STUDY WITH ALFONS

For the past few days I have been looking for definitions of awareness and consciousness. Most importantly to get a generally accepted definition of both, but also to learn the difference. Just like I’m interested in the definitions and the difference of ability and skill.

Therefore, I looked at some books, listened to some podcasts, watched some videos on Youtube, and poked around text and articles on the Internet. I found out that some people have quite passionate opinions about the two terms—awareness and consciousness—and some would even be willing to enter heated discussions to defend their positions. I started to think, “This didn’t go well. It’s like searching for the definition of a tree, when every tree is different and every bird sits in a different one.”

That’s why, this morning, I felt bold enough to ask ChatGPT, “What is the difference between awareness and consciousness?” It wouldn’t hurt to ask this to the big computer, I guessed. What could an artificial intelligence possibly come up with? At the worst some gibberish, I thought, nothing lost here, and I pressed return.

“Awareness and consciousness are related but distinct concepts.

Awareness refers to the ability to perceive and attend to stimuli in the environment. It is the ability to be aware of something, such as being aware of a sound or a smell. It is the process of sensing or becoming aware of something.

Consciousness, on the other hand, is the state of being aware of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. It is the subjective experience of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings and self. Consciousness is often described as the feeling of being alive and having a sense of self.

In summary, awareness is the process of sensing or becoming aware of something, while consciousness is the subjective experience of being aware and having a sense of self.”

Wrote ChatGPT (Jan 9 2023 Version). Quite unsettling! A clear and concise answer I can actually accept, and work with. Why can ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence, phrase this so eloquently when a ton of websites and books spent thousands and thousands of pages beating around the flaming bush?

Oh, btw, I didn’t mean “flaming“ (in flaming bush) to be a curse word. I used it as a casual reference to Julian Jaynes’s thesis of the Bicameral mind, and that just a couple of thousand years ago the human brain was a different one, wired differently, working differently. Humans back then were guided by a voice in their heads which they perceived as an outside voice, like the voice of god. In fact, it was a different time altogether. It seems like that instead of thinking silently men spoke everything out loud. Every “thought” was spoken, in fact, there might have been no thinking, no privacy of thoughts, at all. Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote in her book The Enchanted Hour about the humble beginnings of thinking in silence:

“Silent reading of the sort we practice with our books and laptops and cellphones was once considered outlandish, a mark of eccentricity. Plutarch writes of the way that Alexander the Great perplexed his soldiers, around 330 BC, by reading without utterance a letter he had received from his mother. The men’s confusion hints at the rarity of the spectacle.

Six hundred years later, Augustine of Hippo witnessed the Milanese bishop (and fellow future saint) Ambrose contemplating a manuscript in his cell. Augustine was amazed by the old man’s peculiar technique. «When he read,» Augustine marveled in his Confessions, «his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still.»”

On the other hand, what is a definition? I must not stop there. It’s still fun and worthwhile for me to continue reading, and see how the great thinkers of humankind came to their conclusions and definitions, and where they went from there. It seems to be a great passion of humans to watch others find, build, learn or restore things, and I’m no different.

If you would like to have my blog posts delivered via email, here’s the copy of my blog on substack: improvingability.substack.com

“Write me a poem about the human knee, hips and lower back and how happy we humans are when they work well,” prompted I.

ChatGPT responded, within 2 seconds:

“Oh human knee, so strong and true,
A hinge that moves us, smooth and through.
Hips that pivot, back that supports,
Together they make movement sorts.

Lower back, a spine’s foundation,
Helping us with each sensation.
When all in sync, they work so well,
We dance and jump, they ring the bell.

But when they ache, and pain ensues,
We’re reminded of their constant use.
Let us be grateful for each day,
When our joints are free from disarray.

So here’s to you, knee, hips, and back,
May your function never lack.
For when you’re well, we’re truly blessed,
And happiness is at its best.”

Not half bad, me thinks. Quite good actually. Better than most of my own poems, I guess. “Make the above poem shorter,” commanded I. And ChatGPT rephrased swiftly:

“Our knees, hips, and lower back
Move us smoothly on our track.
When they work well, joy is ours,
But aches remind of daily chores.
Let’s be grateful for each day,
When joints are pain-free and we can play.”

Well. I do enjoy writing my own blog posts. They help me think, improve and locate myself in this world. But it feels really nice to get a little bit of help. Thank you all the hundreds of millions and billions of people who helped build this computer, from the ones who invented the shovel and first found copper in a mountain all the way up to the ones who put the finishing touches to ChatGPT (Jan 9 2023 Version).

