Ockham's Razor

the law of parsimony or the practice of extreme frugality or economy. The word extreme hits me. This suggests perhaps over simplifying.
How fabulous to be learning something so completely random and utterly new. How I love to learn. It may be common knowledge to many but I had never heard of Ockham's Razor before.
Who was Ockham? Apparently he was a 14th century friar, William. He was a theolgian and logician, or in other words came from a position of logic. Allegedly his words were  "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" and in my words it would be to keep things simple. Funny enough reading about Ockham's law, the explanations can be quite complicated. Ironic really.
As cited on Wikipedia, To quote Isaac Newton, "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes."
My tutor suggested that Ockham's Razor can be useful when experimenting on complex cognitive processes and in trying to isolate one element of these complex processes, such as attention. This has arisen when I was saying that the experiments I have read about seem to ignore the fact that attention cannot be singled-out or seperated from perception and memory and so on. And yet they are attempting to explain attention singularly and evidencing applying Ockham's Razor.
Bliss
XX

Dashed hopes in a letter

Morning M
It was lovely walking and talking yesterday. And I was pondering over the conversation about academia.

It reminded me of how many times I've been disappointed. I was disappointed when joining British Airways. I thought I was joining this massive and perfect organisation. How naive I was and felt through my naivety little and inexperienced of the world. It was full of people making mistakes and being human and I expected everyone to be super humans. On reflection it was the beginning of thinking well if I can get in of course it won't be a "super" organisation. And yet I maintained that just around the corner was a department that truly was the "super-set", beyond reproach. I moved from department to department and couldn't find them. All the time I think this was contributing to the feeling that I wasn't ever going to be good enough for the best.
The same happened within H R too. And even worse I kept getting promoted because they seemed to think I was very good at something but by this time my self esteem was being eroded rapidly by me - my actions and my decisions. I could digress with the sadness I feel and the anger, although somewhat diminishing, about the younger influences that meant I wasn't too well equipped with esteem to choose differently and develop. Anyway so as not to wonder too far off the topic of my disappointment, I have felt this way about many situations from getting a job working in the local shop on Saturdays to working in Biggs the jewellers on Saturdays, to teaching institutions, the P and so on. I have had this ideal, this fantasy that all of these institutions are the authority and perfect in every way. It's very childlike I suppose.
Not dissimilar from my expectations of people, such as my parents and how far short of what I thought they were from my childlike hope and perspective or authority figures or experts in their fields and so on. It is in someways like growing up from behind pink-tinted glasses and discovering that nothing is perfect or what i thought it to be and I feel so let down. I cannot aspire through these organisations or individuals anymore and this is linked with a lack of my own worth and wanting improvement from others abilities. Although actually there is a value from this. I like to learn and others can teach me and if only I could see that every eperience is a positive experience even when it seems negative. I think too I feel stupid not to have seen it before, ticking myself for having been so naive "I can't even trust myself". I think there's something in what A was saying about the difficulties of being vulnerable and how societal changes discourage vulnerability. I tell myself off for having been hopeful an by so doing I chip further away at self-esteem and trust. Actually I think there is something rather lovely about the naive hope but finding a way to contain my disappointment is pretty crucial. I would like to be able to make myself vulnerable to things being just as they are and go through the experience of discovery without expectation.
I set people, places and things up on pedestals and when I'm let down I feel angry with them. Worse still I become despondent about them and then life itself.
I have times when I don't feel like this too, when I can see the positive in the efforts to do their best. Sometimes it's disappointing to see the flaws but when I rationalise it I realise that there are always flaws. And I can concentrate my attention so much on these that I cannot see beyond them to the things that are good too.
All these thoughts have arisen this morning when just contemplating my day yesterday and how much I enjoyed it all. And then considering the topics we spoke about all the above thoughts came to me too and I just wanted to share them with someone.
Every morning I take a half hour of quiet time (thanks to FA).l And in that quiet time, when I can sit still, I deliberate over so many things and get little sparks of awareness. Unfortunately I have not mastered sitting and thinking each time I set out to do it. It is improving though and I truly value the time when I do manage it. If I can't manage half an hour in the morning then I am asked to make time at another point in the day. Actually now there are times when I voluntarily take time out to just sit quietly. Anyway that is neither here nor there.  The point is that this morning I got some thoughts about myself as a result of the issues you are facing, so thank you for talking openly about these things. And for reading just a few of my thoughts that have surfaced as a result.

Now I need to study. Enough self-reflection! I guess this is the learning of balance that I'm so not well practised at. Now that is another process that I could also meander around.

I hope you have a good Sunday, despite having to work at something you are not getting a lot from.
I feel very rested after yesterday. And want to get focused on the subject of psychology as an observer now. It's fascinating to me, a subject I never seem to tire of. All the research into what it is to be human. I must admit that the more psychoanalytical such as Freud, and the people spinning off from him such as Klein, Winnicott and others are less convincing but in the practise of therapy there is often some validity. But it's very easy to fit people into the theories rather than the other way around. That area has always been the one in psychology that I have the most difficulty with, yet it sort of fits too so cannot be ignored. Will you study any other areas of psychology?
Another thought I have had is on the matter of the variety of experiences and how dissatisfied I can feel without access to diversity. Is this something that is a part of the mental state of me? A need for more and different all the time. Stimulation is like an essential part of life to me and when I feel stagnant I can become disheartened with everything. With stagnation comes a sense of loss too which seems to magnify the need for something, somewhere other than where I am. Or is it avoidance perhaps? I'm not sure.

Hmmmm lots of reflection. Now I really am off to study otherwise you'll get the streaming mind that I live with all the time.

Thank goodness you can choose not to read .........