What is something other people seem to grasp easily that eludes you?
For me it's time signatures in music. I grew up playing instruments, played in several orchestras, etc. But no matter how many times someone tries to explain time signatures to me, it makes no sense. I don't understand why people place such importance on it. To me, notes have a pitch and a duration, maybe some dynamics. That's it. I don't understand why people try to needlessly complicate it. It doesn't give you anything.
My wife will hear a song and go "Oh neat, it's in 5/8." And I'm like "How tf do you know that, and why does it matter?"
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I'm not sure if this answers the question but I feel like the older I get the more I see through "the game of life" and once that illusion gets shattered it's impossible to unsee. Much of the status seeking, tribal behaviour becomes nearly impossible to partake in once you start seeing what it's all for.
Go ask a person why their Instagram is filled to the brim with pictures of their face, for example, and you can watch in real time as their world view starts wobbling and they start making up rationalizations and excuses for behaviour that is utterly narcissistic. Try doing that while being fully conscious about the true motivations behind it. You can't - something has to give.
However, I'm not sure if this is a good thing. Sure you can pat yourself on the back for being above it all but it makes it really difficult for anyone to try and integrate in normal everyday social situations when all of it just feels like a performance.
There is a difference between being narcissistic and craving validation. It's completely normal to want validation, feel needed, wanted and appreciated.
It's very sad that every human need has been turned into a subscription based service.
the problem is people twist themselves into knots to get it these days, and it makes the mentally unwell.
And they hate people who don't 'go along' with the 'game' they play.
Narcissism is just pathological validation craving. They're on the same spectrum. However, I'm not one to judge someone for just posting on instagram.
Narcissists don't crave validation. They don't think they even need it, because they already feel so self-assured.
You're confusing narcissism with insecurity, which is practically the opposite of narcissism.
A narcissist doesn't think they need your approval, and isn't going to beg for it. They'll just explode the moment you express disapproval or disagreement, because that clashes with their worldview and self-image, and that's something they can't tolerate.
Yeah I also have autism
autism has nothing to do with this.
In this particular case autism has lots to do with it.
Sure, sure
Oh, it does
those people don't exist in many people's lives.
and even if they do, it's typically only temporary. people who get these lifelong deep authentic friendships... are pretty rare and lucky to have the circumstances in life that allowed for that.
like, a lot of people don't have those kinds of relationships and never seek them either, the concept just doesn't exist for them and they live their entire lives on a very surface level understanding of the world.
I don't know about you, but I don't understand how I can develop a deep authentic relationship with people who obsessed with shallow things like their social status and how expensive their car is compared to other people's cars... and that's what dominates the culture in my city. Or who fly into a long winded speech about their anxiety and despair over the fact they only make 350K last year or their stock portfolio only returned 5.5% instead of the 7% their account manager promised them...
I take that to mean that if you are weird then embrace it. That attracts other similarly weird people and those are the best kind. There's no point in being liked for being someone you're not so why pretend.
With who?
It was middle school when I realized “you can only be cool if you’re not trying to be cool,” which I then said in an effort to sound cool. By high school that had sunk in better and I accidentally ended up popular, I think. That was when I first started looking past what people do to try looking cool.
In college I got into psychedelics, broke through to ego death while listening to Dark Side of the Moon with blindfolds and peaking, and found that the deeper level of existence was that there isn’t one. Most things in life can be as simple or as complex as you want, and I had been trying to make it more complex than it is.
But the thing I keep finding is that for as simple as most things actually are, people are consistently more complex than their surface suggests.
A week ago my cousin was in town and I had a one on one conversation with him for the first time in our adult lives that started with him showing me his relatively popular Instagram photos from the past couple years of him running the rave circuit. But as we got to talking about it, he revealed that he didn’t give a shit about his popularity, his ex-boyfriend was the socials guy who wanted the clout of being with a hot rave guy. He had become disillusioned with pretty much his whole life, but you wouldn’t get that just looking at his socials. And for as shallow as his ex is, if you peeled back the layers of bullshit he’s built around his life, there’s probably some interesting thoughts in there.
I guess I’m not sure what I’m trying to say with all this. When I make an effort to understand, most people I meet drop the facades and spill their guts pretty quick to me. I might be uniquely weird for that ability, but I don’t know that it’s narcissism on their part so much as trying to be cool and grappling with never succeeding because of that trying.
Couldn't quite parse the beginning. Who broke through to ego death, again?
That is always the case when comparing one's complex internal life to the perceived external lives of others. It's never an apples to apples comparison. However social media was just one example. This applies to other forms of signaling as well: designer clothes, latest tech, following trends.. Basically almost anything people do that they wouldn't do if there were no one to see it.
I encounter this when chatting with a family member and she mentions that she "loves animals" and who "couldn't hurt a fly" while also being an omnivore. She feels sorry for the animals when she thinks of industrial farming, but does her best to never think about it. When this topic comes up, I don't say anything (we've been through the topic in the past), but she sees the impatience with her bullshit on my face, and gets flustered by the fact that someone doesn't consider this cognitive dissonance normal.
I can somewhat relate with that. Eating meat is one of the few behaviours that I still do despite being unable to morally defend it. It's not even that I'm trying not to think about it or have to somehow deceive myself believing that it's good. I know exactly what I'm doing. The convenience of it simply outweighs the moral guilt.
What I think would possibly make me feel different about it is someone handing me a gun and telling me to shoot a cow. If it turns out that I can't do it, then that really puts into question the outsourcing of the messy part of it in the first place.
Cool. I love animals and I eat meat and I love it.
I see nothing wrong with it. Death is part of life.
Do you ever ask yourself why it is that you need other people to believe and practice what you believe? And do you find when other peole impose their beliefs on you find it offputting and upsetting?
One can be perfectly happy with the concept of beings dying and being eaten, and still feel nothing but disgust about the meat industry.
I tend to eat meat semi-regularly out of convenice and social norms, but I am fully aware of my hypocrisy. Same way as I am typing this on a device that probably contains parts made with essentially slave labour. Doesn't make it better. But at least I can avoid the treadmill of having to have the newest iPhone, or eating as much supermarket steak as possible.
If its all a fake performance, perform the show well and find yourself in a better position to help more people do the same.
Add in a psychedelic experience or two, and it becomes impossible not to recognize how ridiculous it all is.
Can be done without them, of course, but psychedelics can blast you right to that position, for better or worse.
I've taken the slow route and have been doing mindfulness meditation for a decade which probably plays a role in all this.
I'm at the point where I don't even try to integrate any more. The only time I leave my flat is against my will because I have to go to work to be able to afford to live.
Humans are narcissistic and selfish because over the millenia the ones that were selfish outcompeted the ones that weren't. It's totally natural to be selfish. Some are just better at hiding it than others.
However there is also a simple social aspect to including yourself in photos. It's a clear visceral way to say "I was here". A photo without your face does not have capture the "you" part of that statement. Social interaction is not just an exchanging of ideas, it's also about building relationships, and for that to happen, the "you" part of the equation is vital.
To be fair I rarely include myself in photos, but for the same reason I am also less integrated into my social circles.
You don't have to fully integrate, I guess. As in, people don't have to be your intellectual/ideological peers or see things as clearly, but you can still enjoy their company. If anything, it's your moral responsibility to guide them and elucidate them when needed because, well, who else is gonna do it? They can't do it for themselves, else they wouldn't be posting a million selfies or doing whatever other nonsense they're up to after their PFC has developed sufficiently. You're gonna have to lead the blind to water, you don't want them to die of thirst, right? The way is important too, because you don't want them to see you as an annoying, moralising, "no fun allowed" kinda guy, they'll just run away from you... but with the right approach you can be the somewhat wise unc/paternal figure of your group.
Beware though, people WILL call you asking for guidance on your days off and it'll be up to you to define the limits of your relationships so you don't end up moving to a cabin in the woods disconnected from everything, but it is definitely rewarding and very prosocial.
Programming fast.
When I program for my personal projects it takes hours to get very little done.
Socialization.
How to make friends. It was so easy as kids, but now I can meet people that do things that I do and who want to do them in a group but they never become friends to me anymore. IDK where I'm going wrong, I don't reek of desperation, I have other friends, but when people say "find your tribe" like, I might be the last of my kind.
I can completely relate. Additionally my specific standards also make it very bad.
I found out that I'm an Autist so for me it at least explains things but is also totally not helping to know.
Nevertheless I do not know for sure if all of this isn't totally normal, as in the regular human experience. The older you get the more difficult it is to find and hold friends.
It's normal. Hardly anyone makes friends after college or early 20s.
And folks that do, it's mostly through their children. Because they become friends with the parents of their kid's friends... because it's convenient.
It might be normal but it shouldn’t be normalized.
I basically don't have any friends of my own anymore. The ones from high school I was never really close enough with to hang out outside school. We were just too different. Almost a decade and a half later and we see each other maybe once a year and don't talk outside of that.
College was supposed to be a place to meet new people, and I did meet a few, one of which is my current partner. But that also didn't last past college years, really.
I'm now in a different country, don't really speak the language well enough and don't really have energy or time to find new people. Plus, my introversion, social anxiety and health are only making it harder. My partner occasionally comments on me having no friends of my own, but then I look at his friend circle and want to roll my eyes. Most of his friends are from high school years, and he sees them maybe once or twice a year. There are a few he met through work, but it's easier for him because the field we work in is male-dominated. So for him it's okay, for me it sucks to be the only woman. But he doesn't hang out with any of these people on regular basis. Realistically, most people he knows are acquaintances.
I think about this whole situation frequently and it makes me depressed and bitter. I feel like even if I find new friends, I'll never be the friend, you know? They'll always have other people they've been friends with for longer and I will be either not as important or discarded later. It's been this way my whole life. Always easily forgotten and replaced.
this hits a little too close to home
Sometimes, a handful of friends is not just enough but the upper limit as well. And that's okay, right? If you have a partner and everything is okay, you will start your own small community regardless. 😅
You aren't doing anything wrong.
That's just how life is. Practically nobody makes friends as adults due to the structure of adult life.
As children you have tons of free time and no hangups or social status to maintain. As an adult you have zero free time, lots of hangups, and most adults are obsessed with social status.
Real friends are the ones that stick with you when shit hits the fan. When you're an adult and you meet new people, you usually want to show yourself from your best side and for everything to go well. She we were kids, shit hitting the fan was somebody kicking a ball into a neighbors window or falling of a bike, minor things as an adult, but as kids that built character. The stakes are so much higher as an adult when things go wrong, so generally you avoid it even though this means that most of your relationships are superficial.
I'm not saying that something horrible must happen in order to get friends as an adult. But sometimes it's better to simply work against the odds together to form a deeper connection.
that's true. the stakes are higher and you have way more to lose from a bad friendship.
people forget that there are lots of folks who are happy to exploit, use, and betray you. and when you are a kid that might mean they steal your $20 toy, but as an adult it can be a lot more costly. like your friend can come over, slip your stairs, and they can sue you for damages and take your entire life away. and where i live it's fairly common for people to threaten lawsuits over the stupidest shit.
