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| answering | questioning | investigating | Showing 199 examples. Read an article about the three minds. | ~ year |
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environmentally motivated | self-motivated | Pscyholinguist Peter Macneilage and neurobiologists Lesley Rogers and Giorgio Vallortigara overviewed the evolution of brain lateralization in vertebrates. ...we propose, the right hemisphere took primary control in potentially dangerous circumstances that called for a rapid reaction from the animal—detecting a predator nearby, for instance. Otherwise, control passed to the left hemisphere. In other words, the left hemisphere became the seat of self-motivated behavior, sometimes called top-down control. (We stress that self-motivated behavior need not be innate; in fact, it is often learned.) The right hemisphere became the seat of environmentally motivated behavior, or bottom-up control. Macneilage, Rogers, Vallortigara. Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain. #886  |
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innate | adaptive | A jawed fish originated the acquired immune system that is found in vertebrates. • Innate immune system preconfigures a response to general situations and stimuli. • Adaptive immune system learns to recognize molecules it has previously encountered, and tailors a response accordingly. Novel jaw structures and a predatory life style may have increased localized injuries and infections. Wikipedia: Immune system Wikipedia: Adaptive immune system: Evolution T Matsunaga, A Rahman. What brought the adaptive immune system to vertebrates?--The jaw hypothesis and the seahorse. #877 |
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novel | routine | Octopuses and cuttlefish have bicameral brains, which they evolved independently of vertebrates. Scientists study their lateralization. It was originally argued that lateralization of function separated responses to social stimuli from those to non-social, but this division was not inclusive, as solitary animals also have lateral preferences. A second suggestion was the separation of control of different cognitive tasks, so that each could be more efficiently carried out by one brain half. Yet a third suggestion was that there was an evolutionary advantage to being able to use one eye and brain half for routine tasks and foraging, while the other was keeping track of novel stimuli, such as predators and perhaps conspecifics and social situations. Both octopuses and cuttlefish have been studied for such a division, the second with more success. Jennifer Mather. The Case for Octopus Consciousness: Unity. Caroline B Albertin et al. The octopus genome and the evolution of cephalopod neural and morphological novelties #880 |
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silhouette of foe | lights of friend | Jewel squids are covered with "jewels", bioluminscent photophores. ...histioteuthids were predicted to orient in a tail-up posture with the body axis at a 45° angle and the head twisted so that • the large left eye orients upward to view objects silhouetted against the dim downwelling sunlight, while • the smaller eye orients slightly downward to optimally detect flashes of bioluminescence When did this evolve? We can only guess... Thomas, Robison, Johnsen. Two eyes for two purposes: in situ evidence for asymmetric vision in the cockeyed squids Histioteuthis heteropsis and Stigmatoteuthis dofleini #881 |
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singing | Pscyholinguist Peter Macneilage and neurobiologists Lesley Rogers and Giorgio Vallortigara overviewed evidence for the evolution of brain lateralization. In birds, for instance, studies have shown that the left hemisphere controls singing. In sea lions, dogs and monkeys, the left hemisphere controls the perception of calls by other members of the same species. Macneilage, Rogers, Vallortigara. Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain. #887 |
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gestures | Pscyholinguist Peter Macneilage and neurobiologists Lesley Rogers and Giorgio Vallortigara overviewed the handedness of primates. The evolutionary significance of all this becomes clear as soon as one notes that humans also tend to make communicative gestures with the right hand. The lateralized behavior we share with baboons suggests that right-handed communications arose with the first appearance of the monkeylike ancestor we share with baboons. Macneilage, Rogers, Vallortigara. Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain. #885 |
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animal | tracks | guess | The Lithuanian verb minti means to think, and specifically, to guess a riddle, but also to tread or to step, for example, into mud. This suggests that hunters guessed an animal from its tracks by stepping into the tracks with their minds. This "stepping into" may have served as the metaphor for thinking. The Proto-Indo-European root men- (to think) persisted in English as mind and mental, Latin as mens, Greek as menos and mathema and Sanskrit as mantra. Wikipedia: Indo-European vocabulary #621 |
-2500 |
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less wise | equally wise | more wise | The Maxims of Ptahhotep are attributed to the Egyptian vizier Ptahhotep (2400 BCE) but were likely composed during the Twelth Dynasty (1991-1802 BCE). They are wisdom literature that teaches living by Maat, encompassing truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. • If thou find an arguer talking, one that is well disposed and wiser than thou, let thine arms fall, bend thy back, be not angry with him if he agree (?) not with thee. Refrain from speaking evilly; oppose him not at any time when he speaketh. If he address thee as one ignorant of the matter, thine humbleness shall bear away his contentions. • If thou find an arguer talking, thy fellow, one that is within thy reach, keep not silence when he saith aught that is evil; so shalt thou be wiser than he. Great will be the applause on the part of the listeners, and thy name shall be good in the knowledge of princes. • If thou find an arguer talking, a poor man, that is to say not thine equal, be not scornful toward him because he is lowly. Let him alone; then shall he confound himself. Question him not to please thine heart, neither pour out thy wrath upon him that is before thee; it is shameful to confuse a mean mind. If thou be about to do that which is in thine heart, overcome it as a thing rejected of princes. The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni Wikipedia: The Maxims of Ptahhotep #931 WP |
-1900 |
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lucky | unlucky | The remnants of the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, found at the site of the Assyrian capital Nineveh, include a clay tablet by the Babylonians of the Cassite period, with interpretations of dreams. In taking auguries, one usually faced north, with the right hand toward the lucky east, and the left hand toward the unlucky west. It remains unclear if this was related to the hemispheres of the brain, keeping in mind that a hemisphere is linked to its own side of the head but the opposite arm. In analyzing births and also the liver, defects on the unlucky side signaled luck, and vice versa. If he gaze toward the right his adversary will die. If he gaze toward the left his adversary will overcome him. If he look backward he will not attain his desire. If his right eye flow, sickness will appear. If his left eye flow, his heart will be glad. Stephen Langdon. A Babylonian Dream Tablet on the Interpretation of Dreams. #933 |
-1450 | |
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know many things | know one big thing | Greek lyric poet Archilochus, according to Aristotle, contemplated a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing Wikipedia: The Hedgehog and the Fox #668 |
-650 | |
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beautiful | virtuous | and | The ancient Greek phrase καλὸς κἀγαθός (kalos kagathos) means the beautiful (kalos) and virtuous (agathos). Since the days of Herodotus it described the ideal man, the gentleman, the chivalrous warrior. The Athenian aristocracy thus referred to itself. Wikipedia: Kalos kagathos #7 |
-430 |
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think one knows | know nothing | be conscious | In Plato's Apology, Socrates, at his trial in Athens for impiety and corrupting the youth, said ...although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. ...I was conscious that I knew nothing at all... Wikipedia: I know that I know nothing Plato. Apology. #655 |
-399 |
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appetite | spunk | reason | Greek philosopher Plato described in his Republic three classes which manifested three parts of the soul. • Commoners (farmers, artisans) should live in moderation. They manifest appetite (epithumetikon). • Warriors should moreover be brave. They manifest spunk (thumetikon). • Rulers should moreover be wise. They manifest reason (logistikon). Wikipedia: Plato's theory of soul #5 |
-375 |
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irrational appetite | moral impulse | reason | Greek philosopher Plato, in the Phaedrus, presents the Allegory of the Chariot. The charioteer drives a chariot pulled by two winged horses. First the charioteer of the human soul drives a pair, and secondly one of the horses is noble and of noble breed, but the other quite the opposite in breed and character. Therefore in our case the driving is necessarily difficult and troublesome. The charioteer represents reason, which guides the soul to truth. The noble horse is the positive passion, the rational and moral impulse. The ignoble horse is the negative, irrational passion, the appetites. Wikipedia: Phaedrus (dialogue) #121 |
-370 |
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pathos | logos | ethos | Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, distinguished three modes of persuasion - grounds on which speakers appeal to their audiences: • pathos (suffering or experience) evokes emotions, appeals to what is familiar to the audience, their ideals • ethos (character) appeals to the speaker's authority and credibility, their qualifications, their character, how they balance passion and caution • logos (word, discourse or reason) is an appeal to logic, facts and figures, derivations Wikipedia: Modes of persuasion #97 |
-357 |
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rhetoric | logic | dialectic | Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, distinguishes between rhetoric and dialectic. He also was a founder of classical logic, although the term "logic" came later. All three have the function of providing arguments. We can infer a distinction. • Rhetoric considers what arguments are persuasive or not. • Logic considers what arguments are, of themselves, valid or not. • Dialectic considers what arguments are illuminating in arguing for and against. Stanford: Aristotle's Rhetoric #124 |
-357 |
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sensitive | rational | Aristotle (384-322 BCE) distinguished three kinds of soul. • Plants have a nutritive soul by which they nourish themselves and reproduce. • Animals moreover have a sensitive soul by which they sense, feel pleasure and pain, and desire, may imagine and remember. • Humans moreover have a rational soul by which they think when they wish, possibly falsely. Wikipedia: On the Soul #42 |
-350 | |
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possible intellect | agent intellect | Aristotle argued that since the mind can think when it wishes, there must be two faculties: • Possible intellect is a "blank tablet" which stores the abstract concepts that the mind can consider. • Agent intellect recalls these ideas and combines them to form thoughts. It also abstracts the content of sensed objects and stores that as concepts in the possible intellect. Wikipedia: On the Soul #43 |
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duty and sense of shame | laws and punishments | virtue and propriety | Chinese sage Confucius (c.551-c.479 BCE) taught in his Analects that the best government rules by rites (lǐ If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of the shame, and moreover will become good. Wikipedia: Confucius #117 |
-350 |
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knowing | not knowing | admitting whether you know or not | Chinese thinker Confucius, in the Analects, teaches The Master said, "You, shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge. 子曰：「由！誨女知之乎？知之為知之，不知為不知，是知也。」 Confucius. Analects. Wei Zheng 17. Wikiversity: Wisdom: Defining Wisdom #765 LB |
-350 |
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gentleness | economy | shrinking from taking precedence of others | The Daoist "Three Treasures" 三寶 originally referred to this quote in the Daodejing: But I have three precious things which I prize and hold fast. The first is gentleness; the second is economy; and the third is not daring to be the first in the world (shrinking from taking precedence of others). With that gentleness I can be bold; with that economy I can be liberal; not daring to be the first in the world, I can become a vessel of the highest honour. Wikipedia: Three Treasures (traditional Chinese medicine) Daodejing Chapter 67 #166 |
-325 |
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yīn 陰 | yáng 陽 | Chinese philosopher Zou Yan (305-240 BCE) founded the Yin and Yang School. • Yin is the feminine or negative principle (characterized by dark, wetness, cold, passivity, disintegration, etc). The dark side of the hill. • Yang is the masculine or positive principle (characterized by light, warmth, dryness, activity, etc). The sunny side of the hill. Wikipedia: Yin and Yang #3 |
-275 | |
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naturally selfish | conscious effort to do good | conscious development of proper standards | Chinese philosopher Xun Kuang (c.310-c.238 BCE), in his writings, Xunzi, chapter "Human Dispositions are Detestable", opposes Mencius, arguing that humans are naturally bad, wayward, selfish, drawn to profit and beauty, susceptible to jealousy and hate. They need to follow right teachings and consciously practice doing good. Then they can be one with the Way, dedicated to morality, and consciously create rituals and regulations to be followed. Wikipedia: Xunzi (book) |
-250 |
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meandering mind | fixated mind | empty mind | Chinese philosopher Xun Kuang, in his writings, Xunzi, chapter "Undoing Fixation", opposes Mencius, criticizes obsession, when a person focus so intently on one thing that their mind is divided, walled off from new information, making for ineptitude. Understanding, approving, abiding by the Way ( Wikipedia: Xunzi (book) |
-250 |
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lust | hate | delusion | The Buddha, in the Fire Sermon, spoke of three fires which lead to all negative states. The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning ... Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. In the Mahayana tradition they are known as the three poisons (kleshas), and in the Theravada tradition as the three unwholesome roots. They are symbolized by the rooster, snake, pig, respectively, at the center of the wheel of life. They feed on each other as a three-cycle. Their opposites, essential for liberation, are generosity (non-attachment), loving-kindness (non-hatred), wisdom (non-delusion). Adittapariyaya Sutta: The Fire Sermon Wikipedia: Ādittapariyāya Sutta Wikipedia: Three poisons Tricycle. What are the three poisons? (Greed, hatred and delusion) #676 |
-250 |
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Eve | Adam | God | In the Book of Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve and God can be interpreted as an allegory about the three minds. The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper comparable to him. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate. God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” World English Bible: Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 #203 |
-250 |
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concreteness | concreteness | emptiness | Indian Buddhist monk Nāgārjuna, founder of the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, distinguished two levels of satya (truth or reality). • Provisional, conventional truth describes our daily experience of a concrete world. (Sanskrit saṁvṛti-satya, Pāli sammuti sacca, Tibetan kun-rdzob bden-pa) • Ultimate truth describes ultimate reality as empty of concrete and inherent characteristics. (Sanskrit paramārtha-satya, Pāli paramattha sacca, Tibetan: don-dam bden-pa) Wikipedia: Two truths doctrine #685 |
-200 |
