The Intuitive, the Counter-Intuitive and Cognitive Dissonance

[Victor]

The intuitive response to cognitive dissonance makes perfect sense - because they intuitively avoid pain and seek comfort.

While the counter-intuitive response to cognitive dissonance is, well, counter-intuitive - it doesn't make intuitive sense.

The counter-intuitive, rather than seeking to avoid pain and find comfort, seek to discover the new.

So for the counter-intuitive pain and comfort are secondary to discovery.

The infancy of humanity was spoken and intuitive which gave birth to religion which is entirely intuitive.

But literacy gave birth to the counter-intuitive - almost no one learns to read and write intuitively - they are compelled by law to go to special institutions called schools which specially trained staff, called teachers, to learn to read and write. And it is in becoming literate that they learn to think counter-intuitively.

More books, for instance, are translated in to Spanish in one year than have been translated into Arabic over the last five hundred years. This illustrates the intuitive nature of Islam is based on the spoken, not the written word.

And of course other religions are intuitive as well - just as astrology is intuitive - creationism is intuitive - even alchemy is intuitive - and MBTI is intuitive. All are pre-literate.

So it is unnatural to leave the intuitive world for literacy, but the prize is new discoveries.

And it turns out new discoveries far outweigh the pain of cognitive dissonance.

[entropie]

What should we do then ? Die ?


(Btw. you did not relate creationism to religion, did you ?)

[heart]

Religion may be intuitive and precognitive but we can learn about our inner-selves from the symbolism in it. Everything in this world has value if looked at with the proper perspective.

[Victor]

What should we do then ? Die ?


(Btw. you did not relate creationism to religion, did you ?)

No, dear Entropie, you should take the hint.

You should acknowledge we have moved from a spoken culture to a literate cuture, and take the hint.

But what is the hint?

It's really simple - we are now moving from our literate culture to a new spoken culture via electronics - the telegraph, the telephone, the television and the internet.

Take the hint - and move your eyes from the rear vision mirror to the windscreen - it's right in front of you - now.

[Ilah]

Spirituality is intuitive.

Religion is not. Religion is about knowing doctrine. You have to study it to know the "right" details. Priests and Rabbis have to go through many years of study and book learning before they are officially ordained. Many protestant preachers have the same requirements.

And most churches encourage children to go to Sunday School as well, to learn their faith. But if that is intuitive, that shouldn't be necessary, they should just know it. Or perhaps only intuitives know these things and S types need to study it. Actually intuitives tend to get their own ideas about faith, so I guess there is a point in making sure they know the "official" truth.

Ilah

[Jennifer]

Spirituality is intuitive.

Religion is not. Religion is about knowing doctrine. You have to study it to know the "right" details. Priests and Rabbis have to go through many years of study and book learning before they are officially ordained. Many protestant preachers have the same requirements.

And most churches encourage children to go to Sunday School as well, to learn their faith. But if that is intuitive, that shouldn't be necessary, they should just know it. Or perhaps only intuitives know these things and S types need to study it. Actually intuitives tend to get their own ideas about faith, so I guess there is a point in making sure they know the "official" truth.

This is more my framework and I easily follow this explanation. It sounds like Victor is using different definitions for "intuitive," however, which makes for some confusion. Can you explain your framework a bit better, Victor?

[substitute]

I'm sorry but I totally disagree... "no pain, no gain" has always been a completely intuitive concept to me...

[Jennifer]

I'm sorry but I totally disagree... "no pain, no gain" has always been a completely intuitive concept to me...

Surely you want to edit that.

[substitute]

...and the ration of Spanish to Arabic book translations illustrates more the number of native speakers and the awareness/openness of those speakers to foreign culture, literature etc, and their demand for it. And Islam is very much based on the written word. Between the Qur'an and Sahih Al-Bukhari's Hadith, together with a myriad du'aa for every occasion there's a written rule for just about every aspect of a Muslim's life.

In pre-Islamic culture however, there was a marked difference in perception of reality from that of the Roman empire. Our English word 'reality' stems from the Latin word 'res' meaning 'thing'. Denoting that in the inherited Classical way of thinking of the West, reality is all about 'things'. Tangible things. In Arabic the word is 'al-haqq', which as an entirely different root, meaning the opposite: reality is all about what's between, behind and beneath 'things'; it's about what causes, binds and moves 'things'.

