poetics of plasticity: personality (1)

this is part 1

consider this (series) as a proposition open to suggestions, opinions and criticisms, or simply a question:

personality is a dynamic structure, adaptable, composed of automatized habits
(of sense-making (that are adopted mainly in order to cope with the disturbances of an intersubjective environment

and
like the sequence of physical movements in juggling, riding a bike or driving a car, and all the muscle memory, all the strengthened connections in the brain entailed by these actions,
personality involves entrenched psychological sequences of automatized yet permutable thought- and feeling patterns
(that anchor crucial shifts in attention etc.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• plasticman
• personality
• mood
• psychology
• mind
• mindset
• neuroplasticity
• plasticity
• neural pathways
• perception
• abstraction
• awareness
• consciousness
• self-determination
• synaptic connections
• anxiety
• stress
• mood disorder
• spreading activation
• visualization
• imagination
• memory
• adaptation

[zezt]

when I look at mainstream Psychology--a branch of Psychiatry--I see an institution which blames the ones who for whatever reeason cannot fit in. NEVER do the psychologists look at the system itself including their role in it!! No, they blame the personas---and speak about us as machines of chemical and electrical interactions --an idea from their mentor Wilhelm Wundt.

Previous to him it was Rene Descartes who claimed animals were machines!

So my point is that to understand ourselves and others

[almafarag]

@zezt (1) As RD Laing said: ‘Psychiatry could be, and some psychiatrists are, on the side of transcendence, of genuine freedom, and of true human growth. But psychiatry could so easily be a technique of brainwashing, of inducing a behavior that is adjusted, by (preferably) non-injurious torture. In the best places, where straitjackets are abolished, doors are unlocked, leucotomies largely forgone, these can be...

[almafarag]

@zezt (2) ….these can be replaced by more subtle lobotomies and tranquillizers that place the bars of Bedlam and the locked doors inside the patient. Thus I would wish to emphasize that our ‘normal’ ‘adjusted’ state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities, that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities’

[TRAGlCHERO]

I've been thinking along very similar lines... Are you familiar with John Greene's action assembly theory or Anders Ericsson's theory of expertise? It also sounds like you've been influenced by John Dewey's or William James' concept habit, or possibly the theory of neural dynamics? I think we have a great range of freedom for conscious self-creation, but this would probably require a very sophisticated knowledge and practice. Hope to see a long series out of this ; )

[almafarag]

@TRAGlCHERO I'm not familiar with these theoreticians yet, but when time allows i'll definitely take a look, thanks for the suggestion, and you're right I find neural dynamics rather appealing, are you familiar with Merlin Donald's work by the way? I'm just getting into his stuff, it seems interesting so far: "conscious ability exist to optimize & coordinate the resources of the brain" as he says...

[federeich2]

@zezt yes

[zezt]

@almafarag yes it is the same mindset which suppresses entheogenic awareness. I like to connect the dots--you can see how they have tried to degrade the IMAGEination via propaganda so as to privatize the body and soul. They suppress the natural imagination and supplant their gaudy version for exploitation and profit. As soon as you begin seeing this it undermines their propaganda ;)

[gemiguds]

oh my god! Mark looks even more gorgeous with this sexy beard

[almafarag]

@cammyjee 'our awareness can shape our circuits' - how neatly put

[TRAGlCHERO]

@almafarag Looked up Merlin Donald's wiki. It seems he follows Jerry Fodor's evolutionary theory of brain modularity. It is interesting, but I'm not a big fan of this type of cognitivism. I'd be more persuaded by phenomenological accounts of the embodied mind (i.e., Varela, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur), especially in its practical implications with respect to moral or cognitive capabilities. If that area interest you, I'd recommend looking into Hubert Dreyfus' model of skill acquisition.

[almafarag]

@cammyjee I think you're right, it's a mistake to conflate behaviour with 'personality', even if there's a significant overlap, perhaps I should restrict my argument to cognitive styles which might be considered as deriving from personality or character, but then again I have no idea, would I still like the movies of Jarmusch had I grew up in different circumstances than the ones I had

[zezt]

@zezt *brutalizing