Mimetic Desires, Testing Witness Memories, Fermilab’s Ferret
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 963 Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
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Summary
Learn about why you want things just because others do too; a way to reduce wrongful convictions; and Fermilab’s ferret.
"Mimetic desires" are things you want because others want them — here's how to spot them by Steffie Drucker
- Reese, H. (2021, November 8). Mimetic desire: How to avoid chasing things you don’t truly want. Big Think; Big Think. https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/mimetic-desire-luke-burgis/
- Caprino, K. (2021, June 4). How To Identify Your True Desires And Stop Imitating Everyone Else’s. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2021/06/04/how-to-identify-your-true-desires-and-stop-imitating-everyone-elses/?sh=15125424699e
- Girard, Rene | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2015). Utm.edu. https://iep.utm.edu/girard/
- Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire by Luke Burgis - Summary & Quotes. (2021). Matthewvere.com. https://www.matthewvere.com/notes/wanting-the-power-of-mimetic-desire#toc-thick-desires
- Mimetic Theory | What It Is. (2019). Mimetic Theory. https://mimetictheory.com/what-it-is-2/
To reduce wrongful convictions, test a witness's memory only once by Grant Currin
- One and done: Researchers urge testing eyewitness memory only once. (2021, November 3). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/933794
- Wixted, J. T., Wells, G. L., Loftus, E. F., & Garrett, B. L. (2021). Test a Witness’s Memory of a Suspect Only Once. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 22(1_suppl), 1S18S. https://doi.org/10.1177/15291006211026259
- Kimball, S. (2021, January 28). US Supreme Court turns down Texas death row case concerning police hypnosis. Jurist.org; - JURIST - News - Legal News & Commentary. https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/01/us-supreme-court-turns-down-texas-death-row-case-concerning-police-hypnosis/
In the 1970s, one of Fermilab’s particle accelerator techs was a ferret named Felicia by Cameron Duke
- Felicia helps out. (2016, October 5). News. https://news.fnal.gov/2016/10/felicia-helps-out/
- Pinkowski, J. (2019, April 2). Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accelerator. Atlas Obscura; Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/felicia-ferret-particle-accelerator-fermilab
- Searcy, M. (Fall 2014). A fuzzy concept. The University of Chicago Magazine. https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/fuzzy-concept
- Spichak, S. (2021, July 13). The Ferret Who Ran Inside the Fermi Particle Accelerator. Medium; History of Yesterday. https://historyofyesterday.com/the-ferret-who-ran-inside-the-fermi-particle-accelerator-fec5b3136b0b
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Cody Gough, and I will be your host today. |
| 0:08.6 | Ashley's back next week. |
| 0:10.4 | Today he'll learn about how to recognize when you want something just because other people want it too, |
| 0:15.0 | how to test a witness's memory to reduce wrongful convictions, |
| 0:19.0 | and that time one of the technicians working on a particle accelerator was a ferret. |
| 0:25.7 | Let's satisfy some curiosity. |
| 0:28.9 | Take a second to think about why you want the things you want? |
| 0:32.9 | Did you follow a path in life because you knew it would bring you happiness and fulfillment? |
| 0:38.2 | Or was it because that was what people told you you wanted? |
| 0:42.1 | What about the relationships you've pursued? The stuff you've bought? |
| 0:45.4 | There's a name for the things we want just because others want them. They're called |
| 0:50.8 | memetic desires. |
| 0:53.0 | They can be tough to identify them, |
| 0:55.0 | but luckily I've got a few tips for figuring out what you truly want. |
| 1:01.0 | Now this idea comes from French thinker Renee Gerard. |
| 1:04.0 | According to him, after we've met our basic needs like food and shelter, |
| 1:09.0 | our desires hit a wall. |
| 1:11.0 | Without biology to guide us, we look to others to know what we want. We unconsciously |
| 1:17.1 | imitate family and friends, professional peers, and even celebrities. |
| 1:23.0 | We pick up on what they want and in turn end up wanting the same things. |
| 1:28.6 | Gerard called this memetic desire. |
... |
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