Bad evening
Feb. 17th, 2003 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julietAlthough now I have Luthien-rat on my shoulder, so life is a little better.
So, I went off to a talk at the ICA by Daniel C Dennett & Jonathan Miller, about political & moral freedom. Which I was really looking forward to, cos Dennett has been one of my philosophical heroes ever since I read this article when doing Philosophy of Mind (& lots of other stuff; but that was my favouritest).
However, what had escaped my recollection is that I can't take in information through the ears. Not for any length of time. Conversations are OK, because they're all broken up in short chunks, & also because I'm taking part & thus, I dunno, it sharpens the focus or something. But I've always been dreadful in lectures without a fairly detailed handout showing me the structure etc. I try and concentrate; but about 5 minutes in it just all stops making any sense, and then I lose track altogether & stop being able to fit what's being said now into what was being said 30 seconds ago, and the argument falls apart in my head... And that's when I'm concentrating hard. If I stop concentrating at *all*, I'm away for the next 5 minutes & miss *everything*, & then don't know where they are when I return.
So. The talk, unsurprisingly, didn't go so well, from my point of view. The Q&A session was a little better (small focused chunks), but unfortunately half of the questions were stupid.
The trouble is, I *know* that different people have different learning styles, & I just do better *reading* stuff. Visual focus (other than for music. Ears work fine for that. Go figure). But it makes me feel so *stupid*, especially tonight when I came out of the theatre & everyone else I was with had got stuff from this & was saying things, & I didn't dare say stuff even about the things that I *had* caught, in case I'd missed something somewhere & wasn't making sense. So then I felt stupider, of course. And I was *hungry* which is never good (leads to floods of tears, as a rule)... Wound up cutting my losses & heading home, via 3 different shops in order to acquire the substances necessary to make refried beans for tomorrow's lunch.
Having said all that: I am reasonably sure that the lecture/talk wasn't that great anyway. They didn't seem to cover much of the freedom stuff which I was particularly interested in; and they spent about half an hour going on about memes & memetics, which I find a monumentally uninteresting & unilluminating theory. So *that* perception depressed me as well - not only did I feel like I'd missed much of what I was after, but I think maybe it wasn't even there for me to get (this ought to be better, I suppose, than going to a brilliant talk which I missed half of due to being bad at information-via-ear; but it's not, because it means that what I *did* get wasn't worth it).
<sigh>
update: Spoke to Pete when he got back from the pub, & it seems that they did cover some of the interesting stuff, & I did just miss it. But talking about it did bring back some of it, so that was vaguely useful. I'd like to read the book (I'd also like to reread, & even to own, Consciousness Explained, which is another of his); but I doubt Paddington Library, whilst quite good, will have it, & philosophy books come expensive. Maybe another month - this one is being a bit poor currently.
Must go swap rats, now, in case the others feel neglected.
So, I went off to a talk at the ICA by Daniel C Dennett & Jonathan Miller, about political & moral freedom. Which I was really looking forward to, cos Dennett has been one of my philosophical heroes ever since I read this article when doing Philosophy of Mind (& lots of other stuff; but that was my favouritest).
However, what had escaped my recollection is that I can't take in information through the ears. Not for any length of time. Conversations are OK, because they're all broken up in short chunks, & also because I'm taking part & thus, I dunno, it sharpens the focus or something. But I've always been dreadful in lectures without a fairly detailed handout showing me the structure etc. I try and concentrate; but about 5 minutes in it just all stops making any sense, and then I lose track altogether & stop being able to fit what's being said now into what was being said 30 seconds ago, and the argument falls apart in my head... And that's when I'm concentrating hard. If I stop concentrating at *all*, I'm away for the next 5 minutes & miss *everything*, & then don't know where they are when I return.
So. The talk, unsurprisingly, didn't go so well, from my point of view. The Q&A session was a little better (small focused chunks), but unfortunately half of the questions were stupid.
The trouble is, I *know* that different people have different learning styles, & I just do better *reading* stuff. Visual focus (other than for music. Ears work fine for that. Go figure). But it makes me feel so *stupid*, especially tonight when I came out of the theatre & everyone else I was with had got stuff from this & was saying things, & I didn't dare say stuff even about the things that I *had* caught, in case I'd missed something somewhere & wasn't making sense. So then I felt stupider, of course. And I was *hungry* which is never good (leads to floods of tears, as a rule)... Wound up cutting my losses & heading home, via 3 different shops in order to acquire the substances necessary to make refried beans for tomorrow's lunch.
Having said all that: I am reasonably sure that the lecture/talk wasn't that great anyway. They didn't seem to cover much of the freedom stuff which I was particularly interested in; and they spent about half an hour going on about memes & memetics, which I find a monumentally uninteresting & unilluminating theory. So *that* perception depressed me as well - not only did I feel like I'd missed much of what I was after, but I think maybe it wasn't even there for me to get (this ought to be better, I suppose, than going to a brilliant talk which I missed half of due to being bad at information-via-ear; but it's not, because it means that what I *did* get wasn't worth it).
<sigh>
update: Spoke to Pete when he got back from the pub, & it seems that they did cover some of the interesting stuff, & I did just miss it. But talking about it did bring back some of it, so that was vaguely useful. I'd like to read the book (I'd also like to reread, & even to own, Consciousness Explained, which is another of his); but I doubt Paddington Library, whilst quite good, will have it, & philosophy books come expensive. Maybe another month - this one is being a bit poor currently.
Must go swap rats, now, in case the others feel neglected.
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-17 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-17 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-18 02:00 am (UTC)BTW, it looks like I may be coming up to Ox in 8th Wk (Tues 11 & Wed 12 March) for Boutique & Panic. But boss is away this week so can't book leave yet.
get well soon!
no subject
Date: 2003-02-17 05:05 pm (UTC)Have someone try and explain something, and i just don't follow it, or get bored, or plain lose track of what's going on. My mind likes to ask questions, and if i can't ask them, i start wondering about things. Memory relies on connections between thoughts, and the way my brain wants to join things up is evidently rather different to the way most lecturers want to spell them out.
Luckily, I also seem to be quite good at getting my head around concepts, so self-tuition tends to work sufficiently effectively. I did really well at most of my subjects at uni, before i dropped out due to dissatisfaction.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-18 02:24 am (UTC)I have this problem -- I need some kind of visual focus if I'm going to absorb anything of what I hear. Lectures used to be manageable because I would basically write down everything (I write fairly fast, and developed my own system of abbreviations and so on to make it even faster) so that I was reading it as I was listening, if you see what I mean. But spoken-word radio still mostly just goes in one ear and out the other -- despite months and months of listening to Radio 4 in an attempt to train my brain.
This is one of the reasons I hate phone conversations. It's slightly easier with people I know, just because I'm more used to talking to them; but it's awful when Orange phone me up to try to sell me insurance or new phones or whatever, and I just can't follow what they're explaining, and I tell them "Yes, I'm interested, please could you send me this information on paper", and they say they can't do that because it's a waste of money. So I tell them to go away.
Anyway. *hugs*, because I really do sympathise.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-18 02:57 am (UTC)I'm glad it's not just me (cheers to
Lectures used to be manageable because I would basically write down everything
I used to do that; but *still* had major problems with lectures, especially ones that weren't well-structured. If there was a decent handout giving a plan, & the lecturer *stuck* to it, that was OK, but that seemed quite rare. In the end I basically gave up altogether: could get more out of spending the hour in the library with a book or two.
But spoken-word radio still mostly just goes in one ear and out the other -- despite months and months of listening to Radio 4 in an attempt to train my brain.
I can cope with the Today programme (probably because it's short chunks, & interviews which are easier due to the Q&A format); but still need to concentrate quite hard (which is a bit of a dead loss first thing in the morning!). The Archers is also OK (conversations again, only 15min, & it's a *story*!). Anything longer is no good.
This is one of the reasons I hate phone conversations.
I did wonder whether this might be contributing to my phone-dislike. Even with people I know, it's too easy to get lost. Especially since there's all this non-relevant visual input around me. Maybe I should try closing my eyes when on the phone? Thankfully, I can cope when at work, possibly because I write stuff down as people are talking to me, & the conversations tend to be very *focused* which makes a difference.