expand? i don't really understand what you're asking.
since our perception of the world is formed by constructing models from the information gathered by our senses, reality is subjective. and since the self which forms these models is influenced by experience, the brain's chemical state, and fish-kettles, (ensuring that the 'you' you are now is a different person from the 'you' you were 5 mins ago) then our sense of what is real or normal shifts constantly.
even social norms shift constantly as the society in which they are bedded evolves.
normality is a set of statistics 2.4 children life expectancy mental health but that depends on what base population you choose to measure uk population, global population, the set of X factor fans, coffee drinkers etc there are a set of measurements that can be drawn about you age, gender, income, etc and obviously those things can be set in the context of, and relative to, the chosen base population take another measurement at another time and there may be change . You can change or the chosen base population can change or both. how you choose to react to being either close to or far from a particular mean or median is another question as is how people respond to you because of that proximity to a particular measure and clearly people's understanding of and emotional response to your proximity to a statistical norm is very much a floating point depending on their life, values, knowledge and experiences
you call it normality and that implies a value judgement but if it's just an average then that's just a number you're floating point and how close that is to another floating point - the base population average do you want to have only read an average number of books? do you want average music taste? do you want to only have an average level of tolerance?
sometimes I want to be "normal" and sometimes I don't - it depends what you're talking about - I won't just generalize normal is good or bad or even neutral
the mainstream and paths less travelled and whether they are good or bad is a matter of debate and on a case by case basis
and I have just finished an open university maths module 8-p 8-)
if by normality you mean "objective reality" then I think objective reality exists I have a model of reality in my head and people in general have a rough consensus on what reality is which may or may not be accurate
we have as a society high priests of reality called psychiatrists and doctors who rule on whether particular individuals have a model of reality which is sufficiently congruent with their own and also they form judgements about whether certain behaviour patterns fall within what they define as "normal". "Is individual A a threat to themselves or others?"
from that point of view I think objective reality is a fixed point and the consenus perception of reality is the only guide we have to objective reality
we can never know what objective reality is. We just attempt to model or approximate it both as individuals and as a society. Does the Earth go round the sun or are we living inside the Matrix? The blue pill or the red pill?
Home is, and your personal normal is defined by your idea of home.
Anyhoo, this is Dee (if you remember me!). I tracked you down through the ever so clever system of Leebs' LJ comments, and my highly random last.fm thing, as promised, is here: http://www.last.fm/user/icememory
Comments
Yes of course :D I should have this stated in my assumptions
since our perception of the world is formed by constructing models from the information gathered by our senses, reality is subjective. and since the self which forms these models is influenced by experience, the brain's chemical state, and fish-kettles, (ensuring that the 'you' you are now is a different person from the 'you' you were 5 mins ago) then our sense of what is real or normal shifts constantly.
even social norms shift constantly as the society in which they are bedded evolves.
That, sir, is exactly what I'm on about!
2.4 children
life expectancy
mental health
but that depends on what base population you choose to measure
uk population, global population, the set of X factor fans,
coffee drinkers etc
there are a set of measurements that can be drawn about you
age, gender, income, etc and obviously those things can be set in the context of, and relative to, the chosen base population
take another measurement at another time and there may be change . You can change or the chosen base population can change or both.
how you choose to react to being either close to or far from a particular mean or median is another question as is how people respond to you because of that proximity to a particular measure and clearly people's understanding of and emotional response to your proximity to a statistical norm is very much a floating point depending on their life, values, knowledge and experiences
:p
but if it's just an average then that's just a number
you're floating point and how close that is to another floating point - the base population average
do you want to have only read an average number of books?
do you want average music taste?
do you want to only have an average level of tolerance?
sometimes I want to be "normal" and sometimes I don't - it depends what you're talking about - I won't just generalize normal is good or bad or even neutral
the mainstream and paths less travelled and whether they are good or bad is a matter of debate and on a case by case basis
and I have just finished an open university maths module
8-p
8-)
I have a model of reality in my head and people in general have a rough consensus on what reality is which may or may not be accurate
we have as a society high priests of reality called psychiatrists and doctors who rule on whether particular individuals have a model of reality which is sufficiently congruent with their own and also they form judgements about whether certain behaviour patterns fall within what they define as "normal". "Is individual A a threat to themselves or others?"
from that point of view I think objective reality is a fixed point
and the consenus perception of reality is the only guide we have to objective reality
we can never know what objective reality is. We just attempt to model or approximate it both as individuals and as a society. Does the Earth go round the sun or are we living inside the Matrix?
The blue pill or the red pill?
I feel I am getting closer to solving this mathematical problem ;)
Anyhoo, this is Dee (if you remember me!). I tracked you down through the ever so clever system of Leebs' LJ comments, and my highly random last.fm thing, as promised, is here:
http://www.last.fm/user/icememory
I've added you by the way. Hope you're well!