Solitary walking is conducive to clearing the mind and settling into contemplation. The same is true of bicycling, albeit only for a narrower range of circumstances. The same is true of driving, albeit only for an even narrower range of circumstances. One could summarize this trend with the statement that the potential of a particular…
There are often many ways of modeling the same thing. Models are inherently inaccurate, but the best are those which combine an acceptable degree of inaccuracy with a significant reduction in complexity. It’s obvious that the theorized output of a system depends on the model used to represent the system, but it’s nonetheless an important…
I’ll always be apprehensive about the nature of reality and the universe in general, but within this life my greatest fear is that I’m becoming a cold person due to lack of meaningful human contact. My meager warmth is sustained from one day to the next, as Oliver with his ration of porridge, by the…
Technical courses steeped in analytical problem solving offer little room for opposing views. If you question the validity of a conclusion, you need only use mathematics to see how the conclusion was derived and to verify that it is in fact correct. Alternately, soft sciences, collectively known at this university as ‘perspectives on the human…
Unfortunately I can’t take credit for this gem of a hypothetical idea, but I was lucky enough to be in the discussion when it came up at a party a couple months ago. Like most hypothetical ideas, this one requires that an assumption be made. However, it’s not a very difficult assumption to make. All…
Something that hasn’t happened for awhile has happened recently. I’ve caught myself using the same word, or variations of the word, too often, i.e. some others, some people, sometimes. Maybe it’s still happening, just look at the 1st word in this post. I need to consult with a group of neurologists and figure out what…
When you’re anxious, maybe let anxiousness have its time. And if it sticks around longer than is comfortable, maybe think about things that compliment each other. For instance, plants exhale the inhalations of animals and vice versa. But thinking about things that compliment each other should be done with caution, because you run the risk…
The Psychology Dept. on campus offers year round once a week counseling at a cost of $5 for a 50 minute session. Last week I had a free screening and in one hour I’m going in for my first session. It’s what they call a training clinic, where the clinicians are grad students who consult…
I wonder if during typical child-parent communication the parent thinks to themselves “Wow, that makes perfect sense” or “That’s exactly the same kind of thinking process I use.” Might not the child’s brain be wired in a way similar to that of its parents? Yes, so much of brain development depends on upbringing, but I’d…
So I drank some absinthe today and while under the influence I wondered what the optimal state of mind for learning or remembering things is. Maybe if you study while smashed, you’ll know the information better when you sober up than if you had studied it sober. No doubt, the success of this method depends…
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