Most People Now 'Think' in Pictures...do you?
I think in both, words/reason and in pictures but it's always the "Words" that allow me to see these pictures.
In a sense, Words are worth a 1000 pictures for me.
Interesting to note, ancient man and probably other mammals think and thought in pictures.
Just think of a familiar path that ultimately lead to the den of a bear...it wasn't pretty,...one's instinctive response to this mental image would be to go the other way and survive another day.
How about you?
In a sense, Words are worth a 1000 pictures for me.
Interesting to note, ancient man and probably other mammals think and thought in pictures.
Just think of a familiar path that ultimately lead to the den of a bear...it wasn't pretty,...one's instinctive response to this mental image would be to go the other way and survive another day.
How about you?
Now, I see that if all you trust is what you see, or think you see, you might have an issue! Luckily, all is straight again, and I can still use our 2,000 plus book library pretty well, at least for now.
It stands to reason, lack of knowledge, or even faux knowledge, causes the masses to devolve back into the once lost bicameral species we once were.
This is why, most rulers historically, did not favor educating the masses...they could not withstand the competition.
Hearken back to a more accurate understanding of the fall of Babylon. Not by the Creator but spoken by the rulers: "We must go down and confound their language...lest nothing be impossible unto them."
When young I would daily listen to radio serial programs such as Tom Mix, I Love a Mystery, Superman, etc. and create imagery for what I heard. I have always thought in both imagery and words as well as sometimes in bodily feelings. It is a mixture with different parts of the brain working together. In math, I have images of the math symbols and formula before doing any actual reasoning about them as well as new images being created from the reasoning. A bicameral brain of mind is the kind of mind that a Homo Sapiens Sapiens has and needs no breakdown to produce consciousness. It is there whether one wants it or not. One need only be selfish to learn how to use it whether in images, concepts, or combinations of those.
I, in my work, as you know, try to be more specific.
Besides, I give Jaynes or his publishers, a break because it just plain sounds better to say: The Bicameral Mind and a bit awkward to say the Bicameral Brain.
Part of the process, and Jaynes later alludes to this, is the left and right brains began to cooperate and in many ways...began to operate as one, on our way toward conscious introspection.
Your last point in the first par can be put into objective language. One needs a mind to gain a "rationally self interested identity. The bicameral brain only has or develops an ego made up of stuff you've done which one uses to define self.
A bit of background in reference to the breakdown Jaynes is describing. Everything we did or thought, prior to awareness of self was directed by an illusionary voice. Some voices represented different gods, some their rulers and still yet, others the voices of ancestors. These voices about 2500/3000 years ago, became increasingly confusing between what yours said and what mine said...then the voices went silent...can you imagine the chaos, the confusion. (interestingly, a natural event happened during this time...and I am tempted to think these two occurrences are linked.- (Our magnetic shield became the strongest it has ever been...according to retroactive measuring tech.) We were forced by nature and survival needs, to start thinking for ourselves and controlling ourselves which eventually bore a mind and a cooperation between our left and right brains.
Just observing the recorded/reported actions of mankind shows they had no conscience, awareness of one's own behavior...just like we see in many today...usually the one's morally outraged, those that rule over you but fail to rule themselves...this is where my premise of the upside down paradigm comes from.
The process Jaynes painfully outlines is still going on today...globally, only a small percentage of us are actually Conscious Beings; but that doesn't mean we all have mastered our minds, self control and self introspection...sadly...as a species, we have a long way to go.
The brain produces vibratory electrical measurable energy...ref. delta, beta, etc, waves, which produces a field of energy outside one's head. This field, I pose, is part of the quantum energy field and is where we are able to inspect our self, observe our own behavior and therefore gain an ability to override the animalistic desires of the brain.
If you think about it, the brain itself has no ability to view itself or control itself beyond survival functions.
For what it is worth, for some reason (maybe my wooden blocks), I associate every letter and the first few numbers with a color. If you give me a letter, the letter in that color pops right up in my mind. A is red. E is blue. T is brown...
