Search Results for: how the mind works

How Psychology Trumps Everything

Posted on Thursday 2 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

The hierarchy of sciences in which, in terms of human beliefs about the real world, psychology trumps everything; The New Yorker on the plausibility of impossible beings (from 2017); Recalling that Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense; How “more than half … Continue reading →

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Aesthetics: Color Theory: 60:30:10

Posted on Monday 13 June 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s another item I saw just recently, which shares with the previous post how a design principle can be crystalized in numbers. Via Boing Boing, Devin Nealy, 31 May 2022: The 60-30-10 percent rule of color

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Ls&Cs: Interviews and Excerpts: Pinker, Harari, Graeber & Wengrow

Posted on Thursday 11 November 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Michael Shermer interviews Steven Pinker about Rationality; NYT interviews Yuval Noah Harari about the simple story that can save the planet; and an excerpt from Graeber & Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything.

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Nonfiction Notes: Adam Grant’s THINK AGAIN

Posted on Friday 26 March 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Adam Grant, THINK AGAIN: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know (2021) This is a recent book, still on the bestseller lists, by an author I had not previously encountered. He’s a professor and TED talker. The book seems … Continue reading →

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NF Bibliography

Posted on Saturday 24 October 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

This page is both a bibliography of the principal, current (and some classic) nonfiction books in my library, and a set of links to my posts about significant nonfiction (NF) books on this blog. (My posts aren’t so much ‘reviews’ … Continue reading →

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NF Reviews

Posted on Thursday 13 June 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Reviews posted on this blog, from 2013 up to Sep 2022: Adler, Martimer J., & Charles Van Doren. 1940/1972. How to Read a Book. Touchstone. **** Classic guide to being systematic in one’s approach to reading books, beyond “elementary reading.” … Continue reading →

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Pinker: Better Angels: Passages and Outline from the Preface

Posted on Wednesday 6 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

This is Steven Pinker’s big 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, that takes a long-range view of human history to show that the human condition, over millennia and especially in recent centuries and decades, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Humanism, Steven Pinker | Comments Off

EO Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence, part 2

Posted on Monday 17 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Second of several posts about Edward O. Wilson’s book THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, which as I described earlier both here on my blog and on Facebook, is a concise summary of this important scientist’s views on the big issues … Continue reading →

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Two Books to Look Forward to

Posted on Wednesday 2 July 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

From reviews a couple days ago in Publishers Weekly. Coming in October: E.O. Wilson’s The Meaning of Human Existence. Wilson, Harvard biologist, is one of the most intelligent people on the planet, author of On Human Nature, Consilience and many, … Continue reading →

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Review of David McRaney’s You Are Not So Smart

Posted on Monday 14 October 2013 by Mark R. Kelly

As I mentioned in a Facebook post last night, without bookstores to browse through, I discover titles and authors I might not otherwise have seen most often through web excerpts and interviews — at sites like Slate and Salon, Huffington … Continue reading →