Best books about neuropsychology according to redditors

You don't hear your thoughts, you translate them into language and then "hear" the translation. People don't think in a real language but in something called "mentalese". The hypothesis of linguistic determinism, stating that peoples thoughts are determined by the categories of their language is known as Saphir-Worf hypothesis, but it's shown to be wrong.
There are numerous examples which show that there is no one-to-one language-thought correspondence. Have you ever had the experience of uttering or writing a sentence only to realise that it wasn't exactly what you meant to say? To have that feeling, there has to be a "what we mean to say" that is different from what we said. Sometimes there are no words to describe your thoughts. Also, when we read or hear, we usually remember the gist, not the exact words, so there has to be such a thing as a "gist" that is not the same as a bunch of words. (there is meaning independent of the phrasing) And if thoughts are literally words, how could a new word ever be coined? How could a child learn a word to begin with? How could translation form one language to another be possible?
There are some examples of brain-damage patients wouthout linguistic capacities which are capable for abstract thought. (they can think but have great trouble to get the words out, even to themselfs, they just can't put sentences together in any way) Also, there are examples of deaf people who never learned sign language, but when instructed, they mastered it very very quickly and showed they understood all kinds of abstract concepts without naming them. If they didn't know any language they tried to communicate the concepts through pantomime.

Weaker version of the Saphir-Worf hypothesis would be linguistic relativity. This may be true, but only in a very weak form, becouse although there is some indication which suggests language influences thought, the influence is not as great as some researchers would like it to be, and it is not conclusive, scientific evidence.
In congitive science there are known to be many kinds of non-verbal thought. If you are interested in this in more detail, i reccomend reading Pinker's The Language Instinct.

Man or woman?

Man or woman?

Man or woman?

Man or woman?

Man or woman?

Hint! They are all men. Men who learned to write stylish, flowing, neat letters. Beautiful script and prose. A time when both men and women (educated) were expected to have exemplary writing skills. That is not to say that there wasn't people with bad writing...but these men are not going against the cultural grain...they are with the cultural expectations of that time period. If writing styles change over time and across cultures, the how can boys be hardwired or predisposed to a certain style of writing, and vice versa, how can girls be hardwired or predisposed to a different style of writing? If there is a biologically meaningful explanation than it should transcend cultures and time.

This is a classic case of societal expectation mixed with confirmation bias. "Because it's a "well-known fact" that women have better handwriting than men, most people are more likely to ignore cases that go against that stereotype, even though they're probably more common than popularly thought." I think this argument for sex-based differences really breaks down when we examine the evidence from other cultures and other time periods.


Would a man from India have the same image of "female" writing in his mind as yours? A woman from rural China? A boy from Russia? A girl from Peru? The image in your head of what is "girls writing" is culturally derived. Other cultures will have other ideas of what constitutes a male or female writing style...or perhaps none at all (e.g. there is no gender/sex divide).


I really recommend the book Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine as an introduction this topic. "Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, Cordelia Fine debunks the myth of hardwired differences between men’s and women’s brains, unraveling the evidence behind such claims as men’s brains aren’t wired for empathy and women’s brains aren’t made to fix cars. She then goes one step further, offering a very different explanation of the dissimilarities between men’s and women’s behavior. Instead of a “male brain” and a “female brain,” Fine gives us a glimpse of plastic, mutable minds that are continuously influenced by cultural assumptions about gender."

> I was just wondering how many people have CPTSD as a result of emotional abuse and neglect as a child.

My father was a narcissist. My mother was a sociopath. So the entirety of my childhood was lost to narcissistic and sociopathic abuse, which left me with CPTSD.

> I’m worried that as it’s gone untreated for 20 years that I may never get better.

This is factually incorrect. You might want to check your local library for the book titled The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. This book is rife with verified medical examples of the neuroplasticity of the brain. Neuroplasticity means the brain changes throughout life. The brain does not solidify like concrete once we reach adulthood. This is very good news for people like you and I, because it means the trauma we suffered in our childhood does not have to rule us for the rest of our lives, because our brain literally does change throughout our lives. We can assist it via several methods, such as psychotherapy, meditation and even exercise.

> I’d really like it if people could share their experiences with me and whether they’ve made any headway, recovery, partial recovery.

So if a psychologist with a PhD, who had practiced psychotherapy for the past 3+ decades terminated your therapy, telling you you have nothing left to resolve, would you consider yourself recovered? I do.

> How long did it go on for before you got a diagnosis?

I was diagnosed with PTSD at the age of 21 in 1985. CPTSD wasn't even on the radar in those days. All total, I have spent 22 years of my adult life in therapy. However, that does not and should not mean you will require as much time in therapy to recover.

The science has advanced so far from 1985 when I first began therapy. Back then, psychology wasn't considered a hard science like chemistry or biology. Today, psychology is getting closer to a hard science. From viewing a brain scan, brain injuries like PTSD, or disorders like OCD & ADHD can be diagnosed now. Additionally, trauma therapy did not exist in 1985. It hadn't yet been conceived. So if you have CPTSD, get to a trauma therapist and get to work, because they KNOW what they need to know to help guide you out of CPTSD.

As far as how the therapy works to free you, there will be MANY moments in your life that you will look at in therapy. Each moment will be discussed & analyzed until you fully understand what happened in each moment. After a certain period of time, you will have hundreds or thousands of these analyzed and understood moments in your life which, when chained together, will reveal the entire story of your life. This is when you will understand every moment that you lived & EVERYTHING will make sense. That is when you will know you are free. Or at least, that has been my experience. DO NOT GIVE UP. It is so worth it in the end.

Actually, I can help if you would like to know the for some reason. This is a neuroscience book that explains in great detail why your cheek makes your "hand" feel.

http://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1453512080&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Plastic+Brain

The short answer is that it's because the neurons in your brain that were wired to your hand still need to do something, so they remap in other parts of your brain that are nearby. It actually may mean that you can feel more detail on your cheek than most people in that area.

For a long time "phantom" pains were thought to be purely physiological, This science says otherwise. You may want to check it out. It's a good read.

Also, I'm an audio engineer and musician in Louisiana, primarily in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I say this to say that I have the privilege of working with some top notch guys. One of the keyboard players I see gigging all the time down here only has one hand. He's got one hand, and one nub. He uses the damn nub. I don't know how he makes this keyboard sound this way, but he does.

With the advent of MIDI technology, there is so much you can do. And with the advent of the Arduino platform, you could even make something yourself. There are so many alternative controllers available for you to express yourself in different and creative ways...don't give up playing and making music. Maybe get a MIDI controller and some simple software?

Excellent example of your mind taking information and organizing it into a more familiar experience. Take this gif for example. Our brains can take visually perceived information and anticipate that, based on previous experience, there should be a sound associated with it. follow up text

I highly recommend that you read Stephen Pinker's The Language Instinct - in one of the chapters he addresses this exact scenario. Apparently studies have shown that this sort of case-by-case correction has a negligible impact on the child's linguistic development - conversations between adults and regular exposure to language in general are how children learn proper grammatical construction. So - no harm done.

Actually the research is there and a lot of is very reputable stuff carried out by psychologists with controls and peer review and so on.

For example did you know that when a woman is taking a test in a male-dominated room of people also taking the test, her score (once you control for natural aptitude which the researchers are able to do statistically) is inversely proportional to the number of men in the room?

Stuff like this is all around us. Men don't know it and don't see it, and therefore don't think it exists. Women know it exists, but men don't listen to us.

Source

It ignores a large body of experimental research on the topic. The vast majority of studies he cites are not experimental, but observational. That means that the studies he cites are describing what is, not why it is. But he then makes a lot of causational claims about how it is women's biology causing them to be a lot less successful in the sciences. From a scientist, this can only represent intentionally skewing the narrative in a way that is harmful to women, under the pretense that he is "supporting" them. Either he is intentionally skewing the narrative, or he is not as good of a scientist as his degree would imply. He is not citing studies in good faith, for if he were, he would ackowledge their weakness as observational studies and refrain from claiming that they demonstrate universal biological truths.

He entirely ignores the corpus of experimental work that has been done that demonstrates existing bias. He also ignores the large body of evidence that people's career choices and career success are strongly influenced by societal expectations. All humans are affected, for instance, by stereotype threat, and it just so happens that he is perpetuating the stereotype that women cannot code as well as men -- which you now should recognize there is experimentally-backed basis to suggest that this belief being spread would actively harm the productivity of 20% of Google's workforce. Other experimental research indicates that identical resumes are rated worse and/or less likely to be hired with a woman's name than a man's name -- Even at a 5% difference, over multiple hiring and/or promotion cycles this effect would be exponential. He claims that there is scientific evidence of women being poorer leaders, but it seems that overall, women simply tend to rate themselves worse than others rate them. Is this because of biology, or is it because of stereotype threat? His every conclusion is tied to the claim that women's poor representation in the field is because of biology, but again, there is no evidence that it is biology, and honestly anyone who has experienced life in the USA has experienced our differing expectations of men and women, and differing perceptions of men and women. Scientifically, expectations affect outcomes.

I don't have the time or energy to go through every one of his points and do this, but I do want to make it clear that his entire approach was a disingenuous representation of the body of research that is available on gender differences and stereotypes, and it plays in to the "biotruth" narrative that is way-too-easily accepted by people who want to believe that feminism is irrelevant. I do suggest this read as a counterpoint to the idea that gender differences are purely biological.

Note I am not saying that there are NO biological differences -- OF COURSE there are some! But I think that it is actively harmful to our society to claim that things with a net negative socioeconomic effect on group A are caused by biological differences in group A. That should, imo, be the very last conclusion reached, after all others have been explored and rejected -- and we are still exploring the effects of social and cultural expectations.

A book about the science and biology behind 'religious experiences' opened my eyes. Being a biology major, and now a nurse it really hit home.

Why God Won't Go Away- Andrew Newberg
http://www.amazon.com/Why-God-Wont-Go-Away/dp/034544034X

My theory is for why 'time flies' when you are having fun (or really busy) and why it goes slow when you are bored. It goes beyond simply stating that during these interesting activities you are distracted.

This theory relies upon my assumption that when you are performing an interesting activity your eyes are generally more active. Playing a video game or doing a sport for example most likely requires a lot of eye movement compared to a boring activity.

It is said that when you move your eyes your brain cuts out the transition period during the movement (I can't remember where I read this, perhaps in the book Phantoms in the Brain). This is handy as it cuts out all the useless information that your blurry vision in this period would otherwise be sending to your brain. But what is interesting is that your brain distorts your perception of time in order to cut out this period of transition. This is my layman understanding.

My hypothesis is that time seems to go quicker during interesting or busy activities because pieces of time are actually lost or distorted for the higher number of eye movements that occur during this activity.

Edit: Here is a pdf from a nature article I found relating to this time distortion I am talking about.

Idk what's "wild" about it, but sure, here you go.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22208110
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21319910

Covers the, "men fall faster and harder" claim

http://www.amazon.com/The-Male-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767927540

Covers the brain development claims

As far as men being pressured to hide their emotions and not go blurting out that they're in love 2 weeks in...I really don't feel the need to source that.

And I flat out admitted that I didn't know what it was like for women, and was only guessing.

All those muhfuckas need to read Delusions of Gender and then they need to go sit in their rooms and think about what they've done.

Not politically incorrect. Just incorrect.

99% of babies learn language in exactly the same way. Even for different languages, children treat language and grammar quite similarly. In truth, you don't really have to "teach" a child to speak. Children will learn language on their own, if exposed to speech.

And, are you implying that more intelligent people (like MIT graduates) are better at using language than others? I think it's actually the other way around. The more education a person receives (like BA., PhD., etc), the less grammatical their everyday speech becomes.

Examples and arguments taken from The Language instinct, by Stephen Pinker.

You have to practice. Communication is a subconscious skill. You can't consciously plan your way through an entire conversation because there isn't enough time. It's possible to think of a few things that are good conversation starters, but that's about it.

In order to train any subconscious skill, you have to practice. When you practice your brain starts by trying to make the neural connections necessary to create the movement you want. At first the brain uses a lot of neurons. After more practice the brain finds more efficient ways of creating the movement and uses less neurons. That's how musicians look like they can effortlessly play an instrument the more they practice.

The biggest mistake people make about communication is that they don't approach learning it like they would approach learning a new sport or musical instrument. That's why nerds who like to be analytical about everything suck at communicating, because you have to learn communication by practice; the same way you learn a sport, which is another thing nerds suck at. You can't ride a bike by thinking every time before you move the pedals or handles. You can't make your way through a conversation that way either for the same reason - there's no time.

Practice keeping eye contact and saying what's on your mind without any hesitation. You'll find that after a few conversations you'll be able to do this more easily because your brain has gotten used to the skills. A good rule of thumb is to be yourself, but if you happen to be an asshole, you'll have to change.

If you can't find the courage to talk to random people right away, then start small. Talk to people you've been avoiding, like neighbors, coworkers, or classmates. Come up with a few prepared conversations and see what happens. If things don't go too well, know that you won't be that nervous and awkward during the next talk.

The neuroscience in this comment comes from The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Given my username this is probably not a surprise, but I speak freely about brain sex, no matter how libfem the company. I'm a scientist and I have no patience for ladybrain garbage. I've found that even the libfemmy-est of libfems can't really get offended when I say there is no ladybrain -- or at least they can't get offended aloud without betraying their internalized misogyny.

Here are a couple of book you could read about the subject to bring up and discuss: Pink Brain, Blue Brain is by Dr. Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist, and Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine.

I recently read "Neuroscience of Personality" and the author accused INTPs of being the worst listeners because our brains go off into other directions, creating a 'Christmas tree' pattern as our intuition runs amok. Meanwhile INFPs tend to be the best listeners.

http://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Personality-Brain-Insights-People/dp/0979868475

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics. (probably most interesting from a Freudian perspective, deals with many of our unconscious instincts)

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces The Shape Our Decisions - Unconscious decision-making, behavioral economics, consumer psychology. Fun read.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Most popular book on the psychology of persuasion, covers all the main principles. Very popular among business crowds.

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships - Social neuroscience, mirror neurons, empathy, practical stuff mixed with easy to understand brain science.

Authentic Happiness - Positive Psychology, happiness, increasing life satisfaction.

Feeling Good - A good primer on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Also widely considered one of the best self-help books by mental health practitioners.

The Brain That Changes Itself - Neuroplasticity, how experience shapes our brains. Some really remarkable case studies that get you wondering how powerful our brains really are.

The Buddhist Brain - The practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom from a Buddhist perspective.

That should give you more than enough to chew on.

>societal feminazation of male traits

I don't know what that means.

I know that in general people have hormones that influence their behavior - estrogen and testosterone.

But that they also have cultural influences that influence this behavior.

For example, right now computer software coding is an overwhelmingly male dominated field. But there is nothing inherent to writing software that has to do with having a Y chromosome, a penis and testicles, facial hair, upper body strength, etc.

In fact, in the 1960's USA coding was considered a traditionally female job because you have to sit at a desk and type all day and people associated it with secretarial work (which, was done by men before it was done by women).

In Western Europe, soccer is a large part of male culture. In the United States, it's for little girls. Is one perception more "correct?"

So that there are "male traits" and "female traits" is true in that we can see patterns in human behavior - men and women are more likely to choose different majors in college, but there's no evidence that this is due to anything inherent about male or female biology.

The problem with physiological studies of the brain is twofold - first the brain is plastic. People who share common behaviors and thought patterns will share similar brain structures. For example, people who are piano players may have similar neural structures, or people who are gymnasts. One could hypothesize that these neural structures are the cause of skill at playing the piano, or that they were built up in the brain after years of study and practice. There is no way to know if differences in brain structures between men and women are "natural" or due to lived experience as their gender.

Secondly, studies that find a difference in the brains of men and women are more likely to be published than studies that find no difference. We are missing a large part of the argument.

If you think that "Men are acting in ways that are traditionally feminine," I would ask - according to what definition? In the 1700's men wore powdered wigs, tights and high heeled shoes. This clothing is traditionally feminine, no? Men at that time also took a big part in the education and raising of their children. This differed greatly from the idea of the stoic, uninvolved father of the mid 20th century, and we have seemingly swung back to the baby bjorn wearing hipster dad of 2013. In Middle Eastern cultures, heterosexual men will hold hands, hug and kiss on the mouth - something we could perceive as behavior typical of gay men. That doesn't make them gay.

To all of this I say - so what? Ideas about sexuality, about masculine and feminine change over time. You might not like how they change, and that's fine. But what you can't do is argue that they have a concrete and unchanging definition.

Then sir, might I recommend this amazing book.

http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172

> I believe in God because I have felt his presence and cannot live without surrendering my life to Him in prayer

But can you take this personal highly-subjective mind-dependent emotional state, this feeling and qualia experience, and use this as evidence to support a mind-independent fact (to a level of significance [level of reliability and confidence] better than an appeal to emotion) for others (that do not have the same confirmation/cognitive biases)?

And which God (or version of YHWH)? Would this be the God of which you were raised to believe in? Or the God construct that you know the most about? How much of your personal feelings may be the result of a type 1 error (a false positive) based upon confirmation bias, wishful thinking, and an unsupportable level of significance threashold?

While I accept that you believe you had this (these) experiences, why should I place any credibility to your testimony?

> I believe in God because I have felt his presence

> I find great value in the Buddhist meditation tradition which provides me with the stability to feel Him

This phenomena has been recognized and studied - in one group where non-Theist Buddhist Monks have claimed that, through meditation, they could reach a state called satori in which they experienced a sense of transcendent bliss along with a feeling of timelessness and infinity, as if they were a deeply interwoven part of all of reality, and another group comprised of theists (Franciscan nuns) in deep prayer/contemplation which reported the same experience but added a Theistic Religious attribution (confirmation bias?) to the experience. In these studies a procedure SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) was used to map the active vs. inactive parts of the brain. What was found was that a particular region of the brain, the superior parietal lobe, showed a sharp reduction in activity against non-meditative states. (Newberg, Andrew and D’Aquili, Eugene, Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. Ballantine, 2001.) The superior parietal lobe is associated with the brain's “where” system, which helps us form spatial coordinates of objects and navigate in our environment. (Heilman, Kenneth. Matter of Mind: A Neurologist’s View of Brain-Behavior Relationships, Oxford University Press, 2002.)

The function of the superior parietal lobe is to orient a person in three-dimensional space and help them move through the world; as part of this task, it must draw a clear distinction between “self” and “not-self.” Inhibition, either through one of many damage states or by deep meditation/contemplation, of the nominal superior parietal lobe function results in a "loss of boundary" (Holmes, Bob, “In Search of God,” New Scientist, 21 April 2001), with this loss of boundary, the brain would have no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything the mind senses. And this perception would feel utterly and unquestionably real” (Newberg and D’Aquili 2001) and results in what many refer to as the "God experience." Previously, such sensations were attributed to the effects of communion with God or The Divine, but recent studies have demonstrated the neurological basis of these experiences/sensations- these sensations can be fully and parsimoniously explained without reference to God as a causal agency.

While these studies do not prove that "God," or The Divine, is not the cause of these experiences, it does show that these experiences can be obtained and explained by non-Divine naturalistic mechanisms with the result that a claim that "It was God" (and the implicit claim that "God is/was necessary for this experience") is reduced to the very low level of significance of an appeal to emotion, or potential false attributed to "God".

> I believe an evolution of mainstream faith

As I understand Theistic Religious Faith based upon claims of revelation from a "God" - Why would the absolute (and perfect?) Word of God evolve? Or the tenets/doctrine/dogma based upon this Word evolve? OP, are you making a revisionist argument?

> This is because society and individuals need stability that cannot be achieved without a connection to the permanent divine

Wow, that is quite the claim. Can you make that claim up?

> a connection to the permanent divine (i.e. above the transient material world).

I am sorry. I do not understand "above the transient material world." Will you provide some addition detail as to a coherent description of this phrase so that I may better understand your claim?

Every1sFriend, if I am to even to begin to accept the narrative and claims made in your argument, you will first have to show that the common prerequisite clause of 'God exists and intervenes' is credible by your presentation of the burden of proof that "God exists" (please also provide a coherent description or definition of "God"), via credible evidence, and/or supportable argument that is free from logical fallacies and which can be shown to actually be linkable to this reality, to a level of significance (or level of reliability and confidence) above some acceptable threshold. [Let's use a level of significance above that of an appeal to emotion as a threshold for consideration - even though the consequences of the actualization of God(s), or proof that God does exist, and associated claims, is extraordinary]

If you cannot make a credible burden of proof presentation, then I can only accept your post/argument as unacceptable (and annoying) evangelizing and proselytizing.

> Abrahamic religions + Buddhist meditation > Atheist Rationalism

Atheism is non-belief/lack of belief/<null belief> in the existence of supernatural Deities/Gods. This position is often based upon the lack, by Theistic claimants, of a credible presentation of the burden of proof (as described above) to show that "God" exists. Unless such a burden of proof is presented to negate or falsify the atheist position, then the left side of the above equation (i.e., Abrahamic religions + Buddhist meditation) is non-supportable (Abrahamic Theistic Religions) and non-coherent, and an outcome that the presented identity fails.

For those who don't want to watch the video:

Big Ideas in Brief by Ian Crofton

Sapiens: a Brief History of Human Kind by Yuval Noah Harari

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by Sandra Blakeslee and Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky

The Brain: A Beginner's Guide by Ammar Al-Chalabi, R. Shane Delamont, and Martin R. Turner


Ill go ahead and put in a plug for the book I'm reading right now: The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Anyone who enjoyed this talk will be delighted to hear that Cordelia has a book out called Delusions of Gender, which is excellent and, redundantly, has made a lot of men very upset.

I think there are lots of interesting lines of thought behind the whole topic. I am greatly frustrated by how often people fall back on 'its biological'. I'm currently reading Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine which seems to share my frustration but is reassuring that the science is not at all cut and dry in that area. That most people grossly overestimate the data on 'hard wired' differences.

I think we also need to remember, that while kids do go to the gendered toys, kids can also be little gender police.

I bet most people here, during their childhood, had another kid tell them they could or couldn't do something based on their sex.

During an early stage of child development, kids learn rules, and try to fit the world into that. Some little kids literally think 'girls wear dresses, if I wear a dress then I am a girl' .

They just make assumptions very easily. No matter how many trucks you give them, your daughter is going to come across some girls's stereotypes, make the link (she's a girl - I'm a girl - this is how I be a girl!).

I think the most important thing is to early on teach your kids to be critical, and accepting of variation.

• You can like princess dresses, but you can like superheroes too! Anyone who says you have to choose toys for girls is silly. You can pick either!*
  
  I think the most important thing though is to not segregate kids. In a gender egalitarian society, men and women need to see each others as equals and stop placing rules on the basis of gender. People who grow up without positive experiences with the opposite sex (friends, parents, siblings) often have a harder time relating to them.
  

I read a fabulous book that dovetails very nicely with this issue http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393340244/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (If you dig sociology and social psychology this book is the tits)

Tldr: Working dads aren't disadvantaged in hiring, promotions or wages while working mothers have a hell of a time with it. And even women without offspring and discriminated against for loads of subconscious crap that society feeds us.

Or better yet, read V. S. Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain. He has been working on solving this problem since the 90's and created the mirror technique.

Your lame website is inaccurate--Steven Pinker addresses this criticism in The Language Instinct, pg. 390, in a chapter addressing the concept of one true "correct" version of English and criticizing the so-called language mavens who make such claims.

>A tin ear for prosody (stress and intonation) and obliviousness to the principles of discourse and rhetoric are important tools of the trade for the language maven. Consider an alleged atrocity committed by today's youth: the expression I could care less. ...
Listen to how the two versions are pronounced: The melodies and stresses are completely different, and for good reason. The second version is not illogical, it's sarcastic. The point of sarcasm is that by making an assertion that is manifestly false or accompanied by ostentatiously mannered intonation, one deliberately implies its opposite. A good paraphrase is, "Oh yeah, as if there as something in the world I could care less about."

The book actually has a diagram showing where the stress occurs in the phrase, which I have not been able to reproduce.

To be fair, it's possible that most or all of these differences could be the result of differing socialization instead of differing genetics. And of course it could be a combination of genetic predisposition and environment.

There's a multitude of evidence demonstrating that on the whole men and women have differently structured brains and process information differently, but the problem is determining how much of this is due to genetics and how much is due socialization.

In case anyone would like a recommendation for books discussing these sorts of differences:

[Male Brains] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Male-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767927540)

[Female Brains] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Female_Brain_%28book%29)

Neuroscience: Exploring the brain by Bear, Connors and Paradiso is probably the best introductory textbook. http://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Exploring-Mark-Bear-PhD/dp/0781778174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425815661&sr=8-1&keywords=Neuroscience%3A+Exploring+the+Brain

That's one of my favorite popular science books, so it's wonderful to hear you're getting so much out of it. It really is a fascinating topic, and it's sad that so many Christians close themselves off to it solely to protect their religious beliefs (though as you discovered, it's good for those religious beliefs that they do).

As a companion to the book you might enjoy the Stated Clearly series of videos, which break down evolution very simply (and they're made by an ex-Christian whose education about evolution was part of his reason for leaving the religion). You might also like Coyne's blog, though these days it's more about his personal views than it is about evolution (but some searching on the site will bring up interesting things he's written on a whole host of religious topics from Adam and Eve to "ground of being" theology). He does also have another book you might like (Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible), though I only read part of it since I was familiar with much of it from his blog.

> If you guys have any other book recommendations along these lines, I'm all ears!

You should definitely read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, if only because it's a classic (and widely misrepresented/misunderstood). A little farther afield, one of my favorite popular science books of all time is The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, which looks at human language as an evolved ability. Pinker's primary area of academic expertise is child language acquisition, so he's the most in his element in that book.

If you're interested in neuroscience and the brain you could read How the Mind Works (also by Pinker) or The Tell-Tale Brain by V. S. Ramachandran, both of which are wide-ranging and accessibly written. I'd also recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Evolution gets a lot of attention in ex-Christian circles, but books like these are highly underrated as antidotes to Christian indoctrination -- nothing cures magical thinking about the "soul", consciousness and so on as much as learning how the brain and the mind actually work.

If you're interested in more general/philosophical works that touch on similar themes, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach made a huge impression on me (years ago). You might also like The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, which is a collection of philosophical essays along with commentaries. Books like these will get you thinking about the true mysteries of life, the universe and everything -- the kind of mysteries that have such sterile and unsatisfying "answers" within Christianity and other mythologies.

Don't worry about the past -- just be happy you're learning about all of this now. You've got plenty of life ahead of you to make up for any lost time. Have fun!

Pretty much all historical civilizations were sexist, since women were denied fundamental rights in them based on gender. Even if one were to agree with everything else you've written, your final conclusion/suggestion does not follow. I can't think of any significant, historical civilization that might be called non-sexist.

Biology is a fact of nature; you cannot "fight biology". That would be like fighting physics. No matter what you did, the laws of physics would still apply. What you are talking about, such as "scholarships for women only, to get them into areas of technology, engineering", and "specialized programs for boys only to help them in reading & writing" do not in any way fight biology, they leave biology just as it is. However, they do change society. Scholarships are societal creations designed to redistribute access to education, which is another societal creation. Education doesn't grow on trees; human beings artificially created the system of education. Hence, the educational system is an aspect of society, not biology.

The fact that there are some gender differences in the brain, statistically speaking, should be no big surprise. But many popularized studies tend to exaggerate or misinterpret these differences. I would suggest you read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine, or Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences for a deeper look at these topics. Broadly, a study that shows no differences in how men and womens' brains, on average, perceive a topic won't make a good headline or blog post, so it will be unlikely to be reported compared to one that finds a difference.

Secondly, it's not clear what these differences have to do with social roles. For example, what does the fact that men have more spatial reasoning, on average, mean for social roles exactly? Since there are many intelligent and successful women in programming and engineering fields, and many men who suck in these areas, it does not follow that there is a casual relation between gender and STEM fields. On the other hand, engineering is clearly coded as a masculine profession in society, and girls may be turned away from studying engineering for fear of being seen as unfeminine. Scholarships that seek to counteract that would then be playing a positive role.

Finally, I see an assumption through your post that what is "nature" is automatically good and must be accepted by society. However, the whole point of civilization and society is go beyond nature itself to build something for ourselves, as humans. Is medicine natural? We are programmed to die from birth, yet we still use the medical system to prolong life. Since men are physically stronger than women, should men then dominate women and impose our wishes on them? No, we created a system of laws where all citizens are equal before it because we recognize the equal moral worth of each person. Freedom is the fundamental issue. Humanity as a whole, and individual people for their own lives, must have the freedom to define its own path and create its own society without being told that a certain path is required due to unnecessary extrapolations from natural facts.

