized so easily.

Obviously, sterotypes are not limited to racial types. There are also job/profession sterotypes (eg. All politicians are crooked), age category sterotypes (eg. All teens are angry punks), The two gender sterotypes with various subsets (eg. Act like a lady), hobbist sterotypes (surfers, motocyclists, stamp collectors), political sterotypes (environmentalists, conservatives) and so on. People are not clear cut items, to be categorized in groupings like fruit in the grocery store. There certainly are patterns that repeat in large groups of people- but nothing so simple as that.

Another factor is also upbringing, and circumstance- For example, let's say you're a white guy living in an all-white town. Your parents in the past lost their jobs to immigrants, and they constantly remind you about it. You've never met someone in this minority group before. Then, just by random chance, the only one you meet was a drifter who steals your car. Odds are, you're going to be terribly racist...

That's just an example- if you don't actively question this sterotype, it's all too easy to just accept it as true. This partially comes from taking ideas for granted- a topic which will be dicussed at a later date. It also ties in with absolutes, which also will be looked at in more depth later.

In modern times, though, my generation is much more tolerant than the previous one, at least in my expirience. The racist individuals now, are forbidden from acting on their racism openly, and racism is certainly far less than it has been in the past, although it still exists. (note that all groups can have racist members, not just caucasians) Sterotypes still persist however, some more harmful than others.

Observation, and it's faults

Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:28:00 GMT

I have, for various reasons and interests been observing people for a long time. There are many ways- to watch people in their daily lives, to read through the history books, to read fiction, judging what seems likely, and discarding what seems impossibly fictional. There are many ways to go about the whole thing, which for want of short length, I will not go into here.

In any case, Observation also has a certain fault about it, as accurate as it can be at times. For example, let's say that I have a ball. I hold it above the ground, and let go. I could tell you that the ball will hit the ground, that it should hit the ground, maybe even that done 100 times the outcome would be the same. (As long as the situation was the same)

I observe things like this- now, why does it hit the ground? I can tell you that it's gravity that causes that. But the more complex theory of why gravity works like that, I could tell you that no more than I could outline why the neurons in people fire a certain way to produce their actions.

In all practicality, however, this is somewhat useful. It would take ages to go through and find the support for every idea, or to trace the idea through history, or different cultural groups.. and so on. Just in interests of time, I cannot cover every topic in as much depth as I would like.

FAQ

Sat, 10 Jan 2004 08:23:12 GMT

Q: Why's this journal so damn boring?
A: What do you think this is? TV!?

Ok.. so no one's really asked that. Still, having attempted to write some fiction short stories in the past, I realize this journal is really very boring. Still:

-In the long run, you'll only read this journal if you're interested in the subject. If you don't, no manner of prose is going to keep you here, anyway.

-Hey, it really it boring to most people. I find it very interesting, but I don't discuss this sort of thing with others when I know they're not even remotely interested in the subject. Or else, bringing it up could seem unbearably pretentious, or elitist, which is just as bad.

-I find I write in this manner the easiest. To take time to write it in the way that people speak, would just add hours to this whole journal. To think the last entry took so long, and I only covered the term aspect! It seems I could be writing essays here for years and never come close to finishing covering all the aspects of human nature. As well- humans are not static things, to be drawn once and discarded...

-And hey! At least it's written more accessibly than the majority of academic papers. Sometimes it seems their purpose it to impress and confuse rather than trying to clearly get across an idea/theory/observation/etc..

As an additional note, any reference to real-life will have names partially deleted, just out of concerns of paranoia and privacy. Like the name- say, Aliera, would be A______.

Yeah, that's it for today. Really.

Intro - Again

Sat, 10 Jan 2004 08:01:47 GMT

In a discussion with my brother once, the subject turned to psychology- and he said "You forget, I'm the one who's taken intro psych, and you haven't." That much is true, but as I pointed out to him, while he would know more terms, more history, more experiments- that doesn't mean that he would understand people more.

Psychology is a study, a tool. Used correctly, it can be a great help to understand people. Used incorrectly, it can just confuse, or even worsen the understanding or whatever problem it's being used to solve. I realize this is rather vague, but perhaps I'll write a full entry on it later.

In any case, what not having taken intro psych- nor any formal learning similar to such, means is- that lacking my own terms to define certain aspects of personalities, I had to come up with my own.

I will use the term "aspect" in two ways:

Major Aspect: the rough percentage of the population who the particular essay applies to- very roughly: Practially everyone (degree 1) to a very small, select group of people (degree 6).

Minor Aspect: the degree to which this is present in that group's lives: a lot (degree 1) to very little, but present (degree 6).

Also note that the essays here will mainly apply to the USA- in some ways an unusual country, with it's majority of middle class individuals, a large number of professionals, "class" mobility, and so much more. That is not to say that some of these essays wouldn't apply to people from foreign countries, since there are some aspects of humans that would be practically universal. The more specific, though, down to talking about specific groups- I expect it might not apply at all to those people. The USA is the culture I am the most familiar with, having observed it quite a bit. As well, other nations cultures- and even recent immigrants here- might have different outlooks, cultural tendencies, and such that I could not hope to cover here.

An Introduction

Thu, 08 Jan 2004 03:40:19 GMT

Well! I suppose an introduction is in order, even though I doubt many people other than me would actually read this journal. My username, aoisora, is japanese for "blue sky". It is also the (current) name of my computer. You can probably see the imagery- open fields, blue skies, wispy clouds- the smell of open air.

I have also been told that it is the name of a japanese AV star. -_- But, I'm sure you, dear reader(s?), can imagine this was not intended. In any case, ~Aliera was taken, and I like the sound of aoisora. I don't pretend to know japanese, but hey, bluesky sounds just as good, if only it weren't taken.

The purpose of this journal is to give me an excuse to write up a number of theories, ideas, and observations I have made over the years, with maybe the occasional opinion, and hey- maybe even a journal entry. Ahaha..

Ideally, people- unbiased people- such as yourselves could give me feedback on my ideas- and offer suggestions and the like. Realistically, i don't see how anyone is going to want to come here. I might put a website with some of my attempts at fiction writing up in the future, with a link pointing in this direction, but otherwise, my only current way to get people here is through search engines. Whooo.