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carnal | soulish | spiritual | Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, characterizes people based on how they receive his teaching. • Carnal people (sarkivós) attend to the flesh, thus suffer jealousy and strife. • Soulish people (psychikós) attend to the mind, are atuned to human wisdom, and find spiritual matters foolish and incomprehensible. • Spiritual people (pneumatikos) attend to the spirit, that which is of beyond the world, that which relates spiritual people with spiritual matters. Wikipedia: Tripartite (theology) #24 |
53 |
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squander | serve | forgive | Jesus, in the Gospel of Luke, tells a parable of a man with two sons. • The younger son asked his father for his inheritance ahead of time, squandered it, and being hungry, asked his father for forgiveness, and received it. • The older son, who served his father devotedly, obediently, without reward, grew angry and would not celebrate. • The father had compassion, and forgave the younger son, and explained to the older son, why they should celebrate, for his brother was lost and found. Wikipedia: Parable of the Prodigal Son World English Bible. Luke 15. #761 |
85 |
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yes | no | truthfulness | Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount Again you have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall perform to the Lord your vows,’but I tell you, don’t swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can’t make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ Whatever is more than these is of the evil one. Matthew 5: 33-37 #768 |
88 |
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know | not know | truth | In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4:22-24 #787 |
100 |
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flesh | spirit | watch and pray | Jesus, at Gethsemane, asked his disciples to keep watch while he prayed, but they fell asleep. What, couldn’t you watch with me for one hour? Watch and pray, that you don’t enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He thus distinguished flesh and spirit, but also a third faculty that can keep watch and pray. Matthew 26:40-41 #38 |
100 |
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life | truth | way | Jesus, in the Gospel of John, at the Last Supper, says to his disciples, "I am the way, the truth, and the life". [The place Jesus prepares, the words he speaks, the deeds he does are the conceptual framework - the truth that reveals the spiritual life of God, and that revelation to his disciples is the way.] "Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also. You know where I go, and you know the way." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him and have seen him." Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works." Gospel of John. Chapter 14. #691 |
100 |
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truth | word | free | Jesus, in the Gospel of John, told the Pharisees that he was the light of the world. (Those who keep God's word will see God's truth and be free to live by the word or by the truth.) If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. ...If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. ...Why don't you understand my speech? Because you can't hear my word. ...If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don't hear, because you are not of God. John 8:31-47 #485 |
100 |
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disobedience | obedience | incorruptibility | Greek bishop Irenaeus taught in Against Heresies that • Adam disobeyed God, eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thus suffered death and corruption • Jesus obeyed God, even to his death on the wood of a tree, thus saved humankind, giving us his qualities • God bestowed his incorruptibility through Jesus's incarnation, spreading his qualities across humanity. Wikipedia: Irenaeus #763 |
181 |
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body | soul | spirit | Valentinian Gnostics, as criticized by Irenaeus in Against Heresies, thought there were three kinds of human beings. • Carnal humans, who may have faith but do not have special knowledge, who live by their material body, cannot be saved and will return to the grossness of matter, then be consumed by fire. • Psychic humans, who live by their soul, which resides in their body, are strengthened by works and faith, belong to the church, and together with the Demiurge (worldly Creator) as their master, will enter a middle state, neither heaven nor hell. • Spiritual humans will be liberated from the world and the Demiurge, and along with the Savior and his spouse Achamoth, will enter heaven without body or soul. Wikipedia: Irenaeus Wikipedia: Valentinianism #764 |
181 |
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sense perception | personal intellectual activity | reason | African bishop Augustine, a Church Father, described how God illuminates the mind. • sense perception through first-hand acquaintance yields knowledge of sensible objects • personal intellectual activity yields intellectual insights into mathematical and logical truths and fundamental moral intuitions because we see them for ourselves • reason sees the truth regarding intellectual objects when God illuminates them Stanford: Augustine of Hippo Saint Augustine. The Soliloquies. #774 |
387 |
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existence | emptiness | middle | Zhiyi, developer of the first Chinese Buddhist system, contemplated Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka philosophy, notably its doctrine of two truths, and consequently discerned the Threefold Truth: • All phenomena are empty (śūnya, 空 kong) of any independent self-nature or essence (svabhava). • Phenomena exist (假, jia) provisionally, they conventionally arise through causes and conditions (i.e. dependent origination). • The middle truth (中, zhong): phenomena are both empty of existence and exist provisionally. In the words of Zhiyi, wondrous being is identical to true emptiness. Wikipedia: Tiantai: The Threefold Truth #684 |
580 |
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frequency | letter | analysis | Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī, father of Arab philosophy, developed a method of cryptanalysis which compared the frequency of each symbol in an encrypted text with the typical frequency of each letter in a text. Wikipedia: Al-Kindi #752 |
850 |
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literal | critical | empathetic | Chinese Zen Buddhist Shi Daoyuan attributed to Qingyuan Xingsi this saying: 老僧三十年前未參禪時、見山是山、見水是水、及至後夾親見知識、有箇入處、見山不是山、見水不是水、而今得箇體歇處、依然見山秪是山、見水秪是水 Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters. Sacred Texts. Zen Sayings. Wikipedia: Qingyuan Xingsi Wikipedia: The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp #901 |
1002 |
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exception | rule | "The exception proves the rule" is a saying that derives from the medieval Latin legal principle exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis ("the exception tests the rule in the cases not excepted"). Wiktionary: Exception that proves the rule #649 |
1050 | |
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determine facts | formulate charges and present evidence for and against | ensure neutrality throughout procedures | The Magna Carta in England enshrined the right to a jury trial, where decision making is divided among • Prosecutors, who bring criminal charges, alleging a crime was committed, and present their evidence, which is countered by defense attorneys, who represent the defendant. • Jury, typically consisting of twelve peers, representing a cross-section of the public, which is a finder of fact, collectively evaluating the accuracy and completeness of testimony of witnesses and experts, comparing it with their personal knowledge and experience, determining the truth or falsity of factual allegations, and arriving at a unanimous verdict of innocent or guilty. • Judge, a neutral referee of the adversarial process, who rules on questions of law, determines what law applies to a particular set of facts, and decides the sentence. Wikipedia: Jury American Bar Association. How Courts Work. #828 |
1215 |
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motherly | joyful | vast | Japanese Zen Buddhist monk Dōgen Zenji taught in Instructions for the Cook: When we train in any of the offices of the monastery we should do so with a joyful heart (kishin), a motherly heart (roshin), a vast heart (daishin). • A "joyful heart" rejoices and recognizes meaning. It is grateful for what is. Feeding and serving others is not simply a job but an unconditional vow, independent of success or failure, an opportunity, using this body which is the fruition of thousands of lifetimes and births to create limitless benefit for numberless beings. • A "motherly heart" [an old heart] is a heart which maintains the Three Jewels as a parent cares for a child. A parent raises a child with deep love, regardless of poverty or difficulties. Their hearts cannot be understood by another; only a parent can understand it. A parent protects their child from heat or cold before worrying about whether they themselves are hot or cold. This kind of care can only be understood by those who have given rise to it and realized only by those who practice it. This, brought to its fullest, is how you must care for water and rice, as though they were your own children. • "Vast heart" is like a great expanse of ocean or a towering mountain. It views everything from the most inclusive and broadest perspective. This vast heart does not regard a gram as too light or five kilos as too heavy. It does not follow the sounds of spring or try to nest in a spring garden; it does not darken with the colours of autumn. See the changes of the seasons as all one movement, understand light and heavy in relation to each other within a view which includes both. ... Thus they lived as a great shout of freedom through presenting the Great Matter, penetrating the Great Question, training great disciples and in this way bringing it all forth to us. Eihei Dogen zenji. Tenzo kyokun: Instructions for the Tenzo Lion's Roar. What Are the Three Minds? #675 |
1237 |
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see | talk | Tibetan Buddhist scholar Sakya Pandita (1182–1251) declared in his Treasury of Valid Reasoning: The sense consciousnesses are like a dumb person who can see. And conceptual mind is like a blind person who can talk. Rigpa Shedra Wiki: Six Consciousnesses #570 |
1240 | |
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instincts | moral virtues | understanding | The Kabbalah posits that the human soul has three elements, which are referred to in Genesis and discussed in the Zohar. • Nefesh (נֶפֶשׁ), the lower soul, the animal part, life-force of the body, aware of the body, given at birth, and dying with the body, the fount of instincts and bodily cravings, which can yet be fully obedient to God • Ruach (רוּחַ), the middle soul, the spirit, which contains the moral virtues and the ability to distinguish between good and evil, by which God is loved with all one's heart, one's emotions • Neshamah (נְשָׁמָה), the higher soul, the super-soul, the intellect, which understands, conceptual grasps, pierces through the ephemeral to the essential, by which the senses are temporarily nullified, making way for love and awe, which separates humans from all other life-forms, which allows humans to enjoy and benefit from the afterlife, which gives humans some awareness of the existence and presence of God Two further parts of the soul are considered. • Chayyah (חיה) provides awareness of the divine life force itself, by which one loves God with all one's being • Yehidah (יחידה) is the highest plane of the soul, in which one can achieve the fullest union with God that is possible Wikipedia: Kabbalah Kabbalah Online. Neshamah: Levels of Soul Consciousness Rabbi David Cooper. Five Dimensions Of The Soul. #470 |
1283 |
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imprinting | English statesman Thomas More noted, in his Utopia, that domestic chicks, upon birth, imprinted on their parents, following them around. Wikipedia: Imprinting (psychology) #114 |
1516 | ||
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properties | name | renaming | English playwright William Shakespeare, in "Romeo and Juliet", has Romeo hear Juliet, unaware of him, declare from her balcony: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; ... ... O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; Wikipedia: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet #875 |
1595 |
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induction | syllogism | English statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon, in "Novum Organum", attacked syllogism and promoted induction as the way to investigate and discover truth. • Syllogism is often applied to supposedly indubitable truths, yielding questionable conclusions, detached from reality. • Induction focuses on the senses and particulars and builds up conclusions, step-by-step, of ever greater certainty and generality. Novum Organum #46 |
1620 | |
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confused feelings | clear understanding | student of Nature | French modern philosopher René Descartes related mind and body. Nature also teaches me by these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst, etc., that I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am very closely united to it, and so to speak so intermingled with it that I seem to compose with it one whole. For if that were not the case, when my body is hurt, I, who am merely a thinking thing, should not feel pain, for I should perceive this wound by the understanding only, just as the sailor perceives by sight when something is damaged in his vessel; and when my body has need of drink or food, I should clearly understand the fact without being warned of it by confused feelings of hunger and thirst. For all these sensations of hunger, thirst, pain, etc. are in truth none other than certain confused modes of thought which are produced by the union and apparent intermingling of mind and body. Wikipedia: René Descartes René Descartes. Meditations on First Philosophy. #776 |
1641 |
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inward light | ministry | silence | George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends, who first called themselves Children of the Light, Friends of Truth, and are widely known as the Quakers, taught that if people would be silent, waiting on God, the Light within them would teach them how to conduct their lives, teach them about Christ. Friends also listen to the wisdom of other Friends, in their ministry, as the Spirit moves them to speak from their experience about the inward Light. I was glad that I was commanded to turn people to that inward light, spirit, and grace, by which all might know their salvation, and their way to God; even that divine Spirit which would lead them into all Truth, and which I infallibly knew would never deceive any. Wikipedia: Inward light #589 |
1650 |
 |
see | hear | speak | Hidari Jingoro carved three wise monkeys on a panel at the Tōshō-gū Shrine stable. • Mizaru (見ざる) covers his eyes, thus does not see • Kikazaru (聞かざる) covers his ears, thus does not hear • Iwazaru (言わざる) covers his mouth, thus does not speak They are believed to represent Confucius's Code of Conduct. Wikipedia: Three wise monkeys #104 |
1650 |
 |
random experience | reason | intuition | Dutch Portuguese Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, in his Ethics, distinguished • the first kind of knowledge - knowledge from random experience, sensory images, pains and pleasures, confused ideas, from a given perspective at a given time, that something is, arising from effects upon the body • the second kind of knowledge - reason, true and adequate ideas, perfect knowledge, of what and how and why things are, and could not be otherwise, arising from discourse and inference, comprehending its causal and conceptual relations to all things, including the modes of God, what is inherently necessary and not contingent • the third kind of knowledge - intuition, personally grasps what is known by reason with a single unified insight Stanford: Baruch Spinoza #11 |
1677 |
 |
sensation | reflection | education | English philosopher John Locke explained how the mind derives all ideas from experience. • Sensation - direct sensory information from external objects • Reflection - the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got ... This source of ideas every man has wholly within himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called 'internal sense.' Ideas form through such associations. education influences those associations. Education influences the associations which result, for the mind as such is an empty cabinet. Furthemore, consciousness is the basis of personal identity, and it travels freely into the past. And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person; it is the same self now it was then; and 'tis by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that Action was done. Wikipedia: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Wikipedia: John Locke John Locke. An Essay Concering Human Understanding. #777 |
1689 |
 |
sausages | hanging from nose | removed from nose | Charles Perrault of France, teller of classic fairy tales such as "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Cinderella", published "The Ridiculous Wishes", wherein... A woodcutter complained of his poor lot. Jupiter granted him three wishes. The woodcutter went home, and his wife persuaded him to put off the wishing until the next day, after he had thought, but while sitting by the fire, he wished for sausages. His wife taxed him for his folly, and angry, he wished for the sausages to hang from her nose. Finally, they agreed to use the last wish to take the sausages off her nose, leaving them no better off than before. Wikipedia: The Ridiculous Wishes Charles Perrault. Les_Souhaits_ridicules. The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault. #783 |
1697 |
 |
beauty | virtue | piety | The 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, in his "Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Merit", argued that what is beautiful, being harmonious and proportionable, is thereby true. And what is both beautiful and true, is agreeable and good. There is a common and natural sense of what is sublime and beautiful in things. ...the admiration and love of order, harmony and proportion of whatever kind is naturally improving to the temperament and to social affection, and extremely helpful to virtue - which is itself nothing but the love of order and beauty in society. ...whatever the order of the world produces is mainly just and good. Therefore in the course of events in this world, whatever hardship may seem to force from any rational creature a hard censure of his private condition or lot, he can still through reflection come to have patience and to acquiesce in it. virtue is not complete unless it is accompanied by piety, because where piety is lacking there can’t be the same benignity, firmness, or constancy, the same good composure of affections, or uniformity of mind. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit. #8 |
1711 |
 |
impressions | ideas | Scottish skeptic, empiricist, naturalist David Hume, in "A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects", divides mental perceptions into • impressions - sensory, forceful, lively, vivacious • ideas - which are reflections on impressions, copies of impressions Wikipedia: David Hume #26 |
1739 | |
 |
matters of fact | relations of ideas | David Hume, in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, distinguished • matters of fact - contingent, associative, synthetic, dependent on observer, discoverable by experience, known after the fact - a posteriori • relations of ideas - necessary, universal, analytic, true before verification - a priori This pronounced distinction came to be known as Hume's fork. Wikipedia: Hume's Fork #27 |
1748 | |
 |
judicial | executive | legislative | Political philosopher Montesquieu of the French Enlightenment argued in "The Spirit of Law" that liberty depended on the distribution of political powers amongst three branches: • legislative power to enact laws and amend or abrogate them • executive power to make peace or war, conduct diplomacy, provide against invasions and establish public security • judicial power to punish criminals and resolve disputes Wikipedia: Separation of powers: Montesquieu's_separation_of_powers_system #34 |
1748 |
 |
evidence | hypothesis | belief | English statistician Thomas Bayes stated Bayes Theorem for inverting conditional probabilities. Its use was called inverse probability because it infers backwards from observations to parameters, or from effects to causes. The theorem appears symmetrical yet is typically interpreted to relate • hypothesis H that can be affected by data • evidence E, new data not yet used in computing the prior probability of the hypothesis. Probability indicates degree of belief. Wikipedia: Bayesian inference Wikipedia: Bayes' theorem #808 |
1763 |
 |
innate free natural instinct | narrow limits of an antiquated world | German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, at the age of 24, wrote the classic of the Sturm and Drang proto-romantic movement, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Fifty years later, he reflected ...it does not belong to the course of universal culture, but to the career of life in every individual, who, with an innate free natural instinct, must accommodate himself to the narrow limits of an antiquated world. Obstructed fortune, restrained activity, unfulfilled wishes, are not the calamities of any particular time, but those of every individual man; and it would be bad, indeed, if every one had not, once in his life, known a time when ‘Werther’ seemed as if it had been written for him alone. Wikipedia: The Sorrows of Young Werther #673 |
1774 | |
 |
society | government | American revolutionary Thomas Paine, in his pamphlet Common Sense, distinguished between • society, into which people are drawn together to live easily and happily • government, which is a necessary evil, as society grows, to restrain the natural evil inherent in people Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher. Wikipedia: Common Sense #87 |
1776 | |
 |
emotionality | rationality | Sturm und Drang was a proto-Romantic movement in German literature, music and art that reacted to rationalism by exalting character, subjectivity, emotional turbulence and extremes. The movement was named after Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play, which presented temperamental characters inspired by Shakespeare on a background of the tumult of the American Revolutionary War. Wikipedia: Sturm und Drang #672 |
1776 | |
 |
quid facti | quid juris | quid jus | German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, II.I.9, appealed to the legal distinction between • quid facti - the question of fact: by what facts? • quid juris - the question of right: by what right? Philosophy Stack Exchange. What is Quid Juris? In "The Metaphysical Elements of Justice", he also distinguished between quid juris and • quid jus - the question of justice, the concept of law - by what concept of law? Paul Dominic. 'Quid jus?' and 'Quid juris?' #25 |
1781 |
 |
judgment | practical reason | pure reason | German philosopher Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, Critique of Practical Reason in 1788, and Critique of Judgment in 1790. These three faculties each have their own stance. • Judgment makes determinations in terms of how we ourselves feel, whether regarding sensory, aesthetic knowledge, or abstract, teleological ideas. What may I hope? • Practical reason formulates the course of action that we are to take morally, supposing that we have free will. What should I do? • Pure reason circumscribes the limits of our knowledge, what we are able to know about what we are able to know. What can I know? #28 |
1781 |
| synthetic a posteriori | analytic a priori | synthetic a priori | Immanuel Kant, perturbed by skeptic David Hume's paradoxical critique of causal thinking, teased out the distinction between knowledge a posteriori (after the fact, empirically) and a priori (before the fact, necessarily) and the distinction between statements which are synthetic (fused together, bottom up) and analytic (broken up, top down). In his resolution of the paradox, Kant distinguished • synthetic a posteriori statements - which we gather and assemble from experience • analytic a priori statements - which we deduce logically from first principles • synthetic a priori statements - which apply the innate templates by which we engage and comprehend the world, which hold in parallel with the world Wikipedia: Immanuel Kant #29 |
1781 | |
 |
weakness | strength | British author Mary Wollstonecraft, active in public discourse inspired by the French Revolution, championed the education of women. My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their FASCINATING graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists—I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them, that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt. Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. Wikipedia: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman #704 |
1792 | |
 |
knowledge | reason | virtue | British activist Mary Wollstonecraft appealed to reason in arguing for the education of women as rational companions to men. • In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason. • What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue; we spontaneously reply. • For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes: whispers Experience. Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness, must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge, that distinguish the individual, and direct the laws which bind society: and that from the exercise of reason, knowledge and virtue naturally flow, is equally undeniable, if mankind be viewed collectively. ...yet such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason as it has been perplexed and involved in error... Contending for the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And how can woman be expected to co-operate, unless she know why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthen her reason till she comprehend her duty, and see in what manner it is connected with her real good? If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues spring, can only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts her out from such investigations. Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. Wikipedia: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman #705 |
1792 |
| thesis | antithesis | synthesis | Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a founder of German idealism, gave lectures, published in 1794/1795 as Foundations of the Science of Knowledge, where he related three ideas. • thesis is a formal statement • antithesis is an opposing statement • synthesis is their resolution based on what they have in common This relation thesis-antithesis-synthesis is often used to refer to Hegel's triadic thinking which came later. Scholarly Community Encyclopedia: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis #6 |
1794 | |
 |
experience | innocence | solidarity | English artist and poet William Blake authored and illustrated two volumes of poems which he combined as "Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul". • Songs of Innocence show children's natural, happy, innocent, naïve, vulnerable outlook. They are reassuring and place hope in the spirit. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm; So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm. • Songs of Experience show the reality, cruelty, severity, abandonment of the world, learned from living in it. Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand? • In both collections there is a call to solidarity, brotherhood and sisterhood, to respond, make good and right. For where’er the sun does shine, And where’er the rain does fall, Babe can never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall. Wikipedia: Songs of Innocence and Experience William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience #144 DAF |
1794 |
 |
self-acquaintance | self-explanation | self-consciousness | Johann Gottlieb Fichte, expounder of transcendental idealism, in his "Attempt at a New Presentation of the Science of Knowledge", examined the conditions for consciousness of the self. • the self, prior to reflection, acting freely, has acquaintance with itself, by which it discovers its own limitations • the self posits the not-I in order to explain to itself its limitations • the self posits and grows conscious of others and itself as rational subjects by taking up the call to exercise freedom respectfully Wikipedia: Johann Gottlieb Fichte #591 |
1797 |
 |
overflow of feelings | simple language | recollection in tranquility | English Romantic poet William Wordsworth explained his novel style. ... I believe that my habits of meditation have so formed my feelings, as that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose... ... to illustrate the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen because in that situation the essential passions of the heart find a better soil... ... being less under the action of social vanity they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly such a language arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings is a more permanent and a far more philosophical language ... ... Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity... Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems, 1800, Volume 1. Preface. #674 |
1800 |
| heteronomous receptivity | autonomous spontaneity | Immanuel Kant opposed the passive receptivity of the body with active rational subjectivity. It is not from receptivity, but from the spontaneity of the subject that the aggregate of perception becomes a system, thus from that which the understanding makes out of this simple material, hence autonomously not heteronomously. Immanuel Kant. Opus Postumum. Stefano Franchi. General Homeostasis, Passive Life, and the Challenge to Autonomy. #908 |
1804 | ||
 |
sensibility | sense | Jane Austen's novel "Sense and Sensibility" contrasts two sisters. • Elinor Dashwood, age 19, has sense, feels responsible for family and friends, places their interests above her own, suppresses her own strong emotions, is perceived as indifferent or cold-hearted. • Marianne Dashwood, age 16, manifests sensibility, is romantically inclined, eagerly expressive, is attracted to a handsome, romantically spirited man. Wikipedia: Sense and Sensibility #20 |
1811 | |
| fixed concept | engendered opposite | revealed unity | German idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel described his dialectical method in his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences as consisting of three moments. These are three sides of every concept and of everything true in general. • the moment of understanding, of fixity, is the first moment, in which concepts or forms have a seemingly stable definition or determination. • the dialectical moment, the negatively rational moment, of instability, is the second moment, in which the first moment cancels and preserves itself, in other words, sublates (aufheben) itself, in that its one-sidedness or restrictedness destabilizes its definition and leads it to pass into its opposite. • the speculative moment, the positively rational moment, grasps the unity of the opposition of the first two, or is the positive result of the dissolution or transition, which is left from the contradiction, more than simply nothing. Stanford: Hegel's Dialectics #363 |
1817 | |
| will | representation | consciousness | German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer agreed with Kant that we know objects only as phenomena, by their appearances, yet argued, by analogy with one's own body, that we can identify the underlying thing-in-itself with will - a blind, unconscious, aimless striving, devoid of knowledge, outside of space and time, free of all multiplicity. This will objectifies the world as representation. The double knowledge which we have of the nature and action of our own body, and which is given in two completely different ways, ... we shall use further as a key to the inner being of every phenomenon in nature. We shall judge all objects which are not our own body, and therefore are given to our consciousness not in the double way, but only as representation, according to the analogy of this body. We shall therefore assume that as, on the one hand, they are representations, just like our body, and are in this respect homogeneous with it, so on the other hand, if we set aside their existence in the subject's representation, what still remains over must be, according to its inner nature, the same as what in ourselves we call will. John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology: two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres Wikipedia: The World as Will and Representation #836 |
1818 | |
 |
faint | attack | hear out | English author Mary Shelley, in her science fiction novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus", has her monster place his hopes in a lovely family, which has persisted through injustice, hardship and poverty. • The blind father hears him out, impartially, understandingly, compassionately. • The daughter faints at the sight of him. • The son attacks him, boldly, mercilessly. Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley. Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. #891 |
1818 |
 |
