Last week we read the New Yorker article that introduced first me and now you to Dr. David Eagleman and some of his ideas, particularly his experiments on time perception.  

This week we will discuss the first chapter of Eagleman’s book, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain.  

In this chapter Eagleman gives us the main idea of his book, which is also implied in its title: the brain has a hidden life that we are not aware of. He ties this idea in to the historical realization in the 17^th century that the earth was not the center of the universe, as was previously believed.  Similarly we –our consciousness, that part of us that says “I” –our “egos” are not the center of our mental processes. Thus he ties together two concepts that have often symbolized or stood for each other, outer space and inner space. Both unknowns.

He traces the development of the idea of the unconscious mind through history and pauses for awhile to consider the theories of Sigmund Freud, the psychiatrist who changed that way we think about ourselves. It’s fashionable now to point out all the mistakes Freud made. Yeah, he did. But that shouldn’t detract from appreciating the compassion, great genius, and influence of this major 20^th century thinker.

I’ve assigned you a short selection from Freud’s actual writings on the unconscious mind. It’s not easy reading but we’ll work through it. We’ll see how what Freud wrote is similar to and different from Eagleman’s hypotheses. And why.

That Freud was onto something is obvious in many tales we tell and have always told that hint at an unknown part of the self. I’ll show you examples of these tales and invite you to have fun playing psychoanalyst.

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Next week, Week 8, is our midterm. I’ll post it for you by Monday and give you a week to do it. What is it? I don’t know yet. I’m working on it. Trust me. I’m thinking of giving an extra credit discussion in which you give me some proposals for a midterm and if I use yours you get extra points. Or even if I think your proposal is worth considering!

 

Anyway, during the midterm week, we’ll have a discussion on it so you can ask questions, post parts of it and get feedback from me and other class members. This will be a 20 point non-optional discussion. Your Weekly Review of that week will consist of an evaluation of your paper, by you! 

 

See you around....