The Most Interesting Blog Comment I've Ever Read

The "he couldn't reverse a breakdown except by reimposing stress" part is particularly disturbing :-)

Fascinating info...

PTSD. The hardwired parts of the brain get rewired. Makes sense that the rewiring can only be done by reapplying stress.

Isn't this the whole purpose of Marine Corps boot camp?

A perfect illustration of Schopenhauer's dictum, that if animals had a religion, the earth would be its hell and mankind the devil.

Poor dogs

Anybody who watched The Office last night got to see Jim program Dwight to reach for an altoid upon hearing a particular computer sound. Pretty good stuff; great show.

From the Psychology of Brainwashing (Time Magazine, 1957):

In later work, which got little attention in the West, Pavlov sought to prove that dogs are of four temperamental types, "strong excitatory," "lively," "calm imperturbable, or phlegmatic," and "weak inhibitory." Further, he developed an elaborate theory of both positive and negative conditioned responses, which appear in varying patterns when a dog is subjected to unendurable stress ("trans-marginally stimulated"). A dog usually breaks down if the stress signal, e.g., an electric shock, is merely increased in intensity, also if an unwonted time lag is left between the signal and the food that follows, or if signals are simply mixed. A fourth way, and to Dr. Sargant the most important for human analogy, is to wear a dog down by subjecting it to excessive work (on a treadmill), upsetting its stomach with irregular feedings or bad food, or inducing a fever. Even if the first three fail to break down a "calm imperturbable" dog, the fourth will work, according to Pavlov.

I'm hungry. Let's get a taco.