About Mark Rank: here
Intuição e teoria
"Rules of technique in Psychoanalysis are invented at points of ambiguity, to help therapists feel their way along the edges of the unexplored. A patient who can tolerate the precariousness of such a place can sometimes help to show the way, much as moonlight, striking at the right angle, can guide a lost traveler through dense woods. This is what makes Anna O. and R. N. such powerful models: they were courageous enough to work right at the edge of the darkness.
Patients like this are desperate to have therapists who can bravely accompany them into the depths. Mental illness is exhausting. Having to add the burden of the therapist's fear can make it unendurable. Patients know they can't cure themselves. They need doctors who can bear witness to the terror and reclaim them from its power.
Many really gifted clinicians, like Ferenczi and Frieda, are unable fully to explain why they do certain things; they can only say what they tried. This is why Ferenczi's most important work is his 'Clinical Diary' and Frieda's is a text, 'Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy', a diary of a different kind.
Like people with exceptional skill of any kind, therapists like this do what feels right at the moment, making subtle adjustments as they go along. Attending simultaneously to many levels, they trust their intuitions, letting the patient's unconscious mingle with their own. They allow themselves to be guided "by instinct," whether or not they can explain what this means. Freud was just the opposite — better at describing his method than using it. But his descriptions were so brilliant and seductive that analysts have come to value theory over clinical accomplishment. Frieda may have helped to heal her patients, sometimes even the sickest ones, but she couldn't explain how she did this, which is why Freud has followers and Frieda doesn't."
Gail A. Hornstein, To Redeem One Person is to Redeem the World [pag 158]
Frieda
"Every time Frieda rotated closer to Klara [mother], she would occupy a bit more of the central sphere. When their combined intensity threatened to overwhelm Adolf [father] completely, Frieda would float over in his direction and temporarily balance things. Her alliances with her father, although infrequent, provided an essential counterweight to Klara's power, creating a degree of harmony in the family that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. In later life, Frieda's colleagues would wonder how she managed to be on everyone's side and get what she wanted at the same time. They didn't understand that having mastered the art of wrapping her father around her little finger while embracing her mother with the other hand, Frieda could endear herself to people at cross purposes without even noticing what she was doing. No one in her family had the slightest idea that this would prove ideal training for a psychiatrist "
Gail A. Hornstein, To Redeem One Person is to Redeem the World [pag 15]
of patience
"For Frieda, treatment of mental illness was like physical therapy after stroke: a painstaking exercise in hope. Improvement was unpredictable, and was often followed by relapse or deterioration. Recovery, to the extent it was present, proceeded at an agonisingly slow pace. It was natural for the doctor to have periods of discouragement, even real despair, but he couldn't afford to give up, no matter how many setbacks there were. A patient had to have at least one person who could imagine the possibility of his getting well. Frieda thought the reason most psychiatrists failed at their work wasn't because their methods were ineffective, but because they gave up too soon."
Gail A. Hornstein, "To Redeem One Person is to Redeem the World, The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann [pag xvii]
About Chestnut Lodge: here
escritos
De estados adultos em construção... / reflexões de uma confinada
Ou... As emoções enquanto âncoras...
Enquanto uns aguardam que a física quântica venha dar sentido às suas vidas, ocorre-me que a poesia, os contos de fadas e a arte, em geral, ajudam a nossa persistente criança interior a conviver com o facto de que a verdadeira condição de ser adulto é comparável a flutuarmos no espaço cósmico enquanto tentamos evitar colidir com objetos que passam voando aleatoriamente. A segurança e o conforto de um cordão umbilical já eram...
While some wait for quantum physics to give meaning to their lives, it occurs to me that poetry, fairy tales and art, in general, help our persistent inner child live with the fact that the true condition of adulthood is comparable to floating in cosmic space while trying to avoid colliding with objects that fly by randomly. The safety and comfort of an umbilical cord is long gone...
Imagem de Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison: "suspended field"
da familiaridade
Fui ao YouTube à procura dum clip do filme Smoke, em que William Hurt conta a história do escritor russo, Bakhtin, que escondido dos nazis no seu apartamento, usa, uma a uma, as páginas do manuscrito de um ensaio ao qual tinha dedicado dez anos de trabalho, como mortalhas para enrolar os seus cigarros.
Não encontrei esse clip. Encontrei outros em que, entretanto, me perdi deliciada.
