The Trivial Significance of Cognition’s Most Fundamental Faculty: Memory

Posted by on Feb 3, 2011 in Psychology | 0 comments I recently began to get interested in memory, and more specifically, how it defines us. The following is a short narrated video clip I created to expound on this interest, with a longer bit of writing just below it that goes into further detail. “Most people consider forgetting stuff to be a normal part of living. However, I see it as a huge problem; in a way, there’s nothing I fear...
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On the Effects and Instillment of a Growth Mindset

Posted by on Feb 2, 2011 in Psychology | 0 comments When it comes to the outcomes of people’s lives, our world is one of extreme variance. But what determines that variance? This is a piece on the power of growth mindset (a la Carol Dweck) and self-efficacy, that I wrote for Albert Bandura during his last class at Stanford.
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On Ignorance, Opinions, and Valuescience

Posted by on Jan 23, 2011 in Valuescience | 0 comments I don’t remember exactly when it was that I realized how difficult it is to have a confident opinion on something. The main factor influencing that thought for me was the recognition that there are so many viewpoints, and so much information out there that influences those viewpoints, that it is virtually impossible to be cognizant of it all. How does one know that that piece of information...
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The Origins Of The Universe – “A Short History”

Posted by on Jan 22, 2011 in Valuescience | 2 comments “Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn’t easy, I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize.” When I opened A Short History of Nearly Everything and read these opening remarks from the author Bill Bryson (whom I was about to find out is better described as “the charming and ostensibly good-humored Bill...
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Biophysical Economics, Solar Energy, and the Reason For Life

Posted by on Jan 21, 2011 in Valuescience | 0 comments While much of the initial thoughts regarding biophysical economics reflected on by the Physiocrats in the 18th century was done before the laws of thermodynamics were first elucidated, it is thermodynamics that is at the heart of biophysical economics nonetheless. The laws of thermodynamics elucidate both the fact that all energy is conserved and that with every energy-using event entropy...
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Howard Zinn, Communicating History, and Gross Misunderstanding

Posted by on Jan 20, 2011 in Valuescience | 0 comments “As for the subtitle of this book, it is not quite accurate; a “people’s history” promises more than any one person can fulfill, and it is the most difficult kind of history to recapture. I call it that anyway because, with all its limitations, it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people’s movements of resistance. “That makes it a...
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