Human Brain
PAGE IN PROGRESS
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book Me, Looking for Meaning. Initially empty, it will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience! :)
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book Me, Looking for Meaning. Initially empty, it will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience! :)
First of all, I am not going to pretend that I am a specialist on the human brain. My knowledge about the brain is a) limited, b) constantly changing (because I learn more and because science of the brain is evolving). So all the things below need to be taken with the grain of salt. These are bits and pieces of information that help me understand what I want to understand about the world (see My quest for meaning).
Human brain is different from brains of other animals, but it's not absolutely unique. For example, we can talk a lot about how people understand the world through symbols, that is - they attach to the object around the meanings (ideas, associations, feelings) that are not a natural part of these objects. However, it must be noted that animals also use something that can be described as a precursor of human symbolic thinking. (Some) animals also see some aspects of their world through meanings, albeit much less complicated ones than meaning used by humans.
Human brain is not ideal, but it serves its purpose: protecting the species. Now the question is how to make sure that we use capacities of the human brain to help individuals, not "just" the whole society.
Many features of the human brain and abilities based on them exist for other animals.
For example, it is not uniquely human to perceive the world through meanings, although what makes human communication different is it's symbolic aspects, based on abstract thinking of the highest order.
Emotions and rationality - two sides of one coin (social intuitionism)
Brain is ingenious in helping us survive but it also constantly creates problems (cravings for things that hurt us, unable to tell if we re failing or on the right track, perceiving same things different under different circumstances)
Science of studying the brain with the brain - bound to have problems
A lot of our problems are connected with Thought patterns that one can become aware of and change
Changing our brain's automatic reaction. When we don't like somebody's actions, we can assume bad intent and fall back on the "mean and stupid" explanation OR we can go beyond simplistic explanations and look for deeper reason. We can think of ways when we acted in a similar way or imagine circumstances when we could act in a similar way. Changing this mental habit can happen through rewiring the brain to interpret situations we encounter differently.
Human brains works to protect people in case of trauma. It divides and hides different parts of a traumatic memory, that is why it is difficult to for us to reconstruct such a memory as a coherent story with details.
When a person is questioning some things about the status quo («it is what it is ») there are most likely many other things that they are not questioning.
About this project: Start page
Human brain is different from brains of other animals, but it's not absolutely unique. For example, we can talk a lot about how people understand the world through symbols, that is - they attach to the object around the meanings (ideas, associations, feelings) that are not a natural part of these objects. However, it must be noted that animals also use something that can be described as a precursor of human symbolic thinking. (Some) animals also see some aspects of their world through meanings, albeit much less complicated ones than meaning used by humans.
Human brain is not ideal, but it serves its purpose: protecting the species. Now the question is how to make sure that we use capacities of the human brain to help individuals, not "just" the whole society.
Many features of the human brain and abilities based on them exist for other animals.
For example, it is not uniquely human to perceive the world through meanings, although what makes human communication different is it's symbolic aspects, based on abstract thinking of the highest order.
Emotions and rationality - two sides of one coin (social intuitionism)
Brain is ingenious in helping us survive but it also constantly creates problems (cravings for things that hurt us, unable to tell if we re failing or on the right track, perceiving same things different under different circumstances)
Science of studying the brain with the brain - bound to have problems
A lot of our problems are connected with Thought patterns that one can become aware of and change
Changing our brain's automatic reaction. When we don't like somebody's actions, we can assume bad intent and fall back on the "mean and stupid" explanation OR we can go beyond simplistic explanations and look for deeper reason. We can think of ways when we acted in a similar way or imagine circumstances when we could act in a similar way. Changing this mental habit can happen through rewiring the brain to interpret situations we encounter differently.
Human brains works to protect people in case of trauma. It divides and hides different parts of a traumatic memory, that is why it is difficult to for us to reconstruct such a memory as a coherent story with details.
When a person is questioning some things about the status quo («it is what it is ») there are most likely many other things that they are not questioning.
About this project: Start page
