Category: Psychology


Fouls on the left field …and written language questions

Filed under: Psychology, Uncategorized — Leave a comment
July 11, 2010

Soccer Refs Subconsciously Call More Fouls on Plays to the Left

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/soccer-referee-bia/#ixzz0tLh1z0oB

Interesting tie in to the way that the language is written.Throws some interesting questions rather than light on the subject.
Left to right writers like us …don’t spoil the wet ink as we write…would’nt a right to left written language spoil if written in ink as was normal..so why does it evolve?
Unless it developed from left handed ink writers …..interesting questions …unanswered.
The actual study though reminds me of my post on the probable prevalence of ghost sightings on the left visual field.Bad things happen more often in the left visual field as the seat of negative emotion would more firmly entrenched on our left hemisphere…..hence the sighting/perception  of more foul behaviour on the left .
Found on WIKI.. The reason the Arabs and Easterners wrote right to left is to do with the nature of writing on scrolls..left hand needed to hold down the scroll as the right hand wrote…
Chinese write from top to bottom as well.
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The Insula as the baby mind ‘Self’

Filed under: Psychology — Leave a comment
June 20, 2010

Everything that the insula seems to be involved in  seems to revolve around the activities that young newborn or very young child need to express.

I think that the seat of cognition for a child is the Insula.I think it partners with the Anterior Cingulate gyrus and we get executive locus around the insula rather than say the Pre-frontal cortex.

It stops a child from overeating ( awareness of gastric distention)….allows hand and mouth co-ordination on the level of sophistication that a child needs rather then waiting for the full development of the motor cortex and the 3d precuneus world view .

I believe that under hypnosis ….the 5 year child AC cortex and insula axis of control is  tapped into by an authority figure ( the hypnotist) and they re-institute the power pathway that existed between the parent-child ..that conducted the power relationship through that pathway.

Hence the insula has a residual negativity from that era. The body and the self awareness of it is a large part of the sensory input of a child…unlike an adult who lives in a highly modualted ‘outer ‘ life that does’nt focus so acutely inwardly like a childs life does.

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Spiritualized Cancer , Liberal Parkinsons , Conservative Alzheimers disease

Filed under: Comment, Health, Political, Psychology, Wierd — 2 Comments
March 10, 2010

Alzheimers come about from an aggressive body state…that essentially erodes itself with its high level of ‘readiness’ to attack .

The body is in a state of fear (so my stab in the dark guess that conservatives might suffer from it marginally more than anyone else ).

Parkinson’s is a disease where there is a balance of forces against each within the brain….each leaning heavily against each other…..like a tug of war….in balance…wearing out the brain.Reminds me of the liberal brain.Balanced.As they tug against each other ..they wear out the ‘doing’ juices ( dopamine).

Cancer is for people who are defenceless and open ..too open ..to all.Their defences are muted and they incur a cost for that.People with cancer will have an open spirituality.( Eva Cassidy..look at her voice….see is so defenceless and unguarded ..that voice was/is  heavenly …she had no defences /layers…sheer spirit )

OK..now ..I know alot of this is mostly non-sense…but I know there is a nugget of truth in here somewhere amongst this caricuture.I know rightwingers get Parkinsons  and cancer etc etc is a bit over the top…….but I think there will be a measurable yardstick with which the temperaments of different people are directly related to the diseases they get and the political eco-system of their thoughts.

Remember right and left wing party affiliations are not usually dependent on whether someone is a left winger or right winger.This is not about political parties…but political individuals.

In the US ..we have a purifying process where individuals are becoming more closely aligned to parties that represent the inner political poles of mind …but that is not a given in most societies….e.g You can be a conservative through culture/birth yet be a liberal inside quite easily in the UK or a rightwinger in the socialist party ..eg Blair and Labour.

Heres an article that presents the case for Alzeheimers being related to immune defence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/health/09alzh.html?em

I know the disease I’m mostly likely to get is Parkinsons but not Cancer.I’m fairly certain of that.Maybe another 20 years and we shall see.

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Origin and mechanics of Fashion

Filed under: Evolution, Psychology — Leave a comment
March 5, 2010
Posted by me on Ask Andy’s forum..
Fashion is about power structures/hierarchies.

( essentially ..that is )

Important for young people as a public statement of individual power …against the parental powers that have ruled their lives.
Hence the annoyance when the Parents dress like them…..THAT is against the dress code.

Important for workers to dress alike ..like soldiers..helps to stamp out the individuality that is important in the previous teen scenario.Helps large scaling of organisations.

Important to help outsiders assess the rung of the power ladder you are on, so that any converstion need not have to centre around establishing status….hence Purple for emperors….silks for nobleman ( and banned for uppity peasants as in England during the Medievil times ).

Once you’ve establised large scale order…economic benefits mean that individual will discover leisure time…time to just enjoy the clothes they wear …or others wear ..just for the sake of it…like in Andys Forums..

