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In the kingdom of the mind : Comments
By Tanveer Ahmed, published 18/2/2011Our brains evolved in small, homogenous communities but are now faced with extraordinary diversity in a fast-changing, globalised knowledge economy.
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congratulations on a splendid splice of neurological and psychological insight. Great article, and a definite literary bent (touches of Maupassant) on show as well. I wonder if you're a fan of Adam Phillips?
It would be sheer pleasure to spend all day interrogating this article and offering counterarguments, but alas I don't have the time.
I do think the analytic sciences should avail themselves more of philosophy, as you have. And I think "you" might look at the continental tradition as much as the analytic.
I was surprised you never mentioned language in all of this; how much of the brain is devoted to it, and how much our conceptual world is pre-textualised, and whether we are capable of thinking outside the text, or even outside or in excess of our neural horizon (Whether there even exists an ontological reality?).
It seems to me humans "are" capable of transcending these, that we do it every day with simple anxiety--perceiving the cracks and even chasms in our constructed (or forced) realities.
I believe our "natures" are distorted under capitalism, that we are, as you imply, endlessly manipulated by the market, and more directly by marketing.
Human beings are incredibly creative in their adaptation to an aggressive world of scarcity. This is inspirationally and appallingly on show in impoverished countries, which you seem to elide--tacitly suggesting Westernism is a global reality?
Globalisation is indeed a western reality--but of gross disparities which distort "both" halves. For the wealthy half this creative capacity has largely degenerated into a merely passive, indeed exploited relationship with, and reception of, stimulus ("Stimulus" here being synonymous with "commodity"). Plugged-in Western consumers are hot-house plants that could not survive outside in the real.