১ ফেব্রুয়ারী, ২০১৩

"Confusion over sources or indifference to them can be a paradoxical strength..."

"... if we could tag the sources of all our knowledge, we would be overwhelmed with often irrelevant information," writes Oliver Sacks in an essay about memory.
Indifference to source allows us to assimilate what we read, what we are told, what others say and think and write and paint, as intensely and richly as if they were primary experiences. It allows us to see and hear with other eyes and ears, to enter into other minds, to assimilate the art and science and religion of the whole culture, to enter into and contribute to the common mind, the general commonwealth of knowledge. This sort of sharing and participation, this communion, would not be possible if all our knowledge, our memories, were tagged and identified, seen as private, exclusively ours. Memory is dialogic and arises not only from direct experience but from the intercourse of many minds.

১৮টি মন্তব্য:

Levi Starks বলেছেন...

Is he really the first person to have said that?

Scott বলেছেন...

I don't remember.

Eric the Fruit Bat বলেছেন...

So progress is real?

Bryan Townsend বলেছেন...

Ah, this would be so true if only half of the sources weren't following malicious agendas!

traditionalguy বলেছেন...

Intercourse of many minds may be the theme today.

Does caffeine count as mind viagra? That may be Red Bull's marketing meme.

Poetry is the thing. It is the climax of mental intercourse.

Nonapod বলেছেন...

He's basically stating if we had a index reference key about every data element in our heads we'd be overwhelmed, if our brains worked like a hash table or associative array that is.

kentuckyliz বলেছেন...

We filter and trash a lot of what we perceive, or we'd be mentally overwhelmed. Priorities. I try to remember what I need to.

chickelit বলেছেন...

Consilience

Don't all jump at once to click that link -- you'll overwhelm the server.

ricpic বলেছেন...

In intercourse there is strength.

ricpic বলেছেন...

And fun.

Valentine Smith বলেছেন...

"Speak Memory" was the title of Vladimir Nabokov's autobiography back in the 60's. Thereby perfectly illustrating many of Sacks' points. Very interesting, wide-ranging article.

Strelnikov বলেছেন...

Sorry, I forgot to read this article.

great Unknown বলেছেন...

Basically explaining mob mentality and why it is easy to manipulate the public.

edutcher বলেছেন...

I thought I was just aphasic.

"Memory is dialogic and arises not only from direct experience but from the intercourse of many minds."

Is she talking about sex again?

heyboom বলেছেন...

They say your memory is the second thing to go,,,I can't remember the first.

heyboom বলেছেন...

They say your memory is the second thing to go,,,I can't remember the first.

Kevin বলেছেন...

Intercourse. That's a good woody sort of word, isn't it? Inter-course.

TMink বলেছেন...

Kind of an attributional collective unconscious.

Trey

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