A surprising number of people, regardless of language, identify the rounded shape as “Bouba” and the pointy shape as “Kiki” even though they had not been told what the words might mean. Even very young children make the same identification most of the time. What does this mean? Is this evidence of a human predisposition to associating certain sounds with abstract concepts?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMrqBldlqzA
The Bible tells us that God created Adam and Eve just a few thousand years ago, by some fundamentalist interpretations. Science informs us that this is mere fiction and that man is a few million years old, and that civilization just tens of thousands of years old. Could it be, however, that conventional science is just as mistaken as the Bible stories? There is a great deal of archeological evidence that the history of life on earth might be far different than what current geological and anthropological texts tell us. Consider THESE astonishing finds.
Sexual intercourse plays a major role in Bonobo society, being used as a greeting, a means of conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconciliation. With the exception of a pair of Cohan gorillas observed doing so, Bonobos were thought to be the only non-human apes to have been observed engaging in all of the following sexual activities: face-to-face genital sex, tongue kissing, and oral sex.
In conspiracy theory, “New World Order” is a term that refers to a hypothetical totalitarian end of history. At the extreme, some theorists speculate that a powerful and secretive group is conspiring to eventually rule the world via an autonomous world government, which would replace sovereign states and other checks and balances in international power struggles. In most theories, significant occurrences are said to be caused by an extremely influential cabal operating through many front organizations. Historical and current events are seen as steps in an on-going plot to rule the world primarily through crypto-politics: a combination of campaign finance, social engineering, fear-based propaganda, and even mind control.
The Grandfather Paradox is a proposed paradox of time travel: suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveller’s grandmother. As a result, one of the traveller’s parents (and by extension, the traveller himself) would never have been conceived. This would imply that he could not have travelled back in time after all, which in turn implies the grandfather would still be alive, and the traveller would have been conceived, allowing him to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. Thus each possibility seems to imply its own negation, a type of logical paradox. The grandfather paradox has been used to argue that backwards time travel must be impossible. However, a number of possible ways of avoiding the paradox have been proposed, such as the idea that the timeline is fixed and unchangeable, or the idea that the time traveler will end up in a parallel timeline, while the timeline in which the traveler was born remains independent.
Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Dangers, as well as benefits, are of great concern to the transhumanist movement.
The Abilene paradox is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group’s and, therefore, does not raise objections
The 1992 novel Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman fictionalizes Albert Einstein as a young scientist who is troubled by dreams as he works on his theory of relativity in 1905. The book consists of 30 chapters, each exploring one dream about time that Einstein had during this period. The framework of the book consists of a prelude, three interludes, and an epilogue. Einstein’s friend, Michele Besso, appears in these sections. Each dream involves a conception of time. Some scenarios may involve exaggerations of true phenomena related to relativity, and some may be entirely fantastical. The book demonstrates the relationship each human being has to time, and thus spiritually affirms Einstein’s theory of relativity.
The term Arcology, from the words “architecture” and “ecology,” is a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density. These largely hypothetical structures, called “arcologies,” would contain a variety of residential and commercial facilities and minimize individual human environmental impact. They are often portrayed as self-contained or economically self-sufficient.
The anima and animus are two terms use by psychologist Carl Jung to describe the feminine and masculine halves of the personality. He thought that all people had either a feminine (anima) or masculine (animus) side. The goal of the person, in reaching individuation and having a whole personality is to integrate the side opposite to their gender. Therefore men have an anima, feminine side, and women have an animus, masculine side. Jung’s theories included the idea that the anima and animus primarily resided in the unconscious, but failure to recognize or incorporate them into the personality might mean a backlash from the unconscious. In other words, a man who refuses to recognize his anima may end up being anima-driven, and act with the worst aspects of the anima. Alternately, he may deliberately assert the negative aspects of his masculine self to attempt to control his anima from emerging. Homophobia in the male would be an example of a person desperate to control aspects of his self that he thinks are feminine.
Our astronauts experience 16 sunrises and sunsets in one day, as the ISS orbits Earth every 90 minutes.The crews spend around 160 man-hours per week doing scientific experiments; the rest of their time is spent on maintenance, Station control activities and spacewalks. Wet wipes are used for personal hygiene. Sleeping involves wrapping yourself in a sleeping bag attached to the wall. The astronauts use ear plugs to keep out the noise of the life-support systems that are continuously running, as well as sounds caused by the thermal expansion and contraction of the ISS itself.
