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Continue readingAuthor: Ron Brown
Death By Trolley: Whose death would stun the Western World?
A month ago I asked readers What is the most misunderstood idea of all time? My next big (slightly morbid) question is Whose death would stun the Western World? A few years ago when Michael Jackson unexpectedly died, it felt like the world sort of skipped a few beats. I
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: ACN Inc Recruiting Hard in Kelowna: Do YOUR Research
ACN, a multilevel marketing (aka, pyramid) organization recruiting in Kelowna, across Canada, the US, and around the world. ACN – American Communications Network – is a multi-level marketing (MLM) company dealing in telecommunications technology and plans, television, energy, and other services. As per Wikipedia, Multi-level marketing (MLM) is a marketing
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Help Me Better Understand The Big Bang Theory
My understanding of the Big Bang Theory (BBT) is that approximately 13.77 billion years ago a certain singularity came into existence “with a bang”. It was incredibly – infinitely? – dense and small, and it exploded into existence. The explosion was the beginning of the expansion. The Big Bang (BB)
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: How are Psychology PhDs doing on the job market?
I am a reformed and rehabilitated ex-academic. In my previous life, I aspired to be a professor of Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science. I described my experiences in the academic stream in a series entitled The Grad School Gospels. In The Grad School Gospels I have been pessimistic about the
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Why many professors are atheists: Academe as a secular religious community
Atheists. Agnostics. Freethinkers. Nonbelievers. Nontheists. Humanists.Whatever you want to call them and whatever they Famous atheists, including many career academics. want to call themselves. People who do not believe in God. I describe myself as an agnostic atheist and a secular humanist. For the sake of this article, I will
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: What does it mean to be openminded?
A few weeks ago I was considering going to a dinner party called “Conscious Collective Gatherings: Non-Denominational Conversation”. It sounded pretty new age hippie-esque, which is totally not me, but I figured “hey, I might meet a few people there that are intellectually curious and not necessarily the left-wing equivalents
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought
I am currently reading Philosophy in the Flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. Authored by Cognitive Scientists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, this book asks 1) What do major lines of Western philosophical thought assume about the mind? 2) What has cognitive science learned about the
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Credit to Lupe Fiasco for Obama Criticisms
Praise to rapper Lupe Fiasco, who let loose on President Barack Obama during an invited appearance at a Washington DC pre-inauguration celebration yesterday. As per Australian website News.Com.Au, Fiasco spoke against war for 30 minutes, with some criticism directed specifically at the President. Later, in a song, he rapped “Limbaugh
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Reasons I hate hockey
Aesthetics. What is beautiful? What defines beauty, quality and goodness? What distinguishes different levels of quality? For example, why are Oasis’ Wonderwall or Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit iconic songs of an era, whereas Swirl 360′s Hey Now Now fell out of our collective consciousness in months? These questions teeter
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: A brave new world: Why moving beyond university can precipitate crisis
As students approach the completion of their university education some are excited to enter the “Real World”. Others are in no rush to “move on” – perhaps out of fear or uncertainty about their future, anticipatory nostalgia, or a keen awareness of what a uniquely special time the university years
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Society is handcuffed in the Prisoner’s Dilemma: How fear, distrust and a lack of organization continually does us in
From Wikipedia: “The prisoner’s dilemma is a canonical example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: The Grad School Gospels – Part 5: The University Graduate Entitlement Complex
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional baseball. Inspired by Hayhurst and the many commonalities I noticed between the minor league track to the Majors, as he
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Don’t We All Hear Voices? A Mindfulness-Informed View of Schizophrenia and the “Normal” Mind
The hallmark of schizophrenia is perceiving things that are not there. Auditory hallucinations, including “hearing voices”, is particularly common. What if this clinically distinguishing feature of schizophrenia differs from the cognitively distinguishing feature? What if, cognitively speaking, what distinguishes schizophrenia is not the presence of voices, but rather how one
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Are depression and schizophrenia the same?
No. They’re not. But would this post have received as many views and thoughtful comments had I gone with a more sober title like “Affective and Hallucinatory Disorders of the Mind – Do They Have More In Common Than Most Think?”… In any case, now that I’ve got your attention
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Most misunderstood idea of all time – Nominations?
Every year, Edge.Org asks prominent thinkers a big picture question on thought and knowledge. In 2005, they asked What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it? In 2006 it was What is your dangerous idea? In 2008, the big question was What have you changed your
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: The Grad School Gospels – Part 4: On Grad School Goggles and the Cult-Like Nature of Grad School
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional baseball. Inspired by Hayhurst and the many commonalities I noticed between the minor league track to the Majors, as he
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: The Grad School Gospels – Part 3: Academe Can’t Be Your Everything
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional baseball. Inspired by Hayhurst and the many commonalities I noticed between the minor league track to the Majors, as he
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: 75,000 Page Views
So there’s that..
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Is belief in God a choice?
The following satirical video, “Gay Scientists Isolate Christian Gene”, pokes fun at the concept of a “gay gene” and religious opposition to homosexuality. The proportion of people who believe that homosexuality is chosen is decreasing. That’s not to imply that homosexuality is the phenotype expressed by a “gay gene”. Just
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