"Mistakes in Thinking: Cognitive Errors, Wishful Thinking and Sacred Truths" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)

This epic page's introduction reads:

"Cognitive errors are those types of systematic mistakes which our brains make when presenting ideas and correlations to our conscious selves. They result from us applying evolutionarily developed rules of thumb to the complexities of life without taking due heed of the need for critical and cautious evaluation of our own thought processes. Human errors in general thinking can lead individuals, or whole communities, to come to explain types of events and experiences in fantastical ways. Before we can comprehensively guard against such cumulative errors, we need to learn the ways in which our brains can misguide us. They are divided into three areas: the internal errors of thinking, errors with our actual perceptions, and social errors that result from the way we communicate ideas and the effects of traditions and dogmas."

Tags: beliefs, psychology
Current Location: Blandford, Dorset, UK

In the future, we will be able to read each other's minds. It will be like making and receiving a phone call. At first, this technology will be very simple and only allow a limited vocabulary, and it requires no implants or surgery, just some electrodes placed on the head, perhaps in a hood or even a baseball cap, connected to a mobile phone.

"The Future of Telepathy" by Vexen Crabtree (2007), is my rewrite of what I wrote 1999 describing how, via, computers, Human brains could learn to communicate directly with each other. I no longer think this possible through natural means, but, with the aid of little on-the-scalp detectors or surgery, it will still be possible. You'll just need to plug yourself into your mobile, or something.

I will be adding more to this page later; in particular some notes from my neurology books on EEGs and brain activation patterns.

Tags: humanity, magnetic fields, mind reading, psychology, supernatural, technology, telepathy, thought
Current Location: Monchengladbach, Germany
Listening To: Beyond, Best of 1986-8, track 10

I've added a little to "The Causes Of Religion: Biological Neuronal Dysfunction", Vexen Crabtree (2007), ending with a tie-in to my page on Christianity's St. Paul.

It is not only chronic neurological dysfunction that can cause religious and supernatural beliefs. Some of the founding experiences can be based on single neurological events such as isolated strokes or seizues. Many types of fit do not involve the motor area of the brain, so do not result in obvious, physical signs of fitting. They can be purely sensory in nature, involving sights, sounds and feelings that range from subtle through to overwhelming.

“Partial seizures can [...] cause clonic movement of part of a limb [, ... or] may trigger an abnormal sensation, or aura, such as an odd smell or sparkling lights. Most bizarre are the partial seizures that elicit more well-formed auras such as déjá vu (the feeling that something has happened before) or hallucinations.”

"Neuroscience" by Bear, Connors and Paradiso, p464

William James remained convinced that St. Paul was converted to Christianity by a vision that was the result of a lone seizure.

Tags: christianity, experiences, fits, irrationality, jesus, neurology, neuroscience, psychology, religion, seizures, st. paul
Current Location: Monchengladbach, Germany
Listening To: "Antichrist (club mix)" by The Retrosic

For some reason, it has struck me as brilliant and wonderful, the history of how single-cell organisms evolved to detect chemicals in their environment (simply using lipid-membrane spanning molecules)... and that the same mechanisms are now the same methods that multicellular organisms use to co-ordinate activities between cells.

It really struck home to me that we are (in Dawkins' words) "colonies" of cells acting together...

I can imagine each cell "thinking" it is alone in the environment, simply not knowing that actually it is busily communicating with millions of other cells' products, rather than with the environment external to the body.

“The mechanism of chemical sensation that originally evolved to detect environmental substances now form the basis for chemical communication between cells and organs, using hormones and neurotransmitters.”
"Neuroscience" by Bear, Connors and Paradiso, p189</p>

Anyone else find this oddly inspiring and awesome? So simple... there wasn't two different paths of evolution for cellular senses, but one... which became used in two very different circumstances!

I guess that is why some diseases which are basically single-cell sometimes react en masse or change their behaviour en masse. (We have found that sometimes a critical mass of a certain excreted chemical causes a group change in single-cell disease behaviour).

I've added some of this to "The Evolution of Life from the Primordial Soup to the Cell" by Vexen Crabtree (1999) - the page really does need to be made scientific, rather than rambling!

Tags: bacteria, biology, cells, evolution, hormones, multicellular life, neuroscience, neurotransmitters, psychology, richard dawkins, single-cell life, staphylococcus
Current Location: Monchengladbach, Germany
Listening To: "Try to Forget '98" by De/Vision

I've created a journal, Vexen Crabtree's Insane Journal (http://vexen.insanejournal.com/profile ) which I plan on using for posts that are specific to psychology updates across my websites. For example, the first post there is about an update to my text on the Biochemical Nature of Emotions, where I've added a quote from Richard Gross on Clive Wearing. I'll probably post updates on my pages on dreams and dream analysis to that journal, too.

