This is very cool – Michael Gazzaniga is a living treasure for contributions to neuroscience and our understanding of the human brain. Among his many books are Split: The Roads Both Taken (2014 – no specific date), Who’s in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain (2011), Human; The Science of What Makes … Read more
Back in the 1980s, a physicist, Per Bak, proposed that the human mind may operate on some of the same principle as a sand pile – avalanches of various sizes help keep the entire system stable overall, a process Bak named “self-organized criticality.” More precisely, “the brain’s ordered complexity and thinking ability arise spontaneously from … Read more
Interesting research. The definitive book on this topic remains Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, although his system I and system II distinction is slightly different than what is being discussed here. The current study is looking at developmental learning skills, but it too is distinguishing between explicit (more conscious) and implicit learning (less … Read more
I think we need to drop the “might” from that headline and replace it with “will.” Still, George Dvorsky gets a big AMEN from me on this piece from io9 (even if it is a year old). For the record, however, I feel compelled to lodge my disagreement with point #5, that “mind-body dualism” is … Read more
It’s my favorite time of year – the annual Zen Brain Conference at Upaya Zen Center, hosted as always by Roshi Joan Halifax. Among the regular attendees who were there again this year were Richard Davidson, Evan Thompson, Al Kaszniak, and John Dunne. This year’s topic was Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation. In this intensive … Read more
This is an interesting post on the nature of consciousness and dissociation in psychosis. Mental Experience and Dissociation in Psychosis By Ann Reitan, PsyD | Brain BloggerDecember 1, 2013 The experience of our minds may be shaped by belief. The idea that our minds are whatever we imagine them to be may seem like an … Read more
Dr. Charles Raison with the Dalai Lama. Dr. Charles Raison is the Barry and Janet Lang Associate Professor of Integrative Mental Health with the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Arizona (with a joint position in the School of Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry). Dr. Raison joined the UA to … Read more
It’s Steven Pinker… he’s got things to say, and you already know that whether you agree with his views or not, he’s always interesting to listen to, and he always manages to stimulate you to think about those interesting things yourself, so why not have a listen to a few things he has to say? … Read more
Because of all their awkwardness and social ineptitude, and due to their literalist interpretation of things, autistic people may often seem to be blind to a reality that’s obvious to the rest of us. But sometimes that’s a two-way street because they can often see as obvious what the rest of us may be blissfully … Read more
What does it mean to be you? How is it that the physical matter making up the many neurons in your brain somehow produce your subjective, conscious experience? Are your neurons themselves conscious? While we’re at it, what exactly is consciousness? Where does your sense of self come from? Do you actually have a self? … Read more