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Why acting from your own perceptions isn't the same as selfishness

6 tweets · July 2021 · 22 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter

Replying to Mikael Brockman @meekaale ·

@Malcolm_Ocean @QiaochuYuan Basically is there a “selfish” assumption in PCT? I think it’s easy to get that idea. Like, what about other peoples’ perceptions, you only care about YOUR perceptions? Or something

@meekaale @QiaochuYuan perceptions include your perceptions of others' apparent perceptions approximately speaking, non-sociopaths tend to want well for others they see as experiencing beings. so self-based but not "selfish" with all its connotations

@meekaale @QiaochuYuan ofc, sometimes we feel angry or threatened or whatever, and want others to hurt, as a strategy for meeting our own needs but also sometimes we've hurt others and feel guilty and resolve the guilt by hurting ourselves—same mechanism, not fundamentally selfish

@meekaale @QiaochuYuan you just only have direct access to your own perceptions, so it kind of all has to start there, insomuch as we're talking about a "you" as an agent at all

@meekaale @QiaochuYuan obligations/punishments etc as a way of organizing anything are a huge mess and involve a lot of psychological layering as described in the 2nd image in this tweet:

Sarah McManus ✨🍲 BOLD SOUP🍲✨ @SarahAMcManus ·

Gonna start off with some R.D. Laing, saying some real shit about double binds in our default cultural context:

[1 more photo]

@meekaale @QiaochuYuan I had a "try to be nice" layer on top of an abrasive layer that others called "asshole" that was itself trying to get social needs met atop a shy tender empathic mode. Trying to be nice didn't help restore my actual empathy. It was neurotic.

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean ·

I ended up with a bunch of layers due to people seeing some of my behavior patterns as selfish/greedy or assholish, and then me trying to find my selfish parts or my asshole parts. Well, turns out I don't have any parts that identify as "asshole", so this was a wild goose chase.

@meekaale @QiaochuYuan re precisely what "neurotic" means:

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean ·

I've recently started appreciating & refining a concept of "neurotic" which is a strategy for caring about something that's based on trying to avoid various pitfalls or problems without a clear idea of what "good" looks like.