https://docdrop.org/pdf/Terefenko---2014---JazzTheory-1ed-2--x7zx4.pdf/

Jazz Theory: From Basic to Advanced Study Terefenko, D. 2014

https://docdrop.org/pdf/Pease---2003---BERKLEE-PRESS-JAZZ-COMPOSITION-3ot0m.pdf/

JAZZ COMPOSITION - Theory and Practice Pease, T. 2003

An article recommended to me by Dalton V. that he thought I'd enjoy and appreciate. Looks like AlignmentForum is one of those "online Rationalist communities" (like LessWrong, SlateStarCodex, etc.).

The blog post "The Waluigi Effect" by Cleo Nardo touches on a variety of interesting topics:

• the Waluigi effect
• Simulator Theory
• Derrida's "there is no outside text"
• RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) and potential limits

Apollo as representing order, clarity, a dream-state of life, an illusion.

Dionysus, on the other hand, represent chaos, and the dissolution of this dream.

Many developed countries have national curricula and specific teacher-training standards, but the United States does not. Instead decisions on curricular and standards are created and enforced at the state and local levels, often by politically elected figures including governors, mayors, superintendents, and school boards.

This leaves early education in the United States open to a much greater sway of political influence. This can be seen in examples of Texas attempting to legislate the display the ten commandments in school classrooms in 2023, reading science being neglected in the adoption of Culkins' Units of Study curriculum, and other footballs like the supposed suppression of critical race theory in right leaning states.

https://docdrop.org/pdf/Bishop---2012---A-permutational-triadic-approach-to-jazz-har-o66aj.pdf/

A permutational triadic approach to jazz harmony and the chord/scale relationship scale relationship Bishop, J 2012

https://docdrop.org/pdf/Bergonzi---1993---Vol.-3---Pentatonics-3cdiv_ocr-3vn2u.pdf/

Pentatonics (Vol 2) Bergonzi, J 1993

V5 2018

2022

process:explaining higher-level scientific phenomena science in theories through the entities and theories from the more fundamental science.

This lower the level the more material and less constructed the science. (Which makes physics actually one level, according to Bechter and Hamilton (2007))

also: theory of reduction

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEmb0zMfRdvmSH2bO9UA95DSaHHSapZl2

YouTube playlist of five lessons of music theory using Dean Vaughn's so-called "Vaughn Cube".

https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/anyone-here-who-has-experience-with-the-vaughn-cube/41484

Dean Vaughn has a series of music theory videos from 2007 that utilizes what he calls a Vaughn cube which on first blush appears to be a standard numbered room as used in the method of loci.

Efficiency and effectiveness measures for specific mnemonic systems may vary from person to person, so one should consider them with respect to their own practices. There may not be a single "right" or "correct" practice universally, but there could be one for everyone individually based on their own choices or preferences.

Related to this note:

Haris Neophytou wants to apply a "primality sieve" (namely the sieve of Eratosthenes) to this list. I think it's so he can construct the primes that divide the order of the monster group \(M\)

Trying to follow an argument given here: https://youtu.be/mFZs7uGwNBo?t=3413

The sequence A002267 is claimed by Haris Neophytou to be the 1st 15 "super singular prime numbers" (ie, the primes that divides the order of the Monster Group). The order is the number of elements in the group.

Note that the last 3 elements [47, 59, 71] multiply to give the number of dimensions in which the Monster group exists: 196,883.

Neophytou believes A002267 gives a different way of looking at the monster group \(M\).

Around 1:02:45, Neophytou says he'll start from A002822...

(a list of numbers, \(m\text{,}\) such that \(6m - 1\) and \(6m + 1\) are twin primes)

... and construct "the minimal order of the monster" (what?)

• This is a very broad and sweeping statement.
  • While I agree with it,
    • what does "learning how to die" exactly mean?
    • unless we know in details, we won't have an actionable strategy

Sheldon Solomon on the connection between the denial of death and the Anthropocene

• in other words
  • we could make a claim that we could extrapolate (intrapolate?) evolution to apply to abiotic, physical phenomena.

