“Since the start of the year, a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University has been fine-tuning a computer system that is trying to master semantics by learning more like a human.”
Category: ideas
Where Did We Get the Dumb-Blonde Stereotype?
While there has been invective against dyed blonde hair for centuries, the modern figure of the “dizzy blonde” seems to date back to an English burlesque troupe playing New York in the late 1860s.
Why We All Think of Our Indiscretions as ‘Youthful’
“In piecing together a life story, the mind nudges moral lapses back in time and shunts good deeds forward, these new studies suggest – creating, in effect, a doctored autobiography.”
What Procrastination Can Say About Us
“Philosophers are interested in procrastination for another reason. It’s a powerful example of what the Greeks called akrasia–doing something against one’s own better judgment.”
How We Relate To Color
Yellow or pink flowers? The green or blue sweater? From cars to furniture to iPods, we make decisions about color all the time. Now, scientists are starting to figure out why we like the hues we do.
Telling a Lie Makes You Want to Wash Your Mouth
“Apparently your mom had it right when she threatened to wash your mouth out with soap if you talked dirty. Lying really does create a desire to clean the ‘dirty’ body part, according to a University of Michigan study.”
How Atheists and Creationists Think Alike
“[Both] have arrived at the conclusion that accepting the science behind evolutionary theory will inevitably render Christianity extinct. As a result, one group has essentially made a religion out of naturalism, while the other has avoided serious consideration of the scientific data.”
Why Neuroscience Can’t Tell Us If the Web Is Making Us ‘Stupid’
“[The] term ‘intelligence’ is so broad and complex that neurological research hasn’t begun to explain it in its totality … The reality is, everything we remember affects our neural circuitry – rewiring is how our brains store information – and neural circuitry is the wrong level of analysis for thinking about broad effects on intelligence.”
‘The Human Hard Drive: How We Make (And Lose) Memories’
Behavioral neurobiologist Dr. Antonio Damasio “says that memory is actually a complex process where the brain scatters information across its neurons and then reconnects it using sequential cues. Our brains are not at all like video cameras,” but more like computers’ hard drives. (So how should we defragment?)
Reconsidering Regret
Joachim Krueger: “I recently suggested that having a bad conscience is foolish. … Believing that a bad conscience is for suckers, I must also believe that regret is. Before closing the book, let’s take another look, shall we? Let’s not dismiss lightly a sentiment as pervasive and fundamental as regret.”