Ioannina and Interiority

Panorama of Northern Greece

The depths of winter are upon us, and whether its the enforced time in the enclosed womb of the boat, or the lack of external stimulation from without, my mind turns again to philosophical phantasizing about psycho-babble. Filters on!

Lake shore at Ioannina

Jung interpreted many symbols of external belief systems as reflecting inner psychological realities. He took the astrological view of the seasons, polarised as the summer and winter solstices, as reflecting two different orientations to life. He named these polar opposites extraversion and introversion. Extraverts were those who focused on the external world, the bright days of summer, full of warmth and light. Introverts were those who focused on the internal world, dark nights and shadows, things not shared in the light of day. It was a matter of orientation; outwards or inwards.

Road side worship. I think this one is for St George.

Megan and I felt a need for some outwards orientation, some non-boat-womb time, so we hired a car for 3 days and headed up to Ioannina, the capital of Epirus, the most north-western state of Greece. Ioannina was a lively university town situated on a picturesque lake surrounded by imposing mountains. We loved it there.

Statue honouring women who supported the soldiers fighting the Italians in WW2.

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Mountains, looking towards Albanian border.

Taking this idea of Jung's further, I've been intrigued with the idea that the 'interior spaces' of different individuals are different. In one sense, this is a trivial idea; of course, people think different things and have different contents of consciousness. However, there's another sense of this idea; people may differ in terms of the dimensions of their thinking, the organising principles of cognition may be different. Of course, we already understand a lot about individual differences in terms of processing, modern IQ measurement tests differentiate people in terms of short and long term memory capacity, processing speed, verbal and spatial processing.

Climbing old Christian walls

Archeological dig in progress.

Early Christian churches at Nicopolis

Roman ruins and Christian walls at Nicopolis

We visited an archeological site just north of Lefkas on our way to Ioannina.  Nikopolis was a Greek city founded by the Roman conquerer Octavius to commemorate his victory over Anthony and Cleopatra at Aktio. Interestingly, we hauled our boat out at Aktio boatyard, on the spit of sand where Octavia and Anthony fought this battle. History abounds here, you're sort of treading on it every day.

So, it wasn't differences in processing (treating people as different types of computer) that interested me about Jung's idea. It was that people might have different 'dimensions of experience'. An introvert (and I will own that I am one!) might have a different type of 'interiority' than an extrovert. By focussing more on their inner world, introverts might develop a different type of internal experience that extraverts. Conversely, the exterior world of extraverts may be more vividly experienced and nuanced than the exterior experience of introverts. Introversion/extraversion is just one dimension; you can think of thousands of ways that people's inner experience could differ.

Walled gate to Ioannina

City wall of old Ioannina

We checked into a hotel in Ioannina, and then the next day we drove into some small villages in Pindus mountains known as the  Zagoria region. These were spectacular villages clinging to the sides of steep and inhospitable mountains. It was pretty cold in the mountains, the temperature was around -4 degrees. The population total of the 45 villages in the Zagoria is only about 3,700, so the density is far less than in the rest of Greece. Consequently, wildlife abounds and we saw signs warning us of the presence of bears, wolves and other wildlife that must border on the extinct in Europe.

Of course, its total solipsism to contemplate the nature of the 'interiority' of others. But you've got to admit its a fascinating idea. Haven't you ever looked at your partner, and thought "Man, you think in such a different way to me". Haven't you ever desired to quantify that difference, to understand just how differently others think?

Heading into the Zagoria

A village in the Zagoria

Its as cold as it looks!

From the villages in the Zagora, we drove up into the Vikos gorge. This gorge is 990m deep and is one of the world's deepest gorges. This gorge is scientifically interesting due to its virgin and untouched nature, and for the rare wildlife still living in its precincts. This area is all national park, but we had to wonder what this meant, given the number of heavily armed hunters in the region.

Our first Greek snow

Unusual rock sculptures

 So, how could one go about defining differences in interiority? Many years ago, I worked with a psychology professor at University of NSW, developing a computer program that did 'Multi-dimensional scaling'. Essential, we asked people to make thousands of similarity ratings between concept words related to the area of interest. From  similarity judgements ( a 'dimensionless' rating on a multipoint scale), we can extract dimensions that capture the most variance with the least number of  dimensions. Labelling these dimensions is another issue, but it may be possible to describe the dimensions, the 'scaffolding' that constrains and contains individual thought.

Now, I'm just trying to find a way to administer a few thousand similarity judgements to Megan without her knowing!!!

The path leading to the gorge

Vikos Gorge

Stunning view into the gorge

A photographically inclined Megan

Sheer and breathtaking!

The face of the gorge

Panorama of the gorge

We returned to Ioannina rather than stay in Metsovo, another village we visited as we enjoyed the hotel and ambiance of the city so much.

Our lunch stop in Metsovo 

Lenticular cloud formation over the Pindus mountains

Small village shop

Zagorians ... remnants from the Pasha

Our coffee shop stop

Outside the coffee shop

Mountain views

So, thoroughly de-boated, we returned to Lefkas, grateful for the brief reprieve from boat life. Lefkas has had a few 'happenings' lately. There was a strange religious festival, where priests threw a gold cross into the freezing winter waters. Young men dived into the water and competed with each other to be the first to retrieve the cross, thereby earning ... ?? divine grace? extra altar wine? frozen testicles? Also, all the locals threw oranges into the water, some on strings. Perhaps the young mens struggle sanctified the water and now the oranges can impart the same divine grace, altar wine or testiculitis to the non-diving mortals. Truly, religion puzzles the be-jesus out of me (pun intended).

Pre-dunking Optimism!

Fighting for the cross

Dunkin' Oranges

Belief bandits

Ready for easy retrieval

Lefkas is still an enchanting town, and we're enjoying our wanders through the lanes and by-ways.

Young sailors getting into the orange dunking.

Our favourite bakery

Colourful shops and facades

That's all the news that's fit to print, its been pretty quiet this winter. However, both Megan and I are playing lots of music, and I've been lucky enough to do a few local gigs. I'm teaching a guitar class to the local and marina residents which I'm finding very enjoyable. Both of us lashed on new guitars, with the consequence that the boat is even more crowded now! Megan's exploring her artistic side with art classes, and doing some surprisingly good work. So I'll leave you with an image of our domicile, with our flashy new passarelle.

Megan on our new passarelle.