Meditation, the brain, Dalai Lama – Scientific American

Interesting, compelling? What do you think?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=meditation-on-demand-nov09

Elaborating, the spiritual leader of Tibet explained to the audience of scientists that although he meditates for four hours every morning, it is hard work. He divulged that if neuroscientists could find a way to put electrodes in his brain and create the same outcome he gets from meditating, he would be an eager volunteer. Now a set of experiments from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University moves us a step closer to making his wish a reality. The neuroscientists managed to induce in mice a brain-wave pattern associated with meditation—answering a long- standing question about how this pattern is generated and theoretically laying the groundwork for a cognitive-enhancement technology that could mimic meditation’s effects.

Alfred Korzybski: Writing

This book, Alfred Korzybski: Collected Writings, 1920-1950, from 1990 is only available second-hand – too expensive. I then found the Google edition below.

Later:

This book and all of Korzybski’s books are for sale cheaply at General Semantics Institute online

Later
I a Bought Science & Sanity from GSI – arrived in days! It is also online here.

Alfred Korzybski: Collected Writings, 1920-1950 follows (embedded)
Continue reading “Alfred Korzybski: Writing”

RET, Albert Ellis and general semantics

IGS Discussion Forums: Albert Ellis in the News:

Dr. Albert Ellis gave the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in 1991 in New York City. It was all about the parallels between his Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET) and General Semantics. He stated, “I was distinctly influenced, when formulating and developing RET, by several of Korzybski’s ideas.” (General Semantics Bulletin #58, p. 25)

Link to the pdf of the lecture!

General semantics – Outline

GENERAL SEMANTICS: An Outline Survey
by Kenneth G. Johnson 3rd Edition Revised

A very interesting Outline! This is by the same guy who I quoted earlier.

11.4 “ ‘You’d be interested to know,’ he (the psychiatrist) said, ‘how many people come to me with troubles that are largely a matter of nomenclature. They suffer the tortures of the damned at the idea that a particular label may fit them or may not fit them. ‘Am I a man? Am I a coward? Am I a failure? Am I an invert? Sometimes, simply, am I a lunatic?’ If you could only get it through your head that it’s you, only you, who’s pinning the label on or taking it off, you’d have your problem half licked.’ ”
– Louis Auchincloss [14]

Why language matters!

I just quoted Moreno on Korzybski, and they are both right. Language used in a certain way leads to inaction, and a false belief that we are not acting beings at all times.

The passage I found & that I have quoted below makes clear.

I know I have coached people to use EMA, English Minus Absolutism without rationally knowing why, or understanding the principle, I feel grateful and excited to discover this deeper principle. Also to see more clearly how it is related to Psychodrama and action.

Using E-Prime and English Minus Absolutisms to provide self-empathy.

Quote and some discussion follows.

Continue reading “Why language matters!”

Relationship as one entity

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427370.500-how-our-brains-build-social-worlds.html?full=true

How can such behaviour be explained in terms of neuroscience? We think that two people performing together in this way are best described as a single, complex system rather than as two systems interacting. We also believe the same kinds of description should be applied generally to the brain activity that occurs when two people interact, because their brains also become a single complex system.