Rules of Engagement

I am currently reading Daniel Dennett’s Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking before turning out the light at night. This is not because the book is tedious, and I need a non-pharmaceutical sedative. On the contrary, it is an interesting and engaging collection of thought-provoking ideas and anecdotes. It is ideal nighty night literature …

Acid trips as a productivity boost?

It has been many years since I experimented with controlled substances. Back in my carefree student days in Ann Arbor I may have occasionally had a hit from the bong. That was all, however, and I always took the Bill Clinton approach and never inhaled. Some of my fellow students may have actually inhaled and …

Over-diagnosis of ADHD?

Today’s post again comes from a NYT crossword puzzle. Clue 25A: reason to grant extra testing time, for short. Answer: ADHD. As a parent and educator the answer piqued my interest. I had some vague idea of a controversy regarding ADHD over-diagnosis , especially in the United States, but I didn’t really know much about …

Only focusing on strengths is a recipe for mediocracy

Hi, Astrid here. I haven’t been as active as I would like to be on the Brain Juice blog – something I hope to correct in 2021. This is a revised English version of a German post on our company homepage. My motivation for writing this post is the banality of many business coaches posting …

Lying to get a job in the Age of Big Data

Last semester I took a seminar on digital ethics. In the course we examined how big data and algorithms intersect in models that analyze what we do and predict what we are likely to do next. Two of the books we read were Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction and Nick Bostrom’s Superintelliegence. I recommend …

Do you Pelmanize?

Happy New Year! If you are one to make New Year’s resolutions and haven’t made any for 2021 might I suggest improving your mental capacity and removing your tendencies to indolence and inefficiency with Pelmanism. Developed by William Ennever and marketed via newspaper advertising from the late 1890s through the 1920s, the Pelman System of …

Hikikomori

The Benchwarmers is probably the stupidest movie I have ever watched. A classic in the nerd retribution genre, it has developed a cult following since its release in 2006. If you're unfamiliar with this imbecilic masterpiece, it is a juvenile car wreck of bodily function jokes, offensive humor, and little league baseball. Think of it …

To err is human

One of my favorite professors keeps classes lively by interspersing presentations of cognitive biases into his lectures on propositional logic and analytical philosophy. So far this semester he has expounded on: the framing effect – drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented.the conjunction fallacy – a tendency to …

Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name?

In an excellent lecture last week on George Simmel’s essay Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben, my professor presented Simmel’s theory that the meaningful interpersonal relationships found in rural societies cannot be replicated in metropolises. Simmel argues that the sheer number of available relationship options coupled with urban anonymity overwhelm city dwellers. Effects on the individual …

Murder & Mayhem

Astrid’s next book will be out in January, and her next manuscript is at the publisher – a Styrian noir. The protagonist: grumpy Inspector Semper in the violent crime unit of the state police. Astrid’s literary shift gave me reason to reflect on Austria’s crime novel boom. If you were to analyze Austria based on …