As a tentative rephrasing, something that’s “emotionally implausible” is something that “I would never do” or that “could never happen to me.” Like you, I can visualize myself falling with a high degree of accuracy; but I can’t imagine throwing myself off the bridge in the first place. Suicide? I would never do that.
It occurs to me that “can’t imagine” implies a binary division when ability to imagine is more of a continuum: the quality of imagination drops steadily between trying to imagine brushing my teeth (everyday), calling 911 (very rare, but I’ve done it before), punching through a wall (never done it, but maybe if I was mad enough), and jumping off a bridge (I would never do that).
For all four, I can imagine the physical events as bare facts; but for the first two I can easily place myself in the simulation, complete with cognitive and emotional states. That’s much harder in the third case; in the fourth, I’m about as confident in my imagination as I am in trying to imagine a world where 1+1=3.
As a tentative rephrasing, something that’s “emotionally implausible” is something that “I would never do” or that “could never happen to me.”
Allow me to rephrase more precisely for you. It’s not plausibility that’s at issue, it’s whether you have a thought that causes you to stop visualizing.
If, as you mentioned in your previous comment, you imagine slapping your mother and “fail utterly”, it’s not because you can’t imagine it, it’s because your (early) evaluation of what you imagine causes you to stop before you can really put yourself in the situation.
Knowing that, you can ignore the reaction that tells you it’s bad, and proceed. IOW, it’s not that you can’t imagine slapping your mother, it’s that you prefer to stop before you actually experience what it would be like. In other words, it’s not “can’t”, it’s won’t.
Like you, I can visualize myself falling with a high degree of accuracy; but I can’t imagine throwing myself off the bridge in the first place.
I really do mean I imagine committing suicide. It really does feel to me as if it’s not outlandish that I might just, as it were, blow a fuse and jump off the bridge on an impulse. I can project how I’d feel the instant after the “decision”—scared out of my mind, gut-wrenchingly regretful, but also inappropriately exhilarated.
Conversely, I’m not sure I can imagine brushing my teeth in great detail—it’s too boring. But I do occasionally imagine things that I would describe as emotionally implausible with some degree of precision.
It’s possible that I’m just weird, but anyway I mean my observations as cautions against generalizing from a sample of one.
This makes me kind of wish we had WikiStyleLinks, where if you simply put a phrase in CamelCase, it automatically generates a link to the page whose name is that phrase. You could simply speak of GeneralizingFromOneExample, and boom, a link to Yvain’s post.
The thing is, though, reading text with WikiStyleLinks can get PrettyAnnoying after a while.
TV Tropes has an interesting variation of this: it supports WikiStyleLinks as well as MediaWiki-style bracketed links, but the Wiki Style Links automatically get spaces inserted (like that) in the name as displayed, so the appearance is merely capitals.
As a tentative rephrasing, something that’s “emotionally implausible” is something that “I would never do” or that “could never happen to me.” Like you, I can visualize myself falling with a high degree of accuracy; but I can’t imagine throwing myself off the bridge in the first place. Suicide? I would never do that.
It occurs to me that “can’t imagine” implies a binary division when ability to imagine is more of a continuum: the quality of imagination drops steadily between trying to imagine brushing my teeth (everyday), calling 911 (very rare, but I’ve done it before), punching through a wall (never done it, but maybe if I was mad enough), and jumping off a bridge (I would never do that).
For all four, I can imagine the physical events as bare facts; but for the first two I can easily place myself in the simulation, complete with cognitive and emotional states. That’s much harder in the third case; in the fourth, I’m about as confident in my imagination as I am in trying to imagine a world where 1+1=3.
Allow me to rephrase more precisely for you. It’s not plausibility that’s at issue, it’s whether you have a thought that causes you to stop visualizing.
If, as you mentioned in your previous comment, you imagine slapping your mother and “fail utterly”, it’s not because you can’t imagine it, it’s because your (early) evaluation of what you imagine causes you to stop before you can really put yourself in the situation.
Knowing that, you can ignore the reaction that tells you it’s bad, and proceed. IOW, it’s not that you can’t imagine slapping your mother, it’s that you prefer to stop before you actually experience what it would be like. In other words, it’s not “can’t”, it’s won’t.
I really do mean I imagine committing suicide. It really does feel to me as if it’s not outlandish that I might just, as it were, blow a fuse and jump off the bridge on an impulse. I can project how I’d feel the instant after the “decision”—scared out of my mind, gut-wrenchingly regretful, but also inappropriately exhilarated.
Conversely, I’m not sure I can imagine brushing my teeth in great detail—it’s too boring. But I do occasionally imagine things that I would describe as emotionally implausible with some degree of precision.
It’s possible that I’m just weird, but anyway I mean my observations as cautions against generalizing from a sample of one.
Come on Morendil, you’re supposed to link to these things.
ETA: OMG, that post got Yvain over a thousand karma.
This makes me kind of wish we had WikiStyleLinks, where if you simply put a phrase in CamelCase, it automatically generates a link to the page whose name is that phrase. You could simply speak of GeneralizingFromOneExample, and boom, a link to Yvain’s post.
The thing is, though, reading text with WikiStyleLinks can get PrettyAnnoying after a while.
TV Tropes has an interesting variation of this: it supports WikiStyleLinks as well as MediaWiki-style bracketed links, but the Wiki Style Links automatically get spaces inserted (like that) in the name as displayed, so the appearance is merely capitals.
Yes, that’s largely the reason I avoid CamelCase in source code.