Defined as a sudden insight, realisation or understanding.
I was at court a few weeks ago (don’t worry, they couldn’t prove a thing) and I was in the waiting area outside, in the same area were members of the public and five police officers, three on one side and two on the other. They were chatting among themselves when suddenly as one they paused, listening, then stood up simultaneously and converged before leaving the area as a group. They had obviously received some information over the radio and reacted to it, a small incident but it was really quite impressive to watch.
I have an interest in military history but this was the first time that I really understood how effective command and control is such a force-multiplier, the difference between a disciplined body of men (as it were) and a rabble and how things can fall apart if that control is lost.
Anyone else, when and what was your last ‘Aha!’ moment?
Somebody else complaining about another person (relatives).
“Every single thing you do with them is an argument”.
Holy Fuck. That’s my life! I can’t take decades more of this shit!!! I’ll leave it to the readers as an exercise why most of the arguments were so stupid Spock’s brain would have exploded.
A few months ago, when I realized that all the tasty things I have been eating all my life + my sedentary lifestyle were slowly killing me. I’ve been worried about my health and trying to get healthy for years, but this time it got to where my back was hurting all the time, headaches, inflamed knees, I couldn’t get up out of a chair without going ‘‘oof’’ - and I am only 30.
I said to myself, ‘‘You really can’t afford to screw around any more. You either change or your life goes downhill from here.’’ Suddenly I started taking sugar addiction as seriously as a heart attack, just ripped that stuff out of my diet for good. I mean, I’ve cut down before, but I’ve never just flat-out stopped eating junk food. It has been almost 3 months almost exclusively clean eating.
So somehow, it finally registered. I know I will never go back.
Reading a book on dogs recently. Something I already “knew,” but it was brilliantly expressed. The author said that the reason asserting “dominance” doesn’t help you train your dog is that dogs are supremely conscious of their position in the pack – and, while you’re trying to get your dog to associate a given command with performing some action, the moment you assert dominance, the dog refocuses all his attention on worrying about his social status. Whatever you’re trying to teach him is far less important and goes right out of his brain as he tries to negotiate his status.
Omigosh. I just suddenly realized that I’ve never had an epiphany! I understand now! … that’s why I need to plod through things methodically - I am just not capable of epiphanies!
I have had many, I will share on what I consider one of my first but the most influential on how I led my life.
I was maybe 19 years old passing for 21 and hanging out in a nightclub, this was in the late 60's early 70's period. Most of the regulars here were pretty stylish, good dancers, fun partiers, etc. The place had a fairly hot reputation. I would often work as a doorman so I was pretty familiar with the clientele. A short, plump, curly haired guy who looked a lot like Ferdinand started showing up each night. He always sat by himself and would ask as many girls as it took for a dance. He clothes were very neat but the kind a mother would put on a 6th grader going to school. His behavior was awkward but he seemed like a nice enough guy.
One Wed night, our dance contest night another act was in town and this particular club didn't have many customers. The curly haired odd fellow entered the contest and took first place. You could tell his head was in the clouds all night. I had no idea about the change I was about to see.
Next time he shows up he has a Tom Jones haircut and some super stylish night club clothes. He was still chubby and a bit awkward but his confidence was soaring! He seemed to be getting pretty good action as well, girls were dancing with him now. It seemd like only a month went by and this guy shed at least 40# he was looking buff, he was also a full fledged dancer now, didn't matter what dance, he could learn it, style it up and execute it in the same night. He got rid of his jalope and was now driving a sports car. Girls are now not just dancing with him but they are leaving with him as well. He is now one of the heavy hitters in the club. I had never before witnessed such a complete and rapid transformation of an entire person.
My epiphamy was: I realized the importance of allowing those around me to being successful in thier own right. It also showed me that I needed to push myself a little harder in life and raise my expectations on myself if I really wanted to know the feeling of being successful.
The strongest and most thrilling one for me was when I was about 20, reading an introductory book on Relativity. First, it was an epiphany to realize just how much I thirsted for knowledge and understanding about the cosmos. Then, reading that book, there was a passage involving a train moving at c along side a beam of light, and explaining that dispite intuition, the beam of light would still appear to be traveling at c to a passenger inside the train. When I understood you would appear to contract and slow down to an observer watching it, to compensate for the dilation, I actually uttered, “Holy shit!” so loud my wife still mentions that moment in the kitchen, when she though something was the matter.
Realizing that the brain is not especially different from the rest of the nervous system. It’s all neurons. That led to several ‘aha’ conclusions for me:
[ul]
[li]Muscle memory is not just a clever inaccurate label for things you seem to do without thought - your nerves really can *remember *simple things in the same sense as your brain remembers things. [/li]
[li]There’s no compelling reason to divide a thought from the impulse sent out to the muscles. Yes, the brain has a lot more ‘consciousness’ and tighter network of neurons, but it’s a quantitative difference, not qualitative. “Thoughts” are fluid - not bound up in the proverbial theater upstairs.[/li]
[li]Those jellyfish that have eyes but no brains - no longer such a WTF? for me - they have a nerve ring - anything could happen in there. Sure they can process visual info and make decisions based on it.[/li][/ul]
That was maybe a month or two ago. I tried to start a debate thread, but everybody else was already cool with the idea.
I have sudden flashes of insight from time to time. Unfortunately many of them are as evanescent as the one Churchill describes in Phantasmagoria of a Fevered Dream.
[QUOTE=Winston Churchill]
I had a feeling once about Mathematics - that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me - the Byss and Abyss. I saw - as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor’s Show - a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.
[/QUOTE]
Two months ago, playing on-line Mafia, I suddenly connected some very odd facts and deduced that a player now nicknamed the “Incomparable Bamboozler” was probably the Mafia Godfather. (Of course, Players then Lynched me instead of him. :smack: )
Once upon a time my algorithmic and circuit design skills were good enough to earn 30+ U.S. patents. My most creative ideas usually arose very suddenly. Though it wasn’t patented I was especially proud to realize that a 72-bit bus inside a large IBM mainframe could be replaced with a 36-bit bus without slowing down the machine or making major changes. The way such insights seem to suddenly appear “out of nowhere” reminds me of Julian Jaynes’ discussion early in his famous book.
I’ve got to ask - how is that going for you and what benefits have you noticed? I’ve very recently started doing the same thing - cutting out sugar, eating more lean protein and being far more careful on carbs. Too soon to see any benefits yet but like you, i decided no-one was going to make the change for me. As much as I LOVE food, I want to be able to keep up with my kids.
No it’s the other way around - paperbacks have fewer calories while hardbacks, while more satisfying, can really do a number on your waistline. Plus I have a few eBooks to keep me going in between meals.