Lighten up!

Bruce Gregory (960606.1005 EDT) --
. I am watching the Red Socks play baseball. I totally lack any
  ability to control the outcome -- no feedback.
  The goal is clear I can become deeply interested
  in the progress of the game and the
  out of the season. Clearly spectator sports exercise
  a deep hold on the human psyche.
  Does PCT have anything to say about this situation?

Peter Cariani (960606) --

     More generally, can PCT explain persistent masochistic
     fascinations, such as those (enjoyed? indulged in? endured?)
     by Red Socks fans?

Judging from the stern responses, I've apparently missed my mark.
I guess you'd have to appreciate the particularities of the psyche of
Red Sox fans to appreciate the humor inherent in this situation.

It was once said that we would know when AI had come of age
when an AI program could successfully navigate the streets of Boston.
We will know when psychology has come of age when it
can successfully explain the psyche of the Boston Red Sox fan.

Clearly such (hypothetically satirical) models are way,
way off in the future (or maybe this is one of Nature's
mysteries that is inherently inexplicable, like how Three
Roads, the Riverway, the Jamaicaway, and the Arborway can be One).

I'm very optimistic that we can understand how the
brain processes information on a detailed level,
maybe in our own lifetimes or those of our children.
Nonetheless, I think understanding the minds of Boston Red Sox
fans (assuming that there will always be Boston Red Sox fans if not
Fenway Park or the Boston Red Sox or baseball) is probably not
going to happen for at least a few more generations, (maybe not in
my lifetime, maybe not in my children's lifetimes, but perhaps
in their children's children's lifetimes......)
i.e., about the time when the Boston Red Sox are expected to win
a World Series. When that happens (oh, to be alive for that day!)
the whole structure of the phenomena to be explained
will have changed irreversibly (and, perhaps, for the better).......

Peter Cariani

[From Bruce Gregory (960607.1335 EDT)]

Peter Cariani (960607) --

I'm very optimistic that we can understand how the
brain processes information on a detailed level,
maybe in our own lifetimes or those of our children.
Nonetheless, I think understanding the minds of Boston Red Sox
fans (assuming that there will always be Boston Red Sox fans if not
Fenway Park or the Boston Red Sox or baseball) is probably not
going to happen for at least a few more generations, (maybe not in
my lifetime, maybe not in my children's lifetimes, but perhaps
in their children's children's lifetimes......)
i.e., about the time when the Boston Red Sox are expected to win
a World Series. When that happens (oh, to be alive for that day!)
the whole structure of the phenomena to be explained
will have changed irreversibly (and, perhaps, for the better).......

Can it be purely coincidental that the intersection of the set of Red
Sox Fans and the set of PCT fans is non-empty? I think we may be on
to something important here...

Bruce G.