Facing the Posthuman

Our Un-evolved Brains: Memory and Imagination 2016

The failure of human brain processes to keep pace with developments in technology is creating a space for disengagement of the corporeal body, paving a way to some of the malfunctions in society today. 

A new perspective is needed on why we are in a situation where humans of various ages act without responsibility for themselves or for others. It seems there is a shift in the position(s) of the body [1] relative to the mind [2] in the early 21st Century, that is moving human beings towards becoming posthuman [3] through a process of de-humanisation [4], a position of anti human.
 
According to Descartes:
In infancy our mind was so tightly bound to the body as not to be open to any experiences (cogitationibus) except mere feelings of what affected the body. [5] He goes on to say: In adult life the mind is no longer wholly a slave to the body, and does not relate everything to that [6]
 
Is it possible that this freeing trend that the mind demonstrates, has by means of the advances in technology continued to move away from the body, to a position very different from that of infancy, where the mind becomes so loosely bound to the body as to say it can position the body more like 'the slave' of the mind [7]; a position whereby the mind has so 'freed' itself of the body as to create for itself a distance from the body?

There is an accepted position held by cultural and cybernetic theorists' [8] that gives much to consider. Cybernetic Theorists posit 'body has been increasingly conceptualised as an object divorced from the mind, and emerging discourses on the virtual body and 'disembodiment' reinforce and extend the Cartesian split' [9], they further suggest that, 'we could already be posthuman' [10] in such ways as to accept  'that when animated in performative action, the virtual human body (as opposed to a computer simulated body) is perceived by viewers empathetically as always-already embodied material flesh.' [11] While direct experience of the body still exists, there are also indirect and second-hand experiences of the body, giving rise to altered perceptions of the body. This is a new area with new perspectives to take into consideration when examining some of our social difficulties, especially at a time when other theories fail to offer full and satisfactory explanations. There are numerous theories as to why we have social problems of youths acting with violence and disregard for the body and indeed for property, where ideas of poverty, poor education, alcohol and drugs are focused on as probable causes.

The possibility, for posthumanism and anti humanism, needs to be on the list for consideration in examining these social difficulties. It offers a different explanation with different possible solutions, for the apparent inhumanity demonstrated by members of society to themselves and to other living human bodies. The idea holds potential importance in addressing some socially problematic behaviour; such as the knife attacks and killings by the young [12]; the ease of radicalisation within our society, particularly in our youths; previously the rioting in London and other major cities in the UK; the happy slapping craze indulged in by teenagers apparently for the sake of self gratification[ 13]; the clutches of youth suicides, about which Fairbairn states 'that some survivors of suicide attempts, particularly young people, report that they only wanted to be dead for a bit, apparently with no acknowledgement from them that when you're dead, you're dead and there is no coming back,' [14]; and the distress caused to some hospital patients by a target driven resolution to human need. [15]

Central Argument

The fundamental structure and operation of areas of the brain dealing with memory and imagination have not evolved sufficiently to deal with the new technologically generated material we are bombarded with today. The material processed by the brain has changed in a fundamental way; the brain has not fundamentally changed, there is a changed outcome [16] within the mind.
'Natural world' [17] witnessed material, or 'natural world' described material was once the only information offered to the brain, giving rise to 'natural world' based images and concepts within the mind, a mind that readily perceived the mortality and vulnerability of the body. Information now available to the brain, includes a vast, fast-increasing database of 'unnatural world' [18] material of extremes, and contains images that were never possible in the natural world.

With the mental processes unevolved and remaining the same for all incoming material (both full body experience and data from constructed images, and virtual realities), the outcomes become confused resulting in an increased possibility of disassociation, not only with the' natural world' but also with the 'natural' body situated in that 'natural world'. Disassociation is made easier by means of technically created non-witnessed images of the body, easing a way for disregard of the human being's fundamental form of a living corporeal mortal body. This in turn gives rise to opportunity for indirect experience of the body, a changed perception of the body, a distancing of the body and a position, whereby the body can be perceived as less than the living-supporting-structure-of-the-mind that it is, and can be considered merely as a garment draped on the coat hanger of the mind.
 
