Sunday, September 20, 2009

Stimuli

When my daughter cried last night at around 12:30 am for water a certain thought hit me. It was one of those that you better write down or you'll try to remember it in the morning with not luck.

I had this thought of a person, who from birth, experienced the same stimulation, was exposed to the same stimuli every day of his life. One day, maybe in his late thirties or early forties, the stimulation stopped. What would happen? Would he go insane because he was so conditioned to the experience of the repeated stimuli? or would he survive?

On the other hand, would we be anything without any stimulation? Probably not. Its how we respond and experience stimuli which shapes who and what we are and become.

This made me think are we, you and I not in that controlled environment, exposed to the same stimuli everyday unknowingly. We've created this safe paradigm where everything fits. This is why the unexpected provokes a heightened emotional response. My question is, if we consistently exposed ourselves to new stimuli would we expand our paradigm, thereby expanding our understanding of reason and how the world works? This seems rhetorical. Of Course. But how realistic is it to push the limits of our own reasoning or experience all the time?
Or what specific types of stimuli could help us positively expand our understanding and reasoning in the way that we want it to? But I guess if we don't know the end result of certain stimuli we don't know what the destination is. But I think that this is how all news ideas are created, trial and error; create a hypothesis and test possible solutions until something works.

More to come.

1 comment:

ConverseMomma said...

I think that those of us who are hungry for art, literature, music, and even the internet, are looking for more stimuli, constant evolution, greater sense of self and the world...and yes...it can be dangerous....we never know the end result, but it is a necessary danger.