We often think of the flow of neural impulses as linear, and emphasize its terminal locus – i.e., we classically think of perception, an action, or an utterance as the terminal stage of some process whose locus is somewhere in the cortex. We think of perception as a one-way street, traveling form the outside world inwards, dispatching a linear stream of neural impulses from one relay to ever more complex ones, so that the process is metaphorically like a conveyor belt running through stations in a factory, until a perception rolls off the end as the finished product” (Cytowic, 1995).

If a course syllabus is a menu for a classroom experience, then here is my summary of the House of Wits Course 2010.  Each dish is a culinary representation of the James family member it is matched with opposite.  Anyone with allergies to pragmatism or relativism should avoid the preparations of William James.  They will result in a strong reaction.  They are arranged in reverse chronological order as the course primarily was.  Note how all the dishes work together... do they form a coherent meal?  Are their clashes in flavor?  Repetition?  All this is designed to bring out the family dynamics of the James.  Enjoy the meal!!!  And feel free to comment on your favorite dishes and personalities. 

                                                       The Neurobiology of Down syndrome

                                                                        Book Commentary – Pink Brain Blue Brain

 The neurobiology of color perception has long been a subject of interest both in the scientific community and in popular culture. Color perception varies widely from individual to individual, though it is difficult to characterize and quantify those differences. The effects of color on the function of the nervous system other than those related to vision, such as its effects on emotion, also remain elusive despite ongoing research. In his book Shades of Grey, Jasper Fforde takes the complexities of color perception and stretches them to their extremes. The novel, set in a vague semi-apocalyptic future, is unique in that the society it depicts is built entirely around the differences in its individuals’ color perception. At first, this seems absurdly

We generally think that humans have five senses and that those senses are delegated to a specific organ in our bodies. Anyone would agree that we see with our eyes, taste with our tongues, hear with our ears, feel with our skin and smell with our noses. While this may indeed be the case, it is not the whole story. Our senses are all interconnected. They compliment one another and can even compensate for one another if a sense is weakened or lost (1). However, the interactions between the senses are not uniform from person to person. Synesthesia, the name given to any of a number of conditions involving the experience of a usually unassociated sense in conjunction with the stimulation of another sense, provides insight into the ways our senses can interact.<

In my current reality, my I-function is disempowering.  At this moment, I want nothing to do with myself.  I do not want to be the storyteller.  I do not want my own construction of reality, but rather I desperately want to be free from my own experience of things.  Why do I feel so limited and negative?  Why can I not deal with what is out there?  In my head, destructive pictures are being composed and self-deprecating thoughts are being concocted.  Of course I hate this reality.  Of course I want empowering images of what is out there and empowering ideas infiltrating my head.  In this current state, more than anything, I want to feel like I did those mornings runni

At the beginning of this semester in House of Wits, I was amazed by how struck I was by Alice James’ diary. I immediately felt an inexplicable affinity with Alice, her commonplace book-cum-diary, and her infectious use of language. It was one of the first times that I explicitly recall feeling such camaraderie with an author, let alone one who penned her only published work (excluding her letters) nearly 120 years ago.

        Eidetic and photographic memory, although slightly different concepts, generally refer to the ability to voluntarily recall or hallucinate viewed images with extreme detailed accuracy. Eidetic memory is the ability to voluntarily conjure a vivid mental image of a viewed scene, or object, including its color and textured spirit to a precise degree. These images are mentally projected in space as being sheer or transparent. Eidetic images are unlike ordinary images because the images do not change during eye movements and can be evoked for days to years after the original encounter with the specific scene.