#idea fitting

[mentalisttraceur]

Wearing the Simulation

Sometimes I imagine I'm a simulation in the future, an AI that was trained on or prompted by all my writings and anything else that was available of my life and my outputs.

That all the sensory details of my life are just what an advanced AI fitted to the known records. Most of it just filling in the gaps between the photos and videos of my life. Deduced from any constraints on neurology and physiology implied by that life.

Whether or not that's true, it is a great way to get ego-free perspective. It's as if you're looking at something some guy did long ago.

That guy might've had completely different motives or mental states. Suddenly the story that your ego has been telling itself, all your feelings and beliefs and justifications, it all becomes just the best guess of some AI in the future. Suddenly you are free to look at your actions from the outside and ask what was that guy thinking?

[mentalisttraceur-software]

Function-Oriented Programming

I think the term "functional programming" is pretty bad. "Functional" is a very overloaded word, and someone could reasonably idea-fit one of its other meanings onto it in context. For example: "functional" as in "works well" or "has practical utility" as opposed to broken or poorly designed or overly focused on aesthetic.

I think we just got the term "functional" because some professor didn't consider problems with actual pragmatic use in day-to-day conversations among working software developers, and we've kept it due to inertia.

So I've started saying "function-oriented programming" instead, because that's closer to a self-descriptive term that working software developers immediately understand. It is a programming style, and techniques, oriented around functions. You might say it's more than that, such as a focus on "pure" functions, but "functional" does not inherently suggest that any more than "function-oriented" does.

[mentalisttraceur]

What are you up to these days?

Racing to implement various improvements before money runs out.

Looking for a job.

Trying to figure out some health issues.

What kinds of improvements?

Personal software - automating/streamlining things I do very often (or should/want to do, but don't do precisely because it's not sufficiently at-speed-of-thought or too out-of-the-way).

Workflows - figuring out systems/processes to best use/mitigate/channel my strengths and weaknesses.

Mental - finishing the big strokes of emotional trauma healing, strengthening cognition that became accessible due to my healing, and epiphanying improvements based on that cognition. (Examples: building the skills of egoless idea-fitting/imagination and feeling comfortable in embarrassment, which in turn unlocks big improvements in emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills; practicing cognition where things in the future are as emotionally real as things which exist now out of sight - a good tomorrow having motivational presence much like a good now around the corner does; practicing greater presence in the now, unfurling my attention more often out of my mind and into the world around me.)

[mentalisttraceur]

Hi! As per my last email, Friendly reminder:

When someone is "projecting" that you have some judgement of them, or is "defensive" about a judgement you expressed, that does not mean they themselves believe that judgement!

They might, yes. That's one of the possible reasons.

Or they might just fear that you believe it, or that anyone might believe it. Judgements are dangerous unless you have relevant power, safety, luck, unattachment, freedom, and toolkit of coping skills.

Healthy adults in good life situations are not under any real threat from most judgements you could harbor about them. But that is profound privilege. Abused people don't have that. Kids in schools don't have that. People dependent on their job to survive, or to just stay free of toxic situations and people, don't have that.

[mentalisttraceur]

If you think about it, if you really clear your mind of the culture and norms you take for granted and take an outsider view, it's actually kinda creepy to have a shelf full of exclusively white Nutcrackers (or Santas, or elves, or whatever).

In a society where people have diverse skin colors, I mean. If you're in Eastern European village Nowheresebirsk where literally everyone is white, okay yeah, fine, a line-up of all-white Nutcrackers shouldn't be disturbing.

But in a society where you see a black/brown/whatever person every time you step outside? where literally as you're looking at the shelf there's people of other skin colors in the store at that moment? Kinda fucky.

Because The Nutcracker isn't really a distinct character anymore. It's not one Specific Guy where racial features are part of depicting that Specific Guy.

Like... if you had a big shelf of action figures of one specific version of a popular character, okay yeah cool, it's not disturbing that they're all one specific skin color, eye color, hair color, nose shape, and so on. But the more generic you go, the more sus it becomes. If you were in a random US town, picked a random store, and then you noticed every single toy only had blonde hair, blue eyes, white skin, and so on... that hits different.

Now, if you came from a world where racism by skin color is as much a thing of the past as the old racisms different white peoples had for each other, and you noticed that every. single. Nutcracker. is white, you might think in good faith "oh, this one Specific Guy must be popular in this culture".

But we're not in that world, and The Nutcracker is far enough along the transition from Specific Guy From That One Story to being just a generic icon of winter holiday vibe. He's no longer A Guy - he's A Type Of Guy. And when a type of guy is race-specific, that's significant.

So when I try to imagine what it would be like if I was, say, a small black boy growing up in the US... the moment I realized all Nutcrackers are white? especially if I saw a bunch of different ones all on display at once? yeah that also hits different.

[mentalisttraceur]

Symbiotic Disorders

We know this idea as a joke: "I'm not healthy, I just have a system of perfectly balanced disorders". But I think this is a useful model to try out, especially for mental stuff. What would happen if at least two disorders can coexist and mask each other?

It could hide or stop dysfunction or the differentiating features so much that the person doesn't fit either diagnosis - but internally there is still all the pain and struggle of the disorder. It's worth remembering that when trying to understand others, and ourselves.

It might help you be more durable, willing, or able in certain roles, in the face of certain pressures and risks - maybe sometimes that's even worth the personal cost?

It would be harder to heal, improve, or even acknowledge problems, because each disorder is now load-bearing. You try to give some advice a fair shake, you work on being healthier, and yet you get worse outcomes which you know your old ways reliably prevent.

[mentalisttraceur]

Wearing the Problem

The ability to learn about a problem, look at myself, and try on "I have this problem" in my self-image has been one of my biggest tools of self-discovery and self-growth for over a decade.

If I hadn't seriously decided "I am autistic", "I am abusive", "I am a narcissist", "I am a coward", "I am codependent", and so on, or even "I am annoying to talk to [because ...]" or "I look/sound/smell a little icky", I would be much further behind as a person right now, even though those are largely false.

You probably have aspects of quite a few problems - the same flaws and blindspots of perspective around those flaws, maybe not as severely or as constantly but very similar in shape.

So try "wearing" problems -- redo your self-interpretations as if you have the problem. You are likely to discover something useful, even if you don't actually have it.