the candy bar

[hiyymer]

"Can I have a candy bar, Mom?"
"Not now, Honey."
"Why?"

Sound familiar to anyone. So what do you say? Some people say,

"Because I say so, Honey".

And if they do that with great consistency that could be the end of it. But some of us think that reasons are important.

"Because it's not good for you, Honey."

Oh lame. The kids going to see right through that one.

"Then why did you give me one yesterday, Mom? Why?"
"Maybe later, Honey. Not now."
"Why not now, Mom? Why?"

Now think about it seriously. You may think the kid is entitled to a reason, but did you have a reason? In that split second between "can I?" and your response, did you do a cost benefit analysis of candy bar versus no candy bar laying out all the possible reasons that could effect the decision? There may have been some causal pattern in your subconscious brain that had some rational component to it, but you basically said "no" because that's what you felt at the moment was the right thing to do; the felt signal from your brain. There was no time to "think" about it. Some visceral awareness of the kid's state of mind and level of being already overstimulated may have been the most that would have crept in and said this is not the right time for a candy bar. But try that one, "because you are too overstimulated for more sugar right now." That will shut him up. Right. "No I'm not Mom...."

So basically is the kid saying "why" because he is a budding Sigmund Freud and has an overactive interest in the psychological underpinnings of his parent's reply? Or is he saying "why" because he wants a candy bar? And are you replying with a reason because you think there is a reason you are saying no this time and yes at some other time if you can just come up with it after the fact, or because you are over-educated and living in the delusion that having a reason might shut the kid up.

There are kids and parents that will go through a string of ten "why"s, and if you are present to that it drives you nuts. The thing is that reasons are only about power and getting your way. Every kid understands that. Some parents apparently don't. Having to have reasons is death. Maybe the best answer is not because I say so, but because that's the way I feel about it. I said no because I said no. Tell em the truth.

[Millefleur]

The Candy Bar is the name of a lesbian club near here

I generally say:
'Because you've already had one, you greedy piggy'
'Because then you'll have nothing left for pudding and then how will I bribe you to eat your dinner?'
'Because it costs money and at this rate you''ll eat us into the poor house'
'Because I said no and Mummys the boss' or... (this one is most effective)
'I've said no once and if you ask again I'll eat it myself. And make you watch'

Kids need to know they can't have everything they want, when they want it, that greed is bad, that sometimes there'll be a higher power who has the last say... that mummy wants to eat it when they've gone to bed.. not so much.

[FBM]

hiyymer, as far as I can tell, many people assume they're making conscious rational decisions when in fact many/most of their 'decisions' are based on un/subconscious habits, conditioning and instincts. The example you gave is a very good one. The 'rational' part of the conversation is so routinely added later in an ad hoc fashion, but then defended as the cause for the initial reaction.

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11 ... .2112.html

Brief Communication abstract

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nature Neuroscience 11, 543 - 545 (2008)
Published online: 13 April 2008 | doi:10.1038/nn.2112


Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain
Chun Siong Soon1,2, Marcel Brass1,3, Hans-Jochen Heinze4 & John-Dylan Haynes1,2


Top of pageThere has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively 'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.

Top of page
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
2.Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Haus 6, Philippstrasse 13, 10115 Berlin, Germany.
3.Department of Experimental Psychology and Ghent Institute for Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
4.Department of Neurology II, Otto-von-Guericke University, Leipziger Strasse 44, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany.
Correspondence to: John-Dylan Haynes1,2 e-mail: haynes@bccn-berlin.de

[hiyymer]

hiyymer, as far as I can tell, many people assume they're making conscious rational decisions when in fact many/most of their 'decisions' are based on un/subconscious habits, conditioning and instincts. The example you gave is a very good one. The 'rational' part of the conversation is so routinely added later in an ad hoc fashion, but then defended as the cause for the initial reaction.

Thanks for the links.

