I watched this interview on Charlie Rose a couple of weeks ago with neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10468
He touched on one of my big interests: the function of awareness versus subconscious action - aware versus subconscious neural pathways.
For example, he says, there are two different circuits for visual information - one goes to the visual cortex where one is aware of it - in cases of brain damage to those circuits, one is blind. But, if a glass is place on the table near such an individual, they will precisely pick it up - but they don't (consciously) know how they can do that. Isn't that fascinating?
All the problems that occur because we do strange things with our body without realizing it (such as my own example of throwing my travel cosmetics kit into the trash when visiting my brother, and only finding it by using the draconian measure of the St. Anthony's Prayer). What controls that? "Are we not men?" When we do strange actions without realizing it, it calls into question our human dignity. Sigh. Thus my curiosity to find out more about how all this neural circuitry works.
A friend of mind (you know who you are, Ted Garrison) likes to say "Awareness is very overrated ..." meaning, I believe, that if you can just surrender to your own nature and not try to second guess yourself you will function more smoothly in the world. Ted, am I misquoting you?
But if that were true, what function DOES awareness in fact allow that wouldn't be possible without it? J.G. Bennett (the well-known and prolific Gurdjieff student, teacher, and writer and one of my favorite authors) has very specific things to say about the function of awareness. More on Bennett later!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Plunged in galoshes up to our eyebrows
Why am I calling my blog "Plunged in Galoshes"? It is a phrase from G.I. Gurdjieff (or Gurdjieff quoting Mulla Nasruddin) - "Plunged in galoshes up to your eyebrows" ... which makes me chuckle because it so niftily encapsulates the human condition. We valiantly yet ineptly prepare for life's challenges (by putting on the galoshes to go out in the rain) and then find ourselves immediately way over our head – in deep – overwhelmed by life - plunged in galoshes up to our eyebrows.
I started this blog to share some of my observations, reactions, thoughts, about life and the human condition, to practice writing and have some fun seeing what it's like to write out into the big wide world of people I don't know yet. I am interested in a million things, including cognitive science, Rupert Sheldrake, holistic health, recovery from chronic fatigue, the human body, physics and metaphysics, music and art, American history, ancient history, and where people find their car keys after they have lost them.
Today is June 27, 2009, and this is my first post. I'm writing to you from the Trident Coffeehouse in Boulder, Colorado. It's about 9:00pm and I'm enjoying the ambience here. I'm typing on my little old 12" Mac G4, (miraculously not whirring loudly for the moment). I'm at the second table from the door on the east side of the main room, looking across at the coffee and tea counter. This very pleasant room has a high (12 or 13 foot?) ceiling, exposed brick walls, ceiling fans whirling softly. Mellow jazz music is playing.
Turning my head to the right, I can see outside to the street scene, with groups of mostly younger people streaming by, going to or returning from restaurants, or heading out for night life and drinking and dancing. A potted palm sits in the old-fashioned window, screened a bit by green floral cafe curtains on a rod. The red neon light saying "OPEN" glows beyond the palm against the glass. Outside, several people sit at white metal tables, reading and drinking tea from white porcelain pots and cups. Wooden floors, green painted wood framed windows right up to the ceiling - this might have been a dry goods store from the 1920s, very likely was.
A steady stream of people go in and out of the screen door and purchase beverages from the counter. There are some honey jars and one honey bear sitting on a shelf above the several glasses filled with clean spoons of various sizes. Behind the workers against a mirror is a shelf stocked with silver cylindrical containers of loose teas. These teas have wonderful names such as Golden Monkey, Dragonwell, Black River Pu-Erh, Golden Needle, Silver Needle, and White Peony as well as more prosaic names like Earl Grey, Assam and Ceylon-Kenilworth Estate.
Although I worry about how I might deal with interactions with unknown readers, and worst of all, what if I write something that offends someone? Well, I've decided to go ahead and plunge in, galoshes and all, and find out what it's like. I remember Arianna Huffington on Charlie Rose sometime this year, exhorting anyone and everyone to get out there are start blogging, dahling!
I started this blog to share some of my observations, reactions, thoughts, about life and the human condition, to practice writing and have some fun seeing what it's like to write out into the big wide world of people I don't know yet. I am interested in a million things, including cognitive science, Rupert Sheldrake, holistic health, recovery from chronic fatigue, the human body, physics and metaphysics, music and art, American history, ancient history, and where people find their car keys after they have lost them.
Today is June 27, 2009, and this is my first post. I'm writing to you from the Trident Coffeehouse in Boulder, Colorado. It's about 9:00pm and I'm enjoying the ambience here. I'm typing on my little old 12" Mac G4, (miraculously not whirring loudly for the moment). I'm at the second table from the door on the east side of the main room, looking across at the coffee and tea counter. This very pleasant room has a high (12 or 13 foot?) ceiling, exposed brick walls, ceiling fans whirling softly. Mellow jazz music is playing.
Turning my head to the right, I can see outside to the street scene, with groups of mostly younger people streaming by, going to or returning from restaurants, or heading out for night life and drinking and dancing. A potted palm sits in the old-fashioned window, screened a bit by green floral cafe curtains on a rod. The red neon light saying "OPEN" glows beyond the palm against the glass. Outside, several people sit at white metal tables, reading and drinking tea from white porcelain pots and cups. Wooden floors, green painted wood framed windows right up to the ceiling - this might have been a dry goods store from the 1920s, very likely was.
A steady stream of people go in and out of the screen door and purchase beverages from the counter. There are some honey jars and one honey bear sitting on a shelf above the several glasses filled with clean spoons of various sizes. Behind the workers against a mirror is a shelf stocked with silver cylindrical containers of loose teas. These teas have wonderful names such as Golden Monkey, Dragonwell, Black River Pu-Erh, Golden Needle, Silver Needle, and White Peony as well as more prosaic names like Earl Grey, Assam and Ceylon-Kenilworth Estate.
Although I worry about how I might deal with interactions with unknown readers, and worst of all, what if I write something that offends someone? Well, I've decided to go ahead and plunge in, galoshes and all, and find out what it's like. I remember Arianna Huffington on Charlie Rose sometime this year, exhorting anyone and everyone to get out there are start blogging, dahling!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
