Imaging Mind's Eye

Loads of stugg comes up on googling images related to the term 'Mind's
Eye' - not surprisingly a lot of the stuff has an eye in it. I tend
to run the 'eye' bit out in my pondering on what a mind's eye might
be. Some former science colleagues better at maths than me used to
try and describe 'visualisation' - how they could manipulate images of
geometry involving complex shapes and transformations. I could never
do this and even have trouble working out what happens to, say, door
hinges if you turn the door upside down and round-a-bout. I could
often 'guess' how a complex system of transformations would end up,
but could never 'see the process' as some claimed. This was something
of a handicap in some stochastic work with molecule shape.

I'm watching an old Oliver film and have no sympathy with Oliver - all
with the other kids and the brilliantly played evil roles. I often
have a lot of difficulty 'seeing' what others are being suckered by in
propaganda directly and instead a form of critique of the stuff
arises. I really dislike, say, Huckleberry Finn being played by the
rich director's all too clean kid. I have a cinematic daydreaming
imagination, but no imaging comes from words when someone says 'table'
- my sister 'sees' gargoyles if you say the word.

I'm struck there is no 'eye' in mind's eye even though I might as well
be in a cinema when daydreaming. Though one might ask if what I see
'in cinema' relies on past sight - though again I'm not usually
'seeing' recalled events. I find the artist's attempts at 'mind's
eye' disappointing.

I'm unsure how I notice so strongly that "economics" (a subject I
teach with no enthusiasm) is just a 'smell of words' around and
obvious failure in human cooperation always leading to a very small
number amassing riches. It's like a gas keeping he truth-seeker at
bay. We are as far from the double-helix in this as the tribe that
denies paternity through sex, investing it instead in ghosts with the
'father role' played by maternal uncles.

It's been my view for many years that argument fails except in very
special circumstances. The Greeks knew this because equally powerful
argument could be adduced for many different views. They invented a
kind of "mind's eye" (see Pyhrronism) in which competing arguments
could be assessed. This is rather too expert for me. I suspect that
what we can't do is strip argument of its propaganda, and suspect
again this is a matter of fear of violence in challenging 'deeply'
held views - and further that these views are ill-considered dross.
One can feel another danger here of the zealot and know-all. In my
mind's eye argument comes with smells, emotions, incredulity,
doubt,probability ... and the coldest, most lying voice of all is the
disinfected smell of the objective voice.