Wegner Quotes

Suppressing Your Thoughts Suppose you have a thought you don’t like. You’ll apply your verbal problem-solving strategies to it. For example, when the thought comes up, you may try to stop thinking it. There is extensive literature on what is likely to happen as a result. Harvard psychologist Dan Wegner (1994) has shown that the frequency of the thought that you try not to think may go down for a short while, but it soon appears more often than ever. The thought becomes even more central to your thinking, and it is even more likely to evoke a response. Thought suppression only makes the situation worse.

Szczur mówił to gładkim, pełnym szczerości tonem, którym ludzie zawsze okłamują innych.

Yeah, but I thought mushrooms were a kind of fungus!' Teddy says. 'You know, like mould. You can't get mould growing on mould, can you? It'd be like a weird incestuous fungal party.

[...] bóg bez religii jest niczym, ale religia bez boga... o, religia bez boga poradzi sobie świetnie.

Centuries of navel-gazing. Millennia of masturbation. Plato to Descartes to Dawkins to Rhanda. Souls and zombie agents and qualia. Kolmogorov complexity. Consciousness as Divine Spark. Consciousness as electromagnetic field. Consciousness as functional cluster. I explored it all. Wegner thought it was an executive summary. Penrose heard it in the singing of caged electrons. Nirretranders said it was a fraud; Kazim called it leakage from a parallel universe. Metzinger wouldn't even admit it existed. The AIs claimed to have worked it out, then announced they couldn't explain it to us. Gödel was right after all: no system can fully understand itself. Not even the synthesists had been able to rotate it down. The load-bearing beams just couldn't take the strain. All of them, I began to realize, had missed the point. All those theories, all those drugdreams and experiments and models trying to prove what consciousness was: none to explain what it was good for. None needed: obviously, consciousness makes us what we are. It lets us see the beauty and the ugliness. It elevates us into the exalted realm of the spiritual. Oh, a few outsiders—Dawkins, Keogh, the occasional writer of hackwork fiction who barely achieved obscurity—wondered briefly at the why of it: why not soft computers, and no more? Why should nonsentient systems be inherently inferior? But they never really raised their voices above the crowd. The value of what we are was too trivially self-evident to ever call into serious question. Yet the questions persisted, in the minds of the laureates, in the angst of every horny fifteen-year-old on the planet. Am I nothing but sparking chemistry? Am I a magnet in the ether? I am more than my eyes, my ears, my tongue; I am the little thing behind those things, the thing looking out from inside. But who looks out from its eyes? What does it reduce to? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? What a stupid fucking question. I could have answered it in a second, if Sarasti hadn't forced me to understand it first.

So next time your selflessness is praised in front of others, beware: making sacrifices for others makes it easier for them to sacrifice you.

The white bear challenge, after all, seems like a metaphor for much of what goes wrong in life: all too often, the outcome we’re seeking to avoid is exactly the one to which we seem magnetically lured. Wegner labelled this effect ‘the precisely

The psychologist Daniel Wegner has this beautiful concept called transactive memory, which is the observation that we don’t just store information in our minds or in specific places. We also store memories and understanding in the minds of the people we love. You don’t need to remember your child’s emotional relationship to her teacher because you know your wife will; you don’t have to remember how to work the remote because you know your daughter will. That’s transactive memory. Little bits of ourselves reside in other people’s minds. Wegner has a heartbreaking riff about what one member of a couple will often say when the other one dies—that some part of him or her died along with the partner. That, Wegner says, is literally true. When your partner dies, everything that you have stored in that person’s brain is gone.

Zbiórka odbyła się w trybie bojowym. W niecałe trzy minuty oddział był pod bronią i w pełnym rynsztunku. Kac nie kac, byli Górską Strażą.

Psychologist Daniel M. Wegner has gone so far as to argue that conscious will is an illusion—that despite appearances, what causes my finger to rise is not my consciously willing that it rise but something else.

