There is a useful test for whether an ability is special: look at what the nearest relatives can do.
For most human capabilities, the answer is that they do something…
There is a class of behaviour that everybody performs, everybody recognises, nobody controls and nobody can explain, and yawning is the most conspicuous member of it.
It occurs in essentially…
The starting point is that the front of your eye is a living surface with no blood supply, exposed to open air, that must stay optically perfect. Almost everything below…
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…
There is a category of human behaviour that is universal, immediately recognisable across every culture, entirely involuntary, and without a settled explanation.
Emotional crying belongs in it, alongside blushing and…
There is a general expectation that pain corresponds to damage. A large injury should hurt more than a small one, and a deep wound more than a superficial one.
A…