Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2002-08-10 08:23 am
azurelunatic) wrote2002-08-10 08:23 am
Psychset of Venn Diagrams
Ever since I learned what a Venn Diagram was at about 7 or so, I've been organizing my mind into them. I don't know how many dimensions it has to be organized in in order to make sense of all the intersections, but that's how my mind works, in a series of hierarchial hyperspheres.
I'm analyzing why I had such a severe reaction to the thought of Darkside being Christian, and I think I've come up with one of the primary, strongest reasons.
There are Venn Diagrams in my head, and I map out things by their intersection. Formerly, the set of the intersection of "Intimate relationship with", "Male", and "Christian" contained exactly two members: BJ and Adam.
When my mind found that Darkside fit in this category as well, and did a lookup on the shared characteristics of the set, I flipped, as some of the shared characteristics of the set are ones that I would not want to see in Darkside, nor anyone I'm planning to be marrying, or in a very long-term relationship with. (Sorry, Adam. It was fun, and nice, and I still do care about you, but... there's no future there...) My mind's attempt to assign Darkside the shared characteristics of the set set off alarms, which was the exact right thing to do, since many of those don't fit Darkside at all; he wouldn't be Darkside otherwise.
My mind's got query-sets it goes through upon meeting someone. When Dorothy came to Oz, one of her first questions was: "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"
Knowing that both excellent things and horrible things have been done in the name of religion, my query-set includes religion, or lack thereof; internal consistency of and to same religion; intent; and then the list of the prejudices/background knowledge I have about the initial categories that the new person falls into. I'm always willing to make a new category for someone, but my alarms go off if they fall into an intersection set that shares some rather nasty characteristics.
On the other hand, I have a favorable predisposition towards anyone who is a Quaker (Meeting with my father was always interesting and peaceful, and the people at Hidden Hill were great fun), or the intersection of "female", and "Catholic" (my first fiancée), even though the people involved are not necessarily as nice as the others in the set.
I'm analyzing why I had such a severe reaction to the thought of Darkside being Christian, and I think I've come up with one of the primary, strongest reasons.
There are Venn Diagrams in my head, and I map out things by their intersection. Formerly, the set of the intersection of "Intimate relationship with", "Male", and "Christian" contained exactly two members: BJ and Adam.
When my mind found that Darkside fit in this category as well, and did a lookup on the shared characteristics of the set, I flipped, as some of the shared characteristics of the set are ones that I would not want to see in Darkside, nor anyone I'm planning to be marrying, or in a very long-term relationship with. (Sorry, Adam. It was fun, and nice, and I still do care about you, but... there's no future there...) My mind's attempt to assign Darkside the shared characteristics of the set set off alarms, which was the exact right thing to do, since many of those don't fit Darkside at all; he wouldn't be Darkside otherwise.
My mind's got query-sets it goes through upon meeting someone. When Dorothy came to Oz, one of her first questions was: "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"
Knowing that both excellent things and horrible things have been done in the name of religion, my query-set includes religion, or lack thereof; internal consistency of and to same religion; intent; and then the list of the prejudices/background knowledge I have about the initial categories that the new person falls into. I'm always willing to make a new category for someone, but my alarms go off if they fall into an intersection set that shares some rather nasty characteristics.
On the other hand, I have a favorable predisposition towards anyone who is a Quaker (Meeting with my father was always interesting and peaceful, and the people at Hidden Hill were great fun), or the intersection of "female", and "Catholic" (my first fiancée), even though the people involved are not necessarily as nice as the others in the set.
Heh!
Re: Heh!