Burn Down That (Old) House

~ Live & Learn

mind-psychology-chart

Notes:

  • Source: Ed Batista – Meredith-Whipple Callahan on Mindsets
  • Post Title inspiration – “There are those who receive as birthright an adequate or at least unquestioned sense of self and those who set out to reinvent themselves, for survival or for satisfaction, and travel far. Some people inherit values and practices as a house they inhabit; some of us have to burn down that house, find our own ground, build from scratch, even as a psychological metamorphosis.” – Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

14 thoughts on “Burn Down That (Old) House”

    1. Yes. You and this neuroscientist:

      And the heart of Mr. Gelernter’s book is a critical observation often overlooked by artificial-intelligence researchers and neuroscientists alike: Your conscious experience is not just one thing. Instead, it falls on a spectrum. At one end, you’re attuned to the outside world; as you move further down the spectrum, you’re increasingly inside your own head, recalling memories and daydreaming. Each day you journey back and forth along the spectrum; your conscious experience changes hour by hour.

      Consciousness, Mr. Gelernter suggests, is like a tidal process, in which the direction of mental focus alternates, going out and coming in. He offers an analogy: You’re trapped inside a house. At some point during the day, you look out the windows and paint the outside world to remember it. A bit later on, you focus on the paintings that you have made, reorganizing them and considering possible recombinations. Your skull is the house. Sometimes you’re looking out the window of the eyes, taking in the outside world; at other points in the day you’re lost inside your own head, daydreaming, your internal life running more of the show. At night, when you descend into the bizarre world of dream sleep, you’re trapped completely inside.

      David Eagleman, Within You and Without You

      http://www.wsj.com/articles/within-you-and-without-you-1458601477

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