Category: ideas

(Slate‘s always-lively commenters are not all convinced, however.)

Why? Because it’s unnatural, basically. (Not to mention sleep inertia and social jetlag.)

Joan Acocella: “God boasts to Satan, Have you seen my servant Job, so pious, so devoted to me? Satan answers, Why shouldn’t he be devoted? You have given him everything he could ever want: ‘But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.’ Well, God says, let’s see, and he gives Satan permission to ruin Job’s life.”

If the vocabulary and grammar of our languages shape the way we think (e.g., the presence or absence of verb tenses affecting the way we perceive time), then would inventing a completely logical language require its speakers to become more logical thinkers? James Cooke Brown decided to try it.

Research psychologist Cordelia Fine looks at what the data does and doesn’t show, and she reminds us about the questions that weren’t asked when all those stories and headlines were written last week.

“Eventually–or so goes the strategy–people won’t be able to imagine having their options defined by a programming grid. Not coincidentally, Netflix has been vying with Amazon to become the premiere source of streaming series for young children, for whom having to wait for new episodes of their favorite shows to air is unfathomable.”

“The salience network is thought to be central in prepping the brain for action, such as when a driver must respond to someone darting across the road or a student readies herself for a pop quiz.”

“People’s partiality toward certainty biases them against creative ideas and can interfere with their ability to even recognize creative ideas.”

“Is the brain a sort of quantum computer? What is consciousness? Marcelo Gleiser’s brain is buzzing with big questions after participating in a conference that asked if quantum physics plays a role in how we think.”

Some of the side effects may be pretty great, but (as they said in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), “it is technically brain damage.”