Laura Pike Seeley

The more I think about it, the more I think this is why so many of us, myself included, are attracted to data-based optimization. We’re painfully aware that we are vulnerable, fallible creatures. Our shame about that is reflected in Western religious traditions: The Bible tells us that upon first creating the world, God “saw that it was good,” but... See more

Research published in Scientific Reports suggests how you perceive the passage of time is related to the amount of new perceptual information you absorb. When you're young, so many things seem new, and your brain has more to process. That makes the passage of time feel longer; as you get older, relatively little seems new, which means your brain... See more

Scientists have demonstrated that, as the years go by, much of what we think we remember is false. It seems our brains can't store every detail we experience, so we recall the gist of events — enough to create a story that makes sense to us. Every time we recall a story or tell it to others, we change small bits depending on whether our audience... See more

one of the latest big theories in neuroscience says that humans are fundamentally creatures of prediction, and not only is creativity not at odds with that, but it actually goes hand in hand with improving our predictive power. Life itself, in this view, is one big process of creatively optimizing prediction as a survival strategy in a universe... See more

Nowadays, whenever I feel scared in the face of a decision and yearn for the safety of an optimizing formula, I try to remind myself that there’s another way of feeling safe. It’s not about perfection, about invulnerability, about control. It’s about leaning into the fact that we are imperfect and vulnerable creatures and that even when we’re... See more