All of this is super interesting to me! Especially where we differ.
I can’t really imagine a stubbed toe, the feeling of walking across carpet, grabbing a cabbage with my hand, but I can vividly imagine a drop of water running down my chest or a spider crawling across it. (Lower resolution is easier to fake?)
I can imagine all of these extremely vividly. Even multiple different types of carpets, and walking on carpets in different shoes. Could you imagine the feeling of lying on a carpet without a shirt on (ie the feeling of a carpet on your torso) ? What about a spider crawling across your hand ?
I am very jealous of your ability to ignore your thoughts and track north. I am terrible with directions, navigating familiar places only by landmarks.
Not to get too speculative, but you mention doing mathematical proofs, which I’ve never done in my life. Even learning syntax for linguistics (expressed as binary branching trees) was very difficult for me. I’m studying French literature and anything to do with words comes very easily to me. I wonder if there’s any tangible overlap between brain function and fields of interest.
Could you imagine the feeling of lying on a carpet without a shirt on (ie the feeling of a carpet on your torso) ?
Somewhat… it’s too diffuse. I can imagine the effect at single spots, the whole thing at once doesn’t really work. (I get “glitchy partials”, brief impressions flickering and jumping around, but it’s not forming anything consistent / stable.)
What about a spider crawling across your hand ?
Back of the hand is manageable (it’s “only” tracking of 9 points − 8 legs plus occasional abdomen contact) and it can even become “independent” and surprise me with what direction it will move in next, front is basically impossible. (Glitchy partials again.)
I am very jealous of your ability to ignore your thoughts[.]
If there’s usually not much happening that reaches the conscious level, that’s really not that hard. I’ve talked at length with people who have a near-constant internal monologue and I get that that’s much harder. I just notice that it’s also relatively easy for me to ignore other constant or near-constant things like loud buzzing noise (server fans?), most extreme smells (rotting/feces) where others flinch away, etc. but basically impossible to ignore constantly changing impressions. (I currently have a construction site in front of the house and I can’t work at all while they’re active, even with earplugs.)
[I am very jealous of your ability to] track north.
Again, I have to constantly keep an “inner eye” on that or it comes loose and then it’s broken / de-synced. A question from someone that makes me think just a little bit too much can be enough to break it, unless I remember to explicitly save the current heading and reinstate the thing afterwards. (I suspect you can do/imagine something similar and it’ll get less costly and more precise over time of using it.)
I wonder if there’s any tangible overlap between brain function and fields of interest.
Probably—you’re more likely to do stuff that’s easier for you, which makes it easier… But I expect that to be fairly weak / to have lots of noise on top. (External expectations, stuff that you don’t even know exists, etc. etc.)
I guess what also plays a big role is how you approach your brain / how you model it & yourself / what expectations you place on it. I treat mine as a substrate that can spawn lots of independent processes of varying size and with more or less expressive interfaces, and “I” just happen to be one that’s fairly big and stable. So making that arrow pointing north is basically just me spawning yet another small process on that substrate that subsequently does its own thing (unless swapped out because of capacity constraints), likewise the imagined spider can become independent and choose its own direction, because I fully expect it to be an independent process and not something that I have to manually control.
(Treating your brain as some sort of “expectation realizer” seems to be a powerful model/perspective, but totally expect really weird “replies” when you try to apply that to external stuff. (Like weird feelings, sudden anxiety, strange preferences, etc. guiding you in the direction that your brain thinks is best—be careful (and keep track of) what you wish for.) Internal seems to be relatively safe compared to that.)
All of this is super interesting to me! Especially where we differ.
I can imagine all of these extremely vividly. Even multiple different types of carpets, and walking on carpets in different shoes. Could you imagine the feeling of lying on a carpet without a shirt on (ie the feeling of a carpet on your torso) ? What about a spider crawling across your hand ?
I am very jealous of your ability to ignore your thoughts and track north. I am terrible with directions, navigating familiar places only by landmarks.
Not to get too speculative, but you mention doing mathematical proofs, which I’ve never done in my life. Even learning syntax for linguistics (expressed as binary branching trees) was very difficult for me. I’m studying French literature and anything to do with words comes very easily to me. I wonder if there’s any tangible overlap between brain function and fields of interest.
Somewhat… it’s too diffuse. I can imagine the effect at single spots, the whole thing at once doesn’t really work. (I get “glitchy partials”, brief impressions flickering and jumping around, but it’s not forming anything consistent / stable.)
Back of the hand is manageable (it’s “only” tracking of 9 points − 8 legs plus occasional abdomen contact) and it can even become “independent” and surprise me with what direction it will move in next, front is basically impossible. (Glitchy partials again.)
If there’s usually not much happening that reaches the conscious level, that’s really not that hard. I’ve talked at length with people who have a near-constant internal monologue and I get that that’s much harder. I just notice that it’s also relatively easy for me to ignore other constant or near-constant things like loud buzzing noise (server fans?), most extreme smells (rotting/feces) where others flinch away, etc. but basically impossible to ignore constantly changing impressions. (I currently have a construction site in front of the house and I can’t work at all while they’re active, even with earplugs.)
Again, I have to constantly keep an “inner eye” on that or it comes loose and then it’s broken / de-synced. A question from someone that makes me think just a little bit too much can be enough to break it, unless I remember to explicitly save the current heading and reinstate the thing afterwards. (I suspect you can do/imagine something similar and it’ll get less costly and more precise over time of using it.)
Probably—you’re more likely to do stuff that’s easier for you, which makes it easier… But I expect that to be fairly weak / to have lots of noise on top. (External expectations, stuff that you don’t even know exists, etc. etc.)
I guess what also plays a big role is how you approach your brain / how you model it & yourself / what expectations you place on it. I treat mine as a substrate that can spawn lots of independent processes of varying size and with more or less expressive interfaces, and “I” just happen to be one that’s fairly big and stable. So making that arrow pointing north is basically just me spawning yet another small process on that substrate that subsequently does its own thing (unless swapped out because of capacity constraints), likewise the imagined spider can become independent and choose its own direction, because I fully expect it to be an independent process and not something that I have to manually control.
(Treating your brain as some sort of “expectation realizer” seems to be a powerful model/perspective, but totally expect really weird “replies” when you try to apply that to external stuff. (Like weird feelings, sudden anxiety, strange preferences, etc. guiding you in the direction that your brain thinks is best—be careful (and keep track of) what you wish for.) Internal seems to be relatively safe compared to that.)