Category: Life Ideas
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The Physics of Survival
Please enjoy the fascinating discussion of the free energy principle with Dr. Maxwell Ramstead, a leading thinker exploring the intersection of math, physics, and philosophy and Director of Research at VERSES. The 2 hour discussion includes great details on FEP. The FEP was proposed by renowned neuroscientist Karl Friston, this principle offers a unifying theory…
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The IDEA (Internal Dominance over External Attention )
Sam Verschooren and Tobias Egner published “ When the mind’s eye prevails: “The Internal Dominance over ExternalAttention (IDEA) hypothesis“. The IDEA hypothesis asserts, contrary to the traditional view of attention as being primarily externally oriented, that attention is inherently biased toward internal information. Mine inner sense predominates in such a way over my five senses…
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The self is an illusion
The truth is that your left brain has been interpreting reality for you your whole life, and if you are like most people, you have never understood the full implications of this. This is because we mistake the story of who we think we are for who we truly are. “Why are you unhappy?Because 99.9 percent of…
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I must admit … meditative walking is, indeed, a practice.
The next time you feel stuck or have a problem you can’t solve, I encourage you to try a productive meditation. Occupy yourself with a routine activity and contemplate a well-defined problem, with the precise goal of finding a solution. The change of pace allows you to access big-picture thinking, a chance to mentally step…
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Decoding reward–curiosity conflict in decision-making from irrational behaviors
Humans and animals are not always rational. “Decoding reward–curiosity conflict in decision-making from irrational behaviors” discusses the fact humans not only rationally exploit rewards but also explore an environment owing to their curiosity. However, the mechanism of such curiosity-driven irrational behavior is largely unknown. The article develops a decision-making model for a two choice task…
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Creativity in Motion
Some publications related to this topic: Embodiment and Human Development It is becoming increasingly accepted that the study of cognitive, social, and emotional processes must account for the embodiment of these processes in living, acting people. Within cognitive science, how bodily factors play a role in mental life is often considered through the lens of…
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Legs move, thoughts flow : Physical exercise influences creative thinking
I only give a summary of the article, lacking the capability to understand and read the native language. Still, the summary is very interesting: Creative thinking is the ability to generate novel and useful solutions to a problem, of which divergent and convergent thinking are two common types. Evidence shows that physical exercise may influence…
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Social and Affective Neuroscience of Everyday Human Interaction
I found – rather serendipitous – this recent, open access and very interesting book “Social and Affective Neuroscience of Everyday Human Interaction“, edited by Springer 2023. This Open Access book presents the current state of the art knowledge on social and affective neuroscience based on empirical findings. Some highlights as appetiser: Molecular Imaging of the…
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Consciousness begins with feeling, not thinking
A new theory of embodied consciousness has been described by Antonio Damasio and Hanna Damasio in Consciousness begins with feeling, not thinking. Forget ‘I think therefore I am’. feelings are the source of consciousness. Long dismissed as secondary to reason, feelings are where consciousness begins. Without them, consciousness is impossible – with radical implications for the ‘hard…
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States of Mind (SoMs): TD:BU balance
Noa Herz, Shira Baror, and Moshe Bar discuss in a 2020 opinion article the Overarching States of Mind.We all have our varying mental emphases, inclinations, and biases. These individual dispositions are dynamic in that they can change over time and context. The opinion article proposes that these changing states of mind (SoMs) are holistic in…
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The innovation and intelligence of goats …
Goats have not (yet) earned a reputation for their problem-solving abilities. But if you hide food in a strange cup and put a lid on it, a goat may find a way, a new study finds. And not just any goat. Animals that functioned like outsiders in their social group were best at tackling and…
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Whatever the Problem, It’s probably solved by walking.
The title of this NYT opinion tells it all… Andrew McCarthy is the author of “Walking With Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain.” Walking is the worst-kept secret I know. Its rewards hide under every step. “walking is man’s best medicine.”“If you are in a bad mood, gofor a walk.…
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Human innovation depends on our collective brains
A recent study investigates hunters’ causal understandings of bow design and mechanics among the Hadza, one of the last remaining foraging populations. The results suggest that sophisticated technology can evolve without complete causal understanding. Human innovation depends not on our individual brainpower but on our collective brains, on networks of diverse minds sharing information, lucky…
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“A New Evolutionary Law”
Revisiting Leigh Van Valen’s “A New Evolutionary Law” (1973) by Ricard Solé, (Biological Theory (2022) 17:120–125) Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass Leigh Van Valen was an American evolutionary biologist who made major contributions to evolutionary theory. He is…
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Ecosystems – Mutualism – Synthetic biology
Synthetic Mutualism and the Intervention Dilemma describes how ecosystems are complex networks of interacting individuals co-evolving with their environment. As such, changes to an interaction can influence the whole ecosystem. However, to predict the outcome of these changes, considerable understanding of processes driving the system is required. Synthetic biology provides powerful tools to aid this…
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The Niche theory : Compete, Facilitate & Mutualisme
From competition to facilitation and mutualism: a general theory of the niche by Koffel, Daufresne and Klausmeier explores the niche theory. Niche Theory is a central framework in ecology based on the recognition that most interactions between organisms are indirect, mediated by the biotic and abiotic dynamical environment these organisms live in. Despite its potential…
