gib65

First of all, I don't watch Star Trek that much - or any sci. fi. TV shows for that matter - so I don't even know what "subspace" is. I'd assume it's the opposite of "hyperspace" - can hyperspace even have an opposite? If you define "subspace" for me, I'll give the question my best shot.

Well, I'm not so sure about this idea myself, but let me see if I can defend it a little. "Ordered marks" is one way to define scale, but it isn't the only way. You could define scale as distance: how much distance a certain object spans from each of its most extreme points. This is indeed how much of each dimension it takes up, as The Tree said, but as I said in my first post, time is like this too. Time could be reduced to space: it is the space taken up by the distance that the object moves through. Of course, an object's spatial locations does not explain how it actually moves through space - this gets at the fact that time is "it's own entity" as GutZ pointed out - that is, you need to think of time as a separate phenomenon in order to explain motion. But I think the same could be done with respect to scale: you need to take scale into account in order to explain how an object like a rock could be identical with the collection of atoms that constitute the rock. Swansont - I need to know what you mean by "orthogonal" please?

SmallIsPower - what do you mean by "implicitly"? Gutz - thanks for stepping forward with your situation. Well, it looks like almost everyone has had "episodes" at point in their lives or another. Maybe being "nuts" is more normal than we thought. If anybody wants to elaborate on their experiences, I'd love to hear from you. I like "interesting" people, not only because of my background in psychology, but I like to help if I can. I think a PM to me would be best since this is Bee's thread, and it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about psychological problems (or just interesting experiences and POVs) in a science forum, but you be the judge of that. Gutz, tell me more about those voices. Reor, what were your anti-depressants for? Also, you said you were creative - what do you create?

Drugs certainly aren't candy, but are you sure you want to take the position that no drug company can be trusted? Of course one has to be cautious, but sometimes drugs can do a lot of good, and there are people out there who need them.

This is just a thought, and I'm wondering if it makes sense to anyone else. Can scale be considered a 5th dimension? Before the concept of spacetime became mainstream, we thought of space as consisting of 3 interwoven dimensions and time as another separate dimension. But with spacetime, we end up thinking of time as a 4th dimension that is interwoven with the 3 spatial dimensions, meaning essentially that the only difference between space and time is how we experience them. Now the more I think about it, the more I see the same being applicable to scale - that is the dimension along which we place the size of things. So, for example, we say that planets, solar systems, and galaxies are at the end of the scale we label as "large" whereas atoms, electrons, and quarks are at the end of the scale we label as "small". Is this a 5th dimension? It is interwoven with time and space - that is, for any value of scale (any size), that same value can be talked about at any point in space and at any point in time. Of course, one might say that scale is nothing more than a certain interval of space - that is, distance, area, or volume. So scale is essentially a specific way of talking about space. But the same could be said of time. That is, time is just a specific way of talking about how things move through space. In other words, time is just what you get when things take on different values with respect to their spatial positions. But we still talk about time as a 4th dimension. Why not scale? What do others think?

Yes, it's sad when we have to turn off the news to be happy.

