sense of self

SF Question of the Day: Dune and Lawrence of Arabia

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Would Frank Herbert’s Dune have been such a wide success if its publication in 1965 had not been preceded by David Lean’s masterful cinematography of windswept dunes in 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia?

How, more generally, does our experience of pictorial representations of landscapes and people (both still and moving pictures) influence our perceptions of other works of art, of the world and people around us, and even of our own self-awareness?

Red Pill or Blue Pill?

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Missing the good old days of adolescent existential angst? “Researchers at UCLA found that cells in the human anterior cingulate, which normally fire when you poke the patient with a needle (“pain neurons”), will also fire when the patient watches… Read More ›