Aaron CT Smith, a cognitive scientist from Melbourne, Australia, has given one of the most brilliant accounts of what beliefs do for us that I have seen to date, Flock Theory, “In my estimation…beliefs follow the same kinds of rules governing flocks of birds…First, successful beliefs fit the rule of separation. Like birds in the…
What we might stand to lose. Final, Series 5.5
In the final instalment of this series, I lay a few bones on the table for your consideration. I hope you value them as I do. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If the human race is under threat in some way that we don’t yet understand, it will probably be at the community level that we either solve the…
Building a model of the world is a community project. Series. 5.4.
Recall my project here. In this series, I lay out some "bones" for thinking about the way -- the why and the how -- the people we depend on for our survival, delectation, and companionship (our peeps) help us navigate the world. And we them. You might pick up these bones, if you find them…
Mattering to each other. Series 5.2.
In this series, I lay out some "bones" for thinking about the way -- the why and the how -- the people we depend on for our survival, delectation, and companionship (our peeps) help us navigate the world. And we them. You might pick up these bones, if you find them interesting, and bring them…
What’s in a name? A face, a voice, laughter, habits….Series 5.1.
The names of the people we love are like beads on a Rosary, well-worn worry stones oft-fondled for comfort and reassurance. See also, The human GPS network: navigating our lives and, 5.2 through 5.5
The Art of Rhetoric: Working through the challenges and disagreements that arise from our shared lives. Series 4.3.
In my previous post, I suggest Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow and Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion are complementary reads. (See, Thinking, Fast and Slow. (And 2 worries.) and Just a Thought. 14. ) Why? Because a study of Haidt's moral theory alongside Kahneman's work on our cognitive/perceptual errors and biases might…
Thinking, Fast and Slow. (And 2 worries.)Series 4.2.
Some of my books have well-worn pages, others are falling apart from use. The books I use heavily are usually those I think worth giving others. And so I do. I peruse used-book shops and thrift stores to stock my library with multiple copies. This way, I often have a book on hand to share. If…
The Righteous Mind. Series 4.1.
My husband, Paul, and I host a weekly reading group. We read one book in the fall, another in the spring. This past spring we read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind which, week after week, generated the best discussions we've had to date. If you haven't yet read the book, here's a spoiler alert. I'm about…
The day the Russians nuked my sawmill camp. A survivor’s memoir.
It’s an October morning, 1975, in Upper Fraser, a remote sawmill camp in north central B.C. I’m 9 years old, sitting at my desk in the portable classroom where I’m to spend the remainder of my elementary school years. A bank of windows running the length of wall to my left looks across the dirt…
The human GPS network: navigating our lives.
We tend to take for granted how profoundly we rely on others to help us navigate our worlds, including our social worlds. We go for counselling; we lose sleep researching (other people's research); we lose sleep about big decisions, such as finances and health (mulling over information others put together); we lose sleep worrying about…
