Uncovering the secret cabal of Unity whose members include some of the most powerful people on the planet.
There’s something strange going on, I tell you. In President Biden’s inauguration speech, there was all this talk of “bringing people together”, and “uniting everyone”. Then I heard the poet Amanda Gorman saying “We seek harm to none and harmony for all,” and I thought, wait a minute: I vaguely remember former President Obama talking about unity as well during his time in office. I started researching, and there it was, all over the place. For example, in his farewell speech, Obama…
And artificial intelligence is not likely to surpass human intelligence any time soon.
There are two things that I am passionate about: Computers — I’ve been fiddling with them since before I had my first proper drink, and have built, fixed and tampered with more that I can count throughout my decade-long career as an IT engineer; And Neuroscience — my fascination with the mind began when I discovered that I had one, and I have been poking and prodding its undercurrents since then.
And so, I went ahead and studied each subject: I studied Psychology and Neuroscience as my…
For someone who just casually browses the subject of anatomy, it would seem that we have the human body all figured out. Not really…
The lungs are there to provide oxygen, the heart is there to pump blood, and the nails are there to scratch people when they’re being annoying. All is known. Pick up your average textbook on human anatomy, and the overall impression that one gets is that every square millimetre of the body has been accounted for, from every angle: structure, function, development, moment-by-moment activity…you name it, we know it.
But how true is that really? Well…
The third and final part in our quest to trace the history of the concept of consciousness.
This is part III and the last post in ‘ a brief history of the concept of consciousness’ series, which tries to look at how the very idea of ‘consciousness’ has grown and developed over time within the scientific milieu. These are the milestones that we’ve hit upon the previous two parts:
Once, I was walking down a busy road in London, when a group of boys passed me by. They must’ve been about 15 or 16 years old, and as they were walking past, the one that was closest to me throws a punch that lands straight in my stomach. It didn’t hurt or anything, but for a second, I could feel the heat of anger bubbling up inside me. I turned to look at him, and he started doing the “What? What?” mini-gangsta routine, throwing up his arms and feigning steps towards me, asking his mates to hold him. And…
What I realized then has applied to every single relationship I have.
I was living in a shared house in London a while back, and really into meditation. One day, during one of my deep meditative states, I hear the doorbell. I didn’t know if anyone else was at home — there were five of us living in a large, Victorian-era house, so I got up and went to the door, thinking it might be a package delivery. Instead, I open the door, and there stands a man in his 20s or 30s, with his teeth (or what was left…
A brief history of consciousness, part II.
In the first part of this series, we looked briefly at the so-called ‘beginning’ period in the history of consciousness. The chart below outlines the major landmarks we hit upon:
And as we touched on these milestones, we hinted at two basic rules of thumb for when, historically, the concept of consciousness experiences an upgrade:
When our understanding of the body changes — in particular the parts of the body that are thought to be part of the mind. For example, Galen’s idea that the brain contained four chambers with ‘animal spirits’ that…
Stop reading this email/article and go work on it
No seriously, go back to reading the subtitle and then close this window.
You’re welcome.
This article is a satire of all the “top 5 tips to make you more productive” articles that are out there to just get more reading minutes, and that merely ends up wasting more of your time.
Whenever you need a “boost” in productivity, just bookmark this page and come back to it. It’s the only advice we really need.
A brief history of the beginnings of consciousness, part I.
In order to get a sense of what consciousness is, we need to start by looking at its history. And throughout history, the concept of consciousness has undergone quite a few changes. In fact, with the risk of oversimplifying it, we could say that the concept of consciousness has enjoyed a period of beginning, a middle, and it has a “now”.
But while we briefly outline the major chain of events in this history, I’d also like to suggest two rules of thumb for WHEN in history the concept of…
I enjoy figuring out logic puzzles that come my way, and one of my favorite puzzles of all time is this one:
It was made by Nob Yoshigahara, who is a famous puzzle maker, and who has been heard saying that he considers this his masterpiece [1]. What you have to do is figure out what number you should replace the question mark with. Seems simple enough, right? Until you realize that the number 7 in the final circle is not a typo, which I assure you it isn’t. …
Narcis Marincat
Psychology & Neuroscience graduate, doing a MSc in Computer Science at UCL. Interested in consciousness, philosophy, sociology & cyberpsychology, or mind+tech.
