Artist Manipulates Water With The Power Of Her Mind "Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?” asked existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. NY-based artist Lisa Park took this prompt as an invitation to extend the potential of man beyond our bodily limitations in the performative art project Eunoia, which means “beautiful thought” in Greek. Exploring questions of vulnerability, self-control, and liberation, Park recreates a scene that looks as if it's been lifted from your favorite Kung-Fu movie or an outtake from Kill Bill. Wearing a futuristic headset embeded with electroencephalography (EEG) sensors, Park moniters her own brain activity during meditation and transposes this energy onto dishes of water to reveal zen-like vibrations. Park is working with the experimental brain-computer technologies of the NeuroSky EEG headset, which you might remember from the Necomimi cat ear headset we wrote about a while back. Though the data is robust, it's mostly inscrutable to the untrained eye.
Mind-reading scan identifies simple thoughts - health - 26 May 2011 A new new brain imaging system that can identify a subject's simple thoughts may lead to clearer diagnoses for Alzheimer's disease or schizophrenia – as well as possibly paving the way for reading people's minds. Michael Greicius at Stanford University in California and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify patterns of brain activity associated with different mental states. He asked 14 volunteers to do one of four tasks: sing songs silently to themselves; recall the events of the day; count backwards in threes; or simply relax. Participants were given a 10-minute period during which they had to do this. For the rest of that time they were free to think about whatever they liked. This differs from previous experiments, in which the subjects were required to perform mental activities at specific times and the scans were then compared with brain activity when they were at rest. Read my mind Diagnostic test and adverts. More From New Scientist Promoted Stories
Neuroscience of Free Will On several different levels, from neurotransmitters through neuron firing rates to overall activity, the brain seems to "ramp up" before movements. This image depicts the readiness potential (RP), a ramping-up activity measured using EEG. The onset of the RP begins before the onset of a conscious intention or urge to act. Philosophers like Daniel Dennett or Alfred Mele consider the language used by researchers. Overview[edit] ...the current work is in broad agreement with a general trend in neuroscience of volition: although we may experience that our conscious decisions and thoughts cause our actions, these experiences are in fact based on readouts of brain activity in a network of brain areas that control voluntary action... Patrick Haggard discussing[15] an in-depth experiment by Itzhak Fried[16] The neuroscience of free will encompasses two main fields of study: volition and agency. To be clear, it is very unlikely that a single study could disprove all definitions of free will.
The Unobservable Mind Consciousness is more familiar to us than any other feature of our world, since it is the route by which anything at all becomes familiar. But this is what makes consciousness so hard to pinpoint. Look for it wherever you like, you encounter only its objects – a face, a dream, a memory, a color, a pain, a melody, a problem, but nowhere the consciousness that shines on them. Putting the point in that way makes it clear that, in the first instance at least, the problem of consciousness is a philosophical, not a scientific, problem. This appropriation of the question by philosophy is apt to make scientists impatient. But will we? If the neurobiologist Christof Koch, professor of cognitive and behavioral biology at Caltech, enters this territory with some trepidation, he nevertheless hopes to take possession of it in the name of science.
Illusion of Truth share share share share Repetition is used everywhere—advertising, politics and the media—but does it really persuade us? Psychology studies reveal all… We see ads for the same products over and over again. Politicians repeat the same messages endlessly (even when it has nothing to do with the question they’ve been asked). Can all this repetition really be persuasive? It seems too simplistic that just repeating a persuasive message should increase its effect, but that’s exactly what psychological research finds (again and again). People rate statements that have been repeated just once as more valid or true than things they’ve heard for the first time. And when we think something is more true, we also tend to be more persuaded by it. Easy to understand = true This is what psychologists call the illusion of truth effect and it arises at least partly because familiarity breeds liking. As every politician knows, there’s not much difference between actual truth and the illusion of truth.
