The IanEye Theory of Personality

[FourthBase]

Another stroll through the RI search function wayback machine, another gem.
Forgive me for putting this old Lounge thread on General blast, but, it's too good.

viewtopic.php?p=159493#p159493

Which led to...

Anyway, in terms of the more metaphysical aspects of this thread, i have a theory about multi personality disorder. i think a "normal" personality is made up of hundreds of personas, and when life poses a puzzle to an individual, these personas attack the puzzle all at once in a big blur and what emerges is a sort of consensus about the best possible way forward.

I think the "defect" of those with multiple personality disorder is that what happens to them is this approach breaks down and they tend to get "stuck" in one personality for much longer than "normal" people do. So, their problem is not that they have more personalities than average, but that they spend much too long in any one mask, where as the average person applies many personas to the puzzle.

Not sure if I am explaining that as well as i could.

Not a bad theory. The personae wouldn't necessarily be only self-generated, but possibly a composite of self-generated personae and the surface personae borrowed from other people, right? And wouldn't it be more likely for the number to be in the range of, like, 5-15 personae instead of hundreds? Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying? Also, I imagine there would be certain strong-willed people whose personae over the course of a lifetime would be compressed into even fewer masks, maybe even down to one mask?

("Not a bad theory", jeezuz, what an unjustifiably-cocky condescending dick...ugh.)

IanEye said:

Anyway, in terms of the more metaphysical aspects of this thread, I have a theory about multi personality disorder. I think a "normal" personality is made up of hundreds of personas, and when life poses a puzzle to an individual, these personas attack the puzzle all at once in a big blur and what emerges is a sort of consensus about the best possible way forward.

I find your theory very interesting. From what I've read of mind control techniques, personas play an important role. For example, a person lacking confidence would be trained - I guess hypnotized - to create or imagine a self-assured alter ego. I would think that this type of behaviour modification would have been used in the training of soldiers, i.e. turning men into killing machines. More knowledgeable people on this board could provide background information documenting the long relationship between the military/intelligence apparatus and psychiatry (What were the US Army precursors of the CIA's MK-Ultra program?). I've been watching reruns of the PBS series "The Fifties" (1997) and I was again reminded of the social engineering aspects of "public service" short films, especially as it related to family life... a model exemplified by the Cleaver family of the "Leave It to Beaver" (1957) series. One can only wonder the extent to which government entities made use of "advances" in the fileds of psychology and psychiatry.

And wouldn't it be more likely for the number to be in the range of, like, 5-15 personae instead of hundreds?

indeed, hundreds may be too many - I don't know, it is just an idea i have.

IanEye,

"What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before." - Mark Twain

Not too long ago I read a very similar theory that we all have multiple personalities. But I think that thoery was that we rapidly switch between them. I'll see if I can find that again.

... more likely for the number to be in the range of, like, 5-15 personae instead of hundreds?

For personal reasons that sentence made me shit a brick lol, but in "spirit math" one and infinity seem to pop up frequently. A little slice of the pie for each sentient being ( EVRY1 in txtspeek?). I suck at math.

Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying? Also, I imagine there would be certain strong-willed people whose personae over the course of a lifetime would be compressed into even fewer masks, maybe even down to one mask?

Yah maybe. I'm not clear on the specifics but thinking instead of a guy in a shell, I'm a shell on a thread that's something like a computer network but composed of sentience, spanning 'time'. Some frames for me, some frames for T-Rex and the one he's chasing, some for the Orca, some for the Nazis and some for their victims. It can get pretty ugly, but I think that's why Dick Cheney was wearing the 'Staff' hat at the Holocaust memorial.

Anyway, in terms of the more metaphysical aspects of this thread, i have a theory about multi personality disorder. i think a "normal" personality is made up of hundreds of personas, and when life poses a puzzle to an individual, these personas attack the puzzle all at once in a big blur and what emerges is a sort of consensus about the best possible way forward.

I think the "defect" of those with multiple personality disorder is that what happens to them is this approach breaks down and they tend to get "stuck" in one personality for much longer than "normal" people do. So, their problem is not that they have more personalities than average, but that they spend much too long in any one mask, where as the average person applies many personas to the puzzle.

Not sure if I am explaining that as well as i could.

