Re: there are still drives that talk with you

Angus Rodgers wrote:

On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:26:51 -0700 (PDT), galathaea
<galathaea@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 26, 3:08 am, Angus Rodgers
<twir...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:46:22 +0100, I wrote:
For the time being, I'll stick to my theory that
fear is a more
fundamental and powerful motive than laziness
[...]

i always like reading your posts

:-)

Please excuse my lack of response so far. Domestic
pressures have
not let up, and for the last couple of days I haven't
been able to
do any studying. I managed a couple of hours today.
(You might be
mildly pleased to know that a copy of Goldblatt's
/Topoi/ I ordered
arrived on Monday, and I had a look at the
undemanding first couple
of chapters today. No trouble there, but I expect I
will need some
hand-holding soon enough!)

elsewhere you have shown hesitance to throw out a
model

i think it is important to have enough arrogance to
model
because even when wrong it is better than nothing
so i will foolishly throw out my own

Complicated ... I'm not sure that I'll have any
comments on this,
except the very subjective one that when I first
really started to
take notice of other people, I felt a deep need to
model minds and
their interactions, almost as if psychology were
mathematics.

I've been hesitating for a couple of days over what
to try to write
about this, because it's deep, but my mind is only
working shallowly
at the moment (due to said pressures - at least I
hope that's all it
is - and I hope that said pressures will let up
soon).

i've had similar fears

a few councilors throughout school
suggested i had subclinical aspergers
and i've taken a few online tests
and i do tend to score just below the clinical
diagnostic level

When I took this test:
<http://aq.server8.org/>
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html>
the result was:

"Your AQ score:
37

"The test is not a means for making a diagnosis, however,
and many who score above 32 and even meet the diagnostic
criteria for mild autism or Asperger's report no
difficulty functioning in their everyday lives."

I scored 33. Like all measures of psychological fitness
(e.g., IQ, personality, aptitude) such tests are useless
for predicting individual mechanisms of coping. In
fact, variety strengthens the society, a lesson that could
be put to good use in a society tolerant of individual
deviations. As fitness creates its own path, I would
expect a high proportion of scientists and mathematicians
to score high.

Tom


How to interpret your AQ score
0--10 low
11--22 average
(most women score about 15, and most men
most men score about 17)
23--31 above average
32--50 very high
(most people with Asperger Syndrome or high
e or high functioning
autism score about 35)
50 maximum"

(So at least I'm not Rain Man.)

my thoughts
were my land
that i controlled

that others existed
would sometimes make me anxious
fearful and pained
because it disturbed my controlled space

My space became invaded round about 1972, and I've
never regained
it, but I get glimpses of that "land" - which perhaps
is what you
mean about drives talking with me?

and i was fortunate to have a mother
that nurtured these interests
instead of instilling gender role shames

All I want to say about my family (and/or gender
roles) right now
is contained in this box: [ ] :-)

(It's not that I'm not tempted to say much more, you
understand.)

and recognising what newsgroups this posts to
i think this all can be rigorised

I take it that this is a "lie"? :-)

making pretty little models of behaviors
is a great solitary game
that can help keep the fear at bay

Nothing keeps it at bay, for me, except: (a) studying
mathematics
(something I have only begun to find out how to do
properly since
about 2004), and (b) not being ashamed of my
sexuality (something
I have scarcely begun to learn about). Mostly I'm
scared witless.

those who have experienced greater traumas of
control
tend to be more
fearful
anxious
expectant
pessimistic
about future events

<raises hand> me me me me me!

everyone has some burden of control upon them

i like how the buddhists acknowledge this so
honestly

I haven't found my religion yet, but I've found that
I need one.

exhaustion and depression are measures
comparative to norms
that correlate these internalisations for identity
and control
through the above learning mechanism

but i think the issue is more generically a problem
of all humanity

I tend to see universal problems in individual cases
(if that's
anything to do with what you mean).

humanity
from its earliest relational obsessions
has confronted the issues of individual control
and many have experienced the consequence of
otherness
very viscerally

Visceral is exactly what it is for me.

