Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• A Lucid Exposition on Non-dual Awareness by James Low

  The ‘Waking Up’ app by Sam Harris has posted a series of lectures by James Low that “makes the esoteric teachings of Dzogchen—a non-dual contemplative... Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Generative A.I. - More Sociopathic Than FaceBook and Twitter?

  

  Have a look at this article on how the sociopathic effects of Facebook and Twitter could be dwarfed by what open source generative A.I. could do. I just played... Read more

  Posted on 24 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• New Perspectives on How Our Minds Work

  I want to pass on to MindBlog readers this link to a lecture I gave this past Friday (10/21/22) to the Univ. of Texas OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) U... Read more

  Posted on 22 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Anxiety - What is It, When is It Useful, When is It Not?

  The title of this post is the discussion topic for the Nov. 6 Austin Rainbow Forum, a monthly discussion group of LGBT seniors that first met in Austin Tx in... Read more

  Posted on 21 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Facebook Has No Idea Where It Keeps Our Personal Data.

  A fascinating article from Biddle describing the situation that occured when a court ordered Facebook to turn over information it had collected about a lawsuit’... Read more

  Posted on 19 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Musical Rhythm Training Improves Short-term Memory for Faces

  From Zanto et al: Significance Musical training can improve numerous cognitive functions associated with musical performance. Yet, there is limited evidence tha... Read more

  Posted on 17 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Sleepless and Unhelpful

  Simon et al. demonstrate that sleep loss leads to the withdrawal of human helping across individuals, groups, and large-scale societies: Humans help each other. Read more

  Posted on 14 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Third-party Punishment by Preverbal Infants

  From Kanakogi et al.: Third-party punishment of antisocial others is unique to humans and seems to be universal across cultures. However, its emergence in... Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Sleeping Touch Improves Vision.

  Interesting work reported by Onuki et al. in the Journal of Neuroscience: SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Tactile sensations can bias our visual perception as a form of... Read more

  Posted on 10 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Liberal Democracy Versus Christian Democracy

  I pass on the opening paragraphs of Thomas Edsall's essay, which offers one of the most succinct summaries I have seen. Could there soon be an American... Read more

  Posted on 07 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cognitive and Evolutionary Foundations of Puritanical Morality

  MindBlog receives articles for commentary from the Cambridge University Journal of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. I will pass on the following abstract of an... Read more

  Posted on 05 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Triggers for Mother Love

  A fascinating open source article from Margaret Livingstone carrying forward the famous experiments by Harry Harlow: Significance Harry Harlow found that... Read more

  Posted on 03 October 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Trigger Warnings and ‘safety-ism’ Don’t Work.

  Mark Manson does an engaging "Mindf*ck Monday Newsletter from Sept. 7" that I recommend you have a look at. It cites a meta-analysis by Brigland et al. Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Neural Synchronization Predicts Marital Satisfaction

  From Li et al.: Significance Humans establish intimate social and personal relationships with their partners, which enable them to survive, successfully mate,... Read more

  Posted on 28 September 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Nature Nurtures

  MindBlog has passed on a number of articles on how exposure to nature reduces stress (see a sample list below). Here is a further contribution from Sudimac et... Read more

  Posted on 26 September 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Machine Learning is Translating the Languages of Animals

  Anthes does an article on how machine learning is being used to eavesdrop on naked mole rats, fruit bats, crows and whales — and to communicate back. Read more

  Posted on 23 September 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Lasting Improvements in Seniors’ Working and Long-term Memory with Repetitive...

  From Grover et al., an open source article in which details of their transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) protocols are given: The development... Read more

  Posted on 21 September 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Sex of Human Experimenters Influences Mouse Behaviors and Neural Responses.

  As I was scanning a recent nature neuroscience table of contents, the title of this item elicited an immediate “What the f…..?” reaction, so I had to click on... Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A 2020 MindBlog Anti-aging Experiment Whose Results I Forgot to Report to...

  How embarassing. While doing a scan of posts on aging to update my Jan. 2018 talk "How Much Can We Change Our Aging?" talk, I pulled up a post from Wed. Oct. Read more

  Posted on 16 September 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How the Internet Has Fueled Our Current Cultural Stagnation.

  I pass on some of Michelle Goldberg's description of a forthcoming book by W. David Marx, “Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste,... Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2022 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE