Habituation and Novelty

Beginning in infancy and throughout the life span, humans are motivated by newness, change, and excitement. Habituation, the tendency to lose interest in a repeated event and gain interest in a new one, is one of the most fundamental human reflexes. If the thermostat were to suddenly turn the air conditioning on, you would hear the loud humming sound begin, but within minutes you couldn’t even hear it if you tried. Habituation, a fundamental property of the nervous system, provides mechanis...

 Emulate Water

虛實: 夫兵形象水，水之形，避高而趨下：兵之形，避實而擊虛；水因地而制流，兵因敵而制勝。故兵無常勢，水無常形；能因敵變化而取勝，謂之神。故五行無常勝，四時無常位，日有短長，月有死生。 Weak Points and Strong:...: Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. W...

 Stapleton's Use of Religious Terms

At the risk of raising thunder both on the Left and on the Right, I have occasionally used certain ideas and words derived from religion, and I have tried to interpret them in relation to modern needs. The valuable, though much damaged words "spiritual" and "worship," which have become almost as obscene to the Left as the good old sexual words are to the Right, are here intended to suggest an experience which the Right is apt to pervert and the Left to misconceive. This experience, I should s...

 Why Correlate IQ and Race?

...the question of the relation, if any, between race and intelligence has very little scientific importance (as it has no social importance, except under the assumptions of a racist society) … As to social importance, a correlation between race and mean I.Q. (were this shown to exist) entails no social consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned to a racial category and dealt with not as an individual in his own right, but as a representative of this catego...

 The Mind on Music

For some reason that no one really understands, there is a psychological effect upon human listeners in regards to the musical scale. The tonic pitch, or tonal center is not only the mathematical center of the scale, but is the psychological center as well. Human perception of the tonic pitch in relation to the other notes of the scale gives each note of the scale, including the tonic pitch, a distinct "personality" or identity. If we were to label each note of the major scale with a number, ...

 König’s paradox: Ordinals

Let’s start by turning back the clock. It is India in the fifth century BCE, the age of the historical Buddha, and a rather peculiar principle of reasoning appears to be in general use. This principle is called the catuskoti, meaning ‘four corners’. It insists that there are four possibilities regarding any statement: it might be true (and true only), false (and false only), both true and false, or neither true nor false. [...] To get back to something that the Buddha might recognise,...

 The Fundamental Units of Lojban

bridi - relationshipsselbri - the kind of relationsumti - describe the relation bridi are composed of two different units: all bridi must have a selbri and any given amount of sumti Examples: x1 gives x2 to x3 mi dunda ti do do - you mi - me ti - this (as in this thing here in my hands or near me) x1 is a friend of x2 mi pendo do x1 is blue ti blanu x1 talks to x2 about subject x3 in language x4 mi tavla do do (I'm talking to you about you) words that are 1-4 letters can be sumti words...

 Levels of Simulation

Such is simulation, insofar as it is opposed to representation. Representation stems from the principle of the equivalence of the sign and of the real (even if this equivalence is Utopian, it is a fundamental axiom). Simulation, on the contrary, stems from the Utopia of the principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value, from the sign as the reversion and death sentence of every reference. Whereas representation attempts to absorb simulation by interpreting it as a f...

 Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Cognitive Rigidity

Two experiments examined the relation between mindfulness practice and cognitive rigidity by using a variation of the Einstellung water jar task. Participants were required to use three hypothetical jars to obtain a specific amount of water. Initial problems were solvable by the same complex formula, but in later problems (“critical” or “trap” problems) solving was possible by an additional much simpler formula. A rigidity score was compiled through perseverance of the complex formula...

 The Plight of Man

Life through many long periods has been manifested in a countless host of varying structures, all circumscribed by one general plan, each appointed to a definite place, and limited to an appointed duration. On the whole the earth has been thus more and more covered by the associated life of plants and animals, filling all habitable space with beings capable of enjoying their own existence or ministering to the enjoyment of others; till finally, after long preparation, a being was created capa...