I'm gonna go meta on this one:
I don't understand how some people just know that they can do things from the get-go. Like from their early teens on.
It took me until age 50 to understand who is holding me back: me.
There's very little I don't think I can grasp now. Anything another human can do, so can I. I could have been a doctor or a musician or a chemical engineer or Michelin starred chef if had believed in myself like other people do.
How??? Why did they know they could do these things???
Dancing. And even something like swaying or tapping one's foot to a beat is hard for me unless the song makes it super obvious. Most people seem to just intuitively get all of this. Plus I don't have good coordination or spatial awareness, where I still routinely run into doorways in my home and such. And then add social anxiety on top of all that. A nightclub might as well be a torture chamber.
Skateboarding. None of it computes for me. My brother has been a lifelong skater and still rips it up at almost 40, and I see him do shit on the board and I just can’t figure out what the fuck is happening. It breaks physics, it’s like bee flight, none of that crap should be possible.
I watched him go up a very steep incline and do the thing where it’s a kickflip and a pop shove it at the same time, which is enough on its own to break my brain, but he and the board went up and landed at the same angle of the incline like it was flat ground, he and the board went up and down perpendicular to the incline without any vertical drag on the drop and landing. Gravity doesn’t fucking work that way! And how the fuck do their feet and the board just get back together after the board is seizuring mid air and just fucking land and keep going like there are magnets on their feet or something? It’s gods damned wizard shit.
That could be part of the problem: time signatures aren’t a property of the notes, they’re a property of the song. The time signature is the rhythm and flow of the music. If you try to do a waltz in 4/4, it’s probably not going to sound like a waltz unless you do some really screwy things.
Plus, knowing the time signature helps you figure out why that guy is waving his stick like that while you’re playing.
I give you those “screwy things”. Somebody stripped the fifth beats from Brubeck’s magnum opus, and made the most waltz sounding 4 I’ve ever heard.
Take Four
It’s funny how stripping out the fourth beat just sounds like a band who doesn’t quite know how Take 5 goes and they’re just winging it: https://youtu.be/t3u8GwMlJaw
Wow, this sounded amazing!
Interesting how the 4 is kind of ghosted
Comment so I can find this later
Metallica's Nothing Else Matters is a walz and you can't convince me otherwise.
I'm pretty sure it is in 6/8.
This. I'm not a musician but have learned many types of dance and the time signature is key for dancing. Maybe it would help OP to do a beginner dance class, to learn time signature in a different context.
So, the original Mission Impossible theme tune is in 5/4. When U2 re-did it for the 1996 Tom Cruise film, the beginning is in 5/4, and then they transition to a slower 4/4. For most of the "Dee da duuuuuuuuuuuh" sections, as far as I can tell it's just a beat shorter, but the tempo is lower, when they do reprise the Dun! Dun! Da Da! section they use two measures, 8 beats, making it dun dun dun dun da da.
Fun fact: The original dun dun da da was supposed to be "MI" in morse code. --.. dash dash dot dot, with a dash being a beat and a half, a dot being one beat, five beats total. U2 turned it into MMI. ----..
You could write in triplets in 4/4.
Anything can be in 4/4 if you count hard enough.
That really bothered me at first! Kept thinking 'why ever have a different time sig? No need for 13/8 (or whatever) when you can just sprinkle in double dotted 16th notes tied to 8th note (or whatever).'
Over time I slowly realized that it's not about technically being able to write it, but rather describing what usually happens. (Tho I still don't really understand, intuit, or hear any of it well.)
Shopping. Walking around looking for stuff to buy.
Same. But I've had a couple breakthroughs: I enjoy it if I'm looking to buy something for someone else. And also when it's random junk: thrift stores, flea markets, yard sales, bin stores, that kind of thing. With those it feels like I'm exploring, not just shopping.
This has NEVER made sense to me. I've practically never happened upon something I want to buy in a corporate store
Parents are really good at this because it's their only alooone time
Complex boss fights in video games. Multiple stages with precisely timed keypresses, being able to track multiple things simultaneously while also dealing with random changes, being able to do quick gear changes, etc. I don't know how the hell people do it.
So funny (and kinda sweet) how many people are trying to explain time signature to OP, instead of answering the question.
I''ve been told all my life that "it's not what I say, but how I say it" that's a problem. Apparently my tone of voice is often aggressive when I don't mean to be. Also, if I'm frustrated about something, people feel that I'm angry at them.
I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago, which explains some of it, but sadly hasn't helped me resolve the issue 😕
LOL I was checking the comments for exactly this.
My wife and I have ADHD and have the same issue. Emotional regulation is impaired in many with ADHD, so we tend to run emotionally "hotter" than most. We may get more upset about something than an NT person might, hence why we come across as very upset, but we may not see it as particularly intense because that's a normal reaction in our experience.
Not necessarily what might be causing it for you, but definitely what does it for me and many others I've known. DBT helped a lot.
I'd never thought about it that way but that would make a lot of sense, thank you.
I had a sort-of similar thing that took me ages to figure out, but it turns out my thinking/concentrating face just looks angry. So people would ask me things, I'd be thinking of a response and they'd think they annoyed me. So I'm trying to work on that, but also I just tell people my thinking face looks angry now and that's helped a lot lol.
I'm glad they did, because I also have a hard time with time sigs, and was hoping to see some explanations. In fact, one comment here finally elucidated that I understood signatures wrong this whole time.
Functional programming.
Math! I'm a software guy and generally find STEM topics highly intuitive. I do fine with the stuff through middle school - PEMDAS, algebra, that kind of stuff. But the higher levels concepts like logarithms and derivatives; no matter how many times they're explained to me they just don't quite click. I can plug numbers into formulas and get the answer I need, but I don't understand what's happening or why that particular formula is what's needed.
Getting up early or ever feeling rested. I don't think ive ever felt good in the morning. Basically, if I have 5 drinks and sleep, I'd feel identical waking up as if I'd had nothing. I also feel the same with 5 hours of sleep vs 10. No difference. And I do sleep its not insomnia, just doesnt work.
regatrdless of your age, get a (screening) sleep exam. RNT docs and audiologists do this with easy to set up devices one can plug in at home.
And this is important. Sleep Apnea is life-shortening and quality-of-life-wrecking.
Get a sleep study. This sounds like a sleep disorder. Especially if you also take naps easily throughout the day.
I've always had shit sleep patterns, insomnia as far back as kindergarten. I did eventually get a sleep study done and shocker I have sleep apnea. I got a CPAP and the doc pumped it up so hard. I had facial hair so finding a mask that fits wasn't easy. Also, I'm a side/stomach sleeper, and if I'm on my back in bed I'll be side awake for hours. So I tried the CPAP for a couple months.
It still woke me up at 2-3 am every single night, and I had dreams about suffocating. Never used it again
If I'm being honest, I definitely sleep better with the CPAP. But that mask is so fucking annoying I've given up on it. Blasts of air in my eyes at 2 am or waking up with the salty bottom of the mask in my mouth... I just couldn't do it anymore.
I can't nap haha! Yeah it must be. I'm not overweight and I'm pretty healthy so I didnt think it could be sleep apnea but it could I suppose
Could be something like needing a cpap machine. My husband got one and it changed how he slept entirely. Could be a lot of reasons for sleep not being refreshing though!
You might be nocturnal. I used to work nights and felt better getting up at 4pm every day, even if I had less sleep than I get now getting up at 8am
I definitely am. If I'm left to my own devices I almost instantly default to going to bed at 5am-ish and getting up at 11-12. But mostly society won't let me do that, so I feel like I'm on a night shift permanently.
Could be. I generally don't feel tired until 1 or 2 am. So making myself sleep at 10 or 11 is hard.
Lying, manipulating, bullshitting, etc.
If you do it, people adore you. If you don't, they hate you. I notice the most socially popular and adored people are the ones who do this the most.
Everyone says they hate it this type of think, but in behaviour they react very differently. I have even bullshitted and manipulated some folks, and it was terrifying how well it worked. They were like eating out of my hand and believing whatever stupid crap I told them.
Human psychology is terrifying.
As a professional salesperson, I can tell you don't worry, most other people are also terrible at bullshit and manipulation.
It comes down to this: Most people want to know what you want from them. We're social animals. Someone who seems self-sufficient reads as a potential threat. The best way to get people to do what you want is to tell them what you want in a way that makes sense to them, because then then can help you out and feel like you're connected to them.
This is where "lying" comes in, because the reasons you give them for what you want has to their reasons, not your reasons, and, frankly, a lot of people are a little crazy and want crazy things. You can't tell your alcoholic boss you're drowsy because you were up all night playing Zelda, you tell her you have a bit of a hangover. Either way, she'll tell you to drink a cup of coffee and get it together, but the former makes her trust you less and the latter trust you more.
This is a really good explanation. I should tell my kid this to help him with masking. And it'll be great when he tells the teacher he's hungover.
This is so weird to me. I Don't bullshit people or manipulate them. It would be exhausting, but I seem to make friends and acquaintances easily enough.
I live in a city full of tech bros and biotech bimbos. this is all they know from birth to grave.
they find the concept of someone being genuine and non-bullshitty very upsetting and weird. but if you talk to them in bullshit corpo self-branding speak, they are totally into you.
like I've had 'concerned friends' lecture me on how to bullshittify the way I talk so it's more socially acceptable. like using 'pivot' and 'synergize' when talking about myself, and of course constantly referencing my anxiety about my lack of 'productivity'. or to constantly reference 'how expensive' things in casual conservation to let everyone know I'm wealthy and successful... because if you aren't wealthy what is the point of even being alive?
also if you have a hobby, you can only talk about it reference to how it builds your career or it's your side hustle.
I would have no friends if those were the only kind of people I could find to talk to.
Cool. I'd rather have some friends than none. So I work with what's available.
You might be autistic
No. It has nothing to do with autism.
This fediverse's weird obsession with autism (or adhd) being the 'answer' for every social issue you face is mind-blowingly ignorant and stupid.
Unless you are professional diagnosed, you don't have autism. Your online quizzes and self-diagnoses are just excuses for you to justify your off-putting behaviour and interests. Like, wow you're into FOSS and obsessed with privacy and are a PC gamer... none of those make you autistic... it's your incessant mentioning of them and your superiority complex about them that turn people off.
Thank you, much better put than myself.
I see the psyop classifying anyone who hates the bullshit and lies corrupting modern society as autistic has fully paid off.
If you classify tactful social behavior as "lies and bullshitting" it probably IS spectrum related.
Not enjoying manipulative behaviours because of their wider negative implications on society is autistic? The Kool-Aid must taste real good.
Like I said, if you are applying the term "manipulative behaviors" (or lies or bullshitting) to generally tactful social behavior, that is consistent with ASD. If you mean lying, deceit, and gaslighting in a malicious way, OP is probably around toxic people because I think EVERYONE would agree that it is awful.
Maybe you ought to make sure you understand people's positions before you lash out, yeah?
None of what's OP wrote was alluding to "generally tactful social behaviour".
Maybe you should learn to read before you get all defensive, yeah?
I can read and understand nuance. Nothing about what OP said indicates what he is talking about ISNT that either. If you think everyone is lying and manipulative you are either surrounded by toxic people, OR you don't understand social interactions. Everyone who is socially successful is not being a manipulative liar.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/autism-spectrum-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20352928
If you're having trouble seeing this, talk to your doctor. There is nothing wrong with playing by a different set of social rules unless you don't understand that you are.
Edit: Or maybe you're just an asshole. I can relate.
I understand time signatures in theory, but not in practice. I comprehend what they are and what they mean, but they don't make sense to me. I don't understand what they do or why they're necessary.
Like I get it, the bottom number tells you how many beats are in a whole note. Most commonly 4, but sometimes 8 or something else.
The top number tells you how many beats are in a measure. In common time, that's again 4.
But mathematically, wouldn't that mean 3/4 time is the same as 6/8 time? They're equivalent as fractions. But when I ask a musician they don't explain it, they just tell me "No, they're different. That's 3/4, this is 6/8." And usually with this undertone like "Are you stupid? This is so obvious, what part are you not getting?"
From what I gather, 6/8 time is usually done in pairs of triplets. So it does sound rhythmically different than 3/4. But no one ever tells you that, not even when the concept is introduced in textbooks on music theory. They just tell you "and this is 6/8 time," as if you're just supposed to know how and why that's in any way different from 3/4 time...
Love and affection. As someone who's parents have a bunch of psychological problems, paired with growing up poor as an immigrant. I never in my life have experienced either love or any sort affection for either family nor strangers. For context my mother is a prefect example of a sociopath and I'm 80% sure my dad is autistic. Neither of those conditions exactly scream empathy. I never heard the words 'I love you' spoken with the eyes, or any sort of meaning behind them. Listening to daily (and I'm not exaggerating here) screaming matches for 30 years has given me the impression that those words don't really mean anything to them anyway. Never having had a safe place to develop those feelings and given that I'm not exactly easy on the eyes means that I have somehow managed to become full grown, mentally stable adult with empathy, and a yearning for affection and acceptance without a single fibre of love in my body. Never have I had an interaction other than quid pro quos, "I want something from you, you want something from me." never "I want you, you want me." I literally can't imagine what it's like waking up next to somebody, feeling emotionally safe or having somebody genuinely wanting to spend time with you. I know that there are currently literally billions of people for whom this the most normal thing in the world but for me that is borderline incomprehensible. I would want to wish that kind of lonelines on my worst enemy.
I'm a dude BTW.
This seems common for people from dysfunctional households. I come from a similar (though not as extreme) background and I wouldn't consider myself capable of love. Not in a way that matters, at least.
Small talk. I'm just not interested.
I once went to a place to meet some people. The people I came to meet were in two distinct groups, chatting. I didn't know which group to join, so I stood in between them, listening to both. First one was talking about something boring and stupid, the second the same. So I just... stood there. Outside both groups, staring at the floor, wondering if I should just leave.
I would have joined your group.
I probably would have stopped wondering and started wandering home after not very long.
I cannot, and I mean cannot, flip a map in my mind. North has to be pointing north or my brain just keeps messing up.
There was a test in the back of Scientific American magazine a long time ago with pairs of 3d models (the stick and ball things people use to show molecular structures) and they turned them in different directions and asked "are these identical or mirror images" how many can you answer in 5 minutes.
I stared at it for an hour and couldn't do even one. Like, I was crying by the end of the hour because I felt so stupid but my mind, it just couldn't tell.
I've never had trouble reading but learned to read very young (barely 3 year old) like a language, sort of before even knowing the alphabet that well - it's not a dyslexia situation. But I sure couldn't see those differences in the quiz. At all.
I once dungeon-mastered a DnD campaign. For the map I just took a map of North America and rotated it 90°. Not one person noticed.
Could it be dyscalculia instead of dyslexia? From what I've heard poor sense of direction is a common symptom of the former.
I was not great at math in early school, rote memorization not my strong point but loved algebra, enjoyed calculus and actually work as an accountant. When in elementary school I could always rock word problems in math, better at understanding/applying than the literally calculating. So I don't know, but not likely.
Pretty bad with right and left but honestly very good at moving around in real space - I orient myself (obviously) on north, south, east, west. I have a great sense of direction in the actual world.
Check out ‘Angine de Poitrine's Math Rhythms Explained’. They use a loop pedal in the context of math-rock with changing time signatures, so they must fit all changes in a track into a fixed length. For those good at time signatures (not me), they also have some misdirections between the loops of different instruments.
that's fascinating and DIDN'T HELP AT ALL HOLY SHIT.
it's like saying "oh you don't understand basic physics? here watch Einstein explain his most complex concepts"
Oh that reminds me of the time my then boyfriend, a mathematician, tried to teach me maths. It was like teaching someone French by reading out a few pages of Sartre's La nausée, then saying "OK, that's the basics covered..."
It's just an example of guys who definitely must count stuff so that it always fits exactly into the loop while also being precisely timed between the guitar tracks and the drums
As for physics, iirc the book series by Feynman is recommended to really dig all the stuff from the basics to the fancy theories, and Feynman was no slouch himself.
Also, Einstein was teaching students in the US later in life.
Fantastic music
The band took off in January with the KEXP performance, after playing shows for two years. Their outlandish garbs and wacky setup likely contributed to the popularity — wouldn't expect to see much interest in microtonal math-rock otherwise.
I just discovered these guys last week and have had their two albums playing on repeat ever since.
△
🔺
Thats where patterns repeat. It's just for convenience, an 8th note is an 8th note no matter the signature but its how you count the beats. If a piece is in 3/4 the phrases will feel different from 4/4. So, if youre sight reading, it makes it easier to predict when phrases begin and end, when to come in off rests, etc.
I hope that helps somehow lol.
Also helpful to know where it’s appropriate to take a breath on a wind instrument if it’s not marked.
I've had multiple times in my life when people got mad at me for not knowing things I was never told. I have some pretty severe trauma over one especially bad incident and the chain reaction of events it caused.
So I don't know how others just seem to read each other's minds to just know things. I don't know how to know when someone is mad at me until it's too late, and I don't know how others apparently don't have this problem.
This 1 million times.
I've always told my friends and significant others to just tell me what they are thinking or wanting. It truly is that simple with me. I do not beat around the bush, nor do I appreciate others doing that. We are adults (those I tell this to) so just tell me, "Hey, I want to do this on this day" or "Hey, I really wish you would do this thing".
"I am not, and never will be, a mind reader."
this is your own bias working against you.
everyone has this problem. you just don't see it because you aren't there every moment of every day in their life, like you are with yourself.
people 'seem' to not have this problem because they have learned from experience what other people want, and frankly, what most people want, is mostly the same. so once you figure out the use-case that covers like 90% of people, they are easy to please.
plus most people are dumb animals and if you treat them like they are... you rarely fail.
Is this like, "I didn't know you were mad" or "I didn't realize I was supposed to tip my hairdresser" or "I didn't realize they'd turn off our electricity if zi didn't pay the bill"? The first is pretty complicated, but the second two are various flavors of "proactive research is part of maturity".
Math and numbers in general. I have hyperfantasia so the voice in my head is completely self directed and language is otherwise only external, I read whole words I don’t read letters, when I learned to read it was all at once essentially, like flipping a switch. Numbers don’t have anything visual I can attach to them and don’t exist holistically, I have to look at each number not the whole set or problem or algorithm at once so it’s very foreign to how my mind works. Ideally I could just do everything in geometry because I do have something there to translate to my visuals only brain but as is I just really struggle with math and reading numbers.
Story comprehension. For example, I was trying to play Chrono Trigger, and at some point I just can't follow the story any more. Then I lose interest in the game.
Happens in books and movies as well.
I can't count how many times I've read or heard about something having an amazing story, only to think to myself "This is dogshit." That's when you realize just because something is popular doesn't mean it's written well.
The most recent example of this was this horror short story about a town where people couldn't die (content warning, duh), but can very much still be injured and all the shenanigans that entices. While the comments were mostly praising it, I though to myself "Did a 12 year old write this?"
Sounds similar to Death Becomes Her
Sounds like the village of Hinderstap from The Wheel of Time series
Sounds like Death Takes a Holiday
I kind of have the same but I taught myself to enjoy the moment to moment gameplay and story progression.
I played through Chrono Trigger and all I remember is that it had an awesome soundtrack, there was a frog dude, cool mechanic visiting the same place in different time period and at one point there was a bridge which probably was important. I spent tens of hours and that's the story synopsis I can muster. I still can tell you that I enjoyed playing the game. Storytelling is only one part of entertainment.
Ya I often do that too, but I wanted to know why people regard this game so highly. Also understanding the story becomes more essential to know which time period to travel to. So I found it hard to figure out where to go.
I get that people remember stories and I don't. I have them in my short them "work memory" and others have them bleed to long term memory. That's great! When my 'cache clears' in a few months or years I don't feel sad I just feel.. enriched?
I no longer consider myself to be adept to judge stories. It's just like music. Others might feel strongly about some style but their likes are not yours and might be completely wrong.
This is not to patronize but to recognize your weakness and enjoy entertainment around it. I'm not a native speaker so I have hard time to convey my point but this is a skill to learn not a hardship to bang your head against. All the best :)
Directions. I'm just clueless to the point it's a problem.
You're not alone.
Thank god for GPS. Even now people keep trying to give me directions and I'm like just shut up, I have a phone that will tell me where to go.
Discipline/self control. I don't need to worry so much about the self control in that way, I'm a very chilled guy. I only really give into the intrusive thoughts when I'm cooking food, or saying something I think is funny but turns out to just be offensive.
The discipline I struggle with. I don't understand how people seem to have enough hours in the day to keep a tidy home, study a course in the evening, do a tiktok channel as an attempt at a side hustle, 40 hours a week at work, cook a full dinner every evening for family etc etc etc.
Sometimes, like once or twice a month, the stars will align and I will be on it, but I can't just be that guy on demand.
Those people that seem to do that, how many are they? How many are there that don't/can't do that? Or more specially, what is the share of people that have such a busy live? Do you perhaps simply only see those outliers and all the normal/average people are not like that but you simply don't see it?
I do wonder if theres some sort of presentation bias or something. Ive only seen 2 homes that are worse than mine in my whole life, but I'm not sure people with unkept houses are big on having visitors.
The standard was set by households that had domestic servants. Either actual rich people or southern whites exploiting low wage black women and girls.
It was maintained for a time in the 1950s with drugs. Alcoholism was rampant, and tranquilizers for women. Miltab, mommies little helpers. You can see this in media well into the 90s with vicodin, Lexapro.
Drug yourself into a haze and you can do it. You won't have time for a social life.
The point is it's not a realistic standard. Live communaly and it starts to work better. Otherwise give yourself grace.
This. All of this.
AHA.
Meaning, of course, Ad Hoc Abbreviations.
Slippery/sliding/rolling things underfoot.
I wanted to learn how to skateboard when I was a kid. I tried for several weeks, with a friend trying to teach me. I got tired of hurting myself, and gave up.
I know people don't "grasp it easily", but most people eventually get the hang of it, and it doesn't seem to take them long.
Over the years I've tried roller skates, ice skates, and skiing. And, failed at all of them.
Music et al. I can recognise talent, I can recognise good music, bad music, and music I dislike.
But for the love of von Neumann, I can't make heads or tails of musical theory, let alone translate it to an instrument. I even suck at Guitar Hero.
Mine is similar. I adore music but I can’t lock into a melody to save my life. Songs I love & have heard a hundred times before—I’ll try to hum or whistle along with them and I’m all over the place. It’s like I’m purposely trying to sound bad — but that’s actually the very best I can do.
I can relate, I'm an avid listener to music. I've tried playing guitar and piano but I cannot manifest it somehow.
Music theory ditto. I usually love nerdy mathy content but somehow music theory finds no place to, well... resonate in my brain.
Try trackers, in particular Renoise (it's free to use as a demo, without exporting, though there are workarounds for that). At the first glance, it's a spreadsheet where you place samples playing notes. In practice, it works great for people like me who can barely tell what different notes sound like, much less feel intervals and stuff. You just put your samples such that you get the rhythm you want, and don't forget to twiddle the effects because they make a big difference. Of course, this works best for dancey electronic music.
Do you find music not amusing, or just can't "sync up" with others' peoples opinions of it?
No, it's not that. Consuming music, having an opinion about it isn't the issue.
It's when it comes to MAKING it is when I throw in the towel.
How the actual fuck? (gestures vaguely)
I'm autistic, a ton of things.
While I've become quite good at making friends, I am catastrophically bad at romance.
I've achieved one night stands here and there but whenever I get really into someone I end up acting like a nutcase due to anxiety/catastrophizing and I badly fumble. It feels like I can get someone hot that I don't relate too or a fem friend that I'm not attracted to and that's it and its agony.
Time signatures fuck with my head too. I'm not a pianist, but I decided to try and learn Gabriel Faure's Clair de Lune, which has always been one of my favorite pieces. My whole life I've heard it in my head as 4/4 , but to my surprise it's in 3/4 and the left hand are actually 16th notes with the first one missing in each beat.
People who make plans and are able to commit to those plans.
I make plans all of the time, myself, but it takes an eternity for me to do one. I think my problem is that I cram so many ideas in such a short span of time, that it creates a paralysis of choice to where I end up just sitting and doing nothing except watch youtube.
You might have adhd
People with ADHD don't even have the word "plan" in their vocabulary.
I utilize an idea stack, I can't finish one until I've touched the others
This. Time means absolutely nothing to me - it's all about the order of operations.
I only even follow through on plans though dogged, jaw-clenching stubbornness.
Choreography. Not just dance moves, but any physical activity where I watch someone do a thing and have to repeat it using my own body. Had a hell of a time learning to tie a necktie.
It's a skill! If you're interested maybe join a dance class, boxing/MMA class, pottery class, or do some improv!
I don't know if it's a modern skill, or a modern deficiency, I think it is a deficiency. But it's the apparent ability to take nothing seriously, to commit to nothing, to not be able to plan anything, to not be able to follow through on anything, to be completely unreliable... All of this and somehow still have a functioning life and social group.
Those accursed Smurfs.
Learning a second language. Having a processing disorder and a shit short term memory makes it hard for me to comprehend. I'm accepting advice if anyone succeeded with a stubborn learning disability.
First, screw grammar, I've learned 3 languages without ever learning their grammar, including English.
Find a topic that you are very knowledgeable at in your native language and start consuming knowledge on that topic in the language you try to learn. Go back to the basics of that topic, something you know by heart. There will be a reversal where instead of listening to the language and trying to understand what is happening, you will already know what is happening and just listen to the words. You will go from "What did he/she say?" to "Oh, that's how you say it!". Its way easier to append connections in you brain that create new ones, so the familiarity of the topic is a stepping stone to learn the language. Of course you will still have to pause and translate constantly but it will be less and less necessary with time.
That's a pretty good idea! Something i can work with!
Have you looked into spaced repetition / Anki for the memorization already?
I haven't heard of those things. I'll check that out tonight!
My issue with language learning is that I hate illogical and inefficient systems, and sadly languages have so much organically accumulated bullshit in them, that I get too frustrated to continue 😅 (Yea I know, I should try Esperanto, but even that has genders.)
@kazerniel @WhatISawInTheForest
Esperanto doesn't have grammatical genders, though it does of course have words to represent gender since people want to distinguish between male & female. But if you don't want to, there are sufficient gender neutral pronouns (tiu, ri)
Try Language Transfer . A natural method of learning a language, the best I've ever seen.
It's also free!
In a nod to the OP, there is also a short course on music theory.
As long as it's not like duolingo. Thanks!
Dream. Or picture anything from memory.
I have an idea in my mind, but it’s not a picture or video like most people have. It’s just very difficult to “see” something.
More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
Interesting that a few of the notable known people with it identified are authors. I'm not super familiar with them, but I wonder if it leads to writing more detailed descriptions which can help their written works be more memorable.
Personally (I have this) I tend to forget to write any visual descriptions at all and focus on other senses that I can imagine. Sound, smell, feeling, etc. Also character drama and development
I got so mad trying to read Lord of the Rings because it was just pages and pages of descriptions that were completely useless to me 😂
Reads like you have aphantasia
For most of my life I slept like a log for eight hours straight and basically never had dreams. Then recently-ish I botched my day routine beyond repair and discovered that I do dream when in light sleep, namely when falling asleep again after having woken up. Combined with drinking too much alcohol sometimes, this gives me shittiest completely absurd dreams of no value, just confusion and a very unpleasant feeling. Even when a dream is nice, I then wake up remembering I have my daily grind to look forward to. I'll much rather go back to no dreams.
Interesting approach. I like dreams as they're stupid little processed version of what I've been preoccupied with and what I've lived recently.
I can see the appeal of no dreams as you've put it. Same what I think of lucid dreaming. I just know I'll start cramming work in there too.
I managed to fix the routine a bit in the past week or so, and had some great nights of sleep, uninterrupted and unmarred by dreams. Feels pretty nice.
I can do a bit of lucid dreaming, in that after waking up and falling asleep again, I'm often aware that I'm dreaming — but full control and consciousness eluded me so far, it's more like the mind racing with random thoughts in half-sleep. So haven't gained anything from it either (and don't quite think I want to).
Still not 100% on sarcasm, as an autistic person. Sometimes slips through the cracks for me when others use it. That's despite me being a somewhat sarcastic person.
Luckily I'm from the UK, where you can pretty much assume 100% of everything being said is sarcastic and get by just fine.
Recognizing people.
For me it is drawing. I think it is because I don’t really picture things. My mind is full of descriptions mostly, not visualization, but I don’t know.
I’ve put a ton of time over the years into trying to cultivate the skill, but 3 dimensions complete escapes me. I cannot picture a 3d object, then draw it. I can get away with some geometries with vanishing line references, but that’s it.
Same. Aphantasia here and I can't draw anything for shit. Well, unless we include things like flow charts.
I’m on the extreme end of hyperphantasia and I can’t draw for shit either. I know it is in there somewhere; I project shape, colors and objects into my vision but drawing it is beyond me.
I also have concept/shape, emotion/color, emotion/shape, vision/texture-tactile (/mirror touch) and various other forms of synesthesia. I have a lot of visual “noise” that affects my perception and perspective. It is hard to focus on making drawings that are understandable and relatable for others. When I do draw it is usually complex geometric patterns and colors associated with the “thing” I am trying to draw instead of the “thing” itself. It is hard to describe but I can construct the “thing” and clearly visualize it but when I go to draw it my hand fixates on recreating the shapes and colors of my synesthesia experience of that “thing”.
It would be interesting if you took a photo of something, drew that image from memory, then overlaid your drawing on the photo.
As a matter of curiosity, you don’t also have aural (auditory tactile) synesthesia do you? That would be wild.
Nope. I didn't know that was a thing. I do get frission response to certain music, but ASMR is generally just annoying/grating to me.
I do get almost physical sensations when reading code, which is kinda wild.
I don’t mean to drag this on, but interestingly I dislike the asmr craze. But I do get overwhelming frisson and often very teary eyes with even no upset at certain song segments, especially live organ pieces.
same.
It's so rare to find other people like this! ASMR sound effects make me viscerally uncomfortable, and I especially get creeped out by the whispering voices as if they were right next to your ear 😰
If it makes you feel better, I don't think being able to visualize helps as much as it would seem. Drawing is just hard. I say this as someone who has a very active mental imager and has been drawing (poorly) my whole life. The technical aspects of drawing/painting etc., is really just about understanding the theory, application, and practice.
Does it help? Sure, a little but nothing I've ever drawn has come out looking like the mental picture with any satisfaction and I could probably do just as well with a verbal or written description to go off of. And references, of course. Several famous modern artists have aphantasia.
As the saying goes, "Draw with your eyes, not your brain." Drawing is just a loop of asking yourself whether it looks right or not. Nobody is timing you, if you have to check a reference a million times to draw a single line and then erase it angway then so be it, because the next line will maybe only take half as much, and then half of that...
Theres this wrongfull elitism that an artist has to be able to draw perfectly from memory. They don't. Fuck it. Print out an image and trace it, that practices line commitment, line width control and scale. Then you can use the traced image to practice shading and coloring. You don't put a kid on a bicycle without training wheels first, why would you do the same thing as an artist?
I've seen the books ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’ by Betty Edwards and ‘The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be The Artist You Truly Are’ by Danny Gregory being recommended to those who have a hard time learning to draw. The commenter also provided examples of their own drawings before and after, and it was night and day.
However, I looked through the examples a bit, and am wary of reading the books myself, because the drawings there are very representative, while I'm aiming for a more wacky style. It could also be that the books are mainly about drawing from references, not sure yet.
Yeah this it it for me except I’m decent at drawing, I just can’t get how to make shadows or highlights. Drawing a 3D sphere for example with shadow is so hard for me. Granted I don’t practice, but still.
Math.
Numbers make my mind implode. Anything other than basic adding, subtracting, and multiplication just cause me to shut down. Even division is a struggle, unless it has no remainders.
Same lol. And the weird thing is that I quite enjoy number-based games like Picross and Hexcells, but I hate actual arithmetics.
Personal space
Empathy
A sense of community
Swimming.
Swimming two lengths of the pool was a requirement for graduating high school. They got me a college student tutor. I tried and tried and never got good enough to pass. They let me slide, I suppose because they could see I was trying.
Sportzing generally has never been my thing. I learned to ride a bicycle without a problem, and I can throw and catch a frisbee. That's about it.
A 3-way light switch circuit.
Driving stick. I've tried on several cars at this point, and have only successfully gotten moving without stalling like twice. The worst part is I can shift pretty smoothly once the car is in motion, but I just can't seem to figure out how to get it in motion.
How to read a cookbook, or a recipe. I can follow one and hope for the best, or use it it remind myself of details of a dish I've made before, but the way most recipes and cookbooks are written is crazy to me. I can't visualize the final result at all, even with pictures. This is just about the only arena where the video format seems to be better than text, and that's outrageous.
Why would the amount of something and the instructions for it he in different places? In recipes where you make a dry mix and a wet mix completely separately and then comine them, why aren't those different subsections? Why in all the hemispheres of the earth is the oven temperature, usually the first thing you have to attend to, not the first line of the recipe?
They're not written in chronological order or in logistical subsections. I keep having to flip back to the ingredient list to find out how much of something I'll need (when I'm reading it, I know how to assemble my mise en place, thank you). The best thing I've found is to rewrite the whole recipe myself in a way that makes sense to me:
Two columns, one with ingredients and their anounts grouped by subsection and chronologically within that subsection; the second with instructions for what to do with those ingredients. It's easy for me to tell at a glance, oh, here's the part I can do in advance, here's me preparing the Holy Trinity, here's the spice blend I add midway, here's the part where I can take a smoke break, here's the garnish at the end.
PS. Time signatures are all about which dance steps you can do to the music, in my experience.
Idk there's sometimes value in having quantities in decreasing order so you aren't changing measuring devices constantly and for the sake of minimizing clean up.
For me at least, I like to have everything out and ready to go. My wife writes her recipes as inline directions with NO separation and it's super annoying when you skim it and find "oh shit, I don't have any peanuts at all in the house."
The visualization is less about the ingredient quantities and more about the process I think. I DO find it annoying when you're using the same ingredient two or three times and they're is no giant, bold HEY DUMMY DONT PUT ALL THE FLOUR IN THE BOWL RESERVE SOME kind of message.
When I write a recipe for myself I do two columns, ingredients on the left and instructions on the right ordered by logical subsections like "peanut sauce", and "the roast". I put recipes on index cards, and also like you suggest, across the very top of the card I always write 3 things: 1. Name, 2. Total cooking surstion, and 3. Grill or oven temperature. So I guess we have more or less the same opinion in retrospect!
Two things.
First, that's just a badly written recipe then. In my experience, no matter how complicated a dish is, it can all fit on a single A4 page at 11pt, maximum two pages.
A recipe shouldn't say:
"Take a spoon and gently stir the cream for a 2 minutes till it gets a nice and foamy, soft white texture like a cloud on a hot summer day."
It should say:
"Stirr all the cream until it thickens and sticks to spoon when held upside down."
That contains all the information you need. What ingredients, how much of it, what to do, and what the result is. Most importantly, they shouldn't mention time, that's where people get hung up on and screw up the dish. The pan you use for 15 minutes on your stove with your chosen ingredients isn't the same as theirs. Especially water content in ingredients can massively change the timing.
Second, a recipe should also assume some knowledge about basic terminology like seared, baked, glazed, steamed, whipped, stirred, etc. They shouldn't be described in the recipe themselves. If that's not familiar, video recipes are definetly the better medium to teach recipes. If you watch enough of them, it will be pretty much clear what everything means.
My understanding of the way that recipes are written is that ingredients are put in a list so you know if you have everything you need, or if you need to run to the store). There is no point in trying to make those new brownies if I check my pantry and I am missing the brown sugar and the store is closed.
I do suspect that most people writing recipes are the kind to plan and prepare. Admittedly, it helps for working through the recipe for the purposes of writing it.
The most recent recipe i transcribed was, very much:
It is a sport. You read the recipe and visualize yourself making it. All the while thinking about how to manage time. Repeat that several times before starting. Then prep everything Chops veggies, measure spices, get oven hot, boil water. Whatever. Just have all that going.
Okay so first of all let's talk about short recipes. Which are basically notes to self; like going through my grandmother's old recipe book I found a note card with a recipe for "pecan cookie bars" which was little more than a list of ingredients, an oven temp and a time. Was I supposed to mix the pecans into the batter or scatter them on top? Was I supposed to dollop them onto a cookie sheet, or bake them in a pan? If a pan, what size? Invariably, this note card was written at a baby shower in 1974 by someone who was chewing on one of said cookie bars and had that kind of context, and just jotted down the ingredients.
Those are useless to you unless you're B. Dylan Hollis.
Most other recipes, especially those found in cookbooks which are definitely meant to communicate to people who aren't familiar with the dish yet, ARE in chronological order. The ingredients list is a step you do before the "procedure." There's a concept called Mise En Place, it's a phrase from an obscure, obsolete Earth language called French, it directly translates to "put in place." The process:
Read the recipe through, so you have an understanding of the full process and what is needed when.
Gather all ingredients, cookware and utensils you will need.
Prep the ingredients including washing, peeling, slicing, chopping and pre-measuring into individual bowls.
Organize them in the order they are called for. Clean up from the prep process, store unused portions of ingredients, bin scraps, clean and put away measuring and chopping tools so you have a clear, clean and sanitary work space.
Cook. Execute the steps of the recipe devoting your full attention to the process.
Some recipes will separate stages, especially if there's a large lull in time between steps. For example, a cake recipe might intend for you to make the icing while the cake is baking. These usually do have ingredients lists and procedures separated into sections, though some don't and you're expected to read and understand the process before you start cooking.
You may note that I did mention that I have my mise en place before I start cooking. My struggle is entirely in your Step 1: Read the recipe. Making the recipe I can do, I cook and bake every day. Reading it is the struggle.
My ideal cookbook would look like python documentation: "This
functionstep has these inputs and these outputs. Here is the typical use case."I mean...they do that already?
Every recipe I've seen will either be written "in a large bowl mix flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder." Meaning all of the ingredients you've portioned out. If the recipe calls for the same ingredient in more than one step, it will say so. "Mix 2 cups of flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a large bowl." Then it'll specify "add remaining flour" or "add 1 cup flour" in some later step. Some might also mention that in the ingredients list, like "1 1/3 cup sliced strawberries, 2/3 cup for cake, 2/3 cup for topping."
I just wish 99% of the web page around the recipe would fuck off. I want a ONE SENTENCE description of the dish as it might appear on a restaurant menu, the time to prep and cook, the yield/portion size, the parts list and procedure. I don't want a fake story of someone's travels or family life, I don't want a geography lecture, and if you're going to write a long form essay on the process a la the script for an episode of a cooking show, put that AFTER the recipe itself, not before. Let me see the damn parts list in the top mile or so of the page.
That's fine for cooking, where I'll have it all in front of me, but doesn't help with reading. I just can't visualize it, or maybe I just can't remember it.
See, that actually IS helpful to me, and probably why I prefer certain recipe websites to cookbooks.
Possibly related question: Are you one of those folks without a mind's eye? What's the space catholic term for it? aphantasia?
No, I have a mind's eye. If the recipe says "stir until the sauce reaches a creamy, glossy texture" I can picture it perfectly.
That one took me a moment as well ... why is there a difference between 2/2 and 4/4, or 6/8 and 3/4 ...
It started to make sense once I saw it as an abstraction. It denotes a certain emphasis on certain notes that would look really awkward and hard to read if it was repetitively written out for every note (not that I can really read music anyway).
I have a much harder time with harmony theory ... like, I get that some successions have a "resolving" feel but other than that I never got why I shouldn't just jumble up pitches any way that sounds ok to me. Ultimately I decided that I'll spend my life composing music, deliberately ignoring harmony theory as material ...
Other things that elude me a mostly social nature ... like, some people are just amazing at striking up some or another deal or barter their way through life at a discount, simple because they connect well to people. I never got how they do that ... not sure whether it's something you can learn
Well the beauty of music is that you can do exactly this and it's fine.
Pretty much all "music theory" is Western-dominated anyway and far from all-encompassing.
There was a really good YouTube video about this a few years back, by I think Adam Neely. Let me see if I can dig it up.
Edit: here's the link - "Music Theory and White Supremacy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA
Very good video.
One thing this reminded me of is Bootsy Collins explaining funk. How when you're playing bass you put the root on the one. https://youtu.be/H2MMuNkCLZY
The time signature is about emphasis, and there are common ones. I've bolded and italicized big and small emphases on the beat numbers.
Common time: 1 2 3 4 , 1 2 3 4 ,... example peter gunn theme
Cut time: 1 2, 1 2, ... example stars and stripes forever
Waltz: 1 2 3, 1 2 3, ... example the blue danube
6/8: 1 2 3 4 5 6, 1 2 3 4 5 6,... example the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald
5/4: 1 2 3 4 5, 1 2 3 4 5,... example Mission Impossible theme
Some time signatures are very similar, like waltz and 6/8, the difference is where the emphasis is placed. Waltz has just one big, emphasis placed on the one, where 6/8 is also groups of three, but has a big emphasis on the 1 and a smaller emphasis on the 4th beat. An alternate way to count in 6/8 time is 1 2 3, 2 2 3; 1 2 3, 2 2 3;... which emphasizes how 6/8 time feels like two groupings of three, within one bar, with the biggest emphasis on the one.
This is the basic version -- composers will play with expectations and add their own accents on top, etc., so you won't always hear the emphasis as I described. Reasonable people might even disagree about whether a piece of music is better described by one time signature or another, because they can be so similar.
I was in band growing up and i also couldn't explain time signatures even though i was able to read music and play them; it is something you learn without necessarily being able to verbalize, since it is about how the music feels, based on subtle emphasis.
Adding my personal favorite, 7/8 time. (My wife and I bonded on our second date because we share the same favorite time signature…we’re dorks.) I love it because our brains are expecting an even number of beats, and since it’s missing just a single eighth note when the next measure begins it almost feels like the song is falling forward or rushing.
You CAN count it sequentially, but it’s much easier to count like this:
1 2 1 2 1 2 3
or
1 2 3 1 2 1 2
Or if the composer was feeling spicy, both alternating back and forth.
Example 1: I Am The Doctor Song begins in 7/8 time, it begins quarter quarter quarter eighth if you want help counting it.
Example 2: Subdivisions by Rush I count this one as beginning in 7/8 time, quarter quarter dotted quarter, and I especially love it because it seamlessly transitions into 4/4 time at about 19 seconds in.
Does money by Pink Floyd in 7-4 time feel significantly different to you than the other ones?
