I love public radio. The problem is, it’s hard to take with you on long walks or runs. I’ve tried FM radios for years. (Dating back to Sony Walkman with FM!). Nothing worked. I could tune a station for a few seconds, but every step was a struggle to keep the darn thing from filling with static or dropping out altogether. Or being replaced with loud mariachi music. (That’s how it sounded to my ignorant ears.)

You know how sometimes a stubbed toe can throb – and then ache – for literally weeks? But then when it stops hurting, the relief sort of creeps up on you, and you don’t notice it at first? One day you look back and realize, Hey! My toe stopped hurting!

That’s what happened with me and the radio + jogging problem. I loaded up KPCC’s free iPhone app and it worked. I started taking it on long walks and jogs (4+ miles), with lots of hills and gullies. It worked and I was happy.

And then I remembered! This used to be a pain. The radio never used to work, least of all amid hills and gullies. (FM works by line of sight.) KPCC had solved my problem for months already.

It just took a sudden flash for me to realize that the throbbing had finally stopped.

KPCC's free iPhone app

KPCC app needs on-demand. I do wish KPCC’s app had content available on demand, as KCRW’s app does.

In a Wired article, Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up, Jonah Lehrer writes about the ways our assumptions (and experience) blinker us from seeing new evidence, even when it’s staring us in the face.

Lehrer tells a layered story, rich with examples, such as Kevin Dunbar’s look at how scientists actually work.

[W]hen experiments were observed up close — and Dunbar interviewed the scientists about even the most trifling details — this idealized version of the lab fell apart, replaced by an endless supply of disappointing surprises. There were models that didn’t work and data that couldn’t be replicated and simple studies riddled with anomalies. “These weren’t sloppy people,” Dunbar says. “They were working in some of the finest labs in the world. But experiments rarely tell us what we think they’re going to tell us. That’s the dirty secret of science.”

This reminds me of my lower-division astronomy class at Caltech in the 1980s. Maartin Schmidt taught us about various methods for measuring Hubble’s Constant (for expansion of the cosmos) involving red shift measurements and type 1-A supernovae. The problem was, different methods for measuring distance yielded different values for Hubble’s Constant (and for the amount of mass in the cosmos). As measurements and computations became more precise, the discrepancy only got more glaring.

Then in the 1990s (long after I had decided an astronomer’s life was not for me), Dark Energy and Dark Matter were finally offered as the least bizarre explanations for what at first had seemed like experimenter error.

Scientific experiments are an attempt to screen out the chaos of everyday existence – to shine a beam of light narrow enough to illuminate a single, repeatable fact of nature. But the teeming world is always right outside the door of our neat little experiment, and often the chaos finds a way inside. Even when it doesn’t – and here is Lehrer’s main point – we have a human tendency to discard new results as mere gibberish. Our expertise gets in our way.

We can’t escape this tendency (so suggests Dunbar’s experiment where students’ brains were observed while they watched videos of falling balls), but our predicament is not hopeless. Lehrer offers up some helpful strategies for escaping the trap of our own preconceptions.

How to Learn From Failure
Too often, we assume that a failed experiment is a wasted effort. But not all anomalies are useless. Here’s how to make the most of them. —J.L.

1. Check Your Assumptions
   Ask yourself why this result feels like a failure. What theory does it contradict? Maybe the hypothesis failed, not the experiment.
2. Seek Out the Ignorant
   Talk to people who are unfamiliar with your experiment. Explaining your work in simple terms may help you see it in a new light.
3. Encourage Diversity
   If everyone working on a problem speaks the same language, then everyone has the same set of assumptions.
4. Beware of Failure-Blindness
   It’s normal to filter out information that contradicts our preconceptions. The only way to avoid that bias is to be aware of it.

So it seems the illness is chronic and the prescription takes constant work. But at least there is some kind of remedy.

It is a personal quest of mine – albeit a long-term, low-flame quest – to learn more Hegel. In one sense this will not be hard since I know so very little Hegel now. At a delightful, intimate dinner party a few days ago, I met UCLA Hegel scholar John McCumber and worked up the courage to ask the canonical question of a tyro:

Where should I start to learn more Hegel?

Hegel silhouette (Jena)

Often the best answer is to jump right in with the original source. Accept No Substitutes! But my German is not strong enough to bear reading philosophy at any length. So at the very least I need to choose an English translation. (This worked for me with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I just jumped into the best English translation. For motivation, I met up with a buddy to discuss what we read, sort of like a work-out partner.)

I have been warned by other Hegelian friends that it is nigh impossible to make proper sense of Hegel without a thorough understanding of the philosophical milieu in greater Germania during Hegel’s time. Their warnings had the effect of turning the already low flame of my Hegel quest even lower. It’s still a burning desire in the back of my mind, but the flame is small, bluish, and flickering.

Asking philosophers questions at parties. As I was gathering up the heart to ask John about Hegel, my mind was still churning on a bit of advice from my friend Gianfranccesco Zanetti, scholar of philosophy and law in Bologna, Italy. Gianfranccesco’s advice was kindly, by way of anecdote:

“I hate it when people ask me about philosophy at parties!”

