From: Randall Randall (randall@randallsquared.com)
Date: Fri Jul 25 2003 - 01:01:42 MDT
On Friday, July 25, 2003, at 02:17 AM, Lee Corbin wrote:
> Randall writes
>> On Wednesday, July 23, 2003, at 08:11 PM, Lee Corbin wrote:
>>> become brainwashed. You find that pretending to "go
>>> along" metamorphoses into the reality.
>>
>> It isn't the pretending to which I was objecting. The
>> thought experiment you present doesn't have the features
>> which, in my opinion, constitute "brainwashing" in the
>> sense that Tranquility Bay performs it.
>
> I would like to know what features you have in mind. The
> age of the subject? Or ambient conditions? Or what?
I think that age may have some part, and deprivation of
environment some more, but the main feature of TBay is
the constant forced repetition, by the subjects themselves,
of the beliefs that the TBay administrators want to
inculcate. They use this method because it works, in
many cases. It's the basis for the "pledge of allegiance",
catechism, recitation of the "times tables" aloud in unison,
and hymns. People who say something over and over are more
likely to believe it, or to act as though they believe it
if not given a chance to ponder about it. For people who
are primarily interested in behavior change, as the TBay
administrators are, this is the most effective method I
know to create any given desired behavior.
-- Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> "Not only can money buy happiness, it isn't even particularly expensive any more." -- Spike Jones
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Jul 25 2003 - 01:09:43 MDT