Book completed

[eve_prime]

Numbers and Nerves: Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data, by Scott Slovic and Paul Slovic, editors (and writers of much of the content). I went to an event for this book when it came out (which was in 2015), but I hadn't read it until now. I've read Paul's key paper, though, on the psychology of how our brains can't fully process the magnitude of large numbers, which is a fundamental issue for addressing many huge social problems (climate change, genocide, pollution more generally, etc.). However, since I'm going to meet up with the two of them on Saturday to talk about my own work, I figured I should at least read this book first! It's very readable, and it's fascinating.

Comments

[kaishin108]

Oh wow! And you will meet up with them.
I think that is along the topic of comparing things, so people can understand just what a certain number means?

Hugs, Helen

[eve_prime]

Yes, it's basically that we have a pretty good intuitive sense of 4 compared to 5, but not of 1,000,004 compared to 1,000,005. So when we hear that 100,000 people died from something in a distant part of the world, we don't get very much emotional impact from that. Focusing on just one person's story can be a whole lot more meaningful.

[kaishin108]

Yes, that! :)

[eve_prime]

<3