Psychotherapy today, which took up all of my energies really, so the rest of the day was mooching and pottering. Feeling much better though so the crash is over. Going to cautiously resume engagement with the wider world from tomorrow.
Therapy got onto my undiagnosed ADHD, specifically hyperfocus, which we talked about today. It helped explain a few things that have happened in the past and certain patterns on behaviour that have become more pronounced with the chronic fatigue. Like how I’ve utterly failed to get an exercise regime in place since fucking my back — something that is important to stop me being in pain again — but am able to think through a water harvesting system for the rabbit run — a thing that would be nice to have but is definitely not necessary. What’s that all about?
As with all these things it’s not so much about wanting the label as benefiting from models of thinking about how I function (or don’t) in new ways that help me do it better. The big advantage of these models is they come with pathways to manage and overcome them, and they’re often worth a look. Assuming I can focus on them of course.
(I’m on the waiting list for an ADHD assessment but don’t expect it any time soon, and to be honest don’t really need one as I doubt I’d get much support unless I went back to education, which is unlikely to happen!)
Slime moulds and the bitter debate over the nature of intelligence
I’ve been kinda interested in slime moulds since my composting obsession started, but only really in the sense that they appear as part of the decomposition process. Their ‘intelligence’ or otherwise was just a curiosity. This is a great look at the scientific furore around non-human consciousness, specifically assigning those concepts to plants (although slime moulds are neither plants nor fungi), and what that means for the usefulness of those concepts. Loads of great quotes from both sides, and makes the discussions around whether computer programs can think look totally asinine.
Trying to capture the endless nuance of life on Earth with our clumsy words is like recreating the Pantone colour catalogue with three crayons. Worse still, words bear different meanings at different times and to different people; it’s as though no one can even agree on what shades the three crayons are. In 2009, three Berkeley researchers surveyed 174 members of scientific societies devoted to the study of animal behaviour, to ask them what “behaviour” is. They received more than 25 distinct definitions and 100 other edge cases. In their headline, the researchers concluded: “Behavioural biologists do not agree on what constitutes behaviour.”
- Urban planner recreates a typical car-centric suburb in a town planning simulator (25:55) — Shows why they’re built the way they are and why that’s a massive problem. My sister’s family lived in a sprawl like this in Auckland and it’s surprisingly accurate, right down to the lack of apartments and the congested road bridge to downtown.
- This was the best kākāpō fuck season ever — A remarkable year for the rotund green parrot that evolution has “precisely calibrated to go extinct”.