Mathematics provides lovely opportunities to encounter the impossible. Even little children can sketch a few levels of a tree fractal (and imagine infinitely more); or fold paper repeatedly to see how "circles are secretly made out of triangles" (limit, integral); or play with one-sided Moebius strips.
Hi Annie. The Extended Mind. Best book of 2021. And it took most of 2022 to go deeper and apply it all. Can you enlighten me on Substack writing? I don't see 2022 articles in your archive list. Where is the best place to revisit your 2022 writing? GP, Founder, Gifted Professionals and Communicators
Hi Annie -- I read your book The Extended Mind last year, it was really helpful & introduced the word interoception to me and I love that you're writing here on Substack now! Welcome.
As for "impossible..." just to share, my old saying about impossible is that when someone says that something is impossible, the one thing that I know for sure is that they don't know what the fuck they're talking about ;)
It does make for a great prompt though -- an encounter with the impossible... And yes. I mean, for me, dreams are very fruitful. I do write them down when strong ones come through, and one technique that's been particularly interesting has been to bring something from such dreams into the waking world--to manifest and artifact of the dream—or of a moment of intuitive insight, which I see as of a similar realm. I got this technique from Robert Johnson's great book _Inner Work_. I wrote about doing this here, for example: https://bowendwelle.substack.com/p/ai-intuition-and-the-collective-unconscious
Science fiction has also been a big inspiration for me, thanks for that list. I recently had the chance to interview Kim Stanley Robison, a hero of mine and many in that genre, and we talk about how nature, right here on Earth, is the primary inspiration for his science fiction. Nature is the "first and ultimate inspiration" for me as well, and of course is the first, entire and complete _possible_, and also, in being infinite, somehow contains the impossible as well.
It's hard to believe in impossible things. Harder still when you feel so impossibly stuck. It's hard to be open and curious when your soul is atrophied and disused. When you're solidly unmoved. When your skin bristles and everything hurts. At the center of your brain, above your ears and slightly back, there's a conglomerated structure. Sometimes the ventral striatum stops caring. Stops seeing the value in the stimuli it tracks. When it loses interest in outcomes, expectations, anticpation, and rewards. When you've pushed yourself into a corner, curled on the bathroom floor, behind a closed door, trying not to cry above a whisper. When the most impossible thing you can think of is feeling better, and even that feels like its impossibly beyond belief.
Mathematics provides lovely opportunities to encounter the impossible. Even little children can sketch a few levels of a tree fractal (and imagine infinitely more); or fold paper repeatedly to see how "circles are secretly made out of triangles" (limit, integral); or play with one-sided Moebius strips.
Hi Annie. The Extended Mind. Best book of 2021. And it took most of 2022 to go deeper and apply it all. Can you enlighten me on Substack writing? I don't see 2022 articles in your archive list. Where is the best place to revisit your 2022 writing? GP, Founder, Gifted Professionals and Communicators
Hi Annie -- I read your book The Extended Mind last year, it was really helpful & introduced the word interoception to me and I love that you're writing here on Substack now! Welcome.
As for "impossible..." just to share, my old saying about impossible is that when someone says that something is impossible, the one thing that I know for sure is that they don't know what the fuck they're talking about ;)
It does make for a great prompt though -- an encounter with the impossible... And yes. I mean, for me, dreams are very fruitful. I do write them down when strong ones come through, and one technique that's been particularly interesting has been to bring something from such dreams into the waking world--to manifest and artifact of the dream—or of a moment of intuitive insight, which I see as of a similar realm. I got this technique from Robert Johnson's great book _Inner Work_. I wrote about doing this here, for example: https://bowendwelle.substack.com/p/ai-intuition-and-the-collective-unconscious
Science fiction has also been a big inspiration for me, thanks for that list. I recently had the chance to interview Kim Stanley Robison, a hero of mine and many in that genre, and we talk about how nature, right here on Earth, is the primary inspiration for his science fiction. Nature is the "first and ultimate inspiration" for me as well, and of course is the first, entire and complete _possible_, and also, in being infinite, somehow contains the impossible as well.
https://bowendwelle.substack.com/p/e14-wayfinding-with-kim-stanley-robinson
Really enjoyed this!
It's hard to believe in impossible things. Harder still when you feel so impossibly stuck. It's hard to be open and curious when your soul is atrophied and disused. When you're solidly unmoved. When your skin bristles and everything hurts. At the center of your brain, above your ears and slightly back, there's a conglomerated structure. Sometimes the ventral striatum stops caring. Stops seeing the value in the stimuli it tracks. When it loses interest in outcomes, expectations, anticpation, and rewards. When you've pushed yourself into a corner, curled on the bathroom floor, behind a closed door, trying not to cry above a whisper. When the most impossible thing you can think of is feeling better, and even that feels like its impossibly beyond belief.
Thanks for the little burst of inspiration.