I would say it's even worse than that. The brain does it's thing then it updates the ongoing experience of "I" that it is constantly creating with a "I decided" experience. But it's not like a vacuous illusion. The "I" is a conscious representation that is part of the mechanism; the process by which the organism maintains it's state of homeostasis; the conditions of aliveness. There is no free will, but the experience of free will is a beautiful rich experience. It is the experience of life being life, of becoming ever better at coping and adapting as part of the maturing and aging process so that it can be in a state of full contented aliveness while it replicates. Almost everyone I talk to notices a shift in their experience of themselves around age 35-40; what they describe as a comfortableness in their own skin.

[FBM]

It's an interesting topic to me. I've spent a lot of time on the question of what it means to be a person, a thinking thing that makes decisions, has preferences, memories, habits, a personality, patterns of behavior, etc. I investigated the Buddhist analytic approach, which concludes that the self exists, but not in the way it's commonly conceived of. It exists as an ongoing process, rather than as an enduring entity. The distinction is a big one, I think.

More recently, I've been looking at what neuroscience and neuropsychiatry have to say about the self, decision-making and identity. I ran into some very, very interesting literature. I'm beginning to think in terms of 'sense of self' instead of 'self'. It seems to fit the research I've read so far much better. It seems that researchers have located the areas (there are more than one) in the brain responsible for our sense of self, which seems to be the result of the interactions of a few different areas in conjunction with information gained through the sensory organs and their neural pathways.

This sense of self is the experience of temporal continuity, and thus, of the experience of being an singular, time-enduring entity. However useful this sense is in survival, it doesn't actually represent things they way they are. Everything about a human animal is in a constant state of flux. Everything. If it's true that all the matter and energy in the body is replaced every 7 years, and if thoughts, sensations, moods, behaviors, beliefs, memories, etc, are all fleeting, then where is this enduring entity?

Seems to be an abstract construct. A useful one, as I noted, but not really real in the way that I, at least, previously conceived of my self. Something is certainly going on, but what's going on is so different from my previous assumptions about it that they're hardly commensurate.

Interesting related readings: http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/03 ... 3878ws.pdf

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramacha ... index.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19837100

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/c ... l/16/4/509

Some are more interesting and relevant than the others, of course, but interesting stuff. To me, anyway.

[hiyymer]

The Candy Bar is the name of a lesbian club near here

I generally say:
'Because you've already had one, you greedy piggy'
'Because then you'll have nothing left for pudding and then how will I bribe you to eat your dinner?'
'Because it costs money and at this rate you''ll eat us into the poor house'
'Because I said no and Mummys the boss' or... (this one is most effective)
'I've said no once and if you ask again I'll eat it myself. And make you watch'

Kids need to know they can't have everything they want, when they want it, that greed is bad, that sometimes there'll be a higher power who has the last say... that mummy wants to eat it when they've gone to bed.. not so much.

Fear and guilt. Good strategy. Power that works.

[hiyymer]

It's an interesting topic to me.

Thanks again. I'll look at the links when I have more time. I am reading Antonio Damasio's new book "Self Comes to Mind". It's pretty good so far. It would sound like a must read for you. I read "Descartes Error" a few years ago, and it was one of those mind shifting books.

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/c ... l/16/4/509

I think this one is also kind of fascinating, if you have any doubt that it is our brain that is creating our thoughts and running the show.

[FBM]

It's an interesting topic to me.

Thanks again. I'll look at the links when I have more time. I am reading Antonio Damasio's new book "Self Comes to Mind". It's pretty good so far. It would sound like a must read for you. I read "Descartes Error" a few years ago, and it was one of those mind shifting books.

I'll check those out.

[qhttp://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/c ... l/16/4/509

I think this one is also kind of fascinating, if you have any doubt that it is our brain that is creating our thoughts and running the show.[/quote]

I found and bookmarked that just a couple of weeks ago. Good stuff. Not light reading, but worth the effort, IMO.