I, myself, still see number patterns the way they were represented when I learned numbers like, 4 dots as a square, 5 with one dot at the top middle of 4 dots as a square...etc.
[distracted by random flashing ad]
What was I thinking about? [/sarcasm]
"It seems to me that what you call full consciousness is a limit case which can never be fully accomplished. This seems to me connected with the fact called the narrowness of consciousness (Enge des Bewusstseins)"
Einstein basically practiced something called image streaming. The idea is that there are a bunch of images that are constantly streaming through our brains, no matter what work we are pre-occupied with. This image streaming can become a meditative practice if you either control the formation of these images or just follow them with single minded focus. Something of what Einstein practiced was wired into image streaming. This means that a lot of his discovered were actually just creative thought processes perceived intuitively.
We think of meditation as following the breath, but for Einstein meditation was following thought. He had learned how to see the burst of light expanding, traveling at the same speed for the two observers. To the moving observer on the train, the circle of light expanded equally on all sides. To the stationary one on the platform, the light expanded also, but in addition Einstein saw the movement of the train caused one side to meet the wave earlier than the other side. I mimic his thoughts, one-by-one, I think with him and, in this moment, what Einstein thought I think. His insight becomes mine. Our conclusions: simultaneity is relative. Moving clocks run slow. Lengths are foreshortened along the direction of motion. No laboratory is needed, only the mind and the amazing power of pure thought.
"control the formation of these images or just follow them with single minded focus." this is what my neothink mentor calls: Down line focus.
I think these insights come from quantum entanglement wave exchanges to our minds and decoded by the brain. One can, on occasion, receive insights they might deem, no academic right to have...now That is spooky!
Seeing in pictures AND using words rationally is an unbeatable combination.
However, the youngin's these days only use and respond to pictures...just go to facebook...that's 99% of what you see there.
Me old dino be old-fashioned. I tell people who want to talk to me just to freaking talk to me.
Call Me~like Blondie sang back in the 70s when there weren't cell phones period.
The setting of my novel is 1914 where I'm comfy with old stuff.
Love to use the word processor in my PC, though.
Then taking a month long tech college class in "Maintaining Hydraulic Systems" then seven years working in that field you had to memorize diagrams and pictures to repair variety of components. When my brother(degreed Hydraulics Engineer) came to visit me and showed me photo's of a project he installed for a customer I was able to name the major components in the photo. He was very surprised that I was able to remember such information.
So, in some ways picture memory works very well if you're using it in a productive area of work.
Also, perhaps as well, to make waist and lazy the mind.
I used that process when I imagined, then drew my house.
“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"
That's the point of the article.
Moreover, I point out, that even if "most" people still think in pictures as "most" people did in the Stone Age, the fact remains that millions, perhaps a billion literate people are linear-rational thinkers. In addition, it is also true that linear-verbal reasoning is also limited by its nature. The best thinkers unite both. This applies not only to verbal exposition and debate, but to music, sculpture, and theater (cinema). It is the objective mode of thinking.
However, one can "Think" in pictures without the emotional responses, for instance, forming a plan of action or development of an invention could be formulated this way.
"Liberty Leading the People"
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rsc...
"Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi"
http://www.eugene-delacroix.com/greec...
... and yet, as you would say, some paintings are meant to be read:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
I could just imagine what the left would think about the last one...might be worth the laugh.
But here again...these are not the pictures the social media crowd or the left anti-society types are looking at, and remember, they misunderstand words as well.
My own research seem to show that 70% of my sample inquiries do not hear words spoken in their own voices in their heads...when they are trying to remember something or rehearsing something...they move their mouths. My sample size of young people of high school and college age is up to about a 1000 now.
Either way...we seem to be devolving. I once thought that once the genie was out of the box...(consciousness), that it could never be put back in that box. Sadly... I may be wrong.
Not really a thought process, it's hard to tell with the left or those unaware but even a poptart with one corner bitten off...triggers the thought of a gun!
In other words, relatively simple, innocent picts seem to trigger over the top reactions.