Stone the prophets, bellow smoke
Posted on Mon Jul 09 14:31:00 UTC 2007
Desire is a furnace.
Beneath the surface people rage like underground coal fires. We normally only ever see this tiny little slice but sometimes the earth cracks open; we may find the bottom is a long way down. In cases too complex to calculate we will often try and employ heuristics, unconscious rules of thumb that, we hope, work most of the time or at least near enough to allow us to successfully navigate and manipulate the world.
The world in general is an extremely complex case. Social relationships are only slightly less complicated. It is said that individuals with high functioning autism lack a fully developed theory of mind, that their models of others are inadequete, that is, they try and perform computationally what the rest of us (with greater or lesser degrees of success) do instinctively. But it's too hard. It's basically impossible. There is simply too much information. The various subtleties and shades of grey do not lend themselves well to brute mathematics. That's one theory. On the other hand I wonder if everyone doesn't often simplify other people to the point of ridiculousness. How well developed can these models of ours be? Largely one dimensional. Considering how much of our lives revolve around “society” it surprises me how little effort we put in to understanding what is happening inside the people we encounter. Mostly when we meet it seems we interact on an entirely superficial level.
I like talking to people over coffee.
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A short short love story: she was a beer bottle thrown high in the air and I was the concrete that caught her.
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Apparently start date for Auckland is next monday so I'm afraid you christchurch fuckers will have to put up with me for another week.
Beneath the surface people rage like underground coal fires. We normally only ever see this tiny little slice but sometimes the earth cracks open; we may find the bottom is a long way down. In cases too complex to calculate we will often try and employ heuristics, unconscious rules of thumb that, we hope, work most of the time or at least near enough to allow us to successfully navigate and manipulate the world.
The world in general is an extremely complex case. Social relationships are only slightly less complicated. It is said that individuals with high functioning autism lack a fully developed theory of mind, that their models of others are inadequete, that is, they try and perform computationally what the rest of us (with greater or lesser degrees of success) do instinctively. But it's too hard. It's basically impossible. There is simply too much information. The various subtleties and shades of grey do not lend themselves well to brute mathematics. That's one theory. On the other hand I wonder if everyone doesn't often simplify other people to the point of ridiculousness. How well developed can these models of ours be? Largely one dimensional. Considering how much of our lives revolve around “society” it surprises me how little effort we put in to understanding what is happening inside the people we encounter. Mostly when we meet it seems we interact on an entirely superficial level.
I like talking to people over coffee.
---
A short short love story: she was a beer bottle thrown high in the air and I was the concrete that caught her.
---
Apparently start date for Auckland is next monday so I'm afraid you christchurch fuckers will have to put up with me for another week.