Btw, you can subscribe to my blog via substack if you would like to have my blog posts delivered by email, here’s the link: improvingability.substack.com

“I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

Obviously there is no physical door to go through to free the mind. Or at least, there has been no News about someone having created such a door in physical reality. To walk through a door to free the mind… this must be a metaphor then. “It is by metaphor that language grows. The common reply to the question »What is it?« is, when the reply is difficult, »Well, it is like —«. This is the major way in which the vocabulary of language is formed. The grand and vigorous function of metaphor is the generation of new language as it is needed, as human culture becomes more and more complex.” Says Julian Jaynes, the American psychologist and author of the 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, about metaphors and language.

Language. An organ of perception, not simply a means of communication. But- is language the road to freeing the mind? And what does that mean anyways? Are we talking about language and consciousness? Consciousness- the thing that starts to develop in humans at around 3 years old, and of which one never can be quite sure how big or complete it has grown? Can we grow consciousness similar to how we can grow language proficiency? Or could we just as well become more and more conscious without language?

• Without language- honey bees can describe the direction and distance to the best flowers by performing a Waggle dance for her peers.
• Without language- musicians can reproduce a melody they’ve just heard.
• Without language- ravens can observe someone hiding eggs in their garden and then go get them as soon as they’re unattended.
• Without language- dancers and athletes can copy new moves from their peers by merely looking at them (and might even outperform the original.)

Obviously, becoming aware of interesting things and learning them can work just fine without language. There’s millions of videos on Instagram, Tik Tok and Youtube where movers show new moves to their viewers to replicate—and they all work without saying much about the moves themselves. A short look is enough for most athletes to start practicing.

Just for example, I’ve seen an interesting move on Instagram just yesterday, performed by Marcello Palozzo, in reel Ck0tRMTjACg by @palozzo.marcello on Instagram, or via imginn.org/p/Ck0tRMTjACg/

Out of a dozen or so acrobatic moves in his reel this one stood out to me. The whole move took something like 1.5 seconds to perform. I asked my computer to slice this part of the video up and give me 5 pictures for every second. So that’s 8 pictures, evenly spaced in terms of time.

I think these 8 pictures would already be enough for a (quite flexible and strong) dancer or softacrobatics athlete to copy the movement. But just in case you would like to look at the details in the middle, a closer look at the interesting part, the main technique, here’s another slice-up:

This movement—10 pictures in total—took a mere half second to perform. An athlete might learn such a move for fun, or for a video, and might even make money by performing such a cool move. Another new move learned, well, good for him! And an athletics post might end right here.

But what I’m after, what I’m interested in, is something completely different. I want to grow and improve consciousness. I want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, and to acquire a piece of this Wonderland myself. And for this we need language.

How would you teach Marcello Palozzo’s from-sitting-to-standing movement without showing this movement at all? How would you help students improve and finesse the movement without showing them how it’s done, and moreover, without correcting them?

This means you would need to describe the movement. And to do so, you would have to take the movement apart, identify its parts and their differences, and to tell the sheep from the goats in terms of movement instructions.

Where and how could you place your hands? What difference does each position make in your experience, through your experience? And isn’t that strange- after a couple of variations something inside of you will chose the hand position best fit for the way you act. Where and how could you place your feet? Is there a midline, where is the pelvis? When would you move your chin closer to your chest? This too could be chosen for you. By whom, by which means? Where do you look at? How would a differentiation of your eye and head movements improve the overall movement? Which hand leaves the floor first? Marcello Palozzo has his his right leg bent more than his left, and his left hand leaves the floor last. Maybe at first his weight is more on his right leg? Is that a contra-lateral gait pattern? How does this compare to a classic Lunge get-up? Is driving one knee forwards, and then the other, easier than driving both knee forwards at the same time? When is the earliest time to extend the right hip? When could be the latest time? How would this shift in timing hip extension change the overall movement and in which ways? What would be the benefits, what the disadvantages? But enough already, I could build an entire workshop around these questions. (And so could you.)

By using language, by putting movements and differentiations into words, you will enter a world that was right in front of your eyes all the time, yet it was hidden from you. In a certain sense—used in a certain way—language is the key to consciousness, the key that opens the door… the bulldozer that paves the road… to becoming more and more conscious.

In the 1999 movie The Matrix, the main character Neo is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill by character Morpheus. “You take the blue pill… the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill… you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Says Morpheus. This Red Pill Blue Pill story represents a choice between embarking upon a life-changing journey or to staying with whatever cards one has already been dealt. “But is it a choice, really?” Ask I. When reading Julian Jaynes’s hypothesis on how the human mind has changed over the past 3000 years from being bicameral to conscious then taking Morpheus’s red pill might not be a choice at all, but merely a breaking-in of our new pair of shoes.