Contemporary cultural and cybercultural theories that states: The bifurcatory division between body and mind has lead to an objectified redefinition of the human subject - the 'person' - into an abstracted, depersonalised and increasingly dehumanised physical object. [19]    
 
In his lecture Symbolic Wounds and the Impossible Real – The Paradox of Traumatic Realism in Televisual Representations of Terror [20] John Cussans said ' this paper is about reality, representation and the spectacle of violence.' [21]. Cussans spoke of  'approaching the real by means of trauma using images of violence' [22]. The real Cussans speaks of is the Lacanian real. One of the three psychic orders of Lacan, a triad structure of the mind developed by him and reflecting the triad of Freud's structure of Id, Ego and Super Ego. Cussans claimed that ' cinema was the beginning of the end of real' [23]. Cussans played with examples of real, reminding us how the recording of the Moors Murders was a desired object by 'really sick people, who wanted to hear it because it was real, relating the mode of representation to the real, those tapes are real'. [24] He indicated how today 'simulation precedes the event, when a personally witnessed event can be said to be like a movie'.[25]

Where Cussans spoke of the real, I speak of the body [26]; a lack of understanding for our mortality, and a disinterested disregard for life arising out of a removed and distanced idea of the body. Cussans spoke of the changing meaning of real, from the real of Lacan to a realness of realities [27] where with ever-new advances in technology of video, TV or internet, the difficulty of identifying reality increases, and along with this, the approach to the real ever more inaccessible. [28] That 'the real exceeds any mode of representation,' [29] could be transposed onto my personal view that body [30] exceeds any mode of representation.

My concern is of a changing meaning of the body. From the body that is in its entirety a living corporeal fleshy body that holds a priority position within the human being in the manner spoken of by Descartes [31] (one directly experienced by the person whose body it is), to a position where theorists of Cybernetic Information can ask if we are already Post-Human [32] in this present time when liveness [33] can be considered as present when the body is experienced via a live video because 'the virtual human the body [34] is still perceived by viewers empathetically as always-already embodied material flesh' [35].

The primary divide between the real and the body comes from their given location, the real of Lacan is situated in the mind as a psychic phenomena discussed in the theoretical realm of the mind, the corporeal body situated in the physical, material realm. The divide now becomes an area of focus. How exact, rigid and immoveable can such a divide be when Lacan himself clearly says of the unconscious?
'the unconscious speaks, so that it depends on language…In fact, I say the subject of the unconscious is only in touch with the soul via the body, by introducing thought into it, contradicting Aristotle, man does not think with his soul.. he thinks as a consequence of the fact that a structure  (that of language) carves up his body a structure that has nothing to do with anatomy ' [36]

If one aspect of the mind can be described as having need of the body for access because  'the subject of the unconscious is only in touch with the soul via the body' [37] it raises questions for other realms of the mind. That possibly other areas, possibly all, can be described, as having a subject 'that is only in touch with the soul via the body' [38]. If this is the case, the real is only in 'touch with the soul via the body'. Further to this is Lacan's description of the real: 'the earliest state whereby needs are all to us and we have no sense of separation between ourselves and the external world or the worlds of others' [39]

This is a basic condition of infancy. [40] It could be seen as existing in the proximity of the basic condition of infancy as described by Descartes 'In infancy our mind was so tightly bound to the body as not to be open to any experiences (cogitationibus) except mere feelings of what affected the body ' [41] This presents a position requiring a questioning of the relationship of the real to the body. In the three statements above, two from Lacan [42] one from Descartes, it is the body that is centralised, even as Lacan locates the real as a psychic state. This close proximity of the real to the body in infancy [43] and of the mind to the body in infancy [44] raises the question was cinema (not only) the beginning of the end, of the real [45], but also of the idea of the body, the end of the human being?  
 
 
As well as saying 'cinema was the beginning of the end of real' Cussans states  'Cinema changed everything' and, 'with recordable history, everything changed' [46]. Cinema brought new experiences to human beings, living human bodies. Prior to the arrival of cinema, real time [47] had not been experienced other than by direct witnessing of an event. Cinema changed the single or minority experience of being present at an event [48] as the only way to see an event, into the possibility of a larger, wider audience.  Cinema generated an extended audience for an event. Making it possible for many more to have the opportunity and means to visually view a record of an event in real time than just those present at an original event; all-be-it a different section on the timeline to the original event. Cinema made it possible for this extended audience to experience the post-event indirectly; a post-event, recorded on celluloid, situated outside of the event's time and place, with the possibility to re 'view' the event at any future time. The technology gave a new shared and extended pool [49] of visual information and stimuli to society at large, a significant new experience.

Although technically new, motion within cinematic images was the result of  developmental experimentation; from 'the 300's B.C. when Aristotle saw an after image of the sun a persistent image, to 1832-34 with Joseph Antoine Plateau 's phenakistoscope, a spindle viewer which made still pictures seem to move, to the first demonstration of motion pictures in the US in 1891.'[50] The invention of nitrate celluloid film in 1887[51] enabled the long quest to create moving images to come to fruition, bringing all its evolving elements together in cinema, a development that could be viewed as an inevitable step on the line of evolving modes of representation. As well as such a development being situated on a line of evolving attempts, these new moving images of cinema could be expressed as being a 'copied' idea of the mind mechanics [52], a technically achieved externalisation of a familiar existing internal experience within memory and imagination.

