Tag Archives: intelligence

Picking up a chick, getting her attention

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March 2012

 

The smell of fresh print. The look of discount sale tag on the book jacket. The texture of paperback papers brushing against your fingers.

Then, the transaction you’ve been anticipating for weeks, waiting for your favorite writer scribing your chick-lit heroines in various professions who are all, deep down, a flawed girl trying to get her life in perspective.

 

 

I’ve got to confess. I’ve been reading Jane Greens, Curtin Sittenfelds and Candace Bushnells ever since I can remember. Or at least ever since I reached puberty. Starting from about 3 to 4 years ago, I ditched them all entirely for Guns, Germs, and Steels and other books that are considered a really big deal.

At the same time, I almost entirely gave up on my love life and considered ditching school to seek the right thing for me and discover who I truly am with that amount of pressure, the pressure of becoming a college dropout (which painfully strikes you for a lifetime). As i grow up, I do realize that I am a rebel against the simple equation of a woman’s life – a rocky ring and a wealthy husband. It’s so hyped over that it’s become a formula for happily -ever-after stories, which just reminds you how unique you are. During this time, I was trying to find a deeper meaning to life, trying to find all the possible solutions I can find by consulting different authors, novelists, and journalists. However, a smart girl knows that she cannot afford the dropout thing. Especially when she realizes she has to compromise with the convention even if it’s a tiny bit compromise, the important thing is compromise. All these scientific backups for autonomy over your life and taking advantage of free will is a sham if you don’t follow your truest character. The inner chick-lit novel heroine.

Almost at the same time, now, the iPad hasn’t even reached its 2nd birthday yet, but the rise of reading tablets have obviously influenced bookstore sales. Borders used to be my favorite hangout place where I can lose myself all day just reading all kinds of stuff, from science to business to art and children’s books. But now, they’re completely wiped out. My compromise is keeping a collection of Google eBooks, another collection in Amazon Kindle, some Kobo books, and another shelf in my iBooks app – while still using my 1st generation iPad – minus 3G connectivity. You divide all your attention everytime, everywhere. And I began to ask myself again – out of all these amazing authors, who’s really my hero/heroine?

The reading experience with a physical book has been and always be a serene place where you give your full attention to that heroine who’s guiding her life to you, detailing all her blunders and daily inanities about modern living, still injecting the complexities of it – which is what makes the category so relatable to a lot of women. Of course I’ve read Penguin classics just for the pleasure of reading itself, learning what real writers write about and how they write in such provocative languages of their own. But reading chick-lits, just this category alone, is special in its own way – I read it purely because I love it. I love knowing that fictional characters could feel so real it almost acts like your friend, as welcoming as a children’s book to a little girl, and inspires her to read more and understand life better through different sounds, voices, perspectives.

People never really change. I got my first dose of a Sophie Kinsella standalone last year, and have been reading other chick-lits since then. It almost feel like a revival of who I was years ago, that heroine who believes she’s smart enough that she doesn’t have to read New York Times Bestsellers, or biographies of geniuses, or science magazines, to prove that she’s intelligent. At this point, intelligent enough to keep persevering until she receives her Bachelor’s degree in a subject she has no interest in furthering in her professional working life. (Except that I really, really love reading science magazines. A couple of my favorites: Scientific American Mind, Psychology Today; I read LiveScience and ScienceDaily almost everyday).

 

 

 

 

 
Muchaluva,
Stace

 

20 most beautiful bookstores in the world

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Maastricht, Holland: Selexyz Bookstore

 

 

Rome, Italy: The Bookàbar Bookshop

 

 

Bratislava, Slovakia: Plural Bookshop

 

 

 

Porto, Portugal: Livraria Lello

 

 

 

Brussels, Belgium:  Cook & Book

 

 

 

Beijing, China: Bookworm

 

 

Beijing, China: Poplar Kid’s Republic

 

 

 

Buenos Aires, Argentina: Librería El Ateneo Grand Splendid

 

 

 

Sao Paulo, Brazil: Livraria da Vila

 

 

Mexico City, Mexico: Cafebreria El Pendulo

 

 

 

Paris, France: Shakespeare & Company

 

 

Los Angeles, California: The Last Bookstore

 

 

 

Santorini, Greece: Atlantis Books

 

 

 

Ojai, California: Bart’s Books

 

 

Milan, Italy:  Corso Como Bookshop

 

 

 

Alnwick, United Kingdom: Barter Books

 

 

 

Amsterdam, the Netherlands:  The American Book Center

 

 

 

Taipei, Taiwan:  VVG Something

 

 

 

Lisbon, Portugal: Ler Devagar

 

 

Tokyo, Japan: Daikanyama T-Site

 

 
From Flavorwire.

