Re: [-empyre-] Accidents (was for example)

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

I wonder whether the word 'information' is even usable in this sense.
There are information measures - this goes all the way back to the
beginning of cybernetic theory - but whether the term can be applied to
the mind or brain seems a bit moot to me.

I'm sure someone could quantify poetry or codework, but other than
stochastic hashes of one sort or another, I can't imagine how it could be
done, especially in the realm of semantics, constructed meaning, etc. -

Alan

On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Yvonne Martinsson wrote:

>
> > From: "Jim Andrews" <jim@vispo.com>
> > Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> > Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 04:06:22 -0800
> > To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> > Subject: RE: [-empyre-] Accidents (was for example)
> >
> > I'm trying to lead you down the garden path, Yvonne.
>
> Are you trying to (un)deceive me, Jim? Are you taking on the role of the
> trickster present in almost every mythology as the one who causes
> accidents/the accidental? Great role to play, I'd say.
>
> Seriously, I'm not a neurologist. I don't know how the brain retrieves and
> stores information except that it creates mnemonic tracks in the brain (left
> or right?). But there's more to the picture, isn't it?
>
> For instance, memory is selective. Certain things we split off -
> information, experiences etc. that don't fit in to our world view or our
> view of ourselves are easily dismissed. What's not interesting we also
> discard.
>
> Memory also play tricks on us and return by metaphorical condensation - two
> or more disparate memories condensed into one new - or by metonymical
> displacement  as a partial object associated to the real memory. Information
> that has been split off, stored and repressed may return and haunt us, they
> can cause us physical pain and psychosomatic symptoms, they can make the
> body jubilate.
>
> We got a brain, yes, but that brain is part of our bodies and memories can
> be stored anywhere in the body. This goes in particular for very early
> memories, before there's a language to pick them up and process them
> 'properly' (whatever that is).
>
>   yvonne
>
>
>
>
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