Quality of life
Quality of life (QOL) is the general well-being of individuals and societies. QOL has a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, politics and employment. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of living, which is based primarily on income. Overview[edit] Standard indicators of the quality of life include not only wealth and employment but also the built environment, physical and mental health, education, recreation and leisure time, and social belonging.[1][2] According to ecological economist Robert Costanza: While Quality of Life (QOL) has long been an explicit or implicit policy goal, adequate definition and measurement have been elusive. Identity and engagementCreativity and recreationMemory and projectionBelief and ideasGender and generationsEnquiry and learningWellbeing and health Also frequently related are concepts such as freedom, human rights, and happiness. Quantitative measurement[edit] Other measures[edit]
Happiness
Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.[1] A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including positive psychology, are employing the scientific method to research questions about what "happiness" is, and how it might be attained. The United Nations declared 20 March the International Day of Happiness to recognise the relevance of happiness and wellbeing as universal goals. Definition Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness is a fuzzy concept and can mean many different things to many people. Research results Meditation has been found to lead to high activity in the brain's left prefrontal cortex, which in turn has been found to correlate with happiness.[11] Buddhism
Meritocracy
Definitions[edit] Early definitions[edit] Supporters of meritocracies do not necessarily agree on the nature of "merit", however, they do tend to agree that "merit" itself should be a primary consideration during evaluation. In a more general sense, meritocracy can refer to any form of government based on achievement. This is in contrast to the term originally coined by Michael Young in 1958, who critically defined it as a system where "merit is equated with intelligence-plus-effort, its possessors are identified at an early age and selected for appropriate intensive education, and there is an obsession with quantification, test-scoring, and qualifications." [5] Meritocracy in its wider sense, may be any general act of judgment upon the basis of various demonstrated merits; such acts frequently are described in sociology and psychology. More recent definitions[edit] The most common form of meritocratic screening found today is the college degree. Etymology[edit] History[edit] Australia[edit]
Status Anxiety
Status Anxiety is a nonfiction book by Alain de Botton. It was first published in 2004 by Hamish Hamilton; subsequent publications have been by Penguin Books. Central thesis[edit] Status Anxiety discusses the desire of people in many modern societies to "climb the social ladder" and the anxieties that result from a focus on how one is perceived by others. De Botton claims that chronic anxiety about status is an inevitable side effect of any democratic, ostensibly egalitarian society. Causes: Solutions: Film[edit] A two-hour documentary film about this thesis, also called Status Anxiety and written by Alain de Botton, was released in 2004. See also[edit] External links[edit] Status Anxiety - Alain de Botton website
A kinder, gentler philosophy of success: Alain de Botton on TED.com
Science 6 talks to watch this Moon Day On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. Moon Day is held every July 20 to commemorate this momentous feat. 43 years later, humanity is still looking to the sky, mesmerized by lunar bodies. However, it is not just Earth’s moon we’re studying anymore. With better satellites and […] Entertainment Your mega summer reading list: 200 books recommended by TEDsters Books can entertain, sucking you like a tornado into incredible new worlds.
Status Anxiety
Child of Rage 13.45K Views2 Likes 6 and a half year old Beth Thomas, once labeled “The Child Of Rage” by HBO, tells the story of her healing from Reactive Attachment Disorder in a powerful story you will never forget. What happens when a child is d... Fry’s Planet Word 5.68K Views0 Likes A five-part series in which Stephen Fry explores language, coming to understand how we learn it, write it and sometimes lose it, and why it defines us. Tormented Lives 3.94K Views0 Likes Documentary in which disability rights campaigner Rosa Monckton provides an insight into the harrowing stories behind headline-grabbing accounts of attacks on people with learning difficulties. Are you Good or Evil? 5.02K Views0 Likes What makes us good or evil?
Memory/Experience
Social Construction of Intelligence
Self-Evolving: The Extended Mind
Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The mind appears to be adapted for reaching out from our heads and making the world, including our machines, an extension of itself. This concept of the extended mind was first raised in 1998, right around the time Google was born, by two philosophers, Andy Clark, now at the University of Edinburgh, and David Chalmers, now at the Australian National University. In the journal Analysis, they published a short essay called “The Extended Mind” in which they asked a simple question: “Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin?” Most people might answer, “At the skull.” But Clark and Chalmers set out to convince their readers that the mind is not simply the product of the neurons in our brains, locked away behind a wall of bone. Clark and Chalmers asked their readers to imagine a woman named Inga. Now imagine a man named Otto, who has Alzheimer’s. The notebook, in other words, is part of his extended mind. The U.S.
Subconscious
In psychology, the subconscious is the part of consciousness that is not currently in focal awareness. The word subconscious is an anglicized version of the French subconscient as coined by the psychologist Pierre Janet, who argued that underneath the layers of critical thought functions of the conscious mind lay a powerful awareness that he called the subconscious mind.[1] Because there is a limit to the information that can be held in conscious focal awareness, a storehouse of one's knowledge and prior experience is needed; this is the subconscious.[2] The subconscious and psychoanalysis[edit] The subconscious is commonly encountered as a replacement for the unconscious mind and therefore, laypersons commonly assume that the subconscious is a psychoanalytic term; it isn't. The subconscious and instinct[edit] The subconscious mind is a composite of everything one sees, hears and any information the mind collects that it cannot otherwise consciously process to make meaningful sense.
