Category Archives: bachelard

lp – Bachelard Reverie: Neuro .1

“We have a social brain in that the brain has evolved to favor a certain type of sociality manifested in all the interactions between persons and groups that come naturally to humans in our social lives. And we have a social brain in that this organ is now construed as malleable, open to, and shaped by, social interaction—shaping sociality as it is itself reshaped by it.” 163

 

Neurons finely tuning themselves, reacting to all and every interaction perceived.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Shaping me as I am shaping you, we will forever be stored in the neurons firing in each other’s brains,

and changing each other always as we grow older.

For inside me, there will always be you there,

shaping you as you shape me.

Yet, when the natural response to change is resistance,

I find myself, not only accepting, but actively constructing the change itself.

Pursuing the depths of uncertainty that these constructs may bring.

As if you are the oyster, and you are tasting me

as I am tasting you.

Dive in.

Week 6 Neuro Reverie

“It appeared that this challenged the conventional, rationalist accounts of ascription—that we understand the intentions of others by creating theories about what lies behind their appearance or their acts, on the basis of our own commonsense psychology about their desires and their beliefs about how to achieve them. It was not through theorizing about others, but through feeling what they feel, that we understand the mental states of others. I really do ‘feel your pain.’”

-Rose , N., & Abi-Rached, J. (2013). Neuro: The new brain sciences and the management of the mind. (p. 146). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

“We have a social brain in that the brain has evolved to favor a certain type of sociality manifested in all the interactions between persons and groups that come naturally to humans in our social lives. And we have a social brain in that this organ in now construed as malleable, open to, and shaped by, social interaction—shaping sociality as it is itself reshaped by it.”

-Rose , N., & Abi-Rached, J. (2013). Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind. (p. 163). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

The masses dethrone the mind so that we wake up at night and hate ourselves and hate our lives and reach out for flesh and LED screens and the bottles and the needle and the scalpel that’s only purpose is to divide and divide and divide. Now I picture a brain surgeon alone in a sterilized space, dressed in pale green garments with a scalpel raised about his naked brain. I wish that for a moment I could hold my mind in the cup of my hands. To turn it over like the heavy weight it is and to mold what I am told is malleable. So this is why my heart beats and where it pumps most of its blood. Oh my mind, my mind, you’re a thirsty beast aren’t you? Thanks for the daydream; something in me was parched for some poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ab – Spring Reverie week 6

Marisa Malone

Reverie on Neuro ch. 5

Spring qt. wk.6

Word Count: 131

“Imaging technologies, with their focus on the localization of function and the experimental manipulations they require and utilize, impose their own constraints and logics as to what can be thought.” (Rose & Abi-Rached, 158)

Do we chose what we want to see? Are these images of brains showing the viewer a portrait of themselves? And if so, where is the point at which these two brains (the one in the skull and the one on screen) connect?

Brain imaging technologies only show but those with the power to view are the ones who tell. By viewing the brain, watching where it illuminates and cast shadows, the viewer is faced with their own constraint of thought to try and explain that of an others. The meaning given to these images and translators supplies the truth in their story. The truth becomes power and power defines the “normal.” These translations are fictive, they are subjective, they are the constraint of ones thoughts viewing a brain under constraint.

V – Spring Reverie week 6

Liberty Peru

Neuro Chapter 5 – The Social Brain

Inspired by ideas from these two qoutes (and ideas discussed in “Neuro” and “The Vegetative Soul”)

“…brain regions shaped by evolution, notably the amygdala, orbital frontal cortex and temporal cortex – regions that have the function of facilitating an understanding of what one might call the ‘mental life’ of others.” (Rose/Abi-Rached 143)

“For mirroring is not restricted to the observation of another carrying out a movement, but is extended to the observation of another experiencing an emotion such as joy or pain…” (Rose/Abi-Rached 146)

Temporal:

the assumption that everything shifts.

My lobe extending towards your face, full of emotion

-the building blocks of your hands show me the fleeting decisions you are bound to make.

inside my own

temporal

psychic abilities,

linking together a shard of hope

a shard of glass

a shard of understanding how you think,

“Lasting only for a time; not eternal; passing” (Thefreedictionary.com)

 the outstreached neurons of you drinking water

to the lips

against the tongue

down the throat

in the belly

through the urinary tract

quenching the thirst

only to be thirsty moments later.

temporal.

all of it.

