Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology

To:	"'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From:	"Rich Cooper" <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:	Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:33:14 -0800
Message-id:	<CD18F028569C4523B198199D7CFCE930@Gateway>

Dear Ali,

Thanks for the Economist article reference. I am very familiar with the marketing reality that people make decisions based on 80 percent emotion and 20 percent reason. That even includes people with very scientific outlooks, like many of us on this list. The article was very refreshing in the way it phrased the concept of emotional buying, internal conflicts, and unconscious influences. I agree with every word of it.

Re the Frank Luntz link, Wikipedia has gone dark today to celebrate opposition to SOPA. I’ll try again tomorrow.

And yes, the political forces use reframing for nearly every political debate, every media headline, and nearly everything else that relates to pursuing self interest, so understanding the reframing reference helps explain the self interest of politicians as they see it. Find out how an issue is being framed and you have some insight into how the framer sees him- or herself.

Thanks,

-Rich

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ali SH
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 7:59 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest Ontology

Hi Rich,

You'll probably find this article interesting: http://www.economist.com/node/21541706?fsrc=nlw%7Cnewe%7C1-2-2012%7Cnew_on_the_economist (it pretty much picks up where Century of the Self left off).

And in the context of trying to design institutions and organizations which are capable of accommodating and responding to varied interests, you always have to watch out for people like Frank Luntz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz).

[Luntz's] stated purpose in this is the goal of causing audiences to react based on emotion. "80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think." "If I respond to you quietly, the viewer at home is going to have a different reaction than if I respond to you with emotion and with passion and I wave my arms around. Somebody like this is an intellectual; somebody like this is a freak."[2]

Whose influence was felt in redefining the "inheritance tax" as a "death tax" and various other phrasings which aim to connect / resonate and re-frame issues in an emotional level with the audience.

Best,

Ali

On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 5:15 PM, Rich Cooper <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dear Self Interested Ontologists,

I found this video of Peter Snyder explaining how Darwin experimented on 24 people using a single blind experiment related to emotions:

http://video.scientificblogging.com/video/Peter-Snyder-Darwin-experiment;Neurosciences

He describes it as:

the first example of a prospective "single-blind" study of human perception of emotional _expression_

Snyder also claims that this experiment was echoed ever since by experimental psychologists looking for emotional behaviors.

There is a good Wikipedia write-up describing how emotions evolved at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_emotion

Describing Darwin’s work:

His work looked at not only facial expressions in both humans and animals, but attempted to point out parallels between behaviors in animals and in humans.

It concludes:

Primal emotions, such as fear, are associated with ancient parts of the brain and presumably evolved among our premammal ancestors. Filial emotions, such as a human mother's love for her offspring, seem to have evolved among early mammals. Social emotions, such as guilt and pride, evolved among social primates. Sometimes, a more recently evolved part of the brain moderates an older part of the brain, such as when the cortex moderates the amygdala's fear response. Evolutionary psychologists consider human emotions to be best adapted to the life our ancestors led in nomadic foraging bands.

I hope those of you who are interested in emotional behaviors as explanations of human actions find these two references useful.