Not at all. The reaction is against the very idea-- it's unthinkable, "crazy," for it defies their idea of what is logically necessary-- not merely the act of being wrong.

Someone's shock or disgust at challenging meaning doesn't define it's right.Whether a new understanding is right or wrong always a question of itself.

Though, it is true such shock can see people not engaging with a challenging meaning that is right. To maintain the status of their idea, people will often does disregard a challenging meaning, treating it as if it's not really an idea (e.g. "I just can't understand that" "That meaning is not real. It's just a delusion or phase" ).

I know. I got a crazy face now cuz it stuck too.

That one's true too. The kinds of facial expressions you make the most will determine how attractive and approachable you look, and this will become more and more true as you age.

Also, an intelligent contemplative expression is neutral, or "empty". TV and movies ruin what used to be commonsense.

You are analyzing an observed / remembered reaction to a sudden, intense traumatic event in the leisurely comfort of our philosophy forum and over-thinking it. — Bitter Crank

If you were to see a state-of-the-art skyscraper in a city and slums right next to it wouldn't you be, at least, mildly surprised?

And here we are in the modern age, a grand edifice, a marvel of rationality, built by our so-called ''higher brain'' only to realize that lurking deep within is the ''lower brain'' - confused, self-contradictory and irrational. No cause for concern?

Not a cause for concern. For one thing, I am not sure it is the lower brain (so called) that is confused, self-contradictory, and irrational. Survival is the mandate of the lower brain and it does that in a straight forward way. It is the cerebral cortex (the higher reasoning part of the brain) that get's tied up in knots over bullshit.

Life would be better for all of us, I think, if we stopped thinking (in our high brain) that life is all about whatever the high-brain comes up with. The high brain would do well to acknowledge the importance of our lower functions, like emotions -- which, by the way, have cables reaching into the high brain from the low brain attached to levers which the emotional centers of the lower brain can pull, and send the high brain into a tizzy, if they so choose.

So we have overly cerebral people who think they have it all figured out until the Department of Gonad Motivation down in the Sex Control Center gets a load of that most attractive number walking by and stamps its foot on the GO pedal and makes the poor slob up in the forebrain have palpitations and hot flashes.

See, MadFood, we are a unity. We are basic emotions, simple drives, biological functions, perception, memory, coordination of movement, and thought. No one part of the unity is more important to the organism than any other. Thought isn't at the peak of the pyramid with sex and hunger at the bottom. Thought, sex, hunger, perception, and movement -- everything -- is all one. That's what being holistic means. We are not "thinkers" unfortunately chained to this animal that has all this biological stuff to deal with. Thought and all that biological stuff is actually rather thoroughly mixed together.

I understand your holistic POV. Each element of the whole has equal weight and there's nothing such as most/least important as the whole depends on optimal functioning of all its parts. From that standpoint you dismiss all inquiry into my concerns re higher brain, lower brain.

I'm sure you agree that for the proper functioning of the whole person it is necessary for the parts to function in harmony with each other. Like music each instrument must interact with the others to form a harmonious whole that we hear as a beautiful piece. If there's the slightest dissonance among the instruments what emerges is cacophony/noise. Coming to the issue of our minds (keeping the music analogy in mind) we have a fundamental problem - our higher brain is not in accord with our lower brain. The musical equivalent regarding the situation of mind is NOISE.

Do you still think there's no need for concern?

Why do you consider the results of media artificial and what preexisted it pure?

You mean like, why do I think that movies aren't as representative of reality as real events?

Not a cause for great concern, but certainly a need to harmonize.

First, we need to do away with higher and lower brain. The whole brain evolved, and if some parts are old, like the brain stem (the reptile brain), the reptile brain performs vital functions -- like keeping your heart beating, your breathing steady, putting you to sleep, and very important, waking you up. Emotion and cognition are tied in together -- which is why, when we hear beautiful poetry or soaring political rhetoric, we feel it. Emotions affect thinking, thinking affects our emotions. Exercising the body helps the brain function better. A healthy brain keeps the body healthy.

