Comments | jamesonrocks: Getting into someone else's head

jamesonrocks

Getting into someone else's head

Nov 23, 2006 22:32

I want to know what you think, but I don't think it is possible. Not the subjects you think about, not the opinions you hold. When you think about one of those subjects or hold one of those opinions, what do you perceive?

------------------------------------
NOTE: This is the start of a lot of writing I'm going to be doing on how people think, how ( Read more... )

thought

Comments 6

kraftwerk2020 November 24 2006, 05:38:54 UTC

Dude, heavy!

I don't even understand how I think! I'm not sure how to explain it. But, I would be one of those verbal thinkers you are talking about. The interesting thing about that is that I can control, mostly, my verbal thought.

However, I also think visually but I don't have very much control over that. I start imagining things but I can not direct that visual thought. If it's something nice - it's cool. If it's something not nice it becomes almost like a bad trip because I can't just think of something else. If, for example, I wanted to sketch/paint something I would try to hold the image in my mind it would start to change and morph into something else and I would not be able to stop it.

And you are right I mostly assume that other people function the same way day to day. But, if I stop to think about it I know that they don't.

do you see what I see? conandammit November 25 2006, 02:19:54 UTC

The problem with perception is that it is colored so strongly by beliefs, some known, and some (most?) unkown.

And beliefs shift with experience and understanding.

Most people do not even know themselves well enough to understand why they understand things the way they do, much less communicate that understanding to another human being.

This is a difficult and interesting area of study, I wish you luck and will be of whatever help I can. Perhaps in the process I will get to know myself better.

Polymorphism kevelyn63 November 26 2006, 16:27:37 UTC

I've been pretty steeped in this whole topic for several months now ( ... )

cutlass_adept November 27 2006, 15:59:25 UTC

You might want to read a little bit about semiotics. Many years ago, when I was working on my final project for my linguistics degree, I came across the case of a young man who, at the age of 27, still had not acquired his first language. (He was deaf and mute and orphaned as a youngster and had survived alone!) It was a tremendous struggle for him to gain a first language and eventually, the woman who helped him did it by drawing a picture of a cat with the word written below it, miming cat behavior, then placing the picture on top of her head and then moving it to a position on top of his head. She did this over and over and then, when the poor man had that first connection of agreeing with another human being that this arbitrary symbol (the drawing) would stand for the concept of an actual cat so that the two of them could mutually reference this idea, the poor man went into shock. If I recall correctly, he fainted or something. The point of my research was to list the requirements for first language acquisition, one of which is ( ... )

Beer helps notbatman November 27 2006, 16:51:45 UTC

"I can ask you "how you think", but how does one respond to that?"

That's easy. As little and as rarely as possible.