Loosely Assembled

just found a stimulating new thing to look at, scroll through, and share:
http://spacecollective.org/gallery/

- related post – musical choo choo

What does it mean that English, and other subject-verb-object languages, might have veered off-course from the dominant (hard wired? or simply ancient?) subject-object-verb model? A recent study shows that despite one’s native linguistic model, non-verbal communication will follow the subject-object-verb format, both gesturally, and diagrammatically. Basically, when people try to communicate with just their hands, they will create “sentences” following the “mice cheese eat” model even if their spoken language would follow a “mice eat cheese” format. The study seems to indicate that the English model is a variant of something more automatic. Why would this kind of change happen?

Could this “promotion” of the verb (and the subsequent “demotion” of the subject) be tied to a cultural deficiency in empathy, our imperialist tendencies or even the rise of individualism? The latter being specifically an effect of object/subject polarization. This same polarization can also be tied to differences between Eastern and Western perceptions of “subject in context” images. The Western description being along the lines of, “a fish in a pond”, while the Eastern version would be more like, “a pond with a fish”.

I guess this still leaves us short when it comes to unravelling Master Yoda’s verb-object-subject format, or whatever he does.

Some people feel tiny, small and insignificant while working on projects that are so huge they require thousands of people (think Chaplin’s Modern Times).

Others feel empowered and proud to be part of something so much larger, they feel grand themselves by association (think WPA).

I’m wrestling with ways to think about microblogging and/or lightning talks (microconferences?) in light of these varying paradigms/responses. Should the individual data nuggets be considered autonomous? or instead as bricks that build up something tremendously massive? Could microblogging be seen as a step towards the ultimate datafication of everything into shuffleable bits? Is this the gateway to the singularity?

So you’re saying that the Chinese believed in dinosaurs before the discovery of fossils because they had discovered fossils?

(quoted from a conversation on atheism over at goodreads.com)

just wanted to take a minute to mention how proud i am of my little brother jacob’s musical prowess:

their space

Get 165 influential people to talk about the first-person experience of a mind changing moment, and you get a fascinating example of flux, wrapped with stimulating personalities and cultural milestones.

The authors include:

Daniel Kahneman, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, W. Daniel Hillis, David Goodhart, Mark Henderson, David Gelernter, Bart Kosko, Randolph M. Nesse, Linda S. Gottfredson, Kai Krause, Clay Shirky, Denis Dutton, Jamshed Bharucha, Lera Boroditsky, Gregory Benford, Richard Dawkins, Roger Bingham, Jesse Bering, Barry Smith, Steve Connor, Geoffrey Miller, George Johnson, Stephon Alexander, Beatrice Golomb, Chris DiBona, Jordan Pollack, Alison Gopnik, Paul Saffo, Neil Gershenfeld, J. Craig Venter, David Sloan Wilson, Simon Baron-Cohen, Austin Dacey, Daniel Engber, Roger Highfield, Francesco De Pretis, Dimitar Sasselov, Jaron Lanier, Janna Levin, Martin Rees, Esther Dyson, Anton Zeilinger, Gerd Gigerenzer, PZ Myers, Susan Blackmore, Adam Bly, Nicholas Humphrey, Paul Ewald, Seirian Sumner, Brian Eno, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Robert Shapiro, Sam Harris, Yossi Vardi, David Buss, Andrian Kreye, Daniel Goleman, James Geary, Tim O’Reilly, Philip Campbell, Frank Wilczek, Chris Anderson, Rupert Sheldrake Nicholas A. Christakis, Daniel C. Dennett, Helena Cronin, Aubrey de Grey, Nicholas Carr, Lisa Randall, Brian Goodwin, Carolyn Porco, William H. Calvin, Mary Catherine Bateson, Stanislas Dehaene, Linda Stone, Sean Carroll, Richard Wrangham, Marco Iacoboni, Scott Atran, Leo Chalupa, John Allen Paulos, Eduardo Punset, Rebecca Goldstein, Juan Enriquez, George Dyson, Paul Davies, Steven Pinker, Alan Alda, Patrick Bateson, Jon Haidt, George Church, Terrence Sejnowski, Judith Rich Harris, Oliver Morton, Stewart Brand, Daniel Gilbert, Sherry Turkle, John Horgan, Roger Schank, Carlo Rovelli, Xeni Jardin, Stephen Schneider, Diane Halpern, Alan Kay, Marti Hearst, Kevin Kelly, Marcel Kinsbourne, Peter Schwartz, Scott Sampson, Ernst Pöppel, John McCarthy, Seth Lloyd, Gary Klein, Stephen Kosslyn,Lawrence Krauss,Jeffrey Epstein, Ken Ford, John Baez, A. Garrett Lisi, Lee Smolin, Gary Marcus, Lee Silver, Laurence Smith, Robert Trivers, Rodney Brooks, Paul Steinhardt, Helen Fisher, Steve Nadis, Tor Nørretranders, Robert Sapolsky, Max Tegmark, David Dalrymple, Daniel Everett, David Myers, Keith Devlin, Todd Feinberg, Robert Provine, Marc D. Hauser, Thomas Metzinger, Dan Sperber, Leon Lederman, Timothy Taylor, Haim Harari, David Bodanis, Charles Seife, Mark Pagel, Arnold Trehub, Gino Segre, Nick Bostrom, Rudy Rucker, David Brin, Ed Regis, Freeman Dyson, Marcelo Gleiser, Irene Pepperberg, Colin Tudge, James O’Donnell, Michael Shermer, Donald Hoffman, Howard Gardner, Piet Hut, Douglas Rushkoff, Karl Sabbagh, Joseph LeDoux, Martin Seligman

New Ideas for a New Era!