NationStates Jolt Archive

Can anyone explain the meaning of the phrase "Fear is failure?"

If someone can explain it I've got a ton more where that one came from.

...hmm I'll give it a shot:

If you are fearful to try something and not take a shot at something new, you will fail at it no mater what.

?

If you go into something fearing it instead of embracing the challenge or chance to confront it, you're likely going to fail at it. It's all in your mind.

My take on that one is that fear keeps one from attempting, which gives the same result as trying and failing.

Those are all very nice ideas (all about the same basically, but that's another story) but none of them are what I'm looking for and I don't know how to guide the discussion the way I want without ruining it. Oh well, was worth a shot.

Not sure where your headed OE. Many people believe that the fear of failure is the ultimate cause of failure in a great number of instances. But you don't seem to be looking down that road.

This doesn't have anything to do with the TV show 'Fear Factor' does it?

Not sure where your headed OE. Many people believe that the fear of failure is the ultimate cause of failure in a great number of instances. But you don't seem to be looking down that road.

This doesn't have anything to do with the TV show 'Fear Factor' does it?

Not even remotely. Or at least I hadn't thought of it, it could be made to relate, but I hadn't intended it.

I've been thinking and writing about the concept that fear is failure and I've come to the conclusion that it is simplistic and should be: "Fear is the failure to love," which does not have the judgmental tone of "fear is failure" while maintaining the truth of its sentiment.

Not even remotely. Or at least I hadn't thought of it, it could be made to relate, but I hadn't intended it.

I've been thinking and writing about the concept that fear is failure and I've come to the conclusion that it is simplistic and should be: "Fear is the failure to love," which does not have the judgmental tone of "fear is failure" while maintaining the truth of its sentiment.Hmm.. I personally think "fear is the failure to understand". Seems to be a more universal encompassing way of saying the same thing I think you're trying to expess.

Hmm.. I personally think "fear is the failure to understand". Seems to be a more universal encompassing way of saying the same thing I think you're trying to expess.

"Fear is failure" aren't my words originally. I think, also, that it could be said that anything that is truly understood is loved. And also that love is failure to fear, and that without one the other becomes meaningless. At the same time, if each is the failure to reckognize the other then indifferences is the failure to reckognize both, and do reckognize the balance between the two. So I think it's a double bind situation, in every possible position we fail, so who cares?

I was once really frightened when confronted by a large salivating dog! does that mean I failed to love?

"Fear is failure" aren't my words originally. I think, also, that it could be said that anything that is truly understood is loved. And also that love is failure to fear, and that without one the other becomes meaningless. At the same time, if each is the failure to reckognize the other then indifferences is the failure to reckognize both, and do reckognize the balance between the two. So I think it's a double bind situation, in every possible position we fail, so who cares?I'm not sure I agree with your assesment of Fear and Love being polar to each other.

Somehow the word 'Grok' keeps popping to mind when I think of polar themes to 'fear'.

I'm not sure I agree with your assesment of Fear and Love being polar to each other.

Somehow the word 'Grok' keeps popping to mind when I think of polar themes to 'fear'.

Same with me, but it's not the word, just the sound, or it is the word, but it always turns into Grauccus Gruad.

As for pola opposites of fear and love, that's a long, long, debate, but I believe, from my understanding of the psychology of the person who started "fear is failure" that they intended it to mean "failure to love." I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that I'm not.

That which we fear controls us, so fear is a failure of freedom. But that which we love controls us also, so love is a failure of freedom. Every emotional attachment outside ourselves, and even from one part of ourself to another gives up some portion and manner of our freedom to that which we are attached to. The "Tar-baby" principle applies to more than just the attachment that enemies have to each other, it applies to any emotion applied to any object. Unfortunately, the complete rejection of emotion doesn't seem to result in complete freedom because there seems to be only one path through apathy. Complete indifference is as much a failure of freedom as love or fear, or hate if you wish to use that as an opposite for love. Sacrificing emotion is the same as sacrificing will, without constraints there can be no will, and without will there is no self, the body merely exists and runs through scripts written for it before birth. So we seem to be faced with the hopeless proposition that freedom is impossible, I suppose that leaves us only the option to question the validity of the belief that freedom is desirable if we are not to collapse into heaps of jelly. On ther other hand... emotional attachment to freedom is itself a failure of freedom because we become subject to that which will bring us freedom, in whatever form we percieve it. A free society is a totalitarian society that doesn't understand its methods. Democracy is a dictatorship of the culture over the cultured rather than of a monarch over his subjects, but the effects are the same. For love of freedom we sacrifice freedom. Another double bind situation, but the classic solution to these situations has been to stop trying, which seems to lead right back to servitude where we started, so I'm left thinking this is a problem designed with layer upon layer in infinite sequece to provide no escape from the double bind, go up or down as you choose, but you'll always stay in the same place.

