Cognitive Science
Just finished Golden Week Residential with Rachel Zahn as the visitor. She has an amazing message for the Alexander community. What's happening in Cognitive Science is totally Alexander.
What is Congnitive Science? It's a generic description that cobbles together of a number of different disciplines which all seem to be converging towards the same interests and questions: robotics, artificial intellingence, psychology, philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience. They don't know about us, but the description of what they are looking for matches Tibeten Buddhist mind training (which they DO know about, and are are starting to explore) and Alexander. Which they don't know about - but hey, how do you think they will react when they find that the some of the seminal scientific thinkers who have recently re-gained popularity as laying the foundations of modern Cognitive Science ALL had connections with Alexander: Sir Charles Sherrington (the father of neuroscience who wrote favourable about Alexander in one of his books), William James (who FM wrote was going to come for lessons until he became ill and died), John Dewey (who has just - LAST YEAR - had three of his books translated and published for the first time in French) and Karl Popper - who had AT lessons (Walter Carrington said).
I could go on - but go read Rachel's piece in the Oxford 2004 Congress Papers if you haven't already. Convince your local Alexander Society to invite her to offer an overview of Cognitive Science and Alexander. She told me that one of the biggest names these days, who commands respect from other world class neuroscientists - Alain Berthoz - walks up on stage at a Conference and the first he says is that his entire movement of walking up on stage was guided by his head and neck. And this guy knows next to nothing about Alexander's discoveries!
Very exciting times. The technology and understanding has finally arrived to catapult Alexander's discoveries to the front line of neuroscience. Rachel's message? We need to get ready. It's no longer a question of us looking for them, THEY will soon be coming looking for us.
What is Congnitive Science? It's a generic description that cobbles together of a number of different disciplines which all seem to be converging towards the same interests and questions: robotics, artificial intellingence, psychology, philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience. They don't know about us, but the description of what they are looking for matches Tibeten Buddhist mind training (which they DO know about, and are are starting to explore) and Alexander. Which they don't know about - but hey, how do you think they will react when they find that the some of the seminal scientific thinkers who have recently re-gained popularity as laying the foundations of modern Cognitive Science ALL had connections with Alexander: Sir Charles Sherrington (the father of neuroscience who wrote favourable about Alexander in one of his books), William James (who FM wrote was going to come for lessons until he became ill and died), John Dewey (who has just - LAST YEAR - had three of his books translated and published for the first time in French) and Karl Popper - who had AT lessons (Walter Carrington said).
I could go on - but go read Rachel's piece in the Oxford 2004 Congress Papers if you haven't already. Convince your local Alexander Society to invite her to offer an overview of Cognitive Science and Alexander. She told me that one of the biggest names these days, who commands respect from other world class neuroscientists - Alain Berthoz - walks up on stage at a Conference and the first he says is that his entire movement of walking up on stage was guided by his head and neck. And this guy knows next to nothing about Alexander's discoveries!
Very exciting times. The technology and understanding has finally arrived to catapult Alexander's discoveries to the front line of neuroscience. Rachel's message? We need to get ready. It's no longer a question of us looking for them, THEY will soon be coming looking for us.
This is really interesting - thanks for the heads up - I'm going to check this out more.
ReplyDeleteI'm just starting teacher training in London - just as my wife is about to finish her training. I found your blog last week. It's great - I've subscribed :)