MugaSofer comments on LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance - Less Wrong

58 [deleted] 25 November 2012 11:33PM

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Comment author: MugaSofer 29 November 2012 10:52:38PM 1 point [-]

... because you don't, as a rule, choose your own neurophysiology. Certain structures in transsexuals' brains are closer to the form they take in cisgendered members of the sex they identify with than the sex they appear to be.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 30 November 2012 01:08:12PM 4 points [-]

... because you don't, as a rule, choose your own neurophysiology.

Become a taxi driver and grow your hippocampus. The boundary between what you can change and what you can't is not as clear as you seem to think.

Certain structures in transsexuals' brains are closer to the form they take in cisgendered members of the sex they identify with than the sex they appear to be.

Do we know what these structures do?

Comment author: MugaSofer 01 December 2012 06:27:07AM 0 points [-]

Become a taxi driver and grow your hippocampus. The boundary between what you can change and what you can't is not as clear as you seem to think.

As I have said elsewhere, there is a sliding scale involved. This is decidedly towards the "unchosen" end, and considering that transsexuals report having changed their lifestyle as a result of preexisting problems, it seems reasonable to call this one for the "nature" side.

Do we know what these structures do?

Besides this? No.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 30 November 2012 02:08:44AM 4 points [-]

... because you don't, as a rule, choose your own neurophysiology.

You have some control over it. Everything you do and every thought you have affects your neurophysiology. How much control you have over it is an interesting question, which can't be answered simply by pointing to differences on brain scans.

Comment author: MugaSofer 30 November 2012 09:23:12AM *  0 points [-]

There's a sliding scale. At one end, we have things like frontal lobes. At the other, we have imagination. This is the kind of structure that doesn't alter without external stimuli, and even then it's bloody hard.