drives are controllable
through integrations with the verbal working set

There's a lot you write that I don't understand (not
only the
advanced maths!), but I'd particularly like to know
what this
means. What is "the verbal working set"? And does
this still
have something to do with drives talking?

but still
even in the greatest exhaustions
at the very limits of physical effort
even then
there are still drives that talk with you

That's quite poetic, even if I don't know what it
means, and
even if I doubt, whatever it means, that it's true
for me.

i suspect that is something you might agree with
angus

I've been in a very barren wilderness for a very long
time (at the
start of it, I thought that even a few hours was too
much to bear)
but I seem to have found an oasis at last (although
either it runs
dry at times, or else the mirage fades).

and if you do
i think my view of james may not differ much from
yours
(though my language does)

i used lazy where you used fear

i don't disagree that laziness is often fueled by
fears
particularly the lazinesses that are accompanied
with
anxieties and pains

when the effort to start a task
confronts all the insecurity and fear of others
when their presence overpowers my own
and the only reason for the task
is a reason from another
i too tend to shut down

but even at my worst times
there were still drives that spoke with me

even when the words were driven by fears
and angers
and intense pains
and almost everything verbal going on
were voices telling me i couldn't
desperate voices
or dispassionate and realist voices
i couldn't or shouldn't or at least wouldn't
anymore

even when withdrawn
trembling or numb into some tiny place
there were still drives that communicated with me

often i would change the direction i lay
or at times the patterns of my breaths

eventually i could get some water
and gather a few books around me
to escape into other models

i remember falling behind in homework
not wanting to be told what to do
fearful of confronting problems given me
by people who wanted to control my time

and i understand viscerally the anger and fear at
others
who would correct my still many errors
because they were taking away what little i had
left

there are things that get broken

some of them permanently

so when i see the avoidant behaviors
i acknowledge many of their causes

but you
angus
have certainly not idled away
despite any protestations

you demonstrate that you have pursued knowledge
and have accumulated much over the years

I wish I had - but, although I didn't take James's
path, I also
couldn't connect with the mainstream any more than he
does. I
have hesitated, as I said, over what to try to write
about, and
this is one of the things that is [grammar?]
important but hard
to explain. The invisible barrier against which he
bangs his
fists, or gropes like a mime in a box, looks like the
invisible
barrier against which I also exhausted my efforts for
many years.
All invisible barriers look alike, of course, but
they're not all
the same. (For the moment, see me as just another
mime in a box,
shouting but not being heard because the box is real
and I'm not
really a mime! I might be able to explain it another
time.)

long term potentiation is always what fights time's
decay
so it is a demonstration of a long history of
consideration
and there are obviously drives that still speak
with you

you participate in usenet often

you are very funny

Peculiar, that is. :-)

those are things that imply a certain amount of
motivation

it is clear to me that you study things
as deeply as you can
and then start again
do it again

Sisyphus.

progress through ltp

I looked that up. Found it. None the wiser!

when i call james lazy
i do not ignore the signs that he does seem to
have
dopaminergic auto-obsessionary symptoms

narcissistic personality disorder or subclinical
autism
or persecution complex or i-i-i
whatever the dynamic is called in his presentation
of the form

and i do not disagree
some trauma has produced serotonergic signs
that have aggravated his auto-obsessions
to the point of flights to messianic visions
conspiratorial adversaries
"bad things happen to me because i'm so special"
universal power

i see those in his writing
and i see the behaviors
that tell a lot of this dynamic

and when i say lazy
it is meant also to compliment his ability
as i think that not everyone who doesn't pursue
greater mathematics
is actually lazy

some are certainly just uninterested

some people have much lower symbological obsessions
(though still much greater than most animals)

i call him lazy because i do see capability

but i see very little progress

and from the volume of output
i do not see someone who is so shutdown from fears
that he cannot do anymore

his drives still talk with him
and he still does much
but look at what he accomplishes
(don't stare too long without eye protection)

when i try to interpret what drives might cause this
output
where he doesn't better himself or feel so much
self-shame
that he would hide from the attacks

That seems crucial: he seems (most of the time) to
have no shame.
(Whereas I seem (most of the time) to have little
else.)

