The distinction that organises the whole subject is between comparing and measuring. A balance compares; a scale measures a force. Almost every difference between weighing devices follows from which one…
There is a phrase that gets used dismissively — that something is just a placebo — and it carries an assumption worth examining.
The assumption is that a placebo response…
Most reported mental phenomena are difficult to study because they cannot be produced on demand, and this one is the extreme case.
It occurs unpredictably, lasts a few seconds, cannot…
There is a category of everyday experience so ordinary that nobody thinks to ask about it, and this is a good example.
Something itches. You scratch. It stops, briefly, and…
The useful habit is to read a map as an argument rather than as a photograph. Somebody decided all of this, and knowing what they decided tells you what the…
The useful distinction is between materials that store energy in their shape and materials that store it in their disorder. A spring does the first and rubber does the second,…