A new way of looking at things
Tonight I told someone that this morning around 5a.m., while playing an annoyingly addictive word game on Yahoo!, my brain just wasn't functioning at its maximum capacity. Not surprising since I had been up all night doing very little at work which is not something you're supposed to admit when your work is in Mission Control. However, the crew is usually very autonomous and the less I have to do, the better. But that's beside the point. What I had actually said was it felt like the inner workings of my brain were running at full speed, grinding away in all their cognitive glory, while the front end, the user interface, if you will, was doing nothing. Like the gear box connecting the two was missing so that while one part was at full capacity, nothing was happening up front. It's a strange metaphor but eerily accurate when it comes to how it actually felt.
On a separate note, have you ever looked at someone you know through the eyes of someone who does not know them? I've found (at it's no huge discovery) that the longer we get to know someone, the more comfortable our view of them becomes. When our gaze hits the face of a friend, our processing of the face not only involves the curves and lines and tones unique to that person, but their personality also. Everything we know about that person, all our experiences and memories, all contribute to how we perceive that person to look. Try looking at someone as if they were a stranger. Like you had never seen them before and you're scanning them to create a first impression of their attractiveness. It takes a little practice but the results are interestingly strange. Or strangely interesting.
It's kind of like looking at yourself in the mirror, I mean really staring yourself down, and having to wrestle with the concept of self. Your mind knows that the body it sees before itself is the physical manifestation of the entity you know to be yourself. That is, the body in the mirror is "you". If I stare long enough (and maybe it's just me) the little voice in my head begins to realize that the body it sees is only that, a body, and that the person I know to be myself, my consciousness, lies somewhere else. It doesn't quite realize that all this is going on in the brain which is, in fact, part of the body because my self isn't all that bright. All this makes me wonder if one day it will be possible remove the consciousness from this body and put it somewhere else. Not that I want to, of course, because I'm perfectly content with where I am. I just think that if a separation between mind and body does exist, then this moment of clarity while staring in the mirror is the greatest proof of it.
Like I said, it's amazing what I can come up with at four in the morning.
Happy thought of the day: Only one more night of midnight Mission Control.
Partial song lyric of the day: "Well I know these voices must be my soul..."
On a separate note, have you ever looked at someone you know through the eyes of someone who does not know them? I've found (at it's no huge discovery) that the longer we get to know someone, the more comfortable our view of them becomes. When our gaze hits the face of a friend, our processing of the face not only involves the curves and lines and tones unique to that person, but their personality also. Everything we know about that person, all our experiences and memories, all contribute to how we perceive that person to look. Try looking at someone as if they were a stranger. Like you had never seen them before and you're scanning them to create a first impression of their attractiveness. It takes a little practice but the results are interestingly strange. Or strangely interesting.
It's kind of like looking at yourself in the mirror, I mean really staring yourself down, and having to wrestle with the concept of self. Your mind knows that the body it sees before itself is the physical manifestation of the entity you know to be yourself. That is, the body in the mirror is "you". If I stare long enough (and maybe it's just me) the little voice in my head begins to realize that the body it sees is only that, a body, and that the person I know to be myself, my consciousness, lies somewhere else. It doesn't quite realize that all this is going on in the brain which is, in fact, part of the body because my self isn't all that bright. All this makes me wonder if one day it will be possible remove the consciousness from this body and put it somewhere else. Not that I want to, of course, because I'm perfectly content with where I am. I just think that if a separation between mind and body does exist, then this moment of clarity while staring in the mirror is the greatest proof of it.
Like I said, it's amazing what I can come up with at four in the morning.
Happy thought of the day: Only one more night of midnight Mission Control.
Partial song lyric of the day: "Well I know these voices must be my soul..."
posted by The Rube at Thursday, November 17, 2005
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