Science of the SpiritS


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Let the Stoics help you navigate the modern workplace

diverse workplace
Here are 7 Stoic exercises and strategies that will help you navigate your workplace with better clarity, effectiveness, and peace of mind.

The image of the Zen philosopher is the monk up in the green, quiet hills, or in a beautiful temple on some rocky cliff. The Stoic, on the other hand, is the antithesis of this idea. The Stoic is the man in the marketplace, the merchant on a voyage, the senator in the Forum, the soldier at the front. In other words, they are like you.

Those jobs might not seem like one well-suited for "philosophy," but they are. And so are you. For in even the most modern seeming professions, a Stoic is able to peace and clarity. For thousands of years, Stoicism has been a tool for the ordinary and the elite alike - from slaves to emperors - as they sought wisdom, strength and the 'good life.' It was philosophy designed for action - for doers - not for the classroom.

Brain

Study notes states of consciousness produced by psychedelic drugs are similar to dreaming

dreams, psychedelics, dreaming drugs
The altered states of consciousness produced by psychedelic drugs are very similar to dreams, according to new research published in Frontiers in Neuroscience.

"I am puzzled about the range of different experiences a human being can have throughout his or her lifetime. Here I mean qualitatively different experiences, this is not eating two different ice-cream flavours, but being in very different states such as awake, dreaming, deep sleep, coma, deep meditation, and under the influence of different psychoactive drugs," said study author Enzo Tagliazucchi of the Brain and Spine Institute in Paris.

"My hypothesis is that there is a reduced number of these states, much lower than what many neuroscientists think, so that some states we label as different are in fact very close in terms of 'what they feel like' and in terms of the underlying brain physiology - you simply don't recognise this fact because you reach those places coming from different routes.

Chart Bar

Swedish researchers: Disgust of body odour is a strong marker for having 'right-wing authoritarian views'

body odour
People who have a greater tendency to turn their nose up at the whiff of urine, sweat and other body odours are more likely to have rightwing authoritarian attitudes, research suggests.

The study also found having a greater disgust for body odours was linked, albeit to a small degree, with support for Donald Trump when he was a presidential candidate.

The team say the findings support the idea that a feeling of disgust might partly underpin social discrimination against others, with the link rooted in a primitive urge to avoid catching diseases from unfamiliar people or environments.

"We think that authoritarian attitudes might, at least in part, be rooted in biology," said Dr Jonas Olofsson, co-author of the research from Stockholm University and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study.


Comment: Being liberals, they're putting a pejorative spin on this. Other research shows that high disgust also occurs with high regard for, yes, authority, and, beyond that, sanctity (belief in 'a higher power' or 'order of things'). This is conservatives' 'fuller moral palate', as outlined by Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind. Liberals tend to lack 3 of the 6 'moral taste buds', which is why they themselves look upon conservatives' respect for authority with, well, 'misplaced disgust', let's call it.

So it's not that conservatives are the primitive ones; if anything, liberals have 'shallow moral affect' and a more primitive 'instinctive moral substratum'.


Comment: Evolutionary accounts are not to be judged, disregarded, or 'fixed' lightly. There's a reason they took millions of years to evolve.

These researchers would do well to learn from two people who have 'been there, done that' with respect to the biological roots of moral psychology:




Pistol

Jordan Peterson on why so many young men are committing mass murder (Video)

nikolas cruze florida shooting
© Mike Stocker / Reuters
Peterson: "The idea that masculinity in its essence is somehow toxic, is a dreadful idea.

Compared with the eighties and nineties, crime is way down in America, but rampage shooters are increasingly more common...and almost all the killers are young men.

Jordan Peterson gives a succinct, red pill explanation as to why young men are increasingly becoming more nihilistic, leading to events like what took place on Valentines Day in Parkland, Florida.


Comment: Jordan Peterson's message is timely and important.


Family

Everybody is exhausted and it's not getting better

Exhausted
The chaos of life and its collision with technology and tragedy has more of us feeling drained, frazzled and emotionally overrun.

Put simply: We are exhausted.

What's to blame? The list is long - and growing, experts say.

Wildfires, terror attacks, rising tensions with North Korea, racist rallies, political investigations in Washington, the non-stop barrage of presidential tweets, more and worse mass shootings from Las Vegas to Florida, a tsunami of sexual harassment accusations, the role of Russians in our elections, climate change, red state-blue state division and not one, not two, but three of the worst hurricanes on record - including one that nearly blew Puerto Rico out of the Caribbean Sea.

