ThinkBlog

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293508/

I went a few days ago with my girlfriend to see the Phantom of the Opera in theaters. For those who quietly neglected to see it due to vague and haunting fears for their masculinity or for those who have never had the great fortune to see the stage version, see any of several summaries, though this probably won’t make as much sense as if you were to see it (just rent it with Terminator 2 and watch them back-to-back, you’ll be fine;) ). It must be noted foremost that this is a movie version of a screenplay (which was adapted from the book by Gaston Leroux).
(more…)

http://www.artrenewal.org/

I stumbled upon ARC Int’l quite on accident, and I’m glad I did. Many classes and books on art history skip over the European Academic and related periods with perhaps a painting of nymphs and a satyr by Bouguereau, dismissing it as the irrelevant grandfather of impressionism and other more modern arts. But that’s a grave shame. This online museum of ultra-realistic art is a phenomenal asset both in itself and to people hunting down a particular print or poster, or the history behind a given piece.

Admittedly, I’m still exploring their conceptual underpinnings. I didn’t know who David Hockney was before I saw their site, and I don’t know if I’d proselytize people on the all-conquering value of this method of painting over any other. But in an age when “modern art” has become things that look like they have been slapped together in under ten minutes and really don’t do much for one except to reiterate in nonverbal form tired dogmas of the current Zeitgeist (from which there is no escape in everything down to advertising, anyway), this is a refreshing change.

Here’s what they have to say for themselves (taken from the main site):

ARC is the Eye of the Storm, at the core, hub and center of a major cultural shift in the art world. With a growing body of experts, we are setting standards of ARC Approval for artists, art schools, systems of training, museum exhibitions and historical scholarship, to bring guidance, direction, goals and reality to an art establishment that has been sailing rudderless for nearly a hundred years.

Additionally, the Art Renewal Center is a non-profit educational organization committed to reviving standards of craftsmanship and excellence. Only by gaining a full command of the skills of the past Masters can we create the Masters of tomorrow. This is a step forward for our culture. Experimentation and creativity can only succeed and prosper when built on a solid foundation of past accomplishments, with the tools which empower artists to realize their visions.

Nothing has been more restricting and debilitating than the theories of modernism, which eliminated these tools, along with the skills to employ them. We are providing a forum for artists, scholars, collectors and the public to appreciate great art, and to recognize that they’re not alone in their suspicions about the emptiness of modern and postmodern art. These suspicions are fully justified by the overwhelming body of evidence and historical facts.

http://lookahead.mozdev.org/

The LookAhead extension for Firefox is an excellent piece of work. If you use it instead of the straight Google Search in the Search Bar of your browser, it will use Google to find the first n results of your query and open them in tabs, where n is configurable to your liking. It’s like “I’m Feeling Lucky” only built in and configurable.

You can also restrict your search to a given domain, and search selected text with a right-click context menu option. Unlike many browser extenders, Mr. Rintoul keeps his information, and his code, up to date (click the title for a link). Highly recommended.

Can the mind produce genuinely new material ex nihilo? Last week I was reading a bit of philosophy out of a used textbook and someone had written in the margins a note about “creativity” of the mind. That got me to thinking.

Do we use the word “creativity” loosely, however unwittingly? Do all the supposedly novel images we find, for instance, in literature derive from and have their basis in things that have come before? I have always tended not to think so: but rather that the mind can conceive of things that have not come before, things or ideas which are completely unique. David Hume, of course, would disagree. But would I, too, now?

Perhaps it’s a synthesis of things. There is an element of genuine creativity involved in the synthesis and transcension of that which has come before. So we can say that Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, for instance, was genuinely creative, even though many of his ideas came from North-Western European mythologies and from Catholicism.

I want to know what you think.

http://deepersideofsooz.blogspot.com/

The blog of a personal friend I met years ago from my tenure (so to speak) at Clemson. Here’s what she has to say about her blog:

A place to learn more about who Suzanne (a.k.a Sooz) is on a day to day basis (assuming if, of course, I can keep up with this regularly), and a place for me to humble myself before my friends, perfect strangers, and most importantly The Lord. Simply put, it’s a place where I’m going to attempt to journal my life and thoughts for all to see, criticize, and comment.

http://nethub.org/

Jeff is self-described as a “college student, an entrepreneur, and an avid coffee drinker,” and you’ll find at nethub.org his resources linking you to information and the latest news pertaining to wireless technology, business, telecommunications, and economics.

http://sensitivelight.com/

Graham Jeffery’s photography website (photoblog) is full of images he’s captured. Some are astoundingly surreal. Check out this smoke picture, for instance (of whose official title I’m unsure but someone has called it a “faerie” so I’m going with that):

Hello, and welcome to Sensitive Light, a growing collection of images by an enthusiastic photographer.