In Wegner’s studies, participants are asked to try hard not to think about something, such as a white bear, or food, or a stereotype. This is hard to do. More important, the moment one stops trying to suppress a thought, the thought comes flooding in and becomes even harder to banish. In other words, Wegner creates minor obsessions in his lab by instructing people not to obsess. Wegner explains this effect as an “ironic process” of mental control. 32 When controlled processing tries to influence thought (“Don’t think about a white bear!”), it sets up an explicit goal. And whenever one pursues a goal, a part of the mind automatically monitors progress, so that it can order corrections or know when success has been achieved. When that goal is an action in the world (such as arriving at the airport on time), this feedback system works well. But when the goal is mental, it backfires. Automatic processes continually check: “Am I not thinking about a white bear?” As the act of monitoring for the absence of the thought introduces the thought, the person must try even harder to divert consciousness. Automatic and controlled processes end up working at cross purposes, firing each other up to ever greater exertions. But because controlled processes tire quickly, eventually the inexhaustible automatic processes run unopposed, conjuring up herds of white bears. Thus, the attempt to remove an unpleasant thought can guarantee it a place on your frequent-play list of mental ruminations.

Pytaj, nawet jeśli spodziewasz się kłamstwa. Czasem sposób, w jaki ktoś kłamie, powie ci więcej o danej rzeczy niż szczera prawda. Bo kłamstwo ma zazwyczaj ukryć słabość.

Pierwszym krokiem do głupoty jest zaprzestanie zadawania niewygodnych pytań.

Nie mówiłam o ludziach, tylko o człowieku. Ludzie to potwór o kamiennym sercu i stu gębach złaknionych krwi.

Our sense of being a conscious agent who does things comes at a cost of being technically wrong all the time.

What have you done, Lizzy?” Jane questioned her good-humouredly. “Two gentlemen are wooing for your attention right at the same time. Well, well.

Are you going to take Miss Jane from us?” Harriet asked, eyeing Elizabeth curiously. “No, I have only come to visit.

What have you done, Lizzy?” Jane questioned her good-humouredly. “Two gentlemen are wooing for your attention

Sir Hugh does not know Mr and Mrs Gardiner. He has never heard of them. It was I who recommended you to Lady Mary.

Darcy stared down at her with great intensity in his dark eyes. “You are a bit of a hot head, are you not? You have not changed in the least.

It’s not that the church has a mission. It’s that a mission has the church.

To chyba największa siła ludzi, pomyślał. Umiejętność ignorowania prawdy, jeśli jest dla nas niewygodna. Odrzucania wszystkiego, co może zburzyć nasz spokój albo zmusić nas do zmiany poglądów.

Tak naprawdę ciebie nie ma, nigdy nie było, zostałeś ukształtowany przez innych na ich obraz i podobieństwo, włącznie z ich człowiekowatością. Prawdziwym człowiekiem będziesz dopiero gdy sam wybierzesz swoją drogę.

[...] hańbą jest poddawać się złu, pochylać przed nim głowę, padać na kolana, zasłaniając się niechęcią do przemocy. Bo zło, któremu się nie przeciwstawisz, urośnie, spotężnieje i pójdzie w świat krzywdzić innych. A ich krzywda będzie twoją winą.

Why do we embrace the ideal of conscious agency? Why, in other words, do we want our choices to have been conscious choices? In part because of social pressures. As Wegner points out, if you can’t answer the question “What are you doing?” those around you are likely to think you are asleep, drugged, or crazy. In order to avoid having others think such things of us, we make up reasons for what we do. Indeed, we may even claim to have wanted to do things we couldn’t possibly have wanted to do.

Nikt nie chciał wziąć za żonę ślepej kobiety. Ale przez krew i nasienie należała do rodu, mogła się nazywać og'Issaram. Więc posadzono ją przy żarnach. Miał siedem lat, gdy po raz pierwszy ją zobaczył. Osiem gdy dowiedział się, kim jest. Dziesięć, gdy pobił się ze swoimi dwoma starszymi kuzynami o to, że rzucali w nią kamykami. Jedenaście, gdy zaczęła go uczyć języka równin. Czternaście, gdy zmarła. Ślepa kobieta przy żarnach. Jego matka.

The initiation of the voluntary act appears to be an unconscious cerebral process. Clearly, free will or free choice of whether to act now could not be the initiating agent, contrary to the widely held view. This is of course also contrary to each individual’s own introspective feeling that he/she consciously initiates such voluntary acts; this provides an important empirical example of the possibility that the subjective experience of a mental causality need not necessarily reflect the actual causative relationship between mental and brain events

To zabawy możnych. Oni patrzą na świat inaczej. Nie widzą ludzi, tylko tłum. Masę. A gdy w tłumie ktoś ginie, jest to do zaakceptowania. Większość z nich wychowała się w otoczeniu ludzi, których nazwisk nie znali. Służby, stajennych, kucharzy, strażników. Mówią im po imieniu, jak mówi się do psów czy kotów. Dla szlachcica jeden służący nie różni się od drugiego, jest elementem wyposażenia domu. Tutaj nawet rezydencje sprzedaje się z pokojówkami i kucharzami. Rozumiesz? Nie jesteś dla nich przeciwnikiem, tylko... szkodnikiem. Oni cię nie zabiją, tylko usuną, a po wszystkim nie poświęcą temu choćby jednej myśli.

