Category: Notes

A thorough examination of the topic: “What is the Internet doing to our brains?” Carr pulls together a broad range of experiences, reports and research studies to evaluate, though not necessarily draw conclusions, of how our use of computers, and particularly our use of the internet, is literally reshaping our brains. There is a lot of good material in this book, including some ideas on how to enhance your brain.

Interesting tidbit: when reading off of a paper, our eyes are drawn line by line, row to row in a zig-zag fashion (left to right, top to bottom). When reading off an electronic display (e.g. computer, phone, tablet, etc.) our eyes are drawn across the first line of the page, down the left side until the half way point, across the half way point and then down the left side to the bottom of the page (in an “F” shaped pattern). This means, as proved in numerous studies, that students learn and retain more from an actual book than from electronic books. Which is almost ironic to consider how hard schools are pushing ebooks on their students that will inherently result in slower, more difficult learning.

(Note: these patterns are for the Latin-based world, which is English, French, German, etc. Arabic and other language bases have their own distinct patterns that the eyes follow.)

Detailed notes

• Technology literally changes our thinking over time
• Technology can extend our strength, extend our senses, reshape the world, and extend our or alter our thinking
• Clichés were designed to ease memory
• New media always reallocates old medium
• Using the internet starts rewiring the brain within a few hours of use
  • This is helped in part because computers are, almost, a full-body experience for reward-response engagement
  • Browsing the internet can help old minds stay intact
• We literally pause, for the briefest moment, every time we come across a link to determine if we should click or not
• We build long-term memory schemas through experience
• Unique events live in isolation but become connected overtime with similar events
• Book reading provides a slow, steady drip of information, letting us move the information from working-memory to long-term memory with ease
• Videogame playing increasing one’s abilities to shift eye focus and identify object in a field of view
• IQ scores have been rising over time (basically since tests were created) however, this is more likely because things we think are “intelligent” began to permeate society; we think in ways better aligned with the test
  • Other “smart” results have been dropping (for example math and language skills)
• The cheaper information is, the more we can afford to accumulate, the more money Google makes through ads
• Removing thoughts from the context of their books is to dismantle comprehensive thought
• Memorizing strengthens our mental skills
• The connecting of memories is thinking
• “We shape our tools but thereafter they shape us.”
• Tools alienate us from the portion of nature that they enhance

Gould discusses how the conflicts between science and the humanities (religion) are fabricated to put an illogical conflict that should not exist and only drags down both. Instead, science and the humanities should learn to work together. The humanities pride themselves on having one single tactic that works (the method of the hedgehog) while the sciences pride themselves on having a variety of tactics that work (the method of the fox) and that both should learn from each other in order to propel their respective studies into the future. The Magister’s Pox was the method of creating the conflict so that they could remain in control.

Interesting tidbit: Gould argues an unusual point for a scientist: that the perfection of the earth and the biosphere should do more to prove that there is a God than anything short of actually seeing Him. Evolution has one of two possibilities: that nature figured out how to do things by its self or that God put things into such a perfect organization and alignment that He did not need to continually intervene.

This book is a history of the fascinating evolution of the field of molecular biology, particularly the ground breaking work of Seymour Benzer. It was interesting to note that this field has been growing so quickly that few students in the field today have heard of Benzer or his fruit fly experiments.

Interesting tidbit: all fruit flies, and most other animals, have a built in “rest” mechanism that tries to put them to sleep in the afternoon. They think this is to encourage us to survive the afternoon heat and thus be more productive in life.

When you get a bunch of small and simple things together and give them simple commands, clear patterns of behavior begin to emerge. This is true for ant colonies, computer program logic and even cities full of people. We are finding more and more that we need more simple and basic programming and planning to achieve greater and more complex results.

Interesting tidbit: Queen ants do not direct the actions of the colony, in fact no ant is “in charge”. Instead, each individual ant lays down and detect pheromone trails that indicate what is going on in the colony. If an ant detects too many pheromones from harvesting activities it will go check on the nursery.  If the nursery is full of “happily taken care of” pheromones then it will check on the gardens. Using this system of pheromones, the ants can quickly adapt to the changing needs of the colony. Additionally, the system is self healing because no single ants (or small collection of them) calls the shots.

Good murder mystery. An unknown stranger gathers together ten people onto an island for a weekend getaway. One by one, each of the patrons get voted off the island through their mysterious death. The remaining patrons band together to find the killer, but fail in their attempts. In the end, we learn that each member has committed so crime that they were not successfully tried for thus justice has finally been served.