Things to Think About

Think Different
Or “I’m of two minds on that

Think Different was an ad campaign for Apple a few years back but fits.

Juxtaposition of readings

A week or two ago I re-read, for the first time in at least 30 years, A. E. van Vogt’s Worlds of Null-A. (summary here : The World of Null-A - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

“Null-A, or non-Aristotelian logic, refers to the capacity for, and practice of, using intuitive, inductive reasoning (fuzzy logic), rather than reflexive, or conditioned, deductive logic.”

The protagonist has “two brains” and learns how to train them to modify his environment and teleport himself (and defeat the evil aliens).

What drew me to the work of van Vogt was the ability, even ambition to challenge conventional thought about the mind, how it works as well as interesting experiments with time travel (future and past usually within the same story).

Also to the non-absolutist model of thinking, to the uncertainty of the perceived world (influenced by Heisenberg ?).
The world may not be as it appears.

van Vogt was apparently influenced by the work with General Semantics the ideas that words mean things, but are not the things, the map is not the terrain.

While I have read much “science fiction”, and think that it has made it easier to invest in technology and technology stocks, I went back to van Vogt as the most interesting.

Then there was this piece in the NYTimes on male vs. female brains:

(original piece is behind the NYTimes pay-per-view archive wall)

Blog by Judith Warner :

Jan 30, 2006
9:28 pm
A Marriage of Unequals
Categories: Men, Psychology

A couple of years ago, I was standing by my backyard fence in Washington having a gossip with my neighbor, a school counselor. I told her I was going to start working on a book on the mystery of why so many kids are now being diagnosed with so many “issues.”

“I think these kids are just too damn smart,” she said, with a gesture that took in the totality of our consultant-journalist-professor-economist-cancer-resear cher-filled neighborhood. “I think something goes cuckoo with their brain wiring.”

I filed her insight away. It felt true, but how could you dream of researching it, much less proving it? I relegated it to the realm of useful metaphor.

Then last week, while trawling on the Internet for amusing studies to buttress my claim of my husband’s alleged mental deficiencies, I came across an old article in The Guardian by Simon Baron-Cohen on male/female brain differences and their possible link to autism.

Now, Simon Baron-Cohen, you may remember, if you went to any of the male brain links I previously listed, is the director of the Autism Research Center at Cambridge University who has advanced in The Times the theory that autism may be an aspect of having what he calls an “extreme male brain.” His Guardian article provides a longer explanation of what he means by this.

Brains can be divided into three common “types,” Baron-Cohen writes: there is a “female brain,” or Type E brain, for people who are strongest in empathy. There is a “male brain,” or Type S brain, for people who are strongest at understanding and building systems — “systemizing” for short. And there is a “balanced brain,” or Type B — indicating people who are just as strong at empathizing as at systemizing.

Source she linked to:
Guardian Unlimited | Science | The Essential Difference front page

Strange timing ... or maybe it's just my perception of strange timing ...

Then again, maybe this applys :
Plot Summary for All of Me (1984)
(Lily Tomlin occupies the body of Steve Martin, along with Steve)