fiction
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Be the library you want to see in the world
I suspect that tech-induced information overload will make traditional forms of intelligence and memory more rather than less important over time. This is because natural intelligence is far more nimble and creative than, say, a bureaucratic system of indexing, tagging, note-taking, mind-mapping, etc. Such systems have their uses, but in my experience, they can easily…
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Is thinking conscious or unconscious?
There are two ways to define thinking: each leads to a different answer to the question of whether thinking is conscious or not. Thinking as a subjective experience. If someone asks you what you are thinking about, you can introspect, and describe your thought process. You can also say that you weren’t really thinking at all.…
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Is the ‘resolution’ of the human eye ‘infinite’?
No measurable physical quantity is ever infinite. In other words, only theoretical concepts can be definitively labeled as infinite. But that is perhaps an epistemological claim that is unnecessary here. So let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of how visual ‘resolution’ is actually measured. As we shall see, the number of light sensitive cells in the…
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Who are the real book murderers?
Yesterday the topic of Infinite Jest was trending on twitter, thanks to a picture of large famous novels that had been cut in half. The person who took the picture was accused of “book murder”. He later wrote an article in the Guardian: I am the ‘book murderer’, but I tear them apart out of…
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To participate in this Consciousness Survey, you’ll need to find the answer to a very easy question
Interested in participating in a (totally unscientific) survey on consciousness and related questions? The link is in the preceding post. Once you complete the survey, you’ll be able to see the results. It should take between 20 and 45 minutes to complete, and will hopefully be stimulating, at least somewhat. The password for the post…