Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,690
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
He'd examine the output log.Hmmmm, I wonder what a proctologist would make of this?
He'd examine the output log.Hmmmm, I wonder what a proctologist would make of this?
He'd examine the output log.
There seems to be quite a lot of posters on here who have been boning up on psychology, or maybe studying it at Uni. Well done you, but we are getting lots of off the peg phrases like `cognitive dissonance` and `confirmation bias` and so on.
I would ask you - and those with a similar attitude -to try and distinguish between a mood - a mood of weariness - and an actual thought out conclusion.
So you've bean studying `Forteana` (hate the word!) for twenty years. That's quite a long time (although it's been a lot longer for me). So a feeling of `been there/done that` jadedness descends on you. This is natural, but is nothing more than a form of tiredness.
To use an analogy: a guy is heavily into music in his twenties and thirties. He goes to see new bands/concerts, whatever, reads the music press avidly, maybe has a band of his own...and so on. Then somewhere, let's say, in his mid-forties the jadedness creeps in. He starts saying that there's no good new music anymore...and then later on, by extension, he adds that even the stuff that he onced liked is a bit overrated and so on.
Of course this is nonsense: nothing has changed except him. He has become jaded. And being jaded is a subjective state of mind - not a worked out position. Don't be bluffed by it.
...Another thing to be wary of on the same lines is to think too much within the box of your own specialism. ...
... It is natural that a psychologist would see everything as being `all in the mind` - because their specialism dictates that. A chemist thinks everything is one big chemical reaction. An ecenomist thinks that everything is dictated by economic forces.A specialist in `the media` thinks that everything is a `media construct` (hence Fortean Times's very own `UFO correspondent`!)
So someone sees - let's say - a `ghost`. The psychologist will immediately focus on the witness as the subject (and potential patient). Why have they hallucianated thus? Of course the witness could have seen a chemical reaction. Or an economic force. Or a media construct. Or maybe even.... a ghost.
As Freud himself said: `Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar`.
... Then again you wouldn't be over-extrapolating would you? By this I mean drawing a general conclusion from a specific circumstance.
So I used to be entranced by the whole Loch Ness Monster thing. So I read up on it. After much doing so, and some thinking, and some internet exchages of views I concluded with reluctance that there is nothing to the story - it's just a mix of local folklore, misperceptions and the tourist trade.
Now if I were to over-extrapolate I would then attach this conclusion onto all other unexplained mysteries. So the Loch Ness Monster is a sham ergo so must UFOs be - because that's another Unexplained Mystery mentioned in the same breath, isn't it? But this just doesn't follow. ...