With regard to the perceiving of motion in a cinematic experience Daniel Frampton writes: Deleuze [53] asserts that 'cinema does not give us an image to which movement is added, it immediately gives us a movement-image'. Deleuze sees cinema's sections not as immobile but mobile ones, which are given (to us) along with an abstract movement or time, to make up the movement-image.' [54]

When the description by Frampton of Deleuze's view of  'the movement-image' is put alongside cinematic imagery as a created external experience, the similarity is clear supporting the notion that cinema is a 'copy' of an existing internal experience, description could be said to reflect the internal experience of recall of moving events in imagination  and  memory, our ability to construct events with movement as an integral part of the mind. When we consider that Piaget [55] says, 'images are debarred from movement'[56]; 'when they do show motion it is because they are under the control of the operational function (1966, 375)'.[57] The two descriptions, Deleuze's and Piaget's, of the differing contexts of perceptions of movement are comparable. Therefore not only has movement in cinema come about in an evolutionary manner, it can be shown to be an externalising of two existing internal experiences of constructed movement and replay of an event. The ability to work in real time made viewing events available to a wider audience, and an extended-visual-pool, new in its increased amount of material and in its scale, cinema has changed some things.
 
Clarke states: Descartes explains memory and imagination, as ideas, by patterns in the flow of animal spirits through the brain that are caused by traces of former sensations (memory) or by other bodily conditions that are more active when we sleep or daydream. Despite the contrast with intuition, imagination constructs reliable images of perceptual phenomena, by synthesizing incoming signals from different senses. [58]
Such reliability of images created by imagination from perceptual phenomena through synthesizing incoming signals, would seem to be supported in the contemporary work of Psychologists Kerr and Domhoff [59] in detailing the misconceptions of a paper [60] promoting a case that the congenitally blind have visual content in their dreams. Kerr and Domhoff re-establish with rigour the works that conclude that people who are blind-from-birth do not 'see' in their dreams. They state that the claim that congenitally blind see in dreaming or waking imagery is not a supported position. [61] They cite work of Kennedy [62] who observes that 'even though vision and touch are two different perceptual systems, one responsive to light waves and the other to pressure, they are both processed in an area of brain that encodes and integrates the common elements of information.'  'Kennedy attributes accuracy of drawings by blind people to the overlap in information obtained through visual and tactile perceptual systems.' [63]. We are presented with evidence of an inherent lack of ability to imagine or call up in the memory something that has not been sourced from sensual experience. Such compelling work supporting Descartes position gives rise to a conclusion for me that one creates only reliable imagery, in the sense that imagery is fundamentally dependent on incoming perceptions as source and cannot be created out of anything that is not perceived. Imagination may juxtapose and create 'unreal' images however 'even the most far-fetched science fiction is based on such commonly perceived world "realities" as motion, change, interaction, and direction, except they are turned and twisted every which believable way to make them sound "unreal." ' [64]

Despite the case made by Descartes and the case made by current work of Kerr and Domhoff for saying memory and images from imagination are reliable, the contemporary work of Garry, Devon and Polaschek [65] initially appears to simultaneously contradict this and to prove an opposite position in their work: imagining false experience can alter memory …    even when people think about or imagine a false event, entire false memories can be implanted….. … Source confusion and familiarity are involved in this.[66] 

How can it be that perceptual input, which creates reliable images, can also be shown to create false memories by creating an imagined false event? The two are not incompatible, some component of the process is different today than in the time of Descartes. We can prove the mechanics-of-the-mind of today, whereby a lack of sensual input (as in those blind from birth) equates to a lack of that source material in memory and imagination [67] and we are therefore able to say that only 'reliable' images are produced in our mind today as in the time of Descartes [68].

The key here is the nature of the material now being processed by the mind-mechanics, the nature of the incoming data. There is an extra source of material, an altered pool for incoming visual data than was the case in the time of Descartes. We now have a vast pool of visual data entering the mind-mechanics that is not of the three-dimensional multi-sensory origin it once was, thus creating the very 'source confusion and familiarity' [69] involved in the creation of false memories. Rather than suggesting the underlying operations for memory and imagination have changed or evolved I suggest the change is rooted in the nature of information perceived through the senses. The structure within the mind that once created reliable images is now capable of creating 'unreliable' images [70]. The position of Descartes, Kerr and Domhoff, and that of Garry, Devon and Polaschek can both be correct while initially appearing to be in opposition. There is a shift in the mind, from the situation where memory and imagination make reliable images [71] to one where they do not, [72] a result of the changing nature of available incoming material. The mind processes all sensually received information in the same way not necessarily differentiating between that sourced from the organic physical world and that from technically created imagery.

Cinema is a visual and audio experience whereby two prioritized and engaged senses receive cinematic information. Even as the viewer continues with multi sensory intake of the experience of sitting physically present in a cinema, the primary visual intake of the eyes is the reception of flat two-dimensional information while the ears are receiving sound from a cinematic source. Both these sets of data have been created from the content of memory and imagination that is not the viewer's. This data is from the memory and imagination of others. The viewer now has access to a pool of data that includes memories and imaginings of many other human beings.

