HL Prologue: Literary Depth, Mental Shallows

Prologue: Literary Depth, Mental Shallows
Note:PRO@@@@@@@ libero arbitrio costruzionismo3 paradigmi1 poichè abbiamo delle ragioni facciamo delle cose...scelta razionale2 facciamo delle cose e poi escogitiamo delle ragioni...razionalizzazione3 facciamo delle cose perchè si associano a certe ragioni...armonizzazionesolo 3 implica libertà e limiti all arbitrio

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when we claim to be just using our powers of inner observation, we are always actually engaging in a sort of impromptu theorizing – and
Note:EPIGRAFE

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At the climax of Anna Karenina, the heroine throws herself under a train as it moves out of a station on the edge of Moscow. But did she want to die?
Note:DILEMMA

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Had the ennui of Russian aristocratic life and the fear of losing her lover Vronsky become so intolerable
Note:PRIMA IPOTESI

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Or was her final act mere capriciousness, a theatrical gesture of despair,
Note:SECONDA

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imagine that we ask Anna herself.
Note:CONTROFATTUALE

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Anna will be as unsure as anyone else about her true motivations.
Note:FORSE...ANCHE LEI DEVE INTERPRETARE

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we may be sceptical that her own interpretation is any more compelling than the interpretations of others.
Note:PROBABILMENTE

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the distorting lens of self-perception.
Note:COSA LA SVANTAGGIA?

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Autobiography always deserves a measure of scepticism.
Note:CI SI VUOLE NOBILITARE

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Might we get closer to Anna’s true motivations if we asked her not in hindsight, but at the time?
Note:ALTERNATIVA

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This strategy seems unlikely to succeed, to put it mildly.
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The first possible moral is that our minds have dark and unfathomable ‘hidden depths’.
Note:PRIMA CONCLUSIONE

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uncovering the true motivations for human behaviour needs more than the blunderbuss of asking people directly.
Note:SECONDO

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We need somehow to dive deep into the inner workings of the mind,
Note:COSA OCCORRE

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Word associations, the interpretation of dreams, hours of intensive psychotherapy, behavioural experiments, physiological recordings and brain imaging
Note:STRUMENTI X DISSEPPELLIRE LA MOTIVAZIONE

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hidden fears and desires;
Note:FREUDIANI

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no hidden beliefs, desires, hopes or fears are ever actually observed.
Note:FALLIMENTO DI TUTTI...ALTRIMENTI POTREMMO PREVEDERE

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the project of charting our hidden depths is not merely technically difficult, but fundamentally misconceived; the very idea that our minds contain ‘hidden depths’ is utterly wrong.
Note:TESI DEL LIBRO

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the interpretation of the motives of real people is no different from the interpretations of fictional characters. And fictional characters can’t, of course, have an inner life,
Note:Cccccccc

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prefers Bach to Mozart,
Note:LE DOMANDE CHE RINVIANO AL PROFONDO

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No amount of therapy, dream analysis, word association, experiment or brain-scanning can recover a person’s ‘true motives’,
Note:IMPOSSIBILE RINTRACCIARE IL NULLA

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The inner, mental world, and the beliefs, motives and fears it is supposed to contain is, itself, a work of the imagination.
Note:L NVENZIONE DEL PROFONDO

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We invent interpretations of ourselves and other people in the flow of experience,
Note:COSTRUZIONE DELLA STORIA

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nothing more than interpretations of a ‘real’ Anna’s behaviour;
Note:SOLO SOGGETTIVITÀ...ANCHE X LA STESSA ANNA...L INTENZIONE NN VIENE CATTURATA DALLA SCIENZA

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We never have the last word in explaining our own actions – our
Note:LA VITA COME OPERA

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Yet the unfolding of a life is not so different from the unfolding of a novel.
Note:ANCORA VITA E OPERA

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Thoughts, like fiction, come into existence in the instant that they are invented, and not a moment before.
Note:IL PASSATO DI UN PENSIERO

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introspection is a process not of perception but of invention
Note:COSTRUZIONISMO INTERIORE SENZA REALTÀ

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apparent depth is, of course, ‘in the eye of the beholder’:
Note:SOGGETTIVISMO

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The sense that behaviour is merely the surface of a vast sea, immeasurably deep and teeming with inner motives, beliefs and desires
Note:L ILLUSIONE