I was once really frightened when confronted by a large salivating dog! does that mean I failed to love?

I could give you some sentimental bullshit about you not loving the dog, not loving the power the dog has over you, and so falling deeper into that power, but that would be a waste of... oops I just did it. :)

I'm not sure if you understood the term 'grok'. I'm refering to the Heinlien novel 'Stranger in a strange land'. The word means to understand emphaticly on an almost spiritual level. I've always thought of it as that understanding being without judgement or emotional baggage getting in the way. It seems the antithesis of fear.

I agree with your assesment that fear and love control us, but I'm not sure if the two can be thought of as equal or the control they each exert as being equal. For one I'm not sure I attach the same negative conotation on the control Love exerts over us as I would that of Fear. I can't help but feel we have some choice in both but only Fear seems to be a negative choice in every incidence. Love is one of those things that seems to be able to exert a negative or positive control on one's life. I mean love of my children controls my choices regarding many things but somehow I can't see that in the same light as I would the control fear of something would effect me.

You seem to be exploring some dark themes tonight OE, everything OK?

I'm not sure if you understood the term 'grok'. I'm refering to the Heinlien novel 'Stranger in a strange land'. The word means to understand emphaticly on an almost spiritual level. I've always thought of it as that understanding without being without judgement or emotional baggage getting in the way. It seems the antithesis of fear.

I agree with your assesment that fear and love control us, but I'm not sure if the two can be thought of as equal or the control they each exert as being equal. For one I'm not sure I attach the same negative conotation on the control Love exerts over us as I would that of Fear. I can't help but feel we have some choice in both but only Fear seems to be a negative choice in every incidence. Love is one of those things that seems to be able to exert a negative or positive control on one's life. I mean love of my children controls my choices regarding many things but somehow I can't see that in the same light as I would the control fear of something would effect me.

You seem to be exploring some dark themes tonight OE, everything OK?

So I was writing a reply, and I had gotten pretty far, but then I got distracted by the optical illusion where the same sade of grey square looks different based on what surrounds it or what is inside of it on my surge protector and accidentally pressed the button to turn off the power to my computer because the light is burned out so I didn't think about the fact that it was on.

Anyway...

I understand "grok" in the same way that you did, but I was first introduced to it by an author who seems to idolize James Joyce, and as such I have to read what he writes with a view for similarities in sound as well as in semantic meaning. So "grok" and "Graccaus Gruad" struck me as similar, and it even makes sense because Gruad was the only person in the novel to really grok what many of the characters claim to stand for.

From the point of view of freedom as the only goal love is as "bad" as fear. They are on equal footing when it comes to taking control away from the individual and giving it to others. With that said love can be viewed as better than fear from the point of view of a realistic person because freedom is not generally viewed as the ultimate goal, or even as a goal in itself, but as a means to greater happiness, so giving up some freedom for the sake of love is reasonable, and even profitable, in the simple sense that it can bring greater happiness than the freedom it takes. Of course, it could be argued, that "rational" fears, such as the fear of death are also worth the loss in freedom because of their preservatory nature, but that leaves us back where we started and seems to be at odds with setting happiness as the ultimate goal, which it seems we must if we are to allow love to infringe on freedom. Love of your children is a sacrifice in freedom that you made. This is a concept that many people understand, even if they don't put it in exactly these words. Think of how much more free time you had before you had kids, think of the things that you and your spouse were able to do before you had kids, you gave up all those things, all that freedom for the sake of the love you knew would manifest in your children. I suppose a rational analysis like that could render positives for some fears as well as some loves, but it seems to me that love will render positive more often than fear.