• In Other Words
  • it factors in time and history a key variables in explaining how biota emerges from abiota

Assembly theory

reply to ctietze at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2560/zettel-feedback-functor-yeah-just-that#latest

Kudos on tackling the subject area, especially on your own. I know from experience it's not as straightforward as it could/should be. I'll refrain from monkeying with the perspective/framing you're coming from with overly dense specifics. As an abstract mathematician I'd break this up into smaller pieces, but for your programming perspective, I can appreciate why you don't.

If you want to delve more deeply into the category theory space but without a graduate level understanding of multiple various areas of abstract mathematics, I'd recommend the following two books which come at the mathematics from a mathematician's viewpoint, but are reasonably easy/intuitive enough for a generalist or a non-mathematician coming at things from a programming perspective (particularly compared to most of the rest of what's on the market):

• Ash, Robert B. A Primer of Abstract Mathematics. 1st ed. Classroom Resource Materials. Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 1998.
  • primarily chapter 1, but the rest of the book is a great primer/bridge to higher abstract math in general)
• Spivak, David I. Category Theory for the Sciences. MIT Press, 2014.
  • Spivak had a free draft prepublication version at https://arxiv.org/abs/1302.6946; There's also an open courseware version of his MIT course with a free .pdf textbook (with a 2013 date, but ostensibly a copy of the final published version from 2014) at https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-s996-category-theory-for-scientists-spring-2013/

You'll have to dig around a bit more for them (his website, Twitter threads, etc.), but John Carlos Baez is an excellent expositor of some basic pieces of category theory.

For an interesting framing from a completely non-technical perspective/conceptualization, a friend of mine wrote this short article on category theorist Emily Riehl which may help those approaching the area for the first time: https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2021/winter/emily-riehl-category-theory/?ref=dalekeiger.net

One of the things which makes Category Theory difficult for many is that to have multiple, practical/workable (homework or in-book) examples to toy with requires having a reasonably strong grasp of 3-4 or more other areas of mathematics at the graduate level. When reading category theory books, you need to develop the ability to (for example) focus on the algebra examples you might understand while skipping over the analysis, topology, or Lie groups examples you don't (yet) have the experience to plow through. Giving yourself explicit permission to skip the examples you have no clue about will help you get much further much faster.

I haven't maintained it since, but here's a site where I aggregated some category theory resources back in 2015 for some related work I was doing at the time: https://cat.boffosocko.com/course-resources/ I was aiming for basic/beginner resources, but there are likely to be some highly technical ones interspersed as well.

We've got solutions for the number of configurations there are to solve a Rubic's cube with from 1 move up to 15, but we don't know how many cube configurations there are that can be solved with 16-20 moves.

• Example: the number of positions that require exactly one move solve them is 18, which is counted by multiplying the six faces and each of the three ways they can be twisted.

This section is almost exactly the same as Umberto Eco's description of a slip box practice:

No piece of information is superior to any other. Power lies in having them all on file and then finding the connections. There are always connections; you have only to want to find them. -- Umberto Eco. Foucault's Pendulum

See: https://hypothes.is/a/jqug2tNlEeyg2JfEczmepw

Interestingly, these structures map reasonably well onto Paul Baran's work from 1964:

The subject heading based filing system looks and functions a lot like a centralized system where the center (on a per topic basis) is the subject heading or topical category and the notes related to that section are filed within it. Luhmann's zettelkasten has the feel of a mixture of the decentralized and distributed graphs, but each sub-portion has its own topology. The index is decentralized in nature, while the bibliographical section/notes are all somewhat centralized in form.

Cross reference:<br /> Baran, Paul. “On Distributed Communications: I. Introduction to Distributed Communications Networks.” Research Memoranda. Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation, August 1964. https://doi.org/10.7249/RM3420.

Perhaps there is a model for reading and note taking/writing with respect to both learning and creating new knowledge that follows an inverse mapping in a way similar to that seen in Galois theory?

Explore this a bit to see what falls out.

The description of this scene is insinuating on the importance of the little things which I believe is what the author was trying to convey when asking such questions to seeing a dog with a bone. He even refers to Plato at one point who was known as a philosophical speaker who was wise in such ideas. "Plato says that true and reliable knowledge rests only with those who can comprehend the true reality behind the world of everyday experience." (Macintosh) Platos theory of forms suggested that there is a different reality to everything for each person. That would insinuate that for a dog, that bone is big thing worth his time, while as humans, we see the dog with his bone and think "why bother?".

