Imagination of a sort is central to all experience. We construct our perceived world from incomplete information, interpreted via inner representations of our environment, that generate predictions of what is actually out there and how it will respond to our actions. - The Guardian
The unique conditions of the Village produced an environment in which genius could make sense of itself and wheat could be separated from chaff. The mid-century Village was a layered, organic, seething society: multiethnic, multigenerational, transclass, ideologically open and experimental. - First Things
My colleagues and I have been looking into what we call the ‘self-insight motive’ and we’ve found it might be more accurate to see it as akin to a personality trait that varies in strength between individuals – some people have more of it than other. - Psyche
Heaven knows there's a ton of social media videos purporting to show that the answer is yes. What do animal-cognition scientists think? - The New York Times Magazine
"In 1666, Louis XIV established the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, which, unlike peer institutions in Italy or Britain, paid members a salary and covered their lodgings and equipment. … At court, (Louis XV and XVI) were routinely presented with the latest inventions or discoveries, sometimes even watching live demonstrations." - Artnet
Tussling with history and mythology, the film "goes all in on the idea that we still desperately need the old dyad of genius and modernist progress, that great minds, great thoughts, great works of human creativity can still transform us spiritually and materially.” - Washington Post
“What we have at present is a rather stark hierarchy of heritage. Buildings and artefacts are granted high levels of safeguarding. Yet culturally important landscapes, trees and rivers are left relatively undefended. Why the lack of equivalence?” - The Observer (UK)
Globalisation didn’t begin in the 1990s, or even in the past millennia. Remembering this older shared history is a path to a different tale, which begins much, much earlier. The tale of globalisation is written across human history. So why do we keep getting the story so wrong? - Aeon
To account fully for the phenomenon of bullshit, we require a conception that envisions the bullshitted to expect that someone completely unlike him or her in essential social ways, perhaps even the bullshitter her/himself, will admit the objections the bullshitted would raise, if s/he were allowed effective access to socially recognized means of objection. - 3 Quarks Daily
The practice of public philosophy is thriving today in a surprising number of forms. Different approaches give rise to meta-level questions about the nature of philosophy in general and the nature of public philosophy in particular. - 3 Quarks Daily
If we take art to be something that is beautiful and consciously created – and animals consciously create things that look like art – shouldn’t we accept these productions as art, too? As Edgar Degas put it, “art is not what you see, but what you make others see”. - The Conversation
When national politics is becoming increasingly polarised, global conflicts are escalating to new temperatures, and the toll of the climate catastrophe grows deadlier, the mere mention of utopia risks generating side-splitting laughter. - Psyche
Over the past three years, we have studied thousands of scientists on three different continents, asking them about the role of beauty in their work. Our research left us convinced that the core aesthetic experience science has to offer is not primarily about sensory experiences or formulas. - Aeon
In a sense, yes. The most extraordinary property of the gut-brain axis is that it is plastic. In the same way that your brain constantly takes in new information about the world around you, strengthening or changing connections via neuroplasticity, it also adjusts to signals from inside you. - The Guardian
Fan communities coping with a celebrity loss do several things that help their members feel supported and connected to one another, which often also disrupts society’s typical reaction to grief. So, what can we learn from fans grieving celebrity deaths? - The Conversation
