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hirez[ Linkage ]
- This is... Disturbing. Not in the tediously obvious 'Brains! Brains!' and shambling sense, but in the sense that if you generalise out from pain (Interesting enough in an Oliver Sacks freakshow sense), you begin to wonder (well I do anyway) if anyone reacts to any emotional state in a useful manner. Or are they/we all just copying what we've seen other people do or what Hollywood scriptwriters think is supposed to happen. Basic stuff for the philosophers and dope-smokers in the audience, I should imagine, but somewhat resonant for the less-empathic geek types. [ Lifted from my ex-boss' weblog. Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoyed working at another.com? Probably not. Hi Steve! (Not that he'll see this, mind...) ]
- Why no-one in their right mind should vote Tory. You'll have to scroll down to the section headed 'Core values' - "Castrate paedophiles" ? I'm not sure I want that sort of vengeful authoritarian running, well, anything. Still, there we are. 'Only following orders' eh? I'll bet they'll make the trains run on time. (Though didn't Mussolini only manage that by pitching out the timetables or redefining the concept of 'on time'?)
[Update.] - Nigella Lawson proved to have her head screwed on. Peter York once again shows he's a mincing fop, which is probably the point of his continued existance. And she digs New Order. Tolkein 'bout my generation indeed.
- The Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical. A fine thing (re)found by
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hazeii. Goes very well as a chaser to the Zombie article linked above.
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Date: 2003-10-10 03:50 am (UTC)Erm, a joke, surely? Methinks our friends at The Guardian have been using exaggeration to comic effect.
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 03:56 am (UTC)It was the 2003 equivalent of "Let's Bomb Russia". If you look at the actual video footage, you'll see the "cheering" crowd reported in the Grauniad is actually laughing at this buffoon.
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Date: 2003-10-10 05:02 am (UTC)But.
It's common knowledge that the Party Conference is scripted far more tightly than anything even Stalin could manage. So what on earth were the handlers playing at by letting that go through? Either it was a direct appeal to the 'Carshalton bring back the lash alliance' (Thank you, Steve Bell), or some kind of bizarre comic juxtaposition that's going to fly right over the collective and woolly heads of Ver Meejah.
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Date: 2003-10-10 05:13 am (UTC)Corporal and/or capital punishment, like a communist revolution, would require us leaving the EU, and that simply isn't going to happen.
Although you have awoken the memory that whilst I used to be a member of the Conservative party, I also used to be a member of Amnesty International. Maybe if I rejoin the one I should rejoin them both. 'Twould be a bit of a bugger if that dream job at GCHQ came up, mind.
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Date: 2003-10-10 03:59 am (UTC)That`ll put the goths off then. I mean, cliched lurking in graveyards and cliched being "into" BDSM just don`t mix, do they?
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 04:07 am (UTC)As far as responses to pain, I think the article suggests there is a whole host of responses. There's the automatic response of moving your had off something that burns. But in the case of those who cant feel that it's a learned response from example. I think all responses to physical and emotional pain lie somewhere between automatic and learned. A new born will only respond with the automatic responses whereas an older child will have started to learn from parents.
I'll go back to sleep now..
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Date: 2003-10-10 04:09 am (UTC)How dreadful.
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Date: 2003-10-10 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 05:55 am (UTC)You just wait till Whitby young man
I`ll be asking selectors to rewind left right and centre.
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:14 am (UTC)[FX: Sudden commotion as several tens of people break out their old 80s clothing in readiness]
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 05:09 am (UTC)The important thing that I took away from that article was not that there may or may not be zombies, but that my (or indeed anyone else's) perception (or arrogant assumption) of other people's 'correct' reaction to stimuli is entirely open to question.
Howard Jones was largely on the right track. Before that unfortunate hair-accident blighted his career, anyway.
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Date: 2003-10-10 05:25 am (UTC)The most frustrating part of learning to cope with autism I've found is that the socially acceptible responses to emotions don't register with me personally, but DO register with my 'this makes sense in a cultural perspective' filter.
Gah. I will write that piece on autism soon.
