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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
@nuanceexists
pointed out to me last night that it's very appropriate to use magical language to describe unconscious contracts (i also like "unconscious vows") - they're like spells you cast as a child, which carry the risk of substantial magical backlash
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
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so, the vague picture is that a sensitive child, especially one who's been somewhat neglected and/or abused by caregivers, who experiences bad things is especially likely to react by making a lot of unconscious contracts to protect themselves: "avoid THIS at ALL COSTS"
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
this is another funny situation where i think both phenomenological and technical language are appropriate because i think this is or can be built up into a magical lens on perceptual control theory, or something like that. still fuzzy on the details
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
among other things the story it suggests about the relationship between magic and trauma is so interesting to me. some people kind of have to learn about magic as an adult because they already cast a lot of magic as a child and are dealing with the consequences
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
inner game of tennis is like impro in that it's about something much broader than its stated subject material. it's written by a tennis coach trying to explain how he coaches people to be good at tennis and it turns out the answer is non-doing!
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
he gives a bunch of verbal instructions to his tennis students and it just tenses them up as they *try really hard* to follow all of them, vs. he demonstrates to them the desired behavior and asks them to imagine and then imitate it and it works perfectly
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
an athlete in the zone is "out of his mind"; "more aware of the ball... not aware of giving himself a lot of instructions"; "it just seems to happen - and often with more accuracy than he could have hoped for"
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
the picture i want to suggest with these excerpts + the previous one is that the body is capable of granting wishes with astonishing accuracy, but the flipside is that those wishes have to be specified with astonishing accuracy
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Made in Cosmos 🌻
@made_in_cosmos
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Just met husband’s mom. In the last few months she lost 30lbs, practiced yoga daily without a single miss, quit carbs, started learning English, and is now on her way to quitting smoking. Her secret? Every day on commute she imagines her ideal future in vivid detail.
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
even a quite long list of things that are bad and scary and disgusting and dangerous and that you should avoid at all costs does not make a great wish. it's an anti-wish; you've specified what you don't want but not what you want
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
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so, there's an idea i think i got from @Malcolm_Ocean, about a fundamental asymmetry between "approach" and "avoid" in high-dimensional state spaces: "avoid" is badly underspecified. there are many directions in which to run away from something
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