Something seems fishy. There is no way human temperature perception is sensitive to a precision of one degree such as would be necessary to distinguish between 14 and 15 degree ice water and provoke such significant psychological reactions. Physical temperature measurement gets very noisy at that degree of granularity, and even inference from measuring the infrared requires assuming very strictly controlled standard conditions when one is claiming precision in the decimal places. Even good modern digital thermocouples are not all that great and have to be periodically recalibrated, and the really accurate and precise ones cost a fortune.
I agree. The prolonged exposure to cold water is much more likely a factor than the 1 degree celsius difference. And TONS of evidence of people getting endorphine rushes from icebathing.
IF Kahneman is using CELSIUS: (a) 15 degrees isn't QUITE ice water; and (b) a one-degree difference is twice as great in C as in F (STILL rather slight, I'd say).
That's the best I can do. 15 degrees in F is ICE, unless I'm mistaken. BRRRRR!
It was in Celsius, so not 'icy' at all, and not particularly uncomfortable either, not atypical of the cold tap water with which one might wash one's hands. So, in the paper in Psychological Science, in Fahrenheit terms, they are claiming, "... In the long trial, they immersed the other hand at 57.2F for 60 seconds, then kept the hand in the water 30 seconds longer as the temperature of the water was gradually raised to 59. 0F, still painful but distinctly less so for most subjects."
Look, there is no such thing as gradually changing the temperature in a bowl of water with a warm-blooded person's hand in it with this mind of incredible precision and 'gradually' so over the course of only 30 seconds? With 1993 psychology lab tech? Please, come on. And the test subjects somehow - sensitively noticed- this tiny temperature difference, but were genuinely 'blind' weren't told about or didn't realize the sight warming being applied in the last 30 second, and so their responses were not influenced by such knowledge?
This place is called bet on it. Ok, I'm willing to bet right now this claim won't replicate.
I agree. Worse, it ignore the way heat disperses, or doesn't in this case, through water. After a minute there would be an envelope of warmer water around each person's hand raising the effective temperature perceived significantly. You get this same effect in a swimming pool, where if you hold still you feel a bit warmer but when you start moving it cools off; the pool overall is roughly the same temperature but the water right up against you is much warmer if you don't mix it with the rest.
I suspect the result of the hand in water experiment is much more due to the psychologists' lack of understanding of temperature dynamics than it is of the underlying psychological phenomenon.
I grew up in a small farmimg community, and in all likelihood will have my funeral there. (I did build the nice cemetery on the top of the bluffs there after all.)
In our community there is a service for all who want to attend. For instance, my paternal grandmother had her funeral in the local Baptist church. It had room for perhaps 200 parishoners. The pews and aisles and every open space was filled. Another 100+ were outside. It was two days after a huge February ice storm and a half inch of ice was still on every tree branch. When the sun came out it was beautiful. It was a nice service, and people milled around, talking, after.
Then the family and some close friends went to a gathering of those who knew her more intimately. We told stories, and laughed, and cried, and ate, and shared memories. It makes me tear up a bit now to write about it. That's a great way to celebrate a life well-lived.
I hope for something similar (with way fewer people since I haven't actually lived there for 55 years). We turn out, though, for everyone in the community. No one goes to the cemetery to be buried.
That's why funerals should have very few people; close nuclear family and perhaps some true family friends, no one else. Otherwise, you cannot have that experience of bittersweetly discussing memories with honesty, intimacy and without distractions.
Personally, as a Rosicrucian myself, I believe that it takes a few days for the spirit to separate from its body after death, the time span depends on the attachments that the deceased had to the things in his life, but that the family willingly bears the death relatively well is something that helps. Your Kahnemanian theory of funerals makes me think that it is very important to have a good funeral prepared, not only for your family, but for yourself and the kind of impressions that your soul will take away from this life.
The purpose of funerals was actually to make sure that the deceased was really dead; false diagnoses were more common in the past, which is why there are so many old coffins with scratches on the inside. Of course, like everything else, it ended up becoming a social event.
I'm looking forward to more of these broader posts on mortality and memory as you age, Bryan. Obviously, this one is in the wake of your mother's passing. I hope you get out of the experience of her funeral/celebration of life/etc. what you are hoping for.
Having just attended a funeral for a dear friend who died suddenly, I would add that it has changed my own thinking about funerals vs "celebration of life at a later date:" (CoL)As we moved away from funerals, I think I succumbed to the social desirability bias of CoL being better because time to prepare, less stressful etc. But sharing the sharp and vivid memory of a friend I had been talking to only days before, made the funeral so much more meaningful and I'm grateful that she didn't allow time to wear off any of the rough corners of my memories.
"The best-case scenario is that you die peacefully in your sleep surrounded by loved ones. " This line reminds me of the old Tommy Cooper joke:
'When I die, I want to go peacefully like my grandfather did – in his sleep. Not yelling and screaming like the passengers in his car."
