Category Archives: Brain teasers

Don’t talk to strangers..

Posted on by

England beat Jamaica 6-0! Amazing! A guy on the train asked me the score last night, and was obviously disappointed. So I added I’d seen them play against Ghana – and told him they’d lost 4-1 and was not surprised. By this time the guy realised he’d asked the wrong fellow to buoy up his spirits!

Anyhow later on to a party thrown in Bayston Road in Stoke Newington where I first lived in London. By all accounts Tony, a guy who was rumoured to have a flat in Manhattan on a fixed rent, was there with the sister of Cherie Blair. Of course this inspired the paranoia of some, and the amusement of others. I related the story from Doron, a barrister from Holborn I met a couple of times and who used to speak to his mother every day on the phone (sorry). He’d met Cherie back in the day at chambers and had been chatting with her, and voiced his opinion that Tony Blair was some careerist loser. Only later did he realise who he’d been talking to..

Pele pic below included for no reason except to promote the Samba Boys blog once again which carries this pic!

Don’t ask a science-head

Posted on by

When a scientist says that had a bad night’s sleep this is what they are really thinking (from Tony Dickinson): 

Further to dream state imagery, I would like to share a personal
encounter eperienced at the week-end + my primo-cognate explanation:

"Dream-world image involved........ a chase, with myself as the pedestrian
escapee. I discovered myself to flying into the air shortly after this
commenced, using my own body as vehicle (having taken off somewhat Jumbo-like)"

Later in the day upon remembering this experience, it occured to me that
if the efferent motor-coordination commands for "walking" were being used
to produce (in some way) the experience of motion in the first place,
perhaps the subsequent "running and continuing to fly" image analysis
was derived from the usual "best guess" process: i.e., of continuous motion
perception in the absence of afferent proprioceptive feedback from my
bed-postured non-motile skeleton.

If the limb afferents are firing "we are not changing our recepter
states in any recognisable coherent way" and the efferent motor commands
are giving rise to "we are going to moving now" the cognitive output I would
content comes up with either: "I am situated in/upon some vehicle" or "I
am moving via some means other than voluntary perambulation".

Either or both of these scenarios would also explain the interpretation
of events as indicative of some external locus of control (being
pursued, [external agent motivated locomotion]; "I am flying", but do
not hold memories of piloting skills, but do have experience of
passenger flight and would therefor miss "I'm in an aeroplane" proprioceptive
feedback too. How else might I be moving through space
without specific limb-kinetic feedback during motion perception.