More on the Tourette Mind
B.J. Roberson
Add me to the list of female adults with late onset of ts.
I have been reading some of the postings on the Tourette mind.
I don't have the full picture yet. I have been given a tentative
diagnosis of ts......vocal tics which started after a car accident
where I received a double whiplash a few years ago. I have noticed
the onset of intrusive thoughts and other events which may be OCD.
I have food sensitivities and multiple chemical sensitivities as
well.
Does the tourette mind involve seeing in pictures...for example,
if you say 'apple' I see an apple in my mind's eye.
Does the tourette mind get so many creative ideas that come so
quickly that there is no possiblity of following through in the
creation of the ideas. (I have always called my self an idea
person)
Is the tourette mind one that thinks a lot of ideas through to
completion in the mind that one does not feel that they have to
carry the idea through in a concrete way after completing the
abstract thought process.
Does the tourette mind experience long blocks in thinking...like
writers block of long duration?
Does the tourette mind brood on or over deep emotional issues for
long periods of time.
Is depression more prevalent in the ts mind?
I would be interested in your answers or comments. Thanks.
--
Find out where you are and be there!
Sue Driver
>(B.J. Roberson) wrote:
> >Does the tourette mind get so many creative ideas that come so
> >quickly that there is no possiblity of following through in the
> >creation of the ideas. (I have always called my self an idea
> >person)
For me, this can and has happened, and not only with creative ideas,
but just simple responses, too. For example, while having a
conversation with someone just yesterday, my reply to their question
(after a bit of silence, while trying to coordinate my thoughts) was
something like "Hold on - I can see my reply, I just can't get the
right words, yet". ;-)
> >Does the tourette mind experience long blocks in thinking...like
> >writers block of long duration?
Could you please explain what you meant by this question a little? I
mean, by long blocks, are you talking seconds, minutes, etc? And
also, are you referring to long blocks of creative thinking?
> >Does the tourette mind brood on or over deep emotional issues for
> >long periods of time.
Well, I know that I do, but I suspect that's got something to do with
being introspective;-)
shoo...@onramp.net (Shooshie) wrote:
>past three years, involves not just a picture or an idea, but a flood of
>pictures and ideas in rapid-fire succession, such that the tourettic
>person is practically seeing in mere seconds a "movie" unfolding
>possibilities that would be difficult to explain even over hours of time.
True enough for me. Since I have 2 bipolar cousins and a bipolar
friend, I've been cruising around the manic depression ng, too, and
see reports of similar experiences, there, as well.
>The tourettic mind often has low self-esteem, too, and is subject to
>depression.
I'm not really sure what was meant by the above, Shooshie - if you
wouldn't mind expounding on this a bit, please? Of course, low self
esteem can be a precursor to depression, but I've seen others comment
upon other reasons for their depressions, too - for example,
disappointment. I'm sure your post didn't mean to exclude other
reasons, but personally speaking, I feel like my self esteem only
dropped once I was already in my depression (felt helpless, useless,
etc). Prior to the depression, I feel it was really very much
intact;-)
Sue (in DE)
(tli...@voicenet.com)
-----------------
"The greatest part of our happiness and misery depends on
our dispositions and not on our circumstances." Martha Washington
David Bryant
I believe the Tourette as well as the OCD mind is more caring and
sensitive than the average mind. Of course, you do not need TS or OCD
to be caring and sensitive (: But sometimes I am confused why people
are not more caring or sensitive. Could this be the observation of a
Tourette mind about the others with the average mind. I also think that
the Tourette mind may have better insight into some matters than the
average mind. In many ways TS is a mixed blessing, and in many way the
Tourette mind is ABOVE average.
David
John Morten Malerbakken
Hello David,
As much as I would have liked it to be true, I can not say I agree with
you. Please see my comments inserted in your text.
David Bryant wrote:
>
> I believe the Tourette as well as the OCD mind is more caring and
> sensitive than the average mind.
WHat is your definition of hte "average" mind. Why are TS persons
better? I believe Ihave about the same starting point as anybody, which
makes me and "average with a twist". I would like to be better than the
rest of the world (or maybe not, I like to be the one I am, or...), but
I see no reason today that I am more caring than others. With the
children Í sometimes feel just the opposite, and that probably places me
where I am supposed to be as a TS.
As for sensitivity, walking around with a tic, makes you very socially
"jumpy". (I have earlier stated that the major problem with tics is
social rather than physical.) In other terms, you develop some very
sensitive "social antennas". This can be turned into a positive feature
for a person, but that requires some work, as it means taking your
antennas from being part of your defence to be more of a wide-band
perimeter scanner. (Yes, I have a degree in electronics ;-)). If this is
what you are refereing to, I agree that we have the technology inplace
to develop something more positive than "average". I do not believe that
it be inherited, but on the other hand nobody can tell you how of if we
constantly program our genes, and how the new programs get released for
further copying.
> Of course, you do not need TS or OCD
> to be caring and sensitive (: But sometimes I am confused why people
> are not more caring or sensitive. Could this be the observation of a
> Tourette mind about the others with the average mind.
There is a never ening discussin over the effects of heritage and
environment, and which one determines your personality the most. There
is no good answer to that. But I have not seen substantiating data
saying that TS are more caring than others. On the other hand there are
OCDs for always speaking hte truth and always be fair in many TS people,
that are positive, but they certainly makes conflicts as well.
So, where are your data?
> I also think that
> the Tourette mind may have better insight into some matters than the
> average mind.
"Average"? Which subjects?
> In many ways TS is a mixed blessing, and in many way the
> Tourette mind is ABOVE average.
>
At least we would like to think so, but I do not see it proven. IQ tests
are not an exact sience. How would you like to measure this?
> David
Have a nice day.
John Morten
--
John Morten Malerbakken Ericsson Hewlett-Packard
Tlf: +46-31-746 2194 Telecommunications AB
Fax: +46-31-746 2719 Box 333
ECN: 855 2194 S-431 24 Mölndal
mailto:ehs...@aom.ericsson.se Sweden
memo:ERI.EHS.EHSJOMA
Sue Driver
dlbr...@webtv.net (David Bryant) wrote:
>I believe the Tourette as well as the OCD mind is more caring and
>sensitive than the average mind. Of course, you do not need TS or OCD
>to be caring and sensitive (: But sometimes I am confused why people
>are not more caring or sensitive.
David,
This isn't the first time someone's mentioned that they, or their
child with TS, seem to be more sensitive than others around them seem
to be. We've had some discussions about this before, here on ast.
And I am *always* confused why people don't seem to be more sensitive
or caring;-)))
Sue Driver
ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (B.J. Roberson) wrote:
>but what I was referring to was not being able to put thoughts
>on paper, be it answering letters, e-mail, writing poems or
>stories.....not being able to let thoughts out into the open...
>when I put it this way...I am thinking it is more related to
>brain fog and brain fag.
Ah, and for me, the size of my fog is directly related to the
proportion (or depth) of my depression;-)
>Well, I fit that category, being an INFJ/P.
INTP, here;-)
Angel71957
Hello David,
As much as I would have liked it to be true, I can not say I agree with
you. Please see my comments inserted in your text.
David Bryant wrote:
>
> I believe the Tourette as well as the OCD mind is more caring and
> sensitive than the average mind.
WHat is your definition of hte "average" mind. Why are TS persons
better? I believe Ihave about the same starting point as anybody, which
makes me and "average with a twist". I would like to be better than the
rest of the world (or maybe not, I like to be the one I am, or...), but
I see no reason today that I am more caring than others. With the
children Í sometimes feel just the opposite, and that probably places me
where I am supposed to be as a TS.
As for sensitivity, walking around with a tic, makes you very socially
"jumpy". (I have earlier stated that the major problem with tics is
social rather than physical.) In other terms, you develop some very
sensitive "social antennas". This can be turned into a positive feature
for a person, but that requires some work, as it means taking your
antennas from being part of your defence to be more of a wide-band
perimeter scanner. (Yes, I have a degree in electronics ;-)). If this is
what you are refereing to, I agree that we have the technology inplace
to develop something more positive than "average". I do not believe that
it be inherited, but on the other hand nobody can tell you how of if we
constantly program our genes, and how the new programs get released for
further copying.
> Of course, you do not need TS or OCD
> to be caring and sensitive (: But sometimes I am confused why people
> are not more caring or sensitive. Could this be the observation of a
> Tourette mind about the others with the average mind.
There is a never ening discussin over the effects of heritage and
environment, and which one determines your personality the most. There
is no good answer to that. But I have not seen substantiating data
saying that TS are more caring than others. On the other hand there are
OCDs for always speaking hte truth and always be fair in many TS people,
that are positive, but they certainly makes conflicts as well.
So, where are your data?
> I also think that
> the Tourette mind may have better insight into some matters than the
> average mind.
"Average"? Which subjects?
> In many ways TS is a mixed blessing, and in many way the
> Tourette mind is ABOVE average.
>
At least we would like to think so, but I do not see it proven. IQ tests
are not an exact sience. How would you like to measure this?
> David
Have a nice day.
John Morten
ok. actually i believe that david is right. People with disabilities
like ts and ocd ARE mors sensitive and caring because they KNOW what it
is like to be on the recieving end of things... they KNOW what it it like
to hurt.. and therefore it makes them (us) more caring and sensitive to
others needs...
if a person has never been at the butt of anyone's jokes... then they do
no tknow the pain that is affiliated with it...... they think it is
harmless.... and will do it. whereas.. one who as been the butt of
jokes will never tell a nasty joke because they know how much it hurts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angel
Happiness begins when you can face life with a smile and a wink. :o)
David Bryant
Our tourette minds think the same thing on this one, Angel.
Perseverance builds character and the understanding of others.
David
FranTewk
Angel wrote:
if a person has never been at the butt of anyone's jokes... then they do
no tknow the pain that is affiliated with it...... they think it is
harmless.... and will do it. whereas.. one who as been the butt of
jokes will never tell a nasty joke because they know how much it hurts.
***Actually, research shows exactly the opposite. Those who are abused,
are the most likely to grow up to be abusers, and children who grow up
loved and cherished by their families and the outside world are the least
likely to abuse others. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule.
M&MVB
All in all I have observed my son with TS to be an extremely sensitive
person so I would have to agree with this thread, yet I'm not so sure it is
soley related to TS, though some of the environmental situations TS
inspires certainly can cause one to become "more sensative" i.e teasing.
I'm just recalling Pieter's early post on the "loner vs. herder" analogy
wich was attributed to TS and am finding some conflict in these two so
called TS traits, primarily that the loner didn't care what others thought
and often would blurt out the "truth" without necessarily thinking though
the effects of their words on others; thus at times, unintentionally
"hurting" others or "not being very sensitive". Just a thought, and I may
have misintterpreted one or more of these posts. Marietta
Sue
"M&MVB" <mari...@oeonline.com> wrote:
>I'm just recalling Pieter's early post on the "loner vs. herder" analogy
>wich was attributed to TS and am finding some conflict in these two so
>called TS traits, primarily that the loner didn't care what others thought
>and often would blurt out the "truth" without necessarily thinking though
>the effects of their words on others; thus at times, unintentionally
>"hurting" others or "not being very sensitive". Just a thought, and I may
>have misintterpreted one or more of these posts. Marietta
Marietta,
I had to chuckle when I read the above, because I thought of the same
scenario (although I hadn't connected it with the herder/loner
thing;-) The 2 "behaviors" do seem to be conflicting, don't they?
But, it does seem to happen - the blurting thing, that is. I've done
it, and probably will continue to do it. There's something about
impulse control that does sometimes seem to get in the way of choosing
"more sensitive" words, on occasion. But the blurting has more to do
with the stating of facts, and the inability (at the moment?) to
project the very many ways at how such statement of facts may be
perceived and reacted upon emotionally (when they held little, if any,
emotional content for us), IMHO.
Just my 2 cents - excellent observation, Marietta!:-)
Angel71957
>>>>>>they do
>>>>harmless.... and will do it. whereas.. one who as been the butt of
>>jokes will never tell a nasty joke because they know how much it hurts.
>>***Actually, research shows exactly the opposite. Those who are abused,
>>are the most likely to grow up to be abusers, and children who grow up
>>loved and cherished by their families and the outside world are the
least
>>likely to abuse others. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule.
hmmmmm I would have to say... that maybe research is wrong.
Sue
Angel wrote:
>if a person has never been at the butt of anyone's jokes... then they do
>no tknow the pain that is affiliated with it...... they think it is
>harmless.... and will do it. whereas.. one who as been the butt of
>jokes will never tell a nasty joke because they know how much it hurts.
fran...@aol.com (FranTewk) wrote:
>***Actually, research shows exactly the opposite. Those who are abused,
>are the most likely to grow up to be abusers, and children who grow up
>loved and cherished by their families and the outside world are the least
>likely to abuse others. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule.
You know, I gotta wonder how many people falling into the category
Angel mentioned (being the butt of jokes) would actually be the same
people as those involved in any statistical calculations concerning
people who have been abused.
Shooshie
In article <339c9e7e...@news.pipeline.com>, lpa...@pipeline.com wrote:
>Thursday, about 40 kids and teens with TS met with Jim Eisenreich.
>When Jim threw the floor open for questions, my son raised his hand to
>ask Jim a question. Never knowing what Justin is going to come up
>with next, I will admit I held my breath for a second <g>. Then
>Justin asked Jim, "What I don't understand is how kids with Tourette's
>can make fun of other kids tics. And some of them do."
