fleshyorgansEssays from a guy with too much pontification on his hands |
This morning I was simultaneously reading this article about the new Windows 8 interface and helping my brother with github. Had a sudden epiphany and point of empathy with technologically illiterate people.
It basically boils down to: For the computer illiterate, Computers Really Are Magic
Continue reading and I’ll explain what I mean.
I wanted to decorate my laptop a little bit, set me apart from the hoi polloi, so I purchased a decal from a random amazon seller. It’s pretty sweet. A slight problem though: the company sent me some free stickers. I don’t know what to do with them.
I’m sitting here looking at various language videos online, perusing the resources available to me in a 1st world magic-land. There are quite a few free resources if you’re willing to do a bit of searching. I’m very fortunate to have access to so many learning opportunities. It’s too bad that it’s all structured wrong.
Radiolab has a new hour-long episode out, this time it’s on words. It seems like more people are doing more and more research on how language works and how it interfaces with cognition. This pleases me greatly!
The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 5):
An interesting take on perception and self-perception. This dovetails with the Dunning-Kruger effect — the cognitive bias where you think you are better at something than you really are. Part that is hinted at but not really dwelled on is that there is always some utility in self-deception, cluelessness, etc. The individual is getting something out of it, even if it’s just feeling safe.
Also talks about the lemon juice bandit. Which I’d forgotten about, but is an awesome story.
Link: Seeing Languages Differently:
According to this article, language affects how you actually perceive the world. For example, an English speaker perceives red and pink as within the same class of “reddish” colors. Russian speakers, on the other hand, see them as distinct and separate.
Also interesting, certain optical illusions involving spacial cognition do not work for eastern speakers — only western ones. That’s kind of amazing to me.
What I would like to know is how fluency in more than one language changes things. Does one language’s sense-precepts only take charge when using that language, or do they coexist in a dissonant fashion?
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