The teenage scenario also requires wealth and an essentially idle teen -class.( that is not working up a chimney ..but obessed with itself )

In the large scaled ‘orders’.. the idle wealthy thus created , can afford to live forever but can’t buy youth…so they pay youthful designers to help differentiate themselves from the masses that can buy cheaply and widely .( to keep the distance )….

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Politics of the Amygdala…again

Filed under: Political, Psychology, Religion, Terrorism, War — Leave a comment
February 28, 2010

A series of posts concerning the fear of Islamism on a thread on Chicago Boyz….

http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11799.html#comments

I’m hoping it gets moderated or deleted as that would conform to my theory …that its the Politics of the Amygdala in play when it comes to Islam.

The reply I got to this first post by me ..was that I was mis-using statistics and this was the link that gave an example how my thinking was flawed…….easily rebutted.

http://www.photoncourier.blogspot.com/2003_01_01_photoncourier_archive.html#86788061last

 

My first post

I’m not sure why the West is’nt taking the Islamic threat more seriously..

maybe it has something to do with the fact that muliples of more people die of diabetes in Montana than have
than have westerners died through Extremists from Islam…globally.

Politics of the Amygdala as opposed to the Frontal Cortex.

 

My reply to the fact that I was not taking trends into consideration ..:Second reply

I think after 9 years of fighting Islamic extremism …we have a surfeit of trends to base many assumptions.

A static calculation was’nt made after 911 , unlike the Auto example in the article…so it has no bearing on reality.

Would you argue otherwise?

my whole line of thought is at odds with the whole thrust of the ‘Chicago Boyz ‘Islamist will be everywhere ‘ fears ……

I got a reply about a serious domestic murder by a muslim in the US

Third reply….awaiting moderation ..unlike the others…

i’m not sure how the progress of a single crimminal case in Arizona is a validation of your fears yet the statistics I used ..a misuse.

I’ll let you dwell on that one.

Funny enough the article has an indepth look at a novel that explores some middle class person with issues and the middle class author deeply explores them vicariously through a ‘novel’…..many other middle class readers are engrossed as well.( all convincing proof of the weakness of the West to the bogey muslim man….even though the novel has nothing to do with Islam..but thats splitting hairs…)

Novel writing = circular therapy for the middle (muddled ) classes. An old favourite idea of mine.

Forth Post     David believes there 100′s of other cases he can cite

A picture of a dead person is’nt usually the best way to have an informed opinion about anything.
I do believe it helps suicide bombers to watch DVDs of dead Muslims before they carry out attacks…..shall we say that they are better informed for it?

You are determined to believe in the weakness of the West and in that , you also share another commonality with Islamists.

My theory is that there is a sneaking wish for and admiration of the order/discipline/self sacrifice that these people make for a cause ( no matter how mis-guided the end)….by Western right wingers and conservatives ( who love organisation , loyalty , duty , order ).They see these qualities in the terrorist and panic when they see liberals and muslims everywhere , living amongst them , agents of weakness or of unwanted change.This causes fear…which Rightwingers are susceptible to all the time regardless of the real conditions.

The ArchBishop I think said as much when he said that he admired the faith of the Taliban.Its almost a yearning for security …that can only come from Order…a New Order.

Therefore it really is the politics of fear that drives this…
100’s of examples list of anything can be plucked out from anywhere when you consider the number of people in the ‘West’ and Muslim areas .That does’nt explain anything.

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Palin and the Family-Guy-gate affair

Filed under: Comment, Political, Psychology — Leave a comment
February 26, 2010

Palin in a nutshell.

I remember her being called a post tortoise or something by someone in the US..asked to explain….he said she was like a tortoise on top of  a post that could’nt help itself and begged the question of what kind of fool would put it there ( McCain in that context).

I think she is a pleasant enough person…just a bit foolish to be a Politician but great for the admiring audiences of Amygdalas…..The new great democracy ..Fox , Palin …all feeding from  the energy of the Amygdala.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1967793,00.html?iid=digg_share

Palin posted on Facebook that the scene was “another punch in the gut.” This time, however, Palin’s outrage prompted not an apology but a smackdown, from Andrea Fay Friedman, a Family Guy voice actress — who actually has Down. “My parents raised me to have a sense of humor,” she said. “My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.” Ouch. Cartoon 1, Politician 0.

Do you believe that white-male conservatives are hypocrites for limiting women’s abortion rights? Why, we have Mr. McLuhan right here: Palin — a woman! — says that when she was pregnant with Trig, she had the fleeting thought that she could have an abortion but didn’t. Disagree with her foreign policy? Her son Track went to Iraq! Reject her claim that health-reform “death panels” will cull special-needs children? She’s worried about her own special-needs child! With Palin, the political is always intensely personal. She styles herself as someone who has given bodily to her beliefs, and that makes her connection with her followers visceral, a blood tie.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1967793,00.html?iid=digg_share#ixzz0gcJgia81

Great read …shame to cut and paste

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Cognitive vs Emotional

Filed under: Evolution, Psychology, Religion — Leave a comment
February 19, 2010

Note to self

Emotions present themselves to us ( condition of the body that has a social benefit-loss aspect).

