Ann-Sophie Barwich

@smellosopher.bsky.social

4068 Followers 1658 Following

25/6 Bunting Fellow, Radcliffe/Harvard Assoc Prof, Indiana U Bloomington Seeking work in&out of academe Phil & Neuro (EEG) Book 1 www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674278721 Book 2 https://shorturl.at/tBUSM Web www.smellosophy.com Lab thestinktank.weebly.com

Opening Paragraph of my new Open Access book on the senses: "Sticking a needle in your eye is usually not a bright idea. Sticking it repeatedly to various places along your eyeball’s curvature seems even less advisable. But leisure has a way of giving some people odd bouts of inspiration. Concluding his prodding and probing with a bodkin – a long sewing needle with a blunt tip – a success, Isaac Newton not only kept both of his eyes but left us with some helpful diagrams (Figure 1). His attempts were not in vain. Newton reported seeing colored circles, documenting how his perception of color changed with slight moving pressure on the eyeball (Gleick, Reference Gleick2003). We can learn two things from this episode. First, don’t stick a needle in your eye, if only to see what may happen. Someone else probably has done so already – and can give you instructions. Second, Newton’s attempt to bridge the gap between our phenomenal inner lives and their public description is part of a long tradition of self-experimentation to understand how the mind works and how our senses give us both objective knowledge and subjective experience of the world."