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Week 9 Neuro Reverie

Week 9 Neuro Reverie

 

“We will undoubtedly find support fir the core contention of the human sciences, that human societies are not formed by aggregations of such isolates, each bounded by the surface of its individual body. We will find much evidence that disproves the idea that the nature of humans is to seek to maximize self-interest, and hence to challenge the view that to govern in accord with human nature is to require each individual to bear the responsibilities and culpabilities of his or her selfish choices. Such unpredictable conversations between the social sciences and the neurosciences may, in short, enable us to begin to construct a very different idea of the human person, human societies, and human freedom. We have tried to show, in this book, how neuroscience has become what it is today; let us conclude with a simple hope for the future: that neuroscience should become a genuinely human science.”

 

-Rose , N., & Abi-Rached, J. (2013). Neuro: The new brain sciences and the management of the mind. (p. 234). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

 

 

This had to be the most spine-tingling paragraph of the entire book for me. Although it makes perfect sense that neuroscience will undoubtedly alter human social structures, it is hard for me to imagine how the future of humanity and the world will manifest itself. I love how sure the authors are about what we will come to experience with the continual advancements in neuroscience: the lessening of self-interest and responsibility, a new way of viewing ourselves and our actions, and new forms of freedom. It seems that neuroscience has the capacity to build a more collective and cohesive global consciousness; hopefully one that unites us all as equals stemming from the same all-encompassing body, a single heart that pumps the same fiery blood through our veins. Unfortunately the course of human history has not proven this to be likely. With new forms of freedom come new forms of oppression. Perhaps we are drifting away from human compassion and closer to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Week 9 Neuro Reverie

Renée Ingersoll

As Poetry Recycles Neurons

5/28/13

Neuro Reverie

 

Neuro Reverie

This is the argument  that neuroscience, in isolating brains and their components as the focus of investigation and explanation, ignores or denies the fact that, in humans and other animals, brains only have the capacities to do what they do because they are embodied, organs in a body of organs with all its bloody, fluid, and fleshy characteristics.
(Rose and Abi-Rached, Neuro; 230)

When you break everything down,
it’s  an innumerable amount  of
a   t   o   m  s
the words on this page
this page
the hands that typed it
the keys that were pressed
the computer screen to see them
the eyes to see.
To think we are separate from our bodies,
is to think we are separate from the universe
which cannot be
and it’s what being is.
Even the idea of the soul offends the body
we are not celestial orbs occupying fleshy cages
for sport or amusement
this

is

It
I want my conscious to rot like the rest of me

P – Week 8 Reverie

“Our Perception of the World Is a Fantasy That Coincides with Reality” (Rose/Abi-Rached, 207)

Our perception of the world is a fantasy that coincides with reality on occasion if we’re lucky but we never really know if we’re lucky because we never really know what reality is. Is it what we see or is it something more or something less? It changes from person to person moment to moment memory to memory and changes every time it is remembered. There is know knowing in the muddled soup of our brains whether we are up or down and that is a confusing slide of behavior, a merry go round of an experience.

Word count: 97

**Sorry for the lateness.  We had to make a sudden move to Indiana last week and I haven’t had internet until now…

Week 9 Psychoanalysis of Fire

We are inclined to excuse all these naive beliefs, because
we now interpret them only in their metaphorical translation.
We forget that they corresponded to psychological realities.
Now ‘it oEren happens that metaphors have not completely lost
their reality J their concreteness. There is still a trace of concreteness
in cerrain soundly abstract definitions. A psychoanalysis
of objeccive knowledge must retrace and complete this
process of de-realization”
(Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire; 70)

With meditation comes the refinding of meaning in simple thoughts already thought,
realizations already come to or epiphanies once mulled over; seen with a new light.
How clear things can become with cliche metaphors, and common ideas.
They are this way because that’s why they became common in the first place.
But like all things, should be revisited, re-thought over.
Explore different facets of sound advice,
what different meanings could be applied to ‘practice makes perfect’
how perfect in all reality is inconceivable,
and therefore to achieve perfection, an eternity of practice is needed
but the more it is done the closer to eternity you are.
‘All things change’
It lies within the basic facts of our existence.
Within our evolution as a species,
and even the amount we age each day.
When we think we know something, that is when it is known you don’t. 

F ~ Week 8 Log

May 20th, Monday

2 hours reading Neuro by Nikolas Rose, conjuring a reverie.

4 hours reading Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf, reflecting upon my own body, note taking

1 hour reading Body of Wisdom: Women’s Spiritual Power and How it Serves by Hilary Hart

May 21st, Tuesday

4 hours reading The Female Pelvis Anatomy & Exercise by Blandine Calais-Germain

2 hours drawing the female reproductive organs.

May 22nd, Wednesday

2 hours working on the Holdredge paper, organizing ideas and formatting.

May 23rd, Thursday

4 hours reading Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf, reflecting upon my own body, note taking.

May 24th, Friday

4 hours reading The Naked Woman by Desmond Morris

Received the news at 2 am that my friend had passes away. The start of my body’s grieving process.

May 25th, Saturday

3 hours working on the Holdrege paper, organizing ideas and formatting.

That is all the work I can do at this time. My body feels so very weak.

