Reading, Cognitive Science, Post-Modernism
I am the first person to say that I avoid post-modernist theory if I can (cite it as a sop to my easily-frustrated nature), but this post is somewhat interesting:
If the mind is, as the neurologist contends, the brain then acts of reading and writing are not simply acts of a disembodied spirit that judges, selects, rejects, dismisses, but rather they are irreversible, physical events that transform ones neurology. To read is to create a physical trace that will irreversibly be there. Discourse with another is here no longer an innocent way of passing the time like Socrates beneath the tree with the young, charming and handsome Phaedrus, but is to transform, if only in a small way, both of those involved in a way that is irresolvable and that even has its own chemistry.
Of course, an ultimate physicalist argues that we are but machines that scan input, send some electrical signals around, and disperse/encode this new information. The text itself, the meme/information it contains, the person reading it, and the neurochemicals flooding your brain are all in the end... equal.
If the mind is, as the neurologist contends, the brain then acts of reading and writing are not simply acts of a disembodied spirit that judges, selects, rejects, dismisses, but rather they are irreversible, physical events that transform ones neurology. To read is to create a physical trace that will irreversibly be there. Discourse with another is here no longer an innocent way of passing the time like Socrates beneath the tree with the young, charming and handsome Phaedrus, but is to transform, if only in a small way, both of those involved in a way that is irresolvable and that even has its own chemistry.
Of course, an ultimate physicalist argues that we are but machines that scan input, send some electrical signals around, and disperse/encode this new information. The text itself, the meme/information it contains, the person reading it, and the neurochemicals flooding your brain are all in the end... equal.