O filme, Smoke (guião de Paul Auster), é um dos que, sem sombra de dúvida, levaria comigo para uma ilha deserta.
William Hurt e Harvey Keitel são gigantes.
O que adoro neste filme, neste grande 'conto' feito de pequenos contos — histórias partilhadas, episódios de vidas, registos de momentos que, por sua vez, contam outras histórias — é o subtil fio condutor daquilo que nos é familiar enquanto espécie humana.
Nada melhor do que uma tabacaria de esquina onde o 'disfarce'/denominador comum é o fumo. O 'fumo' reúne diversidade. Uma amostra de diversidade numa tabacaria de esquina (claro!).
#avidadebairroéfixe
#nãoSomosUmBandoDeDesconhecidos
Platão no Matrix
"No interior de uma gruta, uns indivíduos permanecem acorrentados de costas para uma fogueira chamejante. Os reclusos só vêem o movimento das sombras projectadas sobre as paredes da caverna, e essas sombras constituem a sua única realidade. Finalmente, um deles liberta-se da clausura e aventura-se a sair da caverna, rumo ao mundo que se estende para além das hipnóticas projeções. Neste relato há um belíssimo convite à dúvida, à não conformação com as aparências, à quebra das amarras e ao abandono dos preconceitos para olhar para a realidade de frente. A saga cinematográfica Matrix adaptou a mensagem rebelde desta alegoria ao mundo contemporâneo da realidade virtual, da aldeia mediática, dos mundos paralelos da publicidade e do consumismo, dos boatos da Internet e das autobiografias maquilhadas que fabricamos para as redes sociais."
Irene Vallejo, O Infinito num Junco [pag 209]
Spacetime is doomeded / Realism Is False
Donald D. Hoffman
"I'm not saying that consciousness just is mathematics; it's more like consciousness and mathematics are like a living organism and the bones. The bones are the mathematics and consciousness is the living organism. That's one reason why we can hope to build a mathematical model of consciousness and conscious agents."
"It turns out that our best theory, quantum theory, predicts quite clearly that non-contextual realism is false. Local realism is false, non-contextual realism is false, and that leaves it quite open that realism itself is false. If realism is false, that raises a couple of questions. Is that true only for microscopic objects—electrons, protons, neutrons, and photons—and not more macroscopic objects?"
More: here
David Marr
Federico Faggin
The left and the right hemispheres
"Neither hemisphere is 'more advanced' or 'better' than the other; they are merely suited for different dimensions and stages of processing. [...] The capacity to move from a 'common eye' or 'vulgar ear' into artistic skill and expertise goes with the move from right to left hemisphere predominance. [...] while musical perception is chiefly a right hemisphere function in predominantly 'naïve' listeners, it becomes a left hemisphere function in professional musicians and 'expert' listeners (who grasp its 'grammar' and rules, and for whom it has become an intricate formal structure.
[...] A similar shift occurs with those who become mathematical or arithmetical 'experts', who become able to see mathematical concepts, or numbers, as part of a vast, well-organized intellectual universe or scheme. This may be equally true of painters and interior designers, who see space, and visual relationships, as no 'common eye' can do."
Oliver Sacks in, Seeing Voices [pag 105, 106]
Red pill Blue pill / Time to change the paradigm
"We have been misled to believe that the brain, or the embodied brain, somehow serves up the magic of consciousness. We have, in short, been duped. [...] Evolution shaped our perceptions to hide adaptive behaviour. [...] We do, and should, take it seriously. But it is a fiction — a lifesaving fiction."
Donald D. Hoffman in, The Case Against Reality [pag 179]
And here.
And here.
About Orch OR
About IIT
When the map is better than the territory: here.
"None of these [above] proposals has offered a precise account for a single conscious experience. [...] No answer has been offered and none ever will: these proposals set themselves an impossible task by assuming that objects in spacetime exist when not observed and have causal powers."
Donald D. Hoffman in, The Case Against Reality [pag 180]
In search of a framework of reference
"All these brilliant people [...] felt that they were trapped by the current narratives around giftedness and high intelligence. Some of them said, 'you know, I can't even talk about myself because the minute I use these words people have a preconceived notion and I can't bust my way out '"
[minuto 29:15]
Ver também: The Talent of Being Inconvenient e IHBV
Taking the red pill
"Perhaps the FBT Theorem [Fitness Beats Truth] is irrelevant to human evolution? Perhaps what is required to understand human evolution is a complete artificial-intelligence simulation of humans, together with a simulation of their interactions with all the other organisms and with the earth itself. Perhaps, without such a comprehensive simulation, we cannot possibly claim to know that we did not evolve to see reality as it is."
