Search Results for: how the mind works

Notes for the Book: Magical Thinking, Cognitive Dissonance, Group-Thinking

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Extending thoughts from previous posts about the future of enlightenment and similar matters. About group-thinking and how people get along in their lives just fine without understanding how the world actually works (as well-established by physics, chemistry, biology including evolution, … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Speaking Fox; Ideology and Lies; Fear and Paranoia

Posted on Thursday 17 September 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s difficult to get away from the current crisis, and threat. The Atlantic, Megan Garber: Do You Speak Fox?. Subtitle: How Donald Trump’s favorite news source became a language Political theorists, over the years, have looked for metaphors to describe … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: A Proposition; Why So Many Still Support Trump

Posted on Tuesday 15 September 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Decades ago, from reading reviews of books and movies I had read and seen, I formulated a proposition that runs something like this: There is no work of art (book, film, painting, song) so universally admired that someone, somewhere, will … Continue reading →

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Andrew Shtulman: SCIENCEBLIND: Why Our Intuitive Theories About the World Are So Often Wrong

Posted on Sunday 13 September 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

(Basic Books, 2017) Here’s a book I read earlier this year and am only just now boiling my notes down into a coherent summary. (Well actually I started boiling my notes down but ended up just cleaning up the remainder, … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Tell Them What They Want to Hear

Posted on Friday 28 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

One more set, just a few, then we’ll try to think of other things and hope that Trump and his minions will just magically disappear, as Trumps said, months ago, the virus would do over the summer. (It didn’t; he … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Benedictine Option; Pandemic Spread; Economic Stabilizers; Ed Yong; Evangelicals and Trump

Posted on Tuesday 18 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

The Atlantic: The Christian Withdrawal Experiment. Subtitle: Feeling out of step with the mores of contemporary life, members of a conservative-Catholic group have built a thriving community in rural Kansas. Could their flight from mainstream society be a harbinger for … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Lunacy, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Benedictine Option; Pandemic Spread; Economic Stabilizers; Ed Yong; Evangelicals and Trump

Personal History Since ‘Retirement’ in 2012

Posted on Friday 7 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Lay-off One day in November 2012 I was summoned from my cubicle at work to a small office where my department manager told me that my services with the company were no longer needed. I admit I was… not shocked, … Continue reading →

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Working at the Rocket Factory for 30 Years

Posted on Friday 7 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

With a BA in math and an unfinished masters in Computer Science, I got a job in June 1982 at the Rocketdyne facility in Canoga Park, CA, helping to build the rocket engines that powered the American space shuttles. (Above … Continue reading →

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Personal history from UCLA to Rocketdyne

Posted on Friday 7 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

As I went through my courses at UCLA and eventually graduated, I had identified my goal as graduate school, with an eventual Ph.D., even though I was hardly a star student (with a solid B average). It’s just that I … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Psychology Trumps All?

Posted on Sunday 12 July 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Two items came up today on very similar topics. They both play to my interest in the psychological underpinnings of belief and apprehension of the world. As I’ve alluded, this is one of my major themes (as on my Principles … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Psychology Trumps All?