Millers Law

[skip]

There is a principle in psychology, called "Miller's Law" and it is a statement made by psychologist George Miller.

"In order to understand what another person is saying, you must
assume that it is true, and try to imagine what it could be true of."

This is repeated in the NLP concept of 'entering into someone elses model of the world' and operating from within it, to effect change.

Most people, apply Miller's Law in reverse.

They assume, that what the other person is saying couldn't possibly
be true, and then they try to imagine what's wrong with the person, that might explain why anything so ridiculous, is being said.

If you look thru this forum, or any other, you will find example after example of Millers law applied in reverse.

Occasionally you see it applied properly, and when you do, it seems 'brilliant'.

Given the potential results of applying it correctly, why do you suppose so many people choose the less desiarable results, over the more desirable one?

skip

[Don]

Because I'm right and you're wrong, of course.
:-)

[EC]

>>Occasionally you see it applied properly, and when you do, it seems 'brilliant' <<

Yep it is, but then again, how often are we accused of doing anything brilliant ?

Likely Don "hit the nail on the head", and summed up our natural attitude!

EC

[Terry (existing)]

OK Skip, I have watched you and others on this board, apply the law as it should be applied, and have remarked on the respect I have for those who do this. However, let me play devils advocate if you will....You read a post and reply with kindness. I on the other hand, read that same post, and read into it that it is written with little thought, and no attempt to find the answer before rushing to print with an ill formed question.....Now to me, that is an insult, but to whom should the insult be applied? We can apply it to us who are being considered as unworthy of a decent, well thought out question, or we can apply it to the poster, whom we credit with the brains to do better, but the laziness not to.....I rest my case, since I percieve that we both entered into the mind of the poster, and both got a different perspective.....

[Don]

Terry, I have a great deal of resepect for your training, knowledge, and experience. Some people come here looking for a quick answer to a question without doing any research. They see that this is a hypnosis web site and expect somebody who has spent years of study, practice, and dedication to provide every answer and train them in 30 words or less. Indeed, if they had spent just a few minutes doing a google or other search engine search they would have found that their questions indicate that they don't know what hypnosis/hypnotherapy is and that their questions were overly simplistic.

Respectfully, though, I would like to point out that some people don't come here first. Rather, they've racked their brains to come up with answers or solutions to problems and have come here last, willing to try something that they and others may think is "weird" because there doesn't seem to be hope in any other way. Yes, they would have certainly found out information if they had not become so tunnel-visioned due to their past thinking and the problems they have faced. I would suggest that their inability to think things through, to say to themselves, "I could do a little work and find the answers," to even consider what the right questions might be, is a manifestation of the problems they're facing and their lack of adequate training in how to deal with those issues.

So I would respectfully submit this question to you: How do we tell the two apart? I don't know. Sometimes I have been too harsh with people whom I suspect of being lazy or thoughtless. I might be right--but I might have been wrong. Although I'm certainly not perfect at it, I try to assume that the person asking a question is at the end of their rope.

Just today, somebody asked, yet again, where they could find out about getting help locally. I gave links to the ABH and the NGH. I could have said, "Dude, have you ever heard of the Yellow Pages? Or do a web search?" But instead, I just gave the information requested.

IMO, hypnotherapy begins, really, when a person starts to think about going to a hypnotist. If I had answered in a rude or snide way, I might be giving a negative impact to any help he was seeking. Perhaps he'd spend years in pain because of what I had written.

So is the question from someone who is lazy and deserves nothing more than a swift kick in the butt, or from a person who doesn't know better or is so lost that this is their last hope? I don't know.

From your post to which this is a response I understand where you're coming from. If you note, none of the moderators has regularly deleted your posts for telling a person to not be so lazy in a harsh manner. I see no reason to do so.

I would just ask you, and everyone who posts here (excluding, of course, the spammers and salespeople trying to hawk their wares) to consider one thing: if we are a person's last hope--and that's not something they're going to say--is your post helping or harming? A good way to answer this is to ask yourself a question: If the question being asked was my question and this was my last hope, if I read that answer, how would I feel? And then either post your answer as is or change it as you see fit.

[parsa]

Isn't truth something totally abstract? I don't know how to exactly explain what I mean. It is the reaction that we show to what we call as truth that makes want or not want to accept other people's truth.

It seems that we establish a truth for example 'A', then we say that B, C and so on should 'rule'(by rule, I mean any outside implication that the truth might have)and the chain goes on to make other attachments to B and C and.... Now if I come and say 'A' is not true the people that believe it, see B, C,... in danger.

