The Logic Off Topic list

GA Moore wrote:
> > Isn't it about time to change the title of this thread to "NLP"?

Yoonchi wrote:
>No. It's also about how culture has effect on science and mathematics. I 
>find it very interesting how people, with different backgrounds, can talk 
>about the same thing from a different angle.
Well ... I kind of agree with GAM that a change of title would probably be 
technically more felicitous at this point, but then again I kind of agree 
with you that it's not really that necessary in that the discussion is 
probably / could probably / branch out again into those broader things, 
which I personally and also consider fascinating.

>Let me be more explicit.
>Mathematics, a field I know more about than other fields, uses a certain 
>language to communicate ideas.
>Psychologist and sociologists mostly talk about patterns to explain 
>behaviours they observe.
I hope Tony reads that 'cause he's kind of tried to say that he can' see 
the patterns in mathematics. My feeling is that if he can see the patterns 
in one PLUS he's not prepared to say that we're all complete idiots for 
insisting that those patterns exist, then he's pretty much there.

>NLP, put in a kinda New Age corner and which IMO fits the field of 
>psychology, also has it's language.
Agreed. My beef with it was mainly centred on what the language claimed to 
do, which was kind of based on the language used by its two initial 
founders and their immediate acolytes.

>As long as you don't play by the culture these fields are used to, you 
>will have a hack of a time getting your ideas across. I'm thinking of how 
>difficult it was for people to accept Einstein's ideas when they were used 
>to Newtonian concepts.
That's my point. It wasn't accepting the results that scientists largely 
had a problem with because Einstein's usage of e.g. the Lorentz 
transformations was impeccable, and nobody could argue with those 
equations. It was just getting their heads around those concepts ... the 
whole idea that matter no longer really existed but that it was just 
particles of light in another form. And ... when Heisenberg introduced his 
uncertainty principle, again he didn't introduce it out of nowhere as just 
a kind of brave new idea. He offered it as a direct interpretation within 
the physical realms of sight and sound as an interpretation for the 
mathematical fact that on the microscopic level when you multiply two 
matrices in one order you get one result, while when you multiply them in 
an another order you get another result. The uncertainty principle, which 
only works on the microscopic scale, was an attempt to interpret those 
mathematical facts. The concept that 'matter is uncertain' might have been 
hard to grasp, but it was backed up by rather a lot of solid mathematical 
and experimental reality.

>IMO, the same is for NLP vs psychology.
As I've tried to indicate above, I personally don't think -- and this 
really can only be an opinion -- that the underlying conditions and 
circumstances in which people were being asked to accept the paradigm shift 
that NLP claimed to be were at all equivalent. NLP initially just said -- 
we're all right and you're all wrong and if you disagree then it's just 
because you're refusing to undertake a paradigm shift. When Faraday, 
Maxwell, Einstein, Galileo, Darwin ... you name them ... instituted a 
paradigm shift, they were pointing not straight at themselves, which is 
what Bandler and Grinder did, but instead at the data and the experimental 
evidence and saying that there were better ways to interpret that data. 
Bandler and Grinder spent more time pointing at themselves and their brave 
new idea, and lambasting contemporary ideas, than they did on pointing at 
the data. I can't speak for anyone else, but that was really the problem I 
personally had with them. IMO they should have let the evidence speak for 
itself.

>Mind you, I don't have a large knowledge of NLP, but I've seen it's 
>effects when used as a tool.
I don't doubt its effectiveness as a tool. I had a composition teacher once 
who told me to imagine that all the intervals (octave, fifth, etc) were 
colours. He then set us the assignment of driving up to a traffic light 
just outside a brightly lit shop, having to stop at the traffic light, 
watching a couple of people in different coloured clothing cross the 
pedestrian crossing, and then have the lights turn to green so we could 
move off. I personally found that a very effective way of getting my head 
around the feelings and possibilities of those intervals. Other people in 
the group found it a complete waste of time, of course. But ... the teacher 
never offered it as an 'explanation' for music or anything like that.

Which were the initial claims made for NLP.

>I'm talking personal experience here.
As above, not quarrelling with that in the slightest.

>I don't pretend that it works for everybody. Just the same as it is not 
>easy to everybody to learning a foreign language.
>Still, I think western psychology underestimates the power of NLP.
That I would agree with. It doesn't need to have a proper explanation, nor 
does it have to be a proper explanation, in order to be effective (even if 
only in the eyes of those who use it ......
>The same goes for a lot of 'alternative' solutions for problems in western 
>science.
... Yes .... which doesn't mean by my statement above that I'm slyly trying 
to suggest that the only basis for NLP's effectiveness is the fact that 
those who use it happen to be in the state of believing that it works. I 
strongly believe, as you obviously do, that e.g. yoga and meditation are 
very effective even though the why of it has not been "properly explained" yet.

>What I find the most annoying is, as long as it doesn't fit into the 
>current knowledge, scientist spend more time in trying to disprove 
>something that is working, instead of trying to prove that it works.
I agree with you. Mainly. It's often easier to disprove something, though, 
than to prove something. Anyway, in the case of acupuncture, for example, 
we're talking meridians that have no known correlate in anatomical 
reasoning, so it's very difficult to construct experiments or produce a 
viable theory for something that can't be physically tested in a way that 
was validated by Malpighi and all the other early researchers into medicine 
who provided us with our present views on anatomy.

>I understand the reason for this attitude in western science; it's the 
>arrogance that is in the culture.
Well ... the arrogance is in a lot of cases entirely true, and it annoys me 
also. However, as above, I do think that the difference in language is a 
good and valid point, although I think the relative lack of effort made to 
examine the alternatives is pretty inexcusable.

