News:

Yes we're horrible toxic people, because this is 2020's Mental Illness Olympics, and the winners get a free pass on giving life-threatening advice with the bonus of having zero accountability for their shit behaviour.

Main Menu

(attempting) to tie some ideas together.

Started by AFK, April 07, 2008, 04:17:48 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Verbal Mike

Well we can call events like that "shrapnel". So it's both memes and shrapnel we're talking about.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: LMNO on April 08, 2008, 04:49:12 PM
Can we not use the word "meme"?

At least not all the time.

I mean, I suppose you can look at a bully beating you up in middle school as a "meme", but that's kind of a stretch; and something like that will affect your path in life.

Good point... but in thinking about this:

Tthe way you react to the Bully might be dependent on the beliefs/programming in your head. I got beat up as a kid a few times, I had been raised as a JW/pacifist though and the beating appeared to me as their hated of my religion... I was persecuted, just like Jesus.

If I'd been raised by my Uncle, I would probably have kicked the shit out of the bully. If I had been raised by my friend Carl's parents I might have done what he did and go cry to Mommy and get the bully expelled.

So there seems a relationship, perhaps between the path, events/shrapnel and the beliefs (memes?) that you've already absorbed. While the shrapnel or event might force our path to react, memes (maybe) define the direction of the reaction.

I'm sure there's a better term than meme though.
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Verbal Mike

The memes and shrapnel seem to be the external side of things. The internal, personal result of both can probably be captured in one word, as their results are not all that different. I'm tempted to use "imprint" or "scar" but neither seem right (and both have too many connotations).
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: st.verbatim on April 08, 2008, 05:06:23 PM
The memes and shrapnel seem to be the external side of things. The internal, personal result of both can probably be captured in one word, as their results are not all that different. I'm tempted to use "imprint" or "scar" but neither seem right (and both have too many connotations).

Yeah... this is a rather complex concept we're trying to model... maybe we would be better off making multiple models to explain each concept, then look for a Grand Unified Model once we have the basics fleshed out?

In talking about this it reminds me of what RAW said about reality being "Interactive processes non-simultaneously apprehended"
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

LMNO

What's enticing is that, when using RWHN's gliffy as a launching point, we can kind of see what we're aiming at.  There's Space-Time, running into near-infinity, and inside that is the path our life is taking, banged about by shrapnel and sucked in by memes, and all of that is encapsulated by an amoeba-like amorphous shell of the experiences we have and the things we imagine.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: LMNO on April 08, 2008, 06:42:01 PM
What's enticing is that, when using RWHN's gliffy as a launching point, we can kind of see what we're aiming at.  There's Space-Time, running into near-infinity, and inside that is the path our life is taking, banged about by shrapnel and sucked in by memes, and all of that is encapsulated by an amoeba-like amorphous shell of the experiences we have and the things we imagine.

Yeah, its the 'banging about' bit which we seem to have difficulty modeling ;-)

Do you see the X/Y axis as being the length and height of the amorphous shell, or is the shell traveling along those axises? Does the bubble travel along from birth to death, or is the length of the bubble the length between your birth and death?

- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

LMNO

For me, bubble is modified by the Z line.  The path is contained within it.  The bubble is smaller than the upper limits of XY.

The bubble starts at birth (coordinate X'Y'), and stretches positive Y (at first.  when you learn about the past, the bubble can stretch before X'Y').  The bubble grows also along X, as you move about in space.  So, your life span increases Y, and increased travel/movement increase X.

Learning increases Z, and it's vector can increase the area of X and of Y.

The memes and shrapnel increase Z, as well as thought and imagination.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: LMNO on April 08, 2008, 07:00:50 PM
For me, bubble is modified by the Z line.  The path is contained within it.  The bubble is smaller than the upper limits of XY.

The bubble starts at birth (coordinate X'Y'), and stretches positive Y (at first.  when you learn about the past, the bubble can stretch before X'Y').  The bubble grows also along X, as you move about in space.  So, your life span increases Y, and increased travel/movement increase X.

Learning increases Z, and it's vector can increase the area of X and of Y.

The memes and shrapnel increase Z, as well as thought and imagination.

So more of a disc sort of shape in the end?
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

AFK

I think Payne in an older thread posits some ideas that speak to deviations and how "Shrapnel" plays a part.  It's long but I think it's quite pertinent to the discussion.  

Quote from: Payne on March 08, 2008, 01:24:53 AM

The BIP is not a static concept, and this is covered in all the literature and discussions that have been held about it. We carry our BIP with us from birth to death. While the BIP may evolve over time, it is never escaped, as such, so any visualisation of our lives as being journeys down "paths" should include the BIP metaphor (tried and tested as it is, it will make further investigation easier to breakdown and comprehend)

Paths are a broad, fairly general, description of the journey, and in a previous post, i postulated that a certain degree of detail Vs. "The Big Picture" would anyway be inherent in any further investigation. For the purposes of trying to actually find something usable, i've gone or a balance of detail with big picture.