(Ouch! I thought. That’s me!)

Philosophy is my profession. I read it and write it and teach it all day, just about every day of the week. I have nothing to say about it at a cocktail party.

John McCumber and Terry Pinkard’s generosity of spirit. And so it was with some timidness that I turned to John and asked where to start with Hegel. John could easily have referred me to his own respected books and articles on the subject, but instead he kindly and patiently turned me onto a terrific resource, Terry Pinkard who has freely offered to the world the entire text of his German-to-English translation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit in side-by-side, English-only, and chapter-by-chapter versions.

From the bad old days when we were “the love that dare not speak its name”, how wonderful that our numbers include some of the most successful and highly respected names in journalism and commentary – Anderson Cooper (CNN), Rachel Maddow (MSNBC), Ari Shapiro (NPR), Andrew Sullivan, and John Rabe (SCPR), just to name a handful of standouts.

Even more impressive, these are hard-hitting journalists or commentators who happen to be gay, but their personal lives are an issue only on extremely rare occasion. They might speak about their spouse or relationship if they happen to be part of an anecdote which contributes to a story. But otherwise it’s not news.

And in the longer timeframe that measures the evolution of our culture, that is news.

The love that dare not speak its name
Now will not shut up.

—with apologies to Oscar Wilde

Octopuses and other cephalopods have long been suspected to be more than just sentient. Evidence is mounting that they are highly intelligent and curious – the cognitive superstars of the invertebrates.

Rebecca Morelle reports for BBC News that scientists have observed octopuses digging up and using tools – coconut shell halves discarded by humans.

An octopus and its coconut-carrying antics have surprised scientists.

Underwater footage reveals that the creatures scoop up halved coconut shells before scampering away with them so they can later use them as shelters.
Writing in the journal Current Biology, the team says it is the first example of tool use in octopuses.
One of the researchers, Dr Julian Finn from Australia’s Museum Victoria, told BBC News: “I almost drowned laughing when I saw this the first time.
“He added: “I could tell it was going to do something, but I didn’t expect this – I didn’t expect it would pick up the shell and run away with it.”…

Watch the video and read the complete article

Even better is the longer video at Current Biology, where Dr Julian Finn and colleagues publish their latest results.

Octopus unearthing coconut half shell to use for shelter

1. Our protagonist octopus – call him or her Jamie – searches the ocean floor.
2. Jamie finds and unearths a buried half coconut shell.
3. Jamie picks up the shell between its legs… er, arms. (Picture yourself squatting on a beach ball and lifting it between your thighs.)
4. Jamie skitters along the ocean floor in a stiff-legged run. (Try doing that with the beach ball and see how awkward you look.)

Octopus behavior highly adaptable

What’s fascinating is that octopuses are apparently adapting positively to human changes in their environment. Soft and meaty, octopuses must be ever vigilant for predators. Since they are in constant need of protection on the wide-open ocean floors where they live, it stands to reason that halved coconut shells are very useful.
But the thing to remember is that these half-shell shelters have been available for this purpose for just a millisecond in evolutionary time – only since humans started cleaving coconuts and discarding the shells.

Debs Park wildlife. When we first moved here, we were thrilled to be living next to a large park. Debs Park is slightly run down but utterly charming and chock full of wildlife – rabbits, squirrels, owls, redtail hawks, and coyotes. Lots and lots of coyotes. On one occasion, I started counting the coyotes crossing my path and there were at least 8. Eight coyotes in one group!

Provocative urban coyotes. Mind you, I am thrilled to have coyotes around – in fact I’m a big fan of Canis latrans. But my dogs are not big fans, especially our female terrier mix, Leenah. Whenever she hears the slightest sound which might be coyote-related, she charges around the house or yard, barking and carrying on like 40 pounds of very mad dog.

Canine-induced insomnia. During the day, this is fine. Leenah is just doing her job. But for several nights in a row she would wake us up at 1 AM, then 4 AM, then 6 AM – all in a single night. A gnawing dread began to set in. What if this continued for months on end? I’d surely lose my mind. I was desperate for a good night’s sleep.

Noise to the rescue. And that’s why I’m grateful for noise. White noise, that is. We found that if we tuned the stereo to a station with pure static, that would mask the sounds from the park just enough to let Leenah – and her human companions – sleep through the night without being disturbed by howling (or creeping) coyotes.

Coda to coyote tale. Even better than FM radio static is an iPhone app, Sleepmaker Rain Free. These days, I hook my iPhone up every night to the AUX input of my husband’s circa-1990 stereo receiver. I queue up the Sleepmaker Rain track, Gentle onto forest foliage. Then I adjust the volume just so.

Ahhh. Sleep.

The title Sentient Meat was taken from Terry Bisson’s short story, They’re Made Out of Meat, highlighted in neuroscientist Robert Burton’s excellent book, On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not. Here is a short excerpt, but I highly recommend you visit Terry Bisson’s site and read all 815 delectable words.

“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”

“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”

“That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”

“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they’re made out of meat.”