Working in Movement

I wonder a lot about the fascinating human nervous system, particularly the sensory motor part of it. And lots of posts show up with references to scientific studies delving into the mystery of how it works. But if there is an answer to that mystery, is it realistic to expect a cogent answer from the world of science? Can scientists explain it all someday?

As I pondered on this, I ran across the web site of Kenan Malik, a British-based writer on varied topics of science and philosophy. What struck me immediately about Malik is his ideas on the uniqueness of humans among the species and the implications of that. And it reminded me of some of the taped lectures from Feldenkriais. They seem to have a lot in common.

My take on Feldenkrais' view is he believed that humans are almost infinitely adaptable and that this is because of the unique learning capacities of the human nervous system. Ontologically, humans possess almost limitless capacity to do whatever they can dream up. Unfortunately, for most of us, we piss much of this promise away by shutting down our learning capacity relatively early in life, missing much of the richness of life because we limit our options and choices. Feldenkrais talked and wrote about this, but painted an incredibly rich tapestry of how to experience this capacity firsthand in his movement lessons.

Malik sticks to words. Although I haven't really delved into his work, I think he has some of the same sentiments about human uniqueness. According to Malik, ""You can bet your bottom dollar there isn't a group of chimps somewhere scratching their heads wondering what it is to be an ape."

Malik really seems to get his teeth into the idea that science isn't going to offer the ultimate explanation anytime soon.I n searching for meaning, science treats nature as a machine, and that this can explain many things. But it's useless for explaining human nature. According to Malik, science just provides the facts. Figuring out their significance is a political issue.

You can hear Malik talking about this sort of thing in this interview (requires Realplayer) with novelist David Lodge.