Thought train

I was reading through some older blog posts and saw the use of the term "thought train" and realized this is probably not recognized by a random reader as it was understood when I wrote it.  This is a metaphor, quite visual.  It immediately conjures in my mind, a vision of being inside a train that's rolling along a landscape.

I am inside the train.  The landscape is actually the renderings of my mind.  The back of the train is passing things I was thinking about previously, and the front of the train is passing things I am thinking about just now.

The train can go forward or backward along the track.  I can fast-forward or rewind the "tape" - that is, we can quickly have the train travel to any point along a winding track along all the things I had been thinking about.

Additionally, I can travel within the train, so I can take in a wide view of everything that was thought of for some time.

It's interesting when you realize the track is part of a mental visualization, and it can be re-laid in another manner.  So instead of the track traveling along a train of thought, it can be run along a path that connects various ideas or concepts.

The track may be rearranged as a series of ideas are reorganized, or parts of a sequence are changed.  Then we can run the train along the new track, and we can look around at how the new idea plays out.

It's a cool, visual metaphor for clearly thinking about complex, creative concepts in the mind.

Viral social constructs

I wonder what makes some social constructs perpetuate..  I've heard people who are molested as children are more likely to become child molesters.  Such an evil act, I wonder what causes that.  The same can't be said for victims of other crimes, like rape or robbery.

I suppose whether the victim enjoys the act determines the likelihood of performing it themselves.  Just as a drug addict enjoys the high and then seeks the experience again.  Very simple logic.

With such insight (arrived at through uncomfortable means, but found nonetheless) it makes me wonder if the victims of less enjoyable acts, such as rape or robbery, are more likely to become perpetrators if they found the experience somehow pleasurable, e.g. if they were high at the time.

I'm probably giving such a simple notion too much credence.  This is simple Pavlovian behavior analysis.