(no subject)

[alitalf]

Eastercon was good. There were interesting panels on science and writing topics, and other things. If it were possible to be in several places at once I would go to more of them. Science fiction conventions are among the few events/places that I don't feel a vaguely like an alien.

It isn't too late to catch up with the Reith lectures on Radio 4. The last one is Wenesday April 30 ^th. However the transcripts and Real Audio of the lectures are available on the BBC web page for this years Reith lectures. If you don't want Real Audio to load its systray icon (which it sets up every time you run it) and nag you about updates every time that you boot windows, you need to use msconfig to remove it from the startup section (Start button, Run, msconfig, then select the startup tab) or if you are familiar with editing the registry then you could edit the run key: hkey local machine, software, microsoft, windows, current version. It may be necessary to do the same thing under hkey local user as well or instead, depending on what version of windows you are using). I wish the Beeb would use streaming mp3 instead.

The lectures are about how the brain works, and this is related to things we can see to some extent in everyday life. For example it seems that even the majority of people who do not experience synesthesia explicitly have an element of it in the way that words and phrases have meaning - like a "sharp cheese". Some of the material overlaps with a very interesting book I have been reading called "A Users Guide to the Brain" by John Ratey (I'm just over half way through it now). Perhaps soon the research will give us a clue about what consciousness actually is - now that would be interesting.

I begin to guess what psychological tricks advertisers and politicians may try to play on us as perception and mental processing is more understood. Even the understanding gained by Freud and others led to effective manipulation of large groups of people when it was applied by advertisers and politicians, and more is being learned quite rapidly. However, we can learn what is possible and be on our guard to some extent. In "The Space Merchants" (by Fred Pohl I think) addictive drugs were used to keep people buying the product - but I think that psychology is highly effective a lot of the time. (Not that I imagine non-adictive cigarettes would sell too terribly well.)

Comments

"Streaming mp3, Batman!"

[muninnhuginn]

Yup, as well as obviously being a mild expletive, it is something the Beeb really ought to consider. (If I remember rightly they did, for a short while, have a couple of different options for listening, whilst they sorted out which was preferable. And now they don't.)

Managed to stay awake through last night's Reith (usually out on Wednesday evenings, dozing elsewhere) and found it vaguely disappointing. The points were a tad obvious and laboured more than a little. But the whole synesthesia thing is so fascinating. (I'd almost like to experience it, except that, bearing in mind the visceral effect that the colour of grass has on my vision, I'm not sure the results would be entirely pleasant.) The argument for an incremental evolution of language seems plausible. I was beginning to wonder how we might have progressed if we'd developed a different set of contiguous mappings in the relevant areas of the brain.

Only connect, eh?

[quantumdots.livejournal.com]

Interesting ideas. I am fascinated with the brain and its workings, and like reading different books on the subject. One I really enjoyed was The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks. It relates a variety of psychiatric case studies. One of my favorites was the guy who woke up one morning and had the olfactory capabilities of an animal, like a dog. He could smell everything and could walk into a room of his colleagues and tell in an instant, even without looking, who was in there and what their emotional/mental state was, etc.