This blog is an experiment in popular or democratic phenomenology. Usually, "phenomenology" is the work of an "expert" in introspection who carefully dissects and thickly describes some aspect of being human (perhaps the most popular example is Oliver Sacks describing, for example, the world of the memory damaged patient or the experience of missing a limb). Phenomenology purports to generality by virtue of zeroing in on the essence of human experience through intense introspection. This blog reverses the process and will attempt to zero in by zeroing out and gathering multiple accounts of a given phenomenon.
Each week or so I'll post a question about some aspect of human experience. Visitors will be asked to describe their own inner experience of it. For example, our first topic is searching your mind for something you know that you know but simply cannot remember. It may be a word that you know you always use but just won't show itself right now. Or it could be the name of a person you run into or see a picture of. Or perhaps even a joke that you remember as "that joke" but cannot at all "find" the actual topic or content of. Your assignment, then, is to describe what this inner search for something in your head feels like. Where does it seem to happen? What language accompanies the experience? What do your eyes do as you seek the information? What characteristics of the knowledge CAN you feel or access even as you cannot bring the thing itself to the fore. What do these spatial relationships -- the hidden and the fore -- feel like to you?
And so I invite you to think about how you experience this phenomenon and to try to describe it for us.
3 comments:
As far as searching for something that I cannot find, I usually do not find the actual thing. The process of finding something usually gives me a headache as I search in vane for something that is lost. My mind is blank, literally. For instance, I lose something that I need an ID card or whatever. When I realize that it is not there I have nowhere to start. I guess the old trick of remembering where one last sees something would work if I could remember that. I have nothing to draw on. When this happens, I attempt to remember what the thing looked like. The same goes for jokes or words. In the case of words, I try to remember what it looked like on the page in which I had read it. If I can visualize it then I hope that all the other information surrounding the word will come. However if the memory is an audio one then it is lost to time and will not come back again. I am a visual person in that regard. The thing is that when something is just at the surface, about to break free of the water and breath; that is when the idea, item, whatever sinks to the bottom ne’er for me to comprehend at the moment. I know that I know the information needed however, the information needed does not present itself in that without the ability to articulate mentally what I know I just do not actually know what I have known. It is actually somewhat sad in a way. I feel the lost of that which I used to have. The lost of it tends to sadden me. I am unhappy with not succeeding in my endeavor. Does that answer the question and help with the experiment?
This actually happened to me tonight. I was trying to describe this really funny advertisement I saw, but I couldn’t remember the purpose of the advertisement. At first I was still feeling like myself and I started 'spewing' words (as in a usual conversation) but as my thoughts and words processed I realized I was missing the point in my head. I then started stammering trying to make sure I was getting out what I needed to. Then my mind kept on replaying the ad in my head trying to make sense of it.
At first it didn’t affect me, but as I realized how hard it was to remember something, I started getting really frustrated and my mind started feeling 'numb.' This 'numb' feeling was followed by discouragement.
This is also how I feel when I’m trying to connect faces with names or events. My mind turned numb as it processes all the possibilities, and either meets with a sense of discouragement if I can’t or a sense of deep satisfaction when it can.
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