May 26th, Sunday

I am feeling vulnerable and small. My body does not wish to move.

4 hours working on the Holdredge paper, organizing ideas and formatting.

2 hours reading The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are used Against Women by Naomi Wolf.

2 hours creating poetry, only slightly moving my body, talking with and surrounding myself with those I love and reflecting upon my feelings and connection to my body.

Totals

This week: 34 hours

Cumulative total: 122.5 hours

 

the Immortality of the Visionary

The reason why I’ve chosen to conduct an in-depth study project for William Blake over all the other giants of the poetic tradition is primarily that every work of his that I’ve ever read triggers a massive “WOW” moment in me, every single time. Of course, there are other poets who do the same, but Blake is different. Really different. I’ve come to realize from more extensive reading into his works and his life that this man was the quintessential archetype of a visionary.

Some in art circles tend to rate the great poets of ages past in comparison to their peers–Eliot and Shakespeare, for example, are often interchangeably referred to as the greatest of English language poets, as is Baudelaire in the French poetic tradition, Whitman and Poe in the American, and Dante, naturally, in the Italian.

It is my opinion that a very, very select few wordsmiths are so naturally gifted with poetic vision that, unlike most of their contemporaries, they do not need to go to school to hone their literary capabilities, and furthermore, they transcend all comparison to any specific field of poets. In this sense, it is not nearly enough to say that Blake is the greatest of English language poets. There is no field of comparison for his work. It’s the same process for all the great storytellers of ages past: arguably our most familiar manifestation of this phenomenon is the immortalization of the great legends of 20th century Rock n’ Roll–Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, most notably.

Though the academics always have something to say and some means of classification, in the end, William Blake will always be just…William effing Blake. This is the true essence of a poetic visionary: what it means to be a shamanic poet, what it means to be a truly…illuminated member of the Bardic tradition. And in this sense, William Blake is the perfect continuation from my Winter Quarter study of shamanism and consciousness.

Week 8 Calculated Poem

Love acts beyond the phase wills it into – Hate is obscure, errs, is pain, furor, torn – a Lust to adorn aversion, hope, love eying its object joined to its cause, sees path into Things the future or now.”
(Zukofsky, “A”,116)

How unfair this affair is playing out.
How hopeful I am each time we talk sweetly,
share secret smiles and long locked stares.
How cold it feels each time your hand find another’s instead.
This started so long ago yet burns the same each time.
Still, for your attention and touch I will always fiend
How unfair that these seeds are planted so deep within my psyche,
I’ve been yours since age fourteen.

P – Week 7 – Log & Update

5.13.13:  1 morning pages, 1/2 Bodystories, 1/2 meditation, 2 nature hike, 1/2 Neuro reverie, 2 WordPress

5.14.14:  1 morning pages, 2 notes for paper, 1 writing poetry

5.15.14:  1 morning pages, 1 walking meditation around lake, 5 WordPress, 6.5 finishing Place & Experience and notetaking, 2 finishing Perloff (it seemed wrong not to)

5.16.13:  3/4 morning pages, 4 reading Seamon articles on KSU website, 2 WordPress, 3 notes on Poetics of Space

“…though the character and quality of the inhabitants shape their house, the house contributes to the character, experience, and world of the inhabitants, partly through its nature as a physical thing and partly through the history of earlier inhabitants who found comfort or discomfort there.”  (David Seamon’s article on Poetics of Space)

5.17.13:  1 morning pages, 1 writing poetry, 3 Perceptual Experience, 1 trailer meditation

“…in normal perceptual experience the ‘things themselves’ seem much closer to us than a ‘throng of sensations.’ This does not by itself imply that we are not in any way aware of a throng of sensations in perceptual experience…even if the things themselves are ‘closer’ to us than sensations, this still implies that the sensations are somewhere to be found…It is obvious that perceptual experience is sensory in a way that thought is not…” (Perceptual Experience,
127)

5.18.13:  day off–catching up on laundry and other housewifely duties including experimental brownie recipes and amazingly delicious pork chops (J has put on a little weight since I’ve been here)

“Objects that are cherished in this way really are born of intimate light, and they attain to a higher degree of reality than indifferent objects, or those that are defined by geometric reality. For they produce a new reality of being, and they take their place not only in an order but in a community of order. From one object in a room to another, housewifely care weaves the ties that unite a very ancient past to the new epoch. The housewife awakens furniture that was asleep.” (Bachelard, 68)

5.19.13:  1 morning pages, 2 writing poetry, 2 notes and reverie from a boat on Lake Huron

Total:  46.75

Glassblowing Poetry part 2

First it is a line
Add fire
it droops
and drips
so flip
and round
and flip
and round
little teardrop
Add another line
Fire one end to
Red
Red
Glowing heat
Keeping the ball heated
but not red-hot
Precise penetration
to sprout a mushroom
in full bloom

Molten gum
Sticky element
Malleable
Compressed sand shard art
Beautiful
Taffy being pulled
By the heat of suns

I drowned my fear for death in sand
Blazed it with heat
Twisted
Pulled
Folded
and pressed
Till epiphanies drifted out of the heat
I’ve never been so much at peace
around so much goddamn fire