Capturing Capture... Setting traps for knowledge

We examined capture in today's class. We did some exercises in capture, including learning about how the galaxies form patterns of soap bubbles (so once again, everything is connected!). We also watched the first few minutes of the first session of conference when Gordon B. Hinckley spoke. This interested me a lot, because when I watched it on Saturday I didn't even take notes on it. I thought, "Oh, he's just going to tell us some great statistics about how the church is growing and doing well." Was I kidding myself? Prophets, when acting as such, are always teaching. In this particular brief speech, President Hinckley conveyed how the circumstances of our church may change, but the gospel is the same. He gave examples of this and the general feeling was that our circumstances are improving, as the Church has been richly blessed. I got so much more out of the speech when I tried to figure out what the central message of it was.

I really wish I could capture more often, but every time I try it in class I seem to fail to organize the lecture into Questions, Central Messages, Examples, and Applications. For example, today in my Abnormal Psychology class we were learning about Anxiety disorders - Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). I suppose the questions would be "What are the symptoms and causes of GAD? What treatments for GAD are most effective? Who is most likely to suffer from GAD?" Then the answers to these questions would be the central messages, the studies they come from would be the examples/validations (although we never talk about studies in class - a pity), and what we do with this information would be the applications (although we rarely talk about that either). So it seems that lecture is just full of central messages, so that would make it difficult to organize it in the fourfold framework.

While it's difficult for me to capture lectures, I'm intrigued by the idea that one can capture a person. This is the kind of thing that happens when you love someone and you really learn about what it is like to BE that person (as George Kelly mentioned, love is the ability to construe the processes of another person). In order to want to know what it is like to be someone else, it makes sense that selfishness must decrease or be overcome somehow. So, to love others, one must be selfless. I am a very selfish person, and I have difficulty loving others sometimes. Sure, I'll listen to what they tell me, but I learn from others purely for my own benefit. I want to change this about myself but I'm too into myself sometimes. The funny thing about selfishness is that brooding about it just makes it worse. I mean, think about it, I just want to be less selfish for selfish reasons, to enjoy loving others. How silly is that?

I've been trying to capture my grandma. There are a lot of things about her that frustrate me and that I don't understand. She is a staunch believer in personology. Personology is the study of making inferences about a person's personality based on his person, or physical body. The idea behind it is nice - that our spirits are connected to our bodies, so our bodies should reflect the personality of the spirit - but I don't believe it. I don't even like it. It has not been supported by any scientific studies, and theories like that just shouldn't pretend to be scientific. I would like it a lot more if it didn't seem like such a lie, because I mean, sure, we judge people by their looks all the time. If I see a guy who's tanned and muscular, I would assume that he likes playing outdoor sports. But I don't think that having a ring finger longer than your index finger indicates that you're a risk-taker, I just don't.

I was going to read this book on the introduction to semiotics for part of my expansion exercise, but I just ended up talking about Peircian semiotics with a friend for an hour. Peircian semiotics are way awesome (for an explanation see this Board question, and this one). However, there is a problem here too. Peircian semiotics can be used to classify people's personalities into colors. It sounds great, but then again so do most lame personality measures at first. The problem is, I don't think there have been any studies done of Peircian personality types - so I can't say empirically if it has an validity or not (and anecdotal testimonial is just not enough evidence). However, I also know that science doesn't know everything, and that there are some things out there it is misguided about. So basically, I don't know whether or not to believe in Peircian personality types. The Color Code was bad enough... at least the Peircian model doesn't pretend to be empirically validated.