In my mind "affect" as a noun means behavior determined by a mood or feeling complex. For example, "He has flat affect".
----------------------------------- Frank Wimberly My memoir: https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly My scientific publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 Phone (505) 670-9918 On Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 11:49 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[email protected]> wrote: > And, just to be as clear as I can, it's not lost on me that there's a > common confusion between "affect" and "effect". However, I tend to think > linguistic confusion is often an indicator for an underlying conceptual > ambiguity. When I say "effect on the brain", I do NOT mean "affect on the > brain". I mean something more linear, cause-effect. So, it seems > reasonable to hear "the affects of talk therapy on the brain" as a > behavioral measure. But it seems more analytic/synthetic to say "the > effects of talk therapy on the brain". That is a more constructive > (constructionist? constructivist?) measure. The former is more > consequentialist, the latter is more axiomatic. > > And the reason I believe the original author meant the latter is because > the actual words were "changes the brain in similar ways". "Way" being > more of a constructive concept than, say, "destination". > > Technical writing has (painfully) verbose ways to handle this ambiguity. > But since we're discussing snarkiness, we shouldn't need to point out that > people *always* prefer pithy snark to technical verbosity. This is why > bullsh¡t is more efficient than the truth. > > On 3/13/19 10:23 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > > The idea that the path of least resistance *names* the end result is > interesting. But it's definitely NOT what *I* mean when I hear "similar > effects on the brain". What I mean is along the same lines of the 3 links > I posted: > > > > > https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/health/behavior-like-drugs-talk-therapy-can-change-brain-chemistry.html > > https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-018-0128-4 > > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5957509/ > > > > Patterns in PET scans (glucose uptake?) and the like are "effects on the > brain" (and other parts of the body, it should go without saying). The > "effect" is what we observe on the sliced out part of the object, not the > whole organism. Maybe it would help to talk about the liver? When I talk > about alcohol's "effect on the liver", I'm not talking about alcoholics > over-sharing in church basements. Similarly, if I say, "slamming my hand > on the table had an effect", the "effect" I'm talking about is that my hand > start to hurt, not how the other people in the room react. And I believe > that's how the author was using the word "effect" when they made their > unjustified claim that talk therapy has similar effects to drug therapy. > But I could easily be wrong about that, too. > > > > > > On 3/13/19 10:10 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: > >> Ok. I should stop being snarky and try to answer my own damned > question. I think we parse things into "brain" effects and "therapy" > effects depending on the lability of behavior with respect to the > manipulation we are contemplating. Let's say the symptom is Thompson's > Snarkiness. Let's say it could be cured either by a 25 cent pill or ten > thousand hours of therapy. We would call this a brain effect. On the > other hand, let's say it could be cured by a ten thousand dollar course of > pills or one hour of therapy. We would call this a therapy effect. These > attributions would apply even if it could be demonstated that they all > acted on precisely the same part of the brain. > >> > >> Am I wrong about that? > > > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > ============================================================ > 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 > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
