Should Be Known

It is apparent that one property of self-deception is a need to have others validate your wrong-ness (as right-ness). You can't be settled or peaceful about your untruthfulness, to use a term I like to use. You must constantly seek justification from others, or attempted justification, we might say, since it is not real and is never satisfied.

The scriptures are filled with examples of people who weren't satisfied to ignore the testimony of the prophets or the righteous and go about their lives. They needed to cancel them - kick them out of their cities, or kill them. The Zoramites couldn't even handle that the righteous whom they had kicked out were accepted by another people, and so they began a great war. Obviously the crucifixion of the Savior is another example of this need to cancel the person who is challenging your erroneous beliefs and works. There's no, oh well I don't feel the way he does but he's free to express and live his beliefs as long as my rights are maintained. No, there's not a feeling of equality, but a need to squelch the opposing viewpoint, to the point of harm.

So there are extreme examples and there are far more common examples of people who are in the wrong seeking to impose their views on others, or not being comfortable with others having differing views. I don't know if I need to cite current societal trends, probably not.

But if your view is correct and in line with God and your knowledge of the truth, through the light of Christ, which everybody has constantly, you don't have this need. You might not agree with people, their views may disturb you in a way, but not because it threatens your correctness. You might have a desire to convince others to your way of thinking, but it's out of love and a desire to do good and serve God and fellow man.

So this becomes a clue to everybody, it seems to me, to detect if you're in the wrong about something or not. Do you feel a need for others to believe something you believe? Do you feel a need to silence or eliminate those who don't? If so, it's time to examine your position.

This happens in more subtle ways every day in normal interactions, and that should probably be talked about sometime...

I discuss the mechanics of willpower and choice in the face of temptation. Basically, #1, in the face of temptation, should you have gotten yourself out of the situation or otherwise avoided it in the first place, or can you now? When Joseph in Egypt found himself in a bad situation with Potiphar's wife, he "got him out". He has been described (by Niel A. Maxwell) as having had good legs. So first avoid the situation or get out of it in the first place. Does a certain situation present temptations for you and you know it? Then avoid that situation, if you can.

You don't have to ever go to the bar. You don't have to go to that party in the first place. You don't have to even touch alcohol, or drugs. You might not need to hang around that person. You might not need to use that app, or that website. You don't have to stay up way late at night with that person or those people. Be smart. Don't be dumb. Keep yourself out of those situations in the first place.

#2, if you HAVE made some bad choices, or are otherwise struggling with a bad habit, or a resentment that's not good for you (they're all not good for you), and you can't seem to break free, you might need to do like the alcoholics anonymous people do, and acknowledge that you can't do it without a higher power. There are many traps in life, not just alcoholism or drug addiction or pornography addiction. Maybe we need God's help with even the "little" things, as well as the "big" things.

So pray for that help. Your deliverance may not be immediate, like it wasn't for the people of king Limhi, but "That soul who on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I cannot desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake." God will make a way for your escape, and "though [you] were dead, yet shall [you] live."

Abstract:

Dogs, who are not accountable before God and do not have the capability to make choices regarding good and evil, nevertheless get angry/aggressive, can have anxiety, low self-esteem, fear, etc., like a human can. This to me tells us that emotional stuff we deal with such as depression and anxiety are not necessarily (if ever?) a result of our own moral choices. If a dog, or a young child, can be self-deceived (be going against one's own knowledge of good and evil, on some level), knowing that they themselves are not accountable before God for their actions...well wait a minute, I thought only humans had the light of Christ and that having that means you have a knowledge of good and evil.

So does this mean even dogs have the light of Christ? Even though they're not capable of differentiating between good and evil and will never be morally accountable before God? We know little children are not morally accountable until they get older and are able to know good from evil...but dogs never will, and they will be redeemed and saved.

Great, now I've opened up a whole can of worms. But it's one that probably had to be opened. We need to understand this precisely.

Full text:

Hi, welcome to the Should Be Known Podcast. I'm Clayton Pixton. It is getting dark and I am pressed for time. I've got to get out and go for my jog, so hard to sit down and do this sometimes, but I'm going to do it. So welcome here and yeah, it's been a while. Blahda blahda yadda. But glad you're here.

So I'm just going to say a few things that I've been thinking recently about psychology as we are wont to do, trying to figure out depression and anxiety and a lot of other things really. Kind of looking for a fresh foundation for psychology. Sounds like a pretty lofty goal. And maybe it is, but it's fun and I do believe there are some unsolved problems there, some puzzles that we don't know because there's something going on there that we don't understand in our current collective understanding of psychology. Everybody's got their own theories of psychology. I guess we all understand it in our own minds, but. Yeah, well. I'm not going to go back and uh. Review I guess where we are going to keep it a little short. So I was walking some dogs today. We are pet sitting some dogs...before I do that, I got to do a little more music...

[music]

So that was High on a Mountain Top. Or is it high on the mountain top? High on a mountain top? Pretty sure. On the mountain top. 

[music]

Not sure if that's the key. Probably is. Or maybe it is. [except I raised it after playing it, to Bb because it was too muddy in Ab.] So I learned to play piano in priesthood meeting in the ward of my youth in California - Clayton Valley Third Ward. What a great ward, I was very blessed to grow up in that. We weren't perfect, certain things could have been better, but we had...it was a great opportunity for me to grow and everything. And my calling was to play the piano in priesthood meeting. So I learned a lot of the hymns that way. I've learned a lot since. But I was kind of young and didn't know what I was doing in large measure when I started. Which is kind of the case with a lot of stuff I've done in the church - kind of inexperienced and didn't know what I was doing. Still am that way. Spent my whole fatherhood that way. I am almost an empty nester now. 49 years old. OK. But you didn't come here to listen to that.

I was walking these dogs. And as I've thought before with dogs...so dogs don't have moral accountability. They are like the rest of the animal kingdom. Anybody besides humans doesn't have a knowledge of good and evil, and therefore is not responsible before God to make good choices over evil. A dog, you know, may be full of love and affection - and dogs are awesome and a great gift from God, in my view, I guess, as are other animals. But they are not morally accountable before God. They can be a good dog or a bad dog - they can have an accident on your floor, or they can eat something they're not supposed to, or get into something, or make a mess, or obey or not obey. It's not a moral thing for them, it's purely behavioral, right? Still love them. All of God's creations are worthy of our love and deserving of our love. And demand that. And I'm not saying we are under the obligation to treat them the same way we would a human life. I do believe that's different. Setting that aside.

I don't know if they can be depressed in the same way that a person can be depressed. I don't know. They obviously can be sad. They can feel hopeless, I guess, in a way. Maybe not quite all the same ways that a person can be. But it's a curious study to me. Dogs don't have moral accountability. They didn't...there's no, you know...they're not doing anything wrong, if they're stressed... And we happen to know, very well, for example, multiple dogs of friends and stuff who experience feelings of stress, of anxiety. It's very easy to tell. We have taken care of a dog of some of our close friends who was allegedly abused as a young dog. And this dog cowers. Well, there's dog right now. This dog cowers when you approach it. Especially men, I guess. There they are protecting us right now. And is very timid and will freak out under certain situations with a human. See, what would I say about that? So this dog experiences anxiety and kind of fear and whatever you want to call that. Dogs get angry at each other. We know they fight and they can get angry at, you know, another animal or a human. They can be aggressive. They can be stressed, you know. We know that they're not making a moral choice there. It is a natural thing, independent, or I should say independent, at least of morality, to the extent that they themselves are not accountable.

Now - did animals kill each other and be aggressive with each other before the fall? I don't know that they were. I feel like that happened after. And the fall was a result of a human choice, right? So anyway, I don't know the answer to all this. But I feel like I've heard some people kind of talk about getting angry or aggressive, or having, you know, negative emotions and reactions like stress and anxiety and fear and anger and stuff like that - because they are making a moral choice. And I think it's important to see that that's not the case. And I think knowing dogs is a great way to see that that clearly cannot be the case.

And it's the same with children, right? Children get angry. Young children I'm talking about. What's the age cutoff? I'm not going to hypothesize that, but I'm going to just say young children. They can get angry, they can get stressed. Uh, they can. They can be bad, they can misbehave, you might say or be disobedient to their guardian or whoever else. And yet we know they're not morally accountable.

Dogs are not self-reflective like a grown human is. Or children - are they self-reflective? I feel like they're kind of not yet. They're developing that and they have the capacity to be, whereas a dog never will be. It's just not who they are, OK?

And now I'm really out of time. So yeah, just just thinking about that, so put that in your pipe and smoke it. But never smoke. Now I'm going to play.

Who's on the Lord? 's side who? If you've heard this song. Great hymn. I don't know if I've ever sung it in church.

[Friendly conversation with Amy]

All right, who's on the Lord's side, who? Who's on the Lord's side? That's kind of low in my range. Or high.

Who's on the Lord's side, who? 

