Spelunking the Universe
Posts tagged Psychology
Stubborn Change
05 days ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
There is a phenomenon is psychology, perhaps that’s too strong of a word, there is a part of our psychology that adapts as we grow older. The brain starts specializing all the tasks that it does throughout the day and will shave off the unnecessary information. We are left over time with a machine perfectly made for our mundane routine but not very efficient at accepting new data or changes to the paradigm.
This leads to conservatism, humans generally become more conservative as they become older. You can get around this by being aware of the specialization of your brain and training it, thinking outside of the box often and about different things will at least slow the rate of decay. I do consider it a matter of decay, perhaps hyperbolic, but the desire to keep things exactly as they are is something that should be looked upon as a disability, a dysfunction,, something altogether negative.
Change for the sake of change is not naturally good, but no good thing could not be improved in some fashion. Water itself is effectively perfect for our body, but generating systems to generate tons of it as cleanly and as safely as possible is something we should be striving for. Capitalism is nice but we should be constantly looking for new systems to better reflect our modern world.
The universe is endlessly changing, each moment is the connector of the last frame of time to the next. There is no permanent state, outside of the likely end of the universe, and that’s so long from now that I would consider it a non issue.
I say most of this because of the nature of business, and of shareholders, the desire to never take chances or to evolve. Video games, automobiles, television,, marketing, teaching, these things all have areas where they are being poked at by a minority of people but the majority find themselves lost to stagnation. Complacent in standing still amidst a rushing river of change.
In a way it is pure ignorance, apathy is really just ignorance of a better reality, accepting what we have as…well…”acceptable.”
My own job does not allow us to work routinely from home. Why? Is it because of any concerns of trust, efficiency, or costs? Probably, in their eyes, what I was told was the reason (by the President of the company) was “We just do things as we always have. It’s tradition.”
Really? Our job is entirely digital, there is no benefit to us being in office. The only thing that the VP and President do better in person is scolding because English is not their strong suite. But for that matter if the company is turning profits and our weak point is development then what is the issue? We obviously can do our job, and we would be much more comfortable doing it in an environment that isn’t so sterile and claustrophobic. None of the windows open at this business.
It’s a shame, to see such talent wasted on conservative thinking. We have smart people, but I don’t see us keeping them. Quite a few have left since I’ve joined, and I suspect the ones I see now will be gone with time. Because ours is not a business of progress, not a business of change, its about tradition.
Tradition is nice, in the quant setting of a home, dressing up in ridiculous sweaters and singing terrible songs around a tree we mounted in the living room. Watching explosives fired into the sky just off shore. These things are cute, they are our nostalgic ties to some past we wish existed.
But they have no place in public, I don’t mean visually, I love old buildings or clothing as much as anyone. But in our policies, in how we conduct ourselves for the future. Precedence is lazy, it is lazy in law, and it is lazy in life.
Because when we subscribe to precedence we subscribe to stagnation. Entropy doesn’t stop for us, so if we remain neutral then the net change is always negative.
It’s tragic, I find it utterly pathetic, truly, and I do hope that I will live long enough to see a country of people wise enough to overcome it. Sweden looks promising.
Cats and Kids or “Why your internet is cats.”
01 week ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
I’m incredibly disappointed in the internet right now. Let me tell you why, when I was in college we read about the psychology of the “Crazy Cat Lady” and some theories behind why (mostly) single women can find themselves growing old with a house full of cats.
The main study that seemed most reasonable to me was that the symmetry and rough location of the cats various facial features, nose, eyes, and mouth are all roughly in the same place you’d find them on the average human child.
So for women without kids, and even those who have children but the children have moved out, cats can become proxies to help satiate the genetic motivators that lead people to become parents in the first place. What I’ve found most interesting with the internet over the last few decades is just how quickly the feline has dominated it.
The vast majority of animal images I’m presented across the internet are cats. Sleeping, walking, prowling, yawning, or in the case of YouTube “talking”. But these images appeal to both genders, one would suspect that if it was only women (such as was suggested by the studies) that we’d see a dominance of women sharing the imagery. At least anecdotally I see an even distribution of people across both genders replicating and spreading these images across the net.