Comment: As the world keeps getting more and more insane, the collective stress levels of the population are, indeed, reaching a fever pitch. Finding ways to cope will, no doubt, be an increasing demand in the future. One effective technique is the Eiriu Eolas breathing meditation program, which simultaneously addresses the health of mind, body and spirit. It can be found streaming online here.

See also:


Family

Can parents turn their children into criminal psychopaths?

creepy bad guy alley psychopath
The criminal psychopath is not just born: he is also made.

'Extreme' styles of parenting are linked to criminal psychopathy in later life, research finds.

Interviews with criminals have found that many have a history of either total parental neglect or of rigidly controlling, authoritarian parents.

All criminal psychopaths have a history of grotesque physical and/or psychological abuse during childhood.

Of course, parents cannot be blamed for everything - after all, some children have awful upbringings and don't become criminal psychopaths.

Comment: Certainly, a bad upbringing can damage children, sometimes beyond repair. But just as not all children with a bad upbringing turn into criminals, not all criminals had a bad upbringing. Consider that it is the lying psychopaths themselves who are blaming their parents on their interviews in order to avoid personal responsibility!

We recommend these two fascinating reads on the topic of the criminal personality and its causes:


2 + 2 = 4

The dangers of possession and our search for meaning

fallen
"There is no such thing as not worshiping," wrote novelist David Foster Wallace. "Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship." G. Jung would have wholeheartedly agreed. He posited that psychic life is motivated by a religious instinct as fundamental as any other, and that this instinct causes us to seek meaning. "The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not?" Jung wrote in his autobiography. "That is the telling question of his life."1

There is empirical evidence that backs up Jung's idea of a religious instinct. Researchers have found that the less religious people are, the more likely they are to believe in UFOs. "The Western world is, in theory, becoming increasingly secular - but the religious mind remains active," writes psychology professor Clay Routledge, in The New York Times. He notes that belief in aliens and UFOs appears to be associated with a need to find meaning.

Brain

Loss of psychiatric hospitals led to a mental health crisis in US

Northville Psychiatric Hospital
© Paul Sancya/APWhen the Northville Psychiatric Hospital closed, many of the patients either had to leave southeast Michigan for hospitals elsewhere in the state or ended up in community programs that haven't always met their needs, an advocacy group says.
A severe shortage of inpatient care for people with mental illness is amounting to a public health crisis, as the number of individuals struggling with a range of psychiatric problems continues to rise.

The revelation that the gunman in the Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shooting escaped from a psychiatric hospital in 2012 is renewing concerns about the state of mental health care in this country. A study published in the journal Psychiatric Services estimates 3.4 percent of Americans - more than 8 million people - suffer from serious psychological problems.

The disappearance of long-term-care facilities and psychiatric beds has escalated over the past decade, sparked by a trend toward deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the 1950s and '60s, says Dominic Sisti, director of the Scattergood Program for Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care at the University of Pennsylvania.

Comment: There's no connection between individuals with mental health diagnoses and mass shootings? How many perpetrators of mass shootings were on some kind of psychotropic medication? Doesn't that require a diagnosis? Nikolas Cruz, the most recent perpetrator of a mass shooting, said he heard voices telling him what to do. See also:


Bulb

Creativity: The silver lining of social rejection

Creative mind
Being rejected socially makes people more creative, research finds.

Feeling outside the group helps people generate more novel ideas.

It may help to explain why so many great artists were outsiders - people who lived separate lives in order to produce works that would surprise and delight the rest of us.

The study's authors call it the 'outsider advantage'.

Professor Jack Goncalo, who led the study, said:
"If you have the right way of managing rejection, feeling different can help you reach creative solutions.

Unlike people who have a strong need to belong, some socially rejected people shrug off rejection with an attitude of 'normal people don't get me and I am meant for something better.'

Our paper shows how that works."

Comment: Learning to carry on in the face of adversity is one of life's great lessons.


Books

Hey kids time to unplug! Students learn way more effectively from print textbooks than screens

books
© ShutterStock
Today's students see themselves as digital natives, the first generation to grow up surrounded by technology like smartphones, tablets and e-readers.

Teachers, parents and policymakers certainly acknowledge the growing influence of technology and have responded in kind. We've seen more investment in classroom technologies, with students now equipped with school-issued iPads and access to e-textbooks.

In 2009, California passed a law requiring that all college textbooks be available in electronic form by 2020; in 2011, Florida lawmakers passed legislation requiring public schools to convert their textbooks to digital versions.