Science of the SpiritS


Galaxy

Consciousness moves on after death

Arjun Walia
Collective Evolution
Thu, 13 Oct 2016 18:14 UTC
space tunnel
One of the biggest questions modern day science seeks to answer about human consciousness has to do with its origin — whether it is simply a product of the brain, or if the brain itself is a receiver of consciousness. If consciousness is not a product of the brain, it would mean that our physical bodies are not necessary for its continuation; that awareness can exist outside our bodies.

Asking these questions is fundamental to understanding the true nature of our reality, and with quantum physics gaining more popularity, questions regarding consciousness and its relationship to human physicality become increasingly relevant.

Max Planck, the theoretical physicist credited with originating quantum theory — a feat that won him the Physics Nobel Prize in 1918 — offers perhaps the best explanation for why understanding consciousness is so essential: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."(source)
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Bad Guys

Playing God with nature and biting the hand that feeds

Wes Annac
Waking Times
Sun, 16 Oct 2016 12:45 UTC
city in nature
We shouldn't underestimate nature — it could easily take this planet back. Not only do I think we should respect it, I think we should revere it.

Nature is sacred, and it's alarming that humans are so unwilling to give it even a shred of respect given all that it's done for us. Instead we prioritize maintaining the civilization we've built on top of it. But nature is not here for us to plunder in any way we please; it is life itself, and living in harmony with nature helps all life prosper — and help us prosper. But as far as humanity is concerned, it's been misunderstood, misused and abused for far too long. And we're biting the hand the feeds...

No More Fracking

Fracking, along with other forms of resource extraction, is a good example. We were already successfully stealing the earth's most precious resources long before we started fracking, but the industry didn't think our current extraction methods were environmentally harmful enough now, so now we do it in a way that's even worse for the environment than oil drilling...

Comment: Though their actions are harmful, damaging and disrespectful, corporations will not kill the earth. After a period of cleansing the Earth will bounce back.
Earth is a living entity. It is not in man's destiny to destroy the Earth. That's arrogance. What it is man's destiny to do is destroy civilized man's ability to live with the Earth. We as human beings, if we take responsibility for our lives, and live our lives in a coherent manner, as coherent as we possibly can anyway, then we will have an influence in curing this disease. But Earth will not allow... the antibiotic will come, in a planetary sense. If it means opening up the ozone [layer] and letting it wipe out civilized man, then the Earth will do that. The Earth will continue on.


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Butterfly

Reduce teenage anxiety & depression with free unstructured play

Tracy Gillett
Wake-up-world
Sat, 08 Oct 2016 21:19 UTC
free play
I remember the car ride home when my parents found out my brother skipped school for the first time. We turned the corner and crossed the train tracks as they calmly told him not to do it again.

They weren't mad. There was no punishment. I couldn't believe it.

I was a model student. I went to school, got good grades and didn't cause any trouble. I thought my brother's behaviour was wrong; he needed to be reprimanded or he'd do it again. Surely my parents needed to exert their control.

But looking back through the lens of a new parent trying to make sense of our modern world for our young son, I understand and surprisingly even applaud my brother's behaviour. He was trying to take control of his life. It was HIS life after all. Didn't he have the right to decide how he spent at least some of his time?

Didn't he have the right to do what made him happy?

Comment: Rising anxiety & depression in children and adolescents related to declining childhood play

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Toys

Honesty is not always the best policy: Children's truth perception becomes more nuanced with age

Denise Rosenfeld
Reliawire
Mon, 10 Oct 2016 10:17 UTC
kids
© Arian Zwegers/Flickr
Younger children have a black and white take on truth and lies, whereas older children take intent and outcomes more into consideration, a new study suggests.

Researchers led by Victoria Talwar of the educational and counseling psychology department at McGill University wanted to know how a child's moral understanding develops. They studied the behavior of close to 100 children, ages 6 to 12.

The researchers showed the children a series of short videos in which childlike puppets either told the truth or lied. The variable was the outcome of the puppets' words. Sometimes what they said caused harm to someone else, for example blaming an innocent person for their own misdeeds.
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Snowflake

Professor explains the increase of 'precious snowflakes' - cites narcissism, over-nurturing

Kate Hardiman
The College Fix
Wed, 12 Oct 2016 11:40 UTC
Bullying
'People now experience the entire world as a form of bullying'

The political correctness movement that has swept college campuses, corporate America and mainstream life can be traced back to a few psychological trends.

Howard Schwartz, professor emeritus of Oakland University, has for years studied the psychology underlying political correctness, and in his new book Political Correctness and the Destruction of Social Order: Chronicling the Rise of the Pristine Self, he offers some clarity on why the term "snowflakes" is now synonymous with college students today.

Schwartz, who taught classes in social and behavioral science within its business school, said the term stems from what he calls "the rise of the pristine self."

Schwartz writes in the book that "this is a self that is touched by nothing but love. The problem is that nobody is touched by nothing but love, and so if a person has this as an expectation, if they have built their sense of themselves around this premise, the inevitable appearance of the something other than love blows this structure apart."

Comment: See also: Senseless abuse: U.S. public schools are still legally beating children, injuring thousands of kids

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Hearts

Ancient Stoic wisdom to help achieve greater happiness

Dr. Joseph Mercola
mercola.com
Thu, 13 Oct 2016 11:22 UTC
Happiness
There's no shortage of evidence that happy people live longer, healthier lives. For example, one study found that the tendency to always expect the worst was linked to a 25 percent higher risk of dying before the age of 65. This means a pessimistic attitude can shave more than 14 years off the average lifespan.

