"You have power over your mind --- not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." - Marcus Aurelius

"The mind has exactly the same power of the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it." - Colin Wilson

" 'Doublethink' means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." - George Orwell

(NOTE: I shall return to the last quote in a later post!)






If you haven't guessed by now, I am most fascinated by the human brain, how we think, how we remember, how we forget, how we imagine, how we think about how we think.







I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulacity uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg:

THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervitsy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig, huh?

A couple interesting notes spring from this. It seems I've been telling a lot of "mom" stories, without her being able to defend herself, but she was the kind of person who wrote weekly letters to all of us once we left home. It was a standing joke amongst the family that we needed a translator, because her handwriting was somewhat unique. She would form the first letter of virtually every word, and then essentially draw a bit of a squiggley line which gave us a rough approximation of the length of the word. It amazed me how easy it was to read. I always assumed that each word was being 'read' in the context of those around it, and not as separate words, similar to the observations above.

The second observation I note is that my own typing, since I was hit with full-blown bipolarism, has been affected. In the course of typing one of these typical blogs, there will probably be 15-20 occurences that I have to correct when I'm editting where I switch two letters around in a word, whereas I seldom did that before. It's as if I've discovered a higher gear for my brain, and my fingers can't keep up or something.

Finally, experiemnts like the one above give me cause to ponder the way spelling is taught in schools, and why there seems to be so many spelling errors. I thought it might be that we have adjusted to tools like spellchecker, and have allowed a little "evolution of the species" to creep in, but now I'm wondering if spelling really matters much at all. Maybe "pure" language, like country borders, are holding us back as barriers to understanding, while being worn as pins of proud ethnicity. Does it truly matter that I spell color, 'colour' or catalog, 'catalogue', just to identify that I'm Canadian? This makes me wonder if I might not evolve the language of 'is' that I introduced you to here more than I had originally intended to.

On a totally unrelated issue, you may have noticed I've added another link in my link list, this time to "The Onion News". It's an R-rated newszine that has some pretty funny stuff, and lots of good satire if you're into that. I actually came across it as part of a search on agrophobia (interestingly enough, also spelled agorophobia!) since I have pretty intense spells of it from time to time (sorry...I couldn't resist!). I'll stay in the house for periods of 10 days to two weeks sometimes...with a noticebale body panic level rising as I approach a door with the intention of going out. During those periods, I'll wait till it's dark out to pick up my mail, and so on. Of course I know it's irrational, most, if not all, phobias are, but this one seems to be strengthening over time rather than weakening, so I wanted to research it a bit. here's the link that I tripped across in The Onion News. If it wasn't so funny, it would be true!

And on a third totally unrelated issue, I feel I've been letting down the group ever since DJB and Hairy Face posted moralistic stories about chopping wood, and feeding their dogs Cod Liver Oil. So here's one for your weekend reading (Caution: this story might contain adult themes...depends, I suppose on where your mind is!)

A story with a moral...

There is this fish in the water, and he is looking at a fly hovering over the water. "If that fly would drop six inches, I could jump out and grab it!"

There is a bear on the bank of the lake, and he is saying "If that fly would drop six inches, the fish would jump out to get it and I could grab the fish!!"

There is a hunter in the forest, taking aim at the bear. He says "If that fly would drop six inches, then the fish would jump out and the bear would reach for the fish and come into the clear, then I could shoot it!!!"

There is a mouse, hidden behind the hunter. He is looking at the hunter's cheese sandwich. He say's "If that fly would drop six inches, the fish would go for the fly, the bear would go for the fish, the hunter would put down his cheese sandwich and go to shoot the bear and I could grab the cheese sandwich!!!!"

There is a cat standing further back from the mouse. She is saying, "If that fly would drop six inches, the fish would jump for the fly, the bear would go for the fish, the hunter would put down his cheese sandwich to shoot the bear, the mouse would run for the sandwich, and I could grab that mouse in a second!!!!!"

Then it happened!

The fly dropped six inches.
The fish jumped up and got the fly!
The bear reached out and grabbed the fish!!
The hunter put his cheese sandwich down and shot the bear!!!
The mouse ran and picked up the sandwich!!!!
The cat lunged for the mouse, missed, and then ended up in the water!


So you ask, "What is the moral of the story?"
The moral of this story boys and girls is...

"EVERY TIME A FLY DROPS SIX INCHES, A PUSSY GETS WET!!!!"

You were expecting something a little more profound?


And last, but not least, a few more fractals that I really like, and wanted to share (click to enlarge).

(I don't have a title for this one; it's just that I like anything that reminds me of Haida art from the west coast...and this does!!)

PEACE. (a connection to a lengthy article titled "Inner peace is an onion: peel back the layers to find the mind-body connection)

Posted by Evydense on Saturday, April 08, 2006 at 8:21 a.m. | Permalink