The very concept of a Migraine Aura performs as an echo chamber or filter bubble (depending),
circumscribes the parscient. >8^D E.g. I've had fantastically debilitating headaches since my first
memory (age 4 or so). I can describe the course of an attack under all sorts of conditions (e.g. [not]
taking OTC meds, after a day at the beach, after drinking too much, after moving from sea level to 7k
feet, physically fit vs fat, etc.). Renee' (and a couple of primary care docs) have broached
"migraines" several times. But a differential diagnostic is that I don't get what other
people describe as an "aura". With the PCPs, they don't have enough time for me to give a
thick description of how I *do* feel just prior to an attack. So I just let it slide. Whatever, dude.
I'm not letting y'all inject your Mind Control juice into my veins.
When people use that word "migraine aura", they commit a composition error,
constructing something that does not exist, intersubjective or regular old objective. If
we did a RCT of all the physiological symptoms and tests for indicators of migraine
versus other headache types, my guess is that only MRI will get us anywhere close.
I *can* predict my attacks. Does that mean that, say, cluster headache pre-attack symptoms are *specifically* different? Don't
exist at all? Etc. So to "scientifically" study something we can't even reliably test for is questionable. Of course,
you could reframe the project from "scientific study of migraine aura" to "scientific study of headache
experience". That seems reasonable because even if, like the occult beetle, one subject's referent from "headache"
varies from another's, there's at least some overlap because we all have "heads".
On 11/8/25 2:13 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
That's odd; so am I. Yet we have disagreed on such things in the past.
I am rushing to beat the dying of the light, here, but here is the
Wittgenstein quote to chew on. Note the italicized premise. The quote doesn't
make much sense if one doesn't incorporate that.
“Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a ‘beetle.’ */No
one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle
is only by looking at his beetle./* – Here it would be quite possible for
everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a
thing constantly changing. – But suppose the word ‘beetle’ had a use in these
people’s language? – If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The
thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a
something: for the box might even be empty. – No, one can ‘divide through’ by
the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.” --
The question is h0w do I square my understanding of this sentiment with my
belief that one can indeed do science on the experience of migraine auras. I
do so by putting a lot of weight on our shared experience of auras; in fact, it
was not until somebody told me about migraine auras that I fully perceived my
own.
N
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Friam <[email protected]> on behalf of Russell Standish
<[email protected]>
*Sent:* Saturday, November 8, 2025 4:51 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] mental imagery
On Fri, Nov 07, 2025 at 08:31:50PM -0500, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Hi, Glen,
As usual, I have launched myself into alien territory without a pass port. I
cannot follow the analysis stuff, but allow me to comment on objectivity. I
dont think it has anything to do with physiiological correlates-=- that's just
icing on the cake. Do you get migraine auras? Lets imagine for a moment that
migraine auras had absolutely no physiological correlates. How would we go
about doing science on them? Or are they a subjective phenomenon. That would
be odd because already we seem to be talking about them. they seem to be on the
face, intersubjective. I wonder what the difference is between intersubjective
and objective?
According to some, no difference at all. I belong to the school of
thought that there is no objective, just intersubjective.
--
¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.
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