Also, going back to the idea that love and fear are necessary parts of the same whole, we can view every love as a fear and every fear as a love. For instance, love of your children can be viewed as a manifestation of your fear of death because where biological immortality seems impossible to the general public the DNA scripts running within them tell them that they can live on in the memories of their children as well as passing on their DNA and living on in that way, even after they are gone from the conscious of their descendents. Conversely, fear of death can lead to love of one's children for all the same reasons. Love and fear necessitate each other in the same way that life and death necessitate each other. Before there was life there was no death, but without death there could be no life.

The Dark Night of the Soul? or am I just being pretentious? Everything's fine, I'm just on a trip but I have no sacrament, just words.

It must be getting late, your correlations between love and fear are starting to make real sense. I've more to add but my shift is over. I don't know if I'll be able to log on at home and continue this but I'll try. Funny the stuff that hits you late at night.

It must be getting late, your correlations between love and fear are starting to make real sense. I've more to add but my shift is over. I don't know if I'll be able to log on at home and continue this but I'll try. Funny the stuff that hits you late at night.

I hope you get a chance to come back and continue even if it can't be right away. It's rare that I can actually find anyone who will actually do a little thinking and talk to me about some of the more esoteric things I enjoy thinking about.

Can anyone explain the meaning of the phrase "Fear is failure?"

If someone can explain it I've got a ton more where that one came from.
If fear of acting causes you to not act, you have failed.

pain=fear, fear=weakness, weakness=deafet, defeat=failure


dont take a rocket scienctist to work that out.

pain=fear, fear=weakness, weakness=deafet, defeat=failure


dont take a rocket scienctist to work that out.

Well, aside from not starting with fear and ending with failure that series of equations contains a number of unsupportable claims.

First, pain != fear. If they were then same then how would fear of pain work. Pain is a reaction of the body, fear is a reaction of the mind, the two are often related, but they are not equvilent. Second, fear != weakness. Weakness can manifest itself in many forms, sometimes as fear, but also sometimes as love, sometimes as hate, sometimes as an inability to perform a task (lifting a weight of a certain size for instance). Weakness is a very complicated idea and is generally misused. "I am too weak" is not a complete sentence. "I am to weak to ____" is a complete sentence, just as "It is so hot" is not a complete sentence while "It is so hot that I'm sweating" is. All fear is essentially the same, it is a linear sliding scale, greater apparent danger causes greater fear, but the fear is not different, only more. Weakness is not the same sort of sliding scale, it is very much dependent on situation for form as well as scale. Weakness=defeat just doesn't make much sense, and defeat=failure ignores the nuances of both defeat and failure.

Semantics and epistemology are at least as complicated as rocket science, if not more.

smarty arse lol. good point actually, but i got mine from the british army, thats what my platoon work on.

smarty arse lol. good point actually, but i got mine from the british army, thats what my platoon work on.

As much as I respect that some people are willing to surrender their lives to a will beyond their own for the sake of protecting something they believe in, the army is one of the most destructive organizations of liberty.

Hey OE, didn't get on last night but I'm back. Got a few minutes while I hunt for CO/CO2 monitors (can you believe no one makes a monitor that does both gases?).

Anyway I was thinking about the control Love and Fear have over us and came to the conclusion that Love is the bigger controller. At least as far as I'm concerned. I do a lot of things for Love and some can be twisted to be a fear oriented control, such as construing things you do for your kids as a fear for their safety etc., but very few aspects of my life are controlled by pure fear. I'm not sure I consider intelligent survival choices as fear controls. I mean I engage in risky behavior by concious act, if it's the type of risk that skill or competence can overcome, I just do so with confidence that I have the skills to avoid catastophic results. I don't however engage in needless risk, the type that involves essentially rolling the dice and hoping snake-eyes doesn't come up, russian roullette type behavior. I don't attribute that to succumbing to fear, that's just intelligent choices.

Fear is primal. It is the basic up/down that we first imprint upon our infant brains. You shrink down from that which threatens or frightens. You raise up to that which nurtures or you feel comfort with. Love is more complex. It combines fear with a miriad of other emotions. It has the power to exert controls in so many more ways than fear. It can control you in ways that are so subtle you may not even be aware of them.

Thinking it over and I think I got my recollections of neural imprint sequence confused. Forward/Back is the first, not up/down, that's second. Forward/back equates to desire/fear, up/down to dominate/submissive. Been a long time since I first read that stuff and I don't think what I consider the definitive source, Master and Houston's "Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer", is even in print anymore, so it's hard to check my recollection. It's all hypothesis, but it made a lot of sense to me and made it's own imprint on my young mind.

Hey OE, didn't get on last night but I'm back. Got a few minutes while I hunt for CO/CO2 monitors (can you believe no one makes a monitor that does both gases?).

Anyway I was thinking about the control Love and Fear have over us and came to the conclusion that Love is the bigger controller. At least as far as I'm concerned. I do a lot of things for Love and some can be twisted to be a fear oriented control, such as construing things you do for your kids as a fear for their safety etc., but very few aspects of my life are controlled by pure fear. I'm not sure I consider intelligent survival choices as fear controls. I mean I engage in risky behavior by concious act, if it's the type of risk that skill or competence can overcome, I just do so with confidence that I have the skills to avoid catastophic results. I don't however engage in needless risk, the type that involves essentially rolling the dice and hoping snake-eyes doesn't come up, russian roullette type behavior. I don't attribute that to succumbing to fear, that's just intelligent choices.

Fear is primal. It is the basic up/down that we first imprint upon our infant brains. You shrink down from that which threatens or frightens. You raise up to that which nurtures or you feel comfort with. Love is more complex. It combines fear with a miriad of other emotions. It has the power to exert controls in so many more ways than fear. It can control you in ways that are so subtle you may not even be aware of them.

That's interesting. I don't really know much about monitors, but I hope you find what you're looking for.