Philosophers sometimes rely too heavily on the good work of the pre-frontal cortex and look askance at those deeper functions in the hippocampus, amygdala, and so on.

So, harmonizing starts with accepting what is. From what is, we move to what can be. Emotions can be toned up, and thoughts can be directed into healthier lines of investigation. If there is heavy conflict between the emotional centers and the cognitive centers, maybe professional help is needed, but most people are not so troubled.

If there's the slightest dissonance among the instruments what emerges is cacophony/noise. — TheMadFool

Let's say if there is too much dissonance, or nothing but dissonance, we end up with the noise of a cacophony. Picking up the musical theme, a little dissonance can add a great deal--as many a composer has found. In the course of living our lives, we sometimes have the opportunity to deliberately act in discord (because we want to) with what we think is best, or most polite or proper. So, maybe we engage in some improper sex with a stranger that we know definitely does not pass muster with the rules and regulations. But because of the frisson of dissonance, the sex is about as good as sex can get. [Sadly, scandal is NO GUARANTEE of great sex.]

a little dissonance can add a great deal--as many a composer has found. — Bitter Crank

But the higher-lower brain dissonance I refer to is not ''little''. It's reasonable to expect a certain level of disharmony - nothing's perfect.

In the case of our brains the disharmony is fundamental. Inconsistencies arising in the lower brain directly threaten the very essence of our higher brains - rationality.

Also take note, in this discussion we're using the higher brain to evaluate the issue. So, it's slightly unfair. Unfortunately, the lower brain cannot be consciously turned on and so we're left with a lop-sided analysis of the matter. Perhaps, frustrated by my dogged insistence, I may be able to shock you into uttering an expletive and we'd know what the lower brain thinks of the higher brain:D

No, I mean like why do you condemn the effects of media in changing what we consider the meaning of a neutral expression (or of anything), as if media events are different from other types of real world events? That is, why do care particularly whether media changes our opinions as opposed to our opinions being changed by the weather, political events, or anything else? The media's no more or less artificial than anything else.

I don't know what you're goin' on about.

This might just have been an artifact of my generation trying to make sense of the phrase--I don't know how far the phrase actually goes back--but my memory of "holy shit" as an expression is that it was arrived at by joking about a verbal mannerism of Burt Ward's Robin in the 1960s "Batman" TV series. The writers had Robin regularly say "Holy x, Batman," the variable being filled in by some sort of cheesy or campy pun relative to whatever dilemma they found themselves in.

Again, maybe the phrase predates that era by a lot, though. I don't know.

But the higher-lower brain dissonance I refer to is not ''little''. — TheMadFool

In the case of our brains the disharmony is fundamental. Inconsistencies arising in the lower brain directly threaten the very essence of our higher brains - rationality. — TheMadFool

You are quite right about this: a highly agitated, disruptive state of emotions will certainly interfere and threaten our rational thinking. When this disruption is sustained, we call it 'mental illness'-- such as when someone is afflicted with bi-polar disorder or major depression. Even when the disruption is brief (such as in a fit of jealous rage) the results an be disastrous.

But one thing we can not forget: the higher thinking functions of the brain were never and are never separated from each other. They evolved to work together. I have "a feeling" (emotional brain at work) that quite often the dissonance is a result of the rational brain not paying attention to the emotional weather.

For instance: Perhaps you have come to find your intellectual job very burdensome, and you can't seem to do it well (where once one could). You may spend a lot of time analyzing what is happening on the job, but the analysis doesn't help. The circumstances of the job may have changed, but it is also possible that your emotions are no longer satisfied by the rewards of the job, or are offended by circumstances.

Your emotions may be conspiring to find something more rewarding. You aren't aware of the conspiracy because you are out of touch with your emotions. Your work deteriorates and you get fired. Oddly, you suddenly feel much better. Emotions 1, rational mind 0.