While all material, including this cinematically created material, originates from the world: Without a world to imagine about, there would be no-thing imaginable, and therefore no imagination. This doesn't mean that humans can't imagine an impossible world, especially if by "possibility" is meant only what humans presently consider possible. On the other hand, even an "impossible" world is only imaginable within the context of "possible imaginables" provided by the world humans have learned about. For example, even the most improbable science fiction is derived from probable "realities," that is, what humans perceive to be possible, or else they couldn't even recognize it as "improbable," let alone imagine about it. [73]

This extended pool of material that is cinema imagery is not natural-world-material.  The viewer takes in a reliable image, through the visual sensory path of an unreliable image, one not having the full physicality of the natural world. It is an ever-increasing pool, a collecting together of material from many minds, a different scenario from  'natural' [74] multi-sensual direct three-dimensional information of an original event in a place, of a given time, of a given duration. The cinematic experience while offering and availing the reception of perceived information is not only a new source for the human mind, offering an extended-information-pool, but is the source of a new and different material without true 'authentication' of multi-sensually perception in a real place and in real time.

Given such a fundamentally different and extensive pool of available visual material from a source that, as O'Neill tells us, even Deleuze does not consider as reality: While Deleuze is interested in how we apprehend cinema itself rather than how cinema represents something outside of itself -- cinema is not for Deleuze an image in this sense-- this does not justify the equation of cinema with 'reality'. It is a reality but not reality per se [75].

It is reasonable to identify imagery from cinema as contributing to 'source confusion' [76] described by Garry, Devon and Polaschek as being 'involved' in the process of false imaginings creating false memories [77]. Add the 'familiarity' [78] by means of available replay and repetition in cinema to this confusion and cinema now holds the two characteristics of source confusion and familiarity, 'involved' [79] with the implanting of whole new false memories through thinking about a false event [80]. This technically created source of cinema output is further extended with cinema's variety of output, initially the filming and sharing of actual events, now encompassing narrative, constructed and edited documentary, fantasy and art, each expanding the possibilities for source confusion [81] offering access to an even wider range of  'false imaginings' [82] and the 'construction of false memories' [83]. All this new material becomes part of the whole body intake data alongside all other information arriving from the natural world through the multi-senses of the body. Creating a situation where 'reliable' images from memory and imagination (from the mind processing personally fully perceived events) and 'unreliable' images of false memory and imagination (from the mind processing the non-personal experience-of-other-humans, technically-created-visio-audio-perceived events) [84] are both part of the internal content.

Given the combination of the intake of 'unnatural' material data and the replay characteristic of cinema, along with the evidence that 'source confusion and familiarity are involved in creating imagination inflation' [85] and that ' contrary-to-truth imagination can implant false memories' [86] it becomes arguable that cinema created a significant shift in human experience. Arguably through cinema we arrive at a position where we can no longer rely on memory and imagination to only hold reliable images and therefore to only create reliable images as were born from the phenomena of a fully perceived natural world experience. With both reliable and unreliable images being formed and processed in the mind, comes a highly significant change to the content of the mind and to the perception of this content by the mind. Cinema created a fundamental change in the human mind.

The 'unreliability' of created images includes images of the body and as such has the potential to give unreliable information to the mind about seen bodies from the ever-extending visual pool that features motion and begins with cinema. Taken further this can include the perceived position-in-the-mind of the body whereby the perception of the body is seen as inaccurate, where distance-from-true-awareness and direct corporeal experience of the body becomes possible and available. In addition to 'source confusion and familiarity' with false imaginings creating false memories is the evidence of Bergen and Narayan [87]. In a paper for The Twenty Fifth Annual Conference of Cognitive Science Society they reference work by Nyberg et al. (2001) [88] reporting that Nyberg: Provides compelling evidence that it is not only recalling actions that yields activation of motor areas of the brain - motor imagery does as well. [89] They further reference Lotze et al. (1999) [90] confirming: That brain area is activated in both motion and imagined motion. [91]

