complexity

The Storyteller’s Reconstruction:
Over My Head, by Claudia Osborn  

 

            Claudia Osborn’s Over My Head is a riveting journey of coping, rehabilitating and learning before and after brain trauma.  The story shines a new light on the behavioral consequences of such an injury.  Through the lens of biology 202, we are able to understand that a reconstruction of the storyteller occurs in Claudia’s case.  This reconstruction leads to novel confabulations of the same stimuli that she received before her accident.

 

Just as the oral version of telling stories has evolved over thousands of years since Homo sapiens came along, the invention of the alphabet and the development of written words have since evolved into written short stories and novels. Like the evolution of organisms, gradually, over thousands of years, human communication and the transmission of stories (and now knowledge) have continued to evolve.

The Concept of Disability

Or, perceiving our differences 

 

Nexus-Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks by Mark Buchanan

Stephanie Viggiano
3 April 2009

Response to Six Degrees:  The Science of a Connected Age by Duncan J. Watts

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Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life discusses, in great detail, the ramifications of Darwin's theory of evolution on human life and meaning.  While looking over portions of the book again, I found myself wondering more about some of Dennett's ideas and other species of animals.  On page 369, Dennett writes: "The invasion of human brains by culture, in the form of memes, has created human minds, which alone among animals minds can conceive of things distant and future, and formulate alternative goals." (1)  What interests me here is his complete dismissal of other animals as thinking or having culture.  While Dennett certainly makes great, strong points about human culture, even if I do not necessarily agree with him, he jumps stra

In reading Darwin's On the Origin of Species and discussing the book in class, I have found myself thinking a lot about the evolutionary significance of homosexuality.  I have been struggling not with the existence of homosexuality but instead with its' long history and continuation within our species, for if evolutionary theory is to be accepted, homosexuality, which is not a selective reproductive trait, should not continue to appear in the species.  According to Darwin's theory of evolution, the appearance of homosexuality is not surprising because the basic principle of the theory is based on the randomness of mutation within a species.  Given this, the existence of homosexuality is not surprising at all but, as mentioned before, the fact that it has continued within the population

On the necessity of believing in the imaginary world: Praising Skyhooks contra Dennett
by Tim Richards