Category: Nominalization

Nominalisations are distortions of our communications.

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Causality

According to Neuro-Linguistic Programming causality is a distortion of our communications.

The error of imaginary causes. To begin with dreams: a cause is slipped after the fact under a particular sensation (for example, the sensation following a faroff cannon shot) — often a whole little novel is fabricated in which the dreamer appears as the protagonist who experiences the stimulus. The sensation endures meanwhile as a kind of resonance: it waits, so to speak, until the causal interpretation permits it to step into the foreground — not as a random occurrence but as a “meaningful event.” The cannon shot appears in a causal mode, in an apparent reversal of time. What is really later (the causal interpretation) is experienced first — often with a hundred details that pass like lightning before the shot is heard. What has happened? The representations which were produced in reaction to certain stimulus have been misinterpreted as its causes. In fact, we do the same thing when awake. Most of our general feelings — every kind of inhibition, pressure, tension, and impulsion in the ebb and flow of our physiology, and particularly in the state of the nervous system — excites our causal instinct: we want to have a reason for feeling this way or that — for feeling bad or good. We are never satisfied merely to state the fact that we feel this way or that: we admit this fact only — become conscious of it only — when we have fabricated some kind of explanation for it. Memory, which swings into action in such cases without our awareness, brings up earlier states of the same kind, together with the causal interpretations associated with them — not their actual causes. Of course, the faith that such representations or accompanying conscious processes are the causes is also brought forth by memory. Thus originates a habitual acceptance of a particular causal interpretation, which, as a matter of fact, inhibits any investigation into the real cause — it even excludes it.

Twilight of the Idols, The Four Great Errors, paragraph 4

Causation

In NLP causation is considered to be a distortion of our communications because there doesn’t exist such a thing as a cause and effect. For that reason within NLP we don’t look for the root cause of the problem as they would in psychology, but rather make sure that we help people overcome the symptoms of their issues. When you get rid of all the symptoms of the problems then there are no hidden or repressed problems anymore. In fact the person is free of problems.

The error of a false causality. Humans have always believed that they knew what a cause was; but how did we get this knowledge — or more precisely, our faith that we had this knowledge? From the realm of the famous “inner facts,” of which not a single one has so far turned out to be true. We believe that we are the cause of our own will: we think that here at least we can see a cause at work. Nor did we doubt that all the antecedents of our will, its causes, were to be found in our own consciousness or in our personal “motives.” Otherwise, we would not be responsible for what we choose to do. Who would deny that his thoughts have a cause, and that his own mind caused the thoughts? Of these “inward facts” that seem to demonstrate causality, the primary and most persuasive one is that of the will as cause. The idea of consciousness (“spirit”) or, later, that of the ego (the “subject”) as a cause are only afterbirths: first the causality of the will was firmly accepted as proved, as a fact, and these other concepts followed from it. But we have reservations about these concepts. Today we no longer believe any of this is true. The “inner world” is full of phantoms and illusions: the will being one of them. The will no longer moves anything, hence it does not explain anything — it merely accompanies events; it can also be completely absent. The socalled motives: another error. Merely a surface phenomenon of consciousness, something shadowing the deed that is more likely to hide the causes of our actions than to reveal them. And as for the ego … that has become a fable, a fiction, a play on words! It has altogether ceased to think, feel, or will! What follows from this? There are no mental causes at all. The whole of the allegedly empirical evidence for mental causes has gone out the window. That is what follows! And what a nice delusion we had perpetrated with this “empirical evidence;” we interpreted the real world as a world of causes, a world of wills, a world of spirits. The most ancient and enduring psychology was at work here: it simply interpreted everything that happened in the world as an act, as the effect of a will; the world was inhabited with a multiplicity of wills; an agent (a “subject”) was slipped under the surface of events. It was out of himself that man projected his three most unquestioned “inner facts” — the will, the spirit, the ego. He even took the concept of being from the concept of the ego; he interpreted “things” as “being” in accordance with his concept of the ego as a cause. Small wonder that later he always found in things what he had already put into them. The thing itself, the concept of thing is a mere extension of the faith in the ego as cause. And even your atom, my dear materialists and physicists — how much error, how much rudimentary psychology still resides in your atom! Not to mention the “thing-in-itself,” the horrendum pudendum of metaphysicians! The “spirit as cause” mistaken for reality! And made the very measure of reality! And called God!