When the body is not in action there can be no direct experience or direct corporeal awareness [92] of the body in true physical and spatial movement, only the mind creating a pattern within part of the brain with recalled or imagined awareness and sensations of the body. We know imagining false events can create false memories [93] by extension this in turn gives rise to false imaginings about the body creating unreliable images about the body. We also know imagining the body in motion activates the same part of the brain as it does when the body is in motion,[94] so by putting these together, in imagining false events such as the body in cinema we can create brain patterns the same as if the body was in action. However the body is only in unreliable imagined action. The 'unnatural' images from the pool of cinema offer the opportunity for unreliable imaginings and memories, so creating increased and more complex source confusion as the brain patterns continue to behave the same as if the body was in action. Complex because these are some other person's images of the body, yet the mind can now imagine them as its own body actions, a potential for the existence of a spiralling unreliability of images of the body.
Source confusion and familiarity [95] can now be seen to involve images of the body, add to this the operations within the brain that allow the mind to hold false memory of movements which were never physically undertaken or executed by the body, nor directly experienced by the body, then cinema is seen to create a shift. A pathway is formed along which seeing the body in action in a cinematic context and recalling or imagining this body action can impact into true awareness and direct experience of the body, a move away from awareness of the corporeal body, away from direct experience of the corporeal body, a change of perception of the corporeal body and a change of position of the corporeal body in a Cartesian sense of reducing the boundedness of the mind to the body [96]. Cinema changed awareness of the body, direct to indirect experience of the body, perception of the body and positioning of the body by the mind.
 
The Body Today

Whether or not cinema 'changed everything' [97] cinema has contributed a significant change to the content of the mind, in memory and imagination, sufficient to open up the way to a distancing from the body. That cinema, in a similar vein to it being the beginning of the end of real [98], generates a movement in a direction that takes the human mind away from authentic direct body experience, away from the mind's awareness of the body, away from the position held by the body within the mind. A movement which I suggest goes beyond that of the idea of Descartes of movement from infancy to adulthood [99], created out of an increased difficulty in knowing-with-certainty what exactly it is that one is experiencing when using memory and imagination. A movement brought about by the interactions between: the externalisation (in cinema) of existing internal experience (in memory and imagination); the unchanged operations within memory and imagination processing new, altered material [100] sourced from 'unnatural' [101] origins alongside and combined with traditional in-take material sourced from 'natural' [102] origins; the ability in the mind to create false memories from false imaginings; the identical brain responses being created both for recalled and imagined body movement,  and for actual body movement.

Through the technology of cinema, and the way in which the human brain uses the images created by it, cinema and current developing technologies, construct the means to a significant change for the human mind. It leaves the human brain unequipped to differentiate between experiences gained through the five senses and second hand experiences gained through technologically generated images and sounds.
The factors interact and combine together so that the position of the body as an effect of cinema and modern technological imagery is potentially precarious. The mind is not so careful of its perception of the body, the mind can therefore be less aware of the body, have an increasingly indirect experience of the body, so that the body can be distanced from the mind, positioned away from it and even be put outside, out of, the mind. This enables an anti humanist position.

All the old issues of poverty, race, religion and gender take on a whole new meaning, where the old political solutions will fail us. In our search for measures to respond to our malfunctioning society with its the ease of radicalisation, rioting, happy slapping crazes and youth suicides, we need to look to the roots of the malfunction, understanding how our minds fail us when using modern technology and technologically generated imagery.
 
Without research, rethinking and re-education, the cinema may ultimately be seen to be the beginning of the end - of awareness of the body [103] and its real mortal position in the real world. Game playing with the future of the human race.
 
 
 
