Brian Boyd
Born
Belfast, Ireland
Genre
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Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
13 editions
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published
1990
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On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction
5 editions
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published
2009
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Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years
13 editions
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published
1991
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Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery
7 editions
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published
1999
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Nabokov's ADA: The Place of Consciousness
5 editions
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published
1985
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Stalking Nabokov: Selected Essays
5 editions
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published
2011
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U2 Experience
2 editions
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published
2015
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Why Lyrics Last: Evolution, Cognition, and Shakespeare's Sonnets
3 editions
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published
2012
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Evolution, Literature, and Film: A Reader
by
2 editions
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published
2010
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Inside The Blf: A Union Selfdestructs
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published
1991
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“Interviewer:
What surprises you in life?
Nabokov:
...the marvel of consciousness- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidst the night of non-being.”
― Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
What surprises you in life?
Nabokov:
...the marvel of consciousness- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidst the night of non-being.”
― Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
“Writing of Pushkin, Nabokov once observed quite accurately that his subject was the threefold formula of human life: the irretrievability of the past, the insatiability of the present, and the unforeseeability of the future.”
― Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years
― Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years
“Whenever a noise exceeds our processing abilities—we can’t
decipher all the different sound waves hitting our hair cells—
the mind . . . stops trying to understand the individual notes
and seeks instead to understand the relationships between the
notes. The human auditory cortex pulls off this feat by using
it's short- term memory for sound (in the left posterior hemisphere) to uncover patterns at the large level of the phrase,
motif, and movement. This new approximation lets us extract order from all those notes haphazardly ͒flying through
space, and the brain is obsessed with order . . .
It is this psychological instinct—this desperate neuronal
search for a pattern, any pattern, that is the source of music . . . We continually abstract on our own inputs, inventing
patterns in order to keep pace with the onrush of noise. And
once the brain ͒finds a pattern, it immediately starts to make
predictions . . . It projects imaginary order into the future . . .
The structure of music reflects the human brain’s penchant for patterns . . . But before a pattern can be desired by
the brain, that pattern must play hard to get”
― On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction
decipher all the different sound waves hitting our hair cells—
the mind . . . stops trying to understand the individual notes
and seeks instead to understand the relationships between the
notes. The human auditory cortex pulls off this feat by using
it's short- term memory for sound (in the left posterior hemisphere) to uncover patterns at the large level of the phrase,
motif, and movement. This new approximation lets us extract order from all those notes haphazardly ͒flying through
space, and the brain is obsessed with order . . .
It is this psychological instinct—this desperate neuronal
search for a pattern, any pattern, that is the source of music . . . We continually abstract on our own inputs, inventing
patterns in order to keep pace with the onrush of noise. And
once the brain ͒finds a pattern, it immediately starts to make
predictions . . . It projects imaginary order into the future . . .
The structure of music reflects the human brain’s penchant for patterns . . . But before a pattern can be desired by
the brain, that pattern must play hard to get”
― On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction
Topics Mentioning This Author
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
The Book Challenge: Inna's 200 in 2010 | 67 | 752 | Apr 09, 2010 05:52AM | |
Imprinted Life: Nabokov's Speak, Memory: Tell me more... | 10 | 17 | Nov 19, 2012 09:13AM | |
The Kindred Spirits: * Dear Kindred | 4191 | 264 | Jun 16, 2013 05:34PM | |
McCaffery 20th Ce...: November 2016 - Vladimir Nabokov - The Author | 10 | 10 | Nov 22, 2016 09:44AM | |
Catching up on Cl...: Pale Fire -- No Spoilers | 26 | 85 | Aug 02, 2019 02:50AM | |
Reading with Style:
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877 | 78 | Nov 30, 2019 09:02PM |
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