A new study links the brain's reward system to violent behavior in psychopaths.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Free Will Article in Boston Globe
Thinking literally
The surprising ways that metaphors shape your world
By Drake Bennett, Globe Staff | September 27, 2009
WHEN WE SAY someone is a warm person, we do not mean that they are running a fever. When we describe an issue as weighty, we have not actually used a scale to determine this. And when we say a piece of news is hard to swallow, no one assumes we have tried unsuccessfully to eat it.
These phrases are metaphorical--they use concrete objects and qualities to describe abstractions like kindness or importance or difficulty--and we use them and their like so often that we hardly notice them. For most people, metaphor, like simile or synecdoche, is a term inflicted upon them in high school English class: “all the world’s a stage,” “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” Gatsby’s fellow dreamers are “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Metaphors are literary creations--good ones help us see the world anew, in fresh and interesting ways, the rest are simply cliches: a test is a piece of cake, a completed task is a load off one’s back, a momentary difficulty is a speed bump.
But whether they’re being deployed by poets, politicians, football coaches, or realtors, metaphors are primarily thought of as tools for talking and writing--out of inspiration or out of laziness, we distill emotions and thoughts into the language of the tangible world. We use metaphors to make sense to one another.
Now, however, a new group of people has started to take an intense interest in metaphors: psychologists. Drawing on philosophy and linguistics, cognitive scientists have begun to see the basic metaphors that we use all the time not just as turns of phrase, but as keys to the structure of thought. By taking these everyday metaphors as literally as possible, psychologists are upending traditional ideas of how we learn, reason, and make sense of the world around us. The result has been a torrent of research testing the links between metaphors and their physical roots, with many of the papers reading as if they were commissioned by Amelia Bedelia, the implacably literal-minded children’s book hero. Researchers have sought to determine whether the temperature of an object in someone’s hands determines how “warm” or “cold” he considers a person he meets, whether the heft of a held object affects how “weighty” people consider topics they are presented with, or whether people think of the powerful as physically more elevated than the less powerful.
The surprising ways that metaphors shape your world
By Drake Bennett, Globe Staff | September 27, 2009
WHEN WE SAY someone is a warm person, we do not mean that they are running a fever. When we describe an issue as weighty, we have not actually used a scale to determine this. And when we say a piece of news is hard to swallow, no one assumes we have tried unsuccessfully to eat it.
These phrases are metaphorical--they use concrete objects and qualities to describe abstractions like kindness or importance or difficulty--and we use them and their like so often that we hardly notice them. For most people, metaphor, like simile or synecdoche, is a term inflicted upon them in high school English class: “all the world’s a stage,” “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” Gatsby’s fellow dreamers are “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Metaphors are literary creations--good ones help us see the world anew, in fresh and interesting ways, the rest are simply cliches: a test is a piece of cake, a completed task is a load off one’s back, a momentary difficulty is a speed bump.
But whether they’re being deployed by poets, politicians, football coaches, or realtors, metaphors are primarily thought of as tools for talking and writing--out of inspiration or out of laziness, we distill emotions and thoughts into the language of the tangible world. We use metaphors to make sense to one another.
Now, however, a new group of people has started to take an intense interest in metaphors: psychologists. Drawing on philosophy and linguistics, cognitive scientists have begun to see the basic metaphors that we use all the time not just as turns of phrase, but as keys to the structure of thought. By taking these everyday metaphors as literally as possible, psychologists are upending traditional ideas of how we learn, reason, and make sense of the world around us. The result has been a torrent of research testing the links between metaphors and their physical roots, with many of the papers reading as if they were commissioned by Amelia Bedelia, the implacably literal-minded children’s book hero. Researchers have sought to determine whether the temperature of an object in someone’s hands determines how “warm” or “cold” he considers a person he meets, whether the heft of a held object affects how “weighty” people consider topics they are presented with, or whether people think of the powerful as physically more elevated than the less powerful.
Is Free Will Really Free?
Is Free Will Really Free?
It's scary to think that choice might just be an illusion. Perhaps we are not so in control as we would like to be. In a conversation at the 92nd St Y, Malcolm Gladwell talks to Robert about the common sense of dissatisfaction felt by people required to justify a choice to others before they made it, and he brings up the unsettling idea of priming--that certain stimuli could predispose us toward certain choices or behaviors. Yale psychology professor John Bargh takes us a step further by describing an experiment where researcher Lawrence Williams was able to alter people's opinions without their knowledge using nothing but a simple cup of coffee.
Friday, November 14, 2008
It's scary to think that choice might just be an illusion. Perhaps we are not so in control as we would like to be. In a conversation at the 92nd St Y, Malcolm Gladwell talks to Robert about the common sense of dissatisfaction felt by people required to justify a choice to others before they made it, and he brings up the unsettling idea of priming--that certain stimuli could predispose us toward certain choices or behaviors. Yale psychology professor John Bargh takes us a step further by describing an experiment where researcher Lawrence Williams was able to alter people's opinions without their knowledge using nothing but a simple cup of coffee.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Helvetica
Helvetica is an exploration into a 50-year old Swiss typeface. But the movie’s not just for graphic design buffs. It opens your eyes to the words and letters all around us. Kurt met up with Gary Hustwit near New York’s Union Square for some font-spotting.
Proust was a Neuroscientist
Science writer Jonah Lehrer is just 26, but he’s already worked as a line cook at Le Cirque and in the lab of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. In Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer looks at the surprising ways artists like Paul Cezanne and Walt Whitman had insights into neurological concepts that scientists have taken years to prove. Produced by Sarah Lilley.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
THE 10,000 YEAR CLOCK
Stewart Brand works on the Clock of the Long Now, a timepiece that counts down the next 10,000 years. It's a beautiful project that asks us to think about the far, far future. Here, he discusses a tricky side problem with the Clock: Where can we put it?
