Wednesday, May 16, 2007

One didn’t trust one’s superiors when one was more successful than they were.
This issue is pertinent to nonconditioning paradigms in which awareness of experimental contingencies is measured... Awareness measure is directed toward a different, but correlated, set of hypotheses... Demand Awareness: “(or task awareness) is the subject’s knowledge of what behavioral outcome is predicted.”
“... Familiar semantic properties... truth and reference are exhibited by formulae in the representational system. We have been supposing that, underlying the capacity for reasoned action, there must be a capacity for the description of real and possible states of affairs.”
“Congruent with this theory is the idea that a low-level learning process can occur outside of awareness but that behavioural change (indicative of conditioning) might require conscious processing.” Marianne Hammerl.

“Furedy and Schiffman (1973) have shown that there is a poor relationship between awareness contingency and the conditioned electrodermal response.”
Evaluative Conditioning and the Awareness Issue (March 00, Consciousness and Cognition)

Me: “The type of faculties used here will affect the outcome.”

“and attentional gating in olfaction appears to effect even early processing as reflected in event-related potentials (Krauel, Pause, Sojk, Schott, and Ferstl, 1998).”

“Inferences about unconscious perception are painfully difficult to make because of the problems inherent with exhaustively demonstrating unconscious sensitivity exclusive of awareness...”
“So, the representational system recruited for the calculations must distinguish between possible, nonactual states of affairs.”

DRETSKE enters with: “Insofar as we are concerned with the informational content of a signal or message, the what-it-is-we-can-learn from that signal or message (in contrast to the how-much-we-can-learn), it does not make sense to speak of average information.”

ME: It seems that these two things are dependent on one another.

DRETSKE: “If information theory is to tell us anything about the informational content of signals, it must forsake its concern with averages and tell us something about the information contained in particular messages and signals. For it is only particular messages and signals that have a content.”

Hey, where’d Marianne Hammerl go? Maybe she don’t like Dretske.

DRETSKE: “Information is a question of what, and how much, can be learned from a particular signal, and there simply is no limit to what can be learned from a particular signal about another state of affairs.”

ME: Is it because sequences are bounded, have limit points?

End of transmission. Everybody left, just like that. Hmmmm...

I wonder what will happen when I die. What if I decide that I don’t want to die, that I want to continue on in this world for a long time to come? I don’t know. This is all a lot for me to think about. But that’s what I’m here for, I suppose.

So, I guess Colette ain gonna show up today. Again?
Da’s ok cuz I got J Mac coming in right now. I really gotta change d’order o’dese appointments. Gonna do dat right now, in fact, Maro.

AHEM.
"It's the strangest thing in the world, I mean when you go somewhere for the first time in your life that place really makes an impression on you. It's the strangest thing in the world to go back to that place after you're through with it and expecting to leave it for a few years; it's like a first impression is being made all over again even if this place is exactly the same as how you left it, the circumstances under which you see it, the next time you see it may have completely changed. So many things can happen to a person in four years, even though events that occur in four years are only a drop in the bucket compared to what takes place over a lifetime.When you visit a place again for the first time it's strange to find out that it hasn't changed at all. Your own perspective has."
K Jan is sharin his highschool valedictorian speech wid me today. But now he decides to interrupt hisself so dat he can convey to me what he believes is some pretty damn earth-shattering info.
“You know dat Spark is an arsenist, doncha? That’s why he’s in here. That’s why he get’s called Spark.”
“Oh, so you wanna talk, huh?”
“I ain saying nothin by that. I jus’thought you might like to know.”
“Yeah, I already know dat K. Just about anythin dat you can think of, bout Townsend’at is, I already know.”
“Well, I jus’thought that it was somethin I should tell you in case you didn already know. Like trust. I have other details too.”
“Da’s not gonna get you’tta here any faster. You can tell me anythin you want. This place just is not about plea bargainin.”
“Yeah, fuck. As if I didn’t know dat shit, man. Fuck. I ain stupid, yo.”
“I know.”
“Shit. I’ll jus put it in my next report or somethin.”
“Well, thanks for keepin me updated.”
I am not doin well in dis’ession, but of course, I ain allowed to end it.
“When ya gonna have dat report ready for me, anyway?”
At dat he screws up his face an looks at me kinda sideways.
“I’m still workin on some of the details, y’know? I should have it to you by 0800 hours next Tuesday.”
“Shit, da’s precise.”
“So, in time for our next appointment.”
“Da’s fine. Well, you should go on wid yer speech. I’s pretty good.”
“Really? Ok. AHEM... Look, I'm telling you right now: I'm gonna make it ok? Get that straight. I used to want to make it as some big wig political type (I'm on student parliament and all) but now I don't give a shit what I am as long as it gets me the hell out of here and I impress every single asshole who never believed in me. A lot of people say that though, and don't really mean it...”
He’s pausin here, so I’m gonna jump in like a jerk.
“Uh, jus’o you know, you ain’t never been in any kinda student parliament, man.”
“But that’s not the point. This is an entirely counterfactual situation. I’m fuckin valedictorian! Do you know what it would take for me to have become valedictorian?!”
“Participation in student parliament?”
“Zactly. You gettin it. You ain so slow afterall, Dr. X.”
“Uh, thanks K Jan. Da’s'o nice of you to say.”
“Think nothin of it, ol chap.”
Man, dis guy sure got de charisma when he wants it.
He been readin all dis’peech from some papers he got on his lap. Now he shuffles dem all round in a random sorta way. Wha’de? He got all dis memorized or somethin? Maybe he’s makin all dis’hit up right here on de spot.
Hold it. Maro is tryin to tell me somethin. What de shit? Colette’s here? Damn it. I’m gonna hafta end’e session an get K Jan outta here without dem two seein each other. Dis was exactly what I didn want’o happen. At least Colette is finally showin up for once. I know’hat I’m gonna do. I’m gonna tell Maro to tell Colette to meet me out by d’animals. Now I jus gotta kick K Jan out. I know exactly how to do it, too.
“Well, man, y’know’hat? I think der ain’t no point in continuin dis’ession til I got your next report in my proverbial hand. Y’know?”
“What? I didn’t even finish my speech or nothin.”
“Yeah, but I feel like I need you to give me a little more background info on dis’tuff. Like how does it actually relate to de way dat you actually were when you were in school.”
“Oh. Ok. I think I get it.”
“Ok. So, I’ll see ya next time.”
“Ok. See ya next time, man.”
I’m probly gonna get written-up for dis’hit’oo, endin da session early an what-not. Oh de fuck well. I wanna catch Colette.