Andre: Arriving at a deeper meaning, thereby improving the quality of our consciousness is to reach an understanding that appears to contradict logic. To wit; one reaches an intuitive way of understanding, an understanding that is difficult to pin down. It is like trying to explain a good poem,painting or piece of music. Try to put your finger on it and it slips away or you destroy it in the process of explanation. (This, I believe, is what in a SOM world is designated as 'mystical' understanding ?).
[Krimel] Interesting... What to you make of these examples from Jonah Lehrer's, "How We Decide": Groups of test subjects were asked to rank the taste quality of a selection of jams. Over the course of the taste tests a clear pattern of preference was established. In a second test that same procedures were followed by the subjects were asked to say why they preferred this jam over that jam. In this case the preference results were almost reversed. People in this test appear to prefer the jams previously ranked at the bottom. Or this: One group of subjects was asked to remember a seven digit number. After the experiment they were offered a choice of a fruit cup or a piece of German chocolate cake. A second group of subject was asked to remember a two digit number and then offered the same selection of treats. The first group was much more likely to take the cake. Or this: groups of subjects were given a selection of wines with various price tags on them. They tended to rank the wine along the lines of price even though the pricing was random. Given wines without prices they tended to rank cheap wines as tasting best. Lehrer says these are examples of "rational" thought processes altering and effecting people immediate impressions. In the jam example the process of thinking about why they liked one jam over another, resulted in people over estimating the importance of the "reasons" they could actually think of. In the case of the snack choices, the more difficult task of remembering a seven digit number overwhelmed the "rational" brain's ability to resist a fattening treat. In the wine example the perceived "value" heavily influence the perception of taste Quality. Most people from Aristotle to Hume, from Freud to Gazzaniga have noted the difference between thinking and feeling. Jung made this one of the axes in his dimensions of personality. While most have argued that the "emotions" or feelings are irrational, the philosopher Robert Solomon argues that emotions are both rational and intelligent. I suspect that Jung at least would argue that it is not as though we should think and avoid feeling or that we should feel and not think. Rather wisdom is integrating the two and not letting one rule over the other. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
