Jonah Lehrer on Porn

The Neuroscience of Porn:

Porn does not cause us to think about sex. Rather, porn causes to think we are having sex. From the perspective of the brain, the act of arousal is not preceded by a separate idea, which we absorb via the television screen. The act itself is the idea. In other words, porn works by convincing us that we are not watching porn. We think we are inside the screen, doing the deed.

Further information: Mirror neurons and imitation learning as the driving force behind 'the great leap forward' in human evolution by V.S. Ramachandran

Foreign Policy's Public Intellectuals

The Top 100 Public Intellectuals: From the list created of a hundred names compiled by Foreign Policy, the public is asked to vote for five intellectuals. They are some of the world's most introspective philosophers and rabble-rousing clerics. A few write searing works of fiction and uncover the mysteries of the human mind. Others are at the forefront of modern finance, politics, and human rights.

Here is a personal shortlist:

• Noam Chomsky: Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955...a groundbreaking linguist and a prominent critic of US foreign policy.


• Richard Dawkins: Seminal 1976 work, The Selfish Gene, explores the role played by genes in the evolutionary process. He may be better known today for the criticisms of religion and 'intelligent design' theories.


• Daniel C Dennett: Austin B Fletcher professor of philosophy at Tufts University, where his life's work is building a 'philosophy of mind' to explain how human consciousness works.


• Umberto Eco: His dense novels...are a dizzying blend of philosophy, biblical analysis, and arcane literary references. An expert in the burgeoning field of semiotics, he is president of the Advanced School of Humanist Studies at the University of Bologna.


• Douglas Hofstadter [not in list]: College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington, where he directs the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition. His rsearch focuses on consciousness, creativity, at the nature of thinking.


• James Lovelock: His great contribution to science is the famous Gaia hypothesis, the idea that Earth can be thought of as a giant organism.


• Steven Pinker: Johnstone family professor at Harvard University and author of seven books. A frequent essayist, he focuses on language and cognition in his research.


• V.S. Ramachandran: Directs the Center for Brain and Cognition and at the University of California, San Diego. Dawkins calls him the 'Marco Polo of neuroscience' for his work on behavioral neurology.


• E.O. Wilson: Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and naturalist, [he] argues that human behaviour can largely be explained by biology. He is Pellegrino university professor emeritus of entomology at Harvard University.