Actually I’m making a generalization about all the human race, I’m just focusing on women as an example. Saying this is not possible is sophistry. Certainly it’s not possible with ABSOLUTE accuracy to say anything useful about anything. Statements on human nature should be judged by their value at predicting human behavior to a significant degree.
To be a little more accurate, you’re focusing on the group of women at the party as an example. That’s fine. But don’t pretend that you’re taking all the women in the world as your example, because you aren’t.
Well the women at the party are AN example, but I am talking about all the women and people I have ever known, which is a pretty wide variety from three countries where I have lived for a reasonable length of time. I know better than anyone my observations are not and cannot be scientific.
A more general way to state my idea, which will get away from the whole man-woman thing, which seems to trigger a shuttering of minds, is:
People reconstruct memory they do not record it.
Memory is distorted especially by instinct and particularly by repressed instinct.
People have a lot more, and more specific instincts than is generally believed.
Even when people make rational judgments since these are founded on a framework of experience warped and filtered by instinct they are mainly a development of, or a reaction to instinct.
You can figure out what the general human instincts are, though obviously they vary from one individual to another like any other human characteristic. For example human hair varies tremendously but you can say quite a few things which are useful about it and are true of all but a minuscule fraction of people.
By having a good understanding of human instinct and how it affects the rational processes you can achieve a much better understanding of, and be more successful at predicting behavior that would otherwise be mystifying to you…
Check out these scars here. Motorcycle accident, right after I got out of the army. Cop ran me over. It was my fault though; I don’t hate cops or anything.
Vihaga, how you doin’?
I agree with that last post, Uncle Toby. People do seem to try very hard to rationalise away their instincts, and their basic human and animal natures. It’s desirable to remember to factor in instinct in explanations of human behaviour - including one’s own behaviour. It certainly seems that the women at the party were still terribly unwilling to do this, which is a bit sad, I feel.
No one has mentioned the TV program.
In it the women, when they were being looked at by the man who gave them the questionnaire tended to look at his eyes, hair et. When he looked away they looked at his crotch. A quick glance and then back to the eyes. None of them seemed to remember doing this. The program theorized, and I agree that the purpose of this glance was not so much to determine the man’s physical characteristics as his intent. If a man is hostile or expects hostility his testicles retract, so provided it’s reasonably warm this is a good indicator. The eyes are the next best place to get information. The thing is, there is no inhibition for women about looking at a man’s eyes (at least in western culture) but a look at the crotch is another matter, that could easily be misconstrued by the man and confusing to the woman ("why am I looking at the crotch of a man I’m not interested in?’) The result is the memory is repressed and the woman doesn’t even consciously know she did it.
The program was not interested in the question of repression of memory only in how men and women react to each other. If my theory is correct it shouldn’t matter much if the man is attractive, more if he’s big and dangerous looking.
Uncle Toby - Can you give the name of the TV program? I’m having a difficult time picturing how they used infrared to detect where someone was looking. Was the person wearing a helmet? Special glasses?
The eyes are passive, meaning they don’t send out any kind of signal but rather absorb photons. You can detect where an eye is pointing (but probably not focused) by reflecting light off the retina, I suppose. But that would require some sort emission source around the person’s eyes. In other words, a helmet or something.
If you know the name of the TV program, I’d really like to find out how they did this.
Thanks.
Sorry I can’t. it was years ago and might have been in the U.K. I think they shown non-visible light (infra red?) at the face and either recorded what came back out the pupil or off the iris. As I said the system was developed for HUD’s in advanced aircraft so you can search that subject.