Pete, Thanks so very much for this; it wasn't new, as you point out, but you put it all together so beautifully.
Selma ----- Original Message ----- From: "pete" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 8:23 PM Subject: [Futurework] [Futurework] FW: "Spiritualität macht frei" ? > > On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] forwarded what > > Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >Salvador. > > > >As always, it all depends on what you mean by intuition. > > > >My view is that intuition is the result of unconsciously bringing > >separate and perhaps disparate thoughts together to reach a conclusion. > > > >In a note that didn't reach FW I pointed out that linear thinking (a b c > >d e) is all we have.(in spite of Van Vogt's "Worlds of Null-A"). > > > >The next step would be network thinking, but I doubt it's possible - > >until it happens. Accomplished and practised thinkers may "linear think" > >so well that it looks more than it is - but I don't think we are out of > >linear mood yet. > > Actually, pyschology demonstrates that this notion is an illusion. > I'll just sketch a couple of examples, which are probably familiar. > The truth is revealed by instances of physical brain function > disruption, which can be generated by strokes, or by radical > surgical intervention. The surgical instance is most impressive, > as in this case, the majority of the brain is fully severed into > left and right halves to stop massive epileptic attacks. As a > result, the patients become, at the intellectual, interpretive > level, two distinct entities which do not share any information, > despite the fact that because the lower brain is still (must > still be, for the patient to survive) intact, the patient percieves > themselves as a single unitary entity. Probing the behaviour of > such patients teases out the way the brain conspires to fool itself > that it is behaving rationally. As you are probably familiar, > when the patient's hands are placed in two boxes so they cannot > be seen, which contain two different objects, then the patient > is interrogated as to the content of the box which he can feel, > if the answer is to be spoken, the response will relate to one > box, but if it is to be written down, it will relate to the > other box, as speech is on one side of the brain, and writing > is on the other, and which ever side is to provide the answer > conveys only that which it knows (the sense data from each > hand goes only to one side of the brain). But if you try to > point out the discrepancies in the reponses, the patient is > found to have a surprising resistance to acknowledging the > disparity. It can be demonstrated that each side of the brain > uses every trick it can come up with to sneak access to the > knowledge of the other half, meanwhile denying that there is > any separation, flatly refusing to believe that two autonomous > "thought engines" are operating, even when the evidence is > indisputable. Why should this be? Because in reality this sort > of deceit is going on all the time in normal healthy individuals, > it is just that with considerable communication between the > hemispheres, the illusion is much more seamless and easy to > conceal. > > The other sort of damage which reveals the same deviousness > occurs with stroke victims. Again, I'm sure you have encountered > the stories. When a part of the visual cortex is damaged, a > patient will draw pictures with one side of all the objects > missing, but won't realize that it is gone. Or will be unable > to acquire some piece of sensory information, but will aggressively > "eavesdrop" on themselves to acquire the information by > other means, while refusing to acknowledge that they are > doing so. The important point being that in these cases, > while their errors are glaringly obvious to all other observers, > they are utterly invisible to themselves. > > These anecdotes, which I have only briefly indicated, point > to the systemic misdirection the mind uses to maintain > an illusion of a unitary self, whose behaviour is rational > and consistent. In fact, the reality is that loads and > loads of little semi-autonomous pieces of the brain are > always churning away, sensing, filtering, interpreting, > providing bits of information, and most importantly coming > to conclusions, outside of the purview of conscious > attention, which flits from "module" to "module", pulling > in bits of resultant items to sew together to provide an > apparent seamless, linear stream of awareness, with an > apparent logical, rational narrative justification to > hold it all together. But knowing what we now know about > how this mechanism works, it should be clear that this > narrative is essentially propaganda, a convenient myth to > keep the individual from collapsing into an existential > chaos of fractured identity. In truth, the brain works > massively in parallel, and is not linear at all. > > -Pete Vincent > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