10 Amazing Examples of Mind Over Matter Humans While we often think of our bodies and minds as two distinct entities, it turns out they are much more entwined than we might assume. Researchers are continually finding evidence that the brain has a distinct power to manipulate the body’s physiology. As these 10 examples show, the mind/body connection can work in our favor or detriment, depending on our knowledge of a situation and our ability to control our thoughts. Judging by their ability to meditate for hours on end, to abstain from food for days, and their vows of silence, most us would agree that Tibetan Monks have better control over their minds and bodies than the average person. Still, what’s particularly amazing is some of them can control physiological processes, such as blood pressure and body temperature – feats many medical doctors find astounding. Although, the display was fascinating to the doctors, for the monks it was an ordinary occurrence. Multiple Personality Disorder Dreams Cause Real Injuries
Mind Modifications What is a Ganzfeld effect? The Ganzfeld (German for “complete/full field”) effect happens when the sensory system is steadily overloaded with a uniform signal. For example, a uniform, steady and all-encompassing soft light to the eyes will cause a “loss of vision”. This happens because, essentially, there is no change in the signal going to the brain, so the brain stops processing the signal. The Ganzfeld is interesting because it is a simple, yet effective tool which provides a mild form of sensory deprivation. Mild sensory deprivation through the Ganzfeld effect gives mild effects. Anyway, to enhance the effect, the basic idea is to extend the Ganzfeld idea to other senses than vision. While trying out the Ganzfeld with a big blank wall in a darkened room, for a short period of time I saw myself in a snowy parking lot. Experimenting with the Ganzfeld Effect A simple “Ganzfeld device” is easy to build; first, cut a uniform colour ping-pong ball in two. Uses of Ganzfeld
The Urge to Make Other People Wrong “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche Recently, a blogger I admire wrote a long note on a social media site identifying blogging practices he finds annoying—and referring to bloggers who utilize them as “fundamentally wrong.” Some of them are things I also choose not to do, but not all of them. As I read through his list of “blogging mistakes,” recognizing some of them here, I found myself getting defensive. I was making him wrong for making me wrong. I shared this story with a friend of mine, and she told me that sometimes, it is black and white. What I realized amid all of this is that there is a difference between identifying something as right, and identifying it as right for you. When you believe something is right, you may be tempted to tell other people what they should and shouldn’t do. When you believe something is right, you may be tempted to fight for it. Photo by jumpinjimmyjava
Integrating the 16 Habits of Mind In outcomes-based learning environments, we generally see three elements in play: 1) learning objectives or targets are created from given standards; 2) instruction of some kind is given; and then 3) learning results are assessed. These assessments offer data to inform the revision of further planned instruction. Rinse and repeat. But lost in this clinical sequence are the Habits of Mind that (often predictably) lead to success or failure in the mastery of given standards. Below are all 16 Habits of Mind, each with a tip, strategy or resource to understand and begin implementation in your classroom. The habits themselves aren't new at all, and significant work has already been done in the areas of these "thinking habits." And a renewed urgency for their integration. The Habits of Mind by Art Costa and Bena Kallick don't simply represent fragments of practice to "add on" to what you already do, but rather new ways to think about how people learn. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
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.
Where is The Mind?: Science gets puzzled and almost admits a non-local mentalscape. This will be the last "home-produced" blog entry for a while [save the short "Everyday Spirituality" which will follow it as a sign-off] . West Virginia beckons tomorrow morning and off I will go to whatever that entails. As I said in one of the commentary responses the other day, I hope that reading two journal runs "cover-to-cover" will bring up a few thoughts worth sharing. This day's entry was inspired by two articles bumped into coincidentally which had scientists puzzling about a holographic universe and a non-local mind. Those scientists would cringe to see how I've taken their sign-posts-on-the-path, but that is their hang-up, not mine The first of these articles [both from the New Scientist] was "Where in the World is the Mind?" That brings in the second serendipitous article. It reminded me then, also, of a moment when I was able to spend a [too short] time with David Bohm, the famous theoretical physicist.
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. Contact the us by email.
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.) 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. Here’s a small sampling of the treasure chest between The Mind’s covers: knowing what your highest strengths are and deploying those in the service of something you believe is larger than you are. Iconic neuroscientist V. What is the self? Share on Tumblr