Author: Paul Mason

I am a biomedically trained social anthropologist interested in biological and cultural diversity.

HOME by Yann Arthus-Bertrand & other YouTube must-sees

 
 
HOME is a spectacular journey of epic photography that everyone must watch. It is available for free on YouTube, so click on the link, load the film and take 90mins of your life to learn about our planet, your home.
 
It is my hope that one day, growing knowledge about the brain and a deeper awareness of human cultures will help us to align our cultural habits with our ecological boundaries. I do not believe that humans will be the first species to live forever, but hopefully long enough to survive the next great evolutionary bottleneck. This post is but a small list of YouTube must-see videos that I highly reccomend watching. There are films about climate change, global warming and the Great Plastic Vortex in the Pacific Ocean. Hopefully one day, humans will realise with humility that we are not the rule, but the exception.
 

Finish off this …

the concept of ‘cognitive communities’ was once explained to me by an anthropology lecturer at Melbourne University, Dr Douglas Lewis. Here is my own short version of Dr Lewis’ explanation:

Imagine Jack and Jill walking up a hill and Jack says to Jill, “Oh, I’ve forgotten to bring the… the.. the… um…”
“The bucket?” Jill says.
“Yes, yes, the bucket, I forgot to bring the bucket.”

What Jill is demonstrating, is her culturally attuned ability to predict what Jack will say. She helps him out with his cognitive homework (so to speak) and finishes off his sentence. The cognitive work is done by a community of people, i.e. Jack and Jill, who share similar perceptual attunement, modes of attention and cultural training.

Watch Steve Martin complete this sentence: “This may sound a little wierd but…”

Continue reading “Finish off this …”