Back in the ‘60s (and rumor has it that, if you can remember the ‘60s, you weren’t there), we use to say that something was “a trip.” The phrase was a carryover from the sense of “tripping” (or “tripping out”) on hallucinogenic drugs, such as marijuana, LSD, and “sacred” mushrooms. The users’ minds would go on a trip while their bodies remained in place. There were “good trips,” in which the imagery was all sweetness and light, and “bad trips,” full of dark and disturbing images. Much of the imagery from that time can still be seen on tee shirts.

You are probably familiar with the folk tale about a shepherd boy who was bored and decided to entertain himself by crying “wolf.” The villagers came running. The boy thought it was a good joke and played it again in a few days. The villagers came again, only to discover that they had been fooled again. When the wolf finally came for real, the villagers refused to believe that the boy was telling the truth.

William Blake said, “The altering eye, alters all.” There’s nothing like an altered eye to persuade one of the truth of that perspective.

About a year ago, my optometrist discovered the beginning of a cataract in my right eye. Over time, my vision increasingly became fuzzy and dim. Because the change was gradual, however, I adjusted on a daily basis without being aware of what—and how much—I was missing. By the time I was checked by the ophthalmologist (Dr. John Trittschuh of Eye Care Physicians in Kalamazoo, Michigan), I had a fairly large cataract in my right eye and a smaller one in my left. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, cataract surgery is among the most common surgical procedures in the U.S., so I had to get in line and wait for my turn.

Einstein said, “All the intelligent people I ever met were avid readers of the SCS Blog.”

OK. He really didn’t say that. Einstein had, in fact, died before we started the SCS Blog. Einstein also didn’t say many of the other things attributed to him, but the phrase, “Einstein said,” seems to add the authority of genius to whatever follows. This illustrates one of the so-called advanced language patterns of NLP called “Quotes.” The speaker’s personal responsibility for quoted material is diminished, while the focus shifts to the person or other source quoted.

There’s no deception I know. Everything about it is appealing.... The reason self-deception is so appealing is that it is based on cherished beliefs. In a previous blog [“You Believe What?” (22 March 2009)], I asked the question, “What if you knew that everything you believed is false?” In The Brain that Fixes Itself, Norman Doidge says “[H]uman beings are notoriously susceptible to self-deception, whether scientists or not” (p.179).

If, in your effort to be a good citizen in a democracy, you’ve been watching the news to develop an understanding of the current political process, you may be both confused and dismayed. While this blog entry focuses on U.S. politics, my guess is that things are much the same (or worse) everywhere. In “In Memoriam A.H.H.” Tennyson said that Nature is “red in tooth and claw.” The same seems to be true for politics. That may be because politics are part of the natural system of organizing cooperative living.

And mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all, but I get a kick.... As it happens, science eventually catches up. This time it’s with Cole Porter, who seems to have understood how the brain’s pleasure centers work long before science was able to figure it out.

Have you noticed that other people have some very strange fears? Your own fears, of course (and mine), are perfectly rational and logical. Or are they? Anxieties (a sense of nervousness about something), phobias (extreme or irrational fear of something), and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (ongoing fear based on an experience) are a cluster of related behavioral responses.

In “Language May Shape Our Thoughts” (Newsweek, 20 July 2009), Newsweek science writer Sharon Begley, discusses a number of ways that language actually influences—programs—our thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions. When a language (French, German, and Spanish, for example) marks nouns with a gender, the nouns are given different characteristics. A German bridge, “Brücke,” is feminine, whereas a French bridge, “pont” is masculine. When describing a particular bridge, Germans perceive feminine characteristics. The French ascribe masculine characteristics to the same bridge.

When it comes to the ongoing conflict between evolution, primarily as originated by Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and Intelligent Design or Creationism, I tend to side with the Darwinians. Although I think it is important to know as much as we can about how we came to be what we think of as “human.” I think a more important and more interesting question is where we go from here. Whatever we know about our history as a species suggests that we are adaptable to a wide variety of environments and circumstances and that we have a tremendous capacity for learning.