Borges, Rhodes and the two selves

According to Borges, humans have two selves: the private and the public one, i.e. one self that quietly sits in the library and the other one that holds lectures and moves around under the public eye. Now, which of these two selves is the real one? As Rhodes rightly states, a self has many facets, and rather than distinguishing between these two categories should we consider the variety of the human self.
Of course, ignoring the conceptual gap between 'feeling' as such and the molecular and cellular foundation of that feeling, one can 'feel' like oneself without being able to explain the full concept of feeling. Referring to Rhodes example of the loon, one might explain natural phenomena neurologically-scientifically-or just feel it via the act of contemplation. This would also be the case when hearing a special musical masterpiece that touches you. You could go ahead and analyze it to the core of the matter-and I can tell of many incidents where this made the whole matter even more aesthetic-or just perceive the music for your own sake and avoid depicting it in full score. Some may interject that science-or a rational, scientific perspective-removes the mystery from nature or its phenomena. Rhodes replies that science is rather a 'means of distinguishing ignorance from mystery' and that it thus cannot overpower mystery.
After all, for me, it all depends on how you look at aesthetic issues as well as perceptional processes.

                                                                                                                                  Nina

How Math Can Help Save a Dying Language

Did you know that you could count to ten in 3000 more languages a thousand years ago, assuming they had a counting system in their language?

According to researchers from the university of Leipzig*, there are currently about 6500 to 7000 spoken languages on our planet. Their estimations show that by 2100 we might be at a total of only 3000 spoken languages and by 2200 at a total of 100. Languages desappear in an incredible rapid speed. About every other week one language dies and vanishes from our planet.

Anne Kandler, mathematician of the Santa Fe Institute, mentioned that there is only one way the old tongues will stay alive: a population itself has to decide that there is something of value in them such as reasons of patriotism, cultural heritage, or just as an attraction for some language-curious tourists.

Some years ago, Kandler and her team designed a mathematical model of the speakers of an endangered language in order to arrange a test environment for programs that encourage the learning of local languages. As a well documented language they chose Scottish Gaelic as a test case.

The designed model uses numbers from all aspects of Scottish life to demonstrate the progress of Gaelic. Important numbers are e.g. the amount of Gaelic speakers, English speakers and bilinguals in the chosen population, furthermore, the rate of loss of Gaelic speakers. Other estimates stand for the prestige of a language, that is, the cultural value that people place on speaking it, and numbers that describe the economic value of a language.

A complex system of equations that describes the growth of the three different groups--English speakers, Gaelic speakers, and bilinguals--and calculates the necessary input to develop a stable bilingual population.

Kandler used the most current numbers and concluded that in 2010 about 860 English speakers would have to learn Gaelic every year in order to keep the number of spakers the same. A new census documenting Scottish Gaelic speakers was completed in 2011. The numbers are being analyzed right now, and Kandler’s eager to see what they show.

(* http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~muellerg/su/haspelmath.pdf)

source: http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/31-how-math-can-help-save-a-dying-language

Franziska

Daydream your way to creativity

 

Sigmund Freud called it "infantile", others were apprehensive that it might lead to psychosis. What's that you might ask? Zoning out, daydreaming, fantasizing, being lost in thought. That process of totally thinking of something random and not focusing on that 20 page paper due at midnight while your computer cursor is at the end of page 4.

Jonathan Schooler, psychologist at the University of California in Santa Barbara, was one of the first to turn his attention to mind wandering. His experiments helped to demonstrate how often our minds drift away: In one study he gave his volunteers War and Peace from Tolstoi to read in his lab. Afterwards he asked them about how often they were zoning out, what they were thinking about and at last he tested their comprehension of the text. He found that people's minds wandered from the words for more than 20 per cent of the time, often without them realizing.

Another study asked people--via a smartphone app--their state of mind during random intervals throughout the day. As a result, the participants reported that their attention was zoning off the task at hand 47 per cent of the time.

For a long time, this lack of concentration would have been considered a severe failing. Instead, the general assumption was that the ability to filter out distractions and focus on a certain task, the so called executive control, lies behind smart thinking. Yet there were hints that concentration was not all it was about. People who can focus well tend to be very good at analytical problems but they often have a hard time when it comes to tasks that require flashes of inspiration.

One of many established measures of flexible thinking is a test known as the unusual uses task. The participants are asked to come up with as many unusual uses for a certain object, such as a brick or a bucket. Next, some of them were given a mindless task to complete, e.g. watching for letters on a screen. Others were given a much more difficult task that needed their full attention. It is not surprising that people drifted off significantly more in the mindless task. Finally, all participants were asked to take another look at the unusual uses task. Those whose minds had been wandering came up with around 40 per cent more answers than on their first try while those who had had to focus on their task did not improve. 

These findings hinted at possible reasons for zoning out: it might lead us to think creatively and outside the limits of our executive control. The ability to link disparate concepts is one important skill for creativity and we might come across while wandering inside our heads. Schooler's experiment was the first direct test to show that the insights really do come from a daydream.

It is also important to mention that the mind wanderers reported that they had not explicitly been thinking about the brick during their mindless task. Schooler concludes that the mindless task might have allowed an unconscious process.

The message is that as we drift off into memories, thoughts of food or plans for our holiday, our brain is busily working on potential solutions for whatever problem we are trying to solve.

To be honest, this article was very revealing to me and helped me understand my own lack of concentration at certain times, such as blog writing.

Franziska