billyjane m's Library tagged no_tag → View Popular

01 Jun 09

In other words, evolutionary psychology is a paradigm that will allow us to understand the mind. Moreover, it is a paradigm designed to replace the naive paradigm that has dominated the psychological sciences since the days of William James. The paradigm approaches problems of the mind with 5 principles, which Cosmides and Tooby claim come from biology:
Principle 1. The brain is a physical system. It functions as a computer. Its circuits are designed to generate behavior that is appropriate to your environmental circumstances.

Principle 2. Our neural circuits were designed by natural selection to solve problems that our ancestors faced during our species' evolutionary history.

Principle 3. Consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg; most of what goes on in your mind is hidden from you. As a result, your conscious experience can mislead you into thinking that our circuitry is simpler that it really is. Most problems that you experience as easy to solve are very difficult to solve -- they require very complicated neural circuitry.

Principle 4. Different neural circuits are specialized for solving different adaptive problems.

Principle 5. Our modern skulls house a stone age mind.

broader sense, includes any psychology that takes evolution seriously, or includes evolutionary considerations in its explanations of psychological phenomena. The second, which is generally associated with Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, David Buss, and Steven Pinker, includes only those evolutionary psychologists who adhere to a certain set of tenets, including massive modularity, assumptions about the "environment of evolutionary adaptedness" (or the EEA), and a belief that the modern mind evolved in the EEA. To distinguish this second sense from the first, I will use Buller's convention or referring to it with capital letters (Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychologists), and using only lowercase letters for the first sense.

19 May 09

No, it is not an alcohol made from salamanders, but rather from what they produce. Salamander brandy obviously can’t be found in your local liquor store. It is non-commercially produced in Slovenia. There are at least two ways of making it - both of which involve animal cruelty: (1) The salamanders are hung from their back legs, and brandy is poured onto their bodies, and drips into a cup. (2) The salamander is placed on a sieve, and brandy is poured onto them until they drown. The point of this is to infuse the alcohol with the poison salamanders produce when they are defending themselves. Nonetheless, it is said to produce symptoms like LCD and Ecstasy combined, in addition to the effects of the alcohol (although, the alcohol content is particularly low)!

“TWIST!” is really fun to yell out loud, and I enjoyed both Tracy and Liz using it at different points in the episode; it wasn’t quite the level of connectivity I like to see, but it was a nice way to add an element of consistency at the very least.
Loved seeing Steve Buscemi pop up in a brief cameo as Jack’s P.I. of choice: especially enjoyed his “No, I’m just taking a photography class” and that he rode off on a bicycle. I thought his Emmy nomination for the role the first time around was patently ridiculous, but I can’t lie in noting it’s a fun character.

16 May 09

28 Apr 09

17 Apr 09

16 Apr 09

05 Apr 09

Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
What would you do today if the world would end tomorrow?

>watching the sunset, a glass of whiskey in one hand, a joint in the other.<