i.
Man-with-a-hammer syndrome. It's horrible, horrible affliction affecting intellectuals and can subvert their critical thinking in a certain area for weeks at time.
I used to think I was immune. Then I went through a spell where I was utterly fascinated with the idea of languages and ontology, sparked by a lesswrong post which said something along the lines of 'every language implies a certain ontological framework' that isn't a literal quote, but it captured the insight which then occupied my thinking for quite bit. Ultimately, it produced Translating Alien Languages, although I think it might have produced another, if I were more productive.
My next (as far as I remember, which shouldn't inspire confidence) fascination was narratives. The cognitive dynamics it inspired are mostly a kind of taste, which is quite hard to communicate.
At best it can be summed up in my tweet: "You are a story. Your brain is the story-teller. Sometimes there are translation errors."
Like a true case of man-with-a-hammer, I applied this idea to everything under the sun. Arguments, ideology, culture, popular science articles, etc.
As luck would have it, I've moved on from them. I might be contracting a rather minor case with my new, as-yet-unnamed Big Idea(tm), but that's not here, nor there.
