H. Miller
made of meteoric iron. 1400 BC, Valley of Kings
“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”
–E. O. Wilson
“All the wrong people hate themselves.”
-Tig Notaro
This artist ( pina@adhd-alien.com ) does the best job I have ever seen of communicating what ADHD really is, and is like. We baffle and disappoint ourselves and the people and structures we need in our lives. Every hour of the day is a neurological roulette wheel. Here’s a link to her site.
I would be grateful to anyone who casually imagines they know what ADHD is like, to read several of these. I would simply like as many people as possible to better understand this disorder. It’s weirder and more limiting than you think.
It’s WAY more than inattention, and let me tell you, it isn’t lack of effort. We are 11% of the population and stories of effective treatment have been greatly exaggerated. The person in these cartoons is ON her meds.
Friends, family, and even total strangers confidently inform us that our problem isn’t real. Everybody thinks they get it, and even professionals in education and mental health often lazily ASSUME they get it with no research since 1993.
It’s like mental multiple sclerosis but we just look like we’re ditzy, and not trying hard enough.
May you have a night like this very soon.
Dramatic process, gorgeous ceramics.
/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy [science]. – Willy the Shake
I grumble about scientific reductionism (SR) regularly but I thought of an angle that shows starkly, what is wrong with it. It is a Jekyll and Hyde thing. The problem comes when it escapes from the lab.
SR identifies the core reality of things as their simplest parts and origins. It is a filter against complexity, seeking the Least Story. SR understands the essence of something as “What it all boils down to”. As if a whole chicken, boiled for days down to greasy, particulate liquid better-represents chickens than the prepared carcass, let alone a living chicken. In an experiment, SR is like reducing fractions or maximum simplifying of non-essential variables. It makes results less ambiguous and that is good.
But it spread.
“All religions, nearly all philosophies, and even a part of science testify to the unwearying, heroic effort of mankind desperately denying its contingency.”
― Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity 
Monod is the man chiefly responsible for the successful neo-Darwinian movement1. I’m not specifically picking on him but using him as a fair example of scientific reductionism when it climbs over the wall. There are tons of these quotes from him and I chose the nearest one. He is using the word Contingency to mean unpredictable randomness. He means all of us are hiding from the truth that we are an accident of the universe. Excuse me, we are MERELY an accident of the universe. Excuse me, I mean a meaningless universe.
Careful philosophy shoppers should ask questions.
- What are the tools he used to run his meaning experiments?
- How were the experiments constructed?
- How would he recognize meaning if it existed? How would he observe its absence?
- Provided he had a meaning detector, and observed its absence, why would he take that to mean that the result is universal?