 
[1] The body defined here as the human corporeal mass which is the living human being. All that is constituent of being a corporeal fleshy living human entity while including any repair, maintenance and add-on parts considered and accepted by the person as the body of their living being with a knowledge and awareness of the boundaries.
[2] The mind - in the philosophy of Descartes; all things that are not matter; the centre of consciousness that generates thoughts, feelings, ideas, and perceptions and stores knowledge and memories; the capacity to think, understand, and reason. - from Encarta World Dictionary
[3] Posthuman is used in this research to denote a being that no longer demonstrates the traditional characteristics of what it means to be human - with emphasis on points 3 and 4;  '1. Relating to, involving, or typical of, human beings. 2. Composed of people. 3. Showing kindness, compassion, or approachability. 4. Having the imperfections and weaknesses of a human being rather than a machine or divine being. (Encarta World Dictionary, part of Microsoft Word within Microsoft Office 2004).
[4] A process of de-humanisation here means one that results in we human beings moving into a situation whereby we are '1. Deprived of our human qualities such as individuality, compassion or civility and 2. Rendered mechanical and routine.' DICTIONARY, T. F. the free dictionary [online] Farlex. Available from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dehumanization  [Accessed 12th May 2008].
[5] ANSCOMBE, E. & GEACH, P. T. (Eds.) (1954) Descartes Philosophical Writings, London, Nelson's University Paperbacks.  Extracts from Principles of Philosophy, part 1, First Philosophy  R . LXXI. P 196.
[6] Ibid.  Extracts from Principles of Philosophy part 1, First Philosophy. R   LXXII. P 197.
[7] A position that fails to take into account, the needs or limitations of the body such as in extreme sport or in anorexia.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12]  MIKE, H. (2007) Deadly Glasgow Teens [online]. current.com Available from : http://current.com/items/88245211_deadly_glasgow_teens [Accessed 29th April 2008]. A short documentary on gangs in Glasgow, it offers some thoughts on traditional reasons behind the difficulty while illustrating the attitudes and disregard for life.
[13] AKWAGYIRAM, A. (2005) Does 'happy slapping' exist? [online]. BBC News. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4539913.stm [Accessed 29th April 2008].
[14] 'JOHNSON, L. Y. (2008) They want to be dead for a bit... but if you're dead there's no coming back. Sunday Express. Quotes Fairbairn regarding a cluster of youth suicides in Bridgend, South Wales; references FAIRBAIRN, G. (1995) Contemplating Suicide: The Language and Ethics of Self-harm, Routledge.
[15] 'One nurse in the report commented on staffing and time pressures saying: "Patients seem to be becoming numbers not people. I am having to fight against what the system wants in order to provide dignified care to my patients.' RCN (2008) Nurses raise 'dignity' concerns [online] BBC News. Available from:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7363525.stm [Accessed 30th April 2008].
[16] Outcome - meaning the end product of memory and imagination, fundamentally different kinds of images and perceptions.
[17] Natural world material is used to indicate the physicality of material in its full form, experienced as such through the senses of the body for processing in memory and imagination.
[18] Unnatural world material is used to indicate technically created and processed material which represents physical form.
[19] DIXON (2003a)
[20] CUSSANS, J. (2003) Symbolic Wounds and the Impossible Real - The Paradox of Traumatic Realism in Televisual Representations of Terror Presented at Winchester School of Art, 3rd  Dec. 2003, also IN Approaching the Unapproachable Conference, Kingston, Canada  4 - 7 December  2003, . Co-hosted by the Department of French Studies, Queen's University, and the Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre,. This paper is listed at http://www.chelsea.arts.ac.uk/17212.htm.
[21] Ibid.
[22] CUSSANS (2003) Symbolic Wounds and the Impossible Real
[23] CUSSANS, J. (2003) Symbolic Wounds and the Impossible Real
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid'
[26]The body defined here as the human corporeal mass. All that is constituent of being a corporeal living human entity.
[27] CUSSANS, J. (2003) Symbolic Wounds and the Impossible Real - speaking on Cinematic reality; 'Reality TV changing any sense of reality and as an effect, somehow the real.'
[28] Ibid.
[29] CUSSANS, J (2003) Symbolic Wounds and the Impossible Real
[30] The direct corporeal being that is each of us.
[31] ' In infancy our mind was so tightly bound to the body as not to be open to any experiences (cogitationibus) except mere feelings of what affected the body. '  ANSCOMBE, E. & GEACH, P. T. (Eds.) (1954). LXXI. P 196
[32] DIXON, S. (2003) Adventures in Cybertheatre. IN ZAPP, A. & BERG, E. (Eds.) Networked Narrative Environments as imaginary spaces of being, Liverpool 23rd May 2003. Liverpool, FACT in association with MIRIAD/ Manchester Metropolitan University.
[33] Liveness is itself a whole theoretical area,' The notion of liveness has been a perennial theoretical problem since it divided critics and theatregoers almost a century ago following the incorporation of film footage into live theatre, and it remains a conundrum that is continually wrestled with both in performance studies and in wider cultural and cyber theory'  DIXON, S. (2007) Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation., Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press.; a book by Auslander is entitled 'Liveness', AUSLANDER, P. (1999) Liveness, Performance in a mediatized culture, London and New York, Routledge. Here I use it as the acceptance of experiencing a living the body, perceiving it on a level described as presence. This area is researched in a later section of this Chapter.
