Now here’s a quandary. Above you were accusing me of violating Maia’s boundaries by continuing the thread. And yet here you are continuing it yourself.
But that’s how our reactions to these things are to me: inherently problematic.
In both cases I told you what I thought about it. People act the way they want not the way I want.
Ah, a rationalization!
Yeah, I use them myself.
Blindsight: the strangest form of consciousness
David Robson at the BBC Future website
Of course for those who were once sighted and then lost their vision, it is possible to explore the reality of both worlds. Though, again, these realities are no less rooted in what can certainly be very, very different sets of circumstances. So the part pertaining to dasein is always going to be an important component of anything that they relate to us.
Thus, as always, it comes down to that which we are able to demonstrate to others is a reasonable point of view.
On the other hand, even that has to come to grips with the “hidden depths of the human mind”. The mystery of mind – consciousness – itself.
Here we are entering the realm of…Dr. Oliver Sacks? The world of Awakenings and men who mistake their wives for hats. A surreal exploration into the often mind-boggling manner in which the brain itself can create “conditions” almost beyond imagining. Think, for example, Leonard in Memento. Now imagine him sharing Daniel’s affliction as well.
Actually, to the best of my knowledge, I never “wen” anywhere.
So, do you have anything at all to offer in the way of an opinion regarding the existential relationship between sense deprivation, dasein and human identity?
Or is being a fly on the wall here as deep as you’re prepared to go?
So it’s confirmed then, your whole Vietnam story is a cowardly falsehood? I get to keep my $1000?
Note to others:
Not to worry. Although I can’t shoo the flies away from the thread, I can ignore them.
How about starting…now.
Am I on the infamous iambiguous ignore list?
Ffs am I the only one?
Am I the first?
Maybe we dream the same amount, but we get more bored of our dreams, because we’ve had the same or similar ones before, and so remember them less, just as Hollywood movies are more forgettable nowadays because they ran out of material.
Also, of course our memory tends to get worse with age, altho that probably doesn’t apply to you, because you’re still relatively young.
Things affect us less as we get older, including our dreams, we become more callous, and the less we’re affected, the less we pay attention or remember.
Blindsight: the strangest form of consciousness
David Robson at the BBC Future website
Tell me this doesn’t remind you of that spooky ordeal experienced by Sammy Jankis in Memento. The labyrinthian interaction of the brain and the mind in creating all of the many, many possible psychosomatic realities. What is real as opposed to what is not? What is not real but we are adamant is real? In other words, we believe it is real in all honesty.
For some of course there is no ambiguity at all. If they were born blind as a result of medical/biological condition that no one doubts the existence of, there will no 80% accuracy. It would all be guesswork. But what of all the other ways in which those blind from birth might possess their own equivalent of “blindsight”. Ways of intuiting the world around them that those fully sighted can’t even begin to grasp. Or even imagine.
A “fractured” consciousness. Though one embedded more in the physiological/psychological components of [i]I[/i] rather than in the manner which “I” am fractured in the is/ought world.
Excruciating. There’s more.
I think you better call Dan~, iambiguous, I have a real treasure trove here.
Holy hell.
Unless, of course, I am on the infamous ‘ignore list.’
_
I’ve been dreaming more regularly… after over a year of not, but I couldn’t tell you what they’re about, as I don’t prescribe to the school-of-thought of trying to remember One’s dreams… coz I’m too busy sleeping. Lucid dreaming is obviously a different matter altogether…
Blindsight: the strangest form of consciousness
David Robson at the BBC Future website
This is always something that I come back to time and time again. I merely focus in more on consciousness as it is created to evolve over time in a particular world understood in a particular way. And the manner in which – blind or sighted – it is shaped and molded by others when we are children. And noting the manner in which, depending on the experiences that we have – or just as importantly don’t have – can predispose “I” in any number of directions. And then acknowledging how this “sense of self” is fabricated and refabricated existentially from the cradle to the grave given so many factors/variables that we don’t either fully understand or control.
But why stop there? Why not admit in turn that “I” is somehow intertwined in all that we do not know – cannot even begin to imagine – about the existence of existence itself? And that’s just on this infinitesimally insignificant speck of a planet in vastness of what some argue is an infinity of universes they call the multiverse.
Only here the focus is still on the brain itself. The chemical and neurological interactions in those like Daniel able to create a consciousness that may or may not be fully pinned down by science. And then if science encompasses it fully in the either/or world what then will philosophers and theologians make of that in coming to grips with what now eludes me: a meaning and purpose that links all of us together in one or another TOE. Or God or Goddess. A theory/Creator that can then be connected to the “for all practical purposes” components of our interaction with others.