The pictures here mainly come into the category of ‘found photography’ those things, creatures, people and places that present themselves in everyday life.

My aspiration is simple, to photograph what I see, in a sensitive light.

You shan’t be disappointed with the wallpapers, either: scaled at 800×600, 1024×768, or 1280×1024, these sharp, clear images add some unique flavor to your desktop.

http://thinkblog.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=46

A very interesting post on the forums tonight about God’s will. There seems to be a lot of misconceptualization about what God’s will is and how it works in each individual’s life, and I tried tonight to post to the best of my ability (borrowing from two great theological teachers) on what that means in real terms–like finding a life mate, for instance, or rearing children in a sheltered setting.

You can read the thread–and participate!–here.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0192833723/thinkblogorg-20

Book I. The Early Years. Cont’d. S. vi.10

vi.10

Here Augustine praises God for his infancy, even though he doesn’t remember it. It seems good to do so, even though at first glance that seems overdone: though we don’t remember our infancy, we know we had to have one in order to attain the state in which we presently are (without Premise 1 there’s not going to be a Conclusion). The things he experienced as an infant helped shape his temperament as a child[9], and “the child is father to the man.”[10] Even so, I think on those times that I don’t remember apart from my infancy, and give ever the more praise to the Father for those times: they were when I was inebriated with strife, selfish pride, bitterness, sorrow, and foreign chemicals. Some of those are as dark to me now as new asphalt under cloudy night skies, but I must/should praise God for getting me through those times, for allowing me to live even though a sinner, for giving me the grace to see me through. So the more thought I give Augustine’s discussion of his infancy, the more sensible it seems.

He considers the testimony of others about himself to be valid. Wonder what Descartes would say! This seems quite trusting of him. (Not exactly sure where to go with this one, but it seems this deserves more thought.)

So, to a neoPlatonist to be and to live are one and the same, on that gradient between nihil and God. I wonder if this kind of thinking is why (in past years) I considered the flesh and all physical things to be “less than,” the dross of creation. Rocks have existence, but not life in the sense that animals do; animals not in the sense that we do; and we not in the sense that God does. But this seems faulty reasoning. As Thom has pointed out, if God called it good, who am I to declare it sub-par? Then again, rocks do have a kind of life in the sense that they have existence through time. A very interesting discussion.

Looking forward to more on time; God’s timeline is one big Today. (Cf. Philosophy Club GTC discussion, and minutes from meeting headed up by Alan Clamp.

I love this: having humility enough to admit that God is beyond discovery (without lending a fatalistic, pessimistic bent to that admission) is sufficient for Him to reveal Himself. I have often found that right at that moment that I give up hope about something, it pulls through–God teaches me about perseverance in some very humorous ways.[11]

8. But realistically, I have no idea how this will work. If heaven is eternity in the Thomistic sense of being atemporal, and if time is the fourth physical dimension, will there be a “memory” of the history of God’s creation? Will it remain in stasis when we are in heaven, a permanent block of creation into which we could peek and perhaps walk unseen? This is puzzling, but outside the scope of A’s _Confessions_, at least for now.

9. That is assuming the holistic tack on childhood development, not giving way to either nature or nurture exclusively.

10. Gerard Manley Hopkins.

11. This is not to say that circumstances are crafted around me; only that when I am focused where I should be, God’s truth illumines the circumstances and I end up learning something about both myself and His character.

References.

Augustine, St. Confessions. Henry Chadwick, trans. ISBN 0-19-283372-3 (Paperback).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0192833723/thinkblogorg-20

Book I. The Early Years, cont’d. S. vi.9.

vi.9

If Augustine’s infancy is “dead” to him, it is still alive in two senses: God retains the history of his experience, presumably, at least until the eschaton.[8] Or, in another sense, it is imprinted on Augustine’s soul as memories and experiences that shape who he is and has been. Or perhaps I’m taking him too seriously on this point.

