Can science account for taste?
I was asked the question "From a scientific point of view, how are our tastes created?" Here's my answer. "There's no accounting for taste!" Typically we explain taste — in…
Where do thoughts come from?
Here's my answer to a recent Quora question: Where do our thoughts come from? Thoughts come from nowhere! And from everywhere! I think both answers contain an element of truth.…
Perception is a creative act: On the connection between creativity and pattern recognition
An answer I wrote to the Quora question Does the human brain work solely by pattern recognition?: Great question! Broadly speaking, the brain does two things: it processes 'inputs' from…
Me and My Brain: What the “Double-Subject Fallacy” reveals about contemporary conceptions of the Self
My latest essay for 3 Quarks Daily is up: Me and My Brain: What the "Double-Subject Fallacy" reveals about contemporary conceptions of the Self Here's an excerpt: What is a…
Fifty terms to avoid in psychology and psychiatry?
The excellent blog Mind Hacks shared a recent Frontiers in Psychology paper entitled "Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words…