Now to clarify, the reason I’m upset with the internet is that for the life of me I can’t find the studies we researched. It’s borderline infuriating, if I search for anything with cats in the name I’m hit with arts and crafts, ICHC, or other totally unhelpful data. Perhaps I need to expand my search engine pool.
The theory is interesting however, while I’m going to bet the primary goal of domesticating cats was to have them around to kill things that would otherwise have a grand old time 
killing people (rats, snakes, and so on), I can’t help but wonder if the structure of their faces lead most people to produce the same hormones that they would when presented with an infant.
Basically I’m thinking that cats have become so widely adored because they push our genetic buttons. Don’t get me wrong though, I have no problem with things that excite dopamine release or hinder uptake. In this particular case I imagine a cat is much healthier than Heroine or Tobacco. Frankly as one of our kittens sleeps against my leg and I look at her snoozing face I’m certainly feeling pretty darn good.
So yeah, something to think about. Perhaps if you find the study work drop me a line, I’d like to add it to here.
The Me in the Mirror
9 months ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
So I went back for my follow up check at the Oral Surgeon. We momentarily discussed the amazing potency of their “light” form of local anesthesia. I went from answering the question “Do you like playing games?” or was it “Do you play games?” Something like that, I just recall the last words I said was “It’s hard to enjoy games when your job…” I immediately woke up in a totally different room, as I’ve mentioned before.
He told me that when you are under you can answer simple commands, that in fact I had walked into the other room of my other volition. He didn’t tell me if he had told me to which does elicit some level of funny visuals in my head. It got me wondering, during this whole period of time while I was in a subconscious state was I feeling pain? Was there a form of me in agony as teeth were removed from my head? I was coherent enough to respond to his commands and I was obviously there for the entire procedure.
I have a complete Amnesia of the entire event, something I’ve been trying to write about for quite some time properly. So I suppose it is a blessing in disguise. But it makes me wonder about that other me, the one that is localized to that small piece of the timeline of my life. What was he thinking at the time? Did the drugged state he was in change his feelings on anything in particular? Was this me for all intents and purposes except that I couldn’t remember anything or feel pain?
I feel somewhat like for a moment I was no longer within my own timeline. Not in the literal sense but in the emotional one. That there is this small sliver of my life that was replaced by another me entirely. It doesn’t feel quite like sleeping, even though they are the same processes. When I go to rest I can feel myself getting tired and I feel a gradual progression of events. Likewise I wake up in nearly the exact position I went to sleep.
I am a million times thankful that I wasn’t awake for the procedure. This is by no means a complaint, as mentioned before the Doctor did a job so amazing I don’t believe it could be done better. I’ve just been pondering about that other me. The one that went through the procedure, following simple commands like a drone. What thought, however simple, was floating along in his brain. I do not remember any dreams during the procedure, which may just be the reach of the drugs.
It’s probably one of my favorite and most perplexing life experiences. It is one thing to be asleep, but to think for a time I was a semi conscious zombie is fascinating. If not for the fact I’d not like to see myself butchered I would have loved to see a video.
I imagine this is not nearly as interesting to anyone out there who has never been anesthetized. I’m also told (by the surgeon) that if I haven’t drank before the feelings I felt would be alien to me. Is this perhaps what total inebriation feels like? Waking up the next day not remembering a moment of the past night. It isn’t the least bit motivating in getting me to drink but I wonder if the processes were the same.
It’s hard to shake the overwhelming feeling of seemingly traveling through space and time in a way far outside the norm.
The “Ordered” Universe–Because it is.
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
There is often a point made about the universe, about everything that is around us. The gist of the point is that “There is obviously a designer, a watch requires a watchmaker, and a universe run by laws must have a lawmaker.” This is very pleasing to the ear and to the mind as long as you don’t take longer than two seconds to think about it. The moment you do it falls apart and it falls apart hard.
The observation that the universe is governed by strict laws is ultimately a redundant observation, the universe must be as it is if we are to be as we are. If the universe were different in any way then we would be different (if we existed at all), to clarify “we” are merely the things observing the universe. If there is nothing conscious in another universe then the “we” is a null value. But regardless of what universe you examine and the species within it, the reasoning behind their being there is entirely redundant.
