Two strange questions to get you thinking...
First, "Why is it that when we look in the mirror, our image is reversed horizontally rather than vertically?" Even if physics has an answer for this, if mirrors reversed our images the other way, couldn't our physicists just as easily come up with a law to explain that?
Second, "Do we feel as though our consciousness exists inside our heads because that is where our primary sensory organs are located (eyes, ears, nose and mouth) or because that's where our brain is?" That is, when I close my eyes and think about my feet I conceive of them as being 'way down there' while my nose is right here in front of me and the back of my head is somehow right behind me. Is that just conditioning from a lifetime of using my eyes to perceive these objects? Would a deaf, mute person who couldn't taste or smell also feel that consciousness resides in the head, or would he think of himself as operating out of his left foot, for example, with his head being 'way up there'? If we work on it hard enough, as I'm sure some Indian meditiation gurus must have done by now, is it possible to transfer our consciouness into other parts of our body? Try as I might, my thoughts are stuck in my head and won't go anywhere else...
I imagine physics (in the case of the first question) along with metaphysics and psychology have addressed these questions somewhere. If you have any ideas or insights, or can point towards an exposition of more satisfactory answers, please post a comment to this post.
Labels: china, Strange Questions
posted by Ryan Petersen @ 5:31 PM
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Oh ~~ You been in China play,
China have which some make what you like?
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Wow, now I am even more confused than I was when contemplating these questions. Thank you for that.
Hmm, interesting thoughts. Maybe I can attempt an answer after I take my developmental psychology class next semester.
P.S. the sort of "sixth" sense that tells you your foot is all the way down there is called propreoception
Thanks! I found the following definition and implications, many of which seem to describe my own behavior in frighteningly accurate fashion:
Proprioception is an awareness of where and what our body is doing. "Proprioceptors" sends messages about whether the muscles are stretching or relaxing and how the joints are bending or stretching. Even when we are still, messages continue to be sent to tell us where our body is and what it is doing. It enables us to perform activities such as putting on a shirt without looking in a mirror.
The implications:
A child with proprioceptive problems may…
1. Lack smooth, controlled movements.
2. Show an inability to get into a correct position and maintain a posture.
3. Display lots of fidgeting.
4. Look to see what he is doing. Dislike having his eyes closed, or may be unable to maintain eye closure.
5. Demonstrate poor social awareness skills, and may be unaware of their own or other’s body space.
6. They may bump, drop or squash objects
And here is the Wikipedia article on the subject: http://www.answers.com/topic/proprioception
For users in China, you'll find answers.com to be a very useful site, as it contains the complete text of every Wikipedia article with the added bonus that it has not been banned by the Chinese censors...yet.
Hi! Just want to say what a nice site. Bye, see you soon.
»
As it turns out, the Scottish philospher David Hume was equally fascinated by the issues of your senses and their relation to your thoughts. He also did a much better job of arriving at conclusions than I have, so I will share them here with anybody who's interested (you got this far, so you must be).
Actually, this is a passage from Robert Pirsig's book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" that summarizes Hume's stance:
"Suppose a child is born devoid of all senses: he has no sight, no hearing, no touch, no smell, no taste--nothing. There's no way whatsoever for him to receive any sensations from the outside world. And suppose this child is fed intravenously and otherwise attended to and kept alive for eighteen years in this state of existence. The question is then asked: Does this eighteen-year-old person have a thought in his head? If so, where does it come from? How does he get it?
"Hume would have answered that this eighteen-year-old had no thoughts whatsoever, and in giving this answer would have defined himself as an empiricist, one who believes all knowledge is derived exclusively from the senses. The scientific method of experimentation is carefuly controlled empiricism. Common sense today is empiricism, since an overwhelming majority would agree with Hume, even though in other cultures and other times a majority might have differed" (page 131).
So, if thoughts are derived from senses, as Hume (and the overwhelming majority of people today) claims, we must assume that we think inside our heads because that is where our most important sensory organs are, not because that is where our brain is located.
Perhaps a good way to test this hypothesis would be to find some genetic mutants who have eyes on their chest or some other mislocation of important sensory functions--if they tell you their consciousness resides somewhere other than their head, we're onto something and might be even able to refute Hume (and common sense) in the process. You know I'm always looking for freaks, so if I see any I'll ask them a few questions...
I made a mistake in the survey I proposed in the last comment. That is, if the freakish guy with eyes and ears on his chest and tells you that he still thinks in his head, then we might be able to determine that your thoughts do not come directly from your senses...or maybe we couldn't tell anything at all. But it would still be sweet to meet a such a freak, so I will ask him some interesting quetsions when I do.
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