A Sense of Self
A twinge of sadness, a rush of love, a knot of loss, a whiff of regret. Memories have the power to move us, often when we least expect it, a sign of the complex neural process that continues in the background of our everyday lives. This process shapes us: filtering the world around us, informing our behavior and feeding our...
Brain Bugs
A lively, surprising tour of our mental glitches and how they arise. With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it's far from perfect. Our memory is unreliable; we can't multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different...
Pandemic Anxiety
As of now, some nations seem to be over the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, while others are experiencing a terrifying rise in cases. One thing that has become clear is that the coronavirus can damage the brain just as it does other parts of the body. But even if you don’t actually get the virus, a pandemic like this...
The Case Against Reality
In The Case Against Reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that what we perceive is not an accurate portrayal of objective reality; it is, instead, just our personal interface with the real world. This interface is the product of natural selection, and it evolved mostly to help us move through the world safely and usefully enough to pass our genes on...