Tag Archives: psychology

October 23, 2013

Deflection and Projection

In his 1982 book, Megatrends, John Naisbitt famously wrote, “We are drowning in information, but we are starved for knowledge.” What was true 30 years ago is true today at a level that is both jaw-dropping and mind-numbing. The interweb highway speeds past at a breath-taking pace; yesterday vanishes rapidly behind while tomorrow constantly barrels down on us. The sheer volume of traffic (meaning both ‘lots of’ and ‘very loud’) can be overwhelming.

I’d like to take the topics from last Thursday and Friday to a new level and talk about how we find knowledge and truth amid all that information. In a world filled with opinion and conflicting assertions, how do we tell fair from foul? When facts and expertise compete with ideology and status quo, how do we pick among them?

This is about ways to separate the wheat from the chaff.

13 Comments | tags: argument, debate, deflection, discussion, emotional mind, John Naisbitt, Megatrends, projection, psychology, rational mind, social issues, worldview | posted in Basics, Quotes, Society

October 10, 2013

Johari Window

By Wyrd Smythe

Johari-1 One of the first blog articles I wrote concerned the idea of Yin and Yang. It’s a topic I’ve touched on several times since (and revisited in particular talking about men and women). I reference the concept so often, because I think the duality of opposing concepts is a fundamental truth about the universe.

It’s not the only truth, of course, but it’s a very useful way of seeing things and understanding them. We see duality everywhere! Sometimes it’s something versus the lack of something (heat/cold, light/dark, full/empty). Sometimes it’s truly opposing pairs (north/south, positive/negative, male/female).

Today I’d like to expand on the concept and tell you about the Johari Window.

Leave a comment | tags: duality, ego, four-square, Harrington, how others see us, how we see ourselves, id, Luft, others, psychology, self, self-awareness, self-help, Sigmund Freud, super-ego, Yin and Yang | posted in Basics

August 2, 2011

God: Universal Apprehension or Delusion?

By Wyrd Smythe

One of the things that strikes me about the idea of God is how universal that idea is. To the best of my knowledge, every society in every age has had some sort of spiritual core belief.

I used to state this as the assertion that every society believed in some sort of god or gods, but it was pointed out to me that Buddhists don’t actually have a god. They do have some metaphysical entities, and more importantly, Buddhism is certainly a belief in a metaphysical reality that transcends this one.

So the question is: if humans universally find themselves finding God(s), what does this mean?

10 Comments | tags: atheism, belief, creation, evolution, faith, God, psychology, spirituality, theism | posted in Basics, Philosophy, Religion, Science