BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

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Wednesday, July 27, 2016

“Donald Trump Assures Voters That They’ll Never Know What He’ll Do As President”: Why would anyone brag about unpredictability or have puzzling inconsistency?

[Search "Trump" in this blog to read the five previous posts.]

 According to an article in New York Magazine, Mr. Trump is proud of being unpredictable (1).

Unpredictability to gain a competitive advantage is a well-known tactic. But what if a person were unpredictable in ways that were not a competitive advantage?

A person could be unpredictable due to stupidity, or because of hidden motives and interests. But what if the person is not stupid, and his changes in opinion cannot always be explained by plausible motives and interests?

For all I know, Trump’s alleged unpredictability may always be completely explainable by his wish to gain a competitive advantage. But it is unusual for a person who is seeking political office to brag about his unpredictability. It makes me wonder if it is a cover story to explain away behavior that he, himself, sees as puzzlingly inconsistent. (Search “puzzling inconsistency” in this blog.)

1. Eric Levitz, New York Magazine, January 5, 2016. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/01/trump-voters-want-unpredictability.html
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