Google translation:

The sheer quantity exceeds the possibilities of book publication, the complex, multidimensional structure of a networked information base cannot be reproduced in print, and finally the dynamic of a constantly growing and constantly correcting material does not fit into the rigid rhythm of book production, in which each expanded and corrected new edition is associated with an incalculable amount of effort. A book publication could only offer a snapshot of such a database, reduced to a specific perspective. This too can be very useful from time to time, but it does not solve the problem of publishing the entire material.

While the writing criticism of "dumping out one's zettelkasten" into a paper, journal article, chapter, book, etc. has been reasonably frequent in the 20th century, often as a means of attempting to create a linear book-bound context in a local neighborhood of ideas, are there other more complex networks of ideas which we're not communicating because they don't neatly fit into linear narrative forms? Is it possible that there is a non-linear form(s) based on network theory in which more complex ideas ought to better be embedded for understanding?

Some of Niklas Luhmann's writing may show some of this complexity and local or even regional circularity, but perhaps it's a necessary means of communication to get these ideas across as they can't be placed into linear forms.

One can analogize this to Lie groups and algebras in which our reading and thinking experiences are limited only to local regions which appear on smaller scales to be Euclidean, when, in fact, looking at larger portions of the region become dramatically non-Euclidean. How are we to appropriately relate these more complex ideas?

What are the second and third order effects of this phenomenon?

An example of this sort of non-linear examination can be seen in attempting to translate the complexity inherent in the Wb (Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache) into a simple, linear dictionary of the Egyptian language. While the simplicity can be handy on one level, the complexity of transforming the entirety of the complexity of the network of potential meanings is tremendously difficult.

In looking at the uses of and similarities between Wb and TLL, I can't help but think that these two zettelkasten represented the state of the art for Large Language Models and some of the ideas behind ChatGPT

Watts, Charles J. The Cost of Production. Muskegon, MI: The Shaw-Walker Company, 1902. http://archive.org/details/costproduction01wattgoog.

Short book on managing manufacturing costs. Not too much of an advertisement for Shaw-Walker manufactured goods (files, file management, filing cabinets, etc.). Only 64 pages are the primary content and the balance (about half) are advertisements.

Given the publication date of 1902, this would have preceded the publication of System Magazine which began in 1903. This may have then been a prototype version of an early business magazine, but with a single author, no real editorial, and only one article.

Presumably it may also have served the marketing interests of Shaw-Walker as a marketing piece as well.

Tangentially, I'm a bit intrigued by the "Mr. Morse" mentioned on page 109 who is being touted as an in-house consultant for Shaw-Walker.... Is this the same Frank Morse who broke off to form the Browne-Morse Co.? (very likely)

see: see also: https://hypothes.is/a/Sp8s4sprEe24jitvkjkxzA for a snippet on Frank Morse.

9/8b2 "Multiple storage" as a necessity of<br /> storage of complex (complex<br /> evaluating) information.

Fascinating to see the English phrase "multiple storage" pop up in Luhmann's ZKII section on Zettelkasten.

This note is undated, though being in ZKII likely occurred more than a decade after he'd started his practice. One must wonder where he pulled the source for the English phrase rather than using a German one? Does the idea appear in Heyde? It certainly would have been an emerging question within systems theory and potentially computer science ideas which Luhmann would have had access to.

• Link to https://hypothes.is/a/WtB2AqmlEe2wvCsB5ZyL5A on multiple storage affordances

// - This article provides an intersectional study of: - climate change, - collective action research - terror management theory / mortality salience - it explains the beneficial impacts of non-rational relational ontology and recommends the use of ritual practices based on this as a way to promote pro-environmental behavior

//

• key observation
• key insight

// in other words - mortality salience alone is counter-productive - it triggers psychological defense strategies. - it must be accompanied by expressions of gratitude to be effective and transformative

// abstract - summary - Rationalist approaches to environmental problems such as climate change - apply an information deficit model, - assuming that if people understand what needs to be done they will act rationally. - However, applying a knowledge deficit hypothesis often fails to recognize unconscious motivations revealed by: - social psychology, - cognitive science, - behavioral economics.

