New Words I Learned Today

• Hyperopia: An excess of farsightedness. Most people aspire to be farsighted. It's good to delay pleasure now so that we can be better off in the long run. But a recently published study (read about it here) interviewed people about what they regret. In the short term, people regretted partying when they should have been working. In the long term, though, people wished they partied more.
  
  On the surface, this seems like evidence that I should be partying right now instead of writing FOUR damn papers by the end of the month, but that's probably not the case. The people they interviewed were probably the ones who did work hard to get to where they were. They may regret not partying now, but fail to realize they wouldn't be alive to express their regret if they spent their entire life eating finger food and drinking martinis. I doubt they'd find the same results with less successful people. The homeless drug addict on the verge of death probably wouldn't say "yeah dude, I wish I partied more...my life would have been so much better if I had even less self control".
  
  Still, it illustrates that we should enjoy our lives in addition to working, or we'll hate ourselves later.
  
  


• Pseudocyesis: Fake pregnancy. This article tells the heartwarming story of a pregnant woman who went to see her doctor. She was quite far along, with a big belly, kicking baby, screwed up nipples, etc. The doctor, however, could not detect the baby's heart beat. After further research, he discovered that there actually was no baby. There never was a baby. She just wanted to be pregnant so bad that her body changed to look like she was.
  
  The hilarious part of the story, though, is that the doctor didn't tell her that she didn't have a baby. Instead, in a mind boggling breach of ethics and human decency, he told her that the baby was ready to be delivered that very day. Then he drugged her, and when she came to, he told her she'd lost the baby.
  
  You'll have to read the article to find out the rest. The power of the mind over matter in this case is fascinating, but equally fascinating is how horrible (but, looking back on them, hilarious) things have been done in the name of science.
  
  Thank science we have ethical standards now. Science bless you all. Merry Sciencemass.

Book Review: The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene

It has literally taken me years to read this book. Not because it's uninteresting or anything, but because I have to be in a certain mood to read it. A mood in which I'm ready to read slowly and think deeply.

The Elegant Universe is about superstring theory and M-theory; basically, the "theory of everything" that physicists have always been searching for. It's written for a general audience, but still gets pretty deep into it - without much math. While that's a good thing, since most people (myself included) would need years of training to even begin to understand the math involved, it also left me with a feeling that I was always missing part of the picture. I guess that's unavoidable in a book of this sort, though.

The book answers a lot of questions, but also brings up just as many - most of which are things that the average person has never considered before. Many such questions are very very deep. So deep that it's nearly impossible to really grasp what's being talked about. Whenever possible, Greene illustrates things with 2 or 3-dimensional analogies, but again, you feel like you're missing something when, in reality, the theory involves 11 dimensions.

That's the thing, though - humans will never intuitively grasp a world with 11 dimensions. We live - and evolved in - the 3 space dimensions (and one time dimension) that we're all familiar with. Our brains simply weren't built to understand any more than that. Like a goldfish can never understand the math involved in buying a chocolate bar, maybe we will never fully understand the math involved in describing the universe.

People will damn well try, though. I have much respect for the physicists involved in string theory (and other cutting-edge stuff like it). Many would probably hate this word, but it involves a lot of faith. Faith in at least two things: 1) That humans are able to understand the universe, and 2) That the universe is understandable at all. As briefly discussed in the book, maybe there is no ultimate theory that ties everything together. Maybe planets just work a certain way, and photons work a certain way, and there is no connection between these two ways of working. Until they find it, these physicists don't even know if the theory they dedicate their lives to finding exists. Of course, they feel it exists, as I'm sure most scientists do. How could it not? And so far, everything has gotten closer and closer to meshing together cohesively. But it could stop at any point, and yeah, that feeling that it won't, in some way, that's faith.

These are deep issues, and I can't really get into them in a brief review, so you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But if you want to have your brain challenged and get a better understanding of one way the entire universe might be explained, give The Elegant Universe a shot.

Video Games Make You Smart

I'll stick with posting about psychology, since school/work is all I've been doing lately.

I came across an article (Teasdale & Owen, 2000) which looked at trends in intelligence scores over the last few decades. As you may know, intelligence has been steadily going up over time. This study looked at a Danish population, to see if IQ is still going up. The graph above shows what they found. It's not going up as much as it used to, except visuo-spatial abilities (working with shapes in your head), which continue to increase.

Why is this? The researchers guess: "..it is tempting to speculate that [...] it has been growing exposure to video games and geometrically configured computer screens via operating systems, applications programs and the Internet, that have particularly accelerated the development of visuo-spatial abilities during the last decade."

So there you have it. Contrary to what some believe, video games are not responsible for the downfall of society; it's the opposite. Video games are making everybody smarter. Parents: start your kids off on the right foot. Get those toddlers playing Grand Theft Auto right away.

This also gives me an idea for my Ph.D. dissertation: "Does Playing Video Games All Day for a Year Make People Smarter? A Self-Administered Case Study. By Mike."

