I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I think I should feel something, as according to my value system and want for its adherence, I can will that emotion to sublimate from my desire to experience it. I suppose it’s a bit like a switch, though a switch can be easily turned on and off at will, with little transition time between the two states; the action I described, and your explanation of the ‘learning switch’, do not fit this description.
The ‘learning switch’ and my example can both be explained by intentional emotional and psychological manipulation: one apathetically doesn’t feel like learning, yet prefers a learned state to an ignorant state, and so cajoles the subconscious into emitting curiosity-inducing neurotransmitters by smartly suggesting how fascinating the material is, how much more prepared and capable one will be upon learning said material, ways in which the material can be of future utility, etcetera.
Kinesthesia has been known[1] to be increased through exercises similar to chi gung. Activating it involves, as you said, identifying the neural pathways involved and mimicking the relevant thought processes. Can you activate and deactivate the ‘kinesthesia switch’ in relatively rapid succession?
If not, then I suspect it’s similar to the type of manipulation mentioned above, only instead of identifying and activating an emotion, you’re actively shifting into a formerly desensitized mental state; id est you payed attention to how a not often isolated muscle felt when contracted, identified that feeling, and consciously activated it enough to make its isolated stimulation easy.
If so, then that’s astounding. I wonder whether it’s a particular quirk of kinesthesia.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I think I should feel something, as according to my value system and want for its adherence, I can will that emotion to sublimate from my desire to experience it. I suppose it’s a bit like a switch, though a switch can be easily turned on and off at will, with little transition time between the two states; the action I described, and your explanation of the ‘learning switch’, do not fit this description.
The ‘learning switch’ and my example can both be explained by intentional emotional and psychological manipulation: one apathetically doesn’t feel like learning, yet prefers a learned state to an ignorant state, and so cajoles the subconscious into emitting curiosity-inducing neurotransmitters by smartly suggesting how fascinating the material is, how much more prepared and capable one will be upon learning said material, ways in which the material can be of future utility, etcetera.
Kinesthesia has been known[1] to be increased through exercises similar to chi gung. Activating it involves, as you said, identifying the neural pathways involved and mimicking the relevant thought processes. Can you activate and deactivate the ‘kinesthesia switch’ in relatively rapid succession?
If not, then I suspect it’s similar to the type of manipulation mentioned above, only instead of identifying and activating an emotion, you’re actively shifting into a formerly desensitized mental state; id est you payed attention to how a not often isolated muscle felt when contracted, identified that feeling, and consciously activated it enough to make its isolated stimulation easy.
If so, then that’s astounding. I wonder whether it’s a particular quirk of kinesthesia.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldenkrais_method