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Auditory Quotes

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Auditory Quotes

“Sound waves, regardless of their frequency or intensity, can only be detected by the Mole Fly’s acute sense of smell—it is a little known fact that the Mole Fly’s auditory receptors do not, in fact, have a corresponding center in the brain designated for the purposes of processing sensory stimuli and so, these stimuli, instead of being siphoned out as noise, bypass the filters to be translated, oddly enough, by the part of the brain that processes smell. Consequently, the Mole Fly’s brain, in its inevitable confusion, understands sound as an aroma, rendering the boundary line between the auditory and olfactory sense indistinguishable. Sounds, thus, come in a variety of scents with an intensity proportional to its frequency. Sounds of shorter wavelength, for example, are particularly pungent. What results is a species of creature that cannot conceptualize the possibility that sound and smell are separate entities, despite its ability to discriminate between the exactitudes of pitch, timbre, tone, scent, and flavor to an alarming degree of precision. Yet, despite this ability to hyper-analyze, they lack the cognitive skill to laterally link successions of either sound or smell into a meaningful context, resulting in the equivalent of a data overflow. And this may be the most defining element of the Mole Fly’s behavior: a blatant disregard for the context of perception, in favor of analyzing those remote and diminutive properties that distinguish one element from another. While sensory continuity seems logical to their visual perception, as things are subject to change from moment-to-moment, such is not the case with their olfactory sense, as delays in sensing new smells are granted a degree of normality by the brain. Thus, the Mole Fly’s olfactory-auditory complex seems to be deprived of the sensory continuity otherwise afforded in the auditory senses of other species. And so, instead of sensing aromas and sounds continuously over a period of time—for example, instead of sensing them 24-30 times per second, as would be the case with their visual perception—they tend to process changes in sound and smell much more slowly, thereby preventing them from effectively plotting the variations thereof into an array or any kind of meaningful framework that would allow the information provided by their olfactory and auditory stimuli to be lasting in their usefulness. The Mole flies, themselves, being the structurally-obsessed and compulsive creatures that they are, in all their habitual collecting, organizing, and re-organizing of found objects into mammoth installations of optimal functional value, are remarkably easy to control, especially as they are given to a rather false and arbitrary sense of hierarchy, ascribing positions—that are otherwise trivial, yet necessarily mundane if only to obscure their true purpose—with an unfathomable amount of honor, to the logical extreme that the few chosen to serve in their most esteemed ranks are imbued with a kind of obligatory arrogance that begins in the pupal stages and extends indefinitely, as they are further nurtured well into adulthood by a society that infuses its heroes of middle management with an immeasurable sense of importance—a kind of celebrity status recognized by the masses as a living embodiment of their ideals. And yet, despite this culture of celebrity worship and vicarious living, all whims and impulses fall subservient, dropping humbly to the knees—yes, Mole Flies do, in fact, have knees!—before the grace of the merciful Queen, who is, in actuality, just a puppet dictator installed by the Melic papacy, using an old recycled Damsel fly-fishing lure. The dummy is crude, but convincing, as the Mole flies treat it as they would their true-born queen.”

Science FictionPataphysicsSurrealismSpeculative FictionCognitive ScienceAuditoryWeird FictionSurrealisticOlfactorySensory ProcessingStimuliMole FliesPuppet Dictator
Book:Don't Forget to Breathe
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“It was the old psychosomatic side-step. Everyone in my family dances it at every opportunity. You've given me a splitting headache! You've given me indigestion! You've given me crotch rot! You've given me auditory hallucinations! You've given me a heart attack! You've given me cancer!”

HeartOpportunityGivenSidesFamilyStepsMy FamilyCancerHeadacheHallucinationsHeart AttackSplittingIndigestionAuditory
Book:Fear of Flying: 40th Anniversary Edition
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“I'm an actor, and, beyond that, the thing I do most compulsively is writing. So I come at it very much from this sense of character. I get interested in people. And I feel confident in my capacity to absorb and manifest the characteristics of people. I have a real auditory hang-up for dialogue; re-creating the way people talk really is an addiction in my brain.”