But just HOW to "be happy" is an elusive mystery for many. We all seek it, yet many feel they're missing the mark on any given day. Part of the problem may be rooted in your concept of happiness. If you rate your level of happiness as being low, consider reevaluating your notion of happiness.

Perhaps you're subconsciously equating happiness with a certain lifestyle or level of materialism. Perhaps you've fallen into the trap of thinking that "when xyz happens, then I'll be happy."

A recent article in Time magazine delves into the concept of how to become happier, noting that the clues to a happy life are more apt to be found in classic writings than modern self-help books.
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People 2

Is our addiction to technology flattening the range of our emotional experiences?

David Brooks
The New York Times
Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:00 UTC
woman on phone, smartphone addiction
© Victor Blue
Over the past generation there seems to have been a decline in the number of high-quality friendships.

In 1985, most Americans told pollsters that they had about three confidants, people with whom they could share everything. Today, the majority of people say they have about two. In 1985, 10 percent of Americans said they had no one to fully confide in, but by the start of this century 25 percent of Americans said that.

All of this has left people wondering if technology is making us lonelier. Instead of going over to the neighbor's house, are we sitting at home depressingly surfing everybody else's perfect lives on Facebook?

Comment: The Complete Guide to Breaking Your Smartphone Habit

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Books

Pot-belly of ignorance: What you read changes how effectively your mind operates

Shane Parris
LinkedIn
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 00:00 UTC
man reading
© Luke MacGregor / Reuters
What you eat makes a huge difference in how optimally your body operates. And what you spend time reading and learning equally affects how effectively your mind operates.

Increasingly, we're filling our heads with soundbites, the mental equivalent of junk. Over a day or even a week, the changes, like those to our belly, are barely noticeable. However, if we extend the timeline to months and years, we face a worrying reality and may find ourselves looking down at the pot-belly of ignorance.

If you think of your mind as a library, three things should concern you.
  1. The information you store in there — its accuracy and relevance;
  2. Your ability to find/retrieve that information on demand; and
  3. Finally your ability to put that information to use when you need it — that is, you want to apply it.
There is no point having a repository of knowledge in your mind if you can't find and apply its contents (see multiplicative systems).

Let's take a look at what you put into your mind.

Comment: You are what you read: How deep reading is effective brain exercise

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2 + 2 = 4

Commonly misused words that make smart people look stupid

Dr. Travis Bradberry
Linked In
Mon, 10 Oct 2016 10:48 UTC
Feeling stupid
© Getty Images
We're all tempted to use words that we're not too familiar with. We throw them around in meetings, e-mails and important documents (such as resumes and client proposals), and they land, like fingernails across a chalkboard, on everyone who has to hear or read them.

No matter how talented you are or what you've accomplished, using words incorrectly can change the way people see you and forever cast you in a negative light. You may not think it's a big deal, but if your language is driving people up the wall you need to do something about it.

It's the words that we think we're using correctly that wreak the most havoc, because we don't even realize how poorly we're coming across. After all, TalentSmart has tested the emotional intelligence of more than a million people and found that self-awareness is the area where most people score the lowest.

We're all guilty of this from time to time, myself included.

When I write, I hire an editor to review my articles before I post them online. It's bad enough to have a roomful of people witness your blunder and something else entirely to stumble in front of 100,000!

Comment: You can read more on commonly misused words below:

Commonly Misused Words and Phrases

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Brain

What happens in the brain when it comes to decision making?


Science Daily
Fri, 07 Oct 2016 18:47 UTC
Decisions
© Family Business / FotoliaResults of a new study challenge the traditional view of decision making.
Choices, it is commonly understood, lead to action - but how does this happen in the brain? Intuitively, we first make a choice between the options. For example, when approaching a yellow traffic light, we need to decide either to hit the breaks or to accelerate the car. Next, the appropriate motor response is selected and carried out, in this case moving the foot to the left or to the right. Traditionally, it is assumed that separate brain regions are responsible for these stages. Specifically, it is assumed that the motor cortex carries out this final response selection without influencing the choice itself.

Two Tübingen Neuroscientists, Anna-Antonia Pape and research group leader Markus Siegel of the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN) and MEG Center, have found evidence that challenges this intuitive division between a 'deciding' and a 'responding' stage in decision making. The results of their study have been published in the latest Nature Communications.

While recording brain activity using magnetoencephalography (MEG) to monitor activity in motor areas, Pape and Siegel set 20 human subjects the simple task of deciding whether or not a field of dots on a screen was slowly moving together. The subjects could respond "yes" or "no" by pressing a button with either their left or their right hand. The mapping from choice (yes/no) to response (left/right button) changed randomly on each trial, with a short cue telling subjects the current configuration. This ensured the participants' brains could not plan a motor response, i.e. the correct button press, during choice formation. Astonishingly, while the test subjects were able to press the 'correct' button most of the time, subjects still showed a strong tendency towards motor response alternation. In other words, they often simply pressed the button they had not pressed in the trial just prior to the current one. This tendency was pronounced enough to detract from subjects' overall decision task performance.

Comment: See also:

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