Uncurious monkeys

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I can be sometimes, I won't deny it. But I don't really think myself superior or special. Just a bit different, apparently. And it's not a source of misery or loneliness as much as confusion.

And, hm, a big city? But then the people I heard this from were born out in the country. Maybe they grew up so used to nature and forests they don't consider them interesting anymore? I wish I knew.

Why not ask them?

I also want to point out that you may be suffering from fundamental attribution error, as you seem to be assigning motivations to their reactions, which may not in fact be the motivations that underlie their reactions at all.

[Karapac]

Oh but I did, I just didn't get an answer.

What other motivations can they be then? Honest question, I really have no idea.

[axod]

axod - Suppose we must on some level assume we know and notice enough to consider our judgment sound. Open to reconsideration and adjustments upon receiving new data, but still stable enough as to not be crippled with

Then the question regards the importance of what we care about noticing, recognizing and carying-on.  Is there something then perhaps, not itself percieved, that goes about ordering their relevance according to an a priori unifying principle?  Otherwise my capacity for "sound judgement" may result arbitrary and incomplete.  Funny business.

I think so. People who reject science in favor of their gut instinct have a different "judging thing" than those who do the opposite. I think you can even alter that thing, start consciously valuing some kind of stimuli higher than others, and eventually it'll come instinctively.

Say the alteration you mention fashions consciousness to be an emergent property, like a self-correcting/learning/evolutionary algorithm.  What is it that allows said experience to be something that particularly concerns you?  Imagine a world of objects percieved absolutely without relevance.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

axod - Suppose we must on some level assume we know and notice enough to consider our judgment sound. Open to reconsideration and adjustments upon receiving new data, but still stable enough as to not be crippled with

Then the question regards the importance of what we care about noticing, recognizing and carying-on.  Is there something then perhaps, not itself percieved, that goes about ordering their relevance according to an a priori unifying principle?  Otherwise my capacity for "sound judgement" may result arbitrary and incomplete.  Funny business.

I think so. People who reject science in favor of their gut instinct have a different "judging thing" than those who do the opposite. I think you can even alter that thing, start consciously valuing some kind of stimuli higher than others, and eventually it'll come instinctively.

Say the alteration you mention fashions consciousness to be an emergent property, like a self-correcting/learning/evolutionary algorithm.  What is it that allows said experience to be something that particularly concerns you?  Imagine a world of objects percieved absolutely without relevance.

That's essentially what happens in Cotard's Syndrome, and the result of the lack of any sense of relevance or attachment to anything is that the sufferer concludes that they are dead, and then they generally starve to death.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh but I did, I just didn't get an answer.

All of them? How many people are we talking about, here? Are we talking about enough people to allow you to generalize about human beings, or about enough people for you to have asked them why they think it's weird to go for a walk in the woods, and for them all to have, for some reason, ignored your question?

What other motivations can they be then? Honest question, I really have no idea.

That is the thing, isn't it? That you don't know their motivations, so you're making up stories that fit within your own experience to explain other people's reaction. The problem with this is that it's more revealing about you than revealing about them; it doesn't say anything at all about them.

This seems like a good place to tell a fairly boring story.

When I was in my early 20's I thought that middle aged people were really boring. They weren't interested in having conversations about any of the deep topics my friends and I were into, like the problems with capitalism and how fucked up the school system is or  the oligarchy or social justice any of those big, brand-new, world-changing ideas. If the conversation turned in that direction, they would often act kind of bored or just walk away. So boring! Come on old people, why don't you care about important stuff? And then one day I said something to a co-worker who was an older guy, and he just said "How many times can I have that conversation?" and I suddenly realized that it wasn't them who was boring. It was me. They were having far more interesting conversations than I was even able to understand because I was just then picking up the foundational information, having the foundational conversations with my peers that they had with their peers 20 years ago.

Do you need to re-learn how to read every time you pick up a book?

Once you learn something, you have already explored it. Therefore, when you go back to it, it is no longer exploring, it is visiting.

I could be wrong, but it sounds as if you are in a very exploratory mental place. many things are wondrous and new to you. That's great, keep doing it; exploratory behavior generates new neurons and keeps you healthy and resilient. But when you are exploring something and feeling good and see people who don't seem to think that what you're doing is interesting, rather than pitying them as poor uncurious monkeys, it might be wise to wonder whether they already know what you are just discovering.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

On that note:

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What assumptions are you making with these questions, and are you curious about whether they're sound assumptions?

...don't you agree that this is strange?

Why are (adult) humans so very not curious?

Show them something they don't know or understand, and they shy away or get offended and rationalize it as unimportant. Why??

What happens during a human's growing up process to kill that curiosity?

What happened to our species to make us blind?

What happened to some of us to have avoided it?

[Doktor Howl]

That's essentially what happens in Cotard's Syndrome, and the result of the lack of any sense of relevance or attachment to anything is that the sufferer concludes that they are dead, and then they generally starve to death.

Generally, but not always.  Some people live for years or decades convinced they are dead; they simply see no reason to stop eating.

[axod]

axod - Suppose we must on some level assume we know and notice enough to consider our judgment sound. Open to reconsideration and adjustments upon receiving new data, but still stable enough as to not be crippled with

Then the question regards the importance of what we care about noticing, recognizing and carying-on.  Is there something then perhaps, not itself percieved, that goes about ordering their relevance according to an a priori unifying principle?  Otherwise my capacity for "sound judgement" may result arbitrary and incomplete.  Funny business.

