| = Identity, concepts of reality, illusion and the self | John Willy Kopperud [16.Sep.07 17:50] |
Absolutely interesting again! I like the way you use mythology, especially the Mexican tale of how music came to earth. Regarding the self or the "I" it seems to me that there is one huge difference between European and Indian philosophy. Many Buddhist and Hindu believers strive to dissolve their selves and thus enter into another state of enlightenment. This way of thinking seems to be almost non-existent in classical European philosophy. Is this the very point that Kipling speaks of when he states about west and east that "the twain shall never meet?" With enthusiasm Willy | |
| = the vanishing self | ion amariutei [24.Sep.07 02:44] |
| nice essay, perhaps a little dated material and maybe too many targets (a little too long to read on a screen) i think memory is a repository of patterns, like smell. i don't know if there is a neurologist around, but i think smell works by matching a molecule of whatever substance we smell with a receptor in our nose, shaped like that particular molecule, with a "pattern" for that particular smell. perhaps not by accident, smell is the most evocative of all senses, proust wrote like 5000 pages about that... it's pretty obvious that memory is the only guarantee we have that we're still the same person when we wake up in the morning. not a very reliable one, though. for one thing, we're not the same person. since all molecules in our organism are being replaced within 2 (or is it 7?) years and we are made up of trillions of molecules, a bunch of them are being replaced every night. which means, we're never exactly the same person in the morning. one thing is, if memory behaves the same way (is not translated exactly into the new modules/molecules), it means there is no such thing as "I am". there is just a forever changing approximation of what "i've just been". the other one is, the idea that the world is more perception than reality is nothing new, in fact, it's very old. and i guess perception is half memory and half information processing (and language plays a heavy role in that). language is the pattern recognition technology humans apply to the world in order to make it comprehensible. since memory itself will access the brain mostly by words, pretty much all bets are off when it comes to defining reality. it's not only our physical bodies that are changing but also our memories and our whole perception of the world. music is in fact the only art that can bodily affect the spectator. the brain produces 4 types of waves: beta, alpha, theta and delta, with frequencies between approx 1-3Hz (for delta, deep sleep) to 12-30Hz (for gamma (wide awake). it's been known for a while that music can "train" brain waves into the same frequency range primarily by rhythm. there are downloadable brain wave generators on the internet that will do this quite reliably (please read the theory and try them if you're interested, http://uazu.net/sbagen/) a nice effort overall, i would have liked a more personal approach though keep going! | |
| = the vanishing self | ion amariutei [24.Sep.07 02:47] |
| nice essay, perhaps a little dated material and maybe too many targets (a little too long to read on a screen) i think memory is a repository of patterns, like smell. i don't know if there is a neurologist around, but i think smell works by matching a molecule of whatever substance we smell with a receptor in our nose, shaped like that particular molecule, with a "pattern" for that particular smell. perhaps not by accident, smell is the most evocative of all senses, proust wrote like 5000 pages about that... it's pretty obvious that memory is the only guarantee we have that we're still the same person when we wake up in the morning. not a very reliable one, though. for one thing, we're not the same person. since all molecules in our organism are being replaced within 2 (or is it 7?) years and we are made up of trillions of molecules, a bunch of them are being replaced every night. which means, we're never exactly the same person in the morning. one thing is, if memory behaves the same way (is not translated exactly into the new modules/molecules), it means there is no such thing as "I am". there is just a forever changing approximation of what "i've just been". the other one is, the idea that the world is more perception than reality is nothing new, in fact, it's very old. and i guess perception is half memory and half information processing (and language plays a heavy role in that). language is the pattern recognition technology humans apply to the world in order to make it comprehensible. since memory itself will access the brain mostly by words, pretty much all bets are off when it comes to defining reality. it's not only our physical bodies that are changing but also our memories and our whole perception of the world. music is in fact the only art that can bodily affect the spectator. the brain produces 4 types of waves: beta, alpha, theta and delta, with frequencies between approx 1-3Hz (for delta, deep sleep) to 12-30Hz (for gamma (wide awake). it's been known for a while that music can "train" brain waves into the same frequency range primarily by rhythm. there are downloadable brain wave generators on the internet that will do this quite reliably (please read the theory and try them if you're interested, http://uazu.net/sbagen/) a nice effort overall, i would have liked a more personal approach though keep going! | |