Which is interesting...

[Edahn]

Moved from Philosophy.

[Victor]

This is more my framework and I easily follow this explanation. It sounds like Victor is using different definitions for "intuitive," however, which makes for some confusion. Can you explain your framework a bit better, Victor?

Yeah sure. I am using intuitive and counter-intuitive in a completely different setting.

My setting begins at your mother's knee in the warmth of your own home where you learn to speak the language of your mother.

And it ends when you are taken out of the loving arms of your mother and compelled by the State to attend a special institution with specially trained staff, in order to learn to read and write.

And this free, secular and compulsory education in literacy has only been available very recently in a few developed countries.

In historical terms, universal literacy has just arrived and only in a few privileged countries - most of the people in the world remain in a spoken culture - they are illiterate.

So at the first part of my setting, we learn to speak our language in our home. We learn naturally - we learn intuitively - we learn a spoken culture - and we learn the habits of thought of a spoken culture - and it is these habits of thought I call intuitive.

My intuitive has nothing to do with intuitive in MBTI.

And here comes school - it is compulsory - there is nothing natural about it - almost no one learns to read and write spontaneously.

Literacy is counter-intuitive. And the literate learn counter-intuitive habits of thought.

These counter-intuitive habits of thought have been overwhelmingly successful.

For instance, we intuitively know that the sun goes round the earth but we know counter-intuitively that the earth goes round the sun. And almost all of science is counter-intuitive.

We know that greed and usury are bad but we know counter-intuitively that private greed produces public prosperity - thanks to the great economist Adam Smith.

All politicians seek to intuitively increase their power while liberal democracy is counter-intuitively based on the limitation of power.

Intuitively we know to avoid cognitive dissonance because it is painful but we know counter-intuitively that cognitive dissonance leads us to discover new things.

In short the spoken culture comes from our own infancy and the infancy of humanity. While the literate culture is coming into our majority.

But our spoken culture has given us a great deal such as poetry and religion but it is the literate culture that has given us the modern world.

But once again we are moving on from the literate culture to the electronic culture. And the electronic culture is very much like the old spoken culture. In other words the new electronic culture is once again teaching us intuitive habits of thought.

[substitute]

yeah but considering that you're learning that 'spoken' culture FROM your parents, who have been very heavily influenced by the 'written' culture, is it really not just a spoken form of the written culture that you're taught on your mother's knee?

[Victor]

yeah but considering that you're learning that 'spoken' culture FROM your parents, who have been very heavily influenced by the 'written' culture, is it really not just a spoken form of the written culture that you're taught on your mother's knee?

It is how you learn it that matters. All children are programmed to intuitively learn a language, they learn it intuitively, quite naturally.

But they do not learn to read and write naturally, intuitively.

I feel the objection you have raised above is clever but it is only semantically clever.

It is as though you haven't understood what I have said but you feel driven to make a clever reply.

I find such cleverness at first irritating but after a while, tiresome.

[Victor]

...and the ration of Spanish to Arabic book translations illustrates more the number of native speakers and the awareness/openness of those speakers to foreign culture, literature etc, and their demand for it. And Islam is very much based on the written word. Between the Qur'an and Sahih Al-Bukhari's Hadith, together with a myriad du'aa for every occasion there's a written rule for just about every aspect of a Muslim's life.

In pre-Islamic culture however, there was a marked difference in perception of reality from that of the Roman empire. Our English word 'reality' stems from the Latin word 'res' meaning 'thing'. Denoting that in the inherited Classical way of thinking of the West, reality is all about 'things'. Tangible things. In Arabic the word is 'al-haqq', which as an entirely different root, meaning the opposite: reality is all about what's between, behind and beneath 'things'; it's about what causes, binds and moves 'things'.

Which is interesting...

I checked on Pakistan. They claim a literacy rate of 15% but they include in that 15% anyone who can sign their name. So most of Pakistan is illiterate.

The fact that their holy book is written has nothing to do with universal literacy or the infrastructure necessary to deliver universal literacy. Pakistan has neither.

In the madrasses they learn their holy book off by heart like poetry. This is similar to our holy book which was until recently was only read aloud in church.

But the literate world is moving on to the electronic world which is like the spoken world.

