Enmeshment and Real Estate industry in Hong Kong

When something abnormal is so prevalent in the society it maybe taken for granted without examine throughly by sociologist or social psychologist. It is a classical example of what psychoanalyst Eric Fromm called social pathology. One common manifestation of enmeshment are often manifest in excessive concern of the livelihood of the tenant, who usually rationalize it by seeing it as part of the process of tenant selection. It is often said that the renter is more picky in choosing the tenant than choosing the wife of his/her son/daughter’s wife/husband. But why is it necessary to know every detail of how the tenant live his/her life in order to decide whether the tenant is capable of paying the rent monthly, and the process has to be continue indefinitely? And it appears to me that renter is acting in a way which a closer relationship than is expected than that require of the rental agreement. It maybe that since Chinese is used to use land to define relationship, therefore those who live in his/her apartment is consider part of his/her family, which is why many oversea Chinese identify with Communist China.

民主和道德假說

有某位最近屢犯政治錯誤,卻自號政治家的人在八百人小圈子選舉中提出一種「新思路」(The New Deal of Hong Kong),指民主普選不是解決所有社會問題的「印度神油」,我想試一試如果當他是想錯了,會有什麼事發生。民主普選可不可以應用在香港社會最擔心的議 題:「道德淪亡」上?如果有錯,煩請各位指正。
因為未曾有人研究過道德感和民主參與的相關性,所以恕我只可以由理論空談,如果有具體的數字最好。理論上提高公民的民主參與可增加他們的歸屬感,減低「我 只是過客」的心態,而香港政府防垃圾蟲的廣告,就是充份利用了這個原理。理論上如果我當這地方是我自己的,行為便慎重許多,因為我總是想把自己家做得最 好,這應是一般香港人的心理‧依此事實去推,如果我不單可以參與社區事務,還直接覺得我可以改變我住的地方的具體事務,則我的歸屬感更強烈,我比以前更看 重其他人對我的看法,更去想我的一言一行的影響,我凡社會事都有我的意見,我有政治立場,即對或錯。我希望政客/政府都以我原則中以為是對的事,愚以為在 政治事務吾對對錯的執着,和道德感中的是非對錯是一致的。我不敢說後者因前者而來,但我認為,前者可以加強後者。因為政治有對錯,人的行為亦當然有對錯之 分;道德來自對錯的判斷,而政治的取向,亦有是非之分。我投票給想對了的侯選人,正如我做的事,大部份都是對的。
以此假說來看,可以明白為什麼97年以後,一向世俗的香港人似乎不斷感覺道德淪亡,因為不少人不覺得新主權的中共國是個有道德權威的國家,另外,香港人以 道德為軸的政治參與,卻得不到什麼具體的社會進步,因此熱情一年比一年減退,香港政府以為可喜,以為更容易統治,卻發覺社會出現道德感下降的情況。因為香 港人的政治無力感日深,對錯亦不再重要了,最重要是搵食和為自己謀着數/好處,「過客」心態再現,只要賺到錢,我才有安全感,如果沒有安全感談什麼道德不 道德?所以12歲援交又何妨,社會根本不在乎我?我守道德又如何,這又不是我的地方!如果這我的地方,為什麼我連我自己的社區都沒有發言權呢(區議會無行 政實權)?

Paranoid and Modern Chinese mentality

Paranoid is the state of mind which one is felt s/he is threaten by everyone other than himself. In his mind, everyone is plotting something against him, so his feeling of being threaten is justified by suspicious actions of other. In Psychology, it is a state of mind which a person is afraid of everything, or it is necessary for him to felt scared of everything. Neurologically speaking, it is the case which the neurological circuit to produce the sense of fear has been overactive and hyper-sensitive to any stimulate. The top-down process dominate over bottom-up process in Cognitive process.

Such a psychological state is perhaps the one most extensively abuse by politician throughout the world, especially in Communist China. Due to recent history of being invaded and raped throughly by Western imperial powers, the politician in Chinese Communist Party love to infer the cause of any domestic disturbance with a foreign cause, it is not just helping them to safely remove the blame from themselves, it also magically increase the level of solidiarty among the comrade. The logic is: They never bore any good will toward Chinese. They have threaten us before, and they are threaten us now, and they will threaten us in the future. Therefore any dissidence in the country must be incited/influenced/remotely-controlled/rewarded by hostile foriegn powers. Chinese must not be raped by other races(so they are available for Chinese to rape!)

This is accurate to a certain extent which Western powers doesn't like the lack of democracy and freedom of Chinese. This is also historically accurate given the context of Cold War. However, the past has gone, and democracy also means that the Western power are often divided in their altitudes and opinions toward Chinese. By adopting this altitude, Chinese Communist Party is ensure that it would always received with hostility but not hospitality. Is that Chinese Communist Party can only rule Chinese by fear/hatred and hostility of other nations?

Evolution and Psychohistory

The disciple of Psychohistory function somewhat like Social Psychology, it is about predicting group behavior as a whole. The difference is which later doesn’t claim to have the capability of foreseeing the future, rather it is about observe and generalize from existing behavior of the mass; while the former is about extrapolating existing behavior of the mass to the future.
Evolution is, in a sense, about the future of the group by observing the changed happen in the past. Again, much like Social Psychology, it doesn’t claim to able to make sweeping generalization from its theory on the level of individual. We could only to infer result of Evolution on the group as a whole. However since Evolution is ‘intended’ to work on the level of the species as a while, however, the main vehicle which that evolution it happen is through genes of individual, therefore only manifest itself through certain behavioral tendencies on the individual level. That is also the level which Psychology
come into play, therefore it is difficult to discern the effect of Evolution at work in individual level. That is also the level which Psychohistory manifest itself, though it is too minimal to observe.

