MYnd working group (private group)

Great comments on the transcript by the way.

Kids do ask "Why", this is true - and this indicates that humans default to pursuing causal questions about everything. It leads to all sorts of problems - Fudamental Attribution Errors (very entertaining stuff that), Actor/Observer effects, Categorical thinking that underlies racism and bigotry, intergroup violence...fascinating area of study.

However, the example illustrates the effect that adult (authority) forcing causal explanations for visceral desires (totally inexplicable internally experienced phenomena) in thier children educates children to make stuff up to try to make the best of the interaction within which it is iccuring. If I want an ice-cream then I have to convince the adult that it is a worthy desire against the value systems in the adult, or risk not getting it. At best the kid is honing their mind-reading skills (see Theory of Mind and the Machiavellian Hypothesis). So they are unlikely to produce rich and accurate accounts and explanations of thier internal experiences, and more likely to perform a purposive linguistic power gambit. The answer will almost certainly have absolutely nothing to do with the nature of thier desire nor what it might be constructing. "Why did you leave me?", "Why did you go back to the man sho beat you up?", "Why do you have to have a clean house?" If Freud is right and we are driven both by unconscious as well as conscious drivers, the pretence that we can fully consciously explain what we do is just that - a fantasy, a pretence. The unconscious element is left out of the mix while we believ eth face value responses that the question "why" eleicits.

Hope this makes sense.

Mac

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Mac Andrews June 1, 2008 at 9:48pm

Great comments on the transcript by the way.

Kids do ask "Why", this is true - and this indicates that humans default to pursuing causal questions about everything. It leads to all sorts of problems - Fudamental Attribution Errors (very entertaining stuff that), Actor/Observer effects, Categorical thinking that underlies racism and bigotry, intergroup violence...fascinating area of study.

However, the example illustrates the effect that adult (authority) forcing causal explanations for visceral desires (totally inexplicable internally experienced phenomena) in thier children educates children to make stuff up to try to make the best of the interaction within which it is iccuring. If I want an ice-cream then I have to convince the adult that it is a worthy desire against the value systems in the adult, or risk not getting it. At best the kid is honing their mind-reading skills (see Theory of Mind and the Machiavellian Hypothesis). So they are unlikely to produce rich and accurate accounts and explanations of thier internal experiences, and more likely to perform a purposive linguistic power gambit. The answer will almost certainly have absolutely nothing to do with the nature of thier desire nor what it might be constructing. "Why did you leave me?", "Why did you go back to the man sho beat you up?", "Why do you have to have a clean house?" If Freud is right and we are driven both by unconscious as well as conscious drivers, the pretence that we can fully consciously explain what we do is just that - a fantasy, a pretence. The unconscious element is left out of the mix while we believ eth face value responses that the question "why" eleicits.

Hope this makes sense.

Mac

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