In contemplating Augustine’s last sentence in this section, “Where was I before my conception?”, I was becoming frustrated when I reached the same conclusion that I did when trying to wrap my mind around Calvinism v. Arminianism: “It doesn’t matter; worship Him.” In point of fact, it wasn’t that the question didn’t matter, just that it shouldn’t have gotten in the way of God Himself. So I enjoy asking this question, and wondering about the answer, but it was appointed unto us to know God in this time, right here and now, and let Him deal with the Before; we should praise God to the extent that He has revealed Himself to us, and the point is, He’s revealed enough.

References.
Augustine, St. Confessions. Henry Chadwick, trans. ISBN 0-19-283372-3 (Paperback).

http://www.phrack.org/

Phrack, the hackers’ magazine since the seventeenth of November, 1985, is issuing its final call for papers in preparation to close down operations as of July 2005.

Those of you familiar with the underground text e-zine scene will recognize the temporal monument of this occasion; the rest of you should know the impact this magazine had on cyberculture when it was still in its formative years. Most electronic zines had their brief fifteen minutes in the mid-to-late eighties and were published on BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) which were accessible by dialing directly in with your 300 baud modem. (You think dialup’s slow now—asynchronous communication on a 300 baud modem equaled a maximum thoroughput of just over 105 kilobytes per hour!)

In high school I pored over these mags, even reading the outdated ones to get a taste of the “underground scene.” You can still find all of the old ones here, at the Computer underground Digest archives. (Previously hosted at EFF.org.)

It’s not so much that Phrack itself has so much meaning to me directly, since in latter years they’ve been averaging one or two per annum and they didn’t really capture the flavor and “edge” of the pre-Web-boom of ‘94. (Well, to be fair, they had some great issues through 1997. But I digress. All the time.) It’s just that this is one more sign–like the sudden passing of the great entertainer Johnny Carson–of aging and the forgetability of childhood.

Browse the Phrack archives. They claim the site will be up for at least another two years. Take a look at some of the old ones, when the curious, anarchistic adolescent optimism of up-and-coming geeks in their world domination was still fresh. They’re worth your time just as a psychological profile, but you programmers will be amazed at some of the “tricks” that now seem delightfully arcane.

http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

And yet every May, speakers all over the country fire up the Standard Graduation Speech, the theme of which is: don’t give up on your dreams. I know what they mean, but this is a bad way to put it, because it implies you’re supposed to be bound by some plan you made early on. The computer world has a name for this: premature optimization. And it is synonymous with disaster. These speakers would do better to say simply, don’t give up.

It’s wit and candor like that that makes this article such a good read. Paul Graham, author and programmer, wrote this speech as a high school graduation ceremonial but never delivered it. We all, therefore, benefit. The target demographic, of course, is high school seniors–but there are things here that even those in the working world can learn, and he has a fresh perspective on how to start, how to keep going, and how to do it in a way so you don’t join the ridiculous number of people who, by the age of twenty-five, say “I hate my job” and mean it in more nuanced ways than someone unversed in their field could possibly understand.

This got me to thinking. Where do we draw the line at “find out what you like and then go for it”? In light of last week’s Time Magazine cover article, where is the balance? Yes, children of the eighties (more specifically, people between 18 and 29) are marrying later, going from job to job more erratically, and settling on one profession less and less than our forebears.

But where does one draw the line? As being kicked out of the house at eighteen is rapidly becoming an old wives‘ tale, and twenty-somethings try to find themselves, where do we begin? I wonder, therefore, if postmodernism isn’t affecting the older generation more than the younger: if we make ourselves–if being is becoming–then we are what we do, to an extent. And if we are what we do, then we will find out who we are as we go along: it’s a process. So in that sense, perhaps the reason we’re not growing up as a generation is because we’re waiting to perfectly conceptualize ourselves before we execute any major life-changing decisions.

A friend of mine has said, “Certainty results in commitment and personal involvement; therefore, in an age of irresponsibility, most think it best to be as uncertain as possible.” [permission pending!] That sound word is a searing rebuke to the attitude of our times and, more specifically, to this generation sociologists are struggling to label (and, predictably, we’re trying to dodge). What’s so effective about this comment in light of this problem is, we can’t stand on this word to throw the responsibility onto our parents, which would be very, very tempting. How easy would it be to say, “Aha! But we are the product of our times, and the cocaine-dusted eighties taught us to be selfish–and the narcotic nineties taught us how to rebel!” No, you know how to rebel without being taught: you and I cannot throw this back on previous generations any more than our fathers could do the same with the Wars and sexual revolution(s?).

