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prase comments on How is your mind different from everyone else's? - Less Wrong Discussion

31 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 05 December 2011 08:38AM

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Comment author: ESRogs 06 December 2011 12:55:52AM *  1 point [-]

It's interesting that you put history on there. I also have a history timeline that's separate from my generic number line, but I don't think I'd seen that mentioned before in what I'd read about spatial-sequence synesthesia (see my reply to jsalvatier).

At some point I realized I had a line like this for just about any sequence of things I've ever thought of. Besides the ones you've mentioned: days of the week, months of the year, grades in school, etc.

My sequence lines are not all totally unique though. For example, on the history timeline the years within a century just follow the pattern of the numbers from 1 to 100, and for me minutes/seconds and temperatures fall on the normal number line.

Comment author: prase 06 December 2011 11:42:57AM 4 points [-]

I have lines for weekdays and months, but they are trivial (the mont sequence turns 90 degrees right in the middle of June, on 1st September, just before Christmas and on 1st January, forming a rectangle. The weekday line turns right before and after the weekend, so two weeks together make a rectangle.

My lines can also have a fractal substructure - if looking in a detail on a particular region, further turns appear, usually inherited from the general number line or another relevant line or part of it. This may not be compatible with the overall structure: for example, from greater distance the stretch from 1910 to 1920 is a straight line, but in detail, any single year has the "closed rectangle" structure, beginning and ending in the same point.

To help understanding the interplay of cultural bias and synesthesia, this is the hopefully full list of turns in my history line when looked at in detail (the probable cause for the turn - a historical event or other thing - is in parentheses)

  1. cca. 220 B.C. uncertain direction, perhaps multiple turns (Punic wars)
  2. 40 B.C. right (end of the Roman republic)
  3. 30 B.C. - 0 A.D. left 180° curved
  4. 0 A.D. or 14 A.D. right (beginning of millenium / death of Augustus; context dependent)
  5. during 1st century left curved
  6. cca. 70 A.D. uncertain, probably left - right - right (end of Claudian dynasty, destruction of Pompeii)
  7. 100 right (end of century)
  8. 110/114/120 left (generic number 20 / conquests of Traian)
  9. 130 left (generic number 30)
  10. 150 - 200 right curved (to return to previous direction?)
  11. cca. 330 uncertain (Christianity official in Rome)
  12. 476 right (fall of Rome)
  13. cca. 500 left (maintaining direction?)
  14. 6th-8th century right curved
  15. 880 left (generic number 80)
  16. 890 left (generic number 90)
  17. 900 right (generic number 100)
  18. 910 right (generic number 10)
  19. 920 left (generic number 20 / assassination of Wenceslaus I)
  20. 1000 right (end of millenium)
  21. 1300 uncertain
  22. 1310 balances the 1300 change
  23. cca. 1350 left and then curved right (battle of Crécy)
  24. 1410 right (generic number 10)
  25. 1415 45° left (execution of John Huss)
  26. 1420 45° left (generic number 20)
  27. 1420-1435 curved right (Hussite wars)
  28. 1492/1500 left, perhaps right-left-left series (discovery of the Americas / end of century; context dependent)
  29. 1526 right (battle of Mohács)
  30. 1530 left (restoring direction / generic number 30)
  31. cca. 1580 right
  32. 1618 / 1620 left (Thirty Years' War)
  33. 1700 right (end of century)
  34. 1789/1790 right (French revolution)
  35. 1800 left (end of century)
  36. around 1810 left-left (for uncertain reasons the generic number 20 and 30 turns are placed here; perhaps the second turn is 1813 because that's when the oldest surviving locomotive was built, but certainly it is before Waterloo)
  37. around 1830 curved right
  38. 1846-1850 curved left - right - right - curved left (revolutions of 1848)
  39. 1890 left, maybe preceded by right - left (generic number 90)
  40. 1900 right (end of century)
  41. 1910 right (generic number 10)
  42. 1914 left-right (World War I)
  43. 1918/1920 left (end of WWI / generic number 20)
  44. 1930 left (Great Depression)
  45. 1933 right (Nazis come to power)
  46. 1938-1940 curved left (WWII / generic number 30 moved here)
  47. 1945 uncertain (end of WWII, usually a month line is put here when looked at in a greater detail)
  48. 1956-1968 curved left - curved 180° right
  49. 1968/1970 left (Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia)
  50. 1990 uncertain (end of Cold War)
  51. 2000 right (end of millenium)
Comment author: ESRogs 09 December 2011 02:53:39AM *  0 points [-]

Yeah, mine have that substructure-available-on-zoom too. It seems pretty clear that our brains are doing the same thing here. Out of curiosity, do you feel that you read more quickly or more slowly than others? I'm a very slow reader -- my silent reading speed is about on par with my reading-aloud speed, and I've sometimes wondered if this is connected at all to my tendency to visualize things, or is completely unrelated.

On the other hand, I think having a detailed timeline helps me to remember when events took place. I've noticed on movie rounds at pub trivia that I'm often able to make more use than some of my teammates of the year a movie was released, if that information was given, to rule out possible answers -- not because I know the exact dates of when many movies came out, but because if I'm familiar with the film at all, then I have a general sense of where it should go on my timeline. (Disclaimer: it's quite possible that this is all just confirmation bias on my part.)

Comment author: prase 09 December 2011 11:33:07AM 1 point [-]

Out of curiosity, do you feel that you read more quickly or more slowly than others?

I have no idea how quickly others read. My silent reading is generally faster than reading aloud, but the speed depends on what I am reading and I am not sure how big the difference is.

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