 

 

 

 

Muchaluva,
Stace

Notes on consciousness

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NOTE

Spring 2011

 

FROM SPRING 2011 ISSUE OF DISCOVER MAGAZINE: THE BRAIN (PRINT)

 

According to psychologist and philosopher William James, consciousness has the following properties:

1. It is a process, and it involves awareness.
2. It’s what you lose when you fall into a deep, dreamless slumber and what you regain when you wake up.
3. It is continuous and changing.

 

*

Neuroscientist Gerald Edelman proposed that there are two different states of consciousness.

- Primary consciousness is what animals have. It’s the experience of a unitary scene in a period of seconds, at most. Yet there’s no consciousness of consciousness, nor any narrative history of the past or projected future plans.

- The second state is what human shave. Our memories, our consciousness of being conscious, strung together into past and future narratives. By using semantics and syntax, a true language, we have this higher-order consciousness in its greatest form.

 

*

“The brain is a vastly parallel distributed system. The consciousness trick is that any particular mental state you might be in is enabled by neural circuits specific to that state. All of these circuits that are distributed throughout the brain allow for what we call conscious experience.

I like to think of it as being like a pipe organ. When one note is playing, that’s what you’re conscious about. Then the next note starts playing, and that’s what you’re conscious about. These things come on and off constantly, and there’s this appearance of unity to it all, but in fact it’s each of these separate circuit systems being enabled and being expressed in a particular moment in time.

Consciousness is not a thing in the brain that information gets poured into and you’re aware of it. It’s the constant struggle of all these circuits to come up to the top and hold the stage for that second.”

- Michael S. Gazzaniga, cognitive neuroscientist

*

“The great sheet of the mass, that where hardly a light had twinkled or moved, becomes now a sparkling field of rhythmic flashing points with trains of traveling sparks hurrying hither and thither. THe brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. it is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern.”

- Sir Charles Sherrington, Man On His Nature (1940)


*

“Waking consciousness is dreaming – but dreaming constrained by external reality.”

- Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist On Marks (1995)

 

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“Maybe philosophical problems are hard not because they are divine or irreducible or meaningless or workaday science, but because the mind of Homo sapiens lacks the cognitive equipment to solve them. We are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not piplines to the truth. Our minds evolve by natural selection to solve problems that were life-and-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness or to answer any question we are capable of asking. We cannot hold 10,000 words in short-term memory. We cannot see in ultraviolet light. We cannot mentally rotate an object in fourth dimension. And perhaps we cannot solve conundrums like free will and sentience.”

- Steven Pinker, How The Mind Works (1997)

*

“The drama of the human condition comes solely from consciousness. Of course, consciousness and its revelations allow us to create a better life for self and others, but the price we pay for that better life is high. It is not just the price of risk and danger and pain. It is the price of knowing risk, danger, and pain. Worse even: It is the price of knowing what pleasure is and knowing when it is missing or unattainable.

The drama of the human condition thus comes from consciousness because it concerns knowledge obtained in a bargain that none of us struck: The cost of a better existence is the loss of innocence about that very existence. The feeling of what happens is the answer to a uestion never asked, and it is also the coin in a Faustian bargain that we could never have negotiated: Nature did it for us.”

- Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens (1999)

 

*

“Everybody knows what consciousness is:

It is what vanishes every night when we fall into dreamless sleep and reappears when we wake up or when we dream. It is also all we are and all we have: Lose consciousness and, as far as you are concerned, your own self and the entire world dissolve into nothingness . . . . Neurobiological facts constitute both challenging paradoxes and precious clues to the enigma of consciousness. This state of affairs is not unlike the once faced by biologists when, knowing a great deal about similarities and differences between species, fossil remains, and breeding practices, they still lacked a theory of how evolution might occur. What was needed, then as now, were not just more facts but a theoretical framework that could make sense of them.”