Now is the time to show.

We ask it fearlessly.

Who's on the Lord's side, who?

We wage no common war.

Cope with no common foe.

The enemy is awake.

Who's on the Lord's side, who?

Who's on the Lord's side, who?

Now is the time to show.

We ask it fearlessly.

Who's on the Lord's side, who? 

Wow, I didn't do that very good, I'll try to edit it, but it's a great, great message, right? Who's on the Lord's side? Who is on the Lord's side, who? Now is the time to show. We ask it fearlessly - who's on the Lord's side? Who is on the Lord's side, guys? Choose ye this day...

OK, one more little thought. And that is, just what is stress? What is stress? What's anxiety? I don't feel like we've nailed that down. Somebody might know what it is, but I don't know that I have that in my head. I mean, I've obviously...we all experience it. So everybody knows what it is as far as that goes. But what is actually happening?

Is it a cognitive dissonance between what reality is and what is in our minds? Is it a cognitive dissonance like that but added that, you know, it's an undesirable thing or that it's something we can't control? I mean I don't know. I'm just asking the question.

And five minutes before I pressed record I asked Google, "what is stress?" "Stress is how we react when we feel under pressure or threatened." OK, but that doesn't tell me anything. "It usually happens when we're in a situation that we don't feel we can manage or control. When we experience stress, it can be as an individual blah blah blah." This comes from mind.org.uk. That's a pretty unhelpful definition right there, I'd say. "What exactly causes stress?" This thing came up from the same website. "...don't have much or any control over the outcome of a situation, have responsibilities that you find overwhelming, don't have enough work activities or change in your life, experience discrimination, hate or abuse..." This might be a list, it's putting it in paragraph form here. [Google search] pulls up, "Is stress an emotion?" I mean, that's kind of a basic question... "stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension." OK, well, forget the physical - we're talking about emotional tension. There's maybe a start. "It can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry or nervous. Stress is your body's reaction..." OK, well, now we're talking about the body. I want to know about the mind. "[It] is your body's reaction to a challenge or demand. In short bursts, stress can be positive, such as when it helps you avoid danger or meet a deadline..." Yeah, this isn't really what I'm trying to get at. Yeah, "it "Stress is..." (this is from Medline Plus...no, I've already read that...) "Stress is a normal human reaction that happens to everyone." No... "Stress is a common feeling we get when we feel under pressure, overwhelmed or unable to cope..."

Anyway, none of these to me get at it. None of them get at it. What is stress guys? OK, well this is hard to record with other occupants in the house, so I'm going to stop, but that's OK. So all I did is really kind of bring up questions today and make a few points, but I would like to understand, I mean, we don't know what depression is. Nobody knows what depression is, but man, we don't even know what anxiety is. Maybe somebody does and it's out there, but the Internet doesn't seem super helpful, at least in my little 5 minute search. [But these search results could give us a start, or some ideas, don't want to totally discount them...]

All right guys. Thanks for coming to the Should Be Known Podcast. I'll try to get this out and y'all take care. 

Well the text below isn't super close to the words I actually uttered forth in my podcast, but here they are anyway. Enjoy and thanks for listening/reading!

Monday, May 20, 2022

Offense a Conscious Choice?

More on the idea that it’s not totally accurate to say that getting offended or getting angry is a conscious choice. (Or getting anxious or …)

Friday, June 2, 2022

Insight vs. New Information and Logic

So I’m thinking about insight versus kind of actual new information, or might we say, conclusions or whatever. So what is insight? To me you get an insight just purely from thinking about something. It’s an observation. Maybe that’s a better concept, an insight is an observation. Then in the theoretical world, and really the world in general, you make an insight into an assumption or something, you use that insight to explain the world. And so all these theories develop that are based on one idea and one idea only. Evolution, for example. Or behavioral theory. Or brain chemicals, or sunlight, or cognitive theory,…. And of course none of these theories explains everything well on their own. In fact, even together they don’t necessarily explain things that great. Maybe I’m just biased because I know that the principle of self deception isn’t in there. But anyway none of them explain everything, and that includes the theory of self deception. It doesn’t explain everything by itself. These are all parts of the machinery, right? All parts of the mechanism that work together to influence us to do what we do.

Anyway what is the difference between an insight, and observation, an assumption, a conclusion, and anything in between? Maybe you can make anything into an assumption, or maybe to use a better word, you can take any idea and, assuming it to be true, reason from there. That idea may be right and it may be wrong. But you can reason from it all the same, just like you can do math using one number or another, you’ll just get an erroneous result if you start out using the wrong number or the wrong idea.

I wouldn’t mind strengthening my ability to do logic. I wonder how I would do that? I’m sure there are books on it and maybe even YouTube videos. My minor in logic was a good primer, and the logic I used to program stuff for work is good training, and other reasoning in life all helps.

I have the idea that Socrates loved to use words and phrases and statements in logic and go in a very step-by-step fashion through it to say what he wanted to say or make the point he wanted to make. But I feel like he changed the meaning of words or phrases in the middle of the process somehow to get people to agree to stuff that they didn’t really think based on statements they would agree to. Something like that. Isn’t that cold sophistry? Or maybe that Sophocles did that and that’s why they call it sophistry. But I feel like Socrates did that too, kind of twisting stuff to his own benefit sometimes. But he was right a lot of the time too.

Listing Psychological Principles

I’m also wondering about making a big list of psychological principles.

Thursday, June 9, 2022

Moral Accountability for Self-Deception and Choices

Just a little thought to tack onto the discussion (is it written down or did I just say it in my podcast?), The discussion on the thought that if we are not held morally accountable for all of our self deception. I started trying to say, as I was doing my podcast, how mental illness probably isn’t in the category of stuff that we’re morally accountable for. But I was starting to wander into an area that I unsure about, so I stopped, and even erased what I started in the podcast. But my additional thought about that is that we don’t experience life as a continual stream of choice or whatever before us. That’s how I’ve heard it described by some philosophers I guess I’ll say. We experiences, I mean we experience choices. They’re more discrete and isolated. They’re not continual. Can you imagine how exhausting it would be to be making significant moral decisions at every moment? What does that even mean? What kind of a concept is that?

It’s like the philosopher who made the riddle about shooting an arrow and it never being able to reach the target, because every time it got to half way there you could divide the remaining distance in half, and then when it got to that half you would divide the remaining distance in half, and so on ad infinitum, and so how could an arrow ever travel an infinity of distances? It’s like that. Of course we know the arrow gets there just fine. So something is wrong with the concept of an Infiniti of possibly infinitesimally small distances rather than with the arrow. And the target.

Friday, June 17, 2022

Funny how division works (referring to the above discussion) :)

So if you divide something by infinity, and then multiply the result by infinity, do you get that same number you started out with? :)  What is the result, anyway, of that first division?

——

Jane Clayson on Depression and Power Over Emotions

"So I guess that’s the difference for me is when I’m discouraged I’m a free agent of my emotions, and when I was clinically depressed I feel like I certainly wasn’t."

-Jane Clayson

In 'All In' podcast, 13:25

She couldn’t feel the Spirit when she was depressed.

What of the idea, expressed by that one lady who wrote the article I didn’t love about mental health and the Church, that we all have the ability to cease from sin--unless we’re mentally ill?

SBK039 Self-Deception is Not Necessarily Sin

Transcript by Microsoft Office 365 dictate/transcribe – not super great, had to do tons of editing just to turn many many separated fragments on separate lines into sentences and paragraphs, not to mention the wrong words and everything, but here you go!

*music*

All right, good enough. Welcome to the Should Be Known Podcast, I am Clayton Pixton.

If you're new and episode 39 is your very first episode, we talk about principles of psychology on this podcast, but not the ones that I guess you may be used to if you were used to talking about psychological principles from a psychology book or any of the kind of established sources of psychological knowledge or whatever, not to diss them, necessarily, at this moment, but we are taking it kind of afresh from the perspective of, what, just common sense and deriving principles from what I see and from, I guess revealed truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We draw upon the scriptures and inspired words that are consistent with the truth as taught by the Holy Ghost. And common sense, and then just ideas that we have that we don't know are true, which is called theories...yeah, theories are part of science, but you have to understand them right.  Theories are theories.  Science kind of makes up theories to explain what it sees and then...And goes yeah, yeah, that must be what's going on, and then it finds out, oh wait a minute, these things are inconsistent and then everybody says no, no, this is the theory, this is what we've accepted, it's right.  And then some smart person is able to break through some ground and say no 'cause look - there are all these inconsistencies, and tell you what - I have a better explanation, a better theory and then ...Finally, after decades or generations maybe, hopefully though, not that long, people start to accept it, and then science actually moves forward. 

So I've got a little chip on my shoulder, maybe, with some of these things because I come from outside of the establishment and I'm used to being kind of, I don't know, rejected a little bit maybe, and I'm not...I'm not part of the establishment.  I have a minor in psychology, ok, I have a major in philosophy. That's all I have. And I think about things, but I enjoy it and I actually think there's a lot of truth there to be had.