>
>Jim went on to try to address Justin's question, but it was certainly
>a good one and relevant, I think, to this thread. Justin is one of
>those kids who doesn't tease others about their tics. But how do we
>explain the kids who have been humiliated or ridiculed and yet still
>taunt others about their tics or problems? Is there empathy there,
>but it's just not the predominant feeling? Is the child somehow in
>denial of their own TS and trying to align themselves, in their own
>mind, with the rest of a non-TS society? Or are they just so angry at
>the child that they use the taunts because they know it hurts? Or
>something else? Maybe it's different reasons for different kids...
>
>What do you all think?
>
>Leslie
I think that we respond to things in a relative way. Relative, that is, to
what we consider normal. Whether or not we have TS, we judge normalcy
based on what we see around us. If we are the only ones with TS in our own
households, we would tend to think that someone with tics looks kind of
odd, since we never see tics. Well, we might see tics if we look in the
mirror, and I don't know about you all, but I won't tic in front of a
mirror. I suppress very well for myself - my most ardent critic.
So... a kid who makes fun of another's tics has probably not been made fun
of much, is probably not aware of the dynamics of ticcing and reacting to
them, and is just responding like any other normal kid would respond
without guidance. We tend to think tourettic kids would not need such
guidance, but they may in fact be the last to know what it's like!
That, at least, is what I think. I'm not saying that some kids aren't just
mean and insensitive, but I think we each have to learn this, and
sometimes it has to be the hard way, when we see the hurt of our words
sinking into a fading smile.
Shooshie
Kathryn Taubert
fran...@aol.com (FranTewk) wrote:
>
>Angel wrote:
>if a person has never been at the butt of anyone's jokes... then they
do
>no tknow the pain that is affiliated with it...... they think it is
>harmless.... and will do it. whereas.. one who as been the butt of
>jokes will never tell a nasty joke because they know how much it hurts.
>
>are the most likely to grow up to be abusers, and children who grow up
>loved and cherished by their families and the outside world are the
least
>likely to abuse others. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule.
There are more exceptions than "rules" in this case. The story goes like
this:
adults who are abusers are OFTEN the "victim" of abuses as children, but
not always.
Many people from abusive backgrounds grow up NOT to be abusive.
Bottom line-the RISKs of becoming an abuser if one is from an abusive
upbringing are greater. That's not the same thing as "people who were
abused are most likely to grow up to be abusers."
There's a great difference between "risk" and "most likely to"
Just ask any of us folks with TS who grew up with kids, and even some
relatives, calling us every name in the book, isolating us from everyone
else on the playground, sticking us in corners as punishment for all that
"twitching," etc etc.
I know MANY such people, and among them, a very high number of social
workers. Damned near all are "humanists," as well.
KAT in CT
Leslie E. Packer, PhD
>shoo...@onramp.net (Shooshie) wrote:
>In article <339c9e7e...@news.pipeline.com>, lpa...@pipeline.com wrote:
>
<snip>
> >
> >What do you all think?
> >
> >Leslie
>
>
>I think that we respond to things in a relative way. Relative, that is, to
>what we consider normal. Whether or not we have TS, we judge normalcy
>based on what we see around us. If we are the only ones with TS in our own
>households, we would tend to think that someone with tics looks kind of
>odd, since we never see tics. Well, we might see tics if we look in the
>mirror, and I don't know about you all, but I won't tic in front of a
>mirror. I suppress very well for myself - my most ardent critic.
>
>So... a kid who makes fun of another's tics has probably not been made fun
>of much, is probably not aware of the dynamics of ticcing and reacting to
>them, and is just responding like any other normal kid would respond
>without guidance. We tend to think tourettic kids would not need such
>guidance, but they may in fact be the last to know what it's like!
>
>That, at least, is what I think. I'm not saying that some kids aren't just
>mean and insensitive, but I think we each have to learn this, and
>sometimes it has to be the hard way, when we see the hurt of our words
>sinking into a fading smile.
>
>Shooshie
I think that we are in agreement on the main point, Shooshie -- that
just having TS doesn't increase empathy -- that the child still has to
have certain experiences if they're to learn empathy. I guess I'm
going a bit further and saying that even if they have been the butt of
teasing or taunting, that still doesn't automatically confer empathy
on them -- someone (usually a parent) has to help them understand
their experience and apply it to others -- whether we do it by
relating it to the "Golden Rule," or some other way may not be
important -- but we do need to _teach_ the empathy and not just assume
it will develop.
In my son's school, almost every boy with TS+ who's there has been
taunted or teasted mercilessly at some point in their past school
placements over their symptoms. Under those circumstances, it's hard
to understand that they couldn't "not know" what they're doing or what
it will feel like for the person they are taunting. (I said 'boy'
above for a reason, btw.... IMO, the girls with TS+ who are in those
classes have very few tics at all, and are usually there because of
OCD-related stuff, anxiety, depression, etc. I do remember one little
girl whose tics were incredibly severe (still are), but she was the
exception in this particular group/school program).
Leslie
P.S. How do I get the first two parts of your Help Desk Project? Are
they archived or available somehow? I'd love to see them!
Leslie E. Packer, PhD
>fangb...@aol.com (FANGBASHER) wrote:
>There can be many reasons why one teases another. I think much of it has
>to do with both the child's home and school environments. In some homes,
>teasing is the norm, and it is done in 'fun,' primarily. In some homes,
>it is done out of anger and power. As one adult TS member indicated, in
>his home teasing was done by his grandmother in order to shame him as an
>attempt to get him to stop engaging in tics. These can all have different
>repercussions. Then, if a child is teased primarily in school but not at
>home, it can have a different effect than if he is teased only at home but
>not or less in school. Lots of permutations can be drawn up here in
>regard to the different scenarios in which teasing occurs and the
>different outcomes it might produce. Boy, am I getting analytical! To
>some, it can be a source of denial as Leslie suggested as well as an
>attempt to boost one's own reputation and source of power. Then again,
>the effects of teasing may have different meanings at different age
>levels. Gender differences might also come into play here. Teasing may
>make one who has low self-esteem feel superior. We all come from
>different environments where teasing is more or less allowed and/or
>accepted. We all have different understanding and levels of social skills
>or what some call "social" or "emotional intelligence". Some of us are
>just more or less sensitive than others. Bottom line though, teasing is
>generally very hurtful, can have disasterous effects on one's self-esteem
>and later functioning, and should be prevented in most all circumstances!
>
Great post -- you've outlined so many different possibilities. As I
said to Shooshie, I think we _do_ need to avoid making certain
assumptions, which is why I initially reacted to David's statement
that our kids would somehow be more empathetic almost automatically or
because of TS.
I suspect that children of parents who post to a.s.t. _will_ be more
empathetic, but that's because they have parents who tend to be
sensitized to these issues and who teach them these values, and not
just because they have TS.
Leslie
Pieter Nagel
On Sat, 7 Jun 1997, Leslie E. Packer, PhD wrote:
> Having Tourette doesn't do anything to you, IMO.
:-)
So what's all the fuss about it being a "syndrome" or a disability
and giving all these meds and remedial education etc... if TS has
absolutely no effect on you?
But I suppose you'll reply and say: "I never said it had *absolutely*
no effect."
Fine. To which I would reply: "So you mean it has only *limited*
effect, and only negative, at that? Can't have your cake and eat it,
you know."
Your turn.
,_
/_) /| /
/ i e t e r / |/ a g e l
PGP: finger pna...@epiuse.co.za
Leslie E. Packer, PhD
>Pieter Nagel <pna...@basilisk.epiuse.co.za> wrote:
>On Sat, 7 Jun 1997, Leslie E. Packer, PhD wrote:
>
>> Having Tourette doesn't do anything to you, IMO.
>
>:-)
>
>So what's all the fuss about it being a "syndrome" or a disability
>and giving all these meds and remedial education etc... if TS has
>absolutely no effect on you?
>
>But I suppose you'll reply and say: "I never said it had *absolutely*
>no effect."
>
>Fine. To which I would reply: "So you mean it has only *limited*
>effect, and only negative, at that? Can't have your cake and eat it,
>you know."
>
>Your turn.
Well, I was with you up through the "Fine." <g> {BTW, I don't call it
a 'disability' because for many people, it's not. And I don't assume
or recommend that people get on meds or go into therapy just because
they have a diagnosis -- same with special education. Yes, there are
patterns that have been observed in nonrandom samples, but you still
need to look at each child or adult as the individual that they are.}
Anyway to get back to your comment: yes, I spoke a bit loosely in
saying it 'doesn't do anything to you.' Of course it does -- although
(speculation/drift alert caution): it would be interesting to consider
whether we'd say the same thing if we were just talking about the
genotype. One day, hopefully, we'll be able to see something on a
screen or a slide. But will looking at that 'thing' tell us how it
will be expressed? I think not. That's where we get into early
experiences, stressors, infections, allergies, socialization, and a
whole host of things that give color to our lives and shape our
experiences -- and perhaps, the expression of TS for any one
individual.
So all I was trying to say, Pieter, was that 'personality' or more
importantly -- 'character' -- is not something simply determined by
having a genetic aberration or abnormality or difference -- or
whatever you want to call it. There good people and evil people
everywhere.... I don't believe that biology is our sole determinant of
destiny. If it was, you'd be exactly like Shooshie and KAT and my
husband and every other adult who has TS... and of course, you're not.
You're you. :)
Regards,
Leslie
R.W. Porter
Shooshie wrote:
>
> B.J.
>
> I think the answers to your questions are "yes," but that would describe
> lots of people without TS, too. The tourettic mind - as I see it -
> describes a tendency toward these things that will cause tourettics
> statistically to turn up with these characteristics (and others) more
> often than people without TS. In addition, it's a matter of degree, too.
> The tourettic mind, based on the reports of many in this group over the
> past three years, involves not just a picture or an idea, but a flood of
> pictures and ideas in rapid-fire succession, such that the tourettic
> person is practically seeing in mere seconds a "movie" unfolding
> possibilities that would be difficult to explain even over hours of time.
> although that may get into OCD a bit.
>
> In the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Test, there is a type which kind of
> fits this description - INTP. Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and
> Perceiving. A year or two ago I did an informal survey in this group. I
> forget the exact numbers, but of those who responded, it was quite clear
> that among us tourettic folk, INTP is much, much more common than
> elsewhere. We have to factor in, of course, that we are computer users,
> Internet-savvy, middle-income and above, and so forth, so on. But go
> elsewhere on the Internet (other newsgroups, the WWW, etc.) and you find
> that all the other types exist in roughly the same proportions as the rest
> of the world, with a couple of exceptions, perhaps. So, I think it is
> significant that even in this newsgroup, most of the respondents claimed
> to be INTP, INFP, or a closely related type.
>
> This is all very unscientific, of course, but we're not here to write
> science journals. We're only here to see if there are others out here who
> can help us to understand this TS thing we have, and to see just how much
> alike or different we are. The "tourettic mind" began developing in our
> writing here as the numbers of people with the same story became
> overwhelmingly common. Yep... there are a lot of us out here, and many of
> us could swap life stories, change a few details and names, and you
> couldn't tell us apart. And that, I think, is about as far as we can take
> the tourettic mind without getting flamed for it at this point.
> Fortunately, at least one major study has begun which might reveal whether
> there is any scientific or broad statistical support for these claims.
> We'll see.
>
> Shooshie
>
> In article <5mvvkg$8...@freenet-news.carleton.ca>, ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA
> (B.J. Roberson) wrote:
>
> >Add me to the list of female adults with late onset of ts.
> >
> >I have been reading some of the postings on the Tourette mind.
> >I don't have the full picture yet. I have been given a tentative
> >diagnosis of ts......vocal tics which started after a car accident
> >where I received a double whiplash a few years ago. I have noticed
> >the onset of intrusive thoughts and other events which may be OCD.
> >I have food sensitivities and multiple chemical sensitivities as
> >well.
> >
> >Does the tourette mind involve seeing in pictures...for example,
> >if you say 'apple' I see an apple in my mind's eye.
> >
> >quickly that there is no possiblity of following through in the
> >creation of the ideas. (I have always called my self an idea
> >person)
> >
> >completion in the mind that one does not feel that they have to
> >carry the idea through in a concrete way after completing the
> >abstract thought process.
> >
> >writers block of long duration?
> >
> >long periods of time.
> >
> >
> >I would be interested in your answers or comments. Thanks.
> >--
> >Find out where you are and be there!
Sorry, I can't take it anymore. Fangbasher keeps sending me these posts
and everyone is getting close to the idea but you haven't quite figured
it out yet. Here are a few glimpses of the forest you are all looking
at (no, I haven't done the necessary research and documentation and my
life is too tumultuous at present to pursue it... sorry Sandy, I just
couldn't take it anymore...):
In the realm of information each human being consists of sensory organs
which record data from the environment and a brain which processes this
information. What humans take to be reality is only their
interpretation of data which has been recorded through their senses, it
is not and cannot be "reality". Perhaps this is the source of the ideas
of Taoism: "The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name
that can be named is not the eternal Name." In other words, whatever
you can describe about the Universe is just an hypothesis based on what
you have recorded through your senses and other aspects of the Universe
remain unknown to you making your knowledge incomplete.
There are two types if information for humans in the universe, time
dependent information and time independent information. Time
independent information stays the same over time, one can "observe" and
"observe" again and the resulting measurement will be the same. Time
dependent information requires change; it requires that an observation
is made, and an observation is made again resulting in different
information. In order for change to exist, a "physical object" must
exist; that is, an "observable". Consider a cellular universe; a change
would consist of measuring a cell within that universe and finding
"nothing", then measuring that same cell again and finding "something"
or vice versa. If no physical object in the universe ever changed
there would be no time dependent information, there would be no way to
measure the passage of time, in fact if everything stayed exactly the
same there would be no time, thus time IS change. Time requires a
physical object to exist, a physical object requires "space" to exist,
thus time cannot exist without space and the two are inexorably bound
together.
People acquire that information in one of two ways with one way being
dominant: as a sensor, where information is obtained sequentially, or as
an intuitive where the information is obtained randomly. There are two
types of processing depending on how the data is presented: static
processing (or random processing) and dynamic processing (or sequential
processing). Static processing is essentially a pattern recognition
approach to information. It is the kind of processing involved in
recognizing a face or a photograph or perhaps a fingerprint. In this
approach a number of key bits of information are recorded and stored by
an observer, then when the object is presented to the same observer at a
later time those key bits are compared with bits stored in the
observer's memory. If the bits match, then the object being observed is
identified as the same object that was originally seen. In the case of
finger prints this may involve the recording of several unique
characteristics of a print; when a search is done later against a finger
print, if these characteristics match between the two prints, the prints
are considered to be the same. To be sure, there is physically a
sequential processing of information going on here in the acquisition of
the finger print’s attributes, but the acquisition and the recall do not
have to be done in any particular order. All of the information to be
processed is presented at the same time; the meaning of the information
does not change over time. Dynamic processing is time dependent. This
is the kind of processing which involves the analysis of data whose
meaning changes from moment to moment such as the recognition of a
musical score or of human speech for example. With this type of
information the meaning changes as subsequent observations are made.
Based on whether or not people process more with their limbic system or
their frontal lobes, they are a feeler or a thinker.
Based on... whatever... people store their mental information in a way
that is accessed either sequentially or randomly.
Based on the overall capacity of their neural network (it's ability to
process data per unit of time, its throughput) people will either be
introverted or extroverted.
These processes together create a person's genetic personality. It is
the personality that is detected by the Myers-Briggs personality
profile. Since it is based on data acquisition and processing, it is
independent of living entities and is characteristic of systems and
processes. It should be easy to construct an artificial intelligence
possessing a Myers-Briggs personality type. In humans this personality
is regulated by neurotransmitters and neurons which control the number
of bits of data per unit time that pass through the brain. Two of these
are serotonin and dopamine (are there different kinds of these which
have evolved with different stages of the brain?). If there are
insufficient number or too many of these, there occur problems in
information processing and information transfer, the resulting condition
is called anxiety (perhaps there is a pleasure thing too). Anxiety is
the mental equivalent of pain (and perhaps in some cases the
informational equivalent to thrashing) and is an indicator that the
person needs to slow down (or speed up) until the information throughput
falls within an optimal range. This is what motivates people (but there
could be a pleasure thing too, I don't know much about this stuff).
This mix of behaviors is enough to ensure the continued existence of the
human species.
There is a clear advantage to a species if it has a variety of responses
to external threats. When met with a problem, a species whose members
process information differently and respond differently is more likely
to have an optimal response among its population than a species in which
all organisms respond exactly alike. Unless the optimal response is the
one that all members exhibit, there is a good chance that the species
will not survive, thus the existence of different personalities is a
clear advantage to a species. The physical characteristics which
generate the personalities are most likely distributed among a
population in some fashion of bell-like curve. Those characteristics
which are the most useful for the every-day functioning of the species
will be the most prevalent and thus will dictate which personalities are
most numerous. There will of course be some individuals which fall
toward the "tails" of the various characteristic distributions; some of
these are marginally functional within the population and some are not
functional within the population. For example, those who process static
(pictorial) information better than dynamic information might be able to
view visual information and recall it quite accurately while being
unable to recall verbal data very well. The less capable they are of
processing time dependent information the less able they will be to pay
attention to verbal communication. If they are to function in an
environment in which verbal information is the norm, for example humans
in a public school system, they will not perform very well. Those who
do not perform as well will be less successful in passing on their genes
so that their number in the population will decrease. The distribution
of genetic personality within a mature population should be the
approximate distribution necessary for that population’s continued
existence.
The differentness of these personalities could cause a great deal of
friction when a certain population density is reached so it would be an
advantage to have over-top of these behaviors is a veneer of social
rules and expectations designed to allow for members to exist more
peacefully and productively together. The cooperation of a social group
confers such a great survival advantage that those populations which are
more adept at social coexistence will dominate those which are not (the
basic underlying cause of the extinction of Neanderthals, there were
other factors too but they were directly or indirectly the result of the
greater social abilities of modern humans due to a greater ability to
process sequential information). These rules are how man has risen up
over his natural constraints to control his environment. The process of
growing up and experiencing the world and learning how to physically
operate and socially interact requires information processing. The
thing that makes humans different is the sophistication of their ability
to process sequential information. The need to process this information
is so strong that the ability to process other types of information will
be sacrificed in order that an individual be able to continue
functioning. The brain has limited RAM and in order to run one program
very well, it must rob from another. If a particular human does not
produce enough of a particular neurotransmitter (I am taking a wild
guess that there are actually several types of serotonin and dopamine)
in a particular area of the brain, certain behaviors are exhibited
(depending on which area of the brain is affected). The need for
neurotransmitters for processing social interaction is enough to cause
sudden catastrophic failures in systems of the brain at certain ages,
typically they happen at about the same time in different people (say,
about the time that language develops for example) but that is not
required. These failures of course are outwardly visible as autism, AS,
OCD, TS and various personality disorders.
TS is the result of being very good at processing static information.
In TS one of the programs hit for memory involves motor functioning of
discrete area of the body (as the brain tries to repair itself it might
use a different area of the brain to allow the function of the affected
area to be performed thus causing one tic to abruptly stop and a new one
to abruptly start). In AS it involves motor functioning by way of
reducing overall coordination. Perhaps in schizophrenia the area from
which processing ability is taken involves hearing, causing audial
hallucinations. This process hints at how the human brain evolved, or
brains in general for that matter, and suggests a number of things about
behavior, bipedalism and the development of language. It also implies
the direction of continued physical evolution of humans.
These conditions exist because the genetic programming (the level of the
particular neurotransmitter in a particular area of the brain) has made
the resulting biologically driven behavior extreme. If someone is born
with roughly the correct levels of transmitter in all the right places
they won't need socialization, they will fit right in to society. It is
unlikely for someone to be average in all characteristics so most will
have an area that would tend to cause them to behave in ways that would
not be acceptable in a society. If the necessary socialization does not
occur for an individual, he/she will be forced to rely on responses to
genetic personality characteristics, thus the lack of proper nurturing
will cause the individual to have difficulty in functioning within
society. If properly socialized (behavior modification?) the individual
will operate more smoothly in society.
Ok, there is a glimpse of the forest. There is much more and given the
above concepts it is all somewhat obvious. You would have figured it
out eventually but I couldn’t stand watching it, the suspense was
killing me! Of course it must be understood that the necessary ground
work has not been done to demonstrate these views and thus all of this
could be just plain wrong! But it seems to fit so nicely…it would be a
shame if it is wrong.
(Go ahead and shoot it down, lets see where the weak points are!)
FranTewk
Leslie Packer wrote:
The 'cycle of abuse' is a myth, and current research that is more
carefully done does _not_ support the notion. There's a whole bunch of
new stuff coming out now. If I can find it, remember, and if anyone's
interested, I can try to post the references at some point.
***I would be very interested in seeing this research. I am curious. Are
you saying that a person who is abused has *no more* propensity to abuse
than one who hasn't been abused? or just that a history of abuse does not
doom one to repeating those mistakes? If the former, I would be very
surprised. I can't ever remember hearing about a widely publicized case
of spousal or child abuse in which the perpetrator didn't at least
*claim* he was the victim of abuse himself. If the latter, we have no
argument. I feel pretty safe in agreeing that most people who are abused
do not grow up to be abusers. Thanks.
R.W. Porter
Shooshie wrote:
>
> R.W.,
>
> Unfortunately, there are two broad and general drawbacks to your very
> well-thought-out explanation (or anyone else's). First, it is too detailed
> for the kind of general discussion that enables us to make sense of our
> day-to-day relationships with people and things, and second, it is too
> general and inaccurate for the kind of detail to which it aspires.
This is a glimpse of the forest, not an examination of each tree. This
is the hypothesis that must be tested. (you're not an INTP, are you?)
So... you really think it's inaccurate? I don't really see it as a
drawback, I see it as a starting point.
> Yours is heavily biased toward a
> systems model which resembles digital computer systems, but with a couple
> of chemicals (seratonin and dopamine) doing most of the programming.
Actually, it's based on a data flow of information and is thus
independent of methods. It would apply to any system that acquires and
processes information, whatever that system may be (i.e. human, machine,
bug, squiggly worm, information network, manufacturing process, etc. )
The observable universe is nothing but systems, so ultimatly everything
must be "explained" by a systems model.
> Midway through the model, you made a major mistake - that the brain excels
> at processing linear information. The brain simply does very little linear
> processing. Our thought processes are much more mysterious than that.
There are two kinds of information and whatever type of processing you
wish to call it, humans excel at processing certain types of time
dependent information. This ability is what allows humans to be
social. Socialness is what has allowed humans to develop to their
present form. There is a realtionship between socialness and
vocalization and to some degree between socialness and bipedalism. This
is dictated by the physical environment. Thought processes must obey
any and all physical "laws" as anything else. It is not necessary for
things to be mysterious to be complex.
>
> Next, you propose maybe "several kinds" of dopamine and seratonin. Well,
> in actuality there are many other chemicals at work, too. Seratonin and
> dopamine just happen to get a lot of attention since the discovery that we
> can block the reuptake of them and increase their abundancy, thus helping
> to normalize certain behavior "malfunctions." Some chemicals are of such
> scarcity as to be almost undetectable in brain autopsy, and their function
> is poorly understood at best.
Well I said I was making a wild guess. As I said I don't know this
stuff very well, but given the outward manifestation of human behavior
it seemed like a possible avenue for the localization of brain function
difficulties. Remember, I am just thinking of the flow of information,
the mechanics of how it is done is at a lower level of analysis.
>
> Next, the whole idea that there is a "perfect balance" of these
> neurotransmitters at which people socialize "normally" is probably not
> accurate, either.
Actually, because we are humans making observations, nothing is exact,
everything we think of as exact is really just a mean value of
observations. Conceptually one can think of an exact value for
something but when it comes to describing the real world we must make
observations and there is always some sort of "error". In the case of
behavior, think of someone who has taken a Myers-Briggs test and comes
out right in the middle on each of the four areas tested. That would be
the mean value for each of the four distributions of characteristics (of
course that is not to say such a thing is possible, given our course way
of determining where one lies in each of the four areas, a more accurate
measurement could be taken using more questions which would have the
result of throwing the individual to one side or the other of the mean
value).
Looking at an even larger picture in terms of evolution
> over eons of time, we see that it requires an entire range of personality
> types to keep shoring up the edges of the path that a society zig-zags
> along through history. When the social pendulum swings one direction,
> there are certain types of thinkers whose skills are suddenly in demand.
> When it swings the other way they may fall out of favor and be considered
> even abnormal until they are once again in demand. Interestingly, the
> pressures of society actually create the imbalances that in turn create
> the personality types that are needed by the society. We are not
> malfunctioning individuals trying to be assimilated into a body of
> "normals," but a range of necessary personalities which are produced by
> the larger organism - the society - as needed, just as our own
> neurotransmitters are produced as needed. The interactions and
> interconnectedness of all the people and their individual chemistry can be
> looked at as a huge, vast dynamic process which has not even remotely
> begun to be understood.
>
I thought this was sorta what I said... kinda... only I look on it as a
response to an outside stimulus rather than keeping it at a human level
with thinkers and society.
> We are fortunate to have at our disposal a very much more lucid and
> workable set of metaphorical models to use in understanding these
> dynamics. These models are right under your nose. They include "society,"
> "personality," "language," and the variety of "syndromes" and other
> maladaptions that occur within us. You see, we have evolved with perhaps
> the best working set of metaphors already at our disposal.
Well, that may be easy for you to say, but I have always had problems
with these metaphors because I always find them to be ill-defined and
inconsistent. I also get the feeling with syndromes that the term
suggests that they are some sort of disorder when in fact they are the
natrual fallout of the way in which healthy poplulations survive and
evolve. It also seems that the sydromes depend on who is deciding what
is normal (the old right-hander left-hander sort of thing) when it is
all normal.
To turn it into
> a discussion of chemistry is fascinating as it can be,
It's really a discussion about information. Chemistry is just one
method of implementation.
but in the end one
> has to return to the metaphorical realm of our consciousness to
> effectively discuss it or bring about any useful change. When we leave the
> metaphorical realm of our current awareness, we enter a realm of such
> incomplete information that a full picture is impossible. One mistake,
> even a small one, can blow the whole construction.
I am not exactly sure what you are saying here. The condition of
human-ness guarantees that we will operate with incomplete information.
Every theory and scientific advancement is just an inaccurate model of
what is. There isn't any way that humans can come up with something
that doesn't have mistakes in it. I know of no major scientific theory
that has been found through history to be perfect, in fact history if
full of theories that have been blown up by little things... that's
progress! (Isn't it great how I can just sluff-off being wrong as
perfectly acceptable?)
