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Projection
2 min read · 478 words
Projection is the operator attributing to others what is actually present in their own system.
The hardware does not have direct access to other operators’ internal states. To model what someone else is feeling, intending, or thinking, the system extrapolates from its own internal data — running its own internal weather as the template for what’s probably happening in the other system. Most of the time, the extrapolation is approximately accurate. Sometimes it is wildly off. The mechanism that produces the off cases is projection: the operator’s own state is being read onto a system that doesn’t actually contain it.
The categories: emotional projection (the operator who is angry reads others as angry, the operator who is fearful reads others as threatening), intentional projection (the operator who would deceive in this situation assumes the other operator is deceiving), characterological projection (the trait the operator denies in themselves gets seen vividly in others). All run on the same mechanism — the system filling in the unknowable internal state of another operator with content from its own internal state.
The diagnostic that reveals projection: when the operator is reading the same trait or motive in many different others, the consistent variable is the operator, not the others. The boss is critical, the partner is critical, the colleague is critical, the stranger was critical — at some point, the consistent reading suggests the criticality is being broadcast or projected, not detected. The same applies to perceiving hostility, dishonesty, judgment, neediness. When the pattern is consistent across many subjects, the system that’s consistent in the picture is the operator’s.
From the chair: when the operator’s reading of another system seems strong and certain, run the projection check. Is this what is actually present in them, or is this what is currently present in me being read onto them. The check is uncomfortable because it requires the operator to consider material in themselves they may not want to consider. That discomfort is part of why projection happens — the material gets externalized so the system doesn’t have to hold it as its own.
The other application: when others’ reactions to the operator seem disproportionate or off, consider that those operators may be projecting too. The criticism that doesn’t fit. The accusation that doesn’t match. The reading that seems to be about something other than what is actually present. These are sometimes accurate readings of something the operator hasn’t seen in themselves. They are also sometimes the other operator running their own material through the operator. Distinguishing the two requires checking, not reflexively accepting or rejecting either.
The internal weather is being broadcast continuously. The operator’s job is to know what their own weather is, so they can stop attributing it to systems that aren’t producing it.