The Mind and Choice

We live in an age where we are now exploring the mind and personal choice in society.  Living in a society that produces technology that can read into the mind to determine what a person is thinking, and moving towards a future where even our desires might be determinable by machine.  There is no doubt that these new discoveries that are coming to the forefront will bring about issues relating to mind control and manipulation of personal freedom.  People are panicking at the thought of loosing the ability to choose their own goals and the things in which they wish to experience in life and also personal thoughts.

The true question to ask in this situation is, ‘is it ever possible to loose control of the mind?’

By Stacey T Pollock

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World Science Festival: The Psychology of Time

Suggested by Pocholo Peralta (Plato On-line)

Time is a constant in modern life. We waste it. We obsessively track it. We continually wonder “where it goes.” We run out of it. We never have enough of it. Neurologist Oliver Sacks, psychologist Daniel Gilbert, and psychologist and neuroscientist Warren Meck from Duke University gathered Saturday evening at the World Science Festival’s “Time the Familiar Stranger” event for a discussion on our most precious commodity. They addressed both complex questions such as the existentialism and relativity of “the present,” and more mundane topics such as why children must continually ask “are we there yet?” on long car trips.

By Discover Magazine

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The Time Emotion Paradox

Time flies when you’re having fun, but why? It’s curious if you think about it. Someone whose visual perception was affected by enjoyment would seem rather unusual but the fact that our ability to judge time changes dramatically when we enjoy ourselves seems perfectly unremarkable.

A recent article in the scientific journal Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society attempts to answer exactly this question by reviewing the evidence for the curious link between emotion and time perception.

“One of the greatest paradoxes in the field of time psychology is the time–emotion paradox. Over the last few decades, an increasing volume of data has been identified demonstrating the accuracy with which humans are able to estimate time. Confronted with this amazing ability, psychologists have supposed that humans, as other animals, possess a specific mechanism that allows them to measure time…”

By Mind Hacks

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Also follow the article: The Time Emotion Paradox By Silvie Droit-Volet and Sandrine Gil. (Scribd)

The present manuscript discusses the time–emotion paradox in time psychology: although humans are able to accurately estimate time as if they possess a specific mechanism that allows them to measure time (i.e. an internal clock), their representations of time are easily distorted by the context.  Indeed, our sense of time depends on intrinsic context, such as the emotional state, and on extrinsic context, such as the rhythm of others’ activity. Existing studies on the relationships between emotion and time suggest that these contextual variations in subjective time do not result from the incorrect functioning of the internal clock but rather from the excellent ability of the internal clock to adapt to events in one’s environment. Finally, the fact that we live and move in time and that everything, every act, takes more or less time has often been neglected. Thus, there is no unique, homogeneous time but instead multiple experiences of time. Our subjective temporal distortions directly reflect the way our brain and body adapt to these multiple time scales.

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People Who Wear Rose-colored Glasses See More, Study Shows

“Good and bad moods literally change the way our visual cortex operates and how we see,” says Adam Anderson, a U of T professor of psychology. “Specifically our study shows that when in a positive mood, our visual cortex takes in more information, while negative moods result in tunnel vision.” The study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience.

By Science Daily

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You Know More than You Think

There is an old saying that two heads are better than one. This saying received empirical support in social psychology in the 1920s, when a series of studies showed that groups were more accurate than their individual members. In an early demonstration of the phenomenon, for example, Columbia University’s Hazel Knight asked students to estimate the temperature in a classroom. When the estimates were averaged together, the resulting group answer was more accurate than the estimate of a typical member.

By Jack Soll and Richard Larrick (Scientific American)

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Reality and Perception

Our shared physical reality is the most common state of reality we experience, but it certainly isn’t the only one.  Our nighttime dreams are another state, as are astral experiences, near-death experiences, and out-of-body experiences.

I regard these different levels of reality as being at different frequencies or energy levels.  It’s like tuning into different TV channels.  Physical reality seems slower, denser, and less malleable than the other levels.

By Steve Pavlina (Personal Development for Smart People)

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‘I was disabled by my mind’

Susan Dakin was convinced she was dying.

Over the space of a decade, the 49-year-old had lost her sight and mobility.

She was confined to a wheelchair, her bladder had packed in and she had difficulty swallowing.

Neurological problems such as multiple sclerosis and the movement disorder dystonia were suspected, but nothing ever pinpointed.

