The World Outside
Atul Gawande wrote a fascinating article for the New Yorker. It’s premise is that most of our perceptions come not from direct experience of the world but from memory. In other words, very little information is coming to us from the world outside our skull. Our minds are fudging the rest based on past experience. Using case studies of amputees who still perceive sensations in their missing limb and a woman who itched so persistently that she scratched… well I won’t spoil the story.
(via kottke.org)
Update: Dr. Ramachandran explains some of these same phenomena.
Tags: humanity, mind, neurology, neuroscience
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June 24, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
I read this article too. I like to think of it as if we were walking backward. Imagine what it would be like if you could go through a whole day without analyzing the past.
June 25, 2008 @ 6:18 am
That sounds like amnesia.
Actually, I’m not sure that I’m following what you mean. Can you explain it for me?
June 26, 2008 @ 10:26 am
Ha, that does sound like amnesia! Now that you mention it.
What I remember most from the article you cite in this post ,is that we have stories in our minds that help cement our identities.
The stories are of situations or events and what role we played in them and the outcome, positive or negative. Our analysis, which at least for me used to be constant, feeds into our identities.
What my metaphor of walking backward means is; for every new situation we come into we look at our past to see how this new event fits into the story of ourselves, which informs how we should act.
Which is a great skill when you think of actual physical survival ie: I stuck my hand in the fire, burned my hand. Next time I won’t stick my hand in fire.
What could be detrimental in the hand burning scenario, other than being burned, is the type of emotional response that gets attached. Like “oh you are so stupid for not listening and putting your hand the fire.”
“I am stupid” gets added to your identity and colors everything you do. If you carry that kind of label with you long enough you might be grateful for amnesia. If you see identity as being fluid, instead of cemented by all your past actions and input; then you can go into new situations without walking backward but seeing the situation as it really is.
Do I make sense? : – D
June 26, 2008 @ 11:31 am
That is much clearer to me, yes. What you’re describing sounds a little like the third story in my post Altered States of Consciousness though on a much less dysfunctional level. There is a middle ground to be found between amnesia and being stuck in the past. I think you’re right that finding it comes from seeing yourself more fluidly like an ongoing story.
June 26, 2008 @ 11:58 am
One step further, I propose that there is no self and no story.