Encefalus

Encefalus wishes you a happy new year!

2009-01-01T19:07:19Z

Encefalus wishes you a happy new year!! This blog started near the end of july 2008 with a 100 visitors and now has over 140.000 unique visitors! I want to thank you all for your support, e-mails and comments. Let’s hope this year will be better than the last one. Let there be new synapses into [...]

Can computation be the answer? The violation of the second law of thermodynamics

2008-12-30T21:05:44Z

Stephen Wolfram Lately I’ve been reading Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science. As you can guess from the title, Wolfram makes a few great remarks about the future and the methods of science. Traditional science uses mathematics. What mathematics do, is to quantify problems, find regularities and then use equations to describe these regularities. What this [...]

The nature of authority

2008-12-23T11:21:00Z

In the latest post we talked about the death of Alexis Grigoropoulos: The death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos (drugs, guns, cops and tasers part II). Since then, Greece continues to be shocked by riots, protests and various forms of resistance against authority. Some people even managed to occupy the national tv network, at the same time, that [...]

The death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos (drugs, guns, cops and tasers part II)

2008-12-14T13:58:20Z

One of the first articles I had written was this one: Drugs, Guns, Cops and Tasers. I promised to write part 2 some day. There is not better occasion to write this article, than this one. In the previous Saturday, on 6/12/08, Alexandros Grigoropoulos was murdered in the greek district of Exarchia in Athens. Alexandros Grigoropoulos Since then, [...]

Encefalus update postponed

2008-12-08T11:27:42Z

Due to various circumstances, the regular update, which the last few months happens every week, will be postponed. I will probably post the new article this Sunday. Read some of the older articles to keep yourself occupied

Dangerous ideas revisited: Controversial books, swearing and other stuff

2008-11-30T22:55:56Z

Those of you who read Encefalus, probably remember this article: Dangerous Ideas: Information and cultural revolution in the age of the internet or metacognition in the modern society The reason I am mentioning this, is this article I found on the web: Ten Of The Most Controversial Books! The latter article refers (pretty obviously) to books that [...]

Agent based models in social sciences

2008-11-23T18:37:19Z

Lately I’ve been digging into the subject of agent based models of social sciences. Agent based models are defined by wikipedia as following An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous individuals in a network, with a view to assessing their effects on the system as a whole. [...]

Free will revisited in the face of quantum physics

2008-11-16T18:04:43Z

Lately I have been reading this book: The Hidden Pattern: A Patternist Philosophy of Mind. The book deals, quite obviously, with philosophy of mind and all the matters that touch this subject, including free will. The author is Ben Goertzel who happens to be a very interesting person. He holds a PhD in mathematics, but [...]

Two very interesting introductory articles on neuroeconomics

2008-11-14T17:25:54Z

Neuroeconomics Explained, Part One Neuroeconomics Explained, Part Two While searching the web the other day, I found two very interesting introductory articles on neuroeconomics on Psychology Today. The author is Paul J. Zak who is the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics at Claremont Graduate University. In his bio on his [...]

Deductive indeterminism - The case for a science of history

2008-11-09T18:19:50Z

I was reading this book the other day: Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of Social Life. It’s a very interesting book that deals with the cutting edge of current social and cognitive science: the application of computational modelling in social sciences. I will not talk about the details of this book here [...]

A slight problem with my RSS feed

2008-11-09T17:02:42Z

As some of you might have noticed, my RSS feed shows sometimes earlier articles. I am writing this to tell you that I’ll try to solve the problem, so don’t worry. If you want to get updated on the latest articles just visit http://encefalus.com to be sure.

Behavioral economics revisited in the face of the recent economic crisis

2008-11-03T22:46:59Z

The readers of Encefalus probably remember this article: A different view on economics: maybe all we really need. I found this article recently in the New York Times: The Behavioral Revolution. It is an article that expresses some views similar to the ones we expressed in A different view on economics: maybe all we really need, [...]

Encephalon 57 is out!

2008-10-31T11:37:33Z

Go grab it at http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/10/encephalon_57_on_min.html

Logic

2008-10-27T17:54:41Z

A very simple title. What logic has to do with Encefalus, a blog that mainly deals with psychological issues? Logic is something that I was always interested in, not for any special reason, but because I am a math-logic geek. But beyond that, I always believed that you can never really do science, unless you have [...]

A new paradigm in cognitive science

2008-10-21T10:58:26Z

Mind Hacks: Through a lab darkly. I stumbled upon this article the other day. It comments on some articles that criticize the current method of cognitive research. The current trend in cognitive research is based on lab research. We take the subjects, put them into the lab, strip out all the factors that could alter the [...]

Encephalon 56 is out!

2008-10-19T13:59:34Z

Go grab it at Encephalon #56

Dealing with information overflow

2008-11-02T11:36:17Z

Lately I have to deal with a lot of things in my life. So, I have been thinking about the relationship between information and the human cognitive system. How much information can we absord at a time? How can we filter the noise out of it and keep the useful stuff? How can we manage [...]

A different view on economics: maybe all we really need

2008-11-03T22:47:34Z

The recent economic crisis made me think a lot about the subject of economics. As I’ve said in earlier posts, I’m very interested in economics, and I believe them to be an integral part of cognitive science, or any science that aims to comprehend the human behavior and civilization (Some thoughts on a new micro-economic [...]

Encefalus grows new synapses as it reaches a 10.000 visitors!!!

2008-10-04T09:30:37Z

As of yesterday, encefalus reached 10000 unique visitors in less than 3 months! I want to thank all the people who supported me with their comments, e-mails and feedback. I’ll strive to bring more quality content to Encefalus, even if due to time restraints, I can’t write more than two or three articles per week. [...]

Encephalon 55 is out!

2008-10-02T12:56:27Z

Go grab it at http://neuroscientificallychallenged.blogspot.com/2008/09/encephalon-celebrates-its-emerald.html