>It's like an attitude like "these guys can't be as smart as us, so we are 
>going to prove them wrong".
As above, it's generally easier to prove something wrong than it is to 
prove it right.

>I can mention a whole bunch of alternative, non-western solutions to 
>problems, like acupuncture, natural medicine, etc., which science spends 
>more time saying that it's a crock, than trying to explain why it works.
That's because a lot of is perpetrated by cranks. For example, I read 
something by Deepak Chopra in which he said 'if you want to have happy 
thoughts then you have to make happy molecules', and he then went on to 
seriously discuss the existence of happy molecules. Last time I checked, if 
you bring 2 volumes of hydrogen into the proximity of 1 volume of oxygen 
and in spite  spark, you will get 1 volume of water. This is irrespective 
of whether or not those molecules are having a bad hair day. I then also 
read a completely bogus and irritating load of twaddle in which -- 
naturally enough -- he tried to use the uncertainty principle and the 
Aspect experiment to prove how the power of positive thinking can have a 
measurable and determinable effect on the molecules of which people are 
made by 'acting at a distance' in a kind of 'uncertain way'. Then there was 
the psychic Sylvia Brown who wrote this great long book centred around the 
premise that if anyone was prepared to shell out the necessary funds she 
would teach them how to alter their constitution on a genetic level. Excuse 
me? Last time I checked it nobody had the power to do that. Never met the 
human yet who could turn themselves into a rabbit simply by the power of 
their thought.

The truth here is that I have a very sneaking and a very healthy respect 
for witch doctors, to be honest. They are a part of my tradition and my 
heritage and I am not about to give them up lightly. I don't have a clue 
how they operate, but I find them medically comforting and am seriously 
prepared to consult one when I am in need.

I accept that there's a basic truth and reality to the claims being made by 
Chopra and Brown in that I do believe that there is a very real power of 
positive thinking that a person can tap into and that somehow expresses 
itself in their propensity for life ... as also in the music they might 
choose to make. I also feel, however, that if they are going to try and 
defend what they do by using that ludicrous kind of language then they are 
simply asking for trouble ...and deserve it. As I think the NLP people in 
the early days deserved exactly what they got. When a scientist uses the 
word energy, then he or she means a very specific thing. It's the stuff 
that's absorbed or emitted when a material body of specific mass moves 
through a specific height in a given gravitational field. I agree that I 
have 'some kind of energy' that's 'keeping me alive' and that I can 'tap 
into' for certain purposes to 'enhance my life'. I do this regularly. I 
have my dreams for my life that I would like to fulfill and that give my 
life some meaning. However, if Sylvia Brown is going to say that she has 
some kind of energy that allows her to put her finger on chakra field and 
directly manipulate someone's organs into a state of health, then with all 
due respect she is using a word 'energy' that only has the power and 
effectiveness it does because scientists put it there, and I do think the 
average scientist has a very valid point if he or she puts up his or her 
hand and says: excuse me, but what's the evidentiary basis for this assertion.

Bottom line, I totally accept the existence and viability of such things as 
acupuncture and prayer and things like that. However, I do think that they 
also need to be careful of the terms in which they speak of such things; 
just like I think that many scientists are indeed arrogant in the way they 
approach a study of those subjects.

>Anyway, sometimes I find science to be disappointing.
Yes. Agreed.

>More to be about politics than solving of problems.
Well ... the money that scientists get is given by politicians. Lots more 
people investigating heart disease than, e.g. breast cancer. Wonder why? 
Lookee lookee lookee ... lots more male politicians than female ones. What 
a coincidence. And ... virtually none of them consulting acupuncturists. 
Against that, though, in the USA many insurance companies are happy to pay 
for acupuncture and chiropractic because bottom line is that their patients 
often get better with those treatments. Some even foot the bill for yoga 
classes! In the long run, money speaks, I guess.

>Why not investigate what kind of effect music has on people?
Totally agreed.

>I know it has an effect on my mood.
Yes.

>There has been some research on this with plants, AFAIK. Maybe there is 
>something about that on humans out there?

http://www.hisf.no/njmt/
http://www.m-a-t.freeserve.co.uk/
http://www.musictherapy.org/
http://members.aol.com/kathysl/

>Why is it so much more easier to understand the language of music than for 
>example the language English?
I don't think music is being 'understood'. I think it's more like it's 
being 'agreed with'.

>Is it maybe that music can be listened to without the knowledge of the 
>double meanings that fe. words can have in the English language?
Language is sometimes said to be 'infinite' in the sense that there exist 
words that can talk about other words; and that this is a part of language. 
When we hear such a sentence, we recognize it for what it is ... it's a 
sentence that talking about itself ... about what it does. How would one 
set about writing a piece of music that was about music, and in such a way 
that others would faultlessly recognize it as such?

>You have the freedom of interpreting music without much rules; only rules 
>you may have is that your ears and brain have to detect the frequencies 
>and relate them to previously heard characteristic sounds.
Don't think so. Before you know that Chopin's funeral march is sad and 
funereal, there's quite a bit you have to know about Western classical 
music first. The music of 'other cultures' is frequently and initially 
incomprehensible until one has got at least a bit of a handle on some of 
the conventions there. I.e. become acquainted with the set of 
expectations  that exist between composer and listener as to e.g. when 
something surprising and unconventional (e.g. flatted ninth or whatever 
when a sixth would have been more normal) has happened.

>Any thoughts?
Well ... you've had rather a lot of MINE haven't you??!!!!

Kool Musick
Keep Musick Kool


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