Here's the full reference for the article I'm talking about:

Teasdale, T., & Owen, D. (2000). Forty-year secular trends in cognitive abilities. Intelligence, 28, 115 - 120.

Psychobabble

You know, there are a lot of interesting things in the field of psychology, but not a lot of people know about them. When most people think of psychology, they think of Sigmund Freud sitting behind a patient on a couch while they talk about their childhood, while he fills out a prescription for crazy pills. That has very little to do with real psychology.

I think one of the reasons that most people ignore psychology research is that we use stupid jargon for very simple things. This makes us feel smart, but just confuses everyone else.

As an example, here is a line from an article I came across, defining what a "home page" is:

A home page is an entry interface of hyperdocuments for presenting a Website's information to visitors, which is mostly concerned with human perception in terms of users’ comprehension and mental representation.

Seriously. I barely know what it's talkng about. How about this? "A home page is the first thing you see when you visit a web site." Much better.

Book Review: Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

Just finished reading Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. Most people know him as the guy who wrote Fight Club. Invisible Monsters is so full of twists and turns that I feel that I'd give important plot points away with even a brief summary of the book. But basically, it's about a fashion model who gets her jaw blown off, and ends up going on a physical and psychological journey with some, um, interesting characters.

The style of this book sets it apart from most others. It's written like a fashion magazine; that is, it uses too many adjectives, the paragraphs are short, and it jumps around from topic to topic so that you feel like you're never getting the whole story at one time. I actually found that this made it more enjoyable to read, rather than less, though perhaps that just says something about my attention span.

The content is loud, shocking, hilarious, and campy. Easily disturbed or easily disgusted people will probably want to avoid this (though if you really wanna throw up in your mouth while reading, check out his short story Guts (click to read the whole story)). The themes running through Invisible Monsters will be familiar to anyone who's read Palahniuk's other novels, or seen Fight Club.

I've heard rumours that Invisible Monsters was being worked on as a movie. I find it hard to picture this as a movie, though. Without giving much away, let's just say it would have to employ some "unique" actors and/or actresses. I enjoyed the book from start to finish, though, so I'd recommend it to anyone with a strong stomach looking for a fun read.

I'm Back

It's a new school year, so how's about I start blogging on this blog again? Sounds good. As many of you know, I have another blog, but I only post relatively tame posts on this one (since it's the one I link to in my e-mail signature, and may be seen by people who have the power to hire/fire me). I've been slacking in copying the tame posts over to this one lately. Well, I just added a bunch of posts, and I'll continue to do so. I've also decided to get more serious about school and research, by keeping up with the latest literature in sciency stuff. This will probably translate over to this blog, since blogging about interesting stuff, and my opinions on it, will help motivate me to really think about what I'm reading.

See you soon.

Sleep Sucks

I recently read about a drug being developed that will allow people to stay up for 36 hours, or even a few days, at a time, without any of the side effects of things like caffeine.

Now most people will think this is creepy. That we shouldn't play God and mess with nature like that. But not I; sign me up, I want to get rid of sleep altogether. I remember in my 2nd year of university I read a lot about sleep. Most of the best sources seemed to agree that sleep serves little purpose today. One theory is that we only sleep at night because it would be dangerous for our ancestors to be out and about at night. Since we can't see in the dark, we'd be likely to fall into a lake or the mouth of a tiger. Much better that we just lie dormant in a cave while it's dark.

This doesn't apply today, where we have electric lights all over the place. We can have artificial daylight 24 / 7. Think of how much more time we could have to be productive, and more importantly, have fun and enjoy life, if we didn't have to spend 8 hours a day lying there doing nothing.

People will say "oh, but I like sleeping". Well yeah, me too, but I only like it when I'm tired. If a pill made it so I was never tired, I'd never feel like sleeping.

OK, so there are some advantages to sleep. Dreaming is the biggie. I love waking up and remember all the crazy ass dreams I had. Dreaming is one of the purest sources of creativity in everyday human life, and it would be a shame to lose it. There is also evidence that sleep helps with certain brain functions, such as consolidating memories.

So here's my ideal situation: We take a pill once a day, 6 days a week, that keeps us awake and alert 24 / 7. This gains us 8 x 6 = 48 hours = 3 WHOLE WAKING DAYS (assuming we're awake 16 hours per day) of extra time per week. There are people who can write novels in three days! Then, like God himself, on the 7th day we rest. We skip the pill and get a good night's sleep, gaining all the benefits of sleep and waking up with some sweet dreams.

It's a perfect solution to make life awesomer for everyone. Disagree? You're wrong.

P.S. Here's another fun link: How to Become an Early Riser. Just remember that this is some random blogger who might not know what he's talking about.

Book Review: Theatre of the Mind: Raising the Curtain on Consciousness, by Jay Ingram

Consciousness is a very difficult subject to tackle. It's hard to even define, despite the fact that every one of us experiences it during every (waking?) moment of our lives. It's even harder to study objectively, given that consciousness is, practically by definition, highly subjective.

