Adrian's Science Blog

  Science Fiction Makes Us Smarter The effects of pop-culture on a society's trajectory are very subtle and complex. However, it becomes much more pronounced whenever a large group is quickly thrust into a novel situation, one that requires the emergence of collective decision.   I’ve been inspired recently by Dr. Jacob Foster, a UCLA sociologist and former physicist who studies collective intelligence. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he gave a fascinating talk about his research on the social nature of cognition. A fascinating point he presented is that people often fall back on stories to determine their actions in a new situation, so if a large group of people is working under a common narrative, surprisingly coordinated behavior can emerge. He gave the example of the January 2021 GameStop short-squeeze, which was neat. This essay will explore the nature of stories in the collective decision process. I will first outline

  Finnegans Wake : Genius or Gibberish? riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend  of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to  Howth Castle and Environs.  Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-  core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy  isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor  had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse  to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper  all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to  tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a  kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in  vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a  peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory  end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface. That was the first 2 paragraphs of Finnegans Wake , the infamous