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POPSHow the brain's architecture makes our view of the world unique "We are all familiar with the idea that our thoughts and emotions differ from one person to another, but most people assume that how we perceive the visual world is usually very similar from person to person. However, the primary visual cortex – the area at the back of the brain responsible for processing what we see in the world around us – is known to differ in size by up to three times from one individual to the next".
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POPSThe evolution of a relationship “ tackles this puzzle by imagining the human bond of friendship as a living organism and posing a number of questions that a natural historian might ask. How does friendship work? How does it develop and change in diverse environments? How does it intersect with kinship and romantic relationships? And how might it have evolved?”
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POPSSix ways that artists hack your brain "Here we take you on a grand tour of the burgeoning field of neuroaesthetics. You’ll find out how Claude Monet bypasses your consciousness and plugs straight into your emotions, how Salvador Dali triggers neural conflicts and how Renaissance art and trompe l’oeil fool us into believing the impossible. And we turn the spotlight on the artist’s mind, revealing how Wassily Kandinsky drew on his synaesthesia to produce some of the most celebrated artworks of the 20th century".
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POPS“There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia" Hypatia of Alexandria (370 – 415 d.C.) was a keen philosopher , mathematician, astronomer,, Hypatia is also famous for having been murdered by Christians fanatics as “devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes, and instruments of music.”
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POPS Incredible close-up shots of mantises ‘I got my picture at exactly the right moment and it was very special for me because I had waited a couple of hours for something interesting to happen. After that I decided to called the picture ‘patience.’.
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POPSWhat Does It Mean to Be Human? What does it mean to be human? Centuries worth of scientific thought, artistic tradition and spiritual practice have attempted to answer this most fundamental question about our existence. And yet the diversity of views and opinions is so grand it has made that answer remarkably elusive. While we don’t necessarily believe such an “answer” — singular and conclusive by definition — even exists, today we make an effort to understand the wholeness of a human being without compartmentalizing humanity into siloed views of the brain, emotion, morality and so forth. So we look at this complex issue from three separate angles — evolutionary biology, philosophy and neuroscience — hoping weave together a somewhat more holistic understanding of the whole.
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POPSNeed to Want Less The disconnect between our wants and needs is one of the most fundamental and universal paradoxes of being human. Virtually everyone comes in contact with it in various levels of intensity. That piece of rich flourless chocolate cake after a perfectly healthy and nourishing meal. The lover you so desire even though you don’t need all the drama Read more: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/09/06/need-to-want-less-erin-hanson/#ixzz0ymzBC6Uu
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POPSThe Wonders of Man in the Age of Simulations. "The problem that confronts man in the 20th and now 21st centuries, as Hannah Arendt writes, is that we face the danger that we might so fully create and make our artificial world that we endanger that quality of human life which is subject to fate, nature, and chance. To bring oneself up to date on this current version of the debate over our human, superhuman, and inhuman futures, three recent books serve as excellent guides." The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier Simulation and Its Discontents by Sherry Turkle
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POPS If time is so strange, why does it seem so normal? “Ever since Einstein, physicists have been telling us that time – this steady tick-tock of the universe – is much weirder than we think. It doesn’t flow in a single, linear direction, or beat like a steady metronome. Instead, it depends on all sorts of peculiar cosmi variables. We speed up, time slows down And there’s nothing in the mathematical laws of physics that says time can only go forward. In theory, at least, the hands of your clock can tick in both directions. But if time is so strange, then why does it seem so normal? Psychologists and neuroscientists are now beginning to explore the phenomenology of time, beginning not with spacetime but with the fleshy brain”
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POPSDo philosophic views affect job performance? "Belief in free will predicted job performance better than conscientiousness, belief in influence over life events and a commitment to a ‘Protestant work ethic’ where diligent labour is seen as a benefit in itself"
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