Just recently I came across two examples of how being unconscious (of what is happening) is helping us with learning new skills. Here’s the thing: there’s a type of movement learning that is done without consciousness, without us knowing how the learning is facilitated. The first example is from PewDiePie, a famous Youtuber:

“Okay so I remember I wanted to do this flip and I thought it was impossible. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, but I kept trying and I kept trying. And you think you’re not making any progress but then eventually you got it. And it’s so weird to me how you can learn something without thinking it. Muscle memory, yes. This is very satisfying. To get that direct seeing, that instant improvement. There’s something very satisfying about that in my opinion and it just feels so good in your hands when you’re doing it. I love it.” – PewDiePie, Youtube, “My 12 Things I Can’t Live Without.”, Timestamp starts at 18:17, youtu.be/7tB4jwvvuhQ?t=1091

The second example that I want to show you is from Julian Jaynes, who was an American researcher in psychology at Yale and Princeton university and best known for his 1976 book, “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”:

“Nonsense, absolutely. We know that you can do lots of kinds of learning, like conditioning, it doesn’t happen with consciousness at all. In fact, consciousness wipes it out very often. There’s studies done at Columbia by (inaudible), another kind of learning that we do such as learning skills. And this has been shown to be astonishingly not conscious. If you want to try an experiment at home: now you take two coins and toss them like that and try to catch them. Well then go over what your consciousness is doing—it’s not really guiding your hands and really promoting the whole thing. It’s, oh, we say what a stupid thing, we’re picking up the coins and say, how clumsy I am. No this is something I’m going to have to stop doing… Suddenly it will happen. And you’ll say, How did that happen? Now can do it!” – Julian Jaynes, “Consciousness and the Voices of the Mind” Presented at The State University of New York at Stony Brook, August 1986, Lecture available for members of the Julian Jaynes society, Timestamp starts at 13:51, julianjaynes.org

And then there was Moshé Feldenkrais, a Ukrainian-Israeli engineer and physicist, who tried to do something completely else: he tried to make the process of learning conscious. As an engineer he was like, “What if we break seemingly simple movements further down into parts that we can then observe and refine?” Some of his students saw a mathematical mind in this idea and thus called this process differentiation and integration. And in fact Moshé Feldenkrais was remarkably successful with this idea—and was able to rise to fame for the duration of his lifetime by helping many people who were beyond help in a medical sense. Instead of treating them like they had a medical problem, he viewed their troubles as a learning problem.

However, as technical as it might sound like, this kind of disassembly of elusive, simple, every-day movements did not remove the magic that PewDiePie pointed out when he said, “it’s so weird to me how you can learn something without thinking it.” There’s still this magic moment when something suddenly has been successfully learned. Nevertheless with Moshé Feldenkrais’s method the process of learning became more visible, more accessible, and more workable.

Have a look at the following example of David Zemach-Bersin, whose work is inspired by Moshé Feldenkrais:

“I have a suspicion that if the movement is organized more proximally that Matt will feel a difference in the weight of his head. So I’m going to bring my left hand under his head again. And I’m turning the head and then I’m going to bring his left elbow to be snug. And again the head gets much lighter, can you see? And look how his upper back is participating. I’m going to tilt Matt’s pelvis thinking of his lumbar spine. The fifth lumbar is coming towards the ceiling. Okay, so that was maybe again about four times. And now I feel like I’m working about a tenth of what it took to lift your arm and your head two minutes ago, and look how light your head has become. How do you explain that?” — David Zemach-Bersin, Youtube, “Functional Integration Demo: Oppositional Movement on the Stomach Part II”, youtu.be/rjnMe9lyUkw

By breaking down movements that are as simple as they are elusive, such as coming from sitting to standing, or turning the head, we become able to fiddle with and to improve not only the movements themselves, but the process of learning. Instead of being unconscious of the whole thing, we identify its parts, and thus can work on each part. And of course- by doing so, over the years we learned a whole lot of tricks and strategies to improve how we learn skills, and abilities. Strategies such as, just for example,

• to move from distal to proximal in movement initiation,
• to reverse proximal and distal movement,
• to distribute a movement proportionally over the whole body,
• to exaggerate one component of a movement in relation to all other components,
• to reduce work in order to be able to perceive smaller differences,
• to explore the same movement in a different position, which means a different organisation towards gravity,

and so forth. There’s no definite list of strategies as none of this is institutionalised and also we keep discovering more. Maybe that’s part of our learning as well.

