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Can you critique the content? The article seemed reasonable to me, so I’d love to know if there is any robust science behind it or not. I found the idea of cer

Can you critique the content? The article seemed reasonable to me, so I’d love to know if there is any robust science behind it or not. I found the idea of certainty being an emotional state especially interesting.

pirocks 6y ago
Not the op but sure. No sources for any of the many claims in the article. No references to studies. No number based claims such as "9 out of 10 times x happens"...
- cbolton 6y ago
  The same can be said of most non-scientific articles, blog posts, and many other texts that are nonetheless valuable. Even for scientific papers, this is not a sufficient reason for dismissal. Here is Einstein's original paper on Special Relativity: http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1905_17_891-921.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... And the initial papers on General Relativity: http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1912_38_355-369.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1912_38_443-458.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... Number of references in these papers: 0.
  - carapace 6y ago
    There are equations unambiguously relating well-defined values with established physical interpretations or meaning.
carapace 6y ago
Sure, and thanks for asking. Start with the opening sentence: > Much of the emotional suffering in the world comes from the substitution of power for value. From a casual POV that sounds like a meaningful statement, but from a scientific POV it's meaningless: What's "emotional suffering"? How is it measured? What's "power" in this context? How is it measured? What's "value" in this context? How is it measured? How much is "much"? How is it measured? My point is that psychology is in an alchemical as opposed to chemical phase: people are telling themselves "just so" stories and then kinda-sorta dressing it up in pseudo-scientific verbiage. You might as well consult an astrologer or numerologist. They help a lot of people, and it's much easier to remember that their underlying theories are garbage. Next sentence: > The curse of our times is that so many people have developed the habit of seeking to feel temporarily more powerful when they feel devalued. Our "times" are not "cursed" as measured by an enormous number of metrics. (E.g. violent crime is down globally, education has never been greater, etc.) In re: "so many people have developed [a] habit", where is the poll data? How do you know someone has a habit "of seeking to feel temporarily more powerful when they feel devalued"? Again, how do you measure feeling "powerful" or "devalued"? Once "afflicted" with this "habit": > They grow alienated from their more humane values, which makes them feel progressively less valuable. Again, how is this measured? What's a "more humane value"? How does one "grow alienated" from a value? Is it a thing? MY whole point, again, is that all of this sounds good until you actually try to analyse what the author is actually saying, and you find there's nothing there that you can't also get from e.g. the Psychic Friends Network. This is not science, it's pop psychology. I know what the author is getting at: You let go of the "attachment" to the "correctness" or "certainty" or "rightness" or "need to be right" and suddenly you're getting along with people much better. That's an important and worthy thing to know. And we should do science to it. (But you're not getting a scientific treatment of it from TFA, and that's what I object to.) In re: "Certainty itself is an emotional state, not an intellectual one." A more accurate way of saying that is that the word "certainty" can refer to emotional states as well as intellectual ones, and often they are interconnected. That's still not science, but it's less linguistically muddled.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  Thanks for the response. I agree psychological research and publications need much more rigor. I could pick a bone about how I don’t think it is quite as bad astrology , etc. (which literally has zero science behind), but I see your point. I suppose I found the article interesting and useful, even if we don’t yet have robust science to support all of the arguments it makes. Here’s to hoping future developments and research can make meaningful progress towards a deeper and robust understanding of what actually makes us tick :)
  - carapace 6y ago
    Cheers! Back in high school one of my friends' moms was a semi-professional astrologer. More than once, when visiting his house, she would ask someone she just met for their "birth data", type it into her astrology program, and proceed to blow their minds by telling them all sorts of personal things about their personality just from their chart. She also gave pretty good advice some of the time. One day we were looking at the computer and somehow got into the settings for the astrology program and we noticed that she had configured it wrong, so that none of the charts she was reading were valid according to the internal logic of astrology. The charts were wrong (not just in the sense that astrology is bullshit, but extra-wrong in the sense that they didn't even conform to the line of bullshit) yet she was "good" at astrology. FWIW, I think she was just a good psychologist, but didn't know it. Ciao!
everdrive 6y ago
I know someone who is very empathetic. Not necessarily sympathetic, though. She feels other people’s emotions strongly (and internally). A big challenge for her growing up was to learn that someone else’s sense of certainty didn’t necessarily mean anything.