Well, there was a time long ago when I was having paranoid delusions. It was in late 96 to early 97. For about 4 or 5 months, I was fully convinced that everyone around me were playing mind games, not only with me, but with each other - it was like all social interaction was based on a secret system that everyone was somehow privy to except me. The goal of this system was to deceive, manipulate, and hurt each other, and I was sure it was all being done consciously and deliberately. I started accusing people of conspiracy. I lost my best friend at the time because of it. There were also occasions where my paranoia got so out of hand that I believed demons were after my soul - and that anyone who was initiated into this system had to be possessed by a demon in order to work with the system effectively. Mind you, I was doing a lot of drugs at the time, so I can't say this stemmed purely from some kind of latent schizophrenia, but there were a lot of other factors that contributed to it as well. I know that I've always had a wild imagination. I was also diagnosed with ADD when I was a child. When I was a child, I believed that "ghosts" were responsible for all the little annoying things that happened to me. My childhood hero was Indiana Jones, and I got so enthralled by that tale that I actually believed I would become Indy when I grew up. The more I realized by life was not going in that direction, the more disappointed I became. It took me several years since the peek of my paranoid episodes to come to terms with the fact that it was indeed delusional. I had a lot of trouble accepting that demons weren't real. I went to see a few doctors about it – and a priest. The first guy was a dork - kind of like the one you're seeing. The second one I liked - she was a complete nut, but a nice one. She showed a genuine interest unlike the other guy (so there are good docs out there). She put me on an anti-psychotic for a while, but I went off it because it didn't seem to do anything except stifled my creativity (I would draw a lot, and my drawing stopped so long as I was on it). There's an interesting story behind that one. I'm doing much better today, and I can proudly say that those episodes are a thing of the past. The trick for me is to treat reality as an artifact of perception, and that my beliefs are completely under my control. I often tell my wife that I live in "philosophy land" - what this means to say is that my world is way more determined by philosophies and ideologies than the concrete sensory stuff of the physical world (hence my ADD). This is another way of saying that I have an active imagination, but I have to keep it in check - otherwise I could end up inventing worlds for myself and forget that it was me who invented them. This does take a lot of self-surveillance and "self-programming" as I call it - kind of like your constantly working on avoiding harmful triggers (but I think you're task would be harder than mine - at least for me, I have full control over what thoughts enter my mind). This is also the background I was coming from when I recommending saying "Islam is dangerous" rather than "I hate Islam" (which - I have to apologize - I realized afterwards you didn't actually say). Anyway, I don't want this to digress into a thread for heart spilling on my part, and I think others might start getting annoyed. I like these conversations though. If you want to continue, maybe you could give me a PM.

Okay, well I hope you find it. Overall, it sounds like life is getting better on your end. Even if you don't find a magic pill, slow progress will also get you there as I think most people will attest to (myself included). So do keep in touch with everybody. Keep posting to other forums here at SFN like the philosophy/religion or the pseudoscience/metaphysics ones. I think the debates can be fun, even when they get heated like the 10 year prediction one - I hope you do too, even if we disagree (you should see the ones I get into on some of the philosophy forums I visit - now those guys can be mean! ) And keep posting to this thread if you ever want to talk about your empathy. I'm free to be PMed too. I may not know what it's like to be you, but I do know what it's like to feel like a "mental case" where no one understands me - and I do know psychological tools can be developped to overcome it.

What about the others like Mike, IFeelYa, Lojong, ect.? Have you been corresponding with them? Do you feel they are the type of people you've been looking for?

