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Ambiguity
Ambiguity is described by scientists as the rule rather than the exception in perception. One example of ambiguity is a simplistic line drawing that can be construed as a rabbit or a duck. Sometimes people get stuck in only being able to see one aspect of the drawing. The inability to see another side of a…
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the brain fills in what we do not see
What we see, and what we think we see, are two different things. The fact that the brain makes stuff up in visual perception is a reality that I never tire of exploring. I am convinced that if we ground our understanding of ourselves in the actual basics of perception, we could take a load of…
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the Camino walk
Clearing my home of all possessions was my Camino walk. A pilgrimage of a lifetime. Sorting, purging, sorting, purging, stumbling, holding, sorting, and purging. An endless cycle of releasing stuff. So much stuff carried to my back parking lot that T-boned the laneway. Endless trips of leaving for others what no longer possessed me as being…
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Come away, O human child
Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. I love these lines of the poem The Stolen Child by Yeats. And I love the idea of the world being full of qualities that cannot be understood. The endless stream of panaceas…
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OCD and you and me
This study is discussed to support the idea that we have a lot of built-in flaws and that shared acknowledgement of them will lead to a kinder more compassionate culture. Asymmetry According to Kenneth Hugdahl in an article titled Symmetry and Asymmetry in the human brain what may seem to look symmetrical functions asymmetrically. In his analysis…
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to be without authority
For my thesis in fine arts I made an installation in my studio. The piece was comprised of a fragile papier-mâché and wire couch. With the slightest current of air the couch would sway. It was placed against a wall that referenced a school blackboard from a time when teachers made children write lines. The…
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everyone has a BLIND SPOT
The starting point of visual perception is light, obviously. The eye is essentially like a camera that sends signals to the brain to represent what is perceived. An image is created through light that is projected onto the back of the eye onto a sheet of photoreceptors. Photoreceptors as the term suggests are the cells…
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To begin to dismantle Freud the starting point is to acknowledge that words are symbols. Sometimes words have a direct connection to the thing described such as chairs. Once we start to name attributes of mind and emotion words no longer have any direct physical correlation. A great phrase to keep in mind when we speak about…
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I am my brother’s keeper
Can we say people who are homeless are cultures canaries in the coal mine, or does that fall into some category of prejudice? Canaries were taken down in the coalmine by miners because the birds suffered or died before the miners due to noxious substances. This warned the miners to get out. Maybe folks living…