>
> For example, we have in our metaphorical realm the existance of things
> like "spirituality" or "religion" or "God." We have not turned up in all
> our searching the actual chemical or physical constructions which are
> simplified by these metaphors. Many people are quick to say, "we looked
> and didn't find anything, so spirit, religion and god must be figments of
> our imaginations." That cannot be true. The metaphors exist. Furthermore,
> they have actually been among the most powerful forces propelling our
> societies throughout social and species evolution. There has to be factual
> basis for them. We simply are not capable at this point of explaining
> them, and may never be able to. This is OUR shortcoming, not a problem in
> the metaphor. Somewhere, somehow, there does exist a physical counterpart
> for each of these things, and it is most likely that the physical
> counterparts are more amazing than anything we've seen yet.
Because of the way humans are, that they have different biologically
based personalities, there will always be a percentage of people who
agree with you on the spirituality thing and there will always be a
percentage who disagree. To completely lose either of these views would
make humans more vulerable to extinction, but this is unlikely to happen
since the mechanism by which personality is created will ensure that
both of these views arise spontaneously within a human population.
>
> So... it is admirable to piece together the model you created. It helps to
> see in the rearview mirror of our metaphorical existance. But with the
> information so much in flux, the odds are that we will not see a really
> practical and accurate model emerge in our lifetimes, and when it does (if
> it does), there will still be those nagging metaphors of spirit, religion,
> god, and so forth yet to explain. I think in the end we will find
> something like ourselves being the metaphorical constructions that God is
> using to explain itself. The chemistry will be reduced to the mere
> probabilities of certain events which keep things rolling.
>
I think I must view things rather more deterministically than you. I
tend to feel that everything should be explainable fairly soon and that
one will find that spirituality is perfectly understandable and an
intergral part of being human (even though there will always be those
who don't see things that way) Of course, that is not to say that the
spiritality point of view is correct... or incorrect...
Probability is just another way of saying we don't have all the
information; as soon as we start using statistics we are saying we don't
really know what we are talking about. (And we all know that God doesn't
play dice...)
> Tourette Syndrome, ultimately, is best understood on the level of parents
> and kids trying to muddle through school and life, and the things that
> help us cope are best understood for what they are and what they mean to
> us: stress, joy, exercise, music, anger, and so forth.
I am not sure that these really help me cope with life as much as my
(delusional?) ideas of how things must operate from an informational
point of view.
>Always, I am
> secretly toying with the same kinds of ideas you proposed, hoping for the
> breakthrough that yields total understanding. But the most instructive
> thing I've seen so far is that we exist in a hierarchy of metaphorical
> tools which make sense of the chemical and physical forces which
> dynamically converge through the moving point of our existance. If it were
> more beneficial to understand it on the level of dopamine and seratonin,
> we'd find our society somehow wrapped up in perceptions of those chemicals
> themselves rather than in "personalities." Our realm - the realm of
> language which describes all this stuff in terms of interpersonal
> relationships - is the most efficient manner for society and individuals
> to advance.
>
> Shooshie
I'm afraid I'm not all that good with relationships (especially right
now) and I don't get much out of the metaphors available. What I do get
is more confused when I try to piece things together, so instead of
doing that I decided to look at things from an informational aspect and
it seems to make more sense to me. I have a feeling that I am not
particularly clear in presenting my ideas and views... words have always
seemed a rather rigid method of communicating ideas to me (do visual
people have difficulty with and mis-use language because the can't
understand it or is it because it cannot communicate what they really
want to say?). I suppose I'll have to start looking at the individual
trees in the forest? Darn, that will take years and years and years....
Oh, by the way, thanks for your detailed evaluation of my ideas, it
makes me feel like a real person (and not quite so invisible!)
Pieter Nagel
On Sun, 8 Jun 1997, Leslie E. Packer, PhD wrote:
(PS: last night, as I drove my car to my favorite pub, I thought: "I
wonder if some 1996 AST-ers think: "Here Pieter goes at Leslie's
throat again" " - boy, I love these embedded quotes... Anyway, this
is not what I'm doing)
> So all I was trying to say, Pieter, was that 'personality' or more
> importantly -- 'character' -- is not something simply determined by
> having a genetic aberration or abnormality or difference -- or
> whatever you want to call it. There good people and evil people
> everywhere.... I don't believe that biology is our sole determinant of
> destiny.
Oh, relax; we are not dealing absolutes here. The argument is not
that TS is a "sole determinant" of personality, and that genes are
destiny - the point is that TS is a "contributant" to personality.
> If it was, you'd be exactly like Shooshie and KAT and my
> husband and every other adult who has TS...
But whether I am exactly like Shooshie is not the point.
The point is that there is something to the way Shooshie and KAT and
Sue and Carel and Wilhelm and Jared and Andre and X and Y and Z think
that is *familiar* to me, that many of us tourettics recognize,
informally amongst each other.
I am used to meeting people who differ from me in terms of their
hobbies, way of speech, sexual preference and a hundred other ways,
and I am used to some people being similar to me in some of these.
But there is ONE thing, call it the Tourettic Mind, which I am NOT
used to other people being similar to me.
So if I meet a Shooshie, the fact that he has a different hobbies and
interests and religious convictions are not so much a big deal to you
as discovering that he *resembles* you in this one special regard.
THAT I am not used to.
Pieter Nagel
>shoo...@onramp.net (Shooshie) wrote:
>In article <339c9e7e...@news.pipeline.com>, lpa...@pipeline.com wrote:
>
>I think that we respond to things in a relative way. Relative, that is, to
>what we consider normal. Whether or not we have TS, we judge normalcy
>based on what we see around us. If we are the only ones with TS in our own
>households, we would tend to think that someone with tics looks kind of
>odd, since we never see tics. Well, we might see tics if we look in the
>mirror, and I don't know about you all, but I won't tic in front of a
>mirror. I suppress very well for myself - my most ardent critic.
Also, when it comes to repression, seeing someone tic publiclally
reminds you of the fact that your defences may slip as well. "There,
but for the grace of my suppression, go I...". There's the very real
danger that seeing someone tic may set you ticcing as well, and you
need to ward off that danger.
I don't think any of this plays a *concious* part in TS kids teasing
other TS kids, but it is there nontheless.
Pieter Nagel
On Sun, 8 Jun 1997, R.W. Porter wrote:
> TS is the result of being very good at processing static information.
Au contraire.
I assume you have TS, but that is obvious. I assume that *your* post
is somewhat representative of the way TS people think. Or rather -
your post is somewhat representative of the way some TS people try to
*express* their thoughts when situation forces you to express your
thoughts linearly.
You make a distinction between static and dynamic information, and
see this as an important axis along which we must look for the
tourettic mind.
I want to add another concept: information domains.
There are a billion pieces of static information, a million eternal
truths. These can be grouped into various categories: "geology",
"physics", "information related to the Northern Hemisphere", etc. The
point is not *how* an individual or society groups information, but
*that* it is grouped.
Likewise there are a billion pieces of dynamic information; a million
histortic threads of cause and event since the beginning of time.
These, two, are categorized by humans in various ways: "the ongoing
drama of my relationship with my wife", "all things relating to my
quest for a raise" etc.
You say TS is about being good at processing static information, at
the expense of dynamic information.
I say: no. Whether an individual is adept at processing static of
dynamic information, or both, if that person has TS he will tend to
jump between and correlate various *domains* of information.
Just use your own post as an example: you try to make a point, and to
do so you pull in taoism, the Neanderthal, neurotransmitters,
sociology. You want to make a point about TS, but you do so by making
points about autism and schizophrenia.
Reread your own post. Your sentences and paragraphs jump all over
various domains of static and dynamic information. The correlation
between them, and the reasons for your jumps, are mostly only
implied.
Of course this jumping thing seems natural to you. In fact, it does
not really feel all that much like "jumping" to you. But when I read
your post, it was THAT which made me think: "this guy has TS". And I
bet this type of thing often causes other people to go: "Huh? What
are you *talking* about?"
Shooshie
Pieter Nagel <pna...@basilisk.epiuse.co.za> called to our attention:
>Reread your own post. Your sentences and paragraphs jump all over
>various domains of static and dynamic information. The correlation
>between them, and the reasons for your jumps, are mostly only
>implied.
>
>Of course this jumping thing seems natural to you. In fact, it does
>not really feel all that much like "jumping" to you. But when I read
>your post, it was THAT which made me think: "this guy has TS". And I
>bet this type of thing often causes other people to go: "Huh? What
>are you *talking* about?"
Yeah, I was conscious of the same thing when answering his first post. I
was aware that it didn't matter so much whether or not we agreed as it did
that we both are inclined to look at the world in this way. It's sort of
like a giant theater lighting board. With thousands of sliders and knobs
to adjust the shading of any given component in the picture, we keep our
eyes on the whole picture while watching the total effect of the slightest
change in any of those sliders or knobs. I'm sure there are plenty of
folks who could care less, some that go "Huh," and others that probably
jump in and enjoy the discussion. But I know of a bunch of people who are
probably reading this stuff with relish.
Shooshie
Shooshie
Leslie Packer, <lpa...@pipeline.com> wrote:
>Shooshie, I am really looking forward to your reposts! I was
>contacted a few months ago by a psychologist who wants to do research
>on some alternatives to tic management, and I had started reviewing a
>lot of the nonpharmacological literature on tic-reduction techniques.
>I was pleased to see that National TSA has also funded some research
>on this topic this year.
>
>I've been talking with a number of therapists some of whom use a very
>non-experimentally validated approach to treating tics -- part of NLP.
>Have you ever heard of these techniques or do you have any experience
>with them?
I don't think so, Leslie. But feel free to job my memory. In fact, it
seems to me that since we can dispense information on this newsgroup, but
not meds, then it would be nice for this to become a clearinghouse for
such information. Since I've been posting the Help Desk ideas, people have
written me with different kinds of alternative approaches. All seem to
focus in some way or another on inner peace. I think the general goal of
inner peace is a good one, but I think also there are several things that
are particularly bothersome to people with TS, and I believe we have to
look carefully through the eyes of a tourettic person while making our
recommendations. That's not hard for me to do, of course, but some may
find it intimidating. My next post in the Help Desk deals with that
problem.
Shooshie
Kathryn Taubert
> If it was, you'd be exactly like Shooshie and KAT and my
>> husband and every other adult who has TS...
!!!!! OH! GAWD! NO!! NOOOO!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!! ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhh
:-)
KAT in CT
John Morten Malerbakken
Yes Pieter,
And that is why I sometimes even feel uncomfortable around my own
children. They tic, and get noticed, and I will be worried sick that I
will make the same impression. It is kind of wrong, but you can not help
your feelings.
I have said before, and say again that tics for most of us is moe a
social issue than a medical. We should remember that and be sure not to
"over medicate" the children for our own comfort. Only the individual
can judge if medication is necessary and why.
John Morten
Pieter Nagel wrote:
>
> Also, when it comes to repression, seeing someone tic publiclally
> reminds you of the fact that your defences may slip as well. "There,
> but for the grace of my suppression, go I...". There's the very real
> danger that seeing someone tic may set you ticcing as well, and you
> need to ward off that danger.
>
> I don't think any of this plays a *concious* part in TS kids teasing
> other TS kids, but it is there nontheless.
>
> ,_
> /_) /| /
> / i e t e r / |/ a g e l
>
> PGP: finger pna...@epiuse.co.za
--
Shooshie
In article <33a13b26...@news.pipeline.com>, lpa...@pipeline.com wrote:
>Thank you for reposting your Help Desk posts -- I've printed them out
>and look forward to reading them as soon as I can find a quiet block
>of time (yeah, right, what year is this?? <g>).
Yeah... they *are* kind of on the lengthy side. I imagine I'll look at
them again some day and say, "I could have said that in one paragraph."
Well, maybe not. I always feel compelled to explain. And these days I also
feel compelled to defend certain kinds of ideas. I mean, a lot of what I'm
saying in the Help Desk posts is pretty common-sensical to me, but maybe
not to some. Maybe not everyone would think to use breathing to modify a
"ticcing state of mind," but I've known for years that I cannot tic if I'm
doing a breathing exercise. The stuff about changing your environment is
something I learned by looking back at my life and realizing that I had
always done it intuitively. I used to take strange things to school with
me as a kid. Some of the feed that we used to feed the horses (I grew up
on a horse ranch) had a sweet and earthy smell, and I took it with me to
school in a little package and pulled it out now and then to smell it. It
was very calming - centering. I've always taken my environment with me.
Still do. I'll put a cactus on my desk, pictures on the wall, bring stacks
of books not to read, but to keep me company. Silly? Maybe to someone
else, but it serves me a definite and helpful function.
Anyway, read them for what they are worth to you. If they help some
people, and reports tend to indicate they do, then it has been worth it.
Shooshie
Leslie E. Packer, PhD
>shoo...@onramp.net (Shooshie) wrote:
>In article <33a13b26...@news.pipeline.com>, lpa...@pipeline.com wrote:
>
>
> >Thank you for reposting your Help Desk posts -- I've printed them out
> >and look forward to reading them as soon as I can find a quiet block
> >of time (yeah, right, what year is this?? <g>).
>
>
>Yeah... they *are* kind of on the lengthy side.
Oh NOOOO... that's not what I meant... it was just a reference to the
way this month is turning out for me... I'm weeks behind on an NLP
thread, and papers are piled up all over my desk, and I seem to have
misplaced one of my kids... and the dog is looking at me balefully...
and.. and...
Well, YOU know <g>.
> I imagine I'll look at
>them again some day and say, "I could have said that in one paragraph."
>Well, maybe not. I always feel compelled to explain. And these days I also
>feel compelled to defend certain kinds of ideas. I mean, a lot of what I'm
>saying in the Help Desk posts is pretty common-sensical to me, but maybe
>not to some. Maybe not everyone would think to use breathing to modify a
>"ticcing state of mind," but I've known for years that I cannot tic if I'm
>doing a breathing exercise.