I can't figure out where I read something similar to this. Appropriately enough, my reading lately has been so schizophrenic and disjointed that I don't whether I'm coming or going. I've got stacks of books scattered all over my apartment. And I'm one of those people that will go to look up a word and get sidetracked and spend a half an hour reading the dictionary so my online reading wanders all over the place. If I find the article I'll post a link to it. If I remember correctly the similarity is in the idea that having multiple personalities is the normal state and that we switch between them so quickly that we do not perceive ourselves as having more than one personality. I have to admit this has a ring of truth to me.

Of course we run the risk of trivializing what I believe is a very real and debilitating psychological disorder with our metaphysical musings, but this is the lounge so hopefully there will be no shouting here. MPD is still a very contentious diagnosis. There is lots of disagreement on it's origins, the diagnostic criteria to be used and even whether it exists at all. It's an interesting theory that the dysfunction of mpd arises as a result of getting stuck in a personality. Maybe this is because this is indicative of trauma based mpd... partitioning off parts of our psyches as a defensive measure. Literally we are "stuck" in the past.

Computer neural net simulations have been limited by two factors: the number of neural connections that can be simulated in real time and the capacity of computer memories. While human neurons are slow (a million times slower than electronic circuits), every neuron and every interneuronal connection is operating simultaneously. With about 100 billion neurons and an average of 1000 connections per neuron, there are about 100 trillion computations being performed at the same time. At about 200 computations per second, that comes to 20 million billion (2 x 1016) calculations per second.

link:The Paradigms and Paradoxes of Intelligence: Building a Brain
It seems there is plenty of computing power to cycle through hundreds of personalities per second. I'm curious how you came by this theory. How do you experience this?

Please, everyone, keep that last bolded thing in mind. And if there's any yelling, let it all be at me for resurrecting an old Lounge thread and plopping it anew in General Discussion. But as far as I can tell, as far as I know, IanEye is the originator of a very strange theory, one that's not only "not bad" but quite good and possibly great and maybe even revolutionary.

[0_0]

Soemtimes i think having multiple personalities is what makes life on earth possible, we are all one acCording to a lot of eastern spiritual teachings, but apparently we are all one with multiple personalities. The trinity concept in christianity seems to point in the same direction. The same theme can be found in a lot of fiction as well, for example zaphod beeblebrox closing party of his brain to himself, can't remember excatly. We can witness the same phenomenon in dreaming every night, where apparently the dreamer is capable of surprising/frightnening/outsmarting/outrunning etc him/herself. So to thinking of waking life as in fact being the same process, whereby one creates the illusion of many is not that far a stretch. Then if you look at people who are diagnosed with "Dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously known as multiple personality disorder (MPD)", the cause is from the little i know about it sometimes given as a defensemechanism against trauma. So if we continue that reasoning apparently the one being we are all part of is hugely traumatized and is thinking us up as a defensemechanism to that trauma. This has analogies with concepts like original sin.

[FourthBase]

We can witness the same phenomenon in dreaming every night, where apparently the dreamer is capable of surprising/frightnening/outsmarting/outrunning etc him/herself. So to thinking of waking life as in fact being the same process, whereby one creates the illusion of many is not that far a stretch.

My cousin recently recounted a dream of hers. She was baffled by it, chuckled at how nonsensical it was, how surreal. Within seconds, I recapped the details and translated it for her. My translation made complete sense, was utterly true, and profoundly meaningful. But it wasn't a creative act on my part. The dream itself was the artist. I explained to her that, assuming the DMT theory of dreaming is correct, then everyone on earth, every night, for several hours, trips their balls off on a moderate dose of the world's most powerful psychedelic -- little old ladies, Mormons who abhor even caffeine, the Supreme Court, even dogs -- and then wakes up, remembering little if any of the experience, and saunters off to another day of school or work, like nothing happened. I described it as a nightly conversation that the teeming subconscious has with itself, that you the singular conscious being are only ever eavesdropping in on. The conversation is conducted in a language of symbols and metaphors, and the subject of the conversations is your waking life, the promises, disappointments, and tensions of your circumstances in life ranging from the past, present, and future. The accumulated wisdom of such conversations clandestinely seeping into your consciousness, in gist form, manifesting in much of what we call "intuition" and "instinct", the practical benefits of which have helped sustain us evolutionarily for eons. Our dreams are basically a series of didactic short films directed by an advice columnist with a doctorate in poetry who is never not tripping on DMT. The most prolific and influential cinematic auteur of all-time, the dream is, having scored a permanent artistic residency in the brains of all advanced sentient mammalian life since the dawn of time.

[IanEye]

i have always liked reading, from a very early age, and when i was six i learned that you can disappear right into a book. no one around you can even see you if you are really into a book.

later, when i saw the Gumby cartoon and he would jump into open books that really resonated with me.