[34] Virtual human, the body being a witnessed digitalised image of a living corporeal body situated elsewhere, as opposed to a digitally created simulation of a human the body.
[35] DIXON, S. (2003) Adventures in Cybertheatre. IN ZAPP, A. & BERG, E. (Eds.) Networked Narrative Environments as imaginary spaces of being, Liverpool 23rd May 2003. Liverpool, FACT in association with MIRIAD/ Manchester Metropolitan University.
[36] LACAN, J. (1974) A recording of Lacan speaking on the unconscious - 'Television': Lacan on the unconscious [online]. You Tube. Available from: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=URsYj-TVFjc&eurl=http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DURsYj-TVFjc [Accessed 11th Feb. 2008].
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
[39] FELLUGA, D. (last updated 2003) Modules on Lacan: On the Structure of the Psyche. Introductory Guide to Critical Theory [online]. Purdue U. Available from http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/psychoanalysis/lacandevelop.html [Accessed 12th May 2008].
[40] Ibid.
[41] ANSCOMBE, E. & GEACH, P. T. (Eds.) (1954)
[42]Two statements from Lacan: 1. LACAN, J. (1974); 2. FELLUGA, D.; one from Descartes - ANSCOMBE, E. & GEACH, P. T. (Eds.) (1954
[43] LACAN, J. (1974); FELLUGA, D. (last updated 2003)
[44] ANSCOMBE, E. & GEACH, P. T. (Eds.) (1954)
[45] CUSSANS, J. (2003) Symbolic Wounds and the Impossible Real
[46] Ibid.
[47] Real time, here being the length of time of an event, the elapsed time, the duration of an event.
[48] Before a moving record was possible, only those present at an event (something occurring in a real life, a living real time manner) could experience and witness it directly, the experience could be distributed by representation in a still image and / or verbal or written description, but not in a real time experiential way nor in a direct visually experiencing manner.
[49] Pool in this paper refers to a gathering together, a collection of, a source of perceived visual information; whether perceive though multi senses as in a witnessing situation in the real world or perceived through single sense of sight or dual sense of sight and sound in a cinematic or other technically presented situation.
[50] DIRKS, T. (1996 - 2008) Timeline of influential Milestones and Turning Points in Film History [online]. Filmsite. Available from: www.filmsite.org/milestonespre1900s.html. [Accessed 21st Feb. 2008].DIRKS, T. (1996 - 2008) www.filmsite.org/milestonespre1900s.html. Timeline of influential Milestones and Turning Points in Film History.
[51] Ibid.
[52] mind mechanics indicating the already existing mechanisms of the mind, those of recall and replay.
[53]  Deleuze (1925 -1995) French Philosopher author of Cinema 1: The Movement Image 1983
[54] FRAMPTON, D. (1991) On Deleuze's Cinema [online] Filmosophy. Available from: http://www.filmosophy.org/articles/deleuze [Accessed 3rd march 2005;  20th Feb 2008] FRAMPTON, D. (1991) http://www.filmosophy.org/articles/deleuze; On Deleuze's Cinema. Part 11.
[55] Piaget (1896 -1980) Swiss Philosopher, a natural scientist and developmental psychologist who made studies of children.
[56] BRANN, E. T. H. (1991b) The World of the Imagination: Sum and Substance. p299, Rowman & Littlefield.
[57] Ibid. 'There are two functions on which imagery depends, operational and figurative. Operational transforms its objects, it is essentially dynamic'; figurative has perception, imitation images representing objects in their absence by resembling symbols, when sign and signified object are driven apart.' p299
[58] CLARKE, D. M. (2003) Descartes Theory of Mind, Chap 3 Imagination and  Memory '[online]. Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs. Available from: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/656441/2003/00000001/00000001/art00004 [Accessed 2nd Feb. 2008].
[59] KERR, N., & DOMHOFF,G.W. (2004) Do the blind literally "see" in their dreams? A Critique of a recent claim that they do. Dreaming [online]  14. 230-233 . Available from: http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/kerr_2004.html [Accessed 20th Feb 2008].
[60] Bértolo, H., Paiva, T., Pessoa, L., Mestre, T., Marques, R., & Santos, R. (2003). Visual dream content, graphical representation and EEG alpha activity in congenitally blind subjects. Cognitive Brain Research, 15, 277-284.
[61] KERR, N., & DOMHOFF, G.W. (2004)
[62] Ibid. Referencing Kennedy (1993, 1997)
[63] Ibid.
[64] MAKEDON, A. (1992) Humans in the World: introduction to radical perspectivism [online] Chicago State University. Available from :http://webs.csu.edu/~amakedon/RadicalPerspectivism/Imagination.html [Accessed 2nd May 2008].
[65] GARRY, M., DEVON, L. L. & POLASCHEK (2000) Imagination and Memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science. [online] abstract from Vol 9, Number 1, Feb. 2000, pp 6-10 Available from:  www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/cdir/2000/00000009/00000001/art00002 [Accessed 27th Feb. 2008] Blackwell.
[66] Ibid.
[67] KERR, N., & DOMHOFF,G.W. (2004)
[68] CLARKE, D. M. (2003)
[69] GARRY, M., DEVON, L. L. & POLASCHEK (2000) Imagination and Memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science. [online] abstract from Vol 9, Number 1, Feb. 2000, pp 6-10 Available from:  www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/cdir/2000/00000009/00000001/art00002 [Accessed 27th Feb. 2008] Blackwell., M., DEVON, L.L. & POLASCHEK (2000)
