Friday, March 29, 2013

The World at First Sight


Is it touch, sound or sight that is the beginning of knowledge? The objective of this essay is not to draw a set of dogmatic conclusions about the beginning of knowledge. Perhaps, it would be prudent to enumerate a few possibilities regarding the role of sensory perception in the early stages of schematic construction. There are more but let us explore a few. When we enumerate possibilities, we are speculating but within our scope so that we can be spared of speculation for its own sake. With respect to the first events that provide source for a child to absorb from, we can begin by stating that the first stage of learning is probably through instant reaction. At this stage, it would be difficult from our perspective to call this instant reaction as learning, when in fact it is responsible for development. We have either read or heard of stories where infants in the womb receive sensations and these sensations cause a reaction which triggers the starting point of their perception. In these stories, infants grow up under the influence of these sensations and depending on their intensity develop into ‘extreme characters’.

 If I were to take up a case study in a particular mythology, a child becomes devoted to the concept of a compassionate being on account of hearing the chanting of the being’s name while in the womb.  There is the converse scenario where some anxiety and agitation experienced by the mother causes the infant to develop with angst as the starting point. Without the child’s knowledge, gradually the basis of his/her schema is angst and learning too depends on the conflict the child experiences between the state of the unknown and the object or subject to be known. In the former example, the child may learn under the influence of the concept of a compassionate being. Learning, in this case happens by associating the object/subject to be understood with a mysterious being outside time and space. The inspiration therefore flows not from the world to the child but from the sensation experienced in the womb even without the child’s knowledge. In both the cases, learning happens. It is not as though one is more appropriate than the other. All that can be said is that as long as learning is experienced by the individual concerned there would be a change in behavior or state of mind. 

If anxiety is the source of learning than the preference for a medium is also influenced by a certain conflict. If the concept of divinity is the source of learning than the preference for a medium could be influenced by imagery. In angst, the imagery may be absent but learning can happen by negation. This negation can be perceived as confrontational learning.   Probably, we can say that this inference drawn from mythologies indicates that a sensation gives rise to an imagery which influences the development of an individual. If the theory is overstated than we do not have to immediately look at the genetic basis of learning preferences. Till date, it has been difficult to predict the learning preference of a child without the pursuit of psychoanalysis. Genetic explanations would be easier to decode by a specialist in Genetics. In any case genetics does not give answers to the nature of experience of an infant in terms of anxiety or tranquility. Only psychoanalysis can. Many children may not learn from physical sensations at all. They may learn more from sight or sound. The basis points to how the individual perceives the world at first sight. This could be the beginning of learning for that individual concerned. Once he/she is aware of the unconscious preference, this will facilitate lasting clarity from then on. 



Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Announcement

For some time, from now on, my articles are going to be focused on how to leverage your whole brain. I have already started with my two posts, 'Leveraging Your Whole Brain' and 'In between Two Brains- Wernicke and Broca'. I will be writing a lot more on the subject as I feel it will give us insight into writing, the creative process and how to leverage a balanced hemispheric dominance in a world that seems to favor excess logic or excess creativity. Please feel free to give your suggestions. Your comments are most welcome.

In between Two Brains- Wernicke and Broca

On taking up the topic of speech production, it must be suggested that individuals who are spontaneous in speech cannot throw much light on the subject. They cannot know what happens to them while they are in the process of speaking. The only way a process of the brain can be understood is by adopting 'a fly on the wall' approach. This would imply standing outside the process in order to observe it neutrally. In Artificial Intelligence, there are no prizes for guessing that getting a computer to speak is not easy for a human being. This could be a result of the human being's underlying assumption that consciousness is needed to speak spontaneously. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

Some human beings who experience brain related trauma during communication exhibit psychosomatic symptoms which make it difficult to speak fluently or understand quickly or both. These individuals do not necessarily have problems with experiencing the minimum range of consciousness. In fact they may have layers of conscious experience that are inaccessible to ordinary mortals. The reason can be attributed to the sharpening of their introspective skills.

 Then there are those with consciousness disorders who have their fluency intact. It indicates that comprehending and producing speech have not much to do with consciousness after all. There are cases of people with injuries in their Wernicke and Broca areas who speak using other faculties of the brain that are not injured. Some of them retain speech production but have an altered sense of diction. Through them it is possible to understand how speech is comprehended and produced. It is also possible for an individual to attempt to be correct while speaking and this slows down the process of speaking but increases their ability to simultaneously ascertain how they think. These individuals may write with a facility that can give you a market to teach. The reason is that their thought process is organized to the extent of recording its nature and dimensions simultaneously. This gives them an edge when it comes to writing. It also enables them to introspect scientifically and come up with insights on speech production, comprehension and natural language processing. Scientists would do well to employ the aforementioned rare skills of these individuals to make strides in artificial intelligence when it comes to natural language processing and resource-faculty application.