Preface
This post is actually a reply to comments on my January 19th post about how to evaluate a theory. I've tried for two days and with three browsers, but have been unable to get the website to show my reply so I am trying a different approach. Also, I noticed that what once an elegant response was, with each time I retyped it, was devolving into a series of grunts.
The questions have to do with the nature of blogs, the cerebralness of mine, whether it is all from previously published work (it's not), and whether it's all book promotion (even if it is, I've donated three times what I've made from the book to charity). The questions that should have been asked involve why are my posts as they are, where are they leading, and can blogs be more than what they are today?
Reply
My goal is not to be one more half-baked opinion-spewer, but to be able to say things of interest and value, but before I can do that and have it be understood I need to get a quantum of background knowledge in place. For example, here is an idea that e-mailed two weeks ago to a couple of world-class psychologists and economists. Reliability : Validity :: Information : Meaning.
That's all I have to say to people who know the content and form of the analogy. It has generated a huge amount of intellectual activity, but for those who don't have this background knowledge, I need to first explain the definition of information (which I did on 11 January 2009), hermeneutics (9 Jan [not previously published]), and meaning (Jan 19 & 15; Nov 27). To show that these definitions are not fluff, I need to show how they are grounded in deeper processes (Jan 14, 11, and so on).
So now I have a thought that is not in my book, is applicable to today, and that is rooted in the thinking of America's only great psychologist, William James: "The meaning of the inauguration -- like Einstein's light cone -- exists largely outside of today, not in potential [a concept full of promise and problem], but in future application, application constrained by the limits of information and parameterized by the limits of (among other things) politics." This is a rich thought, because it fuses pragmatism, hermeneutics, and Herbert Simon's Sciences of the Artificial, but I don't think I've communicated anything to most people, because most people know the technical definitions of parameterized, constrained, potential, pragmatism, hermeneutics, and so on.
It is easy to toss random thoughts into cyberspace, so easy that many people do it, but I've yet to see how it adds value. As I said in my reply* to a comment on my "Science of goal-orientation" post, I am building toward being able to address important questions that people have. And as I said in the same reply, not everybody (fewer and fewer, in fact) can afford to buy an $11 book. And I feel strongly that, if it is possible, people should not have to choose between a meal and knowledge. I push my publisher to the limit as it is.
But you tell me. Do you want more "Female Orgasm and Dollars," more "Do Serial Killers Disturb You?," more "Bromance" (all on today's blog page) or do you want to read -- and understand -- what Nobel-prize winners find valuable to think about?
Guilty, as charged I am, of not being like other bloggers, but is that really what you want? As I said in my post on expertise, if you know what they know, you can be as 'smart' as they are. Do you want the challenge of stretching your mind or, to quote the title of one of the most popular posts, do you want to read about "Penis Size: The Measure of a Man?"
Postscript
I'm willing to change what I write, if you don't find what I've written valuable. Actually, given how frustrating it has been to try to reply, if you really don't find it valuable, then I'm willing to quit writing. What would I write instead? I have a bunch of cognitive psych tricks to becoming smarter and more effective that I'd be happy to post. I haven't so far, because after posting the first two a Psychology Today editor asked for references. I then discovered that I'd misplaced all of my cognitive psych books so I bought more, but am such a slow reader that I've only finished the first three chapters and come up with one good idea, an idea that wasn't in the book.
* Proof that I do know how to reply and have done so successfully in the past so the problem is not on my end.