I think so. People who reject science in favor of their gut instinct have a different "judging thing" than those who do the opposite. I think you can even alter that thing, start consciously valuing some kind of stimuli higher than others, and eventually it'll come instinctively.

Say the alteration you mention fashions consciousness to be an emergent property, like a self-correcting/learning/evolutionary algorithm.  What is it that allows said experience to be something that particularly concerns you?  Imagine a world of objects percieved absolutely without relevance.

That's essentially what happens in Cotard's Syndrome, and the result of the lack of any sense of relevance or attachment to anything is that the sufferer concludes that they are dead, and then they generally starve to death.

Fascinating.  Last time this clown at the office dosed me with a brownie I kind of felt like that.  At least he spent months preparing the ritual for me.  Srlsy though, I do think Cotard's represents an acute form of a delusion that is more prevelant than generally recognized.  I wonder how well an upside-down Barstool Experiment would work in that respect?

[Doktor Howl]

Laugh it up.

[axod]

Just as an aside, it occurs to me that this whole new "deep-learning" AI stuff seem quite the misnomer.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That's essentially what happens in Cotard's Syndrome, and the result of the lack of any sense of relevance or attachment to anything is that the sufferer concludes that they are dead, and then they generally starve to death.

Generally, but not always.  Some people live for years or decades convinced they are dead; they simply see no reason to stop eating.

There may well be case studies my professor doesn't know about - we just covered this a couple of weeks ago, and he was pretty adamant about death almost always occurring within a few months. I am only aware of one case that didn't end in death by starvation/self-neglect - the patient recovered something approximating normal function with the help of therapy and medication. During the time when he was affected by the delusion, he did not eat.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

axod - Suppose we must on some level assume we know and notice enough to consider our judgment sound. Open to reconsideration and adjustments upon receiving new data, but still stable enough as to not be crippled with

Then the question regards the importance of what we care about noticing, recognizing and carying-on.  Is there something then perhaps, not itself percieved, that goes about ordering their relevance according to an a priori unifying principle?  Otherwise my capacity for "sound judgement" may result arbitrary and incomplete.  Funny business.

I think so. People who reject science in favor of their gut instinct have a different "judging thing" than those who do the opposite. I think you can even alter that thing, start consciously valuing some kind of stimuli higher than others, and eventually it'll come instinctively.

Say the alteration you mention fashions consciousness to be an emergent property, like a self-correcting/learning/evolutionary algorithm.  What is it that allows said experience to be something that particularly concerns you?  Imagine a world of objects percieved absolutely without relevance.

That's essentially what happens in Cotard's Syndrome, and the result of the lack of any sense of relevance or attachment to anything is that the sufferer concludes that they are dead, and then they generally starve to death.

Fascinating.  Last time this clown at the office dosed me with a brownie I kind of felt like that.  At least he spent months preparing the ritual for me.  Srlsy though, I do think Cotard's represents an acute form of a delusion that is more prevelant than generally recognized.  I wonder how well an upside-down Barstool Experiment would work in that respect?

It generally represents damage to the communication between the fusiform face area and the amygdala. There are variations, such as Capgras Syndrome.

[Doktor Howl]

That's essentially what happens in Cotard's Syndrome, and the result of the lack of any sense of relevance or attachment to anything is that the sufferer concludes that they are dead, and then they generally starve to death.

Generally, but not always.  Some people live for years or decades convinced they are dead; they simply see no reason to stop eating.

There may well be case studies my professor doesn't know about - we just covered this a couple of weeks ago, and he was pretty adamant about death almost always occurring within a few months. I am only aware of one case that didn't end in death by starvation/self-neglect - the patient recovered something approximating normal function with the help of therapy and medication. During the time when he was affected by the delusion, he did not eat.

I'm working out of Wikipedia, but:

The article Recurrent Postictal Depression with Cotard delusion (2005) describes the case of a fourteen-year-old epileptic boy whose distorted perception of reality resulted from Cotard Syndrome. His mental-health history was of a boy expressing themes of death, being sad all the time, decreased physical activity in playtime, social withdrawal, and disturbed biological functions. About twice a year, the boy suffered episodes that lasted between three weeks and three months.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That's essentially what happens in Cotard's Syndrome, and the result of the lack of any sense of relevance or attachment to anything is that the sufferer concludes that they are dead, and then they generally starve to death.

Generally, but not always.  Some people live for years or decades convinced they are dead; they simply see no reason to stop eating.

There may well be case studies my professor doesn't know about - we just covered this a couple of weeks ago, and he was pretty adamant about death almost always occurring within a few months. I am only aware of one case that didn't end in death by starvation/self-neglect - the patient recovered something approximating normal function with the help of therapy and medication. During the time when he was affected by the delusion, he did not eat.

I'm working out of Wikipedia, but:

The article Recurrent Postictal Depression with Cotard delusion (2005) describes the case of a fourteen-year-old epileptic boy whose distorted perception of reality resulted from Cotard Syndrome. His mental-health history was of a boy expressing themes of death, being sad all the time, decreased physical activity in playtime, social withdrawal, and disturbed biological functions. About twice a year, the boy suffered episodes that lasted between three weeks and three months.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion

Interesting... so his syndrome was episodic rather than chronic. I actually don't know whether that would still be considered the same disorder from a neurological perspective, to tell the truth.

But either way, now I know about two.