I need to read more fiction. Considering how much David James Duncan's The Brothers K helped me empathize with practically everybody, it's kind-of unnerving to think that I read so little fiction.
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Apart from Cosmos, Carl Sagan didn't leave much recording-stuff behind. But he left a recording of "Pale Blue Dot," and it's found itself rather popular on Mr. Internet, especially to aspiring video editors. Heck, perhaps they've overdone it. But the first time I heard this little narration, things started becoming clearer. These videos inspired me to broaden my thinking a few years ago, when I still lived in Hope, BC. It wasn't long until I was renting Cosmos out from the library. Pale Blue Dot - Animation from Ehdubya on Vimeo. EARTH: The Pale Blue Dot from Michael Marantz on Vimeo. Pale Blue Dot from ORDER on Vimeo. Pale Blue Dot from Confetti on Vimeo. I'm trying to get a paper written, but it's been a rough go. I've tried to keep myself at the computer by having this documentary playing in the background. I'd just read about the documentary in a little article called "Kids of the Cloth: Child Preachers From Jesus to Marjoe" in the most recent edition of Skeptic magazine. I couldn't get it out of my head. It's a good show. It does a great job of showing how people's emotions are worked into a frenzy, or a meditation, in religious services. Things haven't changed much. I mean, the music styles have changed, but the overall goal and effect has not. In a little tiny way, I can empathize with him a little. I worked in worship services and churches for a long time. Even as my faith waned, I still worked in churches now and then because I enjoyed it, because I was good at it, because there was, well, no distinct end.
As much as I was never a Pentacostal*, I did enjoy leading worship songs. I had a unique way of doing it that I really enjoyed. I'd pound through the worship songs and wouldn't give people a rest. Then, once the group was getting a little bit overwhelmed, I'd move into some quiet, slow, meditative number that would get them to focus on God a bunch. It worked well; I used that general system at different churches and congregations. It was a good time. I've barely played live since I stopped attending churches. I can count on two hands the number of songs I've performed live since then. My voice is out of shape. I look forward to getting back in the game. I sometimes enjoy listening to the Philosophy in Action podcast. It's a good little listen when you're concentrating on other things, and I enjoy it in spite of some of the politics that don't jive with me. A recent post at the blog, however, caught my eye, in regards to John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. I just finished listening to the classic allegorical novel of protestantism, The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. It was truly atrocious, even aside from the Christianity. I cannot imagine Christians finding any value in it… and yet it is a classic. I battled my way through TPP a couple times, once on my own back in 1999 or so, and then in 2001 for a University class. It was a hard slog each time. The sort of appalling logic represented in the article quoted above made it an eye-roller every time. And I`m pleased to note that somebody else might think it isn`t worthy of being called a "classic." Historically important as the text is, and as representative as it is in regards to Puritan attitudes, its logic is utterly obsolete.
Let's relegate it to the sidelines of our canon, OK? OK. I recently read an article at The Guardian that seemed to back up a few ideas I'd read about on weblogs and heard in podcasts. In the article, titled "Our brains, and how they're not as simple as we think," Vaughan Bell describes the prevalence of neuroscience lingo in our everyday perceptions of ourselves. Bell writes, The popular interest in the brain means that we increasingly have a "folk neuroscience" that is strongly linked to personal identity and subjective experience. Like folk psychology it is not necessarily very precise, and sometimes wildly inaccurate, but it allows us to use neuroscience in everyday language in a way that wasn't previously credible for non-specialists. Carol Tavris calles this "pseudoneuroscience." Pseudoneuroscience acts like a means of discourse where we make reference to neuroscience to back up our perceptions of ourselves. Naturally, we do this backwards. Unlike scientific discourse, pseudoneuroscience tends to select a conclusion and seek a semiscientific means to back it up. It's practically a type of apologetics, where we see a conclusion and then selectively choose the references that will fit our preconceived conclusions. I'm not entirely certain about which term I like best. "Folk neuroscience" might fit the concept better on a common person-to-person level. I get really excited about neuroscientific findings, especially when they're reported from credible sources. I often can't help but apply them to my own life. But take a look at the list of examples at the end of the Guardian article. Haven't we all grabbed onto one of these little folk neuroscience myths at one time or another? ■ The "left-brain" is rational, the "right-brain" is creative People make medical and social decisions based on these myths, decisions for themselves, their children, their friends and family. And these ideas are myths.
But how can you work a myth out of the culture? I guess you can't. That's how myths work. Sigh. |
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April 2024
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