Sublime

Our minds have a limited means for self-control. This is to say, we are only capable of withholding ourselves from our impulses and desires for a period of time each day. With practice, we can extend that period, but it is finite regardless. People who understand this use their time wisely: They eliminate unnecessary decision-making, reduce distrac

Contemporary neuroscience identifies a particular part of the brain, sometimes called “the interpreter,” as the source of the familiar internal narrative that gives us our sense of self. Two prominent neuroscientists have recently characterized the quirky, undependable quality of the tale told by the interpreter. Antonio Damasio describes it this w

Your mind, given free undistracted time, will automatically think back over everything it absorbed, and it will start to draw links between them in new ways. This all takes place beneath the level of your conscious mind, but this process is how “new ideas pop together, and suddenly, two thoughts that you didn’t think had a relationship suddenly hav

Smith’s pin

Sa fascination pour ce fragment de cerveau me paraissait, en la circonstance, sacrément audacieuse. Jusqu’à ce que je découvre qu’un certain Thomas Harvey, pathologiste chargé de déterminer les causes de la mort d’Albert Einstein survenue le 18 avril 1955, avait, une fois son travail achevé, quitté l’institut dans lequel il travaillait, emportant a