I know in my own life that I should have paid more attention to my emotions. I was often working at cross purposes. What I was doing was in conflict with what I wanted, and a lot of time was wasted pursuing dead ends.

In the case of our brains the disharmony is fundamental. Inconsistencies arising in the lower brain directly threaten the very essence of our higher brains - rationality. — TheMadFool

The neuroscientists have looked. The answer is in. Everything works together fine on the whole. It is not unnatural to jerk your hand off a hot surface even if your spine seems a rather lowly level of thinking matter to grant such an important decision to. And I would rather be driven by a driver competent enough to be mindlessly negotiating the traffic with their mid brain habits rather than the nervous learner where the prefrontal is having to navigate a blizzard of unfamiliar sensations with uncertain results.

The biggest threat to rationality is in fact just badly trained habits of thought. Folk can latch on to an untested idea and feel a passionate conviction for it. They are indeed stuffed if they mistake that lower brain evaluation of their own competence at rationalisation as the truth of things.

So. There was no chance of them dying. What were they whinging about, then? Or, had they been here, whining about?

When "hwinan" became "whinen" in Middle English, it meant "to wail distressfully"; "whine" didn't acquire its "complain" sense until the 16th century. "Whinge," on the other hand, comes from a different Old English verb, "hwinsian," which means "to wail or moan discontentedly." — Bitter Crank

Oh yeah, I forgot about your whole words thing, haha, I am so going to write posts to you full of Aussie slang.

Anyway, well in the arvo the girls started sooking because they went overboard with the bikkies during lunch and thought they were going to cark it from the climb, so they wouldn't stop earbashing me. I am a bit of a figjam when in my sporty moods and get frustrated at kangaroos loose in the top paddock.

If you don't get that language straightened out, it's going to be a lot worse than kangaroos loose in the top paddock, figjam and all.

Whinge is also British Isles, so you probably got it from them.

According to the Urban Dictionary, to wit:

Sooking
An Australian slang term used to indicate another person is soft, easily upset, or just a plain pussy.
Joe: I'm in so much pain right now, I've got such a bad bruise on my knee.
Bob: *Looks at Joe's Knee* You call that a bruise, don't be such a sook, my dick has had bigger bruises on it than that.
John: Yeah Joe you fucking pussy, don't be such a sook.

Sookie
Sookie, Sukie, Sukee - An easy woman. Easily scored pussy. Cross cultural languages all relatively carry the same meaning. Native languages imply "other pussy" as well as "gullible pussy". All are meant as derogatory toward the one called.

"Other pussy"? What kind of insult is that?

Arvo
One of the many words that Australians have cut syllables off and replaced with "-o". This one represents the hours after 12pm, and is used by people, myself included, who can't be bothered saying "-fternoon".
Hey Davo, I'm goin' to the servo for arvo smoko.
Translation: David, I'm going to the service station to purchase some food for the afternoon break.

Bikkies
1) Plural of Bikkie.
2) What Australians call a biscuit.
3) The Australian version of the snack 'cookie'.

The other Ozlandic slang you used was too debased for even the urban dictionary to grok.

Gawd, what an appalling abuse of the language! It's as bad as the American deep south and black English (or "Ebonics"). We do not approve of either black English or ebonics. Black English is bone lazy. They can't even say their archetypal curse, "mother fucker" properly. It's been mumbled down to "mofo".

Dizgusting. (In dramatic rendering, "dizgusting" is a bit more repulsive than mere "disgusting",

Shiiiit. You so cre cre.

David Crystal gives some interesting examples of words that were once shortened and have now been lengthened. 'Waistcoat' was 'weskit'; and 'forehead' was 'forrid' (hence the rhyme with 'horrid' in 'There was a little girl...'). I would add that the 'l' has re-entered the pronunuciation of the place name 'Holborn' having been absent for about a hundred years.