where his counterattacks are so shallow
and at times just playful and trolling
i have come to suspect he actually doesn't have
much of a drive to
math

possibly he does
possibly he really is making an effort
and just isn't very good at making progress

possibly all those fears come back in and stifle him
and yet his admissions and his approach don't make
sense to me

I hesitate to embark on any kind of JSH-analysis at
the moment
(and it'll cost me, at least 50p), but in a vague way
at least
he reminds me of others I've known ...

i've known a lot of fucked up people

... (ditto) ...

people who aren't even struggling, who've identified
with the
aggressor, who've thought "If you can't beat 'em,
join 'em",
who've gone over to the dark side, and (this seems to
be the
key) seem to derive some real satisfaction from doing
so (his
"act"?) - whereas although I've also given up the
struggle
(identified with the aggressor, gone over to the dark
side,
etc.), I never stopped hurting, never really enjoyed
my "act"
(such as it was), and mostly avoided people, rather
than going
out of my way to engage (and enrage) them.

If there's anything to this at all (and I know it's
pathetically
vague), he's going to have to start hurting (or
hurting more, or
hurting more often) to make any progress.

Whether it's fear (implying some awareness of the
threat of pain,
if not the pain itself) or laziness (somehow
converting the pain,
or its threat, into pleasure?), he's avoiding pain.
And if he's
getting enough pleasure from doing so, it's hard to
see him
giving up the pleasure for what might seem
(consciously or not)
to be only a world of pain. And, speaking as one who
has lived
mostly in a world of pain (that kind of pain - I've
had an easy
ride through life, in many other ways), I'm not sure
I'd advise
him to make the trade, if he's only going to be left
alone with
his pain.

(My mind's not really working clearly enough to
pursue this.
I'll pay my 50p, in a moment, and shut up.)

the pomposity of all expression
the importance of the description
is magnified by those who get hurt more

i have seen many messiah complexes

the ones who were quickest to ignore evidence of
social faults
were the ones that viewed their personality as an
"act"
performance art exaggerated expressions
that "obviously" took it too far
so why worry about the flaws

it's a great little game to avoid any deep thought
processes
but it tends to be rather one-dimensional art

the ones that took their messiah complex seriously
were deeply affected by demonstrations of social
errors
and took much longer to ignore the evidence
requiring elaborate and obfuscatory tales to avoid
harming their self-
esteem

they would then read up all they could on the
subject
so it would never happen again

(or practice their art)
((or whatever to regain their ego))

Yes: while I don't understand the detail of your
argument (or my
own, come to that, in this post!), I think you're
making a valid
distinction here.

when i say that james is lazy
i am saying that i suspect james sees himself as an
actor
and that is the reason his math is always very
surface-oriented

i think that personality adoption is a cop-out

lazy

because it fully acknowledges the control one has
over themselves

saying it is an "act" is saying it was chosen
a symbological decision process
so the person has already regained a usable
willpower

Yes, I think this is related to what I was saying (so
annoyingly
vaguely and unmathematically!) earlier about not
struggling, and
instead collaborating with the enemy.

i think james puts a lot of effort into updating his
blog
posting his long posts
interacting in the act

and i think james spends very little time studying
mathematics

i don't think he is serious about it

I'll still disagree with you about that, but it's all
a matter
of semantics. (Words can communicate very well, but
usually only
in carefully negotiated contexts.) "It all depends
what you mean
by ..."

by lazy
i am saying that i suspect if he were to give up
his act
he could do some actually useful and noteworthy
mathematics
by honing just a few useful skills and his obvious
willpower to get
things done

I'll agree with you about that.

maybe it's fears

sure it's defensive

but
without a change
james will simply stay the same

(think about it)

I tried! (I've been tempted, over the past couple of
days, to try
to write much more. Something is bubbling away, but
I think I'll
let it bubble a bit more.)

Just to be on the safe side (although this doesn't
feel at all
like a JSH-related post), I'll chuck another penitent
50p into
the bowl.

Obligatory declaration: my postings to JSH-related
threads since
Thu 25 Sep 2008 have raised £5.00 for "Charity".
--
Angus Rodgers
(twirlip@ eats spam; reply to angusrod@)
Contains mild peril

.

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