can you quantify consciousness?
the intangible quality that separates human from ape — free will. as a species our ability to assess and change our environment has been remarkable. but does the human mind have that same control over itself?
taking a look at some visual illusions, such as the set of tables below, which one is longer? our mind sees the table on the left to be greater than the one on the right. but they are the same length.
so if our eyes, the very windows to the soul and the sense that utilizes the greatest amount of brain space can deceive us — how can our minds? dan ariely gives a sharp and humorous look at behavior economics, and how many choices people make are less about consciousness decision making than subconsciously following subtle behavioral instincts beyond our control guided by design cues.
so if so many of our actions are imperceptible to our conscious selves, what am i missing from what is really there?
i began thinking about space and time. the very basic qualities that make up my existence. i am really aware of my presence over a period of time or field of space?
on 9/6/11 i began a physical journey of my daily activities by time. this method was time consuming, laborious, and not effective — i only managed to gather 20 or so data points after two days.
<img> journal scan </img>
so i began with a sensor that keeps track of where and when i am even when i am not — my phone. using android processing, i created an android app that captures and displays my longitude/latitude and time whenever my location changed. this data is sent as a post request to a sinatra web app on my server, and stored using DataMapper. this data is retrievable as a .csv file for later visualization purposes.
<img> design sketch </img>
my phone is regularly sensing and sharing my coordinates, and i am beginning to collect a decent amount of data points.
looking forward to playing with this mess of text to find the story in my movements.
