Book 5 of The Window
The Window You Can't Look Away From
Attention and Reward
by J. Brandon Hughes
The real thing loses to a caricature of itself.
Seventy years ago a bird chose a painted plaster egg over its own. Tinbergen called it a supernormal stimulus: a fake louder than the real thing. This book follows that shape to the phone in a teenager's hand, where variable-reward feeds meet a reward system still being built. A handle that was designed can be taken off.
- The window
- The adolescent reward system, still being built
- The signal
- The supernormal stimulus: a brighter fake of the real thing
Contents
Movement One · The Obvious Thing
- Chapter 1 · The Brighter Egg
- Chapter 2 · What Wanting Is For
- Chapter 3 · The Second Window
- Interstitial I · The Cuckoo in the Nest
Movement Two · The Thing You're Kidding Me About
- Chapter 4 · The Slot Machine in the Pocket
- Chapter 5 · Animals First
- Chapter 6 · The Bridge to Us
- Chapter 7 · The Design Room
- Interstitial II · The Machine Zone
Movement Three · The Proof, and Its Limits
- Chapter 8 · The Signal in the Population
- Chapter 9 · The Shape of the Harm
- Chapter 10 · The Hollowed Want
- Chapter 10A · The Empty Minute
- Interstitial III · The Marshmallow and the Horizon
Movement Four · What It Means, and What to Do
- Chapter 11 · An Origin Is Not a Verdict
- Chapter 12 · Take the Handle Off
- Interstitial IV · The Battery Is Full