This article in the BBC is a pretty interesting study on how humans react in a viral outbreak scenario. Scariest of all were the people who went out to purposely infect others. It’s funny that this happened as an “accident” in World of Warcraft. I would be really interested to know how much monetary damage was associated…

In the NYTimes they had an article about perception and the “Science of Magic”. It’s a very interesting read (subscription required) and sort of exposes the flaws in our own perceptions of the world. It would seem that our brains are just inherently like processors, even a slight malfunction (or increase in awareness for that matter) could create a world very different from the standard paradigm. There’s also a link to the famous experiment with “inattentional blindness”.  If you’ve never seen this video before track how many times the white team successfully passes the ball to one another.

Did you notice the man in the gorilla suit that walked through the room? A lot of people don’t, which I think says a lot about how our brains are wired.

Now having pranced merrily through the woods of perception, I also want to point out this article (sorry, it’s in the New York Times again, subscription required) that says, “it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.” Well, so much for free will, but then again, did you ever believe you had it? The author’s article calls our computer programmer “god” the “Prime Designer”.

Now to wrap all this up there’s a nice little segment on Radio Lab (nod to Falk), from the “Emergence” episode that sort of speaks to the Prime Designer theory. Towards the end of the episode, they ask, who or what forms the “me” of me? If you think that there’s some sort of central consciousness occurring (a you inside your head, controlling everything) then where is it, and who or what forms the you of that central actor’s being, and the being within them? Emergence gets into the idea that things randomly, accidentally occasionally harmonize, to form thoughts, waves, people and universes. I’m not sure that this rules out the Prime Designer or not, but it’s an interesting question.

If you have the time, I recommend listening to the whole show.