Mentales Zeitreisen / Vorauswandern:

Salopp gesagt: Der Mensch kann zu jedem Zeitpunkt und beliebig oft in die Zukunft wandern. Er kann dort mögliche und unmögliche Zukunftsszenarien erschauen, um anschließend, diese Anschauungen verwertend, die Gegenwart angemessen auf eine gewollte Zukunft hin zu gestalten.

Rewards & Punishments:

"From the cybernetic perspective, rewards are any stimuli that indicate progress toward or attainment of a goal[.]"

"From a cybernetic perspective, punishments are any stimuli that signal definite inability to attain a goal, whereas threats, or cues of punishment, signal a decrease in the probability of attaining a goal."

Colin DeYoung

Facts and Actions:

"Our brains interpret the world primarily as a forum for action and only secondarily as a realm of facts[.]"

Colin DeYoung

Conscious-Psychological Systems:

"The core conscious-psychological mechanism .... is an explicit mental representation of situations that are centered on the self and one’s relationship with other people or one’s access to biological and physical resources that are of significance in the culture and ecology in which the person is situated. The representations are of past, present, or potential future states and might be cast as visual images, in language, or as memories of personal experiences, that is, episodic memories (Tulving, 2002). Of central importance is the ability to create a mental representation of a desired or fantasized state, such as a relationship with another individual, and to compare this to a mental representation of one’s current state, such as the nature of the current relationship with this other individual. These are conscious-psychological representations of present and potential future states that are of personal significance and are the content on which more conscious and effortful reasoning and problem-solving processes are applied (Evans, 2002; Stanovich & West, 2000). The predicted evolved function of these conscious-psychological mechanisms is to generate a fantasy representation of how the world “should” operate, that is, a representation of the world that would be most favorable to the individual’s reproductive (e.g., fantasy of the “perfect” mate; Whissell, 1996) and survival interests (Geary, 1998, 2005). This mental representation serves as a goal to be achieved and is compared against a mental representation of current circumstances. [...] problem solving and reasoning processes serve as the means for simulating social and other behavioral strategies that will reduce the difference between the ideal and actual states. If the behavioral strategies are effective, then the difference between the ideal state and the current state will be reduced and the individual will be one step closer to gaining access to and control of the fantasized social and other resources."

David C. Geary

Despots:

"In most contexts and for most people, the motivation to control is constrained by formal laws, informal social mores (e.g., enforced through gossip; Barkow, 1992), and by affective mechanisms (e.g., guilt) that promote social compromise and reciprocal social relationships (Baron, 1997; Trivers, 1971). For most people, adherence to these laws and mores provides benefits that are sufficient to avoid the risks associated with attempts to achieve, for instance, absolute despotic control (Simon, 1990). Moreover, there are also very likely to be basic differences in the personality (e.g., high on need for power, and low on social affiliation) of despots compared to most other people. Still, consideration of history’s despots allows a peeling away of these constraints and a more direct glimpse at the motivation to control. By definition, despots are individuals who have considerable social power and whose behavior is not typically constrained by affective or social consequences. With the absence of reciprocal cultural mores (i.e., democracy) and a professional police force and military that will suppress despotic behavior, these individuals and their coalitions gained control of the first six human civilizations—ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Aztec and Inca empires, and imperial India and China (Betzig, 1986, 1993). Across these and many other civilizations, the activities of despots were (and still are) centered on diverting the material and social resources of the culture to themselves and to their kin, typically to the detriment of many other people. On the basis of the historical record, they lived in opulence and the men almost always had exclusive sexual access to scores—sometimes thousands—of women (Betzig, 1986)."

David C. Geary

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"As with other traits, it is almost certain there are individual differences in the intensity of the motivation to control and individual differences in the manner in which it is expressed (Pratto, 1996). Nonetheless, gaining some level of control over the activities of daily life, important social relationships, and material resources affords many of the same benefits, albeit on a much smaller scale, as those enjoyed by despots."

