One can see that Flatland, as viewed from the third dimension is rife with texture. What is texture in Flatland? I imagine it manifests as inexplicable holes in two dimensional space and its figures. The rectangular figure below must have been surprised when it fractured while parallel parking. It suddenly spawned several other irregularly shaped […]
I had an odd dream sequence last night. It really wasn’t a sequence, though. The same theme played over and over in different guise each and every time I struggled to consciousness and slipped back under. I was disoriented in my dream state, but I knew if I pried my eyes open I would be able to tell where I was. […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I had no idea about the topic of my study today except that I wanted to start with a random placement of liquid latex on my paper. I’m always surprised by the outcome, and it gives me the opportunity to think during each stage of the creation. Steps in my process today: 1. Latex […]
Foucaultian Slip? We were visiting one of the relatives who is gravely ill today. Since she sleeps nearly all the time now, I brought my books along to to some reading and writing. I have been reading Foucault’s book, Madness, The Invention of an Idea, and posting my thoughts on this subject, which is very […]
I’m here outside Chicago with my grandchildren finishing up my 2nd full day. By the time you read this, however it will be the next day, so ‘yesterday’ below really means ‘two days ago’. Sorry for the confusion… Yesterday I mentioned William’s multimodal way of taking in information: his eyes staring at things I could […]
My interest in the brain arises from having a brother who is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. For the longest time I wanted to understand what the brain does and why my brother is the way he is. Today’s post and yesterday’s post focus on an effort from 1934 to define what thought is and […]
I mentioned in my last post that I am very much interested in communication because of my inability to communicate with Mike, my older brother, who is autistic, profoundly retarded and nonverbal. I would like to discuss the concept of communication in general, see how its underlying principles apply to language, and the problems that […]
I was greatly impressed by a recent book, Out of Our Heads, by Alva Noë, who presents a different way to look at consciousness. He believes that current approaches to the question of consciousness are wrongheaded: instead of looking for consciousness as arising inside a person’s head, it is a result of interaction of with […]
I just started reading Out of Our Heads by Alva Noë. [1] Noë operates from the premise that consciousness is not merely a mental process that comes from the machinations of the brain. In a wonderfully insightful metaphor he states, “Consciousness is more like dancing than it is like digestion.” Brain and environment The idea […]
