I joined a large group of graduate student and faculty colleagues on Friday, October 5thfor the Brown Bag discussion with Katherine Hayles. The roomed continued to fill past capacity as our ninety minutes together progressed, which began with Hayles expressing concern for the future of our species – a sentiment shared by many in the room, undoubtedly for a variety of reasons.
Framing the conversation with a brief exposition of her recent research, Hayles shared that she was currently working to move away from an anthropocentric view of intelligence. Investigating a so-called ‘cognitive non-conscious,’ Hayles works to formulate how we can talk about and understand those things that conscious thought cannot detect – that which resists conscious (human) cognition.
Many weeks have passed since Hayles’ visit to C21, yet her message and the conversation that ensued have remained with me. On several occasions, I have come across an article or news story for which I have greater interest given the topics discussed in the October 5thBrown Bag. For example, many of us in attendance seemed particularly intrigued by an illustration Hayles shared as she explained how, as humans, there are aspects of our cognition that we can or cannot consciously access. Many of us are familiar with telling ourselves as we go to sleep at night that we must wake up at six-fifteen the next morning, and we wake and blearily look to the clock, which reads six-thirteen, Hayles explained. Nods of recognition animated the room. Our ability to set our own internal alarm clock may not be a biological process that science can explain just yet. However, investigation of this unexplained reality helps point to those systems and mechanisms controlled by unconscious cognition, investigation which may provide a better understanding of cognition. This conversation leapt to the front of my mind when I came across an article titled “The Neurons that Tell Time” by Ingfei Chen from The New Yorker. Reading through the article, which was posted online on December 3, 2018, I couldn’t help but link scientists’ hypotheses regarding our neuron’s ability to mark time and location to Hayles’ anecdote about our internal alarm clocks. While I understand that Chen’s reporting does not explicitly answer or respond to the points that Hayles raised, it was, for me, an exciting moment of transdisciplinary connection. Furthermore, the connection emphasized for me that remaining curious about topics and paths of research outside of one’s discipline or specialty often results in these delightful moments of connection.
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Krista Grensavitch