{"id":10674,"date":"2012-04-27T15:34:12","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T19:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=10674"},"modified":"2012-04-27T15:34:12","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T19:34:12","slug":"and-counter-intuition-replied","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/and-counter-intuition-replied\/","title":{"rendered":"And Counter-Intuition Replied&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"407\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uJM7TdshUbw?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: studio version of &#8220;I&#8217;ve Seen All Good People,&#8221; by Yes]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <em><a title=\"whiskey river: William Stafford, on the art in everyone\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/not-few-but-everyone-makes-art.html\" target=\"_blank\">whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Not a few, but everyone, makes art. There is no art beyond the sensibility of the people confronting it: art is an interaction between object and beholder. The idea of a human being forced to concede the superiority of a work of art without in fact being able to participate in judging that quality is a surrealistic idea. In my area, the coyotes are still the best poets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(William Stafford)<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Urszula Koziol, on saying nothing, remembering nothing, saying nothing, hearing nothing\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/learn-to-say-i-dont-know-learn-to-say-i_24.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>learn to say &#8220;I don&#8217;t know&#8221;<br \/>\nlearn to say &#8220;I can&#8217;t say&#8221; &#8220;I don&#8217;t remember&#8221;<br \/>\nlearn to say nothing<\/p>\n<p>train your memory to fail<br \/>\nrecognize that you have the right to make mistakes<br \/>\nto stay mute<\/p>\n<p>insist that the noise in your ears is due merely<br \/>\nto history&#8217;s winds or to the changes in pressure<br \/>\nthat make mirages out of daily life<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Urszula Koziol,<em> To a Young Man<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Wendell Berry, on surprise wisdom from a dead friend\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/in-dream-i-meet-my-dead-friend.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In a dream I meet<br \/>\nmy dead friend. He has,<br \/>\nI know, gone long and far,<br \/>\nand yet he is the same<br \/>\nfor the dead are changeless.<br \/>\nThey grow no older.<br \/>\nIt is I who have changed,<br \/>\ngrown strange to what I was.<br \/>\nYet I, the changed one,<br \/>\nask: &#8220;How you been?&#8221;<br \/>\nHe grins and looks at me.<br \/>\n&#8220;I been eating peaches<br \/>\noff some mighty fine trees.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Wendell Berry)<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Mark Twain, from &#8220;Is Shakespeare Dead?&#8221; [<em><a title=\"Google Books: 'What Is Man? and Other Essays,' by Mark Twain\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Dv9KAAAAMAAJ&amp;pg=PA364#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When talking about past, present and future, people all over the world show a tendency to conceive of these notions spatially, [Rafael Nunez,\u00a0a\u00a0cognitive-science researcher] said. The most common spatial pattern is the one found in the English-speaking world, in which people talk about the future as being in front of them and the past behind, encapsulated, for example, in expressions such as the &#8220;week ahead&#8221; and &#8220;way back when.&#8221; (In earlier research, Nunez found that the Aymara of the Andes seem to do the reverse, placing the past in front and the future behind.)<\/p>\n<p>In their time study with the Yupno [people of Papua New Guinea]&#8230; Nunez and colleagues find that the Yupno don&#8217;t use their bodies as reference points for time &#8212; but rather their valley&#8217;s slope and terrain. Analysis of their gestures suggests they co-locate the present with themselves, as do all previously studied groups. (Picture for a moment how you probably point down at the ground when you talk about &#8220;now.&#8221;) But, regardless of which way they are facing at the moment, the Yupno point uphill when talking about the future and downhill when talking about the past.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly and also very unusually, Nunez said, the Yupno seem to think of past and future not as being arranged on a line, such as the familiar &#8220;time line&#8221; we have in many Western cultures, but as having a three-dimensional bent shape that reflects the valley&#8217;s terrain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>([<em><a title=\"Eurekalert: 'Study finds twist to the story of the number line'\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/pub_releases\/2012-04\/uoc--sft042312.php\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Perhaps the most curious [culture using a &#8220;body-tally&#8221; system] is the Yupno, the only known Papuan people for whom each individual owns a short melody that belongs to them like a name, or signature tune. They also have a counting system that enumerates the nostrils, eyes, nipples, belly button and climaxes in 31, for &#8220;left testicle,&#8221; 32, &#8220;right testicle&#8221; and 33, &#8220;penis.&#8221; &#8230;what is particularly intriguing about the Yupno&#8217;s phallic number is that they are actually very coy about it. They refer to the number 33 euphemistically as &#8220;the man thing.