Your life isn't pointless. Right now you may be at a low point, even the lowest point you have been in. I believe that struggling in some way, or being sad/depressed/angry/hurt/etc means that you care about something. Something feels like it's not right to you and you want it to be better. Even if it's a vague feeling, or you are struggling because you actually feel nothing at all, this says something. I'm not sure what you are going through since you didn't post many details (which is totally fine), but I wanted to let you know that there have been many times that I have struggled greatly. Due to my past trauma I've had terrible physical problems, emotional problems, dissociation, anxiety, depression, difficulty making and maintaining friendship and connection with others....and on and on. There were times when I was in so much pain (either mentally, emotionally or physically) that I couldn't get out of bed or even barely move for long periods of time. That is a very desperate feeling. I have felt utterly and completely alone in this world, as if I had nothing and no one, and that I would be broken forever.

One thing that really helps me is reading. It was a long journey for me to learn to recognize my own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. There are still some areas where I can struggle with this, but I have made so, so much progress it's almost unbelievable to me when I think back to the person I once was. I couldn't identify my own emotions or thoughts, but when I read about scenarios and other peoples emotions/thoughts in certain situations, I could tell when it felt right. Like, "Yes! That is how I felt when _____ happened to me." A few books that really helped me are The Body Keeps Score, and Running On Empty. Other resources that have helped me immensely are hypnosis (one in particular was Michael Mahoney's IBS Audio Program 100 (this cured the IBS I had had for ~25 years, since I was a child)), and Annie Hopper's Dynamic Neural Retraining System. The very first book that I read that gave me hope that I could change my life was The Brain that Changes Itself. I read that book 9 years ago and it set me on a path of real change. It gave me inspiration and hope and the belief that I could really change and improve my life. If you want any other book recommendations let me know, I've read a lot of books and I have even more favorites that have helped me.

There are still areas of my life that I am working to improve, but I am nowhere near the person I was before I started reading and learning. Working through this stuff, and figuring out how to even do it, are very challenging and difficult tasks. But it is so, so worth it. I wish I could really show you and explain to you the profound changes we can make as people. Every epiphany I've had about myself and my life has been amazing and life changing. To me it almost feels like the essence of what it means to be human. I'm not sure if people who don't go through trauma get the chance to experience such profound epiphanies, realization, and change. Maybe I'm just rambling now, but I want you to know that there is hope. You may not have it, but I have it for both of us right now. Read. See a therapist. Learn. Practice. Journal. Seek support. Seek out ways to make a change. It doesn't have to be profound or monumental. Go at your own pace, just be sure that you are going.

That is nonsense, of course intoxicants can turn non-rapists into rapists. Your social behaviour is determined by your prefrontal cortex. Interfere with it and your behaviour changes. And there are enough intoxicants that do to different degrees. Even brain tumors can "change who you are" drastically and f.i. turn peaceful people into uncontrollable, aggressive people.

Alcohol is known to lower repression and increase agressive behaviour for many people, i.e. people that are able to control themselves subconsciously to not hurt other people may lose this ability if intoxicated.

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa38.htm

I can really recommend this book about the brain: http://www.amazon.com/Incognito-The-Secret-Lives-Brain/dp/0307389928
It is easy to read and very, very informative.

None at all...it's almost the opposite for me. I can't tell you how many times I've had my heart broken by cute trans baristas at the local queer cafe. :(

>emerging science is showing that transwomen have a brain that morphologically female and transmen have a brain that is morphologically male

The science behind gendered brain morphology is inconclusive and often misrepresented. Cordelia Fine recently wrote an excellent book on gender and the brain called Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, which does an exceptional job of examining the actual science and debunking a lot of claims. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in neuroscience, gender, and sexuality.

Different strokes for different folks. You might need a more aggressive approach to dealing with your depression and anxiety. A good therapist and a good self-analysis book can do wonders.

Basically this is where semiotic intersects mathematics and logic. You'll want to look at how mathematics defines functions in terms of set theory and in terms of inference. Probably key is testing your function in terms of mapping. The reason this matters is that it affects causality and inference.

An example in Chinese involves the mapping between hànzì, pinyin and oral Chinese. The only complete and unique form is hànzì. Because the mapping between hànzì --> pinyin are surjective, you can NOT infer the hànzì uniquely from pinyin. Only if the mapping were injective can you make unique and specific inferences but not inversely implicative. You have to have a bijective mapping to move bidirectionally.This impacts inferences about causality of any relationship.

One example is 電 and 店 which BOTH map to the pinyin diàn so if you see or hear "diàn" you can't unique know whether you are hearing "electricity" or "store" (or several other meanings) without more context.

It's this subtlety plus not understanding basic logic that tends to make semiotic hipsters so insufferable and usually wrong about everything they say about semiotics.

The nature of cognition based on what we know about the biology is that there is an inherent and essential mapping between internal model and physical reality that is the basis of cognition. The best brain model is the "instrumental model": reality is perceived through a "soda straw" of the senses with a model of reality created over a lifetime that simulates reality. See Hawkins, Dennett and Norretranders which are backed up by science.

An example of this is the "model" of the color pink. Pink has no physical reality. There is no electromagnetic frequency/wavelength of "pink". Pink is an artifact of cognitive mapping that results when you sense all wavelengths with green missing.

Pink is created by the brain out of thin air as a result of mapping a linear range of of wavelengths to a circular internal model of color. The "circularness" is an artifact of the representation. So the mapping of reality to model (symbol) is inherently injective. The mapping of the model to reality is surjective. Overall the mapping is not bijective.

And this example of pink has a mathematical basis from topology: reality is a conformal map through a sphere while the brain's model is a conformal map through a torus. Because a sphere is not a torus, you create the paradox of the reality of pink.

How to Think About God: A guide for the 20th Century Pagan

Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity

Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief

Biblical Games: Game Theory and the Hebrew Bible

The Probability of God: A Simple Calculation That Proves the Ultimate Truth

The Abolition of Man

Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith


Reading the Bible Again For the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally

Anything from Oliver Sacks always worth reading imo.

• Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain!
  
  
• The Compassionate Brain: A Revolutionary Guide to Developing Your Intelligence to Its Full Potential: How Empathy Creates Intelligence!
  
  
• Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain!
  
  
• Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions!
  
  
• In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind!
  
  
• The Man with a Shattered World: The History of a Brain Wound!
  
  not really neuroscience, but interesting imho:
  
  
• How the Mind Works!
  
  
  *(hopes formatting works)

The book Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine is absolutely brilliant.

Phantoms in the Brain is a great book by Ramachandran concerning what we can learn about how the brain works by studying brain damage and diseases.

Yeah it's pretty amazing. The doctor who discovered phantom pain wrote a book about it, if you're interested:

https://www.amazon.ca/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172/ref=nodl_

It's from 1998 so the science has probably progressed a fair amount, but I think it would still be an interesting read.

Children aren't aware of gender differences, but their caregivers are.

Cordelia Fine addressed a similar study in her book where babies were shown different toys like this, but it was later shown that the people presenting the toys to the babies were enforcing stereotypes themselves by shaking the toy they expected the baby to want more than the other.

You may be interested in Phantoms in the Brain. It covers some of that weird, mind-body disconnect stuff.

According to http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393068382 the current movement around gender brain differences is based on shoddy research or misunderstood/misinterpreted research.

I believe the conclusion is that there is little evidence at the moment either way.

Won't lie, I probably won't sit down for a 3 hour youtube video while I'm still in the office.

Found this tasty quote from him though, with a quick bit of google-fu:

> Milo: We hear a lot from scientists, we hear a lot in particular the female scientists, but the fact is that there are some, there is some, reason to suppose that there is an advantage to being a man in certain subjects. There’s reason to suppose that gender essentialism, biological determinism, whatever you want to call it the fact that there are male brains and female brains may indeed have some basis in science.

source

I'll add that this view of male/female brains is now wholly debunked in science. Additional.

So maybe he perceives a broader range of male identities than Joe Rogan but at root he still believes in the same (debunked and harmful) idea, just to a different degree.

Don't worry about being smart enough. Just work hard and study hard. If you're looking for a good book try Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain. If you find this to be too dificult then make sure to brush up on some general biology. If you're particularly ambitious then you can try Kandel's Principles of Neuroscience (This is a graduate level text, but it has a lot of information and covers a wide breadth of Neuroscience).

I like this question.

Beginner:

• Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (I don't like this text, but it's fairly accessible to beginners.)
  
  
• Auditory Neuroscience
  
  
• Musicophilia
  
  Student:
  
  
• Neuroscience
  
  
• MATLAB for Neuroscientists
  
  
• An Introduction to the Psychology/Physiology of Hearing (sorry, that was cheating)
  
  Expert:
  
  
• Principles of Neural Science
  
  
• Spikes
  
  
• Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics
  

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine. Because I like gender issues and topics.

Read the newly released "Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society" by Dr. Cordelia Fine for an introduction to this topic. It's very entertaining and easy to read, and also very informative - about the last 50 pages are notes and citations of the studies she mentions that you can investigate further if you wish.

>“Goodbye, beliefs in sex differences disguised as evolutionary facts. Welcome the dragon slayer: Cordelia Fine wittily but meticulously lays bare the irrational arguments that we use to justify gender politics.”―Uta Frith, emeritus professor of cognitive development, University College London

>Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in human development. According to this overly familiar story, differences between the sexes are shaped by past evolutionary pressures?women are more cautious and parenting-focused, while men seek status to attract more mates. In each succeeding generation, sex hormones and male and female brains are thought to continue to reinforce these unbreachable distinctions, making for entrenched inequalities in modern society.

>In Testosterone Rex, psychologist Cordelia Fine wittily explains why past and present sex roles are only serving suggestions for the future, revealing a much more dynamic situation through an entertaining and well-documented exploration of the latest research that draws on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy. She uses stories from daily life, scientific research, and common sense to break through the din of cultural assumptions. Testosterone, for instance, is not the potent hormonal essence of masculinity; the presumed, built-in preferences of each sex, from toys to financial risk taking, are turned on their heads.

>Moving beyond the old “nature versus nurture” debates, Testosterone Rex disproves ingrained myths and calls for a more equal society based on both sexes’ full, human potential.

Her previous book "Delusions of Gender" is also quite good.

If people are interested in how this kind of research tends to get stretched beyond its boundaries, check out Delusions of Gender.

I believe I remember reading that V.S. Ramachandran had an insight to this when he was dealing with phantom limb patients. The area of the brain that maps foot and toe sensations is right next to areas which are involved with sexual stimulation. When an area of the brain (especially involved with perception and sensation) lose their means of input and become disused (as in someone losing a limb), those neurons are gradually recruited by nearby brain regions to supplement their functioning. So, in some cases of people losing their lower limbs, those foot-sensation areas became cross-linked with the sexual stimulation areas causing the people to have a sexual reaction when imagining their phantom toes being sucked on.

This may be a neurological explanation for foot-fetishism, but I don't know off the top of my head if this has been followed up with concrete study; it only suggests an avenue for further experimentation. This also does little to explain some of the other, less common fetishes (tickling, scatalogical). It also doesn't concretely answer the question as far as genetic/environmental. We have genetic dispositions for particular brain areas being more interconnected than others, but environmental factors play a huge role in this as well, especially as far as deviations from normal development during childhood. As such, though I don't necessarily agree with them, I also can't 100% discount ideas like sexual imprinting.

tl;dr: This, like most other neurological questions, is really complex and the answer lies somewhere on the continuum between genetics and environmental factors.


edit: Looked it up to be sure. For those that are interested, this was discussed in Phantoms In The Brain.

http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Science-Subjectivity-Antti-Revonsuo/dp/1841697265
is my favourite introduction to Consciousness
(together with
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal.shtml )
Language?
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Instinct-How-Mind-Creates/dp/0060976519
is very readable.

Wouldn't a link to purchase it do better than a link to an image of the cover?

Amazon link

Barnes and Noble link

I read this book 2-3 years ago "The Brain That Changes itself Self" super fascinating all about neuroplasticity and how the brain can re-wire itself. One chapter talked about porn regarding people losing their jobs, relationships, social life etc. Because of porn, it can also lead to impotence. I will just take some quotes:

> [A 2001study] found that 80 percent felt they were spending so much time on pornographic sites that they were putting their relationships or jobs at risk.

>When I asked if this phenomenon had any relationship to viewing pornography, they answered that it initially helped them get more excited during sex but over time had the opposite effect. Now, instead of using their senses to enjoy being in bed, in the present, with their partners, lovemaking increasingly required them to fantasize that they were part of a porn script.

I can't suggest this book enough. My recommendation would be to combine through that chapter if you are interested.

EDIT: This book is on amazon and is well worth the cash side note I realized when I ordered it was in 2012....time is strange

There's a book called about neuroscience called Incognito that has a few chapters on all the crazy stuff your brain does to turn visual input into useful information. Highly recommended for anyone wishing to learn more about how their own brain works.

Just a few things that come to mind:

Self-Awareness> There are a lot of ways to work on this and most of them are worth trying. An effective goal might be to find some things that work for awhile, and prepare yourself to seek out other options when those don’t offer the same effectiveness. I’m pretty sure that when we dedicate the time to it, we provide ourselves with information that empowers us to make the decisions that bring about our idea of success.

Expectations> Most of us don’t want to fail. A lot of us feel like if we don’t meet the expectations that we’ve set for ourselves then we’re failures. This often causes some of us to avoid things that we feel we won’t “succeed” at. Hey, I’m not saying we shouldn’t set high goals for ourselves... but when we don't meet our expectations, maybe we could slowly get better at treating ourselves with the kind of love and encouragement that we would extend to our most loved of loved ones when they "fail."

Exercise> God damn it I hate exercise. I wore a button in fifth grade that said: I’m too out of shape to exercise. I’m thirty-nine now and I’ve still never had a consistent workout regimen. For a lot of us, this shit is probably harder than everything else we’ll consider in this thread. But there’s plenty of evidence to show that when the rest of our body is functioning at a more optimal level that we have more tools to work with, and that our tools are more effective. I hate exercise.

Group Discussion> Last year I attended an intensive outpatient group therapy program. This was my first experience with group therapy and I freaking love that shit. I learned that the gems to mine from this experience have very little to do with whoever is leading the group or which organization is providing the facility... as long as you feel like everyone is given the opportunity to share without reproach. Empathy is what it’s all about. The more courageous you are about sharing your struggles, the more empowered your fellow group members will be to do the same. When empathy is flowing freely most people are able to recognize some of their own cognitive distortions, AND help others find their own. Not every group is going to function well, but I think it’s well worth the effort to find on that does. You might start with looking into a DBSA group near you. My advice would be to look for one with 10-15 attendees. If you've got insurance that will cover it, you might check into an Intensive Outpatient Group Therapy program offered by a local hospital.

Books> These are just a few that have offered me some help—and a few that I just acquired but haven’t read yet.

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy



Also, this is me patting you on the back lovingly and then turning it into a hug:



Did you feel it?



Disclaimer: I’m currently doing pretty poorly at all of these things.

quite long - 400 pages

Fair warning: I'm only ~50 pages in but I'll be honest: it is quite a dense read but I think that is the subject and not the author's style at play.

I actually like the writing style because she is from before the modern age of slang and relaxed writing. there is a sincere grace to her writing style, and that makes for a pleasurable reading experience (IMO).

She structures her sentences to include only one idea and avoids phrases in apposition, split infinitives and other distractions and nuisances. So she is an untiring author. Also she is not in love with her own words, so things are nice and direct and succinct.

She has a habit of associating things that i would have thought to be unrelated, but upon further consideration may well be related. for example, she says that the characteristics of self-idealisation (as opposed to the healthy self-realisation) include:

• the most decisive characteristic is an utter disregard for himself, for his self interests
  
  
• the indiscriminateness of compulsive drives (distractions) - since the aim is not what is being undertaken, but something toxic
  
  
• the quality of insatiability - no amount of distraction can ever satisfy, because it is not what the victim really wants or needs
  
  
• the reaction to its frustration - since the need is so strong, when these distractions fail, the response is very uncomfortable for the victim, and appears to others as excessive.
  
  (I have paraphrased her - she calls the desire to self-idealise the quest for glory - the above characteristics are aspects of this toxic quest).
  
  
  
  I just dip in and out - a few pages at a time and then I think about them. Almost every page - right from the first - seems to offer some genuinely worthy insight.
  
  I'd have loved to meet her. She comes across like a very sincere, likeable and interesting person.

I usually don't say things to these people. I give them books, sometimes alongside gifts of really luscious teas, food or other things they might like. Usually, they read the books and come back a little changed and more amenable to new ideas.

I don't have any titles in particular for your situation because I haven't come across that specific problem in years, but DELUSIONS OF GENDER by Cordelia Fine is my current go-to, all around.

I think they are trying to be 'one of the guys', and honestly, I think their reaction is part of a denial of feminism that comes from being totally overwhelmed by the patriarchy. Gender fatigue, I think it's called. (So, maybe a book on that.) It usually breaks a few years later if they're lucky. Hope you're able to make it work! (And good on you for fostering this program!)

Dude, you've gotta read "How the Mind Works"!!! It's a great read.

>I guess this is my kinda of my issue. How do you explain transwomen who date and marry ciswomen? If what you were saying is true all transwomen would be dating cismen and exclusively cismen. Right?


They’re heterosexual males with a sexual fetish.


Anne Lawrence


Blanchard


No. I said that they tell homosexual children (a small subset of trans) that they are the wrong sex and then sterilise them using cross-sex hormones after puberty suppression.


Then, we have transwomen telling lesbians (homosexuals) that they are bigoted for not liking penis or wanting to have sex with people that maintain or have previously maintained those organs.


There is a big hint in the word homoSEXual that would lead you to understand that sexual orientation for heteroSEXuals and homoSEXuals is based around the SEX of the person.

Telling lesbians (or gay men) that they must like people of the opposite SEX based on their “GENDER identity” is creepy and disgusting.


People are not obligated to re-evaluate their attractions because of someone else’s “identity”.


Years ago, psychologists and psychiatrists used to try and force homosexuals into liking people of the opposite sex. This is no different.


--------------------

>I think gender is a set of ideas on how someone acts and looks that is typically based on sex. That is to say that usually female people act and look in a certain way as a woman.



What.the.fuck? Act and look as a woman based on sex? That right there, straight up fucking misogyny.


What does a woman “act” like? You realise that is the antithesis of feminism. That women “act” and “look” a certain
way.


How does sex, one’s reproductive capability, have anything to do with how someone acts?



>I don't know if gender roles are innate, I really don't think they are.


Good. Because they aren’t.



>I don't know if its more real or less real. I think sex is pretty complicated in general and can't be decided by one characteristic but by using multiple different criteria simply because theres no real one defining characteristic that says you're either male or female. for this kind of stuff I typically look to places like the Olympics

Production of gametes. Bam. Simple.

Failing that? Structures for the production of gametes.

Failing that? Genetics.

Failing that? Organs.

Reproduction is real. Human biology is real.

How do you propose we classify people then? How is gender real? How does the way a person "acts" affect anything about their physiology? Things like rape shelters, bathrooms, prisons are all based around people's physiological needs.

Women can get pregnant to males, menstruate and pee sitting down. We have different cancers and different levels of medication tolerance (and alcohol tolerance) because of our physiology.

Men can impregnate and pee standing up. They do not need access to abortions or gynaecological medicine. They may need access to medicine based on their prostates and testicles. They have difference levels of tolerance to medicine and alcohol based on their physiology.

Why would you look to the Olympics? Why not ask a biologist?


>I think this would fall under gender roles again. I don't think a woman is really any one thing. Gender isn't based in your body and how it looks but rather in how you act.

Wrong. A woman is an adult female human.

How is gender then more important than a biological reality again? How is the way someone “acts” overriding this?

Am I no longer a woman because I don’t “act” like one?

The fuck?

Who governs these rules for how someone should act?

Why can't people act however they want? Just because you have certain bits doesn't mean you act any particular way.

Your physiology is just a fact of nature and your ability to produce offspring through the exchange of genetic material.

>If you mean a woman again I don't know if that's a biological reality meaning that you can definitely say that you identify with and are more comfortable with that set of gender roles.

And what of the millions (billions?) of women who aren’t happy with the gender roles place upon us? What if we’re not happy with ANY gender roles for anyone?

What is a gender role and why is it even important?

>If you mean female, I think that's more of a thing that happens as you transition rather than something you just become.

Nope. Males cannot become females. We are not gastropods or fish.

How does a male born become female? That makes absolutely no sense.

>It gets a little worrisome because this kind of thinking can lead to transwomen being excluded from places that most other females are allowed to be. Bathrooms, locker rooms, etc and I'm not sure if that's ok to do, although I'm a proponent of non-segregated bathrooms and changing rooms, I think its a little silly that we separate by sex.

WHAT?

NO! Males cannot become female.

You DO NOT produce oocytes, have menses or gestate and birth young. (Yes, I am aware that not all females can either)

Males disproportionately attack females for violence and sexual assault.

Look at the FBI or WHO statistics if you don’t believe me.

And “transwomen” maintain MALE levels of criminality which makes them just as likely as any other male person to cause us harm.

Males and females are separated because SEX is the only thing that is different between us. We can get pregnant and get “gender” bullshit because of that. We are somehow "weaker" and "less capable". We're also vulnerable because of our ability to get pregnant.

Males and females have different physiology, different medical needs.

You propose what? We separate on “gender”?

How is gender real?

IT FUCKING ISN’T. It was created by society. Biology wasn’t.

Here’s some links to transwomen violence:

One


Two

Three

Four
(This is a person who gained access to a women’s rape shelter by claiming to be a woman and then SEXUALLY assaulted women)


And I have more.

> would that teenagers are typically below the age of consent, IE below 16 and thus can't legally make a decision to have sex no matter what age the other person is.

But teenagers and children are able to consent to hormones and puberty blockers?

And yes, the brain develops as it gets older. Atrophy and damage can halt and stop the development.

So, how is "brain-age" less real than "brain-sex"? How is it any different to "negro-brains" or "jugglers-brains"?

If I scanned my brain and it had the same volume in certain parts as a medical professional does that make me a medical doctor?

>I think the only difference is the fact that there is some actual research done on the brains of transwomen vs ciswomen which shows some of the same structures not present in cismen.

Yes. We’ve all seen those.

First off, NONE of those studies have been reproduced which makes for bad science.

NONE of those studies identify why they are able to determine what a “woman’s brain looks like”

Actually, here’s a really succinct link that breaks it down

And I’m more than happy to refer you to read Sheila Jefferies new book Gender Hurts, Cordelia Fine’s Delusion of Gender and Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen


>I tend to defer to medical organizations for things like this and typically take them at their word if they say that the cause of transgenderism is due to different brain structures.

Medical organisations used to advocate for lobotomies of the mentally ill, the castration of gay men, and the “hysteria” of women.

You also can see examples of bad pharmaceutical practice in Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science

I’m not saying I agree 100% with any of the above texts. It pays to be well informed and to complete your own research.

Do not “take them at their word” about things like “brain” sex when the methodology for their premise is so unbelievable flawed.


>Does that make sense?

It didn’t make any sense, even a little.

I mean seriously? Fucking gender roles in 2014? We’ve come a long way baby from Suzie-Homemaker and Captain America.

After coming across this interesting article in Skeptic summarizing the evidence surrounding sex differences in cognitive ability I decided to pick up a book on the same subject by the author (Diane Halpern), Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities, which I haven't read through yet but I noticed it did have the following discussion of Baron-Cohen's hypothesis:

>Numerous researchers have offered stern criticisms of the idea that female and male brains are "essentially different," especially in ways that Baron-Cohen has suggested (e.g., Eliot, 2009; Spelke & Grace, 2007). According to Baron-Cohen, it is high levels of prenatal testosterone that make the male brain good at systemizing. But males who are exposed to very high levels of testosterone while still in the womb (i.e., CAH males) are not more masculine or better at male-typical tasks than males who are exposed to normal levels of prenatal testosterone. In fact, the idea that high levels of prenatal testosterone cause autism, which might be expected from this theory, has not been supported. In addition, one prediction from this hypothesis is that autistic boys would be "hypermasculine," which is not supported with any research (Eliot, 2009). The experiment with newborns that Baron-Cohen frequently cites as evidence that girls are born with an interest in faces and boys are born with an interest in objects has been criticized on methodological grounds, including experimenter bias, small sample size, and failures to replicate (Spelke, 2005). ... In addition, numerous studies have found no sex differences in aptitude for science or mathematics in young children (Fine, 2010).

If you like this, you should definitely check out his book, Phantoms in the Brain. It's one of the most fascinating things I've ever read.

Phantoms in the Brain, if you enjoy learning about neuroscience or how the mind works and what happens when something goes wrong upstairs, this book is for you.

This is exactly how I currently understand humor and laughter.

Sources for my opinion:
Psychology Today article, and (credentials for Provine)
Steven Pinker's book, and (credentials for Pinker)

I would go with Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It can be rather tedious at times, but it's such a great summary of recent work in social and cognitive psychology that it's worth it.

Oliver Sacks, as mentioned before, is another great author. Very approachable, very interesting, yet quite informative.

I have heard that Dan Ariely is a great author. Predictably Irrational might be a great read.

Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works is also great, but I would recommend Kahneman over him.

Finally, I would recommend a classic: William James - The Principles of Psychology. It's old, and some stuff is dated, but the guy had amazing insight nonetheless. It'd be a great intro reading just to see where psychology came from.

I would stay away from Jonah Lehrer, since he was accused of academic dishonesty. His book "How we Decide" was an extremely easy read, and a bit watered down. On that tangent, I would also avoid Malcolm Gladwell. Sacks does a better job at explaining psychology and neuroscience to a general audience.

Hope that helps!

Well, you could take a look at Cordelia Fine's book Delusions of Gender.

Here's a quick overview of her argument.

However, given the tone of your comment, I sincerely doubt you will take any time to consider the evidence. And I suspect that there isn't anything that will change your perception. You, therefore, are part of the problem. Bitch.

Some excellent popular book options are:

The Tell Tale Brain - V.S. Ramachandran

Phantoms in the Brain - V.S. Ramachandran

Synaptic Self - Joseph LeDoux


Also mentioned by other posters, Norman Doidge and Oliver Sacks.

All of these are really approachable for beginners and I enjoyed them all greatly as an undergrad way back when.

Books like The Brain that Changes Itself, Phantoms in the Brain and The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat are all really great reads. They're different cases and accounts of patients treated by the authors who are, I believe, neuroscientists and psychologists. I learned a LOT about how the brain works and relates to the body - but I'll warn you, when you see how flawed our perceptions of the world can be (how easily damaged, fooled or changed), you may have a slight existential crisis. I did. :)

Have you seen their Highlights for High School feature?

Also, there are sites like Academic Earth that might be useful.

Here are a few blogs with potential. You'll have to decide for yourself if they have inappropriate content.

Here are a few book recommendations covering various fields, in no particular order (though they should all read #1):

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything
   
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
   
3. Einstein: His Life and Universe
   
4. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
   
5. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
   
6. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
   
7. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   
8. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
   
9. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
   
10. Cosmos
    
11. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
    
12. The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
    
13. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
    
14. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
    
15. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
    
16. Thinking, Fast and Slow
    
17. Chaos: Making a New Science
    
18. Isaac Newton
    
19. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
    
20. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
    
    And here's a video interview with Richard Feynman they might enjoy.

Gurl, the brain is the true dick of the body. It is a trickster. If you ever want a fascinating read, pick up "Phantoms of the Brain" http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462300137&sr=8-1&keywords=phantoms+of+the+brain.

Fellow English major/amateur linguist here. (Don't be sad, literature is cool too!) Geoff Pullum and Mark Liberman write an incredible blog, Language Log, which has taught me at least as much about the subject as any particular university class.

Also recommend Stephen Pinker's The Language Instinct for a basic, high level overview of the different fields--syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, morphology, etc. Pinker has a bias toward his particular school of psycholinguistics and he has some not-so-nice things to say about English (the discipline), but he is nonetheless a highly entertaining read.

Yes, there are lots of studies about the addiction patterns in the brains of video game players. I don't think he is implying that massive amounts of video gaming is healthy either. But 303030... is right. It is an addiction that affects a lot of things about you. If you want to read a layman's explanation by great neuroscientists, read The Brain That Changes Itself (there's a section specifically about porn) or The Compass of Pleasure (touches on masturbation, orgasm and I think porn).

There are lots of great techniques (like these) to help you remember specific things, but if you want to train your brain to remember things better, you have to work daily on this effort. I've been using Lumosity for the last few months for this reason. I'm not sure yet whether it's actually improving my memory, but at the very least it's a nice way to get your brain going in the morning and brush up on a few basic skills.

