(no subject)
Today at work, for the first time in two years, a supervisor mentioned raises. This is happy.
Have discovered The Daily What. Not like I needed another time-waster, but there you go.
Spent about an hour today reading about anosognosia, or the strange phenomenon when some is disabled and entirely unaware that they are disabled. Actually, part of the discussion is whether they are, in fact, subconsciously aware and unable to address it. Apparently, the concept was first applied to people who were paralyzed and for some reason behaved as if they weren't (making excuses, failing to acknowledge their loss, etc), but the writer of the article I was reading applied it to people who didn't seem to be able to realize that they were wrong about something. (Which is downright scary.) Now, I haven't done the research to reach any conclusions about the article, and the thing wanders all over the place (which got on my nerves a bit - I know you're trying to give us an overview, but keep some focus, dude!), but I've always had an interest in epistimology and wanted to know what he had to say about the possibility that it's impossible to comprehend the universe.
And I liked the guy who pointed out that Donald Rumsfeld's speech about "unknown unknowns" was actually honest and insightful. 'Cause it's true. There's the stuff we know, the stuff we know we don't know, and the stuff we don't know because we don't even know they're possible in the first place. To me, it's a corollary to the whole "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Imagine trying to explain the internet to someone from 1910. The concepts didn't exist yet. It was an unknown unknown.
Which is what makes science (and sci fi) so fun. And why technology and science require a certain level of creativity. And why sometimes the smartest thing to do is to say you don't know something.
Argh, coughing fit. Thought I was done with those...
Have discovered The Daily What. Not like I needed another time-waster, but there you go.
Spent about an hour today reading about anosognosia, or the strange phenomenon when some is disabled and entirely unaware that they are disabled. Actually, part of the discussion is whether they are, in fact, subconsciously aware and unable to address it. Apparently, the concept was first applied to people who were paralyzed and for some reason behaved as if they weren't (making excuses, failing to acknowledge their loss, etc), but the writer of the article I was reading applied it to people who didn't seem to be able to realize that they were wrong about something. (Which is downright scary.) Now, I haven't done the research to reach any conclusions about the article, and the thing wanders all over the place (which got on my nerves a bit - I know you're trying to give us an overview, but keep some focus, dude!), but I've always had an interest in epistimology and wanted to know what he had to say about the possibility that it's impossible to comprehend the universe.
And I liked the guy who pointed out that Donald Rumsfeld's speech about "unknown unknowns" was actually honest and insightful. 'Cause it's true. There's the stuff we know, the stuff we know we don't know, and the stuff we don't know because we don't even know they're possible in the first place. To me, it's a corollary to the whole "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Imagine trying to explain the internet to someone from 1910. The concepts didn't exist yet. It was an unknown unknown.
Which is what makes science (and sci fi) so fun. And why technology and science require a certain level of creativity. And why sometimes the smartest thing to do is to say you don't know something.
Argh, coughing fit. Thought I was done with those...