Tag: Consciousness
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‘Am I 68? 69?’ Irvine Welsh on growing old, getting clean, bashing out his new novel – and flirting with guns | Irvine Welsh | The Guardian
“The worst part is the psychological thing. Once [drug use] is in your emotional vocabulary as your get-out – ‘I can stop feeling crap by doing this’ – you have to reorder your thinking.” View image in fullscreen Las Vegas, where Welsh’s new novel is set. Photograph: Heather Diehl/Getty Images Reordering thoughts isn’t always easy,…
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Avec les canicules, « des dégradations importantes des fonctions physiologiques et cognitives apparaissent »
Ensuite, ce sont les fonctions sociales qui vont être mises en retrait. Parler, écouter, regarder l’autre, ses expressions faciales, interagir requiert du cerveau qu’il traite une quantité d’informations considérable. Avec, à la clé, un risque de « surchauffe ». Tout ceci explique pourquoi, lors de fortes chaleurs, on peut se sentir plus irritable, moins sociable et avoir…
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I’ve spent years researching what it means to be alive. This is what I’ve learned | Melanie Challenger | The Guardian
Our bodies both generate and direct energy to preserve our own organisation. In this sense, it is the body that is synonymous with selfhood. This is no longer a philosophical claim. In cognitive science, Lawrence Barsalou’s influential account of “grounded cognition” argues that thought depends on perception, bodily states and situation. In neuroscience, Antonio Damasio’s…
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Astronauts ‘observer’ sensation — the feeling of watching their own lives from a half-step outside the frame, ‘jet-lag of the self’
Crew members talk about feeling slightly delayed in conversations. They report a doubled awareness — being present while also watching themselves be present. Some say it feels like the first week of a new job that never quite ends. Others compare it to jet lag of the self. NASA’s own post-flight reflections from station crews…
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Could our preoccupation with mental health be part of the problem? – Marginal REVOLUTION
In some ways, encouraging people to think and talk more about their mental health is a good thing. There is now less stigma around mental illness, and more people who can benefit from professional help are getting it. But there is also reason to believe that efforts to bring attention to mental health struggles are…
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13 surprising reasons you’re always dog tired – and what to do about it | Sleep | The Guardian
While you sleep, your brain is putting in a shift. Dr Jemma King provides an analogy: “Imagine all the events that happen during the day get documented and put into a manila folder that’s stacked on the desk of your personal librarian, who works through the night, deciding what to keep and what to discard.…
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A petri dish of human brain cells is currently playing Doom. Should we be worried? | Games | The Guardian
“Abstract reasoning, mathematics and language are relatively recent in evolutionary terms, which is partly why computers excel at them. But motor control and probabilistic decision-making are things we’ve inherited through millions of years of evolution. Robots may be very good at solving maths problems, but we’re still trying to build robots that can walk properly.”…
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Four types of thinker have been identified. Which one are you? | Consciousness | The Guardian
Sensory information, including feeling tired and sleepy, and mental impressions, accounted for nearly a fifth of all thoughts. Next came work at 17% and food at 14%. About 10% of thoughts centred on hobbies, games, play and art, with a similar amount focused on relationships. When thoughts centred on what people wanted, nearly half involved…
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What training my chaotic dog taught me about power, control – and human beings | Dogs | The Guardian
The holy grail of dog training is focus, whereby the dog stares unerringly at their handler, waiting for instruction, regardless of distractions around them. The websites and YouTube videos of celebrity trainers feature images of smiling men and women sitting casually at picnic tables or standing in high streets while a seemingly hypnotised doberman or…
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Toward a theory of uni-context – Marginal REVOLUTION
Happiness depends on your context and who you are. There isn’t anything that will always make a person happy. But there are reliable ways to make people unhappy. There’s a set of evils that are close to universal: death, pain, illness, violence. Even if someone’s in very different circumstances from yours, if you see they’re…