The Case Against Reality, Donald D. Hoffman [pg68]
o carnaval dos cínicos / ratoeiras
"[...] toda a gente se habituara a que as personalidades se exprimissem nos media sobre os mais variados temas para emitirem opiniões em geral previsíveis, e mais ninguém lhes prestava realmente atenção, em suma, o sistema espectacular, destinado a produzir um consenso abominável, abatera-se há muito sob o peso da sua própria insignificância. No entanto, não fiz nada para o desiludir; condescendi com a atitude de benévola neutralidade que já me tinha dado tanto jeito na vida, que me tinha permitido recolher tantas confidências íntimas, em tantos meios, que reutilizei depois, [...]"
A Possibilidade de uma Ilha, Michel Houellebecq [pg 243]
Jean Cocteau e Picasso
[...] "Era por essa altura que Jean Cocteau que se orgulha de ter uns eternos trinta anos estava a escrever uma pequena biografia de Picasso, e enviou-lhe um telegrama a pedir que lhe dissesse a data de nascimento. E a tua, foi o telegrama de resposta de Picasso."
Gertrude Stein, in A Autobiografia de Alice B. Toklas [pag225]
Na Rue de Fleurus
"Todos traziam alguém. [...] Era de uma diversidade sem fim. E toda a gente vinha e ninguém fazia diferença nenhuma. Gertrude Stein sentava-se numa cadeira tranquila e quem podia fazia o mesmo, os restantes ficavam de pé. Havia os amigos que se sentavam à volta do fogão e falavam e havia os amigos sem fim que vinham e iam."
A Autobiografia de Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein [pg 131]
Gestão de tempos
Procuram-se olhares cúmplices.
Demoram-se em olhares cúmplices.
Há-os fugidios.
— Não me comprometas!
— Ai que me apanhaste!
Há-os irresistíveis.
— Nem me atrevo a olhar!
— Onde irei parar!
Outros há, ameaçadores.
Outros ainda, intrusivos.
Discursos inteiros... autênticos...
... silenciosos... para bons entendedores.
Não...
Não terás o meu olhar cúmplice.
Não te concedo essa confiança.
Deliberadamente, não o partilho.
Não me revelo ao teu olhar.
Não me revelo.
Revelo que não me revelo.
Espelhos...
de acasos e legados
"It is the perverse logic of love that the reverse was true for Angélica: what kept her by my side when things didn't seem to be working out was, she has told me, the very fact that I came from some other place, her intuition that I would not treat her the way Chilean males treat women, that I could be totally trusted, that I was transparent, that I was naïve: in other words, that I was a gringo. A gringo that happened to be searching frantically for a country that would be the answer to his loneliness and transience.
Angélica possessed that country within her merely by virtue of having been born here, simply because her forefathers and foremothers had made love under these mountains and intermingled their races, their Iberian and Mediterranean and Indian and African stock, at a time when mine had even dreamed if emigrating. She possessed this country in the nursery rhymes in Spanish she had sung when I was reciting Old Mother Hubbard. [...] Her presence by my side as we strolled through the center of the city I had lived in for seven years suddenly transformed me into a tourist arriving at this foreign destination for the first time."
Ariel Dorfman, in "Heading South, Looking North. A Bilingual Journey" [pag. 179 -181]
on captivating
"[...] an actor is a dedicated being who works very hard — so damn hard that his level of understanding makes him a qualified artist in self-expression, physically, psychologically, as well as spiritually, to captivate."
Bruce Lee
John Little, in "Bruce Lee, Artist of Life" [pag. 235]
Acerca de Bruce Lee: aqui
da mercantilização da obra de arte / o fim da arte
"... de ocasião para a 'reflexão' do espectador, a obra torna-se um simples reflexo da subjectividade deste. Não é mais o espectador que se deixa afectar na sua sensibilidade (como no período clássico grego) ou no exercício do seu juízo crítico (característico do advento da época moderna); não: é o próprio espectador que vê na obra aquilo que deseja ver, e o que ele deseja ver é o que lhe foi social e culturalmente negado. O espectador das mercadorias culturais resume-se ao consumidor dos seus próprios desejos ilusoriamente realizados."
A Vida a Crédito, de Tomás Maia [pag. 42]
