Philosophy | Daniel Smith I believe that people are mostly at different levels of awareness or consciousness in their lives and that we look at life through our own set of glasses. Most of us are functioning based on ideas and theories that have been passed on from generation to generation and so we are seeing the world through our ideas and not necessarily looking at reality. As a species we have advanced tremendously in technology and commerce, but one thing we have neglected to advance in is consciousness, the ability to be awake in the world. Today’s society has become extremely efficient at doing things with little or no awareness, we just run on auto pilot. What is consciousness? For thousands of years this question has agonized some of the world’s greatest minds—entire generations of mystics, philosophers, and scientists laying awake at night, staring into the abyss of their subjective space. Consciousness is, in fact, fundamentally woven into the universe itself.
10 Most Brilliant Social Psychology Experiments Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things. “I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures.Why do good people sometimes act evil?Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?” Like famous social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo (author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil), I’m also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things. The answer quite often is because of other people — something social psychologists have comprehensively shown. Each of the 10 brilliant social psychology experiments below tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day. Click the link in each social psychology experiment to get the full description and explanation of each phenomenon. 1. The halo effect is a finding from a famous social psychology experiment. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
William James Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. William James (11 January 1842 – 26 August 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. He developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism, and wrote influential books on the science of psychology, the psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism. Quotes[edit] We are all ready to be savage in somecause. Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively. 1880s[edit] Freedom is only necessity understood." 1890s[edit] We are all ready to be savage in some cause. 1900s[edit] Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow.William James (1902) listed in: The William James Reader Vol I (2007). p.264A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.William James, listed in: William James: the Essential Writings, edited by Bruce W. 1910s[edit] The Sentiment of Rationality (1882)[edit]
5 Brainwashing Tricks That Work No Matter How Smart You Are #2. Everyone Has the Same Moral Code, They Just Use It Differently Win McNamee/Getty Images News/Getty Images Question: Do you consider yourself morally superior to the people who used to burn witches (and in fact, still do)? Johann Jakob Wick"Well done, not medium. But what if, in some surprising turn of events, it turned out that witches were not only real, but that everything said about them was true*? This, then, is where you realize that you're not necessarily more tolerant than the witch hunters -- you just don't share their belief in witches. *The above example was stolen wholesale from C.S. Now look at pretty much every single political debate. Now, in order to preserve the good vs. evil narrative, here is where we say that the other side is simply lying about what they believe. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images "You don't care about babies; you hate women!" IPGGutenbergUKLtd/iStock/Getty Images And you made a brave choice going out dressed like that. #1.
9 Mind-Bending Epiphanies That Turned My World Upside-Down Over the years I’ve learned dozens of little tricks and insights for making life more fulfilling. They’ve added up to a significant improvement in the ease and quality of my day-to-day life. But the major breakthroughs have come from a handful of insights that completely rocked my world and redefined reality forever. The world now seems to be a completely different one than the one I lived in about ten years ago, when I started looking into the mechanics of quality of life. Maybe you’ve had some of the same insights. 1. The first time I heard somebody say that — in the opening chapter of The Power of Now — I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. I see quite clearly now that life is nothing but passing experiences, and my thoughts are just one more category of things I experience. If you can observe your thoughts just like you can observe other objects, who’s doing the observing? 2. Of course! 3. 4. 5. Yikes. 6. This discovery was a complete 180 from my old understanding of emotions. 7.
D. Kahneman: presentation to tech titans: Thinking about thinking A SHORT COURSE IN THINKING ABOUT THINKING Edge Master Class 07DANIEL KAHNEMAN Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford, CA, July 20-22, 2007AN EDGE SPECIAL PROJECT (click for slideshow) ATTENDEES: Jeff Bezos, Founder, Amazon.com; Stewart Brand, Cofounder, Long Now Foundation, Author, How Buildings Learn; Sergey Brin, Founder, Google; John Brockman, Edge Foundation, Inc.; Max Brockman, Brockman, Inc.; Peter Diamandis, Space Entrepreneur, Founder, X Prize Foundation; George Dyson, Science Historian; Author, Darwin Among the Machines; W. INTRODUCTIONBy John Brockman Recently, I spent several months working closely with Danny Kahneman, the psychologist who is the co-creator of behavioral economics (with his late collaborator Amos Tversky), for which he won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. While Kahneman has a wide following among people who study risk, decision-making, and other aspects of human judgment, he is not exactly a household name. The event was an unqualified success.
