Category: ideas

Today, nearly all scientists say that coincidences are just that: coincidences – void of greater meaning. Yet, they’re something we all experience, and with a frequency that is uniform across age, sex, country, job, even education level. Those who believe that they’ve had a ‘meaningful coincidence’ in their lives experience a collision of events so remarkable and unlikely that they chose to ascribe a form of grander meaning to the occurrence, via fate or divinity or existential importance.

Even the mathematically averse among us today recognize the basic geometry that Radolph and Ragimbold failed to grasp, for we live in a numerate society, surrounded by countless manifestations of mathematics. Broadly defined as the ability to reason with numbers and other mathematical concepts, numeracy underlies our current information explosion. Its clichés dot popular speech: “do the math,” “crunch the numbers,” “figure the odds.” From birth to death, numbers track our lives institutionally and demographically. Some scorn such customs (think of Mark Twain’s “figures” of “lies, damned lies, and statistics”), but we all acknowledge numeracy as a cultural given, and agree that mathematics fuels the science, technology, and industry of our world.

The pessimist in me, however, thinks San Francisco can only continue further down this path, with the old-money propertied class dying or cashing out, the non-techies getting squeezed, and everyone getting pushed into the four-level hierarchy. In case there’s any doubt, I find the growth of this rigid caste system horrifying, and antithetical to both liberal democracy and the American project. It also seems that, at least in San Francisco, we’re close to a point of no return.

When personal security and community confidence combine they can deliver social emancipation, as Ireland’s recent referendums and law reforms on divorce, same-sex marriage and abortion (on top of a strikingly diverse political leadership of late) amply illustrate. It is a veritable loosing of the conservative shackles of church, class and culture that has catapulted Ireland to the forefront of Millennial-style liberalism.

“Almost every major religious or philosophical tradition heavily emphasises the value of self-restraint as a pathway to a virtuous and satisfying life. It makes sense that impulse-control has been held in such high regard historically: the ability to curb destructive urges and prudently delay gratification makes life easier in the long run. So what does modern brain science tell us about the best ways to approach willpower?”

Prior to the sixteenth century, no one was a genius. Rather, one had genius. The original sense of the word genius was of a “tutelary spirit attendant on a person.” Muses and spirits, almost always in the form of women, influenced the lucky men who channeled them. Great works were a joint effort, a communication with the divine at the service of the community. But as the Enlightenment descended and humanism began to eclipse Christianity, the mind of man slowly became the center of the world.

The authors call the social withdraw they captured in data a “natural human response” triggered by a change in environment, but they acknowledge their findings contradict an established theory about collective intelligence. When forced to share space, humans behave much like swarms of insects. This has appeared to be true in a range of contexts, the authors note, citing studies involving the US Congress, college dormitories, co-working spaces, and corporate buildings.

The problem doesn’t necessarily lie in the experiments (the gorilla suit in the middle of the basketball game, etc.), but in the conceptual ideas behind the experiments. “The assumption of human blindness or bias makes scientists themselves blind to the other, more positive aspects of human cognition and nature.”

About two dozen labs in the U.S. are studying “experimental aesthetics” – why we like what we like, and why we make art at all. “The mysteries of the aesthetic response, and the creative impulse, have become a burgeoning area of inquiry for scientific researchers across many disciplines. They hope quantifiable data and statistical analysis can help explain matters that some consider ineffable — like why we paint or sing, or why we naturally favor Van Gogh’s sunflowers over the landscapes we encounter in budget hotel rooms.”