"Talking to oneself" all too often seems to be the aim of identity politics in the West.
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Hearing Voices Jerome Groopman's article on the phenomenon of talking to oneself and hearing voices made me think that psychologists would benefit from a new term for the phenomenon, one without the negative connotations of "hallucination" ("Books," January 9th).
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Witchcraft may be blamed in Nepali societies for material loss, sickness of cattle, and other problems, in addition to mental and physical illnesses in humans. It is also believed that witches can give deadly or chronic diseases by means of food or drinks. As such, suspected witches are completely marginalised from the community even if they have received no public accusations or violence. Facial hair or baldness in women, stooped posture, cantankerousness, garrulousness, red or yellow eyes, infertility, and talking to oneself are some of the characteristics that can get a person suspected or accused of witchcraft.
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Since humans are largely social beings, they often imagine themselves in social situations even when they are alone. This phenomenon occurs in a variety of different contexts: treating oneself as a social interactant (talking to oneself), imagining others are present (either who are currently existent or have died), envisioning future social interactions, and personifying animals or inanimate objects (talking to pets). Solitary facial expressions are generated for an imagined other. According to role and impression- management theories, a perceived audience, whether real or imaginary, causes one to assume a role that is consistent with their audience.
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A Challenge for the Actor is a bestselling acting textbook by the actress and teacher Uta Hagen (Scribner Publishing, 1991), used in many acting classes. Taking the concept of "substitution" from her previous book, Respect for Acting, she renamed it "transference".Interview in playbill.com Other useful sections in this book are the exercises that Uta Hagen has created and elaborated to help the actor learn his craft, such as developing the actor's physical destination in a role; making changes in the self serviceable in the creation of a character; recreating physical sensations; bringing the outdoors on stage; finding occupation while waiting; talking to oneself and the audience; and employing historical imagination.
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And to that end he says that "a whole slew" of machines have been programmed with an approach similar to PRTM, and they have often performed poorly. Colin McGinn, a philosophy professor at the University of Miami, asserted in The New York Review of Books that "pattern recognition pertains to perception specifically, not to all mental activity". While Kurzweil does say "memories are stored as sequences of patterns" McGinn asks about "emotion, imagination, reasoning, willing, intending, calculating, silently talking to oneself, feeling pain and pleasure, itches, and mood" insisting these have nothing to do with pattern recognition. McGinn is also critical of the "homunculus language" Kurzweil uses, the anthropomorphization of anatomical parts like neurons.
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These environmental risks include but are not limited to hypersensitivity to stimuli, distortions and hallucinations, increased anxiety and nervousness, diminished impulse control, severe and chronic depression, appetite loss and weight loss, heart palpitations, talking to oneself, problems sleeping, nightmares, self-mutilation, difficulties with thinking, concentration, and memory, and lower levels of brain function. Researchers at McGill University paid a group of male graduate students to stay in small chambers that were to replicate solitary confinement cells. This study was to conduct an experiment on sensory deprivation and how it can cause psychiatric disorders while in solitary confinement as people are deprived of most of their senses in there. The plan was to observe these students for six weeks, but none lasted more than seven days.
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