• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

The Intuitive, the Counter-Intuitive and Cognitive Dissonance

Nocapszy

no clinkz 'til brooklyn
Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
4,517
MBTI Type
ENTP
So then the archetypes, like the laws of physics, pass along instructions for action.
Then surely the reason for so many different incarnations of human personality, is following the instruction of many archetypes with differing priority of each.

Where the physical responds to whichever law has the most immediate impact -- these of course forever rearranging priority -- the metaphysical (at least where human behavior employs the term) attends to the archetype's command.

I agree Victor.
Though what seems to be the case is that even during your crusade against the MBTI, you have developed an identical typology, only measuring different elements.


INT_ is a good tag for you.
 

redacted

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
4,223
Heh I was going to make that point too, Nocap. Archetypes are inescapable.

And cognitive dissonance keeps them going.
 

substitute

New member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
4,601
MBTI Type
ENTP
Okay, well, having read the thread again, I'm thinking a couple of minor points:

- you alluded to the numbers of books translated into Spanish and Arabic, and then quoted literacy figures in Pakistan in support of the point this was supposed to make. Most Arabic speaking countries have good literacy rates (Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia - all closes to 70%) even if not as high as the West. Contrarywise there are Spanish speaking countries such as Nicaragua (65%) whose figures are not much good. By this I mean to say that what you said illustrated your point, actually didn't illustrate it very well, which was one reason why I initially failed to grasp your meaning.

Also, the Prophet Muhammad was himself illiterate, and yet he spread many counterintuitive teachings such as the right for women to divorce their husbands (a right not enjoyed by British women, for example, until well past the Enlightenment - surely "I am bigger and stronger, therefore I tell you what to do" is more intuitive than "I ought to respect your freedom as an individual despite being physically able to oppress you for my own gain"). And the life of the illiterate visionary Hariet Tubman also illustrate a strong leaning towards non-self-preservational behaviour despite not having been taught counterintuitive thinking by the medium of literacy.

I suppose I'm thinking that, scientifically speaking, what one does when one has a theory is to throw it open, and then to try to prove it wrong. If it still stands, the theory is good. If necessary it might need modifying somewhat.

I'm thinking I like your theory as it is, an impression you seem to have intuitively perceived by cogitating on your knowledge of the world around you. But I'm not sure if it necessarily stands, if I'm grasping your point properly, which, in layman's terms, I'm thinking runs something along the lines of "for human beings to think outside of the realms of personal hardship avoidance which drives the usual and perhaps lazy method of resolving cognitive dissonance, they have to be taught through the medium of literacy how to think in a different way to that which they intuitively would choose in order to avoid personal hardship."

Underneath all of which lies the question: where did the material come from which was first written down? How did the authors reach that knowledge before there existed any written precedent?

Please accept my apologies if I've mistaken your point again, I trust you can see however, that I am trying ;)
 

substitute

New member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
4,601
MBTI Type
ENTP
Also, excuse my slowness - the kids are playing around and making an awful noise in here so I'm not functioning at my intellectual best - but... are you SURE that literacy is counter-intuitive?

If it's intuitive for humans to want to make life easier for themselves, then surely literacy can help achieve this aim - was that not in fact the reason why it was even invented? It's much easier to write a message and get some schmuck to carry it for you to its recipient than to have to travel all the way there to tell him yourself, or pay a messenger to take the message and possibly forget it or get it wrong when he gets there. And keeping track of what's mine and what's yours is much easier when we have written records.

Surely the complex writing systems that we now have in modern languages all evolved from the same intuitive principle of drawing a line in the sand and saying "this side is mine, that side is yours"? Making lasting marks that communicate an idea that one wishes to be communicated and recommunicated?

So although learning the actual mechanics of the written language takes some effort, I think that the POINT of making this effort is intuitively understood by most people with an IQ in triple figures. And isn't it then also intuitive to then think of all the other uses to which this new skill can be applied, including spreading your own ideas and opinions over a wide area in a short space of time with little personal effort?
 

substitute

New member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
4,601
MBTI Type
ENTP
So we have three cultures operating side by side - the original spoken culture of the last 200,000 years and the modern literate culture less than 200 years old, and the new electronic culture of the present moment.

Could you please elaborate how you believe these cultures to be related to each other? Obviously they are related because not only does one evolve into another but when they exist simultaneously in different places, they also interact with each other. I'd like to have some examples, if you would, of cognitive dissonance that's produced by these interactions?

So I am juxtaposing those two thoughts, "the message is the message", and "the medium is the message", to create cognitive dissonance.

So I want you to experience this particular cognitive dissonance.

I have difficulty in understanding this because for me there is no cognitive dissonance that I can ascertain when I think of those two concepts. To me they're not mutually exclusive by any means, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be thinking to myself that makes some kind of difficult choice??

Could you define please, what you mean by "the message is the message" and "the medium is the message"? I mean I have a few ideas of what you might mean but I don't want to assume since I'm not in your head...?

Your talk about discovery and revelation, and trying to find concrete examples also somewhat confuses me, considering that I spend an awful lot of my time specifically going out in order to discover, with that express purpose. And the things that are revealed to me in that discovery, if they contradict what I previously held as knowledge, cause me to re-evaluate that knowledge even if it means pulling out the keystone and watching the whole wall crumble so I have to build it again brick by brick. That's just an ongoing, natural process for me.

BUT I believe that it's logic which drives me to do this very thing, whereas you seem to be arguing that it's the very thing that ought to prevent me from both seeking and embracing that revelation.

Apologies for the multiple posts, I'm on a shitty old laptop which keeps crashing and when it does that I lose everything I was writing. And I can't edit either right now!! So this is just me writing what's in my head, first draft, as quickly as possible before the thing crashes!!
 

