I don't know if I can "will" myself to go on autopilot. It seems like if there is a conflict in some meta-reasoning level, in values, life principles or general beliefs, I might be experiencing more depression-like symptoms until I try to resolve the conflict. Sometimes I can resolve the conflict myself, reflecting or journaling, and sometimes I need a professional therapist to guide the process. So, I'd say it's not that reflection leads to depression; more likely it is depression that leads to reflection, or some internal conflict that causes both depression and increased reflection. Then reflection by itself does not consistently solve the problem, but only a specific kind of reflection.
There is a mistake right in the beginning, not sure how it affects the conclusions yet. The variables given are S - System variable (some kind of disturbance), Z is the outcome ( a controlled variable) and R is the action of a controller. The causal relations between them are S affects Z, S affects R, and R affects Z.
> The archetypal example for this is something like a thermostat. The variable
S represents random external temperature fluctuations. The regulator R
is the thermostat, which measures these fluctuations and takes an action (such as putting on heating or air conditioning) based on the information it takes in. The outcome Z is the resulting temperature of the room, which depends both on the action taken by the regulator, and the external temperature.
The problem here is that the regulator R does not measure external temperature. It just measures the controlled variable - the temperature Z, so the causal arrow should go from Z to R too, and the arrow from S to R does not exist.
Control theory and cybernetics were supposed to transform psychology in a much more dramatic and all-encompassing way, as argued by W.T. Powers, for example[1]. In modern psychology, the concept of negative feedback control is treated like a metaphore, a vague connection between machines and living things (with the possible exception of the field of motor control) . If psychology would take the concept seriously, then most research methods in the field would need to be changed. Less null-hypothesis testing, more experiments applying disturbances to selected variables to see if they are controlled by a participant or not.
That is the meaning I'm getting from the call to revolution.
> Not seeing the revolution here. Most of the ideas here have been seen before. Did I miss something?
The reviewer is a psychologist, with some interesting opinions and criticisms of psychology. My impression is that applying control theory to study human behavior should be the revolutionary thing, for psychology.
I'm not sure I had the same issue, it is a different laptop, but it would not go to sleep. The current solution is to make it hybernate instead of sleep.
The scientific community, or the ministry of science of some country, or a university - might find that paying for peer review, for example, might be more effective in promoting good science than paying for publication.
Where is the author's name? Strange editorial. Neuroscientists should "involve participants"? What if they cannot speak, like that guy Broca's area was found in?
>>Without a doubt, human neuroscience is entering a new and important era. However, it can fulfil its goals of improving human experiences only when study participants are involved in discussions about the future of such research.
I think it's just that bouba has o, and kiki has k. Also the b is half-round, and I is more spiky. Visual differences, not auditory.
edit: You make a round shape with your mouth in o
> I started in 1934, [... ] At that time, the computing industry was limited to mechanical calculators using the decimal system.
That seems a bit biased toward discrete systems. Engineers and scientists of the time used mechanical and (later) electric analog computers, and they were more powerful than the new discrete systems, for most purposes. For example: Helmut Hoelzer’s Fully Electronic Analog Computer used in the German V2 (A4) rockets
https://www.cdvandt.org/Hoelzer%20V4.pdf (text in German, but has some pictures and diagrams)
In a controlled environment - where the object to pick up, for example, is always in exactly the same location - you could do that. If there is any variation in the location of the object, you need vision to localize it each time. You need a camera, maybe two, and probably some kind of 3d perception, which is an unsolved problem at the moment (well, not solved in a general way, there are some solutions for specific objects).
That is also a difficult problem - how do you know beforehand, that a problem is worthwhile? That someone else thinks it is important? Or how high is "ambitious" if you never tried to do a thing? There is a lot of luck in that system.
Well, it is not "brain activity alone", there are always light waves, forces, chemicals, and a lot of other things, acting on the brain from "outside" of the body, through some very strange receptor routs, but the "information" somehow travels. And we know 100% that for a lot of receptors, the firing rates depend on the intensity of the stimulus. So, we can see a direct correlation between, say, an applied force and golgi tendon organ firing. And at the same time, we discovered some types of radiation that we cannot see, and yet they can influence distant objects. I think that is pretty weird. So, we found a lot of direct correlations between brain activity and the outside world. Is there some need for an additional invisible field, not covered in current physics?
I don't think it was ever proven in an experiment that an out of body experience or an NDE got some information from the real world, as opposed to information originating in the person's "brain". I don't know, but before there is confirmation in a controlled experiment, I just don't believe them. Much more likely is that their information is imagined and their certainty is a feeling they should not trust.
That's interesting, I've never heard of Milton Friedman's thermostat, but there is a procedure called "The test for the controlled variable" intended to find if a system is controlling one variable or another, invented by W.T. Powers sometime in the fifties, I think. You make a hypothesis about what is the controlled variable, then you apply a disturbance. If the variable stays relatively undisturbed, the correlation between the disturbance and the controlled variable will be nearly zero.
> That will solve the criminality problem, but not the drug problem.
That is exactly right. The drug problem, like the alcohol problem, on the level of personal suffering should be addressed by other means, like support groups, therapy, ban of advertising, ban on selling to minors, etc. It will not stop the drugs, but it will remove the criminality from the production and distribution. Don't you think the tradeoff was worth it for alcohol?