Plato’s Theory of Forms addresses the question of how we know that an object, such as a table, is what it is, even though we may never have seen it before and even though it might look entirely different to any table we have ever seen. Plato’s answer is that a table gets its “tableness” because it partakes of the perfect Form of a table. This Form is an ideal, absolute, timeless entity that is the essence of tableness but that we cannot experience directly. In his Allegory of the Cave, P ...read more
You’ve heard of diets like the paleo diet, which claim to harken back to the foods of our ancestors, recreating the diets that we would have eaten during the Paleolithic or Stone Age. It’s a reference to eating the way we’re naturally supposed to eat, identifying the foods that are healthiest for human consumption.However, according to experts, these diets present a number of unlikely scenarios. First, early humans didn’t shop at the health foods store or choose foods that best suited th ...read more
You have probably heard of sensory deprivation tanks. A number of celebrities swear by them for relaxation, and they have steadily grown in popularity over the past few decades. They work by minimizing sensory inputs from the external world: The tank is filled with high salinity water that allows the user to float freely on the surface; the water is body temperature; earplugs are worn to reduce sound; and the tank is usually situated in a dark room or enclosed space.The potential therapeutic ben ...read more
Millions of people around the world were dazzled by the aurora borealis in mid-May — "possibly one of the strongest displays of auroras on record in the past 500 years," according to NASA.Now, the huge, still-active sunspot region responsible for the multi-day auroral displays is rotating back into view of Earth. Between about June 4 and 6, it will be in perfect alignment to affect us again, according to Ryan French, a researcher at the National Solar Observatory who investigates solar flares. ...read more
Social networks existed long before Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. But how they formed in ancient times has sometimes stymied scientists. Now, a study in Nature Human Behaviour demonstrates that music played an important role in connecting different hunter-gatherer groups in Central Africa.Central Africa provides a rich trove of history for anthropologists to plumb. Hunter-gatherers have lived there for hundreds of thousands of years. But finding the cultural connectivity that has developed b ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine