The worst thing about freely associative memory...

[5-90]

Is that things just sneak up on you. Rather than being able to identify a clear chain of logic, you usually end up with an almost Zen-like sudden flash of insight, or a sudden "Where the Hell did that come from?!?" when you realise something.

Over the years, I've gotten used to it, and it's sometimes a handy way to solve problems. Of course, I can also revert to logic and deductive reasoning if FAM doesn't work. ("Quiet! I'm deducing things!")

But, every now and again, I get the "Where the Hell did that come from?" flash that I can't, for the life of me, pick apart.

Case in point - for some odd reason, everytime the "Octomom" is reminded to me (post on a blog or a board, in the news, or whatever,) the very next thing that crosses my mind is A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift. (If you haven't read it yet, do so. I'll wait - it's a shortish read.)

Yes, there are always ethical questions that come up (the ethics of implantation, the ethics of allowing the pregnancy to proceed, the ethics of allowing so many implantations on someone with a fifty percent hit rate for picking up lifetime disability in their children, the decision process that leads to thinking you can support fourteen children on unemployment as a "single mom" - even though she's getting filial support, ...) but A Modest Proposal is always the lead-in.

Perhaps that's the solution to this problem. I doubt it - but it would serve to blast people right out of their well-worn grooves and make them think - and I've often kick-started problem-solving head-sheds that way...

Discuss (but only after you've read A Modest Proposal. Hell, it's probably online and in the public domain by now...)

 

[Ralph]

Dig it. When I've totally wrung my head dry of solutions, I'll purposely do something that helps me relax and not think about the problem at hand (ie. grab a newspaper and go take a dump) and the solution, or at least a new way to troubleshoot, invariably comes to mind.

Another example has to do with silly things that pop into my head and cause me to giggle or laugh out loud. I get weird looks from people when that happens.

 

[CherBear]

When i am stuck on an idea, i sometimes go ride my bike around the block. Going nowhere in particular. I just feel that when i give my mind a subconscious task (Balancing the Bike), It lets me think more clearly.

 

[5-90]

It's not that I'm "stuck" on the idea - apart from when I see a blurb in the news or whatever, it doesn't bother me at all.

It's just that it invariably is the first thing that comes to mind immediately afterwards. I'm working on driveshaft research right now, and thinking about this doesn't clutter up what I'm doing at all!

That's much of how free association works - it's just random connections between ideas. The catch is, some of the connections become less random than others - it never really bothers me that this is so, I just thought some of our better-read cohorts might get a chuckle out of it. Believe me, I've had stranger associations than this come up!

 

[8Mud]

More often than not, the solutions offered by others are two choices at the most three. Supposedly these choices are protrayed as being diametrically opposed or more often somewhat Parrnell approaches and the solution lays somewhere in the middle. A person is being lead down a predetermined path.
I constantly try to think in tangents and extrapolate. Though this does become harder in old age and becomes more of a conscious effort than a natrual tendency. I guess I'm just not a very good herd animal, my instincts, more often than not lead me in a different direction than the rest.
Jonathan Swift was a very political animal, savvy in a genius sort of way. I read a biography of the author a very long time ago.
I haven't read "A Modest Proposal", but did seem to recall a virus of that name. A little research proved that hunch correct. Be careful what you download.
Gardening helps me refocus, your time sense really has to change gears. Instead of quick solutions you have to remember where the plant you are currently cultivating originally came from and how it interacted in the garden, you have to assess this generation, make an educated guess, maybe cull some examples, have a plan as to what your expectations are and where the future generations are likely to evolve. Your forced to expand your thinking and channel in different ways, than normal problem solving.

 

[5-90]

Perhaps I should have been clearer. I was merely trying to point up a thought that I found amusing (in a dark sort of way,) and thought someone else might get a chuckle out of it as well. Perhaps I'm more unusual than I thought...:wave::gag:

 

[8Mud]

Perhaps I should have been clearer. I was merely trying to point up a thought that I found amusing (in a dark sort of way,) and thought someone else might get a chuckle out of it as well. Perhaps I'm more unusual than I thought...:wave::gag:

Maybe you are being perfectly clear and it's way past my bedtime. I'm going to have to read "A Modest Proposal" if I can find a copy on the usenet or someplace else.
Octomom, I'm not even going there, some people will do anything for attention.

