Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id EAA02992 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 9 Apr 2002 04:17:17 +0100 Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 23:11:07 -0400 Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #1011 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <LAW2-F70K1PMk7CJrry00011c88@hotmail.com> Message-Id: <6F93935C-4B67-11D6-99FA-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.481) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Monday, April 8, 2002, at 10:37 , Grant Callaghan wrote:
> What you are calling seeing, I believe, is perceptions that we pay
> attention to. The ones we are "conscious" of.
Nope, just the opposite.
> Any sudden change in my environment can trigger a refocusing of my
> attention.
And should. Survival mechanism.
> We simply choose to ignore one signal in order to pay more attention to
> another.
No, 'we' don't do any such thing. Our perceptual systems do all of that
for us, without our knowledge. 'We' are not our senses.
> Perception does not take place in the absence of [categorization].
Here's the nit. Of course it does. The stimulus _has_ to precede the
response. The perception _has_ to precede any analyzation. The flood of
input is constant. Now, granted, the perceptual systems as a processing
of this stimulus ignore things that have been determined, through
evolution and through experience, as okay to ignore. And, that sudden
change is not okay to ignore.
Letting this flood of input stream in without control is what I'm
talking about- allowing it all to be 'sudden change'- because that is
one of the roots of the creative act, removing the filters, for however
brief a time (and it _has_ to be brief), to allow for a new focus, a new
stream of process, for what is seen, so commonly and usually so blindly,
right in front of us.
Sight, perception, and then thought. And only the thought stage is ever
a conscious process, and it doesn't have to be. When they are all one,
eureka.
- Wade
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