Debbie Foster
@dafinor
Debbie Foster
I recognized that it was dangerous to conflate the workings of the brain with the technology I happened to be most familiar with, but it was hard not to think that way. Because what is a brain besides a collection of images and information, a repository of memories and desires and remembered song lyrics, and also a hundred open tabs draining energy
... See moreEugenie Montague • Swallow the Ghost
Creating a useful, accurate picture of something complex and abstract is very difficult. And there is nothing more complex and abstract than the human mind.
Frank Tallis • Mortal Secrets
Fundamentally, precognition seems to be not seeing or knowing or even feeling the future; rather, it seems to be a matter of producing a behavior that is tied to a forthcoming reward.
Eric Wargo • Time Loops
What if witches do exist, Hideo? Have you ever wondered about that? Not like in Bewitched , not the funny witches with pointy hats. Spell casters who follow ancient, well-known patterns. Universal concepts. Physics is universal, isn't it? It doesn't matter if you're in Japan or Mexico or Salem, the apple will fall from the tree. What if it's like
... See moreSilvia Moreno-Garcia • The Bewitching
For all its chilled-out associations, the attempt to be here now is therefore still another instrumentalist attempt to use the present moment purely as a means to an end, in an effort to feel in control of your unfolding time. As usual, it doesn’t work. The self-consciousness you experience when you seek too effortfully to be “more in the moment”... See more
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
The rise of trance, spirit possession, and pastor-shamans is not a fluke in a shamanless end of history. It is a predictable outcome of an unfettered race to provide spiritual relief.
Manvir Singh • Shamanism
Poker isn’t just about calibrating the strength of your beliefs. It’s also about becoming comfortable with the fact that there’s no such thing as a sure thing—ever. You will never have all the information you want, and you will have to act all the same. Leave your certainty at the door.
Maria Konnikova • The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win
One of the main reasons some people get angrier than others is "inflammatory labeling," or the tendency to view people and situations more negatively than is realistic. Inflammatory labeling is calling a coworker who made a minor mistake a "total idiot," even if it's only in your head. Instead of making you feel better—That person, sorted!--these
... See moreOlga Khazan • Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change
A garden was among the first examples Foucault gave when he was developing his concept of heterotopia —a space that is apart from but nonetheless shaped by the society that made it. (Some others: a library, a ship, a prison.) A heterotopia, he wrote, must be entered ritually…