The Motivation to Control:

"The evolved function of brain, cognitive, affective, conscious-psychological, and behavioral systems is to enable animals to attempt to gain control of the social (e.g., mates), biological (e.g., prey), and physical (e.g., nesting spots) resources that have tended to covary with survival and reproductive outcomes during the species’ evolutionary history."

David C. Geary

Lernen:

Im Leben geht es darum, relevante Information, wenn man mit ihr konfrontiert wird, rasch zu absorbieren.

Interesse, Wissen und Können:

"I recall once inteviewing a young man who tested out as borderline retarded, in the range of IQ 75, to get some idea of his fund of general information. I decided to begin by trying to find out how much he knew about whatever topic he claimed to have the greatest interest in and to know the most about. It was baseball. He frequently went to baseball games with his father or watched them on television, and found them very exciting. Yet when I questioned him about baseball, I discovered that he didn’t know for sure how many players are on a team, couldn’t name all the positions on the team, and had only vague and at times incorrect notions of the rules of the game. He knew the names of three or four players on the local team but didn’t know any of the world’s most famous players or even the names of any of the Big League teams. When I probed other topics in which he claimed an interest—automobiles and gardening—I found that he possessed even less information about these than about baseball. It was evident that his quite low score on the General Information subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, on which I had tested him, gave an accurate assessment of his level of general knowledge of the world around him. On the other hand, just out of curiosity, I later put the same baseball questions to a learned professor who, I happened to know, had no interest in any sport whatever. He even had a positive disdain for spectator sports and claimed never to have seen a baseball game in his life. Yet he had no trouble answering the several baseball questions I asked him, and could name three Big League teams and several famous baseball players. Interestingly, he was quite surprised to discover that he knew anything at all about baseball and seemed puzzled as to where he could have learned facts about something he cared nothing about. But conversations with him revealed that he knew a great deal about a great many things, in science, literature, the arts, economics, politics, and world affairs. In his own field he is an acknowledged world authority."

Arthur R. Jensen - Straight Talk About Mental Tests (1981)

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Interesse, allein und für sich genommen, garantiert weder Wissen noch Können. Im Sinne der Investment Theorie entscheiden Interessen darüber mit, in welche Themen und in welches Können der Mensch seine Gedanken investiert. Wie rasch und wirksam eine Person aber generell neue Fähigkeiten und neues Wissen erwerben kann, wird nicht primär von dieser Interessiertheit, sondern von der allgemeinen Effektivität des Denkens bestimmt.

Beruf:

In beruflicher Hinsicht sind wohl diejenigen "Gewinner", die einer Tätigkeit nachgehen können, für die sie ein echtes Interesse empfinden.

Nachdenken:

Das "freie" Miteinander-in-Beziehung-Setzen unterschiedlicher Bewusstseinsinhalte.

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Menschen unterscheiden sich darin, wie effektiv sie unterschiedliche Bewusstseinsinhalte miteinander verknüpfen können. D.h. dahingehend, mit welcher Geschwindigkeit / mit welcher Wirksamkeit sich solche Verknüpfungsvorgänge in ihnen ereignen.

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Filterschwäche: Wenn das Bewusstsein generell vieles gleichzeitig mit Aufmerksamkeit belichtet.

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Wenn man sagt: "Ein Mensch schöpft sein Erkennen aus dem inneren Erleben.", so meint man hiermit, dass er die Fähigkeit, gleichzeitig eine große Anzahl ehemaliger Bewusstseinsinhalte (diffus) auszuleuchten, zur Erkenntnisgenerierung heranzieht. Oder anders: Intuition lässt sich als das Vermögen verstehen, eine große Anzahl ehemaliger Bewusstseinsinhalte gleichzeitig auszuwerten. Unterschiedliche Menschen ziehen dieses Können in sehr unterschiedlichen Ausmaßen zur Problemlösung heran.

