February 15, 2012
An exocortex is a theoretical artificial external information processing system that would augment a brain’s biological high-level cognitive processes. An individual’s exocortex would be composed of external memory modules, processors, IO devices and software systems that would interact with, and augment, a person’s biological brain. Typically this interaction is described as being conducted through a direct brain-computer interface, making these extensions functionally part of the individual’s mind. Individuals with significant exocortices could be classified as cyborgs or transhumans.
Cortex (Latin: bark) is used in neuroscience for the outer bark-like layer of the brain that is the site of most sophisticated cognitive information processing. It was coined in allusion to the neocortex (literally ‘new bark’), the newest part of the mammalian brain (in evolutionary history), believed to be responsible for the highest human cognitive abilities including conscious thought, spatial reasoning, and sensory perception. Thus the terminology suggests a progression from reptilian thought (the older parts of the brain) through human (neocortex) to high-level human or even supra-human cognitive processing capabilities (exocortex).
Posted in Health, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
February 8, 2012
A micromort is a unit of risk measuring a one-in-a-million probability of death (from micro- and mortality). Micromorts can be used to measure riskiness of various day-to-day activities. A microprobability is a one-in-a million chance of some event; thus a micromort is the microprobability of death. The micromort concept was introduced by Ronald A. Howard who pioneered the modern practice of decision analysis.
An application of micromorts is measuring the value that humans place on risk: for example, one can consider the amount of money one would have to pay a person to get him or her to accept a one-in-a-million chance of death (or conversely the amount that someone might be willing to pay to avoid a one-in-a-million chance of death).
read more »
Posted in Death, Health, Money |
2 Comments »
February 7, 2012
The phrase snake oil is as a derogatory term used to describe quackery, the promotion of fraudulent or unproven medical practices. The expression is also applied metaphorically to any product with questionable and/or unverifiable quality or benefit. By extension, the term ‘snake oil salesman’ may be applied to someone who sells fraudulent goods, or who is a fraud himself.
The phrase originates with a topical preparation made from the Chinese Water Snake. Chinese laborers on railroad gangs involved in building the First Transcontinental Railroad first gave snake oil to Europeans with joint pain. When rubbed on the skin at the painful site, snake oil was claimed to bring relief. This claim was ridiculed by rival medicine salesmen, and in time, snake oil became a generic name for many compounds marketed as panaceas or miraculous remedies whose ingredients were usually secret, unidentified, or mis-characterized and mostly inert or ineffective.
read more »
Posted in Drugs, Health, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
February 7, 2012
Bile bears or battery bears are Asiatic black bears kept in captivity in China and Vietnam to harvest bile, a digestive juice produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder. When extracted, the bile is a valuable commodity for sale as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
The bears are also known as moon bears because of the cream-colored crescent moon shape on their chest. The Asiatic black bear, the one most commonly used on bear farms, is listed as vulnerable on the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN’s) Red List of Threatened Animals.
read more »
Posted in Health, Politics, World |
Leave a Comment »
February 3, 2012
Blue balls is a slang term for the condition of temporary fluid congestion (vasocongestion) in the testicles and prostate region, accompanied by acute testicular pain, or a prolonged dull aching pain emanating from the prostate, caused by prolonged and unsatisfied sexual arousal in the human male. The term is thought to have originated in the United States, first appearing in 1916. Some urologists call the condition ‘epididymal hypertension.’ The condition is not universally experienced by all males.
Although widely discussed, there has been scant information in the medical research literature until a 2000 article by Chalett and Nerenberg in ‘Pediatrics’ which found little formal data regarding the condition but concluded that ‘the treatment is sexual release, or perhaps straining to move a very heavy object—in essence doing a Valsalva maneuver,’ a moderately forceful attempted exhalation against a closed airway.
Posted in Health, Sex |
Leave a Comment »
February 3, 2012
Hyperthymesia [hi-per-thy-mee-zee-uh], also known as piking, is a condition in which the individual possesses a superior autobiographical memory, meaning they can recall the vast majority of personal experiences and events in their lives.
The term ‘hyperthymesia’ is derived from the Greek words thymesis, meaning ‘remembering’ and hyper meaning ‘excessive.’ As first described in a 2006 ‘Neurocase’ article, the two defining characteristics of hyperthymesia are ‘the person spends an abnormally large amount of time thinking about his or her personal past, and the person has an extraordinary capacity to recall specific events from his or her personal past.’
read more »
Posted in Health |
Leave a Comment »
February 2, 2012
Emotional blackmail is a term used to cover a central form of psychological manipulation – ‘the use of a system of threats and punishment on a person by someone close to them in an attempt to control their behavior.’ ‘Emotional blackmail… typically involves two people who have established a close personal or intimate relationship (mother and daughter, husband and wife, sister and sister, two close friends).’ When subjected to emotional blackmail, ‘we become the other’s emotional hostage.’ As French sociologist Jean Baurdrillard puts it, emotional blackmail is telling someone: ‘If you don’t give me that, you will be responsible for my breakdown.’