“At one point they only gave me a few months to live,” said Susan, from Coventry.

By Jane Elliott (BBC News)

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One of the greatest mind’s of all time: Aldous Huxley

Watch the videos to get a glimpse into the mind of one of the greatest thinkers in history, Aldous Huxley talks about freedom:

Emotions are learnt paradigms

Emotions are learnt in our world through experiencing feelings.

Have we ever stopped to think about how emotions play a role within our lives? When a person has a feeling within their body, a reaction to a causal event, they then create a set feedback in which to respond to the input they are receiving, this is called emotion. It happens everyday in our lives that when we have to come into face with situations or conversations, these experiences spark certain reactions within our bodies that can change the way we choose to handle the situation at hand.

By Stacey T Pollock

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Why is logic relevant to everyday life?

Logic:

* Enables clear thought through a rigorous demand for truthfulness;
* Because thought processes are clarified, the use of logic enables consideration of all available options for opinion and action, and decreases the persuasive power of popular opinion;
* Because available options have been fairly considered, the use of logic increases the likelihood that subsequent opinions and actions will adhere most closely to the truth.
* Adherence to the truth, while sometimes painful, is the human condition more likely to lead to satisfactory outcomes in most situations.
* Therefore, logic’s relevance to everyday life is that its use improves the likelihood of satisfactory outcomes in the day-to-day decisions each person makes.

By WikiAnswers.com

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Blurring the Boundary Between Perception and Memory

Perception is mathematically impossible.

This might seem like a bold statement—after all, you are perceiving these letters right now—but it’s nonetheless true. Imagine a black-and-white line drawing of a cube on a sheet of paper. Although this drawing looks to us like a picture of a cube, there are actually an infinity of other three-dimensional figures that could have produced the same set of lines when collapsed on the page.

By Timothy Brady and Adena Schachner (Scientific American)

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Hole in the Head: Golf and Perception

Psychologists have found that golfers who’ve played well perceive the hole as bigger than it really is. As this ScienCentral video explains, the researchers also found those who did poorly saw the hole as smaller than it really is.

By Jack Penland (Sciencentral)

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The Mind and Materialist Superstition

Materialists have taken note of the growing efforts by non-materialist neuroscientists to point out the deep problems with the inference that the brain is entirely the cause of the mind. Materialist neuroscience, like materialist evolutionary biology, is a vacuous orthodoxy, and its proponents resent threats to their dogma. Darwinian explanations for functional biological complexity are nonsense, but some familiarity with the relevant science is necessary to understand that it is nonsense. Materialist explanations for the mind are transparent nonsense.

Consider the six characteristics of the mind, generally accepted by materialist and non-materialist scientists and philosophers. Each of the six poses enormous problems for a materialistic explanation.

By Michael Egnor (Evolution News & Views)

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A Healthy Lifestyle Begins In the Mind

New research discovers the major limitation to performing exercise is an individual’s perception of his or her ability and desire to do it.

A study of 5,167 Canadians, reported in the open-access journal BMC Public Health, has shown that psychological concerns are the most important barriers to an active lifestyle.

By Rick Nauert (Psych Central)

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Reality: Truth or Perception

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Philosophy defines reality as the sum of all that is real, absolute, and unchangeable. But can reality actually be defined absolutely, or is it something that is different for everyone? Is it not true that how we view reality is based upon our own personal framework of experience? Or is there in truth a reality beyond that which we see daily, is there an absolute unchangeable constant that is always with us? And if so, what is it?

By Nic D Raimie (Triond)

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Is all of reality simply perception?

Originally this article was going to be titled, “life is what you make it”. However, I decided to phrase this as a question because I am unsure if life really is what you make it.

I’d like to think it is…

I’ve witnessed the power of positive thinking first hand. I have seen how labels separate and draw people together. I have seen how long held beliefs destroy people and build them up.  And I have seen how ideas of right and wrong influence people’s decisions.

By Jeremy Day (Insight Writer)

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All in the mind’s eye

Has anyone ever let their imagination run away with them? For example, we recently had a problem with moths in our house, and for a while afterwards, I was convinced I could see moths everywhere. Luckily, I’m not going mad, as researchers from Vanderbilt University in the US have now proved that what you see with your ‘mind’s eye’ might have a direct impact on what you see back in reality. This is the first study to show that imagining something changes your vision both while you are imagining it and afterwards.

