Mind
Praying away the oil leak | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Praying away the oil leak | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
A man in Boulder — yes, my home town — is trying to meditate the oil leak away. His idea?
“The basic concept is to try and get as many people to visualize that the valve is actually functioning and is working and closing.”
This is part [...]
Liberals and atheists smarter? Intelligent people have values novel in human evolutionary history, study finds
ScienceDaily Feb. 24, 2010 — More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men but not women, preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.
Read [...]
Intimacy and Vulnerability: Can You Have One Without the Other? | Psychology Today
Intimacy and Vulnerability: Can You Have One Without the Other?
Couples with truly intimate relationships want to connect deeply.
Published on April 2, 2010
Intimacy, by its very nature, requires us to be vulnerable. Our partner, lover, or mate can know us to our very core, sometimes better than we know ourselves, and that can make any of [...]
Can Atheists Have a Code of Sexual Morality? | Psychology Today
With the publication of recent books about atheism, the simultaneous attempts to blur the separation of church and state promised in our Constitution, and Americans’ unending obsession with matters sexual, the question arises:
Can atheists have a code of sexual morality?
This question is at once hilarious, insulting, pathetic, and revealing. It only makes sense if you [...]
Believing in Transformation | Psychology Today
The human mind always seeks solutions to problems and occasionally finds itself in a complete stalemate. Death is one of them, the ultimate one. Human beings can’t imagine our own absence. The concept of nonexistence for an existent being is, at best, baffling, like endless space or other universes. Such puzzlement precedes enlightenment.
When confronted with [...]
IBM’s Blue Gene Supercomputer Models a Cat’s Entire Brain | Popular Science
IBM’s Blue Gene Supercomputer Models a Cat’s Entire Brain | Popular Science
Cats may retain an aura of mystery about their smug selves, but that could change with scientists using a supercomputer to simulate the the feline brain. That translates into 144 terabytes of working memory for the digital kitty mind.
CBT = Existentialism? | Psychology Today
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that cognitive behavioral therapy, the empirically-demonstrated gold standard for treating depression and a host of other problems, necessitates a belief in existentialism, a philosophy holding that we live in a meaningless universe.
How can happiness derive from appreciating the fundamental pointlessness of existence?
Existentialism (at least atheistic existentialism) does not argue [...]
Why We Talk and Chimps Don’t | Psychology Today
Why We Talk and Chimps Don’t
As much as I love science, I love science fiction more. Science tells us what is; science fiction tells us what might be. I recently read a unique and revealing science fiction story, “Immersion,” written by U-Cal-Irvine physics professor Gregory Benford. In his story, Benford invents the technophile’s brand of [...]
BBC - Earth News - Chimps born to appreciate music
BBC - Earth News - Chimps born to appreciate music
Chimpanzees are biologically programmed to appreciate pleasant music.
The discovery comes from experiments showing that an infant chimpanzee prefers to listen to consonant music over dissonant music.
That suggests the apes are born with an innate appreciation of pleasant sounds, say scientists in the journal Primates.
Until now, this [...]
Is Our Brain to Blame If We’re Not Sociable? | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com
Is Our Brain to Blame If We’re Not Sociable? | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com
There must be something deep in the human soul that makes us blame fate, birth, our parents and all sorts of other things beyond our control for how we turn out, and scientists are no less guilty of this. [...]
Does God Favor Sexual Predators?
Does God Favor Sexual Predators? | Psychology Today Blogs
If you take a look at The New York Post, Fox News, and The Weekly Standard, you’ll get a pretty good sense of who Rupert Murdock is and what he cares about.
Now imagine one very powerful figure is the CEO of three competing companies, each with thousands [...]
Fascinating Article about the Placebo Effect
Jane D. was a regular visitor to our ER, usually showing up late at night demanding an injection of the narcotic Demerol, the only thing that worked for her severe headaches. One night the staff psychiatrist had the nurse give her an injection of saline instead. It worked! He told Jane she had responded to [...]
22May2009 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Policing with Inappropriate Force
Evanston, IL— Last month, three police officers in this quiet university town were involved in a shooting incident that left one man, 32-year-old Desrick York, dead with 10 bullets in his body. Mr York was the father of school-age children and considered very much part of the community. He was, according to reports, caught up [...]