Twilight of the Idols, The Four Great Errors, paragraph 3

Cause

Cause and effect statements are a distortion of our communications according to NLP. In fact there are no cause and effects. Hence claiming that there are causes distorts our communications. So if you want to use your communication for clarification and thus follow the guidelines of the metamodel you need to refrain from the use of cause and effect statements. On the other if you want to use the reversed metamodel as part of the Miltonmodel to influence people than the use of cause and effect is highly recommended. Nevertheless, NLP is only applied correctly when you are able to use cause and effect statements without believing in their truth or existence.

The cause of itself is the best self-contradiction that has ever been conceived, a type of logical rape and abomination. But humanity’s excessive pride has got itself profoundly and horribly entangled with precisely this piece of nonsense. The longing for “freedom of the will” in the superlative metaphysical sense (which, unfortunately, still rules in the heads of the half educated), the longing to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for your actions yourself and to relieve God, world, ancestors, chance, and society of the burden – all this means nothing less than being that very cause of itself and, with a courage greater than Munchhausen’s, pulling yourself by the hair from the swamp of nothingness up into existence. Suppose someone sees through the boorish naivete of this famous concept of “free will” and manages to get it out of his mind; I would then ask him to carry his “enlightenment” a step further and to rid his mind of the reversal of this misconceived concept of “free will”: I mean the “un-free will,” which is basically an abuse of cause and effect. We should not erroneously objectify “cause” and “effect” like the natural scientists do (and whoever else thinks naturalistically these days –) in accordance with the dominant mechanistic stupidity which would have the cause push and shove until it “effects” something; we should use “cause” and “effect” only as pure concepts, which is to say as conventional fictions for the purpose of description and communication, not explanation. In the “in-itself ” there is nothing like “causal association,” “necessity,” or “psychological un-freedom.” There, the “effect” does not follow “from the cause,” there is no rule of “law.” We are the ones who invented causation, succession, for-each-other, relativity, compulsion, numbers, law, freedom, grounds, purpose; and if we project and inscribe this symbol world onto things as an “in-itself,” then this is the way we have always done things, namely mythologically. The “un-free will” is mythology; in real life it is only a matter of strong and weak wills. It is almost always a symptom of what is lacking in a thinker when he senses some compulsion, need, having-to-follow, pressure, unfreedom in every “causal connection” and “psychological necessity.” It is very telling to feel this way – the person tells on himself. And in general, if I have observed correctly, “un-freedom of the will” is regarded as a problem by two completely opposed parties, but always in a profoundly personal manner. The one party would never dream of relinquishing their “responsibility,” a belief in themselves, a personal right to their own merit (the vain races belong to this group –). Those in the other party, on the contrary, do not want to be responsible for anything or to be guilty of anything; driven by an inner self-contempt, they long to be able to shift the blame for themselves to something else. When they write books these days, this latter group tends to side with the criminal; a type of socialist pity is their most attractive disguise. And, in fact, the fatalism of the weak of will starts to look surprisingly attractive when it can present itself as “la religion de la souffrance humaine”: this is its “good taste.”

Beyond Good & Evil paragraph 23

Conviction

Conviction is a nominalization and as such a distortion of reality according to NLP. Convictions are stronger than believes. Most of our convictions are trival like for instance the conviction that tomorrow the sun will still shine. Relevant convictions are way more uncommon than relevant believes. As there is a difference in meaning between conviction and belief it is important for the NLP practitioner to know whether a certain idea is a conviction or a belief because the submodalities of those two will differ. Confusing the two leads to working with the wrong set of submodalities.

As convictions limit people’s options the correct application of NLP entails breaking down negative convictions to the level of things you believe could happen (or they could not). It is wrong to use NLP to build strong positive convictions and certainty. This not only leads to less options for the person involved but it also leads to arrogance without competence as people use NLP to become convinced that they are able to do so whereas in fact they can’t.

