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The amygdala doesn’t determine your fear response. You do. Don’t focus on calming the amygdala, focus on calming your response.

The amygdala is a distraction

article

The amygdala is a brain structure often conceptualised as the ‘fear centre of the brain’. It’s common to see it blamed in science journalism as the cause of emotional disturbances, anxiety, stress, and of course, fear. But that’s just simply not true.
The amygdala doesn’t determine your fear response. You do. Don’t focus on calming the amygdala, focus on calming your response.
Check it out

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gratification betterment somatic-architecture on-(un)happiness on-thinking-and-reasoning on-being-fruitful

article

The brain primarily links chunks of meaning into patterns of neural pathways. Pathways and patterns of meaning help us intuitively solve the problems of everyday life. But they also trap us in those patterns, and stop us from seeing beyond them.

Meaning and its patterns in the brain

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Many ideas that come to us are unbidden and automatic. The shape of a house. The wheels of a car. These things can be left unsaid. This is one of primary roles of the brain—to weave a web of meaning. But just as they help us make sense of the world, they trap us.
The brain primarily links chunks of meaning into patterns of neural pathways. Pathways and patterns of meaning help us intuitively solve the problems of everyday life. But they also trap us in those patterns, and stop us from seeing beyond them.
Check it out

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betterment on-being-fruitful on-the-nature-of-things

article

When we use the architecture of the brain to scaffold our thinking about the mind, we come to learn that humans are primarily animals first.

Animals First

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Usually, when people talk about an enthusiasm for ‘neuroscience’ and the ‘brain’, they’re really interested in cognition—how ‘thinking’ happens. There is value in a science of the brain, though. It tells us that in many ways, humans aren’t special. In many ways, we’re animals first.
When we use the architecture of the brain to scaffold our thinking about the mind, we come to learn that humans are primarily animals first.
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betterment gratification on-thinking-and-reasoning

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Since the invention of the telegraph, information has become increasingly atomized, incoherent, and irrelevant. Our media technology encourages entertainment, not discourse. Information ‘from nowhere’, ‘to no one’ about which we can do nothing. We don’t have to lean in.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Neil Postman’s prescient critique of the modern media landscape is centred on an unusual interpretation of the way the television manipulates how we communicate. The medium determines the message, and the message of the television drowns us "in a sea of irrelevance". The implications, thirty-odd years later are both the same and surprisingly different.
Since the invention of the telegraph, information has become increasingly atomized, incoherent, and irrelevant. Our media technology encourages entertainment, not discourse. Information ‘from nowhere’, ‘to no one’ about which we can do nothing. We don’t have to lean in.
Check it out

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betterment connection gratification thought-architecture somatic-architecture digital-architecture on-being-fruitful on-(un)happiness

article

Our education bestows on us a ‘common sense’ that narrows our vision to only those things that ‘can be said’. We censor ourselves and, as a result, have a schizoprenic approach to important issues.

Voluntary Censorship

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Noam Chomsky and co-author Edward S. Herman developed a propaganda model of the media, a model which describes how the media ‘manufactures’ our ‘consent’—manipulating us into adopting a convenient set of ideologies. But they left one out. One we apply to ourselves.
Our education bestows on us a ‘common sense’ that narrows our vision to only those things that ‘can be said’. We censor ourselves and, as a result, have a schizoprenic approach to important issues.
Check it out

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betterment gratification connection thought-architecture on-culture on-politics-and-power on-thinking-and-reasoning
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