APR/MAY 2013
This Is Your Brain, On
Two books seek to explain how our minds work their way through the maze of consciousness
ERIC BANKS
"It took some time for me to figure out the train of “A is to B” at play, but the important point is threefold. First, the mental linking, which felt unmotivated, no matter how “creative” the thought, was so rapid that it felt automatic. Second, I had this set of analogies primed by an experience that seemed to call forth a pseudocategory—experimental German films of the ’70s that, according to the logic of experimental German films of the ’70s, featured an American component (whether in their titles or their casting)—which it’s hard to imagine I might have stored somewhere as a useful “category,” years ago, just waiting for an analogical item to happen onto the scene. Finally, the multiple, linked frameworks involved (German films with Americans in them, films that haveAmerican in the title) are flexible enough that they could blend into one another to create in essence a makeshift, almost ad hoc new frame."
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