Fine Art Tuesday

Nikolai Bodarevsky born in Ukraine 1850, died 1921.

Famous for creating images of pretty girls in the days before "selfies"

Looking at these images, I doubt that he ever had to work very hard to have pretty girls clamoring for his attention.

 

To my readers in Florida...

I will be praying for you.

Most of you have been through this before. Be careful around downed power-lines. Stay hydrated and if you are working at clean-up, plan on a break every hour.

May God be with you all.

Paradigms and Cognitive-dissonance

Q: What is a paradigm?

A: Twenty cents.

Humor aside, a paradigm is a world-view that functions to bring order and structure that defines "relationships" between elements

It is not too far fetched to say a person's paradigm(s) are like his skeleton. It provides the framework that muscles join to, joints interface between the individual bones, fat and organs hang from it and skin sheaths it.

The "rules" set by the skeleton dictate how the entire system physically navigates through space.

One of the major functions of a person's paradigm is to be a filter. We are drowning in data. In a busy restaurant we are pummeled with dozens of conversations running concurrently, we interacting with the wait-staff and we are keeping an eye on the dodgy people who come schlepping through the doors.

Without a paradigm and its inferred rule-set, we would not be able to discard 98% of the information that we are pelted with and still function. Does 98% sound too high? Consider that you are really only listening to about 20% of what the person you are dining with is saying. 98% of the information being discarded might be a low estimate.

Shifting analogies from a skeleton to a trash-filter in a canal, our paradigms generally only admit information that is in alignment with our "filters". It allows information that confirms our mental-models and automatically rejects any information that is on consistent with our models.

Implications

Suppose you disagree with your boss on an important topic and every time you run across a bit of information that supports your viewpoint, you drop it into an email and send it to her. After sending dozens and dozens of emails, admittedly with some of the info-nuggets only tangentially supporting your opinion, you confront your boss and ask if they have changed their mind.

Guess what. She deleted them and forgot that you sent it thirty seconds later. If it made any impression upon her, it is that you are an ass who eats up her precious time.

The only way to get information through her filters is to overwhelm them with one, huge, crashing, irresistible and undeniable blow. The filters become overwhelmed and collapse. Trickling information simply does not work.

It is very much to your advantage if you information is vivid and hits at a gut-level. Paradigm-filters work well for dry and boring information. They are less well developed for filtering out vivid information.

An example: There are two candidates competing for the seat in Michigan's 7th US District. One candidate is re-running the ads their party ran two years ago, ads that talk about "percents". The other  candidate is showing footage of their opponent perspiring and twitchy and all shifty-eyed.

Guess which ad is more likely to drill through undecided voter's paradigm filters? Yep, the one where the candidate looks like a drug-addict in need of a fix trying to scam a little-old-lady.

Wrap-up

Exposing somebody to "truth" is not enough to cause cognitive dissonance.

The "TRUTH" must be a massive boulder that cannot be explained away. It must be uncomfortable and not be going away. It must be a truth that cannot be easily 'splained away by random chance or venial corruption. It must sit cross-wise of the wires in the trash-filter and have enough momentum to crash through them.

Odds and ends

October 7 is when Hamas (possibly) lit the fuse of WWIII. To-date, Israel, Gaza/West-bank, Lebanon, Syria and Iran are duking it out while other wanna-be combatants are chomping at the bit. Today is also the anniversary of when Christian forces defeated the Muslim navy at Lepanto in 1571. I wonder if Hamas's choice of when to assault Israel was based on the anniversary of Lepanto.

Buzz-word alert

"Epigenetic inheritance" is a hypothesis that attempts to make "generational guilt" sound scientific.

The mental gymnastics follow: Trauma inflicted on one generation invariably damages later generations. The most commonly proposed mechanism involves cortisol (and other stress-marker hormones) being passed through the placenta and re-wiring the baby's brain in-utero. 

