THE THINKING APE

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

Members: 197
Latest Activity: yesterday

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

Discussion Forum

Gestalt psychology

Started by Dallas the Phallus May 11. 0 Replies 0 Likes

Mind readers: Human awareness of our own minds and others' is unlike that of any other animal. But why did consciousness evolve?

Started by Dallas the Phallus. Last reply by Simon Paynton Apr 26. 35 Replies 1 Like

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Comment by Pope OoO (Out of Order) 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 Dallas the Phallus on January 11, 2011 at 7:24pm: I've added a few links to the homepage in the past week or two. Please be sure to check them out:

The Brain from Top to Bottom
Mirror Neurons Research
MRC Cognition and Brain Science Unit (thanks to Adriana for this one)

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on December 31, 2010 at 6:12pm: Doone, thanks for the chimp/doll article. I've passed that along. Interesting.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on December 31, 2010 at 6:01pm: Michel, that article on placebos is so......confounding! I just don't understand it. However, I'm skimming Sapolsky's book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, and he sites a study of stress response in rats. The rats are given little shocks, then trained to press a lever to avoid the shocks. This lowers their stress level. When the lever is then taken away, they stress out big time, because (he thinks), they are aware that there is a method of aversion to which they have been denied. This upsets them. When the lever is reintroduced, but disconnected (and therefore won't work), the stress level still goes down. It seems that as long as the rats THINK they have some control over their situation, they are less stressed about it.

I wonder if the pill placebo is creating the same affect in some way. Maybe as long as people THINK they are doing something, they feel better. Yet that does not explain why they report feeling better when they are TOLD the pills will do nothing for them.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on December 14, 2010 at 5:38pm: I have added a new video to the homepage. Please check it out.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on December 13, 2010 at 4:33pm: Brad, it seems to be working for me. Delete your cookies or try again later.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on December 1, 2010 at 12:43pm: I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for making this such a great and informative group.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on November 30, 2010 at 1:53pm: Remind me again what the three brain levels are, please. I saw a reference that called them the lizard brain, the paleomammalian brain, and the modern mammalian brain, but I was thinking there were other names used, like lizard brain, primate brain, etc.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on October 23, 2010 at 5:28pm: Blog: Mind Hacks

Neuroscience and psychology tricks to find out what's going on inside your brain.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on October 1, 2010 at 6:36pm: Everyone, I have posted a new video on the homepage. Please check it out.

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