Category: ideas

Today’s internet generations have been graced with equity at birth, in that they have the means to create power for themselves, even if they do not start out with it. In the digital world, the myth of power persists as a construct. To believe that you have power is to have it. – The New York Times

There is a growing body of scientific evidence showing that our internal mental states, including our emotions, might also be socially transmissible. Understanding the nature and dynamics of this emotional contagion is crucial in highlighting how social interactions might impact on our wellbeing. – Psyche

When processed by childhood Pokémon players, the images lit up a small groove in the temporal lobe that remained mostly inactive in the brains of Pokémon newbies. – Aeon

Goethe genuinely advanced fields of scientific inquiry such as geology and colour theory; Nabokov is always said to have been an eminent entomologist. Leonardo da Vinci, naturally, is an obvious candidate, with his speculative drawings about engineering projects, though Michelangelo (strangely not mentioned by Burke) was probably just as successful a polymath, achieving masterpieces of the first rank in painting, sculpture, architecture and poetry. Beyond a handful of freaks such as these, we find a lot of experts who dabbled in something else — and we are left trying to admire the paintings of Churchill and Strindberg or the novels of C.P. Snow. – The Spectator

Understanding consciousness might be the greatest scientific challenge of our time. How can physical stuff, eg electrical impulses, explain mental stuff, eg dreams or the sense of self? Why does a network of neurons in our brain feel like an experience, when a network of computers or a network of people doesn’t feel like anything, as far as we know? – Aeon

“In a world where we are already confronting critical interconnected challenges: climate change, the refugee crisis, food scarcity, system collapse, etc. I think it is essential that we continue asking these questions: what is the role of art at a time of social transformation? Why do we make art, for whom and does it make sense to continue using the same formats and materials? What should art be focusing on and what difference can it make?” – Medium

Sure, it can be lonely – and nothing can replace being in the room where the art happens – but, well, it could be a lot worse. “I’m only being semi-facetious when I say that a Thursday night clapping session should be devoted to the people who keep Britain’s wifi going.” – The Guardian (UK)

“Seeing ourselves as pitiable requires rethinking fundamental ideas about America’s history, purpose and destiny. It obliges us to do something that is intolerable, to accept our weakness, even impotence, in the face of larger forces.” – Washington Post

Asking a Medieval person to imagine the world and their place on it would demand a radically different sort of cognitive map than one a modern person might rely on. This affects pragmatic matters (of navigation and so forth), but also what could be termed poetic ones as well. Philosopher Bertrand Westphal writes in Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces that the “perception of space and the representation of space do not involve the same things,” and this is a crucial point. – Nautilus