Getting down to Business

Bare with me that I haven't had much time to look at this (just got the critiques on wed.) but I have gotten some great tips and creative direction from our Professor.

Circles, Brains, and Squares Oh My! - Margaret Cavendish           

           The 18^th century was a time of much discussion and contention involving the brain and its inner-workings. However, there was a backlash from other scientists for a movement against defining the brain and the mind. Those in literature as well as science contested this definition of a unified brain including one young prolific author, Margaret Cavendish. Cavendish argued against the merging of the mind and brain, especially the fact of placing the mind in the organ known as the brain. Cavendish outright humiliated those who tried to demystify it. Through her poem, “The Circle of the Brain cannot be Squared,” Cavendish sets a message that confronts the defining of the mind in the confines of the brain, but also sends a silent outcry against the mathematical simplicity implied about and the worn methodology used to analyze the mind-brain complex.

Possible Sentence beginnings to paragraphs:

1st: The circle was a symbol that had a deep significance to philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians alike. 

2nd:While Cavendish used the imagery of geometry to explain the complexity of the mind, she also critiqued the tendency of those who studied the brain to confine both the brain and mind to a simplistic idea.

3rd: The final major point that Cavendish makes is that those studying the brain have been trying relentlessly for a long time without much result.

Conclusion:

           Cavendish was an extravagant writer that had a passion for her fancies. She wasn't respected in her time but she still expressed her thoughts because the valued both the mind and the brain. She argued against those minds at her time because she just could not stand idly and watch the brain with all its complexities and fullness be transformed into a simple formula or graph. She believed in the ability of natural perception and reasoning and by having this outrageous idea that it, the brain, can be boiled down to the simplicity of the same magnitude as a square. Cavendish and her opinion are very valuable to scientific and educational philosophy and through studying her words one can appreciate the complexity of the brain and of human thought.

Sweet Dreams are made of These: The Flower

Visible also in Pegasus, therefore, is the imagination's aspiration to lift us above the material world, to disencumber us of given restraints. The flower, no doubt, makes visible the opposite movement of imagination, its willful re-encumbering of itself, its anchoring of itself in the ground- its aspiration, in other words, to rival material reality in its vivacity. ~ Elaine Scarry in Dreaming by the Book

10. The absence of the stimuli of external bodies, and of volition, in our dreams renders the organs of sense liable to be more strongly affected by the powers of sensation, and of association. For our desires or aversions, or the obtrusions of surrounding bodies, dissever the sensitive and associate tribes of ideas in our waking hours by introducing those of irritation and volition amongst them. Hence proceeds the superior distinctness of pleasurable or painful imagery in our sleep; for we recall the figure and the features of a long lost friend, whom we loved, in our dreams with much more accuracy and vivacity than in our waking thoughts. This circumstance contributes to prove, that our ideas of imagination are reiterations of those motions of our organs of sense, which were excited by external objects; because while we are exposed to the stimuli of present objects, our ideas of absent objects cannot be so distinctly formed. ~ Erasmus Darwin in Zoonomia

          In the article written by Scarry, we learn about the importance of the flower in the imagery of dreams. It tells of how the abstract in dreams are collections of prior conceived objects that are not directly symbolic of anything. Rather, these objects are place markers for ideas that are inconceivable. The flower is different. It is a grounding in the real world that is able to hold the greatest attention and beauty. It is through the flower that the dreamer tries to bring reality to the abstract. It tells about the flower is so perfect for memory and the vision captured. Darwin tells of the physiological implications of dreaming and sleep. In the last sentence of the extract above, "This circumstance contributes to prove, that our ideas of imagination are reiterations of those motions of our organs of sense, which were excited by external objects; because while we are exposed to the stimuli of present objects, our ideas of absent objects cannot be so distinctly formed." This fits exactly with what Scarry talks about. Darwin tells about how imagination is more stable and believable when it is grounded in reality. This is because it is more powerful and takes more concentration and will to reproduce something so complex and little as a flower in one's mind.

           This brings to mind a question that has been given some popular thought. The idea of lucid dreaming and losing oneself in such a dream. Most recently the movie inception tried to struggle with this question. But it is very important to think about. Since we discuss how the mind works and its studies, why not investigate its ability to replicate the real world. Many questions then come to mind. How does our brain recreate the real? How does one believe these recreations, even if the belief is temporary? These seem the most important because it deals with something that is exclusively internal. Something that can only be experienced from the mind of the dreamer. While everyone dreams, everyone has different dreams that have some subconscious commentary on there life. It is a question not only for philosophy but of science as well. If the mind is able to trick and be tricked at the same time, what mechanisms are activated and can they be manipulated? Can the flower with its infinite beauty and unending complexity be pinpointed by the neuroscientist? These readings in my own opinion don't give answers but raise many more, a quizzical hydra of sorts. All we know is that the vivid ability to recreate reality captures our attention. It can be seen in movies, literature, digital media, and any other sort of entertainment. This ability to set oneself in the moment, to recreate a time that did exist and to imprint it onto an endless space is nothing short of marvelous in the truest sense of the word. So this ability to dream a dream, to re-experience an experience, is something that is so vast and complex that even the most delicate things of life, like the gorgeous bowl of roses, or the delphinium; must be taken in separately and studied. Only after one can master the knowledge of the flower, can they take the next step towards decoding the mirage that is the dream.

