"Sexual Dimorphism": morphic adaption unit specifications

It's always hard to start writing, and it's especially hard to start
writing about this—but it's so important. To me.

diff --git a/content/drafts/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-in-relation-to-my-gender-problems.md b/content/drafts/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-in-relation-to-my-gender-problems.md
index 7d093f8..2d6d250 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-in-relation-to-my-gender-problems.md
+++ b/content/drafts/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-in-relation-to-my-gender-problems.md
@@ -128,6 +128,14 @@ But, well ... I mean, um ...
 
 From the standpoint of my secret erotic fantasy, "normal, masculine man wearing a female body like a suit of clothing" is actually a _great_ outcome—the _ideal_ outcome. Let me explain.
 
+The main plot of my secret erotic fantasy accomodates many frame stories, but I tend to prefer those that invoke the [literary genre of science](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4Bwr6s9dofvqPWakn/science-as-attire), and posit technology indistinguishable from magic rather than magic _simpliciter_.
+
+So imagine having something like the transporter in _Star Trek_, but you re-materialize with the body of someone else, rather than your original body—a little booth I could walk in, dissolve in a tingly glowy special effect for a few seconds, and walk out looking [like Nana Visitor (circa 1998)](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Kay_Eaton?file=Kay_Eaton.jpg).
+
+This high-level fantasy _description_ of a hypothetical technology leaves some details unspecified—not just the _how_, but the _what_. What would the magical transformation booth do to my brain? What would I _want_ it to do, if I can't change the physical nature of reality but if engineering practicalities weren't a constraint? (That is, I'm allowed to posit any atom-configuration without having to worry about how you would get all the atoms in the right place, but I'm not allowed to posit tethering my immortal soul to a new body, because souls aren't real.)
+
+The point about motor connections makes me confident that it would have to change _something_ to integrate my mind with a new female body—if nothing else, my unmodified brain doesn't physically _fit_ inside Nana Visitor's skull. (The sex difference in raw brain matter is Cohen's _d_ ≈ 1.4, and Nana Visitor doesn't look like she has an unusually large head.)
+
 
 [...]
 

diff --git a/notes/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-notes.md b/notes/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-notes.md
index 3c49f61..8d5d773 100644 (file)
--- a/notes/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-notes.md
+++ b/notes/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-notes.md
@@ -84,6 +84,6 @@ Just 'cause I'm butch and I'm a tranny girl
 
 ------
 
-[TODO: work out description of what the fantasy is: mirror neurons, not already female, &c.; Star Trek transporter scenario]
+caption authors call this the "morphic adaptation unit"
 
 Anne Lawrence described autogynephiles as ["men who love women and want to become what they love."](/papers/lawrence-becoming_what_we_love.pdf) But it's worse than that. We're men who love what we _wish_ women were, and want to become _that_.