There are different games focused on various "brain skills" (memory, focus, spatial recognition, etc...) - I love the games that help you remember names and faces. Thus far the only research about this was sponsored by the company- hopefully others will dig into this interesting topic soon. Still, everything I've read about brain plasticity suggests these kinds of activities do improve your thinking skills.

I signed up for the 30 day free trial and set a calendar reminder to cancel it by the end of the trial, but after 15 days of using it I was hooked. I get to work and do this for the first half hour or so instead of obsessively checking Facebook and it wakes up my brain and makes me feel productive without having to do real work before the coffee kicks in. There's at least one other website doing the same kind of thing called Posit Science, but I haven't tried it.

You could get a similar result by playing free games that use your memory every day, like matching games, but I like that Lumosity training programs give you different games to play each day so you don't burn out. I just click "Start Training" and it will give me 5 games to play. I also like the ability to track my progress.

If you join, add me- I have the same screenname on there. :)

</theyshouldpayme>

The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100

The author of this article wrote an excellent book that goes in depth on these stories and others called Incognito. The whole book examines our limited ability to process perceptions and was a thoroughly engaging and heady read.

> But what is happening when I am given two choices, and I struggle to make a decision

But you didn't choose to be given the two choices.

There's an unimaginably long causal stream of events leading to your choice which was never under your control, so at the very least it seems that even if we could call that free will, it's not nearly as significant/powerful an ability as we normally think.

In the criminal examples, even if a stereotypical "bad guy" can be said conclusively to have "chosen" an antisocial action, they didn't choose the genetics or environmental effects that lead their brain to prefer the antisocial option.

EDIT: In my mind, I think the Free Will Debate, is pretty similar to the God Debate. To quote Neil DeGrasse Tyson "If that's how you wanna invoke your evidence for god, then god is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance, thats getting smaller, smaller and smaller as time goes moves on." Similarly, it would seem that almost every single finding in the fields of neuroscience and psychology and psychiatry have gone to show just how little we're in control of our own actions. To just observe the general trend, we seem to be accumulating an abundance of evidence to support one side of this argument, and the other side has to continue to point to the "ever receding" dark corner of ignorance in the room to try to support their side. David Eagleman has a chapter in his book Incognito about this where he talks about the "dethronement of man" as a general trend in scientific discovery.

I've read some of them. Those that I read are indeed good.

However, in the context of deciding to be better, I'd recommend to drop Pinker's "Blank Slate". It's a good book, but it's mostly about an academic and political debate. If you already accept that genes affect the mind, there's a better way to spend your time.

I'd also recommend to replace Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow", and Ariely's "Predictably Irrational" with "The invisible Gorilla" by Charbis and Simmons. The latter book covers a similar ground to the first two, but it does so with less personal anecdotes.

I'd also recommend to replace the books from Oliver Sacks with Eagleman's "Incognito. The Secret Lives of the Brain." Eagleman is also funny, he covers similar ground, but his book is a bit more systematic.

The Female Brain
and The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine was a really good book that I didn't feel like it really needed much knowledge of neuroscience to understand.

I read that in high school because it was in the library, and I was interested in the brain. I might have been 14 or 15 the time, and both books kept my ADD teenage brain interested long enough to read it before I got distracted by another book, video, or something else on history, biology, chemistry, astronomy, science fiction, eta.

It is about gender differences in the brain, behavior, and psychology.
It is has both psychology and neuroscience in it. This is something that might be more interesting
then a general book about the brain.
By reading it, I definitely learned about at least the macro level of the brain. You have to talk about the general in order to explain the differences well. If I read a book about the differences between red wolves and gray wolves, I will learn a lot about wolves in general, too.

You gotta read Dario Nardi's book. This is kind of what he researches and he actually does show how different areas correspond to different functions! (Or, how a bunch of different areas correspond - Ne is described as a "christmas light" brain, with a lot of disparate parts lighting up at once).

https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Personality-Brain-Insights-People/dp/0979868475

As I remember, it focuses on type & functions as linked with fMRI data from his research.

Fascinating stuff that it sounds like you will absolutely love.

No single source, but these are the ones that I found the most useful in my endeavors

• Michael Pierce's Youtube videos
  
  
• http://mbti-notes.tumblr.com/ (good despite being tumblr)
  
  
• My True Type: Clarifying Your Personality Type, Preferences & Functions
  
  
• Building Blocks of Personality Type
  
  
• Neuroscience of Personality: Brain Savvy Insights for All Types of People

Agreed. Having a reliable test would be nice (and a requirement for further study to be sure), but the real meat of the issue that many seem to be concerned about is the validity of the personality classification theory itself.

I believe what the parent is referring to with the EEG correlations to cognitive functions is Dario Nardi's research on the Neuroscience Of Personality. He has a talk about it here with some interesting evidence, but I have not yet had a chance to read over the book. He also did an interesting AMA over on /r/mbti a while back that's probably worth a read as well.

>I don’t regret having one, just extremely ashamed of being sexual and communicating it to girls and also showing it to the world. Attracting girls’ attention and whatnot isn’t very hard but progressing things to dating, holding hands and eventually sex is impossible. I can’t even call them or message them on Facebook or Whatsapp because I just feel like an idiot for doing so. Making a move in clubs and bars is also difficult although I once got close to leaving with a girl but she didn't want to. I got made fun of a lot growing up for not having a girlfriend and this made me feel like i do not deserve one. It doesn't matter if I've got the green light to go ahead I just feel really ashamed do it. Even something like looking at a fit girl wearing a short skirt makes me feel bad for checking her out and that I shouldn’t be doing it.


I know what you mean. I've been there myself, but even when I was there I was entirely self-aware of my shame and I was skeptical of the validity of my emotional reactions; I realized they were ingrained. Being aware of your emotional reactions allows you to be emotionally proactive. Your sex-negative problem is mostly an emotional issue, and not much else, right? I've been there. I wouldn't doubt that you are also decent looking and have both latent and actualized social skills. Most intelligent introverts have a lot of potential to be who they want to be because they know themselves more deeply than others. You must use your introverted nature to your advantage and recognize the differences in others and yourself. In all honesty, there are an infinite number of unwritten rules; everyone's abstract/emotional logic is different. Many of them are foundational and predictable, however; including yours and mine. Like anything else, being emotionally predictable is not a black/white issue. It is a grey area, and you have to balance your reliability with creativity.


Being made fun of for not having a girlfriend is just as sexist as being made fun of for not having a boyfriend; gender equal too. Were you ever shamed for not having a boyfriend? It's clearly a matter of groupthink and extroverted style; not for everyone. Dating relationships, for extroverts especially, are often attention-getting and showy. They wear their relationships like trophies won. Usually introverts prefer a more private relationship because they have less social desire and are often shamed because of it. Introverts are “themselves” more often in private. Extroverts are “themselves” more often in public. There is no shame deserved either way, regardless of popular opinion. Both styles have their strengths and weaknesses, and you should try to introject some of the traits that you enjoy in others; regardless of type. That is how you become balanced.


>I’m receiving counselling from a pastor who advocates the whole “no sex before marriage” thing and believes that people should only date to get married and sex is only for making kids which is stupid IMO because I do not plan on getting married anytime soon.


Counseling from a Catholic pastor? Watch out, that is one of the most notorious sex-negative societies out there. They own the abstinence-only charade while they parade horribles. Marriage is not the answer to anything; it is an institution of the state. Anything else attached is sentimental.


If you haven't already, I recommend doing an in-depth study of animal sexual behaviors; especially the most intelligent animals. All animals have sex for pleasure, but some animals are only driven to have sex at certain times of the year; humans are on a 24/7 system.


>I’ve tried the no fap route and gotten very high days counts but that hasn’t really helped me at all.


Sexual frustration doesn't help anyone. If you are mindful, then you can use your libido to further your goals, but it is not an all-cure.


>Got any sources to help overcome sex-negative perspectives? I’m interested in recreational sex not baby making sex.


Absolutely. I recommend starting with actual sex science and learning about male and female psychology and neurology. Then work your way into reading about sex culture. You should also study developmental psychology as you will probably need the clinical context in order to objectively self-evaluate your childhood influences; it is necessary for self-therapy. The best therapy will always be self-therapy; no one will ever know you better than yourself.


Evolutionary Science and Morals Philosophy:

The Selfish Gene

The Moral Landscape

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?


Sex Psychology, Science, and Neurology:

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

The Female Brain

The Male Brain

Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love

What Do Women Want

Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)

Sex: The world's favorite pastime fully revealed


Behavioral Psychology and Abstract Economics:

How Pleasure Works

Freakonomics

Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking

Thinking Fast And Slow

We Are All Weird


Developmental Psychology:

Nurture Shock

Hauntings: Dispelling The Ghosts That Run Our Lives


Empathy Building:


Half The Sky

The House On Mango Street

Me Before You

The Fault In Our Stars

Also check out James Hollis' Understanding The Psychology of Men lecture if you can find it.



Movies: XXY, Tom Boy, Dogtooth, Shame, Secretary, Nymphomaniac, Juno, Beautiful Creatures, and The Man From Earth.



All of these things are related, but it is up to you to make the connections; pick and choose which material suits your interests best. These are the things that came to mind first, and they have all influenced my perspectives.

The other commenters have already explained this very well, but I'm going to try putting it in my own words anyway.

There are two things to talk about: sex and gender. Sex is the biological aspect while gender is the behavioral aspect. But wait, can't behavior have a biological influence? Everything points out that yes, it can, but it can also have environmental influences such as culture.

So how did sex arise? Some animals have only one sex, and some are even able to make babies with themselves. The reason some animals evolved away from this suggests an advantage to having multiple sexes in multiple people. The multiple people part is easy, genetic variability. If you only make sex with yourself, you're going to have very little change in your genes, and any new hazard, like viruses and changes in temperature could wipe your genome out.

What about different sexes? In this case, it is all about specialization. Having someone specialize in nurturing and someone specialize in proliferating might have given advantage to our predecessors. This specialization starts in our germ cells, with one producing small, motile, and ever proliferating spermatozoan and the other producing large, immobile, once in a lifetime eggs. Males make millions of spermatozoan during most of their lifetime while females make eggs only in an early age.

Now, what does that have to do with gender? It is possible that the different costs on the different types of sex cells could have led animals to behave differently. The female invests a lot on a single egg, so maybe she needs to be really picky about whom she mates with; the male can just throw his stuff around. It would also be dangerous if males started mating with males instead of females. That would be just wasted energy that could have been used in effective reproduction.

Note that this behavior isn't always observed in animals. The ultimate goal is gene survival, and there are many factors that help genes survive. Maybe a male fish will find that having a male lover while procreating with a female will cause this lover to protect his offspring for some reason. This would reinforce the behavior of keeping male lovers in this species.

Now, to humans. What makes humans complex is the hypothesis that we have this consciouness that can govern our lower impulses and perhaps even act against them. This area is still growing, and there are many theories. One could say that gene influence is still what matters most. Maybe by choosing not to have children and instead focusing on my career, I am helping my genes survive through other people (all humans have some similar genes, and if my career helps the world, it also helps my genes). On the other hand, I could argue that there is something in humans that really allows them to outrule their survival insticts, or that there are new powerful forces such as culture that can govern our actions more than our genes and our own will together.

So, is there such a thing as gender? Yes, but in humans it could go much beyond simple inherited "instincts". I recommend you read the chapter on sex of this book and maybe take a look at the selfish gene.

And here's a refutation of how this study is being interpreted, from this book that is exactly about the title of this thread.

Since people have already answered about the anarchist part thoroughly, just throwing my two cents out there: veganism is not necessary for being an anarchist (and in fact, depending on the country it is illogical to expect for everyone to be vegan). As for the fact that there can be 20 genders, that is a very complex topic. Essentially, gender is a social construct that assigns certain roles, characteristics, features, stereotypes to each sex (for example: women need to wear make-up, use high-heels in certain jobs, pink-color coded, long hair, they are more submissive, passive, and also nurturing; while men are strong, 'they like blue', are aggressive, usually short hair, etc. Super basic, but there are some books you can check if you're interested: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-Behind-Differences/dp/1848312202#reader_1848312202) Gender would be something like 'femininity' and 'masculinity'. Women, in this axis, are and have been historically oppressed due to their sex (this all for Engels started with Agriculture, you can read his 'Private Property, Family and the State'). It is for that reason that gender differs from society to society, it is not a universal concept (for example, in China, girls had to undergo foot binding). Sex is a material reality, that is, humans as a species are sexually diphormic, that is, there are two sexes (which also include 'deviations' from these sexes which come with complications such as intersex and different syndromes but that are still included under sexual diphormism). But sex does not equal gender. Brains aren't gendered. The mainstream left seems to have sided with a very liberal notion that identity makes reality, in which everyone can decide their gender (whatever that means? and which has no impact on reality), and instead of abolishing gender and letting everyone just be, it seems to side with the fact that femininity and masculinity equal sex, rather than divorce sex from the social construct that is gender and accept it as a material reality. While radical/materialist/marxist feminism proposes the abolition of gender, in doing so, sex would have no connotations at all as to how a person should dress, behave, or what their role in society is, etc and would be free to be themselves. In my opinion, it is radical feminism which has more solid foundations and a very solid theory. This is not even scratching the surface on the topic, though, and I'm not sure it's understandable, but I hope my comment was of some help. I strongly recommend you research this thoroughly, always keep a critical stance on what you read (on whatever you read, honestly), and come to your own conclusions, which can change when you know more, and they should.


As for 'left-wing', many ideologies can be lumped there, so you've got to be careful and always have a critical eye.

i loooved Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works"

> There's nothing strange about that, humans are not just information processing machines.

I would like to refer you to the book How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker, because it turns out that humans are information processing machines. Our brains don't work by magic, they follow the same laws of physics as everything else.

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker.

Honestly, as convenient as it is to point to studies showing brain differences and claim its a biological difference, there are also studies that indicate there isn't much brain difference between men and women to begin with. I don't believe that being trans is determined solely by biology, even if that does turn out to be a factor for some people.

The real truth is that no one is 100% sure why some people are trans and some people who present and act almost the same way are not. There's no way to tell who will be trans and who won't.

Think about a quiet person, who is sitting on their own in a busy coffee shop. They could identify themself any number of ways - maybe they are shy and anxious and wish they could reach out to people. Maybe they are introverted and enjoy being there on their own. Maybe they are just waiting for someone. But their behaviour looks the same to an outsider regardless of their internal identity. Only they know the truth of the matter.

Gender identity is a combination of many factors. It can be related to sex, sexual orientation, or behaviour for some people, and for some people it has nothing to do with any of those things. Gender identity is the personal relationship that you have to your body (i.e. to your biology), your relationship to the way other people view your body as a gendered body (i.e. to society's ideas about your assigned gender), and your relationship to your own thoughts and feelings about gender (i.e. how you have incorporated ideas about gender from society). If you grow up and all of these things align in a positive way, you are cisgender - you feel that your internal thoughts and feelings about your gender, the way society sees your gender, and how your body looks to you all match up. If one or more of these things don't gel with you, you might be trans or you might just play around with gender.

It's really something that most people have to explore for themselves to figure out - while there are some trans people who just inherently know they are actually a different gender than people say they are from a young age, there are also many trans people who have to experiment until they find out what works best with them and then base their identity off that. There are cisgender (non-trans) people who experiment with gender presentation but still feel most comfortable identifying as the gender they were assigned at birth.

Basically, what it means when someone says they are 'male' or 'a man' means that they identify as and are a man. Just think about the immense amount of difference between cisgender men. There are feminine cisgender men, masculine cisgender men, androgynous cisgender men, cisgender stay at home dads, cisgender businessmen, every possible variation under the sun. Almost half our population is made up of cis men. What does it mean to belong to such a huge population? Well, it's dependent on what that man's culture says being a man is, and how that man relates to that, and how that man relates to himself. It's entirely determined by us, whether we are cisgender or transgender.

(edited to add links to an article about Cordelia Fine's research and the amazon page for her book, Delusions of Gender)

This is a recent and well-acclaimed book on the subject, although I have not read it myself.

I once had the pleasure of hearing the feminist biologist, Marlene Zuk, speak. She was fantastic and I think you should check out her book [Sex on Six Legs] (https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Six-Legs-Lessons-Language/dp/015101373X)

Also, if you're not afraid of delving into psychology and neuroscience. I'd also recommend Cordelia Fine's [Delusions of Gender] (https://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494261794&sr=1-1&keywords=delusions+of+gender)

At the risk of further entering a debate in which I have already blundered, Cordelia Fine's excellent book Delusions of Gender discusses a number of examples of early gender socialisation including a self study done by a feminist woman on how her attitude to her unborn child changed after she discovered it was female. Fine's commitment to nurture brings up problematic issues with regards to trans* individuals experience of an internal gender dissonant with how they have been socialised, but her analyses of existing studies are worth reading.

The book he wrote discussing his work on phantom limb sensations is called 'Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind'. I found the experiments and really the whole book fascinating.

The Mirror Box, at least to me, shows how bizarre and flexible the human brain can be while also showing a relatively simple hack that can help reduce the pain and unpleasant sensations from a phantom limb.

Edit: modified some wording

keep fighting for your recovery and dont be easily satisfied. get second opinions, get more MRI's, hassle the docta.

I know you are not a research monkey in a cage, but theres some stuff in the mind and the brain that may be helpful to you. and its a good read.

as for your actual question I know in KY having one good arm is all you need to fulfil your CCW requirements but it could be different in FL, but you should be good.

From you are describing your grandfather is doing pretty good and it is looking positive for him as he can walk and say some words. It is possible for him to be functioning like before but it is hard to predict how he will recover.

I had a brain hemorrhage: what I learned from this on going experience is that it takes a lot of time to heal; months and years. Some people won't have any side effect from a brain injury, others will die. Your age and your lifestyle will affect how much and how fast you will recover but luck is an important factor also.

A brain injury is not like breaking an arm or losing a leg : those type of injuries are simple, you can see them and they don't affect the brain directly, they heal quickly. A brain injury is invisible and it is hard to predict the outcome.

After having read Ziferius comment, I would suggest watching this ted talk by Jill Bolt Taylor and reading this book : The brain that changes itself. Here a link to an episode of the nature of thing on CBC (Canada) talking about the book which I found interesting.

I wish your grandfather and you good luck on your journey !

What book are you reading? I've been reading The Brain that Changes Itself. I believe it mentions the same experiment with the monkey.

I also remember reading a line that said addiction causes permanent brain damage. Scary stuff.

So this got a bit long, sorry for that but I didn't want to work. When I get home, I'll try to add some sources for what I said about the human brain and maybe some stuff about neural networks Who's in Charge and Incognito are really great popular science introductions from well-known neuroscience researchers. There's also a BBC documentary which I found very fascinating. For neural networks, I'd recommend coursera.org or any odd intro book.

The rest is basically what I think about the whole issue extrapolating the above, and I have neither good data nor yet found good sources which deal with it. I simply have some objections concerning the ease of creating intelligence.

Feel free to criticise and update my views!

---

That's still not enough. The problem lies within what I call robustness and the fact that by relying solely on correlation, you lack the 'theoretical' part of science, i.e. you cannot postulate general principles before observing them. Let me explain:

1. Robustness.
   
   I'll use an example. Let's say we have a machine which we want to use to increase the efficiency of air ventilation in one of our tube (BE for subway) stations. It is equipped with several sensors: temparature, visuals of the tube station, the amounts of gases at any one point, etc.
   
   Now let's say this machine is only based on correlation, as really all things are up to now. This means that they get data on which preprogrammed software finds patterns, and more meta-software decides - after a few cycles of attempting the task - which is the best strategy to reach a preset goal. This works sufficiently well in sufficiently many cases, and at one point a human decides a treshhold at which an increase in efficiency makes a strategy viable for actual use (maybe test it for bugs, etc.).
   
   So this machine runs well for several years, until one day a whole group of passengers suffocates because the air conditioning is not turned on as they leave the tube wagon. How did it happen? The machine, after all, did its job marvellously beforehand. The problem is that external conditions changed in a manner not predicted by the engineers, and that in fact we only engineered the machine's behaviour indirectly without really knowing how it operated.
   
   The problem was, interestingly enough, that the machine learned that the most efficient way of predicting when tubes arrived was to correlate the arrival of trains with the time on the big clock in the main entrance. It's fairly reasonable, if our tube system is usually on time (So maybe we are in Switzerland, not the UK). However, during the night before, the clock broke and stood still. Since the machine didn't understand what it was doing, it didn't go "Hey, the clock's standing still but I know the concept of "being broken", hence I'd best alarm someone/switch to a different strategy and I don't want humans to die in any case .. " etc. It has no concept of death, or killing, or humans. It might not even know how to correlate anything beyond time and arrival, because it has worked so well beforehand, discarded everything else and was unable to re-train itself quickly enough. Even worse, from the POV of the machine nothing was wrong in the first place.
   
   Sure, you can fix it. But then, are you really confindent you are able to eliminate all possibilites for such bugs in the future? Same goes for testing beforehand. All in all, it doesn't sound very 'autonomous'.
   
   The problem is that by only using correlation to understand even simple problems in a very complex environment, even minute changes in said environment can render your whole correlation strategy useless. In other words, the strategy is not robust under changes in our environment. This is something which is acceptable in a very specialised environment that can be controlled by beings which think more robustly (such as humans or strong AIs) and grant the required oversight, and it is also where AFAIK all of the examples in the video came from. But this means that the machines can never be truly general purpose and act autonomously.
   
   Getting more machines only gives more strategies which work, and if done correctly can indeed increase robustness of a system. Though it is not clear by any means that this is always or even often the case! Bigger systems might just attract themselves to more narrow strategies as one strategy becomes dominant in a sufficiently large minority of the systems' members. You need a lot more than just a system - you need a way of controlling the precious tension between homogeneity and heterogenity of strategies.
   
   Quick side remark: there's one hypothesis in neurology that this is exactly why our consciousness gives an evolutionary edge; it acts as an arbiter between competing strategies and solves dilemmas which would otherwise lead to infinte loops or other bad stuff. Do not be angry at boredom. It's your brain going "we are stuck in a loop, change strategies or re-evaluate goals".
   
   That's where the second point comes in.
   
   
2. Postulating, or creating a model of the universe in your mind.
   
   What do you think is the reasons that it takes a decade or two for a human being to be able to act intelligently on most occasions? It's because it takes that long for us to use the hard-wired architecture of the brain and the given data from our senses to create a reasonably well functioning model of our environment in our minds.
   
   Our brains not only correlate, we postulate.
   
   The best way to see this is our eyes. You see only a fraction of what you perceive to be seeing. The rest? Your brain postulates it from the given data. This makes us quick, but also faulty. Such heuristics drastically diminish our processing requirements to survive in a very complex and ever changing environment. And they're everywhere, our whole architecture runs on it.
   
   But that's only the first part.
   
   Even when we close our eyes, our mind has learned to create a model of the entire environment we live in. Guess why you can "go through" situations in your head. You, consciously or not, simulate engagements that might happen in your head to react better when they do occur. But that's still not the best part. The best part, to me at least, is that we can take this physical model and add abstract notions to it.
   
   If I gave a reasonable intelligent human being the task of our machine in the first example, he or she would have been far worse in regulating the air ventilation. But, unless they slept, were unconscious or actively wanted to kill people, they would understand that the reason for air ventilation is to allow other humans to breathe, ergo they would always activate the ventilation when a train arrives.
   
   But this requires them to understand the concept of an arriving train, of human beings, why you do not want to kill them (very complex reasoning here, I'm serious), that not giving them air will kill them, etc. This can all be, somehow, encoded in a machine as well, but it must all be done before the machine is trained. A human can do so because they're a very well trained machines that postulates on its own all the time.
   
   But this is impossible, by definition, for a "correlation only" machine which resides in an environment which changes in a way the engineers didn't postulate themselves. The reason your brain simulates? So that that margin is relatively small for you. And even if it does, our brain somehow reflects upon itself and knows when it's outside its own comfort zone. That's where consciousness sets in and we mysteriously manage to quickly adapt and develop new strategies on the fly.
   
   And what I just said is so fucking incredible I'm in awe just writing this. From my own experience, I've learned stuff which I just shouldn't be able to ever learn, from an evolutionary point of view. For example, there is no reason my brain should be able to understand infinity. This doesn't occur in nature, and it only occurs within the context of civlisation. But I can, and we all have no idea how. We are so damn adaptable that you can throw us into any environment on this planet and we thrive. We change our own environment, and we still thrive.
   
   So in short:
   
   People shitting over human brains don't realize that our greatest strength are robustness and heuristics, combined by postulating (i.e. model building) and, as ultima ratio, our conscioussness as an arbiter between conflicting strategies and a "self-programmer" when we're out of our comfort zone (which we somehow are able to detect, meaning that we have in fact a model of our own mental abilites, and maybe a model of that, and ... ).
   
   We can do so because we benefit from billions of years of evolution, thousands of years of history which gives us an environment that teaches us (this is so important and is entirely overlooked in AI research AFAIK) and - for an adult - roughly two decades of 'real time learning' within that environment which allowed our brain to create a model of the physical world for itself which is constantly updated and for which we constantly predict outcomes. We have language, which allows us to do our own version of "networking", and it is so important that the ability for language it is hard-wired in our brain.
   
   You want to brute force all that? It might work. But I think we need, at least as our first step, to emulate all of the above and make thinking machines that are similar to us. Then we can abstract away from this. The correlation machines we are developing now are the first step to it, and they are marvellous. But they're just that, a first step.
   
   Edit: You only know more than 3 numbers because our civilisation developed it. Some tribes do not have higher numbers. Intelligence might be inseparately linked to access to communication with other intelligent beings.
   
   Edit2: Finally got hold of the books I thought about when writing this. I should mention that the example I used is actually taken directly from Peter Watts Drifter trilogy, a hard science story very well rooted in actual science with lots of references at the end of each book.

While the idea that the Great Link can create a planetary scale warp field is undeniably a cool one, I'm not sure that it's supported by on-screen evidence. That being said, there's nothing that explicitly says they can't do something like that, but like the other commenters in this thread, I think that if they had the ability they would have used it at some point during the Dominion War.

I don't think, however, that the Founders rest on any delusion that they are gods. Unlike say, Apollo from TOS or the Ori from Stargate, they don't present themselves as gods to those they encounter. They certainly take advantage of the perception that they are gods to the Jem'hadar and the Vorta, but those are species which they have had a direct hand in genetically manipulating.

The question then becomes, where does the perception that they are gods from those species come from? Sure, there could have been a grand demonstration of their divinity as OP posits, but the problem which such grand displays that they need re-enacting every generation or couple of generations or else they just vanish into myth and eventually somebody is going to start questioning.

So it comes back to the inference that if they had this grand power of planetary scale warp travel, they would have used it. Or even if they had some kind of epic god-like power, they would have used it.

So how do they maintain that iron-clad grip of certainty on the part of the Jem'hadar and the Vorta that they are gods? Maybe the answer lies in the fact that both the Jem'hadar and the Vorta are genetically engineered. Can it be that the belief in the Founders' divinity is hard-wired into the genetic code of their servitor species?

Odo suggests this to the defecting Weyoun 6 in "Treachery, Faith and the Great River":

> ODO: Has it ever occurred to you that the reason you believe the Founders are gods is because that's what they want you to believe? That they built that into your genetic code?


> WEYOUN: Of course they did. That's what gods do. After all, why be a god if there's no one to worship you?

Did Odo know this for a fact from his contact with the Great Link or was this just a dig? And was Weyoun 6 being snarky back?

But even if Odo was guessing, perhaps Weyoun 6 wasn't being facetious in his retort. In a 2002 book, Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, Andrew Newberg and Eugene d'Aquili talk about studies on brain activity during moments of religious experience. The studies used single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) to image regions of the brains of Tibetan Buddhists and Franciscan nuns which responded to altered states of consciousness during prayer and deep meditation.

They found that the human brain is genetically wired to encourage religious beliefs and to have spiritual and mystical experiences. During deep meditation, there is an increased activity in the frontal lobe area of the brain — it lights up at the peak of meditation. This was seen in an image of the brain taken during a transcendent experience.

The idea that there is a region of the human brain devoted to spirituality is not new. A few years before that, neuroscientists at UCSD identified such a "God Spot". The question is, I suppose, did God create our brains or did our brains create God? Is evolution predisposed to the idea of spiritual realms as an advantage or is the development of such a center pure chance?

That aside, maybe Odo's remark to Weyoun 6 really is correct: that the Founders, in creating the Jem'hadar and uplifting the Vorta into humanoids, inserted code that made them view the Founders as gods - they would literally have no choice in the matter, even in the face of contradictory thoughts or evidence (unless a chance mutation or defect took away or muted that genetic predisposition, like it did for Weyoun 6 in "Treachery"). This would also explain Weyoun 5's certainty about the divinity of the Founders even when, at the same time, he scoffed at the Prophets and Pagh-wraiths ("Tears of the Prophets"), and Weyoun 6's reaction to the suggestion of genetic manipulation as above.

Every single "person with similar views as nolimitsoldier" I have encountered has always fallen into 1 of the following groups.

1. "12-24 Naive" This is the age where people tend to dismiss feminism without taking any initiative to learn about new and old feminist theories. I understand why so many people in this group so readily believe misconceptions about feminism. It is due to lack of knowledge or background regarding the new and old feminist theories. Also why nolimitsoldier believes all feminists think they are artists / photographers is beyond me. I blame the countless people who don't take the time to learn about the concepts and definitions regarding feminism and much of the media. Isn't until people mature and take the initiative to learn about feminism and realize that modern societies are still patriarchal, misogynist, and sexist.
   
   
2. "Man Eaters" This misconception is the standard among those who still disregard feminism. Most I have met lack any true knowledge on the feminist theory and believe the myth that all feminist are hairy man hating lesbians. Feminists come from all background and genders so this couldn't possibly true. This stereotype is false. Myth:Feminists are man hating lesbians
   
   
3. "Corporate" Again more misconceptions. People complain about feminism, woman, etc, while not understanding what feminism has to do with the plight of the woman. At the end of the day it'll depend on the person and the person they're respecting if they're a good leader or not. Because believe it or not people come from all different backgrounds and cultures! It just goes against our cultured societal beliefs that women can be good leaders. **A side example of this is the iron my shirt incident with Hillary Clinton
   
   
4. "more bullshit" The definition of feminist varies in each textbook but they all mean the same thing in the end: people seeking the equal treatment of women. Men already dominate the world. This hasn't allowed women to dominate or control men in any way. And feminists aren't seeking the domination of men, we are seeking the equality of genders.
   
   To learn more about feminism you can read or watch the following websites,books, or videos:
   
   Youtube Videos or Channels:
   
   

• Tony Porter:A Call to Men
  
• Feminism Survey:Men on the Street
  
• Missrepresentation Documentary Trailer
  
• Joss Whedon's Equality Now speech
  
• Feminist Frequency
  
• Trixie Films
  
  Websites/Blogs:
  
  
• Finally Feminism 101
  
• Feminist Frequency
  
• Geek Feminism
  
• The F-Word
  
• Feminist Peace Network
  
• Gender Across Borders
  
• Feministing
  
• Feministe
  
• Tiger Beatdown
  
• Feminist Teacher
  
• The Feminist Hub
  
• Lipstick Feminists
  
  Books:
  
  
• Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by Bell Hooks
  
• Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings
  
• Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
  
• Gender Knot Revised Ed: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy by Allan G. Johnson
  
• Feminist Theory: A Reader by Wendy Kolmar
  
• The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory
  
• Third Wave Feminism: Expanded
  
• Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women's Movement
  
• Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity by Chandra Talpade Mohanty
  
• Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation
  
• Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation
  
• Enlightened Sexism by Susan J. Douglas
  
• Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape
  
• The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today by Kat Banyard
  
• Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune
  
• Transforming a Rape Culture by Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher and Martha Roth
  
• Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Ulrich
  
• Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power

Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney

I mean, the basic argument is that we have the ability to impact the wave function collapse. I'm not saying I support that. But that's the argument.

Here's a book that's not Deepak Chopra that gets into it. It's called "The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force".

The basic argument here is that because of quantum physics we're capable of rewiring our own neurology even when the neurochemistry says we can't.

Sounds really buzzwordy. I'm not well versed enough in the topics to say whether it's nonsense or not.

I think The User Illusion is one of the most fascinating books about this out there.

Our consciousness is a machine rewriting experience into a narrative where we think that the past is the present and that our decisions came before our actions.

If you want to delve into layman level reading on this sort of thing, look up books and videos by Robert Sapolsky. The book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers will teach you a lot about chronic stress, and why it's a bad thing.

Stress in and of itself is not bad, but chronic, prolonged bouts of the stress response, leads to a lot of issues. There are a plethora of physiological things going on, so it's sort of beyond the scope of this one post for me to list all of it, hence why I'm pointing you towards something to read on the layman level.

You can also read up on glucocorticoids.

EDIT: Just 'cause I like when people link me to stuff (I know the laziness, it is strong in us all), here:


Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers

Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives As Animals

The Trouble With Testosterone

The Brain That Changes Itself

The first three are R. Sapolsky, who is amazing. He also has a bunch of video lectures online you can find. I have to go do stuff now, so I can't go link to those, but they should be easy to locate on YouTube.

The last book is one that deals with neuroplasticity stuff, which is what you seem to be interested in, speaking on the malleability of the brain and all that. It's fascinating stuff, I know - that's what got me to pursue neuroscience all those years ago.

If you have anymore questions, or want more resources, just ask - I have a ton of stuff bookmarked or on harddrives, just have to set aside time to locate it.

> Truthfully, I've never actually been seen by anyone about my PTSD beyond being prescribed Xanax and various antianxiety antidepressants.

You've treated the symptoms, but not the cause.

> I almost called a therapist the other day. But of course phone calls are too scary.

What about online therapy, via messaging?

> Also I've never had a particularly good experience with them. I was seeing one during my abuse and they didn't pick up on it.

Have you tried a trauma therapist?

> I feel like admitting I need help makes me weak and makes them the winner.

This is a false belief, not a feeling. If you need help, getting help will meet your need. You deserve to get your needs met.

> All this to say, I feel dumb. Specifically emotionally dumb.

This is perfectly ok. It's not a block to getting help. Seek rational understanding, if you feel your emotions are blunted.

> Like I'm stuck in the mind if a twelve year old. I just can't explain it other than sometimes I feel like a petulant teen-ager, but totally justified in my actions.

This perfectly ok too. A good trauma therapist can work with this.

> My brain is just WRONG.
>I simply tell him to treat me like I've got a brain injury

This is a result of trauma. It contains two sides;

1. In some sense, those of us who lived through trauma in our childhoods, suffer 'brain damage' of a sort. Our brains form in response to the trauma, which is not how the brains of those without trauma form.
   
   
2. It leads us to believe we are forever brain damaged. However, this simply isn't true. The brain is plastic and changes throughout our lives. We can heal ourselves from trauma. Although it isn't trauma focused, you might want to check out the book The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. This book is full of real life stories, as well as experiments, which repeatedly prove how capable the brain is of repairing itself, whether from strokes or far worse.
   
   > Will I ever feel safe again.
   
   This I can't say. I don't feel safe myself. I was born into trauma and suffered it from birth to age 18. We can create safety for ourselves, but ultimately, there is no such thing as 100% safety at all times.
   
   > Good god reading that last bit, I'm a fucking monster.
   
   You're no monster. You've been traumatized, for quite a long period of time.
   

The Brain the Changes Itself is a good laymen's book on brain plasticity.

Another book I read said that some amputee patients would feel like someone was touching their face when they tried to move their amputated fingers because of the proximity of those areas on the sensory/motor cortex. (Guessing the sensory area for the face took over the motor area for the fingers?).

If anyone remembers the book? It was the professor that come up with the mirror trick to help with pain after amputation.

So now I'm googling because I've always been curious about this and I found a couple books on the subject, though they don't deal with MS specifically:

https://www.amazon.com/Brains-Way-Healing-Discoveries-Neuroplasticity/dp/014312837X/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=014312837X&pd_rd_r=7Y8WFEFKSJZ804H9V4JF&pd_rd_w=R6eC4&pd_rd_wg=LDtma&psc=1&refRID=7Y8WFEFKSJZ804H9V4JF

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0143113100&pd_rd_r=ZKM6NP8A26MXV4D7BVBR&pd_rd_w=Ra4iU&pd_rd_wg=6KI75&psc=1&refRID=ZKM6NP8A26MXV4D7BVBR

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0143113100/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ieCWCb4N9CXJP

This book will probably bring you more hope that her life will be normal than any comment here could. It's very scientific, and has a lot of reassuring information for you.

Please check it out!

Amazon.com version

Because that statement is false.

There's another statement used where the number of neuronal connections in a cubic mm of our brain is greater than the number of stars in the milky way. But this assumes the average of tens of thousands of connections to neuronal connections to neighboring neurons. You can find this in the book summary for this book: http://www.amazon.com/Incognito-Secret-Lives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307377334/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311852390&sr=8-1#

Edit: But since there are only about 300 billion (3x10^11) stars in the milky way, and one mole of water (only 18 mL volume) is approximately 18x10^23 atoms, it becomes fairly obvious why, mathematically, it's absurd to even imply that the number of neuronal connections in the brain can be more than the number of atoms in the universe.

This reminds me that I need to read his new book already.

If you're interested in the inner workings of the brain and it sounds like your are, there's a new book out.

Incognito

i love that story he/she made, and have read almost all of the source material he/she cited! I liked the fact that the story was almost entirely free of speculation of society/culture (beyond augmented employers wanting augmented employees). By sticking to the philosophical quandary itself, it was very believable and understandable as a "how we get there" story. To know more about human "consciousness" and what we call free will, I'd suggest reading Incognito, by David Eagleman.

Another quote about the singularity I enjoy is by Justin B. Rye:

>"As I see it, the main problem in designing a plausible 23rd century these days isn't lack of grandeur, it's the imminence of changes so fundamental and unpredictable they're likely to make the dramas of 2298 as unintelligible to us as the Microsoft Anti-Trust Suit would be to Joan of Arc."

And just to keep away the near-religious fervor that begins to brew up inside of my optimistic brain, i tend to either imagine scenarios of how the Singularity could be a bad thing (I love drawing and writing), and watch Bruce Sterling's "Your Future as a Black Hole".

Remember to keep your cautiously optimistic wits about you on this subject!

Have you read Delusions of Gender ?

I believe that educating yourself about shame is the best thing you can do for yourself and ultimately others. Read (or listen to) "Daring Greatly" and "Neurosis And Human Growth". These books have lead to discovery which has lead to understanding which has lead to peace, for me. 100% chance they will help you too. :)

---

https://www.amazon.com/Daring-Greatly-Courage-Vulnerable-Transforms/dp/1592408419/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=daring+greatly&qid=1567279095&s=gateway&sr=8-3

---

https://www.amazon.com/Neurosis-Human-Growth-Struggle-Self-Realization/dp/0393307751/ref=sr_1_1?crid=EQAV5UKFJ9YP&keywords=neurosis+and+human+growth+karen+horney&qid=1567279160&s=gateway&sprefix=neurosis+%2Caps%2C197&sr=8-1

>I agree with you here. So does this mean you disagree with TRP's stance on this topic?

I've never been one for towing the party line.

> Interesting. I still don't really get it honestly. women are emotionally trained to place responsibility for their feelings onto their partners? What does this mean, and what leads you to believe that?

There are 2 parts to this. One is well explained by Women's Infidelity by Michelle Langley, and is also it's a common criticism feminism makes of popular culture. Society conditions women that marriage or a relationship with a man will make them happy. That they need to find the right guy who will complete them (the implication that without a man they are incomplete). This is bullshit of course, no one can make anyone else happy. You have to learn to be happy yourself.

The second part is that while society conditions men to be stoic (avoid and suppress their feelings) girls are taught to over identify with them. Women who aren't emotionally whole often surrender to their feelings, rather than simply accept them, while understanding the distinction between their being and what they feeling in any given moment.

TRP accurately observes that women end marriages (and probably relationships) more than men, but concludes falsely that this is because women cannot love the way men can. In reality, it's the combination of what I described above. Women enter into relationships thinking that will magically make them happy and they will feel whole and complete and loved. When this doesn't happen because it was never realistic to begin with, they begin to feel sad, anxious, and often angry. While a man would probably bury these emotions until he explodes (or becomes depressed) women both act on them and blame their partners due to how they have been emotionally conditioned.

>There is an huge amount of psychological evidence to support this assertion, and anyone who has spent any time working on emotional healing and therapy will quickly see that I am correct.

Here are some links, but these are books not easily digestible articles. The important thing to understand is that core emotional problems are the same amongst all people. It's the external expression of that pain that is often gendered. Reading about the difference between NPD and BPD will shed some let on this.

Women's Infidelity

Facing Co-Dependence

The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion

Healing the Shame that Binds You

Healing Your Aloneness

Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization

>I don't really see what this has to do with gender. Both partners need to feel that expression of love. Dread Game actually seems to be based around purposely withdrawing love and affection, which seems irreconcilable with the idea of unconditional love.

What tends to be gendered is the preferred expression of love (love language). Different people need and express love differently, and sometimes couples don't have compatible styles of showing affection. In cases where one partner will not work on the issue, that partner is withdrawing their love. I agree that dread game is not compatible with unconditional love, and I don' think I ever said it was compatible.

Yes. Dario Nardi, a professor at UCLA did/has been doing personality research with EEGs. He has a book where he published his methodology, sample size, and findings, but there are also readily available YouTube videos, PDFs, and even a Reddit AMA where his findings are presented. I should mention that he uses Jung's model of functions, but the four-lettered MBTI types.

I did Google the Pittenger study since it wasn't on your list, but it seems like he didn't take functions into consideration as he says, "MBTI theory states that each of the four preference dimensions stands alone," which is contrary to Jung's idea that each MBTI preference is either introverted or extroverted in nature in the function stack. It also doesn't seem like any imaging technology was used, so at the very least I don't think it contradicts Nardi's findings.

I'm not trying to pick a fight and obviously you've done more research into the psychological aspects of personality, but I don't think we can fully discount MBTI/Jung's functions as adequately predicting how people will react or what they might be good at. I think there is variance based on individuals, context, culture, and circumstances, but there are certainly correlations. Furthermore, I don't think it can be used to predict what career you'll excel in or what your hobbies are or if you like your coffee black or not (as some people try to use it for).

Also, I'm not expecting you do research Nardi's findings in any depth but if you do and you happen to find holes, please do let me know. I'm always open to being wrong.

Cognitive functions are legit.

https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Personality-Brain-Insights-People/dp/0979868475

I recommend the book Irreducible Mind. It contains a wealth of well documented cases of a variety of paranormal phenomena, responds to common objections, and avoids sensationalizing. It also attempts to outline a theory that explains all paranormal phenomena in a scientific, methodological way.

EDIT: You can browse the book on Google Books.

At a first year student ‘Neuroscience- exploring the brain’ has been recommended if that helps

Steven Pinker discusses this in How the Mind Works. I think your summary jibes very well with his description.

• laughter is noisy because it's a form of communication
  
• laughter can dress actual aggression as "fun"
  
• causing laughter is very often a display of wit meant to lift the actor and degrade the object.
  

> The idea that the mind is in some way non-physical.

The mind is a product and an element of the physical brain. It may not be concretely tangible (i.e., you can't hold a mind), but that does not mean it is not a part of the physical universe. Physics explains the mind quite well, actually. The neurons in our brain are developed in compliance to the laws of physics and biology, the neurochemicals in our brain are physical substances, and the electric currents in our brains that communicate signals between neurons operate in compliance to the laws of physics.

Evolution also provides insight into the development of consciousness. While, sure, humans are the only terrestrial species with advanced enough consciousness to develop religious and philosophical ideas, we know now that many animals have forms of consciousness and proto-consciousness like what we would expect if humans evolved consciousness from simple origins. The mind is perfectly explainable through naturalistic sciences, and our naturalistic model of human consciousness makes predictions that are falsifiable.

I'd suggest reading Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works. Here's a talk he gave on the book. I'd also suggest his The Stuff of Thought, The Language Instinct, and The Blank Slate.

I'd also suggest Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. While it's main thrust is to show how science can inform morality, it offers some pretty decent layperson explanation of consciousness, and it is written by an accomplished neuroscientist (whatever your opinion on his religious works may be). His pamphlet-esque Free Will also covers some good ground here.

> All able-bodied humans are born with the ability to learn language.

Not at all true. You can be able-bodied and learning disabled. There was a nonverbal autistic student at my middle school years ago who ran track. Trivial point, but still incorrect.

> I would argue humans also have a Spiritual Acquisition Device.

I would argue that this argument is SAD. (pun; sorry.)

You're positing a massively complex hypothetical neurological infrastructure to link human brains to a divine alternate universe or dimension that has never been shown to exist. Not only has this neural uplink never been observed, but it is entirely unnecessary, as neuroscientists and psychologists have a perfectly functional, testable model of consciousness without it. You're adding a new element to that model that is functionally redundant and untestable. Occam's Razor would trim away your entire posited element out of extraneousness and convolution.

I agree with The Selfish Gene and Surely You're Joking and would like to add:

• How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker
  
• Phantoms In The Brain by V.S. Ramachandran

I recommend a book by Steven Pinker called How the Mind Works.

I don't think there will ever be a perfect rule that can be applied across all possibilities without fail, but for me one of the major things I look for is whether the author is a respected scientist actively working in the field (or, if they're retired, had an active history in the field).

So your Gazzaniga and Brown books I wouldn't even hesitate to recommend to others, without even having read them. It helps that I've read other books by those authors and their research, but their names alone are enough for me to give them a tick. Of course that doesn't guarantee that they're good books, but if you're asking for a rule on how to judge a book before reading it, then that's probably going to result in more success than failure.

The second thing I look for is whether the author has a history of writing polemics and intentionally controversial books in order to increase sales (a sort of "clickbait" approach to books), and whether their names are associated with criticism for misrepresenting basic issues in the areas they discuss. As such, people like Gladwell and Pinker would be ruled out by this.

>I'd also love to hear /r/skeptic 's suggestions for reading specifically about learning, drive, motivation, discipline...

My personal suggestions would be:

Understanding Behaviorism - William Baum (touches a little more on rigorous academic work rather than being a purely pop work, but still has some good pop chapters).

The Science of Self-Control - Howard Rachlin

Breakdown of Will - George Ainslie

Some related books but not directly on those topics:

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks (It's a cliche suggestion but still a good book).

Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience - Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld (More methodological issues with neuroscience research and reporting).

Delusion of Gender - Cordelia Fine (Critical look at some of the research on gender differences).

I don't really agree with him.

This whole 'you can't flip masculine things and feminine things' is just a social construct like 'masculine' and 'feminine' things are to begin with. I also don't think 'believability' is a relevant trait considering we're already dealing with fantasy universes. Who is to say that women aren't just as strong as men in Random Fantasy Universe #754 or whatever? I mean, they already have magic and completely impossible creatures. It doesn't seem like that big of a stretch.

The whole idea of gender as some immutable thing with factual qualities that can't be defied in any way and any attempt to do so innately repulses people pretty much just reinforces the gender norms of society, which I think we'd be way better off without anyway. Delusions of Gender, a really good book, goes into how false ideas about the immutability of gender do real damage to people.

sure! I took a women's studies course my last semester of college so I'll go ahead and use the books I read for that class as a starting point since they were a great introduction to feminist lit for me:

• Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine (a hilarious and REALLY great read that challenges the notion that men and women are intrinsically a certain way; debunks a lot of famous studies and cites a lot more to make her point)
  
  
• Girlfighting by Lyn Mikel Brown (challenges the whole "girls are nasty" stigma)
  
  
• Appetites: Why Women Want by Caroline Knapp (absolutely incredible memoir that recounts the author's struggle with an eating disorder while also making SUCH smart insights about women's relationship with food, shopping, and sex amongst other desires - I can't recommend this one enough!)
  
  
• Flirting with Danger by Lynn Phillips (also loved this one - talks about women's relationships with men and the various discourses surrounding women's sexuality as well as how women make sense of their negative sexual encounters)
  
  the links aren't necessarily for the least expensive versions you can find, so I'd suggest doing some digging :-)

It should be noted that not every study about gender is accurate or trustworthy. According to this book on neurological studies, often the studies without any rigourous methodologies get a lot of press because they promote existing ideas about the gender binary, while studies that do not conform to our existing idea of gender will get no press whatsoever, no matter how well executed the study was. It's worth examining the methodologies behind a study before believing that it holds water! (I highly recommend the book, if studies on gender interest you! It is so engrossing and well written, good for laypeople and more scientific folks alike!)

I prefer science to belief. Brains are different, but it's more about the individual than the sex.

>Brain imaging techniques have simultaneously offered an increasingly detailed profiling of brain activity, giving researchers access to enormous data-sets. There has also been a discovery that our brains can actually be moulded by different experiences, including those associated with being male or female. This clearly illustrates the problem of the biological determinist approach. It also shows the need to account for variables such as education, and economic and social status when comparing brain characteristics.

>Psychologists have also started to show that many of the psychological traits we think of as either male or female actually exist on a spectrum. A recent studyrevisiting a number of such behavioral characteristics, showed that they typically do not fall into two neat, non-overlapping binary categories. Even men’s “superior” skills in spatial cognition—a well-established stalwart—has been shown to be diminishing over time, even disappearing. In certain cultures, the situation is actually reversed.

>And it doesn’t end there. The very concept of a “male” and “female” brain has been found to be flawed. A recently reported study showed that every brain is actually a mosaic of different patterns, some more commonly found in men’s brains and some in women’s. But none could be described as fully male or fully female.

http://www.newsweek.com/sexism-brains-female-male-neurosciences-feminism-determinism-514426

https://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244

One of the books on your list that looks promising is Sexing The Body. While it may not provide an in depth overview of human biology it will likely provide the appropriate background information. Many other books under the gender studies umbrella do explore and explain biological sex (male, female, intersex), prominent scientific studies, and current areas of research. One book not on the list is Delusions of Gender and it is just one book to explore these issues.

At the end of the day that's a reading list to get the PhD student started. By the end of their PhD they will have ready 3-4x that many articles and books. Those of their choosing will focus in on areas of research that they are interested in. That may include basic research on human anatomy, biology, and sex.

I guess the question is what do you think is missing from these books that discuss gender and sex from a biological perspective that can only be gained from human biology textbooks?

For the science lovers:

Gender

• Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine. Lecture here.
  
  
• Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders by Alice Eagly and Linda Carli
  
  
• Myths Of Gender: Biological Theories About Women And Men by Anne Fausto-Sterling
  
  
• Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Anne Fausto-Sterling
  
  
• A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Behavior of Women and Men: Implications for the Origins of Sex Differences by Wendy Wood and Alice Eagly
  
  Race
  
  
• The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

I find people recommending Delusions of Gender a lot. Seems to relate more to debunking "scientific" explanations of differences between men and women, but it could be a good foundation for looking over some cultural assumptions about gender.

That's called "biotruths", friend, and those are fairly strongly debunked by science. A decent basis in psychology, anthropology, or any of the other social sciences will lead you to notice that nearly all differences in men and women are based in social conditions and the society they are raised in than based on physical differences or hormones. Men are not naturally prone to violence, this is based upon cultural assumptions of gender normatives which forces the penchant for violence upon the child, regardless of the personal family environment of the child.

Remember that there are far greater differences between individuals within a single gender than there are between individuals in separate genders. A good way of thinking of this is to imagine that we have put numerical differences upon the traits and men score around 1 - 85 and women score around 15 - 100. Sure, there are differences, but there's so much variety within the genders that the differences are basically irrelevant. Most people are a smattering of "masculine" and "feminine" traits.

You should engage the social sciences, friend. There's a lot of interesting and exciting data coming out of the field of gender studies!

Suggested Reading:

Hyde (2009) The Gender Similarities Hypothesis

Cordelia Fine (2011) Delusions of Gender

Peterson and Hyde (1997 - 2007) A Meta-Analytic Review of Research on Gender Differences in Sexuality

Article: There really is no difference in men and women's math abilities

Article: Transsexual differences caught on brain scan

EDIT: A good place to learn and discuss Trans issues is /r/SRSDiscussion. There's a large variety of different users on there with deep knowledge of the topic at hand. I highly suggest you post any questions you have regarding Trans issues there with them. If you think that "some kind of cis-sexism may be based in biological reality, not culture", then I'm sorry friend, but you have very little understanding of what Cissexism is and have a lot to learn about gender. Start there and read more into the topic. It's a fascinating topic. I think you'll enjoy it!

There's little dispute that women are better at giving birth and men are better at growing mustaches, but almost everything else is, to a certain extent, a social construct rather than a biological truth. The notion that men are better at mathematics has to do with generations of girls being discouraged from pursuing higher education. The notion that women are better caregivers comes from generations of (almost) every career save motherhood being closed to women.

Most studies that have sought to "prove" that one gender is better than the other at whatever have been deeply flawed, and carried out by researchers more interesting in confirming their own beliefs than in gathering actual data. There are a ton of examples in this book.

It's also interesting to note that people who are stereotyped as being bad at something perform worse when reminded of those stereotypes, even indirectly. For example, female students and black students perform worse on math tests when required to fill out demographic information beforehand. Food for thought.

I fully endorse his book - Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

Do you like a good read? If so:

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

V.S. Ramachandran's The Tell-Tale Brain goes into detail regarding synesthesia, among other curious neurological topics. See also: Phantoms in the Brain.

Both books are very easy to read and deliver amazing insight into how the brain actually works. Ramachandran addresses synesthesia (along with mirror neurons and empathy, which are fascinating as shit) more in The Tell-Tale Brain.

First, read Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind.

Then do your presentation on pretty much anything in the book. It is about how physical changes to the brain can cause very weird psychological results, and not just your standard "Phineas Gage" personality changes, either. We're talking the inability to perceive motion, or hallucinating cartoon characters in blind spots... all kinds of crazy stuff.

"Can you walk?"

"Sure I can walk." Mrs. Dodds had been lying in her bed or sitting propped up in a wheelchair for the past two weeks. She had not taken a single step since her fall in the bathroom.

"What about your hands? Hold out your hands. Can you move them?"

Mrs. Dodds seemed mildly annoyed by my questions. "Of course I can use my hands," she said.

"Can you use your right hand?"

"Yes."

"Can you use your left hand."

"Yes, I can use my left hand."

"Are both hands equally strong?"

"Yes, they are both equally strong."

Now this raises an interesting question: How far can you push this line of questioning in these patients? Physicians are generally reluctant to keep on prodding for fear of precipitating what the neurologist Kurt Goldstein called a "catastrophic reaction," which is simply medical jargon for "the patient starts sobbing" because her defences crumble. But I thought, if I took her gently, one step at a time, before actually confronting her with her paralysis, perhaps I could prevent such a reaction.

"Can you touch my nose with your left hand?"

Her hand lay paralyzed in front of her.

"Mrs. Dodds, are you touching my nose?"

"Yes, of course I'm touching your nose."

"Can you actually see yourself touching my nose?"

"Yes, I can see it. It's less than an inch from your face."

At this point Mrs. Dodds produced a frank confabulation, almost a haullicnation, that her finger was nearly touching my nose. Her vision was fine. She could see her arm perfectly clearly, yeet she was insisting that she could see the arm move.

I decided to ask just one more question, "Mrs. Dodds, can you clap?"

With resigned patience she said, "Of course I can clap."

"Will you clap for me?"

Mrs. Dodds glanced up at me and proceeded to make clapping movements with her right hand, as if clapping with an imaginary hand near the midline.

"Are you clapping?"

"Yes, I'm clapping," she replied.

I didn't have the heart to ask her whether she actually heard herself clapping, but, had I done so, we might have found the answer to the Zen master's eternal koan or riddle - what is the sound of one hand clapping?

___

from Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

my thoughts: mere curiosities

I would recommend books by neurologist V.S. Ramachandran such as Phantoms in the Brain

From a more psychiatric slant, books by Ronald K Siegel like Whispers and Fire in the Brain are collections of case studies about delusions and hallucinations

I would love to do this, I suggest Phantoms in the brain.

I haven't seen this come up in the comments yet, but there is well known condition called Phantom limbs and phantom pains. It was well-documented in a book called phantoms in the brain by VS Ramachandren (sic?).

In the book he describes people that were in accidents and had amputations but still felt very real pain in their Phantom limbs. He discovered that the solution was to create an illusion of the missing limb by using a mirror contraption, and then somehow performing therapy on the reflection of the limb. There's something about the visual feedback of seeing the phantom limb undergoing therapy that helped.

Edit: phantoms in the brain - http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0688172172?pc_redir=1395668249&robot_redir=1]

>My frustration largely stems from the fact that what envision this subreddit to be, it isn't.

I know where you are now, as far as perspective of how "hateful" everything feels. I have been at this for quite some time (about 10 years, not this subreddit, but as an MRA) and in that time you sort of get a thick skin and "troll X-ray" glasses.

I can tell you the "secret" but it's not so much knowing, it is building up the expertise to spot. Basically I read everything and analyze it by essentially ignoring opinion (very large portion of content) and confront either opinions presented as facts, or facts (and citations) themselves.

this is just a small part of it. I really, really (believe) I know where you are now, and what I probably don't have the ability to relay is that "No, we don't have some central leader, government backing, social support system" or ANYTHING of that nature.

People outside of this reddit imply that "Anywhere that isn't a female space is a male space" That MRA's are redundant.

When your own experience in trying to make a club showed you, no, "The MRM gets less support than even a LGBT club". How does it feel to be ignored even on that level?

White supremacists, God yes, that is probably our largest problem (outside of reddit) this subreddit a while back had to scare away "stormfront", Men's News Daily was shut down mainly because it became a conservative talking points hub.... Yes, "Men's Rights" crosses over some paths traveled by less savory individuals, but the paths themselves are not evil.

I am going to be writing a lot because it's the least I can do, (You did try making a club FUCK YEAH!). Trying and failing is almost better than trying and succeeding. The push-back and failure to do so is data in-itself of something that is horribly wrong.

I don't even know where to begin.

Intro

I'll try and relay to you in the quickest manner possible as much pertinent information that I think will be valuable to you at the stage you currently are at. A lot of it you may already know. I also suspect you may still have a bit of a "white knight" shell, and am not sure how far through the looking glass you have come. Some of the sources I link to might seem misogynist on the surface, but that, I wish to claim (my opinion) is because society as a whole so conflates constantly "feminism" with "female" that to attack one is synonymous with attacking other. I am cutting the intro short.


Who

Christina Hoff Sommers

Angry Harry

ManWomanMyth

Paul Elam

Warren Farrel

Glenn Sacks (older content)

There are others, but those are the cornerstones that have shaped my foundation

What

I have read so many articles, news reports, studies and what-have-you, just listing them will be of no service. I think the most valuable single point pieces I have found are below.

Is there Anything good about Men
An American Psychological Association Invited Address

Consad Report - "An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women
Abstract overture, link to PDF of study on the above page. DOWNLOAD AND READ FULLY. This study was first removed from US government portals then it was moved and hidden a number of times. I know this because I have used it multiple times over the last few years and it likes to go "walk about".

Man, Woman, Myth MRA Documentary series
A must watch, beginning to end, MUST WATCH. He also has a youtube channel but the channel doesn't have all the videos. The above link is the complete collection and really is worth your time. It is UK based but nearly everything has relevance in any western country. (UK, US, Australia run nearly parallel with male issues as it pertains to law)

Male Studies: A Consortium of Scholars
This was the first symposium of the "Male studies" proposition. It is very poor quality and difficult to hear at times, but a very powerful academic perspective of the issues with males in today's society. Christina Hoff Sommers really shines in the piece.

Edge:THE SCIENCE OF GENDER AND SCIENCE
A Harvard debate that focuses not on IF their is a different intelligence distribution between men and women, but why. The data that is covered alone is invaluable. This is not a "men are better than women" issue. It is a piece of the puzzle and explains in part "why" men are over-represented in the technical sciences.

Books

See you in 100 years.
-Not a "direct" MRA resource, but an invaluable account as to why gender roles existed in our recent history that is outside any "corrupt" sense of a patriarchal conspiracy.

The War on Boys
-Beyond the boy focus, it is also a great 2ndary deconstruction as to just how corrupt or faulty institutionalize feminism has become.

The Myth of Male Power

How the Mind Works
-Valuable as it is essentially a collection of studies by all sorts of parties that explain through experimentation as to why humans behave the way they do, including the gender differences. Steven Pinker summarizes but the studies aren't his.

I know it is a lot of data and content,

One thing I want to relay. "Decide for yourself". I was raised a feminist, all the way down to carrying a "Pro choice" sign when I was 7 or 8 in a protest line. I became an MRA when I tried to argue against them. I challenged them for proof, and when they supplied it I sought out counter-evidence to refute the claims, this was 10-11, maybe a bit further ago. And as hard as I tried reality and logic did not mesh with the "cornerstones" of feminism, to the talking points.

I know you aren't coming from the same point, but I wish to state that the MRM, and the history of it is so much more than this subreddit.

No.

Read a book. May I suggest:

How the Mind Works

Consciousness Explained

The Crucible of Conscoiusness

The Astonishing Hypothesis

The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature

I recommend reading: The User Illusion by Tor Norretranders, Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter, and I Am a Strange Loop also by Douglas R. Hofstadter for some interesting reading on the subject (Warning: Gödel, Escher, Bach isn't for everyone- it's a bit strange, but I love it). I read a lot of books on science in general and, based on that, it seems like many believe consciousness and also free will is just an illusion. In fact, just a few days ago, physicist Brian Greene sorta-kinda said as much in his AMA - granted, he's talking specifically about free will and not consciousness per se, but I think the two must be very related.

I, too, believe in God and also have a very strong belief in and enthusiasm for science, so this is an especially fascinating question for me.

BTW: if you're interested in the way the brain works in general, I highly recommend How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker.

I'm reading How The Mind Works right now. I can tell you, no extra-natural explanation is reasonable to entertain for consciousness. They are not necessary. My prior reading deals with this as well. What happens to our brains affects our conscious experience with such fidelity that the only way to imagine that consciousness doesn't emerge as a property of a brain is to ignore what we know to be true.

Here are some examples of articles I am amassing that relate to brains and therefore consciousness:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2009/11/11/learned-helplessness/

https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/3048

http://loiter.co/v/the-mysterious-you-dont-understand-me-workings-of/

http://www.livescience.com/23283-east-vs-west-coast-culture-differences.html

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2006-07/mental-workout

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-humans-are-biased-toward-good-news-20120924,0,1690699.story

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2012/nichd-28.htm

http://www.mindflash.com/blog/2011/02/how-does-the-brain-retain-information/?view=mindflashgraphic

http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/this-must-be-heaven

http://loiter.co/v/mathematician-participates-in-an-experiment-design/

http://www.kyb.mpg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/files/publications/pdfs/pdf2059.pdf

http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=2300277

This one is solid science, it's not directly relevant, but I'll leave it here since the wikibot is already on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_oTEhFAAARE

I'll leave this one here, because psychology is fun http://loiter.co/v/how-to-fool-a-baboon/

http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/molyneuxs-question-gets-answered-after-300-years/story-fn5fsgyc-1226037177460

There is pseudoscience here, but it makes me think: http://jewels.hubpages.com/hub/Consciousness__Thoughts_and_the_Brain

http://www.33rdsquare.com/2012/06/will-neuroscience-lead-to-new-type-of.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx53Zj7EKQE

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/retrieve/pii/S096098221300002X

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7456588.stm

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/21/174830095/frans-de-waals-bottom-up-morality-were-not-good-because-of-god

http://www.nicolelislab.net/?p=369

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/20/174729853/where-did-life-come-from-the-mind-the-universe-can-we-even-know

http://www.nature.com/news/see-through-brains-clarify-connections-1.12768

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/cns-mta041613.php

Pseudoscientific thought experiment, fun to argue with http://www.west.net/~simon/brain-soul-consciousness.html

http://www.livescience.com/28941-physicist-proposes-new-way-to-think-about-intelligence.html?cid=dlvr.it

http://www.treehugger.com/health/study-shows-walk-park-fixes-fuzzy-brain.html

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/understanding-the-brain-of-a-man-with-no-conscious-memory/

Interesting, still no idea what to make of it, though: http://www.gizmag.com/quantum-entanglement-speed-10000-faster-light/26587/

More pseudoscientific thought experiments. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_paradigmaholo06.htm

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/11/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath/

http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2013-8?op=1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23431793

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/three-years-later-the-girl-in-the-window-learns-to-connect/1186860

Edit: I accidentally lumped some links in there that have nothing to do with the subject. I will be reviewing these and deleting them in the next minutes.

Edit 2: done deleting stuff. If anyone wants anything back, or wants to discuss part of it, go ahead.

There are a couple of books that I think your library may have (or be able to get through interlibrary loan).

Nobody Passes,
Delusions of Gender,
She's Not the Man I Married.

The last book is the sequel to an earlier one, and is probably one that would speak most to what you seem to be asking in this post.

When I'm having a discussion about gender, one of the visual analogies I like to do is this (motions in italics, spoken is not italics):

(take a piece of paper, like 8½ x 11 or A1)
All humans have emotions and feelings and desires and hope and longings.
start tearing the paper into smaller squares
These pieces represent the feelings, hopes, desires and emotions we all have.
there should be one pile now
Each society and culture decides which of these human things is masculine and which is feminine
split the pile into 2 piles
One pile is for humans with penises, the other for humans with vaginas.
take 1-2 pieces from each pile and put them into the other
As long as one mostly conforms to society's idea of what belongs in each pile, a little difference is acceptable.
take a lot more than 1-2, but less than half from each pile and pop it into the other pile
But when too much of you is different from what society expects, you get called sissy, fag, dyke, queer, tomboy and other bad & cruel things. Bad enough that some people will attack and beat you for being different. Long before children know what sex is, they're beating each other for being too different while denouncing the victim as a fag or lezzie. And even as adults, the violence gets called things like "hate crime" and "gay bashing" and sometimes results in death.
now take almost all of it, more than half of each pile and toss them into the other pile
And sometimes, you get so far from what society expects that you get like this. Where you are convinced that you're in the wrong body. That's usually called "gender dysphoria*.

From there, there is usually a discussion with questions and answers, and it is OK for the answers to be "I don't know" or "I don't know yet".

I don't know if your SO was victimized in school, but that can make some folks think that they're really more of the wrong sex than they really are (as in they're really "just a sissy" and not "a woman trapped in a man's body"). This is grossly over-simplified, but I think it gives an idea of what a real therapist would be needed to identify. And please don't think I'm disparaging sissies, transgendered people or anyone in between.

It is normal for you to not be attracted if your SO transitions - because attraction and sexual identity is very important; and people rarely look into where it comes from and why. It isn't reasonable to say "well, it is still the same person inside" because it is extremely common to lose attraction (and become disgusted) when your partner gains large amounts of weight. It is still the same person inside, but the package is not what we're looking for. I'm sorry. You're sorry. We're all sorry.

Delusions of Gender

I'm not sure exactly if this fits into the kind of book your are looking for. It goes into a lot of detail about expectations and how we set ourselves and each other up to act certain ways depending on gender expression. The core I guess of the book is trying to get you to think outside of the biology of gender as absolute and focus more on the cultural influence.

This is a must-read.

Allow me to clarify on my first point: There are no behavioural differences between men and women that cannot be explained by nurture.

I'd direct you towards Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine:
https://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244

When I was far younger, I was convince by books like The Male Brain, The Female Brain, Why Gender Matters, Boys Adrift, and Girls on the Edge that sex played an enormous role in behavior and function. I am now very skeptical of that notion. You linked three articles within your earlier post; I read the meta-analysis and the abstracts of the other two and agreed with their findings for the most part: There are substantive physical differences between a male and a female brain. However, this proves little towards behavior. Two brains can have different structure yet function at the same level, accomplish the same goal.

My argument is: Just because a male and female brain have different structure, it does not follow that their functionality is different. That leads to the dangerous psuedoscientific thought that men and women must be better at different things, and thus maintain different spheres, so on and so on. It's the sort of justification scientifically backed sexism uses.

If you want to actually prove to me that the differing structure of male and female brains is a significant cause of behavioral differences, you'll have to do a bit more digging. I would posit that the reason men and women bear behavioral differences is because of the differences in their bodies, which have led to different treatment and power dynamics throughout history.

When the sex-equals-brain-function argument really gets me going is when it starts to suggest that men aren't capable of empathy, or women aren't capable of complex problem solving. That's patently untrue, and it dehumanizes each.

And this study published last year in PNAS concluded that "human brains cannot be categorized into two distinct classes: male brain/female brain."

I'm not saying that the PNAS study (or any other study -- including the ones you cited) is 100% of reliable or methodologically perfect. I'm not a neuroscientist; I don't know enough about the subject to critically examine the methodology or results of any of these studies. But enough bad science has been done in this field that a psychologist wrote a whole book about it.

Nevertheless, thanks for the links. It's always interesting to read about the science behind trans issues.

Por el momento estoy leyendo estos dos con ganas:

• The Maid's Version (link). Lo empece a leer hoy en el tren, por ahora no tengo nada para decir.
  
  
• The Tell-Tale Brain. (link) Esta bueno, es como un up-to-date de lo ultimo en neurociencias desde una perspectiva evolutiva. Es de divulgacion asi que pasa como agua.
  
  Termine dos libros entretenidos, (el primero es el que recomiendo fervientemente a los nerds de reddit):
  
  
• The soul of a new machine, de tracy kidder (link), es un libro genial de como diseñan y construyen un procesador, pero ademas en el fondo me parece que es un libro de la historia de como cambia el management en las empresas de tecnologia, la verdad que es genial (creo que inspira a la serie halt and catch fire). Edit.:dije que era genial?
  
  
• El segundo libro es Masters of Doom, que es la historia de ID software. Aunque tiene bastante de puterio interno me gusto saber que carmack (el que programo doom) es un genio.
  
  Me baje y empece a leer Capital in the Twenty-First Century de Thomas Picketty pero todo indica que lo voy a abandonar. Abandone por el momento master & margarita porque me embolo y no lo entiendo.

Phantoms in the Brain

Great book, read it for a class in college in addition to Sacks' book. Foreword for the book is from Sacks as well.

phantoms of the brain by V.S. Ramachandran.

Very nice and interesting read

Do you count body brain mapping as real? Do you think it possible that some cross wiring happens? Do you accept that scientists draw conclusions between such things?

Are you happy with such a theory until we create a 400 billion truman show like experiment which breaks all ethical rules?

Atoms probably don't look like that but our model is dann useful and that's important. Until we have real evidence we go with that model.

Here: http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172

Based on this book actually - great read, got me into Cognitive Science. :D

How to Read a Book. No joke. Just getting into reading. Only read most of the Harry Potter books as a kid and just sparknoted everything I've had to read for school. So I need to learn the basics.

After that, I plan on reading What Liberal media by Eric Alterman. I torrented all episodes of The Daily Show a few weeks ago and in one of the earlier episodes Eric came in for an interview to plug the book. It's basically about how our "liberal" media is just establishment media.

After that I'm not sure, but there's a million books I want to read and I need more time on my hands...

EDIT: Actually no, after HTRAB I'll be reading Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee as it's a much easier read than What Liberal Media. Already read some of it, it's very fascinating.

V.S. Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain is an easy, interesting, read that covers a lot of basic brain functions in a general way using colorful stories from Ramachandran's clinical experiences. The Purves book was my first neurobio text in undergrad, but without a biology & chem background Ramachandran's book might be easier to swallow, especially since it is peppered with interesting cases of neurological disorders (i.e. Capgras syndrom, phantom limbs)

I second the reading idea! Ask your history or science teachers for suggestions of accessible books. I'm going to list some that I found interesting or want to read, and add more as I think of them.

A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Title explains it all. It is very beginner friendly, and has some very entertaining stories. Bryson is very heavy on the history and it's rather long but you should definitely make every effort to finish it.

Lies my teacher told me

The greatest stories never told (This is a whole series, there are books on Presidents, science, and war as well).

There's a series by Edward Rutherfurd that tells history stories that are loosely based on fact. There are books on London and ancient England, Ireland, Russia, and one on New York

I read this book a while ago and loved it- Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk It's about a monk who was imprisoned for 30 years by the Chinese.

The Grapes of Wrath.

Les Misérables. I linked to the unabridged one on purpose. It's SO WORTH IT. One of my favorite books of all time, and there's a lot of French history in it. It's also the first book that made me bawl at the end.

You'll also want the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Federalist Papers.

I'm not sure what you have covered in history, but you'll definitely want to find stuff on all the major wars, slavery, the Bubonic Plague, the French Revolution, & ancient Greek and Roman history.

As for science, find these two if you have any interest in how the brain works (and they're pretty approachable).
Phantoms in the brain
The man who mistook his wife for a hat

Alex and Me The story of a scientist and the incredibly intelligent parrot she studied.

For a background in evolution, you could go with The ancestor's tale

A biography of Marie Curie

The Wild Trees by Richard Preston is a quick and easy read, and very heavy on the adventure. You'll also want to read his other book The Hot Zone about Ebola. Absolutely fascinating, I couldn't put this one down.

The Devil's Teeth About sharks and the scientists who study them. What's not to like?

http://books.google.com/books?id=yzEFK7Xc87YC&dq=principles+of+neural+science&hl=en&source=gbs_navlinks_s

pop sci:

http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172

http://www.onintelligence.org/

http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Consciousness-Neurobiological-Approach/dp/0974707708

Everything you will ever experience happens in your brain. Books by Oliver Sacks and V.S. Ramachandran are entertaining without being totally overrun by misrepresentations of science.

Steven Pinker refers to this basic-level medium for thoughts as 'Mentalese' in The Language Instinct.

Anyone interested really in this ought to read "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_Instinct

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060976519/102-0295781-9468148?v=glance&n=283155

Have you read any of the books on CBT? It would probably go a long way in her mind if you were actively attempting to understand her predicament. Here's a great book which describes exactly what is happening in an OCD's brain and how it can be altered for the better. It's a matter of opening neural pathways towards healthy non-obsessive behaviour. The roads are already there, it's just the signs aren't pointing in the right direction.
EDIT: That direction btw is a healthy sex life. An ex had a similar low sex drive and it made me feel terrible because I was obsessed with her sexually whenever she was around. It was as if the deprivation made me more depraved. A very unusual situation to be that horny all the time (when we lived together) because in other normal relationships it wasn't as big a deal. I relate mate and can attest you are between a rock and hard, dry, arid, barren...

You should read at least the first two chapters of The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, which is a book all about the neuroscience of OCD from a research psychiatrist who studied OCD for 30 years at UCLA Medical School.

Good point. Thanks for the pointer, the book looks pretty interesting.

If you liked this article, might I suggest a couple books. They literally changed how I see myself and other people. I know people brag about books "changing their life", but these books force you to realize how little control you actually have over your mind, and assess whether that control is actually productive. The subconscious is a fascinating subject.

The User Illusion

Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less

all the time bro, You might want to read the user illusion
just know you are not crazy or alone.

You might have better luck in /r/askscience, and your question is rather vague so I'm not 100% sure if you're asking about just smartphones or actual technological advancements. I read an interesting book called "The Brain That Changes Itself" and one of the chapters focused on the research done by Paul Bach-y-Rita, a neuroscientist that focused on neuroplasticity and sensory substitution. The case in the book, if I remember correctly, was about a woman that was unable to stand due to her vestibular system being unable to relay messages to the brain. Bach-y-Rita solves this by attaching a tactile devile to her tongue that "replaces" the function of the vestibular appartus and, with training, her brain is able to reorganize to recognize her tongue as the center of balance rather than the faulty vestibular apparatus.

In a separate article he notes this phenomenon: "Persons who become deaf or are without balance usually lose only the peripheral structures relating to sound transduction (the cochlea) or positional orientation (the vestibular apparatus). The input from a sensory substitution system can reach many brain structures including those anatomically and physiologically related to the lost sensory modality. Providing information from artificial receptors offers an opportunity to restore function" (taken from the abstract).

I hope that helped somewhat! I'm not very educated on the topic but could probably look up more articles if you're interested in this example.

Read The Brain That Changes Itself

try these four steps method by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz

http://hope4ocd.com/foursteps.php



If you can't open that page , here's a quick summary:

Step 1: RELABEL
Recognize that the intrusive obsessive thoughts and urges are the RESULT OF OCD.

Step 2: REATTRIBUTE
Realize that the intensity and intrusiveness of the thought or urge is CAUSED BY OCD; it is probably related to a biochemical imbalance in the brain.

Step 3: REFOCUS
Work around the OCD thoughts by focusing your attention on something else, at least for a few minutes: DO ANOTHER BEHAVIOR.

Step 4: REVALUE
Do not take the OCD thought at face value. It Is not significant in itself.




Here are some books that helped me:

You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life

http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Your-Brain/dp/1583334262/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

http://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

If you have any interest in the science and strategies behind these kinds of recoveries, this book is amazing.

The Brain That Changes Itself

The Brain that Changes Itself a book about how scientists are learning how to help people overcome many problems using "brain plasticity". It's not a book about torture and it doesn't touch on that very much but it does mention people in solitary, how it impacts their mind and how they had to adapt to maintain sanity. According to the book and the case studies that it presents, the brain has incredible power to overcome things that many people didn't believe could be overcome. But it can also be it's own enemy...and be distorted by traumatic things. To me, solitary is a particularly cruel form of punishment.

Crazy! I'm reading a book right now on brain plasticity and it's amazing how the brain can be re-taught how to us that hand (through repetitious exercises like stacking blocks for 8 hours a day)

The book is The brain that changes itself. It's really good and anyone will understand it. Check it out!

Buy http://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265391387&sr=8-1

Read the chapter on sexuality. Providing you take in the information and use it then this will help you much more than any Ask Reddit post.

Seriously, it will change the way you think about sexuality forever (and about a lot of other things aswell)

and ignore brock_lee. He is wrong.

Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself is a good place to start: https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487878377&sr=8-1&keywords=the+brain+that+changes+itself

These are a few that I really liked:

Lisa Sanders, Every Patient Tells a Story

Norman Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself

I'm 35years old and have recently been diagnosed with mild sleep apnea ~10 AHI. I've bought an auto CPAP and have been on treatment for around one week. I feel better so far although I'll need months to quantify the improvement.

Prior to this I was on a 1 month trial where I couldn't identify how crucial CPAP was until the trial ended (which I've been told is common for mild sufferers). It was around 2 months without treatment between the end of the trial and when I bought the machine a week ago.

Like you I suffered from chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, memory issues, brain fog etc. After treatment it was clear to me that many of the fears I had were based on cognitive patterns developed while under the effect of a physiological anxiety and depression.

So in plain english, things aren't likely to be as bad as you perceive them to be. I'm not trying to downplay the potential need for rehabilitation because now that I'm on CPAP I intend to create a brain rehabilitation plan that includes the items below.

For you in particular I would do the following:

• Read a few books on Neuroplasticity. (Eg The Brain that Changes Itself, The Power of Neuroplasticity)
  
  
• Get therapy to fix any maladaptive cognitive behaviours you've developed while under the influence of apnea created anxiety. You want a therapist specialised or familiar in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. If you can't afford a therapist, get a self-help book like Feeling Good. Frankly, I think everyone should undertake some CBT sometime in early adulthood anyway, but I think you could use it in particular.
  
  
• Fix your habits now that your mind is working again. Create good sleep hygiene by cutting out blue light (f.lux app for computers/phones) and turning off electroncs an hour before you sleep (which should be ~10-10:30pm). Eat a balanced diet and supplement with Omega 3 fish oil for healthy brain function. Exercise ~ 3 times a week (preferably weights, but otherwise cardio/sport). Consider cutting down or eliminating alcohol and other drugs that may cause cognitive impairment.
  
  
• Take up Meditation which has been shown to improve executive function. 20 minutes per day concentrating on your breathing, nothing fancy. There are guides to simple forms of breath meditation all over the place.
  
  
• Non-electronic based brain teasers. Get a big book of puzzles and fit it into your routine. I recommend non-electronic because the semi-dissociative state induced by videogames doesn't activate all areas of your mind.
  
  
• Find a good memory training program. I don't have much experience with this yet, but I've heard there are some good books on this.
  
  
• If you have easy access to medical care, consider getting a referral to a neurologist for an MRI and talk your concerns over with him. Maybe there is little to no atrophy of your brain. You can't really tell from the inside except for poor memory/brain fog. Try getting another MRI in 6 months to a years time on your recovery regime to see how things have changed.
  
  Beyond all this I think its important to just do the best you can with the resources and knowledge you have available and not beat yourself up for what might have been and things beyond your control.
  
  Good luck.
  
  edit: broken links the bane of my life

There is a whole chapter devoted to it in The Brain that Changes Itself.

Really cool book, I think a lot of you would enjoy it. Talks alot about how plastic your brain is, and about a lot of cool technology for repairing damaged brain function (walking after strokes, helping the blind to see, the deaf to hear, etc).

Everyone needs to pick a new hobby. New skill you learn engages brain in a good way. I read this in 'The brain that changes itself'

[edited to fix quoting issue]

Chess. Currently, I suck at it, but then Anatoly Sharansky probably wasn't the world's greatest player either, when he went into solitary:
> Anatoly Sharansky, the Soviet human rights activist, used mental chess to survive in
> prison. Sharansky, a Jewish computer specialist falsely accused of spying for the
> United States in 1977, spent nine years in prison, four hundred days of that time in
> solitary confinement in freezing, darkened five-by-six-foot punishment cells.
> […] During this extended period of sensory deprivation, Sharansky played mental
> chess for months on end, which probably helped him keep his brain from degrading.
> He played both white and black, holding the game in his head, from opposite
> perspectives--an extraordinary challenge to the brain.

From The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge.

(A fantastic book -- Amazon link)

Neuroplasticity: neurons that wire together fire together.
Neurons that continually alert your brain to pain alter the mapping of your brain and more areas become wired for pain.
This unwires other brain functions.. memory, concentration, everything.
This is why it is hard to concentrate when you are in pain and the 'mental fog' therein.

There are some good books on the matter..
The Brain that Changes Itself by Doige
If you do not understand the science or anatomy/physiology of brain stuff, Dr Doidge does a great job explaining everything.

I am reading this one by Dr Doidge as well..

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

It will blow your mind

I don't think we make choices. I read a book called Incognito that made me wonder if maybe we're all just caught up in a flow of brain chemicals and societal influences. We're all affected by each other's "choices" from yesterday, last week, last year, a hundred years ago, moral rules established two thousand years ago, the universe exploding into existence, and so on and so on. This mostly includes our family and friends, but strangers and ghosts - people long gone - influence our "choices" as well. (I love this question! I can't wait to read all the responses.)

Your brain edits FAR more out than just minute vibrations. It essentially builds a customized representation of what is 'out there'. The image you 'see' isn't the photons of light entering your eye - those are just the triggers that set off the neural pathways running to the visual centers of your brain. Those centers do an enormous amount of processing and eventually settle on an 'image' in the conscious areas of the cortex that you perceive as reality, even though it isn't really.

For an interesting read, grab a copy of Incognito: the Secret Lives of the Brain by neuroscientist David Eagleman. It's a real eye opener.

I'm not sure what you are asking. But it sounds like you want some books you could write an essay on. Information based, not fiction. Does that rule out philosophy?

Here's a couple i really like:

The Law by Frederic Bastiat

https://mises.org/books/thelaw.pdf

I used that book as a reference for almost every paper I wrote in college, along with the constitution. Especially when the topic was should such and such be legal, or should we pass a law to do X.

The second is Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman.

http://www.amazon.com/Incognito-The-Secret-Lives-Brain/dp/0307389928

Its very eye opening. It really changed the way I viewed free will and the brain. I'm a lot less judgmental after reading this book. It involves how the brain works, and how we make choices. It really focuses on examples where brain process go wrong due to illness or disease. It would be the non fiction book i'd write an essay on if someone made me write an essay.

I highly recommend David Eagleman's book: Incognito; the secret lives of the brain.

it explores the differences between our conscious mind and the unconscious.

You are. God, didn't you read Incognito?

Incognito by David Eagleman

To suggest further reading, Dr Brian Eagleman, the Director of the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law at Baylor College of Medicine, studies this issue explicitly. His recent book Incognito has a chapter on neuroscience and law, in which he discusses how many crimes can be an extension of mental illness and our concept of justice evolves with our understanding of brain function. It's a good read.

Everyone should read his book Incognito. It's really amazing.

I was born into the church, and stayed for 35 years. I always thought of myself as christian, though many other christian sects have differing views. I served a mission, and got married in the temple. I had very deep, fulfilling spiritual experiences, visions, and prophetic dreams. The only problem? The mormon church not only no longer practices what they used to say is mandatory, they often deny it was ever said.

A good friend of mine was never in any church, so it was quite easy for him to identify as an atheist from the beginning. I did not go immediately for atheism because of all the spiritual experiences I have had. There is something almost tangible to all this spirit stuff. There is a reason that religions get formed and followed. There is a real power there.

I joined a Kriya meditation group, and learned a lot about the Bhagavad Gita and hindu spiritual beliefs. The meditation was quite useful, and it also charged my spiritual feelings and gave me visions at times. cool stuff!

I continued my studies of everything I could get my hands on. What is this stuff I am feeling? Why does the spirit feel like a sexual release? Here is one of the books that was very interesting: http://www.amazon.com/Why-God-Wont-Go-Away/dp/034544034X

I don't need to pursue organized religion now, or meditation. Life is experienced within my brain, and can manifest as the many things that people claim are "true." The simplest explanation is that there is no god, but that does not stop people from interpreting their feelings and experiences to believe so.

Are christians any better than the mormons that think they are christian? Are followers of Jesus better than those that read the Koran, or buddhists? I think we are all simply human, with feelings that easily lightup with spiritual drives, and that has created a religion industry for tens of thousands of years.

TLDR; I gave up on God completely, but not right away. You don't have to leave your Christianity now or ever... but I challenge you to consider why you believe and what evidence holds you to your own personal beliefs. You can be as good as you wish to be with or without god.

Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief

Sorry to hear that you are suffering and can't get proper help now. I also suffer from 'the tyranny of the should' since childhood, to a point, just like you described: "zero ability to get any pleasure from anything I should do". Getting into therapy helps, 3 time a week for me for the last 2.5 years.

But if you don't have access the therapy or analysis, here is my two-cents :

I have find reading these two book from Karen Horney help me to gain some perspective :

Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization ( this one also got an audio book version, if you like being read to.)

https://www.amazon.com/Neurosis-Human-Growth-Struggle-Self-Realization/dp/0393307751

Her other book Self-Analysis could also be helpful, if you want to attempt to do some work on one's own https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1095974M/Self-analysis

​

> The cognitive function test results are all over the place, and never in my life have I seen a result which would even somewhat resemble any theoretical results. The results of the 3rd and 4th fuctions and the PoLR function can be basically anything, and you can have rather high results in a function that is not in your ”function stack”.

If you acknowledge that everyone uses 8 functions then you need to take all of them into account when analyzing somebody's cognitive functions test.

It isn't the case that your functions go in descending order of use from 1-8. Everyone will show more "use" of a cognitive function that has the opposite attitude to their primary or auxiliary function than, say, their inferior when you're looking at a cognitive functions test.

>The correlations between MBTI dichotomies and Big 5 are in turn high.

Sure, you can show correlations between what sort of test questions will produce the resulting percentages. And correlations are exciting. I am skeptical that this means what you're implying. The scientific research that has been done on cognitive functions is, I would say, highly suggestive that cognitive functions will be measurable with better imaging tools.

In the mean time, feel free to continue exploring your trait continuums or dichotomies, but you didn't make it clear to me why that would make the theory falsifiable if we're still relying on subjective reporting.

Sure, but Meyers Briggs types don't describe the kinds of things you're interested in or how good of a person you are. You can have an INTJ that loves fantasy novels and an INTJ that will only read non-fiction. You can have an INTJ that is totally Machiavellian and an INTJ whose first principles are kindness and compassion.

Meyers Briggs just describes (or lumps people into categories with common discriptions) how you primarily perceive information and process that information. There has been limited research into how Meyers Briggs types manifest neurologically. Correlation is not causation, but as soon as you start having basic physical phenotypes (straight, brown hair) it makes sense to look for a born-that-way reason. The equivalent of curling or dying your hair would be developing your lower functions (Fi, Se), but you'd still be dominantly Ni, Te.

Irreducible Mind. It's truly fantastic, and basically providing evidence in support of FHW Myers' "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death".

>This makes me think that he is writing for an audience who already shares his views.

Indeed! Grossman explicitly states that the purpose of the article is not to analyze the evidence which refutes materialism, but to explain why it's a priori ignored:

It is not my purpose here, except for a few examples below, to review the wealth of data that falsifies materialism.

There's a sourcing after that line, which states that

This wealth of data is reviewed in Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century by E F Kelly, E Williams Kelly, A Crabtree, A Gould, M Grosso, and B Greyson (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).

While that book is great, I think that this book, Science and the Near-Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death by Chris Carter, is even better. However, it wasn't released yet neither at the time when Grossman originally wrote that article, which was in the Journal of Near-Death Studies (JNDS) back in 2002, nor in whenever it was when "AntiMatters" publicized it.

So I can understand your frustration. Maybe it's impossible for you to read through that article without being familiar with the quality of the evidence. So I highly recommend Carter's book or Irreducible Mind in that case. And kudos to you for being so open-minded!

If you're interested, check out these books. They're easy but very interesting reads, and I was astonished by some of the differences between men and women.

The Male Brain: http://www.amazon.com/The-Male-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767927540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373722766&sr=8-1&keywords=the+male+brain

The Female Brain:http://www.amazon.com/The-Female-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767920104/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Being a male does mean something and hormones do effect our minds and behavior. There's pretty solid research on the topic, though you'll never hear it brought up in a gender studies course.

The Male Brain

The Female Brain

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1502317/
Here you go. TIL it's called part of the dude version of menopause and is called andropause.

The "grandpa is lovier than dad" anecdote is from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Male-Brain-Breakthrough-Understanding-Think/dp/0767927540

> This is the third time this has happened in the past five yeas. The exact same procedure. And it will happen again.

Not necessarily. It depends on the chemistry between you. A man's chemistry especially changes when he becomes a father

http://www.amazon.com/The-Male-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767927540

Hmm, not a PDF copy. Unless this works? It's £2.50 on Kindle! And only £7.30 on Prime. Amazon link.

I'd recommend you acquire and read this book first and then get back to us.

I had to pull out my copy to look this up. I recalled “Types” was first published in 1921, but Jung published different editions and refined his theory in later editions, the last of which is 1949. In the first Swiss edition’s foreword, 1921, Jung remarks that the work and theory are grounded in his psychiatry work over the last twenty years. The printing I have is from 1976 and purchased at a remarkable price of $.25.

Jung references Friedrich Schiller as the earliest known (to Jung) person to start systematically typing people according to their external behaviors.

---

Dario Nardi did some interesting work on trying to map-link Jungian cognitive functions (and sadly, MBTI) to brain areas using Electroencephalography. You can find him on YouTube or here’s a book he wrote about it: https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Personality-Brain-Insights-People/dp/0979868475

I tagged multiple people because they might be interested and I wasn’t exactly sure how to reply to all that posted underneath this comment and its children.

/u/AkiyamaShinichi3

/u/Ayianna

/u/A_Very_Curious_Camel

/u/DarkMoon99

/u/margoquinn

/u/Whyevenlive88

https://www.amazon.com/Male-Brain-Breakthrough-Understanding-Think/dp/0767927540

Go nuts. We're talking about examining actual brain patterns, not how people act.

You know, the should make a 'social science' student run for the hills.

All I'm asking for is one culture where males do not approach problems with a problem-solving mentality. You can't provide one, and you're desperately strugging to come up with some nonsense social theory for why. Trouble is, the answer's already out there; we know that the empathy centers in the male brain don't light up when faced with an emotional problem the way female brains do.

Anyone who wants to learn more about this should read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-Behind-Differences/dp/1848312202

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Handbook-Near-Death-Experiences-Thirty-Investigation/dp/0313358648

And

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068

The problem with this argument is that consciousness is not generated by the brain. Consciousness can rebuild brain chemistry and structures, not the other way around.

Here is an example of this in action. Conscious choice can change how your brain is built.

If anyone is interested, this book has loads of scientific evidence for the claim that the brain cannot possibly generate consciousness.

> Like what reading? I like to read!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sexing-Body-Politics-Construction-Sexuality/dp/0465077145

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Bodies-Matter-Discursive-Limits-Sex-Routledge-Classics/041561015X/ref=pd_sim_14_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNDN34DGBXQGMJRNHAEQ

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sexing-Brain-Lesley-Rogers-2000-06-01/dp/B01HC0RD82/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481591782&sr=1-2&keywords=sexing+the+brain

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-Behind-Differences/dp/1848312202/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNDN34DGBXQGMJRNHAEQ

http://bennorton.com/gender-is-not-alone-the-social-construction-of-sex/

http://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2003/Extreme_Problems_with_Essential_Differences/

would be good places to start, plus numerous other papers, some books and blog posts I don't have quite the google-fu to relocate, and a lot of more tangential stuff. (I originally came to this mostly through the study of the theory of bodies and embodiement in art, as well as my spouse's academic studies in gender and sexuality). In getting to grips with this material and the general position it's important to move away from the facile strawman of the idea that biology is disregarded in a social constructionist view; more profoundly, social constructionists realise that social environment reshapes biology.

>Yeah it is. If you believe trans women only transition because of quote unquote "gender" which is purely social...you're wrong.

But what is a 'gender role'? If you restrict it to something as facile as 'girls like pink' then you can make anything absurd. It's worth remembering that the term 'gender roles' was originally coined by the sexologist John Money to describe the behaviours inhabited by unassigned intersex individuals trying to express a single binary gender identity. From a performative standpoint, gender roles are the entirety of the behaviour with which we signal the gender identity we wish to and are trained to project towards society. To say such things are not bound up in the trans experience is simply wrong; many trans folk experience feelings of dysphoria at being identified as their wrong gender, and lessening of these feelings or even positive counter-feelings at being identified as their correct gender. This is purely a matter of social perception. Therapeutically speaking, people transition because it helps to alleviate their feelings of dysphoria. Whether the underlying cause of the dysphoric state is genetic, epigenetic, foetal or psychological (or even spiritual) or some subtle combination of factors which differs on an individual basis is immaterial to the benefits provided by transition to the majority of those who seriously seek it. This is, it is important to note, only the medically legitimised narrative of the trans experience.

If you're really serious about this, then I urge you to read the following book http://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068 & http://www.amazon.com/Holographic-Universe-Revolutionary-Theory-Reality/dp/0062014102

That will give you a better idea how weak the foundation for the hypothesis of materialism is.

While nothing will give you all the answers you seek, this book is really interesting.

Explains all about testosterone levels at different ages and why males behave the way they do. I'm not 100% subscribed to it of course but it was a fascinating read. I do agree with your body doing what it's supposed to do provided you have a reasonably healthy lifestyle. i.e. you're supposed to have testosterone decline as you age and testosterone injections aren't necessarily a good idea to fix that.

Unless you have dreams of being Mr. Olympia in your middle age, I think you'll be ok.

Also, the hormonal changes can come with obesity and other health issues that affect more and more men these days - studies like to focus on one thing and ignore so many other factors, the news likes to scare people. In short, you know what to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle, keep that up and it's the best preventive medicine ever!

> There are differences in brain structure even at birth.

Are you referring to these books by Louann Brizendine? Because her books theorize the brain structures are different, they do not prove that clinically. However there are plenty of studies which show men and women do act differently, we're just not sure if the physical brain structures are different.

• The Female Brain (book)
  
• The Male Brain (book)
  
  I'd be happy to see studies that do prove brain structures are physically different if you have them.
  

Here's the book... not that anyone here really cares haha.

about those books recommendations: i have some

Neuroscience: exploring the brain is a very good textbook about the "circuitry" of the brain

Memory: From mind to molecules is interesting because it tries to "draw the line" between the laws which dictate how atoms and molecules work and abstract concept of "memory"

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning is a very layman directed read and is more about "how to remember more things when studying" but it have some good explanations on why some memories are "clear", some are "diffuse" and some memories fade out

The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory offers an integration between the neuroscience of memory and some behavorial analisys, it also have some very interesting topics on the plasticity of our mind

I’m minoring in neuroscience but my major is biochemistry. If you’re like me and are interested in more of the cellular/molecular aspect, the textbook we use is brilliant! I’ve never seen such complex topics discussed in a more accessible way. And the images are dope. Highly recommend this textbook.

Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain Fourth, North Americ Edition by Bear PhD, Mark F., Connors PhD, Barry W., Paradiso PhD, Mich (2015) Hardcover https://www.amazon.com/dp/0781778174/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DLbLDbZZR5MFN

What kind of paper? Don't you have access to most of the journals through your university?
I can browse many journals at home with VPN-Access, provided by my university.
For books, try these:
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Science-Fifth-Kandel/dp/0071390111/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452278840&sr=8-1&keywords=principles+of+neural+science
OR (less detailed)
http://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Exploring-Mark-F-Bear/dp/0781778174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452278819&sr=8-1&keywords=neuroscience

I heard some rumours that at least the Kandel is available as a free PDF in the internet, just use google with the proper terms ;)

Have a read, decide for yourself.

https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Personality-Brain-Insights-People/dp/0979868475

I'm glad you've discovered DaveSuperPowers and see the power of his system. You should also check out Dario Nardi's book which I think its the next step in the puzzle to make mbti more testable.

here's a book that considers these questions from a solidly academic yet nontraditional POV: https://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068

i'm not going to try to convince you that consciousness cannot be neatly located in the human brain (which scientists sloppily refer to sometimes as "mind" -- as if that word has ANY scientific usefulness -- and this just speaks to the hugely imprecise way scientists speak and think about these things). if you're interested in the topic, i recommend the book above.

but let me ask you. what is consciousness exactly?

Decide for yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068

Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization by Karen Horney

Your warping the facts.

>Reduced physical activity,3 particularly from reduced school-based physical education,4 and specific food manufacturing and marketing practices (e.g., vending machines in schools,5 increased portion size,6 increased availability of fast-food,3, 7, 8 use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)9) comprise the Big Two explanations proffered for the obesity epidemic and are frequently cited as targets of potential public health interventions. We do not intend to imply that the Big Two are not salient contributors to the epidemic. Rather, we offer that the evidence of their role as primary players in producing the epidemic (as well as the evidence supporting their potential ability to reverse the trend if manipulated) is both equivocal and largely circumstantial – that is, the hypothesized effects are underdetermined by the data.

They are stating that Reduced physical activity and specific food manufacturing are the two factors. THis is because they know (like any intelligent person) that if you take in a lot of calories and don't burn them, you'll get fat. Learn to read and/or substituting your own facts into the article.

>There's the CDC (who also have an extensive section devoted to obesity, which belies the notion that is a simple concept): http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/contributing_factors.htm

>Overall there are a variety of factors that play a role in obesity. This makes it a complex health issue to address.

There are factors as to why there is an epidemic, but the root cause of fat people is high calorie intake with too low levels of exercise to burn off the excess calories. Your cite does not dispute my argument in the least.

>That's what you aren't getting. It has been, in the past, socially desirable to be obese (Egyptions, Romans, even various stages of British royalty demonstrate this). The basis for the desire isn't what is healthy, but rather much like a winter tan (or in developing nations, being pale), it is what is difficult to achieve (or more accurately, harder to achieve for those who aren't wealthy) given the current state of society.

You also need to realize that medicine at this time was little more than prayer. The understanding of healthy was minimal at best, especially since most wouldn't live nearly as long as we do today. Times and social norms change.

Also, human sexuality doesn't evolve towards things that are hard to do, rather what is more healthy. Fat at that time was a sign of being healthy as there was so much famine in the area. Between the two extremes (starving and gluttony) gluttony wins, but it doesn't make it a healthy choice.

>Losing significant amounts of weight is brutal. It requires an unrelenting focus and quite severe discomfort. It effects you physical health, mental health, your job performance, and your social life (and none in a good way). Sure the end goal provides a big payoff, but it's a hell of a ride, and when you get there you still have underlying problems, because it is far easier to regain the weight you lost at the end. The success rate in terms of keeping the weight off, regardless of diet/exercise regime is 2-5%. That means if you are effective 10% of the time, you are a health guru! And it's not that these people are lazy or lack discipline, because they will keep trying again and again, despite the failure!

Extreme weight drops are medically dangerous. This is why starving yourself is bad. It has to be gradual, just like how people pack it on, if you do it over a very small amount of time, you'll run into HUGE medical problems as well. If your smart, eat right (real food as opposed to empty calories) and have a good exercise plan, you will have little to no problems what so ever. TO avoid Kidney stones, be sure to drink LOTS of water, not only will it flush your system of toxins, it'll keep your kidneys flushed and healthy. This may lead to short-term water-retention however if your unaccustomed to drinking so much water.

>Yup totally missing the mark. I'm not suggesting it is a disease. I'm merely suggesting that prejudicial attitudes towards the obese are just that: prejudice, not the product of some well founded rational process.

Then you don't understand how the mind works. We make millions of subconscious calculations of risk and probabilities every day. It's programmed into our minds to do so. This is why you can find someone attractive, your brain does symmetry calculations, as well as "is this person free of disease, do they have child bearing hips, etc". You can't deny the fact that our brains make calculations and decisions on the fly.

Two great books on this subject are Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works and Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. Both talk about these calculations and how they evolved into these set of automatic rules and calculations, that you seemingly refer to as prejudice.

You either define prejudice very loosely or include it as any reason we choose one thing over another. I choose to eat a sandwich over a pile of feces because I'm prejudice. I choose a beautiful wife over an ugly one because I'm prejudice. I prefer healthy citizens over fat ones because I'm prejudice.

I think I grasp what you mean now, but I still think your fractally wrong on the idea. it's not prejudice you see, but the wonders of the brain picking the better choices for our genes, and by extension, ourselves which is not quite the same thing.

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker

Someone close to me used to strongly believe in God, and also believe that they were going to hell. It's an incredibly hard place to be, mentally, and I'm sorry you're going through that.

On the subject of God's morality and justice: keep in mind that these descriptions of God are all written by humans, and then edited and re-written by other humans over and over many times. It's quite possible to have a conception of God that doesn't rely on the Bible, and that may be a direction you want to go.

As for the personal experience, I've always felt that those are important to an individual (they carry a lot of emotional power), but we have to be careful about how we interpret them.

A lot of spiritual experiences can also be explained as physical/chemical things happening in the brain. These experiences can be profound and open us up to new ideas, and when they occur in the context of religion, they are often interpreted as being from God or from a spirit. Just keep in mind that they can also be interpreted as being a natural result of your brain's own activity. It's something to consider, anyway.

Personally, I like to read books about the brain and popular science books on neurology. How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker was a very good one, for instance. That type of reading helped me a lot when I needed to put my thoughts and experiences in context.

Good luck.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but just as an alternative view, I don't have much respect for the 'forefathers' of psychology, especially Psychoanalysts.. In fact, I think that they are responsible for leading psychology down the pseudo-scientific path that has been hard to shed for so many years (despite meticulous efforts by Skinner, James, etc.)

What someone called "unified theories" were not unified in the sense of all-encompassing, but were rather shoddy attempts to synthesize rote observations and philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Other sciences were way more advanced than psychology because they were inventing new technologies and methods (Cajal, Darwin, Mendel, to name a few) several years before Freud and Co. came along. Therefore, I don't think they deserve any sympathy. Rather, they were willfully ignorant.

As for OP's question, I think as broad areas of research, there are TONNES of good books to read in case you are (rightfully) moving forward from the dark ages of psychology. For example, Cognition is quite a fantastic coverage of brilliant scientific research in psychology, so is Psychological Science. There is also Choices, Values, Frames which is a bit more applied, and How the Mind Works, which may be a bit more speculative, but fascinating.

If you're really interested in the evolution of the human brain and how evolution has shaped our psychology, I suggest reading Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works." It's not a light read, but it's incredibly fascinating.

For a more general look at recent human evolution, I enjoyed "The 10,000 Year Explosion." The authors argue that genetic changes have led to higher than average IQs among European Jews.

Actually, according to Steven Pinker, there are two really fundamental metaphors, so to speak, at the level of so-called mentalese, below the level of any particular language:

• Space or place
  
• Force, agency
  
  So, we talk about "friends in your life," etc; and we don't hesitate to talk about, say, computer programs that "want to shut down," etc. Zillions of examples; totally pervasive.
  
  So, I guess it's not surprising that agere is so widely used.

Before you get too far into the artificial intelligence you may want to update your knowledge of the real thing: Steven Pinker's the stuff of thought and How the mind works will get you most of the way.

And read or skim The Big Book Of Concepts by Murphy. He shoots holes in some very basic assumptions of GOFAI and AGI and points out how weak is our knowledge of the structure of human thought.

Not really. Brain differences between the genders exist on a bell curve, and neurological gender differences observed in the brain are likely caused by psychological and cultural factors at least as much as hormones. Check out Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine sometime - she does an excellent (and trans-affirming!) job dismantling the sexist myth of "brain sex".

There's a reason the connection between the intersex community and the trans community (and LGBT community in general) has historically been kind of fraught. A lot of intersex people identify as trans, and many intersex issues overlap with trans issues (right to bodily autonomy, right to respectful and educated medical treatment, people asking invasive questions about your body/genitalia, bathroom bills and other gender policing), but it's not perfectly analogous.

I guess what I'm saying is this isn't a bad comparison but it's not really the best.

I get the feeling that some people identify with gender more than others.

For many transgender people, there isn't as much of a feeling of dysphoria, so much as a feeling of improvement and wellness in their lives. Such as the case of Zinnia Jones, who, if I'm not mistaken, didn't have much of any experience with gender dysphoria, despite being transgender. And some transwomen may feel even less of a difference than her.

Just the same, I'm sure many cisgender people, don't feel particularly comfortable being male or female or any gender, while not being dysphoria, only socially alienated by their gender roles(or in this case, their bodies in relation to their gender roles, or perhaps some of the downsides of having a certain body, like periods or breasts). And it isn't simply their cisprivilege making them finding difficulty to relate to transgender people, and they don't see being cisgender as any more valid or normal than being transgender. And see themselves as individuals, rather than genders. And don't see their gender as any more a part of who they are than their ethnicity.

I personally don't identify as cisgender. I also don't actually identify as a transman or transwoman most of the time, either. I've always felt rather gender confused, most days I feel genderqueer or androgynous or genderfluid, but sometimes I can identify as a man, and sometimes I can identify as a woman. But I can definitely understand how she feels, especially about the breasts and hips and getting periods and having the overwhelming, horrifying feelings of social expectations weighing upon me heavily and feeling anxious. Furthermore, I don't actually know why she's cisgendered, and I'm not. I don't know where it comes from.

For other people, they may be certain they were "born that way", but I've never been certain of where either my sexuality or gender identity feelings come from. And I definitely know that social alienation with gender roles are something that I associate with both of them. I think this may help me in understanding where anti-gender-identity radical feminists are coming from, perhaps? Having any kind of gender identity to me almost feels like some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, at times. Maybe I'm agender? Maybe my gender fluctuates? I don't know.

I have noticed many radical feminists who not only think that being transgender is invalid, but also being cisgender. And that having a gender identity, cisgender, or transgender, is a social construct that would disappear if patriarchy went away. And that there would be no cisgender or transgender people if sexism went away. I can at least empathize with this, as they find being cisgender equally meaningless and undesirable and aren't singling out transgender people. And neurosexism is still a horrible and promiment cultural force to reinforce gender roles and stereotypes. And many neurosexists try to use transgender people as evidence that gender stereotypes are biological in origin.

What I don't like is when some of these radical feminists see transwomen as a patriarchal invasionary force in women's spaces. And that a vagina is required to be a feminist. No matter whether feminism will decrease instances of gender identity in all human beings or not, the fact of the matter is that many are purposely misgendering and invaliditing the very real experiences of trans-individuals of dysphoria, that isn't going to be quelled by being told a bit of "gender identity is a social construct". Transgender people know how they feel, and being told that gender identity is a social construct isn't going to change that. And the behavior of some radical feminists, rather than being anti-gender, is actually just anti-transgender. Misgendering people, and actively working against their rights. Treating transwomen with distrust and disdain. It is unjustified, cruel, bigoted, and privileged. By treating feminism as a club for people with vaginas, they're propagating separatism, essentially, and the gender roles and identity some of them supposedly seek to abolish. As well as, refusing and doing harm to fellow women, just because they were born with different genitalia. This "women-born-women" thing is horribly toxic.

Also, whether you're a cisgender or transgender radical feminist who believes that gender identity is a social construct that should be eliminated. Or are a transgender activist who is very much against this idea. Both groups can and should agree, that gender roles, absolutely must be destroyed. And are extremely harmful and toxic to all human cultures.

But misgendering and refusing people's gender identities isn't going to cause anything but harm. And some radical feminists really need to stop their toxic transphobic behavior. As well, I would like to see a lot of the animosity on both sides of this extremely sensitive biological gender debate subside. No one should tell radical feminists they need to die, and they have no need to have a gender identity if they don't want to have one. It's very clear that many radical feminists are uncomfortable with the very concept of having a gender identity. And they shouldn't be expected to have one if they don't want one. But just the same, they shouldn't forcefully push this on transgender people like many are.

A higher degree of tolerance and empathy on both sides would be very nice.

You might enjoy this one as well. It's about the millions of subliminal and blatant messages we all get to conform to cultural and societal gender "norms," and ultimately how destructive that is. Told with wit, passion, and scholarship.

It's Monday! Yay! I can't recommend TFIOS enough. I have seen that there have been people trying to get it banned recently, which is DUMB. You know it's a good book if people want it banned ;)

I would really like to have this one!!

Also, your understanding of nueroscience and gender greatly simplifies the state of the field and assumes way more agreement about the extent to which 1) male and female brains are different, 2) biology is the sole cause of these differences. http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v8/n3/full/nn0305-253.html; http://www.germaninnovation.org/news-and-events/past-events/past-event?id=7846164d-d9c7-e211-b834-000c29e5517f; http://eldan.co.uk/2013/12/bad-neuroscience-and-gender-reading-this-will-change-your-brain/; http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244
Edit: Mores sources

You don't seem to separate what women 'want to do' from the way they're treated when they do this certain thing that they want to do, which makes it very hard to get through to you on this topic.

I would advise that you do actually watch the video, because it addresses the very 'brain differences' you are invoking and demonstrates that women have been shown to have equal potential in the case of mental competition. Invoking 'brain differences' also kind of undercuts your realist posture.

>I never said women can't compete (in Dota), I'm saying they don't.

I'm saying they don't play because of the bullshit we experience, and largely not because of lack of interest. Interest is made self-evident by these tournaments. If nothing else, try to understand that. Women's tournaments removes the primary source of bullshit, allowing us to grow as players without the focus of each pub team becoming team chatting shit to a girl. You do realize we can't even use mic most of the time without some neckbeards getting tilted? What kind of training experience is that? You need to think about the conditions that lead someone to keep playing and progress or not.

If you want to learn more about stereotype threat and see lots of the data you asked for, I suggest reading Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine.

First, with your statement about the biological gender distinctions:

>So your statement "there are only two sexes because for time beyond time, humans have said there are only two sexes", could be true with gender, but is not true with our definition on sex.

I would debunk this, but it's been done better by trans women before me, an easy-to-digest and sited example of with can be found here.

The study you refer to in particular by Simon Baron-Cohen was actually the subject of some controversy. It was strongly panned in Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender a book about the bad science behind the neuroscience of sexual dimorphism. Simon Baron Cohen responded and they had a bit of a back and forth about it in The Psychologist from which I will pull this:

>This study departed from the best standards of methodology for this kind of work in a number of ways. One concern was that, since attention is very fluid in the first days of life, it is usual to present the two stimuli simultaneously. Baron-Cohen dismisses this on the grounds that stimulus order was counter-balanced. However, the published report refers only to stimulus order being “randomized”. There was a drop-out rate of about a third, and no information is provided to reassure that stimulus order was not a confounding variable. ... inadequate measures were made to blind the experimenter (who was also the first author) to the babies’ sex, so as to avoid experimenter-expectancy effects. (For example, the mobile might have been unintentionally moved more for boys.)

As for the Trond Diseth play test: I sat through a crummy documentary which was the only place I could find any indication of his discussion of the play test, which actually ended up being quite useful in understanding the task and immediately seeing issues. The toys are in gendered colors. Regardless of a baby's understanding of language, a baby whose toys are pink is probably going to quickly develop a "pink" preference. Furthermore, I cannot find a peer-reviewed publication by Dr. Diseth that addresses the this test. Please tell me if you can find it on his list of publications. One of his papers sites an actual study of a play test with the findings you attribute to Dr. Diseth. Authors of this study? First, second, third, fourth, AND final author? All female scientists, by the way. Their study is of CAH children 1-10. Still no support for the test being appropriate for infants, or the statement Dr. Diseth made in Hjernevask (the documentary which is the place where I assume you pull this claim "one study done by a Professor Trond Diseth, found differences between what toys boys and girls choose to play with at nine months of age"). This statement made by Dr. Diseth seems to only be referenced on MRA websites… curious.

You follow with "This is before children have developed a comprehension of speech (so the cultural gender influence is still very low)." I don't know where you pull this supposition parental that influence on sex-typed toy play behavior in infants is purely verbal. Infant behavior is affected by parental interaction from birth, verbal or not. This reinforces again my theory (equally as unsupported by evidence as yours is) that IF a sex-typed toy preference exists (which there is no evidence for) there is an equally viable explanation that toy preference is caused by the gendered toys already in the infant's possession.

Are you starting to see now that you can basically make up any explanation you want with the evidence that is currently available to us?

You say these differences, which may or may not exist but for which there is no empirical evidence, come from hormonal differences in pre-natal development, but provide no direct evidence of this link between pre-natal hormones and gender role behavior. Nor does anybody else. If you would like to provide a source for this statement, I would gladly review it because whoever is currently providing your sources lacks the ability to put things in context for you as a non-scientist.

