The Double Thinker

AS usual,there are two ways to look at anything. That’s what I learned from reading Steven Pinker. Actually, I learned it from two Steven Pinkers. One is a theorist of human nature, the author of “How the Mind Works” and “The Blank Slate.” The other is a word fetishist, the author of “The Language Instinct” and “Words and Rules.” One minute, he’s explaining the ascent of man; the next, he’s fondling irregular verbs the way other people savor stamps or Civil War memorabilia.

In “The Stuff of Thought,” Pinker says his new book is part of both his gigs. Hence its subtitle: “Language as a Window Into Human Nature.” It sounds as though he’s finally going to pull together his life’s work under one big idea, but he doesn’t. That’s what makes him so edifying and infuriating to read: he sees duality everywhere.

It’s not that Pinker thinks the world can be neatly divided. That would be dualism. In “The Blank Slate,” he trashed the most famous such distinction, the one between mind and matter. Pinker’s duality is of the opposite kind. Categories intersect like dimensions. The mind is what the brain does. Evolution shaped psychology, but in the process psychology evolved its own laws.

“The Stuff of Thought” explores the duality of human cognition: the modesty of its construction and the majesty of its constructive power. Pinker weaves this paradox from a series of opposing theories. Philosophical realists, for instance, think perception comes from reality. Idealists think it’s all in our heads. Pinker says it comes from reality but is organized and reorganized by the mind. That’s why you can look at the same thing in different ways.

Then there’s the clash between ancient and modern science. Aristotle thought projectiles continued through space because a force propelled them. He thought they eventually fell because Earth was their natural home. Modern science rejects both ideas. Pinker says Aristotle was right, not about projectiles but about how we understand them. We think in terms of force and purpose because our minds evolved in a biological world of force and purpose, not in an abstract world of vacuums and multiple gravities. Aristotle’s bad physics was actually good psychology.

How can we be sure the mind works this way? By studying its chief manifestation: language. Variations among verbs reflect our distinctions among physical processes. Nuances among nouns illustrate the alternate interpretations built into our most basic perceptions.

Metaphor turns out to be our crucial talent. It parlays crude animal knowledge into human advancement. From physical destinations, we extrapolate a conception of goals. From physical journeys, we build an understanding of relationships. Metaphors structure even our most advanced ideas: heat works like fluid, atoms like solar systems, genes like code, evolution like design. In each case, language has fossilized the construction process: “heat flow,” “genetic code,” “natural selection.”

Some thinkers worry that this power to frame perceptions can run away with us. In politics, the linguist George Lakoff has warned, “frames trump facts.” In this view, taxes can be depicted as burdens or as membership fees, driving public opinion this way or that. Pinker rejects Lakoff’s ideas, which have become fashionable among Democratic strategists. “Metaphors are generalizations,” he argues. Their implications can be tested against reality. Lakoff’s proposal to reframe taxes as membership fees flunks the test: if you don’t pay your membership fees, you lose your benefits; but if you don’t pay your taxes, you go to jail.

Nature isn’t the only external standard by which we can evaluate and revise frames and claims. Social behavior can test them, too. If frames overpower rational criticism, Pinker asks, then why do Lakoff and other quasi-relativists write books rationally criticizing frames? The medium belies the message. The medium isn’t just reason; it’s language — and language isn’t the manifestation of one mind; it’s the joint manifestation of millions. The reason language works is that it reflects the world as we jointly experience it.
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Art of Procrastination

Did you know that there are over 14 million Google listings about procrastination? One could read article after article, from scientific and psychological journals, to business magazines, self-help books and the like, take notes, be actively involved in researching the subject, feel incredibly productive, and actually be procrastinating all the while. It's a perfect procrastination storm! From Scarlett O'Hara's last lines in "Gone With The Wind" - "I'll think about it tomorrow, after all, tomorrow is another day!" to modern icons like "Seinfeld" and even Charlie Brown, many of us do it: Put things off, hem and haw, deal with things "later." According to Psychology Today, 20 percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators.