Sierp może wyobrażać sobie, że to on ścina zboże, a młotek, że wbija gwóźdź. Lecz jeden i drugi jest tylko narzędziem.

Płacz to deszcz, który wymywa zaschniętą krew z naszych ran.

- Ojciec przeor mówił, że przepraszam to potężne słowo, ale jest jak nóż, którego nie można ostrzyć... Ech, te religijne przenośnie. - To znaczy? - Im częściej go używamy, tym bardziej się tępi i gorzej działa. Prawdziwą sztuką jest żyć tak, by nie musieć go co chwilę powtarzać.

Czarne wzgórza przed nimi, czarna równina za nimi. Niebo ze stali nad głową. Nic więcej.

,,Do ostatniego tchu, do ostatniego uderzenia serca

Bezbronny człowiek stojący naprzeciw uzbrojonego jest tylko w połowie wolny i żywy, bo jego wolność i życie tkwią w rękach tego drugiego.

Wojny nie wybuchają, bo jakaś portowa dziwka pomyli kochasia ani nie dlatego, że jakiś złodziej znajdzie się w niewłaściwym czasie i miejscu. Wojny wybuchają, bo paru ludzi nienawidzi się do tego stopnia, że nie można już bardziej, lub dlatego, że ktoś chce więcej pieniędzy, władzy albo przyjemności i nie może ich zdobyć w inny sposób.

the house appeared much larger inside than its outside would suggest.

Stare wojskowe powiedzenie twierdziło, że nie ma nic bardziej niebezpiecznego niż żołnierze, którzy sami próbują wypełnić sobie wolny czas.

Gdy twoja kobieta robi lepiej szablą niż ty, dobrze jest wiedzieć, kiedy ma trudne dni.

Prawdziwa potęga może cię zniszczyć, lecz nie zegnie cię, jeśli będziesz uparty.

Najlepsze kłamstwo to takie, które ma piwnicę, ściany, a nawet dach zbudowane z prawdy.

Sometimes, Eleri, you are so like your mother … I see her dreams in you.

ending.

Wegner’s experiment shows that trying not to think about something will markedly increase the chances of your thinking about it.

an attitude of "just good enough" will never take anyone beyond the level of mediocrity!

zum Türöffner. Ganz behutsam

Move toward to what you want rather than away from what you don't.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.5

I'm no one. I've lived on the streets, begged for food, scrimped and saved and worked my way through the dodgiest jobs in downtown Rourton. I've been cold. I've been alone. But I've survived it all, and I'm not prepared to die tonight.

Fate is fluid. Destiny is in the hands of men.

It would have been nice to have night parties back home,' Clementine says. 'A chance to get out of the house.' Teddy grins. 'Imagine all those drunk richies wobbling around the streets, coin purses hanging out of their pockets...

You're his grandmother. - Danika

Kings come and go, my friend, but my people survive... My people do what we please. - Silver

If you go near my sister again,' says Clementine, 'I will cut out your eyes. Do I make myself clear?

Lucas cuts me off mid-sentence, which kind wrecks the 'inspiration speech' tone I'd been going for.

Hate to break it to you, Teddy, but it looks like your mushrooms were in a partying mood. - Danika

What if King Morrigan's obsession was born not of greed, but of fear?

Can you see it now? Nort & Sons: Fine Bred Foxhawks.' 'You haven't got any sons,' Clementine says. Teddy winks at her. 'Not yet.

You're not the only one,' I say, 'who can wear a mask.

I love you. I do not care about your fortune, family, or relations. Nevertheless, you cannot expect that I would consciously and willingly take a woman of ill repute for my wife.

Elizabeth had never been vain, but the ardency and admiration contained in Darcy’s words and expression opened a small gate in her heart, allowing a warm feeling to spread inside.

She was proud, but not nearly as much as four years ago when she had bravely refused him her hand in marriage. Life taught her humility. Beggars could hardly be choosers.

