Poetry Comes from Our Tree-Climbing Ancestors


	Poetry Comes from Our Tree-Climbing Ancestors

wildcat

6-1-2008 5:37 AM

945 views

tags:

neuroscience, poetry, evolution

5 Comments |

Add a Comment

6-1-2008 6:55 AM

Antara

Ramachandran is such a treat to listen to...

6-1-2008 12:31 PM

arifsali

Where's the video?

6-1-2008 5:06 PM

syncopath

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. T. S. Eliot

6-2-2008 7:01 AM

MarkBennett

Love the Eliot quote!

Those of us who have measured out our lives with coffee spoons need no poetry, I guess ...

6-10-2008 4:40 AM

Fast T friend

but he stressed that what appears as metaphor is a literal sensory experience for synesthetes.

This is a fascinating opening for an interesting thought.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/9ed9ee25-f5cb-46f4-89bb-a14a2a9acca9/C056D6FA-BF61-4B6A-A04F-2EECBB316313/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/synesthesia-cre.html" href="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/synesthesia-cre.html" style="font-size: 11px;">blog.wired.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/synesthesia-cre.html"><H1 id="articlehed">Poetry Comes from Our Tree-Climbing Ancestors, Neuroscientist Says</H1></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/synesthesia-cre.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/blog.wired.com/img/525DFC6A-74DB-438E-B32C-F1BA4DB2C372" alt="Ramashapes" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/synesthesia-cre.html">Some people hear colors, see flavors and are generally prone to a mixing-and-matching of typically disparate perceptual domains.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/synesthesia-cre.html"><P>Those people are called synesthetes, and were the topic of a <A href="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/world_science_festival/index.html">World Science Festival</A> talk delivered last night by neuroscientist extraordinaire <A href="http://psy.ucsd.edu/chip/ramabio.html">V.S. Ramachandran</A>. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/synesthesia-cre.html"><P>Where does synesthesia come from? Maybe synesthetes are just lying. Perhaps they're under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs -- many research subjects <EM>are</EM> college kids, after all -- or happened as children to play with colored alphabet blocks. Or maybe they're simply good with metaphors. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/synesthesia-cre.html"><P>To Ramachandran, the latter answer gets at the truth -- but he stressed that what appears as metaphor is a literal sensory experience for synesthetes. That may explain, he said, why synesthesia is eight times more common among poets, artists and novelists than the general population.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/C056D6FA-BF61-4B6A-A04F-2EECBB316313/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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