How we learn about things we don't already understand

How we learn about things we don't already understand

The computation-as-cognitionmetaphor requires that all cognitive objects are constructed from a fixed set of basic primitives; prominent models of cognition and perception try to provide that fixed set. Despite this effort, however, there are no extant computational models that can actually generate complex concepts and processes from simple and generic basic sets, and there are good reasons to...

What we can learn from Helios 522 about how we learn about aviation safety

Abstrac t . The August 2005 Helios 522 accident may end up demonstrating that the reductionist model we apply to understanding safety and risk in aviation (taking systems apart and checking whether individual components meet prespecified criteria) no longer works well. Through a concurrence of functions and events, of which a language barrier was a product as well as constitutive, Helios 522 ma...

What We Already Know about Quintessence

Good tracking requires significant quintessence energy fraction, even in the past, but a potential energy that is not yet truly slow-rolling. The supernova bound on cosmic acceleration excludes constant equation of state and inverse power potentials, but allows the SUGRA potential and other good trackers, in which quintessence energy domination and kinetic energy suppression both began only rec...

Things we don't talk about.

Why we worry about the things we shouldn't...and ignore the things we should.

It would be a lot easier to enjoy your life if there weren't so many things trying to kill you every day. The problems start even before you're fully awake. There's the fall out of bed that kills 600 Americans each year. There's the early-morning heart attack, which is 40% more common than those that strike later in the day. There's the fatal plunge down the stairs, the bite of sausage that get...