LESSWRONG

Q:  What's the most important leg of a three-legged stool? A:  The one that isn't there. - traditional joke-riddle A specific neurological

Which weighs more:  a pound of feathers, or a pound of gold? Close consideration of this riddle - and the conditions under which people te

The classical understanding of categories centers on necessary and sufficient properties.  If a thing has X, Y, and Z, we say that it belong

Atul Gawande's Complications:  A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science is a mixed bag for rationalists. Written as a series of essays orga

The formal concept of the fallacious argument was born as the twin of logic itself.  When the ancient Greeks first began to systematically e

People are always telling you that "we have always done thus", and then you find that their "always" means a generation or two, or a century

I said that my next post would discuss why IQ tests don't measure frontal executive functions, but I've found something tangential yet extre

Neuroscientists have a difficult time figuring out which parts of the brain are involved in different functions.  Naturally-occurring lesion

Babies have a curious set of reflexes: lightly brush their palms, or the soles of their feet, and they will immediately grasp whatever cause

In the traditions of Zen in which koans are common teaching tools, it is common to use a particular story as a novice's first koan.  It's th