Much has been said in the last decade about the fact that information technology has made it difficult for people to focus on their work. Nicolas Carr in his best selling book, The Shallows has gone so far as to claim that our brains are being (adversely) rewired by technology. In Cognitive Productivity I argued against Carr’s pessimistic, neuro-babbling characterization of our problems.
Continue reading Distraction, Information Technology and Emotion as Perturbance
Month: March 2014
Spritz Text Streaming, “Speed Reading” and Cognitive Productivity
Spritz, new reading technology, is about to hit the Android market. It’s been called “speed-reading” technology; however, it’s sufficiently different from other approaches that this categorization can be misleading.
Can this app help with CogZest’s mission, which is to boost cognitive productivity with cognitive science and technology? Continue reading Spritz Text Streaming, “Speed Reading” and Cognitive Productivity
Art (Broadly Speaking)
Well, CogZest is short of staff but not of projects. But there’s a French expression “Petit train va loin” (slow and steady wins the race).
While I’ve written mainly about benefiting from non-fiction, I don’t intend to neglect art.
Continue reading Art (Broadly Speaking)
Ralph Greer: Reminiscences about a Gentleman and Reflections on Cognitive Aging
My friend, Ralph Greer—a beautiful person; a resplendent mind; a scholar, in the archaic sense of the term; and a perfect gentleman—passed away Friday, March 7 2014, half-way through his hundredth year. Ralph was a man I admired, whose company I enjoyed and from whom I sought to learn.
This is not a formal obituary. I will instead offer some personal reflections on his mind, his personhood, and our friendship. I hope that some of you who did not know Ralph might appreciate this portrait of graceful aging, written by someone who has a research interest in the matter. Continue reading Ralph Greer: Reminiscences about a Gentleman and Reflections on Cognitive Aging
Cognitive Productivity Book Marked Complete on Leanpub
Cognitive Productivity is now marked as 100% complete on Leanpub (as of Thursday, March 6, 2014). This being a Leanpub book, however, I will avail myself of the opportunity to correct errata as they are discovered and to make minor improvements. I also intend to add supporting materials to the book’s Leanpub web page.
Revision notes
Since the last email I sent to readers of this book in early January, I have Continue reading Cognitive Productivity Book Marked Complete on Leanpub
Voltaire and the Importance of Concepts and Symbolisms to Understand the Human Mind
In 1734, Voltaire wrote
Qu’il y a des carrés d’infini, des cubes d’infini, et des infinis d’infinis, dont le pénultième n’est rien par rapport au dernier? Tout cela, qui paraît d’abord l’excès de la déraison, est en effet, l’effort de la finesse et de l’étendue de l’esprit humain, et la méthode de trouver des vérités qui étaient jusqu’alors inconnues.
What a beautiful thought expressed by a mind in reverence of Newton and his invention of differential calculus!
To translate:
That there should be squares of infinity, cubes of infinity, and infinities of infinities, of which the penultimate is nothing in relation to the last? All of that, which at first seems like an excess of reason gone mad, is in fact, the effort of the perspicuity and extent of the human mind, and the method of finding truths that were until then unknown.
What is equally stunning is just how many forms of representations humanity has invented.
Continue reading Voltaire and the Importance of Concepts and Symbolisms to Understand the Human Mind