The root of personality disorders
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On 01/18/2017 07:38 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Here is your assignment for tomorrow. I am a (proud) C student. So, of course, I will never meet your deadlines. 8^) > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281410347_Comparative_psychology_and_the_recursive_structure_of_filter_explanations > > There will be a quiz: What is the difference between a circular explanation and a recursive one. What is the key dimension that determines whether an explanation is viciously circular? Is the virtuus dormitiva viciously circular? Why? Why not? It would help if you would distill your argument, here, rather than muddying it up with the natural selection, adaptation example. Would you mind doing that? -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Re: The root of personality disorders
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Glen, I'm not sure if Nick can do that. However, he is very good at clarifying issues by telling me how I am wrong. With that in mind, I'll attempt a summary, of which I am fairly confident: Circular explanations occur when a description of the phenomenon in question is offered as an explanation of said phenomenon. For example, when asked "why are there only small peanuts in this jar?" it would be circular to answer "because there are small peanuts in the jar." Note that "because there are small peanuts in the jar" could be a valuable explanation for many other questions, but not for that question, because in that context it is simply restating the thing-to-be-explained. There is a class of explanations - recursive explanations - that often get mistaken for circular explanations. Such explanations use the description offered in the original question as part of an explanation, but add additional information that moves the path of inquiry forward. A filter explanation is an example of a recursive explanation. For example, when asked "why are there only small peanuts in this jar?" it would not be circular to answer "because there jar was filled using small-peanut-filter, which only allows small peanuts to fall through." (And it is in exactly this way that, the Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection is not circular, as it is commonly accused of being, when it is understood properly... which it frequently isn't, even by its prominent proponents.) Now, the shaky part, where I wonder why Nick thought it was relevant to this conversation: "Why does Trump appear to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder?" Circular - "Because he has the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder" (This takes us no where beyond that he has the symptoms, because the thing-to-be-explained was the appearing-to-have-NPD.) Not-circular - "Because he has a thing that causes those symptoms." (This doesn't add much, but it does add something. It eliminates possibilities such as his acting that way as a joke, or due to drugs, or that if we viewed him in a larger light we wouldn't see the symptoms at all, etc.) On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 1:17 PM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote: On 01/18/2017 07:38 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: The root of personality disorders
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Nice, Eric, right on. Why does Trump display Narcissistic Disorder Symptoms. Because he has Narcissistic Disorder That’s viciously circular. But, Why does trump behave like a narcissist? Because he has Narcissistic Disorder is not so viciously circular because one has added the idea of “disorder”. I will leave to others to say what “disorder” implies, except to say that it seems to have a strong normative component. Something is “wrong” with the guy. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles Glen, I'm not sure if Nick can do that. However, he is very good at clarifying issues by telling me how I am wrong. With that in mind, I'll attempt a summary, of which I am fairly confident: Circular explanations occur when a description of the phenomenon in question is offered as an explanation of said phenomenon. For example, when asked "why are there only small peanuts in this jar?" it would be circular to answer "because there are small peanuts in the jar." Note that "because there are small peanuts in the jar" could be a valuable explanation for many other questions, but not for that question, because in that context it is simply restating the thing-to-be-explained. There is a class of explanations - recursive explanations - that often get mistaken for circular explanations. Such explanations use the description offered in the original question as part of an explanation, but add additional information that moves the path of inquiry forward. A filter explanation is an example of a recursive explanation. For example, when asked "why are there only small peanuts in this jar?" it would not be circular to answer "because there jar was filled using small-peanut-filter, which only allows small peanuts to fall through." (And it is in exactly this way that, the Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection is not circular, as it is commonly accused of being, when it is understood properly... which it frequently isn't, even by its prominent proponents.) Now, the shaky part, where I wonder why Nick thought it was relevant to this conversation: "Why does Trump appear to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder?" Circular - "Because he has the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder" (This takes us no where beyond that he has the symptoms, because the thing-to-be-explained was the appearing-to-have-NPD.) Not-circular - "Because he has a thing that causes those symptoms." (This doesn't add much, but it does add something. It eliminates possibilities such as his acting that way as a joke, or due to drugs, or that if we viewed him in a larger light we wouldn't see the symptoms at all, etc.)
U.S. Marine Corps On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 1:17 PM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: The root of personality disorders
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In reply to this post by gepr
MUDDYING UP!??? Glen, you're talking about my LIFE'S WORK!!!!