Nocapszy

no clinkz 'til brooklyn
Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
4,517
MBTI Type
ENTP
Heh I was going to make that point too, Nocap. Archetypes are inescapable.

And cognitive dissonance keeps them going.

Victor applies cognitive dissonance in an off-label fashion.
Read his post very carefully.

I'd prefer not to say he uses it incorrectly, but it's certainly highly unconventional.
 

Nocapszy

no clinkz 'til brooklyn
Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
4,517
MBTI Type
ENTP
Also, excuse my slowness - the kids are playing around and making an awful noise in here so I'm not functioning at my intellectual best - but... are you SURE that literacy is counter-intuitive?
Again, I stress that victor does not use these words in their ordinary colloquial way.

If you approach them more from their etymological standpoint you'll better understand.
I know because I find myself in a similar habit.
 

redacted

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
4,223
I meant that the fact that people USE archetypes is inescapable. And it's hard to think outside of your own archetype system because cognitive dissonance keeps you in your comfort zone.
 

substitute

New member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
4,601
MBTI Type
ENTP
Again, I stress that victor does not use these words in their ordinary colloquial way.

If you approach them more from their etymological standpoint you'll better understand.
I know because I find myself in a similar habit.

yes, and approaching it from that angle, that's still what I think... if by 'intuitive' he means 'what comes naturally'?

But dammit, if the guy's going to speak not only in riddles but with his own personal dictionary, well... you can't expect people with y'know, lives and shit, to devote hours to trying to decipher his heiroglyphs can you? I mean, it's not like some lost Plato paper we're dealing with here, is it? *shrug*

Don't get me wrong, I love a good discussion and a new idea, but I don't see any point in being deliberately misleading... because in doing that one can communicate far more than one intends to... ;)
 

Nocapszy

no clinkz 'til brooklyn
Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
4,517
MBTI Type
ENTP
yes, and approaching it from that angle, that's still what I think... if by 'intuitive' he means 'what comes naturally'?

But dammit, if the guy's going to speak not only in riddles but with his own personal dictionary, well... you can't expect people with y'know, lives and shit, to devote hours to trying to decipher his heiroglyphs can you? I mean, it's not like some lost Plato paper we're dealing with here, is it? *shrug*
*snicker*
I understand him on the first go.
His dialect is rather *snicker* intuitive if you ask me.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Victor applies cognitive dissonance in an off-label fashion.
Read his post very carefully.

I'd prefer not to say he uses it incorrectly, but it's certainly highly unconventional.

Out of left field.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Also, excuse my slowness - the kids are playing around and making an awful noise in here so I'm not functioning at my intellectual best - but... are you SURE that literacy is counter-intuitive?

If it's intuitive for humans to want to make life easier for themselves, then surely literacy can help achieve this aim - was that not in fact the reason why it was even invented? It's much easier to write a message and get some schmuck to carry it for you to its recipient than to have to travel all the way there to tell him yourself, or pay a messenger to take the message and possibly forget it or get it wrong when he gets there. And keeping track of what's mine and what's yours is much easier when we have written records.

Surely the complex writing systems that we now have in modern languages all evolved from the same intuitive principle of drawing a line in the sand and saying "this side is mine, that side is yours"? Making lasting marks that communicate an idea that one wishes to be communicated and recommunicated?

So although learning the actual mechanics of the written language takes some effort, I think that the POINT of making this effort is intuitively understood by most people with an IQ in triple figures. And isn't it then also intuitive to then think of all the other uses to which this new skill can be applied, including spreading your own ideas and opinions over a wide area in a short space of time with little personal effort?

By literacy I mean universal literacy only achieved with a vast infrastructure of schools and teachers.

This vast infrastructure is created and funded by the Nation State and compels its citizens to attend for many years.

This vast infrastructure is somewhat disguised by the fact that we read a book alone. This creates the literate individual who is inclined to think they are independent of the huge system that produced them.

In other words, literacy produces dissociation - on the one hand we have a huge, vast infrastructure and on the other, the literate individual. And how natural, in our minds, to dissociate one from the other.

And this universal dissociation produces the conscious mind and the unconscious mind - both dissociated from one another.

But as we move from print to electronics, dissociation disappears - the unconscious becomes conscious.

The electronic person, the person of the Noosphere, is no longer dissociated.

And extraordinarily, we are no longer dissociated from one another. We are not dissociated by distance. We are not dissociated by time. Your mind and mind are now, more or less, running on the same track.

Look, you are reading this as I write.
 

substitute

New member
Joined
May 27, 2007
Messages
4,601
MBTI Type
ENTP
Hmm... well it's perceived that the state compels people to go to school here, but in fact it's always been an option for parents to not send their kids to school and educate them at home, however they see fit (as I'm doing with my kids). Home education has exploded in the UK recently as profound dissatisfaction with the school system has taken hold and perhaps greater independence of research and thought also because, as you say, of the electronic media giving people access to wider and more diverse opinion and information than they otherwise would've had without great effort.

The literate individual has at their disposal all the literature that's available in the language/s they speak and so is not necessarily limited to the state-approved thought that's presented to them in schools. But it's true that most individuals don't go to the trouble... especially since television takes the place of leisure reading in most homes.

Where I live, TV has actually begun to be replaced by the internet as the quality and diversity of shows has taken a dive, it's become the refuge of morons basically and most intelligent and thinking people find their TV rarely being switched on these days. But there still remains the majority who are fed, through the TV, the same thought marketing as they were fed at school (provided they were even paying attention at school, which those people probably weren't).

Just a few thoughts there. I've got more, just gonna think about it for a bit.
 
Top