Looking for something to read this weekend? We’ve scoured the web for thought-provoking articles and interviews. Enjoy!
One of the pleasures of reading, and of discussing books with others, is witnessing how much our understanding of what happens – in literature and in life – is a matter of interpretation. We all interpret differently, and our comprehension is colored by so much – by our culture, by our experiences and beliefs, even by the metaphors we use. This is one reason I was taken with Robert Epstein’s essay for Aeon, “The Empty Brain.” Epstein takes on the problem of metaphor when describing human intelligence. He is perturbed by the idea that the human brain is like a computer – not just because it puts humans on a level with machines, but because it is sloppy. “The information processing (IP) metaphor of human intelligence,” he says,
“now dominates human thinking, both on the street and in the sciences . . . But the IP metaphor is, after all, just another metaphor—a story we tell to make sense of something we don’t actually understand. And like all the metaphors that preceded it, it will certainly be cast aside at some point – either replaced by another metaphor or, in the end, replaced by actual knowledge.”
Epstein’s essay is a stark reminder that language and stories change the way we see the world. Pair it with Executive Director Ann Kowal Smith’s essay on the importance of reading well.
Elsewhere on the Internet:
When efficiency, costs and productivity completely replace humanity, is it surprising that employees are miserable?
We enjoyed this interview with Phil Kay – we’re reading his book, Redeployment, in a Books@Work seminar.
This interview with the author of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning.
Read six of the best short stories published this past year.
It took John Basinger 3,000 hours to memorize the 60,000+ words in Paradise Lost – what his process can teach us about human memory.
On literature, kinship and war.
Emily Dickinson was an avid gardener, and archaeologists are recreating her gardens to better understand (and more deeply enjoy) her poetry.
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Still Life with French Novels, 1887, The Robert Holmes à Court Collection, Perth [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Further Reading
Recognizing Others and Ourselves Through Literature
Reading Mindfully: Chekhov’s “The Princess”
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