Friday, August 2, 2013

Phantomic experience [01 definition]



I think of phantomic experience as the delicate aspect of memory, that is connected  with traces or echo of sensations and movement, and how they coexist with the present moment.

Sensations of touch and weight.
         The touch of the other but also the touch of attention.
          Weight as it shifts and swings within own body, or is normally distributed through some constellations of it,  but also weight that one gives towards certain things (value).

Movement as a term mostly understood as a physical action experienced by the performer (and/or reflected by the spectator via mirror neurons), but also movement of the thinking process and the question which is not pursued by the answer (even though question awaits the answer, the answer does not appease the question, it can only stop the movement of  it), is a self stirred movement of going to the bottom, uprooting, coming to the surface, opening, hiding again, turning, steeling away[1]

I call it phantomic experiences because though in many ways the nature of these traces is ungraspable, the studies in phantom sensations show how very much the subjective experience of a phantom sensation can be objectified or shared with the other via the image of brain activity. Though in medicine phantom studies are mostly occupied with developing ways of treatment, thanks to which patient who undergo amputation or stroke would develop the “better match” between the feeling and the body, some scientist propose that the demystification of the current-day concepts of “the self” will be amongst the foremost future prospects of phantomology.” (Balnke, Matzinger 2009, Brugger 2012)



[1] Maurice Blanchot, Most Profound Question pp 11-25, In The Infinite Conversation

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