Then, when i was twelve, i got my first WalkMan for Christmas. i remember in my stocking was a cassette of Jimi Hendrix' "Smash Hits" & Flock of Seagulls eponymous album. i really liked how Jimi's "Can You See Me" guitar would pan back and forth from ear to ear. And while listening to "Space Age Love Song" i discovered that you can disappear into music as well. People in the room don't even see you anymore, you can become invisible.

i was probably 16 when i tried marijuana for the first time. soon i discovered you can disappear into anything:

the condensation on a shower curtain

a Hummel figurine

the blood red moiré patterns that form on your closed eye lids as you stare up at the summer sun



you just focus in on that, and you're out of the picture.

[brainpanhandler]

That thread seems ages ago.

[Project Willow]

Many theorists and some scientists have posited same, that everyone has different personas or personalities, one for work, one for home, one for social engagements, etc. A couple of years ago I read a paper on DID that asserted this very point and made a detailed functional comparison between "normals" and people with DID. Unfortunately, I cannot locate the thing at the moment.

Of course we run the risk of trivializing what I believe is a very real and debilitating psychological disorder with our metaphysical musings, but this is the lounge so hopefully there will be no shouting here. MPD is still a very contentious diagnosis. There is lots of disagreement on it's origins, the diagnostic criteria to be used and even whether it exists at all.

The condition itself isn't necessarily debilitating, although it can impair function at times. What's more debilitating are its commonly "co-morbid" disorders, most especially Complex PTSD. There is not "lots of disagreement on its origins". Formal disagreement issues from a select minority, and challenges to the diagnosis are largely politically-based. The challenges have not held sway in the broader clinical community to the point where they've affected inclusion in the DSM. The etiology of DID in prolonged and severe childhood trauma is so well established, to deny it is akin to believing in magic bullets. DID would not be considered "contentious" were it not for this etiology and everything it entails, painful challenges to individual world views and the social order.

Here's a quote from my DIDiva site:

“Nowhere else would a body of research data be so entirely discounted. This empirical base includes clinical case studies, series studies with structured interview data; studies of phenomenology, prevalence, memory, hypnotizability, neurobiology, imaging, and psychophysiology; and psychological assessment profiles, among others. These studies include samples of children and adolescents and cross-cultural samples from North America, Europe, Latin America, Turkey, and Asia.

-Richard J. Loewenstein, MD
Issues in The Iatrogenesis Controversy
Traumatic Dissociation: Neurobiology and Treatment, p. 275

Previous thread on DID: http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30773

[FourthBase]

What you describe as already posited is not quite IanEye's theory.
Please, read again, I don't think I was overstating his originality:

Anyway, in terms of the more metaphysical aspects of this thread, i have a theory about multi personality disorder. i think a "normal" personality is made up of hundreds of personas, and when life poses a puzzle to an individual, these personas attack the puzzle all at once in a big blur and what emerges is a sort of consensus about the best possible way forward.

I think the "defect" of those with multiple personality disorder is that what happens to them is this approach breaks down and they tend to get "stuck" in one personality for much longer than "normal" people do. So, their problem is not that they have more personalities than average, but that they spend much too long in any one mask, where as the average person applies many personas to the puzzle.

Not sure if I am explaining that as well as i could.

[crikkett]

isn't it though, that the schizophrenic doesn't remember their alternates? I remember my decision-making processes, for the most part, and all the points of view I try to apply to it.

[8bitagent]

for me every damn day is a hazy, cloudy minded day. That dreamlike haze of a fever or deep depression. Yet neither of those things. I want to blame it on my pot cookie incident but it seems like the fugue has been going on awhile, just more intensely since that event. It sucks though...I just try and go for long walks every day, be creative with art and media and be productive.

[Project Willow]

What you describe as already posited is not quite IanEye's theory.
Please, read again, I don't think I was overstating his originality:

Why on earth would you care what I think? I'm impaired after all, I can't put all aspects of myself to the question, according to the theorizing here.

I'm much more interested in how some of your thread reanimation of late is centered on the theme of victim blaming.

isn't it though, that the schizophrenic doesn't remember their alternates? I remember my decision-making processes, for the most part, and all the points of view I try to apply to it.

Surely you must understand that schizophrenics do not have alters, and that DID and schizophrenia are two separate conditions.