Why do I say 'A' is not true? Most probably because B, C,... is some how not in my interest or could even be hurting me. Can I make B,C... go away without attacking 'A'? Certainaly it is possible, but can 'I' do it?
Well I guess if I'm not doing it, it's most probably because I don't know how to. Now I have been 'taught' that attacking 'A' sometimes gets me where I want, or partly where I want, I might be able to get rid of B, C,...

It seems to me that what you are talking about is a very fundamental issue that needs to be taught, unless you are lucky enough to have had an environment one way or the other that has taught you this.

[skip]

Terry,

You said, "However, let me play devils advocate if you will....You read a post and reply with kindness. I on the other hand, read that same post, and read into it, that it is written with little thought, and no attempt to find the answer before rushing to print with an ill formed question..."

I dont think there is any mandate that says if you use Millers law well, that you will have to agree with the person, or be 'nice' in your reply. I will agree that it means you might be more understanding as a result, but when you conclude, using Millers law, that in order to be true, cows have to be able to fly; well you do you really have to make nice, in your response.

I can listen to someone who claims that appeasement is the best way to deal with bullies, and apply Millers law in my immediate response and still conclude that it is a foolish policy, and for anyone to advocate it, means they have to live in an unrealistic universe. Mainly because I had to create an unrealistic universe in order to find a world where that policy holds true.

Now the end result of that would seem to be just as Don described it, "They are wrong because I am right." but it isnt necessarily so.

To me the difference is do people look at the statement and ask, "If this were true, how would things have to be?", or do they look at the statement and ask, "Am I able to do this, does this conflict with my beliefs?", and respond based on their own limitations.

I dont get the sense that you respond based on your limitations, even as you hold someones feet over the coals of their own limitations.

Someone once said to Harry Truman, "Give 'em hell Harry." To which Harry replied, "I dont give anyone hell, I just read them the record and they think it is hell."

cheers,

skip

[Soren K (existing)]

Isn't truth something totally abstract? I don't know how to exactly explain what I mean. It is the reaction that we show to what we call as truth that makes want or not want to accept other people's truth.


Seems to me, the matter is simply to place attention on what a persons asserts, consider the assertion, and figure what follows (what would have to be the case) from that. '.It is true that..' adds very little (perhaps some emphasis) to 'Parsa is right'. What is the reaction, where is the deliberation, consideration? Where you see disharmony, threat, or harbour resentment, when would you then bother to consider the assertion? We've no rapport, I'm not going to consider a word you say... We live in different worlds, I can't be bothered with you. How do we establish some conditions to benefit one from the other (win, win)..? We are worlds apart, what is there to communicate? Why communicate anyway? What does the want-want want?

(at the risk of accusation)... forget about these things (they are not that important - merely the ramblings of a distant echo).

:)

[MrDigital]

Given the potential results of applying it correctly, why do you suppose so many people choose the less desiarable results, over the more desirable one?

Fear - Could be attributed to a person who likes shaking up other peoples models and when it comes to their own, the old fovial vision rears its beautiful head. An individual could tend to shrink back into their own map and lose their resources (without even knowing). None the wiser they come back time and time again automatically dissecting others thoughts & opinions whilst their lack of empathy being projected back is missed.

I was reading something in Grinders book 'Whispering in the wind' that I associated to this thread cant think of it right now but one paragraph i recal, especially now the book is in front of me :rolleyes:...
Conflicts of representation are painful for a variety of reasons. On a very practical level, it is painful to have a model of reality that conflicts with those of the people around you. But why should this conflict worry people, if a model is only a model, a best guess at reality that each of us makes? Because nobody thinks of it in that way. If the model is the only reality you can know, then that model is reality, and if there is only one reality, then the possessor of a different model must be wrong.
Derek Bickerton, Language and species, 1990, page 249

Model mindfullness

MrD

[Poodle]

Would you please look for what Grinder wrote. Thanks and nice to have you back AGAIN! Pood

[MrDigital]

Thanks poodle and I did look at what Grinder wrote. However for the purpose of this thread I left the loop open..