Tags: biochemistry, brain damage, clive wearing, dream analysis, dream interpretation, dreams, journals, neurology, psychology, qualia, vexen
Current Location: Germany
Listening To: "Eclipse (Dimension D RMX)" by Apoptygma Berzerk

New page: Split Brain Studies: One Mind per Hemisphere: Popular 'soul' theories are too simplistic.

The page looks at the experiments and conclusions of psychologists R.W. Sperry and R.E. Myers, R. Gross, Ornstein and others, who have concluded: "each of the separated hemispheres has its own private sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories - in short, that they constitute two separate minds, two separate spheres of consciousness." [Gross 1996]

The conclusion on my page reads:

Split-brain studies show that in some situations, it is clear that our brain can contain two minds, two personalities, "two separate spheres of consciousness". Cases of multiple-personality can also result in very different personalities existing in the same brain. And some more extreme conclusions can be drawn: it is possible that all people have two consciousnesses but that each is only aware of itself. I will, however, only discuss here the fact that sometimes, the same brain contains two minds. This clearly has implications for studies of souls.

If 'souls' exist, it must be true that a soul can encompass two consciousnesses, with two different personalities, memories and skills. And if souls survive bodily death... which consciousness is it that survives? In Christian mythology, a bodily resurrection will occur, and the saved will ascend to heaven... in the case of split-brain patients, how are two separate consciousnesses reborn in the same heavenly body, which cannot contain the same biopsychical dysfunctions as the imperfect Earthly body did? It makes a nonsense of the simplistic theologies of the afterlife if we hold that 'souls' survive death, given the evidence of split-brain cases. This doesn't show that souls don't exist, merely that popular opinions about souls simply cannot account for all the possibilities that the biology of consciousness provides. It is probably closer to the truth, and certainly a correct implementation of occam's razor, to conclude that consciousness is a result of purely biological factors, and that no such thing as 'souls' exist, rather than try to reconcile them with split-brain and multiple-personality studies. Woefully, I have left Sam's masterful book, "Abnormal Psychology" by Davison and Neale, at work and won't get it back for 2 weeks. At that point, this page will be updated with more material.

Tags: consciousness, life, multiple personality disorder, psychology, psychosurgery, souls
Current Location: Germany
Current Mood: busy

The in-laws are visiting, things are going pretty smooth! We all had a good night out & invited some friends over afterwards... some of us was up until 3am in the morning debating pop. psychology and talking about cars. Sam was a drunk handful! I blitzed the house this morning, and peace is restored :-)

Have finished a book by Bertrand Russell, "Religion and Science" (1935), and added some quotes to some pages. A few bits of text are going towards a new page on the historical battle between scientists such as Copernicus, and the Church (with the Inquisition as its bulldog) that clung on the belief that the Earth was the center of the universe.

Tags: cars, family, psychology, relatives
Current Location: Germany
Listening To: "Embodied" by Spahn Ranch

Added this to the first bits of my page on Free Will (www.humantruth.info/free_will.html):

“Nisbett and Wilson (1977) go so far as to claim that all psychological activities (including social behaviour) are governed by processes of which we are unaware. [...] Emotions can occur with rapid onset, through automatic appraisal, with little awareness and with involuntary changes in expression and physiology; indeed, we often experience emotions as happening to us rather than chosen by us. [...]

Apart from Freud [...] probably the most outspoken person advocate of the view that the person is not free is Skinner. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) he argues that behavioural freedom is an illusion. Just as Freud believed that freedom is an illusion to the extent that we are unaware of the unconscious causes of our feelings and behaviours, so Skinner claimed that it is only because the causes of human behaviour are often hidden from us in the environment that the myth or illusion of free will survives.”

"Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour" by Richard Gross, p75, 121 & 875

It follows commentary by other scientists on free will... I'm reading Dawkins' new book at the moment, and he makes some great comments on free will, so when I've finished The God Delusion I will be adding some more to this page again.

