November 17, 2013

Doris Lessing: Learning is Understanding Something You’ve Understood All Your Life, in a New Way

“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.” -Doris Lessing, 1919 – 2013

bigthinkeditor

“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.”

-Doris Lessing, 1919 – 2013

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Rethinking Self-Control: The Psychology of Waiting

When we fail to exercise self-control, this may not be a “failure” as we traditionally think of it. In fact, it may be “a reasoned response to the uncertainty of time.