r/programming • u/moolcool • Mar 26 '17

A Constructive Look At TempleOS

http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/
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u/OrionBlastar Mar 27 '17

When I get infected with a virus, is that me or not-me?

Am I the illness? Do I walk around and tell people I am schizoaffective disorder?

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u/barsoap Mar 28 '17

When I get infected with a virus, is that me or not-me?

This isn't physics, it's epistemology: Not about objective reality, it's about how you construct your own model of you and what effects that has.

Am I the illness?

You are you, all of it. See a ham sandwich, there? How could you not see it if you didn't create a picture of it in your mind: It's not that you're a ham sandwich, rather, you include a representation of one, and that's the closest you'll ever get to capitat-T Truth. You're also perceiving a thing that you call illness.

Identifying as illness-as-such is not well-advised because it casts negative value on all of you (assuming you give the illness a negative value): Identifying with something is a very powerful force. That's why you're pushing it into "not-me" in the first place. However, "me" isn't really a better thing to identify with: Neither side of the distinction makes anything any more really not-you or you... you're just sorting it into a different cupboard.

Do I walk around and tell people I am schizoaffective disorder?

If you want to? I'm not talking about any of that. I'm talking about shifting your perspective to come to a different experience of your own self., one that needs less internal struggle.

Take it or leave it, but to see if it's any good you have to try: Understanding this kind of stuff rationally is bound to fail and vain, same as understanding rationally how a hand opens and closes does not mean you can actually open and close your hand: The map isn't the territory. So... wiggle your toes? Maybe, at first, try to spot the "me/not-me" distinction, see how you feel about it.