You did mean to say, "Adding purified essence of wisdom," right? (};-)] Thank god for Eric's distillation. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ? Sent: Friday, January 20, 2017 11:17 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The root of personality disorders On 01/18/2017 07:38 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Here is your assignment for tomorrow. I am a (proud) C student. So, of course, I will never meet your deadlines. 8^) > https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281410347_Comparative_psychol > ogy_and_the_recursive_structure_of_filter_explanations > > There will be a quiz: What is the difference between a circular explanation and a recursive one. What is the key dimension that determines whether an explanation is viciously circular? Is the virtuus dormitiva viciously circular? Why? Why not? It would help if you would distill your argument, here, rather than muddying it up with the natural selection, adaptation example. Would you mind doing that? -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: The root of personality disorders
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Why does Trump display Narcissistic [Personality] Disorder Symptoms? Because he feels unrelenting emptiness and low self esteem which causes him great pain when anyone criticizes him or suggests that someone else is superior to him. This unbearable pain causes him to counterattack forcefully when he feels attacked regardless of whether an attack is actually intended by the other person. Is that less circular, Nick? Of course we will now have to deal with your claim that he is aware of his pain because he infers it from his behavior, to wit exhibiting the symptoms of NPD. Frank Frank Wimberly Phone (505) 670-9918 On Jan 20, 2017 1:58 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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Excellent! Thanks, Eric (and everyone -- I'm enjoying this). So, here's my, in class, answer to Nick's quiz: nick> What is the difference between a circular explanation and a recursive one. What is the key dimension that determines whether an explanation is viciously circular? Is the virtuus dormitiva viciously circular? Why? Why not? Recursive explanations contain layers of reasoning (e.g. mechanism vs phenomenon) whereas circular ones are flat. Vicious circularity simply means "has only 1 layer". (I disagree with this idea.[*]) The virtus dormitiva has multiple (abstraction of language) layers and, by the single-layer defn of "vicious" is not vicious. Now, on to NPD, I think we have 2 types of recursion: 1) communicative, as Frank (probably) tried to point out to me before, and 2) phenomenological. When we land in an attractor like "something is wrong with Trump", we're still within a single layer of reasoning (intuition, emotion, systemic gestalt, whatever). If we have a tacit feeling for NPD, we can stay within that single layer and simply assign a token to it: NPD. But if we're at all reductionist, we'll look for ways to break that layer into parts. Parts don't necessarily imply crossing layers. E.g. a meaningful picture can be cut into curvy pieces without claiming the images on the pieces also have meaning. So 1) we can simply name various (same layer) phenomena that hook together like jigsaw pieces to comprise NPD. Or 2) we can assert that personality traits are layered so that the lower/inner turtles _construct_ the higher/outer turtles. What Frank says below is of type (1). What Jochen (and others) have talked about before (childhood experiences, etc.) is more like type (2). The question arises of whether the layering of symbolic compression (renaming sets of same-layer attributes) is merely type (1) or does it become type (2). To me, mere _renaming_ doesn't cut it. There must be a somewhat objectively defined difference, a name-independent difference. So, if we changed all the words we use (don't use "narcissism", "personality", "disorder", "emptiness", etc. ... use booga1, booga2, booga3, etc.), would we _still_ see a cross-trophic effect? Note that mathematics has elicited lots of such demonstrations of irreducible layering ... e.g. various no-go theorems. But those are syntactic _demonstrations_ ... without the vagaries introduced by natural language and scientific grounding. To assert that problems like natural selection vs. adaptation or the diagnosis of NPD also demonstrate such cross-trophic properties would _require_ complete formalization into math. Wolpert did this (I think) to some extent. But I doubt it's been done in evolutionary theory and I'm fairly confident it hasn't been done in psychiatry. (I admit my ignorance, of course... doubt is a good mistress but a bad master.) More importantly, though, I personally don't believe a recursive cycle is _any_ different from a flat cycle. Who was it that said all deductive inference is tautology? I have it in a book somewhere, cited by John Woods. Unless there is some significantly different chunk of reasoning somewhere in one of the layers, all the layers perfectly _reduce_ to a single layer. Hence, my answer to Nick's quiz (at the pub after class) is that _all_ cycles are "vicious" (if vicious means single layer), but if we take my concept of "vicious", then only those cycles that _hide_ behind (false) layers are vicious. [*] I think a cycle is vicious iff it causes problems. Tautologies don't cause problems. They don't solve them. But they don't cause them either. So a vicious cycle must have more than 1 layer. On 01/20/2017 01:18 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > Why does Trump display Narcissistic [Personality] Disorder Symptoms? Because he feels unrelenting emptiness and low self esteem which causes him great pain when anyone criticizes him or suggests that someone else is superior to him. This unbearable pain causes him to counterattack forcefully when he feels attacked regardless of whether an attack is actually intended by the other person. > > Is that less circular, Nick? Of course we will now have to deal with your claim that he is aware of his pain because he infers it from his behavior, to wit exhibiting the symptoms of NPD. -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Ha! Right. Sorry. I didn't mean to offend. But some people really do think you can't get anything done with getting your hands ... muddy. And in their defense, that "pure mud" they use at, say, beauty salons is kinda gross to me. If I get muddy, I much prefer, chunky, heterogeneous mud. Your mud is plenty chunky. So, it's not so bad. On 01/20/2017 01:01 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > MUDDYING UP!??? Glen, you're talking about my LIFE'S WORK!!!! > > You did mean to say, "Adding purified essence of wisdom," right? (};-)] > > Thank god for Eric's distillation. -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Re: The root of personality disorders
