So far, the explanation for dreams which resonated most for me came from Anil Seth's book Being You. The overall thesis of the book is that our conscious experiences are really predictions about the world around us which are updated based on input from our senses. Dreams, then, are what happens when the predictive aspect is decoupled from sensory corrections. Thus our dreams contain elements from our actual experiences but unconstrained by the need to correspond to anything, even themselves moment-to-moment. That … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Dreaming in the Academic Clouds
Science Corner
Sinai and Synapses: Loving the Lord with all my mind and my neighbor as myself
One very clear memory from my freshman year of college is of a Sunday afternoon that I spent in the library trying to learn the details about the oxidative-phosphorylation, one chemical pathway in mitochondria (i.e., the powerhouse of the cell). I spent hours sitting with my notebook, pen, and biology textbook trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together. My initial motivation was trying to understand enough to pass the test I had the next day. But puzzling through the processes involved in passing electrons … [Read more...] about Sinai and Synapses: Loving the Lord with all my mind and my neighbor as myself
Science Corner: “What Hath Darwin to Do with Scripture?”
It's Stanley Cup Finals time, and so I expect we are all asking ourselves the same question: How would you explain ice hockey to Bronze Age nomads from Canaan? Of course there will be a matter of translation. Words like "stick" and "net" presumably would map pretty directly. There'd probably be a word that shares meaning with "team" although maybe it would refer primarily to animals. "Offsides" is tricky to explain even to modern English speakers, but that's because there are a lot of details; the constituent concepts … [Read more...] about Science Corner: “What Hath Darwin to Do with Scripture?”
Science Corner: I Wan’na Be Like You
I know the world faces a lot of weighty issues right now. Some of you may be on college campuses with recent or ongoing police activity, cancelled or disrupted commencement events and other types of disturbances to what is usually a celebratory season. And all of that stems from events in Israel and Palestine, where staggering numbers of lives have been lost and many more irreversibly altered. I might wish science could offer answers to the uncertainty, but clashes of values are not readily adjudicated by its methods. … [Read more...] about Science Corner: I Wan’na Be Like You
Science Corner: So When is an Eclipse not Just an Eclipse?
The past week brought a total solar eclipse and a magnitude 4.7 earthquake to the northeastern United States (among other places for the eclipse). For the folks who will seize any opportunity to invoke the rapture and possibly God's judgment on specific subpopulations, it was a convergence too delicious to pass up. This in turn could not be overlooked by the folks who love to trot out a science fact. Don't you know that eclipses and earthquakes have natural causes, and that the eclipse has been predictable for decades? … [Read more...] about Science Corner: So When is an Eclipse not Just an Eclipse?