Saturday, November 22, 2008

Remembrance

You must understand that the areas with which I had been dealing are highly rigorous. Imagine the purity with which these subjects deal. Now pale in comparison are the controls and experimental validation processes, I see in psychological information and experimentation. Relying on subject associative mapping relevances in the brain, would this lead to a conclusive model assumption in the neural correlate to consciousness?

Memory echoes in brain's sensory terrain by Bruce Bower
Images of brain show areas that become most active during perception of pictures (a and c, in green) and sounds (e, in yellow). Small arrows point to sites of greatest activity during recall of pictures (b and d) and sounds (f).
Wheeler, Petersen, Buckner/Washington Univ


So vast indeed the thinking mind and it's capabilities, that one might not see the interlinking/backtracking of the brain in it's neuronal flavours, as to the time and day of each event?

Yet analysis is there as you look through the information, as to the basis of what might have instigated a "modulation" of the senses. Holographic in nature possibly? If these faculties are impaired and death ensued, would it seem so unlikely that physical functions, would have had to been elevated in some way? Especially if relegated to that memory. What value "images" in mind?

A synesthetic 'Master of Memory' (Mark Ellis) makes a fateful choice after dancing with a stranger (Stephanie Morgenstern), in the unusual wartime romance Remembrance.


Image by Joy von Tiedemann and Mark Morgenstern
Toronto, 1942. ALFRED GRAVES has the curse of perfect memory. It’s born of a rare condition, synesthesia, that fuses his five senses. He can’t see something without also tasting it, hearing its colour, feeling its scent — it’s overwhelming. He protects himself by living cautiously, touring his one-man memory show. One night, AURORA LUFT is in the audience. They share a drink, a dance … then she confesses she was sent to recruit him to a top-secret spy training camp near Whitby, Ontario. Privately, and against orders, she warns him not to come: “It’s not your kind of work.” But it’s too late. Alfred feels changed. Ready for anything. He signs up.


To me this exercise is a exploration of the abilities of what "might have happened." The ideas of ingenuity and production of mind, to establish new perceptions beyond the current uses of math/physics we are currently encountering.

I have no ready answers, just the continue interest and understanding of what new can be brought to the areas heading the forefront of science. What accomplishments, model assumption might do for forming new areas, which to us is with this creativity impulse.

Speak, Memory
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977); novelist, poet, scholar, translator, and lepidopterist (he enjoyed chasing and collecting butterflies). A cosmopolitan Russian-born émigré whose linguistic facility, erudite style, and eloquent prose helped to establish him as one of the most brilliant and respected literary figures of the 20th century. Nabokov's best-known novel, Lolita (1955), shocked many people but its humor and literary style were praised by critics. Nabokov produced literature and scholarship of beauty, complexity, and inventiveness in both Russian and English. Nabokov himself used to say "My head speaks English, my heart speaks Russian and my ear speaks French". *Synaesthesia: Vladimir Nabobov was a synesthete, as was also his mother, his wife, and his son Dimitri.


BBC Interviewhis view of other writers and the difference between genius and talent 3 min 13

While one of the aspect of this disease(shall I call it that?) is a memory for things, as the movie up top shows. There is some opinion about artistic validation and synesthesia in regards the actually relation.

Further I thought it appropriate to divest oneself of some saintly and spiritual inclination, if one thought this might have been of appeal in my mind. It is. Then I must dissuade such thinking from something more rigorous.

So Sensory Infusion and contrive inherent as to the disease, was one thing to look at, in relation to creativity, and abilities in science and writing, to move perception forward.

Synesthesia and Artistic Experimentation by Crétien van Campen

ABSTRACT:
Richard Cytowic has argued that synesthetic experimentation by modern artists was based on deliberate contrivances of sensory fusion and not on involuntary experiences of cross-modal association. He has placed artistic experiments with sensory fusion outside the domain of synesthesia research. Artistic experiments, though historically interesting, are considered irrelevant for the study of synesthesia. Contrary to this view I argue that at least Scriabin's and Kandinsky's artistic experiments were based on involuntary experiences of synesthesia. They were investigating perceptual and emotional mechanisms of involuntary synesthetic experiences that meet Cytowic's criteria of synesthesia. Artistic experiments are not only historically interesting, but may also contribute to present synesthesia research.


See:

  • American Synesthesia Association

  • Modulating Phases States: Neural Correlate to Consciousness