Education in United States

More than the book GEB, I find Douglas Hofstadter's description of his education more interesting that the book itself ...

[I]n late 1967 ... I dropped out of math grad school in Berkley and took up a new identity as physics grad student at the University of Oregon in Eugene. ... I was very discouraged with the way my physics studies and my life in general were going, so in July I packed my all my belongings into a dozen or so cardboard boxes and set out on an eastward trek across the vast American continent. ... From Boulder I headed further east, bouncing from one university town to another, and eventually, almost as if it had been beckoning me the whole time, New York City loomed as my ultimate goal. Indeed I wound up spending several months in Manhattan, taking graduate courses at City college ... but as 1973 rolled around, I faced the fact that despite loving New York in many ways, I was even more agitated than I had been in Eugene, and I decided it would be wiser to return to Oregon and to finish graduate school there. ... In 1974, I switched Ph.D. advisors for the fourth and final time ...

Wow!
Can you do that? I mean, switching subjects, schools & university, and professors at will?

Understand the Context

"I understand you": when you say this, what do you mean?

Does it mean I get the meaning? Actually this is a superficial level of understanding. The real understanding comes when you can place a meaning in the proper context. So, "I understand you" means that I am able to place what you say in proper context.In fact, an intelligent wife would prefer "I understand you" to "I love you". Anybody listening?

If that be so, then shouldn't we be practising 'placing meaning in proper context'?
You need not wait for an emotionally charged moment to practice this.
You should be able to practice this when you are carrying out mundane activities such as reading.

Reading?
Yes.

Consider this first sentence from GEB by Hofstadter (I could have picked up any sentence, but this is the book I am reading currently, so ...)

Frederick The Great, King of Prussia, came to power in 1740.

On reading this sentence perhaps you recalled who Frederick was? Or which area was once called Prussia? Perhaps, because you are reading this blog, you quickly check up the Wiki. And you are done. But that is not placing the sentence in context. That is just gathering particular information, not contextual information.

What about 1740? What was happening in Europe around 1740? What was happening around the world? What was happening in India?

Ah! Now you understand.

Brain, Mind, Consciousness and the Deception

The success of books like The Secret indicates that more than a few people believe in the hidden power of the brain. The Secret is not the first book to establish this though.

Here's what you can do. Go to Amazon and give a search for "subconscious" in books. At the time of typing this, it threw up a list of 551 books, and books like The Secret, Think and Grow Rich, Evolve Your Brain are not even in the list!

The recipe of all these books are more of less as follows:
a) Focus your conscious mind/brain (i.e, Cerebral Cortex) on something that you desire

b) Continuous focusing will transfer the thoughts to your subconscious mind/brain (i.e, Midbrain and the Cerebellum)

c) Expect miracles - as the subconscious works in mysterious ways.

a) and b) are facts. c) is not.

In one of the books I was horrified to read that one father lost his right hand because he had jokingly said that he would give his right hand to get his daughter cured of some skin disease. Soon after he lost his hand, the daughter was cured. The author then goes on to say that the subconscious does not understand jokes. It takes such instructions as truths and acts on it.

Just imagine!

The Secret is not so different. Once you have internalized your desires, your subconscious calls out to the universe and you get what you wish.

Agreed that we have not yet fathomed how good (or bad) things happen to us. There are times when the incidents in our life seem non-random, as if some force is driving the consequences. But to imagine that one gets cancer because s/he has asked for it is downright ridiculous (One of the 'philosophers' in The Secret actually says this).

It is therefore refreshing to read books that do not consider the human brain to be any different from ... well read it yourself:

As I see it, the only way of overcoming this magical view of what "I" and consciousness are is to keep on reminding oneself, unpleasant thought it may seem, that the "teetering bulb of dread and dream" that nestles safely inside one's own cranium is a purely physical object made up of completely sterile and inanimate components, all of which obey exactly the same laws as those that govern the rest of the universe, such as pieces of text, or CD-ROM's, or computers. Only if one keeps on bashing up against this disturbing fact can one slowly begin to develop a feel for the way out of the mystery of consciousness.

This is from the preface written by Douglas R. Hofstadter in the 20th-anniversary edition of his famous Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid popularly known as GEB.

I bet you have heard of this book. Many of you must have read this. Quoting from GEB used to be an in thing among 'intellectuals' (one of the reasons I never read the book for a very long, long time).

I recommend that you buy and read this book again. Especially because the author has written a 23 page preface. And going by what Hofstadter has written in his preface, not that many people have understood the book.

The book is extremely dense (as measured by ideas per page) and the preface from the author definitely helps.

Point to ponder: I have quoted from GEB in this post. Does that make me an intellectual? ;-)