You know... Freud divided the mind into the id, the ego, and the super ego, but these three can be seen as analigous to Timothy Leary's robot, programmer, and metaprogrammer. The robot doesn't love, but it does fear. The body's natural reactions are entirely based on one fear or another, generally centered around a fear of death and the search for immortality. However, the programmer can both love and fear, and the metaprogrammer can only love. Our conscious mind can love and it can fear, we can consciously acknowledge a danger and fear it, even without the body triggering the activation reflexes and preparing to fight or flea, and we can consciously acknowledge objects of our love, and emote toward them in a sense that is beyond the sensations that the body alone is capable of producing. The metaprogrammer, or metaconscious, in turn, cannot fear because it exists in a state of pure reason, unaffected by the inherent fears of the body. Buddhism seeks to put total control of the body into the hands of the metaconscious while hedonism seeks to put total control in the hands of the id, or robot and common society tries to put total control in the hands of the ego. We can think of the robot's fears as organic and the consciousness' fears as mechanical (even though the metaphors seem backwards). A hedonist, controlled only by the id, is the pure organic being, no higher brain functions are necessary, so none occur. The moralist, controlled primarily by the ego is an organic being with mechanical, artificial, "man-made" fears impressed over the organic fears of instinct. Both the hedonist and the moralist will flea from a 1500 pound grizzly bear, but only the moralist is afraid of hell because of things the hedonist would do in a heartbeat. Society creates an interesting mix between organic and mechanical fears. The society takes the organic fears of naturally hedonistic children, and imprints over that whatever set of social standards it wishes, creating a mechanical framework within which the organic being can work. People incapable of living peacefully within societies mechanical boundries are labeled as neurotic or psychotic and ostrisized because their round organic minds cannot be squeezed through societies rigid square holes. The most interesting aspect, to my mind, of the way in which societies create these rigid mechanical fear structures is that they use the simplest conditioning methods, like those of B.F. Skinner, to do it. Conform to society's dictates and you are rewarded with currency (can be social standing, money in the common sense, prestige, anything that the id would want). Disobey the society's dictates and you are threatened with violence (even passive violence, loss of money supply, which means loss of food supply). In this manner the artificial fears of the society are attached to the organic fears of the body and of the id for the purpose of maintaining the social organism as a whole. Anyway, I have digressed somewhat. The id fears organically and naturally, the ego fears mechanically through associations made to organic fears, but at the same time loves mechanically based on the positive conditioning of the society. In essense, love (for the ego) is an unintended side effect of the mechanical fears instilled into all people by their societies. We love those things which remove fear. We love our family because they represent extensions of ourselves and provide us with an escape from death. We love moeny (though many people refuse to admit it, but most people in capitalist societies love money in the same way they love their family) because it brings us food (it's not sinister or cynical to love money, it's only practical since money means survival) as well as pleasure. In other words, by saying, "if you fail to follow our edicts we will take your money" with the intent of scary people into conformity, society simultaniously sets money aside as that thing which contradicts fear. What is there to fear if you have enough money? The problem is that the organic fears keep coming back. That's why many wealthy people, despite having more money than they could ever practically spend, seek to get more money, they're so stuck in societies conditioning that they are convinced that they simply don't have enough money to make the fear go away, that there only problem is quantitiy. It never occurs to them that no ammount of money is enough to remove the fear of death. The suicide rate among the very wealthy seems astounding to people living from paycheck to paycheck. "Look how much money he had, and he still couldn't handle it?" they ask. The truth is that money can remove fear, but not indefinitely, some fear can be removed by money, but some cannot, and when some people realize that, once they have millions and millions, even billions of dollars they become hopeless and often kill themselves because they view that as the only true escape from the fear. "There are some things worse than death" is an incredibly perceptive saying. The fear of death can be far worse than death itself, especially when the only thing that gave you hope (money in the case of people who are extremely driven to be "successful" so that they can escape the organic fear of death) turns out not to be able to destroy your fear. I hesitate to say that no mechanical associate to an organic fear can trump that organic fear because people who die for their religious beliefs despite being given a chance to "repent" seem to prove that in some situations a mechanical fear (fear of hell) can be more powerful than an organic fear (fear of death). I think perhaps in that specific case the fear of death is overcome by the belief that death is not final, and that there exists a life after death, and even that that life could be better than our current one. I'm not going to speculate on that subject, at least not right now, but suffice it to say that whether there is a life after death or not, the fear of death is real and organic, and exists in everyone, even if they manage to overcome it through faith. So now we come to the final component of the mind (barring Von Neumann's Catastrophe of the infite regress, metametaconsciousness and metametametaconsciousness and so on forever) the superego or metaconsciousness. Like I said, Buddhism attempts to put total control of the body and mind in control of the metaconscioussness. "All life is love" said Buddha, as well as many other spiritual leaders, including Jesus. Buddha taught that love conquers fear, and that by overcoming fear and reckognizing the singular truth that all life is love, we can overcome our fears, even to the point of overcoming death. If we place complete control over the body into the hands of the metaconsciousness, which can only love in an organic way, we may escape death and all our fears entirely, existing in a state of somatic extacy. I'm finding it hard to avoid mystical language here, but I'll do my best. The id fears organically, the ego loves and fears mechanically, and the superego loves organically. Just to go back for a moment to clarify something. Buddha said both that all life is love and that all life is pain. The challenge of using the same words for different meanings is a difficult one, but hopefully context will help us form our arguments. All life as it exists, in the control of the id and the ego, is pain. All life as it can be, in control of the superego is love. Anyway, the superego represents a part of the mind free from the organic fears of the body and the mechanical fears (and mechanical loves) of the ego.

Well I've totally lost my train of thought, but to tie this briefly back into the concept of love and fear as antagonistic to freedom, I think that both the hedonist's universal fear and the enlightened superego's universal love and manifestations of a universal servitude. Any universal emotional attachment seems to lock a person into a single viable course of action for any given situation. Within the ego lies a number of possible acceptable alternatives based on the balance of mechanical loves and fears.

To put it graphically:

|-|------|-|

The first section represents dominance of the id and presents a single course of action for any given situation. The second section represents the many possible balances of fear and love that can exist within the ego and within societies, giving many possible actions for a situation. The third section represents universal love and the dominance of the superego and again, renders only one possible course of action. So absolute freedom comes from the ability to manipulate the balance of loves and fears within the scale of the ego while both the dominance of the id and superego represent complete conformity to a single standard.

I agree that love is more subtle that fear, but I think, as I said above, that love, at least as it exists in the mechanical, egotistical sense is merely a biproduct of society's conditioning. A hedonist does not love that which provides for him, his thoughts are less complex than that. Love is not instinctive, love is very different from culture to culture, both in the specific ways we show our love, and in the nature of the feelings themselves. I think these differences stem from the methods each culture uses to condition its members as well as the specific parts of a person's behavior they seek to modify from simplistic hedonism.