Because no matter what the case were, the questions would be exactly the same and the reasoning would be exactly the same. While I used to give my parents a bit of a grimace when I got the “Because I said so.” line from them I must admit that in this case a similar response must be made. The universe is ordered because it is ordered. You are sitting or standing where you are because you are sitting or standing where you are. We see visible light because whatever light we would have sensed would have been called Visible light, that range of light is only special because it is special to us, if we were different in any way we would be making the exact same observation about a different range of visible light.
We are on Earth not because Earth is special but because whatever planet we would have been on anywhere in the entire universe would have been judged with equal curiosity. It would have been the “special one” for no other reason than it happened to be the one we spawned on. There is no necessary designer behind the universe because the universe must exist in some fashion or another, if that fashion were a null fashion then more power to it. There could have been a trillion trillion universes before this specific one, each one with beings that too tried to explain why their own unique composition was the one. What made it special was not that it was special but that it was what the outcome was.
Just like rolling a die, there must be an outcome to the roll (at least in the philosophical sense) there are 6 choices, and the one you are left with is not chosen because it is divine, or because it is pre-thought or unique, but because it was the choice. Essentially the universe is ordered because, as humans, the only way humans would have examined the universe would be if it was ordered. If it wasn’t ordered we wouldn’t exist as we are but whatever that did exist would be asking the exact same questions (for a short while at least), they would be no more unique than us, and the universe they’d be in would be no more unique than ours. These things must be the way they are for us to wonder why they are as they are because no matter how they were we’d be wondering. There is always an outcome to the dice roll and if you knew nothing of the other 5 possibilities you would assume that there was something special about that dice roll, wherein fact there was nothing unique about it at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I am infinitely fascinated by the entire universe and of the possibilities of things unknown. But the desire to know “Why Earth?” or “Why this Universe?” or “Why is it ordered?” are all fruitless questions, beyond knowing how to best sustain our own physiology they will not bring us unique information because if you changed the variables to some other variant the questions would still exist, they are entirely malleable and don’t hold educational value in that respect. These questions are no more productive than pondering if we are in a Matrix or a Brain in a Vat. All they tend to do is waste time in the case of furthering advance in science, which is a shame because the further Science travels the more wonders we will discover.
Just don’t get caught up in explaining why the universe is, because at the end of the day it is and all the explanations in the universe will not make it change (for if they did the best you’ve done is get yourself killed, the living thing is not fond of extreme sudden change). I realize it’s fun to think about but it does not provide any useful information because the questions all apply to every possible variation of existence wherein anything capable of asking the questions would exist.
Note: That was very difficult to write since I’m trying to explain the circular logic of this profoundly wasteful question and it seems to drag you into circular answers. Which I think helps explain my point better than my attempts to explain it did.
Over thinking It
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
To say that I over think things would be an understatement of such proportions that it would be far beyond a lie. It is something that keeps me up many nights and causes me to think about situations that all others involved have long since forgotten.
I’ve noticed it all the more recently as I work on “the story”. (Now forgive me as I’m about to compare myself to a truly talented writer, this isn’t to say I am talented, it just happens to be who I’m reading at this moment) I’ve been reading harry potter, yes I know only a decade or so after the rest of the world started. I try my best to be so far back on the bandwagon that I occasionally must rush after it as it scampers off without me. Keeps life refreshing for me that way…in the sense that I can enjoy something and not feel the urge to rant on about it for ages. Although today that will not be the case!
At any rate Rowling manages to present an entire castle worth of characters, likely thousands of students, hundreds of teachers, and a plethora of monsters all working in tandem. The details of what all of them do is scarce, save for about 20 or so major players but it still feels like a very deep and active place to learn. I wonder as I read it, how many hours did Rowling spend plotting out the journeys students with no real importance made each day? Did she spend nights pondering about just what the professors were doing at the moment Harry and Ron walked into that very wet and very empty girl’s bathroom?
How many days of her life were lost to constant thought over just what Dumbledore was eating each day? Did these sort of questions even pop up to her? I find myself plotting distances, times, steps taken, weather patterns, social and economic issues. I’m pondering what characters who won’t even appear for multiple books are doing at the exact moment a situation is going down.
