Distorted Mind

Our perception of how mentally sharp we are has more to do with how we're feeling emotionally than how our cognitive functions are actually working.

In other words when someone says, 'I think my memory has become much worse recently', research suggests that this tells us almost nothing about how their memory is working, but reliably indicates that their mood has been low.

It's quite amazing to think that we have such poor insight into the functioning of our own minds that we 'mistake' low mood for a bad memory, poor concentration or impaired problem solving.

It seems that our ability to have insight into our own mental functioning is not very trustworthy.

Mental Hacker

In humans, the short-term storage of information—as when you enter an acquaintance’s Email into your iPhone’s memory—is associated with conscious processing.

A few years ago, when I was first learning about memory, the example probably would have gone more like “your short term memory holds small amounts of information, like a phone number, while you rehearse it in your head until you have it memorized”.

The main difference between the examples is that the iPhone has replaced our own biological memory storage as the final resting place of long term memories. I think this points toward a more general trend, in which technology is taking over many of the functions that our brains carried out before. Why memorize a phone number when you can, at any time, just retrieve it on a screen with a few swipes of your finger? Why commit the times table to your memory when a calculator is always close at hand?

Storing memories outside of our brains is nothing new. Scrawling something on paper is much the same. However, the ease with which we can store and retrieve these external memory banks is improving at an exponential rate. Today, a lot of the human race’s collective store of knowledge can be searched in fractions of a second with a few keystrokes in a search engine. Maybe tomorrow, our fingers won’t even be an intermediary step; a direct link between our minds and databases need not be science fiction. Google may become the major influence in how human beings think, behave and learn.

As we continue to improve our access to information outside of our heads, I think there will be less emphasis on teaching people raw information, and more emphasis on teaching what to do with information. Scientific research into topics like human creativity (which computers don’t seem to have mastered yet) and cognitive psychology will become increasingly important, along with other disciplines that deal with how to manipulate information into something usefull.

Innovation to what end?

Innovation is the mantra of the moment, but where is it taking us? Is it creating a brighter future or leading us down to a path of self-destruction?

There's no doubt that technological innovations have delivered many of the comforts of modern life. Penicillin, air travel, the Internet, movies on the big screen and much, much more and after all who would want to give any of these up?

Has innovation become hype of the moment? Is it always good for us? Are we falling into the trap of pursuing technological change without considering the consequences?

People are attracted to new technology, and after a lapse of time they get an almost irresistible urge towards its adoption. Cities are then structured around it. So it's a combination of individual choice and commercial pressures where the black arts of advertising and so on say to people this is the only way to go. Sadly the fun image that advertising has traditionally enjoyed is now giving way to a much darker picture of advertising as mental pollution.

Innovation is doing new things or old things in a different way, but what is important is understanding the interdependence between all the different innovations, so the whole results beneficial rather than a dangerous bunch of ideas randomly interacting with each other. The secret in leading technology to where we want it to go is understanding the whole interconnected picture.

What is mental illness, mental health, mental disorder?

A more difficult question to answer than one might think. As usual your definition depends on all or some of your point of view.

The term ‘health’ is a non-exact term used loosely in everyday speech. Equally ‘mental health’, ‘mental illness’ and ‘mental disorder’ are used with an comparable lack of precision and the latter two most often interchangeably. In addition psychiatric health/illness/disorder are used synonymously with mental health/illness/disorder. A further problem with this concept is that there is no clear cut off point between mental disorder and mental health; indeed one person’s mental health aid, might be another’ s mental disorder inducer.

The obsession Americans have for classifying and naming every single human behavior, body dysfunction, and other classifiable entities does not help the process of healing. But the most harmful misconception is that they consider that the classifications or illness do not overlap or interact with each other. This obsolet concept is the main cause of treatment failures.

Metamedia and philosophy

I don’t know if philosophy is for me, I don’t really like questioning for the sake of questioning. Many found excitement in asking questions about what constitutes personal identity: where does a sense of self come from; how does it change; how can we be responsible for who we are; how do we successfully examine ourselves; and what comes of such examination? But then what? What were they to do with what they discovered?

I continue to struggle with the notion of philosophy’s usefulness. What is philosophy supposed to do? Why does it matter? Even college philosophy majors are often at a loss when asked these questions. appears to be “precise knowledge about useless stuff”. I am suspicious of philosophy, unsure of its power and my own, even when I naturally feel drawn to the “big” questions.

On the other hand philosophy is taking the time and finding the courage and patience to examine and organize our most basic assumptions and ways of thinking. Organized thought, in turn, makes for coherent and effective communication and action. This philosophy is something we all can do and naturally want to do. Young adults are especially hungry for it.

Philosophical questions are not made for the sake of questioning. These questions are asked because the condition of our lives is intimately connected to them. Plato’s Republic demonstrates how asking questions can lead to learning how to ask better questions, how to evaluate answers, how to improvise answers, how to determine how far questions can go, and how to have fun doing it. Philosophy can lead attentive mind to explore how to think, speak, and live effectively.

Sabemos poco pero seguimos buscando agradecidos

Somos los que a veces se pierden en la búsqueda y sin embargo ahi estamos. Dejamos todo estando en el mismo lugar. Sabemos muy bien el significado de la palabra "orientación" y seguimos buscando. Sabemos que la valentía no es mas que una pobre excusa. Que la palabra locura carece de significado propio.

Queremos siempre más. Queremos encontrar lo que se busca una y otra vez. Cuando se falla en la busqueda surgen dificultades para continuar, la tolerancia a la frustracion es minima. El agobio nos supera, implidiendonos continuar con nuestra tarea, impidiendonos avanzar. Impidiendonos conseguir mas.

Pero a veces, sólo a veces, cuando ocurre el encuentro, descubrimos ese tipo de melodía que nos hace sentir mejor en la tristeza. O tal vez por un momento realmente logramos reconocernos o sentirnos con la búsqueda. Pero siempre adelantados, parecemos una amenaza; por la permanente sensación de movimiento y la falta de gracia una veces, de fe, otras. Perseguimos con preguntas para obtener respuestas y esa es la mejor excusa para no dejar de buscar. Las experiencias nos llevan a nuevas preguntas. Siempre. Esto significa que la búsqueda es compleja y el encuentro o descubrimiento más valioso o definitivo. Y comprendemos que el encuentro y la pérdida son las dos partes que conformal el todo.

The different effects of crying

Crying can be triggered by almost any kind of situation you can imagine. Conventional scenarios include being happy; being sad; sharing something that has great significance to the individual and being in a public speaking situation. Evidently weeping has nothing to do with feeling sad or vulnerable. There’s no reason I can think of why it happens, but it does.

Is it good of bad?
People who feel better after crying tend to share certain commonalities that may make their experiences therapeutic: For example, they are more apt to have been comforted by someone after crying; they’re not crying alone. They are also more likely to see whatever made them cry helping them improve their life quality by understanding their problems. They are also less likely to have been embarrassed or shamed by the experience.

According to scientific research, people who are confused about the sources of their own emotions report little benefit from a burst of tears. The purpose of crying may be to block thinking, to effectively seal off the flood of unanswerable questions that come after any major loss, the better to clarify those that are most important or most practical. If this psychological system is already clunky, a fire shower of tears is not likely to improve it.

If relief, and/or a magical solution to the cause of the grief is the only thing expected from crying, it is clear that nothing will improve. Usually people who suffer a great loss suddenly and unexpected tend to have this kind of ideas. WIn situations where they can not undo the cause of their grief, but you they realize they can achieve a gradual acceptance of the loss while grieving (which may involve crying) and find the path towards the healing process.

Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.