Think on it: you want your parents to take responsibility for their errors, right? You must also; so must I. We have to take control of our lives and live as though we could not blame generations past, for such is truth. This is what’s so hard. It’s easier to be uncertain and irresponsible, to shrug and dodge, than to face something head-on, screw up, learn from it, repeat. But that’s what’s going to keep us from living life to its fullest.

And it may come as a surprise to you that Graham’s article balances the two perspectives, both of contemplation and of action, in the best way I’ve heard from anyone (save the aforequoted) in the past several years. Give it a read.

http://www.epitonic.com/

Epitonic has been going strong for years now and is the consistent ‘net source for legally free (literally, not as in “speech”) MP3s. From indie rock to ambient tunes, you can load up a randomly-generated playlist the genres of which you specify to queue up days’ worth of tunes.

Furthermore, by not dealing with RIAA-backed record labels and the bands that are legally entangled with the youth of America, Epitonic supports getting the music out there of the new and upcoming artists. Most of this stuff is absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend it.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=18...space

Six instruments aboard Huygens, the craft that just spent seven years in flight to Saturn’s moon Titan, picked up and reported back a great deal of data to the NASA teams. But the seventh was literally forgotten. It wasn’t turned on before the launch.

Eighteen man years into this thing for the head scientist, named David Atkinson.

What I really want to know is whether that guy that forgot it remembered it any time during those years. What about all those Christmas parties since 1997? What about looking the guy in the eye? Insane. Granted, Atkinson seems to be handling it well. But that is to say, he hasn’t gone postal.

So what is it with NASA? Remember that Mars orbiter where half the team used metric and the other half English? I’m not sure whether it’s just that everybody makes mistakes and NASA’s are just so costly (the aforementioned happened in 1999; it’s just because it cost US$125 million that it’s so memorable more than five years later). Just a friendly reminder that technology doesn’t solve problems caused by humans.

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/descartes/descartes1.htm

A simple Google for Descartes’ Discourse on Method (full title: Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences) will render numerous (in fact, 320 000+) references, including many full translations.

But this one is, I think, unique in that it was published in the public domain and written in highly readable English that is nevertheless able to convey the subtleties of the text. I’ve been reading through Part I and I’m very impressed with the translator’s style and way with words.

This translation, prepared by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, is in the public domain and may be used by anyone, in whole or in part, for any purpose, without permission and without charge, provided the source is acknowledged.

Now, those are some sweet words. Any time anyone is willing to a serious piece of work out there in the public domain, for no profit and at no charge to the recipients, I’m grateful—both as a matter of principle, being very akin to the open source movement—and practically, since I’m a broke college student!

For an older translation, see Project Gutenberg’s text online. You can find a version annotated by Michael J. O’Donnell (of the U. of Chicago) here.

Hiding one’s email address(es) on a webpage (often erroneously referred to as “encryption”) can be a very difficult proposition, because although there are many honest-to-goodness obfuscation pages out there that will convert your address into a series of escape characters, most spam bots can see past these.

For instance, the ISO-Latin-1 code set, where every character corresponds to its ASCII code (or ISO spec., depending on how high it is) and the hexadecimal encoding scheme don’t work.

So I found at least one true encrypting obfuscator that really does work fantastically.
Email Protector by a comp.sci major named Jim is the one I use presently. Yes, it uses JavaScript, but all the other methods of email address obfuscation are unacceptably vulnerable.

Try it on my site. Click on the “Contact me” link in the upper left hand corner of the main page. Did your status bar show you what you were clicking on? Just a series of numbers. (Open up the source of this page in your browser to see the inner workings.) I’m thoroughly impressed, being a former computer science major; this really is useful. Thanks, Jim.

• Note that I’ve enabled anonymous comments on the site, so now, even if the privacy policy doesn’t sway you, you’re welcome to comment. (Keep it clean, and don’t spam, thanks.)
• I’ve gotten some good avatars from Avatarity, and they are in the images section of the Forum.

More soon!

It occurred to me the other day in a conversation with a friend that perhaps the reason people are reluctant to sign up at this site is that I’ve never listed an email address and I require email addresses of people to comment on the site. Well, now my email address is listed here on the site.

