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For example, Simonton cites the work of inventor Thomas Edison who accumulated a mind-boggling 2,300 patents over his lifetime. He found that in the same year Edison applied for patents for the light bulb and the telephone (certainly both hits) he also filed for patents for 100 or so other inventions including the…
Experiences that are well aligned with flow are those that we have no trouble committing to for a long time. We concentrate on them for hours at a time because we’re getting rewarded for that concentration. Even more important, perhaps, is that when we’re playing games, we want to enter that deep state of…
As soon as AI successfully solves a problem, the problem is no longer a part of AI. Pamela McCorduck calls it an "odd paradox," that "practical AI successes, computational programs that actually achieved intelligent behavior, were soon assimilated into whatever application domain they were found to be useful in, and…
ACTING Players who enjoy acting like getting into character and speaking in their characters' voices. Roleplayers at heart, they enjoy social interactions with NPCs, monsters, and their fellow party members. Engage players who like acting by ... giving them opportunities to develop their characters' personalities and…
The cult of The X-Files has been defended as harmless because it is, after all, only fiction. On the face of it, that is a fair defence. But regularly recurring fiction - soap operas, cop series find the like - are legitimately criticized if, week after week, they systematically present a one-sided view of the world…
In 1909, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll introduced the concept of the umwelt. He wanted a word to express a simple (but often overlooked) observation: Different animals in the same ecosystem pick up on different environmental signals. In the blind and deaf world of the tick, the important signals are temperature and…
Tachikoma: So, will we be sent back to lab too? Batou: Wha...? Who's been telling you that? Tachikoma: Well, it's just that the way the Major's been looking at us lately is kinda scary. Batou: Oh, is that all? The major's always scary, remember? I think you guys are doing a fine job. Tachikoma: You really think so?…
When we are engaged in what we are doing, all sorts of things happen. We persist longer at difficult problems—and become more likely to solve them. We experience something that psychologist Tory Higgins refers to as flow, a presence of mind that not only allows us to extract more from whatever it is we are doing but…
My definition of the word believe means to accept an explanation of phys¬ ical phenomena without any experiential evidence. At the outset of my re¬ solve not only to do my own thinking but to keep that thinking concerned only with directly experienced evidence, I resolved to abandon completely all that I ever had been…
The Atomic Age began at exactly 5.30 Mountain War Time on the morning of July 15, 1945, on a stretch of semi-desert land about 50 airline miles from Alamogordo, New Mexico. And just at that instance there rose from the bowels of the earth a light not of this world, the light of many suns in one. ... At first it was a…
Man is a classifying animal: in one sense it may be said that the whole process of speaking is nothing but distributing phenomena, of which no two are alike in every respect, into different classes on the strength of perceived similarities and dissimilarities. In the name-giving process we witness the same…
Science is in a literal sense constructive of new facts. It has no fixed body of facts passively awaiting explanation, for successful theories allow the construction of new instruments—electron microscopes and deep space probes—and the exploration of phenomena that were beyond description—the behavior of transistors…
Do I believe in UFOs or extraterrestrial visitors? Where shall I begin? There's a fascinating frailty of the human mind that psychologists know all about, called "argument from ignorance." This is how it goes. Remember what the "U" stands for in "UFO"? You see lights flashing in the sky. You've never seen anything…
But shall gravity be therefore called an occult cause, and thrown out of philosophy, because the cause of gravity is occult and not yet discovered? Those who affirm this, should be careful not to fall into an absurdity that may overturn the foundations of all philosophy. For causes usually proceed in a continued chain…
When carbon (C), Oxygen (o) and hydrogen (H) atoms bond in a certain way to form sugar, the resulting compound has a sweet taste. The sweetness resides neither in the C, nor in the O, nor in the H; it resides in the pattern that emerges from their interaction. It is an emergent property. Moreover, strictly speaking…
TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
Let me suggest a new axiom: juxtaposition is the spice of life. Humanity’s biggest talent, unique to us, is juxtaposing, finding and operating novel relationships between things or ideas... Recent ideas on neural activity suggest that the brain operates in a very associative way, with small neuron clusters containing…
Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp, To guard a title that was rich before, To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.