I think that a lot of people are barking up the wrong tree, and what do we say I...I don't want to get too Far on a maybe negative path.  I want to do some constructive stuff here, but yeah, that is not the introduction I was necessarily planning on, but there it is.

It's been a little while since I've recorded a show, and the podcast is meant to be investigative.  We're on a journey. I don't come to you with all the things I've already figured out, just with thoughts. But moving in a positive direction I hope.

Yeah, so let's do some more music and then we'll go from there. 

*music*

All right? Well, lots to talk about. Last episode we talked about the lectures on faith. OK, do you remember those, they were from Joseph Smith's time? It was a series of lectures or lessons kind of thing. Seven of them. They were actually canonized of a sort together with actual revelations from the Lord. But they are of a different nature really, so I don't know if you'd say canonized, but they were published as part of the doctrine and covenants first. It was called the Book of Commandments and Doctrine and Covenants. And I talked about that, and one of the first statements that came out of there. They're about faith, and how faith is like the main principle of action in all intelligent beings, actual statement goes like this - they quote the scripture:

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

From this we learn that faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen; and the principle of action in all intelligent beings.

And I paused there, and I was like, Oh well, I actually don't know how it says that last part. Doesn't actually say in the scripture that I could see that it's the principle of action in all intelligent beings and I said, but I'm going to go with that because I wanted to go with that and talk about it.

But yeah, the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to see how that derives from that. It kind of doesn’t to me.

And I also listened to a thing by a scholar that I know well [Noel Reynolds]. He was my stake President at BYU, which is my ecclesiastical leader, and he's a great scholar actually, and he kind of did a lot of research and figured out that the lectures on faith, the authorship points very strongly to not Joseph Smith, but to Sidney Rigdon, who was also an elder in the church, he was like in the first presidency, you might say, with Joseph Smith. He didn't continue, however, in that calling and in his in all his convictions. I guess you'd say he parted ways with Joseph Smith later, but anyway, so it it makes me, you know.

Question a little more what is being said. However, I don't want to take away from whatever may be true there. But just just a little, you know, heads up there that faith very well may be the what is it called the principle of action and all intelligent beings but now I feel like I'm going to have to rethink that and be like, OK, is that really the case? I can't just plain old trust it like I maybe thought I could before but you know it's like most things.

I'm pretty trusting of the scriptures. But you have you have to read everything.

But you have to read everything with, well, with the spirit of the Lord, or else you're not going to know one thing from the other. You're not going to be able to discern truth from error. So whether you're reading in scripture or prophets’ words or some guys book or speech, or lecture or something you're not going to have any guide to know what of that is true or not unless you yourself have the Holy Ghost with you. The spirit of the Lord with you.  So, doesn't make it easy, doesn't make it easy, but that's the way life is. It's kind of your/my responsibility, to have that as a way to discern truth from error.

OK, so I said what I need to say about the lectures on faith.

I had a thought last night which will be my next thought here. We Are not morally accountable for all of our self deception. OK, we talk a lot about self deception here. You should know what it is by now, but I'll be nice and kind of say it again. Self deception is whenever you go against the truth that you know, the truth being the kind of right and wrong that we all have access to. We kind of call it our conscience, but it's more than that. But in this I guess in this case, at least, that's all it needs to be. If we ever go against that, then we kind of automatically deceive ourselves. We kind of have to tell ourselves a lie in order to do that to justify ourselves. That's kind of an oversimplification, but you can think of it that way.

So yeah, self deception but…

We're not morally accountable for all our self deception. Really, that's that easy. We are not consciously aware of our sense of right and wrong all the time. That sense of right and wrong is with us at all times. We've talked about this in episode 3 and others, but it is called the light of Christ in Scripture or the spirit of Christ. And it permeates all things. It's through all things. I don't want to pretend like I understand it completely.  I think I know enough to say we cannot escape from it, so if we can't escape from our knowledge of right and wrong on a certain level, then whatever we do, that's wrong, whether we're taught that or not, we have to engage in self deception to do that.

Let's see, we're not morally accountable for all our self deception. So I would submit that a child can very easily engage in self deception. Very easily.  As you know, young child who I would also say is not morally accountable for their actions. Yet they don't, they're not held accountable before God. Do they maybe kind of know? Right from wrong, I mean kind of. Yeah, they're learning it. They still got the light of Christ. They don't have a lot of knowledge or experience and stuff, but they're able to get in patterns of self deception.

Who's more responsible - them or their parents? Or other people? Well, I don't want to get in a blame game yet about parents and children but…

Let's see how do I explain this?

I feel like I had it clear in my mind, when I came up with it.

Basically some people conceive of self-deception - and understand me right - Most people have no clue what self-deception is. Don't necessarily believe in it. Or if they do, they think it's something different than what I'm saying. But among the very few who ever think about self-deception in the way that I'm thinking about it, there are some who would call it a moral thing.  All the time. Like if we self deceive we're going against our knowledge and we're sinning. So that's what they say, and that's what I'm saying is not correct necessarily. We can do that because we do sin - we do act against our better knowledge many times and we self deceive that way as well.

It's all self deception, but it also includes self deception by people who are not held morally accountable before God, such as small children or people who don't have the mental capacity to know right from wrong and be accountable before God.

OK, moving on.

My house is empty. Everybody is at celebration at the station. I live in Kansas City area and I may join them after this, but I was really hot and not feeling the greatest and I really wanted to do this podcast frankly and some other stuff so I'm not with the rest of my family. But I have been, last whole weekend my my daughters were in Wichita in a state track meet where they did well really well. Proud of them and they're seniors. They're graduating from high school. The girls are two of the triplets. They have a brother. They're all amazing kids.

And Speaking of that makes me think of something that I was thinking today. And I'm going to throw this in the podcast.

Does it seem to you like or have you ever noticed how you read the scriptures and you hear the word of the Lord and you, you definitely get the impression that from the Lord's perspective this world is filled with wickedness. The children of men do not choose to let the Lord be their God. Meaning that of course he is no matter what, but they don't, they don't give sway to him. They don't allow God to take the prominent place in their life. They don't keep all his commandments, they don't…what's the word I'm looking for…they don't let God prevail in their lives. They may do many good things...in the scriptures people are wicked and, kind of dumb really, and mostly bad and sometimes good, but when you get to know people in the world around us and you get you know face to face, people generally treat you decently when you know them or when you talk to them face to face, or interact with them.

So there's this weird dichotomy, right? You get up close and personal with people. It's like they seem nice on the outside and you know a lot of Virtue 2 and then you back up more towards God’s perspective and you see that, well, actually there's a lot of wickedness, and it's not possible that all these people are really that good. If they were, the world would be a different place, right?

So do you see the principle I'm trying to explain?  What it makes me think is people...maybe they're nicer to your face than, you know, if they weren't interacting with you and you were some random stranger who they didn't know, they'd be rude to you. Maybe on the road they can't see you or they, you know, vote for legislation that benefits them and not you, or maybe they'd, you know, do business dealings that would would be bad for the rest of humanity, but...

Making any sense here?

You think of Germany and the time of, you know Nazi Germany and this is just one small small example of world history, right? But when so many allowed the Jews to be taken from their homes and others, you know the other groups. Who were they - the mentally ill, homosexuals, like the gypsies, I can't remember the name of the people besides the term gypsies – them…but all these different people were taken to concentration camps and regular German citizens just kind of let it happen and I don't want to single out Germany because lots of places would do the same thing, I'm afraid to say.

People turned the other way.

People have done that in America and surely every nation under heaven. But it's just amazing what people…what's in their hearts when they're not actually talking to you. Now take any one of those Germans and if they were to have an everyday exchange with one of their Jewish neighbors, or whatever it might be civil and they might act nice and stuff like that.

It's just...you see what I'm saying, it's just a kind of a wake up for the world and you look around and you see people…like I was at a gathering and this huge stadium and all these people…And I don't have anything against these people, but just I guess knowing what I know…I feel it would be naive to believe that all these people are just nice to everybody and really acting in everybody else’s best interest.

And like I said I don't have anything against them. Personally, it's not my job to judge anybody, thankfully.

You know the Lord has said I will forgive whom I will forgive but unto you it is required to forgive all men. So it's our commandment to love each other and forgive each other, and kind of not withhold our love from anybody. Or our forgiveness. That's God's job.

And some people will say oh, that's a double standard. Yes, it is a double standard. It is a double standard. God gets to forgive who he will forgive. But we have to forgive all men. That's how it goes and he says vengeance is mine and I will repay. That's not up to us - vengeance is not up to us.

