I hate the nature vs. nurture debate. It's a seductive but very dangerous formulation. As a rule of thumb, whenever a discussion of personality gets framed in terms of 'nature' and 'nurture', everyone loses 15 IQ points up front. Your…

The actor has a constant problem of personal identity. — Cyril Cusack Ethology is the study of animal behavior, and humans, of course, are 'just' a special sort of animal. We are a social and political species — competitive and…

Last week at Ribbonfarm I argued that we don't take the human body seriously enough. Today I'm going to illustrate what that means with lots of examples (and a few pictures). But first it's important to understand what an embodied worldview…

Originally posted at Ribbonfarm. In economics and biology, honesty is understood in terms of signals. Signals are anything used to communicate, to convey information. A price is a signal of value. Conspicuous consumption is a signal of wealth. A growl…

For my upcoming post at Ribbonfarm, I've been thinking about what an "embodied worldview" looks like. By this I mean: an understanding of the world that begins with the human body, one in which we see ourselves as embodied creatures, situated in…

on poetry, metaphor, and trance states If you've never seen poetry on a stage — poetry performed — you should. It's immersive and enthralling, a feast for all the senses. In the hands, face, voice, and body of a skilled poet, a…

I just finished the strangest, most disconcerting little book. It's called Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution by Joseph Jordania. If the title hasn't already piqued your interest, its thesis surely will. The thesis is wild, bold, and…

We fancy ourselves reasonable creatures. And it's true — our lives are suffused, if not with Reason, then at least with reasons. The world we inhabit demands we justify ourselves and we dutifully oblige, emitting all sorts of "because" clauses…

After posting last week's piece on stories, I read a NYTimes profile on George Saunders, author of experimental short fiction and a so-called "writer's writer." It's a great read and a great introduction to Saunders' literary worldview. The profile touches…

A few weeks ago I wrote about Stories vs. Theories as two different ways of making sense of the world. In a nutshell: Stories help us reason about our shared experiences and what it means to be human. Theories help…