Q&A …

… Staying Nimble with a Diet of Jokes and a Pinch of Stephen Hawking: A Conversation with Leonard Mlodinow - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… Mlodinow doesn’t simply explore the awe-inspiring complexity of the brain (there’s plenty to be awed by) but also what “thought” really means at a time when technology is speeding up our daily experiences of everything, especially the flow of information.

That acceleration challenges the brain’s top-down, analytical thinking abilities. One result is that the brain’s bottom-up thinking structures — nonlinear, highly elastic — must compensate and pick up more of the slack. That is not a bad thing, though, because elastic thinking has frequently been the source of innovation.