I am just a guy running a personal site for the benefit of everyone who comes upon it. I’m not making any money, I don’t have banner ads here, and everyone’s welcome. Hence, I will never sell (or even keep, unless I want to correspond with you!) your email addresses for any purpose. Rest assured, I hate spam as much as you do.

I’m working on an “about ThinkBlog” page, but until it’s completed at least in sketch form, please feel free to drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you. And if you sign up on the forums, which I hope you will, the same stuff applies.

Your personal information, in short, is not stored, sold, or any other kind of thing. This blog software optionally uses cookies, but that’s the extent of it.

Thank you.
- Michael

http://www.tassos-oak.com/extras/soundbite.html

I stumbled upon an article by David Cortesi in looking for an online edition of Constance Garnett’s translation of Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov that asserts, “Dostoyevsky never wrote [the quote, `If God does not exist, everything is permitted’]!” I had to hunt for a contact page, but sent him an email about why I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate to say that he never said that or, as Mr. Cortesi states in a lower portion of the article, that there has been shown no evidence for Dostoyevsky’s belief in God.

The note is fairly straightforward, so I’ll go ahead and quote myself entirely. Please join in the discussion if you have something to add!
(more…)

A couple of weeks ago I finished the Constance Garnett translation of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky, and I am utterly blown away. For one, as Jared at Mysterium Tremendum has pointed out, you would never find this kind of thing in Christian bookstores today: it’s too “hardcore,” not enough feel-good exhortation and preachiness.

What is it about Christians today that we feel we have to back down from the intellectual forum without a disclaimer? I used to think I could never write anything, fiction or nonfiction, because if I didn’t want to put a “Christian spin” on it, I would feel like I wasn’t doing my duty as a child of God! So if my fiction didn’t end neatly or if it had instances of violence or vulgar language; or if a little piece on physics or some such science didn’t include some ontological disclaimer like “God set it in motion. Now, proceed,” I felt like I was doing something wrong.

What has happened these days? Why do Christians allow ourselves to be boxed in by culture and the times? It’s as if, in some circles, we take upon ourselves a scarlet cross emblazoned on our jackets (of our own volition, mind you!) before we take up a certain position. So when you pick up a Christian novel, or even a novel written by a Christian, it tends to be unrealistically optimistic about the present life and somewhat out of touch with the grit of the world. Kids these days aren’t just dealing with drug addiction and suicide: they’re dealing with a growing hostility toward all things Christian and with a propensity in the academic vernacular toward moral relativism. They’re not just dealing with temptations to “go too far” physically; some of them are dealing with how to handle the mental, emotional, and spiritual pressure of sexual mistakes they’ve made that have resulted in children that they love but nevertheless cannot support.

I am fascinated by redemptive stories, fiction and non-fiction, partly because I am one. If I were to write fiction again, I would write a redemptive novel like this one, likely, in which the sinful soul is purified by suffering and the justice of God. But it would be unlikely published: for if I started from a standpoint of real people–even Christians–who struggle with murderous thoughts, sexual temptations, compulsions, addictions, and financial messes, I would be turned down flat. At least, judging from what’s out there, that would be the case.

Have you, for instance, read any of the Left Behind series? I have, and let’s just put aside theological disagreements for the moment of dispensationalism versus covenantal theology and focus on the character development and the other aspects of fine literature. Videlicet, where is the character development, the personal struggles? Have you noticed that anyone in those novels under the age of 25 is likely to be a rebel, a punk, an infidel, a spy for the Antichristians, and whatnot? The plot is good, from a certain point of view; but the descriptions of the people, the settings, and everything–these are all paper thin and almost two-dimensional. I feel like I’m watching a cartoon on a black and white television set.

Why is that? Perhaps it’s because of the same scarlet disclaimer: “I’m a Christian writer, so I must have an agenda.” No, friends! Let us make solid claims and stand on the firm foundations of the intellects God gave us: the learning of the ages will not affect our faith if it does not strengthen it! I hope soon we can break free of this fear, this sense of encapsulated Christianity, and get back to penetrating writing–even fiction!–like The Brothers Karamazov.

How consistent is a normal, adult human being from one situation to the next? What causes inconsistencies, if there are any?