I taught (and still teach) many of my patients breathing exercises
because I think focusing on breathing and _altering_ breathing
patterns is very beneficial for many situations and 'disorders.' So I
do look forward to hearing what you have to say about that part, too.
Gotta run.... it's almost 5 AM and I haven't been to sleep yet....
maybe I should take a few minutes to petition Congress to make a day
more than 24 hours <groaning>.
Leslie
Kathryn Taubert
>I have said before, and say again that tics for most of us is moe a
>social issue than a medical. We should remember that and be sure not to
>"over medicate" the children for our own comfort. Only the individual
>can judge if medication is necessary and why.
In fact, Dr. Gerald Golden of the Univ. of Texas Medical Branch at
Galveston refers to TS in one of his monographs as exactly that, "a
social disorder."
You might be interested in anything by Drs. Arthur Kleinman and Thomas
Szasz, who've written extensively on the "medicalization of behavior" and
the need to medicate as a means of social control. These are both
psychiatrists, "rebels" in their own field, and well published,
documented, obviously controversial individuals. I've found their books
fascinating, and will post titles here if anyone requests them.
KAT in CT
Pieter Nagel
On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, Leslie E. Packer, PhD wrote:
> But is it really the TS itself that is a 'contributant'
> to 'personality?' What I see all around me is something a shade
> different -- that the extent to which the individual has more of the
> _spectrum_ and the reactions and experiences they have as a result are
> the contributants -- and not the TS itself.
2nd point first: obviously other people's reactions to you, and your
reactions to them, have a major impact on personality. One could, for
example, draw a broad outline of a typical "teasing-victimised"
personality, and then find that people with TS, people with blue
hair, people with bad acne etc. often share that amongst each other -
also, one could find that in some cultures acne or TS would NOT
predispose towards a "teasing vicitimised" personality because that
culture does not tease.
So on that count I agree with you, but I think that social reactions
and experiences stemming from TS are only a part of the picture. They
would lead to a lot of commonalities amongst people with TS, but in
my opinion the "tourettic mind" thing touches only tangentially on
it:
- The type of things which *seem* to be part of the TS mind, like a
certain type of associative thinking style, creativity,
visual/imagistic thinking etc. don't seem to have anything at all to
do with social issues like teasing etc. This is a subjective opinion,
I know.
- The tourettic mind does not seem to be strongly correlated to the
severity of the tics per se. For example, my case of TS is very mild,
and I never had to deal with a lot of the *obvious* social schlep
associated with TS (teasing, self-esteem etc.) And yet I recognise a
lot of mental commonalities between me and other more sever TS cases.
How could the commonalities be caused by experience if our
experiences differ so vastly.
On your 1st point, that the "TS mind", if it exists, seems to be much
more strongly correlated to the TS/ADD/OCD *spectrum* than to TS
alone, I have often wondered about that.
More and more I am wondering: could there be many Tourette Syndromes?
At the moment we treat TS as a single entity, wich sometimes occurs
in conjunction with other entities called ADD and OCD, but which we
each hold more or less distinct.
Maybe TS is a *symptom*, not an entity? There could be many
neurological cuases that could manifest themselves as motor and vocal
tics and all the DSM criteria. Maybe there are many vastly different
underlying causes, lets call them TS1, TS2 and TS3, that
superficially, externally present the same picture we call TS? In the
same way that tuberculosis, bronchitis, and emphysemia all
superficially present the same picture of "coughing". But coughing is
a *symptom*, not the underlying entity.
Maybe there exists something like "pure TS", which is tics, only
tics, nothing more, no ADD, no OCD - let's call it TS1. Maybe people
with TS/ADD/OCD don't actually have TS1 at all. Maybe they have TS2,
ADD and OCD. They have something different. Maybe externally, they
all have tics, but the tics are secondary effects of two totally
different underlying processes?
Let's take it further: ADD, OCD, depression may all actually be
common ways in which a variety of conditions can manifest. A
situation like this is possible:
- Some people have "pure TS".
- Some people have "pure ADD".
- Some people have Something Else, which simultaneously presents
TS-ish and ADD-ish symptoms, but which is NOT a mix of "pure TS"
and "pure ADD" (like flu is not a mixture of common cold and
joint inflamation, although it presents the symptoms of both
combined)
Anyway, you get the drift. I am beginning to think, more and more,
that this thing we call the "Tourettic mind" is NOT related to "pure
TS". Conversely, it does seem as if most people with the tourettic
mind do show TS-like signs.
So maybe this "Tourettic mind" thing *is* caused by something which
you call "TS/ADD/OCD" - the spectrum. But if you read carefully, the
"spectrum" may not be the same thing as a mixture of its components.
A big problem is language. I get the feeling that amongst those
people who believe in the "Tourettic Mind", the word "Tourette" has
broadened to encompass the entire spectrum, so that it covers ADDish
and OCDish components.
My hypothesis is simply this: there is a hereditable neurological
makeup that leads to a certain personality and mind make-up, and
which, as side effect, almost invariable leads to tics and ADD and
OCD as well. But this entity may be distinct from pure TS, pure ADD
and pure OCD.
> Perhaps our disagreement in a semantic one, Pieter? When one uses the
> phrase "The Tourettic Mind," it suggests to me a single entity -- and
> that is what I have a problem with -- because there are thousands of
> people out in the world with TS who do not have this "Tourettic Mind,"
> and thousands of people who do not have TS but who do have what you
> describe as a "Tourettic Mind."
I don't know what you mean by "single entity". Call it a personality
type. Read the word "tourettic mind" on the same level as words like
"artistic", "ecentric", "reclusive" etc. Maybe one should think up
some other word, don't know if that will help.
But even here language fails. None of these words have the depth I'm
looking for.
Each of the aspects of the tourretic mind, taken in isolation, are
found outside of TS. Many non-tourettic people think in images. Or
are very associative. Or go "against the flow". Or tend to have
violent images. But the tourettic mind is a specific configuration of
ALL of these, and more. There's something underlying which we
recognise.
What we recognise amongst each other is not: "Oh, I go against the
flow, and so does he", but that we go against the flow in the same
way and for similar reasons, and the the reason why we go against the
flow is similar to the reason why our thoughts jump all over the
place and why we tackle problems a certain way, although externally
those underlying reasons may not be apparent..
The "tourettic mind" is a name we give to something deep, underlying
and causing a handfull of seemingly unrealted character traits. Each
of these, in isolation, is found in isolation in all kinds of people.
But it seems, subectively, that the complete mix, unified by the same
"deeper thing", is ALWAYS accompanied by TS.
But vice versa?
Shooshie
In article
<Pine.LNX.3.95.97061...@basilisk.epiuse.co.za>, Pieter
Nagel <pna...@basilisk.epiuse.co.za> wrote:
>The "tourettic mind" is a name we give to something deep, underlying
>and causing a handfull of seemingly unrealted character traits. Each
>of these, in isolation, is found in isolation in all kinds of people.
>But it seems, subectively, that the complete mix, unified by the same
>"deeper thing", is ALWAYS accompanied by TS.
>
>But vice versa?
Pieter,
Your whole post was very good. I just clipped the above to identify it in
my response. Also, your last paragraph is possibly the most important.
Maybe "Tourettic Mind" is actually the particular trais of TS that some of
us share.
We've said many times that coprolalia is considered TS, although it is
definitely not shared by all tourettic people. "Tourettic Mind" is our
version of coprolalia, echolalia, or the many other poorly understood
sub-categories of Tourette Syndrome. The only thing which they all have in
common is the outwardly visible signs of ticcing. This has been my belief
since we began discussing it years ago. It's obvious that not all of us
have a tourettic mind, and yet it's completely undeniable - completely
undeniable - that many of us share something we are calling the Tourettic
Mind. It exists, and we have it.
It has never been observed formally because there has never been a context
for it. I think we have established that context, and it's time to begin
looking at people who have it and asking the questions about specifics. It
may surprise us and reduce to one or two real symptoms, from which all the
others and their variations are derived.
But clearly, to me anyway, anything which could cause tics consisting of
intelligible strings of sense patterns - as in coprolalia or echolalia -
could also affect other aspects of our mental states, cognitive abilities,
and manner of processing information. It's not just dumb, but closed
minded and dumb for anyone to rule out the possibility for a tourettic
mind, and then turn right around and say, "coprolalia is TS."
And that has been what has irked me about the nay-sayers since the
beginning of this conversation three years ago. Of course, I realize that
things take time, but how many people does it take? How many cases of
people coming in here and saying, "umm... excuse me, but do you people
have a tendency to think like this?" and they start listing the
characteristics which we call "tourettic mind." How many intelligent
people does it take, all saying, "please everyone, listen to us. We are
trying to describe a phenomenon which never made sense to us until we met
other people with TS who share the same experience."
And how many times do we have to hear in return... "I see no evidence for
this tourettic mind in my practice, among my friends, in our membership,
in my kids, etc.? Of COURSE they don't see evidence for it. They don't
HAVE it! They don't know what they're looking for!
Uh-oh. I'm getting riled again. I'll settle down. Tourettic Mind is not
the greater category which we call TS. It is a subcategory, like
coprolalia. People with TS who also have "tourettic mind" know immediately
what we are talking about. For now, that's all the comfort we have.
Shooshie
ICEKNIFE
Pieter Nagel <pna...@basilisk.epiuse.co.za> wrote:
>Of course this jumping thing seems natural to you. In fact, it does
>not really feel all that much like "jumping" to you. But when I read
>your post, it was THAT which made me think: "this guy has TS". And I
>bet this type of thing often causes other people to go: "Huh? What
>are you *talking* about?"
You think so? I bet most people go "Huh? What are you talking about?"
because they're just plain ol' BUTT DUMB. IMAGINE the nerve, using all
those wordy thingies with all them idea dealies attached. How DARE
he not grossly oversimplify for the benefit of those who require
little answers that don't make the headbone throb. What the heck
do BRAINS have to do with TS? Smarty-people are BAD... they
think they're BETTER than the rest of us, and if the ARE, we better
KILL THEM ALL! AAARRGGHHH! BOOGA BOOGA! What does Taoism
have to do with anything? It's an ancient chinese system of thought,
and alla them ancient chinese guys have been dead for a long time,
so their brains are rotted and don't work so good. Never seek advice
from rotted brains. TS is a complicated chemical brainy-thingy that is
not such good fun except at parties and celebrity roasts, so if you
don't KNOW all the brainy chemical thingies, you not only shouldn't
express opinions about TS, you shouldn't even THINK about it. Hell,
if you can't talk about it in clear non-allegorical medical and
biochemical terms, you really shouldn't even be allowed to HAVE TS.
DON'T make me have to take yours away. Get to a medical school RIGHT
NOW, or turn in your TS!!!
Please do NOT blame me for this message. I am a member of a dangerous
mind control cult, and can't control myself.
Really!
NUPENGO BLAHNAMATAHA FELOOM!!!
ASPABALAM! SAALABINGA!!!
And those are PRAISE and WORSHIP WORDS.
Come. Let us type in tounges (fingers???) together.
ICEKNIFE
lpa...@pipeline.com (Leslie E. Packer, PhD) wrote:
>I've been talking with a number of therapists some of whom use a very
>non-experimentally validated approach to treating tics -- part of NLP.
>Have you ever heard of these techniques or do you have any experience
>with them?
As conditioning systems go, or self-conditioning systems, for that
matter, NLP is less effective for many than basic voice-roll
techniques. Look for this in cases where the subject is very creative,
or shows other signs of possible alpha wave activity predisposition.
My friend Chris always claimed that only three things ever helped with
his tic without hurting more than they helped; yoga, sex, and music.
He later amended sex to include healing touch like massage,
chi-gung, and shiatsu. Has anyone tried tai-chi chuan for more
physically animated and/or oriented folk with TS?
<plink><plink> (my two cents)
ICEKNIFE
John Morten Malerbakken <ehs...@aom.ericsson.se> wrote:
>Yes Pieter,
>And that is why I sometimes even feel uncomfortable around my own
>children. They tic, and get noticed, and I will be worried sick that I
>will make the same impression. It is kind of wrong, but you can not help
>your feelings.
This makes me very sad, because you don't know what you're missing.
In our church, we consider tics a sign of holy favor, and fullblown
compulsive swearing is the mark of a prophet. Far from being
ridiculed, you would be revered as a source of divine inspiration,
and taught to treasure your former affliction as a POWER.
In fact, I'm not sure you can even get IN the church of the SubGenius
without some distinguishing characteristics, to prove the universe
made ya SPECIAL!
Since there is no sight or sound that is foreign to "Bob", if you
ever feel like expressing yourself in full stereo about everything
or nothing, drop by alt.slack and yell as inarticulately as you want.
We'll think you're BRILLIANT!
ICEKNIFE
PS. WARNING - everyone on alt.slack is utterly INSANE.
Half of them are MEAN on top of it, but if you bite them
back they get the message. Yoo dun bin WARNED.
Mark Snegg
On Fri, 13 Jun 1997 12:50:14 -0500, shoo...@onramp.net (Shooshie)
wrote:
>We've said many times that coprolalia is considered TS, although it is
>definitely not shared by all tourettic people. "Tourettic Mind" is our
>version of coprolalia, echolalia, or the many other poorly understood
>sub-categories of Tourette Syndrome. The only thing which they all have in
>common is the outwardly visible signs of ticcing. This has been my belief
>since we began discussing it years ago. It's obvious that not all of us
>have a tourettic mind, and yet it's completely undeniable - completely
>undeniable - that many of us share something we are calling the Tourettic
>Mind. It exists, and we have it.