conception | execution | dedication | Mary Shelley's hero Victor Frankenstein reflects, at the end of his life. I believed myself destined for some great enterprise. My feelings are profound, but I possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. This sentiment of the worth of my nature supported me when others would have been oppressed, for I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow creatures. When I reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors. My imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis and application were intense; by the union of these qualities I conceived the idea and executed the creation of a man. Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley. Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. #904 |
1818 |
 |
excess feeling | excess intellect | excess ambition | 18-year old Mary Shelley conceived the novel Frankenstein, in which she juxtaposes the lonely inner lives of Victor Frankenstein, the monster he creates, and the captain who hears their story. • Victor Frankenstein is sentimental but secludes himself in his laboratory, obsessed with his work. • His monster reads and reflects on Milton, Goethe and Plutarch, but seethes with emotions he has noone to share with. • Captain R.Walton longs for a friend who would understand, appreciate, encourage, share and revel in his ambitions. Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley. Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. #906 |
1818 |
 |
beauty | immortal work | love of principle | English romantic poet John Keats wrote to his beloved Fanny Brawne I have left no immortal work behind me—nothing to make my friends proud of my memory—but I have lov’d the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remember’d. Michelle Stacey. Writ in Water. #162 |
1820 |
 |
too few assumptions | too many assumptions | the required assumptions | Italian philosopher Antonio Rosmini, in A New Essay concerning the Origin of Ideas, observed • sensationalists cannot explain the origins of ideas • idealists posit more ideas or forms than are necessary. He concluded: In explaining facts connected with the human spirit, we must not make fewer assumptions than are required to explain them... [nor must we] make more assumptions than are needed to explain the facts Stanford: Antonio Rosmini #435 |
1830 |
 |
comfort | social service | self-reflection | English feminist Florence Nightingale in 1850 at Thebes, Egypt, wrote in her diary, God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for him alone without reputation. The next two years she struggled with her vision for her life, writing an 829 page, three-volume work, "Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth", rejecting helplessness and thoughtless comfort, choosing social service. Wikipedia: Florence Nightingale #753 |
1852 |
 |
sensibility | volition | reason | French philosopher Victor Cousin, founder of eclecticism, combined German Idealism with Scottish Common Sense Realism. From psychological observation, he derived three kinds of fact, all present in consciousness: • The facts of sensibility, sensations, impressions, are necessary. • The facts of volition, our self-activity, our liberty, are those which are voluntary, imputable and personal, directing attention, that alone which is Me, the center by which consciousness is possible. • The facts of reason, the light, the source of all apprehension of not-me, identifying sensation with an objective impersonal world of forces (external causes) and volition with personal beings (substances), are universal, necessary. We find ourselves between two orders of phenomena that do not belong to us, and that we apprehend upon distinguishing ourselves from them. Wikipedia: Victor Cousin Victor Cousin. Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. #851 |
1853 |
| muscle sensations | local signs | German philosopher and biologist Rudolf Hermann Lotze proposed in "Microcosmus: An Essay Concerning Man and His Relation to the World" that there are innate anatomical mechanisms such that when a muscle stimulates a nerve, that stimulus is converted into a local sign (Lokalzeichen) which is interpreted by the mind as refering to a particular location in space. Stanford: Hermann Lotze #30 |
1856 | ||
| consumption | production | distribution and exchange | German political economist Karl Marx, in Critique of Political Economy, distinguished the parts of a syllogism • production - the social point of departure, the general case, determined by laws of nature, whereby individual within and with the help of a definite social organisation appropriate nature, according to human requirements, with the mode of production giving rise to legal relations and political forms, whereby persons become objective, are themselves consumed as are the means of production • consumption - the ultimate goal, the individual case, where products become direct objects of use, subjective, serving individual needs, falling outside economy, except to stimulate production • distribution - the middle, the particular case, determined by random social factors, the portion of products accruing to the individual, actuated by society, mediated by social laws • exchange - the middle, the particular case, determined by a formal movement in society, the products which the individual claims, actuated by individuals Karl Marx: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. #652 |
1857 | |
| slaves of appetite and sloth | subduers and cultivators of the earth | God who decrees, grants, eradicates | Influential American newspaper editor and politician Horace Greeley supported pacifism, feminism and free laborers, but authored this screed against Native Americans: To the prosaic observer, the average Indian of the woods and prairies is a being who does little credit to human nature — a slave of appetite and sloth, never emancipated from the tyranny of one animal passion, save by the more ravenous demands of another. As I passed over those magnificent bottoms of the Kansas, which form the reservations of the Delawares, Potawatamies, etc., constituting the very best corn-lands on Earth, and saw their owners sitting around the doors of their lodges at the height of the planting season, and in as good, bright planting weather as sun and soil ever made, I could not help saying: "These people must die out — there is no help for them. God has given this earth to those who will subdue and cultivate it, and it is vain to struggle against His righteous decree." Wikipedia: Myth of the Noble Savage Horace Greeley. An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco in the Summer of 1859. XIV. “LO! THE POOR INDIAN!” #147 |
1860 | |
| freight | groove | proportion | American poet Emily Dickinson mused That Love is all there is, Is all we know of Love; It is enough, the freight should be Proportioned to the groove. Wikisource: That Love is all there is #781 |
1863 | |
 |
half monster | half human | his creator | British poet Robert Browning imagined the inner life of Caliban, a character from Shakespeare's The Tempest, who is half monster, half human, notably how Caliban reflects on his god, Setebos, who created him. • half monster, reveling in the senses: Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh • half human, thinking conspiratorially: And talks to his own self, howe'er he please, Touching that other, whom his dam called God. Because to talk about Him, vexes—ha, Could He but know! and time to vex is now, When talk is safer than in winter-time • his god Setebos, as he imagines him, creative and conflicted: Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else? He could not, Himself, make a second self To be His mate; as well have made Himself ... Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be— Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, Things He admires and mocks too,—that is it. Robert Browning. Caliban upon Setebos. Wikipedia: Caliban upon Setebos #164 |
1864 |
| emotional speech | intellectual speech | English neurologist John Hughlings Jackson, in discussing Broca's aphasia resulting from disease of the left frontal lobe, noted that the disease affected all forms of intellectual speech, whether by words, writings or signs, but not emotional speech. He also documented evidence of a mental disorder experienced by patients whose right hemishpere was damaged: they had problems expressing emotional speech (swear words, exclamations), recognizing objects, persons, places, summating sensory information from all parts of the body, and becoming objectively conscious of visual objects in the outside world. An Introduction to the Life and Work of John Hughlings Jackson John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology: two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres #611 |
1866 | ||
 |
firstness | secondness | thirdness | American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce, inspired by Kant, distinguished three universal categories. • Firstness is a monic relationship, as with a quality. • Secondness is a dyadic relationship of a relate and a correlate. • Thirdness is a triadic relationship of a sign, object and interpretant. Wikipedia: Categories (Peirce) #2 |
1867 |
| stimuli | sensations | German physicist and physician Hermann von Helmholtz, inspired by Hermann Lotze, developed a notion of unconscious inference. Objects and sensations are linked by sense nerves. Sensations are not copies of stimuli but are rather signs which symbolize those stimuli. Furthermore, the mind makes its own mental adjustments, unconscious inferences, to construct a coherent picture of experience, practicing and learning skills, such as depth perception, or the identification of various objects. Wikipedia: Unconscious inference Stanford: Hermann von Helmholtz #32 |
1868 | ||
 |
disorder | order | German classical scholar Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, argued that classic Athenian tragedies fused two artistic impulses. • Apollonian (named after Apollo, the god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, Sun and light, poetry), expressed by dialogue - a dreaming state, full of illusions, valuing mind, order, harmony, progress, clarity, logic and affirming individuation. • Dionysian (named after Dionysus, the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre), expressed by the music of the chorus - a state of intoxication, knowledge that actions are powerless, the liberation of instinct and dissolution of boundaries, manifesting disorder, passion, chaos, emotion, ecstasy and unity, the destruction of individuation. The protagonist of a tragedy struggles but fails to impose Apollonian order on his, unjust, chaotic, Dionysian fate. The audience thus senses the Primordial Unity, experiences the fullness and plentitude of frenzy. Wikipedia: Friedrich Nietzsche #651 |
1872 | |
| sensory consciousness | noetic consciousness | German philosopher, psychologist and former priest Franz Brentano revived the medieval notion of intentional object. In "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint", he distinguished • sensory consciousness of sensory objects or intuitions, arising from physical phenomena, manifesting derived intentionality • noetic consciousness of concepts, psychological phenomena, containing within themselves original intentionality Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction towards an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. This intentional in-existence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it. We could, therefore, define mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves. Wikipedia: Franz Brentano #585 |
1873 | ||
| facts | laws | standards of value | German philosopher Rudolf Hermann Lotze lectured on a wide range of philosophical subjects. In bringing unity to culture, he sought to combine the study of the • laws by which the mind is obliged to think about things • facts of the world outside (cosmology) and the world within (psychology) • standards of value by which we approve or disapprove, aesthetically and ethically, thus establishing culture Wikipedia: Hermann Lotze #31 |
1874 | |
 |
unjust | just | intellectual | Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a horror story about the inner conflict of a distinguished physician who concocts a potion that allows him to live two separate lives as • Mr.Hyde - the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin • Dr. Jekyll - the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure Hyde thought not of Jekyll, whereas Jekyll shared in the adventures of Hyde. But there is also a third, intellectual point of view. Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. #745 |
1886 |
| associative thought | true reasoning | Pragmatist philosopher William James, founder of American psychology, distinguished • associative thought - empirical thinking - trains of images suggested one by another - is reproductive, based on past experience • true reasoning - productive, can deal with novel data, helps us out of unprecedented situations Steven A. Sloman. The Empirical Case for Two Systems of Reasoning. #10 |
1890 | ||
| principle of least effort | Guillaume Ferrero articulated the law of least effort. An information seeker will generally use the most convenient search method in the least exacting mode available. Wikipedia: Principle of least effort #15 |
1894 | |||
| revert to instincts | sacrifice personal interests | follow excitable leaders | French polymath Gustave Le Bon, author of The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, detailed three processes that create the psychological crowd, where individuals give way to a group mind, a collective unconsciouness. • Anonymity lets individuals revert to their instincts, shun personal responsibility, be primitive, unreasoning, emotional, feel invincible. • Contagion is the spread of behaviors through the crowd, where individuals sacrifice their personal interest for the collective interest. • Suggestibility is the increasing homogeneity and malleability of the crowd to suggestions by excitable, half-deranged leaders. Wikipedia: Gustave Le Bon #148 |
1895 | |
| instinctual behavior | learned behavior | aptitude for learning behavior | American philosopher and psychologist James Mark Baldwin proposed in "A New Factor in Evolution" an evolutionary mechanism now known as the Baldwin effect. Learned behavior can prove advantageous, and while the behavior itself may not be inheritable, yet the tendency to discover that behavior may well be. Over generations, learned behavior may transform into instinctual behavior. Wikipedia: Baldwin effect #115 |
1896 | |
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color | form | clarity of outline | British theosophists Annie Bessant and Charles Webster Leadbeater, in their book "Thought-Forms: A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation", proclaimed that thoughts are things which the mind extrudes into the world. The production of all thought-forms is based on three major principles: • Quality of thought (the emotional state) determines colour. • Nature of thought (the juxtaposition of states) determines form. • Definiteness of thought (the clarity of representation) determines clearness of outline. Wikipedia: Thought-Forms Annie Bessant, C.W. Leadbeater. Thought-Forms. #561 |
1905 |
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radiating vibration | floating form | British theosophists Annie Bessant and Charles Webster Leadbeater taught that each definite thought produces a double effect: • radiating vibration, which resonates with a particular mental body, and more strongly, the more clear it is. • floating form, which is collected by the thought from the strange half-intelligent life which surrounds us, and given a particular shape, and which may hover by its creator, or whichever person it is about, or may otherwise float detached. Annie Bessant, C.W. Leadbeater. Thought-Forms. #562 |
1905 | |
| facts | principles | consequences | American psychologist William James, a founder of pragmatism, distinguished two philosophical temperaments: • The Tender-Minded: Rationalistic (going by 'principles'), Intellectualistic, Idealistic, Optimistic, Religious, Free-willist, Monistic, Dogmatical. • The Tough-Minded: Empiricist (going by 'facts'), Sensationalistic, Materialistic, Pessimistic, Irreligious, Fatalistic, Pluralistic, Sceptical. In manners we find formalists and free-and-easy persons. In government, authoritarians and anarchists. In literature, purists or academicals, and realists. In art, classics and romantics. You recognize these contrasts as familiar; well, in philosophy we have a very similar contrast expressed in the pair of terms 'rationalist' and 'empiricist,' 'empiricist' meaning your lover of facts in all their crude variety, 'rationalist' meaning your devotee to abstract and eternal principles. No one can live an hour without both facts and principles, so it is a difference rather of emphasis; yet it breeds antipathies of the most pungent character between those who lay the emphasis differently; and we shall find it extraordinarily convenient to express a certain contrast in men's ways of taking their universe, by talking of the 'empiricist' and of the 'rationalist' temper. Pragmatism offers a third temperament that mediates between the other two. • The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? William James. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking #324 |
