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Power of the Invisible
“The Power of the Invisible: The Quantessence of Reality” from Sander Bais There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery. Enrico Fermi Quantum Physics is the solid basis of most of our understanding of…
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Greatness Cannot Be Planned
Why does modern life revolve around objectives? From how science is funded, to improving how children are educated — and nearly everything in-between — our society has become obsessed with a seductive illusion: that greatness results from doggedly measuring improvement in the relentless pursuit of an ambitious goal. In Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned—The Myth of…
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Blink and you see it
“Blink and you see it“ Every few seconds, our visual world disappears behind a thin fold of skin that maintains the tear film on the corneal surface and, for more than a tenth of a second, blocks light from falling onto the retina. “Blink and you miss it” is a common idiom that captures how…
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Self-compassion and compassion: predict well-being
“Self-compassion and compassion for others interact to predict well-being” discusses the findings that the effects of compassion for the self on one’s well-being may be contingent on one’s compassion for others. Compassion is generally defined as the motivation and intention to alleviate the suffering of people. Compassion is associated with a number of positive outcomes,…
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“mundane behaviours resembles a drug”
The problem extends across the globe. Researchers have studied compulsive shopping in many countries, including the United States, Turkey, Poland, Germany, India, Brazil, South Korea and Pakistan — where almost one-third of university students were classified as compulsive buyers in both physical stores and online.Heping He, a marketing researcher at Shenzhen University in China, is…
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‘We are kin to everything’
From the Nature Briefing of March 5, 2025 In her hit 2013 book, Braiding Sweetgrass, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, made the argument for bringing together knowledge from Western and Indigenous science. In The Serviceberry, she turns her microscope on the damaging disconnects between capitalist economics and the circular economy…
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A Drive to Survive
“A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life“ How the purposive behavior of living systems outstrips the constraints of the free energy principle. Since 2005, Karl Friston’s proposal that the principle of free energy minimization underpins the purposive behavior of living agents has evolved through thousands of publications. This principle’s central…
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AI only sees the data trail, not the human story
Cassie Kozyrkov just shared a great story: “AI only sees the data trail, not the human story“ AI only sees the past, not the future.AI only sees the pattern, not the purpose.AI only sees the data trail, not the human story.AI only sees compliance, not commitment.AI only sees keyword matches, not understanding.AI only sees what…
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One day
One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this. Omar El Akkad
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Civil society comes of age in economics
“Civil society comes of age in economics: Tracking a century of research“ Using topic modeling on the corpus of papers published in seven leading economics journals since 1900, we study the evolving emphasis in research on themes relating to the state, markets, and civil society, the latter referring to families, firms as organizations, other private…
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Humans rationally balance abstract world models
This work adds to a growing body of research showing that the brain arbitrates between approximate decision strategies. The current study extends these ideas from simple habits into usage of more sophisticated approximate predictive models, and demonstrates that individuals dynamically adapt these in response to the predictability of their environment. How do people model the…
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Defining intelligence: Bridging the gap
“Defining intelligence: Bridging the gap between human and artificial perspectives“ Achieving a widely accepted definition of human intelligence has been challenging, a situation mirrored by the diverse definitions of artificial intelligence in computer science. By critically examining published definitions, highlighting both consistencies and inconsistencies, this paper proposes a refined nomenclature that harmonizes conceptualizations across the two disciplines.…
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As For Protocols
Explicitly—or not—protocols determine much of what we do. Far exceeding traditional notions of “good manners,” protocols are systems of language that regulate how we relate to each other, to our cultural, social, and political environments, and to the technologies that create them. The first publication to critically examine protocols across a wide range of disciplines, As…
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Is Ockham’s razor losing its edge?
Is Ockham’s razor losing its edge? New perspectives on the principle of model parsimony The preference for simple explanations, known as the parsimony principle, has long guided the development of scientific theories, hypotheses, and models. Yet recent years have seen a number of successes in employing highly complex models for scientific inquiry (e.g., for 3D…
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A hidden Gem – Residuality
Software architecture for a rapidly changing world – with Barry O’Reilly describes the marvelous journey of Residues as an ‘Antifragile’ Software Architecture decision process (but also scalable to solution and Enterprise Architecture) Residuality theory is a revolutionary new theory of software design that aims to make it easier to design software systems for complex business…
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Why probability probably doesn’t exist
(but it is useful to act like it does) David Spiegelhalter All of statistics and much of science depends on probability — an astonishing achievement, considering no one’s really sure what it is. In our everyday world, probability probably does not exist — but it is often useful to act as if it does.— David…
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Incompleteness and Computability
Incompleteness and Computability, An Open Introduction to Gödel’s Theorems is “Remixed by Richard Zach”. It is a textbook on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and computability theory, developed for Calgary’s Logic III course, based on the Open Logic Project. The book covers recursive function theory, arithmetization of syntax, the first and second incompleteness theorem, models of arithmetic,…
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Explanation in Biology
The most recent publication from the series “Philisophy of Biology” is “Explanation in Biology“, available for free download at the site. The book introduces and elaborates scientific explanations in biology and the life sciences. Explanations are viewed as a “primary” objective of science – theyoffer deep understanding and knowledge of the world, as opposed to…
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ostracism across contexts
“Psychosocial and behavioural consequences of ostracism across contexts“ Ostracism (being ignored and excluded) thwarts basic psychological needs fundamental for human survival. As a painful experience, ostracism has various mental health, cognitive and behavioural consequences. In this Review, we outline the main psychosocial and behavioural consequences of ostracism and consider how these consequences might be unique…
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The unbearable slowness of being …
The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s? This article is about the neural conundrum behind the slowness of human behavior. The information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s. In comparison, our sensory systems gather data at ∼109 bits/s. The stark contrast between these numbers remains unexplained and touches…
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Penguin Update 12/2024
The Leif Penguinson article I wrote a while ago refers to an article in Nature, which got updated 12/2023 and also 12/2024. Of course, you always can have your regular “Can you spot the penguin?” when you follow the Nature Briefings
Surtil : 