How 'wi-fi' connects human brains and explains why people have 'gut feelings'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/...-feelings/
EXCERPT: Humans brains are interconnected through type of 'wi-fi' which allows us to pick up far more information about other people than we are aware of, a leading professor claims. Prof Digby Tantum, Clinical Professor of Psychotherapy, at the University of Sheffield, believes that language plays only a part of in how humans communicate and that actually the brain is working hard to pick up tiny micro-signals that communicate what a person is thinking.
It explains how people often have a ‘gut feeling’ or intuition about a person or situation even if they cannot logically determine why. And it may be the reason why commuters find it so difficult to maintain eye contact on a busy train. Too many people overloads the brain with too much subliminal information. In addition, it may also explain why laughter is infectious. Prof Tantum describes the phenomenon as ‘The Interbrain’ and outlines the theory in a new book of the same name...
MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/...-feelings/
Emptiness doesn't have to mean nothingness: it could mean happiness
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...-happiness
EXCERPT: . . . What remains when we no longer think or feel? Brain scientists don’t usually have much truck with emptiness. Their work revolves around behaviours, thoughts, and emotions – their inadequacies, and also their potential.
[...] it also sounds worrying, since it raises the question: what remains of us when we no longer think or feel anything? Are we then – nothing? Must we fear sinking into a sea of emptiness and eventually dissolving away?
In our daily lives at least, that fear does not appear to play an important role. We find it almost unbearable when the television breaks down or the internet is cut off, or when we have nothing to do or no one to be with. In a survey of young men and women, a third of the respondents said they would rather go without sex than their smartphone if they were marooned on a desert island. Other surveys have shown that people’s fear of boredom is similar to their fear of cancer. Almost as if to say: better to be fatally ill than empty. Yet another study found that healthy volunteers with no masochistic tendencies would rather give themselves harmless but unpleasant electric shocks than sit and wait for 15 minutes.
[...] The fear of emptiness also plays a major role in many medical conditions. For example dementia, which eventually leads to complete apathy. Or borderline personality disorder and depression, which lead patients repeatedly to express the lack of meaning and the pointlessness of their existence. Psychopaths and adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are driven to their abnormal behaviours by their fear of emptiness. They need powerful stimuli to escape it, which is why they torment animals and people, risk huge sums on the stock markets, or speed down the motorway at 200km/h.
[...] we have spent many years working on establishing contact with completely paralysed and locked-in patients. We have not only achieved various degrees of success in this, but have also been able to ascertain that these people appear to enjoy a high quality of life. For some, even higher than that of healthy people! This despite the fact that they were no longer able to move a single muscle, and their brains showed mainly low-frequency activity, which could be described as typical of “running on empty”.
Or is the very reason for their happiness because their lives are “filled” with emptiness?
There is no alternative: emptiness requires trust. There are many ways to achieve emptiness. Apart from meditation, floatation tanks, music, and dance, these ways also include sex, religion, and epilepsy – three things with quite a bit in common. And there are probably many more....
MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...-happiness
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/...-feelings/
EXCERPT: Humans brains are interconnected through type of 'wi-fi' which allows us to pick up far more information about other people than we are aware of, a leading professor claims. Prof Digby Tantum, Clinical Professor of Psychotherapy, at the University of Sheffield, believes that language plays only a part of in how humans communicate and that actually the brain is working hard to pick up tiny micro-signals that communicate what a person is thinking.
It explains how people often have a ‘gut feeling’ or intuition about a person or situation even if they cannot logically determine why. And it may be the reason why commuters find it so difficult to maintain eye contact on a busy train. Too many people overloads the brain with too much subliminal information. In addition, it may also explain why laughter is infectious. Prof Tantum describes the phenomenon as ‘The Interbrain’ and outlines the theory in a new book of the same name...
MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/...-feelings/
Emptiness doesn't have to mean nothingness: it could mean happiness
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...-happiness
EXCERPT: . . . What remains when we no longer think or feel? Brain scientists don’t usually have much truck with emptiness. Their work revolves around behaviours, thoughts, and emotions – their inadequacies, and also their potential.
[...] it also sounds worrying, since it raises the question: what remains of us when we no longer think or feel anything? Are we then – nothing? Must we fear sinking into a sea of emptiness and eventually dissolving away?
In our daily lives at least, that fear does not appear to play an important role. We find it almost unbearable when the television breaks down or the internet is cut off, or when we have nothing to do or no one to be with. In a survey of young men and women, a third of the respondents said they would rather go without sex than their smartphone if they were marooned on a desert island. Other surveys have shown that people’s fear of boredom is similar to their fear of cancer. Almost as if to say: better to be fatally ill than empty. Yet another study found that healthy volunteers with no masochistic tendencies would rather give themselves harmless but unpleasant electric shocks than sit and wait for 15 minutes.
[...] The fear of emptiness also plays a major role in many medical conditions. For example dementia, which eventually leads to complete apathy. Or borderline personality disorder and depression, which lead patients repeatedly to express the lack of meaning and the pointlessness of their existence. Psychopaths and adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are driven to their abnormal behaviours by their fear of emptiness. They need powerful stimuli to escape it, which is why they torment animals and people, risk huge sums on the stock markets, or speed down the motorway at 200km/h.
[...] we have spent many years working on establishing contact with completely paralysed and locked-in patients. We have not only achieved various degrees of success in this, but have also been able to ascertain that these people appear to enjoy a high quality of life. For some, even higher than that of healthy people! This despite the fact that they were no longer able to move a single muscle, and their brains showed mainly low-frequency activity, which could be described as typical of “running on empty”.
Or is the very reason for their happiness because their lives are “filled” with emptiness?
There is no alternative: emptiness requires trust. There are many ways to achieve emptiness. Apart from meditation, floatation tanks, music, and dance, these ways also include sex, religion, and epilepsy – three things with quite a bit in common. And there are probably many more....
MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...-happiness