game: my mind calls me the body -aka- taking mind as object
- developed by Michael "Valentine" Smith and myself in spring 2024
- (I would call him the main source of it but I've been the main novice player of it!)
- basic instructions:
- make a point of insisting to your mind to point its identity function at the immediate present-moment living animal that is speaking
- in other words, have "I" and "me" refer to the whole body as it shows up in experience, not some fragment of the verbal loop or self-model
- and then referring to the mind itself as "my mind", not "me"
- note that like my tongue and my kneecap and my foot, my mind is still part of me—it's not excluded from "me"
- and of course, if you're talking to someone else, refer to their present-moment body as "you" and their mind as "your mind"
- caveats:
- importantly, it's not the case that referring to my body as "I/me" is correct.
- the insight of no-self is that there is no true correct inherent self
- and in any case we often refer to tools we're using or vehicles we're driving as "me", and sometimes stop referring to body parts as "me" if they go numb or seem to be outside our control
- but there are more or less accurate/useful referents for "I/me", and it seems to me & Michael "Valentine" Smith that "this body" is in general a more accurate & useful referent than "some relatively arbitrary fragment of the mind"
- this is one of the highest ROI psychotechnologies I've experienced
- in terms of Scott Alexander's post "Universal Love, Said The Cactus Person"
- where they're talking about how if you're trying to get out of the car, none of the AC knobs or stereo buttons will do it. nothing you do inside the car will be getting out of the car
- this feels to me like the fucking doorknob
- it's not getting out of the car but it's a straightforward handle that consistently helps me get out of the car without having to be smashed through the windshield or dragged out one of the windows
- this has the powerful effect of restructuring a bunch of phenomenological experiences in a way that increases a sense of agency
- eg instead of being inclined to say "oh I wasn't present there" one shifts to "my mind got caught up in something and dragged my attention with it"
- and it no longer makes sense to say eg "I'm trying to get embodied"—I'm already a body, right here!
- often I know something or understand something—even though my mind can't articulate it
- (it's always the mind that does the articulating—by "mind" here we are referring to something quite close to the left hemisphere)
- (but that doesn't make the mind any more the "me" than it makes the tongue the "me" just because it always does the articulating)
- other phrases that arise: "my mind forgot about me again"
- (instead of "oh I forgot to keep using the new language" etc)
- instead of "oh I should X", more like "my mind is telling me I need to X"
- there are a bunch of more advanced possibilities that this can lay the groundwork for, that involve perceiving the functioning of mind and reprogramming it
6 linked references
May 15th, 2025
interesting puzzle I noted today in convo w Michael "Vale… › if NNTD is simultaneously about every perspective being l…
- (where mind here is game: my mind calls me the body -aka- taking mind as object)
January 2nd, 2025
- my threads on twitter - one short one today on a new meaning of you can just do things which connects with game: my mind calls me the body -aka- taking mind as object
July 10th, 2024
- this nosilverv tweet sorta vibes with this but also sorta reifies the confusion, by keeping the "you" as the mind
- > “You are not the one who wakes up. You are the one who gets waken up from” — brutal, lmao
July 8th, 2024
- game: my mind calls me the body -aka- taking mind as object — this move seems somehow related
- > When you catch urself in zombie mode, don't apply force. Just describe your experience out loud. Ur whole system will catch up on it and naturally shift course.
"I am doomscrolling for three hours already. I wanted to do x y or z but I'm too tired for all of them so I got stuck here. Now I'm wondering what I actually have energy for that would be good. [...]"