can't sleep, let's talk about the meaning of life

Here are a few realizations that fundamentally changed the way I interact with the world, spread out over the last ten years or so. I suspect they're not the sort of thing that can really be shared--they kind of represent the results of long build-ups of understanding, rather than being independent nuggets of magic knowledge--but at least one of them has yielded a "WHOA, MIND BLOWN" reaction when I told someone about it, so I figure they're worth writing up.

• Labels are summaries, not definitions. They can be useful and valuable tools of communication, but you can't understand something complicated by knowing what it's called, especially when the details vary between instances of it.


• Neural configurations and activity don't lead to thoughts and feelings and perceptions; they are thoughts and feelings and perceptions.


• People are, in most of the ways that matter, not that different. This is not the end of the world.


• Nothing is "just" pretend. Pretending causes reality.