“In Group Psychology, Freud asks why crowds make a ‘barbarian’ of the ‘cultivated individual’. Why are the inhibitions enforced by social life so readily overwhelmed by all that is ‘cruel, brutal and destructive’ when we join together with others? And why does the crowd need a strong leader, a hero to whom it willingly submits? The crowd – which is, after all, just an evanescent massing of humanity, a gathering that will quickly disperse once its task is finished – is oddly ‘obedient to authority’. It might appear anarchic, but at bottom it’s conservative and tradition-bound.”
Category: ideas
Why Philosophers Have A Tough Time With The Concept Of Imagination
“Perhaps the reason why philosophers have been conflicted about the imagination is that they haven’t grasped how limitations need to be tailored to circumstances. When we are writing fiction, or playing games of pretend, or making art, arguably we do our best imagining by setting the boundaries widely or removing the shackles entirely. In contrast, when we employ imagination in the context of scientific or technological discovery, or any other real-world problem-solving, we must allow our imaginations to be framed by the situation at hand.”
So Curiosity Is A Genetic Trait?
“There are many studies that have shown that there is a strong genetic component to curiosity,” he notes. “It is also the case that some people are more curious than others, in the same way that some people have talent for music and others don’t or some people are smarter than others … But all people are curious, with the possible exception of people who are very deeply depressed or have certain kinds of brain damage.” Humans exhibit two basic types of curiosity that show up in different parts of the brain during functional MRI scans.
How A Bell Labs Scientist Gave Us A Framework For Defining Information
“The information value of a message depends in part on the range of alternatives that were killed off in its choosing. Symbols chosen from a larger vocabulary of options carry more information than symbols chosen from a smaller vocabulary, because the choice eliminates a greater number of alternatives. This means that the amount of information transmitted is essentially a function of three things: the size of the set of possible symbols, the number of symbols sent per second, and the length of the message. The search for order, for structure and form in the wending catacombs of global communications had begun in earnest.”
So Much For The Public Square – Charlottesville Reveals Tech Platforms’ True Nature
“The recent rise of all-encompassing internet platforms promised something unprecedented and invigorating: venues that unite all manner of actors — politicians, media, lobbyists, citizens, experts, corporations — under one roof. These companies promised something that no previous vision of the public sphere could offer: real, billion-strong mass participation; a means for affinity groups to find one another and mobilize, gain visibility and influence. This felt and functioned like freedom, but it was always a commercial simulation.”
How Does The Brain Make Memories?
Memory may appear to be a reproduction of images, sounds, and even thoughts that can be stored in the brain in a manner analogous to the way information can be stored on a CD, but it is becoming increasingly evident that this is too limited an understanding.
How Regular Meditation Promotes Creativity
Google, Goldman Sachs, and Medtronic are among the many leading firms that have introduced meditation and other mindfulness practices to their employees. Executives at these and other companies say meditation is not only useful as a stress-reduction tool but can also enhance creativity, opening doors where once there seemed to be only a wall.
Study: People Pay More Attention To High-Volume Of Reviews Rather Than To Quality Reviews
“Across various combinations of average rating and number of reviews, participants routinely chose the option with more reviews. This bias was so strong that they often favored the more-reviewed phone case even when both of the options had low ratings, effectively choosing the product that was, in statistical terms, more likely to be low quality.”
Netflix Capitalizes On Our Emotions, Including, Especially, Anticipation
It’s science! “Netflix’s deluge of announcements is, for the most part, a welcomed high at a time that has taken us to new lows—often with no roadmap to find our way back. What’s not as obvious is the camouflaged science behind these announcements: Netflix’s long game.”
This New Interpretation Of An Ancient Clay Tablet Says Babylonians May Have Invented Trigonometry
Thanks a lot, ancient Babylonians. If the claims are correct, the tablet would “not only be the oldest known trigonometric table, but it would also be the ‘world’s only completely accurate trigonometric table.'”