peril and promise of automatism
William James in his Psychology: Briefer Course:
The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.
Attractive idea, yes? It’s hard for me to say. No, that has to be wrong and is awful. There are no such things as “higher thoughts.” But of course there are, we all know just what he means. Why do I keep blogging meaningless shit from my life? Shouldn’t I hand my life over to the “effortless custody”?
I am going to work tomorrow for at least eight hours and I am going to think about absolutely nothing but work for those eight hours. I’ll let you know if any “higher thoughts” are produced.
(Ugh… wasn’t even thinking of this when I wrote the kernel of this post… But there it is….)
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I misread the title of this as “perl and the promise of automatism”. Immediately I thought, ugh! No! Don’t use perl! Use Python…
Dominic
February 18, 2009 at 10:23 am
Dominic,
If only it were that simple!
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February 19, 2009 at 11:59 am
If you figure out how to go to work for eight hours and think about nothing but work for those eight hours, let me know, because it would really help me out.
Candice
February 18, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Candice,
Yeah didn’t happen cuz I got sick! I’ll try again on Friday!
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February 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm