Marc and I were discussing his writings on alpha males and some discussions on how people think last week and I told him my theory that a male mind can be expressed as a single train track with multiple engines while a female mind has multiple tracks.  Men do have one track minds: the mistake is assuming we only run one train. Marc develops this quite nicely here. Now what is interesting is the set of response to his post and to my explanation of this to women, other than the goddess. (She said "Well, of course".)

Marc makes the comment about big trains...and I think this is under-appreciated. I remember reading how a mathematician once said that doing research in math takes all of your mind, you literally can think about nothing but the problem. Hence we could say it is running a very big train.  Similarly, my experience is doing science or engineering is also running a large train and the ability to be mono-maniac is needed. This may explain why we see fewer women in the sciences and engineering: it is more difficult for them to develop the useful form of insanity science takes. They can do the work - I think they are too well-balanced as a whole to want to. There are exceptions: I know some very very good female scientists. But they aren't as common...

Why? I think its because most women don't like to shut down the tracks that run the friendship, personal life, hygiene, and food trains for the research liner. I've spend days sleeping in the lab, running experiments unlike I fall sleep at my desk, living on food from vending machines or that can be delivered in. I have colleagues who keep sleeping bags under their desk, buy groceries for the lab, keep clean shirts behind the door - and, yes, they are all male. It's a form of insanity to an outsider perhaps, but it makes perfect sense inside the box.

Now what is interesting in Marc's comments is the number of people who refuse to accept it or need to reframe as something else. Low maintenance came up. Depending on the train that is running, a guy can be really high maintenance.

The response is that "I don't believe you are that simple" or "You're lying.  You have to be thinking something." While I could argue simple doesn't mean easy or not complex, the more interesting thing to me was that women did not want to accept that sometimes I don't run a train. I really don't look at a blue wall with a green door and think about how they go together.  That I can people watch (Editor: Be honest. You mean stare at pretty girls.) and not really be doing anything but watching. I don't reach the ideal of the hawk mind of Shing Yi Chuan, but having a bunch of internal discussion going around is fairly abnormal and uncomfortable for me, and, I think, for most guys. (Editor: And you do actually envy dogs with their total life in the present, don't you? Yep.) One train at a time works for us and we accept with a sense of amusement that women don't work this way.