John: The hot stove method of truth transferal is probably the oldest and most common experience in human history. It goes like this, the infant wanders near the hot stove and its mother warns it "Don't go near the stove, Johnny, you'll get burned".
Almost inevitably though, Johhny, out of accident or curiousity touches the hot stove and mother goes "see? I told you so." Even though mothers are being protective in this situation, you can hear a little satisfaction in their tones of comfort. Andre: Don't know about the last sentence John, but I do not agree with the "out of accident or curiosity' bit. Look carefully at the way you worded mom's warning: Don't go near the stove, Johnny.. (I agree it is very common usage) but the brain doesn't compute the 'don't'. Let me give you an example: I ask you: 'Don't think of a red balloon". What have you done? To make sense of that instruction you first have to think of a red ballon and then go "oops, not supposed to think of that!' Same with Johnny. Mom in fact tells him to go near the stove! Poor Johnny. There are numerous examples of course. One more variant: 'I don't think that is right' does not make sense. What you mean is "I think you are wrong'. Cheers Andre, the neurolinguistic programmer. 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/md/archives.html
