(Untitled)

[oenalen]

The human being is an adaptable organism, especially through our ability to create attitudinal-behavioural change. However it seems reasonable that there is a limit to how much change an individual human can create. Psychology suggests that this adaptability is limited from dot but also narrows as we age. Does anyone know of any work focused on a

Comments

kierkegaardien leap

[epictetus_rex]

Interesting question. I think, however, that any empirical study which claims to show that people are "incapable" of attitudinal/behavioural change is going to be in serious error. After all, it's clearly possible to initiate changes in one's character that are utterly drastic... you can rigorously condition yourself, one can have others do the conditioning, or submit to some sort of brainwashing program.

The question seems, then, to be patently ethical. Not "how much change can we undergo?", but "how much change should we undergo, given the value of personal integrity?"

I would also worry that such studies might mistake a cultural regularity for a human universal. Isn't it plausible that, in a culture which highly values personal integrity, people are more resistant to attitudinal change? Further, wouldn't the dissemination of such studies actually serve to reinforce that cultural regularity?

Damn, this armchair is comfortable.Reply

[moosehead_beer]

I think the question is also implicitly tied up with efficiency: how much does it really take to change this much? You hear a lot in folk psychology about people becoming "set in their ways" as they get older, and I wonder how much of that is actually true. Certainly we develop habits which become internalized and subconscious, and it seems reasonable that those could influence our decision-making in pretty significant ways. Would you have to start "working backwards", so to speak, and unlearn certain ingrained reactions and attitudes?

I'd really be interested in hearing from someone who knows a lot about this sort of thing. It really does sound pretty interesting.

[lovethelogos]

I don't think deconstructing previous assumptions in regards to one's previous mode of being is an effective step in actively recreating yourself as a new subject. I think that's what nietzsche and deleuze mean in the "tyranny of history" in the sense that sometimes it is better to actively forget something in order to start to do something new. However; I do believe coming to terms with oneself and the context of oneself is an effective way to learn how to cope and to act in a different mode of being than previously. I just think that repeating similar activities will, in an aristotelian sense, create a new person, and more than get behind the theoretical underpinning's in regards to one's motives or searching for an explanation, it is better to just repeating yourself differently. (heck, you could even take a kierkegaardian leap into another sphere of being!)

Also, I think, how can one know what it is like to be as something unless unless one takes the leap of being it?

kierkegaardien leap

[oenalen]

Do you think this total leap is possible? On personal reflection I sometimes feel a slipperiness of the mind as if there just isn't the capability, ?the neural network, to handle the concept. And the range of issues the slipperiness applies are across the board from mathematics to love. Am I forever shut out from the concepts or a level of concept I know others find straightforward? And vice versa?

[lovethelogos]

neuroplasticity.

Obviously in a certain sense the brain is structurally more limited and defined when it passes puberty. When you learn a language before 13-14 your brain aquires it as an additional language or a way of communicating that is completely direct. I've heard that for most people learning a language after that age is basically like having a set of tools to use effectively to translate your mother tongue into then having the ability to regurgetate the aquire information succintly.

However, I think that if we are involved in and repeat a certain activity our subjectivity and our neurons do change. A violinist mind is structured semi-differently than a cab driver's in that certain aspects of his neuron-relationships are more structured to facilitate one activity over another. I'm assuming we also have the same kind of plasticity in our emotional reportoire, and other things.

There are some interesting publications coming out in regards to neuroplasticity though. I would recommend them in spite of recent evolutionary

[lovethelogos]

PS.

the majority of studies revolving subject-constitution are largely based on a hodge podge of sad pop metaphysical philosophy i.e. the secret, what the bleed do we know, and more sadly still, more of these shows only invoke a carpe-diem attitude + a lot of psychomatic garbage.

[wabbitsnot]

word.

human adaptability

[oenalen]

What if we looked at it as a sphere or range of potential. It seems sensible that at any point of time, under any 'educational' conditions, there is only a certain finite range of change possible. And I get moosehead's point about efficiency, so finite over a finite period. For empirical purposes we could take the upper finite period being between now and the average life expectancy. And then we could pick smaller periods for investigation eg one year. There is also an efficacy issue, ie how much and the quality of training that can reasonably be packed into the time frame.

[oenalen]

Thanks, I'm enjoying the comments. Many elements to think about.