When parts of the connection process become weak, a process known as synaptic pruning takes place to remove the old connections and strengthen the rest. Experience is the determining factor of which connections will be strengthened and which ones will be \"pruned\" - active connections will remain whereas those which are no longer active or … Continue reading Is There a Limit to One’s Learning Capacity? | Quora
Month: December 2013
Perspectives on deep time
The universe is roughly 13.8 billions years old. The universe was 66% of its current age by the time the Sun and Earth formed. Life appears to have begun on Earth when it was around 10% of its current age of around 4.5 billion years. The Earth was 85% of its current age before the … Continue reading Perspectives on deep time
Pope Francis
Pope Francis named Time Person of the Year 2013 - CNN.com. By now, I think everyone has heard about Pope Francis being Time's Person of the Year. I was raised Catholic and I have to say I like this pope. He seems to embody many of the qualities I was taught in my catechism classes … Continue reading Pope Francis
Don’t Live For Your Obituary
I’ve often tried to articulate what Scalzi managed in the title, “Don’t Live For Your Obituary.” I would also add not to worry about those death bed regrets we always hear warnings about. We’ll spend a limited time on our death bed and a lot more time in our life. We should spend it doing … Continue reading Don’t Live For Your Obituary
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. This seemed tangentially related to my post about HuffPost's new commenting policy and subsequent discussion. If you're not already reading Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, you're missing out on a lot of awesome philosophical insight with an often hilarious bent. Click through to read the rest. Related articles Zach Weiner makes his … Continue reading Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Huffington Post commenting policy
So, just before making the last post, I discovered that HuffPost had changed their commenting policy, now requiring that people reveal and verify their real names. HuffPost had previously promised that they would grandfather older accounts out of this policy, but have apparently rescinded that promise. I understand why HuffPost is doing this, but I … Continue reading Huffington Post commenting policy
When Will We Build the Starship Enterprise? | Seth Shostak
What if we could send humans anywhere at the speed of light, and at a rock-bottom price? That's eminently feasible if we send the information and not the protoplasm. No crew, just code. Consider: The human genome consists of about 3.3 billion base pairs. Since there are only four types of pair, that amounts to … Continue reading When Will We Build the Starship Enterprise? | Seth Shostak
The self as brain: Disturbing implications of neuroexistentialism.
Patricia Churchland, a neurophilosopher at the University of California at San Diego, says our hopes, loves and very existence are just elaborate functions of a complicated mass of grey tissue. Accepting that can be hard, but what we know should inspire us, not scare us. Her most recent book is Touching a Nerve: The Self … Continue reading The self as brain: Disturbing implications of neuroexistentialism.
God Created Gravity: Why the U.S. Can’t Keep Pace With Slovenia | Jeff Schweitzer
God Created Gravity: Why the U.S. Can't Keep Pace With Slovenia | Jeff Schweitzer. Jeff Schweitzer's post bemoaning the problems in society caused by religion is getting a lot of attention around the web. Schweitzer blames religion for the battles on teaching evolution in schools, the denial of climate change, and the anti-vaccine movement. I … Continue reading God Created Gravity: Why the U.S. Can’t Keep Pace With Slovenia | Jeff Schweitzer
Optical illusion: Shades of grey.
What’s the illusion, you ask? Those two vertical lozenge-shapes are the same shade! Don’t believe me? Good! It’s always best to check things like this out for yourself. One way is to put your finger across the middle, blocking the part where they meet. When you do that, boom! You can see they’re the same … Continue reading Optical illusion: Shades of grey.
SelfAwarePatterns 