Thinking it over and I think I got my recollections of neural imprint sequence confused. Forward/Back is the first, not up/down, that's second. Forward/back equates to desire/fear, up/down to dominate/submissive. Been a long time since I first read that stuff and I don't think what I consider the definitive source, Master and Houston's "Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer", is even in print anymore, so it's hard to check my recollection. It's all hypothesis, but it made a lot of sense to me and made it's own imprint on my young mind.

Everything in the pyschological development of a child beyond "go toward that which nurtures and away from that which seeks to destroy" is the result of the efforts of the society to imprint its culture onto the child. If left to their own devices, without the nurturing of a parent (who takes the child through initiations into the society) children will grow up without morality as we think of it, and even without certain brain functions. Rationality, for instance, needs to be encouraged for it to occur in children. Without any human contact or any stimulus toward the developement of rational thought children will develope essentially without the semantic circuits we all take for granted. They would be entirely without language, any concept of time except "now" and "then" and they would be unable to solve complicated problems which require the use of symbols and rational thinking. It seems strange to think about it, but without the guiding hand of an elder in the society people would be little islands with nothing in common except biology.

Out of curiosity, how old are you?

Everything in the pyschological development of a child beyond "go toward that which nurtures and away from that which seeks to destroy" is the result of the efforts of the society to imprint its culture onto the child. If left to their own devices, without the nurturing of a parent (who takes the child through initiations into the society) children will grow up without morality as we think of it, and even without certain brain functions. Rationality, for instance, needs to be encouraged for it to occur in children. Without any human contact or any stimulus toward the developement of rational thought children will develope essentially without the semantic circuits we all take for granted. They would be entirely without language, any concept of time except "now" and "then" and they would be unable to solve complicated problems which require the use of symbols and rational thinking. It seems strange to think about it, but without the guiding hand of an elder in the society people would be little islands with nothing in common except biology.

Out of curiosity, how old are you?I disagree with that assesment of feral child(ren). The model of development I accept suggests that imprinting or opening up of the neural pathways in our mind happens as we grow in a pattern that closely follows the development of brain function throughout evolution. The basic three being forward/back, up/down, and left/right. Simple animals only are capable of the first, more complex up through the second and higher animals like mamals imprint all three. I believe imprinting beyond the forward/back, nurture/fear will occur. On schedule the up/down, dominant/submissive imprint will be made. A hierarchy will be established with whatever environment is present. I'm still not sure about the third though, the left/right sexual/social programming may get shortcircuited to an extent, but the mind will attempt to imprint something when these pathways are activated. I don't believe we have much choice in the activation of these functions, although we can to an extent guide their imprinting and possibly open the pathways for re-imprinting.
But if I understand your sacrament comment the other day correctly, I think you understand the methodology behind reimprinting. At least that put forth by Leary.
Off topic but are you familiar with his SMI2LE hypothesis?

I'm 43, and you?

Bump-digity

I disagree with that assesment of feral child(ren). The model of development I accept suggests that imprinting or opening up of the neural pathways in our mind happens as we grow in a pattern that closely follows the development of brain function throughout evolution. The basic three being forward/back, up/down, and left/right. Simple animals only are capable of the first, more complex up through the second and higher animals like mamals imprint all three. I believe imprinting beyond the forward/back, nurture/fear will occur. On schedule the up/down, dominant/submissive imprint will be made. A hierarchy will be established with whatever environment is present. I'm still not sure about the third though, the left/right sexual/social programming may get shortcircuited to an extent, but the mind will attempt to imprint something when these pathways are activated. I don't believe we have much choice in the activation of these functions, although we can to an extent guide their imprinting and possibly open the pathways for re-imprinting.
But if I understand your sacrament comment the other day correctly, I think you understand the methodology behind reimprinting. At least that put forth by Leary.
Off topic but are you familiar with his SMI2LE hypothesis?

I'm 43, and you?

Dominate/submit instincts are a purely social mechanism. If there is no social order, no heirarchy to dominate or submit to there would be no imprinting of the anal/territorial circuit. I suppose it is concievable that a child would imprint dominance of submission over other animals, but I don't think the relationship is quite the same. Well the sacrament is one manner of reimprinting, of course simple brain washing works well too, but yes, that comes from Leary and his experiments with LSD. I'm not familiar with the name SMI2PLE, but I assume is stands for Space Migration Intelligence^2 Life Extension, in which case I understand much of the principle, especially as it applies to the eight-circuit model as opposed to the conventional (or antique) 4 circuit model.

