Make Sense of your Senses: The Science of Perception
Taught by Jonathan Soma
Soma was born in the South, is what someone from the North would say. He co-founded the Brainery, is the sciencey half of Masters of Social Gastronomy, and plans on getting married to Waffle House. In his more droll moments he is a tragic sellout to higher ed as a professor of data journalism at Columbia University's journalism school.
See more @dangerscarf
Alternatively titled Seeing! Hearing! Feeling! Smelling! Tasting! and other Incredibly Magical Things Your Body Does That Are Pretty Crazy, Really, which unfortunately is somewhat of a long title.
We've all had that "wait a second, dudes, how do I know the red you see is the red I see?" conversation before. After taking this class you will be able to completely harsh everyone's philosophical buzz by using Science to provide an answer! You can then present optical illusions to make it up to them.
You'll also learn what in the world an "eardum" is, and why L's and R's are such a problem for Japanese speakers (special bonus: why you're terrible at Hindi).
Be trained to cart around drawings of a grotesque, misshapen human being and tell your friends it lives in your brain (with conviction of, course). Learn about phantom limbs and hope you never have one!
Be regaled with stories of why I can't eat Golden Grahams thanks to one fun day in Third Grade, and how people would cover themselves in whale barf if it weren't so darn expensive.
In short: there really is a lot of stuff between you and the outside world (mostly neurons, electricity and strange chemicals) and we're going to do our best to break it down for you.