Free Week: Ramblings of a Philosopher Prince

Sitting here, having just slid the physical copy of the literary, intellectual shitstorm that was my paper, I slowly eat my cocoa pebbles wondering about the world around me and feeling compelled to write a blog for this week. Seeing as my ability and wanting to write prose is equal to how much I want Mike Tyson to play slug-bug with me, (I'll give you a hint; it starts with "No way" and ends with "in hell") I think I will stick to a medium of high art and fashion, other wise known to some of my friends as, "that thing that weird emo-kids do." Of course what I am talking about is poetry, or what I deem as poetry. This of course would be a misconception on my part because it falls somewhere between "Roses are red..." poems and nursery rhymes. Now that the caffeine is settling in, so should you too, my audience, and prepare for the strange thinkings of a kook, a screwball, and a gentleman of a certain degree, bachelors for those who are wondering.
If you're still reading, or just skipped to this line for no apparent reason, kudos because now you get to hear from a brain that the Mad Hatter himself would label as brother:

My story begins, where all things must,
the middle of the beginning or maybe just
the beginning of a series called my life,
or maybe, the pages of the past, are cut down with a knife.

I agree with you that all of this seems really, very strange.
You read this with your thoughts, this bullocks very plain
The mind leads to think, memories to fade or to change
to live, to dream, to fight, to love, to be insane

A life as a hopeful Romantic is a hopeless one abound,
Like one searching for treasure; no map or starting ground.
And when he finds the husk, of a plunder that's been done,
he is not careless or thinks there's only one.

This pilgrim of the detail, learns life through another
each failure, a new truth, each scratch, mental loot;
closer, final chest, new tricks for the lover
of wit and of beauty he doth pursuit

For one learns Happiness, be not a single road
with a message golden that a sign does well bode.
Pursuit isn't one lone beast but one of many heads
and life is but a journey, living fear and dreads
find there way into minds dreaming in their beds.

In conclusion, my mind doth spin -- like a top,
sitting in my chair, silent sleeper ego lies
falling from my head drip by drop
cutting all subconscious ties
Says the id about to flop
mindless, mad demise.

Sound of Silence

"Mental conversion into sound plays an essential role when we read a word for the first time... Initially, we cannot possibly access its meaning directly, since we have never seen the word spelled out. all we can do is convert it into sound, find that the sound pattern in intelligible, and, through this indirect route, come to understand the new word. Thus sounding is often the only solution when we encounter a new word." ~ Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene pg 27

" Those only who have attempted to teach children can conceive how extremely difficult it is to fix their attention, or to make them seize the connection of ideas, which it appears to us almost impossible to miss. Children are well occupied in examining external objects, but they must also attend to words as well as things. One of the great difficulties in early instruction arises from the want of words: the pupil very often has acquired the necessary ideas, but they are not associated in his mind with the words which his tutor uses; these words are then to him mere sounds, which suggest no correspondent thoughts." ~Of Tasks by Maria Edgeworth pg. 14

         In the small selection of Reading in the Brain that was assigned, Dehaene tells of a multitude of strange ways the brain does when reading. The first being the peculiarity of the brains attention to small details but is lacking in larger differences. For example the word eight and sight are nearly identical except for the first letter yet the brain can notice this small different and assign vastly different meanings to said words. However, when One ChaNges the caSe of worDs then the brain filters out said case when interpreting the words meaning and sound. This also happens with words in italics or in bOLd. Another area covered is the automatic breakdown of words into smaller parts in order to classify their meanings otherwise known as morphemes. But one of the largest parts of the selection discusses speech inside the mind. When reading silently words are "spoken" in one's mind and through this we learn and correlate letters, groups of letters that make an understandable sound (bigrams) and finally an audibly correct sounding word. Through other memories and classifications made through learning from others, visual relations, or other means. This learning through sound is the primary learning of children according Dehaene because of the necessary need to slowly comprehend a string of letters and association with a prior known word. 
           Edgeworth however implies something different. Instead of the innate ability to associate morphemes through vision-based teaching, Edgeworth believed that children could not make the connection because they lacked the attention. This fits with her prior thoughts on attention and its very limited amount that can be used at one time. Edgeworth believes that the only way to be able to use and have a large vocabulary is to have many friends and be social. Thus there is a stress on vocalization in order to gain understanding of words. This is also stressed by the understanding of sounds and not the letters themselves. Therefore by learning the sounds found on page 6, one can begin to string together words in order to practice in front of others and learn from everyone. 
             The question at hand however is about learning words and recognizing them. Can one build a large vocabulary through not talking in this day and age of digital, impersonal globalization? If Edgeworth were to look and experience the internet there would be a rather different story. The internet is filled with millions of bits of information of audio, visual and written kinds. We see that as new generations are made, the more connected to technology they become. Because of this, would it be a terrible hindrance to learning if children learn by listening instead of conversing? Would priming still work correctly if words are only spoken through silent thinking? The internet seems like a save-all but will it be the handicap to generations of techno-kids? I believe Dehaene thinks not and it is through this silent talking and priming that words are primarily understood. As long as basic words can be learned in order to create associated morphemes then it seems that a basic understanding of written language can be learned. As for spoken syntax and other vocal peculiarities, these too could be learned without direct communication and could theoretically be taught through mimicry. Imagine, a world where one only learns from a computer screen and cannot live without it... I'm lookin' at you Google and Wikipedia.