{"id":36,"date":"2005-02-07T05:41:40","date_gmt":"2005-02-07T09:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/feedback-loops\/"},"modified":"2005-02-07T05:41:40","modified_gmt":"2005-02-07T09:41:40","slug":"feedback-loops","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/feedback-loops\/","title":{"rendered":"Feedback loops with the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes I am convinced that we survive and interact, in part based on
\nour conscious and subconscious acts, but in part based on the natural
\nfeedback between different parts of the world.  It doesn’t require
\na Collective Unconscious for a word or idea or song can hang in the
\nair, on the tip of the tongues of everyone present; or for two
\nlong-lost friends to call one another at the same moment; or for a pair
\nof identical twins to send one another identical birthday presents by
\naccident.  These are natural consequences, slightly external to
\nany single person’s volition, of relationships between people and
\nshared experiences, memories, events.<\/p>\n

Some of these relationships are difficult to isolate, however. 
\nHow is it that people who always wake up right before their alarm clock
\ngoes off, can do so…
\nthe first day on a new sleep schedule \/ in a new timezone?  
\nHow can a swimmer improve her time by visualizing the clock showing the
\ntime she wants to get?)<\/p>\n

There are even more exotic feedback loops<\/a> to consider.  <\/p>\n

Why do some people describe dreams that
\nthey insist later had strongly predictive power?  I have an
\notherwise very sensible and successful friend who had a ten-minute-long
\nepisode of deja-vu at a crowded table, during which he wrote a message
\nto a friend sitting next to him describing what was about to transpire,
\nand who would say what… where do such memories, or meta-memories, or
\nself-delusions of meta-memories, come from?\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

How is it possible to change
\nconversations (e.g., via apparently random words), physical states
\n(e.g., three-point takedowns), or mental states (e.g., hypnosis from
\nmonths or years previous) in simple, repeatable ways that defy common
\nsense?  \n<\/div>\n

\nEverything can probably be described in terms of  local feedback
\nloops, just as the solar system can be described in terms of
\nepicycles.  But there is simplicity in the observed phenomena that
\nmakes me long for a similarly simple answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I am convinced that we survive and interact, in part based on our conscious and subconscious acts, but in part based on the natural feedback between different parts of the world.  It doesn’t require a Collective Unconscious for a word or idea or song can hang in the air, on the tip of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-36","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}