Given that a conviction is a nominalization, I am convinced that there ain’t such a thing as a conviction.

Enemies of truth. – Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Human, All Too Human part 1, paragraph 483

Conviction is the belief that on some particular point of knowledge one is in possession of the unqualified truth. This belief thus presupposes that unqualified truths exist; likewise that perfect methods of attaining to them have been discovered; finally, that everyone who possesses convictions avails himself of these perfect methods. All three assertions demonstrate at once that the man of convictions is not the man of scientific thought; he stands before us in the age of theoretical innocence and is a child, however grown up he may be in other respects. But whole millennia have lived in these childish presuppositions and it is from them that mankind’s mightiest sources of energy have flowed. Those countless numbers who have sacrificed themselves for their convictions thought they were doing so for unqualified truth. In this they were all wrong: probably a man has never yet sacrificed himself for truth; at least the dogmatic expression of his belief will have been unscientific or half-scientific. In reality one wanted to be in the right because one thought one had to be. To allow oneself to be deprived of one’s belief perhaps meant calling one’s eternal salvation into question. In a matter of such extreme importance as this the ‘will’ was only too audibly the prompter of the intellect. The presupposition of every believer of every kind was that he could not be refuted; if the counter-arguments proved very strong it was always left to him to defame reason itself and perhaps even to set up the ‘I believe because it is absurd’ as the banner of the extremest fanaticism. It is not conflict of opinions that has made history so violent but conflict of belief in opinions, that is to say conflict of convictions. But if all those who have thought so highly of their convictions, brought to them sacrifices of every kind, and have not spared honor, body or life in their service, had devoted only half their energy to investigating with what right they adhered to this or that conviction, by what path they had arrived at it, how peaceable a picture the history of mankind would present! How much more knowledge there would be! We should have been spared all the cruel scenes attending the persecution of heretics of every kind, and for two reasons: firstly because the inquisitors would have conducted their inquisition above all within themselves and emerged out of the presumptuousness of being the defenders of unqualified truth; then because the heretics themselves would, after they had investigated them, have ceased to accord any further credence to such ill-founded propositions as the propositions of all religious sectarians and ‘right believers’ are.

