Tart Chapter 6

I found the article most fascinating. As a former psychology major, I learned about reinforcements and their effect on human behavior, but I had no idea the aspects of the human psyche went so deep. The first item that caught my interest were the four, basic, discreet state of consciousnesses that, though simple in concept, accounted for nearly all forms of human behavior.

First was the process of loading. In said process, so many tasks, both mental and physical, are given to an individual; so much, in fact, that they are unable to resist in any way, shape, or form to the standards of society. Now, I will admit that my initial reaction to this section was somewhat hostile, as it seemed to relate closer to 1984 than general human behavior. Fortunately, I was able to realize that this relates less to “conforming” and more towards “routine.” I also noticed that this related to our discussion of “how do we know we are not dreaming?”. In this respect, I have come to the conclusion that the more uniform the responses to one’s actions are in the environment, the more control the d-soc has over oneself. Also of attention is that of limiting the activities outside the set parameters. I notice that this is a bit of a foil to the concept of loading. Instead of giving actions, it refers to taking away possible actions. With that in regard, this would be the aforementioned 1984 type environment, censoring all activities outside the required social customs.

The remaining two discreet state of conciousnesses regard both positive and negative reinforcement. As I said, I am a former psychology major, so both of these concepts are familiar to me. A positive reinforcement involves rewarding a subject for a good behavior, in the case of the article, satisfaction for performing a good deed. Negative reinforcement entails removing a “reinforcer” as the reinforcement. In layman’s terms, performing an act to remove an annoyance/something negative. I was most fascinated, however, to see further elaborations of these concepts.

My first article for this class and my first blog ever; I’m very enthusiastic for this class after this experience. I will endeavor to improve my knowledge of human behavior (and blogging, as well) over the course of this semester.