Weekly I/O #25
REBT's ABC Model, Information and Energy, Science and Philosophy and Art, Space and Time, Epicurus and Ads
Hi friends,
Greetings from New York City!
Weekly I/O is an experimental project where I share my learning Input/Output with you. Every Sunday, I write an email newsletter with five things I discovered and found worth sharing, along with stuff I published that week. Hope you enjoy it :)
Output
Here’s what I’ve published in the past 7 days.
1. Weekly I/O #24
Last week's Weekly I/O about Not Louder, When Told You’re Wrong, Treat People, Only Imperfect Produces Art, Rule of 3 In Conversation.
Input
Here's a list of what I'm exploring and pondering this week.
1. A rational-emotive explanation of personality is as easy as ABC, Activating events, Beliefs, Consequences.
Book: Systems of Psychotherapy
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a form of cognitive behavior therapy developed by Dr. Albert Ellis. In Albert Ellis' words, a rational-emotive explanation of personality is as easy as ABC.
A is the Activating event like failure to land a job, rejection by a lover. B is the Belief that people use to process the activating events. There are rational beliefs (rB) as believing the failure was unpleasant, and rejection was unfortunate and irrational beliefs (iB) as "I will never be loved again" or "The rejection will prevent me from ever being successful". C is the emotional and behavioral Consequence of what has just occurred.
Most people assume that critical emotional consequences of personality development are a direct function of the activating events. In other words, A directly leads to C. However, as a cognitive theory, REBT points out that it is not activating events but the interpretation and perception of the events that are decisive. That is, it is B that leads directly to C.
Therefore, for REBT, our emotional disturbances are determined by the way we think, not by the environment. The "in here" rather than the "out there" makes our feelings. Again, we can see some Stoicism and Buddhism in REBT.
Thanks to 江寧 for introducing me to REBT and Sharon Tai for recommending and lending me the book!
2. The maximum amount of information that can be stored in a space is proportional not to the volume of space but to the surface area surrounding that volume.
This is discovered by the study of the mathematics of black holes and known as the holographic principle, which is proving to be a powerful tool in theoretical physics.
When we store more and more information into a volume of space, we increase its energy. Since energy can be seen as being equivalent to mass, storing information means strengthening its gravitational field. And to a point, the volume of space will collapse into a black hole.
The holographic principle states that the universe is a hologram and the volume itself is illusory. The hologram is isomorphic to the information inscribed on the surface of its boundary. Therefore, when the volume of space collapses into a black hole by increasing the information stored, all the information will be encoded on the black hole's event horizon.
3. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.
Book: The Story of Philosophy
4. "Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality." - Immanuel Kant
Quote
5. While advertisements excite us by evoking our real needs accurately, they refuse to quench them properly.
Book: Great Thinkers
This is from a chapter introducing Epicurus and mainly focusing on the three things that Epicurus identified as false lures of happiness: romantic love, professional status, and luxury. I just found the following paragraph interesting.
"Beer ads will show us groups of friends hugging – but only sell us alcohol (that we might end up drinking alone). Fancy watch ads will show us high-status professionals walking purposefully to the office, but won’t know how to answer the desire for intrinsically satisfying work. And adverts for tropical beaches may titillate us with their serenity, but can’t – on their own – deliver the true calm we crave."
That's it. Thanks for reading. If you find anything fun here, I'd really appreciate it if you can share this email using the yellow Share button at the bottom of the email or share the project using the link https://chengweihu.com/newsletter with friends or anyone that may also find it interesting!
If you want to support me, you can buy any aforementioned book that you are interested in through the link in the email. Some of the links are affiliate links that I may get a kickback from.
As always, feel free to send me what you found the most interesting here or any other interesting idea you came across recently! You can either reply directly to this email or reach out to me on Twitter or Facebook.
Looking forward to learning from you.
Best,
Cheng-Wei