The Brain at the Edge of Chaos
It seems precarious to have a brain that operates on the edge of chaos, one that vacillates randomly between states of quiescence and an avalanche of neural activity. Yet, according to a review of recent studies in the New Scientist, hovering near disorder is actually essential to the brain’s capacity to process information and react to an ever-changing environment, and has even been linked to memory and intelligence. This vital balance makes me wonder what happens if we stray too far towards stability or chaos? Are we also hovering precariously near mental instability? They say it’s a fine line between genius and madness,
acknowledges neuroscientist David Liley. Maybe we’re finally beginning to understand the wisdom of this statement.
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Customizing Individual Blog Posts, Part 1
Use CSS styling, custom fields and a user-defined function to design blog posts. more →
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Controlling the Conversation
Phil Harkins guide to conversations in the workplace is more about controlling the agenda than seeing where the conversation leads. more →
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Dispatch: On Value, Cost and Price (no math)
A story behind Lea Vivot's sculpture Secret Bench of Knowledge, with international characters, and a marketing and sales lesson in cost, price and value, from this morning's bus commute. more →
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Digital Literacies: Reading Signs Along The Way
Last year I taught various digital literacies as a separate course. This year I am integrating them into the existing curriculum. I'll cover the transition in a series of posts. In this first post, I look at some of the signs that led me in this direction. more →
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How Our Internal Clock Ticks
Time helps us to infer relationships of cause and effect, to make sense of the world and to learn. But our ability to perceive time and use time is rather faulty. We regularly misestimate seconds, minutes and hours by 15% to 25% in either direction. We see and move within an optimal now period, about 2 1/2 seconds long (give or take 1 to 2 seconds). Neurosurgeon Jamshid Ghajar also makes this interesting claim: You can explain a lot of pathologies, including schizophrenia, autism and ADHD, as problems of time perception.
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On Teasing and Playful Provocation
Survival of the fittest is often misinterpreted to mean survival of the most cutthroat. But fitness means so much more than that. In this interview, Dacher Keltner points out that kindness, play, generosity, reverence and self-sacrifice are also vital to the tasks of evolution. And so is teasing, which surprised me because we tend to be against teasing of any sort in our schools and workplaces. Keltner calls teasing the art of playful provocation
and suggests that we use our playful voices and bodies to provoke others to avoid inappropriate behaviours:
Teasing (in the right way, which is what most people do) … is a way to play and express affection. It is a way of negotiating conflicts at work and in the family. Teasing exchanges teach children how to use their voices in innumerable ways — such an important medium of communication. In teasing, children learn boundaries between harm and play. And children learn empathy in teasing, and how to appreciate others’ feelings (for example, in going too far). And in teasing we have fun. All of this benefit is accomplished in this remarkable modality of play.
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Using Web-Based Tools to Stay Current →