&#8221; Researchers were unable to discover whether women used the same terms, since they are not supposed to know the number system and refused to answer questions. The upper limit in Yupno is 34, which they call &#8220;one dead man.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Alex Bellos [<em><a title=\"Alex Bellos: 'Alex's Adventures in Number-Land'\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/82182482\/Alex-s-Adventures-in-Number-Land-Bellos-Alex\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to\u00a0many that you have no doubt already\u00a0heard. After some observations and\u00a0rough calculations the engineer realizes\u00a0the situation and starts laughing. A few\u00a0minutes later the physicist understands\u00a0too and chuckles to himself happily, as\u00a0he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves\u00a0the mathematician somewhat perplexed,\u00a0as he had observed right away that he\u00a0was the subject of an anecdote and deduced quite rapidly the presence of\u00a0humor from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a\u00a0corollary to be significant, let alone\u00a0funny.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Anonymous [<em><a title=\"Notices of the American Mathematical Society: 'Foolproof: A Sampling of Mathematical Folk Humor,' by Paul Renteln and Alan Dundes\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ams.org\/notices\/200501\/fea-dundes.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Transcendentalism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The professor stabbed his chest with his hands curled like forks<br \/>\nbefore coughing up the question<br \/>\nthat had dogged him since he first read Emerson:<br \/>\nWhy am I &#8220;I&#8221;? Like musk oxen we hunkered<br \/>\nwhile his lecture drifted against us like snow.<br \/>\nIf we could, we would have turned our backs into the wind.<\/p>\n<p>I felt bad about his class&#8217;s being such a snoozefest, though peaceful too,<br \/>\na quiet little interlude from everyone outside<br \/>\nrooting up the corpse of literature<br \/>\nfor being too Caucasian. There was a simple answer<br \/>\nto my own question (how come no one loved me,<br \/>\nstomping on the pedals of my little bicycle):<\/p>\n<p>I was insufferable. So, too, was Emerson I bet,<br \/>\nthough I liked <em><a title=\"&quot;Brahma,&quot; by Ralph Waldo Emerson\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bartleby.com\/101\/672.html\" target=\"_blank\">If the red slayer think he slays<\/a><\/em>&#8212;<br \/>\nthe professor drew a giant eyeball to depict the Over-soul.<br \/>\nThen he read a chapter from his own book:<br \/>\nnaptime.<br \/>\nHe didn\u2019t care if our heads tipped forward on their stalks.<\/p>\n<p>When spring came, he even threw us a picnic in his yard<br \/>\nwhere dogwood bloomed despire a few last<br \/>\ndirty bergs of snow. He was a wounded animal<br \/>\nbeing chased across the tundra by those wolves,<br \/>\nthe postmodernists. At any moment<br \/>\nyou expected to see blood come dripping through his clothes.<\/p>\n<p>And I am I who never understood his question,<br \/>\nthough he let me climb to take a seat<br \/>\naboard the wooden scow he\u2019d been building in the shade<br \/>\nof thirty-odd years. How I ever rowed it<br \/>\nfrom his yard, into my life &#8212; remains a mystery.<br \/>\nThe work is hard because the eyeball&#8217;s heavy, riding in the bow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Lucia Perillo [<em><a title=\"Poetry Foundation: 'Transcendentalism,&quot; by Lucia Perillo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poem\/238222\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n<p>___________________________<\/p>\n<p><strong>Note:<\/strong>\u00a0The Missus and I are in Miami at the moment &#8212; about the most counter-intuitive place for <em>me<\/em>\u00a0to be, anyhow\u00a0&#8212;\u00a0which explains several things: (1) the lateness of this post; (2) the more-or-less static video (no facility for actually uploading to the audio-player thingum I usually use); (3) the generally scattered &#8220;feel&#8221; of the post. And now that I think about it, &#8220;I&#8217;ve Seen All Good People&#8221; is\u00a0probably a\u00a0sort of counter-intuitive musical selection for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: studio version of &#8220;I&#8217;ve Seen All Good People,&#8221; by Yes] From whiskey river: Not a few, but everyone, makes art. There is no art beyond the sensibility of the people confronting it: art is an interaction between object and beholder. The idea of a human being forced to concede the superiority of a work [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,247,1393,74,50,251,713],"tags":[657,1345,1579,1776,1972,2965,2966,2967,2968,2969,2970,2971,2972,2973],"class_list":{"0":"post-10674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-themissus","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-music","10":"category-language-writing_cat","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-humor-writing_cat","13":"tag-mark-twain","14":"tag-william-stafford","15":"tag-wendell-berry","16":"tag-jokes","17":"tag-mathematics","18":"tag-intuition","19":"tag-yes","20":"tag-ive-seen-all-good-people","21":"tag-urszula-koziol","22":"tag-yupno","23":"tag-mathematicians","24":"tag-lucia-perillo","25":"tag-miami","26":"tag-distractedness","27":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-2Ma","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10674"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10688,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674\/revisions\/10688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}