It is true that we do not have all the information empirically about gender role behavior developmental differences. This means that the evidence we do have can be and is interpreted wildly. Throughout your response, you conflate "gender role behavior" and "gender identity," (amusingly you use sex and gender interchangeably until this post where you use this as the thing that makes your opponent wrong) mis-attribute and de-contextualize "studies," and make an incredible amount of completely and entirely unsupported statements. Yet you somehow feel comfortable in claiming that you have scientific evidence that states that feminist claims are "over the top." Your claims that somehow the unsupported preference of nine-month-old infants to play with dolls or action figures are different because of prenatal hormones can be generalized to "some gender stereotypes may come from nature and should not always be labelled sexist or harmful" is over the top. You're the one being silly here.

Though, that book's intent was to demonstrate that what differences we naturally have are minor, and most of what we associate with men or with women is molded by our culture. Eliot's work actually backs up what I'm saying; it doesn't refute it.

She does pin gendered interests on neurology, but more contemporary research has shown that to be vastly overstated as well. This book has more current information on that topic, if you're interested.

FWIW, I also dislike most mobile games, and prefer MMOs, ARPGs and FPS'es. Though that is just a single data point. ;-)

I'm familiar with the claims made in these books - it's amazing how neatly her "findings" fit into stereotypes out of a 1950s sexist's diatribe about 'wimmins'.

For a review of the neuroscience of gender that isn't based on one person's marketing strategy research, I highly suggest this book. It specifically addresses most of the stereotypes presented in Dr. Brenzadine's work and shows exactly how much (or, in most cases, how little) evidence there is for the claims.

REPUTABLE research fails to show any major differences between "male brains" and "female brains". Read Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender and disabuse yourself of that bullshit. http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244/

I downloaded sections of Cordelia Fine's book from Amazon onto Kindle. There's no way I'm going to pay for the whole thing. The selections are enough to dismiss it, and I think Simon Baron-Cohen's response is far too tolerant.

Fine’s book starts by selecting the worst examples she can find of what sounds like sexism from recent popular science books. She quotes numerous scientific researchers out of context, and tries to amalgamate their findings with pre-Darwinian theology. For example, she deals with Simon Baron-Cohen’s “The Essential Difference” by quoting him as if he thinks all women have one type of brain, and all men have an entirely different one. In fact, he writes about the distribution of psychological traits between average members of the two sexes.

She says that Baron-Cohen’s thesis “has been described as ‘a masterpiece of condescension’”, as if feelings trump facts. She approves of Neil Levy’s disapproving summary of Baron-Cohen as follows:

> “on average, women’s intelligence is best employed in putting people at their ease, while the men get on with understanding the world and building and repairing the things we need in it” -

and says it “can’t help but bring to mind” an eighteenth-century man who believed that God put woman in her place.

Whether a scientific treatise makes a feminist feels she’s being “condescended” or “mansplained”, or whether it reminds her of an ancient text is irrelevant. What matters is whether it is falsifiable, and what attempts have been made to falsify it. Whining about it doesn’t count.

The worst part of her argument is not the denial of science, but the reversal of the political power structure. A man just got fired from the world’s most important company because his statement

> Differences in distributions of traits between men and women (and not “socially constructed oppression”) may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.

felt painful to women in the company - following his

> “polemic against diversity efforts has left female staff “shaking in anger”"

> “a number of female staff described their disgust"

that it was

> “rigged in favour of wealthy white straight men"

and the CEO of Youtube, Susan Wojcicki, said she “felt pain”.

Like Wojcicki and the hysterical feminists who got James Damore fired, she not only confirms the idea that women are more feelings-oriented, on average, than men, she seems to conform to a sexist exaggeration of that idea.

It’s also supremely ironic that she quotes various big corporations being influenced by “sexist” science books about the differences between “male” and “female” brains. Nothing could be further from the truth.

okay mister echo chamber :) . Have you then also read one of the many books that claim otherwise, like this: http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244

I'd also recommend you read the top amazon review on your link. Check for dissenting opinions before agreeing with someone in the future.

modalt2 wrote:

I find people recommending Delusions of Gender a lot. Seems to relate more to debunking "scientific" explanations of differences between men and women, but it could be a good foundation for looking over some cultural assumptions about gender.

>This is not necessarily true. There are plenty studies that suggest it really matters how you test/educate people, and depending on that either girls or boys perform better.

You are right and you're making and important point. Thank you. In fact I knew this and might have recalled it if it were about the US, but somehow forgot all about it when the context is Turkish. Hmm. It may be because we're not constantly fussing about why females don't do well here at least as far as well-known schools go. You know why we're not fussing.

Anyway, I found out about those -- very interesting -- studies in some of the books that got published in response to Louann Brizendine's books such as Delusions of Gender.

Did you even bother to read the articles you posted?

1. Examination of developing brains - differences in white matter.
   
2. This works slightly in your case - but only shows that there might be size differences in different areas of the brain.
   
3. Again, an analysis of developing brains
   
4. This is from 1991.
   
5. From the abstract - "we did not find any significant difference in global WM volume between males and females."
   
6. This study is on rats.
   
7. "Our study demonstrates that, although
   there are sex/gender differences in the brain, human brains do not
   belong to one of two distinct categories: male brain/female brain."
   
8. This really doesn't include any research but rather attempts to persuade for further investigation in brain sex research.
   
   Conventional research suggests that although there are small differences in some areas of the brain between males and females, these differences are not very large and there is a ton of overlap between. There is not a distinguishable "male" or "female" brain that we can definitely identify. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to say that transgender have a brain of the opposite sex. Some recent studies have shown that people with gender dysphoria may instead have disconnectivity within networks involved in body perception.
   
   If you want to read a great book that examines the history of brain sex studies and debunks the male/female brain hypothesis, read Cordelia Fine's book Delusions of Gender.

Relevant Ted Talk on Curing Phantom Limb

According to VS Ramachandran, you can cure phantom limb by yourself for very little money, just need a couple of mirrors put together correctly.

VS Ramachandran cured phantom pain by using mirrors to retrain the brain. He talks extensively on phantom limb in his 2011 book The Tell-Tale Brain. You can even use audible to get one free download and get that book for free. This may be useful info to /u/Forlum as well as /u/Funsizeanthony and more.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tell-Tale-Brain-Neuroscientists-Quest/dp/0393340627

This book is pretty good :)

You might want to check out Oliver Sacks too

May I recommend the full Ted Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl2LwnaUA-k

V. S. Ramachandran is awesome, also he is funny! I recommend his books:

http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Tale-Brain-Neuroscientists-Quest-Makes/dp/0393340627/ref=la_B001IGHMGU_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1371890926&sr=1-2


http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172/ref=la_B001IGHMGU_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371890926&sr=1-1

> No, that's just the choice you made.

So you're one of those religious types that don't accept evolution and scientific things like neuroscience, it sounds like. I didn't make the choice - I have never even as a child, accepted religion. Even when I was 3 and 4 years old. It just made no sense to me. That is how my brain is wired. There is no way for me to make myself believe. No way. Unless I tried to lie about it, which makes no sense, because your god/allah/shiva/kali/zeus would know it as they can read minds.

> You don't have to investigate literally every other mythology in order to negate it before accepting one as the truth, only the converse is required.

OK, so I'll go with Mithra, I guess. Good enough.

>If in the 80 odd years you are probably given to live on average and you didn't devote any time to investigating a threat as serious as "hell," then that's your fault, not that of any notion of predestination.


Oh, don't get me wrong. I've investigated way more than 95% of the entire human population, for sure.

It is not my fault. It is the way my brain is wired. I know my brain better than you. I've lived with it for a long time. But I think you need to read up on neurology. I wish more people would do that, rather than read their "holy" books. Try to read some books on neurology - try. Although they would probably fry your mind.

David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

V. S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

I know that you will never be able to accept what the books write, or what I write. It would mess up your most basic beliefs. But I'll just give you those books, just in case you are brave. Remember, they are doing science, not beliefs. Science.

Huxley's The Doors of Perception is a great read. So are the autobiographical sections of PiHKAL and TiHKAL by Alexander Shulgin. And back in my stoner days, I used to really enjoy reading books about neuroscience like Phantoms in the Brain by V S Ramachandran and discussing them while high.

What exactly are you asking for here?

Anyone interested in phantom limbs should check out Phantoms in the Brain. Really fascinating case studies in there. Including the story of the first phantom limb amputation.

No, although it does contain lots of interesting case studies.
This is the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468079092&sr=8-1&keywords=phantoms+in+the+brain+ramachandran

I highly recommend reading Phantoms in the Brain by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, where he discusses this topic and qualia's physiological basis.

The best online resource I can think of for brain function and organization is http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/

For each subject you can adjust the how complex the explaination is from beginner to advanced and the level of organization from molecular up to social.

Some good non-fiction books if you're interested in learning: The Brain That Changes Itself (neuroplasticity), The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog (brain development and how its changed by early experience), Phantoms in the Brain (brain function and expression; theres also a BBC doc on youtube)

This seems to have accessible stuff on neural pruning in learning and development: http://www.brainbasics.org/home/neural-pruning

This Wikipedia page Biological Basis of Personality and Googling 'neural substrates personality' gives a lot of information as well, though its a mixed bag of whether its relevent or accessible.

http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172

I suggest Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran (and his subsequent TED.com talks) to anyone dealing with this issue.

While I am not an amputee I was facinated by Dr. Ramachandran's work with 'phantom limb' syndrome and other areas of neurological facination.

I'm unaware of how common these types of issues are for such patients, but I hope this read may help some people here if needed.

As someone who hates neuro, this book about neuro is really good.

http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172/ref=asap_B001IGHMGU?ie=UTF8

The author, V.S. Ranachandran, is a really interesting dude and did one of the better ted talks i've ever seen.

You need to read this and understand that if this was a very powerful feeling, and your friends noticed a change in you, it's almost certain that you had a small stroke. There is a known and measurable area in the brain that, when damaged, causes religious feelings - specifically the attachment of religious significance to certain things.

https://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172

So many! Dissociative Identity disorder (more commonly know as Multiple Personality Disorder); Psychopathy (especially because we know so little about it.) ; Phantom limbs ; Capgras syndrom ( delusion that a close friend or family member has been replaced by aliens) ; Hyprocondriasis; Narcolepsy; sleep paralysis; Dissociative Fugue ; The case of H.M. (a very well known case study on memory loss. He was a man who suffered retrograde amnesia, but whose working memory was still intact. taught us a lot about different types of memory and their corresponding brain redgions...

There are plenty of others that I cannot think of off the top of my head. But if you are looking for some interesting cases, here are two great books about really strange and interesting psychological phenomenons are "The Man Who Mistook His for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales" by Oliver Sacks , and " Phantoms in the Brain" by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee

The first one includes several cases of patients with inexplicably strange neurological disorders. For example, a man who is no longer able to recognize people and common objects. There is an other story about a man who sometimes wakes suddenly at night, thoroughly convinced that his leg is actually a corpse's leg that somebody has placed in bed with him.

The second book was the text book for my cognitive psych class in second year. Like the first book contains many stories of fantastically strange cases that the author has encountered as a neuroscientist. This book contains more of the psychological and neurological basis for the disorders, and shows how they helped us understand different aspects of behaviour and structures of the brain.

(page 2)



Question (BigRedHair):

> First - wow. You're pretty damn lucky to be alive - and I was so glad you were wearing a helmet!
> Did you recognize your ex-step mother when she came in? Did you know that the people visiting were family/friends?
> I may have missed this, but how long is this guy's jail sentence?
>

Answer (PRTetu):

> I think he got six months.
>
> I recognized my ex-stepmother, but that didn't change the fact that it felt like my first memory. I don't remember anyone else visiting besides my dad's wife who came to grab me when I was released.



Question (chiro_throw):

> Please take your own medical care seriously: http://www.skepdic.com/chiro.html
>
> Chiropractic services are not based on science. At worst they can leave dead, or paralyzed for life. Don't take my word for it; educate yourself on any treatment you are looking to or currently receiving.
>
> Rather than read the link above, which is quite lengthy - I will admit, wikipedia has a good section on the risk-benift of chiro here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic#Risk-benefit

Answer (PRTetu):

> What is the alternative?



Question (qazplu33):

> >The second time, I had to take the stand and testify against him. I once again refused to look at the evidence photos and was asked things like what I thought his punishment should be.
>
> What did you say? I'm not here to criticise anything you say, I'm just curious what you thought. I know I'd want to do... illegal things to him, especially after he half-assed his apology. What a dick.

Answer (PRTetu):

> There was a lot I really wanted to say. He should be castrated without anesthesia so as not to continue to pollute the gene pool and in a very painful way. He should pay me every cent he ever makes. His children should be taken away. He should have to spend all six months of his sentence in solitary confinement with the nyan cat looping on a small speaker barely audibly. I should get to hit him on my bicycle with his truck.
>
> What I ended up saying was that he should never drive again and probably spend some time in jail.



Question (jwolf227):

> The driver did turn himself in an hour later. His thoughts were probably oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck I just killed a guy. And often when you get in that highly panicked mindset, the first thing you think is to return to routine, something familiar. He probably went home, calmed down, and realized he needed to account for what he had done.

Answer (PRTetu):

> From the biking blog I linked:
>
> "In a sign of the sheer stupidity demonstrated by some drivers — especially those foolish enough to flee the scene of a collision — Travers called police to report he may have been in a collision, after apparently seeing the story on the news. But swore he wasn’t the one who hit the cyclist.
>
> Needless to say, police investigators found evidence connecting him to the crime. Which they may never have found if Travers hadn’t attempted to craft a case of implausible deniability."



Question (I_LOVE_ASPARTAME):

> I was attacked in my neighborhood before and don't remember anything from that day and two days before. My body is probably doing me a favor by blocking everything out, but it has been crazy hard dealing with the curiosity of trying to bring the memory forward. i've now come to terms with it and let my defenses shut it out. Yay ptsd

Answer (PRTetu):

> lol yaaaayyyy.



Question (whodafukisethanembry):

> Do you see yourself, someday, returning to biking as a means of transportation?

Answer (PRTetu):

> To this point, I had thought absolutely not. There are some exceptions, but absolutely not on public streets with vehicle access. At least not anytime soon.



Question (jewcebox95):

> I remember hearing about this on the news, I live in Dena. Glad you're doing better and hope everything turns out alright.

Answer (PRTetu):

> Thank you for that.



Question (iheartfirefly):

> Be healthy, physically and mentally. Do good things for yourself. I had some head trauma after an accident a few years ago and the first 18 months was hard...I couldn't remember words, anxiety was BAD, lots of hermit-y stuff but it got easier as I settled into the meds and started living how I envisioned my life (even tho it wasn't comfortable to do.) Good luck, don't be a hero and suffer through the pain - talk to people about it, get help, let your friends be friends, ya know?

Answer (PRTetu):

> Good advice. Thank you.



Question (badluckgod13):

> Holy shit man this sucks. I live right off of foothill boulevard in la Canada I'm so sorry this happened.

Answer (PRTetu):

> I went to LCHS. My father teaches there/coaches golf.



Question (P1h3r1e3d13):

> You may be interested in Phantoms in the Brain. It covers some of that weird, mind-body disconnect stuff.

Answer (PRTetu):

> I will definitely check that out.



Question (yummyfrenchfry):

> glad your ok my friend unfortunately was killed on thursday - http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/inland_empire&id=8736771

Answer (PRTetu):

> It breaks my heart every time I read another one of those.
>
> The "Why me?" question as to why I was either hit or survived is kinda out of my head now, but it does come up when I see something like that.
>
> Stay strong.



Question (cukabara7047):

> I was struck by a driver last fall who left me with some pretty bad hand injuries, (as my right arm went through his left headlight) but nothing too lasting. He sped off the second I hit the ground, too, but unfortunately there were no witnesses so there were no repercussions.
> Glad to hear your feelin better man, stay safe out there

Answer (PRTetu):

> Glad to hear you weren't more seriously injured.
>
> Thanks for the positive vibes.



Question (GimmieMore):

> It went from bad to worse... But there were a lot of factors involved...
>
> She actually ended up threatening me with violence for very minimal reasons... regularly.
>
> Head injuries are a bitch.

Answer (PRTetu):

> I'm assuming the relationship ended not long after the accident?



Question (antisocialmedic):

> Yeesh. I am sorry to hear that happened to you my friend. Here is hoping to a fast and thorough recovery!
>
> Also, do you find the road rash to be as awful as I do? I got hit by a car and dragged for a bit when I was a kid, no broken bones but a ton of road rash. It was pretty awful. I can't imagine having to go through what you did.

Answer (PRTetu):

> To be honest, the road rash wasn't as bad as the joint pain and rampant bruising.
>
> Had it just been road rash, I'm sure it would've sucked pretty hard itself. I had some (slight understatement) experience with road rashes as a young care-free skateboarder.



Question (Juliet2yourRomeo):

> Did you have a Significant other at the time of the accident? If so did the dynamic of the relationship change? Have any of your relationships changed in regards to u feeling like a totally new person? Do u have new interests than before ? Haha sorry for the million questions but this is interesting and I'm very glad you survived and I wish you the best in your recovery :)

Answer (PRTetu):

> I did not have a significant other and wasn't dating anyone... that I can recall.
>
> I can't really speak to how much relationships have changed as I can't really remember what they were like before. I'm sure if I got a couple friends to hop on here, they could be a little more insightful as far as that goes. As far as the interests, just being interested in social activity is definitely new and not having any interest in MMO's is also a polar shift. I also have an affinity for old movies from the 40s-60s now which I can't ever recall having a remote interest in.



(continued below)

This book has documented many such cases with possible explanations:

http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172

Fascinating read.

Anything by Dr. Ramachandran, particularly "Phantoms in the Brain".

He has a way of describing complex biopsychological theories in terms that most people can understand.

V.S. Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain, hands down.

After reading that book, I began to realize the degree to which our entire lives are controlled by our subconscious minds. How we're tricked into thinking we consciously make certain decisions, and the endless ways our minds can cover up for neurological issues.

Ramachandran made his name learning about how the intact brain works by examining those with brain damage. From the man who ignores half his world, to the woman who insists her own mother is an imposter, to the people with paralyzed or missing limbs who insist absolutely nothing is wrong with them, this is a relatively easy read for a neurology book.

The last half-century was arguably that of networked computing and technology, and I think the following one will be the decade we finally begin to learn more about the primary organ in our bodies that sets us apart as a species. This book is by far the best jumping-off point.

Are you referring to Phantoms in the Brain? There's a bit in there about the neuroscience of belief (fantastic book by the way.)

Great book on this phenomenon.

Regarding research, you may want to check out a book called The Male Brain (or pirate it, I'm not the police). It's only a couple hundred novel sized pages but it's an amazing primer into brain, hormones, and anything you want to know about the male brain. It covers the topic in an easy-to-understand fashion and I know there's a specific section on testosterone and its effect on the male sex drive. I'd recommend it to anyone but it seems particularly good for your partner's situation (and it also has a great companion book called The Female Brain if you end up liking it).

The reason I disregard testosterone is that if he has doctors regularly checking his blood and he has erection problems, that'd be one of the first things they'd already have checked. Low T is a common side effect of chemo therapy so it's not unusual to them and it's a relatively inexpensive test ($100 maybe) that's straightforward to fix with drugs. Hard to imagine them missing it.



Realistically, the most likely thing I can think of would be having a history of sexual abuse. After 8 months together I'd assume he'd be comfortable having sex with you by now. If a woman displayed those signs like extreme anxiety because of their partner of 8 months was acting sexy with her, or a panic attack when receiving oral sex, or needing to have sex sneak up or she gets extremely anxious... one of the default assumptions would be past sexual abuse. Just because he's a guy doesn't make it any less likely.

Have you talked to him about that and do you think he'd answer you truthfully if you asked? (Also /r/relationships would probably be better able to cover this topic.)

I very much enjoyed The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker.

Sort of funny that i am in my 2nd year of psych major here and going into the same thing you were with the substance abuse counselor but now leaning more towards neuropyschology. There was a paper posted here probably 7 months back about neuroplasticity and it completely grabbed me. I got a book while on vacation a few months back but haven't read it yet but it has to deal with this doctor who was able to actually physically change neural pathways in patients through positive re-inforcement. He was treating OCD patients. This is the book

Did you image patient's brains to correlate active regions with other mental disorders like OCD? This would be not unlike something from this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brain-Neuroplasticity-Power-Mental/dp/0060988479

Here ya go.

I read this in The Mind & the Brain. Great frisson accompanying a good book is always sexy.

Summed it up perfectly. Wish I had something to add other than I plan to watch a bunch of YouTube videos tonight on this stuff. You'd be interested in this book - https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brain-Neuroplasticity-Power-Mental/dp/0060988479

All in all I'd say consciousness has to play a role in influencing the material world. We can't deny the evidence. We just have to do the complex work of figuring out how that maps across a body.

>I too thought it was normal, up until I found out that some people actually think about little to nothing sometimes..

Ha! Exactly! It was hard for me to grasp this for the longest time. I would get almost annoyed when I asked my wife what she was thinking about and she would say "nothing really". I'd be like... WHAT?... what do you mean?

I think it was hard too because I have a strong sense of empathy. So when I absolutely could not understand the concept of not thinking, it was very confusing. I could NOT relate, at all. Sad? Angry? Happy? I get all that. Not thinking though..... is that even possible?!?!?

The only reason I understand now is because I looked into ADHD, then it smacked me in the face, hard. What a realization after all of these years. WOW!

>Is distracting yourself the healthy thing to do?

If you are able to replace a negative thought that you don't want in the first place, then yes. If you neglect something that actually needs attention, then that's bad.

I read about the strategy in a book about the brain. Long story short, it's been successful in treating OCD. When someone has an urge to wash their hands, they instead FORCE themselves to go garden etc. Eventually the desire to wash will go away (if successful, duh).

The book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mind-Brain-Neuroplasticity-Mental/dp/0060988479

If you are interested in the subject overall, this book was actually better imo: http://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426110863&sr=1-1&keywords=the+brain+that+changes+itself

>How do you do it?

I'm definitely not a pro, but when I actually do have success, it usually starts with talking to someone close to me and comparing thought processes. Or sometimes I imagine a friend coming to me and asking for help, but I pretend they are using the same arguments I use in my own head. When I do this, I realize that if a friend came to me speaking like I do, I would instantly realize they are being irrational.

Those two things sometimes allow me enough wiggle room to focus on another subject. And if you get this wiggle room, you might have more luck doing something physical that requires attention. I've found that my brain can start acting up very easily if I just explore my own thoughts.

>And don't you get extra fidgety? I get so restless if I try to ignore it.

Sometimes, yes. When it doesn't work, I get very restless. It feels like there is a bunch of energy that wants to release. Very uncomfortable.

I came across those experiments in The User Illusion, which (I think, IANAN) was a great book, and explains the nuts and bolts of consciousness well.

Daniel Dennett's Compatibilism is pretty nifty. Eliezer Yudkowsky's short essay Thou Art Physics is my favorite version of it; it really brings everything into intuitively graspable focus for me.

A lot of what he says was explained earlier in this book: http://www.amazon.com/User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness-Penguin/dp/0140230122 I suggest you read it.

The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size

Read this book a few years back, definitely worth reading if this topic interests you:

The User Illusion
http://www.amazon.com/User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness-Penguin/dp/0140230122

The User Illusion, or
The first idea would be good places to start.

There's actually a whole lot more to this, some of which is mind-bogglingly counter-intuitive. For a fascinating read, check out The User Illusion by Tor Norretranders. Fair warning: this is a very dense book that covers a lot of topics.

Yes it does, because doing NoFap rewires your brain to remove sex (and therefore fetishes) as a major object of your life. And if you constrain yourself (at a later date) to only sex with real women and masturbation with no fantasy (proceed with caution) then you will weaken the connection between sex and your fetish.

If you want some solid reading on the plasticity of the brain and how porn rewires it (often to things we wouldn't expect ourselves to be into) buy The Brain That Changes Itself or find it in a library and read the chapter on sexuality and pornography. It's very interesting and is a relief if you are struggling with fetishes you really dislike.

The very best of luck to you, my friend!

These are popular books, not texts - a good one about trauma, In An Unspoken Voice, and another about brain plasticity. I don't have a psych background, most of what I know comes from doing psychodrama! :-)

Fascinating book on this topic. Haven't finished it yet, but I'd definitely recommend it.

Hi! Let there be SCIENCE :D I'm currently reading "The Brain That Changes Itself"

By "chemical reactions" do you mean like chemicals that circulate through the blood or do you mean the mechanism through which brain cells communicate with one another?

Also if you could maybe reference a particular topic that is giving you trouble it'd help.

As for books: "The brain that changes itself" - can't recommend this enough. Even if you don't do your project its worth reading, even coming from a non-science background.

Yeah, the experiment was neat, but our brain is good at adapting to a lot more impressive stuff. For further reading The Brain That Changes Itself is great.

[The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doidge] (https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100)

As a guitar player (but not one who's experienced a stroke), I came here to propose this book exactly. Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. He has a more recent book out as well. I've also read My stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor and This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer is also a fascinating read about the evolution of language and memory (the author himself eventually became the 2006 U.S.A. Memory Champion).

The reason I propose any or all of these and more, is that it will leave you encouraged of what is possible with retraining your brain compared to the old school attitudes surrounding brain injury and more specifically to you and your desire to return to guitar playing.

Lots of interesting stuff about this in this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100

If you like reading. They did a lot of awful things on monkeys to test how the brain reacts to limb removal.

Yeah, it's lingering in your subconscious. But you can definitely rewire the aspects of your brain to get over it. Don't lose hope, dude.

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1486588708&sr=8-2&keywords=brain+neuroplasticity

Just continue to educate yourself and treat your mind and body right.

There are not enough research papers specifically on gaming addiction because gaming addiction together with social media and pornography falls under the umbrella of internet addiction - Like you said a rather new field. Some breakthroughs are being made in the last years to have it recognized as an addiction per se (at least in Europe) the problem with conducting enough research is that there are no funds and insurance companies have no wish having another area of responsibility to potentially give away money to people suffering from it. If gaming addiction become completely recognized by international bodies of medicine then insurance companies might have to pay preexisting clients for passed and current treatments ---> something they definitely do not want to do.
Nonetheless here are some videos of legit men of science (not some random ex gamer) that research the field.

"Here is a short interview with Dr. David Greenfield talking about some of the mental and physical applications of gaming and internet addiction"


There are also longer talks on his channel like this one.
Dr. Greenfield has been researching Internet addiction since the 90's.


"Dr. Klaus Woelfling, from the University of Mainz. Germany is taking steps in treating Internet addiction and especially gaming addiction" - this one is a difficult watch primarily because the speaker is very uncharismatic (try watching with the speed setting on 1.5).

Last but definitely not least is "Your Brain on Porn"
Yes, yes I know, you might not want to hear that another of your favorite pastimes is bad for you, but this video covers on a very scientific basis the damages that watching excessive pornography causes to the brain, and no this is not some kind of NoFap cult propaganda, it speaks only on the subject of internet porn. Like I said before, porn together with gaming fall under the umbrella of internet addiction because the reaction we receive from these negative habits has the same structure. If you actually watch the Your Brain on Porn video you will hear him mention numerous times that the damages caused to dopamine receptors is similar to the ones cause from gaming and extensive internet use.

This is just some of the evidence done by men of medicine and science from the top of my head. If you want to go deeper I'd recommend The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains By Nicholas Carr an American author and Pulitzer Prize winner (for that book), witch contains truly numerous examples of scientific studies and references you might want in the bibliography.


Also The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge M.D that talks mainly about brain plasticity and how different behaviors and habits cause the brain to form new cells , create new neural pathways etc etc . He also gives lots of examples how positive and negative behaviors causes various changes IN THE BRAIN, Internet addiction stuff included.

If you really want proof and not just searching for a reason to dismiss things you dont like the sound of then I hope this comment will serve you. If you do nothing less at least watch the first interview with Dr. David Greenfield. It is only 6 minutes long.

Hope this post that took me 50 minutes to put together and find all the links, will be of service to somebody.
Peace.

Edit: Grammar and formatting

Not that many great books, but most of the popular neuroscience books dedicate at least a section to it. The most popular pop-sci book in this field is The Brain That Changes Itself, which doesn't seem to get that glowing of reviews. If you're scientifically inclined, The Paradoxical Brain, edited by Kapur provides a lot of examples of weird neuroplastic effects across many different fields. It's critical to realize that neuroplasticity is what allows memories to happen, so any popular science book about memory will have to discuss it.

Shaynoodle is damn sexy.

You should get The Brain That Changes Itself. A teacher recommended it to me and I've had it on my WL ever since.

