Pause to Wonder

People who don’t travel but enjoy reading about it are called armchair travellers, so I guess that makes me an armchair neurologist. (!!!) Anything brain-related and I’m there. So I was amazed to read this in the New York Times recently. It’s the obituary of a man written about extensively in the literature of neuroscience, but always, for confidentiality of course, know as H.M. Somehow, it’s just really odd to see a photo of him and know his name: Henry Gustav Molaison.

…He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories.

For the next 55 years, each time he met a friend, each time he ate a meal, each time he walked in the woods, it was as if for the first time.

And for those five decades, he was recognized as the most important patient in the history of brain science.

(Don’t miss Oliver Sacks’s website, it’s full of interesting things and book recommendations!)

All new ways of communicating change… well, the way we communicate. They change society. They change human interactions and behavior.

The media is full of Twitter commentary these days, but here’s one of the more interesting articles I’ve seen:

Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.”

But as the days went by, something changed. Haley discovered that he was beginning to sense the rhythms of his friends’ lives in a way he never had before. When one friend got sick with a virulent fever, he could tell by her Twitter updates when she was getting worse and the instant she finally turned the corner. He could see when friends were heading into hellish days at work or when they’d scored a big success. Even the daily catalog of sandwiches became oddly mesmerizing, a sort of metronomic click that he grew accustomed to seeing pop up in the middle of each day.

This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating.

I’m sure people scoffed at the telephone when that particular wacky device entered the market. Did you know that before radios, people could get subscriptions to listen to theater and concert performances by telephone? Here’s a good reference.

The recent article I did on the Swedish Christmas goat got me reading up a little on the subject. In the process I learned about shape-shifting Santa and the Xmas goat’s relationship to Thor. That’s one connected goat.

“Although now either confused with, or replaced by, the more mainstream image of Santa Claus, Tomte is actually a gnome, a figure harking back to Norse paganism.

Tomte has been described in many different guises; indeed some believe he has the ability to shape-shift at will. However, he is usually depicted as a bearded old man with a tall, pointy red hat.

Living under the floorboards of the house or barn, Tomte is fabled to protect the family and livestock. Since the late nineteenth century, Tomte has come to be associated with Christmas, appearing with the Christmas goat (julbock) who gives out presents to children.

The julbock is most probably descended from the Norse mythology of Thor, God of thunder, whose chariot was pulled by goats.”

This quotation humbly nicked from here.

And not just one, by the sound of it. Whole herds of them. Well, it’s logical: lot’s of stops, only one night, etc…

“Goats have a special place in Swedish tradition. According to folklore, they delivered festive gifts before Father Christmas took over.

So it’s sad to see that despite their past generosity — or perhaps because of it? people sometimes don’t like feeling beholden — a certain three-ton goat has become a repeated target of ill-will. Personally, I’d like to know what possible grudge the American tourist had against him.

So, very briefly: realists think that mathematical truth is discovered, whereas non-realists about maths think that maths is a complex collection of useful games invented by us. Realists think that scientists discover ‘the laws of Nature’, readymade and out there, whereas non-realists think that scientists invent theories that help us to tell stories about why things go the way they do, and to predict outcomes successfully….

Realism tries to turn cultural fictions into objective facts.

For more on non-realism and its application to world views, religion and atheism, read the full article the above was quoted from or listen to the “Philosophy Bites” podcast interview with Don Cupitt.