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Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
[...] When we have any function, whether it's language or vision or cognitive functions like memory, we aren't dealing with a straight line to the brain that says "This is what I do." The brain builds a network of connections, a network of neurons that have a particular role in that function. So when we have a new cognitive function, like literacy, it doesn't have a preset network. Rather, it makes new connections among older networks, and that whole collection of networks becomes a circuit. It's a connected scaffolding of parts.
The beauty of the circuit for functions like literacy is its plasticity. You can have one for each different language, like English or Chinese or Hebrew. And then something miraculous happens: the circuit builds upon itself. The first circuits are very basic — for decoding letters as we're learning to read — but everything we read builds upon itself.
So what's changing now with technology? How is that affecting our circuits?
The fact that a circuit is plastic is both its beautiful strength and its Achilles' heel. Reading reflects our medium. And to the extent that a digital medium is going to require us to process large amounts of information very quickly, it will diminish from the time we have for slower processing work.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:29AM (4 children)
First we had a "The Internet of Garbage" story, which featured The Verge and now another garbage which contains the phrase:
"English or Chinese or Hebrew."
Why the hell Hebrew, which is spoken by almost no one and the ones speaking it might die in a horrific war they start, so better use another language as an example. But being The Verge, garbage is bound to be thrown at its unfortunate readers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:38AM (1 child)
Aww poor little troll got triggered out of his mind. So sad, much woe. Too bad for you your worldview is crumbling, that existential crisis is gonna be one hell of a ride when it finally hits you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @05:41AM
Modern Israel != the Jewish people
One is a political body. The other is a cultural/ethnic group.
The diaspora happened. Get over it. Stop trying to build a dangerous, far right-wing, fascist ethnostate. Third Impact is a fairy story, you prepubescent bitch. The consequences of atomic war are not.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @04:54AM
She wrote it in english, she is chinese and her boss is a jew?
You know, when you've got to write 50 of these to get paid off upwork.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday September 01 2018, @12:53PM
English, Chinese, and Hebrew represent variety because they are three languages whose names are recognizable to English-speaking readers but are thought to be unrelated (Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Afroasiatic). Hebrew is also the language in which three-fourths of the Christian Bible was written, so it's more "us" than Arabic, which some on the right see as a distracting "them".