I'm 18, approaching 19.

Bump-digity

A bump? For me? I'm flattered.

I've been trying to reconcile the common conception that love and hate are opposites with the mechanization of love and fear by the ego and by society and I think I've figured it out. Society cannot entirely stamp out the organic fears of the id, that's where freudian slips and all other infringments of the id onto the ego come from, but they take the relationship of feared destroyer and not feared nurturer and turn it into the mechanical love and hate that exists in the minds of the majority of ego control people. So love and hate are opposite and are both biproducts of the conditioning of mechanical, societal fears onto organic instinctual fears.

Let my bump not be in vain.

Let my bump not be in vain.It shall not be.

Honestly I never thought enough of the Freudian model of our psyche to read much on it. It never meshed well with the other models I prefer. I was about your age when I did most of my reading I refer to. Funny it doesn't seem that long ago until I sit back and think about it.

I find no flaws in your reasoning, I just don't really go for Freudian Psychology. Maybe it's just that I haven't given it a fair apraisal. Most of my ventures into that realm have been sort of accidental while exploring more metaphysical ideas. The Leary model your refer to (from "The Game of Life"?) and others I've encountered seem to work well with my real world experiances and 'experiments'.

I'm not sure if your age suprises me or not, maybe it's your similar interests as another bright young mind I knew once that makes it seem appropriate.
I'd like to inquire as to your gender, I have a little theory about such things which I'll share if you choose to answer. You wouldn't happen to be a Psyche major would you?

Bumpalooza

Bump-dee-bump-dee bump

Two men were walking.

*BUMP!*

"Oh sorry"
"Think nothing of it."

They kept walking.

Bump-dee-bump-dee bumpBump city!

It shall not be.

Honestly I never thought enough of the Freudian model of our psyche to read much on it. It never meshed well with the other models I prefer. I was about your age when I did most of my reading I refer to. Funny it doesn't seem that long ago until I sit back and think about it.

I find no flaws in your reasoning, I just don't really go for Freudian Psychology. Maybe it's just that I haven't given it a fair apraisal. Most of my ventures into that realm have been sort of accidental while exploring more metaphysical ideas. The Leary model your refer to (from "The Game of Life"?) and others I've encountered seem to work well with my real world experiances and 'experiments'.

I'm not sure if your age suprises me or not, maybe it's your similar interests as another bright young mind I knew once that makes it seem appropriate.
I'd like to inquire as to your gender, I have a little theory about such things which I'll share if you choose to answer. You wouldn't happen to be a Psyche major would you?

I agree that there seem to be some major flaws with Freud's reasoning, I think stemming from the fact that he dealt exclusively with wealthy neurotics (even though that's only a word for non-conformists). I think that Freud hit on some important topics and that if he had a more diverse group of patients to observe he may well have made much more accurate assessments of the nature of the human mind. I use Freud's words, id/ego/superego, because it's a medium which most people can understand on some level (or at least most of the people who'd care to read what I write at all), but really most of the my ideas fit more effectively with Leary's robot model. I haven't actually read Leary's original texts, for the most part, I, like you, happened upon most of what I've read in the way of psychology while I was searching to answers to other questions I had. Most of what I know comes from reading a few books by Robert Anton Wilson. I read two of his fiction books and loved them so much I bought some of his writing on psychology which included descriptions and explanations of some of Leary's theories. I think I might actually have a better understanding of Leary's work, in some ways, than people who read the original because RAW is a very skilled writer and can verbalize complicated ideas in a way that few other writers I know can. Better, but likely incomplete. I have read quite a bit about Leary's eight circuit model of human developement, which parallels the ideas of earlier psychologists as well as fitting my common sense and experience, which leads me to put a lot of faith in its accuracy. the robot/body programmer/conscious metaprogrammer/metaconscious idea hit home with me because I have some experience programming for computers and a strong background in formal logic which lends itself to the metaphor nicely. Anyway, the point is that I don't think anyone has gotten everything exactly right because psychology is incredibly complicated and requires observation from many angles, but I think the majority of the information is out there in bits and pieces, it's just a matter of seeing what people agree on and what they disagree on and synthesizing it into a single cohesive structure.