OK, anyway, just an observation about this principle of the closer you are to people the harder it is to see them as wicked. But the more you back up, the easier it is to see how, well, the world is wicked, and I mean it seems like everybody is wicked. Especially the people we don't know, right? The foreign people and maybe other domestic people that we don't know but the unknown people have to be the wicked ones and the ones we know, I mean, they're so nice that how could they hurt a fly?

But I think we have to be not naive and realize that lots of people can have…oh, what shall I say…murders in their hearts?

And not everybody has murders in their hearts, but lots of people have a lack of love in their hearts for their neighbor and even we have that at times do we not? I mean, I do - I judge people all the time and it's just, it's a fight to not do that. We can do it, though.  We are enabled to do it because of Jesus Christ But it's not a natural thing - you have to actually kind of choose to be good.

OK, enough on that thought.  Tell me what you think of that, if you don't agree or if you do agree.

Alright, where are we here?

David Burns thought from April 8th

David Burns.  Ok, know who David Burns is? I guess he was a professor at Stanford and he's a social psychologist or something like that. But he wrote a book, a couple books, and let me give all this intro. He said there are reasons - he calls them beautiful reasons - we don't want to give up our anxiety or depression etc. Because we don't want to be a bad person, we don't want to not care.

What do you think about that? I guess my first question is, are they really beautiful or are they just, I mean, I'll tell you right now, I'm among the people who don't want to give up my misery because, you know, I don't want to treat myself too good because I want to perceive myself as a good unselfish person.

I guess I question how virtuous that is, really, and how beautiful that is. But yeah, I definitely think that's a thing.

OK, well I don't have any more to  go on that thought so we'll leave it there. Would be good to pick up on it sometime. He had a book called Feeling Good. It had some, I think of some good thoughts and I didn't read the book…Actually I read parts of stuff or parts of the handbook that I guess went with it or something, years ago.  But the title seemed a little popular for a scientific guy, but I don't want that to detract from the actual good insights that are in there or the good points that are in there.

Yeah, the book Feeling Good and then another book called Feeling Great, that, I believe, contained basically that thought about getting rid of the reasons you don't want to give up your anxiety or depression or whatever. Which I think is a good point. I just don't know that I'd call it Feeling Great, unless I really wanted to sell a lot of books, which probably worked really well.

OK.

You know what the really cool…I was listening to this other little podcast theme that was good.

*music*

OK guys, that is it for episode 39 of this Should Be Known podcast. I am Clayton, your friendly host, have a great one, bye.

Monday, February 21, 2022

There’s still a huge gap. I understand depression involves a lie, and anxiety. I understand a little about self-deception. But as it turns out all ways we err involve self-deception, not just depression and anxiety. I don’t understand how people get depressed and anxious. I don’t feel like I can explain the whole thing. Gotta keep trying.  Maybe read some about it.

I think Wendy Treynor had a good explanation for depression, in part at least. It is a rejection of the self. Or it involves or results from a rejection of the self. And she talks about self love a lot on her website, which has to be a thing. Amy weeks talked about that in church Sunday, and Elder ___ in conference. It has to be a thing. We are self-reflective beings. We can love ourselves, like we love other people?

If that’s all it is, in essence, failing to love ourselves, which is the lie I’ve been talking about (I’ve termed it as thinking we’re worthless or whatever), then we just have to make the connection between there and all the resultant symptoms of depression, mental and physical. Can we do that?  Or can we make an attempt?

Maybe we don’t have to understand exactly how all the physical stuff comes to be, just make a good case that mental stuff causes all kinds of physical stuff, using plenty of real world examples. There are plenty. And for now we might have to leave it at SOMEHOW these mental states sink in and dig in and become a pattern and a habit and an addiction, really, and effect our physical being. SOMEHOW the body and the mind are tied such that one effects the other in ways we might not expect or understand.

Would we even have habit and addiction like we do if it weren’t for our physical body?  Or learning and proficiency?

——

I really think we should know how these things come to be, if we’re going to know what to do to get out of them.

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Like we need to be able to track how these things develop from one’s youth.

You start innocent. You start without any addictions, psychological illnesses, bad habits, preconceived notions, no sexual orientation, none of that. No coping strategies good or bad, nothing. You have who you are and have been for eons, and you’ll have that all throughout your mortal life and again throughout eternity. And you have a brand new body, to house your spirit, that you need to learn to control and subject to your spirit. And a lot to learn through the world because you forgot everything.

So as you grow up…what?  Something happens, and it’s right in front of us. No dumb experiments necessary.

Saturday, February 26, 2022

Copied from Lectures On Faith, Lecture First:

The author of the epistle to the Hebrews, in the eleventh chapter of that epistle, and first verse, gives the following definition of the word faith:

8 Now faith is the substance [assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

9 From this we learn, that faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen; and the principle of action in all intelligent beings.

10 If men were duly to consider themselves, and turn their thoughts and reflections to the operations of their own minds, they would readily discover that it is faith, and faith only, which is the moving cause of all action, in them; that without it, both mind and body would be in a state of inactivity, and all their exertions would cease, both physical and mental.

11 Were this class to go back and reflect upon the history of their lives, from the period of their first recollection, and ask themselves, what principle excited them to action, or what gave them energy and activity, in all their lawful avocations, callings and pursuits, what would be the answer? Would it not be that it was the assurance which we had of the existence of things which we had not seen, as yet?—Was it not the hope which you had, in consequence of your belief in the existence of unseen things, which stimulated you to action and exertion, in order to obtain them? Are you not dependent on your faith, or belief, for the acquisition of all knowledge, wisdom and intelligence? Would you exert yourselves to obtain wisdom and intelligence, unless you did believe that you could obtain them? Would you have ever sown if you had not believed that you would reap? Would you have ever planted if you had not believed that you would gather? Would you have ever asked unless you had believed that you would receive? Would you have ever sought unless you had believed that you would have found? Or would you have ever knocked unless you had believed that it would have been opened unto you? In a word, is there any thing that you would have done, either physical or mental, if you had not previously believed? Are not all your exertions, of every kind, dependent on your faith? Or may we not ask, what have you, or what do you possess, which you have not obtained by reason of your faith? Your food, your raiment, your lodgings, are they not all by reason of your faith? Reflect, and ask yourselves, if these things are not so. Turn your thoughts on your own minds, and see if faith is not the moving cause of all action in yourselves; and if the moving cause in you, is it not in all other intelligent beings?

From <https://lecturesonfaith.com/1/>

Where do we look for the true principles of psychology?  Why not the scriptures?  The concepts there are actually true, while those from the philosophies of men may or may not be.  I use the term "philosophies of men" to mean the ideas of the great thinkers of our time and times past.  They may be great thinkers.  But many of their ideas may be wrong.  On the other hand, the ideas put forth in the scriptures ("ideas") are actually true and accurate.  While I enjoy reading and listening to the thoughts of thoughtful men and women over the ages as well as from our time, they are actually full of errors.  They may not have intentionally erred or misled, they just didn't know, and unfortunately many of them kind of acted like they knew, and act like they know.  And many take their word for truth, because they don't know, either.  Some is true and some is false, and you need to reference a higher knowledge to tell the difference.

It's been driving me a little crazy that people don't try harder for accuracy in the principles they espouse.  If you don't know you don't know.  But as I've said, God gives liberally to them that ask (James actually said that) and we can seek and knock and ask and the Lord will open to us (the Lord actually said that). 

I don't want to give the impression that I think I'm perfect with regards to accuracy. I'm sure I'm mistaken about many things. But I try to be honest about what I know and what I don't know. I try, at least. And I feel like it helps a lot.

So my point is just that we can look to the scriptures and the word of God for psychological principles.  True ones.  I believe they're in there, if we'll look.  I'm going to keep looking.

I suppose some might think asking God is for spiritual knowledge, not temporal or whatever. But that's not true. You can ask God for whatever knowledge you want. My testimony is that He's very liberal with that.

And I guess that brings us to how God can give us knowledge. So first of all, all the knowledge we have is really from Him, whether it be about spiritual things or the workings of mechanics or electronics or chemistry or psychology or anything else. It's all from Him. So how do we get our knowledge? I'm not sure, it's a great question and I've been thinking about it.

But you've obtained knowledge, you've been doing it all your life. What does it feel like when you get knowledge? It's light. You can feel it. You can taste it. It tastes sweet. It feels right. It enlightens you. Your mind expands, and you can thus tell it's right.

I've had God communicate to me truths that I didn't know before that weren't revealed by anybody else, and you can, too. How does He do that? I don't exactly know. How do we gain knowledge when somebody besides God reveals it to us? I have a feeling its really the same. But I don't know how that is, exactly. When somebody else tells us something or shows us something, we have their words or images or tactile information or whatever other light we perceive at the time, but really the light comes from God. I'm just saying he can communicate intelligence to us in the absence of any sensory information, which I'm calling light, directly to our minds. Or He can do it while we're viewing something or hearing something. All the same, really. Is it not so, surely?