I find consciousness one of the most fascinating aspects of my own work, as you can see with my Youtube videos. Instead of focusing my entire Youtube channel on a single topic, such as how to improve knee health, or hip pain, or back pain, etc, I created many videos for a whole lot of topics. But what they all have in common is this idea that was inspired by Moshé Feldenkrais: to learn consciously, to become more and more conscious—in our feeling, in our sensing, in our thinking, in our movements, and through our actions.

I’m not saying that being conscious is better than being unconscious, or that one is generally better for learning new skills than the other, but I’m saying both strategies—to learn consciously or unconsciously—have their time and place. I’m saying we should know both, and we should know how to use both whenever and however we wish.

I went to the artificial intelligence ChatGPT on OpenAI and typed in “Teach me a Feldenkrais lesson.” Here’s what was written:

Sure! I’d be happy to teach you a Feldenkrais lesson. Feldenkrais is a method of movement and physical therapy that aims to improve movement efficiency, flexibility, and overall well-being. It is based on the idea that the way we move and carry ourselves affects how we feel and function. Here is a simple Feldenkrais lesson you can try:

1. Start by finding a comfortable seated position on the floor or on a chair. Make sure your spine is straight and your feet are flat on the ground.
2. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, allowing yourself to relax and become aware of your body.
3. Begin to focus on your neck and head. Slowly turn your head to the left, noticing the sensation of movement and any areas of tension or restriction.
4. Bring your head back to center, and then turn it to the right. Again, pay attention to the sensation of movement and any areas of tension or restriction.
5. Repeat this movement a few more times, each time allowing your head to move more freely and easily.
6. Next, bring your attention to your shoulders. Slowly lift your shoulders up towards your ears, and then release them down towards your hips. Notice the sensation of movement and any areas of tension or restriction.
7. Repeat this movement a few more times, each time allowing your shoulders to move more freely and easily.
8. Finally, bring your attention to your entire body. Take a moment to scan your body, noticing any areas of tension or discomfort.
9. When you are ready, slowly open your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

I hope you found this Feldenkrais lesson helpful! Please let me know if you have any questions or if you’d like more information about the Feldenkrais method.

Imagine my surprise, my shock almost! The artificial intelligence came up with a sweet little lesson. Well presented as well. I didn’t dare to dig deeper because I’m pretty sure it would fall apart if I poked around a bit. But it’s not all that bad for a teaser class, produced by an entity that doesn’t even have a human nervous system and human physical body, innit?

You would think a lesson in sitting would start with a movement as reference, for example turning the head—and then end with the same movement—to see if and how it has improved. But this is not the case in this AI generated lesson. Instead, it uses breathing and feeling-at-ease as reference. It’s quite advanced in this sense! Both in terms of teaching and what is required of the student.

Therefore, if I would teach it, I would go with the original “ideas” (or “pickings”, AI must have copied it from somewhere), but would improve the wording in certain places.

Firstly, Feldenkrais is not physical therapy. Secondly, the word Feldenkrais is very problematic. The terms “Feldenkrais” and “The Feldenkrais Method” are federal trademark registrations issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office to a private membership organisation, the Feldenkrais Guild of North America (FGNA). One of the goals of this organisation is to privatise and monopolise distribution rights to the full estate of Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais and thus prevent his life’s work to enter the public domain—as stated by the End User License Agreement (EULA) with the International Feldenkrais Federation Distribution Center (IFF). Thus making the life’s work of Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais an eternal asset of this private organisation to further their business and politics, and to prevent the public (as well as its own paying members) from freely using the words “Feldenkrais”, “Feldenkrais Method”, “Awareness Through Movement”, “Functional Integration”, etc. In case you ever wondered why the Feldenkrais Method is not better known and not more widely adapted—this is part of the answer.

Lastly, my slightly re-written version. I underlined the parts that I changed, I guess most changes are just personal taste. For example I tried to introduce a more realistic language by saying “sit upright” instead of “sit with a straight spine.” It’s impossible for just any vertebrate to have a straight spine, but it’s definitely possible for most people to sit upright. Furthermore I tried to give the text a more upper-hand, positive spin and said “Also notice the areas in yourself that do not move” instead of “noticing any areas of tension or restriction.” ChatGPT even ended the lesson with ”Take a moment to scan your body, noticing any areas of tension or discomfort.” This clearly shows that it didn’t know why it put the lesson together in the first place. And of course I changed the ending to fit to my video. So here’s my re-write:

Sure! I’d be happy to teach you a lesson inspired by Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais. In this kind of lesson we use movement and introspection to improve our overall well-being and everyday movements. It is based on the idea that the way we move, feel, sense and think does indeed affect how we act. Here’s a simple lesson you can try:

