Physicists Say Consciousness Might Be a State of Matter — NOVA Next It’s not enough to have a brain. Consciousness—a hallmark of humans, mammals, birds, and even octopuses—is that mysterious force that makes all those neurons and synapses “tick” and merge into “you.” It’s what makes you alert and sensitive to your surroundings, and it’s what helps you see yourself as separate from everything else. So MIT’s Max Tegmark is championing a new way of explaining it: he believes that consciousness is a state of matter. Theoretical physicist Max Tegmark says that consciousness is a state of matter, undulating through phases of change based on surrounding mathematical conditions. By “matter,” he doesn’t mean that somewhere in the deep recesses of your brain is a small bundle of liquid, sloshing around and powering your sense of self and your awareness of the world. Most neuroscientists agonize over consciousness because it’s so difficult to explain. Tegmark calls his new state of matter “perceptronium.”
MindShift | How we will learn MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions. We examine how learning is being impacted by technology, discoveries about how the brain works, poverty and inequities, social and emotional practices, assessments, digital games, design thinking and music, among many other topics. We look at how learning is evolving in the classroom and beyond.We also revisit old ideas that have come full circle in the era of the over scheduled child, such as unschooling, tinkering, playing in the woods, mindfulness, inquiry-based learning and student motivation. We report on shifts in how educators practice their craft as they apply innovative ideas to help students learn, while meeting the rigorous demands of their standards and curriculum. Contact the us by email.
Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in eight weeks Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter. "Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day," says Sara Lazar, PhD, of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, the study's senior author. "This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing."
March 2007 Daniel Gilbert writes a nice OpEd piece in today's NY Times, titled "Compassionalte Commercialism" (He is the psychology professor at Harvard whose book "Stumbling on Happiness" I abstracted in a series of posts 6/29/2006.) In an advertising campaign that began last week, Nissan left 20,000 sets of keys in bars, stadiums, concert halls and other public venues. Each key ring has a tag that says: “If found, please do not return. My next generation Nissan Altima has Intelligent Key with push-button ignition, and I no longer need these.” This campaign is clever, but not particularly original. It was 1997, and the man who was crouched on the sidewalk at 68th and Broadway in New York City was one of the most pathetic souls I’d ever seen. Most passers-by did what they were named for, but my wife and I stopped. We hadn’t gone a block when she tugged my sleeve. I know two things now that I didn’t know then. First, I now know that my hand did what human hands were designed to do.
8 Famous People Whose Creativity & Innovation Was Inspired By LSD Source: www.collective-evolution.com | Original Post Date: Growing up, I was conditioned to believe that LSD was one of the worse drugs, with its dangers and addictive properties following close behind those of heroin. This would all change when I fell severely ill in my twenties. After conventional medicine had failed me, I decided to embark on a journey with plant medicine. This eventually led to an interest in the healing properties of psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, which ultimately cured my depression. However, at the time I vowed never to explore LSD, as it was ‘synthetic’ and in my opinion could not be considered a natural medicine. So, imagine the surprise of those closest to me when I announced the inevitable –my interest in psychedelics finally piqued my interest in LSD. What I learned was that although LSD may not exactly be “natural,” when it opens the doors of perception, it simultaneously opens much more. Famous People Inspired by LSD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Sources:
15 Years of Cutting-Edge Thinking on Understanding the Mind by Maria Popova What mirror neurons have to do with Abu Ghraib, the science of religion, and how happiness flourishes. For the past 15 years, literary-agent-turned-crusader-of-human-progress John Brockman has been a remarkable curator of curiosity, long before either “curator” or “curiosity” was a frivolously tossed around buzzword. His Edge.org has become an epicenter of bleeding-edge insight across science, technology and beyond, hosting conversations with some of our era’s greatest thinkers (and, once a year, asking them some big questions.) Last month marked the release of The Mind, the first volume in The Best of Edge Series, presenting eighteen provocative, landmark pieces — essays, interviews, transcribed talks — from the Edge archive. While there’s no doubt about the value of online presentations, the role of books, whether bound and printed or presented electronically, is still an invaluable way to present important ideas. Iconic neuroscientist V. What is the self?
Religion May Cause Brain Atrophy -- Science of the Spirit Faith can open your mind but it can also cause your brain to shrink at a different rate, research suggests. Researchers at Duke University Medical Centre in the US claim to have discovered a correlation between religious practices and changes in the brains of older adults. The study, published in the open-access science journal, Public Library of Science ONE, asked 268 people aged 58 to 84 about their religious group, spiritual practices and life-changing religious experiences. Changes in the volume of their hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with learning and memory, were tracked using MRI scans, over two to eight years. Protestants who did not identify themselves as born-again were found to have less atrophy in the hippocampus region than did born-again Protestants, Catholics or those with no religious affiliation. Although the brain tends to shrink with age, atrophy in the hippocampus has been linked with depression and Alzheimer's disease.
Jung's Active Imagination The following atrticle is excerpted from Jung the Mystic, now available from Tarcher/Penguin. There was a method to Jung's madness: active imagination. It, along with the transcendent function, are the two most important discoveries Jung made in the years leading up to World War One. I would even argue that they were the most important discoveries of Jung's career, and that everything that came later had its roots in these two fundamental insights. This being so, they warrant a bit of attention. Strangely, Jung seems to have done everything he could to hide these discoveries from all but his closest colleagues. Some suggest Jung kept quiet about active imagination because he considered it possibly dangerous. What, then, is active imagination? More abstractly, it's a method of consciously entering into a dialogue with the unconscious, which triggers the transcendent function, a vital shift in consciousness, brought about through the union of the conscious and unconscious minds. Notes:
Is Your Mind Separate From Your Body? Premise #1: “The mind is in the body.” I teach a lot of courses and workshops on mind-body science, and Premise #1 is how I start all of them. It's a basic assumption of modern psychology, especially for those who study the brain . I define mind as the experience a person has of him or herself—thoughts, emotions, memories , desires, beliefs, sensations, even consciousness itself. For example, hormones circulating throughout the body shape our thoughts and emotions, from testosterone making us more competitive and self-focused to adrenaline making us anxious or energized. I don't find it alarming or depressing that rich psychological experiences may be rooted in the body, and observable physical processes. Of course, not everyone accepts this mind-body premise. But I'm intrigued by a new study on this issue that focuses not on which point of view is right, but how your beliefs about the mind-body relationship shapes other attitudes and actions. Studies cited: 1. 2.
Brain Games & Brain Training How We Create Reality Al Smith, Contributing WriterWaking Times Do you wonder why life is a chaotic roller coaster of both positive and negative events? Have you, like most, earnestly tried positive thinking, meditation or prayer without any tangible beneficial results? Do you stress over your quietly desperate realization that you have little control over your own life? Do you fear that most of us are floating helplessly like plankton on the waves? After reading this a few times, you’ll understand the natural forces that create our individual and collective realities. We each wield enormous power throughout each day of our lives. Your subconscious mind is in continuous contact with the subconscious minds of everyone else alive today and possibly with all minds on other planes at all times throughout the universe. The collective subconscious does NOT understand “words” or language. Don’t confuse night dreams with daydreams. The duration of an image you host on your mental screen isn’t very significant.