How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect

[groovedaddy]

In addition to assorted bad breaks and pleasant surprises, opportunities and insults, life serves up the occasional pink unicorn. The three-dollar bill; the nun with a beard; the sentence, to borrow from the Lewis Carroll poem, that gyres and gimbles in the wabe.

An experience, in short, that violates all logic and expectation. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that such anomalies produced a profound “sensation of the absurd,” and he wasn’t the only one who took them seriously. Freud, in an essay called “The Uncanny,” traced the sensation to a fear of death, of castration or of “something that ought to have remained hidden but has come to light.”

At best, the feeling is disorienting. At worst, it’s creepy.

Now a study suggests that, paradoxically, this same sensation may prime the brain to sense patterns it would otherwise miss — in mathematical equations, in language, in the world at large.

“We’re so motivated to get rid of that feeling that we look for meaning and coherence elsewhere,” said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and lead author of the paper appearing in the journal Psychological Science. “We channel the feeling into some other project, and it appears to improve some kinds of learning.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/06mind.html?th&emc=th

[WheelWalker]

1. I grok. nt

[snagglepuss]

2. Great article. "people cling to their personal biases more tightly when feeling threatened"

"Researchers have long known that people cling to their personal biases more tightly when feeling threatened. After thinking about their own inevitable death, they become more patriotic, more religious and less tolerant of outsiders, studies find. When insulted, they profess more loyalty to friends — and when told they’ve done poorly on a trivia test, they even identify more strongly with their school’s winning teams"



Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Isn't that what has been called "Cognitive Dissonance"?

Cognitive dissonance is a tension experienced by most people when their behaviour, feelings and beliefs are out of harmony. This phenomenon has a profound effect on conflict.

http://www.mediate.com/articles/bondV2sept99.cfm

[intheflow]

3. Who in the world is unrec'ing this?

Never mind. I know it's a troll or two who are bitter that their nonsense still hasn't sharpened their intellect.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. I just gave it the fifth rec...

[intheflow]

8. I found this on the GP with 7 recs.

By the time I'd read it and rec'd it, I was rec #4. :crazy:

[Why Syzygy]

9. The OP must have shot mine way up.

:crazy:

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Guess that explains why Democrats are smarter than repukes.

Repuke behavior usually violates all logic and expectation as far as I am concerned. I find most of them to be absurd.
Of course, my expectations change after I have seen their behavior for a while. Then they no longer violate my expectations of them. I learned what morans they are.

[rocktivity]

11. Candidate for this year's "You Call This NEWS?" Award

DU has been there and done it when Fox proffered its answer to the Daily Show:

...(W)hy is it that so much right-wing political humor just plain doesn't work--even for its target audience?...I think "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" most clearly demonstrates...the basic conflict between comedy and authority...(D)isrespect for authority is the foundation of real comedy...Obviously, challenging authority is a problem for a show which is trying to be funny while defending the agenda and worldview of the regime currently in power. "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" exists only in order to help the authorities consolidate their power, and the target audience for this show--hard-core FOX viewers--can be assumed to have a pretty strong authoritarian bent. So they're not going to want to see the show attack authority...

The Half Hour News Hour...seems to believe Stewart and Colbert are funny because they spend most of their time insulting conservatism. It tries to retaliate by insulting liberalism, but nobody's laughing--why? It's because The Half Hour News Hour is rooted in fake news. It can't condemn liberalism without exposing its own sins, so it can't help but congeal into a cringe-inducing caricature of neocon media. I mean, where does Fox News get off poking fun of Obama's media hype when they've just finished trying to destroy him with a FALSE story that they STILL haven't retracted?

rocktivity

[BrklynLiberal]

12. Perfect!

Where has Plaid Adder been? Have not seen the usual posts....

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gordianot]

10. If so there should be some keen intellectuals in the USA.

[HuckleB]

13. Great Piece!

[populistdriven]

14. Dr Seuss ftw!

[steven johnson]

15. "A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men." Roald Dahl/Willy Wonka

This quote by Roald Dahl is thought to have come from a Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 1774 by Horace Walpole:

"A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then,
does not misbecome a monarch."

http://home.att.net/~tom.brodhead/wonka.htm

[Orrex]

16. I don't understand--it all sounds like nonsense to me.

Wait--now I get it!