That's great! You know, if this technique ends up working really well for you, you might want to try it without the drugs. Are you still on the drugs? Even if it doesn't work as well off the drugs, you can always go back on them. The important thing is that you're gaining control over it rather than it controlling you. If you do end up gaining really good control over it, you might want to re-consider whether it's a curse or a gift. It's just a thought, but I mean, when anyone gains control over a what was once a debilitating psychological disposition, it becomes more like a tool that can potentially be used in positive ways. If we really hold out our hopes along these lines, I think you'd make an excellent psychotherapist - show that current guy you're seeing how the job is really done. That's another thing I want to ask you about: are you still seeing that quack? I've got a degree in psychology, and when I took Clinical Psychology 421 where we learnt what makes a good therapist and what doesn't, we learnt that all the "don'ts" are exactly what you described your doctor doing (ex. looking at his watch). So you've got one bad egg. It doesn't mean the whole carton is bad. I support your decision to leave this guy, but I would recommend finding a better doctor to replace him - preferably a female one. Do you think your dad would be against this idea? Hell, it's his money, right? He might as well put it where it's most effective. Even if you don't find a better one, I think you might be getting your best counciling from forums like this. This is just my own biased opinion, but I sometimes think the best therapy comes from regular folks who just want to reach out to help without charging $100 for an hour of their time. For example, the techniques you described (looking around, scratching your arms, talking aloud) sound very much like the techniques Sorcerer was describing way back in early '05 - you know, the pigeonhole guy. He had this technique where he would train his mind to detect which elements in the environment effected him and which didn't, and then focused on the ones that effected him in a good way. The way you draw your attention away from any stimulus reminds me of this. There's also the exercising you did last summer. Wasn't this a recommendation from someone else? These seem to be the things that are really helping you - advice (or at least influence) from regular people. Another thing I wanted to ask: You mentioned a few times in this thread that you're still looking for people who are going through the same thing you are. But it seems like quite a few people stepped forward. Mike comes foremost to mind, and then there's IFeelYa, Thomas Kirby, Lojong among many others. They may not all be empaths to the same degree as you, and they may not have the same symptoms, but do they need to be exactly the same as you. It's true that whenever it comes to a support group, or any kind of group, there should be some common factor that glues them all together, but there should also be a healthy degree of variety as well. But I don't know - it's been a while since you mentioned this. Maybe since then, you and these people have evolved into a cohesive support group. Speaking of which, how's Mike doing? His posts in early January sounded pretty bad, but then his last one (June 8th) sounded more hopeful. How you doing Mike? I also wanted to understand your experiences a bit better. I know you've described them time and time again, but I still would like to ask: what exactly is the experience of "becoming someone else" like? You used the word "vivid" and I'm not sure how this is to be taken. I imagine this ranging from a really intense day dream to a full blown hallucination. Take my bottle of water that's beside me, for example. When I look at it, I say that I perceive it "vividly" in front of me - like I could do nothing to convince myself that it's not there. So when you "become" the other person, do you mean this in the sense that the world, from your POV, literally dissappear in front of you and the other person's world suddenly appears as vividly as my water bottle? Or is it more like a really powerful sense of what it must be like to be the other person? Another question: how do the people you "connect" with react? Do they have any clue that you're experiencing their emotions? Do they react at all? Lastly, how are you handling the issue of being labeled "crazy"? It almost seemed like, for a while at least, this was a bigger problem than the episodes themselves. This is perfectly understandable. For what it's worth, I don't think you're crazy. There is a thick line between those who are "out of touch" with reality all together, and those who know what's real and what isn't but still have a debilitating problem of a different nature, one that they have no control over. I'd like to offer my own perspective on the word "crazy" - actually, on words like "insane", "disorder", "mental illness", etc. ("crazy" is too slang). These are medical terms, and they should only be used in a medical context. That is, a context in which there is a need to distinguish between "sick" and "healthy" AND ONLY FOR THE PURPOSES OF HELPING THE PATIENT HEAL. It is a grave mistake to use the word in every day contexts, such as saying of a peer that he/she is "crazy" - in this context, it carries way too much prejudice and ill founded judgement. It becomes a label that says to others "judge me" or "make fun of me" or "reject me". This is why, in the medical field, it is okay - because doctors and other medics don't judge or reject on this basis (they're not supposed to anyway). This is not to say one should hide the fact that they may have been diagnosed with some disorder or another in public places. It's just that, in public places like school, work, and home, it's completely the wrong perspective and doesn't make sense. Put it this way: medics have to use the concepts of "disorder", "illness", "insane" because they have to work with a model of the human organism as something that's "supposed" to work in a certain way, and if it deviates from that way, it has to be thought of as "broken" or "in need of fixing". This is important because, well, that's their job - to fix people - and the patients desperately need it. But human beings are also animals - they are also spiritual beings. Putting religion asside, we can say that nature does not build animals like us, or any animal or plant or organism for that matter, according to a "design" - that is, we aren't like computers or vehicles whereby we have to work the "right" way or be built according to the "proper" specs. See, a computer or a car, if it is not built the right way or breaks down or doesn't work properly, needs "fixing". Not so for humans and other animals - especially when it comes to psychological dispositions. There's no "right" way for us to work such that if we deviate from this, we would be "broken". In fact, if you're familiar with the theory of evolution, you'll know that nature produces variety. The more members there are of a certain species, the greater the amount of variety therein, and the more likely you'll find unique or "special" individuals. This is a good thing - at least, insofar as evolution is concerned. Variety is what makes evolution work. I like it when I encounter unique people with unique dispositions - especially intellegent ones like yourself. Their lives are so much more fascinating, and that makes my life so much less boring. So thanks for this. Well, sorry for the long post, but I told you 15 pages is a lot to repond to .