All during the expedition Danny Hillis kept telling variations of his theory of "The 7 Stages of a Mythic Experience" as a way to think about how the mountain and the Clock might fit together. After the trip I asked him to write up the ideas fully. Here they are:
Stewart,
You ask me to write up a short summary of the design issues that I have been thinking about for the experience of visiting the clock. Here it is.
The visit to the clock is intended to be a kind of Hajj, a spiritual journey. As such it needs to have certain elements. One of the design issues for the clock is how to provide these elements. Below is a description of seven of the elements that I think are needed. Variations of this list have been discovered and identified many times by anthropologists and storytellers
THE IMAGE
Before committing to the journey the travelers must have a picture in their minds of what they want to reach. They need a picture of the goal at the end of the journey. If I travel to Paris, I imagine the Eiffel tower. If I go to see the movie Titanic, I expect to see a ship sink. This is what I mean by the Image. It is a simple picture that travelers can hold in their minds of what they are going to accomplish.
Storytellers and designers are mostly concerned with motivation at this point (what Campbell calls the Call to Adventure). I am not so concerned with the Why, but about the What. What is their picture of visiting the clock? A compelling image is a sufficient attraction. Why do you want to visit the Taj Mahal or the Great Pyramid? In part, it is because you can imagine them. The Image is particularly important to the clock, because most people will probably never visit it. For them, the clock will be the Image.
THE EMBARKATION
If someone is going to set out on a quest, there must be a moment of beginning, where they make a transition from everyday life into the special state of pilgrim. Part of what makes the state special is that it is clearly defined. The Hajji change into their Ihram cloths. The visitor to Disneyland crosses through a turnstile, under a tunnel, and emerges into the park.
In the case of the journey to the clock, the visitor will have to travel to the clock site, but since we have no control over that preparatory journey, we need to mark the beginning of the trip with something specific, such as crossing a threshold.
THE LABYRINTHThe spiritual journey requires leaving the world behind, and the most effective way to do this is to force people to focus on the immediate. The best way to do that is fear. This is what Victor Turner calls the Liminal Zone (i.e. the Twilight Zone). Campbell calls it the Belly of the Whale. This is the confusing maze through which the traveler must pass on the way to the goal. This is not just a trial to overcome (although this is part of it), but it is disorientation that leaves the travelers unsure of what they know. The state of confusion is a necessary precondition to reintegration in a new state of mind.
THE DRAW
Part of what pulls the pilgrim forward through the labyrinth is glimpses of some indicator of the goal. This what the a screenwriter calls the McGuffin, or a theme park designer calls the Wienie (for instance, Cinderella's Castle in center of the park.) This is a beacon that lets us see where we are headed and draws us forward through the difficulties.
I speak of the Labyrinth, the Draw and the Payoff as if they are separate events, but in actuality that are interleaved, so the traveler is alternately challenged and led forward, given partial payoffs and tantalizing promises, punctuated by setbacks and disappointments. The rhythm of this alternation of tension and release, building to a climax, is part of the art of the storyteller.
THE PAYOFFThe payoff is the point at which the goal of the journey is achieved, and it must be definite and specific. The traveler of course imagines the Image as the payoff. The good journey will deliver the image, hopefully suddenly and unambiguously. The great journey will do something more. After it delivers the Image, which is the apparent payoff, it will deliver something more, the Secret Payoff. The Secret Payoff is beyond what the traveler was expecting, and by its very nature, it cannot be fully understood by those who have not completed the journey.
The entire Journey is actually a set up for the secret payoff. Having passed through the stresses of the Labyrinth the traveler is relieved to find the apparent payoff. But since the Apparent Payoff is anticipated, it can never be entirely satisfying. This state of relieved tension and slight let down prepares the traveler perfectly for the secret payoff.
THE RETURN
Having gained the boon, the traveler must now make the return journey to the real world. This cannot happen suddenly, or the newfound state will not have a chance to be assimilated by the traveler. The return must take time. It gradually brings the traveler back home to the ordinary world. Ideally the return should be marked by a clear transition, but by then the assimilation should have already happened, and the traveler should be ready to return.THE MEMENTO
Finally, the travelers must be left with some physical reminder of the experience, something to remind them of what they accomplished. This is a souvenir, or the trophy. It must be something physical. It is preferably something rare or valuable but not useful, so that it will not be lost.This list is not exhaustive or exact. I learned many of these ideas at Disney. Others I picked up from Joseph Campbell, Victor Turner, Larry Keeley, and Claude Levi-Strauss. They each discuss different variations of these elements, but the spirit of what they are describing is much the same.
To see how universal the list is, try mapping it against a common ritual. Consider a wedding:
The Image: The picture of the bride and groom standing together at the end of the aisle.
The Embarkation: The Proposal.
The Labyrinth: The Bachelor's Party.
The Draw: The Groom waiting at the end of the aisle.
The Apparent Payoff: "You may kiss the bride."
The Secret Payoff: The Consummation.
The Return. The Honeymoon.
The Memento. The Ring.When applied to the clock I could imagine that the Image is an image of the clock, or possibly the structure that contains it. Because that must be iconic, I see that as the most difficult design element. I think the Embarkation should be relatively easy to mark if the journey is a trip up the mountain. The Labyrinth would obviously be best done if part of the journey is underground. The Draw can be literal glimpses of something that marks the location of the clock. (Right now I am enamored with a glint of light at the top of the mountain.) The Apparent Payoff will be seeing the clock as it looks in the Image. Right now my favorite candidate for the Secret Payoff is listening to the chimes.
— Danny Hillis
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