There is a short animated sequence to be found at Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics [Animation] which shows how a warm and nurturing style of mothering by a mouse removes brain ‘markers’ which might otherwise lead to the young growing into fearful and anxiety-ridden adults, the females likely tending to pass on those traits to their … [Read more…]
As I prepare to finish a half-written book on the human mind, I’m reviewing some of my earlier writings from my two blogs. I’m posting links to four essays which seem to me to be fundamental to my explanations of how to understand of that strange entity, the human mind. 1. The modern world as … [Read more…]
In The Liberal Mind Kenneth Minogue, the British political theorist, tells us: “Need” belongs to a particular language of political and moral thought arising from the conception of generic men. Once we have entered into that language, we can only say individualist things. It is a language which has grown out of the liberal movement … [Read more…]
Near the end of this amusing article, In Physics, Telling Cranks from Experts Ain’t Easy, John Horgan raises an interesting point about theories of physics: Great scientists are great because they discern patterns in the flux of nature that elude us ordinary mortals; we should not be surprised when some patterns turn out to be … [Read more…]
In a faraway region of spacetime, I asked the question: Is this evidence against free-will?, where I start by noting: Over the past decade or more, neuroscientists have found strong evidence that we start to act before we’re consciously aware of our own actions. This is a problem to those who believe in free-will in … [Read more…]
See the article, Physicists find that an ultrahigh-energy proton looks like a black disk, for what I’d consider a preliminary but interesting analysis of what happens when protons are energized to an extremely high-level, higher than we can conceive of reaching with current technology. There are a few questions it raises in my half-educated mind … [Read more…]
I don’t think it matters much that there is reason to believe Human Brains Unlikely to Evolve Into a ‘Supermind’ as Price to Pay Would Be Too High. The brains of individuals might not evolve much while still allowing a substantial amount of advancement in the minds which form and also draw upon a human … [Read more…]
According to this article: Will You Live Forever—or until Your Next Software Release—by Uploading Your Brain into a Computer?, someone’s stolen Milt Jackson’s idea, the one that gave him a lot of assets though all the cash went to the one they call the Opportunist, the fellow who fathered those children using Milt’s genes. I … [Read more…]
In Do We Survive the Major Transformations of Our Lives?, I wrote: In Rewriting the Soul, the philosopher Ian Hacking had speculated that the multiple personality phenomenon is a largely learned strategy of segregating painful memories. Is our sense of a particular individuality tied that strictly to specific memories? But our memories would not seem … [Read more…]
Here’s a good and short article by a clearheaded thinker, Ivan Eland: Pro-Business vs. Pro-Market: What’s the Difference?. I think a similar point can be made about the political marketplaces. This is to say that there are those politicians who would govern, that is organize certain types of human activities conducive to a fuller human … [Read more…]