1. Start by finding a comfortable seated position on the floor or on a chair. Make sure your spine is upright and your feet are flat on the ground.
2. Close your eyes and observe yourself taking a few breaths, allowing yourself to be at ease and become aware of your body.
3. Begin to focus on your neck and head. Slowly turn your head to the left, notice the sensation of movement. Also notice the areas in yourself that do not move, that do not contribute to the movement.
4. Bring your head back to center, and then turn it to the right. Again, pay attention to the sensation of movement and also the areas that do not move.
5. Repeat this movement a few more times, each time allowing more and more of yourself to participate in this movement freely and easily.
6. Next, bring your attention to your shoulders. Slowly lift your shoulders up towards your ears, and then release them to dangle down from your neck. Notice the sensation of tension when you lift your shoulders, and the sensation of release when you lower them.
7. Repeat this movement a few more times, each time allowing your shoulders to move less jerkily and more smoothly.
8. Finally, be comfortably seated like in the beginning, and take a moment to just sit and observe. Notice how your chest and shoulders are moving together with your breathing. Notice any improvement in your overall well-being and everyday movements such as turning your head, sitting and breathing.

When you’re ready, open your eyes and slowly come up to standing. See how it is to face the world in standing and take a few steps.

I hope you found this lesson helpful! Please like and subscribe, and share your experience in the comments below. Thank you for watching and see you in the next video!

Here’s the link to my video: youtube.com/watch?v=RGC6pK-62KA

When people ask me what I do—from hundreds and hundreds of times having been asked this question—there’s a couple of ways this can go:

One

Most people will have heard of Physiotherapy before (not all people though) and it will end there. The whole topic is just too far off their radar. They will file me under “job unknown” or “not a therapist and not a doctor”, and then change subject or stop talking to me altogether.

Two

Some people have an active lifestyle, had some injuries and therapy themselves already, or have seen an advertisement about ergonomic mattresses or office chairs. 

That’s the person that is likely to ask, “Hey, I’ve seen this chair, the one that looks like that and can do this *gestures wildly*… is that any good?” or “I get it, you teach people how to sit correctly… btw, what is the right way to sit?”

Usually they will ask with genuine interest, because they’ve been thinking about this question for quite a while already and couldn’t figure out if $2000 for an ergonomic chair instead of $50 for STEFAN from IKEA is really worth it.

The last time I’ve answered this question I’ve said, “Think of the correct sitting posture not as a single, perfectly aligned, locked-in position, but instead as a range of possibilities that go from here to there.” Maybe not the best answer, but satisfying enough and keeps the conversation afloat for a few minutes.

Three

Here’s a most recent story from the third category, the 3rd way this question can go:

Yesterday I was in a very cute and very small bookstore, here in the Old Quarter in Hanoi, Vietnam. The whole store was about the size of 12 Square meter (129 Square foot) and had less than a hundred books. 

Upon entering I noticed the big glass door, which was new, clean and neatly fitted—something I came to appreciate here in Vietnam. I said to the girl at the front-desk, “Oh- what a nice door you have!” But she didn’t seem to understand. I repeated and she said, “Sorry my English not so good.”

I looked at the table next to the door and there was a children’s book. I picked it up. Nice typeset, appealing pictures, plain English, about 150 pages. I said, “Hey, that’s a cute book, you could learn English with it.” The girl giggled. “You don’t think so?“ She shyly straightened herself up and replied, “I think my problem with English is mostly in listening and speaking. I can read well. See here, I enjoy this book.”

I turned around to the front desk and lo and behold the book she was reading was The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russel, one of the beautiful, old hardcover editions. Slightly brittle pages, most lovely typeset. Imagine my surprise, my shock almost. The young, Vietnamese woman behind the counter, 22 years old, liked the chapter about Aristotle the best. She was a believer in self-education and was looking for an answer to the question why people think the way they do, and was hoping to find some clues with the ancient folks in the West.

We probably talked for more than an hour, and came to discover that Bertrand Russel had a whole lot of chapters in his book, but none by Ludwig Wittgenstein. We talked about teachers and their students, about Sigmund Freud und Wilhelm Reich, about young people, suicide, mental health and self-education, and eventually I came to mention what I do, and how this fits into the bigger picture. We connected on Insta and she followed me on Youtube.

By the time I said “Good Bye” we’ve both learned a lot. It was a marvellous encounter that I’ll remember fondly for all my life. On top of all that I finally found a few items I could bring back to Saigon and give as gifts to my friends at the New Year’s gathering I’m invited to tomorrow.

This is my last blog post of 2022. A Happy New Year 2023 to all of you, may good fortune be ahead!