When Intuition Expands (the post for the First Friday Night Special #20: “Being Sensational and Seeing Clearly”) June 3, 2022

Nobly honoring all connections leads to a noble life.

“A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, ‘If only….'”

*

– quoted from the poem “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

In October 1967, American Heritage (volume 18, issue 6) featured an excerpt from Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Casey at the Bat: A Collection of Ballads about the Mighty Casey. Mr. Gardner was a popular mathematics and popular science writer – whose life and work is fascinating enough to have it’s own theme – and he was known for his work in recreational mathematics, magic, and criticism of fringe or pseudoscience. He was also known for annotating works that were popular with the masses, but not always understood by the masses. His book about a very popular baseball poem includes a history of how the poem became so popular, as well as a biography of the poem’s author. At times, it is also just as scathing and hilarious as the actual poem.

The poem, “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888,” was originally published in The Daily Examiner (now The San Francisco Examiner) today in 1888. It was published under the pen name “Phin,” a diminutive of the nickname “Phinney,” which is what Ernest Lawrence Thayer was called when he attended Harvard University. Like Mr. Thayer, Martin Gardner studied philosophy (albeit at the University of Chicago rather than Harvard) and both landed in the publishing world. But they lived in different times, pursued different interests, and – I’m willing to bet – had really different egos. What is interesting to note, however, is how egos come up in their work – especially with regard to “Casey,” which is (ultimately) a poem about egos, emotions, and how our judgement and behavior can be swayed by our egos and emotions.

Yoga Sutra 2.20: draşțā dŗśimātrah śuddho’pi pratyayānupaśyah

*
– “The Seer is the pure power of seeing, yet its understanding is through the mind/intellect.” [Translation by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait (for comparative analysis), “The sheer power of seeing is the seer. It is pure, and yet it sees only what the mind shows it.”]

“I stopped explaining myself when I realized other people only understand from their level of perception.”

– Anonymous

*

Human beings are sensational beings. This means a few different things. First, it means that we are infused with sensation – we feel things. We have sense organs that soak up information and communicate via sensation or “feelings,” which the mind-intellect processes. Second, we place value on things (and people) that make us feel things; we call them sensational. Finally, we find sensational things appealing – meaning, we are drawn towards people and things that provoke a visceral reaction, (i.e., that make us feel things). Being sensational beings can be amazing; however, it can also be problematic. The problematic part is that our intellect can sometimes be so overwhelmed by sensation that we find ourselves doing irrational things, while simultaneously believing they are rational things. Sometimes, being sensational beings means we don’t “see” clearly.

To be transparent, part of the problem may be that we don’t always understand how we “see” things. We assume that we have the full picture and that what we see – and understand – is exactly what someone else sees, but for some reason doesn’t understand. (“I mean, for goodness sake, it’s right in front of them! How can they not see that?”) This disconnect can manifest as people arguing even though they are on the same side of a debate and/or “agreeing to disagree” and coming to a stalemate in a situation where movement towards resolution and reconciliation is vital to survival.

In these situations, everyone ultimately loses.

It would be great if we could take a deep breath, step back, and get more perspective. It would be great if we could really talk with each other and ask the right questions. But, there are certain things about which we are quite impassioned – which means we are quite literally infused with suffering. We don’t want to (or can’t) ignore what we’re feeling – especially in times when we are feeling quite a bit (or when we are feeling quite numb). Instead, we need to balance the mind-body experience – and, gain some insight into our sight (i.e., how we “see” things and why we “see” things the way we do when others “see” things in a different way).

“Intuition is important, knowing what questions to ask. The other thing is a passion for getting to the core of the problem.”

*

– Dr. Torsten Wiesel, co-winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Born today in 1924, Dr. Tosten Wiesel won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with his collaborator Dr. David Hubel.

Click here to read my 2020 post about their research on ocular dominance columns and how their original thesis around neural pathways and the mechanisms of the visual cortex was way off center.

“‘Every act of perception,’ Edelman writes, ‘is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.’”

*
– Dr. Oliver Sacks, quoting Dr. Gerald Edelman (co-winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine)

More ocular science…

(NOTE: Some blog quotes by Drs. Wiesel and Hubel are from a short biography produced by National Science & Technology Medals Foundation when Dr. Wiesel was awarded the 2005 National Medal of Science.)

### I CAN SEE YOU. CAN YOU SEE ME? ###