Participation

She thought she saw a wicked witch A-cursing in the wood. She looked again and saw it was A damsel fair and good. I wrote a post earlier which shows how easy it is to mistake one thing for another ; if you like, you can find the post here. So, at first glance, and [...]

Read Full Post »

The wonder of the world

Of all the world’s wonders there is none greater than human consciousness.  If we were not conscious, then there would be no world that we could speak of.  No doubt there is something outside of our consciousness, but it is not the world ; for the world is a construction made of distinctly human cognitive [...]

Read Full Post »

More models

It is, of course, well-known in the science of psychology that the world that we say we know is in fact composed of cognitive models of that other world – the world around us.  Experimental psychologists tend strongly to the view that our knowledge consists of memories ; and those memories are comprised of particular [...]

Read Full Post »

Inner worlds

According to current theories of neurology a beautiful thing, such as a rose plant, grows not only in the soil where it apparently belongs, but also in each brain of each person who beholds it.  The real physical growth of the plant is replicated, as it were, as a different kind of real physical growth [...]

Read Full Post »

Modelling

In the field of cognitive psychology it seems fairly well established that our knowledge is comprised of complex chemical compounds distributed within the networks of nerve cells of the brain.  Thus my knowledge of the shape of an apple, say, is actually a chemical construct which would seem to bear no geometrical  relation to the [...]

Read Full Post »