He was very experienced in the matters of flesh, that could not be denied. ***

hand-crafted chair like an Arne Jacobsen or a Hans Wegner or a Børge Mogensen,’ Charlotte goes on. ‘Your average Danish home might also have a designer lamp like Poul Henningsen’s PH or an Arne Jacobsen AJ from Louis Poulsen. Then

People are destined by the lack of consciousness of much of their own behavior to attribute to others the impetus for what they themselves have set in motion.

One important reason that philosophers should take Nietzsche seriously is because he seems to have gotten, at least in broad contours, many points about human moral psychology right. Consider: (1) Nietzsche holds that heritable type-facts are central determinants of personality and morally significant behaviors, a claim well supported by extensive empirical findings in behavioral genetics. (2) Nietzsche claims that consciousness is a “surface” and that “the greatest part of conscious thought must still be attributed to [non-conscious] instinctive activity,” theses overwhelmingly vindicated by recent work by psychologists on the role of the unconscious (e.g., Wilson 2002) and by philosophers who have produced synthetic meta-analyses of work on consciousness in psychology and neuroscience (e.g., Rosenthal 2008). (3) Nietzsche claims that moral judgments are post-hoc rationalizations of feelings that have an antecedent source, and thus are not the outcome of rational reflection or discursiveness, a conclusion in sync with the findings of the ascendent “social intuitionism” in the empirical moral psychology of Jonathan Haidt (2001) and others. (4) Nietzsche argues that free will is an “illusion,” that our conscious experience of willing is itself the causal product of non-conscious forces, a view recently defended by the psychologist Daniel Wegner (2002), who, in turn, synthesiyes a large body of empirical literature, including the famous neurophysical data about “willing” collected by Benjamin Libet.

These include the Self-Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003); White Bear Suppression Inventory (Wegner & Zanakos, 1994); Cognitive-Behavioral Avoidance Scale (Ottenbreit & Dobson, 2004); Thought Control Questionnaire (Wells & Davies, 1994), Distress Tolerance Scale (Simons & Gaher, 2005), the Emotional Nonacceptance subscale of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004), or similar subscales on various mindfulness measures such as the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004) or the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al., 2008), among several others. The definitions of acceptance vary in all of these approaches.

As Wegner explained, “We stay awake worrying that we cannot sleep, and we spend all day mentally in the refrigerator when we are hoping to diet.

Her eyes met his. “And I would reconsider. I would take you in without a minute of hesitation.

As the psychologist Daniel Wegner defined it in the early aughts, free will “is merely a feeling that occurs to a person. It is to action as the experience of pain is to the bodily changes that result from painful stimulation.”19

Perhaps this land wasn't the one in need of saving.

The hunter’s virtue lies in respecting the soul of the animals killed, in treating their remains in a prescribed manner and in particular, in making use of as much of the carcass as possible. These observances constitute religious obedience. The animals slain under the proper conditions and treated with the consideration due them return to life again and again. They furthermore indicate their whereabouts to the ‘good’ hunter in dreams resigning themselves to his weapons in a free spirit of self-sacrifice.

Ansinnen

Armin Wegner, un enfermero alemán y alférez en el séquito del mariscal de campo Von der Goltz, desobedeció las órdenes y tomó centenares de fotografías de las víctimas armenias en los campos de Ras al Ain, Rakka, Alepo y Deir ez Zor. Hoy esas desgarradoras fotografías de muertos y moribundos constituyen el núcleo de los testimonios fotográficos.

In my preface, I quoted an e-mail message from someone who was upset by the news that neuroscientists had shown that free will is an illusion. She was, she said, “in a lot of despair.” My final moral is the title of a song: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Scientists have not shown this. Nor has anyone shown that there are no effective intentions. This is good news for just about everyone.

Je crois que nous avons toujours besoin d'une période de vide avant de pouvoir changer, un peu comme la nature a des cycles et qu'il faut passer par un temps d'hiver et d'immobilité pour que la vie revienne au printemps suivant.

The mission of God is the origin of every expression of ecclesiology, every understanding of how the church is structured and why it exists. Mission is the sweeping force that runs through everything we are and all that we do.

Apparently it was the time to fulfil her duty to her husband, Pemberley, and England.

With his student Kurt Gray, Wegner explored a phenomenon they called ‘moral typecasting’. The idea is that we automatically and unconsciously divide other people into two categories: moral ‘agents’ and moral ‘patients’.