Something seems fishy. There is no way human temperature perception is sensitive to a precision of one degree such as would be necessary to distinguish between 14 and 15 degree ice water and provoke such significant psychological reactions. Physical temperature measurement gets very noisy at that degree of granularity, and even inference from measuring the infrared requires assuming very strictly controlled standard conditions when one is claiming precision in the decimal places. Even good modern digital thermocouples are not all that great and have to be periodically recalibrated, and the really accurate and precise ones cost a fortune.
I agree. The prolonged exposure to cold water is much more likely a factor than the 1 degree celsius difference. And TONS of evidence of people getting endorphine rushes from icebathing.
IF Kahneman is using CELSIUS: (a) 15 degrees isn't QUITE ice water; and (b) a one-degree difference is twice as great in C as in F (STILL rather slight, I'd say).
That's the best I can do. 15 degrees in F is ICE, unless I'm mistaken. BRRRRR!
It was in Celsius, so not 'icy' at all, and not particularly uncomfortable either, not atypical of the cold tap water with which one might wash one's hands. So, in the paper in Psychological Science, in Fahrenheit terms, they are claiming, "... In the long trial, they immersed the other hand at 57.2F for 60 seconds, then kept the hand in the water 30 seconds longer as the temperature of the water was gradually raised to 59. 0F, still painful but distinctly less so for most subjects."
Look, there is no such thing as gradually changing the temperature in a bowl of water with a warm-blooded person's hand in it with this mind of incredible precision and 'gradually' so over the course of only 30 seconds? With 1993 psychology lab tech? Please, come on. And the test subjects somehow - sensitively noticed- this tiny temperature difference, but were genuinely 'blind' weren't told about or didn't realize the sight warming being applied in the last 30 second, and so their responses were not influenced by such knowledge?
This place is called bet on it. Ok, I'm willing to bet right now this claim won't replicate.
I agree. Worse, it ignore the way heat disperses, or doesn't in this case, through water. After a minute there would be an envelope of warmer water around each person's hand raising the effective temperature perceived significantly. You get this same effect in a swimming pool, where if you hold still you feel a bit warmer but when you start moving it cools off; the pool overall is roughly the same temperature but the water right up against you is much warmer if you don't mix it with the rest.
I suspect the result of the hand in water experiment is much more due to the psychologists' lack of understanding of temperature dynamics than it is of the underlying psychological phenomenon.
I grew up in a small farmimg community, and in all likelihood will have my funeral there. (I did build the nice cemetery on the top of the bluffs there after all.)
In our community there is a service for all who want to attend. For instance, my paternal grandmother had her funeral in the local Baptist church. It had room for perhaps 200 parishoners. The pews and aisles and every open space was filled. Another 100+ were outside. It was two days after a huge February ice storm and a half inch of ice was still on every tree branch. When the sun came out it was beautiful. It was a nice service, and people milled around, talking, after.
Then the family and some close friends went to a gathering of those who knew her more intimately. We told stories, and laughed, and cried, and ate, and shared memories. It makes me tear up a bit now to write about it. That's a great way to celebrate a life well-lived.
I hope for something similar (with way fewer people since I haven't actually lived there for 55 years). We turn out, though, for everyone in the community. No one goes to the cemetery to be buried.
That's why funerals should have very few people; close nuclear family and perhaps some true family friends, no one else. Otherwise, you cannot have that experience of bittersweetly discussing memories with honesty, intimacy and without distractions.
Personally, as a Rosicrucian myself, I believe that it takes a few days for the spirit to separate from its body after death, the time span depends on the attachments that the deceased had to the things in his life, but that the family willingly bears the death relatively well is something that helps. Your Kahnemanian theory of funerals makes me think that it is very important to have a good funeral prepared, not only for your family, but for yourself and the kind of impressions that your soul will take away from this life.
I wanna experience my funeral. Let's have all my friends and relatives come and sing my praises while I can still enjoy it.
You get to enjoy the anticipation of that. Don't get greedy.
I think funerals big point is that it lets everyone gather and process part pf the sadness and grief together.
Being too positive might end up making it hard to actually face and endure the sorrow of someones passing
The purpose of funerals was actually to make sure that the deceased was really dead; false diagnoses were more common in the past, which is why there are so many old coffins with scratches on the inside. Of course, like everything else, it ended up becoming a social event.
That was the wake.
I'm looking forward to more of these broader posts on mortality and memory as you age, Bryan. Obviously, this one is in the wake of your mother's passing. I hope you get out of the experience of her funeral/celebration of life/etc. what you are hoping for.
Did his mother die recently? Kahneman died in March so this repost must be quite old.
Yeah this was a banger. It's ones like this that keep me from unsubscribing after the fifth or sixth encomium on open borders.
Having just attended a funeral for a dear friend who died suddenly, I would add that it has changed my own thinking about funerals vs "celebration of life at a later date:" (CoL)As we moved away from funerals, I think I succumbed to the social desirability bias of CoL being better because time to prepare, less stressful etc. But sharing the sharp and vivid memory of a friend I had been talking to only days before, made the funeral so much more meaningful and I'm grateful that she didn't allow time to wear off any of the rough corners of my memories.
Funeral business is of course invested in guilt tripping us into choosing expensive packages.