May I just add that another factor that gives validity to the concept
of the Tourettic Mind is that many people seem to have recognised it
in themselves before hearing of it elsewhere. It's not something that
people hear about and then convince themselves that they have. Rather
they already know they have Something and are now putting a name to
it, and trying understand it.
I have always known, long before I had even heard of TS, even from
early childhood, that I 'thought differently' to everyone else. And
this newsgroup is the *only* place I have ever come across people who
share this difference. So many posts immediately resonate with my own
experience. They immediately make sense and 'feel right' in a way I
have never come across anywhere else. As Shooshie says - to those of
us who have it, it's completely undeniable.
Mark
Angel71957
0
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On Fri, 13 Jun 1997 12:50:14 -0500, shoo...@onramp.net (Shooshie)
wrote:
>We've said many times that coprolalia is considered TS, although it is
>definitely not shared by all tourettic people. "Tourettic Mind" is our
>version of coprolalia, echolalia, or the many other poorly understood
>sub-categories of Tourette Syndrome. The only thing which they all have
in
>common is the outwardly visible signs of ticcing. This has been my belief
>since we began discussing it years ago. It's obvious that not all of us
>have a tourettic mind, and yet it's completely undeniable - completely
>undeniable - that many of us share something we are calling the Tourettic
>Mind. It exists, and we have it.
May I just add that another factor that gives validity to the concept
of the Tourettic Mind is that many people seem to have recognised it
in themselves before hearing of it elsewhere. It's not something that
people hear about and then convince themselves that they have. Rather
.they already know they have Something and are now putting a name to
it, and trying understand it.
>this newsgroup is the *only* place I have ever come across people who
>share this difference. So many posts immediately resonate with my own
experience. They immediately make sense and 'feel right' in a way I
>have never come across anywhere else. As Shooshie says - to those of
>us who have it, it's completely undeniable.
>>Mark
<grin>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angel
Happiness begins when you can face life with a smile and a wink. :o)
Sue
Pieter Nagel <pna...@basilisk.epiuse.co.za> wrote:
>More and more I am wondering: could there be many Tourette Syndromes?
><big snip>
>Let's take it further: ADD, OCD, depression may all actually be
>common ways in which a variety of conditions can manifest. A
>situation like this is possible:
>- Some people have "pure TS".
>- Some people have "pure ADD".
>- Some people have Something Else, which simultaneously presents
> TS-ish and ADD-ish symptoms, but which is NOT a mix of "pure TS"
> and "pure ADD" (like flu is not a mixture of common cold and
> joint inflamation, although it presents the symptoms of both
> combined)
>Anyway, you get the drift. I am beginning to think, more and more,
>that this thing we call the "Tourettic mind" is NOT related to "pure
>TS". Conversely, it does seem as if most people with the tourettic
>mind do show TS-like signs.
I believe all of the above are reasonable considerations, but I also
believe that it's just possible that we need to start thinking about
this beyond comorbidity issues. This is a problem, of course, because
it's a lot harder to put your finger on something that you can't quite
"label", but what if someone who falls under the overall umbrella-like
category of "TS" also has the same personality type as someone else
with TS (forget, for just a moment, the specific presentation of these
people's TS)? So, for the sake of labeling, let's use the example of
someone labeled with TS, who's also an INTP.
Even if their experiences (family, religion, schooling, social, etc)
are totally and completely different from each others', maybe their
reactions and overall approach to life in general are strongly
recognizable as similar because of the particular combination of TS
and INTP? I really am just rambling on here as I read the post
snipped above...
>A big problem is language. I get the feeling that amongst those
>people who believe in the "Tourettic Mind", the word "Tourette" has
>broadened to encompass the entire spectrum, so that it covers ADDish
>and OCDish components.
I can only speak for myself, but for me the above would seem to be
true. When I think of the tourettic mind, yes, it covers a very broad
spectrum of things like sensory, depression, and repetitive thought
issues, and a certain energy level. If you think about what it means
to be an INTP (being intuitive, a thinker and perceiver vs feeler and
judge), it is strongly related to the senses. If you then combine
that with repetitive thinking (as in some presentations of TS), then
it almost seems inevitable to develop and INTP personality. I'm not
trying to say that this tourettic mind thing is a result of TS and an
INTP personality, but rather that they *could* feed off each other, I
think.
If my particular presentation of TS is strongly related to my senses -
I perceive odors to be either very pleasant and really awful, or
colors to be either brilliant or drab, or tags on my clothing to be
particularly bothersome - then I have several sensory issues. Due to
my being especially tuned in to sensory issues, I am also receiving
much more sensory "input" than the guy standing next to me who is
seeing fuschia and merely pink, and aqua as merely some shade or
other or blue or green, etc. Our perceptions of the same input are
different.
If our perceptions are different to the *same* input, then would it
also be reasonable to conclude that our views, and reliance upon
instinct might also be different? If I'm picking up on clues
regarding what's going on around me in a different way than the person
next to me, then which of us might be more likely to rely upon our
instincts, constantly be thinking about possible connections of this
input, etc, and which might be more likely to *not* think about it
much (since it has less significance to them), and be more judgmental
and less explorative in their nature? Why *would* someone who's
seeing fuschia as pink spend any time *thinking* about that? (Sorry
for these lame color examples - I'm sitting here looking at the
snapdragons on my deck - 3 distinct colors, all in the same "family",
for which I really can't come up with names;-)
Sue (in DE)
(tli...@voicenet.com)
-----------------
"The greatest part of our happiness and misery depends on
our dispositions and not on our circumstances." Martha Washington
John Morten Malerbakken
Excuse me,
A "church" a "religion"? Sorry, I am not able to relate to your answer
at all. I would appreciate a clarification please.
John Morten
ICEKNIFE wrote:
>
--- SNIP ---
>
> In our church, we consider tics a sign of holy favor, and fullblown
> compulsive swearing is the mark of a prophet
--- SNIP ---
> the church of the SubGenius
--- SNIP ---
> no sight or sound is foreign to "Bob"
Sorry !!???
--- SNIP ---
> expressing yourself in full stereo about everything
> or nothing, drop by alt.slack and yell as inarticulately as you want.
If this is meant seriously, you are purposefully stepping on my conserns
and feelings. What is your point?
> ICEKNIFE
>
John Morten
Pieter Nagel
On Mon, 9 Jun 1997, R.W. Porter wrote:
> Shooshie wrote:
> > Yours is heavily biased toward a
> > systems model which resembles digital computer systems, but with a couple
> > of chemicals (seratonin and dopamine) doing most of the programming.
>
> Actually, it's based on a data flow of information and is thus
> independent of methods.
I agree with you that the distinction between "normal" vs.
"tourettic" vs. "autistic" etc. lies in information flow and
processing. I agree with you that there are different kinds of
information and different ways of processing it, at which different
types of people excel more than others. That is your forest, and I
think Shooshie agrees with you there.
But where I don't agree with you is your classification of
information types: it is too limited. You think it is a matter of
"linear information" vs. "parallel information processing", and think
those are the only two poles along which humans can vary.
I think what is limiting you is the "computer analogies" you use.
There are no computers as massively parallel as the brain. Your
language of analogy and metaphor is limiting you to theories that can
be expressed in that language.
The issue is not about linear vs. parallel. There are a miriad of
different ways to be parallel, but if you use computers as models you
can't see that. The difference between TS & normal & autistic etc. is
not that one is linear and the others not, but that each of them are
parallel in different ways.
This is how I see the brain: at the lowest level you have a miriad of
neurons taking input directly from the senses. There are a few
million neurons, each tied to a single rod & cone in the eye, a few
hundred thousand neurons tied to all the nerve endings in your sking
and veins and wherever, same for your ear and all the other sensors.
All of these millions of neurons work totally independently of each
other. IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE BRAIN TO BE LINEAR. (There
is no way on earth that one of the million eye neurons can stop and
wait for any other neuron to first complete its job - to do so, you
would need a synchronising mechanism, you would need connections from
every single neuron to every single other one, so that messages can
be passed telling the neurons "ok, your turn now, now you, and you
afterward". These messages would need to be instantaneous, or
otherwise a neuron would accidentally proceed doing its jobs because
it didn't get a synchronisng message in time.)
Groups of these neurons feed their outputs to groups of other
neurons. For example, you have clusters of neurons looking for
"redness" in a pinpoint areas of the visual field, others looking for
"blueness" etc. These clusters feed their output to others looking
for "areas of solid colour". Other clusters look for lines, others
look for boundaries between high-contrast and low-contrast, etc.
This goes up and up; at some stage shapes are matched and recognised
with objects, so that you can have a cluster of neurons recognising
"dog" for one part of what you see while others simultaneously
recognise "house" and others "motorcar". The scen you see evokes a
thousand semantic categories, but somehow a handful are selected as
the most crucial, and these pass on to higher and higher processing.
But all of this is happening in parallel. Although you are never
conciously aware of why the "dog" was not chosen to be noticed, it
involved the cooperaton of dozens of systems that decided that the
dog was no threat while the car was.
The brain consists of millions of systems working in parallel; each
of these takes input from dozens of other systems, each of these
digests its input in some way and feeds one or more outputs to one or
more other systems, simultaneously.
Precisely to *which* other systems your are connected, and *how*, is
the issue. If the system dealing with social behaviour has more
neurological connections leading from the language and visual
centers, then you will be more prone to react to people according to
what they say and how they look.
There are millions of different ways for weighting the connections
between various subsystems, for interconnecting them in various ways,
and in broadest terms these correspond to various broad categories
such as "normal", "autisitc", "tourettic" etc.
All are parallel. But all are parallel in different ways.
> > Midway through the model, you made a major mistake - that the brain excels
> > at processing linear information. The brain simply does very little linear
> > processing. Our thought processes are much more mysterious than that.
>
> There are two kinds of information
As I expounded above, that is your fatal flaw. You can broadly divide
information into "linear" and "parallel", but the latter covers so
many categories of information processing that is more than rich
enough to cover millions of different types of people and thinking
styles.
> and whatever type of processing you
> wish to call it, humans excel at processing certain types of time
> dependent information.
Our perception of time is linear, but that does not mean that our
thinking about it is. Any given moment is filled with a million
different lightpoints seen simultaneously, hundreds of different
shapes perceived simultaneously, dozens of different semantic
meanings attached simultaneoulsy, similarities and memories evoked
simultaneously. As we go higher and higher up the scale of
information complexity, there are less and less simultaneous
information categories. So it is possible that each moment has a
single "subjective meaning", and that the linear flow of single
subjective meanings gives an *illusion* of linear information
procesing.
But don't be fooled. The *illusion* of linearity is tenuous at best,
and only holds for a tiny handfull of semantic categories. These
semantic categories represent "the sum of all that is perceived at
the same time". But the entire system is still paralell.
There is no way to work through all the relevant information in a
linear fashion. There is too much. It is true that the more and more
complex information becomes, the less of it we can process
simultaneously. But even the linear contemplation of the sentence
"dog eats man" consists of the simulateneous parallel evocation of
semantic categories, images, memories, emotions, the vague
recollection of all dogs that ever bit you, etc.
Remember, the precise detail I gave of HOW information flows through
the brain is not relevant, my thesis THAT information flows in a
massively parallel fashion is. (just like your mentioning of dopamine
and serotonin wasn't crucial to YOUR information model, but mere
"implementation detail")
> Well I said I was making a wild guess. As I said I don't know this
> stuff very well, but given the outward manifestation of human behavior
> it seemed like a possible avenue for the localization of brain function
> difficulties. Remember, I am just thinking of the flow of information,
> the mechanics of how it is done is at a lower level of analysis.
Well, your framework for thinking about information flow needs a
radical enlargement...
;-)
Pieter Nagel
On Fri, 13 Jun 1997, ICEKNIFE wrote:
> My friend Chris always claimed that only three things ever helped with
> his tic without hurting more than they helped; yoga, sex, and music.
Hmm. Can someone please give me some medical references on the
TS-benificial aspects of sex, so that I can see my doctor for a
prescription and have my medical fund pay the bill?
ICEKNIFE
John Morten Malerbakken <ehs...@aom.ericsson.se> wrote:
>Excuse me,
>A "church" a "religion"? Sorry, I am not able to relate to your answer
>at all. I would appreciate a clarification please.
>John Morten
I will assume you know what the words actually MEAN, per se,
but since no question was asked, my post wasn't an answer to
anything - it was merely a comment. It makes no sense to
try to related it to any question, particularly when one wasn't asked.
Since my post was in a language we both speak, your inability
to relate the words to meanings isn't something I can help you with.
It seemed pretty clear to me.
>ICEKNIFE wrote:
>--- SNIP ---
>> In our church, we consider tics a sign of holy favor, and fullblown
>> compulsive swearing is the mark of a prophet
>--- SNIP ---
>> the church of the SubGenius
>--- SNIP ---
>> no sight or sound is foreign to "Bob"
>Sorry !!???
Why? Because you don't know who "Bob" is? That's
ok. If I gave you all the answers, they'd have little
meaning for you. Some things must be found rather
than delivered by hand!
>--- SNIP ---
>> expressing yourself in full stereo about everything
>> or nothing, drop by alt.slack and yell as inarticulately as you want.
>If this is meant seriously, you are purposefully stepping on my conserns
>and feelings. What is your point?