• Applying ecosystems science, data collection, economic incentives, and public education are necessary for solving problems such as climate change, but they are not sufficient.
• Climate change discourse makes us aware of our mortality
• This prompts consumerism as a social psychological defensive strategy,
• which is counterproductive to pro-environmental behavior.
• Studies in terror management theory, applied to the study of ritual and ecological conscience formation,
• suggest that ritual expressions of giving thanks can have significant social psychological effects in relation to overconsumption driving climate change.
• Primary data gathering informing this work included participant observation and interviews with contemporary Heathens in Canada from 2018–2019.

Arch Wilkinson Shaw<br /> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Wilkinson_Shaw

• Founder of Shaw-Walker with Louis C. Walker,
• publisher of System: The Magazine of Business which was sold to McGraw-Hill Company in 1927/8 and renamed Business Week which was later renamed Bloomberg Business Week.

• Paraphrase
• 150 alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
• Other range numbers are nested within the social brain hypothesis.

• curiously, Dunbar recognized they were all multiples of 5.

  • the tightest circle has just 5 people (loved ones).
  • 15 (good friends),
  • 50 (friends),
  • 150 (meaningful contacts),
  • 500 (acquaintances) and
  • 1500 (people you can recognise).

• People migrate in and out of these layers,

• but that space has to be carved out for any new entrants.

I'm not the only one to think of zettelkasten as "living"...

I do like the framing of folgezettel as a benefit with respect to user experience.

There is a lot of mention of the idea of trees within the note taking and zettelkasten space, but we really ought to be looking more closely at other living systems models like rhizomes and things which have a network-like structure.

Associativity for <= seems a bit weird to me; generally you want the value inside of () to be comparable outside; but (1 <= 2) <= 3 would result in True <= 3. So I think the best way to think of associativity here is that it just does not apply, and the () can be dropped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93network_theory

I ought to dig into some of Bruno Latour's work which keeps popping up in some of my reading....

Is LaMDA really able to "learn higher-level concepts" or is it just a large, straight-forward information theoretic-based prediction engine?

reply to u/New-Investigator-623 at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/10r6uwp/comment/j784srg/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I meant nebulous for my initial purposes. They obviously have very concrete meanings in more specific contexts, though even there they can vary. I saw your other post on concept maps where I imagine they matter more; some of that reminds me about some of my initial explorations into category theory (math) a few years back. I'm curious what the overlap of those two looks like...

On systems, complexity, and emergence, I'm probably closer to the school of thought and applications coming out of the Santa Fe Institute. I'll have to look at Bunge's work there, I've only glanced at some of his math/physics work but never delved into his philosophical material.

using theory of change to create a roadmap

Rhetoric of encomium

How do institutions form around notions of merit?

Me: what about blurbs as evidence of implied social networks? Who blurbs whom? How are these invitations sent/received and by whom?

diachronic: how blurbs evolve over time

Signals, can blurbs predict: - the field of the work - gender - other

Emergence or decrease of signals with respect to time

Imitation of styles and choices. - how does this happen? contagion - I'm reminded of George Mathew Dutcher admonition:

Imitation to be avoided. Avoid the mannerisms and personal peculiarities of method or style of well-known writers, such as Carlyle or Macaulay. (see: https://hypothes.is/a/ROR3VCDEEe2sZNOy4rwRgQ )

Systematic studies of related words within corpora. (this idea should have a clever name) word2vec, word correlations, information theory

How does praise work?

metaphors within blurbs (eg: light, scintillating, brilliant, new lens, etc.)