- Giului Tononi, Biological Bulletin (2008)

Language: The edge of cognitive power

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ARTICLE

September/October 2010

Edited by Ann O’Phelan

 

 

As the years go by, how we communicate is changing at an alarming rate. With the emergence of the Internet, what media critic Marshall McLuhan envisioned as a “global village” only two centuries ago has turned into a reality. The world’s getting increasingly expressive and fully loaded with texted-noises we have to constantly filter, thanks to the rise of the Internet culture that’s dominating our real-time world in this Information Age.  Pew Research Center’s studies find not only that the number of Internet users keeps rising since the beginning of the millennium, but also the duration of hours spent on the Internet is even longer.

Accepting technology as a part of higher learning is now inevitable as the workforce now has expectations for employees to possess the knowledge. “An interviewer can ask you basic information of the company, something they expect you to know already after studying their web sites, during a job interview,” said John McCormick, an instructor of Designing Careers at the Academy of Art University. New breeds of tech- savvy generations, especially the Millennials, are using this global network and changing how the world works. Now, the younger generation has to stand up on their own grounds to compete in becoming leaders of their own realities in this social-network era, developing themselves through great communication skills in both face-to-face and on- screen. Taking all outspoken voices aside, those less extroverted youngsters can function well working within the business world, especially by marketing their own ideas, if they are provided the training to do so. They possess the competitive advantage of being better listeners than extraverts to effectively lead this texted-noisy landscape we are living in.

Social-networking feeds from sites, namely Twitter, receive a common complaint about “noise” updates from users. There is even an application, Mixero, that was specifically designed to filter irrelevant information for these users, who reportedly have problems with “signal-to-noise ratios” on the 140-character, text-based platform. Text, i.e. the written word, is the most widely tested languages along with mathematics, and they both function as the essential motor skills required to carve any subject’s personal career path. In this new working environment rich in informative resources accessible anytime and anywhere, a scriber’s text, like the expressions of the typist on Twitter, is becoming more highly valued than any other time in history.

As the nature of the mirror-world Internet is providing this virtual platform for introvert users, their platform history reflects their levels of intelligence based on word economy to best represent their thoughts. Likewise, traditional college-entrance examinations review prospective applicants through written answers that reflects not only their thinking patterns, but also tests of reading fluency – the basic practice to speed up cognitive abilities, thus improving a  subject’s attention span through gathering information relevant to the reader. Tests such as the SAT and GRE examinations review applicants’ level of intelligence mainly through their componential intelligence, one of the Triarchic Theories of Intelligence proposed by psychologist Robert Sternberg during the late 20th century.

While introverts are socially marginalized by lacking the other two types – experiential and contextual – the new world of texters is providing all the necessary ecosystem to enhance these intelligences, as long as these solitudes follow their hearts, otherwise what storytellers call their personal narrative. Take Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the virtual social phenomenon Facebook who was never really in the social scenes during his college years attending Harvard University. The self-confessed introvert always thought that Facebook was just “a Harvard thing”, but today it has made him one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.

As new ways of thinking form, new behaviors arise, and suddenly, creating our dream destinies into reality becomes possible. Findings at the PEW Internet & American Life Project predict that the line between augmented and virtual realities will become almost indistinguishable by 2020. “Nothing penetrates, or punctures. The real, which used to be defined by sensory immediacy, is redefined,” stated Sven Birkerts in his article “Reading in a Digital Age” from the Spring 2010 issue of The American Scholar. This mirror world provides a real-time feedback for the introvert, augmenting his “real life” with his missing components – the practical and experiential intelligences in his mind.

Considering the seven types of intelligences coined by developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, language can be a useful tool to combine with the others to enhance the general intelligence factor of the subject’s cognitive abilities. The seven types include linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences, along with understanding nature.

This generalization of intelligences underlies all intellectual behaviors, as theorized by Charles Spearman in 1923. Language, coupled with intrapersonal intelligence that introverts dominate out of “intransitive thinking,” such as through reading fiction and listening to music, provides what Birkerts called “contemplation”, much as when the subject is spending his time interacting within the virtual social-networking realm that translates into a moment of self-reflection. These isolated activities require a process of “thinking for its own sake, non-instrumental, as opposed to transitive thinking, the kind that would depend on a machine-drive harvesting of facts toward some specified end.”

