Mary Martin

Together, wanting and liking encourage us to pursue rewards. But these sensations can also stand alone, creating situations where you might know that you enjoy something but don’t want to go after it, or where you might have a strong desire for something that you don’t get much pleasure from.

If e/acc is an attempt to rebrand tech zealotry as an apotheosis of moral goodness, it is also, as Silicon Valley grieves the realization that it is no longer seen as an unbridled force for good, a form of denial and bargaining—one last plea for salvation as the walls close in. If it happens to result in the end of humanity, so be it. As Land’s... See more

What happens when what we’re thinking becomes increasingly transparent to technology and therefore to the rest of the world?

This suggests that the linear relationship between plausibility and hippocampal activity observed in the Weiler et al. study may not hold for the entire spectrum of plausibility. Instead, extremely implausible events may be associated with decreased hippocampal activity (relative to less implausible events), as observed in the current study where... See more

Do animals experience mental illness?

Modern science shows animals and humans may experience fear-based anxiety in similar ways.

We build upon the key fact that the brain is (part of) the body and as such, like any other bodily organ, the brain is made of cells. The focus on cellular rather than neural, brain processing allows us to underscore the idea that flexible responses to changes in the environments requires flexible adjustments not only through neural, but also... See more