Paradigm Inertia Paradigm Inertia is the systemic, psychological, and institutional resistance to updating, revising, or replacing an established mental model, operational framework, or scientific consensus—even when confronted with empirical anomalies, falsifying data, or demonstrable systemic failure. It represents the tendency of epistemic systems (individual minds, academic disciplines, regulatory agencies, and professional cultures) to maintain their
Two very different minds. Silvan Tomkins (1911-1991) is considered by many to be the Einstein of emotional science. His theory of emotion defines a core set of indivisible neurobiological elements – “affects” -whose innate and learning conscripted behaviors aggregate to explain the entire universe of human emotion. John Steinbeck (1902-1968) also viewed humans through a
John Steinbeck & Silvan Tomkins – What A Shame! Read More »
I fed the transcript of the following video of my talk to the Tomkins organization to an AI proxy of Silvan Tomkins and instructed it: Filter out everything not related to affect theory. Distill the affect-order distinctions being made. Point by point, use Tomkins to comment on them. A page of background and further
What Silvan Tomkins Might Say: My Tomkins Talk Read More »
Gary David, PhD, is an epistemologist, educator, and former professional jazz musician who applies General Semantics and Epistemics to human awareness, learning, and emotional processes. Background & Mentorship J. Samuel Bois: Apprenticed and studied with epistemologist J. Samuel Bois from 1964 to 1978, later editing his textbook The Art of Awareness: A Handbook on Epistemics
What are feelings? What is the difference between a feeling and a feeling we recognize? Can a feeling have meaning without prior learning? Feelings are changes in the lived state of an organism. They are not, first of all, ideas about experience. They are the experience becoming different from within: tightening, opening, dread, ease, hurt,
What’s The Role of Learning In The Meanings of Feelings? Read More »
Tangent migrations most often begin when a memory evoked in the current stream of attention overpowers the emotional motive of the stream and repurposes attention and memory according to relevance with the evoked memory rather than to the original context and purpose in the stream that evoked the memory. Where this happens without our
What Calabrese and Tomkins Might Say: Meta-tations Read More »
Edward Calabrese shared a newly released paper on hormesis and psychology. Hormesis-psychology-1 What Silvan Tomkins might say: You have here, in effect, a psychological hormesis study: not of radiation or toxins, but of ordinary parental misattunement-unresponsiveness, detachment, intrusiveness, psychological control-and its impact on children’s emotional life. The authors show that moderate levels of such adversity
Tomkins and Calabrese on Hormesis Psychology Paper Read More »
After loading the main dAilogue primer, I uploaded the Silvan Tomkins and Edward Calabrese primer extensions, and instructed ChatGpt to participate in the dAilogue in a way representing both of their minds and mental models. I then asked: How would a dialogue between Silvan Tomkins and Edward Calabrese translate affect theory into hormesis and hormesis
Dialogues in dAilogues: Tomkins and Calabrese – Affects and Hormetics Read More »
This dAilogue began as an exploration of pain but led to a very interesting reframing of how our affective hebbian learning works and the learned cause of a great deal of our pain. Source dAilogue: https://chatgpt.com/share/691f9dc5-05a8-8008-9f82-d3f8f01b96f4 Special point: Affective Gravitation After loading the main dAilogue primer I uploaded the Silvan Tomkins (affect science) and Edward
Unlearning Pain with Tomkins and Calabrese Read More »
Still preclinical, but now backed by convergent 2018→2025 evidence, PBN Y1R is the central, non-opioid switch for enduring pain. Do you understand the thesis implicit in: “Scientists Found the Potential Off Button for Stopping Chronic Pain”: Nicholas Betley from the University of Pennsylvania has discovered that a previously overlooked group of neurons in the parabrachial
RE: “Scientists Found the Potential Off Button for Stopping Chronic Pain” Read More »