Older blog entries for pfh (starting at number 40)

"Quantum physicists do it discretely." :-)

Bleh. Haven't posted for a while here. Life goes on.

Feeling unmotivated, so i'm cutting back on the propranolol. Middle of last night, i woke screaming about being trapped in a giant mincing machine. Would have forgotten about that except my housemate mentioned it today. Today heaches, blood nose--neon red but short lasting. Ibuprofen didn't help headaches, taking a single propranolol did.

Note to self: next time got to remember to taper off the dose.

Too many parameters, hard to optimize.

Chris Wallace, resident demi-god of Computer Science at Monash, inventor of MML -- a mathematical formalization of the process we call "science" -- died the weekend before last. Everyone knew it was coming, but still a shock when it actually happened. He was in the process of writing the definitive book on MML. Have to wonder what ideas he never got around to writing down.

I had questions I'll never get to ask him, ideas I'll never know his reaction to. The world has dropped several IQ points with him gone.

I am taking: propranolol, zopiclone, modafinil (though all in moderate amounts). Oh well. I bought a digital metronome. It stutters and misses beats, slows down, speeds up. Unlikely behaviour for a digital metronome, so it's probably me that is stuttering, speeding up down, slowing down.

As promised, my essay on stress.

Seems to be working... I am taking: modafinil. Currently trying to reduce dose. I'm no longer taking clonidine, and only very occasionally taking zopiclone.

i 0wnz0red my b0dy :-) w00t

Epiphany. I now understand stress:

Your body has a clock rate. It can be overclocked. If it is overclocked for a long period, it can not cope and it becomes "stressed".

Your body can not adjust the clock rate instantly. Therefore the clock rate has to be high enough to deal with anything that might happen in the immediate future. Your level of stress is determined solely by the thing that requires the highest clock rate.

Stress is not additive.

Many consequences. Essay soon.

10-May-04: height 1.90m, weight 108.1kg ... i've lost a couple of kilos, and gained a couple of centimeters.

Ah, the marvels of correct posture.

There's an interesting correspondence between yoga and correct support for singing. Both involve a straight spine, relaxed muscles, and controlled breathing. Probably not a coincidence.

I have been trying to straighten my spine by sleeping on a harder bed. Getting less sleep, but it seems to be working.

Another thing about singing: the trick seems to be finding postural energy minima. It doesn't require great strength, but instead finess. Any tension squeezes the voice.

Australian Idol auditioners said, quite accurately, that I was too nervous. That was pretty much all they said (they had several thousand people to audition...)... Oh well, nervousness is just a parameter, i'll try again next year.

Amusing thought:

In response to bleeding, the body restricts blood flow by contracting blood vessels. This is opposite to the fight-or-flight response, which increases blood flow so that muscles and organs are well supplied to meet an immediate threat.

Therefore, cutting yourself would be a way to (partially) deactivate the flight or fight response. Even if one did not understand this, a link between relief and cutting might be conditioned. I think my psychiatrist mentioned at one point that often people find cutting themselves calming.

I'm perfectly serious: this is very funny. It's horrible, sure, but it is also funny. Humour is much undervalued as a mode of thought. It is useful for more than mere entertainment. One should always keep in the back of one's mind that what you are doing is most likely ridiculously stupid.

Of course, nowadays we have beta blockers, which are more convenient to use, and involve less stigmata. (hehe, stigmata, get it? Might explain some religious types's tendency to self flagellation. So much for disdaining the flesh and all that :-P)

Clondidine continues to work, no bad effects. Joy :-). Doctor measured my blood pressure today, found it was completely normal, told me to up the dose a little. Why are these drugs not more widely used in psychiatry?

Politics/ As a citizen of Australia, I am worried that our government has not denounced Israel's policy of assassination, and in particular the recent assasination of the Hamas leader. So I would just like to say: People of Israel, what you are doing is suicidal. This strategy has no good outcomes. It leads to exponential escalation. Take a deep breath, calm down, and do something sensible that doesn't involve killing more people.

People are people are people are people are people...

Well, that was easier than i thought. I now have clonidine.

I was dreading yet another fight with a medico and their catty authority. But my GP said OK almost immediately.

So, I am off propranolol, hopefully off zopiclone, taking modafinil+clonidine.

Observations, from one day's use (bearing in mind i usually have some placebo effect, lasting ~2 weeks): no more butterflies in the stomach, my mind is off permanent overdrive (big relief), i don't feel unnaturally calm (as i did on propranolol) but i do feel calm. On the negative, i have less drive/spark/holy-fire. Hopefully i can find a level of dose where i do have some spark and still be functional.

Singing/ I have been trying to develop my voice. I figure this is useful above and beyond a small chance of becoming some kind of religious idol -- useful for public speaking, or indeed private speaking. Major finding so far: posture is important, in particular the angle between the body and neck should be straight up and down. I find that i can hit notes a lot better if i do this, and that it sounds better. It is very easy to fall back into a slouch when not paying attention! Angle between neck and head, however, does not seem to be all that important.

Also important is the thing about opening up the back of the mouth and throat, as if there's a plum in there.

With these things, my voice gets a "metallic" edge, and a *lot* louder. I guess this is what is meant by "projecting your voice". The vocal cavity resonates a lot more, and thus does not need extra effort to be louder.

Another interesting thing is that by practicing *loudly*, i find my voice gains a nice edge to it even when soft. A sort of "i could be loud if i wanted to" quality.

Propranolol starting to poop out. Bother. Bother bother bother.

I've been quite stable and productive on modafinil+propranolol+zopiclone. It was nice not to have to worry about my health for a while. Oh well.

I am hoping to switch to clonidine. Just have to find a friendly doctor (one who can accept the dog role when appropriate, is it too much to ask?). I hate this bit.

Been thinking about psychosis.

The obvious model is something wrong with some of the neurons in the brain. ie they don't update their synaptic weightings apropriately given environmental stimuli.

By this model, if it applied to every neuron the person would just keel over and twitch. They'd de-tune really quickly. Probably stop breathing.

It's more plausible if it only applies to some neurons. But still, an error in updating rules means some part of the brain just plain fails.

Alternate model: psychosis is a rational reaction to a stimulus that is external to the brain (or at least external to its higher functions). Akathisia, for instance, is a feeling of inner restlessness. Everything has a pressing urgency, every sensation demands attention, the body demands ACTION! In other words, the brain is being rushed, the body is saying: take long shots, we need a solution to the problem NOW.

It's not irrational, when time is pressing and some terrible doom is iminent, to jump to conclusions and take wild leaps of faith. It may be one's only chance of survival. Mightn't these leaps look like psychosis? Theories that intigrate all the pressing details: the car that seems to be following you (even though it's just by chance), the person on TV talking about something surprisingly relevant, the person you don't know but keep seeing in odd places. And so on. A theory integrating these things, with a view to identifying the source of a sense of pressing danger, would look exactly like classic psychosis.

Rational psychosis :-)

Point being: higher brain functions in schizophrenia etc may be working just fine. The real problem may be in the body, or some simple regulatory gland stuff. Also: if psychotics are rational, they may be reasoned with. It might be worth giving them a little respect. Their rational mind may be capable of understanding and reinterpreting their gut feelings.

In other news: I am thinking of auditioning for Australian Idol. Maybe I can be the Australian One :-). (and anyway, what's to lose beside a little ritual humiliation?)