!- Title : The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution, published in 1983 !- Author : Motoo Kimura

!- reason behind name of theory : independent of natural selection

!- Sewall Wright : genetic drift

Gruppenpest, a word of German origin, which has also entered into English to mean "the plague of group theory" and group theorists (mathematicians) who were applying abstract algebra to physics and quantum mechanics in the mid-twentieth century.

via https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Gruppenpest

https://inference-review.com/article/woits-way

link to: text: https://hypothes.is/a/macvwJ5zEe2kdF_K9kCN-A

Woit, Peter. Quantum Theory, Groups and Representations: An Introduction. Revised and Expanded version [2022]. Springer, 2017. https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/QM/qmbook.pdf.

https://www.complexityexplorer.org/courses/162-foundations-applications-of-humanities-analytics/segments/15625

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZklLt80wqg

Looking at three broad ideas with examples of each to follow: - signals - patterns - pattern making, pattern breaking

Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913

Jane Kent for witchcraft

250 years with ~200,000 trial transcripts

Can be viewed as: - storytelling, - history - information process of signals

All the best trials include the words "Covent Garden".

Example: 1163. Emma Smith and Corfe indictment for stealing.

19:45 Norbert Elias. The Civilizing Process. (book)

Prozhito: large-scale archive of Russian (and Soviet) diaries; 1900s - 2000s

How do people understand the act of diary-writing?

Diaries are:

Leo Tolstoy

a convenient way to evaluate the self

Franz Kafka

a means to see, with reassuring clarity [...] the changes which you constantly suffer.

Virginia Woolf'

a kindly blankfaced old confidante

Diary entries in five categories - spirit - routine - literary - material form (talking about the diary itself) - interpersonal (people sharing diaries)

Are there specific periods in which these emerge or how do they fluctuate? How would these change between and over cultures?

The pattern of talking about diaries in this study are relatively stable over the century.

pre-print available of DeDeo's work here

Pattern making, pattern breaking

Individuals, institutions, and innovation in the debates of the French Revolution

• transcripts of debates in the constituent assembly

the idea of revolution through tedium and boredom is fascinating.

speeches broken into combinations of patterns using topic modeling

(what would this look like on commonplace book and zettelkasten corpora?)

emergent patterns from one speech to the next (information theory) question of novelty - hi novelty versus low novelty as predictors of leaders and followers

Robespierre bringing in novel ideas

How do you differentiate Robespierre versus a Muppet (like Animal)? What is the level of following after novelty?

Four parts (2x2 grid) - high novelty, high imitation (novelty with ideas that stick) - high novelty, low imitation (new ideas ignored) - low novelty, high imitation - low novelty, low imitation (discussion killers)

Could one analyze television scripts over time to determine the good/bad, when they'll "jump the shark"?

Can I use some of these sorts of methods with respect to corpus linguistics over time to better identified calcified words or archaic phrases that stick with the language, but are heavily limited to narrower(ing) contexts?

This is a good example of the fuzzy sorts of boundaries created by adding probabilities to individuals and putting them into (equivalence) classes. They can provide distributions of likelihoods.

This expands on: https://hypothes.is/a/3FVi6JtXEe2Xwp_BIaCv5g

Reframing signal relationships into probability spaces may mean that signal relationships are symmetric.

How far can this be pressed? They'll also likely be reflexive and transitive (though the probability may be smaller here) and thus make an equivalence relation.

How far can we press this idea of equivalence relations here with respect to our work? Presumably it would work to the level of providing at least good general distribution?

[[hypergraph categories]]: https://anagora.org/hypergraph+categories

<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Peter Smith</span> in Zettelkasten (<time class='dt-published'>01/17/2023 16:52:31</time>)</cite></small>

https://diggingthedigital.com/hoe-werkt-het-maken-van-een-idee-notitie/

Frank calls out what he considers a good example of actual note taking practice rather than the more often seen talk about note taking theory. The example in question is Forrest Perry's YouTube video #9 Zettelkasten: from source card to idea card.

The Friedberg Judeo-Arabic Project contains a large corpus of Judeo-Arabic text which can be manually searched to help improve translations of texts, but it might also be profitably mined using information theoretic and corpus linguistic methods to provide larger group textual translations and suggestions at a grander scale.

McCoy, Neal Henry. The Theory of Rings. 1964. Reprint, The Bronx, New York: Chelsea Publishing Company, 1973.

