I think a phobia is a fear that has no rational basis. Well, perhaps sometimes there can be a rational basis, but that is not the cause of the fear. For example, I think my fear of heights does have some rational foundation - if I fall off a high place, it will be bad for me, but in fact, I feel the same fear even when there is no possibility of my falling off, although I'm only afraid of heights if there could be a possibility of falling. If there are walls and windows to keep me in, I don't feel any fear, even when very high and when standing next to the window. But at a much lower height with no protecting wall, even if I'm not near the edge, I feel a lot of fear, and my body reacts with very clear and uncontrollable physical symptoms (I knew I'd be able to fit that word in here somewhere).
On the other hand, my batrachophobia, from the Greek batrachos (βάτραχος) for "frog", is completely irrational. I can't think of any good reason for it at all, but from an earyly age I was scared of frogs and toads. This was a bit inconvenient, because I grew up on a farm, and there were lots of frogs and toads around. I was also extremely worried that other people, especially my classmates in school, would find out and laugh at me. I think this phobia had very real effects on my life. Thankfully, as I grew older, it became less strong, and although I still don't much like frogs, they no longer inpire such fear, and I don't suffer the same physical symptoms of sweating and the body's other fight-or-flight responses. Oddly, I'm not scared of snakes. I am cautious, but when I was a child I was able to approach and kill the poisonous snakes around my home, and if I knew a snake was not dangerous, I could happily pick it up and play with it. Most of my friends might not have been scared of frogs, but they were scared of snakes!
I think I've just spent about twenty minutes on this response, so if you would like to go a bit over the suggested fifteen minutes in your own Blog post in response to the questions on page 176, please feel welcome to do that.
I always what to know whether what cause people feel fear are the external source or their mind. For example ,if robot are programed to feel fear something ,they will be afraid when they find the things. But ,in this case ,what cause the robot fear? Whether the things they were programed to be fear or the programmer who set up those fear function. What make human differ from robot is we are continuously programmed by our mind responding to every experiences happening in our whole life.
ReplyDeleteSo, What cause we be afraid of something. That things or ourselves?
So, When have we started to fear something. Since we were born or since our mind program that fear in our subconsciousness.?
I have read the article,"What is abnormal?" and I think phobia is differnt from a normal fear for several reasons. In my opinion, a normal fear which happens to people is fear about somethings would danger them or hurt them. It is a natural way to be survive in the world. A normal fear forces people to avoid things or situation which would danger their lives. First of all my reasons, phobia is a fear in an unusual way. I thinks if someone suffer from a phobia such as nyctophobia, they unreasonably can't stand to stay in a very dark place. On the other hand, people with a normal fear would beware of dangerous that might hurt them. They can live in a very dark place all day long if there is a guarantee that they would be safe there. Secondly, I personally believe that phobias can occur if people used to experience some bad situations such as a hundred of bats bite them when they were young. Their minds would exaggerate that sittuation until they can't stand to stay near bats.
ReplyDeleteI am afraid of darkness. It is started when I was seven. Many medias such as TV usually show me very frighten things often appear from darkness. Therefore, I was afraid of darkness until 13 years old. Now I'm not afraid of darkness. I usually thinks about sittuation realistically because there is no guarantee that darkness always have somethings which can hurt me. For people who are afraid of darkness, I suggest them to be realistic. Their imaginations cause this fear happen. I know how to deal with my imaginations when I read about Buddism when I was nine. It really helps me to deal with imaginations. ...
James and Nat,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments.
I actually thought it would be better if we all posted our own new post for this exercise.
My post only covered a couple of the questions in Ex. C on page 176, and you, or your classmates, might prefer to respond to a couple of the other questions there.
On the other hand, it's perfectly OK to respond to my post, as you have both done.
And I do like getting comments!
James has raised an interesting set of issues, and his questions about fear, and the possible differences between human fears and robot fears, make those issues very clear.
ReplyDeleteI think those questions are so different to anything in my original post here that they deserve their own Blog post, and that James deserves to get the comments they might stimulate.
According to Jame's comment, I thinks feeling works unlogically so we can not programe robot to feel. Robots might be programed to avoid somethings such as water, high voltage field, or what can break them down. If robots can feel, their CPU could have created their own order agianst what cause them fear ,not programmer does it. In this case, CPU of robots would work like human minds and what cause them fear would occur by chance. For example, if there is an unfortunately order that they are afraid of batteries. Do you think what could be happen?. I definitely believe that our minds cause abnormal psychology not the external sources.
ReplyDeleteI just try to practice my writing more responsively. So, i just come here to post my idea about fear.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Nat's opinion about fear and feeling are quite interested me. Nat said feeling works illogically ;So robot which normally work by logic programed in his memory can't feel fear but I believe in another idea.
In my opinion ,the feeling work rationally and completely result from its causality.In fact, there is causalities for everything, but most of them may have not been known yet. However, thanks for you opinion Nat.
I will explain more detail later and answer those questions in my own blog.