How do we interact with our own mind?

Adelson’s Checkershadow	The section of illusion
Wikipedia	illusionindex 1

This is one of the most recognised visual illusion. Our visual system is adjusting for the expected light source vector.

I read about this particular illusion in the brilliant Aeon magazine, which I recommend to anyone that is interested in our interiors.

The article in question posits an intriguing (and, I’m sure, controversial) hypothesis.

If self-awareness is ‘just’ theory of mind directed at ourselves, perhaps it is less special than we like to believe. And if we learn about ourselves in the same way as we learn about others, perhaps we can also learn to know ourselves better.

Which led to me thinking about the way I describe my internal experience.

• I dragged myself out of bed.
• I said to myself.
• “Why don’t you ask yourself about…”

These language structures are pretty weird, don’t you think? One normally doesn’t admit to ‘talking to one’s self’.

My experience is that basically everyone will fall in to this mode of speaking from time to time.

René Descartes might not like the idea that we have no special, privileged access to our own minds.

Think about the expression: what was I thinking? I might bring this up as a an attempt at self-deprecating humour. In my current self-inquiry about this kind of self-questioning, there a layers of meaning going on.

I’ve often had the sense that my ‘language brain’ and the inner monologue that arises from it have very little to do with how I move through the world. I compare a flaccid attempt to deconstruct my own thoughts over some big decision, with my experience of my own trajectory over time.

In my estimation of myself, I’d guess that 95% or more of my interactions with the world are non-consciously directed. Let me clarify - as with the Chomsky view, language forms some kind of layer between the non-conscious and what we think of as conscious/awake.

Rather than trying to make a point here, it’s an opportunity to link to some other essays and podcasts that ‘changed my mind’ with regard to how I see my own cognition and unconscious.

The labels below are my own pneumonics.

Radiolab’s Left of the Blue Wall - formally titled Words.

This set of podcasts include:

1. Susan Shaller and the Man without Language. From her experience with teaching a man who was born in a culture with no sign-language or means of formally replacing language with those who are born deaf. In her book, A Man without Words, she called him Ildefonso. Susan recognises the intelligence in this mans eyes and stays with him, interacts with him for some time. After some time, Ildefonso has an flash of insight. “Everything has a Name!”

2. Charles Fernyhough describes his experiment with Rats who apparently lack the ability to combine two pieces of information within their environment. The can learn directions (left) and colours (blue) but they**cannot combine those two pieces of information!

3. Elizabeth Spelke reports that study of children, who are too young to have language, exhibit this a parallel inability to link concepts. When the children acquire language, a sentence like ‘left of the blue wall’ (a phrase that connects concepts, they gain the ability to link concepts!)

4. Jill Bolte Taylor’s experience of the end of brain chatter that followed her Stroke of Insight, the somewhat famous Ted talk, where Jill recounts her experience of losing part of her brain as a result of a stroke, but being able to recall the period where her language brain was offline as a blissful one

5. Paul Brucks (from a prior episode) reminds us that our concept of self is largely constructed as a Story.

6. Ann Sengas tells the story of watching ~50 hearing impaired children invent their own sign-language. Ann’s colleague Jennie Pyers observed one generation of self-taught-signers teaching younger kids the locally constructed language.

7. Jad, summing up “There are certain words she says that don’t just give you a name for something, somehow they give you access to a concept that would otherwise be really hard to get, or even talk about. It’s really hard to talk about thoughts without the word thoughts. Or what is time without the word time? It’s a really freaking hard concept. These words are like bridges, somehow they get you to some new mental place that otherwise you’d be cut off from. But that’s sad though these young kids have something that the people who actually invented the language don’t.”

8. Susan Shaller has the opportunity to meet Ildefonso many years after their first interactions. Ildefonso now has language, and Susan has the opportunity to ask him about that time - before Ildefonso has language. Essentially, he doesn’t want to talk about this ‘dark time’ in his past. Later still, Ildefonso reports that he can no longer remember a time before he had language.

Yes, this podcast review went on way longer than intended. It was a game changer for me. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Radiolab’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Rat

So, this podcast might change your life - it certainly did change mine.

This was my introduction to Joe LeDoux, author of The Emotional Brain and, much later, The Deep History of Ourselves

During the episode, I learned a perspective on human memory that ‘broke the mould’ on my concept of memory.

Restated as simply as I can? A memory Recall is a Write (to memory), rather than a Read. One of the many implications is: you have a cherished memory, one you’ve recalled dozens of times (eg: your first kiss with your Significant Other).. that memory has been ‘photocopied’ so often, that it is probably a less accurate memory than a recall you’ve done only once.

There’s also discussion of the use of anisomycin as a part of a treatment for PTSD. I’ve since read mainstream articles (in the SMH for example) that refer to this treatment - and speak of it in a way that might be available (post trials) sometime soon. (I discussed this not long ago, with a psychiatrist that I have high regard for - he’d never heard of this topic (anisomycin and trauma treatment)).

Alright - one more podcast for this thought stream. This one led to a crystalisation of understanding for me, a thought and concept that had been developing over time.

Can Curiosity Change the World?

This podcast is of primo importance for me. You can download it at the ABC LNL site linked above. Thanks

The larger topic is - how can we have difficult conversations, the type that degenerate into nastiness without losing our cool and becoming combative?

Dr Philip Stokoe offers a wonderful suggestion for such conversations. If you can remain Curious about the person and concepts that form the difficult conversations, it’s very unlikely that either party will fall into aggressive patterns.

…and that’s pretty damn wonderful - the hope that Curiosity might save our interactions around polarising ideas. I’ve been putting this idea into practice whenever the situation (and my my consciousness reminds me to Go There). I’m pleased with the results. I recommend you listen and consider.

Further, Dr Stokoe is suggesting that our innate anxiety (arising from a fear of death) underlies much of the self-defensive behaviour that bubbles up when we are faced with ideas that challenge our Identity.

As wonderful as this Curiosity idea is, that’s not the Killer moment of the podcast, for me anyway.

Here is the Killer Statement, on the structure of belief.

Dr Stokoe - referencing Ron Britton “There are two levels of belief. One is when you know you believe something and the other is when you don’t realise it’s a belief.”

Dr Stokoe - “An unconscious belief is experienced as a Fact. An awful lot of fundamentalism arises from beliefs that are taken to be facts. And facts and the sense of certainty are very comforting”

More on this thread to come.

Let’s leave it there for today.