urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:ghost_of_boru ghost_of_boru ghost_of_boru 2007-09-20T05:06:10Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:ghost_of_boru:551 2007-09-20T05:06:10Z 2007-09-20T05:06:10Z So, I'm teaching this History of Psychology class (for the first time) and I'm reading up on Medieval theories of cognitive processing (since the medieval era is definitely not my forte). Anyway, I come across something called the theory of the inner sense. According to my sources the theory of the inner sense existed and/or was popular for over 1000 years (400 AD to 1600 AD). It's a curious idea that says that all the sensory systems send information to one common "inner sense" and our mind really can only interpret/understand this inner sense. Okay, it is not quite the way we think about it today, but is it that far fetched. On the surface, no.<br /><br />What really caught my attention was the associated claim that inner sense exists in the ventricles of the brain and essentially all the important cognitive action in the brain is occurring in the ventricles. Now, to a modern brain scientist this suggestion sounds completely ridiculous because the ventricles are filled with cerebrospinal fluid (cerebrospinal fluid is essentially like mineral water, there is not much in it really) and we think of neuron cells as being the place where all the action happens. So how could there be anything of much interesting going on in the ventricles?<br /><br />Why bring this up you say? So what if people 1000 years ago believed in some goofy theory that we now believe to be incorrect? Well, it's because of the next thought that occurs to me (and one that occurs to me frequently): how goofy are the ideas that we believe to be correct going to seem to people 1000 years from now? It is easy to assume that what we know now is correct (or at least more correct) than what we knew before. It is easy to look back and say, wow, I can't believe people used to think that! Were they stupid back then? No, often it is not the case that people were "stupid," they just had a different understanding of the world and their ideas often fit right in with their world view. So I ponder...what assumption about the world are we making? It what ways are we incorrect? How foolish are we going to look to future generations? And what is it that we don't currently know that might transform our understanding of the world? I don't know know the answers to all of these questions, but I do know one thing...<br /><br />We are wrong!