The difference between 7/4 and 7/8, in my mind, is one of pacing. Similar to how 4/2 and 4/4 are counted the same, but with different notation because the composer or engraver wanted to make the tempo intrinsic.
Money is a much slower song than the examples I gave, more of a laid-back pace, which shouts 7/4 in my mind. I still love it, but it feels more…I dunno, like walking with a jazzy gate rather than tripping forward, if that makes sense. And when Money does get faster it’s in 4/4.
Thanks that's a great explanation
Thank you! This actually makes sense
Well, we have a word for jumbling them up however you feel like: jazz 🙃
Okay, more serious response, at the end of the day it is all about having it sound good. No one's going to question why you did things a certain way, if it sounds good.
I try to see it more as a shortcut for making things sound good. It's just a set of known-good strategies that you can apply, if you feel like it.
Like a tube with premixed color. Yes, you can mix your own color, and many times it is necessary to get it just right, but sometimes you just know that a few dots of khaki are what you want.
Funnily enough I only understand the time signatures partly. 😅. Like, I understand 3/4 and 4/4 and the difference in playing or listening or dancing to it. But, wtf is 6/8? That's just 3/4 as far as I am concerned.
The emphases are different:
If you denote a full bar in 1/8 notes, in 6/8 the beat goes TAK-a-ta TAK-a-ta, while in 3/4 it's TAK-a TAK-a TAK-a.
The "TAK-a-ta's" are both super helpful and oddly reminiscent of Lisa Simpson learning how to dance "Tap-a Tap-a Tap-a!"
Is that supposed to be intuitive? You'd think the one with 3 in the name would be the one with emphasis every 3rd note
It is more intuitive in groups of 3 notes. 3/4 is often used for a waltz, TA-ta-ta, TA-ta-ta.
The emphasise is on the first note of the 3.
6/8, as I have learned from this thread, has the emphasis a little on the first but mostly on the 4th, so Ta-ta-ta TA-ta-ta. It moves differently. If you use a series of 8th notes, the whole thing flips, and 6/8 feels fluid, and 3/4 feels janky.
The time signatures have a purpose, it's just not.....well explained.
ONE and uh TWO and uh ONE and uh TWO and uh
ONE and Two and Three and ONE and Two and Three and
I think the X files music was a 6/8. NAH na na na na na, NAH na na na na na, it doesn't sound like a waltz!
I struggle to write paragraphs covering most topics, even those I am familiar with. I can write a sentence 10 times over, before deleting it all together. My output is extremely jagged and frustrating. Finding the words to introduce ideas or to transition sentences is quite painful and slow.
My handwriting is also extremely laborious. I have to put a lot of time effort into making my writing “neat”, aka legible. Growing up, I was always the slowest kid copying down slides/notes in class.
Perhaps both of these are related to my ADHD, or perhaps I just need more practice lol. I have been making an effort these past few years and I’ve been seeing improvements.
It could be ADHD. It could also be anxiety disorder. I was a history major in college, so I had a ton of papers to write. My anxiety made if extremely difficult to write anything. Like you, I'd write it out, delete, rewrite, delete etc. It was awful. At the time, I would actually start drinking to the point of being slightly inebriated. I found I could actually write better at that point, because the alcohol shut down that anxiety (and if I am honest, it made me give less of a fuck about what my professors would think of my writing). Obviously, not a great solution, but it was good short term and I always got good grades on my papers. Now that I am better medicated for my anxiety, I imagine it wouldn't be so bad to write a paper now. Trouble is, my job really doesn't require me to write much lol.
I had a similar experience until I read more books, specifically older books. Turns out when people had only written letters and books as the main media of communication, they wrote elegant prose. Who knew? lol
Also when struggling to find words to fill my paragraphs, I reached for connectives, and synonyms in a thesaurus. Without these, my paragraphs looked like a random assortment of sentences, repeating themselves to oblivion.
Reading your first couple of paragraphs I was going to ask if you have ADHD, because they're very relatable and I definitely attribute it largely to that. Practice and having a "system" for writing helps me a lot too
Sarcasm.
Anything that requires moderate hand-to-eye coordination.
So I was always the worst amongst my buddies at sports, which I hadn't associated with my deficiency yet... then, when I joined the army and realized that, besides running (and swimming, because I lived in front of a pool for most of my childhood), anything that required technique and skill was gonna take me 5x the time to learn compared to my comrades (rope climbing even at my strongest and slimmest, rifle assembly and disassembly, for example) and even then I was just barely passing. Then I tried getting a driver's license whilst still in the army, which was basically a gift in all but name, and damn did I suck at driving. I still do, just less so. 🤣
Thankfully I married a somewhat handy woman. 🤷♂️
I'm the same way! I don't know about you, but when I was an adult, I learned about dyspraxia (a pretty common coordination/balance/motor disorder - used to be called 'clumsy child syndrome' lol) and having poor proprioception (which is the sense of being able to automatically know and tell where exactly your body parts are in relation to eachother and to other things, where this thing is in relation to that other thing, etc. without really having to think about it) and reading and learning about those helped explain a LOT for me.
I just thought I'd mention it in case it helps you! It really helped me feel less broken and helped me understand myself better, and how to work with it instead of trying to force myself to be 'normal,' when it's not a matter of 'not trying hard enough' like so many people told me it was as a youngin', etc. Anywho, you are soo not alone! :)
Oh zip, thanks for the extended explanation and encouraging words. I always just saw it as the result of my lack of focus and hyperactivity but maybe it's something else, just by itself... I guess I'll have to get checked 🙃. And indeed we are not alone!
Just to chime in, I'd say I have very high propioception, but I have a hard time getting my head out of the way of my body. So I will do weird things like drop a spatula but catch it before it falls a foot because I'm thinking through the process of holding the spatula, and fumble it, but when it falls I'm just thinking "catch the spatula" and do it spectacularly. So I was also a clumsy child, and have the scars to prove it, but mostly because I was thinking about everything I was doing.
Knitting. I just don't have the coordination
Taking up the theme of not answering your question, Broken Social Scene - Shoreline was my first taste of a really cool nonstandard signature. ✌️
division. i can do basic fractions but anything more complicated feels completely unintuitive.
Huh. It sounds as if maybe you missed a basic building block as a child.
Once you're missing a foundational concept, everything after that is difficult. It's sadly not uncommon - maybe you were ill that week, or you had a teacher that couldn't explain in a way that worked for you, etc.
My work is in maths and stats, my husband is a lawyer, so when he did an introductory finance course a few years ago, I tried to help him understand some formulas that involved percentages. It was an unmitigated disaster. So I called my mom (a retired math teacher) and she started by drawing a circle and saying this is a pie, we cut it into slices, etc. like you would for a young child. At first I was horrified, but she kept building on it, checking he understood at each point, until they reached a point where he wasn't going, "yes, yes, OK". She explained that piece to him and something clicked. Problem solved.
Anyway, that was a long anecdote to tell you, you probably just need to find a good maths teacher who is willing to spend a couple of hours with you building up, until you find that gap. I could ask my mom if you like? She's genuinely a really good teacher.
Edit to add: Alternatively, go through the Khan Institute lessons. Skim them until he starts doing something that isn't obvious. Then go back and watch the previous lesson.
i'm a senior computer engineer currently specialising in signal processing algorithms on constrained systems 🙃 so i have really tried getting that intuition to stick, including the khan stuff, for years, but no. i have to double-check everything i write out because i can't visualise it as soon as there's division involved, unless it involves powers of two.
it genuinely is as you said, it feels like i was ill for a week in middle school and suddenly i didn't understand anything. and now i don't have the energy to do studying on my off hours. thanks for the offer though, that's very sweet.
Hmm. I know the point of this thread wasn't supposed to be a bunch of strangers info-dumping your weaknesses at you, but I'd like to take a crack at this one 😉
Problem one may just be that you overestimate how much the rest of us "intuit" or "visualize" division. It may just be that the rest of us use the tool for its outcomes rather than because it feels right, as opposed to visualizing it. Maybe it's just the language you chose to use, and it doesn't imply what I said, but it does make me very curious how you visualize addition and subtraction 😛
Okay, that aside, division is the opposite of multiplication, that's the thing it does, but it's also how we reconstruct its algorithm. Pies and their slices are fine for fractions, but here we're talking about division. So instead I'm going to start with dealing cards. Each card will be a ©, and we'll start with 15 of them, and we have 4 players.
Okay, first round, we deal out the first 4, one to each player
We have 11 remaining. Next round:
2 to each player so far, 7 remain. Round 3!
3 to each player in 3 rounds, and we can't do another round because we have fewer than 4 remaining. Specifically 3. So we could now answer that 15 divided by 4 is "3 remainder 3", because that's how many we get per player when there are 4 players, and then there's 3 left over.
The reason I've constructed it this way is because we've reconstructed the primitive square intuition of multiplication, but from the other direction! I think we can see how 4×3 makes 12, and then also how we did the dividing by re-distributing the first 12 cards of our 15 into 4 columns to work out how many rows our square would have needed to be to get us to 12. We knew we were interested in 4 columns, that's our problem setup, but we didn't know how many rows that meant, so we divided them literally amongst the columns until we ran out. Then we looked at the square we'd built and said "aha, I guess it was 3 rows!"
To put it in algebra format and play around a little:
Just playing with division being the opposite of multiplication. Maybe that didn't help, in which case ignore it and go back to the cards thing! 😅
Okay, so that's algorithm number 1, and it works every time. With integers... So what the heck is long division?
Well basically it's a heuristic algorithm on top of this attempt to make squares out of numbers, where we want to use our intuition about multiplication, because it's easier, in order to do division. And basically the only reason to do that is because dividing each number by getting a set of counting stones in that quantity and divvying out a square is time consuming and we're busy people.
So we're doing 15÷4. We bascially guess how many rows we think this will have, by our intuition about the 4s times-table. We go "okay, maybe 2? 4×2=8, 15-8=7, that's bigger than 4, so I underestimated, but not by much. So I try 3, and that gets us our 4×3+3 from before. If we'd started with a guess of 4, we'd have got 16 and known it was too high and come down to 3. It's about guessing how many rows our square would have if we divvyed things out like before, but hopefully without having to actually do that work. And we check that guess by calculating the remainder and making sure it's smaller than the number of columns in our square, because if it wasn't then we could go another row.
Okay, now what about long long division. Like 1573÷48?
Just like with long multiplication, we want to leverage our intuition about smaller numbers to break down bigger ones. So we're going to break down 1578 into 157×10+3. Then we divide 157 by 48. I don't know about you, but I'm not great at my 48 times tables, but 48 is near 50 and 157 is near 150, so I'm going to guess 3. 48×3 is 144, 157-144 is 13, so we did good. 157÷48=3R3, or 157=48×3+3. That's great! But it wasn't the problem we were ultimately trying to solve. 😛 So we need to put back what we took off before, meaning our running answer so far isn't 3, it's 30. And our remainer isn't 13, it's 133, because we broke 1578=157×10+3 before, so 13×10+3 is 133.