According to the recent feature from Psychology Today, “Revenge of the Introverts”, Laurie Helgoe explained that introverts seek meaning in their lives by communicating with themselves during their moments of solitude, as opposed to leaning towards contemporary cultural emphasis on the search for personal happiness in life. In these changing times, almost every field of industry is becoming information-driven, and these personal reflections, when communicated with an additional language, may just be the answer for educating prospective students to become the next world leaders. By definition, the Encyclopedia Brittanica refers to a particular language as a “system of conventional spoken or written symbols used by people in a shared culture to communicate with each other”. Having just graduated from CUNY Queens in New York, Jeffrey Ho now holds a cum laude Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics & Communication Disorders. Growing up in Singapore for 10 years in his early education, he has adopted English as his first language while practicing conversational Bahasa Indonesia – his native language – every now and then.

“No matter where you go, English will always be the main language for communications,” said the 24-year old introvert who also holds a Minor in Japanese language and culture. Being immersed in the East-Asian practices has motivated him to serve the public by communicating his intellects with more depth and a richer eye that improved his spatial intelligence. “Monolinguals are essentially underutilizing their abilities: Brain scans shows that while monolinguals are established language centers such as Broca’s area [part of brain that is associated with speech], bilinguals employ far more of the neural landscape when expressing themselves,” wrote Carlin Flora in her recent article “Double Talk” published in the same issue of Psychology Today.

While leaders have to be expressive of their personal beliefs, inarguably extraverts can communicate to more people at one time with their self-confidence. On the other hand, a UK study on learner difference at the Higher Education Academy finds that “extrovert students worry less about accuracy and have a tendency to take risks with their language,” and for the multilingual introverts have the benefit of maintaining their objectives in multiple contexts, or what the scholar calls “the quality of a leader”. Still, Jeffrey values his in-depth understanding in the mechanics of English language. “Without English, you cannot survive in this world.”

 

 

Works Cited:

“language“. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 27 September 2010.

“Internet Growth Statistics: Today’s road to e-Commerce and Global Trade“. Internet World Stats. Miniwatts Marketing Group. 2 October 2010. Web. 10 October 2010.

Anderson, Janna Wuitney. “The Future of the Internet III”. The Pew Research Center’s
Internet & American Life Project. 13 December 2008. Web. 10 October 2010.

Birkerts, Sven. “Reading in the Digital Age”. The American Scholar, Spring 2010: 32-44.

Gottfredson. “The General Intelligence Factor”. Scientific American Presents: Exploring Intelligence. Scientific American Digital. 29 September 2010.

Helgoe, Laura. “Revenge of the Introverts”. Psychology Today September 2010. Web. 9 September 2010.

Ho, Jeffrey. Personal interview. 25 May 2010.

Hurd, Stella. ““>Learner Difference in Independent Language learning Contexts”. The Higher Education Academy. Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, a
Subject Centre of The Higher Education Academy. 7 October 2008. Web. 5 October 2010.

Lynne C., and Stillman, David. “The M Factor: How The Millennial Generation is
 Rocking the Workplace”. HarperBusiness: First Edition edition. 6 April 2010.
Flora, Carlin. “Double Talk”. Psychology Today September 2010. Web. 9 September
2010.

McCormick, John. LA 291 Designing Careers Module 5: Job Interview Skills.
Academy of Art University. 491 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. 5 October 2010. Class Lecture.

Neill, James. “Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence”.  Wilderdom. A copyleft under
Creative Commons Attribution License. 24 January 2004. Web. 28 September 2010.

O’Dell, Jolie. “Filtering Twitter’s Noise with Mixero“. ReadWriteWeb. 26 May 2009.
ReadWriteWeb. Web. 10 October 2010.

Seiglie, Mario. “Seven Types of Intelligence”. Vertical Thought“. January-March 2010. Web.
29 September 2010.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Web. 9 October 2010.

Young, Jeff. “Author Explores the Juicy Origins of Facebook”. The Chronicle of Higher
Education. 5 August 2009. Web. 28 September 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Muchaluva,
Stace

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