the timboucher experience

I went to the store after work, with the intention of buying that Daniel Dennett book. No, actually, with the intention of seeing if I wanted to buy that book. And as soon as I stepped into the philosophy section, and picked that book up, I was like No! But I made myself leaf through it and read random passages and stuff to see if anything grabbed me, and it just felt all wrong. Too constricting. Too, I dont know, stilted or something. After much searching, I eventually found a book that I bought that I am much happier with, and wanted for much longer anyway. The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann, who was one of Jung’s students, which I didn’t know, but makes sense, based on the little I know about him (I quote a passage from him I found online in one of the articles I wrote).

Anyway, I found a really good passage as soon as I started reading on the subway ride home that I wanted to type in here:

The form of representation peculiar to the unconscious is not that of the conscious mind. It neither attempts nor is able to seize hold of and define its objects in a series of discursive explanations, and reduce them to clarity by logical analysis. The way of the unconscious is different. Symbols gather round the thing to be explained, understood, interpreted. The act of becoming conscious consists in the concentric grouping of symbols around the object, all circumscribing and describing the unknown from many sides. Each symbol lays bare another essential side of the object to be grasped, points to another facet of meaning. Only the canon of these symbols congregating about the center in question, the coherent symbol group, can lead to an understanding of what the symbols point to and of what they are trying to.

I like that a whole lot, cause I think it is very much how I have been thinking, more and more, and I also think it relates to a kind of network theory of knowledge and learning, of highlighted nodes attracting information to them. Stuff like that.

• Unpaid Store Guides
• “Record Store Girl” by Big Elk [Lyrics]
• On Buying What You Want
• Enough is Enough! (And We’re Only Getting Started)
• Knife & pepper spray