Category: Life Ideas
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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…
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Brain-Behavior relationships
“Improving the study of brain-behavior relationships by revisiting basic assumptions” discusses how scientific communities tacitly agree on assumptions about what exists (called ontological commitments), what questions to ask, and what methods to use. All assumptions are firmly rooted in a philosophy of science that need not be acknowledged or discussed but is practiced nonetheless. In…
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The complexities of knowledge co-production
Practical wisdom and virtue ethics for knowledge co-production in sustainability describes how since antiquity, philosophers in the Western tradition of virtue ethics have declared practical wisdom to be the central virtue of citizens involved in public and social life. Practical wisdom is of particular importance when values are conflicting, power is unequal and knowledge uncertain.…
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“Average is good, extremes are bad”
Traditionally, studies emphasize differences in neural measures between pathological and healthy groups, assuming a binary distinction between the groups, and a linear relationship between neural measures and symptoms. A continuous relation across the divide of normal and pathological states between neural measures and mental functions shows a relation which can be characterized by a nonlinear…
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The Capital Order
In The Capital Order, political economist Clara E. Mattei explores the intellectual origins of austerity to uncover its originating motives: the protection of capital—and indeed capitalism—in times of social upheaval from below. For more than a century, governments facing financial crisis have resorted to the economic policies of austerity— rise in interest rates, privatisation, cuts to…
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Awe brings Health
Awe as a Pathway to Mental and Physical Health describes how experiences in nature or in spiritual contemplation or in being moved by music or with psychedelics promote mental and physical health. The article is define awe at its core. Awe engages five processes that benefit well-being:(1) shifts in neurophysiology, (2) a diminished focus on…
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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2021-22
The latest Human Development Report, “Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World”, launched September 8 by UNDP, argues that layers of uncertainty are stacking up and interacting to unsettle life in unprecedented ways. The last two years have had a devastating impact for billions of people around the world, when crises…
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Over-reliance on English hinders
Several studies report a ‘bilingual advantage’ for cognitive control: the ability to plan, focus, and execute a wide array of tasks is better among bilinguals compared with monolinguals, in particular among older adult bilinguals. Nonetheless, this bilingual advantage is not replicated consistently, as the effect is heavily modulated by task, age of participants, and bilingual…
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Take your time to consider the possibilities and options
Representations of possible actions pervade human high-level cognition, and shape how we plan, attribute causal responsibility, comprehend language, and make moral judgments.There are too many ‘possible actions’ for us to consider them all. Recent studies offer a strikingly convergent picture of how we call to mind a limited, useful set of possible actions to consider.This…
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“decrease the mental-self-processing & a synchronization with the interoceptive and exteroceptive-self-processing”.
I stated in a previous post the insight into our neurology of meditation, in order to attain our goal to keep it simple, but often fail to realize it. I already suggested, we need “to kill our darlings” in order to be open to the full context of the terrain we’re exposed to. A recent paper…
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