Lucid dreaming is a very interesting subject, and I’ve attempted to induce it a number of times. The best technique, according to the literature, is to keep a dream diary, which I did for many years. I’m not sure I achieved any proper lucid dreaming, though I’ve certainly had dreams in which I anticipate what’s about to happen, and then it happens (no big surprise, of course, since it’s my own dream).
Re-reading these last few pages I notice that you asked a question here, which is exactly what I requested, of course, so here’s my answer.
I can’t actually remember the last time I had what I would call a nightmare, that is, something that actually induces fear. This is not to say, though, that I don’t have dreams with negative emotions attached to them. A case in point being the dream I described right at the beginning of this thread, of me crawling through rubble. Not only was it physically painful, with my hands and knees getting cut open, but it also had an overwhelming sense of desolation. As always, it’s the emotional content of a dream that sticks in one’s mind.
The sense of desolation I felt in that dream is very rare for me, which is why I remember that one so well. In terms of other dreams with what might be called “negative” emotions, I’m much more likely to have ones in which I’m trying to find someone, or something, but it’s forever out of reach, in one way or another. I definitely wouldn’t call these nightmares, though, because they are often quite interesting, with a sense of purpose.
Blindsight: the strangest form of consciousness
David Robson at the BBC Future website
And yet incredibly enough in places like this there is an endless procession of men and women who boldly go where hundreds and hundreds have already gone before: to the next TOE.
God or No God.
But isn’t it ultimately science that we turn to to test them. Okay, tell us how you think the world works. Your God or No God spiritual path, your ideology or dogma. Your philosophical realism or political idealism. And, here, being either blind or sighted there are really only those who are able to test and to experiment with your assumptions/conclusions in order to make predictions that either do or do not come true that count. And that can then be replicated or not replicated by others. I merely suggest that any number of objectivists among us believe what they do because the belief in and of itself is what counts. What they believe could be practically anything. And, for all too many, believing it is demonstration enough.
Ah, but then the particularly mysterious states of mind explored by those like Oliver Sachs and by those examining Daniel. Could fathoming his “world” bring us closer to understanding our own?
Okay, so how then is this related to the subconscious and the unconscious mind? And how for those born blind are these states of mind…different?
I still recall the most vivid example of my own mind perceiving while lacking an awareness of the perception itself. It was when I first became involved with a woman named Supannika. If there really is such a thing as “soul mates” she was mine. I remember the first day we shared that was simply bursting at the seams with fulfillment. I drove from her apartment near the Pimlico race track to my apartment in Lauraville. A good 8 to 10 miles. But here’s the thing. At the time I reached Herring Run Park, it suddenly dawned on me that my mind had been entirely focused on her. In other words, I drove all those miles as though on automatic pilot. I stopped at all the lights, made all the left and right turns etc, but it was as though my brain itself had done it.
It completely astonished me. And I’ve never experienced anything quite like it again. Although in somewhat a similar vein, I remember reading books to my daughter. Books I had read a billion times. And there were “sequences” then when I would be thinking about something totally unrelated to the book and then suddenly realize that I was thinking about that and reading the book at the same time.
The human mind? Tell me about it.
For many [blind or sighted], if their dream involves them feeling physical pain and results in a feeling of desolation, they might describe that as a nightmare. Although, sure, a nightmare as others understand it involves more specific experiences in the dream. You are being chased down a road by a bloodthirsty mob hellbent on killing you. They catch up to you and are attacking you viciously. You wake up with a feeling of intense dread. And then relief that it was only a dream.
I don’t have those sort of dreams myself. Instead, for me, the “nightmarish” part comes in recognizing the parts of my life that were as, sad to say, they actually were. And how, had things been different, my life itself might have been so much more rewarding. In other words, it’s like my brain keeps reminding me that the gap between the life I did live and the life I might have lived instead is my own fault.
But, again, that sort of thing would seem to have nothing to do my being sighted.
Again, for me, how can one’s dreams not be profoundly intertwined in the life that they live? If, overall, someone’s life is bursting at the seams with things that fulfil them, their dreams are likely to reflect that in turn. Or, if, for whatever reason, their life is bursting at the seams with things that seem ever to be tormenting them, won’t their dreams reflect that instead?
But that’s me. My preoccupation with all things dasein when it comes to our subjective and subjunctive reactions to the world around us.