Hi Bee, I just read through all 15 pages of this thread. WOW!!! It sounds like your making progress, even if it is little by little. Fifteen pages is a lot to comment on, and I do have a lot of things I'd like to say. I'm not an empath, but I always like to try to help those who express a need for it. Would it be all right if I joined the conversation?

Are we supposed to take the size of the spider or fly into consideration? Because if the spider crawled EXACTLY 42', he'd be right over top the fly. But if only needs to come close to the fly, he would need to crawl just under 42'. That's my last desperate attempt, so if this is wrong, I give up and demand to know the answer. Do you know it?

Are there any worm holes in this room? Can the spider undergoe quantum superposition?

Yeah, I get 4.231503478368152916468244968377e-38 computers have trouble rounding when it comes to that degree of precision. It has to do with the fact that the registers that store the numbers are finite in size.

Impossible I say! What's the answer?

If I've got a workout routine lifting weights and I want to build muscle mass, what's better when lifting: lift fast or lift slow?

Broca's. From Broca's area, the signals are sent to the motor cortex, which send signals to the larynx (there might be some intermediate neural centers). But I don't think it's as simple as saying that Broca's area must send signals to the part of the motor cortex responsible for our hand movements - that's not how the brain works. Broca's area would have to code the signals differently so that the hands get the right pattern of signals. The way the brain usually handles cases like this is that it either uses a different neural center other than Broca's or Broca's sends the signals to an intermediate neural center for converting the signals to the proper format, and then sends them to the motor cortex.

That may be true for reading, but writing is what I'm wondering about. This probably is located somewhere in the frontal lobe, but if somebody knows a more specific location within the frontal lobe (or whatever lobe it is), I'd really like to know. Thanks

What part of the brain is responsible for giving us the ability to write?

I knew it! I knew attractiveness was a measure of how "average" the face looked. It makes sense when you think about evolution theory. Why would we be wired to find deviant facial features attractive? We'd want to be attracted to people who looked most "human" (I know that sounds degrading to non-attractive people, but I don't mean it that way). Every time I tried to explain this to people, however, they'd disagree saying "I don't think attractive people are average looking". But I never meant "average looking", I meant "the mean of all deviations of human facial features". They'd usually give me the alternative theory that attractiveness is based on symmetry. But I've always thought this worked the other way around - that is, attractive people are going to have symmetrical faces, but not everyone with symmetrical faces would be attractive. Otherwise, I'd find baboons attractive. Anyway, didn't mean to rant. Are you sure there's no spot in the brain for facial attraction? There's got to be. There's a spot for everything else we experience.

I've been doing some research into parts of the brain and what they do. The inferotemporal cortex, for example, has a lot to do with recognizing people's faces. But I'm wondering what part of the brain becomes active when we distinguish between male and female faces, and then see them as sexually attractive or unattractive. If there is a brain part for this, it must be somewhere near the inferotemporal cortex. Am I right?

I've always assumed neurons form networks with each other by reaching out with their dentrites and axon terminals and synapsing onto other neurons, and that these neural networks could change their connections in a similar way - that is, by one set of dendrites or axon terminals disconnecting from one location and moving over to a new location. However, I've read a different method - I've read that neurons change their connections by increasing or decreasing the number of receptors in the synaptic gap. So if a connection was no longer needed, instead of removing the dentrite or axon terminal, the receptors were depleted. Which one of these scenarios is more accurate - or do both processes go on?

Thanks Scicop, BTW, here's a link on the "binding problem": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem

You brought up the pre-frontal cortex a couple times, saying that a lot of neural groups project to this area. What roll does the pre-frontal cortex play in this regard? Does it integrate a lot of variegated information?