Das Vorbewusste:

"Das Vorbewusste umfasst alle Inhalte, die einmal bewusst waren und aktuell unbewusst sind, oft aber schnell und zum Teil gezielt ins Bewusstsein geholt werden können, zum Beispiel durch aktives Erinnern oder aufgrund bestimmter Hinweisreize."

"Das Vorbewusste stellt ... einen riesigen Vorrat an möglichen Bewusstseinsinhalten dar[.]"

Gerhard Roth - Persönlichkeit, Entscheidung und Verhalten (2015)

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Warum treten in einer gegebenen Situation gerade bestimmte Gedanken ins Bewusstsein, nicht aber andere?

Interessant ist, dass es sich in vielen Fällen kaum vorhersagen lässt, welche Gedanken in einer gegebenen Situation ins Bewusstsein treten werden. Z.B. bei Gesprächen: Mit unterschiedlichen Personen ergeben sich scheinbar von allein völlig unterschiedliche Gespräche über sehr unterschiedliche Themen, eben auch dann, wenn nie im Vorhinein nachgesonnen wurde, was gerade mit dieser Person besprochen werden könnte. Bei manchen Gesprächspartnern nimmt man vergangene Gesprächsfäden wieder und wieder auf. Bei anderen ergeben sich kaum Anknüpfungspunkte an vorherige Gespräche, usw.

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Das Reich möglicher Bewusstseinsinhalte: Was da überhaupt von innen herauf im eigenen Bewusstsein auftauchen kann. - Nicht exklusive in der Form des Wiederauftauchens, sondern auch als Neukombination ehemaliger Bewusstseinsinhalte.

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Zeit verbringen mit sich selbst: Abwarten, welche Bewusstseinsinhalte (Gedanken, Gefühle, Wünsche, etc.) erscheinen werden. Versus dem Zeit verbringen mit äußeren Gegenständen / der stärkeren Fokussierung nach außen.

Training:

Immer wieder neue Aufgaben lösen, die etwas schwieriger zu lösen sind, als ähnliche bereits gelöste Aufgaben.

"Only after Bruckner heard the music of Wagner, in his late thirties, did he begin to compose symphonies."

Ellen Winner - Gifted Children

The triviality of play:

Peter Gray - Free to Learn:

"People often think of play as frivolous or trivial, and they are right. As I have explained, play is activity conducted for its own sake rather than to achieve serious real-world goals such as food, money, praise, escape from a tiger, or an addition to one’s résumé."

"Play serves the serious purpose of education, but the player is not deliberately educating himself or herself. The player is playing for fun; education is a by-product. If the player were playing for a serious purpose, it would no longer be play and much of the educative power would be lost."

"Fear and concerns about evaluation tend to freeze the mind and body into rigid frames, suitable for carrying out well-learned habitual activities but not for learning or thinking about anything new. In the absence of concern about failure and others’ judgments, children at play can devote all their attention to the skills at which they are playing."

Play as an indicator of psychological and physical well-being:

"In general, play is an indicator of psychological and physical well-being (Held & Spinka, 2011). It is usually the first activity to disappear if an individual is stressed, anxious, hungry or ill."

Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation

Bateson & Martin

Shame and Guilt:

Anthony Stevens, John Price:

"Shame is experienced when one fails to measure up to the standards of the group; guilt is suffered when one breaks the rules."

Competition by attraction:

Anthony Stevens, John Price:

"With the evolution of competition by attraction, a new capacity for self-assessment emerged, which Gilbert (1989) has called social attention holding potential or SAHP. ... Attractive people (people with high SAHP) are granted prestige (the systemic correlate of SAHP). They assume leadership roles and have access to more resources than their less successful competitors."

Anthony Stevens, John Price:

"Whereas attachment theory proposes that depression is an adaptive response to losing an attachment figure and conceiving of oneself as unlovable, rank theory proposes that depression is an adaptive response to losing rank and conceiving of oneself as a loser. The adaptive function of the depression, according to rank theory, is to facilitate losing and to promote accommodation to the fact that one has lost. In other words, the depressive state evolved to promote the acceptance of the subordinate role and the loss of resources which can only be secured by holding higher rank in the dominance hierarchy."

