THE THINKING APE

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THE THINKING APE: Exploring consciousness, cognition, and the human mind.

Members: 201
Latest Activity: Nov 7, 2014

Consciousness | Mind | Awareness & Identity | Reason & Emotion | Cognition | Evolutionary Psychology | Cognitive Biology | Memetics | Language | Intelligence | Metacognition | Theory of Mind | Neuroscience | Neuroanatomy

This group is for those who have an interest in the intersection of mind, biology, and culture. This is a group basically about us: human beings—the thinking ape. It is an exploration into who we have become, and how we got here, with the emphasis on the mind and consciousness. In other words, what we perceive, how we think, and why we believe. It is about how we understand and process information, and what we do with it once we have it.

For example, a good post topic would be what goes on in the mind that causes tribalism based on perceptions of race, nationality, belief, etc. But posting on the ethnic tensions in Kosovo, not so much.

So yes to what causes schizophrenia in the brain, but no to the latest clinical trials for treating it, unless the discussion concentrates on how the mind is specifically altered by the drugs.

Yes to articles on how evolution has caused us to develop a sense of morality and ethics, but no to posts about moral dilemmas, like should you tell your best friend his wife is cheating on him.

Same for culture: yes on how our mental faculties shape our culture, but no on the history of Mardi Gras.

Thumbs up to posts on language evolution, but thumbs down on questions about prescriptive grammar.

Get the idea? The post must be tied in some manner to the mind—how it has evolved, how it works, and how it influences us as a species.

I am not a scientist in any field. I do not know a lot about these topics, but I do have an increasingly strong interest in them. It is my hope that we can all learn from one another in this group.

ONGOING THREADS
Blurbs & Tidbits – post short, interesting links here
Get Mental: The Thinking Ape Repository - for miscellaneous info
Quotes – post interesting quotes here
The Reading List – post interesting books here
Video Thread – post your videos here

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Comment by D R Hosie on December 15, 2013 at 2:06am: A possible conundrum arises, between religion and evolution.

Comment by D R Hosie on October 2, 2013 at 7:20pm: Dear TA Friends ‘O Mine, This is a very important, eye-opening article. (And not just because I wrote it.) So I would ask 1st, that you read it yourselves. And 2nd, I desperately need your help in 'sharing the shit' out of it - so this message can get out to everyone who needs to see it. Thanks :)

http://sldailyissue.com/2013/10/02/gop-opposition-to-obamacare-the-...

Comment by D R Hosie on September 22, 2013 at 12:08am: Something to consider.

A little FYI on seeing bicycles and motorcycles

Comment by D R Hosie on September 13, 2013 at 10:36pm: (Sam Harris)

Beliefs hazardous to World Health

In making recent changes to the website, WP accidentally deleted over 70 of our subscribers. So, if you are (or were) a subscriber, please pop-over long enough to re-register, and receive notice of new articles. Thanks, Donnie

Comment by Jazz on August 31, 2011 at 6:39pm: A piece of my thoughts i got from looking outside one starry night.

What about the unseen stars? I'm sure they try just as hard, to shine as bright as they can. For me to stop living my ignorant life and admire them. So bright they are. So far yet so close to touching them as if you could lift your hand and leave this life behind, to explore something totally different, but the only place i leave is my mind. The stars give us the honor of gazing upon them while they are still here. Almost gone forever, they are our creators. They teach us and show us the inevitability of death. For the lessons and beauty i thank the stars, universe, cosmos, my creators. My destroyers, bringers of death to my insignificant life.

hmm this sounded way better in my head...

Comment by Pope Beanie on March 1, 2011 at 2:20am: (Sorry for delete/repost.)

Â

Amanda Baggs

(see full article from WIRED MAGAZINE, Feb 2008)

As disabled as Amanda is in some ways (e.g. she can't speak), she produced and edited this video herself.

Like many people with autism, Baggs doesn't like to look you in the eye and needs help with tasks like preparing a meal and taking a shower. In conversation she'll occasionally grunt or sigh, but she stopped speaking altogether in her early twenties. Instead, she types 120 words a minute, which the DynaVox then translates into a synthesized female voice that sounds like a deadpan British schoolteacher.

The YouTube post, she says, was a political statement, designed to call attention to people's tendency to underestimate autistics. It wasn't her first video post, but this one took off. "When the number of viewers began to climb, I got scared out of my mind," Baggs says. As the hit count neared 100,000, her blog was flooded. At 200,000, scientists were inviting her to visit their labs. By 300,000, the TV people came calling, hearts warmed by the story of a young woman's fiery spirit and the rare glimpse into what has long been regarded as the solitary imprisonment of the autistic mind. "I've said a million times that I'm not trapped in my own world,'" Baggs says. "Yet what do most of these news stories lead with? Saying exactly that."

Â

Comment by T A A on February 4, 2011 at 6:38pm: Adriana said there is something wrong in their head

I don't know about wrong... but I do think they have a have a mental illness, and that mental illness predisposes them to seeing/hearing/believing in that which does not exist.

Comment by Pope Beanie on January 12, 2011 at 4:08pm: Regarding placebo effect, even prayer helps, right? A patient's act of taking a pill known to be a placebo somehow still feels to the patient like a positive intervention. Just getting your hopes up helps, right? And God is the Uber Placebo. Perhaps FSM should be warm and fuzzy instead of noodly.

Comment by Adrian on September 3, 2010 at 10:41am: Interesting article, doone. I have always made a distinction between religious faith and religious practice, and it should be remembered that some who attend do not believe, but attend for social reasons, or are "religious" in a nontheistic sense. And, of course, as the article points out, faith and organised religion are not always coexistent.

Comment by Sydni Moser on July 15, 2010 at 3:00pm: Dallas, great new picture you chose for the group's new icon... (it is new right? Or have I just spaced out on when you changed it?)

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