It is swallowing my mind to the point where I’m thinking about it during much of the rest of the day, even when I AM reading Harry Potter. As I plod away through the, admittedly very interesting, tale of this young boy and his friends I am wondering just how the next scene of my own fantasy universe will pan out. I’m hoping by the end of this first novel I’ll have some sort of system down, a series of kill switches to help dull the endless pondering about this place. Because if I don’t I might just wake up one day within the pages.
Rico Examines “Technology and Depression”
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
I was discussing this topic with my Mother-In-Law a short while back and felt it was interesting enough to post here. If you disagree, imagine instead I’m talking about puppies, because everyone loves puppies.
We’ll begin with the subject of change and the effects of it on our psyche. I don’t believe I’ll be citing anything today, so if you disagree with my points go check out case studies and I’m sure they’ll provide the same information. While it is true that change, and paradoxes, help expand the gray matter, many people are very resistant to change. This may be a survival mechanism, once you have mastered your surroundings, you would be very unhappy if those surroundings changed because now you would need to utilize more time (a precious commodity to mortal beings) to once again become learned.
There is an irony to this, the more open to change an organism is, the faster it will adapt and the higher likelihood that it’ll survive. So how is it, that humans have survived this long? As a whole humans have proven they are overall highly resistant to change, so much so that they’ve many times over developed belief structures that are themselves the ultimate hyperbole of static. Beings with unchanging infinitely wide power that exist for an unchanging amount of time over an unchanging swath of existence (namely all of it). The answer lies in a natural check, in a sense humans are one massive organism, while our bodies do contain various organs that seem to have no purpose other than to kill us, there are balances to these that keep us as a whole alive.
The relatively small percent of humans that are not only open to change but actively searching for it, these are what keep humans alive. While many people find distress in change, they can avoid it (to the misfortune of them and all around them), this small group however continually discovers and advances knowledge in the universe and thusly sparks change, which generally leads to longer and much less painful survival.
Depression, or at the very least stress, is derived from seemingly uncontrollable circumstances. The worse the feeling of no control, the higher the level of depression or stress. In most situations the loss of control can be rectified but it cannot usually be rectified quicker than merely avoiding it, which may be the reason that people largely avoid change or things they don’t understand.
However Technology has become basically unavoidable, for a truly productive life people must tie in with technology. This has some amazing ramifications, because I’m willing to bet that not a single person reading this article has a deep understanding of exactly how a computer works. Many people have a rough idea of how cars work, the mechanisms for their function are fairly straight forward. However a computer (though arguably no more complicated) has a much more daunting scope. You could contain all the knowledge of the collective human existence into a device that is the size of a dictionary. This is a daunting concept that mystifies PCs amongst many people, and puts plenty of money into the pocket of the “Geek Squad” 
.
We are technologically much better off than we were in the early 1900’s, but with that has come the inescapable necessity to learn and change. This is a massive, utterly unstoppable, reality that I do feel has made the majority of people less happy than they were in a relatively simpler time. War has always been here, disease has always been here, and wheels have been around for a long time. But technology, electricity, and the extremely quick evolution of information has put a globes worth of people who live off the idea of the rawest static ideals in check.
This is a very good thing however, forcing people to accept change and to enjoy new challenges has nothing but positive ramifications in the short term and in the long term. For the entirety of human history it has been the people accepting of change, and only these people, that has kept the rest of the human population advancing and alive. The larger this population becomes, the better the lives of all people will be. However it will be an uphill struggle considering just how strong the desire for static infinitives is. If you need a very real example look at America and Pluto. Or really America and basically any scientific advance in the last 100 years that didn’t obviously and immediately make life easier. I’d comment on other countries, but I don’t live in them so all my comments would be largely assumptive and that’s not fair.
Unrelated I would like to congratulate Volcanoes, you have once again reminded everyone just how badass you can be.
Rico Examines “People, Politics, and Pretense.”
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
Basically anyone who has read an article about politics has seen an astounding statement of just how “Out of Touch” the politicians involved are. When people talk about the efficiency of businesses versus government run operations there is a distinct separation of the two. As if there is some magical race of beings that are running one versus the other.