!- intrinsic fear of death : strong role in creation of a self illusion -Ernest Becker, David Hume, Shanti Devi all regard death as a major reason we create the self illusion - Becker cliams we reify the self as a bulwark against the terror of death - the fear of death is deeply wired in us - the story of a self allows it to posit a symbolic form of eternal life, hence resulting in immortality projects - we know we have fallen under the spell of the illusion of self when we can be insulted, when we get angry, when we feel shame - it is these affects which establish a self, hence why the self imputation is so strong and difficult to dislodge

I've seen a bunch of people sharing this and repeating the conclusion: that the success is because the CEO loves books t/f you need passionate leaders and... while I think that's true, I don't think that's the conclusion to draw here. The winning strategy wasn't love, it was delegation and local, on the ground, knowledge.

This win comes from a leader who acknowledges people in the stores know their communities and can see and react faster to sales trends in store... <br /> —Aram Zucker-Scharff (@Chronotope@indieweb.social) https://indieweb.social/@Chronotope/109597430733908319 Dec 29, 2022, 06:27 · Mastodon for Android

Also heavily at play here in their decentralization of control is regression toward the mean (Galton, 1886) by spreading out buying decisions over a more diverse group which is more likely to reflect the buying population than one or two corporate buyers whose individual bad decisions can destroy a company.

How is one to balance these sorts of decisions at the center of a company? What role do examples of tastemakers and creatives have in spaces like fashion for this? How about the control exerted by Steve Jobs at Apple in shaping the purchasing decisions of the users vis-a-vis auteur theory? (Or more broadly, how does one retain the idea of a central vision or voice with the creative or business inputs of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of others?)

How can you balance the regression to the mean with potentially cutting edge internal ideas which may give the company a more competitive edge versus the mean?

Highlights

• We exploit language differences to study the causal effect of fake news on voting.
• Language affects exposure to fake news.
• German-speaking voters from South Tyrol (Italy) are less likely to be exposed to misinformation.
• Exposure to fake news favours populist parties regardless of prior support for populist parties.
• However, fake news alone cannot explain most of the growth in populism.

Who falls for fake news? Psychological and clinical profiling evidence of fake news consumers

Participants with a schizotypal, paranoid, and histrionic personality were ineffective at detecting fake news. They were also more vulnerable to suffer its negative effects. Specifically, they displayed higher levels of anxiety and committed more cognitive biases based on suggestibility and the Barnum Effect. No significant effects on psychotic symptomatology or affective mood states were observed. Corresponding to these outcomes, two clinical and therapeutic recommendations related to the reduction of the Barnum Effect and the reinterpretation of digital media sensationalism were made. The impact of fake news and possible ways of prevention are discussed.

Fake news and personality disorders

The observed relationship between fake news and levels of schizotypy was consistent with previous scientific evidence on pseudoscientific beliefs and magical ideation (see Bronstein et al., 2019; Escolà-Gascón, Marín, et al., 2021). Following the dual process theory model (e.g., Pennycook & Rand, 2019), when a person does not correctly distinguish between information with scientific arguments and information without scientific grounds it is because they predominantly use cognitive reasoning characterized by intuition (e.g., Dagnall, Drinkwater, et al., 2010; Swami et al., 2014; Dagnall et al., 2017b; Williams et al., 2021).

Concomitantly, intuitive thinking correlates positively with magical beliefs (see Šrol, 2021). Psychopathological classifications include magical beliefs as a dimension of schizotypal personality (e.g., Escolà-Gascón, 2020a). Therefore, it is possible that the high schizotypy scores in this study can be explained from the perspective of dual process theory (Denovan et al., 2018; Denovan et al., 2020; Drinkwater, Dagnall, Denovan, & Williams, 2021). Intuitive thinking could be the moderating variable that explains why participants who scored higher in schizotypy did not effectively detect fake news.

Something similar happened with the subclinical trait of paranoia. This variable scored the highest in both group 1 and group 2 (see Fig. 1). Intuition is also positively related to conspiratorial ideation (see Drinkwater et al., 2020; Gligorić et al., 2021). Similarly, psychopathology tends to classify conspiracy ideation as a frequent belief system in paranoid personality (see Escolà-Gascón, 2022). This is because conspiracy beliefs are based on systematic distrust of the systems that structure society (political system), knowledge (science) and economy (capitalism) (Dagnall et al., 2015; Swami et al., 2014). Likewise, it is known that distrust is the transversal characteristic of paranoid personality (So et al., 2022). Then, in this case the use of intuitive thinking and dual process theory could also justify the obtained paranoia scores. The same is not true for the histrionic personality.