Sunday, January 17, 2021

So if the instant you cross the line you have to justify yourself, or in the instant you cross the line you are justifying yourself, then it's just like a property of being on the wrong side of the line.  And it's a trap, because you are deceived as to the fact that you are in the wrong and you are deceived as to the way to get out, and it sucks you in. 

Maybe good has its own rewards.  Namely peace and happiness, and all the fruits of the Spirit.  But evil has its draw, and it's definitely more appealing to the carnal mind.  It has great allure and once you're on its side it's a blinding trap.  Then it takes away peace and happiness and you want that, I guess.  So it's up to us what we want to choose.  Good or evil.  Evil has all the carnal appeal, and good just has peace and happiness, but it's not immediately apparent that it's necessary.  Something like that?

Saturday, January 23, 2021

Finding fault. I said slander, and I could have said finding fault. When someone is finding fault with something they are probably justifying themselves. You only need one reason to align yourself or disalign yourself with something - because it’s true or not. If it isn’t true, judge ye. If it is, judge ye. That’s all you need. If it’s false, separate yourself from it and be done. If it’s true, though, you'd best align yourself with it. I'm not talking about the people involved, who might be aligned with it also, because they will always be flawed. All the persecution in the world, all the slandering, all the fault finding, can’t change truth.

—-

Now, if we’re to wrestle depression and anxiety to the ground, how are we doing? (And other disorders.) Isn’t self-deception the big missing puzzle piece, and everything else is kind of there already, or will more easily fall into place? 

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Or are there lots of things we don't understand and self-deception is just one of them?  Let's pretend self-deception is the big missing puzzle piece. 

Sunday, January 31, 2021

Well I'm going to sit here and write for a minute even though I don't have anything in mind to write about.  Sounds like self-deception is what we learn from the gospel - the idea that there's a God and a truth and all.  Basically that and the idea that we have a conscience that is reliable, which the world does not understand.  But many people in it understand.  So you can talk to them.  I wonder if you could start just by saying, so we all have a conscience that tells us right from wrong in any given situation, and it's completely reliable.  You can rely on it.  Because it's completely reliable.  You don't have to start saying it's called the light of Christ or the spirit of Christ, maybe you can call it a conscience, and people will get it.  To the extent that we listen to it and obey it we dwell in the truth, and to the extent that we suppress it or disobey it, we dwell in error, and that error…blah blah blah.  This is boring.  I don't have confidence anyone will listen to this.  I'm afraid it's going to just die right in it's tracks, that I won't get it communicated to anybody and that will be the end of it.  Will that happen?  I don't know.  It's my job to do whatever the Lord wants me to do with this - if it's nothing it's nothing, and if it's to write a little book or do this podcast and a few people maybe read it and think it's interesting then that's it.  Whatever the Lord wants, I say.  I don't exactly know what that is at this point.  But I feel inclined to pursue this a little further, at least, and see what I can't find out.  I've been praying for understanding concerning these things, and so here I am.  I pray for light during this writing session to make some headway. 

They say depression is caused by different things - like a different thing in every case, kind of thing.  Maybe.  And what it is that pushes a person over the edge may be different in every case, I don't know.  But I say in every case there is this trap, this thing where you are blinded to what's going on and to how to get out.  Because in every case there is self-deception, because in every case there is a false notion that you are worthless, this rejection of the self and everything that comes with it.  And all that is a part of depression is designed to…what - excuse a person from treating themselves right?  Excuse them from being in the right?  Everything that comes with depression--the whole set of thoughts and feelings and biological phenomena--it's all the world painted in the way that excuses a person from considering themselves aright.  Is that right?  What is the solution, then?  Stop resisting the light, as Terry Warner would say?  (But what does that mean?)  The real solution for any given person in any given case is going to be different, no?  It might involve therapy and medication and forgiving someone or going on walks or getting more sunlight or any number of things, right?  And that's ok.  If only it were clearer what needed to be done?  Since every case is different it makes it hard.  But could you make a checklist?  Like, make sure you're not holding a grudge against someone, including yourself, and if you are work on that, and until you succeed, you're in trouble?

So how do you do that, by the way?  How do you forgive someone?  Or yourself?  That lady on the podcast said she needed to go back to Auschwitz.  Maybe some of us need to confront a person in our life.  Maybe some of us don't.  Maybe you read about the atonement.  Maybe you pray.  How do you do that?  Is that different for each person as well?  But surely with some commonalities.  (Just because every case is different doesn't mean there won't be commonalities.)  Just googled how to forgive someone.  Turns out the internet knows all about it.  Except, of course, I didn't read anything about how the power comes through Jesus Christ.  Probably some know that and many don't.  Same with repentance.  There are all the steps of repentance (acknowledge what you did is wrong, etc., etc.) but really forgiveness comes through Jesus Christ ultimately.  Oh well.  I liked the answer to one question - how do you know you've forgiven someone - you wish well for the person, basically.  That seems like a good gage.  Do you wish well for yourself?  Seems like a strange question, perhaps, but not really, right?  Some of us don't want to be happy, when it comes down to it.  We hold on to our misery.  What a strange thing.  But an understanding of self-deception makes it un-strange.  That's the whole point of this understanding - to see why we do things that make us miserable, and hold on to misery.  We hold on to misery because it justifies us.  Being miserable is easier in a way.  It satisfies our pride.  It's all part of the trap.  It's all part of the untruthful way of being.  What does it justify?  Being miserable.  Being miserable justifies being miserable.  What else can I say?  You have to choose not to be miserable whether you're miserable or not.  Life might be hard, it might be painful.  But you have to maintain this kind of positive attitude notwithstanding.  I don't want to be misunderstood (or be inaccurate in my words) - I don't want to give the false impression that it's always easy to make a mental choice to not be miserable and there you go.  I don't know exactly how to account for how hard it is sometimes, but I know that it is.  But is it not true what I said about misery being easier sometimes? 

I think for myself I need to try and maintain a more positive outlook.  I need to not look for the faults in everything and myself, and everybody, and my job.  Those things are there.  Not saying they're not.  And maybe it's ok to be aware of them.  But somehow for myself I probably need to tell myself more positive things about my job, and myself.  I mean, really we are all full of weakness, and only through Jesus Christ can we do anything good.  Of ourselves we are nothing, really.  And weak, and flawed, if you want to use that word.  But in Christ we can be perfect.  So do I tell myself how great I am?  Maybe.  And I'm sure I am.  But really I'm nothing, of course, and it's through Jesus Christ that I'm anything.  That's how I'm seeing it. 

So anxiety and depression.  They're both misery, right?  What about schizophrenia?  Multiple personality disorder?  All the rest?  They're all cases of being mistaken about something, right?  They all involve lies, do they not?  Which one?  Or which ones?  Hmm, well we've kind of identified the lie of depression - that we are worthless, or something to that effect.  And the lie of anxiety - that doom is impending.  It's all going to be ok.  Might be hard, might have more anxiety, might feel more misery, but really it's all going to be ok.  Something like that.  And of course we're not worthless.  We're children of God and He values us infinitely and loves us with a perfect love.  The devil is all about misery.  He's the author of misery.  And if you're miserable, you can count on the fact that it comes from him.  He's the father of all lies, and it's a lie.  So what is the lie of schizophrenia?  (Heresy right, to be asking that?)  Just googled schizophrenia.  Out of touch with reality, is a main characteristic.  I'll have to continue this later.

Friday, February 5, 2021

So to the question, would we really rather be miserable? - I answer, well if we really had both misery and happiness before us in full awareness, of course not.  But we don't have them before us when we're already miserable.  We're caught in the trap, and we can't see clearly.  Is that what I was thinking?  Hmm.

All these false ways of being--they could be said to be justifications for something different, something mysterious, hmm.  And maybe they are.  But in a way is it that sometimes the bad thing is its own bad thing…?

Causation.  Was thinking about causation today, and how a cause is really just the one factor that stands out.  That's all.  Everything has multiple causes, if you will.  There are always different factors.  Causality is really more of a conceptual thing.  So with depression - many factors, perhaps one or two that stand out, but they're all working together, and self-deception is not so much a cause or a factor even but a property.  And a necessary one.  But maybe it is a property of every bad habit, every trap, every lie, every form of untruthfulness whatsoever out there.  Hmm. 

But I wonder if this is a mistake that some people make.  Some people conceive of self-deception as a cause, rather than a necessary property.  So in their mind you stop self-deception and the emotional difficulty stops.  Well that's true, but they conceived of self-deception as a thing you act directly on. 

What of that?  I just said recently that our choices are perhaps the only thing in the causal chain that we can actually effect.  Everything else is determined.  But I feel like self-deception is not the thing you directly act upon.  You act upon other things, never just "going with the light" or whatever.  Stop resisting, they say.  Of course, when you enter into the right you stop resisting the truth.  But you can't will yourself directly to stop resisting the truth.  I say.  And I think that gets to the crux of the mistake. 