Humans’ consistency is dependent on their personality. (Jungian typology comes to mind, especially the dimension added since his time—the “Perceiving” versus “Judging” aspect [in, e.g., the MBTI], which is in Socionics “Irrational” versus “Rational” behavior). Not to seem to dodge the question, most adult humans are fairly consistent from one situation to the next. The relatively healthy personality (and most are) is generally consistent. An incomplete decision, or a conviction loosely held, may render inconsistencies in a personality. Also, persons may perform erratically who believe it is in their best interests to “fight the system,” or to be unpredictable. (The caveat is, of course, most of these are or eventually become “predictably unpredictable.”) Ultimately, a person who is genuinely inconsistent (and not misunderstood of intention or misrepresented in the observer’s mind) has probably a loose grasp on his or her concept of self and that which makes him or her the person that s/he is or has decided to suddenly change.

What does a person have to do or be in order for you to believe that he or she is abnormal, sick, or crazy?

First, the person must perform behaviors that are consistently wild: that is, there is no conceivable (or, at least, benevolent) pattern or end goal in the behavior pattern of the individual. Also, he or she must be ultimately unadaptive to the reality the rest of us share in such a way that it harms—emotionally or physically—the persons with whom he or she is in close contact. Finally, if the individual cannot be made to understand the logic of a simple fact or idea (like a syllogism) or, by extension, that the mode of behavior in which he or she is presently engaging is detrimental to his or her health/safety and that of those around him or her, I would call that person ill or acting abnormally. (This, in addition to the converse of the above-defined “normal behavior”.)

In what ways are all human beings alike?

Insofar as this differs from the above similar question, all humans can Think, Feel, Believe, and to some extent express their individual output on each of these modes (their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, &c.).

Why are human beings different? (Is the difference a product of our environment, or are we born different?)

Human beings are different because of biological, sociological, spiritual, and psychological factors (so ultimately the answer to the “Nature or nurture?” question is, sometimes perhaps frustratingly, both). Biologically, we differ genetically, and the genetic map there may be as much variation in personality as physical variation, and likely more so. Added to the genetic component is the way that individual biology has been impacted by external forces, like disease, syndromes, chromosomal defects, nutritional deficiencies, and so on. (So even cloned animals, sharing DNA, may “differ in personality,” that is, behave differently simply on a biological basis.)

Socially (and temporally), humans differ on a macro-level because of their different functions in societies, and the differences in societies that demand of individuals a certain mode of behavior (which will be interpreted and acted upon in accordance with each individual’s preexisting biology, among other things); and on a micro-level because no human shares precisely the same moment in space and time as any other. That is to say, situations may have similarities, but each is ultimately unique in such a way that even the very small differences may manifest in one’s personality.

Spiritually, each person is unique in a way that is infinitely more precise than even physiology and genetic makeup. This connects with the space-time concept, but as to “mapping the spiritual genome,” that I’ll leave to mystics and metaphysicians. Psychologically, that is to say, the way in which this all falls together within the spiritual context, humans are different because ideas that were given early in life and contexts that one may presently come upon require a certain mode of behavior. One may evaluate and adjust his or her behavior, or choose not to do so; and these decisions, often half-implemented, also contribute to each one’s personality.

What is socialization, and how and why does it occur in human beings?

Socialization is the process by which a human is indoctrinated, as it were, in the ways of a given society, and adopts the behavior patterns of the culture appropriately expressed by that society.

This occurs variously by discipline, observation, and a desire to learn and be a part of this society on the part of the socialized individual. Discipline may be very formal, as in litigation or the arrest of someone engaged in a sociologically deviant act; it may be familial, in which the deviant act is shown by the family to be wrong and, hopefully, is replaced by the correct/acceptable behavior; or it may occur very informally, as in the case of a peer group or clique rejecting or ridiculing an individual for a certain quality s/he expresses that is “deviant” to that group.

Socialization occurs because it is necessary, in a civilized society (which may be redundant) to preserve to some extent the uniformity of behaviors on the parts of the individuals the society comprises. Whether this is in the primary sense, as in rearing of infants to be productive members of the larger community, or in the secondary, as when an individual is trained in a specific field, the successful socialization of the individual will contribute to the ideal functioning of a society.

How and on what basis is the self-concept formed in normal human beings?