22May2009 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Sensed Presences in Extreme Contexts
John Geiger’s book is a highly readable compendium of anecdotes about the remarkably common experience of feeling the presence of a companion for whom there is no objective evidence. The companion is seldom seen but strongly sensed and hence is often referred to as a “sensed presence.” The presence is usually taken to be a [...]
23Apr2009 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Simulated brain closer to thought
A detailed simulation of a small region of a brain built molecule by molecule has been constructed and has recreated experimental results from real brains.
The “Blue Brain” has been put in a virtual body, and observing it gives the first indications of the molecular and neural basis of thought and memory.
Scaling the simulation to the [...]
To The Brain, God Is Just Another Guy
The human brain, it appears, responds to God as if he were just another person, according to a team at the National Institutes of Health.
A study of 40 people — some religious, some nonreligious — found that phrases such as “I believe God is with me throughout the day and watches over me” lit up [...]
Zoo chimp ‘planned’ stone attacks
A male chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo planned hundreds of stone-throwing attacks on zoo visitors, according to researchers.
Keepers at Furuvik Zoo found that the chimp collected and stored stones that he would later use as missiles.
Further, the chimp learned to recognise how and when parts of his concrete enclosure could be pulled apart to fashion [...]
Promoting Psychological Literacy I: The need | Psychology Today Blogs
Science education is a top priority in this country. We believe that science education is important for at least two reasons. First, the more students learn about science, the more likely they will be to go into careers in the sciences and engineering. These careers pay well and help the economy. Second, a basic level [...]
19Feb2009 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Do People of all Cultures Believe in Free Will?
Imagine a universe in which everything that happens is completely caused by whatever happened before. So the things that happened at the very beginning of the universe caused the things that happened next, which caused the things that happened after that… right up until the present day. Now imagine that human decision making [...]
25Jan2009 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Predictably Irrational
Chapter 1: The Truth About Relativity
We always seek to draw comparisons. Thus, given three choices, A, B (very distinct, but equally as attractive as A), and A- (similar to A, but inferior), we will almost always choose A, because it is clearly superior to A-.
Ariely did an experiment where he used photos of undergrads to [...]
7Jan2009 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Troubles with Determinism?
In my brushes with the self-help movement, I have repeatedly come across the phrase “Everything happens for a reason” (EHR). I don’t know how common this belief is, but it seems to be widespread. At first glance, the EHR belief is an adaptive psychological response to distress. Many people are bothered by the idea of chance, [...]
2Jan2009 | Admin | 1 comment | Continued
Study: Poverty dramatically affects children’s brains
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
A new study finds that certain brain functions of some low-income 9- and 10-year-olds pale in comparison with those of wealthy children and that the difference is almost equivalent to the damage from a stroke.
“It is a similar pattern to what’s seen in patients with strokes that have led to lesions [...]
Kill the Buddha
Lin Chi Zen Master said, “If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a Patriarch, kill the Patriarch.” Zen Master Seung Sahn says that in this life we must all kill three things: First we must kill our parents. Second, we must kill the Buddha. And lastly, we must kill him! This [...]
20Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
The Brand Loyalty of Religion is Unsurpassed.
For most brand managers, brand loyalty is a crucial metric of success. One way to measure brand loyalty is by gauging the extent of repeat purchases. Suppose that we were to keep track of the next ten purchases of soft drinks for consumers A and B. If consumer A buys Pepsi on each of the [...]
19Dec2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
How to Become a Happier Person: Is There a Way?
Happiness: everyone wants it and most people can’t get enough of it. Is there a way to become happier than you are now? Some research indicates that the saying “Think happy thoughts” is the way to go if you are looking for a way to increase your level of happiness. One study found that people [...]
16Nov2008 | Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedTranslate
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The Center for Naturalism
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A Chameleon Sky
The sands of time are running out for the central star of this the Hourglass Nebula. With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a sun-like star's life occurs as its outer layers are ejected and its core becomes a cooling, fading white dwarf. In 1995, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to make a series of images of planetary nebulae, including the one above. Here, delicate rings of colorful glowing gas (nitrogen-red, hydrogen-green, and oxygen-blue) outline the tenuous walls of the 'hourglass.' The unprecedented sharpness of Hubble's images revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process and may resolve the outstanding mystery of the variety of complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebulae. Image Credit: NASA, WFPC2, HST, R. Sahai and J. Trauger (JPL)
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