E – Week 5 Bachelardian Reverie

Ironies in Rose

Autism doesn’t feel like

A disorder. It feels  different

An excess of input of empathy,

A lack of theory of mind, not mirror

Neurons. Here psychology shows itself

Why ask an autistic person instead of

Developing conclusions based on theories

Lab rats, brain scans, differences. That input

Should not be separate from the stories of

The brains being scanned, from the ideas.

Different doesn’t mean unable to express ourselves,

Non-verbal doesn’t mean unable to communicate,

Doesn’t mean infantile. Sometimes different just

Means different. So here I am a subject, a disorder.

I lack mirror neurons, have deficiencies in certain chemicals.

But what does that tell you about what I need?

S – Week 6: Bachelardian Reverie

Neuro, Chapter 5 

“Perhaps arguments from neuroscience are merely being invoked to give such proposals a sheen of objectivity—for they are often criticized as arising from hopes rather than facts.” (Rose & Abi-Rached, 162)

 

Every time science attempts to locate a neurological basis of some social phenomena, there’s a concretization of importance: social values are substantiated as biological inevitabilities. This process of naturalization frequently serves the dominant order, as it reifies and concretizes traditional value systems.

Example: competition is a necessity within capitalism. Systems of competition are justified within Darwinian evolutionary science, leading proponents of capitalism to say, “Look, we can’t help but compete. It’s in our genes.” Repeat justifications of the social order through science ad infinitum.

 

Within science, the greatest disagreements arise over findings that disrupt the social order.

 

The scientific community has been squabbling about the existence of mirror neurons, and I wonder if they’re proving to be so controversial because they naturalize social values like empathy, reciprocity, and connectedness. Science is giving us a neurological impetus to be nice to each other—an incentive that throws a few wrenches in the cogs of modern living.

Q- Because I am alone reverie week 8

“Child too nostalgic and feeling sad

……………………………………………..

Child who never played, child to good

Child whose soul was too caught up in the North

Ah! that noble, that pure child one was

And whom one remembers

All his life…” (Bachelard 130)

 

When you are alone, in paradise, with your thoughts.

with yourself,

will you be free?

 

When you are alone, in paradise, that is where you are

Is that okay with you?

 

When I am not focusing on something that resonates in my heart,

I am constantly seeking and figuring the next move.

 

There are a lot of things that we do in this life that we don’t want to do…

so get used to yourself, in all of your nooks and crannies.

 

There are an infinite amount of people who are going to tell you what to do and how,

and your not going to be able to run away, no matter how far you go.

 

So embrace the spirits that they hold, and figure where you ought to be, right now

what does it feel like to dream of a future in the moment? that is howling with crickets, stars and warm air?

 

You made it princess, sugar babe.

And it is always the same when you go back.

 

You are just the one who will change is all.

 

And no matter how far you go away from your original plan,

your initial story of yourself, or your community, or your dream landscape

 

You will always pick up exactly where you left off

if its worth it anyway

 

So trust the struggle, trust that there is a reason that this story is being played in the way it is

 

Trust yourself to be wild and free, uninhibited by any thought of a thought of what people think of you

 

because it is not even close to being as real as the air and the dirt and the plants

 

And all of your confusion about where to be, where to go, and when, is based on the fact that there are so many beautiful places to be, people to meet, and things to do

 

So, just do. Cause its all beautiful.

 

Every road brings you right back to where you were.

So enjoy the walk, open your eyes— in this very artful moment.

T Reverie

Siproena Johnson

March.5.13

Week 9 Reverie

P188 Bachelard “But can’t those times of the speaking world be reborn?  Whoever goes to the bottom of reverie rediscovers natural reverie, a reverie of the original cosmos and the original dreamer.  The world is no longer mute”

There is tension rising as I rebirth my childhood

What was my life beyond the hospital to which I connect with such technicality?

I dream of days attempting to filter through

Find the days that this vision is not true

Regardless still a part of me

The child of healthy light I’ve yearned to be

What now of these children who learn and share?

The accomplishments they to me bare

It’s not always easy being a child, no matter how strong you’re loved or much less when unwanted

There is often something in the way or literally out of grasp

Slipping through delicate little fingers

Water cupped in hands

Sure as we age, we may yearn for those days to return

Without the harshness received in adolescence when some believed

No matter how much we accomplish, the wrongs gleam so much stronger in their eyes

How many times do adults pause, and listen? not simply for “I’m hungry” and “I’m sleepy”

The times children speak of their day, a picture drawn, or random comments that seem like drivel

Do we try to understand?

Attempt a reply with relevant conversation?

Pass the child off to simply wander

We may not always have the time, but when opportunities arise, take them, embrace them

There’s no telling what you’ll learn no matter how young the teacher