62 Comments

I don't think I have the patience to read your Substack. By the time I got to the end of the article, I had the beginnings of a headache. Yes, I believe most of what you said, but I've worked hard developing my habitual thoughts and I don't want to give them up. I like things to be cut-and-dried; the background mechanics that make it all possible don't interest me that much.

If you haven't, you should read the Seth Material books. They are all about the things you are writing about.

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May 7, 2023Liked by Frederick R Prete

Aged 59, I am impatient and lacking in compassion; thank you for this piece, you have reordered my thinking.

Henceforth when I meet a person inhabiting an unfamiliar reality, I will be better prepared and alert to my propensity for being an asshole. Worse, sometimes I enjoy being an asshole, not always (infrequently), but the allure would be next to impossible to resist should a person declare themselves a trans-reptile to me. No more, thanks to you.

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Reality is subjective, but there are some absolute Truths that I feel compelled to stand by. Such as a mammal can never actually "be" a reptile, no matter how many surgeries or special medicines such mammal may take, no matter how much the mammal wishes it were so, no matter how many other "lizards" affirm the mammal's reptilian-ness.

I agree 100% that as long as a mammal who believes oneself to be a reptile is respectful of others' opinions on the topic, said mammal has every right to pretend and enjoy an imaginary life of reptile-hood. Just don't try to make this mammal participate in your fantasy.

LERM: I love it!

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Fascinating.

I now understand indoctrination far better and why 'deprogramming' the brainwashed is so hard.

There's a lot to learn from this for everyday life as well, we all trot out phrases about 'changing your mind' so glibly.

I can directly apply all of this to so much about myself, how I react to new ideas etc. Super stuff!

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There was that limerick I grew up with in Golden Treasury:

There was a an old doctor of Deal

Who said although pain isnt real

If I sit on a pin

And I puncture my skin

I dislike what I fancy I feel.

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Well...OK. Does this mean that if I flap my arms REAL HARD & jump out of a 10-story window, I process the result as a catastrophic occurrence, or is that splat on the ground really an Olympic-level athlete?

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Dec 6, 2022·edited Dec 6, 2022Liked by Frederick R Prete

Excellent meandering post. It really is beyond me that someone thinks they are a star fish (or, far more commonly in these communities, a dog or fox). As bizarre as liking lima beans. I wonder if ideas from evolutionary psychology can explain why we see so much variation in how people identify (ranging from human to centipede). There are the competing/complementary views that our theory of mind was developed for hunting vs social processing. Both are important for survival of hunter-gatherers, however there is a gendered comparative advantage for women and social processing. This extends to this day; facial recognition is easier for women. There is another, possibly related fact: that far more natal males identify as furries. Perhaps this is some of the hunting brain adaptation coming through and shaping their world.

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Good information. I like reading your posts, your writing always takes me somewhere unexpected.

P.S. I don’t like lima beans either.

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Dec 6, 2022Liked by Frederick R Prete

Great post!

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Spot on. My parent coaching is CBT based and I so appreciate your writing this with brilliant analogy. Thank you.

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Dec 6, 2022Liked by Frederick R Prete

My ‘small-r’ reality is created by my rather small brain as it appreciates the sensations available to it. Yet - as you say - there is a Reality that is not a perception, it is what is irrespective of anyone’s perceptions. But the Reality of which you speak does not encompass ideas such as ‘tolerance’ to which your reality pays homage. As a scientistic materialist your reality encompasses only those aspects of Reality that you perceive with your senses. Immaterial moral principles are not Real, they are inventions of brains. So even though Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong about the importance of fantasies like tolerance and liberty and other such immaterial realities, in your world view - your brains reality - an insistence in demanding tolerance and liberty from those whose brains don’t care about such fantasies is difficult to defend - is it not?

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Dec 6, 2022Liked by Frederick R Prete

Absolutely brilliant. Thank you for spelling this all out for a lay person/lizard. I wish I could show this to my daughter who is absolutely fascinated by neuroscience, but also believes she's male.

Your essays are fantastic and I find myself looking forward to new entries!

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