The story has a good cadence to it until about 2/3 through where it accelerates to getting its themes across at the expense of coherence. It feels like story was pushed toward publication before it was fully developed. Lots of background questions left unanswered. Poor fictional geography. These would have been permissible but too much psychological complexity is introduced towards the end to ignore them. It’s a decent quick read, but unclear what kind of story this is.
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Landscape designer in the NC Mountains and Piedmont | Proprietor of KALEIOPE Environmental Design | Autodidact Polymath | Certified Meteobierologue | Avid reader | Reluctant SysAdmin
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33% complete! Peter W. Flint has read 5 of 15 books.
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Peter W. Flint finished reading The Morningside by Téa Obreht
The Morningside by Téa Obreht
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.
After being expelled …
Peter W. Flint reviewed The Morningside by Téa Obreht
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to …
Well-written, lacks thematic development
3 stars
Peter W. Flint quoted The Morningside by Téa Obreht
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to …
You can’t just force these things…You have to drift into them…There’s a world underneath the world. You can’t ask and ask and ask to see it. Otherwise, these glimpses of it, they turn bad.
— The Morningside by Téa Obreht (Page 50)
Peter W. Flint started reading The Morningside by Téa Obreht
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to …
Not sure it meets my interests based on jacket copy, but pretty immediately available from local library so giving it a shot.
Peter W. Flint wants to read A Man and His Cat, Vol. 1 by Umi Sakurai
A Man and His Cat, Vol. 1 by Umi Sakurai
In the pet shop he calls home, a chubby, homely cat whiles away the hours listening to coos of delight …
Peter W. Flint rated The Brain from Inside Out: 5 stars
Peter W. Flint finished reading The Brain from Inside Out by György Buzsáki MD PhD
Pretty convincing argument for inverting the current neuroscience paradigm with implications for mental health treatment and AI development. The current paradigm, “outside-in,” studies the brain from theories of mind developed from behavior and observation prior to effective measurement tools. Buzsaki believes this perspective has outworn its usefulness and suggests reorienting ourselves around what we know about brain systems. That is, by testing specific neural functions and observing the behaviors that arise, rather than observing a behavior and investigating the neural mechanisms behind them. This is in part due to ways in which separate systems within the brain intersect and reinforce each other to produce a vast variety of behaviors all from the same base networks. One example being the 6000+ languages that all arise from the same region of the brain.
The main thesis refutes the tabula rasa paradigm, that the brain is a blank space onto which experience is …
Pretty convincing argument for inverting the current neuroscience paradigm with implications for mental health treatment and AI development. The current paradigm, “outside-in,” studies the brain from theories of mind developed from behavior and observation prior to effective measurement tools. Buzsaki believes this perspective has outworn its usefulness and suggests reorienting ourselves around what we know about brain systems. That is, by testing specific neural functions and observing the behaviors that arise, rather than observing a behavior and investigating the neural mechanisms behind them. This is in part due to ways in which separate systems within the brain intersect and reinforce each other to produce a vast variety of behaviors all from the same base networks. One example being the 6000+ languages that all arise from the same region of the brain.
The main thesis refutes the tabula rasa paradigm, that the brain is a blank space onto which experience is written. Rather, the brain possesses a certain number of patterning templates (ie gestalts) that it compares and derives relationships from in the real world. Two systems, one generalizing/non-specific and the other precision-based/specific, work together to assign attention and meaning to various phenomena. These are eerily similar to the fast/slow systems described by Kahnemann et al, though both arrived at their conclusions separately.
Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in consciousness and theory of mind.
Peter W. Flint commented on The Brain from Inside Out by György Buzsáki MD PhD
Content warning Chapter Summary
Ch 10: Discussion of space and time in the brain. Makes the interesting case that these are concepts derived from measuring tools and that the brain does not have centralized, internal mechanisms for tracking either. Neurons and neuronal groupings can track firing rate but these are self-referential and do not rely on an internal “clock.” Space is tracked by grid cells and place cells but these do not calculate distance. Rather, the brain sees space and time as equivalent, and will come up with ways create reference objects within local surroundings for either, as demonstrated by a variety of indigenous cultures that do not use formal metrics.
Peter W. Flint commented on The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui by Stephen Skinner
Content warning Chapter Summaries
Ch. 1: Introduction to concept of feng-shui, terms, principles, and schools of thought. A landscape is balanced by active (yang) energy and passive (yin) energy. The dwelling and the gravesite are the respective archetypes of these two energies in the built environment. Properly siting each of these is the primary goal of feng-shui. Two schools developed in this endeavor. The Form school uses an intuitive approach of reading geomorphology to determine sites for buildings. The Compass school uses metrics and analysis. Once a building is sited, additional landscape elements are introduced to correct any disturbances in flow of energy.
Ch. 2: “Energy” is referred to as chi. In its simplest sense, chi is the vital energy conferred by the breath that animates the mind and body. However, it exists along all layers of physical space, including the landscape. Chi has a variety of qualities, but the major sheng chi and ssu chi reflect the yang/yin balances observed. The purpose of feng-shui is to slow and collect chi while not allowing it to stagnate. Lengthening and curving water courses is one approach to this. Planting wind breaks or fencing is another. Chi transforms its quality throughout the day and according to influence of the planets. Each landscape element therefore requires attention and balance, as well as an outlet to allow continuous flow across neighboring sites.
Peter W. Flint commented on The Brain from Inside Out by György Buzsáki MD PhD
First post from new instance. It seems that earlier book comments and reviews did not survive the migration process.
Nothing is permanent.
About 2/3 through this book. Pretty dense with neuroscience despite the attempt at plain language. The whole premise of the book is to upend the conventional (outside in) approach to studying the brain, which is to observe a behavior and investigate the neural mechanism underlying it. Buzsaki argues we should be looking at neural relationships first (outside in) and seeing what behaviors emerge.