The brain is a prediction machine, and its predictions powerfully govern our very perceptions. Mark Solms writes in The Hidden Spring: Most people don’t realize that our here-and-now perceptions are constantly guided by predictions, generated mainly from long-term memory. But they are. That is why far fewer neurons propagate signals from the external sense organs to the internal memory systems than the other way round. For example, the ratio of incoming connections to outgoing ones in the lateral geniculate body (which relays information from the eyes to the visual cortex… Read more Predictions, ADHD, Electricity →
Scott Adams’ Reframe Your Brain is, by all accounts, a useful book. In the spirit of “the purpose of science is to confirm the commonplace,” let’s shallowly dip our toes… Read more Reframing Reframe Your Brain: Memory Reconsolidation →
The “perpetually incomplete and insecure,” find in fundamentalist doctrine protection from a complex and ambiguous world. They will sacrifice reality for this security, and will just as readily sacrifice the… Read more Religion, Fundamentalism, Gnosticism, Part XIII: The Scapegoat →
Why is trauma, as we know it, a distinctively modern disease? Why do we observe PTSD in domesticated, but not wild, animals? Trauma is physiological—it’s not just in your head. While it need not involve violence, death, or rape—in fact, it is reliably amplified by boring things like office buildings and public schools—its mechanism includes more than mean people and scary opinions. Let’s start with an example from 9/11: “Sharon,” at work in the World Trade Center, felt a shock and an explosion, and tried to run, but found the… Read more Industrial Trauma Robots: Two Commonplaces →
The “fat sex therapist” is a familiar lunatic. Her neatly dualistic scheme recalls Chesterton’s description of a madman: “He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he… Read more Religion, Fundamentalism, Gnosticism: Part XII →
Status and function or abstraction and love—distinctions made by the Iliad and Genesis, respectively—may be getting at the same thing. This is a case I intend to make in examination… Read more Footnote: Degree is Shaked →
Genesis associates abstraction and adultery, suggesting that abstraction is the opposite of love. This is, curiously, one of the themes that emerges from the CPTSD or complex trauma literature. Proper… Read more Religion, Fundamentalism, Gnosticism: Part XI →
Bill Hurrell’s recent Human Events article continues his efforts towards a taxonomy of leftist thought. “REVEALED: The 2010 Essay That Explains What the Woke Want” digs up an Orbis essay… Read more Religion, Fundamentalism, Gnosticism: Part X →