SPECULATIONS ON THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE (KEVIN KELLY:) Science will continue to surprise us with what it discovers and creates; then it will astound us by devising new methods to surprises us. At the core of science's self-modification is technology. New tools enable new structures of knowledge and new ways of discovery. Technology is, in its essence, new ways of thinking. New informational organizations are layered upon the old without displacement, just as in biological evolution. I'm willing to bet the scientific method 400 years from now will differ from today's understanding of science more than today's science method differs from the proto-science used 400 years ago. Based on the suggestions of the observers above, and my own active imagination, I offer the following as possible near-term advances in the evolution of the scientific method. Compiled Negative Results — Negative results are saved, shared, compiled and analyzed, instead of being dumped.
Wired 8.04: Why the future doesn't need us. Why the future doesn't need us. Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species. By Bill Joy From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things. Ray and I were both speakers at George Gilder's Telecosm conference, and I encountered him by chance in the bar of the hotel after both our sessions were over. While I had heard such talk before, I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction. It's easy to get jaded about such breakthroughs. I found myself most troubled by a passage detailing adystopian scenario: Page 2 >>
Jaron Lanier Jaron Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, and visual artist. He is the author of You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto; and Who Owns The Future? His scientific interests include biomimetic information architectures, user interfaces, heterogeneous scientific simulations, advanced information systems for medicine, and computational approaches to the fundamentals of physics. He collaborates with a wide range of scientists in fields related to these interests. Lanier's name is also often associated with Virtual Reality research. From 1997 to 2001, Lanier was the Chief Scientist of Advanced Network and Services, which contained the Engineering Office of Internet2, and served as the Lead Scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, a coalition of research universities studying advanced applications for Internet2.
Portrait of an INFP As an INFP, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit into your personal value system. Your secondary mode is external, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. INFPs, more than other iNtuitive Feeling types, are focused on making the world a better place for people. Their primary goal is to find out their meaning in life. What is their purpose? INFPs are highly intuitive about people. Generally thoughtful and considerate, INFPs are good listeners and put people at ease. INFPs do not like conflict, and go to great lengths to avoid it. INFPs are flexible and laid-back, until one of their values is violated. When it comes to the mundane details of life maintenance, INFPs are typically completely unaware of such things. INFPs do not like to deal with hard facts and logic. INFPs have very high standards and are perfectionists. INFPs are usually talented writers. Check us out on Facebook
Altruism Giving alms to the poor is often considered an altruistic action. Altruism or selflessness is the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core aspect of various religious traditions and secular worldviews, though the concept of "others" toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism or selflessness is the opposite of selfishness. Altruism can be distinguished from feelings of loyalty. Much debate exists as to whether "true" altruism is possible. The notion of altruism[edit] The concept has a long history in philosophical and ethical thought. Individual variations[edit] A certain individual may behave altruistically in one case and egoistically in another situation. A 1986 study estimated that altruism was half-inherited. Scientific viewpoints[edit] Anthropology[edit] Marcel Mauss's book The Gift contains a passage: "Note on alms." Evolutionary explanations[edit] Group selection.
Compassion Compassion personified: a statue at the Epcot center in Florida Compassion is the response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help.[1][2] Compassion is often, though not inevitably, the key component in what manifests in the social context as altruism.[citation needed] In ethical terms, the expressions down the ages of the so-called Golden Rule often embodies by implication the principle of compassion: Do to others what you would have them do to you.[3][original research?] The English noun compassion, meaning to love together with, comes from Latin. Its prefix com- comes directly from com, an archaic version of the Latin preposition and affix cum (= with); the -passion segment is derived from passus, past participle of the deponent verb patior, patī, passus sum. Theories[edit] Three theoretical perspectives of compassion have been proposed, which are contrasted by their predictions and approaches of compassion. Psychology[edit] Neuropsychology[edit] Medicine[edit]