1907 | |
| sensations | relations | previous truths | American pragmatist William James noted three parts of reality that control the formation of our beliefs. • Sensations are forced upon us, coming we know not whence. Over their nature, order, and quantity we have as good as no control. THEY are neither true nor false; they simply ARE. It is only what we say about them, only the names we give them, our theories of their source and nature and remote relations, that may be true or not. • RELATIONS that obtain between our sensations or between their copies in our minds. This part falls into two sub-parts: 1) the relations that are mutable and accidental, as those of date and place; and 2) those that are fixed and essential because they are grounded on the inner natures of their terms—such as likeness and unlikeness. Both sorts of relation are matters of immediate perception. Both are 'facts.' But it is the latter kind of fact that forms the more important sub-part of reality for our theories of knowledge. Inner relations namely are 'eternal,' are perceived whenever their sensible terms are compared; and of them our thought—mathematical and logical thought, so-called—must eternally take account. • PREVIOUS TRUTHS of which every new inquiry takes account. This third part is a much less obdurately resisting factor: it often ends by giving way. William James. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking #667 |
1907 | |
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nature | free will | harmony | German historian Wilhelm Dilthey developed a typology of three typical, fundamental, conflicting world-views, Weltanschauungen, for conceiving humanity's relation to nature. • Naturalism. Humans see themselves as determined by nature. Championed by Epicureans. • Subjective Idealism, the Idealism of Freedom. Humans are conscious of their separation from nature by their free will. Articulated by Schiller and Kant. • Objective Idealism. Humans are conscious of their harmony with nature. Represented by Hegel, Spinoza, and Bruno. Wikipedia: Wilhelm Dilthey #847 |
1911 |
| beautiful and ugly | right and wrong | true and false | German philosopher Max Scheler, in "Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values", stratified human emotional life. He matched feelings with values, and ranked them on four levels, from lowest to highest: • sensual values of the agreeable and the disagreeable • vital values of the noble and vulgar, strength and weakness, healthiness and unhealthiness • mental (psychic) values of the beautiful and ugly, right and wrong and truth and falsehood • values of the Holy and Unholy of the Divine and Idols. Wikipedia: Stratification of emotional life (Scheler) Wikipedia: Max Scheler #601 |
1916 | |
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id | superego | ego | Jewish Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, introduced id, ego, superego in his 1920 essay "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" and formalized them in his 1923 essay "The Ego and the Id". • The id is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, the unconscious source of bodily needs and wants, emotional impulses and desires, satisfying drives (aggressive and sexual) by seeking pleasure. • The ego is the reason and common sense, the organizing principle for thoughts and interpretations, which minds the reality of the external world, seeks self-preservation by balancing the demands of the id, external world and superego. • The superego is the conscience, the internalization of cultural rules, absorbed from parents and authorities, expressing ideals and personal goals. Wikipedia: Id, ego and superego #4 |
1920 |
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facts | thoughts | truth | Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, elucidated seven theses comprising clear thinking. The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language. Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. • 1. The world is all that is the case. • 2. What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs. • 3. A logical picture of facts is a thought. • 4. A thought is a proposition with sense. • 5. A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth function of itself.) • 6. The general form of a truth-function is This is the general form of a proposition.• 7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. Stanford. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. #902 |
1921 |
| Bose-Einstein statistics | Fermi–Dirac statistics | In physics, there are two fundamental types of quantum statistics for noninteracting, identical particles. • bosons obey Bose-Einstein statistics, where the particles may be in the same physical state, as with photons in a laser. They commute and have integer spin. Bosons carry forces. • fermions obey Fermi-Dirac statistics, where the particles must all be in different physical states, as with electrons in a field. They anticommute and have half-integer spin. Fermions constitute matter. Wikipedia: Bose-Einstein statistics Wikipedia: Fermi-Dirac statistics #131 |
1926 | ||
| economic | martial | sacral | French mythographer Georges Dumézil investigated his trifunctional hypothesis that prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society (and subsequent Southern Russian, Germanic, Norse, Greek, Indian societies) consisted of three classes as reflected in myths. • performed economic functions and were ruled by the other two classes. • Warriors waged war. • Priests judged in disputes and tended to supernatural concerns. Wikipedia: Trifunctional hypothesis #22 |
1929 | |
| state | observable | measurement | The Dirac-von Neumann axioms of quantum mechanics, formulated in terms of a complex Hilbert space H of countably infinite dimension, suppose for a quantum system that • states ψ are rays in H, in other words, unit vectors of H up to complex scalar multiples • observables are self-adjoint operators A on H, that is, <Ax,y>=<x,Ay> for all x,y ∈ H • measurements assign states to observables, and the expected value of observable A for a system in state ψ is <Aψ,ψ>=<ψ,Aψ> Wikipedia: Dirac-von Neumann axioms #51 |
1932 | |
| language | American neurosurgeon W.James Gardner applied local anesthesia to a single brain hemisphere of his patients to determine if they used that hemisphere for representing language. David W. Loring, Kimford J. Meador. History of the Wada Test #613 |
1941 | |||
| body | mind | soul | Indian American Hindu monk Paramahansa Yogananda, in his Autobiography of a Yogi, taught the superiority of mind over body and soul over mind. Man should be liberated from threefold suffering: physical disease, mental inharmonies, and spiritual ignorance. Wikipedia: Paramahansa Yogananda Paramahansa Yogananda. Autobiography of a Yogi. #576 |
1946 | |
| subconscious | conscious | superconscious | Monk, yogi and guru Paramahansa Yogananda, in his Autobiography of a Yogi, distinguished three intensities of awareness: • subconscious - remembered experiences, their impressions, resulting tendencies, a flow of ideas, unfulfilled desires, the stuff of dreams, open to intuitions. • conscious - rational awareness, analyzing facts, solving problems, thinking in categories, guiding decisions, seeing all possibilities, unable to select the best, thus perpetually uncertain, influenced by others. • superconscious - unitive, sees all things as part of the whole, seeing a solution as an outgrowth of a problem, understanding that the world is a delusion, not attaching oneself to one's body or external relaties or what others think. Paramahansa Yogananda. Autobiography of a Yogi. Ananda. The Three Levels of Consciousness. #577 |
1946 | |
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Hebbian learning | Canadian psychologist Donald O. Hebb articulated a neuroscientific explanation of associative learning, known also as Hebbian learning. Let us assume that the persistence or repetition of a reverberatory activity (or "trace") tends to induce lasting cellular changes that add to its stability. ... When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite a cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it, some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells such that A’s efficiency, as one of the cells firing B, is increased. Wikipedia: Hebbian theory Donald Hebb. The Organization of Behavior. #862 |
1949 | ||
| language | Japanese neurologist Juhn Atsushi Wada applied local anesthesia to a single brain hemisphere of his patients to determine if they used that hemisphere for representing language. This is known as the Wada test. David W. Loring, Kimford J. Meador. History of the Wada Test #614 |
1949 | |||
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machine | ghost | British philosopher Gilbert Ryle, in "The Concept of Mind", critiqued Cartesian rationalism, the notion that the mind is distinct from the body, referring to it as "the ghost in the machine". He argued that both idealist and materialst philosophers make the category mistake of analyzing "mind" and "body" as if they belonged to the same category, reducing physical reality and mental reality to the same status. Wikipedia: Ghost in the machine Gilbert Ryle. The Concept of Mind. #629 |
1949 | |
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wide variety of experiences | single defining idea | Latvian-Jewish-British thinker Isaiah Berlin authored a popular essay which was received as an intellectual cocktail-party game. He divided thinkers into two categories: • hedgehogs (Plato, Lucretius, Blaise Pascal, Marcel Proust, Fernand Braudel) view the world through the lens of a single defining idea • foxes (Aristotle, Desiderius Erasmus, Johann Wolfgang Goethe) draw on a wide variety of experiences and do not distill a single idea He perceived a conflict in Leo Tolstoy, who he described as a fox by nature but a hedgehog by conviction. Wikipedia: The Hedgehog and the Fox #669 |
1953 | |
| neural networks | symbolic processing | combined | The history of artificial intelligence has two main threads. • Neural networks are bottom up implementations inspired by the connections by which neurons in the brain process information. In 1943, Walter Pitts and Warren McCulloch analyzed networks of idealized artificial neurons. • Top down implementations are based on high-level symbolic representations of problems, concepts, logic and algorithms. In 1955, Allen Newell and Herbert Simon created the Logic Theorist, which proved theorems in logic and math. • Combined approaches are increasingly popular. Wikipedia: History of artificial intelligence #36 |
1955 | |
| irrational | rational | education | American psychotherapist Albert Ellis developed rational emotive behavior theory. Faced with adversity, people choose between innate responses: • rational (self-helping, socially helping, constructive) making themselves feel sorry, disappointed, frustrated, or annoyed, which is healthy and self-helping. • irrational (self-defeating, socially defeating, unhelpful) making themselves feel horrified, terrified, panicked, depressed, self-hating, self-pitying, which is healthy and self-defeating. Responding to adversity irrationally leads to emotional difficulties (self-blame, self-pity, clinical anger, hurt, guilt, shame, depression, anxiety) and unhealthy behavior (procrastination, compulsiveness, avoidance, addiction, withdrawal). An alternative is: • education, whereby the therapist teaches the client to identify irrational, self-defeating, rigid, extreme, unrealistic, illogical, absolutist outlooks, to actively question them and replace them with rational, self-helping ones. Wikipedia: Rational emotive behavior therapy #661 |
1955 | |
| best probability distribution | constraints | maximum entropy principle | American physicist E. T. Jaynes expounded the principle of maximum entropy, which states that the probability distribution which best represents the state of knowledge of a system, among those which satisfy the testable information, is the one with the largest entropy. Testable information about a probability distribution is that for which truth or falsity is well defined. The resulting probability distribution admits the most ignorance beyond the testable information. Wikipedia: Principle of maximum entropy #817 |
1957 | |
| child | parent | adult | Canadian American psychiatrist Eric Berne, founder of transactional analysis, transformed Freudian psychotherapy (id, superego, ego) by focusing on the transpersonal interactions (transactions) between people. He identified three ego-states - Parent, Adult, Child - and referred to patterns of transactions as "games". • Parent (exteropsyche) is a state in which people mimick their parental figures. • Adult (neopsyche) is a desirable state in which a person resemble an artificially intelligent system, processing information and making predictions how emotions can affect operations, objectively appraising reality. • Child (archaeopsyche) is a state which brings one back to childhood, the source of emotions, creation, recreation, spontaneity, intimacy. Wikipedia: Transactional Analysis Eric Berne. Ego States in Psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy. Volume 11, Number 2. 1957. #141 |
1957 | |
| habit | notice discrepancy | reduce discrepancy by updating cognition or altering action | American social psychologist Leon Festinger in A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance described how people feel mental unease when their habits or routines are disturbed. For example, a person may discover somebody else has taken the seat where they usually sit. The person alleviates this discomfort by adjusting either their actions or their beliefs to restore consistency. Wikipedia: Cognitive dissonance #722 LB |
1957 | |
| labor | work | action | German Jewish American political theorist Hannah Arendt, in The Human Condition, differentiated • labor is directed at maintaining and reproducing human life, whose fruits are quickly consumed, satisfying neverending needs, was in ancient times performed in private households by women and slaves • work has a clearly defined beginning and end, results in a durable object, such as a tool, which is crafted, created and not consumed, yet leads to instrumental thinking and involves violence against nature, obtaining and shaping raw materials • action, including speech as action, is how individuals show that they are unique and unexchangeable, doing great deeds, they manifest their freedom in the public sphere, and can come together as free people Wikipedia: The Human Condition (Arendt book) #335 |
1958 | |
| pictorial | verbal | British-Canadian neuropsychologist Brenda Milner found that psychological tests had predictive value in predicting which temporal lobe had a pathogenic lesion. She concluded The left temporal lobe contributes to the rapid understanding and subsequent retention of verbally expressed ideas ... the right minor temporal lobe on the other hand appears to be more critically involved in perceptual than in verbal skills ... the right temporal lobe facilitates rapid visual identification and in this way it enters into the comprehension of pictorially expressed ideas ... these differences relate to the functional asymmetry of the two hemispheres, the left being primarily concerned with verbal, the right with non-verbal skils. John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology: two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres #612 |
1958 | ||
| tacit knowledge | explicit knowledge | Hungarian-British chemist and social scientist Michael Polanyi, in "Personal Knowledge", distinguished • tacit knowledge, which may be skills, ideas and experiences, that animals and people possess - such as knowing how to ride a bicycle, play a piano, or solve a math puzzle - which they themselves may not even be aware of, or be able to explain, but may transmit by interacting with others, and be gained through practical experience, thus is always personal and contextual - and indeed all knowledge at its root is tacit • explicit knowledge, that which humans articulate and codify, and transfer independently of the knower Wikipedia: Tacit knowledge #642 |
1958 | ||
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forgetful functor | free functor | Dutch mathematician Daniel Kan introduced the concept of adjunction F⊣G. Adjoint functors F:X→Y, G:Y→X express a natural equivalence α:Hom(F(X),Y)→Hom(X,G(Y)), and thereby create an analogy between two categories X and Y, establishing a window, sharing the same information, objects and morphisms, back and forth across it. An important example is when • G is a forgetful functor, ignoring some aspect of structure (for example, reducing a vector space to the underlying set of its elements) but retaining the characteristic network of morphisms. • F is a free functor, freely generating, constructing, filling in the structure required by the target category (for example, generating a vector space from a basis given by the underlying set). Daniel Kan. Adjoint functors. Wikipedia: Forgetful functor #671 |