Mr D

[Terry]

The first part of Miller's Law demands that one accepts what is said as "truth" in so far as the beliefs of the poster goes.
What is not said, and seems to be overlooked by others, is that "truth" must be based on something before it can have any value. Truth is a belief to be asessed against known facts, and to be accepted as truth should be measured against some yardstick of strongly held beliefs.
Only when some understanding of "truth" is used can we truly place any value on the law as quoted..
I find no such values in posts I reject as "fluff", questions asked without any real enthusiasm for facts, and time wasting for the skilled who have done the work to reach an acceptable level of truth. I have great difficulty in being kind to those who so undervalue themselves that they see no value in investigating beliefs in depth, by reading what has been said in previous posts, and making judgements on what seems to them to be correct.
Every person with few exceptions, is born with wonderfull abilities to be expanded on, and used by them to enjoy a happy life. Those who fail to use what they have been given lose it. Now I find that sad, so I kick ass and say so. Those who choose to take umbridge are fully entitled to do so, it is after all their life we are talking about not mine. Those who listen, and a surprising number do it seems from the private emails I get, gain an advantage they would never have had if I had not done what I felt was nescessary to shake up their thinking processes...
My life, and the miracles I see daily, will go on regardless of the impression I make on others, but I do in concience consider it my duty to attempt to get others with whom I share this world, to place a value in themselves, and what they have been given as a free gift.

[Jack]

Miller's Law is not quite complete.

In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true, and try to imagine what it could be true of. (I would add) If you cannot imagine anything that it could be true of then either you are not trying enough, or the assumption you made that what the other person is saying is true, is not.

Ultimately Miller's Law is a way to get to the corroboration of your own opinion because you have the choice of whether to imagine that you are not trying hard enough, or that what the other person is saying is not true.

As human beings devoid of logic, filled with emotional response and impatient for a conclusion (not an outcome), guess which one we choose.

They assume, that what the other person is saying couldn't possibly be true, and then they try to imagine what's wrong with the person, that might explain why anything so ridiculous, is being said.

That is the problem with assumptions, rather than logical examination of what has been said followed by the reaching of a conclusion based on that logic.

Jack

[a5h1ey]

But I'd just like to tell you why I came in here and asked my question the way I did... I HADN'T done much searching and I didn't know much about hypnosis and how much time you all have spent studying and practicing. The most I had ever seen was Deren Brown on TV and that's what got me interested. I didn't even know hypnotherapy existed.. I didn't know it was a very personal thing... I thought it was a trick. But honestly, maybe I'm sheltered, but I had never been exposed to anything like this before.... I'm sorry if I sound ignorant... but I am... How could I have known to do more research before coming into this forum and posting questions... I didn't know it was your profession, I didn't even know it WAS a profession... I thought it was just a forum to ask questions to see if anyone else might have the answer...
I'd like to suggest maybe for this forum you could have a "Please Read First" thread on the main page for people who stumble across this place to explain a little about what this forum is about and maybe to suggest reading through other posts first... so that us "noobs" won't embarrass ourselves or insult those of you who are professionals.
*shrugs* I found the forum through a google search... that's why I came here...

[Soren K (existing)]

so that us "noobs" won't embarrass ourselves or insult those of you who are professionals. Don't degrade yourself by calling yourself a noob. A beginner's mind is a fine fine thing.

Becasue something is taken as an insult, doesn't mean it is.

I have to say, it seems a terrible shame if someone who comes here with a genuine interest which could flourish gets his/her interest dampened by a few harsh words. A beginner's enthusiasm should never be abandoned or discouraged. Okay, so you set off on your journey only to find you've run out of petrol, how annoying? Unless you are miles out in the country, and without any cash, you shouldn't have any trouble filling the tank.

How different is the atmosphere in the club this year from that year, depending who's there, depending what mood they're in... In comes a guest who happens to be passing after seeing something that attracts her interest, enters... How should/would the guest behave? How would/should the members treat the guest. Easy to forget the person/s when not stood there in front. Is something to be welcomed? Something beneficial? Sometimes, perhaps... makes me wonder.

Soren

[Terry]

Ashley, confession, or so they say, is good for the soul. Nothing is said about eyesight, but fact is, the posting "Read This First" does indeed appear at the beginning, either you failed to see it, or it made no impression on you, since you were anxious to get answers.
Now that you know, no need for apologies, just read it and become a valued member instead of a noob as you call it. You were given exactly what others were given, it is powerful, it is wonderful, but only if you use it. I strongly suggest you read up on any material that applies to the mind, and use your own evaluating abilities before asking questions. That way you use it, and don;t lose it. The same applies to all of us, you are no different, yet at the same time, you are indeed unique in so many ways..

[Don]

Hi, a5h1ey.

Actually, what Brown does IS a trick. Or more accurately, many tricks. He is a magician and magic supply shops offer books by him where he reveals some of his secrets for sale.

However real hypnotherapy is no trick! It is recognized by the American Medical Association and British Medical Association as being a valuable healing modality.