Heck, you can't even will yourself to forgive somebody.  How do we explain this?  You can't will yourself to repent, then.  Is that right?  President Nelson says if you hold hate for a particular race or whatever, you need to repent.  And you do.  But if you're in that trap, how do you repent?  What change do you effect? 

This is a central question, to all of philosophy.  And psychology.  What can you actually DO?  I was asking myself this question all the time when I was in the throws of anxiety and everything.  Is that what's different in different cases, and requires personal revelation?  And is this what the internet knows, or at least a list of several possible things you might need to do?  So like a combination of internet and inspiration?  Maybe help from another person?  So there's no one thing everybody needs to do?  Hmm.

But is the thing to do ever "stop resisting the truth"?  Maybe as a conceptual thing, eh…  But I don't really think so. 

Sunday, February 7, 2021

So wait - if whenever we are untruthful we self-deceive, then what's special about anxiety and depression?  Nothing, in terms of self-deception.  They're just another form of that.  If somebody says, so Clayton you say that anxiety and depression are caused by self-deception?, I'd say no, they involve self-deception.  Ok fine, so they involve self-deception?  I'd say yes, but all untruthfulness, great and small, involves self-deception.  Whenever we're in the wrong we self-deceive.  It's just a property of it.  Anxiety and depression are not special in that just they involve self-deception--all kinds of stuff does.  Stuff we do every day.  Comparing ourselves to others as a way to assess our own self-worth, involves self-deception.  Being fearful, defensive, judgmental, unconfident, the list goes on and on - it all involves self-deception.  Anxiety and depression are just two instances where it happens.  But yes, anxiety and depression involve self-deception. 

It's like saying, so you believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?  Well yes, but we're all brothers and sisters, not just the devil and Jesus Christ. 

So depression and anxiety are just two particular lies - the one that we are worthless, and the other that doom is impending.  But there are many lies, right?  Not all of them cause depression or anxiety or whatever else.  Just those two do.  I'd like to get a firmer grasp on these lies, whether I have them right, whether they're just one central one or a family of them, etc. 

I believe you can feel when you're on the wrong side of the line and when you're on the right side of the line.  I'm not saying it's not deceiving--it is.  It's exactly deceiving when you're on the wrong side of the line, and it's meant to be exactly deceiving.  But it's still different, as hard as it may be to describe.  And surely that's what Mormon was talking about when he said that the way to judge is as clear as the daylight is from the dark night, for whatever inspires to believe in Christ and serve him is of God, and whatever doesn't isn't, or whatever he said.  Kind of hard to describe, to me.  I need to understand what he said better.  I pray for that understanding. 

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

This idea that we desire misery over happiness.  What sense does that make?  It only makes sense to desire misery if you're blind.  Right??  I guess I'm wondering if when we do wrong we go blind at the same time and that's kind of how we desire misery, just because we're blind, if that makes sense.  So the key is to not do wrong, or not enter into darkness, or whatever, and to correct ourselves as much as possible.

I am a perfectionist.  Probably morally and temporally or whatever.  I probably need to fix that.  I worry too much about doing wrong, and it paralyzes me.  That was a tangent.

So it's not so much that we desire misery over happiness.  You could say that and maybe not be wrong.  Hmm.  I don't know.

---

Maybe saying you need to repent of racist feelings, for example, is valid but it doesn't necessarily mean you act directly on your feelings, or whatever.  I guess if that were me I'd use that injunction to recognize the error in my…thinking or feeling or whatever, and maybe pray for help and not act on it or something.  But the first thing is just to recognize the error.  Know what I mean? 

So if anxiety and depression are just another way of being in the wrong, and every way of being in the wrong involves self-deception, then let's recognize them as such.  In other words, let's not single out depression and anxiety as involving self-deception.  Criticalness, …oh I can't think of a good list, but it all involves self-deception.  I could make a list, and maybe I should, but everything on the list would have its truthful version and its untruthful version, based on the will of God in that particular situation.  It's good to be critical.  It's bad to be critical.  Just depends on how or whatever.  So hard to define, and I just keep coming back to Mormon's day and night description. 

16 For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

17 But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.

Full Notes:

You know this thing where you can’t tell the violation from its justification—do we just say that certain things go together - depression and failure to forgive oneself, sin and it’s attendant self-justification, uh, what else?  Basically everything where you’d say you do the bad thing and then you justify it by self-deceiving. That’s everything. So rather than one happening first, they both come together somehow and you can’t tell which one comes first. Very confusing. But sometimes the truth isn’t immediately intuitive. Take the theory of relativity and quantum physics. But do we just say they come together?  And if so exactly how - is it a necessary relationship?  The theory I’ve been putting forward is that it is.

You might say it like this—any time you go against the light you self-deceive. That way you’re not making it a cause and effect thing, as if it were two separate things. Seems like other cause-and-effect stuff is actually like this—not separate things so much in actuality, just in our way of speaking and conceptualizing. I think of my old writing session at BYU where I talked about how words don’t necessarily represent different isolated things, but rather all “objects” are really connected, and the words we use just kind of conceptualize a different element of them. Guitar, guitar strings, wood, steel, whatever. How do you separate the object from the parts of the object, and everything else?  It’s an artificial separation. It’s a linguistic thing. It’s a conceptual thing. There’s no such actual thing as “things”.

So cause and effect are not really separate either, everything’s connected.  Is that too strong to say?  For that matter everything is one big connected blob?  It’s just however we want to categorize things for our purposes. You can categorize them however you want in order to understand them and communicate and so forth.

So this cause-and-effect relationship between acting against the light and justifying it is, strictly speaking, not cause-and-effect at all, since nothing is cause-and-effect strictly speaking? Or because just it isn’t cause-and-effect?  How do I always run into these things?  In any case, it’s not cause-and-effect. The choice you make brings you into the self-deception at the same time any act is committed. Man, this is so central to everything, it would be nice to understand it.

I guess for right now it will have to be sufficient to say that it all happens at the same time. But it also seems like sometimes there is a state of mind/perception/self-deception in the absence of an act that you can track down.   This is central, too!  Is that possible?  A person can be a thief in their heart without actually committing a theft?  A person can be a murderer, an adulterer, whatever, without ever committing the act?  Or will it always manifest, sooner or later?  Isn’t this an important question?  And I don’t know.

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

I was listening to Jody Moore's podcast, Better Than Happy, and she said that she teaches that the thought comes first and the emotion comes after that, or whatever.  Well if she can teach that, can I?  I mean is that close enough?  What about the "soft seat principle"?  Where physical things can influence your emotions?  Am I confusing stuff too much here?  Don't prophets and apostles teach that, too?  I'd need to check that, I guess.  But surely I can say that yea, other things influence your feelings and all that, including soft seats and uncomfortable ones, but it's still your thoughts that influence your feeling of well being, or something like that.  Right??  Does this mean I can also say that going against the light, whether in thought or in deed, causes…

What am I getting wrong here?  Pushing through a paragraph.  Going against the light, whether in thought or in deed, is all in thought.  It's all the same, as far as self-deception goes, no?  Or is it different?  Say it's the same.  The Ten Commandments don't necessarily say what to think.  But Jesus said what to think - He said it's the same.  Thinking and doing.  He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already in his heart.  What does that mean?  We don't have to talk to our bishop and there isn't the same moral consequence with the act of adultery and the thought.  But as far as self-deception goes they are similar, no?  You can see the world in a way that it is justified (because you are just that tempted, or whatever), both ways.  Many are murderers in their hearts.  Many are adulterers in their hearts.  Surely.  Ahh, this drives me crazy.  Surely I'm overcomplicating things in my mind.  But I don't know.  But can we just say that we choose our attitude, or whatever?  Yea, there are other factors.  But in the end we choose it, no?  Then how have I not learned that?  Optimistic, hopeful, cheerful, notwithstanding the circumstances.  And grateful.  That's how you gotta be.  And faithful.  Maybe doesn't mean you gotta enjoy it, in a certain way.  I don't know.  Doesn't have to  be pleasant, know what I mean?  But you can't give in to despair, you can't lose hope, you can't be ungrateful or give in to fear and everything, or you're in the wrong.  It's hard.  But Jesus never gave into those things, right?  Notwithstanding all difficulties?  He might not have liked every minute, if you know what I mean, but he was true.  He didn't lose faith.  That's how we should be.  And we can.  I believe that.  We're not perfect.  I know I'm not.  But we can.  We can.

Many might be sinners in their hearts, but I for one am grateful that I can check myself and repent.  I'm grateful I know right from wrong and can keep on the right path.  I'm grateful for the Savior.  I know that through His grace I can be made whole and so can others. 

Friday, January 8, 2021

What muddies my mind?  Something does. 

I look forward to when I learn to think with more clarity, and can navigate the pitfalls that so often trip me up currently. 