From exploration of the world around us (the internalization and personal interpretation of what we see, and the interactions with our non-human environment), and from the interactions with humans. Primarily, this latter comes from our parents, and then from peers, and perhaps finally continues with the kind of abstract interactions that one can have in reading and thinking about what one reads (in a kind of reader-writer dialog, however limited it may be).

The basis on which this stands is the developing concept of the self.

What motivates human beings? Is motivation learned or innate? Does it change during one’s lifetime?

Motivation is both learned and innate, but on different levels. The motivation by which one goes about his or her daily business, the reason for getting out of the bed in the morning and so on, is to some extent, innate in that we all share a common inkling that it is better to live than to die. Therefore, whatever it means to live to the individual—this will be his or her motivation.

Learned motivation might supplement (or subvert, in the case of suicides and severe depression) the innate, and will (or perhaps, should) likely change over the course of a lifetime. Motivation for specific tasks is learned, certainly: this is the whole purpose of “motivational” or persuasive speeches by which one understands what is important about a thing or idea. It is this appeal to what we all consider “important” in some way that is less likely to change, but is also learned—only much more subtly, and is very difficult to examine in oneself. For instance, sons and daughters (so to speak) of a capitalist society will learn that it is better to have money than not to have money, and that the individual should by almost all means push himself to the “top” of the market—and it is from the appeal to this learned motivation that persuasive speech within a capitalist society and framework is effective. (Socialists would likely be a much harder sell, so to speak.)

Do humans have an unconscious? If yes, to what extent is normal, adult behavior controlled or guided by the unconscious?

Yes, there are aspects of behavior the reasons for which cannot be readily assessed by the individual, especially at the time of action. The extent to which normal behavior is guided or controlled by the unconscious is largely proportionate to the time spent examining one’s own behavior and understanding the possibilities for the motivations behind an action. (More specifically, this learning about oneself can/should facilitate the conscious control of one’s behavior and recognition of one’s thoughts and actions arising from the unconscious before they occur. E.g., Beck’s “automatic thoughts,” &c.)

What gives a person’s life meaning?

The belief that there is some purpose for living and, furthermore, that even in a vague sense, that the person is living in positive, forward-moving accordance with that meaning, whatever it may be.

What makes human beings “human”? (How are we all alike at the core?)

Mankind is created by God in His image, which necessarily entails the following at least, perhaps more, and to varying degrees. We are reasonable: we have the ability to think critically and logically, and we have the ability to agree and disagree and, furthermore, to match evidence with logic to give compelling reasons Why or Why Not to believe that something is true. (By extension, however misunderstood it may be, we also have the freedom to act in accordance with what we believe to be reasonable.) We communicate with one another and, at least, with other reasonable being(s). We are creative: we can imagine and produce, either in fictional writings or in novel invention, ideas and things that did not exist beforehand. We are moral beings, each with a conscience by which we judge whether a thing, action, thought, &c., is Good (or Right) or not. Ultimately, we are all spiritual beings, created with a knowledge that something greater than ourselves not only exists, but draws us.

Moreover, and less popularly, we all have a little something inside ourselves that enjoys doing that which secretly we know is Bad or Wrong, even if just for the act of itself.

Give the characteristics of a healthy personality:

A healthy personality will be one which expresses a certainty about its own validity and existence both apart from and in interaction with others. It may do this by evidencing in the individual a confident demeanor, one that works well in relative harmony with others and especially within its own context (i.e., there is a point at which the healthy personality is “happy,” or favorably inclined toward life, regardless of whether that is in the presence of others or by itself). The evidence of a healthy personality will be the consistent performance of behavior that is beneficial for itself and for other persons.

Very importantly, the healthy personality will be able to differentiate between patterns of behavior that are illustrative of his or her worldview (thus necessarily performed regardless of social context) and which are culturally expected and do not impinge on one’s sense of self. (Contrastingly, the unhealthy personality may be rigid and unadaptive in most or all behaviors, believing that any deviation from the set pattern will damage, dilute, corrupt, or abase one’s individuality; which will give rise to difficulties both for that person and for others with whom s/he comes in contact. The person who cannot accommodate himself or herself to certain standards of behavior without sacrificing his/her sense of self will be, at best, embarrassed; and at worst, arrested. [E.g.: Try telling your C.O. or the professor of your eight o’ clock class that it is a threat to your vampiric, night-owlish lifestyle and/or personality that you should arise at such an early hour!])

