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Everything humans see is a simplification.

24 Feb

Everything humans see is a simplification.

A human sees the world in 3 dimensions. That is a simplification. Humans are fundamentally limited, generalizing creatures living on autopilot. Categorization is the brain’s tool to organize nearly everything we encounter in our daily lives. Grouping information into categories simplifies our complex world and helps us to react quickly and effectively to new experiences. Categorization and classification allow humans to organize things, objects, and ideas that exist around them and simplify their understanding of the world. Categorization is like your brain’s very own personal assistant, grouping similar things together so you can find what you need, when you need it.

Our brain categorizes continuously: not only chairs during childhood, but any information at any given age. What advantage does that give us? Pieter Goltstein says: “Our brain is trying to find a way to simplify and organize our world. Without categorization, we would not be able to interact with our environment as efficiently as we do.” In other words: We would have to learn for every new chair we encounter that we can sit on it. Categorizing sensory input is therefore essential for us, but the underlying processes in the brain are largely unknown.

Social categorization is a fundamental human cognitive process because it allows for the quick simplification of complex social information. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have now shown that also mice categorize surprisingly well. The researchers identified neurons encoding learned categories and thereby demonstrated how abstract information is represented at the neuronal level.

While categorization is a natural and necessary mechanism to cope with the complexity of our world, it perilously inhibits our ability to address the most pressing and tangible problems of our time. The psychological force at play here is a need to categorize — to fit things into neatly defined, clearly labeled boxes. In times of increasing complexity, such categorization can be extremely useful, creating order in a world that is fundamentally messy and establishing structures so that we can better organize, analyze, and manage it. Yet also, extremely limiting in understanding the natural deeper complexity of life.

Astronomer says We Are All Made of Stardust

23 Feb

All humans, plants, animals and the Earth itself are built from the ashes left behind after the death of stars. We are fashioned from the nuclear waste that remains after massive stellar explosions. You Are Made of Stardust
“Every atom we are made of has an origin that can be traced back to before the solar system was formed,” Prof Sir Martin Rees said to a full house at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. “We are literally the ashes of dead stars or the nuclear waste left behind.”
 “The thing we learn from astronomy is we shouldn’t think of a culmination,” he said. “The universe may have an infinite life ahead of it.”

Though the billions of people on Earth may come from different areas, we share a common heritage: we are all made of stardust! From the carbon in our DNA to the calcium in our bones, nearly all of the elements in our bodies were forged in the fiery hearts and death throes of stars. The building blocks for humans, and even our planet, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for stars. If we could rewind the universe back almost to the very beginning, we would just see a sea of hydrogen, helium, and a tiny bit of lithium.

Prof Sir Martin Rees also suggested that, although very small compared to the rest of the universe, the Earth may be very important in cosmological terms as the place where sentient life originated before being dispersed to other planets.

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All Living Things: One Interdependent Organism

23 Feb

Carl Sagan: Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality

23 Feb

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light?years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.–

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

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Interdependent and Interconnected

6 Feb
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TAO…

6 Feb
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Eastern Worldview

6 Feb

Body Functions & Life Process

5 Feb

Body Functions & Life Process and all of these processes are interrelated and affect each other.

All living organisms have certain characteristics that distinguish them from non-living forms. The basic processes of life include organization, metabolism, responsiveness, movements, and reproduction. In humans, who represent the most complex form of life, there are additional requirements such as growth, differentiation, respiration, digestion, and excretion. All of these processes are interrelated. No part of the body, from the smallest cell to a complete body system, works in isolation. All function together, in fine-tuned balance, for the well-being of the individual and to maintain life. Health depends on the body’s maintaining or restoring homeostasis, a state of relative constancy, of its internal environment. However, the ten life processes described above are not enough to ensure the survival of the individual. In addition to these processes, life also depends on certain physical factors from the environment. These include water, oxygen, nutrients, heat, energy, and pressure. Disease represents a disruption of the balance in these processes.

U. S. National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute.

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Humans can Awaken

27 Jan
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Spirituality

25 Jan