Maybe cause and effect is like this:  There are things to act and things to be acted upon.  When you act it's free-will/agency, and everything else is connected through determinism.  Time separates things, but they're really connected.  The only thing that separates things is free will.  How about that?

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

I need to record a podcast but I don’t know what to say. Listening to these abnormal psychology lectures. It’s fun and interesting. I want to read a little more on Aaron Beck. Does he call thoughts right and wrong, or just positive and negative?  But doesn’t positive and negative imply true and false?  If true and false is he admitting he believes in truth and error?  I should maybe add to my list of axioms that there is truth and error, independent of any person’s imagined moral system, which is based on God’s commands and his will for any given situation.

I want to explore sometime what the difference is between the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost, and what in the scriptures might actually refer to the light of Christ. I’m thinking many things, and that we say “the Spirit” and we don’t necessarily know which one we’re talking about.

Regarding Episode 2 (Religious Self-Justification and Self-Deception), I want to say that a person could at any time say, "Oh but that's not why I left the Church.  That's not why I persecute the Church.  I just persecute the Church because it's so bad and hurt me so much."  I would say, really?  What did the Church do so bad to you?  How are you focusing so much on those things in light of everything?  Why can't you leave it alone?  What makes you feel the need to slander the Church?  Why can't you leave it alone?  Do we not know that you must be in the wrong?  Else why would you act as if you have this constant need to justify yourself by slandering the church?  That's not why you left the Church, you say.  Ok, well leave it alone, then.  If you can leave it alone, maybe I'll believe that you are in the right.  But if you can't leave it alone, we have to be suspicious of you.  We are left with no choice.  People who can't leave something alone are justifying themselves for hating something they shouldn't.  Well I have nothing to justify myself for, I just hate things because they're bad.  Ok.  Then leave it alone.  Do it, I dare you.  You can't.  You can't because you know inside somewhere that you shouldn't be hating on that thing, or that person, and so you have to justify yourself in your mind by slandering that thing or that person, and you can't stop, because no matter how much you slander it inside you know that you're in the wrong.  Else why keep trying to convince yourself and others that that thing or that person is bad, without stopping? 

Many people don't understand that they need to be on the look out for self-justification.  It's an indication that you're in the wrong on that point.  If you find yourself getting angry about a certain topic and you can't seem to stop, and you have all kinds of reasons that thing is bad and you find yourself wanting to tell others that it's bad, take a look at yourself.  Take a look at that thing and see if you're not in the wrong about it.  You'll have to swallow some pride.  It's in there, I guarantee it.  Think of it this way - the Lord has given us a great way to see that we are in the wrong about stuff.  If we start acting like we're justifying ourselves - if we start coming up with multiple reasons something is bad, and are hating on that thing, it's a great indication that we are probably in the wrong about that thing.

Now it's not wrong to be angry about something, I say.  Moroni was furious about the king-men, who, after all he had done to protect them and provide for their happiness, spurned their own freedom and that of others and were traitors to the cause of their own country, refusing to fight for their own country and teaming up with the Lamanites to overthrow the freedom of their land.  That should make a person angry.  If it doesn't you are traitors like them.  But was Moroni justifying himself by getting mad?  Was he coming up with reasons the king-men were bad, like multiple reasons?  Could he not stop?  No, he marched against them and pulled them down.  And they proved to cause much destruction in the long term, even though he did that. 

Now an outside observer could say Moroni was in the wrong, I guess, if they just believed that all anger was wrong.  They'd be wrong about that, though.  God gets angry.  What more do I have to say?  God gets angry, and we have so many examples in the scriptures it should be unnecessary to cite any.  He was angry with the children of Israel in the wilderness and many of them perished.  God can be angry whenever he wants.  I know some people who would say something foolish like that God doesn't get angry.  Read the scriptures.  If you believe in God, read His scriptures.  Nowhere does it say that man can't be angry, or that all anger is wrong.  And if you believe that take a look at yourself.  First of all see if you don't have major psychological issues.  Second, see if you can't stop hating on people who get angry.  See if you don't feel constantly abused by people in your life who get angry.  That's not abuse, that's a person who is normal.  You are not normal.  There is such thing as abuse, and unfair treatment, and all that, and it's real and it is truly bad and terrible.  But take a look at yourself and see if others around you aren't being reasonable and you are actually the unreasonable one.  Ok?

I'm sure such a person is considering me emotionally abusive right now.  Take a look at yourself, I tell you.  You've got issues you need to work through yourself still.  Who have you not forgiven?  Go do that.  But stop hating on me for telling you the truth.

That's definitely not how I intended that first paragraph to go.  I was just going to say that a person could say, well that's not why I'm against the Church, or whatever.  And it's possible they could have some other reason, I guess?  But they would have to be wholly unfamiliar with it, having some disinformation that they chose to believe, or very incomplete information, and have been content to base their opinion on that disinformation or incomplete information.  It was either John Taylor or Wilford Woodruff who, upon hearing someone speak evil of the Church when they were wholly unfamiliar with it, resolved to go to the meeting because if there were evil excited against it there must be some truth to it.  That's how we need to think.  That's how wise we should be.  If people are intent on slandering something, we should pay attention to that thing, knowing that only good can attract persecution like that.  People don't feel a need to persecute evil.  The righteous don't persecute anything.  They fight against evil, but not because they can't stop.  They ignore it, or they take action, but they can leave it alone just fine. 

Oh, you don't think such-and-such is a good thing?  Ignore it, then.  Do what I do.  Leave it alone.  Go about your life.  Be well.  Well, why are you standing here?  Go.  You can't?  Think about that.

I feel like this is so clear to me - I've seen so much of it in my life.  I don't know why it isn't obvious to others. 

And now this same self-justification is active in depression and anxiety.  But it doesn't have the moral weight, right?  He who doesn't accept the light is condemned already, because he's rejected the light (how does the scripture go?)  But we've been told depression can happen without us being at fault.  Or something to that effect. 

Self-deception happens at the same time as just being in the wrong.  No previous act necessary.  The justification needs its own justification.  The justification itself requires justification.  The justification IS the wrong.  More needs to be hashed out with this. 

What is the relationship between condemnable self-justification and non-condemnable self-justification?  This is central. Is it just the amount of knowledge we reject? 

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Quantum physics. That’s what it’s called.

I pray for clarity of mind regarding all these concepts.

It's like this.  You can think the president has faults.  But the moment you do something you shouldn't, like slander him as a person, you cross the line, and from then on you have to see him as deserving of slander (a mischaracterization), and you are under the necessity of justifying your position/your act by continuing to slander him and see him falsely.  You are fine as long as you stay in the right.  As long as you respect that person properly, even while criticizing certain actions or attributes or whatever, you are fine.  But the moment you cross the line and are improper and untruthful in your criticism or whatever, you, well, you cross the line to where you have to justify yourself.  It is a characterization of the untruthful way of being and the truthful way of being, where the truthful you don't have to justify anything, and the untruthful you are constantly justifying yourself.  Do you see this difference?  Untruthful and truthful.  I keep wondering if this is the day and night difference that Mormon described.  It's a fine line, we say, yet it's day and night, according to Mormon.  The same activity (sleeping, eating, being attracted to something…) can go too far, and the difference is day and night.  But you get my point about crossing the line, about acting improperly and properly, about being untruthful and truthful?  It's like Terry Warner said, it's two ways of being.  It's not just a cause-and-effect thing - we're describing two ways of being.  He called it I-It and I-You.  I like to call it truthful and untruthful.  But it's the same thing.  And there are really only two ways of being.  Not three.  You are in accordance with the light, the truth, or you're not.  And there's no in-between.  The one way is good, the other way is evil. 

Now, how does that work with us on a moment-to-moment basis?  I'm not sure I know.  I know I have faults and weakness, and that I'm surely wrong about some things and right about others.  But if you can only be one way at a time, how does that work?  Subject for another day.

(Full Notes)

Why would a person believe a lie, I ask again?  Cognitive might recognize that the thoughts are unhelpful and negative or whatever (it doesn't even know they're false), but it doesn't know why.  It doesn't know why a person would continue believing something ridiculous.  It doesn't know why it's sticky.  Doesn't only pride explain that?  Let's think here.  Self-justification is great, and it's wonderful to be self-justified.  But wouldn't we trade it for happiness and peace, if we knew what we were doing?  But it's hard to change, and the reason is pride, is it not?  Habit is a hard thing to break, I guess, but we would definitely go in that direction, would we not, naturally, if not for pride?  Am I right in this?  Evil has chains, good does not.  Have you ever heard of the chains of heaven?  That's because there aren't any.  But hell has them. 

This professor of abnormal psychology keeps describing these disorders and some student keeps asking, "what causes that?", and he keeps basically saying we don't know.  We don't know, we don't know, we don't know.  We don't know what causes depression.  We don't know what causes these anxiety disorders.  We don't know what causes OCD.  He mentioned how Freud thought it was related to masturbation.  Really, that's all you've got?!