Sometimes my age surprises me. It's scary being 18. The thought that many of the legal restrictions that once applied to me don't any more, and all the major restrictions that are still in place don't really apply to me. For all intents and purposes I'm a full adult in the community, and I don't think I really had the rite of passage to help me through it. I didn't graduate high school in the conventional way, I tested out, so I never had the graduation ceremony, that I imagine might have helped in some way to create an imprint on my adult brain, but it is my theory that I won't get that imprint until, maybe college graduation, or maybe if I move, I really don't know.

I'm male, though there has been some confusion about that around here, I was mistaken by some people for a female and a small argument ensued between a group of people who thought I was a man and a group who thought I was a woman. It was actually kind of funny, in a weird way. I would be curious to hear your theory though, whether it holds for me or not.

I don't have a major yet, my interests are too diverse. I might do psychology, or maybe sociology/anthropology, which turns some people's stomachs because sociologists and anthropologists deny their common calling and hate each other for no reason. I find economics fascinating, but I don't know if I could really study it extensively. And then there's physics, and semantics, religion, law. Really, I just don't know, right now I'm just taking general education, required stuff so I can get a feel for things and see where I'd like to go, but since I hope to continue study after college and get a doctoral degree I don't actually have to make up my mind for sure for a while yet.

4 bumps from 4 different people. I feel loved. Thanks for your interest everyone.

Bumper crop

Hey OE, sorry for the lag but my computer crashed. Had to wipe my hardrive and do a complete system restore. Took some time. And then I had to have a talk with my kids about leaving the AV settings alone.

Robert Anton Wilson seems to be at the center of my universe.

He has a connection to most of the mind opening revelations that I've experianced. He also seems to have some impact upon alot of other enlightened thinkers I've encountered. ;)

Have you heard of the Sacramento News and Review? It's a left leaning arts and information weekly, it may find it's way out there where you live. It's the instrument of my introduction to this decadent forum.

Over twenty years earlier it was the medium of my awareness of the author we share an affinity for.

Just as I came accross the listing for this website in it's pages I also encountered a review for 'Schroedinger's Cat' there.(although I believe the rag had another name back then) The book sounded interesting and I purchased it upon my next trip to Tower. It was right up my alley and I craved more. He was still writing the trilogy then (you had to buy the three books individually originally) and while awaiting the release of 'The Trick Top Hat' and 'The Homing Pigeons' I read his earlier collaboration "The Illuminatus Trilogy" and then everything I could find on his recomended reading list. He introduced me to Leary and a host of others.

Like I said, He seems to be at the center of my universe.

No worries about the delay.

Yeah, the SNR makes the 12 mile our of Sac to my little town periodically. I've never really looked through it, but I find it laying around my house sometimes because my parents pick one up whenever they see it at news stands.

I like to think of RAW as a spark, and I like to think that he thinks of himself in a similar way. His writing seems to be intended ot intrigue the reader both with the points he makes and with the background necessary to actually understand his points. His books are fantastically enjoyable, especially for the third of fourth time after you've read some of the non-fiction and lore behind them. I recently went to lend Illuminatus to a friend and read a few little passages just to remember, and ended up reading the whole book over before passing it off.

As for my little theory, you didn't fit my model. It seemed to me that of people your age, females seem to have more interest in the workings of our brain than males. I remember my first contacts with Freud's theories and other books of what would now be called 'new age' thinking first came from female friends.

But then your little revelation of Mr. Wilson's opening that particular door for you brought back a flood of memories. He may not have given me my first peek through that door but he swung it wide and booted me through and I loaned my copies of his works (and those books he recommended) out so many times most eventually took a one-way trip. They helped a good number of my male friends discover an interest in higher brain functions, neural imprinting and metaphysics. So I guess it still makes perfect sense.

Thinking about your idea that more young women are interested in understanding the functioning of the higher brain, I realize that I don't know anyone my age who has expressed any interest in the higher brain at all except myself. That's why I discuss it here. Hopefully a friend of mine who is out of town for school will be interested in it, as I have reason to believe she is, and she's coming here for a month starting today. Anyway...

Wilson and the entire Consciousness Revolution are interesting and I hope to find more to read from them. I've been considering writing Wilson a letter to ask him some questions I've had, but haven't brought myself to do it yet.