So we have three cultures operating side by side - the original spoken culture of the last 200,000 years and the modern literate culture less than 200 years old, and the new electronic culture of the present moment.

[substitute]

It is as though you haven't understood what I have said but you feel driven to make a clever reply.

I find such cleverness at first irritating but after a while, tiresome.

Alternatively, I could've just misunderstood what your point was, and genuinely answering, in good faith, what I thought it was.

I find such quickness to judge and insult a stranger at first puzzling, but after a while, irritating.

I was talking about the actual culture the person is 'receiving' and its relationship to what literacy exists in that culture, as opposed to just the medium in which it's transmitted. The theoretical life narrative you talked about in your post just prior to my second one in this thread seemed to be talking about people in a Western society. You talked about people being raised by their parents in a spoken environment and then at a young age being taken, from then onwards, into the literacy-based environment. Furthering that point, I felt it pertinent to point out that before the child goes to school, the culture they're already aware of and the language they speak is still heavily influenced by literate culture, as it's transmitted to them by their parents, whose initial intuitive understandings have since been heavily edited and supplemented by the written culture you described.

As for the literacy ratios of countries such as Pakistan, you make a good point. This is parallel to medieval Europe, where around 15% of people were literate, mainly clergy and the occasional nobleman or merchant. The language was still strongly influenced by the written word however, as can be seen by the way that French romances became popularized by being retold and enacted everywhere from village squares to royal courts, and the language used in these stories and poems was imitated.

I was in fact thinking about how your points conjured in my head the age old question as to whether art, in whatever form or media, reflects or directs the culture in which it exists.

[Nocapszy]

More books, for instance, are translated in to Spanish in one year than have been translated into Arabic over the last five hundred years. This illustrates the intuitive nature of Islam is based on the spoken, not the written word.
This may be and probably is the result of your holistic perspective, however it is not proof.
It gives light to the idea, and lends equally as much support to plausibility.


And of course other religions are intuitive as well - just as astrology is intuitive - creationism is intuitive - even alchemy is intuitive - and MBTI is intuitive. All are pre-literate.

So it is unnatural to leave the intuitive world for literacy, but the prize is new discoveries.

And it turns out new discoveries far outweigh the pain of cognitive dissonance.
I fear few understand what you mean.

I agree.
Seeking to completely banish submission to cognitive dissonance from my repertoire is an ongoing struggle for me.

[Nocapszy]

Victor, what is your stance on archetypes?

-- That is to ask, to your understanding, what is the purpose of an archetype in the abstract? I don't mean to ask about whichever already literary or otherwise archetypes already in supposed existence or whether you agree with them or not. Only about the idea of archetypes.

It appears that the Intuitive, and the Counter-intuitive take on qualities of actual extant characters by your thinking.

[Victor]

Alternatively, I could've just misunderstood what your point was, and genuinely answering, in good faith, what I thought it was.

I find such quickness to judge and insult a stranger at first puzzling, but after a while, irritating.

I was talking about the actual culture the person is 'receiving' and its relationship to what literacy exists in that culture, as opposed to just the medium in which it's transmitted. The theoretical life narrative you talked about in your post just prior to my second one in this thread seemed to be talking about people in a Western society. You talked about people being raised by their parents in a spoken environment and then at a young age being taken, from then onwards, into the literacy-based environment. Furthering that point, I felt it pertinent to point out that before the child goes to school, the culture they're already aware of and the language they speak is still heavily influenced by literate culture, as it's transmitted to them by their parents, whose initial intuitive understandings have since been heavily edited and supplemented by the written culture you described.

As for the literacy ratios of countries such as Pakistan, you make a good point. This is parallel to medieval Europe, where around 15% of people were literate, mainly clergy and the occasional nobleman or merchant. The language was still strongly influenced by the written word however, as can be seen by the way that French romances became popularized by being retold and enacted everywhere from village squares to royal courts, and the language used in these stories and poems was imitated.

I was in fact thinking about how your points conjured in my head the age old question as to whether art, in whatever form or media, reflects or directs the culture in which it exists.

Thanks for your reply.

I am operating from one simple point of view and that is, "the medium is the message".

Intuitively, normally we think the message is the message - I mean it makes sense, doesn't it?

But counter-intuitively we can think, the medium is the message.

So I am juxtaposing those two thoughts, "the message is the message", and "the medium is the message", to create cognitive dissonance.

