JONAH LEHRER’S RECOMMENDATIONS ON NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS. Jonah Lehrer has some recommendations for you. First, don’t stretch your limited willpower—your budget—over too many resolutions at once; spread them throughout the year. Second, starvation diets diminish your willpower. As Lehrer says: “Even moderation must be done in moderation.” Third, exercising willpower can strengthen it. Experimental subjects who worked on improving their posture improved on various tests of willpower. I posted here on the idea of a willpower budget and here on how willpower is like a muscle in that it can be strengthened.
Archive for December, 2009
JONAH LEHRER’S RECOMMENDATIONS ON NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS.
Thursday, December 31st, 2009JONAH LEHRER ON THE SCIENCE OF NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS.
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009JONAH LEHRER ON THE SCIENCE OF NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS. I have linked several times, for instance here, to Jonah Lehrer’s blog (Lehrer is the author of PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST). Lehrer had some recommendations here about New Years resolutions. The recommendations are based on the findings of psychologists and neuroscientists, especially the finding that the prefrontal cortex (which is just behind the forehead) is responsible for willpower, but also short term memory—so it can be overloaded. And so you can think of budgeting your willpower. Another consequence is that it’s harder to exercise willpower when you’re tired. Willpower also requires energy—energy which comes from food. Thus, there is a dilemma for dieters. Food and energy are needed for willpower. Skipping or skimping on meals can weaken the willpower needed to stay on a diet.
ONE OF MY SURPRISE GIFTS (COMMENT).
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009ONE OF MY SURPRISE GIFTS. I was gratified to see John Kay saying something that I had been saying: “The best of all presents is one we did not know we wanted but love when we receive it.” I posted on the day after Christmas that I had gotten presents that I had not even been aware existed. Dick Weisfelder asked me what they were, and I named a book about the history of the English language by John McWhorter: OUR MAGNIFICENT BASTARD TONGUE. Kids, economists use the term “revealed preference” to refer to preferences of consumers that can be revealed by their purchasing habits. (Here is a wikipedia article on revealed preference which attributes the idea to Paul Samuelson). John Kay is suggesting that a friend can get an idea of our preferences that can be as good as the idea we get from introspection, and can use what we reveal to find us surprise gifts. This blog has revealed to me some interests that I didn’t know I had. The blog reveals that I have an interest in the history of the English language, and Annalisa used this knowledge to find her present for me.
CHRISTMAS GIFTS AND FINANCIAL MARKETS.
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009CHRISTMAS GIFTS AND FINANCIAL MARKETS. John Kay argues that some of the reasons we value gifts also explain activities on the financial markets: lack of knowledge and pervasive uncertainty. He points out that we aren’t sure of our own preferences. We don’t have the information others have from shopping and experience. Kay points out that the same pervasive uncertainty underlies much of the activity on financial markets. If people knew the future and didn’t change their minds, most of the trades on financial markets would not take place.
“BARKING MAD” OR “JUST KIDDING”?
Monday, December 28th, 2009“BARKING MAD” OR “JUST KIDDING”? John Kay, who claims the distinction of writing about the ideas of SCROOGENOMICS as early as Christmas, 2000, has a review of SCROOGENOMICS in today’s Financial Times in which he criticizes the extent to which the arguments by economists in books like FREAKONOMICS and SCROOGENOMICS assume that people are rational and all-knowing. He says that: “The appeal of such arguments lies, at least in part, in their teasing quality: are the authors really barking mad or are they just kidding?”
NICK’S NEXT STAND-UP GIG.
Monday, December 28th, 2009NICK’S NEXT STAND-UP GIG. I take a special interest in stand-up now that Nick does it often. He performs next in New York City at Comix at 14th Street and Ninth Avenue at 9:00 on this Tuesday night, December 29.
STAND-UP SCIENTISTS.
Monday, December 28th, 2009STAND-UP SCIENTISTS. I have posted on stand-up before, including this post on the stand-up economist. Here is an article in the New York Times about a biologist who does stand-up, and Google informs me that there is a stand-up quantum physicist.
WHAT IS THE HARDEST LANGUAGE?
Sunday, December 27th, 2009WHAT IS THE HARDEST LANGUAGE? I posted here about a language in the North Caucasus that has 83 consonants and about how “nouns in Sanskrit may take up to twenty-one different forms, and verbs up to 150.” This article in the Economist’s holiday edition asks what the hardest language is. The article describes a number of ways that English is a relatively simple language, aside from peculiar spelling. Chinese dialects can have seven or eight tones and there are complex rules for how one tone can affect the pronunciation of neighboring tones. A language spoken in Botswana —”!Xoo”, but with markings on the two o’s that my keyboard will not reproduce— has vowels which include “plain, pharyngealised, strident and breathy, and they carry four tones. It has five basic clicks and 17 accompanying ones.” The Economist votes for Tuyuca, from the Eastern Amazon as the most difficult. The main reason that Tuyuca wins is that “Tuyuca requires verb-endings on statements to show how the speaker knows something. Diga ape-wi means that ‘the boy played soccer (I know because I saw him)’, while diga ape-hiyi means ‘the boy played soccer (I assume)’”. Daunting, but Google gave me this post about the Economist article on a linguistics blog that is fascinating but also daunting. Arnold Zwicky says: “Journalists might tremble at evidentiality, but it’s old stuff for linguists.” Zwicky points out that about a quarter of the world’s languages “have some type of grammatical evidentiality (marked by affixes, clitics, or particles).”
ANNALISA’S PRESENT–AND SURPRISE GIFTS.
Saturday, December 26th, 2009ANNALISA’S PRESENT—AND SURPRISE GIFTS. I posted here about how Mary Jane had bought Annalisa a present that Annalisa didn’t know existed. The present was simply a Bollywood version of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. Annalisa loves Jane Austen and liked Bride and Prejudice, the Bollywood version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Annalisa is looking forward to watching the movie (which, of course, she may not like). We like to surprise people with gifts, which can play into the hands of the SCROOGENOMICS theory. On the other hand, I got a lot of presents that I had not been aware of. My gift givers acted as extra shoppers in searching out things I would like.
SCROOGENOMICS REVISITED.
Saturday, December 26th, 2009SCROOGENOMICS REVISITED. In David Blake’s review of SCROOGENOMICS in the Times Literary Supplement (December 18 & 25), he notes that one reason that presents are not well chosen is that —our of politeness—there is little feedback by which we can learn about another’s preferences. I had never thought of it before, but the teenagers I posted on here, who believed you should tell your grandmother you didn’t like her present, were promoting economic efficiency.
