That’s a very scary headspace to be in; trying to describe it makes it sound like it’s a very severe mental illness; but it’s actually common among so-called “healthy” people. Heidegger got this.
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You actually feel like social opinions are ontological primaries, and things like atoms, tables, or even sense perceptions are abstractions *over* social judgments. It’s as spooky as it sounds.
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We all use associational cognition constantly; we literally could not see if we didn’t. It’s not a “bad” mode of thought, it’s essential.
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But using *exclusively* associational cognition *for interpreting language* is, I think, a flattened, contracted, degenerate state, relative to what human minds can do in general. Being “insecure” or “easily triggered” is *not* just due to having finite computational power.
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The usual cynical explanation is that being “insecure” is a subconscious self-interested power move — “I precommit to getting upset unless you devote more resources to me.” But I think it’s actually even creepier than that.
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I think it’s a selfish gene thing. A gene for being “triggerable” isn’t there to benefit the organism it’s in, but to benefit its *kin*, who also have the gene, and can benefit from having victims who are easier to abuse and manipulate.
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This is pure speculation on my part, but once I saw it I couldn’t unsee it. The selfish-gene figure-ground inversion applies to behavior too — which means not all your instinctual behaviors were evolved to benefit *you*. Some may be evolved to benefit your kin at your expense.
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The thing that makes “judgment” freighted, makes it “judgmental”, is really hard to explain to people who aren’t as sensitive to it. It really is like your words are magic binding commands, “thou shalt feel bad about thyself.”
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @vgr
since you waded into basically EvoPsych territory here, how about this: 1) "Thinking is acting in effigy." (Fritz Perls) 2) "Speaking is thinking out loud" 3) Before words, there were thoughts, before thoughts, there were "pure" instincts (most of these starting prehuman)
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4) If someone states *out loud*, in real or imagined presence of kin/band/tribe:"You are bad!", the corollary in prehistory (& much of history too…) may have well been "Maybe we should just kill you now" ? You react nervously or counter-aggressively to any such slight/--status
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The problem with this theory is that people must have had grumbles and grievances they didn’t kill each other over. A dog isn’t going to literally kill every dog who annoys him. They’ll just maybe tussle.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @vgr
dogs can't make pointy sticks...? Of course this doesn't apply 100% of the time. 1-10% is enough to make it quite scary for the judgement recipient?
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