When we learn things by studying or doing research, we perceive understanding as coming to us in step-like a-ha moments. I will argue that these moments happen more likely when we recognize (or map our observations to) specific patterns of explanation. The snag is, of course, that reality doesn’t always follow human-preferred patterns, so they […]
Category: Behavioral science
The eureka fallacy of symmetry
This post continues the theme of how quirks of the human psyche limit our advancement of knowledge—quirks that are very much avoidable if you are aware of them, but if you aren’t, they move the goalposts for scoring that Eureka feeling. I’ll entertain the hypothesis that if we are presented with a symmetrical, neatly structured […]
Book & music parings. Vol. 1.
The premise is simple: just six fantastic science books and their spirit animals in the zoo of music. “1” because it feels like I forgot some obvious ones. Claude Lévi-Strauss – The Raw and the Cooked (1964)Vague Imaginaires – L’île D’or (2020) Mysterious, eclectic, French, neo-exotica vs. Scientific, eclectic, French structural anthropology. Lévi-Strauss is one of […]
Petter Holme 