This unusual event of the dentist's son is interesting for a number of reasons.
It's not difficult to understand how it happened in a general
manner--something is perceived, an error signal is created, an action is
taken--all through various levels of the hierarchy. That's easy.
And we certainly agree that we are not aware of the reference levels at each
level of a wholistic behavior--getting a caffiene buzz vs. lifting a coffee
cup. So the fact that the boy didn't know why he hit the fire alarm is not in
itself so unusual. But I have a very undeveloped notion of conscious awareness
and error and automaticity which I've developed from the Vallacher and Wegner
article, and this notion would have me expect that the boy would have awarness
of "why." So the consciousness question is intriguing.
Bruce addressed the perceiving end of this event--that our present models don't
account for the possible varieties of perceiving. Now it may be the case that
the boy sensed by smell or touch that something was amiss and the whole process
models as normal, only the perception is not conscious. Or is it that there is
a different perceiving mechanism or organ that we don't know about? There are
certainly some things that we often say demonstrate "ESP" or the like which can
be explained by normal perceiving mechanisms where consciousness awareness of
the "stimuli" is not present (perceiving that someone is standing behind across
the room by means of underdeveloped echolocator skills). But there are some
things which don't fit under such explanations, many which I have experienced
first hand to my amazement. I have learned some of these (intuitive) skills
and can do such fun things as finding someone's birthday by means of holding
and watching a pendulum. Now I know how utterly ridiculous that sounds but I
say it anyway cause I know what my experience. Such acts, unfortuneately,
cannot be done when the internal environment is such that we define it as being
"critical, analytical." Learning such skills required that one learn how to
not analyize for at least a while (a difficult task for myself, probably less
so for most). Now I realize that my terminology is extrememly vague and my
statements seemingly unfalsifiable, and for this I apologize. But there's
something here to be examined, if it is examinable.
So I wouldn't call it a miracle. Any comments?
Mark Olson
m-olson@uiuc.edu