St. Augustine & A Centipede Take a Walk

Agent Smith

"The Centipede's Dilemma" is a short poem that has lent its name to a psychological effect called the centipede effect or centipede syndrome. The centipede effect occurs when a normally automatic or unconscious activity is disrupted by consciousness of it or reflection on it. For example, a golfer thinking too closely about her swing or someone thinking too much about how he knots his tie may find his performance of the task impaired. The effect is also known as hyperreflection or Humphrey's law after English psychologist George Humphrey (1889–1966), who propounded it in 1923. As he wrote of the poem, "This is a most psychological rhyme. It contains a profound truth which is illustrated daily in the lives of all of us". The effect is the reverse of a solvitur ambulando. — Wikipedia

A centipede was happy – quite!

Until a toad in fun

Said, "Pray, which leg moves after which?"

This raised her doubts to such a pitch,

She fell exhausted in the ditch

Not knowing how to run.
— Wikipedia

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. — St. Augustine

Solvitur Ambulando

Solvitur ambulando /ˈsɒlvɪtər ˌæmbjʊˈlændoʊ/ is a Latin phrase which means "it is solved by walking" and is used to refer to a problem which is solved by a practical experiment. It is often attributed to Saint Augustine.

Diogenes of Sinope, also known as "Diogenes the Cynic", is said to have replied to Zeno's paradoxes on the unreality of motion by standing up and walking away. — Wikipedia

BC

↪Agent Smith

Activities that are habitual, routinized, directed by "muscle memory" and so on can certainly be disrupted by the interference of thought. Mindfulness might be a bad idea a good share of the time.

Conversely, some activities benefit by mindfulness. Walking in the winter (snow, ice) can be treacherous and one must pay attention to the ever changing treacherous surfaces. Let your mind wander, and that is when you are likely to slip and fall.

Skating on ice, on the other hand, should not be thought about, unless one is preparing for a figure skating contest where the sequence of moves is complex. Once learned though, I'm guessing that professional skaters let the performance roll along without thinking about it slide by slide.

A lot of what we do (physical actions) is under the control of non-conscious motor systems, which are quite competent. Over ride them with incompetent conscious thought and one might fall flat on one's face.

Wayfarer

↪Agent Smith

Very wise. If you think about what you have to do before doing it, it can become an insurmountable problem as you imagine all of the ways in which it might not work out. So the only approach is, as the Nike ad says, 'just do it'. I'm moving to a new location where one of the main attractions is bushwalking. I think I'll adopt that saying as a motto.

Agent Smith

↪Bitter Crank

The centipede effect occurs when a normally automatic or unconscious activity is disrupted by consciousness of it or reflection on it. — Wikipedia

You've reserved your comment for motor skills. However, I'm also interested in automatic/unconscious activities that are cerebral (concepts/ideas) like time and space (metaphysical questions). I suppose I'm drawing a parallel between Augustine's intuition on time and the poor centipede's walking. Both Augustine & the centipede experienced what in modern computer terminology is known as a system crash.

What does the crash report return? That's what interests me!

Mayhaps I'm taking the computer analogy of the mind a tad bit too far. I dunno!

If you have any comments on that, please feel free to post a reply. Muchas gracias!

just do it — Wayfarer

:clap: :fire:

Just do it!

A system error report needs to be generated so we can debug our software.

Tim3003

I think the centipede effect becomes a problem worth considering when it is caused by fear, and thus the action concerned is done self-consciously. This can be disabling and reflect deeper mental ill-health. Altough the cause seems simple the cure is not. The fear of underperforming is very hard to reason away - and that's all that's needed to rid oneself of it. For example, I paint and make small-scale models, and my hands are not as steady as they used to be, making the process harder. But the more attention I pay to keeping my hands steady the worse it gets. Adopting a mindful approach and 'just doing it' helps, but not as much as repeating confidence-building assertions that 'it's easy'.

BC

one of the main attractions is bushwalking — Wayfarer

We hope that you don't get bushwhacked while you bushwalk.

