What is a stimulus?
This is a critically important question.
The first thing we need to recognize is this -- and it is a huge shift in emphasis from where I was as a 'cognitive, one line of emphasis, psychology-philosophy student' in 1979 -- and that is the DGB concept of 'stimulus' today encompasses the idea of 'dual influence-dialectic causality', indeed, often 'multi-dialectic influence and causality'.
The 1980s impressed upon me the ideas of Perls, Freud, Jung -- and Hegel -- all of whom were dualist integrationists and/or dialectical psychologists.
By 1979, I had already been exposed to the 'dualist' ideas of General Semantics: 'The map vs. the territory.' and an 'intensional orientation' (constantly being inside your head0 vs. an 'extensional (scientific, empirical) orientation' geared more towards constantly checking our inside thoughts, words, and assumptions vs. our day to day observations in our 'objective world'.
However, I had not been fully exposed to Hegelian dialectic thinking (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis). And the shift in emphasis to dialectic thinking is what brings you 'Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy-Psychology' in its 2009 version here today.
We are all 'dialectically engaged with our natural, social, and political environment -- and with the people we meet in this environment.
We all give influence -- and take influence -- overtly and/or covertly, consciously and/or subconsciously, intentially and/or unintentionally.
I influence you. You influence me. That is the nature of dialectical -- meaning two-sided -- influence, accountability and causality.
If this essay is not of interest to you, then you hold the option -- the choice -- of walking (or keyboarding) away from the essay -- and doing something else with your time and energy.
The same option -- and choice -- holds for me too. If I am finding the essay too boring, then I hold the option too of walking (or keyboarding) away from it, and/or working harder to make the essay more personally engaging -- and interesting.
The easiest essays to write are the ones where you do not have to 'try hard' to write it.
I have said before in similar or different words that I have more trouble writing a strictly 'Apollonian' essay that only involves the use of my mind-brain than it does to write an essay that involves all of my more 'passionate-emotionally embracing faculties' -- meaning my 'heart' -- as well as my Apollonian faculties.
This brings us to the Gestalt idea of 'figure' and 'background'.
A 'figural stimulus' is one that is right at the forefront of our attention and energy.
A 'background stimulus' is one that stays or fades into the background due to the presence of another, stronger, more figural 'gestalt-stimulus'. The word 'gestalt' is of German origin and similar in meaning to the word 'stimulus'. Thus, I could say that writing this essay is a 'figural gestalt' for me. Or conversely, I could say that, as of this moment, it is no longer a figural gestalt for me, that I have been sitting on this computer for too long now, and need to take a break -- need to go outside and get some fresh air before coming back to finish this essay.
And that is exactly what I will do.
.....................................................................
Stimuli control the direction of our lives -- and yet not in a deterministic sense.
I am not a believer in any kind of 'stimulus-response' model that does not include the 'black box' in the middle of the model which is 'the organism', the 'animal', the 'man or woman', and in particular, the 'mind-brain-heart' of the man or woman who is not only reacting positively or negatively to any particular stimulus, but who is also creating new stimuli as well.
The act of 'pro-active creationism' is not the same as 'conditional, reactive behavioral determinism', and the behaviorists in their seeming wish to suppress and oversimplify certain imperative internal, invisible -- cognitive-emotional factors -- God forbid, that the behaviorists should lose hold of their ever so prescious title as 'empirical scientists' --
succumb to, and become victimized by scientific reductionism. If you cannot see or 'measure' something, then it is not there. That was the classic behaviorist's (read B.F. Skinner) 'scientific position' on 'thoughts', 'ideas', 'concepts', 'values', 'beliefs', 'dreams', 'goals', 'priorities' and the like when I was going to University in 1979 but alas, that was 30 years ago, and I have not followed the evolution of the Behaviorists' philosophical position.
Somehow, I don't think it has changed much, although admittedly the Professor I had who marked my Honors Thesis was an 'Integrative Cognitive-Behaviorist'.
Bravo! Bravo! Dr. Donald Meichenbaum. A conscious -- or subconscious -- post-Hegelian integrative 'Cognitive-Behavioral Psychologist' before I even knew who Hegel was, and before I even knew what 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' meant.
The synthesis of Cognitive Therapy and Behaviorism is an example of what I now call 'Dialectical Evolution'. I am a strong proponent of Dialectic -- and Multi-Dialectic -- Evolution. It happens subconsciously even when men and women are not conscious of trying to make it happen, but for the most part, it happens more happily and healthily when people are practising this form of evolution consciously, not subconsciously -- and diplomatically, not violently.
The Gaza Strip, Iraq, Afghanastan, and Pakistan...may all have 'happy' futures at some point in time, if some working type of homeostatic balance is ever arrived at...
but in the mean time, as Israel and the Hamas continue to send rockets and bombs into each other's home land, each trying to the best of their ability to exercise their own respective 'Will to Power Over Their Enemy', nobody wins, everybody loses, friends and family die, and everyone else in the world is put through Hell...
That's what I call 'negative stimulus' -- and 'Negative Dialectic Evolution' -- or 'Dialectic Regression'.
That is where I will leave things tonight.
I think I have adequately described what I mean by 'stimulus'.
It is interesting how the last part of this essay flowed much faster than the first part.
Perhaps I moved to some more interesting, motivating, gestalts.
There is a lesson here that I learned from Gestalt Therapy back in the 1980s but which I easily lose track of from time to time, and have to continue to remind myself of:
Stay with your 'figural gestalts' as they are your top energizers, your top motivators.
Don't get lost in, and become a slave to, your 'background gestalts' which are low energizers and low motivators. They will drive you into an early 'existential grave'.
As my Gestalt teachers used to say to me:
'Get out of your head and come to your senses.'
-- dgbn, Jan. 11th, 2008
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are still in process...
