[MD] NYC

[Carl Thames]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "MarshaV" <valkyr at att.net>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2011 2:00 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] NYC


>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Dec 29, 2011, at 10:19 PM, "Carl Thames" <cthames at centurytel.net> 
> wrote:
>
>> Marsha:
>>> Perhaps we have never been to NYC. We can study all about NYC, look at 
>>> photographs, read the history, and learn a tremendous amount about NYC 
>>> from books. Far more than the people who live and/or work in NYC know. 
>>> We can be experts. But, when we board an airplane and fly to NYC, there 
>>> is a great difference when we experience NYC with our eyes, our ears and 
>>> other senses. Then we understand so much more, don't we? Because we have 
>>> the direct experience of our senses and not just the mental image of 
>>> NYC, even though the latter is correct.  Direct perception is to see 
>>> things as they are, without changing them through our concepts.
>>
>> Carl:
>> I was going to add this to the last message and sent it before I did:
>>
>> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Source-monitoring_error
>>
>> I think this may have more to do with our perceptions that we're 
>> comfortable admitting.  I know it applies to me.  It's directly related 
>> to our concepts, and how we arrive at them.

Marsha:
> Source monitoring error seems to be about memory, rather than direct 
> perception.

Carl:
It probably does, but how much of our perception is based in memory?  I 
watched a short video before sending that response.  Take a look at:

http://vimeo.com/34043867

It's a talk given about hallucination  by  Stephan Beyer, Ph.D., called 
"Ayahuasca, Cognitive Psychology, and the Ontology of Hallucination"  This 
struck me because of the number of people who screw up my last name, 
(Thames).  People take one look and about 80% of the time they call me 
Thomas.  They look, hit the memory banks, and come up with the closest 
approximation of what their mind tells them it should be.  No, they're not 
practicing mindfullness, (the first time I typed that it came out 
'mindfull_mess_' which is probably more accurate) and they're filling in the 
blanks like the guy talks about in the video.  It really made me wonder just 
how much of that we do on a routine basis, which caused me to question what 
I consider perception.  I think our tendency to do that is what causes my 
two artists to paint two different paintings of the same scene.

Later,
Carl