Paths are fairly easy to understand, I think, and should simplify the process.

"Shrapnel" however, is a trcky concept, and hard to pin down. Is it communication? is it good or bad, or both?

The best I can really say, with the amount I've been thinking about it is that it, along with good old random chance, is what governs "Paths", specifically deviations from a straightforward, constant path.

What it is is really dependant on which way you are looking at path, from which perspective. As I said earlier, I'm going to try and approach this as a balance betwen detail and an over view, so it is probably best to examine the "shrapnel" idea from a basis of any intra/extra-BIP interaction, so therefore communication and relationships with anything from outside your own BIP. That would be any interaction originating from outside to inside or vice-versa. These interactions will influence choices and "directions" on the path.

A quick note about random chance, which Could influence you in the same way, this is often really dependant on your reaction to it as much as it is by the event itself, so is really covered in the BIP stuff already.

External stimuli can light the path before us, blind us to it, or cast a new light on the bars of our prison, causing us to re-evaluate them. They provide the framewok you can visualise the path in.

The whole "shrapnel" idea seems to have boiled down to the art of comunication and interpretation through the bars in our prisons, learning how to do both as effectively as possible, and learning the limitations of what we can do with both.  It's perhaps the ultimate expression of the idea "think for yourself", it lessens the need to communicate through multiple sets of bars and filters and/or makes the task of having to do so more defined.

Observable, concrete Reality, concepts are easier to communicate through bars and filters, as it's individually testable, and we know that certain things will always hold true for all of us. We are not going to suddenly over come gravity, or learn telepathy, and we can be relatively certain that with these solid concepts, very little loss of information will occur through interpretation.

Emotive and perceptual concepts are much harder to communicate effectively, as they will be affected much more by an individuals bars, i think because most bars are emotive and perceptual by nature. Interpretation of any given interaction based on these concepts will be skewed by multiple sets of bars.

With that, we can surmise we have REALITY, and juxtaposed over that, a more more personal emotive and perceptual reality. Some of the problems we have with this, and some other ideas, is that building more realities (metaphors, concepts, interpretation) over the second type of reality get you more and more removed from REALITY, making these metaphors/concepts/interpretations less testable, less communicatable and, ultimately, far less useful.

With this view of the "shrapnel" concept, we can see it is ultimately down to interpretation whether it is good or bad. Some people like to build bars to deflect some of the interactions, or to encouage others - due to interpretation. Some people will expend a lot of energy trying to tailor their communication AROUND other peoples bars, or go for an all out assault on them- due to interpreation.

Ultimately I guess all I could really say about this all is thatt hat great constant, time, will force you down your path, whether you deide to take a hand in where it leads you or not. So you can sit in your cell, isolated and enjoying the ride, or you can constantly consider your interactions, and ignore the scenery, or, finally, ind a balance betwen the two and try to make the best of both worlds.

Where has this led us ultimately? I think nowhere, But maybe someone out there will interpret something from this interaction and find something useful. I hope so.
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

This seems to model the interaction with 'shrapnel' as a point-in-time event which may change your path. Yet, it seems to me that many experiences/memes/events/shrapnel may not affect you when you first encounter them, but only later, perhaps in connection with other experiences/memes/events/shrapnel...

- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

AFK

Ah, but that's why it is "Shrapnel"  Embedded "Shrapnel" may take time before it interacts and exerts its influence.  Much like actual shrapnel may become embedded and not have any health-implications right away. 
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Payne

And why parts of the above text refer to the Shrapnel affecting BIP bars as opposed to affecting you directly.

AFK

#42
Yep.  So it's like Shrapnel could be a course changer or probably more often a bar builder/changer/modifier, which can become a course changer. 

A personal example is the death of my Grandmother was when I was 13.  There was an obvious immediate change that occurred when she died as I was very close to her.  But there was a lingering aspect of that incident that I think has had other impacts throughout my life and how I've chosen to live it.  So that bit of Shrapnel changed course immediately, but it also built this bar (or bars) in my cell that have gone on to have further impact on my path. 
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Verbal Mike

The following image comes to mind:
Our Amorphous Field of Coordinates is our experience of life (as expressed in terms of space-time and another dimension we are now trying to define). It is located within our personal BIP which is the outer limit of our perception - part mutable, part set in stone, the Amorphous Field cannot exceed it. Within the Field, the Coordinate that is I floats around. To actively change the BIP, I will have to reach the extremities of the Field and get to the walls and bars of my Prison. I can do this by traveling extremely far and seeing new things - reaching the extremities of the Space of my Field. I can do this by reaching my Field's extremities in Time - at birth and at death (this is untestable but seems to make sense in a way, or at least to be esthetically pleasing). Finally, I can do this by reaching extremities of the intellect, the ends of that elusive Z axis.
And as all shrapnel comes from without the BIP, it must either embed in the BIP (thus changing it) or enter into my Field and quite possibly change it, or the path I make through it.

How does all that sound?
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

LMNO