Mind Hacks‘ Tom Stafford recently wrote a column for BBC Future in which he explores autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR—a set of pleasurable physical sensations that come with focus on often mundane things. Evidently, millions of people have sought out boring YouTube videos in an effort to induce the feeling, which until a few years ago lacked not merely scientific attention but even a name.

Presumably the feeling has existed for all of human history. Each person discovered the experience, treasured it or ignored it, and kept the feeling to themselves. That there wasn’t a name for it until 2010 suggests that most people who had this feeling hadn’t talked about it. It’s amazing that it got this far without getting a name. In scientific terms, it didn’t exist.

Stafford goes on to draw a parallel with the slow scientific recognition of the phenomenon of meteorites, “the process of myth becoming fact,” but suggests that the online age has democratized this process:

Discussion among ordinary people on the internet provided validation that the unnamed feeling was a shared one. Suddenly many individuals who might have thought of themselves as unusual were able to recognise that they were a single group, with a common experience.

There’s a range of rich discussions to be had here. What is the cultural or epistemological value of having a (scientific) name attached to a phenomenon? How does naming something, or learning its name, alter our experience of the thing—or conflate a broader spectrum of actual individual experiences into something more mythologized? Are all names created equal? Does “skepticism,” to take one example, by any other name smell as sweet? What costs and benefits does the term have in communicating principles, defining goals, building community, and staking territory? (This seems particularly relevant right now, when the definition of skepticism and the delineation of its appropriate scope are once again being publicly debated.)

More personally, what experiences and perceptions does each of us carry and assume to be unique to our own self and circumstances, and what mechanisms exist for determining this?

I’ll leave it there, other than to recommend that you research “qualia” if you have a great deal of time on your hands. I have my own thoughts on the issue—but you wouldn’t understand.

• An elaborate infographic connecting conspiracy theories.

• Massimo Pigliucci offers a challenging take on the burden of proof.

• Are reports of the impact of neuroscience greatly exaggerated?

• Multiple intelligences revisited: are footballers smart?

• Steve Novella comments on the Continuity Problem. Can we be digitally uploaded?

• Contextualizing animal intelligence.

• More on the neuroscience of listening to music: why does it make us feel good?

• Mo Costandi dismantles that most pervasive of educational missteps, the myth of learning styles.

• The philosopher as intellectual detective, rational therapist, and curious child.

• A positive use for deliberately created false memories.

• What does it take to spark prejudice?

• You see it everywhere lately, but does brain training work?

• New research sheds light on just when babies become conscious.

• Robert J. Blaskiewicz looks at the Boston Marathon conspiracy theories.

• Interesting insights emerge from studying subway riders’ quirks.

• Notes on agency and intention at the Festival of Neuroscience.

• And because it can’t be revisited often enough, the nonsense behind Neuro-Linguistic Programming.