pirocks 6y ago

Not the op but sure. No sources for any of the many claims in the article. No references to studies. No number based claims such as "9 out of 10 times x happens"...

cbolton 6y ago
The same can be said of most non-scientific articles, blog posts, and many other texts that are nonetheless valuable. Even for scientific papers, this is not a sufficient reason for dismissal. Here is Einstein's original paper on Special Relativity: http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1905_17_891-921.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... And the initial papers on General Relativity: http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1912_38_355-369.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1912_38_443-458.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... Number of references in these papers: 0.
- carapace 6y ago
  There are equations unambiguously relating well-defined values with established physical interpretations or meaning.

carapace 6y ago

Sure, and thanks for asking. Start with the opening sentence: > Much of the emotional suffering in the world comes from the substitution of power for value. From a casual POV that sounds like a meaningful statement, but from a scientific POV it's meaningless: What's "emotional suffering"? How is it measured? What's "power" in this context? How is it measured? What's "value" in this context? How is it measured? How much is "much"? How is it measured? My point is that psychology is in an alchemical as opposed to chemical phase: people are telling themselves "just so" stories and then kinda-sorta dressing it up in pseudo-scientific verbiage. You might as well consult an astrologer or numerologist. They help a lot of people, and it's much easier to remember that their underlying theories are garbage. Next sentence: > The curse of our times is that so many people have developed the habit of seeking to feel temporarily more powerful when they feel devalued. Our "times" are not "cursed" as measured by an enormous number of metrics. (E.g. violent crime is down globally, education has never been greater, etc.) In re: "so many people have developed [a] habit", where is the poll data? How do you know someone has a habit "of seeking to feel temporarily more powerful when they feel devalued"? Again, how do you measure feeling "powerful" or "devalued"? Once "afflicted" with this "habit": > They grow alienated from their more humane values, which makes them feel progressively less valuable. Again, how is this measured? What's a "more humane value"? How does one "grow alienated" from a value? Is it a thing? MY whole point, again, is that all of this sounds good until you actually try to analyse what the author is actually saying, and you find there's nothing there that you can't also get from e.g. the Psychic Friends Network. This is not science, it's pop psychology. I know what the author is getting at: You let go of the "attachment" to the "correctness" or "certainty" or "rightness" or "need to be right" and suddenly you're getting along with people much better. That's an important and worthy thing to know. And we should do science to it. (But you're not getting a scientific treatment of it from TFA, and that's what I object to.) In re: "Certainty itself is an emotional state, not an intellectual one." A more accurate way of saying that is that the word "certainty" can refer to emotional states as well as intellectual ones, and often they are interconnected. That's still not science, but it's less linguistically muddled.

dwaltrip 6y ago
Thanks for the response. I agree psychological research and publications need much more rigor. I could pick a bone about how I don’t think it is quite as bad astrology , etc. (which literally has zero science behind), but I see your point. I suppose I found the article interesting and useful, even if we don’t yet have robust science to support all of the arguments it makes. Here’s to hoping future developments and research can make meaningful progress towards a deeper and robust understanding of what actually makes us tick :)
- carapace 6y ago
  Cheers! Back in high school one of my friends' moms was a semi-professional astrologer. More than once, when visiting his house, she would ask someone she just met for their "birth data", type it into her astrology program, and proceed to blow their minds by telling them all sorts of personal things about their personality just from their chart. She also gave pretty good advice some of the time. One day we were looking at the computer and somehow got into the settings for the astrology program and we noticed that she had configured it wrong, so that none of the charts she was reading were valid according to the internal logic of astrology. The charts were wrong (not just in the sense that astrology is bullshit, but extra-wrong in the sense that they didn't even conform to the line of bullshit) yet she was "good" at astrology. FWIW, I think she was just a good psychologist, but didn't know it. Ciao!

everdrive 6y ago

I know someone who is very empathetic. Not necessarily sympathetic, though. She feels other people’s emotions strongly (and internally). A big challenge for her growing up was to learn that someone else’s sense of certainty didn’t necessarily mean anything.