Jay Ingram gives it a shot in his latest book, Theatre of the Mind. The title refers to several past thinkers who have used the theatre metaphor to understand consciousness. This often leads to problems (e.g. if the stage represents consciousness, then someone (the audience) needs to view the contents of consciousness, and thus must be conscious themselves, which leads to an infinite string of consciousnesses within consciousnesses), which Ingram points out in order to illustrate difficulties with consciousness studies. However, I like how he also explains an updated version of the metaphor to illustrate one of the current theories about what consciousness is, how it works, and how it avoids the above problem. Books like this often present a whole lot of research and anecdotes without even attempting to tie it all together. Ingram, though aware of the limitations of this approach, does bring up one possible approach (global workspace theory) to wrap things up.

Given Ingram's origin as a host of popular science shows, it is not unexpected that the book is extremely casual and non-scientific. It is almost like watching a long episode of Daily Planet all about consciousness. This makes it an easy read, and I would recommend the book to anyone even if they have no experience with psychology or philosophy. Sometimes, however, I wished for more detail and depth. He jumps around a lot, as if unable to stay on one topic for more than a few paragraphs, which can get annoying if the topic is interesting and he suddenly moves on to something else. Ingram also adds his own anecdotes and opinions, which again makes it easier to digest, but some may view it as overstepping his bounds to be critical of an area of research which he has not participated in himself.

Another thing I must mention is that Ingram takes a very open-minded approach. Though he always warns when something is not generally accepted by the scientific community, he is not afraid to venture into territory that could be considered pseudo-science or parapsychological. One example is a researcher, Benjamin Libet, who wishes to stimulate a piece of brain which has been completely detached from the rest of the brain, but kept alive and in the skull. He believes that the rest of the brain could still react to the stimulus, because there is more to consciousness than connections between neurons. Needless to say, it's a bit controversial, but given some of the incredible findings that Libet (and others) have already discovered about the mind and brain, I think it's worth seeing what happens.

I recommend Theatre of the Mind to anyone looking to learn more about consciousness. It probably brings up more questions than answers, but at least it will clarify one's thinking about a subject which is very hard to think about.

Book Review: Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown

A quick review here, just so I have a record of the books I've read and it motivates me to keep reading instead of playing video games (which is what I've been doing for the last 3 days).

Angels and Demons takes place in the same world as The Da Vinci Code, with the same main character, Robert Langdon. I think that Dan Brown is secretly in love with his fictional character, and loves the name "Robert Langdon." He always writes about Langdon's deep manly voice and awesome tweed jacket. And instead of using pronouns, it's "Robert Langdon touched the pope's hat, because it was shiny and Robert Langdon liked shiny things. Robert Langdon communicated Robert Langdon's intense appreciation for the church in that single touch."

This also demonstrates how badly written Angels and Demons is. If you've read The Da Vinci Code and cringed, Angels and Demons is even more simply written. With all this said, it doesn't really get in the way of keeping you reading and interested. The book takes place in real-time, never jumping forward or backward in time (except for flashbacks), so it's as intense as an episode of 24.

The historical "facts" are obviously not facts. While you may feel like you're learning something while reading this book, it's actually making you dumber. For example, a critical plot point is that nobody could figure out how to make words read the same whether they are upside down or right side up (ambigrams). Yet...Dan Brown and Friends were able to come up with a whole bunch for this book (and the awesome cover for it pictured here). It's really cool to see these ambigrams in the book, but I doubt that a fiction author is the first person in history to create them.

Still, if you go in expecting an intense novel that's more science fiction than art history textbook, it's a very entertaining read.

On a side note, I hear that Brown is being sued over The Da Vinci Code. A non-fiction book was written a while before Da Vinci which dealt with the same topic, and the author of that book is angry that Brown stole the idea. Brown admits to using it as a source. Now, last time I checked, fiction authors were allowed to use non-fiction sources to check their facts, and that's not plagarism. If I write an erotic story about squirrel sex, The Discovery Channel isn't going to sue me because I saw squirrels boinking on TV. And this is (supposedly) fact...if Brown hadn't even read this book and had done his own research, he (supposedly) would have come to the same conclusion. Since facts are, arguably, objective.

Whatever. I'm just looking forward to the Smart Car chase in the movie version of The Da Vinci Code. Yay Smart Cars!

How To Stop Time

I found this groovy little illusion:  How to Stop Time.  It involves looking at a the second hand of a clock out of the corner of your eye, and it appears to stop moving.  

The site gets cheesiness points for trying to convince people that they are actually stopping time.  I do wonder what the actual explanation is, though.  I've read about people with brain damage who are blind to movement:  when pouring liquid out of a glass, they see it frozen in mid-pour, then the glass is suddenly empty.  Perhaps this illusion is related to that, allowing normal people to experience change blindness without ramming a pole through their brain.