The Problem With Infinite Possibilities

Here is a talk by Social Scientist Professor Barry Schwartz that points out the difficulty of having infinite choices.

@ Yahoo! Video

Why We Overeat

Here's an overview of the problem:



David Kessler, MD, served as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Kessler, a pediatrician, has been dean of the medical schools at Yale and the UCSF. He has more detailed view of how we fall into the trap.

Cognitive Cartography in 6 minutes

Here is a video that scratches the surface of what I mean by cognitive cartography:


Here's a link to an Australian news show video that presents a demonstration of cognitive body mapping and a syndrome of dysfunction to the brains mapping structures. (Hat tip to Mind Hacks) This is the basis for the cognitive cartography idea. What I posit is that the brain not only maps the body image, it also maps a social image. That mapping defines the extent of our capabilities in our social context in a similar way that our body image defines the extent of our capabilities. Just like when we extend our capabilities with tools, then the brain incorporates the tool into the image. So when we extend our social influence our brains incorporate the social context into our social image.