There's a Spanish proverb: "Tomorrow is the busiest day of the week." I can relate. When I sit down at my desk to write, strange things happen: I'll sit down, open the computer, write a list, and that's a start, but I never did call that guy at the union, and aren't there dishes in the sink? Then back to the desk, and I've got a bunch of one-step-above-Spam e-mails to read and delete. And where's that tall clothing Web site for the perfect long jacket "nipped at the waist," like Trinny and Suzanne suggested on BBC America's "What Not To Wear?" Then the phone rings, and I'm flossing my teeth - what is that, a popcorn skin? I look for it in the mirror. What's wrong with my hair? Maybe if I wash it and put the cream moisturizer on it while it's wet and let it air dry, I'll have the texture I want.

And so goes a typical morning. And it all eats up time, and I'm no closer to doing the thing I really need to be doing. Deadlines help, even though the word "dead-line" is harsh. But harshness with the procrastinator is sometimes called for.

So is setting smaller goals, making molehills out of projects that seem mountainous, and rewarding yourself each time the smaller job is done. Those perfectionist day-dreams where months, or years go by until the thing is "just right" in your mind? Hello! Wake up, so you can actually start something in your real life.

So. I'll ignore the lint trap in the dryer, find my perfect felt-tipped pen later, and take the sage advice of Dr. Martin Luther King: "You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

War, Psychology and Time

Had al Qaeda periodically attacked the United States after 9/11, the ongoing sense of crisis would not have dissipated. But since no attack occurred, the actions and policies that appeared reasonable and proportionate in 2001 began to appear paranoid and excessive. Moreover, rather than showing the Islamic world the overwhelming power of the United States, the United States is now engaged in a debate over whether there is some hope for its war strategy. The United States has psychologically begun tearing itself apart over both the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. Whatever your view of that, it is a serious geopolitical fact.

Hypnosis is as Old as Man

The chronicle of hypnosis is as timeworn as the human progeny. Even the most primordial pagans were aware of this marvelous psychological manifestation, and it was used in the mystical rites of their medicine men to create anxiety and amplify confidence in the supernatural and the occult. With this long history of occult and mysticism, it is not unpredicted that the overall public attitude toward hypnosis has been and still is one of opposition, misapprehension and fear.

The original scientific beginnings in the investigation of hypnosis began with Anton Mesmer in 1775, from whose name originates the expression mesmerism which is still in extensive usage. Mesmer`s utilization of hypnosis opened with his find that certain types of medical patients responded to arm stroking and sleep suggestions. Mesmer ascribed these restorative aftereffects to the `quality` of `animal magnetism`, and he invented a supposition that animal magnetism was some enigmatic and peculiar cosmic fluid with soothing features.

Despite Mesmer`s first-rate intuitive apprehension of clinical psychology, he had no bright awareness of the psychological attributes of his therapy. Nevertheless, he medicated a vast number of patients with success on whom archaic medical procedures had failed. However, his fanatical personality and complicated peculiarity of his therapy brought him unjustly to disrepute despite the fact that numerous physicians visited his clinic throughout the culmination of his success to study the most important lessons in the mystic art of psychotherapy, specifically, the importance of clinical psychology.

Since Mesmer there has been a succession of remarkable men who became interested in hypnosis and utilized it effectively in therapeutic practice, giving it an progressively more scientific justification and soundness. Elliotson, the first man in England to utilize the stethoscope, got interested in hypnosis about 1817, employed it substantially, and left superb written material of its medicative value in specific cases. Esdaille, motivated by Elliotson`s case reports, became an keen advocate of mesmerism, as it was then referred to, and really succeeded in interesting the British government in setting up a hospital in India, where he used it extensively on all categories of medical patients, leaving many exceptional manuscripts of major and minor surgery operated under hypnotic anesthesia.

The commencement of a psychological comprehension of the phenomenon began in 1841 with James Braid, at first an opponent and then later a most eager reviewer and supporter. It was he who coined the phrase hypnosis, pointed to the psychological framework of hypnotic sleep, and described lots of its manifestations, brainstorming methods whereby to analyze their legality.