cognitive analogue

Wow, check out the Internet Audio Archive that WFMU DJ Kenny G points to twice today - once for an epic, 3-hour long conversation between John Cage and Morton Feldman, and once for a pair of Brian Eno interviews. I'm listening to the 1980 interview right now, which is basically Eno doing a History of Recorded Music 101 lecture that is kind of amusingly quaint at times, surprisingly fresh and still-provocative at others ('the problem with computer music is that everyone knows how to do it too well'), and vaguely self-important-yet-humble throughout.

In fact, over the course of writing this post it occurs to me that Eno is kind of analogous to Thomas Barnett and Nicholas Baker, who I recently kind-of-noted as possessing a similar style of thinking and writing:

Of course, their tendency to show off and their vague smugness is well earned - all three are more or less brilliant, with a real knack for latching on to (though not really inventing) important contemporary ideas and interpreting them in compellingly systematic vision. Hats off to all you smart pricks!

I like this idea about the 'cognitive spectrum, from David Gelernter, from the collection of wild speculations I mentioned a couple weeks ago. In the (nearish?) future, as brain imaging technologies become more and more sophisticated, I (wonder if/ think that) we're going to learn a lot of mindblowing-yet-paradoxically-totally-obvious shit about not only the diversity of the cognitive spectrum within individuals but between them as well. By which I mean, I bet there'll be scientific evidence for my Baker-Barnett-Eno hypothesis within my lifetime! Different people think differently, but some people think the same. Maybe this will yield some insights into neurological correlates for interpersonal 'compatibility', &c {flake out}You know, we all really DO have auras, the distinctive pattern of our brainwaves, our psychic fingerprint, the color of our soul!!! {/ flake out} Man, I am tired!*

* [Which reminds me of my awesome high school psychology class... Our amazing teacher Mr. Buccossi (who occasionally did work as a stunt man, along with his twin brother I think?) had an amazingly polished schtick that was really pro yet really funny and managed to teach you stuff at the same time. I'd kind of start dozing every now and then (I had sleeping problems with all my classes junior and senior year), and when I did Mr. B would say "Mr. Atkinson, I can see the beta waves coming out of your head" or something like that, which was a really vivid image I thought. Or was it alpha waves? He was a good teacher, but it was like 6 years ago, you know? I could look this up in like 8 seconds and find out which one it is, but I thought it would be more valuable to keep the authenticity of the uncertainty instead of trading 'up' for polished, corporate fact-checked, professionally-designed bullshit blog fake perfection! I'm tired!]