1958 | |
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imaginary | symbolic | real | French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan considered psychic functions to occur within a universal matrix of three registers. • The Imaginary is the field of images and imagination, the signified and signification, generating illusions: synthesis, autonomy, duality and resemblance. It is rooted in one's relationship with their own body, alienation from conflict between one's emotional experience and one's imagine in a mirror, captivation with this image of "me", yielding sexual display and courtship love. Its fixations are disabling. It inverts and distorts discourse with a wall of language. • The Symbolic structures the Imaginary order, and is where the analyst produces changes in one's subjective position. It is the world of words (signifiers) that creates the world of things, the discourse of the Other, where elements exist by their mutual differences, the domain of culture, the basis for law which regulate desire, where the drives of death and lack, through repetition, leverage the pleasure principle. • The Real is all that is impossible to imagine or symbolize or attain, for which all words or categories fail, thus traumatic, the essential object that is thus not an object, never missing, always present, positive, in its place. To these he adds: • The Sinthome (symptom) is the sign of neurosis which the subject, guided by the analyst, learns to creatively embrace, knotting together the Real, Imaginary and Symbolic. Wikipedia: Jacques Lacan Stanford: Jacques Lacan #793 |
1959 |
| personally | objectively | universally | English author Aldous Huxley advised: The most richly satisfying essays are those which make the best not of one, not of two, but of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist. • the personal and the autobiographical (through the keyhole of anecdote and description) • the objective, the factual, the concrete-particular (from relevant data to general conclusions) • the abstract-universal (high abstractions) Wikipedia: Essay: Definitions Aldous Huxley. Collected Essays. Preface. #475 |
1960 | |
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child | parent | adult | Canadian American psychiatrist Eric Berne presented his theory of transactional analysis with the popular book "Games People Play", describing functional and dysfunctional interactions. He distinguished three ego states, coherent systems of feelings and behavior patterns, which a person switches between: • Parent - ego states which resemble those of parental figures. Parent functions in raising children and also makes trivial decisions automatic. Parent looks down on Child. • Adult - ego states which are autonomously directed towards objective appraisal of reality. Adult processes data and computes probabilities for complex navigation of the outside world, and also mediates objectively between Parent and Child. • Child - ego states which represent archaic relics, still-active ego states which were fixated in early childhood. Here resides intuition, creativity, spontaneous drive and enjoyment. Child looks up to Parent. Wikipedia: Games People Play (book) Eric Berne. Games People Play. #140 |
1964 |
| inner voice creates | external voice reflects | Isaiah Berlin, historian of ideas, in his lecture series, "The Roots of Romanticism", described its aesthetics. the notion of eternal models, a Platonic vision of ideal beauty, which the artist seeks to convey, however imperfectly, on canvas or in sound, is replaced by a passionate belief in spiritual freedom, individual creativity. The painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate (the doctrine of mimesis), but create not merely the means but the goals that they pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of some "external" voice—church, state, public opinion, family friends, arbiters of taste—is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative. Wikipedia: Romanticism #670 |
1965 | ||
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I know | I know that I know | I know that I know that I know | English philosophical entertainer Alan Watts mused There was a young man who said,“Though It seems that I know that I know. What I would like to see Is the I that knows me When I know that I know that I know.” Man In Nature. The Tao of Philosophy. #732 WP |
1965 |
| organic | mechanical | dramatic | English lecturer Alan Watts spoke of three theories of nature. • 1) Western Mechanical theory: ...nature is a machine or an artifact. We inherit this from the Hebrews who believed that nature was made by God in somewhat the same way as a potter makes a pot out of clay, or a carpenter makes a table out of wood. • 2) Hindu Dramatic theory: the world is māyā (माया) ... magic, illusion, art, play. All the world’s a stage. ... all sense experiences are vibrations of the Self—not just your self, but the Self—and all of us share this Self in common because it is pretending to be all of us. • 3) Chinese Organic theory: zìrán (自然) ... what happens of itself ... the principle of the Tao is spontaneity ... There is no principle that forces things to behave the way they do. It is a completely democratic theory of nature. ... not interfering with the course of events ... if you can’t trust yourself, you can’t trust anybody Man In Nature. The Tao of Philosophy. #733 WP |
1965 | |
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McCoy | Spock | Kirk | American television producer Gene Roddenberry's science fiction series Star Trek featured three officers of the starship USS Enterprise. • Chief Medical Officer Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy champions human emotional feelings, compassionately, sardonically. • Science Officer Spock, half human, half alien, solves problems using logic coolly, imperturbably. • Captain James T. Kirk commands the ship and makes tough decisions relying on the advice of Spock and McCoy. Wikipedia: Star Trek: The Original Series #19 |
1966 |
| necessity | freedom | German Jewish American philosopher Hans Jonas recognized in all forms of life the qualities that Plato and Aristotle reserved for humans. The great contradiction that man discovers in itself - freedom and necessity, autonomy and dependence, ego and world, connectedness and isolation, creativity and mortality - are present in nuce in life most primitive forms, each of which maintains a precarious balance between being and nonbeing and from the very beginning harbors within itself an inner horizon of “transcendence.” [...] we maintain that metabolism, the basic substratum of all organic existence, already display freedom - indeed that it is the first form freedom takes. Hans Jonas. The Phenomenon of Life: Towards a Philosophical Biology. Stefano Franchi. General Homeostasis, Passive Life, and the Challenge to Autonomy. #909 |
1966 | ||
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right hemisphere | left hemisphere | American cognitive neuroscientist Roger Sperry, his students Michael Gazzaniga and Jerre Levy and other colleagues studied split-brain patients, whose brain hemispheres were disconnected and shown to differ in behavior. • The right hemisphere possesses capabilities for gestalt, problem solving, recognizing faces, symbolic reasoning, art, and spatial relationships • The left hemisphere is the primary area for analysis, language, needed for naming, better at writing, speaking, reading and mathematical calculation. Wikipedia: Split-brain John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology: two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres R.W.Sperry. Hemisphere deconnection and unity in conscious awareness. #21 |
1967 | |
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child | parent | adult | American psychiatrist Thomas Anthony Harris's self-help manual, "I'm OK – You're OK", based on transactional analysis, distinguishes three modes that a person switches between: • Parent is a collection of "tape recordings" of external influences, a long list of admonitions that a child observed adults doing and saying, and carries with them, such as "never run out in traffic" or "keep smiling" • Child is a collection of "tape recordings" of internal events, vivid experiences dating back to childhood, touchstones of how life felt, which a person continues to refer back to • Adult is the set of opinions formed as a child explores and examines the world, starting as a child learns how to walk, testing the assertions of Parent and Child, updating or suppressing them, though sometimes succumbing to them in stressful situations Wikipedia: I'm OK, You're OK Thomas A. Harris. I'm OK - You're OK #139 |
1967 |
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lateral thinking | vertical thinking | Maltese psychologist Edward de Bono introduced the terms • lateral thinking - fresh angles on problems, sideways, indirect, unexpected, creative, nonlinear, imaginative, even humorous, open-ended, divergent discovery of new ideas and patterns, applying breadth of knowledge to yield a variety of solutions for the same problem. • vertical thinking - critical thinking, consciously solving problems by assessing rationally, being selective, analytic and sequential, step-by-step, linear, relying on external facts to avoid failure, appealing to depth of knowledge in generating a single right or best answer. Wikipedia: Lateral thinking Wikipedia: Vertical thinking Edward de Bono. The Use of Lateral Thinking. #711 |
1967 | |
| natural states and processes | mental states and processes | products of thought | British philosopher Karl Popper lectured on the interactions of three realms • World 1: the realm of states and processes as studied by the natural sciences. • World 2: the realm of mental states and processes, human and animal, including sensations and thoughts, both conscious and unconscious. • World 3: the realm of the 'products of thought' when considered as objects in their own right, whether scientific theories, works of art, stories, myths, laws or institutions. World 3 has a life of its own. Its objects are embodied in World 1 but interact with it only through World 2 as abstractions. Wikipedia: Popper's three worlds Karl Popper. Three Worlds. #495 |
1967 | |
| knowledge they already have | concepts they will learn | American educational psychologist David Ausubel encouraged teachers to start their lessons with "advanced organizers" that help students organize new incoming information. • comparative organizers activate existing schemas, reminding students of what they already know • expository organizers provide new knowledge that students need to understand the concepts they will learn The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Wikipedia: David Asubel David Ausubel. Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View. #714 |
1968 | ||
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pinball wizard | engaging the mirror | deaf, dumb, blind | English rock band The Who, and specifically, guitarist Pete Townshend, created the rock opera Tommy, inspired by the teachings of Meher Baba. As a child, traumatized by his parents, Tommy is deaf, dumb and blind to the outside world; becomes a champion pinball player; engages himself in the mirror; starts a religious movement based on eliminating sensory input. Wikipedia: Tommy (The Who album) #580 |
1969 |
| appositional | propositional | American neurophysiologist Joseph Bogen characterized the brain's left hemisphere as propositional and the right hemisphere as appositional (thinking in terms of adjacencies). John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology: two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres #615 |
1969 | ||
| sense perception | metaphors | introspection | American psychologist Julian Jaynes researched animal learning, natural animal behavior, comparative psychology. He spoke on consciousness at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, noting that 20th century thinkers could distinguish sense perception from introspection, though they doubted the latter but not the former. He explained introspection as dependent more on culture and language, especially metaphors, rather than physiology. Wikipedia: Julian Jaynes #619 |
1969 | |
| analogue codes | symbolic codes | Canadian psychologist Allan Paivio characterized the brain's left hemisphere as specialized for abstraction and the right hemisphere as specialized for imagery. He developed dual-coding theory, which asserts that memories are stored by two different systems, which together make for more robust memories, helpful in learning. • Analogue codes mentally represent images. They retain the main perceptual features of what is remembered. • Symbolic codes form representations of words, conceptually, perhaps arbitrarily. Wikipedia: Dual-coding theory Wikipedia: Allan Paivio John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology: two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres #616 |
1971 | ||
| bosons | fermions | Theoretical physicists J.L.Gervais and B.Sakita, Yu.A.Golfand and E.P.Likhtman, and D.V.Volkov and V.P.Akulov independently discovered supersymmetry in the context of quantum field theory, relating bosons and fermions, and uniting spacetime with internal microscopic symmetries. In particular, the Poincaré group, the 10-dimensional isometry group of Minkowski spacetime, was extended to the Super-Poincaré algebra, where bosons are the even elements and fermions are the odd elements. Bosons commute and fermions anticommute. Wikipedia: Supersymmetry #130 |
1971 | ||
| judge difference | judge sameness | Experimental psychologists Howard Egeth and J.Epstein conducted an experiment on the response times of 20 right-handed men as to whether two letters were the same or different. When the letters were in the left visual field, then response times were faster for difference, whereas in the right visual field, response time were faster for sameness. Differential specialization of the cerebral hemispheres for the perception of sameness and difference. John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology: two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres #617 |
1972 | ||
| relationships | nodes | diagrams | American educator Joseph D. Novak developed concept mapping, the drawing of diagrams of concepts and their relationships. Concept maps allow new concepts to be placed, considered and understood within explicit structures of familiar relationships (such as "causes", "depends on", "belongs to", "opposes"). Wikipedia: Concept map Wikipedia: Joseph D. Novak #715 |
1972 | |
| parallel processing | serial processing | Gillian Cohen conducted an experiment on the response times of 6 right-handed undergraduates as to judge whether items in a set were all the same or whether one was different. In the left visual field, increasing the size of the set did not increase response time, indicating parallel processing. In the right visual field, it did increase response time, indicating serial processing. Gillian Cohen. Hemispheric differences in serial versus parallel processing. Open University. Gillian Cohen. John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology: two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres #618 |
1973 | ||
| performance | introspection | Cognitive psychologists Wason and Evans introduced dual process theory in discussing an experiment on the four-card problem where subjects select cards to determine whether it is true that "If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side". They distinguished performance (selecting cards) and introspection (justifying the selection). They argued that performance precedes and causes introspection, yielding rationalization. Peter Cathcart Wason, Jonathan ST.B.T. Evans. Dual processes in reasoning? #16 |
1974 | ||
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nature | culture | reconfiguration | French feminist Luce Irigaray argued that since ancient times • women have been associated with nature, unthinking matter, the role of mother, supportive, non-subjective, sacrificed • men have been associated with culture, subjectivity, excluding women • reconfiguration of subjectivity by both men and women is required so that both understand themselves as belonging equally to nature and culture. Women must attain subjectivity, men must become more embodied. Means for this include mimesis (imitation - creatively appropriating existing models), novel language, utopian ideals, strengthening mother daughter relationships, exposing and demystifying negative views. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Luce Irigaray #796 |