[FourthBase]

The only thing I can think of as a precedent for the IanEye Theory is an artistic metaphor, the vessel from Malkovich as seen in the end, with Bean and company piling in. But just a metaphor, that, and still a sloppy one, not even close to capturing what it'd be. I think you'd have to go to some network-neuro-scientist like Changizi to get anything close to the marshaling of multiple compartments at any given time, and actually I suspect his whole "harnessing" theory would have room for such a mind process/module, because, when you think about it, all IanEye's theory would presuppose as a genesis is the internalization, collation, and reflection of the 15-150 personae in your (you, the ancestor from 200k years ago or whatever) immediate environment. Yes, there's a base genetic persona, predispositions. Beyond that, we are kind of just an assortment of everyone we've ever known, every persona we've seen in real life or art, influenced by varying asymmetrical degrees, a half-selected half-unconscious composite of bits and chunks and streaks and vapors of other people's personae. (You down wit OPP, lol, why yes, you necessarily are.) Each is an ingredient that can be arranged (almost always unconsciously, right?) to deal strategically with different circumstances. That's the evolutionary logic. Borrowing a little of that, because it seems to work there. Borrowing a swath of this, because it works well here. Winding up with a on-call repertoire. Is it creepy, does it undermine our autonomy? I think hell no. What else are we supposed to be? How else are we supposed to be formed, from what? As Jim O'Rourke sings, "Everything that you felt is someone else giving you something." What creeps me out is the now-massively-outsized and relatively-uniform centralization of persona-generation/adoption, i.e., movies and television, and before that, books. Books at least imparted a literate character, and the pickings for noble models were far less slim. Now, we are partially infecting our minds with fucking guidos from Jersey Shore, by "we" I mean millions, and perhaps more accurately it's a "they" infecting our minds. I have always guarded carefully against exposing myself to memes that made me feel like shit, or didn't match what I wanted to be. I loathe horror movies. ^^^^Here's a big part why^^^^ I failed in high school on certain novels that I would just not read, I refused, like one would reject a suitor or an ugly coat. Who the fuck wants to read Wharton, anyway? Milton was right, about evil at least, but exposing oneself promiscuously and indiscriminately to all culture? Not a good idea, in my opinion. Because everything that you read or see or hear will someday give you something, make you something. Unless, of course, you have a strong will and a lust for criticizing at a safe distance, then, perhaps, you can inoculate yourself. Otherwise, and in general: Learn to be an expert of book-cover semiotics. Back in the ancestral environment, the palette for characterizing the consciousness was a healthy low number, from "everyone in the past was famous to 15 people" to a nice Dunbar-ish 150 or so. You could put individuals back then on "ignore" and actually it meant something, in some way (although this is often a recipe for disaster) one could even define the self by opposing it to another's individual traits, someone, one person, who represented what you wanted least to be, whose influence on you could be cleansed by self-vigilance and hatred, making sure not to "be that guy", lol. Now, each of us is exposed, if you're a thirtysomething like me or older, to fucking thoooooooooousands of shallow nemeses and models, none for all that long. Unless you have a north star or two, like, for example, I have seen -- studied, actually -- Groundhog Day at least, oh, 20 times, maybe 25 -- and I flood my senses with Stereolab, because...I intuited that each was not only awesome but a major component of what I one day hoped to be, to represent, to fill myself in as, up with. Does that sound contrived? Well, I'm only realizing now what I had been unknowingly doing then, it was all just fanatic ecstasy at the time. But, then again, even if it were contrived, what, you don't think you somehow don't do this, too, do you? Everyone does it, is it. Difference is, do you know why, and if not, are you making generally wise choices? Is it possible to be born good or neutral, and then be raised only by sociopaths, go to schools with only jerks, watch only movies about bad people, listen only to angry and disturbed/disturbing music, be surrounded only by asshole neighbors, get a job at Total Fucking Dickhead Inc., only ever encounter bad models of behavior in one's life...and still turn out to be a saint, or even just a decent human being? Those would have to be some stronnnnnnnng genetic predispositions, to persist through all that, to not wind up having an IanEye Theory mindful of nothing but asshole personae to deploy as a select team or random mind-crowd. That's the extreme example that sets the boundary. So, how are you composed, and predisposed? Rhetorical question, no need to answer. Good news: The brain is wonderful. The mind is wonderful. It's possible to deprogram and reprogram, a la Funkentelechy. There's always hope, even for the mega-asshole, even for the hopeless schmuck. /ramble

[FourthBase]

What you describe as already posited is not quite IanEye's theory.
Please, read again, I don't think I was overstating his originality:

Why on earth would you care what I think? I'm impaired after all, I can't put all aspects of myself to the question, according to the theorizing here.