Mathematical Psychology: 10% tips

How much does a 10% tips affected the amount of the bill in a restaurant? I am not referring this question in the sense of the psychological impression of the effect, as people often observed to be confused. I am referring to the Mathematical effect of 10% tips applied to the total cost of food in a restaurant. If we all use a calculator then we would all agreed that the effect of 10% tip depending on the original total of the cost of food. However, it has been observed, at least in the setting of Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong, people has a tendency to overestimate the effect of that in the totality of the cost of food, thus opening the opportunity for waiter/waitress to make few extra bucks. It is interesting to observed that the psychological impression of the effect of that is different from the actual effect, and people most likely confuse one with another. The majority of Chinese in Hong Kong would replace the effect in Mathematical realm by their psychological impression of the effect. I am almost certain that only few of Hong Kong Chinese observe this phenomena. It definitely take an unusual personality to observe this effect.
The impression I had on how people made this mistake is the impression the effect of 10% tip as independent of the original total of the cost of food. That is Mathematically wrong and Psychologically right. (Does the impression of the calculation has replaced the process of calculation?) Mathematically, the 10% tip can’t be consider independent from the total amount; it is only in the cognitive process of the mind which people make this estimation. This again, prove the assertion that human being is not a logical being, and our mind is better not modeled by pure computational process as some A.I. researcher claim. It is also revealing of the cognitive process of how human brain do computation, we often treat the 10% tip as an entity in and of itself. Remember that, even logic itself is not derived through logical process and Mathematics are not logical in-of-itself. It thus an interesting question of how does logic arise out of the illogical human mind, is that a necessity arise out of evolution?

Expectation Effect

This happen when I was studying in an University oversea, once someone was driving me to visit a mental hospital out of curiosity (which I heard was the biggest in the States). We was permitted in the visit area where they allowed some mental patients of least severe affliction. This time, however, we are out of luck since we don’t have any patient there. All is gone expect one.
We are all excited to see a real mental patient. However, that strike me as an odd as that patient looks absolutely normal in every aspect of his behavior(And he is pretty good looking also). Try as I might, I really can’t tell what is wrong with him. So the conclusion I drawn is that he must be a patient almost completely recovered from his disorder, since they are very selective in whom is allowed in the visitation area. You know, it is really hard to distinguish a mental patient just by sight.(I was told that many of them are addicted smokers.)
Imagine the shock I had when we meet him on the road: He is driving there for the same purpose as us! He was also curious in finding out what mental patient is like. Then it appears in my mind that would he also be shocked when he discover that we are also NOT mental patients? It is because we are inside a mental hospital therefore we expect everyone beside the worker there to be mental patient. The situation that we are inside a mental hospital has primed the connections between mental hospital and mental patient in the schema, therefore we see what we expect. We expect a mental patient in a mental hospital, thus we see everyone as mentally disordered. This is the very idea of Expectation Effect in Cognitive Psychology.

脫髮有罪?

這次被我嘲笑的廣告不是來自電視,來自報紙;同樣亦是邏緝的問題。男子脫髮會不會影響自我形 象及人際關係呢?依某廣告的調查研究,男子脫髮會被其他人認為脫髮會惡性影響脫髮者的人際關係,其他人會認為脫髮的男子的人緣差。好了,記得中六讀的英文 應用科強調意見和事實的分離,其他人以為你怎樣怎樣是他們的意見,不代表什麼事實。因此其他人認為脫髮的男子的人緣差,不代表脫髮的男子本身的人緣差。是 不是在後現代世界,意見就是現實?客觀性不存在,所以所有的事實都是代表了一種意見而已?

想深一層, 就算在後現代世界,意見可以當成一種事實,但其他人認為脫髮的男子的人緣差,只可以勉強代表「在其他人心目中脫髮的男子的人緣比較差」這一個事實,如何從 「在其他人心目中脫髮的男子的人緣比較差」的論述跳到「脫髮的男子覺得自己人緣比較差」或「脫髮的男子的人緣真的比較差」的結論?內裏是不是隱含了「其他 人的意見就代表我的現實」或「其他人的意見就代表我的意見」的奇怪邏緝?
前者,是賣廣告的人頭腦不清醒,還是在乘機開闊讀者的眼界,讓他們了解心理學中的「我不是我,亦不是自己以為的我,而是我以為其他人以為的我」?但是心理學卻沒有說:其他人心目中的我就是我。 後者,「其他人的意見就代表我的意見」,亦是香港常見的「主流主義」思想模式,香港人是凡事沒有自己意見的,只有「他/她認為是主流的意見」就代表了是自 己的意見;甚至進一步,自己的意見就是自己。因此,「主流主義」以為廣告交代的是顯而易見的常理:脫髮的男仕人緣一定不會好的哪裏去,因此猜想大部份香港 人都是這樣想,因而形成了自己的意見:脫髮的男仕人緣一定不會好,所以要快快依廣告的指示去解決脫髮的問題。
不知是不是廣告還要讀者深入思考哲學/心理學中的我的定義的問題?我是什麼?我是我執?我執是我?我是我的意見?我的意見是我?我是他人的意見?還是他人的意見是我?