So I want you to experience this particular cognitive dissonance.

Intuitively we try to resolve cognitive dissonance logically. But cognitive dissonance calls upon us to discover - to discover something new.

And to discover is not a logical act, it is a revelation.

[Victor]

Victor, what is your stance on archetypes?

-- That is to ask, to your understanding, what is the purpose of an archetype in the abstract? I don't mean to ask about whichever already literary or otherwise archetypes already in supposed existence or whether you agree with them or not. Only about the idea of archetypes.

It appears that the Intuitive, and the Counter-intuitive take on qualities of actual extant characters by your thinking.

I guess archetypes seem to me to be abstractions.

And I do think abstractions are just as essential as the concrete.

And it is the dynamic relationship between the concrete and the abstract that is enlivening.

And yes, you are right - I am very prone to abstraction myself - but I know I must come down to ground sometime.

So I try to parachute in from the abstract, personalised archetypes of intuitive and counter-intuitive to land on concrete examples. I mean I think the fun is relating the archetypes, or the shadows in the cave, to the bright, coloured living world.

On my right shoulder is an Angel called, "Intuitive", and on my left shoulder is an Angel called, "Counter-Intuitive".

And they whisper in my ears.

[Victor]

And to discover is not a logical act, it is a revelation.

Or like John the Baptist, we prepare the way for Christ.

Or in other words, we prepare ourselves to receive a revelation.

Part of this preparation is to let go, for a while, our cognitive faculty of logic - as we prepare ourselves to receive a revelation - a new discovery.

Of course our logical mind does not take kindly to being put to sleep, even for a while, 'cause our logical mind is there to protect us. And if we put ol' logic to sleep, we will be vulnerable as we receive our revelation.

But vulnerability is the essential condition for revelation.

And whereas logic keeps us safe, revelation brings us joy.

So you pays your money and you takes your choice.

[Nocapszy]

So then the archetypes, like the laws of physics, pass along instructions for action.
Then surely the reason for so many different incarnations of human personality, is following the instruction of many archetypes with differing priority of each.

Where the physical responds to whichever law has the most immediate impact -- these of course forever rearranging priority -- the metaphysical (at least where human behavior employs the term) attends to the archetype's command.

I agree Victor.
Though what seems to be the case is that even during your crusade against the MBTI, you have developed an identical typology, only measuring different elements.


INT_ is a good tag for you.

[evan]

Heh I was going to make that point too, Nocap. Archetypes are inescapable.

And cognitive dissonance keeps them going.

[substitute]

Okay, well, having read the thread again, I'm thinking a couple of minor points:

- you alluded to the numbers of books translated into Spanish and Arabic, and then quoted literacy figures in Pakistan in support of the point this was supposed to make. Most Arabic speaking countries have good literacy rates (Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia - all closes to 70%) even if not as high as the West. Contrarywise there are Spanish speaking countries such as Nicaragua (65%) whose figures are not much good. By this I mean to say that what you said illustrated your point, actually didn't illustrate it very well, which was one reason why I initially failed to grasp your meaning.

Also, the Prophet Muhammad was himself illiterate, and yet he spread many counterintuitive teachings such as the right for women to divorce their husbands (a right not enjoyed by British women, for example, until well past the Enlightenment - surely "I am bigger and stronger, therefore I tell you what to do" is more intuitive than "I ought to respect your freedom as an individual despite being physically able to oppress you for my own gain"). And the life of the illiterate visionary Hariet Tubman also illustrate a strong leaning towards non-self-preservational behaviour despite not having been taught counterintuitive thinking by the medium of literacy.

I suppose I'm thinking that, scientifically speaking, what one does when one has a theory is to throw it open, and then to try to prove it wrong. If it still stands, the theory is good. If necessary it might need modifying somewhat.

I'm thinking I like your theory as it is, an impression you seem to have intuitively perceived by cogitating on your knowledge of the world around you. But I'm not sure if it necessarily stands, if I'm grasping your point properly, which, in layman's terms, I'm thinking runs something along the lines of "for human beings to think outside of the realms of personal hardship avoidance which drives the usual and perhaps lazy method of resolving cognitive dissonance, they have to be taught through the medium of literacy how to think in a different way to that which they intuitively would choose in order to avoid personal hardship."