1974 |
| divergent | convergent | English educational consultant Tony Buzan developed mind mapping, whereby a single concept, drawn as an image at the center of a page, is elaborated with branches in all directions, presenting associated words and images, yielding a global presentation of related concept. The map supports both divergent thinking and convergent thinking as well as rethinking. Wikipedia: Mind map #713 |
1974 | ||
| neuro | linguistic | programming | Richard Bandler and John Grinder, founders of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), introduced it in "The Structure of Magic I: A Book about Language and Therapy". Our mind-body (neuro) and what we say (language) interact to form our perceptions of the world, which we use to create (program) our own internal maps of the world, which determine our feelings and behavior. We can recognize unhelpful or destructive patterns of thinking based on impoverished maps, and modify or replace these patterns with more useful or helpful ones, increasing our behavioral flexibility. Wikipedia: Methods of neuro-linguistic programming Wikipedia: Neuro-linguistic programming Wikipedia: The Structure of Magic. #427 |
1975 | |
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verbal hallucinations | obeying | consciousness | American psychologist Julian Jaynes explained consciousness as a learned behavior that arose from language and, specifically, metaphor. He argued from ancient texts and archaeology that consciousness arose during the 2nd millenium BCE and that prior to that there existed a non-conscious mentality, the bicameral mind, based on the brain's two hemispheres. Ancient people (much like schizophrenics today) hallucinated voices (from their right brain), which they experienced as commands from external gods, reflecting their own desires, which they were obliged to hear and obey (with their left brain). They did not have meta-reflection, metaconsciousness, self-awareness, any conception of why they did what they did, or any notion of mind. Wikipedia: Bicameral mentality Wikipedia: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Wikipedia: Julian Jaynes #620 |
1976 |
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mother | virgin | prostitute | Luce Irigaray, in Women on the Market, Chapter VIII of This Sex Which Is Not One, argues that Western society is based on men exchanging women (daughters become wives, mistresses, objects of desire). Women's natural qualities are their use value and society determines their exchange value, yielding three types of women. • mothers are all use value • virgins are all exchange value • prostitutes embody both use and exchange value Wikipedia: Luc Irigaray Luce Irigaray. This Sex Which Is Not One #795 |
1977 |
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affine spaces | sets | singletons | Californian logician Steven Givant classified nontrivial free varieties. Their models are: • affine spaces over D • pointed affine spaces over D • sets • pointed sets where D is a chosen division ring. Pointed affine spaces are the same as vector spaces. The trivial varieties are: • singletons (sets with one element) • the empty set and singletons John Baez. Re: Open problems in category theory. John Baez. Total Freedom. Tom Leinster. Re: Total Freedom. Steve Givant. Universal Horn Classes Categorical Or Free In Power. Keith A. Kearnes, Emil W. Kiss and Agnes Szendrei, Varieties whose finitely generated members are free. Ivan Di Liberti. Givant, Morley, Zilber. #894 |
1979 |
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fast | good | cheap | American film director Francis Ford Coppola, before the release of his film "Tucker", was visited by journalist who noticed There’s a hand-drawn sign tacked up: a triangle with its points labeled “Good,” “Fast” and “Cheap” and a caption that says, “Pick Any Two.” Such a sign had been noticed on Coppola's trailer as he filmed "Apocalypse Now". Charles Champlin, Jack Smith. Bad Times Behind, Coppola Dances to a Different Tune #456 |
1979 |
| peripheral | central | Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo proposed the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion, with two major routes: • peripheral route processes have low elaboration, require little thought, as by classical conditioning and mere exposure • central route processes have high elaboration, require more thought, as with expectancy-value and cognitive processes, resulting in greater persistence and resistance to change Wikipedia: Elaboration likelihood model #12 |
1980 | ||
| heuristic | systematic | American social psychologist Shelly Chaiken developed the Heuristic-systematic model of information processing which distinguishes • heuristic processing - retrieving and applying a judgmental rule contextually regarding the validity of a message without fully processing the semantics of a message • systematic processing - comprehensive, analytic, detailed, cognitive processing of judgment-relevant information, comprehending the content and evaluating the arguments Wikipedia: Heuristic-systematic model of information processing #13 |
1980 | ||
| rhetoric | logic | dialectic | Belgian-Polish-Jewish philosopher Chaïm Perelman, in his The Realm of Rhetoric, compared rhetoric with logic and dialectic. • rhetoric is focused on the audience, so as to win them over • logic develops a series of valid and compelling inferences • dialectic advances arguments from theses that are generally accepted towards those that are more controversial Ralph H. Johnson. Revisiting the Logical/Dialectical/Rhetorical Triumvirate. Wikipedia: Chaïm Perelman #126 |
1982 | |
| wants of human situation | ideals of good life | modification of wants with regard to ideals | American ethicist John Kekes argued What a wise man knows, therefore, is how to construct a pattern that, given the human situation, is likely to lead to a good life. This knowledge is not esoteric, for it is within everyone's reach; nor does it require a special skill or talent, for it concerns the recognition of possibilities and limitations that are the same for everyone. But it does take self control, enabling a person to modify his wants in accordance with his ideals; self-knowledge, for knowing what his wants and ideals are; breadth and depth; constancy, so that adversity will not deflect him from his commitments; and the hierarchical ranking of his commitments, for judging what is important to him. John Kekes. Wisdom. American Philosophical Quarterly. Wikiversity: Wisdom: Defining Wisdom #770 LB |
1983 | |
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heuristic | analytic | British cognitive psychologist Jonathan St B.T. Evans of Plymouth University distinguished • heuristic processes, which generated representations of problem content, as relevant, though possibly omitting relevant or including irrelevant information • analytic processes, which derived inferences or judgments based on those representations Evans. Heuristic and analytic processes in reasoning. British Journal of Psychology. 75 (4): 451–468. Wikipedia: Dual process theory #17 |
1984 | |
| exiles | protectors | self | American family therapist Richard C. Schwartz developed the Internal Family Systems branch of therapy. Clients learn to think of their Self as consisting of a parts that act independently but can be integrated into a whole. • Exiles are parts that carry pain, fear, shame or hurt because of trauma, that have become isolated from the other parts and polarize the system. • Protectors are parts that keep the pain from coming to awareness. They can be Managers, which preemptively steer one away from emotional triggers, or Firefighters, which divert attention from negative feelings by steering into activities, which may overdo them, thus overeating, overworking, overdrinking, acting impulsively or violently. • Self is the natural leader but it needs to recognize and assert itself, get to know the Protectors and gain their trust and permission, and through them, access the Exiles and help them release their burdens. Wikipedia: Internal Family Systems Model Allison Aubrey. Ever felt so stressed you didn’t know what to do next? Try talking to your 'parts' #748 |
1985 | |
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emotional | reasonable | wise | American pscyhologist Marsha M. Linehan developed Dialectical behavior therapy for personality disorders and interpersonal conflicts by integrating two concepts important for happy and meaningful lives: "accept things as they are" and "change is necessary". The goal is to achieve a wise mind (knowledge, experience, common sense) which synthesizes the rational mind (facts and logic are in control without emotions, such as love) and the emotional mind (emotions control thinking and behavior without reason). Wikipedia: Marsha M. Linehan Wikipedia: Dialectical behavior therapy Marsha M. Linehan. Building a Life Worth Living #682 |
1986 |
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step out | step into | step over | Borland Turbo Debugger supported single-stepping, also known as program animation, which offered options for running portions of the code being debugged. These options are relevant when subroutines are being called. These commands have come to be known as: • Step out. This allows all subsequent lines of a subroutine to be run, without further inspection, until control is returned to the routine that called it. • Step into. This runs the following line but, if it calls a subroutine, it will descend into it but pause for permission to proceed further, so the lines can be inspected one-by-one, as the interpreter sees them. • Step over. This runs the following line, allowing any subroutine it calls to proceed to completion, uninspected along the way, yet possibly evoking and revealing a violation. What is step into, step out and step over in Firebug? Stack Overflow. What is difference between trace into (F7) and step over (F8) in Turbo c++? Wikipedia: Debugger #873 |
1989 |
| imagination | ignorance | American physicist E. T. Jaynes described two versions of the mind projection fallacy. • positive - thinking the way one sees the world (personal perceptions) are the way the world actually is (inherent properties) • negative - supposing one's own lack of knowledge (their ignorant state of mind) indicates the issue is not understandable (a fact about reality) The error occurs in two complementary forms, which we might indicate thus: (A) (My own imagination) → (Real property of Nature) (B) (My own ignorance) → (Nature is indeterminate) Wikipedia: Mind projection fallacy E. T. Jaynes. Probability Theory as Logic. #814 |
1990 | ||
| rhetoric as process | logic as product | dialectic as procedure | American scholar Joseph Wenzel, in analyzing argumentation, distinguished the rhetorical process, dialectical procedure and logical product. • Rhetoric helps us to understand and evaluate arguing as a natural process of persuasive communications • Logic helps us to understand and evaluate arguments as products people create when they argue. • Dialectic is a method, a system or a procedure for regulating discussions among people. Joseph Wenzel. Three Perspectives on Argument. Ralph H. Johnson. Revisiting the Logical/Dialectical/Rhetorical Triumvirate. #127 |
1990 | |
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gesture | speech | American psycholinguist David McNeill argues that speaking while thinking, as an activity, depends on psychological units, pulses - growth points - where gesture and speech are coordinated, providing grounds for unfolding speech and thought further. Gesture manifests the speaker's existence and is always supposed but can be emphasized more or less. • Gesture is top down, global (the meaning of the parts - hand shapes, space, direction, articulation - all depend on the whole), and synthetic (several meanings are bundled into a single gesture). • Speech is bottom up, combinatoric, analytic - the pieces have independent meaning. Wikipedia: David McNeill David McNeill. Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought. #582 |
1992 | |
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counting units | measuring sums | American relationship counselor John Gray controversially describes gender differences, how women and men respond to stress and stressful situations, and how they are acclimated to their own gender's society and customs, leading to conflicts in communications. • Women credit points for all acts of love, large or small, the same. Women respond to stress by talking with someone close about it. Women give to others in stable waves, but when they don't receive love and attention in return, they crest and crash. • Men credit points for large acts of love more than small acts of love. Men respond to stress by temporarily withdrawing. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus #145 |
1992 | |
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adversarial thinking | parallel thinking | Maltese creative thinking consultant Edward de Bono contrasted • adversarial thinking - proving or disproving statements put forward by two parties, as exemplified by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle • parallel thinking - exploring a subject by splitting focus in several parallel tracks, contributing knowledge, facts, feelings to support each track, working together on them as a group. Wikipedia: Edward de Bono Edward de Bono. Parallel thinking: from Socratic thinking to de Bono thinking. #712 |
1994 | |
| associative | rules based | Cognitive scientist Steven Sloman of Brown University overviewed the history of the distinction of • associative reasoning with calculations based on similarity structure and temporal contiguity • rules based reasoning based with calculations based on rules that operate on symbolic structure with logical content and variables He also notes the interest in hybrid systems. Steven A. Sloman. The Empirical Case for Two Systems of Reasoning. #14 |
1996 | ||
| individual things | classes of things | British psychiatrist John Cutting studied philosophy (Kant, Schopenhauer, Bergson, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt) to understand psychopathology. He analyzed hallucination, illusion, anomalous experience, agnosia and delusion in terms of distinctions in brain hemispheres. • the right hemisphere considered individual things • the left hemisphere considered classes of things John Cutting. Principles of psychopathology : two worlds, two minds, two hemispheres. #593 |
1997 | ||
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pain of past | tormentor of future | joy of present moment | German-born self-help author Eckhart Tolle taught in "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" that • only the present moment is real and matters, and the ever present "I am" is the source of joy • an individual's past and future are products of their minds, illusions created by their thoughts, which bring pain that can feed only on pain, converting the personal ego into a tormentor Wikipedia: Eckhart Tolle #641 |
1997 |
| brain | mind | laws of life | American British fund manager John Templeton identified 200 laws in his "Worldwide Laws of Life". He remarked on Marcus Aurelius's teaching, "Your life becomes what you think" by distinguishing brain and mind. "The mind, which is invisible, directs the thinking process. It tells the brain how to sort experience and fact, and how to give shape and form to new ideas." Moreover, in the introduction, he speaks of understanding and practicing the laws of life, the set of rules by which we should live, the spiritual law (the Tao) by which things work, the relationship between thoughts, feelings, ideas and the physical activities which express them. Templeton. Worldwide Laws of Life: 200 Eternal Spiritual Principles. #35 |
1998 | |
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images | words | shapes | American political scientist Robert E. Horn, upon encountering the Macintosh computer in 1984, recognized how it allowed drawing to be included in communication. Over the next few years he saw that graphic computer users were developing visual language. He investigated how they integrated: • words, which name, define, classify, are conceptual, discuss abstractions • images, which excel at showing who, what (appearance), which (labels), examples, drawing in what "can't be seen" • shapes, which are abstract, the basis for diagrams, excellent at showing where (maps) and which (definitions) Robert E. Horn. Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century #93 |
1998 |
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intuition | rationalization | discussion | American moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the founder of social intuitionism, argues that moral positions primarily arise from intuitions, are then rationalized and justified, are taken mainly to influence others, but are often influenced and sometimes changed through discussions with others.
