Partitive and aspective
Here’s a quote from a book entitled “Neuroethics“. This is from an essay by Nancey Murphy. While Greek thought tended to regard the human being as made up of distinct parts, Hebraic thought saw the...
View ArticleAn Integral framework of psychological development
In Ken Wilber’s integral map of development, he describes an evolution from egocentric, to ethnocentric, to worldcentric. By this he means an initial focus on “me”, to an identification with others...
View ArticleReducing pain with your own brain – love
Here’s an interesting piece of research. Viewing pictures of a romantic partner can stimulate the “reward” parts of your brain and reduce your experience of pain. In this trial the researchers compared...
View ArticleReducing pain with your own brain – meditation
Here’s another study showing how pain can be reduced without using drugs. In this particular study, the researchers had the subjects do one 20 minute focused attention meditation session daily for 4...
View ArticleThe Empathic Brain
I am he as you as you are he as you are me and we are all together. We’re still in the midst of a highly atomistic society, as Mary Midgley describes so clearly in books like “Science and Poetry” and...
View ArticleThe space within
Once in a while, I get shocked into upper wakefulness, I turn a corner, see the ocean, and my heart tips over with happiness – it feels so free! Then I have the idea that, as well as beholding, I can...
View ArticleOut of Our Heads
Alva Noë’s “Out of Our Heads” [ISBN 978-0-8090-1648-8] makes a strong case for understanding consciousness as a phenomenon, not produced by the brain (in the way that the stomach produces gastric...
View ArticleHug more – it’s good for you!
Nice little article on the School of Life site about the relationship between compassion and circulating levels of oxytocin. It references Paul Zak’s talk on TED.COM. It appears that there’s a...
View ArticleLove from the beginning
Last year I studies Interpersonal Neurobiology with Dan Siegel, whose book, Mindsight, I highly recommend. He teaches around the essential triad of brain, mind and relationships and understanding the...
View ArticleThe Divided Brain
Iain McGilchrist has released a short Kindle book entitled The Divided Brain and The Search for Meaning [ASIN:B008JE7I2M]. In it he presents an excellent precis of the ideas and findings he presents so...
View ArticleThe meeting of the three lizard minds
Well, these little guys got me thinking. They just sat there doing this motionless three way meeting thing in the sun. I thought look at the three lizard minds meeting! And of course that set me off...
View ArticleHow we see….making it up
When I was a little boy I thought that vision was like a kind of projector, casting images from the outside world up into my brain. As I got a little older I thought the eye was like a prism, which...
View Articlepoetry
David Suzuki writes (in “The Sacred Balance”) Definition identifies, specifies and limits a thing, describes what it is and what it is not; it is the tool of our great classifying brain. Poetry, in...
View ArticleMEAMs
Hmmm…..haven’t come across this acronym before but its an exciting one! It stands for Music Evoked Autobiographical Memories. This interesting study used “No. 1 songs” to stimulate autobiographical...
View ArticleHalf a brain…..
Take 20 minutes to watch this brilliant TED talk by Iain McGilchrist. I agree with everything he says in this, but I was especially struck by his mention of the gene which codes for eyes. It’s the...
View ArticleStraight or round?
No straight lines are to be found in the natural world……..Leonard Shlain has pointed out that the only apparently straight line in the natural world is that of the horizon, but of course that too...
View ArticleA whole brain is better than half a one
When I learned neuroanatomy at Medical School I was taught that the two cerebral hemispheres were symmetrical. There was no mention at all that they were in any way different. But look at this image...
View ArticleWhat can you fit a mind into?
In the wonderful “The Republic of Tea” Mel says The whole problem with Western civilisation is that ever since the Greeks we’ve been trying to squeeze the mind into the brain and it won’t fit....
View ArticleWho are you?
It’s very common for us to say something like “My head is sore”, or “My stomach aches”, or even “I have a rash” when we experience one of those symptoms. So who is it who has this head, stomach or...
View ArticleThe great leap
It seems we didn’t evolve into human beings in a smooth, seamless way, but more with a pattern of great leaps and long, slow changes. One of these great leaps was in the growth of the size of the...
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