Underneath all of which lies the question: where did the material come from which was first written down? How did the authors reach that knowledge before there existed any written precedent?

Please accept my apologies if I've mistaken your point again, I trust you can see however, that I am trying ;)

[substitute]

Also, excuse my slowness - the kids are playing around and making an awful noise in here so I'm not functioning at my intellectual best - but... are you SURE that literacy is counter-intuitive?

If it's intuitive for humans to want to make life easier for themselves, then surely literacy can help achieve this aim - was that not in fact the reason why it was even invented? It's much easier to write a message and get some schmuck to carry it for you to its recipient than to have to travel all the way there to tell him yourself, or pay a messenger to take the message and possibly forget it or get it wrong when he gets there. And keeping track of what's mine and what's yours is much easier when we have written records.

Surely the complex writing systems that we now have in modern languages all evolved from the same intuitive principle of drawing a line in the sand and saying "this side is mine, that side is yours"? Making lasting marks that communicate an idea that one wishes to be communicated and recommunicated?

So although learning the actual mechanics of the written language takes some effort, I think that the POINT of making this effort is intuitively understood by most people with an IQ in triple figures. And isn't it then also intuitive to then think of all the other uses to which this new skill can be applied, including spreading your own ideas and opinions over a wide area in a short space of time with little personal effort?

[substitute]

So we have three cultures operating side by side - the original spoken culture of the last 200,000 years and the modern literate culture less than 200 years old, and the new electronic culture of the present moment.

Could you please elaborate how you believe these cultures to be related to each other? Obviously they are related because not only does one evolve into another but when they exist simultaneously in different places, they also interact with each other. I'd like to have some examples, if you would, of cognitive dissonance that's produced by these interactions?


So I am juxtaposing those two thoughts, "the message is the message", and "the medium is the message", to create cognitive dissonance.

So I want you to experience this particular cognitive dissonance.


I have difficulty in understanding this because for me there is no cognitive dissonance that I can ascertain when I think of those two concepts. To me they're not mutually exclusive by any means, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be thinking to myself that makes some kind of difficult choice??

Could you define please, what you mean by "the message is the message" and "the medium is the message"? I mean I have a few ideas of what you might mean but I don't want to assume since I'm not in your head...?

Your talk about discovery and revelation, and trying to find concrete examples also somewhat confuses me, considering that I spend an awful lot of my time specifically going out in order to discover, with that express purpose. And the things that are revealed to me in that discovery, if they contradict what I previously held as knowledge, cause me to re-evaluate that knowledge even if it means pulling out the keystone and watching the whole wall crumble so I have to build it again brick by brick. That's just an ongoing, natural process for me.

BUT I believe that it's logic which drives me to do this very thing, whereas you seem to be arguing that it's the very thing that ought to prevent me from both seeking and embracing that revelation.

Apologies for the multiple posts, I'm on a shitty old laptop which keeps crashing and when it does that I lose everything I was writing. And I can't edit either right now!! So this is just me writing what's in my head, first draft, as quickly as possible before the thing crashes!!

[Nocapszy]

Heh I was going to make that point too, Nocap. Archetypes are inescapable.

And cognitive dissonance keeps them going.

Victor applies cognitive dissonance in an off-label fashion.
Read his post very carefully.

I'd prefer not to say he uses it incorrectly, but it's certainly highly unconventional.

[Nocapszy]

Also, excuse my slowness - the kids are playing around and making an awful noise in here so I'm not functioning at my intellectual best - but... are you SURE that literacy is counter-intuitive? Again, I stress that victor does not use these words in their ordinary colloquial way.

If you approach them more from their etymological standpoint you'll better understand.
I know because I find myself in a similar habit.

[Nocapszy]

Heh I was going to make that point too, Nocap. Archetypes often are inescapable.

And cognitive dissonance keeps them going.

There ya go. :)

[evan]

I meant that the fact that people USE archetypes is inescapable. And it's hard to think outside of your own archetype system because cognitive dissonance keeps you in your comfort zone.

[substitute]

Again, I stress that victor does not use these words in their ordinary colloquial way.

If you approach them more from their etymological standpoint you'll better understand.
I know because I find myself in a similar habit.

yes, and approaching it from that angle, that's still what I think... if by 'intuitive' he means 'what comes naturally'?

