Context drives electrical excitement in brain
A new study has shown that:
…after mice formed a memory in a context, the engram cells encoding that memory in a brain region called the hippocampus would temporarily become much more electrically excitable if the mice were placed back in the same context again. ( How returning to a prior context briefly heightens memory recall)
The study is here: Engram Cell Excitability State Determines the Efficacy of Memory Retrieval
I do not believe it is much of a stretch to suppose that something similar happens with humans in virtually any significant context.
Since humans are social animals that respond to signals from other humans and since we often base our understanding of our social contexts on signals from other humans, it follows that strongly-perceived signals coming from others will cause “engram cells…in the hippocampus…to become electrically excitable.”
An “electrically excitable” hippocampus probably corresponds to what we have called a “jangle” in FIML practice. A jangle is the sensation that a psychological response may be or is initiating. It is the subjectively-felt onset in the mind of a “psychological morpheme.”
An instance of FIML practice is properly begun as soon as a significant “electrically excitable” response is first perceived. But before we “get reminded of details of some specific events” (Ibid) that originally produced that response.
Professor Tonegawa’s full statement on this is:
This initial recall could be a general recall of the vacation. But moments later, you may get reminded of details of some specific events or situations that took place during the vacation which you had not been thinking about.
By beginning a FIML query as soon after a jangle is perceived, any unwanted “context” that lies deeper in the brain is not recalled. Instead, the immediate basis of that context (the percepta that initiated the jangle) is isolated and analyzed.
See this for more: Disruption of neurotic response in FIML practice.
In Buddhist practice, a jangle is the second skandha. The five skandhas are form, sensation, perception, activity, consciousness. In modern terms, form might be better called “percepta.” In this context, a form/percepta is anything that enters working memory or consciousness.
For Buddhists, FIML can be understood as a mindfulness partnership where partners help each other with the five skandhas. By disrupting the normal or habitual unfolding of the five skandhas at the second skandha, FIML partners learn how to eliminate mistaken or unwanted responses when they first arise as jangles but before they become full blown psychological contexts.
Rex who was banned by Twitter
Can be found at QuodVerum.
A sample of Rex: Victory is Near: SpyGate is Timed to Blow
Many other good bloggers well-worth reading at that site. There is no question in my mind that the majority of MSM “news” is fake, consisting of outright lies, outright omissions, and scores of ongoing deceptive story-lines.
Among many other sites QuodVerum provides important and stimulating ways of interpreting the news. See also The Conservative Treehouse for more first-rate journalism.
The HU – Wolf Totem
Scientists discover billions of tons of ‘zombie’ bacteria inhabits the ground beneath our feet
Barely alive “zombie” bacteria and other life forms are thriving miles below the Earth’s surface, scientists have found after a decade of research which changes perceptions of life on our planet.
The discovery of what has been termed a “subterranean Galapagos” was announced by the Deep Carbon Observatory Tuesday, which said many of the lifeforms have lifespans of millions of years.
DCO executive director Robert Hazen said the findings are the “crowning achievement” of the 1,000-strong collective of scientists, who “have opened our eyes to remarkable vistas — emerging views of life that we never knew existed.”
The biomass of the organisms’ ecosystem is estimated at 15 to 23 billion metric tonnes (16.6 to 25.4 billion tons), which is hundreds of times greater than that of all human life, and comprises a volume of 2 to 2.3 billion cubic kilometers (480 to 550 million cubic miles) — almost twice that of all the planet’s oceans. (Source)
Deception (or truth elision) in communication
To communicate, we often must ignore the truth or falsity of a statement, our own or someone else’s.
I believe it is an instinct to do this; that it is part of our instinct to communicate at all. Communication requires cooperation, an agreement to be agreeable enough to get the message through.
We might call ignoring truth or falsity in communication “truth elision” or “psychological elision.” Elision means to omit something. Psychological elision would mean omitting or not mentioning psychological truths.
We do a lot of truth elision to save time. In professional or group settings it is hard to communicate any other way because there is not enough time to be perfectly truthful and most people will not care. They just want to socialize and/or get the job done, not search for truth.
Most communication is like that. Most messages are not even superficially analyzed. Semiotics glide through our minds without any thought to their deep origins or interpretations. Truth and falsity are frequently elided.
Like all instincts, our instinct to cooperate by ignoring the truth or falsity of many statements can be misused to consciously deceive.
Indeed, we frequently deceive even ourselves by accepting our own statements as true when analysis would show they are not. One way we succeed in doing this to ourselves is by simply avoiding the analysis—analysis elision.
This is where a simple instinct starts to go bad. A basic need to cooperate on the signs and symbols of communication gets twisted into tricking people, deceiving them, even deceiving ourselves.
The way to see this most clearly and to stop doing it with at least one other person is FIML practice. One of my main goals for this website is to show how and why communication goes bad and how and why it harms us. At the same time, I present a practical way to fix the problem described—FIML.
