A few weeks ago someone had said something off-hand to me that really bothered me in the days to come. Not surprisingly I had told my mom about it as well as one of my close friends. The next week, I had a ping pong tournament and movie night at my house with my friends and family. Both the person who had unintentionally offended me and the person who knew that I was hurt by his words were there.
When everyone finally arrived there was a sense of awkwardness in the air as I could tell that my mom knew that I knew that my friend knew that I was still hurt and that my other friend was unaware he had hurt me.
That's a very short and condensed version of one of my recent experiences with 4th order intentionality.
A few weeks ago someone had said something off-hand to me that really bothered me in the days to come. Not surprisingly I had told my mom about it as well as one of my close friends. The next week, I had a ping pong tournament and movie night at my house with my friends and family. Both the person who had unintentionally offended me and the person who knew that I was hurt by his words were there.
When everyone finally arrived there was a sense of awkwardness in the air as I could tell that my mom knew that I knew that my friend knew that I was still hurt and that my other friend was unaware he had hurt me.
That's a very short and condensed version of one of my recent experiences with 4th order intentionality.
My experience with fourth order intentionality has mostly been theoretical. I can’t recall any significant point where I noticed fourth order intentionality in my thoughts or my perception of others’ thoughts (fifth order?), but since I tend to have too much free time, my mind drifts sometimes and fixates on what I think is happening in other peoples’ respective minds on many insignificant occasions. If I’m sitting in a waiting room in a doctor’s office, for example, I might start thinking about anything that may be going through other people’s heads as they wait too. After I start to think about their thought processes as they sit around me watching the news on the monitor in the corner or reading a magazine, I start to wonder if any of them do the same thing, and I start to think that while I was thinking about what others must have been thinking, maybe someone else did the same, and managed to deduce (though I have to admit, when I catch myself doing it, I’m not very subtle) what I’ve been doing, and that the other person must know that I’m trying to guess what others are thinking as I try to guess what someone else thinks. As I try to wrap my mind around that, it occurs to me that if the other person was really good at figuring people out like that, he might have found the person who I was trying to figure out, and find out what I must think the innocent, magazine-reading bystander is thinking. By now I’m paranoid enough to have convinced myself that this psychoanalytical genius is somewhere in the room, and I have to find him. Then, just when I get into figuring out who may be the one figuring me out, I get called in for my checkup and return to the real world.
Long story short, I get paranoid in a waiting room and try to find the one mind reader who I’ve convinced myself must be in the room with me. I promise I’m not crazy.
A few weeks ago someone had said something off-hand to me that really bothered me in the days to come. Not surprisingly I had told my mom about it as well as one of my close friends. The next week, I had a ping pong tournament and movie night at my house with my friends and family. Both the person who had unintentionally offended me and the person who knew that I was hurt by his words were there.
ReplyDeleteWhen everyone finally arrived there was a sense of awkwardness in the air as I could tell that my mom knew that I knew that my friend knew that I was still hurt and that my other friend was unaware he had hurt me.
That's a very short and condensed version of one of my recent experiences with 4th order intentionality.
-Emily Davis
A few weeks ago someone had said something off-hand to me that really bothered me in the days to come. Not surprisingly I had told my mom about it as well as one of my close friends. The next week, I had a ping pong tournament and movie night at my house with my friends and family. Both the person who had unintentionally offended me and the person who knew that I was hurt by his words were there.
ReplyDeleteWhen everyone finally arrived there was a sense of awkwardness in the air as I could tell that my mom knew that I knew that my friend knew that I was still hurt and that my other friend was unaware he had hurt me.
That's a very short and condensed version of one of my recent experiences with 4th order intentionality.
-Emily Davis
My experience with fourth order intentionality has mostly been theoretical. I can’t recall any significant point where I noticed fourth order intentionality in my thoughts or my perception of others’ thoughts (fifth order?), but since I tend to have too much free time, my mind drifts sometimes and fixates on what I think is happening in other peoples’ respective minds on many insignificant occasions. If I’m sitting in a waiting room in a doctor’s office, for example, I might start thinking about anything that may be going through other people’s heads as they wait too. After I start to think about their thought processes as they sit around me watching the news on the monitor in the corner or reading a magazine, I start to wonder if any of them do the same thing, and I start to think that while I was thinking about what others must have been thinking, maybe someone else did the same, and managed to deduce (though I have to admit, when I catch myself doing it, I’m not very subtle) what I’ve been doing, and that the other person must know that I’m trying to guess what others are thinking as I try to guess what someone else thinks. As I try to wrap my mind around that, it occurs to me that if the other person was really good at figuring people out like that, he might have found the person who I was trying to figure out, and find out what I must think the innocent, magazine-reading bystander is thinking. By now I’m paranoid enough to have convinced myself that this psychoanalytical genius is somewhere in the room, and I have to find him. Then, just when I get into figuring out who may be the one figuring me out, I get called in for my checkup and return to the real world.
ReplyDeleteLong story short, I get paranoid in a waiting room and try to find the one mind reader who I’ve convinced myself must be in the room with me. I promise I’m not crazy.
-Eric Loucks