great article on perception

i came across this article in The New Yorker today, referred by something in the New York Times. NLPers especially may be interested, because it's about perception, the brain and nervous system, and meaning.

the article is long, 8 pages, but you can start reading at the bottom of page 4 if you don't want to read a gruesome story about a woman with an incessant, horrible itch on her scalp. you might feel better if you skip that part.

toward the end you can read about using mirror therapy to work with phantom limb pain. there's a way to retrain the brain's sensors. no drugs or surgery needed. end suffering quickly.

one fascinating factoid i read is an estimate that only 10 to 20% of what we see is actually information entering the visual cortex through the eye. the rest comes from elsewhere in the brain, like memories.

click the title of this posting to go to the article.