Anthony Stevens, John Price:

"a depressive reaction to loss of status enables the demoted individual to adapt passively to the lower rank, thus avoiding further attack from the more powerful individual who has displaced him or her."

Vertebrate strategies for dealing with adversity:

Anthony Stevens, John Price:

"[There are] two fundamental vertebrate strategies for dealing with adversity: one is to attack, to escalate the action, to ‘go for it’ with the determination to ‘win at all costs’ (the escalating or winning strategy); the other is to yield, to back off or submit, to de-escalate, to ‘cut one’s losses’ (the de-escalating or losing strategy)."

The surprising science of alpha males | Frans de Waal

Scientific discoveries:

"Science is even more unpredictable than history. Every important discovery in science is by definition unpredictable. If it were predictable, it would not be an important discovery. The purpose of science is to create opportunities for unpredictable things to happen. When nature does something unexpected, we learn something about how nature works."

Freeman Dyson

Models & Theories:

"On well-trodden ground we build theories. On the half-explored frontiers we build models."

Freeman Dyson

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"As a scientist I make a sharp distinction between models and theories. A theory is a construction, built out of logic and mathematics, that is supposed to describe the actual universe that we live in. A model is a construction that describes a much simpler universe, including some features of the actual universe and neglecting others."

"Verne and Wells both failed to foresee some of the most basic aspects of twentieth-century life: the dominance of the private automobile over other means of transportation, the ubiquity of telephones and personal computers ... Their most basic mistake was their belief that technology would always become bigger and bigger rather than smaller and smaller."

Freeman Dyson

Verständnis und Sprache:

A) Wie sehr jemand in der Lage ist, etwas rasch zu verstehen;

B) Wie sehr jemand in der Lage ist, Verstandenes zu verbalisieren;

Unzufriedenheit:

"Im Leben (absolut) zufrieden zu sein, wäre tatlose Ruhe und Stillstand der Triebfedern[.]"

Immanuel Kant

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"Der Schmerz ist der Stachel der Tätigkeit und in dieser fühlen wir allererst unser Leben[.]"

Wissenserwerb:

A) Wissenserwerb aus einem Zwang heraus

B) Wissenserwerb aus Interesse

Vortragende:

A) Vortragende, die dem Erkenntniswunsch des Zuhörers freundlich gesonnen sind;

B) Vortragende, die dem Erkenntniswunsch des Zuhörers nicht freundlich gesonnen sind;

"Blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions."

Charles Darwin

"and you know, people are kinda fascinated by that idea, that's why you watch America's Got Talent ...  You never see narcissism in its purer forms than you see it when you watch people who display an absolute lack of talent and become homicidal when someone dares point it out. Accusatory and homicidal, instantly, it's really something."

Jordan Peterson

Freiheitserleben:

Die Einengung im Denken, Wahrnehmen, Handeln und Fühlen für Zeitspannen oder Stunden hinter sich lassen;

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Im Sinne einer Erhebung: das vorübergehende Heraustreten aus einer Enge;

Wahrheitserleben:

Momente / Stunden, in denen wir den Wert einer Aussage, eines Gedankens, eines Gedankengangs erleben.

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Das Vermögen, ein Erkennen oder eine Information als besonders wert- und bedeutungsvoll zu erleben;

"part of the reason that people want to tear things down is so that they don't have anything to contrast themselves against and to feel bad."

Jordan Peterson

Effective Fighters:

"A consistent theme in the combat-behavior literature is that one never knows who is going to be an effective soldier until the shooting starts, and the identity if the good fighters often turns out to be a surprise."

Kingsley R. Browne

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"In his book Fighting Spirit, F. M. Richardson commented that >soldiers know from experience that it is so difficult as to be well-nigh impossible to foretell which men will do well in a battle and which will fail.<"