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Taking down field notes on life and actions, events, people, and objects in it
Browsing All Posts filed under »Cognition«
Decision-making, Categorization, and Jobs
Sheena Iyengar. Hopefully some day that’s a name that doesn’t need much explaining in the same way I don’t need to explain Michael Jordan or Albert Einstein. But if you don’t know her, she’s a social psychology professor at Columbia University. And she’s Indian. And she’s blind. She was speaking in promotion of her book […]
Bags: Embodied Metaphor for Categories
January 20, 2011 by B.J.D.Armas
We don’t like shit that might appear to us “unwieldy” if were not specifically looking for it. “Unwieldy” means messy. “Messy” just means that we have no structure of concepts of how to understand how something or some things work. To deal with the unwieldy and messy, “bags” function as nice neat containers to place, […]
People React Strongly to Categories not Individuals
January 7, 2011 by B.J.D.Armas
A theoretical realization today: People will react more strongly to whatever is perceived as more unbreakable. What is “unbreakable” tends to be big categories, and systems, than things or persons perceived as “individuals.” A few definitions to understand that realization: “Categories” and “systems” is stuff like capitalism, socialism, police, all of which which contain defined […]
What Knowledge Needs to be Embodied, and What Knowledge can be Outsourced to Technology
January 19, 2010 by B.J.D.Armas
Bastard, you took this idea and this idea.* Back in May, I wrote about how we in the globally urbanized American culture have “outsourced” a lot of our knowledge from our bodies to technologies. With that “outsourcing” to technologies, those technologies become “extensions of our minds.” I’ve been struck by how we continually outsource our […]
Memory Practices in Science Students Before Tests: Flash Cards
December 20, 2009 by B.J.D.Armas
The title of this essay, inspired by this book on general Memory Practices in the Sciences. I don’t think anyone has ever really been fond of tests. Board exams, spelling tests. What made me squeamish about entering the sciences was the barrage and culture of testing. From the stories of malicious professors administering tests to […]
Memento and Inflexible First Impressions
December 13, 2009 by B.J.D.Armas
Do I lie to myself to be happy? In your case, Teddy, yes, I will. After having an argument with this undercover police man named Teddy, Leonard writes on the back of Teddy’s polaroid photo in all CAPS “DO NOT BELIEVE HIS LIES.” He writes this very important note on his photo, along with his […]
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January 28, 2012 by B.J.D.Armas
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