You've reserved your comment for motor skills. — Agent Smith

Just following your lead. The brain that births bright ideas also guides the batter's swing.

Per St. Augustine about time and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart about hard core pornography, "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it." There is a long list about which the same thing can be said: Justice, Art, Beauty, Grief, Truth, Fragrance, and so on. If I said, "this was a perfect pear" (referencing its fragrance, texture, color, taste, juicines) you would know what I meant, but neither of us (just guessing) could describe what the fragrance of a pear is.

Conversations may crash, as you said, when definitions are demanded--"What is your definition of art?" for example. It happens in this forum quite often. It may be that we can not unpack the word we use. Or in the case of the Holy Trinity, about which rivers of ink have been spilt, I think it is a crash-causing bug and not a feature at all.

Cornwell1

This effect is what hunts the philosophers of science. They are so caught up in inventing schemes and methodologies of science that they loose sight on its actual workings and are completely paralyzed when they actually engage in it.

universeness

This only value I garnish from this OP is the advice:

"Think carefully about how to think!"

When Bruce Lee was giving a lesson to a student. He got up close and pointed up towards the heavens. He then slapped the student on the back of the head and said:
"Don't concentrate on the finger! or you will miss all the heavenly glory!"

The centipede should have just strutted on past this pesky toad, John Travolta style.

BTW when are we going to reject idiotic titles such as Saint, King, Prince, Duke, Messiah etc.
Have we not grown past such undeserved and illogical labels yet?

BC

when are we going to reject idiotic titles such as — universeness

Not until people stop quoting idiotic statements by Bruce Lee?

universeness

↪Bitter Crank

Not a Bruce Lee fan eh? Probably not a universeness fan either eh?
Oh well, the Universe continues regardless.

jgill

As an ex-gymnast and climber, what you speak of is allowing the body to do what it does with no interference from other aspects of the mind. No thinking, just flow with the pattern, that pattern having become instinct with practice.

Intellectual activities are more difficult to analyze in this way. When I'm trying to solve a math problem I think about it to the exclusion of distractions, hours seeming like minutes. However, there is yet another dimension to this topic. As Einstein noted, taking one's mind off the subject and relaxing doing something else may allow the subconscious to send forth a solution or a new way of approaching the problem.

This effect is what hunts the philosophers of science. They are so caught up in inventing schemes and methodologies of science that they loose sight on its actual workings and are completely paralyzed when they actually engage in it. — Cornwell1

Are you speaking of philosophers of science or scientists themselves? Of course, frequently they are one and the same.

universeness

As an ex-gymnast and climber, — jgill

I agree with your statement but the above is unfair as I now feel unfit, overweight and muscle stiff...
:groan:

universeness

Sorry for the digression. I will stay on track with the OP...I will....I will....I will.

Agent Smith

↪Tim3003

You're absolutely correct. When one becomes conscious of an activity, one starts worrying about how well one can carry it out. A vicious cycle then sets in: Performance anxiety $\leftrightarrow$ Poor performance.

As for St. Augustine, apart from the fact that he was trying to explicate what I suppose was an intuition (time), not easy, he was also under immense pressure from his supporters & detractors, if he had any, to crack the problem of time. He was in a tight spot surely.

Per St. Augustine about time and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart about hard core pornography, "I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it." — Bitter Crank

Excelente! :up:

You started a thread on art, on whether a certain piece vould be defaced to be precise, and it was ultimately a search for the answer to "what is art?"

It's difficult to say whether the lack of a proper definition (for art) is because of inherent qualities of art itself or because of factors peculiar to people who judge what's art/not art. In the former, art can't be defined and in the latter, art can be, we just haven't discovered it yet.

The question then is: Is time undefinable or is it definable but we haven't been able to figure it out?

"Think carefully about how to think!" — universeness

:smile:

Read Tim3003's post and my reply to him!

As Einstein noted, taking one's mind off the subject and relaxing doing something else may allow the subconscious to send forth a solution or a new way of approaching the problem. — jgill

Incubation!

St. Augustine & A Centipede Take a Walk

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