What I'm driving at is, of course, that I think self-deception has the power to explain these things better than what we have.  How would I explain OCD, for example?  What did the person do wrong, or is doing wrong, for example, to have to justify themselves by painting the world in a way that they have to continually check the oven that it's not on?  Sorry if that's a bad example, but it's one of the ones you hear.  Why do I keep checking that the oven is off?  Because I think it's on all the time, that I forgot to turn it off.  Why do you think that--you should know that you hardly ever in reality leave it on, think back or make a chart or something--it's always off.  I know but I think it's on all the time.  It's crazy, I know, I hate it.  It's stupid.  I just can't stop.  Ok, so you realize all that, that it's unreasonable.  Yes, absolutely, totally.  Doesn't matter.  I just keep doing it.  If I don't check it I'll just worry about it and it will drive me crazy until I do.  Gotcha.

It's almost like a person is looking for an excuse to be anxious.  It's not about the oven.  It's about having something to worry about, almost.  Isn't it.  Speaking for myself I feel like that's kind of how my anxiety works.  If I'm not worried about one thing I’m worried about another.  And if I'm not miserable about one thing I'm miserable about another.  If I'm physically sick, I don't feel anxious and miserable that way.  It's almost a relief, really.  I'm not kidding.  That's me, at least, and I don't think I'm the only one. 

Well how would you explain someone with OCD, I ask again?  Why would a person do that?  I'll try pushing through a paragraph to see where I can get.  Well certainly the person has a view of the world that is such that they likely left the oven on (a view that we've already acknowledged is false--it's not likely at all.)  And how did they get that view?  Is that what's so hard to tell and is different for different people and situations?  I don't know for sure.  Well it's simple, really - the person needs something to be anxious about, and so that's what they found, for whatever reason.  The idea that they left the oven on makes them anxious and miserable, and that's what you need.  If their life were different and if circumstances were different they'd find something else to be anxious about.  Why would they "need" to find something to be anxious and miserable about?  It justifies them.  It satisfies their pride.  Justifies what?  The commandment to be happy and hopeful and confident and peaceful?  Something like that, yea.  Being a victim justifies sin.  Being a victim justifies being a victim.  Being miserable and anxious and non-confident justifies us not reaching out to help others and testify of the good things we know.  Something like that.  Being in a yucky state justifies us in not being helpful and happy.  Think of Laman and Lemuel--their whole philosophy and downfall is related to their being victims.  Hmm.  Not sure how great this paragraph is so far.  Why does a person have OCD?  Again, that's just how their anxiety and misery exhibits itself.  It's almost like, why does anybody not have anxiety and depression?  How do we ever not?  Is it not faith?  The world would tell us we need to be miserable, because there's no hope, nothing good is coming our way, we are worthless…the world has nothing to tell us we shouldn't be miserable and have a bleak outlook.  That's the world.  Only faith in the reality of God and Jesus Christ can really get us any happiness and peace.  (Even if we don't recognize it as such?)  But what about the oven?  Even the world tells us the oven is probably not on.  So why place our anxiety and fear on that?  Are we just looking for something - anything - to lay our worries on?  It's not about the oven.  It's about us needing to place our fear on something, right, and maybe we don't realize that what we really need to worry about is death, and eternal misery.  Is it just a matter of misplaced concern?  If you were to fix the thing with the oven, would it just crop up again directed at something else?  I don't know.  But it seems like it might.  And I'm stealing my point here a bit from Jordan Peterson--the question is why don't we all have constant depression and anxiety (can't remember exactly how he said it) because death?  I don't know how he answers that but wouldn't faith be the antidote in general?  But that's too general, I think.  Even faithful people in general or in many areas struggle with anxiety and depression.  Even though I think faith and anxiety can't exist at the same time in the same place, or in the same person.  Hmm.  Hmm, hmm, hmm.  We need to learn to exercise faith in all moments, I guess. 

Well I tried.  That last paragraph seems like this whole podcast - a valiant effort, some great things, maybe, some wrong things maybe but hopefully not too bad, and some stuck moments of uncertainty and wandering in the dark.  I'm still proud of it. 

I was thinking of agency the other day, or "free will", as philosophers call it.  There's freedom to act, to move, etc., and we have it and all living things have it, inasmuch as they have knowledge and the ability to move and act.  I was walking and looking at some grass.  Does grass have the ability to move, to act?  Yes it does.  So if you define free will that way grass has free will.  Or if you define agency that way a grass plant has agency.  I say.  But it doesn't have a knowledge of good and evil, and therefore doesn't have moral agency.  We do.  Every person has moral agency, because we know good from evil.  What about little children?  I guess I have to say no, since inasmuch as they don't have a knowledge of good and evil they don't have moral agency.  Hmm.  I always have to push myself into these hard spots.  In any case, a little child is not accountable before God for his or her moral actions.  Whatever they do that is contrary to the will of God is forgiven, through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  I say forgiven, but I might misspeak--they're not forgiven because they don't sin.  They don't have power to sin because they don't know good from evil.  The devil doesn't have power to tempt little children because they don't know good from evil yet.  That's how he doesn't have power.  They're not capable of sinning.  (I just read Moroni 8.)  But this is the whole point, that you can't sin if you don't know good from evil, and that's how we sin - we know good from evil and we do evil.  Get it?  It's a knowledge thing.  But we all have the light of Christ, from little child up to old person.  And it seems to me the light of Christ extends to animals.  Am I wrong on that?  Seems they exhibit self-deception, such as when a dog gets all mad when you go by, or bites you viciously, or exhibits signs of abuse like cowering.  Hmm.  Have to think about that some more, but that's what it seems to me.  (Unless it's all behaviorally conditioned…?  But it's maladaptive…)  But

Saturday, December 19, 2020

What if we forgave all men, including ourselves, and were at perfect peace with the world in that way?  Would we have occasion to be depressed?  Well no, right, because depression is a failure to forgive ourselves.  How is that tied to forgiving others?  Surely if we don't forgive others we are liable to not forgive ourselves, and vice versa.  Am I in a state of perfect forgiveness of myself?  Then why do I keep remembering my mistakes?  Hmm.  What can I do to be at more peace with myself?  I pray that I can forgive myself fully, through the merits of Jesus Christ. 

A failure to forgive others can make us sick, and failure to forgive others can make us sick.

It's a trap.  Traps hold you in even when you don't want to be there.  Traps make it so you can't see the way out, even though you really want to get out.  The nature of self-deception, of the adversary's lies are that as soon as you're in you can't see the way out.  That's a trap. 

Sunday, Dec 20, 2020

Alright, don't have a pre-plan, just going to write for a minute and try to move forward.  I want to package this stuff better, have a clearer picture of how it all works together.  Right now it feels like the gospel - hard to describe fully in a few sentences.  Maybe.  But it's still too scattered in my mind.  So here we go--it's simple.  It's those theses I wrote in "Founding Principles"  Several principles from which others flow.  We have a few originals.  The constant light to which we are privy.  The law that going against that requires self-deception.  That depression in essence is a mistreatment of the self, and involves the lie that we are worthless (the two go together), and is, of course contrary to the light of truth.  That anxiety involves a lie that we are doomed somehow, and is also contrary to the truth.  (Not all anxiety, but all excessive anxiety.)  I'm not sure whether we need to say this, but misery and doom would be justified except for the atonement of Christ, but because of it, they're not, and involve lies.  Overcoming the trap of these lies requires the atonement of Jesus Christ, whether we know it or not. 

Those are good.  That's a good start.  That's big.  So basically depression and anxiety are not justified. 

Thursday, Dec 24, 2020 (Christmas Eve)

I have a question.  You know how depression and anxiety are lies because of Jesus Christ, since we are redeemed from death and hell, and we thus have reason to rejoice and have hope?  Well what about if we're wicked, and live our lives in such a way that the atonement of Christ is "of none effect"?  We'll be resurrected, albeit not necessarily unto glory.  But some of us will suffer in hell, at least for a time.  What about that?  The prophet says ye ought to fear, and tremble.  Does this mean despair and misery aren't a lie for some people, but it is for others, namely those who are living their lives more right?  Hmm, I don't know.  The righteous ought to break forth into joy and sing together, and the wicked ought to fear and tremble, for wo unto them if they do not repent.  But don't wicked people get depressed and anxious too?  Surely it's not just the righteous.  Hmm, I don't know.  But you see my question?

___

Christ is a light that is endless, that can never be darkened.  That's what Abinadi said.  You might ask, what is the light of Christ, actually?  Is it an essence, what is it?  High-frequency electromagnetic radiation, what?  But don't the scriptures say that Christ is that light?  At least he's the source?  It comes directly from God and fills the immensity of space, in all and through all things.  Maybe we can't understand it, and that's fine.  For me it's enough to know that much, I guess for my present purposes.