Category: ideas

Lee Siegel: “[E]verywhere around us, the streets and airwaves hum with attacks on government authority, celebrations of radical individualism, inflammatory rhetoric, political theatrics. In other words, the spirit of Beat dissent is alive (though some might say not well) in the character of Tea Party protest.”

“A lifetime of speaking two or more languages appears to pay off in old age, with recent research showing the symptoms of dementia can be delayed by an average of four years … [R]egularly speaking more than one language appears to strengthen skills that boost the brain’s so-called cognitive reserve, a capacity to work even when stressed or damaged.”

In 1998’s A Brief History of Time, Hawking declared, “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God.” But in his latest book, Hawking concludes that “the universe appeared spontaneously, starting off in every possible way.” No deity required. What changed? (String theory, for starters.)

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson: “Lots of animals love their own kind. And some animals love us. But it’s very rare to find an animal that seems to create friendships right across the species barrier all the time. We do it. And lots of dogs do it … Dogs happen to like horses and goats, they like cats, they like rats.”

“Happiness is more like knowledge than like belief. There are lots of things we believe but don’t know. Knowledge is not just up to you, it requires the cooperation of the world beyond you – you might be mistaken. … Pleasure is like belief that way. But happiness isn’t just up to you. It also requires the cooperation of the world beyond you.”

A new editing program “allows professional and amateur movie-makers to dramatically alter how muscular, leggy or heavy people appear on film. Until now this could only be done by laborious frame-by-frame retouching.”

Well-known neo-atheist Sam Harris argues that they can, directly contradicting Hume’s idea that “statements about how things ought to be cannot be derived from statements about what is true.” What’s an objectively good moral value? Not lying. Well, except for when lying serves a higher value, like saving a life. Or a marriage. Except when …

“They view religion’s essence as a sacred text with pretensions to be historical fact. Having dismissed these claims, they feel there is nothing left to say, and that religion and all its works deserve only derision. But given that religion emerged some 50,000 years before people learned to write, it evidently concerns something rather more than the written word.”

“If you want everyone to have the same mental model of a problem, the fastest way to do it is with a picture. Unfortunately, picture-drawing is considered childish, which is partly why visual thinking has taken a backseat to verbal agility. But that may be changing, because the Internet has boosted the utility of imagery.”

“New research indicates that holding a pose that opens up a person’s body and takes up space will alter hormone levels and make the person feel more powerful and more willing to take risks. … The opposite also proved true: Constrictive postures lowered a person’s sense of power and willingness to take risks.”