09 SEP 2016 by ideonexus
A Lack of Uncertainty Impacts Learning in Adults
Healthy aging can lead to impairments in learning that affect many laboratory and real-life tasks. These tasks often involve the acquisition of dynamic contingencies, which requires adjusting the rate of learning to environmental statistics. For example, learning rate should increase when expectations are uncertain (uncertainty), outcomes are surprising (surprise) or contingencies are more likely to change (hazard rate). In this study, we combine computational modelling with an age-comparativ...
1 08 JUL 2016 by ideonexus
Age-Related Decline in Strength as Decline Neurons
“What we have here is (a) failure to communicate,” said the Captain in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke. This line rings true today as it relates to the failure of physiologists to communicate the mechanisms of muscle strength to the geriatrics community, where the lack of muscle strength observed in older adults holds high clinical significance. Similarly, there is a relative under recognition in the scientific community for the potential role of the brain’s failure to communicate with ske... 1 
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notesAs the neurons controlling muscle fibers die off, those muscles grow weaker. Possibly exercising muscles might keep signals going to those neurons and keep them alive, staving off age-related cognitive decline.
19 JAN 2016 by ideonexus
Chomsky on the Failure of Postmodernism to Simplify
Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (...Folksonomies: postmodernism
Folksonomies: postmodernism
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notes13 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
A Small Defense of the Star Wars Prequels
***Sigh*** There are lots of problems with TPM, but its failure to be mythic isn’t one of them because that’s, in fact, the point of the entire prequel trilogy — demythologizing what we thought we knew about the Old Republic, the Jedi, and the rise of the Empire. The Old Republic wasn’t a “more civilized age,” it was a corrupt and flawed entity riven with divisions. The Jedi weren’t “guardians of peace and justice,” they were guardians of the status quo to the extent that ... 1 notes
notes02 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
"No investigation no right to speak"
Everyone engaged in practical work must investigate conditions at the lower levels. Such investigation is especially necessary for those who know theory but do not know the actual conditions, for otherwise they will not be able to link theory with practice. Although my assertion, "No investigation no right to speak", has been ridiculed as "narrow empiricism", to this day I do not regret having made it; far from regretting it, I still insist that without investigation there cannot possibly be ...Folksonomies: empiricism
Folksonomies: empiricism
1 notes
notesPeople who speak without first gaining understanding are not providing anything constructive.
02 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Failure as a Prerequisite to Success
If a man wants to succeed in his work, that is, to achieve the anticipated results, he must bring his ideas into correspondence with the laws of the objective external world; if they do not correspond, he will fail in his practice. After he fails, he draws his lessons, corrects his ideas to make them correspond to the laws of the external world, and can thus turn failure into success; this is what is meant by "failure is the mother of success" and "a fall into the pit, a gain in your wit".
"... 1 notes
notesAlso experience is a product of failure.
29 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
When Memes and Genes Conflict
Memes and genes may often reinforce each other, but they sometimes
come into opposition. For example, the habit of celibacy is presumably
not inherited genetically. A gene for celibacy is doomed to failure in the
gene pool, except under very special circumstances such as we find in
the social insects. But still, a meme for celibacy can be successful in the
meme pool. For example, suppose the success of a meme depends
critically on how much time people spend in actively transmitting it to
othe... 1 notes
notesMemes can override genes, which means a meme like 'celibacy' can prevent the genes from reproducing.
17 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Zhodani Religion
Death, to the Zhodani, is not a complete ending. The "evil" (that is, failure of duty) of the individual spirit will be lost. The "good" of the spirit will merge for a time with the universal energy field, the Tavrian, and then return to another member of the race. The more dutiful the spirit, the more personality (and possibly even memory) will remain; this resembles reincarcation. An undutiful spirity will be diminished in proportion to its failures. However, actual demotion on the "chain o... 1 notes
notesInteresting concept, that our good survives to live more lifetimes, while our bad dies with us. The more good, the more of us to continue, while the more bad, the less we will exist. Similar to evolution, where our good survives into future generations.
01 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Failure to Produce Fake Results Confirms a Model
One of the most striking evidences of the reliability of the organic chemist's methods of determining molecular structure is the fact that he has never been able to derive satisfactory structures for supposed molecules which are in fact nonexistent. 1 notes
notesExample from organic chemsitry's inability to produce structures for molecules that do not exist.
23 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Education is Key to Appreciating Geographic History
The meaning of geography is as much a sealed book to the person of ordinary intelligence and education as the meaning of a great cathedral would be to a backwoodsman, and yet no cathedral can be more suggestive of past history in its many architectural forms than is the land about us, with its innumerable and marvellously significant geographic forms. It makes one grieve to think of opportunity for mental enjoyment that is last because of the failure of education in this respect. 1 notes
notesLooking at the natural world, there is much history to see, if people are educated enough to see it.