The Barnum Effect

The Barnum Effect consists of accepting as exclusive a verbal description of an individual's personality, when, the description employs contents applicable or generalizable to any profile or personality that one wishes to describe (see Boyce & Geller, 2002; O’Keeffe & Wiseman, 2005). The error of this bias is to assume as exclusive or unique information that is not. This error can occur in other contexts not limited to personality descriptions. Originally, this bias was studied in the field of horoscopes and pseudoscience's (see Matute et al., 2011). Research results suggest that people who do not effectively detect fake news regularly commit the Barnum Effect. So, one way to prevent fake news may be to educate about what the Barnum Effect is and how to avoid it.

Conclusions

The conclusions of this research can be summarized as follows: (1) The evidence obtained proposes that profiles with high scores in schizotypy, paranoia and histrionism are more vulnerable to the negative effects of fake news. In clinical practice, special caution is recommended for patients who meet the symptomatic characteristics of these personality traits.

(2) In psychiatry and clinical psychology, it is proposed to combat fake news by reducing or recoding the Barnum effect, reinterpreting sensationalism in the media and promoting critical thinking in social network users. These suggestions can be applied from intervention programs but can also be implemented as psychoeducational programs for massive users of social networks.

(3) Individuals who do not effectively detect fake news tend to have higher levels of anxiety, both state and trait anxiety. These individuals are also highly suggestible and tend to seek strong emotions. Profiles of this type may inappropriately employ intuitive thinking, which could be the psychological mechanism that.

(4) Positive psychotic symptomatology, affective mood states and substance use (addiction risks) were not affected by fake news. In the field of psychosis, it should be analyzed whether fake news influences negative psychotic symptomatology.

The uptake of mis- and disinformation is intertwined with the way our minds work. The large body of research on the psychological aspects of information manipulation explains why.

In an article for Nature Review Psychology, Ullrich K. H. Ecker et al looked(opens in a new tab) at the cognitive, social, and affective factors that lead people to form or even endorse misinformed views. Ironically enough, false beliefs generally arise through the same mechanisms that establish accurate beliefs. It is a mix of cognitive drivers like intuitive thinking and socio-affective drivers. When deciding what is true, people are often biased to believe in the validity of information and to trust their intuition instead of deliberating. Also, repetition increases belief in both misleading information and facts.

Ecker, U.K.H., Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J. et al. (2022). The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction.

Going a step further, Álex Escolà-Gascón et al investigated the psychopathological profiles that characterise people prone to consuming misleading information. After running a number of tests on more than 1,400 volunteers, they concluded that people with high scores in schizotypy (a condition not too dissimilar from schizophrenia), paranoia, and histrionism (more commonly known as dramatic personality disorder) are more vulnerable to the negative effects of misleading information. People who do not detect misleading information also tend to be more anxious, suggestible, and vulnerable to strong emotions.

John B. Kelly highlighted this disparity in a memorable passage published in 1973:

Distance, the filtering of news through so many intermediate channels, and the habitual tendency to discuss and interpret Middle Eastern politics in the political terminology of the West, have all contrived to impart a certain blandness to the reporting and analysis of Middle Eastern affairs in Western countries. ... To read, for instance, the extracts from the Cairo and Baghdad press and radio ... is to open a window upon a strange and desolate landscape, strewn with weird, amorphous shapes cryptically inscribed "imperialist plot," "Zionist crime," "Western exploitation," ... and "the revolution betrayed." Around and among these enigmatic structures, curious figures, like so many mythical beats, caper and cavort - "enemies," "traitors," "stooges," "hyenas," "puppets," "lackeys," "feudalists," "gangsters," "tyrants," "criminals," "oppressors," "plotters" and deviationists". ... It is all rather like a monstrous playing board for some grotesque and sinister game, in which the snakes are all hydras, the ladders have no rungs, and the dice are blank.

Not anymore.

Origin and continuation boycott made this unique.