Week 4 Notes: Nature of Human Nature, Jaques Lacan, Marshall McLuhan.

Human Quest- The Nature of Human Nature

-Why are we so alike?

-Culture isn’t the only thing that shapes us, we share human nature (common heritage resides in the brain)

-Quest from roots, beginnings, evolution – common birthright

-Our ability to learn language cannot be helped due to how we are wired

-Adaptations are evolutionary birthright we inherit in genes

-Williams Syndrome; socially articulate, though she has a mental disorder. Cannot visually see things as they are. “Drawing an Elephant” – cannot see it or draw, though language is perfectly fine which shows a very different few of brain, causing functions that are inconsistent.

-Mothers can communicate with newborns by sounds, the way people speak with adults and babies are different (high pitch, low pitch, slow, fast) – in all cultures mothers all do this with universal melody.

-Do babies know the difference? The language shouldn’t manner.. in music not lyrics.

-Babies can control how long it plays best on checkerboard.. proving babies prefer “Mother” version of speaking

-MICROSCOPE AND BUTTERFLY NET

-How did living things change over time?

-Alfred Wallace- flying to Indonesia to collect insects, in daily contact with nature. He realized the answer and told Charles Darwin. Darwin saw conclusions earlier and didn’t publish them. After the letter, he did,

-“The Origin of Species”

-Evolution by natural selection, first Darwinian revolution.

-Darwin disagreed that human evolution and our bodies and brains are built for solutions, “package deal”

-Who we are and why we act the way we do.

-Modern world is all products of adaptations some are by-products.

-Facial Expressions are how we communicate all around  the world.

-Sound/Facial Expressions v. Language.

Jaques Lacan: A Graphic Guide

-Philosopher, studied medicine (20s)

-Interested in paranoia and pursued the case of a woman who attempted to stab another woman, an actress.

-Aimee’s rational for this crime was “a punishment of her own self”

-Narcism, image, ideal

-“Mirror phase”- children come to take hold of recognition of themselves from the outside.

-Ego is made up of an alienating identification

-(initial lack of completeness in nervous system)

-Humans born premature, we mirror as a type of survival technique

-Surrealist Movement – Picasso’s DR.

-Personality of body as an attack shows that is who the attacker would rather be or wants to be… stems form insecurity.

Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage

-Societies have always been molded by media

-People communicate than by the content of communication.

-Connectedness.

-Media is taking over.

-Printing created separate viewed individuals with fixed p.o.v.

-Printing established individual and brought intellectual property as a private property.

-Media in technology dictates we share, causing problems of copyright and ownerships.

-Stem from self.