Oct 2, 2020 02:33 AM
(This post was last modified: Oct 2, 2020 02:40 AM by C C.)
Eric M. Rubenstein (Wilfrid Sellars: Philosophy of Mind): "If one has a concept of x, one can be aware of x’s. With the concept of x in hand, that is, you can notice all sorts of things you didn’t notice before you had that concept. For instance, a physicist looks at a puff of smoke in a cloud chamber and sees an electron discharged. She comes to have non-inferential knowledge of something we might not, as she has certain concepts we don’t as laypeople, as well as an ability to apply them directly to her experience. In other words, perception is concept-laden, and depending on what concepts you have, you can perceive different things. (Sellars wasn’t the first to articulate this connection, but his development of it made for a revolutionary understanding of thinking and perception)."
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How to Change Your Mind Over a Glass of Wine
https://neo.life/2020/09/how-to-change-y...s-of-wine/
EXCERPTS (Ann-Sophie Barwich): Expertise is less about knowledge and more about observing things that elude novices. Through training, experts learn to see, taste, smell, and hear things that the rest of us can’t, therefore allowing them to perceive the world differently. This became clear to me after spending a weekend in conversation with an expert winemaker in Napa Valley.
Wine tasting is a peculiar profession [...] Sommeliers can sound like they’re speaking in a strange foreign language. Wines are said to possess “roundness, generosity, and depth.” ... Other aroma labels don’t sound like they belong in food, like “pencil shavings,” “petrol,” and—wait for it—“cat’s piss.”
[...] Lots of people think of wine tasting as a scam. But wine tasting is a true scientific art ... Wine has several hundred aroma compounds, which is more molecular information than most of our brains have the ability to compute. Sommeliers have learned how ... to identify specific compounds in a complex mixture. ... The best wine experts can identify a vintage down to its specific vineyard and even year with a virtuosity that can occasionally take less than a minute.
Acquiring this skillset not only makes sommeliers a knowledgeable [...] dinner-party guest. It actually alters the structure and activity of their brains. Comparing the brain of a mathematician with that of a sommelier, we find remarkable similarities. ... But here’s the paradox. When an expert’s brain grows, they also use less of it. The more proficient you are at wine tasting, the less activity we’ll see in your brain’s fMRI recording
[...] If you’re processing more information, though, how are you using your brain less? This observation is less puzzling if you compare your brain to the body of an athlete. You’ll need to put in less overall effort to lift weights if your body is trained to do so routinely. With practice, some brain activities become “automatized” and, according to the neuroscientist Christof Koch, resemble a “zombie agent”—meaning these processes require less and less conscious effort and attention.
So do sommeliers become merely better at memorizing patterns [...] or do they also get better at the sensory part of smelling itself? The answer is both. [...] Yet the real surprise is this: The previously mentioned 2014 fMRI study on expert sommeliers suggests that sensory expertise modifies your experience of reality—it affects not just the ability to identify and recall things on a cognitive level, but also consciousness itself. [...] Descartes was wrong. Our senses do not “deceive” us. They are built on experience. ... This shows how perception is markedly dynamic. That insight amounts to more than saying that you create your own reality. As sensory expertise enrichens the content of conscious awareness, you perceive more of the world, not just differently... (MORE - details)
- - - - -
How to Change Your Mind Over a Glass of Wine
https://neo.life/2020/09/how-to-change-y...s-of-wine/
EXCERPTS (Ann-Sophie Barwich): Expertise is less about knowledge and more about observing things that elude novices. Through training, experts learn to see, taste, smell, and hear things that the rest of us can’t, therefore allowing them to perceive the world differently. This became clear to me after spending a weekend in conversation with an expert winemaker in Napa Valley.
Wine tasting is a peculiar profession [...] Sommeliers can sound like they’re speaking in a strange foreign language. Wines are said to possess “roundness, generosity, and depth.” ... Other aroma labels don’t sound like they belong in food, like “pencil shavings,” “petrol,” and—wait for it—“cat’s piss.”
[...] Lots of people think of wine tasting as a scam. But wine tasting is a true scientific art ... Wine has several hundred aroma compounds, which is more molecular information than most of our brains have the ability to compute. Sommeliers have learned how ... to identify specific compounds in a complex mixture. ... The best wine experts can identify a vintage down to its specific vineyard and even year with a virtuosity that can occasionally take less than a minute.
Acquiring this skillset not only makes sommeliers a knowledgeable [...] dinner-party guest. It actually alters the structure and activity of their brains. Comparing the brain of a mathematician with that of a sommelier, we find remarkable similarities. ... But here’s the paradox. When an expert’s brain grows, they also use less of it. The more proficient you are at wine tasting, the less activity we’ll see in your brain’s fMRI recording
[...] If you’re processing more information, though, how are you using your brain less? This observation is less puzzling if you compare your brain to the body of an athlete. You’ll need to put in less overall effort to lift weights if your body is trained to do so routinely. With practice, some brain activities become “automatized” and, according to the neuroscientist Christof Koch, resemble a “zombie agent”—meaning these processes require less and less conscious effort and attention.
So do sommeliers become merely better at memorizing patterns [...] or do they also get better at the sensory part of smelling itself? The answer is both. [...] Yet the real surprise is this: The previously mentioned 2014 fMRI study on expert sommeliers suggests that sensory expertise modifies your experience of reality—it affects not just the ability to identify and recall things on a cognitive level, but also consciousness itself. [...] Descartes was wrong. Our senses do not “deceive” us. They are built on experience. ... This shows how perception is markedly dynamic. That insight amounts to more than saying that you create your own reality. As sensory expertise enrichens the content of conscious awareness, you perceive more of the world, not just differently... (MORE - details)