What was I thinking when I wrote ‘The Invisible Spatial Origins of Material Dynamics’?.

The assimilation of ideas of others is an everyday activity, and, most often, the ‘cognitive engine’ we employ in this activity is ‘untouched’ by the ideas we are ‘processing’, but in philosophical discourse, it often happens that there are ideas that concern the ‘cognitive engine’ itself, that require ‘real-time’ modifications to the cognitive engine in order to be ‘properly processed’ so that the ideas can be shared and discussed.

If, bundled in with the ideas, are some ‘instructions’ for modifications to the cognitive engine necessary for the proper processing of the ideas, and if the engine modifications are not made but the ideas are processed with the pre-existing cognitive engine, the ideas that ‘come through’ may be severely ‘bastardized’and confuse the dialogue.

[It may also be the case that our acculturation has been putting ‘governors’ on us that restrain the natural scope of our cognitive powers.]

That presents a problem to the writer (‘moi’, in this case) because it asks quite a bit of the reader.  That is, if he tinkers around and tunes his cognitive engine for this reading, will he be able, at the same time, to get everything back together the old way? (more…)