Tags: determinism, free will, freud, psychology, skinner
Current Location: Germany
Listening To: "Driven like the snow" by the Sisters of Mercy

"Psychosomosis: Curing and Causing Disease with the Mind" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)

Tags: health, hypnotism, meditation, psychology, psychosomosis, self development
Current Location: Germany
Listening To: "Stupid Questions" by New Model Army

Something interesting is going on neurologically, metabolically and biologically when the recently deceased become capable of getting up and trying to kill the living. Firstly, any pathological study must start with an examination of methods of propagation, so that the disease can be contained. Secondly, we look at the role of the cortex of the cerebrum in zombies and animals. A broken cortex results in more zombie-like behaviour, so, our description of zombie biology must account for the lack of a working cerebral cortex. Thirdly, zombie bodies are special. They do not feel pain, eat or drink. Normal humans die of thirst quickly. No zombie film has explained, really or fully, how the infection causes all of these unlikely symptoms. But we shall try...

1. The Methods of Propagation of Zombie Epidemics
2. The Zombie Brain
3. The Zombie Body
4. Why Don't Zombies Attack Each Other?

Tags: biology, neurology, psychology, zombies

Inspections and Parades and Psychological Training: What's the point of Basic Training 'bullshit'?

Tags: army, basic training, military, psychology, self development

Sociology and Psychology of Religion Just a links page:

Philosophy and Theology of Religion:

• "Arguments and evidence that there is no God" by Vexen, 1999

Sociology and Psychology of Religion:

• "The Experience of God: How and why people believe" by Vexen, 2002
• Religion in Britain: Statistics, decline, diversity
• "Cultural Religion Versus Scholarly Religion" by Vexen 2005

My Bane of Monotheism website contains many dozens of critical essays and pages on religion, including content areas specific to specific world religions and debates over major themes in religion, such as the cause of evil and morals.

Tags: psychology, religion, sociology, theology, websites
Current Location: Afghanistan
Current Mood: tired
Listening To: "A Demonoid Virtue" by Limbonic Art

Apologies for repeating a boringly ongoing theme of psychology, but:

Altruism is an Illusion is my new page, the conclusion reads:

"
Biologists, sociologists, philosophers and above all, psychologists, have held to the "universal egoism" theory: that all apparent altruism is really selfishness in disguise. Most arguments for altruism are based on ignorance of the underlying reasons for behaving good towards others or are purely semantic in nature, not logical.

People behave altruistically for a number of selfish reasons. We are programmed genetically to behave in a way conducive to the sociability of the species: This unconscious species-instinct is the closest thing we have to true sellfless altruism. In nearly every other conscious sense, altruism is an illusion. We behave well because social good behaviour fires off pleasent neurochemicals in our brains (the pleasure reward), because consciously or unconsciously we want others to see us as a good person (the social reward) or to feel good about ourselves (for pride and self-esteem). All of these selfish reasons surpass the reason that the innocent think is behind their actions: The choice to selflessly help others. Altruism is image and illusion.
"

Tags: altruism, psychology
Current Mood: Impatient
Listening To: "It Scares Me" by Mesh

The Importance of Current Events is Amplified By our Egos

"People use drama to report events of their own times, always making it appear more important than past events of similar or greater importance. The first century Jewish historian Josephus bemoaned this aspect of Human nature two thousands years ago, and our egos show no sign of letting us be more objective. I believe it is the common ego of the normal person that makes current events in the world around us seem more significant and cataclysmic than times gone before."

Tags: current events, ego, media, psychology, sociology
Current Mood: okay
Listening To: "Decades" by Joy Division

A friend was once shocked when I demonstrated a consistent ability to rapidly slow my heart rate. I just reading about lots of other incidences, making this a verified phenomenon and not something that is perculiar.

"Experiments in the 1960s showed that experts in yoga in fact were indeed capable of slowing normal body processes, such as the rate of oxygen consumption, heart rate, and breathing. Indian television cameras captured 46-year-old Ramanand Yogi sitting in a sealed box, in which he used little more than half the calculated minimum amount of oxygen required to maintain life. For one hour, he survived on a bare quarter of what his body should have needed.

In other tests, yogis produced sweat on the forehead only, while others slowed the heart rate while sitting still"

My technique is to consciously slow breathing and relax all muscles, which will for very simple phsyiological reasons mean you need less oxygen, therefore need less blood flow, therefore your body slows your heart. The opposite, is to think of your heart going fast... voila... it goes faster!

Other connections that exist include a direct cause and affect between willpower and immune system, willpower and disease & symptoms, etc. It is known that depression and mental weakness causes the immune system to work less well; and merely pretending to be happy or healthy actually increases your health!

[EDIT: Further comment removed due to: I can't think of a careful or sensible way of phrasing them without inviting cared-for friends to think me foolish...]

Tags: heart rate, immune system, psychology, willpower