Wikipedia: Social intuitionism Jonathan Haidt. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. #658 |
2001 |
| impulsive | reflective | Social psychologists Fritz Strack and Roland Deutsch distinguished two systems for decision making. • In the impulsive system, decisions are made using schemes and little thought is required. • In the reflective system, decisions are made using knowledge and processing incoming information. Fritz Strack, Roland Deutsch. Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Wikipedia: Dual process theory #23 |
2004 | ||
| monitor | distinguish | Neuroscientists Lesley Rogers and Giorgio Vallortigara exploited the fact that light exposure in embryo determines visual lateralization in the avian brain. Light exposed chicks are strongly lateralized. Chicks had to tell apart grains of food and pebbles scattered on a floor and the same time monitor overhead for a flying model of an aerial predator. Strongly lateralized chicks performed well in this dual task, whereas weakly lateralized chicks performed poorly. The lateralized ones could attain this outcome by simultaneously attending to the feeding task with one eye and monitoring the predator with the other eye. Vallortigara, Rogers. A function for the bicameral mind. Rogers, Zucca, Vallortigara. Advantages of having a lateralized brain. #883 |
2004 | ||
| experiencing self | remembering self | Experimental psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Jason Riis conducted experiments to distinguish • an experiencing self, which attests to the pleasure or pain felt at any moment • a remembering self, which subsequently reflects on the pleasure or pain felt Daniel Kahneman, Jason Riis. Living, and thinking about it: two perspectives on life Kahneman later summarized this: "I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me." Wikipedia: Thinking, Fast and Slow #9 |
2005 | ||
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thin-slice | analysis paralysis | Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell wrote a popular book, Blink, about the adaptive unconscious and its ability to thin-slice, to rapidly, automatically, spontaneously yield conclusions based on scarce information, as occurs with expert judgment but also with prejudice and stereotyping. He compares this with conscious analysis, which can end up including extraneous information, leading to analysis paralysis. Wikipedia: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking #111 |
2005 | |
| even part A of superalgebra | odd part eA of superalgebra | induced R-automorphism a→a' | American mathematician Todd Trimble, in classifying real division superalgebras A + eA, where A is the even part and eA is the odd part, focused on the automorphism a→a' defined by ae=ea'. Todd Trimble. The Super Brauer Group and Super Division Algebras. #129 |
2005 | |
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heuristic | analytic | dispositional | British psychologist Jonathan ST.B.T. Evans, responding to the theory of hypothetical thinking by Evans, Over and Handley, extended his own model, distinguishing: • heuristic processes that construct the most plausible or relevant model and then apply that to make inferences and judgments • dispositional processes that (depending on the task at hand, available time, motivation, personal choice) intervene or not to switch from heuristic processes to analytic processes • analytic processes that explicitly reason and evaluate whether the model is satisfactory, though also subject to biases, such as minimizing the challenge to existing models Jonathan ST.B.T. Evans. The heuristic-analytic theory of reasoning: Extension and evaluation #18 |
2006 |
| sensory input | internal model | minimize surprise | British neuroscientist Karl Friston introduced the free energy principle, a theoretical framework of active inference, according to which the brain reduces surprise or uncertainty by developing internal models for making predictions and responds to sensory input by updating the model or adjusting the environment. Karl Friston, James Kilner, Lee Harrison. A free energy principle for the brain. #33 |
2006 | |
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automatic | controlled | American social pscyhologist Jonathan Haidt, in The Happiness Hypothesis, presents a metaphor of the two sides of a person. • The elephant is their automatic, implicit processes, which provide the power for their journey. • The rider is their controlled, reasoned processes, which see the path ahead. Self-improvement depends on training the elephant. Wikipedia: The Happiness Hypothesis: Ch.1: The divided self #657 |
2006 | |
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whole-oriented | detail-oriented | British psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World", influenced by psychiatrist John Cutting and psychologist David McNeill, distinguished how the brain hemispheres pay attention. • The Master (right hemisphere) is whole-oriented, closely related to physical bodies, one's own and others', and external reality given by the senses, thus the mediator of all experience, the source of thought, and also it reintegrates and understands meaning processed by the left hemisphere, thus is the first stop and last stop. • The Emissary (left hemisphere) is detail-oriented, processes speech, and has detrimentally become increasingly dominant in Western culture. Wikipedia: The Master and His Emissary Iain McGilchrist. The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World #328 |
2009 | |
| unexpected emotional aruosal | routine behavior | Pscyholinguist Peter Macneilage and neurobiologists Lesley Rogers and Giorgio Vallortigara overviewed evidence that distinctions between right and left brain hemispheres run across vertebrate species. The specialization of each hemisphere in the human brain, we argue, was already present in its basic form when vertebrates emerged about 500 million years ago. ... Our hypothesis holds that • the left hemisphere of the vertebrate brain was originally specialized for the control of well-established patterns of behavior under ordinary and familiar circumstances. In contrast, • the right hemisphere, the primary seat of emotional arousal, was at first specialized for detecting and responding to unexpected stimuli in the environment. Macneilage, Rogers, Vallortigara. Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain. #884 |
2009 | ||
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System 1 | System 2 | Experimental psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky distinguished two different ways the brain forms thoughts. • System 1 is fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, unconscious. • System 2 is slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious. Wikipedia: Thinking, Fast and Slow #1 |
2011 | |
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ego | soul | British leadership theorist Richard Barrett, in his book What My Soul Told Me, distinguishes: • ego - conscious awareness that identifies with one's physical body, which thinks it inhabits in a material world, it can die, it has needs of survival, safety, security, thus fears its needs will not be met, is who one thinks one is, and the personality mask one wears to get one's needs met. • soul - individuation of the universal energy field from which everything arises, which identifies with that field, lives in a state of oneness, gives and receives, desires to express its unique talents, connect with others unconditionally, contribute to well-being, thus creates whatever it desires through thoughts, knows it cannot die, has no needs, yet creates an ego to buffer itself from the pain of separation it experiences in the material world. Barrett Academy for the Advancement of Human Values: Ego-Soul Dynamics #573 |
2012 | |
| holism | Cellular biologist Lois Isenman responded to Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink by arguing that the unconscious and its intuition result from its holism, drawing on all experience, rather than thin-slicing, its ability to focus on particularly relevant experience. Lois Isenman. Understanding Unconscious Intelligence and Intuition: “Blink” and beyond #112 |
2013 | |||
| attention | awareness | American neuroscientist Michael Graziano proposed the Attention Schema Theory, which distinguishes: • attention, which is the selective focus of processing resources, whether on a particular range of sensory signals or internal information • awareness, which is attention to an internal model of attention, allowing for one's own subjective experience and also for modeling another being's attention Wikipedia: Attention schema theory #94 |
2016 | ||
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unconscious | conscious | attending to inner experience | American cognitive scientist Lois Isenman authored "Understanding Intuition: A Journey In and Out of Science". She relates biological and cognitive mechanisms with first-person experience. She describes a fluid exchange between unconscious and conscious minds, where unconscious holistic intuition can be enhanced by attending to the subtleties of inner experience. Lois Isenman with Matt Marble. The Hidden Present. The Blink of the Eye. #113 |
2018 |
| step in | step out | step back | Project PZ Connect, a collaboration between Harvard University and Independent Schools Victoria in Australia, developed a thinking tool for being responsible in taking a perspective by asking three questions. • Step In: What do you think this person might feel, believe, know, or experience? • Step Out: What would you like or need to learn to understand this person’s perspective better? • Step Back: What do you notice about your own perspective and what it takes to take somebody else’s? PZ's Thinking Routines Toolbox Project Zero. Step In - Step Out - Step Back #867 |
2019 | |
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emotional | rational | wise | Chinese Peruvian Canadian mindset coach Jessica Lock learned from her therapist that our minds have three states. • The Reasonable Mind is used when a person approaches a situation through logic. They plan and make decisions based on facts. It’s more objective. • The Emotional Mind is used when feelings control a person’s thoughts and behavior. They might act impulsively with little to no regards to the consequences. Emotions let us know when boundaries have been crossed. • The Wise Mind is the balance between the reasonable and emotional mind. The ideal state to be. They are able to recognize and respect their feelings. While responding to them in a rational matter. It’s also known as intuitive thinking. Jessica Lock. Whole and Unleashed. The 3 Minds. #679 |
2019 |
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preaching | prosecuting | politicking | American organization psychologist Adam Grant authored a book on individual, interpersonal and collective rethinking. He attributed to Phil Tetlock the following three mindsets we take up in thinking and talking. The risk is that we become so wrapped up in preaching that we're right, prosecuting others who are wrong, and politicking for support that we don't bother to rethink our own views. An alternative is a fourth way of thinking, scientific, based on the scientific method, focused on rethinking, on knowing what we don't know. Adam Grant. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know. #666 |
2021 |
| individuality | shared identity | absence of differentiation | Emergency physician Anoop Kumar addresses destructive behaviors with a call for a medicine based on three minds. • First Mind: the mind is felt to be localized in or near the head or body of the individual. The mind is felt to be a subtle, internal, subjective phenomenon, in comparison to the more solid, palpable feel of the body and surrounding objects in the external, apparently objective environment. Here, mind and matter feel, and therefore are imagined to be, fundamentally different. Most essentially, the First Mind is characterized by boundedness (‘me’ in here and ‘world’ out there), and as a result, dichotomy. • Second Mind: there are billions of individual minds like you and me on Earth, all of which exist as subsets of a single, experienceable Second Mind, which is simply another configuration of our identity. In between these First and Second Minds are the varied ranges of extended identities we describe as family, friendship, community, profession, race, and nation, often with deep meaning. • Third Mind: the undifferentiated potential state of the world, prior to interpretation as discrete experiences across any subject-object interface. Therefore, the Third Mind can also be referred to as no mind, since in the absence of difference all concepts fail. Anoop Kumar. The three minds: A framework beyond biopsychosocial medicine. #688 |
2021 | |
| sensory evidence | prior beliefs | control of balance | British neuroscientist Karl Friston spoke in a podcast of relaxing maladaptive prior beliefs. This key balance between the precision afforded sensory evidence and the precision afforded your accumulated knowledge and wisdom and prior beliefs and narratives about how that sensory evidence should evolve, getting that balance right is absolutely crucial in health and in disease. And it may be the right control of that balance that undergirds all creative thinking and all artistic endeavors, just lateral thinking or seeing the world in a different way that allows somebody else to explore the hypotheses that entails a dissolution to a certain extent of the precision of your prior convictions. Mitch Belkin, Daniel Belkin. Karl Friston: Schizophrenia, Autism, and the Free Energy Principle #892 |
2022 | |
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enactive | predictive | cybernetic | The Active Inference textbook explains that this theoretical framework unites and extends three apparently disconnected theoretical perspectives: • enactive theories, emphasizing an organism's autopoietic interactions with its environment, statistically separating internal states from external environment with a Markov blanket, protecting the organism's integrity, self-organizing behavior, keeping its parameters within acceptable bounds, affording reciprocal exchanges between organism and environment. • cybernetic theories, treating behavior as purposive and teleological, regulated by an internal mechanism that continuously tests whether goals are achieved, consequently updating perceptions and steering corrective actions, minimizing the discrepancy between preferred and sensed states, notably the variational free energy, corresponding to prediction error. • predictive theories, emphasizing the development of a good (generative) model of the environment (per the good regulator theorem) used to construct predictions that guide perception and action, evaluate future and counterfactual possibilities, approaching control as a prospective process, established in terms of (approximate) Bayesian inference and (variational and expected) free energy minimization, grounding action in imagination, triggering actions with predictive representations, temporarily attenuating sensory evidence. Thomas Parr, Giovanni Pezzulo, Karl Friston. Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain and Behavior. 3.7 Reconciliation of Enactive, Cybernetic, and Predictive Theories under Active Inference #142 |
2022 |
| self | context | observer | Environmental philosopher Lucy Weir relates our language about ecological systems (whether they tend towards an ideal or whether they are propelled by a challenge) with how we relate to what goes on in and around us, how we perceive and respond. She concludes: The capacity to step back and observe oneself in context is also the capacity to attune to the cooperative flow of energetic dissipation. One can come to a realisation that one’s sense of agency is illusory, but that one can nevertheless do what needs to be done, or, perhaps more accurately, one can take this observational stance to its logical conclusion and let love do what needs to be done. Lucy Weir. Beginning with the Good of Systems, Philosophy as Practice in the Ecological Emergency. #359 |
2023 | |
| victims | workers | winners | Life coach Jaemin Frazer identifies three common approaches to get ahead in life: • Victims proceed Have, Do, Be. Since they do not have what they need, they wait and complain. • Workers proceed Do, Have, Be. They end up doing ever more, having ever more, but never being happy. • Winners proceed Be, Do, Have. They focus on being the kind of person who has the outcomes they want to have. Having takes care of itself. Jaemin Frazer. A simple explanation of the BE DO HAVE model. #108 |
2023 | |
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animal | machine | The anonymous blogger of "The Animal and the Machine" appeals to evolution as explaining psychology. Emotions are in the limbic system first appearing in mammals 150 million years ago. It is the animal. Thoughts are in the cerebrum. Although also very old the variant that splits from chimps is only 7 million years ago (myo) and apes 14myo. These are the machine parts. Our purpose comes from emotions. They drive us. People will vote for hate over logic. Logic loses. But hope is closer to happiness so people will vote for hope over hate. Love wins. It’s like whenever you find a truth. A theory that matches reality. You keep seeing it be proved again and again because it’s just true. The machine is the calculator you, the traditional ‘head’ but the ‘real’ you is the animal, the ‘heart’. Of course both are you but the animal feels like the real you because the animal feels, the machine does not. Please the animal. There are two mes and I need to please them both. There is the parent and there is person. Parent duties comes first. I try to take every moment, stopping to look at birds with my child rather than yanking forward to putting them in nursery. The Animal and the Machine. Mathstodon. 2024.10.25 01 The Animal and the Machine #727 |
2023 | |
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water | stone | Lithuanian painter Gabrielė Aleksė, inspired by Iain McGilchrist's book "The Master and the Emissary", exhibited a series of paintings "Water and Stone" at the Antanas Mončys art gallery in Palanga, Lithuania. • Water symbolizes the right hemisphere. Water represents intuition, holistic understanding, the flow of life, the ability to see and feel the world through peace, a grasp of the moment, a feeling of eternity, religious experience, appreciating religious texts and myths, the world of childhood, full of miracles and spirituality. • Stone symbolizes the left hemisphere. Stone is the solid foundation for the unfolding of Western civilization, which she presents through architectural compositions, the construction of an unchanging, eternal, safe environment, a composition of units, which can be controlled and governed, a transformation of the environment, a sign of progress and expansion, accompanied with cold doubt and skepticism. Visit Palanga. Gabrielės Aleksės tapybos paroda "Vanduo ir Akmuo" #594 |
2024 | |
| carrying | universal | joyful | Indian yogi poet K.V.Raghupathi describes the • carrying mind, operating within the world, in time and space, heavy with mental impressions (samskaras), anxieties, aspirations, conflicts, playing havoc with our bodies • universal mind, beyond duality, time and space, filled with compassion, maintaining ecological balance, attaining inner peace and happiness, comprehending and transcending the carrying mind • joyful mind, a blissful state that arises as one lives in the universal mind, as the other side of the same coin K.V.Raghupathi. The Three Minds. #689 |
2024 |
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