[70]Ibid.
[71]CLARKE, D. M. (2003) 'Imagination constructs reliable images of perceptual phenomena, by synthesizing incoming signals from different senses.
[72] GARRY, M., DEVON, L. L. & POLASCHEK (2000)
[73] MAKEDON, A. (1992) Humans in the World: introduction to radical perspectivism [online] Chicago State University. Available from :http://webs.csu.edu/~amakedon/RadicalPerspectivism/Imagination.html [Accessed 2nd May 2008].
[74] Information of natural world material with the physicality of material in its full form, experienced as such through the senses of the body for processing in memory and imagination. As in footnote 20
[75] O'NEILL, E. R. (1998) Apprehending Deleuze Apprehending Cinema. Film Philosophy. [ online] Vol 2 Jan 1998. Available from http://www.film-philosophy.com/archive/vol2-1998/index.html [Accessed 20th Feb. 2008].
[76] GARRY, M., DEVON, L. L. & POLASCHEK (2000)
[77] Ibid.
[78] Ibid.
[79] Ibid.
[80] Ibid. 'Source confusion and familiarity are involved in this … ' (that is to say involved in)  'Imagining false experience can alter memory …    even when people think about or imagine a false event, entire false memories can be implanted' GARRY, M., DEVON, L. L. & POLASCHEK (2000) Imagination and Memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science. [online] abstract from Vol 9, Number 1, Feb. 2000, pp 6-10 Available from:  www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/cdir/2000/00000009/00000001/art00002 [Accessed 27th Feb. 2008] Blackwell.
[81] Ibid.
[82] Ibid.
[83] Ibid.
[84] Unreliable because although they stand as reliable in that they are reliable intake of 2D moving images, they become unreliable in terms of being imagined and recalled in memory as if they are born from full natural world 'perceptual phenomena, by synthesizing incoming signals from different senses' - CLARKE, D. M. (2003) The primary senses through which they are received are sight and sound; there is no touch, smell, taste of the event.
[85] GARRY, M., DEVON, L. L. & POLASCHEK (2000) - Imagination inflation being 'the implanting of an entire false memory when people think about or imagine a false event'
[86] GARRY, M., DEVON, L. L. & POLASCHEK (2000) Imagination and Memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science. [online] abstract from Vol 9, Number 1, Feb. 2000, pp 6-10 Available from:  www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/cdir/2000/00000009/00000001/art00002 [Accessed 27th Feb. 2008] Blackwell.
[87] BERGEN, B., NARAYAN, S. & FELDMAN, J. (2003) Embodied Verbal Semantics: Evidence from an Image-Verb Making Task. The Twenty-Fifth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Boston, Massachusetts.
[88] Ibid. Referencing the work of L. Nyberg et al. (2001), in the field of Neuropsychology.-  Nyberg, L., Petersson, K.-M., Nilsson, L.-G., Sandblom, J., Aberg, C., & Ingvar, M. (2001). Reactivation of motor brain areas during explicit memory for actions.  NeuroImage, 14, 521-528
[89] Ibid. Referencing the work of L. Nyberg et al. (2001), in the field of Neuropsychology
[90] Ibid.; Referencing the work of Lotze et al. (1999) - Lotze, M., Montoya, P., Erb, M., Hulsmann, E., Flor, H., Klose, U., Birbaumer, N., & Grodd, W. (1999) Activation of cortical and cerebellar motor areas during executed and imagined hand movements: An fMRI study, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11(5): 491-501
[91] Ibid. Referencing Lotze et al. (1999)
[92] Experience as in the direct sensual knowledge of the body in spatial movement. Awareness in the sense of knowing what a limb is doing, on one level it seems logical to know that a limb remains static during imagining while on another level experiencing it as if in motion, through imagination. Trying to hold the two conditions in mind is not easy, I say this from personal experimentation.
[93] GARRY, M., DEVON, L. L. & POLASCHEK (2000)
[94] BERGEN, B., NARAYAN, S. & FELDMAN, J. (2003) Referencing Lotze et al. (1999)
[95] Ibid.
[96] ANSCOMBE, E. & GEACH, P. T. (Eds.) (1954) p196,197 - from mind being tightly bound up with the body in infancy to being less bound up in adulthood.
[97] CUSSANS, J. (2003) Symbolic Wounds and the Impossible Real
[98] Ibid.
[99] ANSCOMBE, E. & GEACH, P. T. (Eds.) (1954) p196,197 - from mind being tightly bound up with the body in infancy to being less bound up in adulthood.
[100] Altered material  - having once been fully perceived material from a fully physical natural world, to a mixture, including the new unnatural material perceived through limited senses.
[101] Unnatural sources being used here to indicate the technically processed form of material representing the physicality of material in the 'natural' world experienced through a lesser mode than the total multi senses of the body e.g. as in visio-audio-only of cinema.
[102] Natural sources being used here to indicate the physicality of material sourced in its full form experienced as such through the total multi senses of the body for processing in memory and imagination.
[103] Again, I here refer to a sense of slippage from the direct awareness and experience of the body to a position of a distanced body-as-concept, if there is a movement towards posthumanity then the consequences could well be the end of corporeal bodies, it is an unknown, as is whether the mind would cease at such a point or whether the mind could continue to exist supported by a totally non-corporeal 'body'.


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Yvonne Jones 
January 2016