Lets first establish what people run, people run everything, they run businesses, they run families, they run schools, they run hospitals, they run governments, and they run religions. There is absolutely nothing different about this between them all, each is run by people and each has people picked in some manner of fashion for that position. Perhaps they established kin through procreation, or established quality of talent through election or hiring, or they’ve established belief through convincing parable. Which by the way is a word everyone should use today, try it.
There is no reason why one should assume that a government cannot run something as well or better than a corporation. Likewise there is no reason to assume that a corporation cannot run something as well or better than the government. Mix and match any of the above examples and the statement is the same. It is not that these organizations cannot do it, it is that they do not do it.
The fault of course, as it must, falls upon people as a whole. People decide what is an acceptable level of accomplishment for each organization and that acceptance is what decides the level of success the organization performs to. If you accept your neighbors being terrible parents you have set a precedent that that level of parenting is all that is necessary. If you accept that your government cannot run anything properly they will then achieve that level of success. The same for schools, faiths, and hospitals.
Absolutely everything in this world run by humans will run at a level that is accepted by the people. Because absolutely everything in this world run by humans is (tautology time) run by humans. So they function under the same rules, the same psychological triggers, and will all rise or fall because of the same variables.
Don’t ever accept anything because of what organization it is a part of if the outcome is not to the standards you feel fair. There is no inherent static wall that an organization cannot rise above, everything is limited only by the expectations of global society. It is, in its entirely, no more complicated than that.
Coming this Week on TheIOS:
Rico Examines “Video Games: Graphics Vs. Gameplay.”
Rico Examines “The Beauty of Mathematics.”
ADIOS: The King of Spes: Votum.
IIWP (If I was President): Taxation
How many people are you?
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
I’ve been on a journey of sorts through my life, to prove to folks that likely nothing is black and white. Now honestly, could something like “How many people are you?” be that complicated of a question? I mean obviously, you are one person, I am one person, it seems so simple.
Well lets go on a very short journey, through an entirely plausible series of events, merely limited by current medical technology. I’ll then ask a few simple questions and we’ll see how straight forward they are.
For reasons unknown, Markus, has entered a hospital to have a peculiar surgery done. The hospital is going to cut Markus completely in half from tip of his head to his groin. The brain itself can survive as damaged as 50%, which means that a perfect cut with optimum tools and technology would leave two halves that only are limited by the organs that remain. We would need to either build or donate an extra heart and any other organs that are not perfectly split. Essentially the ‘open’ side would then be closed with a bionic enclosure. Nothing fancy, an apparatus that helps enclose both sides so that now we have two living halves that both function.
My first question is a simple one. What would each side know? Would one side be able to speak and the other not? Does the brain store certain information in a raid between both halves? What would the halves say to one another?
Perhaps some deeper more philosophical questions. Would the halves themselves feel one another? In theory if we have a soul we would be dealing with one entity that now experiences two separate sets of sensation. What metaphysical ramifications come from each not communicating with the other?
Now I ask you. Given this situation that could quite easily happen with some small gains in the medical field. Is this just one person or two people? If you argue that it is one person, would you arrest one half if the other (unbeknownst to it) robbed a bank? If you didn’t arrest both of them then you are acknowledging that they are both separate people.
But now we have a new question. At what point did we take one person and make them two? What was it that defines a person? Is it simply the bridge between the two hemispheres? Or is it merely how many functioning bodies are present. In the face of the split man you have taken one functioning body and made it into two with a few modifications.
So that’s my conundrum. A problem that could be so easily fixed by just having a brain that does not operate when the hemispheres are disconnected from one another. This of course isn’t my finest work but the simple scenario and questions should keep folks busy which is what is important.
Cognitive Dissonance
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in Poetry
Cognitive Dissonance
Is a tragic romance
of what is
and what is not
of what actually was
and how we think it was
Fatal fantasy
of a fictitious reality
leading wars and tragedies
prominently into now
Cognitive Dissonance
masked behind morality
greatest tragedy
to ever befall man
as it strips the ease
as much as it can
fed by frail minds
of all kinds
Cognitive Dissonance
sitting kingly
upon a throne of solid bone
as it commands those
watching mindless shows
making sure to hose
the fires of reality
from their rightful place
in our cognitive faculty