I've been noticing lately, since I've been on adderall, that my on-task (one project) focus and motor coordination is alot better,..but my ability to brainstorm and see the big picture (many threads at once) is restricted. Throughout my day I have a lot of planes flying, and need to keep some of this global perspective as well as being able to focus when I need to.

Does anyone have any suggestions.

I've only been on the adderall for about 2 weeks. Will the ability to switch brain modes improve???

Thanks for any advice,

Lunar.....

It sort of feels like I have blinders on:eyebrow:.

...but my ability to brainstorm and see the big picture (many threads at once) is restricted.Great observations and yes,
The meds wll help you in any and all tasks.

I have once noted {here on the forum} that the meds assisted me in focussing on daydreaming - which is to say that as soon as you're more adept at switching - you'll be able to switch at will.

I'm guessing that you're more motivated towards trying out those new mental characteristics - especially since you're just 2 weks in - after a little longer - the capacity'll be retained, but the gloss will have lost some of its shine - and you'll find it easier to switch back into that previous state.

By the way - great observations ...
->- see the big picture {systems thinking}
->- many threads at once {concomitant multithreaded thought processes}

... is the perfect summary of ADD.

SB.

SB,

Dude, so good to "hear" your "abstract" voice.

lunarfrog, good handle. You are talking what I'm all about - the big picture. If only I could get some "normals" to fill in the myraid of details I could live happily ever after.

Do your big picture thingy without the speed. Do you BORING details with the dope.

That is all there is to it.

Bob

Thanks SB for the hope that the elasticity of my mental abilities will come back along with the better ability to concentrate.

Today I was talking on the phone and got so focused on one of the things I was saying (or maybe it was how I was feeling about what I was saying) that I lost the overall thread of the conversation. I had to wait until the other person on the phone said something before I could remember the context of the focused thread. This is only the second time it's happened in the past couple weeks, but it was a little embarassing:o.

Throughout my life I've been so tuned in to emotion and sensory perception that I think I'm having trouble getting too laser focused on what I'm feeling right now on the adderall, which can be disconcerting, because there's no way I will feel what I define as normal, since I'm consuming a powerful foreign substance.

This sensory/emotional sensitivity was very helpful in music (I can deeply feel every note if I allow myself), Working as a chef (I perceive flavors as colors and sensations), and Painting (I literally feel the colors and the lines). It also makes me more vulnerable to depression and negative vibes. If I'm upset or someone around me is in emotional turmoil, its pretty much impossible for me to focus on anything else and not to be hyper aware of my or their emotions.

So......sorry for the long message, but I'm not willing to loose this sensitivity; I just want the freedom to not be controlled or destroyed by it.

If life was a dream without limits and consequences, you would find me swimming through a sea of emotion, swallowed by love and cast ashore by the leviathan of beauty to be consumed by the flame of sacrifice.....(hows that for corny:rolleyes:)...but that doesn't pay the bills, and this only works on the short life plan:eyebrow:.

Bob, thanks for the advice. The only problem is that the medicine has actually improved my painting, by allowing me to better control the emotion of color that I'm trying to communicate by improving my motor coordination (I just have trouble keeping al lmy other duties in my mind while I'm doing it). I thereby do better if I'm taking the medicine most of the day.

Anybody need any writers for "B" medieval movies????:D

Lunar.......

SB & LF,

Let me be specific because I need to learn something here. Recent assignment (last week) was to design and write an object (computer programming) that would dynamically create Windows Registry keys and set their named values and later read them back into RAM. The challenge was the dynamic part. There is one primary constant key but all its keys and their subkeys would be in a constant state of flux. For any nerds reading this, MS says don't store more than 2048 bytes in any named value because Registry efficiency will suffer. And a pointer to an external file is out of the question per specs.

"Seeing" how to do the above was a snap for me. I feel as if all the parts of any puzzle come streaming in to my working memory at the same time. Meds seem to slow down getting that big picture into my RAM. However, after the creation part is over - descriptions, diagrams, definitions are written. I AM SCREWED without my speed.

What is your take? Still need to learn more about using the meds? Or I'm paradoxically responding uniquely to them?

Bob

I don't know what to tell you Bob, since I too am figuring out how meds fit in best to my life. I also have some chronic fatigue symptoms, which add another reason for a somewhat continual use of adderall.

I do understand where your coming from. I often have explosions of connections, which I seem to get a lot less when I'm on adderall (it seems to be directly connected to humor - requires a lot of immediate connnections too), but it does seem to focus my server enough to focus on the rote.

I'm just beginning to dabble in VB.net programming, so I can see how your process of med use would work.

I'll be interested to hear SB..'s response.


Lunar.....