In addition to being one of the top-selling American authors of the twentieth century,
Kurt Vonnegut is an accomplished graphic artist. He has produced illustrated editions of Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions, and he even created an album cover for the progressive rock band Phish. In his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story. The first and presumably most important is this: “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. He majored in biochemistry, mechanical engineering, and anthropology at various colleges but never completed a degree in any of them. A contemporary classic, Slaughterhouse Five was named after his holding cell as a POW during WWII. Also, he has an asteroid named in his honor—Asteroid 25399 Vonnegut.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is a deity thought up and designed as a satirical protest to the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. The FSM is the deity of the parody religion The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, founded in 2005 by Bobby Henderson. Since the intelligent design movement used ambiguous references to an unspecified ‘Intelligent Designer’ to avoid court rulings prohibiting the teaching of creationism as a science, this presumably left open the possibility that any imaginable thing could fill that role. Henderson called for the “Pastafarian” theory of creation to be taught in Kansas science classrooms. Due to its recent popularity and media exposure, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is often used by atheists, agnostics (known by Pastafarians as “spagnostics”), and others as a modern version of Russell’s teapot and the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
The Superstring Theory is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one theory by modelling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings. It is considered one of the most promising candidate theories of quantum gravity[citation needed]. Superstring theory is a shorthand for supersymmetric string theory because unlike bosonic string theory, it is the version of string theory that incorporates fermions and supersymmetry.
Mary Sue, sometimes shortened simply to Sue, is a pejorative term used to describe a fictional character who plays a major role in the plot and is particularly characterized by overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors or readers. Perhaps the single underlying feature of all characters described as “Mary Sues” is that they are too ostentatious for the audience’s taste, or that the author seems to favor the character too highly. The author may seem to push how exceptional and wonderful the “Mary Sue” character is on his or her audience, sometimes leading the audience to dislike or even resent the character fairly quickly; such a character could be described as an “author’s pet”.”Mary Sues” can be either male or female, but male characters are often dubbed “Marty Stu”, “Gary Stu”, or similar names.
An incubus (plural incubi) is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions. Its female counterpart is the succubus. An incubus may pursue sexual relations with a woman in order to father a child, as in the legend of Merlin, and some sources indicate that it may be identified by its unnaturally cold penis. Religious tradition holds that repeated intercourse with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death.
Many religions include a particular spirit, angel, or deity whose responsibility is to escort newly-deceased souls to the afterlife. These creatures are called psychopomps, from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός (psychopompos), literally meaning the “guide of souls”. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage. Frequently depicted on funerary art, psychopomps have been associated at different times and in different cultures with horses, whippoorwills, ravens, dogs, crows, owls, sparrows, cuckoos, harts, and dolphins. In Jungian psychology, the psychopomp is a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms. It is symbolically personified in dreams as a wise man (or woman), or sometimes as a helpful animal. In many cultures, the shaman also fulfills the role of the psychopomp. This may include not only accompanying the soul of the dead, but also vice versa: to help at birth, to introduce the newborn’s soul to the world.
The Forer effect (also called personal validation fallacy or the Barnum Effect after P. T. Barnum’s observation that “we’ve got something for everyone”) is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. The Forer effect can, assuming their actual falsity, provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some pseudosciences such as astrology and fortune telling, as well as many types of personality tests. A related and more generic phenomenon effect is that of subjective validation. Subjective validation occurs when two unrelated or even random events are perceived to be related because a belief, expectancy, or hypothesis demands a relationship. Thus people seek a correspondence between their perception of their personality and the contents of a horoscope.
In the mental health field, schizophasia, commonly referred to as word salad, is confused, and often repetitious, language that is symptomatic of various mental illnesses. It is usually associated with a manic presentation and other symptoms of serious mental illnesses, such as psychoses, including schizophrenia. It is characterized by an apparently confused usage of words with no apparent meaning or relationship attached to them. In this context, it is considered to be a symptom of a formal thought disorder. In some cases schizophasia can be a sign of asymptomatic schizophrenia; e.g. the question “Why do people believe in God?” could elicit a response consisting of a series of words commonly associated with religion or prayer but strung together with no regard to language rules. For example: “Because he makes a twirl in life, my box is broken help me blue elephant. Isn’t lettuce brave? I like electrons, hello.”
The Sentinelese (also Sentineli, Senteneli, Sentenelese, North Sentinel Islanders) are one of the Andamanese indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal. They inhabit North Sentinel Island which lies westwards off the southern tip of the Great Andaman archipelago. They are noted for vigorously resisting attempts of contact by outsiders. By their long-standing separation from any other human society they are the most isolated and unassimilated people on Earth. Their social practices have been almost entirely free of external influence since the end of slave trading three centuries ago. They will kill you. With arrows.
The Gaia Hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth (atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere) are closely integrated to form a complex interacting system that maintains the climatic and biogeochemical conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis. Originally proposed by James Lovelock as the earth feedback hypothesis, it was named—at the suggestion of his neighbor William Golding—the Gaia Hypothesis, after the Greek supreme goddess of Earth. The hypothesis is frequently described as viewing the Earth as a single organism. Lovelock and other supporters of the idea now regard it as a scientific theory, not merely a hypothesis, since they believe it has passed predictive tests.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gWmm2HBAxk