Human, All Too Human paragraph 630

To what extent even we are still pious. — It is said with good reason that convictions have no civic rights in the domain of science: it is only when a conviction voluntarily condescends to the modesty of an hypothesis, a preliminary standpoint for experiment, or a regulative fiction, that its access to the realm of knowledge, and a certain value therein, can be conceded, — always, however, with the restriction that it must remain under police supervision, under the police of our distrust. — Regarded more accurately, however, does not this imply that only when a conviction ceases to be a conviction can it obtain admission into science? Does not the discipline of the scientific spirit just commence when one no longer harbors any conviction ? . . . It is probably so: only, it remains to be asked whether, in order that this discipline may commence it is not necessary that there should already be a conviction, and in fact one so imperative and absolute, that it makes a sacrifice of all other convictions. One sees that science also rests on a belief: there is no science at all “without premises”. The question whether truth is necessary, must not merely be affirmed beforehand, but must be affirmed to such an extent that the principle, belief, or conviction finds expression, that “there is nothing more necessary than truth, and in comparison with it everything else has only secondary value” — This absolute will to truth: what is it? Is it the will not to allow ourselves to be deceived? Is it the will not to deceive? For the will to truth could also be interpreted in this fashion, provided one included under the generalization, “I will not deceive” the special case, ” I will not deceive myself” But why not deceive? Why not allow oneself to be deceived? — Let it be noted that the reasons for the former eventuality belong to a category quite different from those for the latter: one does not want to be deceived oneself, under the supposition that it is injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived, — in this sense science would be a prolonged process of caution, foresight and utility; against which, however, one might reasonably make objections. What? Is not-wishing-to-be-deceived really less injurious, less dangerous, less fatal? What do you know of the character of existence in all its phases to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of absolute distrust, or of absolute trustfulness ? In case, however, of both being necessary, much trusting and much distrusting, whence then should science derive the absolute belief, the conviction on which it rests, that truth is more important than anything else, even than every other conviction? This conviction could not have arisen if truth and untruth had both continually proved themselves to be useful : as is the case. Thus — the belief in science, which now undeniably exists, cannot have had its origin in such a utilitarian calculation, but rather in spite of the fact of the inutility and dangerousness of the “Will to truth” of “truth at all costs” being continually demonstrated. “At all costs”: alas, we understand that sufficiently well, after having sacrificed and slaughtered one belief after another at this altar ! Consequently, “Will to truth” does not imply, ” I will not allow myself to be deceived,” but — there is no other alternative — ” I will not deceive, not even myself”: and thus we have reached the realm of morality. For let one just ask oneself fairly: “Why wilt thou not deceive?” especially if it should seem – and it does seem— as if life were laid out with a view to appearance, I mean, with a view to error, deceit, dissimulation, delusion, self-delusion; and when on the other hand it is a matter of fact that the great type of life has always manifested itself on the side of the most unscrupulous devious. Such an intention might perhaps, to express it mildly, be a piece of Quixotism, a little enthusiastic craziness; it might also, however, be something worse, namely, a destructive principle, hostile to life “Will to Truth, that might be a concealed Will to Death.- Thus the question Why is there science? leads back to the moral problem: What in general is the purpose of morality, if life, nature, and history are non-moral? There is no doubt that the conscientious man in the daring and extreme sense in which he is presupposed by the belief in science, affirms thereby a world other than that of life, nature, and history; and in so far as he affirms this “other world” what? must he not just thereby— deny its counterpart, this world, our world? … But what I have in view will now be understood, namely, that it is always a metaphysical belief on which our belief in science rests,— and that even we knowing ones of today, anti-metaphysical, still take our fire from the conflagration kindled by a belief a millennium old, the Christian belief, which was also the belief of Plato, that God is truth, that the truth is divine. But what if this itself always becomes more untrustworthy, what if nothing any longer proves itself divine, except it be error, blindness, and falsehood; — what if God himself turns out to be our most persistent lie? —

Gay Science paragraph 344

 

Conviction is the belief that on some particular point of knowledge one is in possession of the unqualified truth. This belief thus presupposes that unqualified truths exist; likewise that perfect methods of attaining to them have been discovered; finally, that everyone who possesses convictions avails himself of these perfect methods. All three assertions demonstrate at once that the man of convictions is not the man of scientific thought; he stands before us in the age of theoretical innocence and is a child, however grown up he may be in other respects. But whole millennia have lived in these childish presuppositions and it is from them that mankind’s mightiest sources of energy have flowed. Those countless numbers who have sacrificed themselves for their convictions thought they were doing so for unqualified truth. In this they were all wrong: probably a man has never yet sacrificed himself for truth; at least the dogmatic expression of his belief will have been unscientific or half-scientific. In reality one wanted to be in the right because one thought one had to be. To allow oneself to be deprived of one’s belief perhaps meant calling one’s eternal salvation into question. In a matter of such extreme importance as this the ‘will’ was only too audibly the prompter of the intellect. The presupposition of every believer of every kind was that he could not be refuted; if the counter-arguments proved very strong it was always left to him to defame reason itself and perhaps even to set up the ‘I believe it because it is absurd’ as the banner of the extremest fanaticism. It is not conflict of opinions that has made history so violent but conflict of belief in opinions, that is to say conflict of convictions. But if all those who have thought so highly of their convictions, brought to them sacrifices of every kind, and have not spared honor, body or life in their service, had devoted only half their energy to investigating with what right they adhered to this or that conviction, by what path they had arrived at it, how peaceable a picture the history of mankind would present! How much more knowledge there would be! We should have been spared all the cruel scenes attending the persecution of heretics of every kind, and for two reasons: firstly because the inquisitors would have conducted their inquisition above all within themselves and emerged out of the presumptuousness of being the defenders of unqualified truth; then because the heretics themselves would, after they had investigated them, have ceased to accord any further credence to such ill-founded propositions as the propositions of all religious sectarians and ‘right believers’ are.

Human, All Too Human, part 1, paragraph 630