Physics and the Immortality of the Soul | Guest Blog The topic of "life after death" raises disreputable connotations of past-life regression and haunted houses, but there are a large number of people in the world who believe in some form of persistence of the individual soul after life ends. Clearly this is an important question, one of the most important ones we can possibly think of in terms of relevance to human life. If science has something to say about, we should all be interested in hearing. Adam Frank thinks that science has nothing to say about it. He advocates being "firmly agnostic" on the question. (His coblogger Alva Noë resolutely disagrees.) Adam claims that there "simply is no controlled, experimental[ly] verifiable information" regarding life after death. Obviously this is completely crazy. We also know better for life after death, although people are much more reluctant to admit it. Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions.
“My Bad!” How Internal Attribution and Ambiguity of Responsibility Affect Learning from Failure Executive Summary — As scholars and practitioners have observed, failure clearly presents a valuable opportunity for learning in organizations. All too often, however, the opportunity is lost. Indeed, prior studies on the topic suggest that, perhaps ironically, such learning often fails to occur. In this paper the authors begin to uncover when and why individuals are more likely to learn from failed experiences. Specifically, they present evidence from three studies that support a conceptual model of learning from failure as operating through individuals' internal attributions of failure, driven in part by low ambiguity of responsibility, that lead to increased learning effort and subsequent improvement. The paper thus makes theoretical advances and carries implications for managers. This paper offers a more nuanced view of learning that provides an integrated conceptual model for understanding individual learning from failure.
Le risque de l’idéologie du groupe La lecture de la semaine, il s’agit d’un article du New York Times transmis par une aimable correspondante. Il s’intitule : « La domination de la nouvelle idéologie du groupe », et on le doit à Susan Cain, auteure d’un ouvrage sur la question intitulé Quiet : The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (Silence : le pouvoir des introvertis dans un monde qui n’arrête pas de parler). La solitude n’est plus à la mode, commence Susan Cain. Nos entreprises, nos écoles, notre culture sont esclaves d’une nouvelle idéologie qui postule que la créativité et l’efficacité naissent dans des lieux étrangement grégaires. Mais il y a un problème dans cette manière de voir, considère Susan Cain. Culturellement, explique Susan Cain, nous sommes à ce point fasciné par le charisme que nous ignorons la partie silencieuse du processus créatif. Et pourtant, poursuit Susan Cain, la nouvelle idéologie du groupe a pris possession de nos lieux de travail. Image : CC. Xavier de la Porte
Science/Nature | 'Fidelity gene' found in voles A single gene can turn the Don Juan of voles into an attentive home-loving husband, Nature magazine has reported. By altering the small animal's brain hormone chemistry, scientists have made a promiscuous meadow vole faithful - just like its prairie vole cousin. The researchers think this will lead to a greater understanding of how social behaviour is controlled in humans. The same hormone activity could play a role in disorders like autism where people can lack simple social skills. Falling in love Fewer than 5% of mammals are habitually monogamous. After mating, the males "fall in love": they stick close to their chosen one, guard her jealously and help her raise their young. Closely related meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus), on the other hand, take a more standard approach. Previous studies indicated a hormone called vasopressin encourages pair-bonding in prairie voles. Reward system The results were remarkable. How does one hormone have such a dramatic effect? Autism link?
How to Help Someone Develop Emotional Intelligence If you are one of the unlucky people who must deal with a clueless colleague or a brutish boss, you’re not alone. Sadly, far too many people at work lack basic emotional intelligence. They simply don’t seem to have the self-awareness and the social skills that are necessary to work in our complicated multicultural and fast-moving companies. These people make life hell for the rest of us. What can you do to turn these folks around and make work a healthier, happier, more productive place to be? Whose job is it, anyway, to fix these people? If one of these socially awkward or downright nasty people works directly for you, it is indeed your job to do something. Here’s the problem: EI is difficult to develop because it is linked to psychological development and neurological pathways created over an entire lifetime. Most of us assume that people will change their behavior when told to do so by a person with authority (you, the manager). First, find the dream. Learning goals are big.
Et si le travail en groupe tuait la créativité? Première salve tirée par Susan Cain, auteure d'un ouvrage intitulé « Quiet : The Power of introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking » (Silence : le pouvoir des introvertis dans un monde qui n'arrête pas de parler). Elle y dénonce la culture de l'hypermodernité dans laquelle tout échange valable se base sur les réunions, sur un espace de travail partagé en commun et sur les réseaux intranet. La vogue de l'intelligence collective postule la grégarité comme moteur de la créativité et de l'efficacité. Trouver une idée, un travail individuel Les travaux des psychologues Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi et Gregory Feist ont ainsi montré que les plus créatifs sont souvent introvertis parce qu'ils seraient plus à l'aise dans le travail solitaire et mieux concentré sur la tâche. Se méfier de l'idée fixe collective L'expression de soi
Can We Use Fiction to Teach Nonfiction? - Brainstorm Laurence Olivier (left) as Richard III, and Ralph Richardson as Buckingham. All I know about Richard III I learned from Shakespeare; you gotta problem wid dat? (image from Wikipedia) To what extent, if at all, is it useful/feasible/desirable to use fiction to teach nonfictive material? I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. We don’t really know how and why social living evolved, not only in our own ancestors but among living things more generally. As the two protagonists, simply known as The Man and The Boy, trudge along the desolate and eponymous Road in the aftermath of an unspecified fiery Armageddon, they desperately seek to avoid “Bad Guys,” who turn out to be pretty much anyone and everyone else. I can imagine using The Road as a tool in teaching about this aspect of biology: The surprisingly fraught question of “to be or not to be” social. Nor would “explanatory fiction” be limited to the illumination of wars. Return to Top
Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model Getting people to do their best work, even in trying circumstances, is one of managers’ most enduring and slippery challenges. Indeed, deciphering what motivates us as human beings is a centuries-old puzzle. Some of history’s most influential thinkers about human behavior—among them Aristotle, Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud, and Abraham Maslow—have struggled to understand its nuances and have taught us a tremendous amount about why people do the things they do. Such luminaries, however, didn’t have the advantage of knowledge gleaned from modern brain science. Their theories were based on careful and educated investigation, to be sure, but also exclusively on direct observation. Fortunately, new cross-disciplinary research in fields like neuroscience, biology, and evolutionary psychology has allowed us to peek under the hood, so to speak—to learn more about the human brain. Managers attempting to boost motivation should take note. The Four Drives That Underlie Motivation 1. 2. 3. 4. Culture.