Control
 

Have been thinking a lot lately about the human desire to control our experience - to manufacture situations to fit with existing schemas and how our pysche collapses when we cannot control our surroundings, esp. other people. You see it in crime and politics (not mutually exclusive) every day. It seems every subsequent movement resulting from a failure to adequately dictate a situation is an attempt to recreate or resolve the previous unfavourable situation. Why can't we break out of this cycle?

It seems every subsequent movement resulting from a failure to adequately dictate a situation is an attempt to recreate or resolve the previous unfavourable situation.

Sounds as if you're saying, 'When we fuck things up, we continually try to fix them,' with the corollary, 'When things don't go our way, we still keep trying.'

Doesn't sound too bad to me. I mean, I guess it's nice if you can embrace total apathy and go with the flow, but for me the things I want are part of who I am, not the other way around.

Anyway, I don't see a cycle here, since controlling someone/something does not lessen our desire for control in the first place. It's just a fact about people, not a cycle that perpetuates itself.

I think she meant the process is going backward.

I was actually questioning why we have a 'way' in the first place. What is 'our way'? This is surely the root of the discussion. Of course, if we have a preference, we will continually and cyclicly be disappointed or elated (and all levels betwixt). This disappointment can only lead to angst (and thus the desire to 'fix'), which is deepened further by the elation when things do match our 'way' as the drop to inevitable disappointment is that much bigger (and the biggest difficulty is realising that you can't have everything your way, GWB). What I want to know is, why does the existence of a 'way', or preference, automatically lead to the desire to control a situation? Is disappointment actually a bad thing? If it is, we have to agree that we should have no preferences whatsoever.

Then again she could just be saying, "Never underestimate the ability of the human mind to rationalize away any situation."

If it's cyclical I guess it could be backward, unless you agree we are always moving forward (on whatever level). Although on a circle backward can be forward and vice versa.

*pauses in confusion*.

Anyway, I agree with that TS but would add that it is not rationalisation, in fact it is largely irrational, moulding events and perception to coexist more happily with existing preconceptions.

I'm still not clear on what the question is.

Are you referring to the cyclical convergence/divergence of expectation and reality? Meaning we expect X but reality is Y so we try to mold Y into X and sometimes it works (convergence) but there are other forces also at work on Y which, together with our ever-changing expectations creates divergence again that we again seek to eliminate?

Reality is a mental construct and expectations are an inseparable part of that image so when events take place that "don't fit" the image its easy to blame expectations but really, its the whole image that is in need of revision. Once can greet that circumstance with a desire to "fix" the incorrect reality or one can (the Tao way) line up one's incorrect image to what is real.

One difference I see is that once can make the argument that altering one's mental image of reality to accomodate more and more events that didn't fit the existing model is "progress" towards a more enlightened state whereas continually trying to re-model reality to fit existing preconceptions is (mental) stagnation.

Hopefully, I haven't strayed too far from what you were really asking but I'm not 100% sure.

Beestie you are much more eloquent than I this afternoon. :)

I agree with everything you've said, but my questions is, 'why do we have expectations to start with?' and 'where does the desire to fix come from' i.e. why are we not happy when expectation and reality does not match? Is it instinctual to have reality align with a preconcecived perception of reality? I guess this is how we make sense of the world. But why can sense not be contradictory? Am I making any sense? This is quite a complicated question and I fear I do not have the ability to explain it with the clarity it deserves.

Originally posted by Catwoman When the unexpected happens, sometimes we are not happy, sometimes we are very happy and sometimes we don't feel affected by it.

If I expect to win the lotter but don't then I'm pissed. Why did I think I had a shot of winning it in the first place? Because the commercial (aimed at people in denial about the true odds of winning) told me all my dreams would come true?

If, on the other hand, knowing the true odds but playing anyway (the other lottery commercial aimed at those who won't play because of the poor odds said that money goes to a good cause) and winning shatters my expectations in a good way!

If, on the third hand, if I don't play then I really don't care who wins (i.e., no expectation at all).

So, on one level, your question appears to be about expectations and how they got there in the first place. Funny question coming from you :)

I bolded the "we" in your orig quote because not everyone is made unhappy when reality and expectations don't intersect. Some people metaThink and realize that their expectations were wrong and accept it. Those people salve themselves with the idea that as they climb up the enlightenment ladder, it will happen less and less often.

To just drill to the core, I'd say the answer to your question is highly correlated with one's "self-importance." Enlightened folk distance themselves from the self and take responsibility for disappointment while those who cannot (or choose not to) escape the self greet unfulfilled expectations as a "problem" with reality. After all, it's all about ME, right?!?!? :-)

Cat

Yeah, I’m still not really sure what the primary question is, so I’m going to cover my ignorance by using a lot of big words, like coruscation.

One of the prevailing theories of human behavior is that we function within Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI). Belief refers to our accumulated understanding of how the world works – all of the facts, principles, and concepts that we have access to in our person. Desires are sometimes more properly stated as Goals – the things we want to accomplish. Intention refers to the exercise of our agency to work toward our goals within out beliefs.

If I believe that a chair exists, that it is capable of supporting my weight, and I desire to sit down, my intention is to sit on that chair.

We rarely desire bad things – most people desire good things. We desire peace, to be loved, to be of consequence in someone else’s life. The problem is, we always have incomplete and inaccurate beliefs about the world. When we seek to control our circumstances, we are operating with a complete set of true information, and so we enact intentions that are not always good or helpful.

This is actually the basis for most Software Agency design work right now (Artificial Intelligence). Pollack and others are working to build systems that are able to assimilate incomplete information and establish an edifice of knowledge (beliefs), establish goals, and construct intentions to accomplish those goals within the given beliefs.

-sm

This is all getting flipped over backwards in a retrograde motion going counterclockwise to the left at the right after turning retro past some guinea pigs dresseed as ZZtop and telling you that this sentence should be better read backside down to the left in a right,counterclockwise motion.

it's simply nonsensical nonsense.

No. It's all about ME.

Would attempting to change reality to meet your expectations constitute making progress in reality (as opposed to one's self)?

My mother is going out for a walk with the dogs on a wintry Sandpoint night. Since the wind is blowing snow along the streets, she wears a scarf. The wind keeps tugging at the scarf and pulling it apart until it is undone. She pulls out a safety pin and fixes the scarf in place.

(beating in background) uh-huh,... yeah,...oh,yeahh,...do the loco-motion.

I thought your AOL trial was expiring.

Do your parents know what you are doing in your spare time?

Learning English.