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Showing posts from January, 2017

Consciousness

Consciousness This article is about cognition. For other uses, see Consciousness (disambiguation). "Conscious" redirects here. For Broods' second album, see Conscious (album). Representation of consciousness from the seventeenth century Consciousness  is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is. As Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in  The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness : "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives." Western philoso

Human Brain - product of evolution

The human brain, just like every aspect of every organism on the planet, is the product of evolution. If you accept that evolution is true, you can’t avoid that conclusion. That’s why I often get confused when I hear reasonable people being broadly dismissive of evolutionary psychology (EP). EP is simply an approach to psychology that explicitly acknowledges evolution as the designer of brains. This approach may sound non-controversial in principle, at least among those who accept evolution. Nevertheless, many non-creationist critics find plenty of reasons to object to EP, or at least to what they consider EP to be. For examples of some such criticisms see Ed Hagen’s Evolutionary Psychology FAQ. Image result for psychology brain Because many critics of EP would say they accept evolutionary theory more generally, I assume that in criticizing EP they don’t mean to imply that the brain wasn’t designed by evolution. I think they often instead intend to critique some spec

Bipolar Disorder

How we can understand Bipolar Disorder ? There are two commonly diagnosed types of bipolar disorder, a mental illness characterized by mood swings from emotional highs to lows. People with bipolar I have depression alternating with severely elevated mood, or mania. Bipolar II is much more common, and is marked by less severe manic symptoms, called hypomania. Since the characteristics of bipolar disorder exist along a spectrum ranging from non-existent to extreme, and because good or bad moods can be a result of temporary events or circumstances rather than a mental illness, diagnosis of bipolar disorder can be difficult.

Stress

"Stress is an inevitable part of life, but it can affect every organ system and cause negative impacts to your health. While we can't always eliminate our problems, we can learn to manage and relate to stress so that it doesn't cause so much suffering. Research shows that the regular practice of mindfulness can help you prevent or manage a range of stress-related symptoms, including pain, headache, emotional distress, poor sleep and digestive problems. Mindful breathing is a portable mindfulness practice that is always available to you for the skillful, non-pharmacological management of stress. Even one minute of mindful breathing can restore a sense of mastery over your life. Although mindfulness practices may allow reduction of some medications, these instructions are not meant to replace prescribed medication without consultation with your prescriber."