Sticks

He plays with his sticks day in and day out. In his bed, immobile and unassuming, he screams for food and beverage when they are needed. The whole time he plays with sticks, stacking them here and there sometimes, other times, waving them like a flag or some important signal for the pilot of a plane to see. But no one would ever have guessed there was an importance to these useless acts. The seemingly insignificant employment of play, of what we view as mindless leisure, could very well be the most important work of all. He sees something that needs to be done, that is all. And isn't that all that work is? And so, with every careful gesture that has no physical importance, we can be assured there is the utmost importance for Heaven or Faerie!

Untitled

I really dislike titles sometimes. So I didn't put one up. I won't even grace this post with a theme or anything like that. I don't even know why I am writing. I actually don't have anything to say really. Feeling rather visceral at the moment, chided and disdained. If any of you have something to say, by all means write something.

Mind

I would have to say that one of the most strikingly bizarre words that we use in the English language is ‘Mind.’ For one cannot go a whole day, or at least it would seem, to witness the term used in a variety of forms. “Are you out of your mind?” Is one example that represents its noun form. While, “do you mind?” Demonstrates the verb form. And yet, I am still confused as to what the word ‘Mind’ means. Oh sure, dictionaries and etymological entries presumably provide ample definitions and origins of the word, but upon a less cursory inspection, one will find all of these unsatisfactory. When used in the first sense it conjures up an image of some 1950’s sci-fi film with bulbous headed humanoid aliens using their super cerebral powers to control the thoughts of their victims. In the latter sense, however, one is tempted to think of a Victorian gentleman, wearing white gloves and a top hat, in mid conversation with an equally elegant audience of upper crust acquaintances saying something to the effect of “if you don’t mind my saying.” In short, the connotative meaning is no less enigmatic than the denotative one. If we cannot agree on a clearer definition and usage of the term ‘mind’ why then do we evaluate the quality of it so frequently? With a preoccupation on IQ tests and academic achievement, we think that Mind, whatever it is or does, can somehow be assessed by quality and quantity. Some minds are ‘bigger’ than others, storing warehouses of information in them. Others are valued by their speed and agility; almost like a cheetah or falcon. The ‘more’ they can store, or the quicker they can access information, they better they are. Popular TV shows depict ‘brainy’ figures of mental superiority confounding the ‘average’ or ‘substandard’ mind with physics’ data and mathematical formulas with the effect that their minds are somehow better than others. And aside from the fact that we cannot ‘count’ the items in a mind, or stand next to the track where minds race and measure their quickness with a stopwatch, we are confident that we have some legitimate means of appraising minds. And yet, all of this fails to address mind in the second sense; as in a verb. A towering intellectual will no doubt be proud of his or her capabilities. But what if others were to ‘mind’ the way he or she acted in public or in private? And even more, what of those that were ‘mindful’ of his or her misbehavior? Is it not possible that those renouncing the intellectual’s conduct be somehow his or her intellectual inferior? Wouldn’t this present the puzzling dilemma of an inferior being at the same time one’s superior? After all, Heracles once fooled the great Atlas, possessing the intellect of a titan, into taking the burden of the world back as to adjust his garment. And Zeus’ infidelity was condemned for centuries by mortal men whose noggins could hardly contain an infinitesimal fraction of the knowledge of a god. Here is a suggestion, and a humble one at that. I propose that we approach the term with the same sense of syntactic apathy as we do with terms like ‘Love’ or ‘Beauty.’ We always accept the more liberal interpretation of these words and their meaning, and so why can’t we do the same with ‘Mind?’ Certainly we could hold out for a definitive and precise sense of the term, but it would seem we would end up in a Platonic cave listening to lectures by a two and a half thousand year old echo of speeches by Socrates. For just as ‘Love’ is nothing more than the affection and passions we have which translate into personal commitments to others and Life matters themselves (and ‘Beauty’ being in the eye of the proverbial beholder), then I see no reason we cannot be content with what ‘Mind’ in general is considered; that which brings things to, and maintains for us, the knowledge we have-tacitly or otherwise; an immeasurable non-quantifiable knowledge only qualified by the conscious awareness of the reality surrounding a person. That is my opinion; that is, if you don’t mind my saying so.

Grammar

Also, I would like to make a note on grammar. I get this a lot, whether it is due to my own atrocious grammatical habits or not. But it usually comes from the same individuals. And yet, they have so few original ideas, although they follow the arbitrary and quite frankly ambiguous at times rules of grammar to a 'T.' An idea or a thought is not necessarily clarified by grammar. And at times if one is too busy focusing on 'how' they express themselves or a thought that has come to them, the very framework of language that they worship like some silly god with a fruit headdress, the content they compose suffers greatly. It would be like worrying about the soundness of a container so much so that the ingredients one puts in the punch is just grabbed willy-nilly while the conjurer is looking over the pitcher with the greatest of care. I don't know about you, but if my container leaks a little, it is far better than too much sugar or some accidental ingredient, such as salt or oregano, thrown in which will ruin the beverage altogether. And so, to the grammar nazis that elevate themselves to some educational god-like status or some pedagogical linguistic, I say focus more on what you put in the paragraph or sentence more than how the sentence is structured based on some rules that emerge spontaneously.

We read to know that we are not alone

I wonder why I write, or what the point in writing is. Can I call myself a writer? What can I call myself? By my name, the one my parents named me before getting to know 'who' I was? It was a loaded name, stuffed with their own hopes, dreams and vicarious aspirations for a baby. I really don't know. I am reminded of the movie 'Shadowlands' the story of the great author (back in a time when far more people read I would suspect) C. S. Lewis. In the film, which no doubt is a dramatization and certainly does not retell the literal event I am referring to, one of Lewis' regularly tardy pupils in college tells the story of his father and his view on reading. He stated that 'we read to know that we are not alone.' Again I am sure this did not come from the mind of Lewis or one of his actual pupils. And perhaps I am too hard on screenwriters whom I regard as not even third rate writers. But in this case, the writer hit a very deep and profound vein of truth or at least of pondering. But is it true? I don't know. But if it were, I would like to know the company we are keeping and on what basis we are 'knowing' we are not alone.

A review of "Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience"; Authors Sally L. Satel, Scott O. Lilienfeld Publisher Basic Books, 2013

In the past few decades there has been a growing enthusiasm in the field of Neuroscience. This passionate optimism is fueled by a body of research made available through more recent technological advances in brain observation and measurements of brain functions. However, in spite of these magnificent developments, authors Sally L. Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld, in their book “Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience,” highlight those they characterize as over-zealous neuroscientists and the misguided conclusions, and industry, it has inspired. The book begins with an overview of theories on the brain and how brain states are related to mental states. It admits the challenges of the ‘hard-problem’ in Philosophy of Mind, but boldly proclaims that consciousness and mental states cannot exist without a brain. But, there is a tendency, Satel and Lilienfeld argue, in light of some modern neuroscientists, to identify specific regions of the brain as not only being responsible for various mental states, but of their being identical to them; a throwback to the failings of Identity Theory. And while Satel and Lilienfeld do not advocate for any sort of dualism, they remind their readers that at certain levels there are Biological, or in this case neural, systems that present undeniable distinctions between Neurology and Psychology. Satel and Lilienfeld eloquently describe modern brain scans by which data are collected to identify ‘hot spots,’ areas of the brain involved in an oxygen depletion process calculated by certain statistical data, through the use of fMRI and PED scans as well as EEG’s. This intricate and laborious process, while clearly expanding our understanding of how the brain works, is perhaps, as Satel and Lilienfeld have found, not as effective in predicting and identifying many functions and maladies of the mental. Chapters on psychological conditions and the justice system suggest that this new Neuroscience, or ‘junk’ Neuroscience, seeks to take the blame of crime, addiction and other volitional acts away from individual responsibility and shift it to nothing more than brain chemistry. The authors however caution their readers from ignoring the significance of brain chemistry and its role in our behavior and personalities. But even still quite often the findings are a result of what they refer to as ‘neuro redundancy;’ data that reveal what one already knows through either personal experience or the psychological fields of research. Even more, the book illustrates how the use of brain scans in marketing, referred to here as ‘neuro marketing,’ promises far more than can be delivered. In spite of a sober analysis of what they term ‘neuro realism,’ a naïve perspective on the data collected from Neurology akin to Naïve Realism in Epistemology, Satel and Lilienfeld certainly adopt a rather controversial view on consciousness. Their insistence that conscious states cannot exist without a brain, and their treatment of the causal relationship between mental states and brain states, smacks of an uncritical acceptance of Biological Emergentism. Despite these minor criticisms of this work, “Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience,” by Sally L. Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld, offers an availing expose on the recklessly radical conclusions of Naïve Neuroscience and what must be addressed to maintain a comprehensive, sensible and constrained Modern Neuroscience.

Well...

...It's safe to say no one reads my blog so fortunately I can say what I wish without offending anyone. With that said, how I am feeling right now is inspired by that discontent which rises out of confusion and mistrust of people's judgments and sentiments; why is it so hard to say, I don't know? But even more than this, to succumb to that typical and almost fashionable agnosticism, there seems to be something we know. I mean we know enough to make a statement that we don't know. So maybe, just maybe, what we do know is nothing more than that which is impractical and useless. For if it were practical, all of the practical people would be right all the time. But they are already insufferably arrogant and annoying about their skills and abilities. So that won't do. And besides, practicality assumes some practice. And a practice furthermore assumes something to practice. And having something to practice assumes some reason to practice. And it is this last condition which I have problems with. For reason or purpose are not evident at all. One can not see purpose or reason anywhere in the world. And this goes for usefulness and utility. For this assumes as well that there is a reason to utilize something. And likewise this reason is not present anywhere. Therefore knowledge of anything would be of a sort that we cannot see. And what we cannot see is of a different sort of anything in this world. And so, we can only know of that which exists in a different or separate world from which we live. And I don't mean planet or cosmological location. No! Literally a different world of experience that stands outside of atoms, forces, vacuous outer space and the like. Another world, like that of what we read in myth and fairy tales and religious texts of Heaven. These are the only content of knowledge we can have. And should we be surprised?