Your reasoning is not logical. I don't know you. Why on earth
would you think this was about you, directed at you, or
intended to harm you in some way??? Your use of the word
"purposefully" is inappropriate because it's not correct; further,
your personal concerns and feelings are not something I can
anticipate, nor am I inclined to word things to suit your personal
ideas, sensibilites, and/or sensitivities. I'm attempting to
communicate with more people here than just you. I have no desire to
hurt you or anyone else, but I can not and will not censor everything
I say to insure that my ideas are expressed in a manner suitable for
sensitive children not yet of discerning age. You are (presumably)
an adult, and resultantly responsible for your own readings.
My point was not made in simple clear terms, nor was it intended
to be. It spoils the mystery and the intrigue for many when I have to
spill all the beans in a mundane way for the benefit of one, or a few.
Just this once, I'll make an exception in public.
My point was: The Church of The SubGenius has been a haven
and public platform for people who are "different" for whatever reason
for the last twnety years, and if you're thick-skinned enough, or have
a well developed sense of humor and/or the absurd, it's also a great
place to meet lots of interesting people who, rather than being
frightened or repulsed by things like tics, are likely to find them
interesting and expressive. I've made dozens of great friends in the
group over the last decade, and highly recomend them as a social
connection for anyonewho's "different" and doesn't want or need
to be "just like everyone else".
It is very unlikely that you in particular will find the church of
any use, nor is it intended for children, due to the adult language
and content of the material, but it's still a lot of fun for thousands
of people.
Please refer such concerns to me in e-mail in the future. I am not
unmindful of the high number of highly sensitized people here
(translate: thin skinned and reactionary - I know because the church
has helped me with the same problem in myself for years; truly
sensitive people are able to *sense* no harm is intended), and I have
no desire to engage in personality clashes in front of them.
I am terribly sorry if this has caused any of you any undue grief.
Please focus on my intent, rather than whether or not you like my
particular (and peculiar) sense of humor.
Thanks!
>> ICEKNIFE
Um, John? Did you somehow think I'd forget who I was?
That was a JOKE, dude!
ah, nevermind. I'm going back to bed.
ICEKNIFE
Pieter Nagel <pna...@basilisk.epiuse.co.za> wrote:
<his brain/data flow model>
Sorta like a buncha stacked geodesic (sp?)
domes all interacting? When you describe it, that's what
I visualise. Am I oversimplifying too much, or is that
a useful model?
thanks,
IK
Pieter Nagel
On Fri, 13 Jun 1997, Shooshie wrote:
> We've said many times that coprolalia is considered TS, although it is
> definitely not shared by all tourettic people. "Tourettic Mind" is our
> version of coprolalia, echolalia, or the many other poorly understood
> sub-categories of Tourette Syndrome.
The problem with these sub-categories is that they differentiate
phenomena according to external criteria, while underneath it all
those phenomena are actually the same.
From the outside, echololalia, complex tics, palilalia etc. all look
different. But from the inside subjectively they can feel like "the
same thing". It's like taking a red, and blue circle and saying they
are two different things because the first belongs to the class of
"All Red Things" and the latter is a member of "All Blue Things",
while at the same time failing to see they are both Circles.
The external actions are different, the underlying reasons are
similar.
> And how many times do we have to hear in return... "I see no evidence for
> this tourettic mind in my practice, among my friends, in our membership,
> in my kids, etc.? Of COURSE they don't see evidence for it. They don't
> HAVE it! They don't know what they're looking for!
This is related to the blue and red circles.
A scientific observer may see Tourettic A excel at mathematics but
doing poorly in social exhanges, and Tourettic B being pathetic at
mathematical and scientific reasoning, but being very active in
creative terms. Superficially, there is no similarity.
But Tourettic C, may look at both and come to realise that although
A & B are good at different things, there is a crucial similarity in
the *way* they think about what they think about.
> Uh-oh. I'm getting riled again. I'll settle down. Tourettic Mind is not
> the greater category which we call TS. It is a subcategory, like
> coprolalia.
The other possibility is, as I said, that there may be many different
Tourette Syndromes.
A Testa
In article <01bc7a90$05ec9000$680835cf@christy>,
Christy <khry...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>John, Go check out his newsgroup alt.slack, and see how really genuine he
>is, check out snips of quotes from this group, the thread on how a show
>with people who have ts made someone's noght because of how funny it is
Oh, but you've missed the point ENTIRELY! The post you mention was
written by me, oh, a year and a half ago. And yes, it DID make my night.
It WAS funny. I remember it still, long after all the standard
disease-of-the-week documentaries are seen and forgotten. I loved it so
well because it DIDN'T treat TS as some demon-spawned affliction that had
to be medicated out of existance. It wasn't afraid to let the people SING
and TALK without having to beat the viewer over the head with how AWFUL
this is and how the viewer should THANK HIS LUCKY STARS he isn't forced
to suffer as these poor wretches on display are. I wasn't kidding when I
said that the closing of the show had a woman with TS singing "Twist and
Shout", very well, with a lot of enthusiasm. It was great! It was a
celebration of being who she was, instead of taking the victim route and
trying to hide and appologize.
Iceknife is EXACTLY RIGHT about everything he said. Like him, and the
Church of the SubGenius, I celebrate that which makes us different and
unique. The difference in perception is the automatic assumption
that laughter means derision: that by my laughing and enjoying hearing a
person with TS speak I am automatically making fun of them because
they're different. THe exact opposite is true! We in the Church of the
SubGenius absolutely love those who are different. FOR those things that
make them different. What Iceknife offers is a sincere venue where those
who are different can find people who would would celebrate their
differences. It's not a freak show or a pig party. We don't ridicule
people for being different, just for being stupid. Or victims.
The folks at alt.slack would NOT welcome anyone with TS who wanted to
complain about how bad life is for them. Or who wanted to claim that
having TS exempted them from jokes or humor. We don't want thin skinned
victims. We want people who are willing to live in acknowledgement that
they are different and USE it to their advantage. If Someone with TS were
to come to alt.slack, and volunteer to get up on stage and sing or rant
for any reason, they'd be royalty. Not as a side-show entertainment, but
because they weren't afraid to flaunt their difference.
If having TS is something you can't talk about except in terms of being a
victim, alt.slack is the wrong place. If you can't accept people making
jokes about TS, alt.slack is the wrong place. If you can't accept
anything about TS as being funny or humorous, alt.slack is the wrong place.
However, if you're tired of having to suppress yourself and want to be
around people who not only DON'T CARE if you have TS but would like to
sing a DUET with you, people who'd pay to hear you read poetry, then
alt.slack and the Church of the SubGenius is a place to go.
Iceknife made a sincere offer which he explained is not for everyone.
It's an offer for those who realize that when nothing is funny then
you're wasting the air you breathe.
Incidentally, I personally think that the mad god JHVH-1 WANTS you to
read alt.slack. Consider:
1) alt.slack just this weekend experienced a HUGE reposting of all the
best articles that people had saved over the years, making THIS WEEK the
best time ever to read our best work.
2) Iceknife, for whatever reason, posted his invitation to you.
3) My post on TS from so long ago was reposted in that deluge by someone
who liked it at the time.
4) You tuned in EXACTLY at the right time to see it.
5) I JUST HAPPENED to be reading in time to see your followup.
It couldn't POSSIBLY have "Divine Intervention" written any more plainly
on it than that.
>etc. etc. In my opinion just ignore him. Christy
Your option. Take it or leave it. We're not here to troll or agitate. All
applications accepted.
--
Andy Testa (KoX - SP4) We SubGenii don't pretend to be without sin. Our
ate...@concom.com Vote for authority to preach stems from one simple point:
Dobbs/Xenu: 2 zeros in '00! you chap our ass. Period. -Lou Duchez
Haggis Reg
In article <5o40da$ar5$1...@cronkite.lanminds.com>, icek...@lanminds.com
(ICEKNIFE) writes:
->SNIP-
> it's also a great
>place to meet lots of interesting people who, rather than being
>frightened or repulsed by things like tics, are likely to find them
>interesting and expressive.
I bet that you are just eating your little heart out right now that the
Elephant Man isn't around any more.......You and your friends would have
LOVED him. I mean, grotesque AND easily hurt! What a combo!!!! Too bad
they don't make 'em like THAT anymore, eh?
BTW - You do NOT impress me - I have seen your like before. That's why
Garlic and wooden stakes were invented.
- H.Q.
Christopher V. Berdoz
"Christy" <khry...@bellsouth.net> writes:
>John, Go check out his newsgroup alt.slack, and see how really genuine he
>is, check out snips of quotes from this group, the thread on how a show
>with people who have ts made someone's noght because of how funny it is
>etc. etc. In my opinion just ignore him. Christy
>John Morten Malerbakken <ehs...@aom.ericsson.se> wrote in article
><33A542...@aom.ericsson.se>...
>> Excuse me,
>>
>> A "church" a "religion"? Sorry, I am not able to relate to your answer
>> at all. I would appreciate a clarification please.
>>
>> John Morten
It's fake. The Church of the Subgenius is a group of culture jammers.
Technically, they can't exist because it is entirely made up of people
who don't "fit in". If you read the 'long list of what makes up a
member of the subgenius' (not the actual title, but it's on the net
somewhere) some of those things are OCD/TS symptoms. However, I doubt
the writers actually know that they have the disorder. They just blow
it off as being quirky or weird things, and the subgenius loves
"weirdos and nerds" and similar. You might see some of their stickers
in bathrooms or someplace, stating that they are "Warrior Mutants",
and ask for $1 to some Texas address. In return, you get a pamphlet
with a lot of cussing and supposed government conspriacies to take
away your "slack". Their mascot or symbol of sorts, is a pipe smoking
alien named "Bob" who just wants beer and women. The subgenius has
been around since the 70's. They are often referred to as "the wacky
cult". They aren't serious.
I personally have the makes of a full blown slacker, but why should I
waste $30 on some documents to say that I am "officially" what I am
already? Besides, it's all just a monstrous "in-joke" for them. And
a lot of them still don't get what the subgenius and 'slack' means
anyway. Therefore, I doubt HE will clarify, he's just being a
smart-ass.
I've always admired groups that do the culture jamming thing, but they
tend to get on peoples' nerves. But that's what they are for, to be
anti-culture and show us all what idiots everyone is. As an art
student, I love that kinda stuff.
So either this guy is just doing this for shock value, to show off, or
he's really really into the subgenius and believes what he's saying,
and simply is being an ass. However, the subgenius lets you be who
you wanna be, and he's being an ass, and that's the end all beat all
of it.
CB
--
Conspiracy takes up your slack, but you'll pay Bob to get it back
'cause you need Bob and Bob needs you...
So of you like to rant and cuss, could be that you're one of us, so
sign up right away 'cause Bob needs you.
- The Loud Toons
DSalter
ICEKNIFE wrote:
>
> John Morten Malerbakken <ehs...@aom.ericsson.se> wrote:
>
> >Yes Pieter,
>
> >And that is why I sometimes even feel uncomfortable around my own
> >children. They tic, and get noticed, and I will be worried sick that I
> >will make the same impression. It is kind of wrong, but you can not help
> >your feelings.
>
> This makes me very sad, because you don't know what you're missing.
> ridiculed, you would be revered as a source of divine inspiration,
> and taught to treasure your former affliction as a POWER.
>
> In fact, I'm not sure you can even get IN the church of the SubGenius
> without some distinguishing characteristics, to prove the universe
> made ya SPECIAL!
>
> Since there is no sight or sound that is foreign to "Bob", if you
> or nothing, drop by alt.slack and yell as inarticulately as you want.
>
>
> ICEKNIFE
>
> PS. WARNING - everyone on alt.slack is utterly INSANE.
> Half of them are MEAN on top of it, but if you bite them
> back they get the message. Yoo dun bin WARNED.
I must say it is extremely difficult to read thru 'iceknife' posts.
Instead I hit the big "D" Button for DELETE. Why waste my time and
effort. If have MUCH BETTER THINGS TO DO than listen to this garbage.
He's not worth my time.
Anyone replying to his/her posts are giving satisfaction to this creature
of 'SubGenius' idiocracy. (Including myself, but no more. For now only
for the sake of this 1/2 cent worth.)
ICEKNIFE
cde...@atlas.vcu.edu (Christopher V. Berdoz) wrote:
>So either this guy is just doing this for shock value, to show off, or
>he's really really into the subgenius and believes what he's saying,
>and simply is being an ass. However, the subgenius lets you be who
>you wanna be, and he's being an ass, and that's the end all beat all
>of it.
>CB
I am one quarter cherokee, three quarters jew, and attended school in
the deep south. As a teenager I escaped to Berkeley. Figure it out.
The math is easy. In high school I figured out that it can be lots of
fun to be different, and it's even MORE fun with a BUNCH of people
who're different. The thirty dollars isn't just a symbolic gesture,
nor is it a ripoff of any kind. The memberships fees help support the
guy who does the radio show and runs the church, and the people who
handle all the mail and the paperwork. There are shows (we call 'em
Devivals) all over the country, and a huge website crammed 300+ megs
of a lot more than some dirty words.... the art alone is worth the
visit. It's one of the acerbic and contentious groups you'll ever
meet, and a few are downright creepy, but overall, they're some of the
nicest people you'd ever meet, and if you have tourettes, they're
a damn sight more likely to make fun of your shoes, or political
views, than your symptoms... a few might even envy you! I have a
doctors excuse for swearing uncontrollably in public, and I know
a lot of subgenii wish THEY had one. It's hard for some people to be
different and all alone, so sometimes it's good to know a group
who's main common ground are their differences. Mostly we just
chatter at each other and exchange strange finds of various types
(you name it... art, news, music, science, kooks, anything).