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Beliefs, motives and other imagined inhabitants of our ‘inner world’ are entirely a figment of our imaginations.
Note:PERSONAGGI DI UNA FINZIONE

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The mind is, instead, a consummate improviser, inventing actions, and beliefs and desires to explain those actions, with wonderful fluidity.
Note:GLI NGANNI DELLA MENTE

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inventions are flimsy, fragmented and self-contradictory;
Note:LA QUALITÀ DELL OPERA

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the very task of our improvising mind is to make our thoughts and behaviour as coherent as possible – to
Note:L OBBIETTIVO FINALE

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our brains must strive continually to think and act in the current moment in a way that aligns as well as possible with our prior thoughts and actions.
Note:LO SFORZO

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So the secret of our minds lies not in supposed hidden depths, but in our remarkable ability to creatively improvise our present, on the theme of our past.
Note:METTERE I PEZZI AL POSTO GIUSTO...COSTRUIRE UN BEL PERSONAGGIO

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In the first, I attempt to clear away what I take to be fundamental and widespread misunderstandings of how our mind works. I then turn to present a positive account of the brain as a ceaseless improviser.
Note:STRUTTURA DEL LIBRO

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The common-sense mind and the mind we discover through experiment just don’t seem to fit together.
Note:SCOPRIREMO CHE È TUTTO SBAGLIATO

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subliminal perception,
Note:ILLUSIONE DI PROFONDITÀ

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unconscious beliefs, motives, desires
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inner agents (for Freud, the id, ego, and superego; for Jung, the collective unconscious).
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Many believe that with the right meditative practice, psychotherapy or even hallucinogenic drug, the doors to the rich inner world of the unconscious might be prised open.
Note:LA CURA...FANTASTICA

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There is no inner world. Our flow of momentary conscious experience is not the sparkling surface of a vast sea of thought – it is all there is.
Note:ESISTE SOLO LA COSCIENZA

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Our brain is an improviser, and it bases its current improvisations on previous improvisations: it creates new momentary thoughts and experiences by drawing not on a hidden inner world of knowledge, beliefs and motives, but on memory traces of previous momentary thoughts and experiences.
Note:PARS CONSTRUENS

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he strives to make Anna’s words and actions as coherent as possible – she should ‘stay in character’ or her character should ‘develop’ as the novel unfolds.
Note:L ANALOGIA CON TOLSTOJ QUI GIOVA

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a good interpretation is one that does not just make sense of the present moment, but links it with our past actions,
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linking the present with the past, just as writing a novel
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my argument will be illustrated through examples from visual perception.
Note:L ANALOGIA CHE USERÒ

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an engine for spontaneously finding meaning and choosing actions that make the best sense in the moment.
Note:LA MENTE E LE NUVOLE

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So what makes each of us special is, to a large extent, the uniqueness of our individual history of prior thoughts and experiences. In other words, each of us is a unique tradition,
Note:IDENTITÀ

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we will see that we are, in a very real sense, characters of our own creation,
Note:ANCORA

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Our freedom has its limits, of course. Amateur saxophonists can’t ‘freely’ choose to play like Charlie Parker, new learners of English can’t spontaneously emulate Sylvia Plath,
Note:LIMITI DELLA LIBERTÀ

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New actions, skills and thoughts require building a rich and deep mental tradition;

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and there is no shortcut to the thousands of hours needed to lay down the traces on which expertise is based.
Note:COSTRUIRE UNA TRADIZIONE

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Our freedom consists not in the ability magically to transform ourselves in a single jump, but to reshape our thoughts and behaviours, one step at a time:
Note:AGGIORNARSI

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Perhaps the most fundamental inspiration for me has come from attempts to understand the brain as a biological computing machine.
Note:FONTE ISPIRATRICE

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But it is very hard to reconcile this vision of the machinery of the brain with our everyday intuitions that our minds are guided by beliefs and desires.
Note:RICONCILIAZIONE

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In short, common-sense psychology sees our thought and behaviour as rooted in reasoning, but a lot of human intelligence seems to be a matter of finding complex patterns.
Note:RAGIONAMENTO E CONNESSIONE

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Psychologists and philosophers, from B. F. Skinner to Daniel Dennett,
Note:LE FONTI SCETTICHE

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Some past sceptics about those common-sense stories have a very different agenda: doubting, for example, that the brain is any kind of computer at all.
Note:UNA SETRANA SCHIERA DI AUTORI

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I’m going to take it as uncontroversial that the brain is a biological computing machine.
Note:È VERO IL BCONTRARIO

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beliefs and desires
Note:DA SOSTITUIRE CON CALCOLO

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Building intelligent machines would be off to a flying start if it happened that we could just ask people what they knew – and write this knowledge directly into a computer database.
Note:IA SAREBBE MOLTO SEMPLICE SE...

