Headspace

Overloaded with language, eh? Sounds like the sort of thing we'd get out of Jean Baudrillard. Nelson makes an interesting point, yet I'm not quite sure that actual physical silence is the only (or even best) way to re-sensitize ourselves to our reflective capacity. Simply put "we must listen carefully to others' words (326, WTL)." That's all that's it. I think training ourselves to focus through the cacophony is an alternate method with merit. I personally find it difficult to sit in a quiet space and come up with anything. I study at the White Hill Cafe occasionally, and the overload works in my favor. With so many stimuli clamoring for my attention, I use the reflexive blocking out to push me into my book.

As for Smith, yes Erin, I loved it. He strikes at some of the irritating Semiology-worship I keep running into here at PSH. I get irritated by the proposal that we only think in language, and Smith's assertion that what we consider as 'thoughts in language' are actually thoughts translated INTO language is refreshing. Skating along the edge of Merleau-Ponty he gets very close to the non-reflective consciousness we are in most of our lives. Reflection is, after all, focussed on something already conceived or occurred. My only issue is with calling perception of phenomena thoughts. Why add the extra step? To say that the brainworld is isolated is just one way to describe things. I don't think it's any less reasonable to say that our senses are what pull us into the world we perceive, even if we don't all have the same point of view (in point of fact, none of us have THE SAME point of view).