 

[5-90]

Maybe you are being perfectly clear and it's way past my bedtime. I'm going to have to read "A Modest Proposal" if I can find a copy on the usenet or someplace else.
Octomom, I'm not even going there, some people will do anything for attention.

I checked - it's online, and short. If you don't turn it up with Google (which indicates you suck at Google-fu:looser::gee: - the first hit I got was the text in its entirety...) check Project Gutenberg.

 

[8Mud]

I checked - it's online, and short. If you don't turn it up with Google (which indicates you suck at Google-fu:looser::gee: - the first hit I got was the text in its entirety...) check Project Gutenberg.

Google was way too easy, I automatically tried the convoluted route first and failed LOL. I'm going to have to plead fatigue, sleep hasn't been working out well for me lately. It's either spring or a manic phase.

The guy is really funny, I especially liked the paragraph about the French, there love of fish and Lent.

I read his stuff so long ago it's just a fuzzy memory now.

Kind of reminds me of "Soylent Green". Likely where the idea for the movie came from.

The part about one male for every four females also rings a bell, it has be hypothesized that is the real reason for most wars.

 

[5-90]

Google was way too easy, I automatically tried the convoluted route first and failed LOL. I'm going to have to plead fatigue, sleep hasn't been working out well for me lately. It's either spring or a manic phase.

The guy is really funny, I especially liked the paragraph about the French, there love of fish and Lent.

I read his stuff so long ago it's just a fuzzy memory now.
kind of reminds me of "Soylent Green". Likely where the idea for the movie came from.

May be. Nice thing about the Soylent Green movie is it didn't wander too terribly far from the original short - "Make Room! Make Room!" by Harry Harrison (I've always enjoyed his Stainless Steel Rat series as well.)

 

[8Mud]

May be. Nice thing about the Soylent Green movie is it didn't wander too terribly far from the original short - "Make Room! Make Room!" by Harry Harrison (I've always enjoyed his Stainless Steel Rat series as well.)

I have some of Harrison's stuff (paperbacks) in the basement, "Stainless Steel Rat" among them. I have hundreds of books in the basement that I re-read every five years or so and often find things that I missed the first time or nuances that I over looked. I have a lot of science fiction, likely much of the same stuff you have read.
My eyes are getting bad, I've always been far sighted. Electronic books and the big screen may get me back to reading more.
Lately I've been re-reading the Foxfire books, I guess the state of the economy has me nervous. And watching the X-Files series again.

 

[Deadman 94 xj]

I'll pick up the book.
I will say that most of my "free association" comes when I'm in lack of sleep. I come up with some crazy ideas that will keep me awake for hours, only to be discarded after a good nights rest lol.

 

[5-90]

I'll pick up the book.
I will say that most of my "free association" comes when I'm in lack of sleep. I come up with some crazy ideas that will keep me awake for hours, only to be discarded after a good nights rest lol.

You won't need to "pick it up" anywhere - you can find it in about ten seconds online. If you want your own copy, download it (in plaintext) from Project Gutenberg.

I know what you mean about sleep deprivation (I'm rather more familiar with it than I'd like to be...) but this isn't an SD thing for me - FAM is all the damned time. Some of us are just wired up that way - which is why I can come up with solutions that seem to be totally "off-the-wall" or "off-the-cuff" and that work. Probably has to do with why I can make decisions in such a hurry as well - it has come in very handy!

 

[Deadman 94 xj]

I'd have to say that you're wired better than most. Most would have some sort of interference in life that would deem them incapable of such thoughts. I'm not saying that you have it easy at all, just that your brain is to big ...

 

[5-90]

I'd have to say that you're wired better than most. Most would have some sort of interference in life that would deem them incapable of such thoughts. I'm not saying that you have it easy at all, just that your brain is to big ...

My brains ain't no bigger than anyone else's - they're just wired up different.

I know my brains aren't any bigger - I've seen enough pictures of the inside of my head over the last couple of years (MRIs and CTs are fun...) and I only wear a 7-3/8 hat. That's not very big - it's on the small end of medium.

I'm just cursed with an encyclopaedic memory and free association. I keep a notepad just about anywhere in the house that I spend more than a couple of minutes - FAM can strike at any time, and I don't want to lose any ideas that come up...

 

[Deadman 94 xj]

Re: Spray on Truck bedliner

Quote removed by Administrator

WTF! Take a hike bud...

 

[5-90]

Re: Spray on Truck bedliner

WTF! Take a hike bud...

Already dunned him. I'd have nuked him if I could...

 

[Deadman 94 xj]

My brains ain't no bigger than anyone else's - they're just wired up different.

I know my brains aren't any bigger - I've seen enough pictures of the inside of my head over the last couple of years (MRIs and CTs are fun...) and I only wear a 7-3/8 hat. That's not very big - it's on the small end of medium.

I'm just cursed with an encyclopaedic memory and free association. I keep a notepad just about anywhere in the house that I spend more than a couple of minutes - FAM can strike at any time, and I don't want to lose any ideas that come up...

No need to respond but I'm sure A.E.'s brains were smaller than yours. Keep up the good work! I still need to order that wire upgrade from you.

(Back on topic)

 

[5-90]

No need to respond but I'm sure A.E.'s brains were smaller than yours. Keep up the good work! I still need to order that wire upgrade from you.

(Back on topic)

A.E. - Einstein? Doubtful, but there are different sorts of intelligence. So, it's probably comparing apples to orang-outangs in that case. I can work with numbers; but I'm no artist, and I have to settle for "standing on the shoulders of giants" when I'm sorting things out...

I'm still flattered tho - and when you're ready, you know where you can find me!

 

[tbburg]

..., for some odd reason, everytime the "Octomom" is reminded to me (post on a blog or a board, in the news, or whatever,) the very next thing that crosses my mind is A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift. (If you haven't read it yet, do so. I'll wait - it's a shortish read.)

'Took a few minutes and read "A Modest Proposal" earlier and let it percolate while I was washing the wagon.

...,Yes, there are always ethical questions that come up (the ethics of implantation, the ethics of allowing the pregnancy to proceed, the ethics of allowing so many implantations on someone with a fifty percent hit rate for picking up lifetime disability in their children, the decision process that leads to thinking you can support fourteen children on unemployment as a "single mom" - even though she's getting filial support, ...) but A Modest Proposal is always the lead-in,...

I don't believe there is anything "ethical" about ANY part of this(octuplet) situation. Any "treatment" that causes multiple births in a human had better be accidental. The chances of complications during pregnancy skyrocket when the mother is carrying more then one baby. In this case, there was NO(as in ZERO)chance of a normal pregnancy, There was a definite chance of causing serious harm to the mother. There was no chance that any of the babies could be carried to anywhere near full term(endangering them even if they were all otherwise "normal".
The people involved in that assisted pregnancy should be barred from the medical profession, and whoever was in charge should be jailed.

...,but A Modest Proposal is always the lead-in.
Perhaps that's the solution to this problem. I doubt it - but it would serve to blast people right out of their well-worn grooves and make them think - and I've often kick-started problem-solving head-sheds that way,...

Taking all of "A Modest Proposal" seriously,(as opposed to satire) Mr. Smith was talking about well-fed infants, born healthy, used as a food source at the age of one. This was to "benefit" society as a whole, by providing a delicacy for the upper class, and a source of income for the otherwise indigent. In this case, with all the pre- and post-natal care required just to get those 8 babies up to normal birth weight, let alone the cost of raising them to one year, there is no way "society" would get any benefit. It would be cheaper to eat Polar Bear cubs! "A Modest Proposal" would only work for natural , un-assisted births of healthy children. Any type of fertility aid would not only not work, but would defeat the whole purpose of the "proposal"