Maxims, rules of thumb and other observations on human cognition and sociocultural affectations

This will be added to on an irregular basis...
  • What is said to humans directly is received with skepticism and considered with dubiousness while that which is heard in passing, especially that which most conforms to their mentality or prejudices, is readily believed.
  • Humans have a certain cognitive latency between exposure to new information or experiences and the ability to think dispassionately and intellectually about it.
  • Humans have a certain cognitive spectrum starting with the moment of exposure to new information or experiences and ending with some point at which the thing is effectively "in the past" for them.
  • This cognitive spectrum is linked to the emotional process often referred to as shock, anger, denial and acceptance.
  • The more and faster information or experiences are presented to people and the closer the quarters and the lesser the distance between people, the more their early reactions in the passionate emotional stage are reflected back to them in the manner of responses to those reactions from others in light of those responses.
  • The more outrages which are suffered without sufficient time to allow emotional bleed-off, the farther the bar for subsequent reaction and outrage are pushed, and the more further events must progress before reaction and outrage.
  • It is possible for serious detriments to eventually sit below this threshold for long enough for their damaging effects to build and multiply until their entire society undergoes some reactive convulsion.
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

What I believe part x of y

  1. G-d exists.
    This is the fundamental assumption based on my gut feelings.
  2. I exist.
    How else would I write this?
  3. G-d has a nature He did not make for Himself.
    How can the Uncreated Creator make a nature for Himself? That which is, is.
  4. G-d made me in His image.
    That means I have his nature, not that He has two legs and two arms nor that he likes blue jeans, although He might.
  5. G-d made me to help Him figure out what His nature is.
    If you want to know what you look like, you look in a mirror. If you want to understand a crime scene, you recreate the scene. If you want to know yourself, study those like yourself and in His case, create them if you have to.

What is the first principle of His nature? The second?
  1. He has no power greater than Himself and hence has ultimate free will to do whatever He chooses.
  2. He has a nature that circumscribes His will and directs His will.
  3. He has a free will that circumscribes His nature and enables or obstructs it by choice.
  4. He made me with this nature.
    I have free will and a nature which complement and both reinforce and oppose each other.
  5. Good or evil depend on free will choices to do or not do.
    That which is compelled has no value. If G-d made me do a thing, then I could not be blamed for G-d chose. If G-d said I should do a thing and I didn't, I chose.
  6. Therefore, G-d will not make me do anything.
    G-d cannot make me do anything without abrogating my free will without which He cannot judge me as having made the choice as opposed to him.
It would, and has, taken books and books worth of print to even come close to explaining my reasoning here. It's just something you feel.