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Jeanette Bates's picture

"Crazy Like Us"

 

Jeanette Bates's picture

Happiness: Why it may be Hard to Find

            People strive for many things, whether it is finding a great job or creating a good family. At the center of things, however, the greatest life goal becomes one thing: happiness. The one thing that people want more than anything else in this world, the thing that they strive for, is happiness. But why is happiness so elusive? How is it that people are able to feel happiness? What makes people happy? How people find happiness, or a lack of it, and why are the questions that I will examine and attempt to answer in this essay.

Raven's picture

Eric Kandel: In Search of Memory

 Eric Kandel: In Search of Memory

Throughout In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, Eric Kandel describes his approach to understanding how memories are stored. While at first glance, the book might seem like a boring biography of an experiment; in the first chapters, Kandel’s captivating writing constantly keeps you wondering about the next chapter.

molivares's picture

The Key to Artistic Creativity: Synesthesia, the Mind’s Metaphor

We often think of the flow of neural impulses as linear, and emphasize its terminal locus – i.e., we classically think of perception, an action, or an utterance as the terminal stage of some process whose locus is somewhere in the cortex. We think of perception as a one-way street, traveling form the outside world inwards, dispatching a linear stream of neural impulses from one relay to ever more complex ones, so that the process is metaphorically like a conveyor belt running through stations in a factory, until a perception rolls off the end as the finished product” (Cytowic, 1995).

 

jrlewis's picture

The Menu of Wits: A Five-Course Prix Fixe Meal

If a course syllabus is a menu for a classroom experience, then here is my summary of the House of Wits Course 2010.  Each dish is a culinary representation of the James family member it is matched with opposite.  Anyone with allergies to pragmatism or relativism should avoid the preparations of William James.  They will result in a strong reaction.  They are arranged in reverse chronological order as the course primarily was.  Note how all the dishes work together... do they form a coherent meal?  Are their clashes in flavor?  Repetition?  All this is designed to bring out the family dynamics of the James.  Enjoy the meal!!!  And feel free to comment on your favorite dishes and personalities. 

 

 

gloudon's picture

The Neurobiology of Down syndrome

                                                       The Neurobiology of Down syndrome

gloudon's picture

Book commentary- Pink Brain Blue Brain

                                                                        Book Commentary – Pink Brain Blue Brain

kdilliplan's picture

New Perspectives on Color Vision in Jasper Fforde’s "Shades of Grey"

 The neurobiology of color perception has long been a subject of interest both in the scientific community and in popular culture. Color perception varies widely from individual to individual, though it is difficult to characterize and quantify those differences. The effects of color on the function of the nervous system other than those related to vision, such as its effects on emotion, also remain elusive despite ongoing research. In his book Shades of Grey, Jasper Fforde takes the complexities of color perception and stretches them to their extremes. The novel, set in a vague semi-apocalyptic future, is unique in that the society it depicts is built entirely around the differences in its individuals’ color perception. At first, this seems absurdly

kdilliplan's picture

Do You Hear What I See? Synesthesia and Sensory Interactions

We generally think that humans have five senses and that those senses are delegated to a specific organ in our bodies. Anyone would agree that we see with our eyes, taste with our tongues, hear with our ears, feel with our skin and smell with our noses. While this may indeed be the case, it is not the whole story. Our senses are all interconnected. They compliment one another and can even compensate for one another if a sense is weakened or lost (1). However, the interactions between the senses are not uniform from person to person. Synesthesia, the name given to any of a number of conditions involving the experience of a usually unassociated sense in conjunction with the stimulation of another sense, provides insight into the ways our senses can interact.<

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