Kensho MSNBC - How to Think About the Mind How to Think About the MindNeuroscience shows that the 'soul' is the activity of the brain Sept. 27 issue - Every evening our eyes tell us that the sun sets, while we know that, in fact, the Earth is turning us away from it. Astronomy taught us centuries ago that common sense is not a reliable guide to reality. Today it is neuroscience that is forcing us to readjust our intuitions. People naturally believe in the Ghost in the Machine: that we have bodies made of matter and spirits made of an ethereal something. Yes, people acknowledge that the brain is involved in mental life. Modern neuroscience has shown that there is no user. This resistance is not surprising. The disconnect between our common sense and our best science is not an academic curiosity. Prozac shouldn't be dispensed like mints, of course, but the reason is not that it undermines the will. To many, the scariest prospect is medication that can make us better than well by enhancing mood, memory and attention.
Top 10 Paths to Spiritual Enlightenment By Jafree Ozwald ManifestingVibration.com "Enlightenment is a process of peeling back the many layers of your Infinite Self. It is an opening of your being, to the entire Universe! What is "Spiritual Enlightenment"? The following 10 steps will take you closer to having an experience of spiritual enlightenment. 1. Feeling separate and disconnected from our Universe is how we create failure after failure in life. The Ego is the thought program. As you may have heard, F.E.A.R. really stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. As humans we tend to get attached to people, and what they say, do or think about us. We experience pain because of one thing...Ignorance. 5. When you were 7 years old, what were you told you were not enough of? 6. "Think-aholics" have become the societal norm. Thoughts are safe, while experiences are real and unsafe. 8. 9. 10. Our society abhors people who step out of line. Choosing to be conscious, means waking up from the Rat Race.
Science Space Photo of the Day | Wired Science When the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies dead. When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed. These words, which open Shelley’s poem "When the Lamp is Shattered," employ visions of nature to symbolize life in decay and rebirth. It's as if he had somehow foreseen the creation of this new Gemini Legacy image, and penned a caption for it. Polar-ring galaxies are peculiar objects. Models of how polar-ring galaxies form offer two general formation scenarios: 1) a piercing merger between two galaxies aligned roughly at right angles, or 2) when the host galaxy tidally strips material from a passing gas-rich spiral and strews it into a ring. Born of Violence Brian Svoboda of the University of Arizona, who recently studied the chemical and temperature environment of NGC 660, believes that unique morphology arises from a previous interaction with a gas-rich galaxy. Weighing the Evidence Life from Death? Probing Dark Matter Image: Gemini Observatory/AURA [high-resolution]
The Simple Tao (Simple Taoism) The Way is to benefit others and not to injure. The Way is to act but not to compete.It does not show greatness and is therefore truly great. Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river Tao"the way", "the path". it is often represented by water because water always seeks the path of least resistance, yet is strong enough to demolish even stone when no other recourse is available. everything below flows from this. Here are 10 guides to the Way. Make your goal effortless actionavoid unnecessary action or action that is not spontaneous. Web Site Author: A.
Our brains are wired so we can better hear ourselves speak, new study shows Like the mute button on the TV remote control, our brains filter out unwanted noise so we can focus on what we’re listening to. But when it comes to following our own speech, a new brain study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that instead of one homogenous mute button, we have a network of volume settings that can selectively silence and amplify the sounds we make and hear. Activity in the auditory cortex when we speak and listen is amplified in some regions of the brain and muted in others. In this image, the black line represents muting activity when we speak. (Courtesy of Adeen Flinker) Neuroscientists from UC Berkeley, UCSF and Johns Hopkins University tracked the electrical signals emitted from the brains of hospitalized epilepsy patients. Their findings, published today (Dec. 8, 2010) in the Journal of Neuroscience, offer new clues about how we hear ourselves above the noise of our surroundings and monitor what we say.
High Existence Memorize something everyday.Not only will this leave your brain sharp and your memory functioning, you will also have a huge library of quotes to bust out at any moment. Poetry, sayings and philosophies are your best options.Constantly try to reduce your attachment to possessions.Those who are heavy-set with material desires will have a lot of trouble when their things are taken away from them or lost. Possessions do end up owning you, not the other way around. Become a person of minimal needs and you will be much more content.Develop an endless curiosity about this world.Become an explorer and view the world as your jungle. Stop and observe all of the little things as completely unique events. Read “Zen and the Art of Happiness” by Chris Prentiss.This book will give you the knowledge and instruction to be happy at all times regardless of the circumstances.
The Aviator: Science Fiction of the Post Global Warming World How can you go wrong with blimps? The Aviator is a new book that gives you a world of post-global warming climate and interesting developments in transportation technology and artificial intelligence. It is written by New Zealand based writer Gareth Renowden. The Aviator explores a post-apocalypse world where the apocalypse is not nuclear war or a large object hitting the earth, or even an outbreak of zombi-ism, but rather, unfettered human-caused climate change. The truth is, a future Earth with continued climate change could end up in a number of different states, but the planet ala The Aviator is a reasonable approximation of a switched-over climate, brought to us by someone who knows the science well. I have truly enjoyed it. The book’s web site is here.
Transcendental Consciousness Transcendental Consciousness Objectively Verified The existence of Transcendental Consciousness can be objectively verified—due to the profound connection between mind and body. Changes in mental states are matched by changes in physiological functioning. Although scientists cannot tell what you are thinking about in the waking state, or envisioning in the dreaming state, they can clearly distinguish between the three major states of consciousness—waking, sleeping and dreaming. These three major states of consciousness can thus be identified by unique styles of physiological functioning—especially by particular combinations of metabolic rate and brain wave patterns. This is all significant because, in the Vedic literature, the direct experience of the unified field of natural law during Transcendental Consciousness is said to take place in a fourth major state of consciousness. References: American Psychologist 42 (1987): 879–881. Science 167 (1970).
Evidence for psychic activity found It took eight years and nine experiments with more 1,000 participants, but the results offer evidence that humans have some ability to anticipate the future. "Of the various forms of ESP or psi, as we call it, precognition has always most intrigued me because it's the most magical," said Daryl Bem, professor of psychology emeritus, whose study will be published in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology sometime next year. "It most violates our notion of how the physical world works. Publishing on this topic has gladdened the hearts of psi researchers but stumped doubting social psychologists, who cannot fault Bem's mainstream and widely accepted methodology. "The research and this article are specifically targeted to my fellow social psychologists," Bem said. Rather than present a stimulus and measure a subject's response, Bem measured the subject's response before the stimulus was presented.