By The Naked Scientists

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Mind Travelers

Will we be able to travel the universe with our mind in the future?

In this article I am going to write about a topic that relates to an issue that might not at all seem rational to most people, mind traveling. This is a topic that explores the mind to a much further degree to what most people are accustomed to. My writing as an author and explorer of life relates to the study of the mind and how we come to perceive life and reality. I really have only just touched the surface in explaining how I obtain information and experiences relating to these topics, so far only really isolating topics that fall within the materialistic approach, showing the formation of the dimensions in material space in relation to the mind and the core of creation.

By Stacey T Pollock

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Happiness Lies Within

As a hypnotherapist, I challenge people to change their thoughts to change their destiny. I believe the whole purpose of this incarnation is to learn to love ourselves first, and then to extend that love to others. Until we really learn to fully love ourselves, we put on a protective shield because we do not feel safe in the world. We create self-imposed limitations to love. The good news is that we can free ourselves from our self-limitations. We can change our mind about how we see the world by getting in touch with our inner spirit. At the core of our being we are love, so there is no need to search for it, just acknowledge it.

(E Not Alone)

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Personal Perception

Different people have different perception. Somehow, everyone have the tendency of viewing the world differently. If everybody sees things similarly, then there won’t be different opinions in this world.

By Sam Chan (Aquire wisdom and live with passion)

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‘Phantom’ Cell Phone Sensations: Mind Over Matter

Phantom arms, legs and now cell phone vibrations — you can feel them, you can sense them, but they aren’t really there.

Chalked up largely to a natural anomaly in the wiring of the brain, such experiences blur the boundaries between reality and imagination in those who experience them.

By Carla Williams (ABC News)

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Your Perception is Everything

Let me tell you my story. The other day a friend of mine came over to my place for just one reason; to complain about a recent event, a disturbing event as he explained it to me. When he finished his “monologue” (I am sorry, but I have no other word) I just said one thing: perception is everything. Instantly he was angry and started yelling at me. ” What do you mean by that, Mr. Philosopher?” he asked, incensed. “Are you saying I am a liar or crazy or that it’s my imagination?”

By Jahiel Yasha Kamhi (personal-development.com)

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Perception – The reality beyond matter

An interesting video and study on the perception of reality.

Why Dreams Mean Less Than We Think

Most people dream enthusiastically at night, their dreams seemingly occupying hours, even though most last only a few minutes. Most people also read great meaning into their nocturnal visions. In fact, according to a new sudy in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the vast majority of people in three very different countries — India, South Korea and the United States — believe that their dreams reveal meaningful hidden truths.

By John Cloud (Time Magazine)

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Choice of Perception is the Key to Happiness

It is no secret that the way a person views life will essentially bring to them what they want to experience.

If a person has an interest in cars they will automatically be drawn to looking at cars on the road, car magazines, advertisements, books, internet sites and anything to do with their interest in life.  It is through interest that we find the things we want to experience in life and the key to this is perception and choice.

By Stacey T Pollock (Creation Theory Revised)

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Mind over matter

Mind over matter is a topic that has at times left me wondering if I am responsible for all that happens in life.

That is not the limited thinking we want to concern ourselves with. When we worry about weather it’s our fault that we did not heal our selves we are missing the point.

By Successful Mind Training

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Life’s Signpost

Got Hope?

A lady at work gave me a book about how Spirit can communicate with us as individuals. It opened a new awareness for me as a person in reading this book. It is a book I normally would not have picked up. It gave a psychics view of her life and how Spirit was always trying to get our attention through the smallest things in life.

D. Scott Arant (Authorsden)

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‘Mind’s eye’ influences visual perception

Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery –what we see with the “mind’s eye”– directly impacts our visual perception.

The School for Self Healing

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Look at It From my Point of View

A Brief look at one of the basic methods to resolve conflicts and find solutions to increase Emotional Intelligence.

Wisdom lies in having the flexibility to move through different positions, to see a situation form all sides before coming back to yourself and deciding what you want.

By Suppee XX (Triond)

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10 Steps to Happiness

10 Steps to Happiness and Personal Fulfillment: Change your thinking and ultimately change your life by implementing these 10 steps.

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10 Keys to Successful Living: Successful living means embracing the life you want, not what others map out for you.

By Athlyn Green (Triond)

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