For sure ... :-)

non-linear - ADD - multiple threads [thought] running concurrently
linear - Non-ADD - one thread [thought]

ADD - difficult to describe exactly how a solution is arrived at - as multiple concurrent processes are running. Solutions are invariably better - bigger picture - more globally satisfying - more logically consistent.
The downside though - time to solution {potentially} and repeating from above - difficult to describe the logic in a linear fashion - the mechanism by which we arrived at a conclusion linearly.

Meds allow us to switch between multi-threaded and single-threaded - and there are times when we just gotta' do the paperwork - and it's a real distraction having a cool Coltrane steaming around in the background - when you need to gotta' have to need to listen to the latest composition by David Hasselhoff and the Knight Riders.
The Coltrane needs to be temporarily derailed as the Knight Riders drive our minds unfettered by more attractive opposition.

...:-)...

So - that's about it - the capacity to switch between multi- and lesser threads of thought is conferred by Ricky Ritalin and Derek Dexedrine.


I guess.
...:-)...

~working on a biological mechanism - it'll be along soon~

SB.

By the way Bob - track the pattern of software architecture evolution - and you have the pattern of evolution of our minds. Of course - s'ware architectures are delivered by our minds - and the passage incorporating linear->-procedural->-OO->-data-driven ... ... ... is telling us a whole lot about the instrument which was used to deliver these innovations.

Or rather the awareness of our own cognitive processes - or awareness of our cognitive processes as they evolve ... ... ...
Of course - one thread to be Bob and the other to watch Bob being Bob - makes two (is greater than one).

My two cents;)

ADD solutions come as revelations of the commonalitities of multiple threads. As the thoughts explode like glitter from the shotgun of preconsciouness they form a pattern that has meaning, which is impossible to see if one focuses on just one thread. The problem is that the thread is immediately apparent, but the pattern does not subscribe to any dictums of time, while our society does. We are thus left with our timelessness while productivity and society in general runs on a timeclock. Punch in ... Punch out. The one that produces the most while on the clock wins; but what if it takes a lifetime to produce a superior product?

What if during the lifetime of the creator, no quantitative results appear; all that is apparent it struggle and anxst. They don't fit in, because they don't exist whithin the timeline of humanity in general. It seems to them that's its almost as if they existed on a parellel plane; not quite ever truly touching the flow of common human experience. Left outside they learn to portray a face and existence that appeals to those around them while always striving to find the depth of the pattern of reality, without which no true peace will be found.

The truth is that if I knew the Truth, really knew it in the greek sense (ie participated and understood the essence of reality), I could cease to exist, and I would be at total peace. For me it is not the perpetuality of life that would allow me to transcend the self-centered self, but the acceptance of the now, and the unity it brings.

Associative thought and the Threads of consciousness....

Lunar...;)..

ADD solutions come as revelations of the commonalitities of multiple threads. As the thoughts explode like glitter from the shotgun of preconsciouness they form a pattern that has meaning, ... ... which is impossible to see if one focuses on just one thread.

[yes - all picked up below.
The essential points ...architecture {Lunar's 'multiple threads' above}, systems {Lunar's 'impossible to see' above}, patterns {'pattern that has meaning' above} ...all picked up below...]

We are thus left with our timelessness while productivity and society in general runs on a timeclock.

[yes - ADDers are task-centric - our minds architecture extends beyond 4-d.]

Left outside they learn to portray a face and existence that appeals to those around them while always striving to find the depth of the pattern of reality, without which no true peace will be found.

[yes - evolution towards a structure of mind which mimics R(RR)eality perfectly.]

[...you're making some quality calls here Lunar.]

The truth is that if I knew the Truth, really knew it in the greek sense (ie participated and understood the essence of reality), I could cease to exist, and I would be at total peace. For me it is not the perpetuality of life that would allow me to transcend the self-centered self, but the acceptance of the now, and the unity it brings.

[maybe,yes - but it ain't happening - or at least we can't encapsulate this idea with current structure of mind.]

Associative thought and the Threads of consciousness....

[yes - a software architecture.]


*Hey* Lunar,Bob

Most excellent post - guys ... ... ...

->->->http://www.booch.com/architecture/index.jsp->->->-


We've pulled up ~Bobby Bunnywabbit~
So -how about pulling down?-

...for the hell of it...

Despite its transparency, as Bjarne Stroustrup has observed, "our civilization runs on software."

...:-)... software,mind ... mind,software - you say potatoes - I say virtual logical layers atop of silicon - you say virtual logical layers atop of carbon ...:-)... incidentally {ADD and mind} are essentially synonymous.

It is therefore a tremendous privilege as well as a deep responsibility to be a software developer.