According to psychotherapist Susan Forward, who did much to popularize the term, ’emotional blackmail’ is a powerful form of manipulation in which blackmailers who are close to the victim threaten, either directly or indirectly, to punish them to get what they want. They may know the victim’s vulnerabilities and their deepest secrets. ‘Many of the people who use emotional blackmail are friends, colleagues and family members with whom we have close ties that we want to strengthen and salvage’ – parents, partners, bosses or lovers. No matter how much the blackmailer cares about the victim, they use their intimate knowledge to win compliance.
read more »
Posted in Health |
1 Comment »
February 2, 2012
The term mind games refers to three main categories:
First, a largely conscious struggle for psychological one-upmanship, often employing passive–aggressive behavior to specifically demoralize or empower the thinking subject, making the aggressor look superior – ‘mind games or power games.’ Second, ‘The unconscious games played by innocent people engaged in duplex transactions (sending and receiving both explicit and unspoken messages) of which they are not fully aware, and which form the most important aspect of social life all over the world.’ And third, mental exercises designed to improve the functioning of mind and/or personality.
read more »
Posted in Games, Health |
Leave a Comment »
February 2, 2012
Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. It is described as integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive approaches. TA was first developed by Canadian-born U.S. psychiatrist, Eric Berne, in the late 1950s.
As a theory of personality, TA describes how people are structured psychologically. It uses what is perhaps its best known model, the ego-state (Parent-Adult-Child) model, to do this. The same model helps explain how people function and express their personality in their behavior. It offers a theory for child development by explaining how adult patterns of life originated in childhood. This explanation is based on the idea of a ‘Life (or Childhood) Script’: the assumption that we continue to re-play childhood strategies, even when this results in pain or defeat. Thus it claims to offer a theory of psychopathology.
read more »
Posted in Health, Philosophy |
3 Comments »
February 2, 2012
‘Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships’ is a 1964 bestselling book by psychiatrist Eric Berne. Since its publication it has sold more than five million copies. The book describes both functional and dysfunctional social interactions.
In the first half of the book, Berne introduces transactional analysis as a way of interpreting social interactions. He describes three roles or ego states, known as the Parent, the Adult, and the Child, and postulates that many negative behaviors can be traced to switching or confusion of these roles. The book uses casual, often humorous phrases such as ‘See What You Made Me Do,’ ‘Why Don’t You — Yes But,’ and ‘Ain’t It Awful’ as a way of briefly describing each game. In reality, the ‘winner’ of a mind game is the person that returns to the Adult ego-state first.
read more »
Posted in Games, Health, Language |
1 Comment »
January 30, 2012
In psychology and cognitive science, the positivity effect is the tendency to make situational attributions about negative behaviors and dispositional attributions about positive behaviors for individuals one prefers.The term also refers to age differences in emotional attention and memory. Studies have found that older adults are more likely than younger adults to pay attention to positive than negative stimuli. In addition, compared with younger adults’ memories, older adults’ memories are more likely to consist of positive than negative information and more likely to be distorted in a positive direction. This version of the positivity effect was coined by Laura L. Carstensen’s research team.
Gender roles effect the behavior of the individual as well, and how they perceive others. Males tend to take more dominant roles, whereas females tend to be more nurturing and caregiving. Person-perception studies state that the characteristics of the perceiver are as important as the characteristics of the one being perceived. Since females are deemed to be the more nurturing and selfless by nature, they perceive others more favorably than men do. This is known as the ‘Female Positivity Effect.’ For example, women are more likely to be social and agreeable in a group task situation whereas the males are going to be mainly focused on the task at hand.
Posted in Health, Science |
1 Comment »
January 30, 2012
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, developed by Stanford psychologist, Laura Carstensen, a life-span theory of motivation, maintains that as time horizons shrink, as they typically do with age, people become increasingly selective, investing greater resources in emotionally meaningful goals and activities.
According to the theory, motivational shifts also influence cognitive processing. Aging is associated with a relative preference for positive over negative information in attention and memory (called the ‘positivity effect’).
read more »
Posted in Death, Health, Science |
Leave a Comment »
The Daily Omnivore 