A sample of "epigenic inheritance" would be

If your mother experienced domestic violence, then you are far more likely to also experience domestic violence (either as perpetrator or as victim) in your adult life because of epigenetic inheritance.

If your grandmother experienced domestic violence...you are still far more likely to experience domestic violence...

The suggestion that a person is a victim due to circumstances totally beyond their control suggests that there are actors who victimized them and unrectified injustices exist.

The beauty of "epigenetic inheritance" from the standpoint of the victim-hucksters is that the victim has no agency so damages must be paid by somebody else (i.e. the government).

The fact is that the child who grows up in a house where domestic violence occurs imprints the interpersonal "skills" of the adults in the house. Skills that are passively absorbed can be actively upgraded but that doesn't suit the purposes of the poverty and race hustlers.

Get used to seeing the phrase "epigenetic inheritance" and "epigenetic trauma". If somebody lays that on you at a party, remind them that it is a hypothesis.

Bucks on the property

A nice little six-point, eastern count.

We also have a three point who wanders by the trail cam.

Nothing spectacular but it is heartening to see some antlers.

Mast report

The chestnuts set a very heavy crop but then the nuts didn't fill, maybe because of the dry-spell. One tree was in a more favorable spot so I got SOME chestnuts.

Raccoons are climbing the persimmon trees and breaking the branches. The deer come in during the morning and mop up what has fallen. I need to pick my Lehmen's Delight if I expect to have any seeds from them.

I have a couple of varieties with a lot of kaki in them, Journey and Dave's Kandy Korn. They have not been very impressive in Michigan. The Journey is early but very seedy.

Implications of "Rationalizing-thinking" versus "Rational-thinking"

Because of the backwards-looking nature of Rationalizing-thinking processes, the person who engages in that practice focuses on the evidence that supports the view that their decisions are righteous and discounts all evidence that implies that they are at least partially responsible for poor outcomes. Limitations on human mental processing capacity means this happens over time as the story is combed through and tweaked. The "narrative" of the Rationalizing-thinker morphs over time as it is edited and as new "events" occur that must be explained.

That contrasts to the Rational thinker whose view of incoming data is agnostic. The data enables the Rational thinker to change directions or fine-tune a current direction. He EXPECTS to change and make adjustments.

Narcissists are the ultimate Rationalizing thinkers. They are vindictive...because they are always right and their actions are always righteous and justified. Woe unto the mortal who crosses the Narcissist! Penalties are extreme and mercy does not exist.

The human mind is malleable and conforms to our actions (cognitive dissonance). We become what we do. Our cultural tolerance for Rationalizing thinking, our ENCOURAGEMENT for Rationalizing thinking, creates people with narcissistic traits.

The pathological shirking of responsibility comes at a personal cost to the person with Narcissistic traits. For one thing, it "proves" that the Narcissist is powerless since outside agents invariably cause them to fail. That turns them into very angry, very unforgiving people. Eventually, they run out of people in their lives to reject. Some of them turn to cats and box-wine and television.

Originally intended as humor...but it applies here

I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess.

Not a prayer a Rationalizing-thinker would entertain. The Narcissist changes history, not themselves.

We are not "Rational". Rather, we are "Rationalizing"

We humans are not rational.

That point was hammered home again last afternoon and evening.

Southern Belle is expanding the "bench" of babysitters for Quicksilver.

At 1:00 PM yesterday, the time Southern Belle had directed the babysitter to put Quicksilver down for a nap, the babysitter decided that a nap was not necessary for Quicksilver.

When Southern Belle picked up Quicksilver, the babysitter defended the decision by saying "Quicksilver said she didn't WANT a nap. I started to "put her down" and she said "No." "

That is when Southern Belle knew we were in for a very rough evening.

Toddlers who miss their nap become fragile and respond to stresses that they would normally shrug-off by throwing tantrums, sweeping items off of tables, throwing things, hitting and biting. They become bundles of barbed wire, broken glass and over-heated nitroglycerine.

Nosirree, last afternoon and evening was not a fun time to be at Casa ERJ!