So now we have a smaller new problem! 133÷48. Again, I'm going to go on my "about 50" intuition from before and say 2. 2×48=96, 133-96=37. So far so good! So now we add our 2 to our answer of 30 so far and get 32, and our remainder is 37. And, in this case, we're done! So 1573÷48=32R37.
An interesting property of this process, is to check our work, you can long-multiply 48×32 and you'll notice some old friends. You'll do 2×48 and get 96, you'll do 3×48 and get 144 which due to position is actually 1440, and you'll add those together to get 1536. Then you can add 37 to that to get 1573!
And one last step here. By generalizing our division algorithm to be based on multiplication and subtraction, we can extend this process to non-integer numbers in a way that's difficult with our "card dividing" method. We can multiply and subtract non-integer numbers already, after all. And even more than that, if we want to get rid of our tidy remainders and replace them with dirty dirty decimal places, we can continue to extend this process infinitely! Instead of stopping at remainder 37 we can extend our question to 1573.0, convert our remainder to 370, and then ask how many times 48 goes into that, get 7R34, but remember it's not actually 7, it's 0.7, so our total so far is 32.7 and our remainder is not 34 but 3.4, and if we check we can see that 48×32.7+3.4 is in fact 1573.0!
And if we want to eliminate that remainder altogether we can just keep adding new zero deicmal places to the right, and keep working our remainder smaller and smaller until it's either perfectly zero, or we decide it's small enough that we're going to round it to zero from here. Or maybe we get repeating digits, which is a story for another time! 😉
So, I don't know if any of that helped at all! But I enjoyed typing it, so thanks for reading! Also, my "long division" section was done conversationally rather than in the typical "frame" that long division goes in. That's because I was explaining my thought process, but the frame is doing the same thing, it's basically just there to help you keep track of where you're at in the problem, which deicmal place everything is aligned to, etc. But it's not essential to the process! There's no magic, besides algebra I guess 😛
holy shit, now that's a post. very well written, easy to follow. nice.
unfortunately, what you've described is basically what i've been doing, which is way more steps than i tend to need with the others. i don't know if it exists in other places but we had an entire module in middle school on "överslagsräkning", which basically translate to "rough calculations". it was about using iterative methods like this to land at a plausible solution to a problem.
unfortunately, i mostly need actual solutions. as an example i'll tell you what i did today.
today, i tried to refine an algorithm that, given a set of points (represented by a c array) and a "fractional index" (a positive non-integer value) can give result for a number between two defined points. i had previously done this through simple linear interpolation, but since we sample data from actual physical objects the points tend to represent a curve, and the common way to solve that is with a lagrange polynomial. so, i found an algorithm that, given a set of n + 1 points, evaluates the unique lagrangian of at most degree n that intersects all the points at the given index. i split the terms out to an
(a + b) / cform and then i realised that i have no fucking idea what i'm doing.like yes, i can run the algorithm to see if the numbers line up, but i could never actually do the math. i'm not talking about the algebra part, i'm talking about the arithmetic. if i plug some numbers in and do the parts i can do, i end up with something like
0.23 / -7and i don't even know where to start. i have no idea where that would even land. so, while i can verify that my test data works, i have no way to quickly extrapolate numbers. which in turn means i can't come up with plausible input. i'm back to using a calculator for that, which is so damn annoying.Ah! I think I see what you mean. Well, I night. You mean you don't have a rough sense of what to expect of your answer without just computing it? I'm not 100% sure I do either 😛
But there's some things we can maybe do. The easiest one, in this case, is that we can temporarily play with orders of magnitude and put on a factor of 100 to get 23/7 = ~3 which means when we take that 100 back off your answer is going to be roughly -0.03. And again, that answer comes from leveraging multiplication insights, to aid division. 23 looks like 21, and I know 21 is a multiple of 7.
Any magnitude we add to our numerator is countered by any magnitude we add to our denominator. So if we had 0.23/73, we could multiply by 100 again to get 23/73, and then multiply by 10 again to get 230/73, but we can also equivalently reduce the denominator by a factor of 10, giving us 23/7 ish. We've actually moved by 3 orders of magnitude to get there, so our new "gut" answer is -0.003 ish.
That's my first guess of what you meant. But you did say you needed "actual" solutions. So maybe you didn't mean you wanted an intuition about approximations, and you actually wanted to do the long division?
Just in case, I'll do another worked example of what you might do on paper if you didn't want to use a calculator.
0.23÷7. 7 goes into 0 zero times, easy, that's our ones place solved. 7 goes into 02 zero times as well, so our answer so far is 0.0 and we're moving on to hundredths. 023 is larger than 7, and as before it is recognizably near to 21, a multiple of 7. 7×3 is 21, so our answer so far is 0.03, and our remainder is 23-21=2 (which is actually 0.02, but we keep multiplying things by 10 during the algorithm so we don't have to worry about that). Okay, we move another order of magnitude down and have 20÷7, which again looks a lot like 21, but smaller so we know it's 2. 0.032 and a remainder of 20-14=6. 60÷7 is 8, so 0.0328 and 60-56=4. 40÷7 is 5, 0.03285 with remainder 40-35=5. 50÷7 is 7, so 0.032857 and remainder 50-49=1. 10÷7 is 1, 0.0328571, with 10-7=3. 30÷7 is 4, 0.03285714, remainder 30-28=2. And now we're in trouble. Because we've already seen 2. 20÷7 is 2, remainder 6 again. So it just loops now!
-0.032857142857142857142.....
And that's less of a division problem and more of a problem with decimal numbers rather than fractions. It's simply a limitation of the way we write things. So there isn't an exact numerical answer for this particular division, you just have to decide where is enough decimal places for your application.
I don't know if any of that helped at all... but it's an attempt!
it's a good attempt too, because i had completely forgot how to do that (mostly because we were taught something called the "chair method" for long division which tends to take up entire pages) and it reminded me of another thing: times tables.
whet i was in school, we got these arithmetic worksheets with times tables on them once a week, (one meek it was 4×n, then 5, then 6...) and we were supposed to do them while being timed. iirc we had five minutes at the start of maths. i don't think i have to tell you how stressful that is with no intuition as well as fine motor issues. anyway, point being, i don't remember ever doing one for division. we went from pieces of pies, to the chair method, to short division problems. now, i've since learned that apparently the worksheet method isn't a good pedagogical tool, but it still feels like we skipped a step.
For sure, yeah. I think that honestly division just isn't as intuitive, for people. It's weird. But you're right, maybe none of it is as intuitive as it feels and it was just the school hammering things in 😛
Like, a classic example, it feels intuitive that 1/3 + 2/6 = 3/9. I know those are fractions and not division, but I think it goes together. And it makes sense why it doesn't work that way if you really dig into it, in this particular example all three of those fractions are actually ⅓, so it's a+a=a, which is only true for a=0. You can draw pictures of pies and stuff, but I do agree it doesn't feel quite as "natural" as addition or multiplication. There is also a giant hole in it with division by zero, which isn't the only time the math runs into and edge, but it is the first one people encounter...
Well, it's been fun chatting about math with you anyway!
Oh oh, one more thing that may help the long-division process seem less mystical is to realize you can stop anytime. Like, when I did the first pass and got an answer of just 30 and a remainder of 377, we could stop there!
48×30+133 = 1573
That's true. So we could say the answer is 30R133. It's just that typically we want the remainder to be below 48, because we have an answer that isn't as accurate as it could be. But there's nothing magic about going down to the zero place and not extending into the decimal places like tenths and hundredths. If we only cared about the accuracy of our answer to the nearest hundred, we could find that our answer is 30ish and be happy, and just ignore the remainder from that right away. The process of long-division is constantly about refining an answer, and gives true but maybe imprecise answers all the way along.
Viewed from that lens our answers actually went through this chain:
Don't know if that helps demystify it further!
Ah. Hmmm. I mean, division is just multiplication turned on its head, so maybe it would help to start with how you visualise multiplication, and see whether you can extend that to work for division too? 🤷♀️
If it makes you feel any better, my arithmetic is horrendous. I understand complex mathematical concepts easily, but don't ask me to add 2 big numbers. It's ridiculous 😂
you know cuisenaire rods? those counting stick things. i think in those. that means addition makes a line, multiplication makes a plane, exponentiation makes a cube. higher exponents make cubes of cubes.
division doesn't really fit in that visual because it's a quantised system. fractional multiplication fails for the same reason.
Division is taking a plane and breaking it into equal lines. I assume when you multiply you are already giving that plane bounds because anything else wouldn't give you a result. It takes a few passes to go the other way, but your facility with powers of two can help you narrow it down quickly enough. You're just trying to find out how long the box of a certain width has to be to fit a given number of blocks.
Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't. It's surprising how many ways people have found to achieve the same goal.
yeah i understand the principle, but the issue is i have to "go through the motions" every time. i can't do a quick ballpark for division in the same way as for other arithmetics so i can't self-correct.
I'm not sure if that's a familiarity issue or an intuitiveness issue. I'd say I'm very good at math, but I'm also weakest at division mentally. I think part of it is we come across the other operations more frequently in life and our brains are more tuned for them, whether that be nature or nurture. I think the only way to change that is practice.
weirdly us-centric take considering you guys have to use arithmetic for vat
Walking
Mainly, having a sense of purpose.
Actually having hope for the future of our miserable species
Grammar, I am not good at
I feel like that's not something I got a good grasp of until I started learning other languages. At that point I became really thankful for grammar rules.
I don’t think everybody understands this, but of those I know that said they do, I don’t believe them haha. Double slit experiment and how one thing can be in two places at once but, only after being measured. And then extend that into quantum computing. I don’t get it and I’ve tried to on multiple occasions.
Somebody help me.
I quote Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winning physicist:
Nobody understands and I think it’s fine to be suspicious of people who say they do.
Double Slit:
The word "measure" or "observe" carries a lot if confusion when people talk about the double slit experiment, as if it wasn't one of the most important aspects in physics.
Imagine that at first you're kicking a ball at a wall at random. Now you put a goalkeeper between you and the wall, he catches the ball and looks at it and then throws it at where he thinks it would have gone if he wouldn't have caught it. Those are two entirely different scenarios. Same thing goes for the double slit experiment. A non-measuring and measuring setup are completely different, it just seems like magic because you can jump between them with a flip of a switch.
At the atomic scale it is impossible to measure something without the probe interacting and altering the object you are measuring. Imagine if instead of weighing a car to get it's mass, your have to smash another car into it and calculate the mass from the impact energy. I know it dumb, but that's essentially the best we can do when it comes to particle physics.
Also in a world where cameras are omnipresent, we are used to take snapshots of reality. But that's now something you can simply do at atomic scale. You can't take a photograph of a photon mid air.
Additionally, imagine if I give you two sets of images of a car going along a road.
