illusions of free will and illusions of control
This week we are to blog about illusion after reading one of the books from the class reading list. I chose to read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I don't have a strong background in genetics (or biology in general), but most of Dawkins' text is fairly approachable by a lay person. I'm probably half way through the book at this point, but what has really popped out at me is the extent to which our behavior is guided largely by our genetic survival and propagation instinct. Dawkins argues that we need to approach survival of the fittest and evolution through the lens of looking at individual genes, rather than whole bodies. Overall, it's shocking to think of the behavior he discusses through the framework of genetics; the illusion being that we have free will and choose altruism or selfishness. Our bodies are making decisions for us, and not just our bodies, but our genes, some of the smallest components of the human being, and parts we are born with and can never change. It's not individual genes responsible for this decision making, but rather whole gene pools - illuminating all of humanity's (and other species') interdependence. The illusion of complete individuality and autonomous decision making is brought into question.
illusions of time and space
Recently I have been thinking about more temporal and spatial illusions though. I spend a lot of time with people who have various levels of cognitive impairment and dementia, and am always amazed at the ways in which they perceive time and their placement in the world. To me, of course, it is clear that they are not living in "reality", or at least not the reality of that current moment as perceived by others. It is a sunny spring afternoon and we are sitting in the garden. One man, I'll call him Sol, is thrilled to be at the MoMA for the day. We are not at the MoMA, but at a hospital. Somehow he is convinced that we are in the MoMA garden. (Does MoMA even have a garden?). There is no convincing him otherwise, and does it even matter? From time to time my father gets it in his head that he has borrowed his friend bobby's car and becomes agitated and impatient with the thought that he hasn't yet returned it. He's concerned that Bobby will need it so we need to go downstairs, get it and bring it back. I don't know his friend Bobby and he doesn't know him anymore either. I know his last name though and so one time I googled him (luckily he's fairly well known). They used to work together, this I know, but since I can find him online, I can piece together the chronology of Bobby's life. They worked together in 1954 and Bobby died three years ago in 200. And yet still, we have his car (a car my father probably borrowed one time in 1954 and gave back promptly). He insists that it's parked in the garage downstairs (there is no garage downstairs). Essentially, he is about 50 years behind and is reliving something that happened long ago if, in fact, it happened at all.
Our bodies often, if not always, respond to stimuli with some sort of reaction before we are even consciously aware of it. In a sense, one could argue that we are always sort of looking back and analyzing our own behavior, though we think we are making decisions and are under the illusion that we have made choices when in fact we haven't. We are clearly lead much more by our biology and neural networks than we recognize at any given moment.
project
I am interested in making us conscious of the autonomic [automatic] events happening in our bodies in hopes that we can, in fact, make better decisions for ourselves. One component of the autonomic nervous system, which functions with some input of our conscious self, is breath. I am interested in monitoring breath and the differences in our breathing patterns over a day. I am particularly interested in isolating sighing. I would like to be aware of when I sigh, either from frustration, or deep relaxation. I would like to isolate the causes of my sighing in the hopes that I can increase my awareness of when and how often I am frustrated.
posted by Amanda @ 6:06 PM,