In answer to the unasked question... Do *I* personally find tourettes
amusing? Only in the abstract. What it does to real people isn't
funny. Is it funny when my vomiting makes me up-chuck
on a police officer? Sure, but not for a LOOOONG time, like several
months later, and then probably only to me. Humor is a very
subjective thing, but it's one of the best, safest, cheapest medicines
available. I'm sorry if you don't like mine. I've tried to be helpful
here as well as silly.
ICEKNIFE
Nancy Powers
> DSalter wrote:
> >
> > I must say it is extremely difficult to read thru 'iceknife' posts.
> > Instead I hit the big "D" Button for DELETE. Why waste my time and
> > effort. If have MUCH BETTER THINGS TO DO than listen to this garbage.
> > He's not worth my time.
> >
> > Anyone replying to his/her posts are giving satisfaction to this creature
> > of 'SubGenius' idiocracy. (Including myself, but no more. For now only
> > for the sake of this 1/2 cent worth.)
Hey guys...
In my opinion, this is worse than anything I've read from Ice. To
make it worse, this doesn't even have a single funny line in it! This
is just plain mean spirited. If we all agree we are different, then why
tear anyone to pieces? If you like your delete key... use it, by all
means... but I don't need to know it.
Maybe I've finally gone over the edge myself, but I found myself
laughing, yes fully blown laughter, at some of the things written. So,
I'll laugh, you can delete, we can all be happy!
ICEKNIFE
Nancy Powers <MNPO...@GVI.NET> wrote:
>> DSalter wrote:
>> >
>Hey guys...
Thanks Nancy!
I have no idea why so many people find that concept so difficult.
By the way, thanks for the lovely letter. I tried to reply, but the
e-mail bounced. You were very kind, and I'm really glad if things I've
written made you laugh.
Thanks again!
ICEKNIFE
ICEKNIFE
DSalter <dsa...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>ICEKNIFE wrote:
>>
>> John Morten Malerbakken <ehs...@aom.ericsson.se> wrote:
>>
>> >Yes Pieter,
>>
>> >And that is why I sometimes even feel uncomfortable around my own
>> >children. They tic, and get noticed, and I will be worried sick that I
>> >will make the same impression. It is kind of wrong, but you can not help
>> >your feelings.
>>
>> This makes me very sad, because you don't know what you're missing.
>> In our church, we consider tics a sign of holy favor, and fullblown
>> compulsive swearing is the mark of a prophet. Far from being
>> ridiculed, you would be revered as a source of divine inspiration,
>> and taught to treasure your former affliction as a POWER.
>>
>> In fact, I'm not sure you can even get IN the church of the SubGenius
>> without some distinguishing characteristics, to prove the universe
>> made ya SPECIAL!
>>
>> Since there is no sight or sound that is foreign to "Bob", if you
>> ever feel like expressing yourself in full stereo about everything
>> or nothing, drop by alt.slack and yell as inarticulately as you want.
>>
>> We'll think you're BRILLIANT!
>>
>> ICEKNIFE
>>
>> PS. WARNING - everyone on alt.slack is utterly INSANE.
>> Half of them are MEAN on top of it, but if you bite them
>> back they get the message. Yoo dun bin WARNED.
>I must say it is extremely difficult to read thru 'iceknife' posts.
Sorry you have trouble that way.
>Instead I hit the big "D" Button for DELETE. Why waste my time and
>effort. If have MUCH BETTER THINGS TO DO than listen to this garbage.
>He's not worth my time.
Instead of hitting the big D, why did you post this?
>Anyone replying to his/her posts are giving satisfaction to this creature
>of 'SubGenius' idiocracy. (Including myself, but no more. For now only
>for the sake of this 1/2 cent worth.)
The use of the term creature is inappropriate and derogatory.
The technical term is PERSON, and no attempt to demonize me will
change that basic real physical fact.
Please be honest. I obviously struck some kind of nerve
(unintentionally, I assure you... I've authored provocative posts, but
that wasn't supposed to be one of them). If you have a problem, state
it clearly without a lot of invective, and we'll see if we can clear
it up; otherwise, you're just being unpleasant because of an issue
you don't want to face, and that's not anyone's problem but your own
until you ask for some assistance.
You are (presumably) an adult, and responsible for your own feelings.
Since I was in fact quite sincere in my attempt to invite the members
of this group who are not highly sensitized to enjoy (and should they
so desire, participate in) the mindless meanderings and musings of my
favorite merry mutants, your comments are confusing to me.
IN A NUTSHELL: Seems like some frightened, sad people here
are struggling valiantly to cope with difficult problems. Alt.slack is
one of the funniest news groups I know of. Is there anyone here who
hasn't cried enough? Laughter is cheap, effective, safe medicine.
That's a proven medical fact. No one gets to laugh all the time
(ok, maybe certain buddhas, and other spiritually or mentally advanced
types) but a few good belly-laughs a day goes a long way to
brightening things, and a positive mindset is anyone's best
health asset. Lighten up. You'll live longer.
Shooshie
In article <5oe6ng$mdj$1...@cronkite.lanminds.com>, icek...@lanminds.com
(ICEKNIFE) wrote:
>Thanks Nancy!
>
>[...] ... I tried to reply, but the
>e-mail bounced.
Nancy's return address is reversed when doing a reply from UseNET. Somehow
it has been entered into her setup fields as:
"MNPO...@GVI.NET" <Nancy....@GVI.NET>
when in actuality it should be
"Nancy....@GVI.NET" <MNPO...@GVI.NET>
Her actual address is MNPO...@GVI.NET, but because the < > contains the
other part - <Nancy....@GVI.NET> - the mail attempts to go to that
address but fails.
I don't know if this was intentional on Nancy's part to avoid spam, or if
it is just an accident, but if you will simply use the real address -
MNPO...@GVI.NET - it should get through fine.
Shooshie
GCase40008
I think that kids with TS still might tease others with the same problem
because they may be so frustrated with themselves, that it probably makes
them feel good to give another person a hard time. I still don't know how
to help my son with social relationships because of that... How does one
"rise above" being razzed on all the time?
Christopher V. Berdoz
I'll also apologize on behalf of "Iceknife". He's a cool guy, he's
just trying to do what's right, but just probably got a little carried
away. I apologize for what I said about him, too. We all need a
little love, neh?
CB
R.W. Porter
On June 10, Pieter Nagel wrote:
>I want to add another concept: information domains.
>There are a billion pieces of static information, a million eternal
>truths. These can be grouped into various categories: "geology",
>"physics", "information related to the Northern Hemisphere", etc. The
>point is not *how* an individual or society groups information, but
>*that* it is grouped.
One might consider "information space" with "information bits" making up
the components of a vector corresponding to a particular piece of
"knowledge". In this way, what you term a domain is a subspace of
information space, a projection of the larger space (like a two
dimensional space is a projection of a three dimensional space). Those
things that can be collected into the same domain have a relationship of
some kind, this relationship is that they have the same values for one
or more components of their information vectors. The more components
they have in common, the more closely they can be associated. If one
eliminates vectors from some sort of association by checking each
component of these vectors and rejecting all that do not have a
particular value , one reduces the number of vectors in that association
(and thus the size of the domain in information space) until one uses
all (or as many as necessary) vector components and is left with only
one knowledge vector. The associations are really artificial and will
change depending on what componenets one wishes to focus on. To get
more down to earth, these associations are the labels we use for
things. They are like races or diagnoses; just arbitrary collections of
attributes, collections chosen by humans and not dictated to humans.
There are no races, there are no real disorders like TS, ADD, OCD; these
are just collections of attributes that occur naturally in our
population and in fact help ensure the survival of our population. Some
have found it a convenient short-hand to use a term to quickly generate
a picture of what they are trying to discuss and some use these labels
when they don't really know what it is they are dealing with but there
seem to be a lot of these attributes that show up together. This is why
labeling can cause trouble. In reality, a large number of attributes
may occur with each other. If a number of people have tics, some of
them will have ADD characteristics and some will not. Of those who have
ADD characteristics, some will have enough to such a degree that they
could be diagnosed with ADD and some will not. Comorbidity of these
labels implies that there is a relationship of some sort going on among
the symptoms we use, but we just don't know what it is (in quatum
physics this situation gives rise to the uncertainty principle, I have
forgotten the terms used in statistics but I think it has to do with
correlation coefficients and things like that). So the tools needed to
explain the domain idea have already been developed in math in the
theories of linear vector spaces, although I don't know if anyone has
applied them to the study of information. (Have I made myself
sufficiently opaque? I always had trouble with math and it wasn't until
a couple of years ago that I finally realized why I had such a hard time
with proofs and why my mind doesn't work like most mathematicians I have
met... actually it's more like physicists...)
>You say TS is about being good at processing static information, at
>the expense of dynamic information.
>I say: no. Whether an individual is adept at processing static of
>dynamic information, or both, if that person has TS he will tend to
>jump between and correlate various *domains* of information.
Well, actually I should have said that those with the Tourette Mind are
better static processors. The reason they jump all around is because
they are trying to figue out the picture on the jigsaw puzzle while most
of the pieces are missing and they are putting together clumps of pieces
here and there, whatever seems to attract their attention... The
sequential approach would be to start at one side of the puzzle and work
your way from, say, left to right by exhaustively trying each piece
until the whole puzzle is finished and only then deciding what the
picture is. What the Tourette Mind does is pattern recognition rather
than a sequential accumulation of knowledge. Perhaps people with the
Tourette Mind have trouble articulating what they wish to explain
because spoken and written language (which is a sequential sort of
thing) is limited in the kinds of information that it can convey and
when that language is used (some would say misused)in a fashion that
more closely represents the way a TS Mind person thinks everyone else is
baffled. What is the best way to verbally describe the contents of a
photograph? Will all the ideas you wish to explain have an expression
in your language? Are all greens in the photo described by "green" or
are there differences in green, and how do you communicate these
differences? Are there colors of green for which your language has no
corresponding word? (How many words for snow do the Aleuts have?) Isn't
art just a language for things that can't be communicated very well
verbally?
>Of course this jumping thing seems natural to you. In fact, it does
>not really feel all that much like "jumping" to you. But when I read
>your post, it was THAT which made me think: "this guy has TS". And I
>bet this type of thing often causes other people to go: "Huh? What
>are you *talking* about?"
So... you mean everybody doesn't discuss things this way?? I grew up
thinking I was pretty normal (I did wonder why I didn't have any
ambition though). I haven't been diagnosed with TS although I have in
the past year developed this minor head tic thing that seems to get
worse when I get stressed... and that's been happening a whole lot
lately... Other than this tic thing, I think the only thing I have in
common with TS people is my thought processing style an I thought it was
an INTP thing... but I keep meeting INTP's who seem to look at me as if
I were obiting Pluto or something... could it be that I am being too
intuitive all the time? My conversations are more like brainstorming
session where I borrow the other person's brain to pick out their
knowledge. My thinking is like brainstorming. Perhaps brainstorming is
just the verbalization of ideas and concepts that are expressed as
mental images, similar to pictures.
I guess then that most TS people brainstorm rather than think or
converse?
(sorry I didn't respond sooner, I guess I just figured that no one would
be much interested so I haven't been checking what people might say
about my posts... I'm used to being sorta invisible... and I have been
kinda busy lately...)
M&MVB
I responded to GCase40008's post but it never showed up, so I'll try again:
I was wondering if kids with TS who tease other kids in general, (but maybe
specifically other kids with TS), may actually may be expressing a tic.
The development for a tic of this kind would be similiar to that of
Copralalia, it is an action that they may know is forbidden, thus becoming
the seat of an obsession, and eventually a tic? I suggest this based on the
fact that my son had developed a laughing tic this summer. At first I
thought it was a great tic to have, fairly easy to integrate, not very
noticeable, but of course, he usually does it at socially inappropriate
times, like when another child falls off of a swing set, or when his
brother is getting frustrated learning a new task. It is a pretty wicked
cackle that sounds like a mocking or teasing laugh, and of course everyone
around him is taking it as if he is insulting or teasing them. Not such a
great tic afterall, (good thing school is out, I'm hoping this one will
pass in the next 9 weeks!). Marietta
GCase40008 worte:
M&MVB
Kathryn Taubert
By the way, thanks for the lovely letter. I tried to reply, but the
>e-mail bounced. You were very kind, and I'm really glad if things I've
>written made you laugh.
>
>Thanks again!
>
>ICEKNIFE
>
I've been away for a while, so I may have missed some posts...but I
thought your post to Chaim re: meeting the girls his friend is having for
visits was wonderful.
KAT in CT
Kathryn Taubert
I find it
>difficult to connect those things with disinhibition, but would love
>to see some more discussion on that possibility - maybe it exists, but
The issue of "disinhibition" has been overblown. It refers specifically
to the physical manifestations of TS..the tics/vocalizations....the
individual with TS is unable to inhibit these things.
It does NOT mean that the person with TS is "uninhibited", as is often
suggested. It does not mean that because one has a disorder of
"disinhibition" that one is unable to "control" ones behavior in the ways
we most often think of when we talk about "inhibitions."
Re: the "TS Mind." There is precious little hard data to validate this
yet.....lots of interesting anecdotal information. It's probably
somewhere between nature and nurture...some of "it" may be related to the
way the TS brain works (which is somewhat different, perhaps, in more
ways than we currently know for certain) and some related to the way we
must learn to think to "fit in" with the rest of the world.
It's interesting discussion......and bears greater explanation. I believe
Pieter was the first to coin this particular term for it..although the
concept has been around since Oliver Sacks first discussed "Creativity
and TS" in his 1992 British Medical Journal article....and before.
KAT in CT