Cognitive behaviour is then required to re-make the environment to cater for the smooth expression of the emotion ( condition  the environment ).

Civilisation occurs when Cognition turns the tables and begins to  ( modulation/deletion) alter emotions itself instead of just catering to their needs…as if they , the emotions , were part of the environment  and  could also be conditioned like the environment.

The  tool /apprentice  become the master.Its the fork, that once assisted the diner ,  then decided , to better eat the meal….it should consume part of the meal itself and take a piece of the diner as well.

Once you get that kind of self modulation ( a new hierarchy within the self then causes new possible social hierarchies )…you get a new paradigm….Civilisation : religion and Art =  stability = science = atheism  and whatever comes next.

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Mirror neurons , Evil and WiFi .

Filed under: Evolution, Journalism, Psychology, Religion, Terrorism, Uncategorized, War — Leave a comment
February 10, 2010

Posted on Brain Blogger …but with spelling corrections and added thoughts

http://brainblogger.com/2010/02/09/i-feel-your-pain-the-neural-basis-of-empathy/#comment-597971

Its interesting that the level of empathy we have for each other  might have its roots within our sensori-motor mirror neurons…i.e we have to see ( be within sensory reach) to feel anothers pain.That ability is like ‘ line of sight’  WiFi synapsing between different brains….as effective as if they were really hard wired . 
That would be useful because we would’nt be able to compete if we empathised with the competition ( over the hill and out of sight….or mass Media air-brushed ).
Maybe the action of group dance could synchronise a tribe to de-sychronise  & overcome the mirror neurons temporarily when we go spears in hand, face to face,  to kill fellow humans in another tribe.That synchronicity duality would be Media based today.
We co-operate to compete.So somewhere along the line…our ability to empathise must be able to be suspendable  , so that we can  indeed do  terrible things to fellow humans …as that is what we have evolved  to do .
I think we have rituals/memes that do this .Dances..music…media ..dis-information…I believe we pro-actively need to suspend ‘ the humanity ‘ we inherently perceive  in others , who are to be  the object of our terror..so that we can inflict productive amounts of terror upon that other set of individuals .In essence ..a short cut around our mirror neurons.
Its a horrible thing to say in words….but I’m struck by how we always have a need to de-humanise people first ..before we can efficiently co-operate to commit the very evil we declare ourselves to be fighting.

Is Religion such a short-cut ? A steering comittee for mirror neurons that can promotes group self -empathy but can productively short-cut and suspend the ‘empathy ‘neurons.

Spirituality would be the opposite end ( the side that tips the scales  towards more empathy and fewer short -cuts /work arounds  the mirror neurons).

I still believe religion begins from close proximity living..but here is the mechanism that could propagate it.

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Glossolallia …

Filed under: Psychology — Leave a comment
February 8, 2010

 

http://brainblogger.com/2010/02/07/speaking-in-tongues-a-neural-snapshot/#comment-597959

Posted elsewhere by me

I expect that in their childhood…free flowing care free childhood speech patterns became abruptly political..The socio -political nature of words became important and more so as we move through childhood.Words and their implications/meanings became heavily implicated with consequences and I expect it happened so suddenly in these cases ..possibly within a few moments …a clearly defined moment ..where a realisation that their words were no longer innocent and that they had become heavily laden with consequences . I could give you an example…say a as a child..you get a new stepfather…and the whole family politics changes the moment the person walks through the door.Anger , jealously , fear , anything could trigger a sudden onset . The childhood speech flow is lost forever.It becomes measured . But in these cases..the overwhelming emotional freedom that the childhood speech patterns permitted…get airtime again.Through Glossolallia. Meaningless speech ( no frontal cortex ..which was the culprit in recognising the original ‘politics’ ) …Glossolalia allows the adult to relive ( and relieve ) the limbic parietal childhood nexus..unfettered. I would have thought that Glossolalia would re-capture the speech tempo that existed in their childhood.With the ubiquitous family video records we all keep…I ‘m sure that would’nt be difficult to explore

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Motorized personal space

Filed under: Psychology — Leave a comment
February 7, 2010

So…personal space is about 30-70 cm about your body .Maybe 70 cm when our hands are moving and are active in the space that suddenly becomes ‘actionable’

Animal studies confirm it and you know it yourself.Its your turf.

Cars extend that space and become in essence …a motorized version of our personal space.

Therefore how we behave in traffic or the laws of traffic must have some insights into our own personal space dynamic.( eg In Japan , people can tolerate closeness ..look at their home spaces and how they pack themselves into trains…would that mean they can tolerate shorter distances between cars than other societies…  just an idea..could be tested  )

People are going to find giving up that personal space very hard.70 cm is the powered actionable space.A car..is  a petro-charged and  armoured 10 metres.. can only be bettered by a Gun ( the actionable space increased dramatically which bolsters your sense of security way beyond the perimeter of the gun-holders personal space …I wonder if gun-holders actually have  different metrics  for personal space).

Is the right to drive a car going to become like the right to bear arms in the US constitution.I think there are parallels ( though this is likely just to remain a thought experiment )

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