What if muscle tension is sometimes signal jamming?

post by Chipmonk · 2024-11-04T21:08:47.800Z · LW · GW · 1 comments

This is a link post for https://chrislakin.blog/p/what-if-muscle-tension-is-sometimes

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  Maybe muscle tension is sometimes signal jamming.
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This post expands on my comment [LW(p) · GW(p)] on the recent post The hostile telepaths problem.

Why do we often experience feelings as in the body? For example, why do I feel anxiety in my chest rather than just “knowing” I'm anxious? 

Here’s an idea: What if when you have a feeling in your body, sometimes it’s there for others to see? What if feelings use the body as a display?

I’m not sure exactly how this would work, but perhaps it's mediated by subtle muscle movements or vibrations.

But there’s a problem: What if you want to keep a secret? (A “Hostile telepaths problem” [LW · GW].)

For example, let’s say that John sometimes has a feeling in his neck that represents the information “I have the choice to leave the social situation I’m in right now.” (Maybe this particular feeling manifests in his neck because it precedes turning his head to move his attention away from a social situation, but who knows.)

And let’s say another part of John’s system predicts, “If other people know that I’m considering this, they will react negatively. So we should hide the information.”

What do? How jam the signal?

What if… tense muscles! Make neck too stiff for muscle communication! Then secret can be kept! 

I say this because I’m pretty sure this is what caused my chronic neck pain and muscle tension.

Maybe muscle tension is sometimes signal jamming.

I had this idea after talking to a pickup artist endorsed by Aella. His model is that women are repelled by muscle tension in a man’s body. Therefore, he tries to help men become more attractive by helping them untangle this muscle tension.

Under this model, it would make a lot of sense that women would feel cautious about men who show signal jamming (ie: muscle tension). After all, if his system fully predicted that the information his body was displaying was good for her to know, why would it try to jam the signal?

(I proposed this explanation to the pickup artist guy and he liked it.)

What do you think? Is muscle tension sometimes signal jamming? Do you have examples to add?

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