The first set shows it has travel fairly far between the first and second image taken. You also know the time that passed between the images. Now it is trivial to calculate the average velocity of the car. But if I ask you about the position of the car some time between the first and second image, the best you could do is guess, since you don't know whether the car might have speed up or slowed down during that time. The second set of images shows the car at almost the same spot, the time between the images is also much much smaller. So small in fact that even the precision of your stopwatch starts to matter. Now you could count the pixel differences and still figure out how much the cat has moved and its average velocity, but it will be much less precise than the first set. But, if I where to ask you about the cars position between the images, you could tell me very precisely where the car was, since it's velocity couldn't fluctuate a lot in such a small time frame and distance. That's in essence the uncertainty principle, you either now the position or the velocity of a particle precisely. Of course you still can't take a snapshot of a particle. But to figure out the cars position you could also force it to stop briefly or put off-ramps along the road, and by checkout which one it took, you can figure out where it was at that point in time. This is essentially what we do with particles. We confine the particle in it's position/path to figure out whether it went through one slit or the other and therefore give it a defined trajectory through our method of measurement. That's really all the magic, you can't check without interacting and intercating changes the outcome at those scales.
Quantum Computing:
Before we had our normal bit based computer we had analog computers. First mechanical systems then electrical. They operated on either speeds, forces, positions, friction, etc for mechanical ones and voltages, currents and charges for electrical. Calculations hat to be represented with physical components, where each module was a calculation step. The good thing is, the calculation was essentially instantaneous, the bad thing was they were hard to manufacture, had to be calibrated and once setup for compute, they they were hard to alter. But when it comes to things like derivatives and integrals they are hard to beat. For example current is just the time derivative of the charge. So you if set up a computer to measure charge at the input and current the output, you can instantly calculate derivatives of very complicated formulae.
Then, along came Turing and showed that not only can numbers be represented as a binary number sytems, but also that addition, subtraction, multiplication and division operations can be executed through a series of not-and (NAND) operations on those binary numbers. This was good enough for 99% of our problems since we now had a component that was easy to manufacture en masse and almost every mathematical computation could be done to an acceptable level of precision given enough time. But one thing that classical computer suck at is randomness, since whole point of bit based computers was that you don't have to deal with random fluctuations in your electrical components like with analog computers. We don't want to measure 1 - 5 ± 0.1 Volts, we want a clear threshold for a 0 and a 1 for our systems to work reliably.
That's where quantum computers come in. Their bits have an undefined state which can be resented mathematical and is especially useful in calculations where probability is involved. Then, just like with the double slit experiment you "measure" or interact with them to lock in their properties and get your result. Its hard to imagine but there are simply areas of mathematics where working with probabilistic states instead of numbers is necessary.
Think of it as 3 separate areas of mathematics:
Analog computing - > Algebra and Analysis Bit based computing - > Discrete Mathematics Quantum computing - > Stochastic and Crytograpy
Stochastic is generally a hard to understand topic, so quantum computing isn't far removed in comprehension. That's why quantum computers also won't replace classic bit based computing, since they do not do discrete mathematics any better, it's just that classic computers really are that much worse at probability calculations hence the claims how much faster quantum computing is (in those very specific areas)
The behavior of quantum systems are just holistic and respond to a de-localized property called quantum mutual information, which is a quantifiable property from the whole structure of the experiment.
If the particle passes through the slits, if there is QMI established between its position value and something, its dynamics change than if there was no QMI.
You can replace the measuring device with a single additional particle that interacts with the one going through the slits such that the QMI between them becomes maximal and it has the same effect as measuring.
That's because the whole point of a measuring decide is to establish a correlation between itself and what it is testing to measure, so as a consequence any strong measurement establishes maximal QMI between the measuring device and what is being measured.
And since the dynamics of the system depend upon that quantity... it has the effect of altering its dynamics.
The position/momentum thing isn't just about a difficulty in knowing the position and momentum at the same time. The Kochen-Specker theorem rules that out. The difficulty is that it cannot actually have both properties at the same time. Either one is emergent from the other, or they're both emergent from a third property, like the configuration of the field.
Well, quantum mechanics and quantum computing in general are very complex, and there are big parts of the field that nobody understands.
But double slit experiment is often depicted misleadingly made to seem a lot more magical than it is. The simplified explanation is that light moves as a wave and interacts like a particle.
The experiment sends light through one photon at a time. If the light travels through a single slit, it will form a wave pattern with one big peak. If there are two slits, the photon's wave travels through both and moves like you would see waves of water do, making an interference pattern where the ripples coming from each slit collide. The weird part is that when you try to measure the photon as it passes through the slits, the only way you can observe it is by intetacting with it (so it interacts like a particle). It then then produces the patterns you would get with it passing through only one slit or the other, without the interference created by going through both.
Being okay with a two party system. These people also show they understand the voting system is wildly undemocratic every election when they cry and wail about 3rd party voters.
How we vote is controlled by the states. Blue states could easily replace First-past-the-post voting, but they choose not to. Having a spoiler effect when people vote 3rd party is a policy choice, not a byproduct or accident.
Whatever, fixing things doesn't matter anymore. Good luck everyone.
powers that be not having a vested interest in changing the system that ensures their power.
wow, who could have possibly imagined.
That's funny you say that, because the only way I can hear music is by identifying the structure of the song. It seems to me that you only hear the individual notes. I hear in beats and bars, so figuring out the time signature is easy. I always know when a song isn't in 4/4 instantly.
Responding in a way that isn't mean or rude.
If being kind isn't your default then it's your job. Do your job, were all counting on you.
I work hard to be kind. but sometimes what I think is kind others interpret as mean. I can't always tell the difference.
Ah, that makes more sense. I have that problem too. I started trying to act like people renowned for their kindness, like Mr. Rogers, for example.
He says positive affirmations (wow, you're really smart), is patient when the other person is talking, gives them room to express their thoughts and feelings, asks them questions about themselves, and, most importantly, acknowledges that their feelings are real and difficult for them. I "practice" that with kids: "The dark must be very scary for you; that scrape must really hurt," usually followed by a hug if appropriate.
You're just agreeing with them about how they feel, and that lets them know that their feelings count, that their feelings matter to another human, and that mattering to other humans is what everyone needs to feel safe.
Also, never give advice until someone asks for it. Never give an answer to questions no one asked. "Smart man knows what the right thing to say is, wise man knows when not to say it"
Kindness is a muscle, and yours (ours) is weak. Exercise it to make it stronger. It will take time and practice. We got this.
piano
Maybe Bootsy Collins can help explain 4/4 https://youtu.be/IHE6hZU72A4 When he plays "on the one" thats 1 of 4, the first beat of the bar. A repeated grouping of 4 beats.
I get confused by this too. I do some music production in my downtime and end up just doing 4/4 most of the time.
4/4 is the workhorse! The majority of music is in 4/4 time, nothing wrong with it at all.
Certain rhythms become really weird if you try to write them in 4/4, which is why other time signatures become useful. Just now I tried to “conduct” a waltz in 4/4 and quickly devolved into laughter.
Time signatures are fun! It took me awhile to understand them too, but now I find myself counting to weird music whenever I can. I listen to a lot of prog rock/metal, which helps with that (they use freaky time sigs constantly).
To answer the question, it's the American Insurance system. I thank whatever God will listen every day that my wife understands it, and worked at a brokerage for a bit, because I'd be lost just trying to pay for a visit at the dentist or whatever.
Time signatures are not hard. The top number says how many beats in a measeure. It matters because the first beat of every measure gets a little emphasis. The bottom number is just a convenience for notation. If you have really fast music the you can write it as 2/2 instead of 2/4 and then you can write all the 16th notes as 8ths. Makes music easier to read. But thebsound is exactly the same.
That actually helped me. I'm not a musician, but I've never understood what the purpose of the bottom number is. Thanks.
It might be one of those subjects that takes different people different means to understand because what you wrote also sounded complicated and not intuitive to me.
Edit: might also be since I'm not actively looking for that kind of info.
For how music sounds, only the top number matters. If the top number is a 4 (like 4/4 or 4/8), then it sounds like this:
TA-ta-ta-ta TA-ta-ta-ta
A 3 on top (like a 3/4 waltz) sounds like:
TA-ta-ta TA-ta-ta TA-ta-ta
And a 2 on top (like 2/4 or 2/2) sounds like:
TA-ta TA-ta TA-ta TA-ta
Thanks, that helps.
Edit: I suppose I like examples you can see, which might not be universal.
Okay, then what does the bottom number do? It seems pretty essential for complex rhythms like 5/17 or whatnot.
The bottom number is just how you write a single beat.
If the bottom is 2, you write a beat as a half-note (𝅗𝅥). If the bottom is 4, you write a beat as a quarter note (♩) If the bottom is 8, you write a beat as an eight note (♪)
But it all sounds the same way. A beat is still a beat. This just makes is easier to write certain rhythms.
But what about weird fractions like 5/7 and such?
You aren't really going to find songs in "5/17" time or 5/7 time, if at all. I believe the bottom number is meant to be divisible by 2 (2, 4, 8, 16). I'm not a musician, but I have an interest in music. The bottom number just explains which note you're using (half, quarter) and how many beats would be in the measure. Top number is how many beats in the measure. To use a previous example, 7/8 looks like
TA-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-TA-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta
Sometimes you'll find Songs in 14/8 time, (YouTube link) which could be divided into two measures of 7/8 depending on how you might like to read it.
Yep. The bottom number is always divisible by 2
Weird: in my multiple attempts to grok what time sigs are about, I've heard a different explanation: that the lower number indicates the beat on which the emphasis is. But now the first paragraph in Wikipedia's article body confirms what you say. Some kind of Mandela effect going on here. However, Wikipedia also notices that irrational meters may have a lower number that's not a power of two.
It's not a fraction. That's the first thing you gotta grok (yeah I'm still gonna use the word when it fits, fuck Elon).
Math and music are intimately related, but the time signature is not a fraction. It's just two different numbers separated by a line.
I mean, technically it is, since it shows how long a bar is compared to one whole note. 4/4 is four fourths of a note.
One of the numbers is how long the notes are. The other is how many before the rhythm repeats.
Coding
What about it?
I was pretty intimidated too until I found Jimmy Vegas's Unity tutorials
language and drawing and oh running (kinda breathing). sucked at all three my whole life.
How do you suck at breathing that's kinda our whole thing after leaving the ocean billions of years ago? /s
Its one of those things thats hard to explain. Makes me wonder if it could be with associated with dyspraxia as I have a lot of things that would explain. Anyway I could never get the breathing rhythm right with that or swimming and I have actually sung a lot and my breath with that I could never get to a professional level. I have had myself tested and nothing comes up although my sisters were diagnosed with excersise induced asthma.
Are you saying you don’t understand why you would do 5/8 instead of 5/4 in a faster tempo? Or instead of 3/4, just write triplets?
5/8, 5 beats per measure, eighth note gets the beat.