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In reply to this post by gepr
"What Frank says below is of type (1). What Jochen (and others) have talked about before (childhood experiences, etc.) is more like type (2)." Type 2? The authentic selfhood of the child is not authenticated by the parent(s). According to psycoanalyst Otto Kernberg: "Presenting excessive self-absorption usually coinciding with a superficially smooth and effective social adaptation, by with serious distortions in their internal relationships with other people. They present various combinations of intense ambitiousness, grandiose fantasies, feelings of inferiority, overdepedence on external admiration and acclaim. Along with feelings of boredom and emptiness, and continuous search for gratification of strivings for brilliance, wealth, power and beauty, there are serious deficiencies in their capacity to love and to be concerned about others. This lack of capacity for empathic understanding of others often comes as a surprise considering their superficially appropriate social adjustment." As for a detailed elucidation of causes, you have to read a highly technical book such as Kohut. Frank Wimberly Phone (505) 670-991 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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Well, that confirms that it is more like a layered system, even if it's simply self-reported or all in the diagnoser's head. The last 2 sentences of Kernberg's description directly imply constructive causation. But regardless of any competence with or understanding of this particular domain, when we're talking about whether Trump already had the traits at age so-and-so before being sent to military school, and whether his subsequent experiences exacerbated the problem ... and (like the skeptical blog entry I posted) whether the traits are more heavily context-depenent, we're fundamentally considering multi-layered explanations. On 01/20/2017 04:31 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > "What Frank says below is of type (1). What Jochen (and others) have talked about before (childhood experiences, etc.) is more like type (2)." > > Type 2? The authentic selfhood of the child is not authenticated by the parent(s). According to psycoanalyst Otto Kernberg: > > "Presenting excessive self-absorption usually coinciding with a superficially smooth and effective social adaptation, by with serious distortions in their internal relationships with other people. They present various combinations of intense ambitiousness, grandiose fantasies, feelings of inferiority, overdepedence on external admiration and acclaim. Along with feelings of boredom and emptiness, and continuous search for gratification of strivings for brilliance, wealth, power and beauty, there are serious deficiencies in their capacity to love and to be concerned about others. This lack of capacity for empathic understanding of others often comes as a surprise considering their superficially appropriate social adjustment." > > As for a detailed elucidation of causes, you have to read a highly technical book such as Kohut. -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Re: The root of personality disorders
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In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2
F. Nice! Hoist by my own petard. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly Why does Trump display Narcissistic [Personality] Disorder Symptoms? Because he feels unrelenting emptiness and low self esteem which causes him great pain when anyone criticizes him or suggests that someone else is superior to him. This unbearable pain causes him to counterattack forcefully when he feels attacked regardless of whether an attack is actually intended by the other person. Is that less circular, Nick? Of course we will now have to deal with your claim that he is aware of his pain because he infers it from his behavior, to wit exhibiting the symptoms of NPD. Frank Frank Wimberly On Jan 20, 2017 1:58 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: The root of personality disorders
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In reply to this post by gepr
Hi, Glen,
" Your mud is plenty chunky. " I think that's the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me. [sniff] Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ? Sent: Friday, January 20, 2017 4:48 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The root of personality disorders Ha! Right. Sorry. I didn't mean to offend. But some people really do think you can't get anything done with getting your hands ... muddy. And in their defense, that "pure mud" they use at, say, beauty salons is kinda gross to me. If I get muddy, I much prefer, chunky, heterogeneous mud. Your mud is plenty chunky. So, it's not so bad. On 01/20/2017 01:01 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > MUDDYING UP!??? Glen, you're talking about my LIFE'S WORK!!!! > > You did mean to say, "Adding purified essence of wisdom," right? > (};-)] > > Thank god for Eric's distillation. -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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