"The authenticity of our own, lived experiences"

One of the marketing gimmicks of the Progressives is the idea that individual, lived experiences are better than history, better than culture which is the distilled wisdom of a thousand generations and millions of people.

Culture says "Put the baby down for the nap". Quicksilver's authentic, lived experiences said "I don't need one today".

The gimmick says "The baby is the ultimate authority of what is best for them."  Heady stuff for somebody who is immature.

We have very imperfect models of our internal thinking processes. We do many things for trivial and random reasons and then back-fill with hundreds of reasons why it was "intelligent" and "smart".

Pointing that out will make you very unpopular and will get you uninvited to parties.

An example of pointing out flawed thinking at a social event

"So you say you were "Gay" from birth?  What color were the doctor's eyes and what were the names of the nurses who attended to your mother as you were being born? If you had awareness at birth, those are things you should also remember..."

The narrative (a word I hate, by the way) is that an LGBT person deserves special legal protections because they were born that way and they had no choice in the matter, identical to a person born with deeply pigmented skin. That belief absolves them of having to defend hundreds of other awkward decisions.

If they were "born that way" then it must be genetic or due to in-utero insults; those are the only two possibilities. If that is the case, then the rate of LGBT people should be constant or slowly declining due to better pre-natal science. But the last time I looked, the rate of LGBT was approximately 2%-to-4% for the generations who are now over 40 and approaching 25% for women between 20 years old and 30 years old. That cannot be genetics and what kind of in-utero trauma would only impact mothers carrying baby girls in the years 1994-through-2004?

Ironically, the people who consider themselves to be the most "rational" are blind to this distinction. They are typically the worst offenders at "rationalizing after-the-fact" and assuming they are being rational.

Final thoughts

As the old hunters say, the time to do your hunting is before you pull the trigger, not afterward.

If that is not clear to the non-hunters:

Do your research before you shoot

• Practice with your weapon until you know its limitations
• Get permission to hunt before you set out
• Select the specific animal you intend to harvest (don't shoot at the flock of ducks)
  
• Carefully stalk until you are within a range where you are certain you will "make" the shot
• Or, wait patiently on the stand until the animal wanders within that range
• Wait until the animal presents an ethical, high-percentage shot. Don't shoot at a darting head or at the north-end of a south-bound animal.
• If you cannot keep the crosshairs of the scope on the money-shot, pass-up the shot.

DO NOT:

• Force the shot or count on luck
• Then hunt for the wounded animal(s) after you pulled the trigger
  

Hunting before you pull the trigger results in much meat in the freezer.

Hunting after you pull the trigger results in lots of dead animals, sore feet and no meat in the freezer.

Rational thinking results in smooth and harmonious relationships.

Rationalizing thinking results in barbed wire, broken glass and over-heated nitroglycerine.

Still here...

20 yards of shredded bark delivered this morning.

Two trips to yea-old-big-box store for items like screws and steel roofing panels.

Star drive deck screws are one of the items I expect to go up in price.

The ten-year average price for steel re-bar is about $3800 per ton or $2/pound.

1 pound of 3", #9 AC2 compatible screws (70 count) costs $9.

5 pounds of the same costs $29 or $6 a pound.

25 pounds of the same costs $100 or $4 a pound.

I also use a lot of 1-5/8" screws, so I bought a few of those, too.

The air-stapler assembles things fast. A few screws in highly stressed places is cheap insurance.

In other news...

I harvested two persimmons from a K-6 seedling. They were not soft-like-jelly ripe, so I will let them ripen on the shelf until they are. Expect a quality report in the future. The tree is already top-worked to Lehman's Delight but it is nice to have the under-stock produce quality fruit because all of the root-suckers will be genetic clones of the under-stock and persimmons can be prolific sucker producers.

A few Northern Spy are still hanging on the tree. They are not in prime condition but they are still edible.

No rain in the forecast for the next ten days. It is getting crunchy underfoot.