Subject: [vallist] Three Halloween tales (#5)
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 1999 12:58:08 -0800
From: Michele Vallisneri 
To: vallist@egroups.com

Dear friends,

even if belatedly, I thought I would celebrate this year's Halloween by
exposing to you three pet theories of mine about everyday life and
behavior. They do not really make for scary tales, but I believe they
are adequate Halloween treats, given their wicked or spooky or unusual
tinges.

If am afraid that my grasp of psychology is quite poor, so these short
essays might be quite like the "poor man's physics" that crackpots
sometimes send to our department: devoid of justification and
elaboration, or remotely echoing some full-fledged theory that is
unknown to them. Yet they do reflect my outlook on some things, as naive
as it may be. Please feel free to comment, correct or complete as you
will see fit.

Happy Halloween!

Michele

--> Three pet theories of mine (in celebration of Halloween)

I. From hunter-gatherers, to shoppers-consumers

A quite fashionable branch of science, these days, is _evolutionary
psychology_, which purports to explain many of our everyday behaviors as
instinctive strategies, genetic traits for which we have been selected
throughout the ages. A very popular example (for obvious reasons!) is
explaining away the tireless womanizing of some males as biologically
motivated by the necessity of spreading one's genes as widely as
possible, so that at least some of the offspring may eventually survive
and further the genetic line; conversely, women's "intrinsic" monogamy
would find a rationale in the fact that a mother has in her progeny a
much greater investment of time and resources, and one that can be
repeated only a few times, so that having by her side a dependable and
stable care-giver would seem a wise choice, indeed!

Much has been written about this "battle of the sexes" (see for instance
good old Jared Diamond); some aspects are really fascinating, such as
the special developments that may take place when some of the genes
related to sexual behavior are carried on the male cromosome only (or,
for birds, on the female cromosome; in our plumy friends, _females_ have
the XY cromosome).

My pet theory comes from that feeling of comfort and gratification that
I noticed in myself during and immediately after a shopping trip, be it
for clothes, books or food: I must admit I feel especially happy when I
return home with some fresh fish to have for dinner; but then maybe that
is just the joyful placation of my hunger! Anyway, there is no doubt
that shopping carries a profound, _instinctual_ satisfaction: indeed, it
works as a cure for unhappiness and depression, and in some pathological
cases it may even become a repetitive, compulsive behavior, just because
it is so rewarding!

OK, my theory is that the exhilaration that we find in shopping is
_exactly_ the same that our ancestors found in hunting down their prey,
or carefully probing the woods to pick up edible plants and berries. The
drive that stone-age humans' felt to hunt and gather was certainly a
sound evolutionary strategy, one which made it easier to satisfy their
basic needs. Now, if you think about it, shopping is not so different:
what you are acquiring are goods or assets that will (at least in your
perception) help you survive, prosper, and even thrive; be it food to
consume, clothes to wear, books to read, or superfluous luxury items,
all are at some level nourishing, protecting, comforting, or relieving.

So, while you walk the aisle of your favourite grocery store, picture
yourself in a saber-toothed tiger skin and carrying a spear, and enjoy
your ride; that is what you were made for. Well, kind of!

II. On the wholesomeness of first-sight hate, and second-hand gossip

I previously reported in this letters how I always like to have a few
enemies at hand to gleefully loathe and despise, and how this convenient
arrangement is usually spoilt by meeting the actual people and finding
out that they are quite nice and agreeable. Mind you, my hate is never
channeled into actual confrontation or physical damage, but it is mainly
kept into the very human activity of gossiping with my friends. Since I
must keep up with my reputation of a rationalizer, I will give you my
little spiel on why it is good and wholesome to have enemies to
belittle, but the reason why _I_ do, of course, is that is _just feels
so damn good_!

Gossip is the quintessential human activity. Some anthropologists even
venture as far as to say that language was developed just for it and
because of it. It helps build strong social bonds and strengthen
allegiances; it allows the self-policing of small communities, through
the fear of "shame" and "disgrace"; at a larger scale, it divides the
world into "us" and "them" (which at times can be useful). Ugly things,
I agree. As an enlightened citizen of the twenty-first century, I
believe in self-determination against imposed customs and traditions, in
voluntary adherence to rules and laws, in mutual respect and tolerance,
and in collaboration at the supranational level.

Yet, at the personal level, I do develop strong first-sight aversions
which I celebrate and reinforce with cheerful gossip to my friends. For
how much easier it is to decide every day's strategy, to chart one's
path and proceed along it steadfastly, when the surrounding terrain is
populated with clearly tagged friends and foes, instead of shadier
people with mixed agendas and uncertain alignments! How rewarding to
share antipathies and savor well-spoken, wicked slanders! How convenient
to pipe grudges and annoyance into the big boiling cauldron of a few
well-kept hatreds: it is much easier then to bestow my friends with
unconditional love, fondness and support, since they come from a
cleansed heart!

As for my enemies, they need not feel bad: I have nothing _really_
personal against them; as I said, it is just my genetic endowment
speaking through me. But they'd better not try a rapprochement: they are
coveted assets, and I had rather not lose them as good, honest, lovingly
abhorred enemies.

III. Oh, that is so _deja vu_!

Isn't it eerie when an apparently new place, or situation, or
experience, brings out within you feelings and thoughts that you believe
already occurred in your life, but that you just cannot place? Those
nebulous, half-formed memories linger in your mind, while you cannot
even decide if it is a known sight, sound, or smell that you are
wrestling with. Sometimes the air seems replete with a subtle yet
profound intimation of awkwardness, even danger, like the feeling that
somebody is looking at you, or that an unknown enemy is waiting for you
in the shadow, just beyond your restricted vision and alertness. Whence
comes that?

There are several explanations for _deja vues_, ranging from the mundane
(bad memory), to the oneiric (must have happened in a dream); from the
other-worldly (your prior lives), to the fictional, but intriguing
(anybody who's seen "The Matrix" will recognize deja vues as the
inconsistencies of "virtual" reality that appear when "agents" are about
to enter the action). My little theory is that _we have a limited
ability to perceive situations and gestalten in qualitatively different
ways_. At every instant in our lives, we come across a unique (if subtly
so) combination of sights and sounds and smells; but it is as if the big
"console" in our heads had only a small number of colored lights, that
can go off in only so many ways to create different feelings and
_qualitative essences_ (_qualia_).

There is in mathematical problem-solving a technique that is known as
the "pigeon-hole principle": it states that if there are more pigeons
than holes, then at least one hole must have two pigeons in it. If
subjective experiences are holes, and the situations we experience are
pigeons, then _deja vues_ are holes with two pigeons in them. What is
peculiar is that at times the matching of combinations of indicator
lights with sights and sounds appears to be completely arbitrary, so
that the same hole houses pigeons that are unalike and unrelated, much
to our puzzlement. Why this happens is hard to explain: I like to
consider it as a curious side-effect of the way our associative memory
works, a glitch that is largely offset by the extraordinary usefulness
of remembering.

And if I think about it, I find a strange captivation in this state of
things; for as we wade through life and silently catalog in our minds
everything that comes to us, red with red, useful with useful, happy
with happy, an invisible web is woven that links situations and
gestalten that are completely unalike, except for the fact of having
been _felt_ by us, and belonging to our existences. And this feeling of
unity and oneness is part of what it means for you to be you, and for me
to be me.

                    --------------------------------

             ("The Vallist" #5; Pasadena, November 6, 1999)