Ah, io9. You always find new and interesting ways to remind me that I'm not getting any.

Surfs the holo-net for porn, Yoda does :)

No. It doesn't.

Yes—that's exactly what I mean. It's the Dunning-Kruger effect—he was so incompetent/inexperienced, he didn't even realize how incompetent he was. But my point is that at the time, the whole field of psychology was like that; ambitious guesses far outnumbered pragmatic data. Unstructured "introspection" was still…

I think the most important realization in this regard, is to have a natural relationship towards emotion, and so rather than trying to force yourself to be happy most of the time, accept that sometimes you are sad, and embracing that does not actually have to feel 'bad'.

*bows* Thank you, kind Sir!

Look... I only need you here for one more season. With what we earn on the next harvest, I can pick up a couple more droids, and you can go join the academy...

You do realize that cynicism like that is a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? If you think people are selfish jerks and the world is a crappy place, your brain will highlight any evidence of that, and will ignore evidence to the contrary. And worse; when you share this view, it'll depress people. And they will…

Reminds me of my favourite Bill Hicks quote:

Easy as phi!

Psychology was just getting started at the time, and so it definitely lacked a lot of scientific rigour. Still, I'm glad he made these. The only way for psychology to have started to figure anything out was to have people exploring every possible avenue of investigation—making wild shots in the dark, even—even if a…

Possibly; although I don't know if we can really understand what the Old Testament God was really meant to represent from our modern perspective; any more than we might understand a completely foreign culture. But I agree, from our point of view, that version of God certainly seems pretty terrifying.

Fair enough :) I guess I'm just not a fan of the genre.

But again, Lovecraft was just selling horror stories. He was an atheist and he didn't believe the stuff he sold as entertainment. And I really doubt he offered these stories as a perspective or as an ideology to build your life around.

Because they're unknown/unknowable; and a human's level of psychological arousal increases automatically when they're confronted with something they don't understand. Because what we don't understand can kill us. Sometimes it's also exciting/positive instead of terrifying, because the chaotic unknown can also…

If you're wondering why I said "anxiety provoking", please read my reply to the other branch of this thread. As for the rest: I don't have any trouble imagining it, and I don't think it's really necessarily different, logically. But, as Daniel Kahneman taught the world, human minds/perceptions work more by context…

Sure... but why would one subscribe to such a view? If the universe is in fact created/run by incomprehensibly malevolent forces which will one day kill/devour you or shatter your sanity, then why the heck should I get out of bed in the morning, and why shouldn't I become a cultist, go on a killing spree, and hope to…

It's more interesting because it's more anxiety provoking, but it's ultimately just an expression of nihilism; so it doesn't really have much to offer beyond its raw entertainment value.

Well said!

[evolution] undermines [Christianity] because it posits that death has always existed. The Gospel, on the other hand, says that death is an anomaly caused by sin.