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the rich mental world we imagine that we are ‘looking in on’ moment-by-moment, is actually a story that we are inventing moment-by-moment.
IL VERO NN ESISTE...SIAMO ROBOTTONI BIOLOGICI COMANDATI DA UN CERVELLO CHE COESTRUISCE MODELLI E LI AGGIORNA

The Vacuity of Postmodernist di Nicholas Shackel

The Vacuity of Postmodernist di Nicholas Shackel

• Troll truism: affermazionee ambigua in bilico tra il palesemente falso e il palesemente vero. Esempio: "ciò che è stato costruito poteva esserlo diversamente".
• Fox trott: tentativo postmodernista di sminuire il valore della verità (x liberare le idee e le contraddizioni creative).
• Il primo dogma del postmodernista si chiama NPP(no position position): affermare è sempre errato, solo la negazione è concessa
• Altra fissa: la razionalità è sempre gratuita e costruita secondo le convenienze
• Corollario: è sempre possibile costruire una razionalità che smonti le altre votandosi alla causa del negativo. La decostruzione della ragione è una specie di smascheramento.
• Rorty: la verità è un aspetto secondario in una teoria. Corollario: se anche confuti la mia teoria la cosa non è poi così irrilevante. Se continua a sprigionare del bene vale la pena di conservarla come valida...
• NPP viene adottato perché si ritiene che la verità sia violenta e brandire un buon argomento è in un certo senso uno strumento oppressivo
• Rorty: credere nella ragione è un po' come credere in una fede religiosa. I rischi sono alti, meglio evitare.
• Risposta: certo si parte da verità autoevidenti ma xchè mai nn dovrebbero essere condivise? Perché mai quello non dovrebbe essere un buon punto di partenza per discutere. Una cosa è certa: NPP nn è una premessa condivisa quindi un pessimo punto di partenza
• NPP è coerente fintantochè nessuno avanza concretamente quell'ipotesi. In che forma sostenerla allora? Proposta degli adepti: negare sempre finché di fatto NPP emerga da sola senza essere affermata.
• Accuse a NPP: 1 è comoda 2 è incoerente e 3 è trascendentale (autoevidente)
• Tesi di Bloor: le medesime premesse inferiscono sia conclusioni  false che vere
• La posizione di Bloor: pretende di essere naturalista puro mentre il razionalista  tollerare realtà nn fisiche (es.logiche). Il suo programma consiste in un naturalismo integrale quindi disinteressato alla realtà complessiva perché qs introdurrebbe elementi nn naturali. Consodero corretta qs. ipotesi ma nn posso enunciarla x nn contraddirmi. 
• Una posizione contradittoria con tanto di ammissione: nn si capisce xchè Bloor ragioni con noi; xchè xda tempo a rispondere ai suoi critici
• Bloor nn nega l' esistenza di una ragione ma nega che abbia un ruolo nel validare la sua posizione
• La danza postmodrnista: utilizzo di argomenti razionali negando di mantenere una posizione razoonalista. Spesso si tratta solo dei soliti ritriti paradossi che hanno lo scopo di mettere in luce alcune falle della logica. Niente di nuovo sotto il sole.
• il paradosso x i postmodernisti è un fallimento e una condanna della ragione mentre nella storia si è spesso dimostrato occasione per l'avanzamento della stessa
• il postmodernista si difende passando da un concetto equivoco all' altro in modo sfuggente facendo della NPP la leva x un relativismo assoluto
• Più comprensibile e chiara la posizione della psicologia evoluzionista radicale: la ragione è solo un espediente usato per ottenere, l'equivalente di un'esibizione dei muscoli. Ecco, il postmodernista a volte sembra credere questo ma non lo afferma chiaramente per poter esibire meglio i suoi muscoli.

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