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:01 am (UTC)Think of it like learning to drive. Once you can do it, it's really hard to remember the state of knowing that other people can control these things with seeming ease, but you're currently all elbows and stalling at roundabouts. Some people just never manage that gestalt with the machine because they're not born with the right brain. They just go through the motions that they've had drummed into them by the driving instructor and somehow manage to get to Gloucester without stripping the gearbox or sideswiping any milkfloats.
Personally, I had to make an effort to learn 'blokey conversation'. You know, the stuff that goes:
"Alright?"
"Not bad. Yerself?"
"Fair to muddling. Seen the cricket?"
"Gaah. Bloody fast-bowlers. Lucky to avoid the follow-on."
"Too right. Fancy a pint later?"
"Top banana!"
... Which is the sort of social WD-40 you need to know how to use just to ease your way through each day. I guess in this audience, it's less hard for people to be able to imagine not being able to manage something so simple.
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:24 am (UTC)(I think the theory is I don't do normal, so instead I do a weird superior imitation. Like telly with the colour and brightness turned right up. Directed by Leni Riefenstahl.)
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:37 am (UTC)Seems to have worked, mind.
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Date: 2003-10-10 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-11 02:57 am (UTC)After all, the IT world is screwed right now so may as well go have fun :)
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Date: 2003-10-13 06:56 am (UTC)Getting a grant/loan will be the bugger. Otherwise, go do it.
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Date: 2003-10-10 07:08 am (UTC)On the internet, no-one may know you're a dog. However in real life, no-one can tell that you're running a personality inside an emulator.
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:56 am (UTC)An institution I'm not, in fact, a member of.
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Date: 2003-10-10 07:03 am (UTC)I just hope it's as good as I remember.
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Date: 2003-10-11 02:13 pm (UTC)"Tragically, as many as 9,625 out of every 10,000 individuals may be neurotypical."
I love philosophy
Date: 2003-10-10 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 05:21 am (UTC)I have it to a lesser extent, I have a problem feeling minor burns and cuts. Usually the first I know about a cut is when go to bed and find a load of blood in the clothes I've removed. It's rather annoying because things go septic quite easily if you don't attend to them quickly. I certainly couldn't put my hand on a hot oven ring, mind.
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Date: 2003-10-10 05:24 am (UTC)Proof of a kind that if you genuinely don`t think about what you`re doing the usual rules may not apply.
I do have asbestos hands, but not THAT much.
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Date: 2003-10-10 06:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 06:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 05:26 am (UTC)Mind you, I once absentmindedly sawed half an inch into my leg while cutting a 2x1, so I can't talk...
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Date: 2003-10-10 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 06:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 06:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 08:12 am (UTC)said Beermat, v0.1alpha emulator.
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Date: 2003-10-10 08:33 am (UTC)Yes, it is. The third 's' is superfluous. Ex-boss'.
The zombie thing. There was a great deal written about this back in the day. Plato was notably fond. Also Aristotle, and Hobbes. Hobbes particularly had a massive headache when trying to construct some semblance of literalism with the inability to find an internally consistant way of working out what someone else was responding to, or perhaps more exactly how they were responding to the same stimulous (Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan, 1651).
I think a lot more philosophers need a basic grounding in neuroscience nowadays though. A lot of these issue are actually quite well understood from the point of view of the brain being a chemical system. Even when viewing it as an abstract network of axiomatic data we actually really understand a great deal about it.
Alas, philosophers have an abiding distruct of neuroscience, thinking of it as some scientist incapable of appreciating the true beauty of conciousness being too wrapped up in interminable symbols. Whereas neuroscientists have little time for philosophers, think of them as just wordsmiths with no real facts to back up their claims.
As ever, both side equally wrong, both having equally valid input on this exact problem, both trying to solve the same problem from different viewpoints and both having a great, great deal to learn from one another.
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Date: 2003-10-13 05:22 pm (UTC)You writing for the Grauniad these days ?
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Date: 2003-10-14 01:52 am (UTC)It may be a generational thing.