...:-)...now you'd better be smiling Bob dudemeister...:-)...

In the context of that labor, software is perhaps the ultimate building material: it springs from pure thought and is intrinsically malleable, yet it can be made manifest in our hardware systems, limited only by our vision (and certain immutable laws of physics and software).

...:-)... software,mind {oh no! not again ... {see above} ... ... ...

For this reason, the primary challenge of every software development team is to engineer the illusion of simplicity in the face of essential complexity.

RRReality {objective, external reality} ->- rrreality {internal models of reality stored within our mind}{physical model} ->- software {logical model}
However ... better ...
RRReality ->- in vivo cognitive logical model ->- in silico logical model

To that end, the entire history of software engineering is one of rising levels of abstraction (for abstraction is the primary way we as humans deal with complexity), and we see this reflected in the maturation of our programming languages, platforms, processes, tools, and patterns.

Silly - silly - silly!!!
... the entire history of evolution of Homo sapiens subsp. sapiens is one of rising levels of abstraction (for abstraction is the primary way we as humans deal with complexity), and we see this reflected in the maturation of our mind ->- in vivo cognitive logical models and modelled in programming languages, platforms, processes, tools, and patterns ->- in silico logical models.

Indeed, every well-structured software-intensive system is full of patterns, ranging from idioms that shape the use of a particular programming language to mechanisms that define the collaboration among societies of objects, components, and other parts. At the highest level of abstraction, every system has an architecture, encompassing the key abstractions and mechanisms that define that system's structure and behavior as seen from the perspective of different stakeholders, each with a different set of concerns. In every case - from idioms to mechanisms to architectures - these patterns are either intentional or accidental, but insofar as they are visible, such patterns reflect the style and inner beauty of each system.

...:-)... software,mind {oh no! enough already freakin' SB freakmeister ... ... ...

One day - we're gonna' work out that the evolution of software architectures mirrors perfectly the evolutionary awareness of our own mind. In order to be 'Big Bad Bob' and to observe 'Big Bad Bob' in action - we need to throw a coupla'threads ... and ooo!!! wasn't that a part of the whole OO revolution thingummyjobbywotsit.

And that ADD is where this was all heading.

Dude Bob --- yuz a ringside ticket in on your own mind.

Ding ding!

How does it feel to be a part of a new species.

Allow me to introduce you to our new world - the world of Neo - Homo neosapiens.

Dude!

... :-) ... SB.

... tell you what though Bob dude --- I wonder what the mind equivalent of distributed data, processing and GRID hopping could be - pretty cool s/ware architecture don't you think ... but translated into 'mind of man' - what does it mean?
Here's a clue - {collective consciousness} ... which means? ...over to you Bob - but it ain't metaphysical - honest to Bob!

{ in the greek sense }Sartre's flies (http://www.theatrehistory.com/french/sartre003.html) undone (http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/bates021.html)

Sartre pulled out 'Les Mouches' a modernized version of ca. 500 BC - 'Oresteia' - a Greek trilogy, a Greek tragedy.

The point.

At the centre - a non-conformist hero who did not require others to guide him - who could guide himself.

Left of Centre.
Non-conformist.
A mind of our own.
-Discomfort in current society-*

How very ADD!

SB.

* Hold that thought {if you will}.

Nice Thread!!!

Brings me back!

I actually gained interest in philosophy through programming.

'Society of Mind' is a great bridge between the world of the mind/brain and the world of computers/architecture, if you haven’t read it yet I highly recommend it.
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]-->Btw:
Anyone else grow up on Neuromancer?!?

... staring into Idoru's eyeZ ... :-) ... as I write - & - thanks for the references on 'site suggestions' and here ... :-) ...

most cool

sb.

Idoru is a good one.

I've already heard you make references to snow crash, so I don't have to mention that one.

But have you ever read any Philip K dick?

He is one of my favorites.

His books: V.A.L.A.C.E., Do androids dream of electronic sheep, The unteleported man and I'll dream it for you wholesale (which is the basis for total recall) are all great books if you have the mind for them. People seem to have a love him or hate him attitude towards Philip.

Btw:
Anyone else grow up on Neuromancer?!? I used the name Lupus Yonderboy online since back in the days of BBS's. Gibsons sprawl trilogy is definetly a part of my teenage years. When i read it now it doesnt resonate with me like it once did but its probably because im spoiled on writers like Hermann Hesse/Yukio Mishima. I did really like gibson's newest book pattern recognition. He's really matured as a writer and his unique ability to tap into this sort of techno-psychological thing has always amazed me. His ability to understand technological evolution/trends in a realistic way is mind boggling sometimes.

As to the topic of the thread, i notice i hyperfocus just as much as before but im able to change topics way easier.