When you first meet a person and have no prior knowledge concerning the person, on what basis do you characterize, stereotype, or decide to act toward and interact with that person?

First, look into the eyes and notice self-confidence, clarity of focus, self- and external awareness. Second, body posture, carriage of oneself; and clothing items, and how the two mesh. If there comes to light in conversation a penetrating understanding or a willingness to understand the world (as opposed to being a reactive individual, dominated by norms, and without justification for much of what s/he thinks or does), I will begin to trust that person. If s/he and I can find common ground experientially, this trust grows slowly until I have reason to suspect that there is reason not to trust (or have proof).

Usually, regardless of whether I trust a person, I try to pick up on body language (posture, &c.) and even verbal cues (accent, speech cadence, word order, enunciation, and so on) and adapt my own speech and demeanor accordingly, if in a very minor way; not so as to be mocking or obnoxious, but so as to engender comfort in the other person. (Whether or not they pick up on this consciously, it usually helps put the other person at ease.) This is not necessarily true for all first meetings, but it usually is the case; and I cannot at this point really say whether it’s solely for the other person’s ease or whether I enjoy doing it as a challenge to myself to see how adaptive I can be in certain situations.

It was given as a task in my personality class to answer a list of questions dealing with personality theory (i.e., the construct and idea itself, not one specific one). Namely, we were to give our opinions on all sorts of things. This was on one sheet, intended perhaps to be answered in shorthand. I decided to go one better. The next few posts will be about my answers; I will be posting in the forums this evening asking you—yes, YOU! dear reader, what you think and how you feel on these issues. Here’s the start.

Define personality:
Personality comprises all of the individual facets of behavior, outlook, levels of cognitive functioning, and interactions with others both individually and societally (including to a limited extent the understanding of philosophical underpinnings by which one justifies his or her actions, consciously or unconsciously) that belong to an individual. It is, therefore, specific to one person but is highly dynamic in its potential expression from any given person.

Define self:
Self is the sentience that allows each individual to differentiate between that which is himor herself and that which is not; and which may be actively and variously expressed, may interact with the environment, and so on. (The self is edified through dialectic with other selves to help it recognize its own individuality.)

Define normal behavior:Behavior that is (1) socially acceptable, within certain limits (be they tacit or explicit); (2) statistically within one or two standard deviations of what the majority of the population does; and (3) generally benign to oneself or to others, within the context of (1).

http://web.media.mit.edu/~ladyada/make/minty/index.html

It’s things like this that make me wish I knew how to solder and that I’d stuck with that introductory circuits class lo these many years ago.

Runs off a Flash memory card. Yes, you can get an iPod for under a hundred bucks (100USD) but with this, you can boast that you’ve made your own for half that (the time it takes to make and recover from the endless burns and shocks, of course, notwithstanding)! I’d almost be willing to pay $75 or so just to have one of these for the novelty of it. Almost.

For those of you who have made this and tried it yourself, what do you think? And would you be willing to part with it for a good offer?

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/01/06/svn_homedir.html

Joey Hess just published an article on how he’s been keeping his home directory in some kind of version control system (CVS before, and now, Subversion) for five years now.

How many of us have carelessly either failed to back up—or have lost the backups—of our precious work into which we have poured countless hours of toil? Surely anyone who has ever sat at a computer typing an email message into an Internet Explorer window for an hour or three on a web-based email system only to have the computer freeze or bluescreen knows the rage and sorrow that follows even such a comparatively minor loss of data!

I hope in my next successful Linux install I’ll be able to implement this to keep all my documents straight.

-> I found this via Chris’s blog, one to watch on the technology side of things. Cheers!

In a quick break from the typical post on ThinkBlog, I have a personal request. I’m in the market for a CD player that also supports the Ogg Vorbis format. Honestly, I don’t even care if it does MP3s as long as Ogg support is there, though having the latter without the former would probably be an unwise business decision, so I expect that the options will be pricey.

Here’s what I’ve found so far. The iRiver iFP-790 looks good, except it can’t do CDs and somehow, ~$130 for the amount of storage seems a little high, though I might be willing to pay it if it’s my only option. Weighing in at 20 GB, the hard drive Rio Karma player seems like a good option, but since the Rio has been the biggest name apart from Apple in the portable MP3 player category, I think the price might be jacked up for the name.

Any suggestions?