Occasionally Moose have some interesting ideas; I write them down...
Here’s something that’s disturbing about humans: when it comes to our most strongly held opinions, the more strongly they’re held, the less likely there’s anything of substance underneath. Especially when they’re based on how we feel… We’re evolved animals, and pretty much everything we experience Read More …
How do you know that you exist? OK, I’m not going down the hackneyed “are you a brain in a box?” or “are we in a simulation?”. Better thinkers than myself have addressed these (actually serious) questions better than I ever could. What I’m talking Read More …
Following on from my last entry – I wanted to explore more on the topic of unconscious versus conscious choice, and our ability to make conscious choices versus our perception of that ability. Let’s see what we can come up with. For the majority of our Read More …
It’s been a while, so I thought I’d try something a bit more challenging than usual, and less ranty! I’ve chosen a deliberately obtuse title today – so let’s start with some demystification of that… Most of us have a pretty limited idea of what Read More …
A while back I wrote about memes and how they can ‘hack’ past our consciousness (here). I suggested that some concepts, like religion, are particularly effective at getting past our conscious defences because, as ‘sticky’ memes, they are able to trigger a wide range of fundamental human Read More …
Last week I wrote about my spaniel, Moose, and how he’s dependent on a ‘blankie’ to help him regulate his emotions (here), mostly because he’s lacking development in the part of the brain that we use to focus our attention. Because of this limitation, his Read More …
I’m going to take a pause between my articles on arrogance (here and here – part 3 coming next time) this week, because I had an experience last week that got me thinking and that I’d really like to share. So, if you know me Read More …
So quick precis of last week: I referred to memes, an evolved method of communicating complex information between human beings, and suggested that they can be an ideal mechanism for hacking human consciousness (by bypassing regular mechanisms and reinforcing themselves through neurobiological reward). I also Read More …
This week is going to be a bit speculative. As you’re probably getting used to, I write about what’s been on my mind lately. Often, I get an idea and jot it down, and then it grows over the next few months until it’s more fully formed Read More …
This entry, I’d like to talk about why most of us (myself included) take so long to figure out how to be human. In previous posts, I’ve talked a lot about the “inner monkey” (here)– the fact that it’s particularly difficult to be human when Read More …
Understanding the limbic system versus the neocortex and why most of us live our lives as smart monkeys rather than human beings Up to now I’ve presented lots of ideas about why this and that, but mostly from a wider societal viewpoint, with lots of Read More …
In my last post I talked about how the analogy of hardware and software and the files that run on that software can be a good way of understanding why it’s difficult for us to make change easily, or to integrate new ideas into our Read More …
We often like to think of the human brain as analogous to computer hardware, with the mind or consciousness as the software or operating system. It’s by no means a perfect analogy (in reality, the whole system is insanely complex and works a bit more Read More …