Many people are led to discover hypnosis and hypnotherapy after seeing a good performer such as Brown. In fact, many hypnotherapists also present shows that are a combination of certain types of hypnosis and/or tricks. So you are not alone.

The big question, in my mind, is not what you've done, but what you're going to do. You may be interested and want to expand your knowledge and even learn about the practices. Or you may want to simply put the knowledge that there is far more to hypnosis and hypnotherapy than Brown presents for use in the future.

Hypnotherapy--real hypnotherapy--has been used for such a wide variety of purposes from helping people with allergies to helping them overcome Xenophobia.

Where are you going to go?

[Connie]

Ashley, I thought your questions were fine! No need for any apology or embarrassment, if there was any. I never got a whiff of any insult, either. Now that you're here and you've found us, stick around and share your thoughts and experience. x o

--Connie

[Poodle]

about you but I was always interested in "different" things. When I was about 10 years old or so I read all the books by Edgar Cayce and I loved the one on Bridy Murphy. I had NEVER seen a hypnotist in my life but the subject fascinated me.

I would not be surprised at all that your local library may have some good books for you to read. Actually, Dr. Matt could probably about put this Forum into a book as there is sooo much information in the back pages. Read. Enjoy!....and feel free to post.

Everyone is a noob about certain things at certain points in their life. The idea is to not stay one so you have landed in the right place after all.

Pood :)

[signeos]

*wink* to SKiP

man what you said i began to try to say months ago. Love you man, tried to say it better than that, but realized you said it better. Coming from a admin, a man of power your words carry more weight, thank you and hope this forum turns into a great and even better resource for those interested in the power of the mind. My dream is for one day having this forum be the number one resource on technical and simple questions alike, having to deal with the mind.
If the people of this forum may get past themselves, take a step out of their world, and realize the power of entering another then we would be on a great path to a even greater future.

[Jack]

a5h1ey, don't beat yourself up, you will get as many responses as there are pebbles on the beach from individuals. Some are useful, some are not but since you are an individual too you have the choice of which to listen to. Keep posting!

Jack

[a5h1ey]

the posting "Read This First" does indeed appear at the beginning, either you failed to see it, or it made no impression on you, since you were anxious to get answers.

the read this first part was NOT there before the post I left... whoever added it can tell you that...

[a5h1ey]

Where are you going to go?
I'm trying to save up my money right now and trying to convince my husband to let me go to see a hypnotherapist :) I'm very excited about it..

[a5h1ey]

Ashley, I thought your questions were fine! No need for any apology or embarrassment, if there was any. I never got a whiff of any insult, either. Now that you're here and you've found us, stick around and share your thoughts and experience. x o

--Connie

Thank you :)

[Don]

Most people are content to stay where they are, including in a state of discontent or unhappiness. It take a great deal of courage not merely to want to change, but actually take action that will lead to change. You deserve compliments!

Good luck on whatever you do and let us know just how great your experience is!

[Poodle]

You can and will do it. Virginia Satir, who was a very famous family therapist with amazing results, said that the strongest drive in a human being is not survival -- it's the avoidance of the new and unfamiliar. You have already taken the first step into unfamiliar territory so good for you! That first step was the most difficult so now it's a cakewalk for you. Enjoy, thoroughly enjoy your trance experience. Come back and tell us how much your really enjoyed it and how it has helped your life. We love success stories even when they are not our own. :) Pood

[signeos]

Terry,


I dont think there is any mandate that says if you use Millers law well, that you will have to agree with the person, or be 'nice' in your reply. I will agree that it means you might be more understanding as a result, but when you conclude, using Millers law, that in order to be true, cows have to be able to fly; well you do you really have to make nice, in your response.

I can listen to someone who claims that appeasement is the best way to deal with bullies, and apply Millers law in my immediate response and still conclude that it is a foolish policy, and for anyone to advocate it, means they have to live in an unrealistic universe. Mainly because I had to create an unrealistic universe in order to find a world where that policy holds true.

skip



hahahaha, whats funny is i do use this Miller's law everytime i meet someone, this guy off the street walked up to him and applied miller's law, i found out he's a mugger and robs people off the street, takes there **** and runs away.

He didn't mug me though, we become friends, lol. But back in the day i can remember using this in school. Even used it on the bullies, i become the kid that no one had a problem with, highschool politics, if you believe in all the stereotypical politics of the jocks, nerds, anime kids, cheerleaders, etc.

none had a problem with, i was in a whole nother level, there would be fights between cliques, i stood in a corner an watched, they both were my friends, although both cliques always fought, i remained friends with both of them.


it works, if your good.