Cape 27 September - Jordan Peterson 'Maps of Meaning"
Why have people from different cultures and eras formulated myths and stories with similar structures? What does this similarity tell us about the mind, morality, and structure of the world itself? Jordan Peterson offers a provocative new hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.
"The book reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of personal soul-searching and experience...with patients who include prisoners, alcoholics and the mentally ill." -- Montreal Gazette
"This is not a book to be abstracted and summarized. Rather it should be read at leisure...and employed as a stimulus and reference to expand one's own maps of meaning. I plan to return to Peterson's musings and mapping many times over the next few years." -- Am J Psychiatry
"...a brilliant enlargement of our understanding of human motivation...a beautiful work." -- Sheldon H. White, Harvard University
"...unique...a brilliant new synthesis of the meaning of mythologies and our human need to relate in story form the deep structure of our experiences." -- Keith Oatley, University of Toronto
Jordan Peterson's book is a brilliant enlargement of our understanding of human motivation. He follows a path that has been recommended by many scientist-scholars in the past - but one that is, in practice, so extraordinarily demanding that it is hardly ever done well. Peterson synthesizes research and scholarly literatures ranging from neuroscience to archaeology. He aligns the finds of those literatures with the writings of such authors as Jung, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Solzhenitsyn. There is loving detail in this book - reflection, thoughtfulness, careful study, a passionate desire to understand. This is a beautiful work. (Sheldon H. White, Chair, Department of Psychology, Harvard University).
Jordan B. Peterson is a clinical psychologist and Professor at the University of Toronto and was formerly at Harvard University. He has published numerous articles on drug abuse, alcoholism and aggression.
Self-consciousness means knowledge of individual vulnerability. The process by which this knowledge comes to be can destroy faith in individual worth. This means - in concrete terms - that an individual may come to sacrifice his own experience, in the course of development, because its pursuit creates social conflict, or exposes individual inadequacy. However, it is only through such conflict that change takes place, and weakness must be recognized, before it can be transformed into strength. This means that the sacrifice of individuality eliminates any possibility that individual strength can be discovered or developed, and that the world itself might progress.
Individuals whose life is without meaning hate themselves, for their weakness, and hate life, for making them weak. This hatred manifests itself in absolute identification with destructive power, in its mythological, historical and biological manifestations; manifests itself in the desire for the absolute extinction of existence. Such identification leads man to poison whatever he touches, to generate unnecessary misery in the face of inevitable suffering, to turn his fellows against themselves, to intermingle earth with hell - merely to attain vengeance upon God and his creation.
The human purpose, if such a thing can be considered, is to pursue meaning - to extend the domain of light, of consciousness - in spite of limitation. A meaningful event exists on the boundary between order and chaos. The pursuit of meaning exposes the individual to the unknown in gradual fashion, allowing him to develop strength and adaptive ability in proportion to the seriousness of his pursuit. It is during contact with the unknown that human power grows, individually and then historically. Meaning is the subjective experience associated with that contact, in sufficient proportion. The great religious myths state that continued pursuit of meaning, adopted voluntarily and without self-deception, will lead the individual to discover his identity with God. This "revealed identity" will make him capable of withstanding the tragedy of life. Abandonment of meaning, by contrast, reduces man to his mortal weaknesses. This makes him hate life, and work towards its elimination.
Meaning is the most profound manifestation of instinct. Man is a creature attracted by the unknown; a creature adapted for its conquest. The subjective sense of meaning is the instinct governing rate of contact with the unknown. Too much exposure turns change to chaos; too little promotes stagnation and degeneration. The appropriate balance produces a powerful individual, confident in the ability to withstand life, ever more able to deal with nature and society, ever closer to the heroic ideal. Each individual, constitutionally unique, finds meaning in different pursuits, if he has the courage to maintain his difference. Manifestation of individual diversity, transformed into knowledge that can be transferred socially, changes the face of history itself, and moves each generation of man farther into the unknown.
Social and biological conditions define the boundaries of individual existence. The unfailing pursuit of interest provides the subjective means by which these conditions can be met, and their boundaries transcended. Meaning is the instinct that makes life possible. When it is abandoned, individuality loses its redeeming power. The great lie is that meaning does not exist, or that it is not important. When meaning is denied, hatred for life and the wish for its destruction inevitably rules:
"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
Clive Woolley - I replied to you last comment on the BAE (22nd sept) thread, albeit a bit belatedly, so I have copied my reply here:
Clive - looks correct to me and certainly the final figure is very much in the right area - I may sound vague here, but the TSS moves every day a little with the share price of course.
I use data which gives the net total assets from which I deduct the intangibles, same result your way so that is fine.
This is obviously a screening exercise and there are other factors that you must consider, often more subjective:
1. Look for anything odd in the balance sheet, things that don't quite stack up, TI Fluid systems for example, as discussed yesterday, the balance sheet and P&L look like they are from different businesses.
2. Watch out for a big debt or liability build up behind an apparently strong TSS - a variation on point 1. But also an absolute red flag.
3. Look at the ten year data, if you look at the ten year tangible equity build up for LGEN and BWY, it is a thing of great beauty like a marvelous piece of art, a balance sheet masterpiece.
4. There needs to be a continuity to the equity build up - that is why Aviva and M&G although reasonable buys I think, are not in the same league as LGEN, within their broad sector, due to the greater uncertainty of future earnings and equity build up for Aviva and M&G.
5. Sometimes when a business has undertaken a cash draining expansion, this can suppress the TSS and mask the opportunity. Forterra for example, with their new brick plant, to produce next year, Covid came as spend was peaking, they had to issue just over 6% shares as a precautionary measure last year and the development spend has obviously held back the divi. But even with the expansion impact, the TSS is still over 7%, so I don't use such circumstances to ignore the all important TSS metric, but I can make allowance under some circumstances if this metric is held back a little by sound expansion spend.