“I’d be the sexual yardstick for his whole life: Jack would spend the rest of his days trying but failing to relive the experience of being given everything at a time when he knew nothing. Like a tollbooth in his memory, every partner he’d have afterward would have to pass through the gate of my […]
It’s been a while since I lost myself in an out-and-out thriller, and I’d forgotten how much fun they can be. Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is a firecracker of a debut novel that left me aching for more at the end of each sitting. Blending near-future virtual reality immersion technology with an almost autistic […]
“The evolution of the mammalian brain involves tight links between the reward (positive and negative) system and the prefrontal cortex. These links support controlled behavior, behavior that is appropriate to the life-maintaining business of the animal in its physical and social world. Developing patterns of self-control during maturation is critical to the acquisition of skills […]
“Probably we should abandon the notion that free will entails actions originating with conscious thought. Even the fruit fly data cited above suggest that advanced conscious thought is not the place where actions originate. The role of consciousness is to evaluate, elaborate, refine, and in other ways alter, rather than start, the causal sequence that […]
“I think of free will as the capacity for free action. Free action means that the person could do different things in the same situation. In essence, the question of whether someone acted freely is a question of whether the person could have done something differently. This is highly relevant to moral judgment and moral […]
“‘Basically, kid, what this all means is that life is a lot tougher than it used to be, in the Good Old Days, back before you were born. Things used to be awesome, but now they’re kinda terrifying. To be honest, the future doesn’t look too bright. You were born at a pretty crappy time […]
Anyone who reads Murakami expects a hefty dose of weirdness, but I think The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle set a new bar for me. This novel’s psychological density and elusive tone make it difficult to say anything definitive about it, except perhaps that it subverts the idea that human experience is definable in any consistent way. I […]
“The cry of this bird was audible only to certain special people, who were guided by it toward inescapable ruin. The will of human beings meant nothing, then, as the veterinarian always seemed to feel. People were no more than dolls set on tabletops, the springs in their backs wound up tight, dolls set to […]
“It’s like when you put instant rice pudding mix in a bowl in the microwave and push the button, and you take the cover off when it rings, and there you’ve got rice pudding. I mean, what happens in between the time when you push the switch and when the microwave rings? You can’t tell […]
“Maybe the world was like a revolving door, it occurred to him as his consciousness was fading away. And which section you ended up in was just a matter of where your foot happened to fall. There were tigers in one section, but no tigers in another. Maybe it was as simple as that. And […]