If you’re unfamiliar with the neuroscience behind the illusion of freewill, this TED talk, Sam Harris on “Free Will”, is a good listen. If you are familiar, then skip ahead until it gets interesting as he addresses other related issues.
Continue reading…fairness instinct
Loss Aversion Management
This short NPR audio interview, We Care More About Losses Than Gains, shows how we can’t help but shoot ourselves in the foot. When I look around, I see “loss aversion” influencing just about everything we do, albeit often in very subtle ways. The innate emotional aversion to loss, when reinforced by reason (thought) traps […]
Continue reading…The Harmless People
In the early 20th century, a few pioneers combed the back woods of rural Appalachia to document and record the last unspoiled remnants of American roots music, still unchanged by the cultural upheavals of the 20th century. (See, John Lomax, Peermusic). In the middle of the 20th century, Laurence Marshall and his family made three […]
Continue reading…Will-to-Live, Free or Otherwise
A drive to survive is common to all living things from viruses on up, as I see it anyway. In somewhat higher forms of life, we see this as the survival instinct. This survival instinct must be regarded as a fundamental emotional drive in any animal we think of as having emotion, although I suppose […]
Continue reading…The Why Of It
Digging down into the bottomless mystery—the why of it—feels a quixotic quest at times. Then I add quixotic insult to injury by posting my observations on the web. I know these are palatable to only a few people and they already know intuitively what I’m saying, more likely than not. What is the point? Ah, […]
Continue reading…Dumbfounding
I’ve read this and it left me dumbfounded, so I read it again… I’m still dumbfounded. Does it really say, “… calorie intake may be the bigger contributor to Western obesity”? What are they thinking? What else causes obesity? I have noticed over the years, a growing effort to find ‘genetic’ causes for why some […]
Continue reading…“Fixation on same same”
Recently my friend Andy teased me about my “fixation on same same”, as he put it. My habit of drawing out similarities between apparent opposites bugs him a little. “Fixation on same same” was his response to my comment, “Folks on the left use folks on the right as scapegoats, and vice versa. The underlying […]
Continue reading…Guilt, Shame and the Name Game
I used the experience of guilt and shame for an example in my recent post, I am foolish of human mind also? I feel our habit of naming emotional experiences deserves its own post, so here goes, beginning with a personal example… Up until thirty years ago, I had never experienced depression… or so I […]
Continue reading…I am foolish of human mind also?
‘I am foolish of human mind also?’ is one of my favorite lines in chapter 20. The more literal the translation, the more peculiar it can read. If it helps, D.C. Lau interprets this line more poetically as, My mind is that of a fool – how blank. I do feel the literal phrasing of […]
Continue reading…