PeopleWayFeelsWritingRealCharacterActorsBrainCreatingCapacityAddictionDialogueCharacteristicsManifestHang UpsAuditory
Author:Edward Norton
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“Intuition was not just visual but also auditory and kinesthetic. Those who watched Feynman in moments of intense concentration came away with a strong, even disturbing sense of the physicality of the process, as though his brain did not stop with the grey matter but extended through every muscle in his body.”

MatterMomentsBodyStrongProcessBrainIntuitionIntenseVisualsMusclesConcentrationGreyDisturbingPhysicalityAuditoryGrey Matter
Book:Genius: the life and science of Richard Feynman
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“What's always struck me is how different the sensory, especially auditory, experience is when you're in the middle of the music with the musicians playing off each other around you. I wanted to find a way to unlock the intensity of that, to recreate that unique perspective, first for the hundreds of people who attended the concert, and eventually for a much larger online audience.”

PeopleWayFirstsDifferentWantedAudienceMiddlePerspectiveMusicianUniqueOnlineConcertsIntensitySensoryAuditoryUnique Perspective
Author:Chris Milk
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“You know, mind allows us to portray in different sensory modalities, visual, auditory, olfactory, you name it, what we are like and what the world is like. But this very, very important quality of subjectivity, this quality that allows us to take a distant view and say, "I am here, I exist, I have a life and there are things around me that refer to me." That me-ness, M-E-hyphen, that is what really constitutes consciousness.”

KnowsWorldMindImportantDifferentNamesViewsConsciousnessQualityVisualsSubjectivitySensoryAuditoryHyphens
Author:Antonio Damasio
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“Given her deafness, the auditory part of the brain, deprived of its usual input, had started to generate a spontaneous activity of its own, and this took the form of musical hallucinations, mostly musical memories from her earlier life. The brain needed to stay incessantly active, and if it was not getting its usual stimulation..., it would create its own stimulation in the form of hallucinations.”

IfsFormGivenMemoriesBrainNeededActivityMusicalActiveUsualSpontaneousDeprivedInputHallucinationsStimulationIncessantlyDeafnessAuditory
Book:Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
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“I am not surprised that the president of the United States called this a phony scandal. I'm not surprised Secretary Clinton asked, "What difference does it make?" I'm not even surprised that Jay Carney said Benghazi happened a long time ago. I'm just surprised at how many people bought it.”

PeopleLongDoeSaidStatesPoliticalPresidentDifferencesUnitedUnited StatesHappenedSocietyTrustPoliticianLong TimeClintonAssUsaSecretaryPresidencyBad AssScandalLong Time AgoPhonyBenghaziAuditory
Author:Trey Gowdy
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“We in the "developed" world seem to have many auditory strategies that insulate us from the presence of silence, simplicity, and solitude. When I return to Western culture after time in desert, mountain or forest, I discover how we have filled our world with a multiplicity of noises, a symphony of forgetfulness that keeps our won thoughts and realizations, feelings and intuitions out of audible range.”

WorldFeelingsSeemsCultureSilenceReturnSolitudeMountainFilledStrategyWesternSimplicityIntuitionForestsNoiseRealizationDesertRangeOur WorldSymphonyForgetfulnessMultiplicityWestern CultureAuditory
Book:The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom
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“The health of a nation, a society, can be determined by the art it demands. We have insisted of television and our movies that they not have anything to do with anything, that they be our never-never land; and if we demand this same function of our live theatre, what will be left of the visual-auditory arts - save the dance (in which nobody talks) and music (to which nobody listens)?”

IfsArtLeftNationsLandTelevisionDemandFunctionDeterminedTheatreCraftsVisualsAuditoryLive TheatreNever Never Land
Book:Stretching My Mind: The Collected Essays of Edward Albee
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