I'm much more interested in how some of your thread reanimation of late is centered on the theme of victim blaming.

You mean, victim responsibility-restoring? Really, PW, do you think I am blaming victims?
You think my wrath in that other thread is directed at, who....Anna? Read again, closely, if so.

Women, you have power. Use it. That's blame?
Women, patriarchy might've messed with you even deeper than currently suspected.
But, it can be remedied, if so, and the "game" of restoring peace and balance, won.

Blame? That?

Anna, don't do that to yourself, please. Please.
Anna, don't let them sucker you, please.
Anna, no, no, no.

Blame?
Really?

What's worse, expecting Anna to be totally powerless, totally helpless, or...
Mourning the poor decisions she made, with the premise that she might have made better ones?
I say the former is worse. The latter expects something different and better from Anna.

When I was pink-slipped, should I have been freed from all expectations to act wisely?
Isn't that the exact disempowerment I was viscerally resisting? The helpless pathology?
I could have been smarter. Acknowledging that recognizes my agency as an individual.

As for your capability to analyze a theory...
Would you prefer I treat you like a semi-invalid, or like a fully-capable participant?
Personally, I'd prefer the latter. If there's something that can't be achieved, no sweat.
I won't think less of you, I will still think highly of you, I won't blame you.
But, I still have to reply in kind, as if you have zero handicap.
(In the golf sense.)

(N.B. That last 6 lines is exactly what I might write to someone else who grumbled about the theory without quite "getting it", semi-invalid and handicap included. The point is, I try to be an equal-opportunity jerk when I'm a jerk, when I feel the need to be a jerk, to be harsh. I don't lower my expectations or put on kid gloves for anyone in my life, not anyone who is mature and non-senile, anyway. That should be flattering, not insulting, i.e., even the insults should flatter, lol. I am always surprised when people I respect make an error, and because I don't expect it to be a pattern that'll have to be accommodated with pity, I am blunt. If I were super nice and pulling figurative punches, that would bespeak a condescension that I, personally, would find to be more insulting than an insult.)

[crikkett]

isn't it though, that the schizophrenic doesn't remember their alternates? I remember my decision-making processes, for the most part, and all the points of view I try to apply to it.

Surely you must understand that schizophrenics do not have alters, and that DID and schizophrenia are two separate conditions.

Evidently I did not, and it's not such a bad thing.
Thank you for swooping in to correct me, PW. You are charming as always.

[brainpanhandler]

I am always surprised when people I respect make an error, and because I don't expect it to be a pattern that'll have to be accommodated with pity, I am blunt.

God I make some silly "errors". Like all the time. Every once in awhile those errors are not just comical and/or good for the ego, but also enlightening of their own accord without direct reference to the correction of the error. In fact, one of the tricks I use to unstick writer's block is to try to rewrite something I've written from memory. Since my conscious intent is to reproduce what I wrote without error then any errors which occur must come from my subconscious and those "errors" can be just what I was looking for and didn't know it.

If I were super nice and pulling figurative punches, that would bespeak a condescension that I, personally, would find to be more insulting than an insult.)

Or that could just be a clever rationalization for being rude. But I know what you mean. Nuanced diplomacy which does both is harder, but more rewarding for the effort.

[FourthBase]

I am always surprised when people I respect make an error, and because I don't expect it to be a pattern that'll have to be accommodated with pity, I am blunt.

God I make some silly "errors". Like all the time. Every once in awhile those errors are not just comical and/or good for the ego, but also enlightening of their own accord without direct reference to the correction of the error. In fact, one of the tricks I use to unstick writer's block is to try to rewrite something I've written from memory. Since my conscious intent is to reproduce what I wrote without error then any errors which occur must come from my subconscious and those "errors" can be just what I was looking for and didn't know it.

As if I am above errors? Ha, I'm a failure-prone jackass, lmao! Of course, everyone here knows that.
I try to be blunt with myself, harsh, try to not forgive myself too easily for being wrong or an asshole.

And wow, what a brilliant little trick. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I have to try that sometime.

If I were super nice and pulling figurative punches, that would bespeak a condescension that I, personally, would find to be more insulting than an insult.)

Or that could just be a clever rationalization for being rude. But I know what you mean. Nuanced diplomacy which does both is harder, but more rewarding for the effort.

I really do try. I try nearly my best, nearly always. Whenever I can, however much I can muster.