“It would be nice if intellectual ability and the capacities that underlie it were important for success only up to a point,” say two psychology professors. “But wishing doesn’t make it so.”
Category: ideas
No, Joshua Bell’s Not The Best Violinist In The World (No One Is)
“The quest for technical best is a form of hiding. You can hide from the marketplace because you’re still practicing your technique. And you can hide from the hard work of real art and real connection.”
Making A Panterragaffe (A What? And Why?)
“None of us are the ‘let’s ask for permission’ types. Our biggest problem isn’t deciding what we can do, it’s having the time to do all the things we know we CAN do. Panterragaffe was conceived from the beginning as a public exhibition piece. Its purpose had shock value and public participation in mind from the start.”
The Torah – Is It Mosaic, Or A Mosaic?
“In a marriage of traditional biblical scholarship and the latest in computerized textual analysis, a team of Israeli scholars has … [given further support to] a scholarly consensus that the Torah, traditionally attributed solely to Moses, is based on two primary sources.”
#OccupyWallStreet Vs. #TeaParty – A Twitter Comparison
“Those tweeting about the Tea Party emerge as a tight-knit ‘in crowd’, following one another’s tweets. By contrast, the network of people tweeting about Occupy consists of a looser series of clusters, in which the output of a few key people is being vigorously retweeted.”
What An Old Card Trick Shows About Subconscious Perception
A Spanish researcher “has used the card trick to reveal how we take in more visual information than we consciously notice. The results suggest that if you are not sure whether you recognise something or someone, you should pay attention to your gut instinct. Your subconscious may have registered the information after all.”
Attention Must Be Paid: Subconscious Perception Isn’t Enough
“Yes, awareness may require only minimal attention; but it does require some attention. Nothing happens quite automatically. … We can be paying attention even though we’re not completely aware of doing so – but we can’t be aware of something if we’re not paying attention to it.”
Neuroscience Challenges Our Ideas About Responsibility
“Neuroscience is beginning to challenge some people’s notions about criminal behavior and what we should do about it. Determinism–the belief that all current and future events, actions, decisions, and behavior are caused by preceding events combined with the laws of nature–disputes long-standing beliefs about what it means to be responsible for one’s actions; some scholars assert the extreme view that humans are never responsible for any of their actions.”
In A Crowded World – How We Find New Things We’ll Like
“How do we introduce you to something that would otherwise be difficult for you to find, but something that you probably have a deep interest in discovering? It’s really just another algorithm, or it’s just more curation, but it’s something that you would find delight in anyway.”
What, Exactly, Is A ‘Person’ (And Can A Corporation Be One)?
“John Locke called person a forensic concept. What he had in mind is that a person is one to whom credit and blame may be attached, one who is deemed responsible. … Crucially, Locke argued, persons are not the same as human beings.”