Chad Aaron Hall

But the story of J.K. Rowling is not just the story of one author, or one woman, or one issue. It is a microcosm of our time. It’s about the polarization of public opinion and the fracturing of public conversation. It’s about the chasm between what people say they believe and how they’re understood by others. It’s about what it means to be human—to... See more

Relatively little is known about how we solve insight problems. These problems are typically challenging to study in the laboratory with much depth, because it is difficult to ask people to describe the steps that they go through to solve them. We all know that people do not always behave in the systematic ways suggested by logical thought. These... See more

The reason why it’s important to mention all this is because this pattern is intricately tied into our desire for control. With control, we attempt to bridge the gap between the uncertainties of a given process, and the certainty of an end result. We want to know how exactly something will materialize, as its mere materialization isn’t enough.