But dammit, if the guy's going to speak not only in riddles but with his own personal dictionary, well... you can't expect people with y'know, lives and shit, to devote hours to trying to decipher his heiroglyphs can you? I mean, it's not like some lost Plato paper we're dealing with here, is it? *shrug*

Don't get me wrong, I love a good discussion and a new idea, but I don't see any point in being deliberately misleading... because in doing that one can communicate far more than one intends to... ;)

[Nocapszy]

yes, and approaching it from that angle, that's still what I think... if by 'intuitive' he means 'what comes naturally'?

But dammit, if the guy's going to speak not only in riddles but with his own personal dictionary, well... you can't expect people with y'know, lives and shit, to devote hours to trying to decipher his heiroglyphs can you? I mean, it's not like some lost Plato paper we're dealing with here, is it? *shrug*
*snicker*
I understand him on the first go.
His dialect is rather *snicker* intuitive if you ask me.

[substitute]

*snicker*
I understand him on the first go.
His dialect is rather *snicker* intuitive if you ask me.

Oh. Science club. I get it. :doh:

[Victor]

Victor applies cognitive dissonance in an off-label fashion.
Read his post very carefully.

I'd prefer not to say he uses it incorrectly, but it's certainly highly unconventional.

Out of left field.

[Victor]

Also, excuse my slowness - the kids are playing around and making an awful noise in here so I'm not functioning at my intellectual best - but... are you SURE that literacy is counter-intuitive?

If it's intuitive for humans to want to make life easier for themselves, then surely literacy can help achieve this aim - was that not in fact the reason why it was even invented? It's much easier to write a message and get some schmuck to carry it for you to its recipient than to have to travel all the way there to tell him yourself, or pay a messenger to take the message and possibly forget it or get it wrong when he gets there. And keeping track of what's mine and what's yours is much easier when we have written records.

Surely the complex writing systems that we now have in modern languages all evolved from the same intuitive principle of drawing a line in the sand and saying "this side is mine, that side is yours"? Making lasting marks that communicate an idea that one wishes to be communicated and recommunicated?

So although learning the actual mechanics of the written language takes some effort, I think that the POINT of making this effort is intuitively understood by most people with an IQ in triple figures. And isn't it then also intuitive to then think of all the other uses to which this new skill can be applied, including spreading your own ideas and opinions over a wide area in a short space of time with little personal effort?

By literacy I mean universal literacy only achieved with a vast infrastructure of schools and teachers.

This vast infrastructure is created and funded by the Nation State and compels its citizens to attend for many years.

This vast infrastructure is somewhat disguised by the fact that we read a book alone. This creates the literate individual who is inclined to think they are independent of the huge system that produced them.

In other words, literacy produces dissociation - on the one hand we have a huge, vast infrastructure and on the other, the literate individual. And how natural, in our minds, to dissociate one from the other.

And this universal dissociation produces the conscious mind and the unconscious mind - both dissociated from one another.

But as we move from print to electronics, dissociation disappears - the unconscious becomes conscious.

The electronic person, the person of the Noosphere, is no longer dissociated.

And extraordinarily, we are no longer dissociated from one another. We are not dissociated by distance. We are not dissociated by time. Your mind and mind are now, more or less, running on the same track.

Look, you are reading this as I write.

[substitute]

Hmm... well it's perceived that the state compels people to go to school here, but in fact it's always been an option for parents to not send their kids to school and educate them at home, however they see fit (as I'm doing with my kids). Home education has exploded in the UK recently as profound dissatisfaction with the school system has taken hold and perhaps greater independence of research and thought also because, as you say, of the electronic media giving people access to wider and more diverse opinion and information than they otherwise would've had without great effort.

The literate individual has at their disposal all the literature that's available in the language/s they speak and so is not necessarily limited to the state-approved thought that's presented to them in schools. But it's true that most individuals don't go to the trouble... especially since television takes the place of leisure reading in most homes.

Where I live, TV has actually begun to be replaced by the internet as the quality and diversity of shows has taken a dive, it's become the refuge of morons basically and most intelligent and thinking people find their TV rarely being switched on these days. But there still remains the majority who are fed, through the TV, the same thought marketing as they were fed at school (provided they were even paying attention at school, which those people probably weren't).

Just a few thoughts there. I've got more, just gonna think about it for a bit.