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502987460&sr=8-1&keywords=the+brain+that+heals+itself

http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/1439167346/

http://www.amazon.com/What-Every-BODY-Saying-Speed-Reading/dp/0061438294/

and because you have a big brain.... http://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/

I don't know. Floksy talked about Lumosity. She knows that lumosity is fake, and she aims to succeed where lumosity fails. Her company consults real neuroscientists, reads published papers on neurology and psychology, and even reads books on neuroplasticity in order to design mini-games that have a real cognitive benefit. I mentioned the book "The Brain that changes itself" by Norman Doidge as a book filled with neuroplasticity research that she could incorporate into Cerevrum and she told me that she could teach that book, not only has she read it, she loves that book.

On the other hand if a cognitive benefit cannot be proven at least she is giving the software away for free. If a person can try it and they have nothing to lose, financially speaking, from using the app.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Brain-That-Changes-Itself/dp/0143113100

At this point, some kind of somatic sensory-motor education may make more of a difference to her. Whatever damage to nerve tissue that occurred is probably permanent, but the brain has an amazing ability to adapt (c.f. Norman Doidge The Brain That Changes Itself) given the right conditions.

I've had personal experience with several stroke patients who have improved their lives dramatically through such methods.

[Edit to add item at bottom]

Wow. Really, I'm stunned. I have friends who are Jain (the religion) and many of them are incredibly . . . different from most Americans, including me -- non-violent at a very deep level, compassionate in a way that seems more connected and real than typical, and so on. Most are vegetarian and can't stand to watch violence in movies or TV -- including minor violence that most people barely notice. They're not timid in the least; it's something very different and much healthier. So, I don't know (and you might not either) what the deepest reasons are for what you're doing, but I feel impressed and uplifted knowing that there are human beings willing endure pain and danger to help others, even a stranger, in such a dramatic fashion.

Checked out your blog and wanted to pass along something I'm currently reading that you might find of interest: The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, MD. It's a great read and describes amazing (and mostly still ignored/denied/unknown) advances in dealing with brain trauma and other CNS problems, including cerebral palsy.

The Brain That Changes Itself is all about Neuroplasticity and how while your brain can get messed up on everything from addictions to seizures, it is plastic. Meaning, it can reform itself. The 90day milestone is encouraged to let this process happen.

I recommend the book to any NoFapper interested in the brain and porn as well as general neuroscience. Its stories have given hope to someone with a crushing near daily habit for 10-12 years. I found out about nofap in 2012 and my longest streaks are 7-14 days. Haven't had one over 5 in months, and the relapses are now daily. This willpower thing really isn't working for me.

My favourite book on neuroplasticity is ["The Brain That Changes Itself"] (http://www.amazon.ca/The-Brain-That-Changes-Itself/dp/0143113100).
It definitely talks about the brain science behind language (specifically, recovering speech after a stroke) but it also covers much more.

This is my second attempt at quitting this month. The first time I lasted a couple weeks then I honestly think I was afraid of things getting better. Life was improving, I impulsed on a bag. I saw the difference after I resumed right where I left off. When I'm wrapped up in trees I'm in my cacoon. I'm less social, more hungry, more in my head blah blah you know the deal.

After 5 years of heavy trees, cigarettes, heavy alcohol, even fap I need a change. I doubted this subreddit existed, but you guys proved me wrong and I'm glad it does. We all need a support network. I think it will be hardest to cut out butts and booze, then again I tried nofap and could only make it six days. Try, try again.

I'm reading this, its really helpful. The dude from yourbrainonporn.com recommended this book.

I could really go without the hyperbole. Suggesting that no one else is using reason or sources because you disagree with one of three of my sources is obtuse.

Atheists are empirically not religious. When you have volumes of atheists unable to stop using porn, you cannot simultaneously say that religion and its morals are only confusing people into thinking one is addicted. You just can't.

By the way, if you actually read the first forum post I shared, you would see that it references this book by Dr Lasha Darkmoon. Its research demonstrates the rewiring of neural circuits caused by porn

You did not clarify if you are one of those who only believes in empirically proven phenomena. First, it's not a belief if you are simply accepting proven reality. Second, a Catholic must believe in things not seen.

Here is the mobile version of your link

David Eagleman, in his book Incognito makes a good argument that who we are one day is not necessarily who we will be in the future. When someone commits suicide it is taking the life not only of the (often emotional and irrational) person of that moment, but also taking the life of the (potentially happy) person who might exist in the future.

In my own experience, I have found ways to deal with depression and become a happier person since I have matured. So I feel this is a very important point to consider. Suicide is almost never the best option to alleviate overall human suffering and it should never be a decision made by a single individual who may not be thinking rationally.

Currently reading Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain by David Eagleman

It is also discussed at length in his book. It's worth a read.

Thank you for your well thought out response. It is these discussions that foster the most thought, which is beneficial to everyone involved. Also, please note that I am going off of very little sleep and apologize in advance for any silly errors.

You start with my point about proving a negative, and in order to refute that claim you give two examples. You first example is irrelevant. It is an example of disproving a negative or, rather, proving a positive. This is clearly possible, and not what I was talking about when I said proving a negative. Discovering the pigmies disproved the negative belief. However, if we had never found them we could still not say that is proof of their nonexistence. Merely that we have not found them yet. We could conclude that they probably don't exist, but unless we scour the face of the entire planet, including underground, we cannot prove that they do not exist. This is what is meant by proving a negative. Your second anecdote is more accurate to my claim, but I still have a problem with it. You have proven that little green men do not exist in your bathtub because when we look, they are not there. Let's ignore the case that they are out for a stroll or can become invisible as it would get us nowhere. What you have done is proven the negative because you were able to search the entire relevant space that the negative was implying. I agree, I may have overstepped my bounds when saying that it is impossible in all cases to prove a negative. A better statement would have been unfeasible in general cases. In order to disprove any negative, one would have to search the entire set of things relevant to the subject of the statement and show that, indeed, such a thing is not there. If I say there is a magical rock somewhere in the world that grants three wishes, you have not proven it does not exist until you have found every single rock on the entire planet and shown definitively it is a normal rock. So, you could prove a negative, but you would agree that it is beyond reason or practicality in this case to do so. I believe that this case more closely mirrors our spiritual image since the space of where to search for a god or gods is bounded only by the edges of the universe.

You next mentioned that an atheistic view is no more or less justifiable than a theistic view. I understand your reasoning and how you got to this point, however I would again like to disagree with you. Firstly I must impress the viewpoint that atheism is merely the lack of belief in a deity, as I stated in my previous post. It is not the claim that no deities exist (however many do take it to that point). Atheism merely says "I do not believe in any gods." As I mentioned one can take this idea further and say "I believe that there are no gods," however the general idea is that it is a lack of belief in deities. For many atheists, their justification for this is simple: without one shred of scientific evidence for any deity, it is unreasonable to believe in said deity. You mention at one point that a theist has evidence of their deity in hand and an atheist discounts it. This is because that "evidence" is not verifiable or falsifiable, probably spiritual and personal in nature. I'm talking about the "I can feel the holy spirit" and "the bible is true because it was written by God" sort of logic. Either we can not test the theist's claim (and thus, by scientific reason we can NOT count it as evidence) or their evidence is dependent upon itself (circular logic). To this point in time, I have heard of no "evidence" for religion that actually falls under the category of evidence by scientific standards. Atheists discount the theists evidence because, in layman's terms, it sucks. It simply is not evidence.

I have touched on a couple of your points in this last segment, and would like to finish off with talking about your last two blocks. You say that I am looking at this as if the mind were a computer with only 2 states. I'm sorry if I gave off that impression, but that's not at all what I was implying. I earlier mentioned the difference between "I do not believe in any gods" and "I believe that there are no gods." There, already, we have 2 states within this area that I have coined the "null state" which is, in itself, one of many states. Your point that it is impossible to disbelieve without a conscious rejection of theistic claims is certainly true; so it's a good thing I never said anything to contrary. You seem to be making a false implication here, however. Atheism ABSOLUTELY IS the rejection of theistic claims, but you try to take it one step further and say that it makes another claim to replace those rejected ones, specifically the claim that there are no gods. As mentioned a couple of times, while this is indeed atheism, atheism in the purest sense is a lack of belief in any deities. It makes no inherent claim. Thus it is, in fact, a state of disbelieving while still a rejection of theistic claims.

It is for this reason that it is the default state. One is not born believing in gods (thus containing a lack of belief which is defined as atheism), one is taught religion. We could further claim that there is no god or gods, but then we would fall into all of the pitfalls your post has lined out for us. Scientifically speaking we can only go so far as to say there is no evidence for god, and thus no reason to attribute belief in such a being. But any further than that is just as unsupported as a theistic view (there can be a debate about probabilities, but this is inane pandering). However, if you realize that atheism very simply is the rejection of theistic claims without the necessity to replace those claims, then we can realize that atheism really is the default stance. Pure atheism makes no claim, it simply asks "why should I believe you?" And we haven't yet gotten a good answer.

I hope I have helped you better understand atheism. Many people have an incorrect view on us, and it seems like you are the same way. It is important to note that we do not inherently make any claims about deities, we simply say we reject all theistic claims. There are many who do make that claim, but it is NOT inherent in atheism. Absolutely not!

P.S. I mostly avoided the topic of human thought because there wasn't much to say there. I actually love the processes of the human brain and love learning about it. It seems you do too. On a completely unrelated note I would recommend you read the book Incognito. It's not perfect but it's tooled toward layman readers and still gets its point across in an interesting way, a very fun read. Thank you for your discussion!

i recently finished reading "the greatest show on earth" by richard dawkins, it is a book about the evidence, beauty and elegance of evolution. it really was an amazing and informative read, yet still accessible to the layman.

i am currently reading "incognito:secret lives of the brain" by david eagleman. i originally heard about this from a talk he had done on npr a couple months ago. the basic gist of it is something like this: the vast majority of what goes on in your brain is controlled by your subconscious and goes on just fine without your consciousnesses ever needing involvement. occasionally a conflict arises that cannot be resolved by your subconscious, and a request is sent to the conscious to solve the issue. i'm probably butchering this explanation, and as i have only started the book, i can't give a good review one way or the other on it, but so far it seems interesting.

From what you are saying, I think you'd like the book Incognito as it kind of touches on that topic. I have to say, you pulled it off wonderfully in your video.

Sometimes it's really good to read something you fundamentally disagree with. I can't speak on the gravity or depth of this particular book, but it's not a philosophy book from 100+ years ago, so it's a little unfair to compare them on those terms.

I'm a fan of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, by David Eagleman a very accessible recently written book on what goes on beneath conscious awareness. It's pop-science, but that's no reason to dismiss a book. The subject is fascinating and the arguments are very thought-provoking.

I think I read about this in "Incognito: The Secret life of the brain" was an amazing read I recommend you guys should look it up.

If you have not read Incognito or Subliminal, I highly recommend them. Gives some great insight into the subconscious mind. One of the books talks a bit about early work by Freud on how he was right and wrong about his research.

Yes, I've worked with both and understand the black box problem well.

> upload your neural information into a silicone based robot and you’ll still be the same person.

I strongly disagree with this. IMO the singularity folks overvalue the contents of thought and undervalue the physicality of consciousness.

Consider something like phantom limb syndrome. It has a profound impact on one's experience, and that's just with an appendage.

Now ask, what if the phantom limb is not a limb but is actually a part of the brain that you're not even aware of? You might feel like something is not quite right. But is that the "real" you? What is the self? The content of your thoughts, or the more abstract feeling of experience? How do you know if your thoughts are authentic?

I actually experienced something like that a few years ago and it was very disturbing. For about three weeks I felt as if part of my consciousness had switched off. I could still navigate the world and express myself verbally, but I couldn't help but feel like it wasn't the "real" me. I told people that I felt like a piece of me was missing, but I couldn't pinpoint it. It was kind of like the feeling of a missing tooth. Your tongue is drawn to the hole. It made me seriously doubt my executive function.

Eventually it went away but I never figured out why.

Now look at schizophrenics. They don't think they're insane. They perceive a world that you and I don't perceive, and in their minds they are 100% exercising free will. That's why it's so difficult to get them to take their medication -- it makes them feel less authentic.

A more common experience is lifelong depressives who find a treatment that works. Many of them describe the medicated self as "the real me." Really? All that neurological activity doesn't feel real, but 50 mg of Zoloft snaps it into place?

Oliver Sachs has documented even more bizarre neurological conditions. Combine that with the "competitive selves" theory outlined in Incognito and it really leads me to question how much "I" am in control.

These two pathologies have been documented and defined along with many others. But there are potentially infinite pathologies that have not yet been defined. How do you know that you're not suffering from some form of psychosis? One that makes you feel like you exercise free will?

On a therapeutic level, you might want to check out voice dialogue. (I'm not suggesting you need therapy, it's just an interesting view of behavior.) In going through it myself I discovered over a dozen distinct voices in my head, which my therapist said is common. The more I untangle those voices, the less I believe in free will.

This is also mentioned in Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman that is a really interesting and short read that you can get here

I really liked Incognito by David Eagleman. It is similar in style to Freakonomics and does a great job of simplifying the science and applying it to things we do every day.

Read this: http://www.amazon.com/Incognito-The-Secret-Lives-Brain/dp/0307389928

"Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain" by David Eagleman is more neuroscience-focused but overlaps a lot with core psychology. Really great read. https://www.amazon.com/Incognito-Secret-Lives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307389928

How Emotions are Made, The Brain: The story of you, Incognito. Also maybe Gene.

Just go to email share on the amazon page and it will give you a condensed link.

example - http://amzn.com/0307389928

VS

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307389928/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d5_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0Q60AXN4Z57GGYHPJ7GD&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

Happy to share.

If you find this stuff interesting, I really do recommend the book I linked below. Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain is a fascinating pop neuro book. Dr. Eagleman basically runs through a number of the different ways people have gotten fucked over by their brain causing them to do things outside of the control the average layperson would consider us to have. And unfortunately while he never flat out says we don't have Free Will, he does wrap it all up as a plea for Justice Reform and the need for a system that focuses on rehabilitation over punishment and compassionate isolation from society for those who can't be rehabilitated.

>I used to hear God's voice speaking to me, but it said things that were based in my childhood mistaken understanding of the teachings, so I think that's pretty good evidence that it was all in my head.

That sounds like something else though, perhaps more related to aspects of the psyche currently pathologised? (not saying this is what was happening to you), not the kinds of mysticism or mystical experience and insight I'm referring to. Distinctions can be made, even if they all exist in a spectrum of 'altered states' say or the 'parapsychological'. There appears to be considerable overlap, albeit highly distorted in some cases, between states of the brain-mind-body interface called 'mental illness' or 'creativity' and those states designated 'spiritual' or 'mystical'.

Yes, to all you said. But Products of the brain are not necessarily reducible to the brain. Similarly as mind or consciousness not being able to be reduced to mere physical correlates or processes, though inclusive of them. There is equally other kinds of evidence in this domain as referenced in texts such as Why God Won't Go Away or Dimensions of Mystical Experience: Empirical Studies and Pyshcological Links. Perhaps then it is more related to how ones own mind interprets such evidence or assessment? Its a qualitative distinction, and that is relative, as well as nuanced.

>The claims of religious founders that people accept and the claims of those they dismiss as cult leaders are pretty similar, though.

Similarly, its qualitative, but also able to be discerned by 'fruits' of actions and the effect on the people who embrace such teachings.
I've read writings by so-called 'cult' leaders, gurus, other kinds of spiritual teachers, and the writings of Baha'u'llah. They don't compare. But that is a personal assessment and distinction.

In Baha'i Abdu'l Baha says it is the 'Holy Spirit', designated as an actual force, that activates, that 'touches' and interacts with the human consciousness that lends authenticity to these possible states and stages, in terms of an envisaged evolutionary process, as also being that which aligns human consciousness with a greater alleged 'objective' reality, beyond the subtleties of the 'confirmation bias' of the senses and the limits of reason (not that this is seen as an irrational operation, but something that is transpersonal, transrational, inclusive of it).

Most religions have developed to explain why we live and to deal with the problem that we are eventually going to die. I just finished a fascinating book called "Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief." Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
https://www.amazon.com/dp/034544034X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_3aXqDbYSYK8J3

It explains the functions of the brain in layman's terms and shows that we have an evolved physical process for experiencing the "mystical" world. Basically, our brains have the ability to get a taste of dimensions beyond what we know as space and time. Most who have experienced this believe that it points to a higher being/unity/God/realm.

Personally, having a belief in something greater than myself has driven me to care more about my life on Earth. We may never understand why we live while we're living, but I have hope that after death I will.

I did my senior seminar project on a similar subject: neurotheology. Based largely on the findings of this book, the conclusion was that the human brain is basically hard-wired to have some communal experiences and a belief in something larger than the individual.

I just reread my last post to you, and I apologize for any of the stuff that doesn't make sense. 3 hours of sleep + nightshift/dayshift + not proofing = pwnmyownface

Knowing (not believing) that all things happen because of some causality is the only way the natural universe makes sense. And I'm not trying to make an argument that what you experienced was not genuine. And while I have had a couple of mystical/spiritual experiences, I know that those experiences are only possible due to natural processes, such as the "neurocircuitry" we have in our heads. We have the neural machinery to experience spiritual type feelings, of all kinds. I'm taking this from books like Why God Won't Go Away.

Now, while I don't believe in all of the opinions of the authors, I do believe in the neuroscience of it all. Other creatures whose brains are relatively simple like lizards or flies probably are unable to experience something as nuanced as that. Fear, and anger though, probably (not sure about the fly actually, didn't study those in school)).

I've had a couple of different kinds of experiences, and I also know there are a couple that I haven't had before. For example, I've had friends say they actually felt god, or a godlike entity. I don't think he was religious, so that was very interesting and I wonder how I would react to the same experience.

If you are comfortable with telling me, what were those experiences? Mine were pretty benign, like say one of my friends who thinks he is going to die in another year or so. I don't think it'll happen, and I hope it doesn't. It just "can't".

I'd say there are a lot of different types of heroes. I don't have a book of classification on them. The hero in that book is a non hero type of hero. He's not an anti-hero, but the author seems to intentionally make him the least hero hero that could've heroed. Other than the fact he's somewhat of a decent guy, he's a waste of life (at least to those who don't care about him).

The kind of hero you're talking about is a kind of transformative hero. It sounds like it might be the kind of hero you'd like to or are working to be.

I do have a question about a concept, though. Why is it if something exists, that it shouldn't suffer pain?

I agree with you that I don't want to be defined by my pain, though what demons I do have, I'd rather get them on my side, and laugh together. There would be no demons after that.

No...my psych guy I just see once a month. So I've seen him 3 times now, and he's screwed up a few times in that short time (one time put me in the E.R). I don't know if its the meds, but there are some things I feel like he could be doing better as a doc. I don't know what he goes through to provide service for me, but I really don't see it.

I'm not on anything that could do that, I'm starting out on new meds.

Obviously, you don't understand basic grammar.

"the rules surrounding the plural form of proper nouns (two Maple Leaf players are Maple Leafs for the same reason that Julia Child and family are the Childs and not the Children"

Here's a book that might help you understand

> The hard problem of consciousness alludes to the fact that we don't know how the brain produces consciousness, but we already know that it does.

Wrong. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (a peer-reviewed academic resource) states in the entry on the hard problem of consciousness: "In more detail, the challenge arises because it does not seem that the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience—how consciousness “feels” and the fact that it is directly “for me”—fit into a physicalist ontology, one consisting of just the basic elements of physics plus structural, dynamical, and functional combinations of those basic elements. "

Source: http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/

David Chalmers introduced the term "hard problem" of consciousness and if you go to his PhilPapers profile you'll see his answers to various questions in a survey he actually helped create. Here's the question: Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism? and here's his answer: Accept: non-physicalism

Source: http://philpapers.org/profile/2/myview.html

So yeah, if you can solve this hard problem of consciousness and save physicalism then maybe you'll be the guy getting the Nobel Prize eh? This is a big problem that's been plaguing us and stands in the way of the greatest mysteries mankind is aware of: consciousness and the brain. So if you think you're Nobel Prize material then go ahead and get crackin on solving that hard problem of consciousness there.

> Physical and material aren't vacuous terms at all. Somebodies' say so doesn't make it so.

This is either a blatant straw man or you clearly didn't check out the link from Chomsky. Chomsky gave an argument, check out the link again without the straw man.

> You should check out the argument from authority fallacy in good times, since your pretentious and pompous drivel is always chock full of it.

Do you even know what that fallacy even is? Me citing scholarly sources is not fallacious, its just research and an avoidance of plagiarism. I follow academic publications, I keep up with the scholars as much as I can. That's what a person who wants to be informed on this matter does my friend.

> I could also cite tons of philosophers who subscribe to physicalism, many of whom have actually done real work in that regard instead of scholastic mental masturbation.

The difference between you and me is that I'm giving arguments and not just throwing books at you like you tried to do. Chalmers is no fringe quack, he's a leading expert in his field and the hard problem of consciousness is unraveling this physicalist paradigm.

> the majority of professional philosophers subscribes to naturalism.

Yes it is the majority but the numbers aren't as impressive as you'd make them out to be. Only 50% are naturalists. And as I've noted, with research to back me up, this paradigm of the majority is being contradicted more and more.

> Also: material is usually understood to be space, time, fundamental particles, fields, energy, laws of nature.

Again, check out that video from Chomsky without the strawman and you'll see this doesn't help.

> A theory is not an example. Can you actually provide a counterexample? Because nobody can.

First off, you can't even meet your own example. As noted in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (a peer-reviewed academic resource), a physicalist ontology with qualia/subjectivity doesn't seem to make sense. Think about it for a bit: if all is objective or 3rd person then what room is there for a first person? There is none. There would be no qualia or subjectivity, only objectivity since reality=objective. But the idealist posits what's right before them: consciousness. To them reality is consciousness and they actually have some pretty good arguments for this as even Godehard Bruentrup notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDR5i6z4L8c

> What the hell. Prove that and collect your Nobel Prize.

LOL wow you are waaaay behind on your research. Here, let me catch you up to date. One source on this is Jeffrey M. Schwartz MD a Research Psychiatrist at UCLA School of Medicine and one of the world’s leading experts in neuroplasticity, and he showed the mind alone can and does influences the brain and change brain structures in his work with OCD patients: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mind-Brain-Neuroplasticity-Mental/dp/0060988479

Here's some other stuff as well: http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~ochsner/pdf/Ochsner_Reapp.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11549754

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811902000307

This is old news my friend. Brain effects mind and mind effects brain.

> More argument from authority.

Wow do you even know what I was saying there? You were trying to say all of this stuff comes from theistic motivations about life after death when the main scholars I've been citing are both atheists (Chalmers and Nagel) who haven't said anything about life after death as far as I'm concerned.

> Chalmers' arguments are so dumb that they actually lead even more philosophers towards mind physicalism. Pigliucci calls his views The Chalmers Delusion.

There is no "Chalmers Delusion" outside o the imagination of this guy you're citing who is not even a philosopher of mind. He's speaking outside of his field of expertise. And every source that's actually on this topic by experts in the relevant field suggest this hard problem is a serious problem for physicalism.

> The mind doesn't have causal powers.

The mind as you conceive of as these current scientists do, yes it certainly does and I just provided several scholarly sources demonstrating this to you. You're out of date my friend, way out of date. We've known this for awhile now. We know the brain effects the mind and the mind effects the brain.

> The only causal effects so far discovered are force interactions in physics.

That's a very hefty claim there and I don't know how you could actually go about proving this to be true. But I'd also like to know what causality even is in your view. Keep in mind, we're not talking about mere physics here we're talking about metaphysics and ontology and such. You can't retreat to physics and close off philosophy here without sawing off the branch you sit on. If you want to close it off at physics you're going to end up refuting yourself.

> You've also just unintentionally revealed a trick. You (non physicalists) love to define minds and consciousness as something which doesn't actually exist, and then ask the question how the physical brain can produce that.

???

When did I say mind and consciousness doesn't exist? And I never said I was a non-physicalist but I never said I was a physicalist either. I reject this dichotomy altogether as these terms are essentially vacuous.

> Of course. Exactly like in the case of all other fictional characters.

Wrong, this is not the case with fictional characters. You can conceive of mickey mouse and what he's like with all the properties that make him mickey mouse, but God's essence is not identifiable with anything.

This is fascinating, but it's been known for at least a decade that the brain definitely remains plastic through adulthood. This is nothing new. See The Brain That Changes Itself.

> I appreciate your interest but I have had these conversations with my community numerous times. It wasn't a quick change or simple decision.

I didn't assume it was a quick change or a simple decision.

I am genuinely interested in your answer to those questions, not to try and convince you to become a Baha'i.


> I have a BSc Archaeology with Chemistry

The reason I ask about your science background is I also have a science background. In my opinion Ulrich Mohrhoff has convincingly demonstrated that the foundations of physics implies God. See:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.6708v1.pdf

and

http://ujm.thisquantumworld.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/TS-Paris-Tale.pdf

for starters.

It is by far the best explanation for quantum mechanics I have ever read, and the first one that makes complete sense to me.

There are plenty of other aspects of reality that point towards "God" in my view: this book is well worth reading:

http://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068

Radical feminism is an actual movement that has a history and certain parameters for ideology (the Wikipedia entry is extremely vague and does not do it justice). I'm sorry for being rude in my previous comment, but it just ticks me off when people on the internet think "radical feminism" means being feminist and angry, or feminist and extreme. Radical feminists tend to be all of those things, but simply being angry or extreme doesn't make someone a radfem. Words have meanings.

I took a look at the thread you linked. Apart from the academic jargon that means nothing in the real world (there was a lot of this), they're basically saying that although gender is socially made up/imposed, it also has real world consequences. Well, yes, every radfem in the world would agree with that. That doesn't mean that sex-reassignment surgery is the best way to go.

If a born-female wants to be masculine, she can; if a born-male wants to be feminine, he can. Why take hormones and change one's body? If you think about it, it's actually reinforcing really negative, sexist stereotypes ("I have a wee-wee but I like dresses and pink; I must be a girl because only girls can like dresses and pink").

The trans "argument" usually relies on the de-bunked idea that people are born with "male" or "female" brains. Putting aside the obvious sexism of this argument, it's actually not scientifically valid (link to an awesome feminist book on neurology that shows how our brains adapt to our environments via something called neuroplasticity, and we are not born with inherently "masculine" or "feminine" brains): http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244/

And finally, yes, radfems hate the word "cis". It's an insulting world that implies women are privileged for a) being born female and b) being socialized into femininity (gender role), which is just ritualized submission.

I'm not interested in getting into a debate on the internet, but if you're curious about a different perspective I highly recommend this book. The author can get a bit ranty at times, but she does an excellent job of explaining how a lot of the conclusions we draw are based on faulty logic, and she talks about a bunch of theories and studies that don't get a lot of media attention but make perfect sense to me and help explain things that otherwise seemed out of place.

For anyone who is interested in an overview of what neuroscience research tells us about gender differences I recommend Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. https://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244

He isnt the only one who has that mind however. I played esport games for 10 years now and I have seen many like him. They have high, often unrealistic, expectations on things and often assume and take these conditions as a given as they are trying to do their best. One thing goes wrong, even the tiniest of detail, they would treat it as unfair and that they are entitled to get the conditions they required to perform their best to even just start trying. Another good example would be EG DotA2 player Mason who could never play public games because he has unrealistic expectation for pub players.

In a psychological field, I think this condition was described quite accurately as Neurosis(referring to these players as Neurotic) and a detail study could be found in Karen Horney study on the matter. Her book Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization is rated very highly among the people who selfdiagnosed themselves with this condition and many reviews stated that it helped them found themselves.

If you are reading this Naniwa, definitely consider checking the book out. At least try reading the first chapter or so. Best wishes.

> there is nothing we've ever learned that requires a god,

That's a pretty broad statement, especially considering that in Europe, the Church maintained literacy for hundreds of years. When the rest of the population could not read, the Church kept learning alive, so you may want to revise your ideas.

I think that even the ancient Egyptians would disagree. Their priestly class kept their knowledge going too.

Even in America. Harvard, and Yale started as seminaries, which required a god. Princeton was started by Presbyterians. Brown was founded by Baptists. The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Connecticut, founded Dartmouth College in 1769. Penn, of course, was founded by Quakers.

I'm not a bible-thumper, but I will allow people to hold their beliefs and not make fun of them for it. That's the difference between us, I suppose.

Here's a book for you

Except you are wrong. There is no scientific consensus that transsexuals have significant brain differences. There is not even any scientific consensus that men's and women's brains differ at all. See [Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender] (http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244).

Some ideas in 4 categories:

Body Language:

• What Every BODY is Saying
  
• Unmasking The Face
  
  Speed Reading:
  
  
• Breakthrough Rapid Reading
  
  Evolutionary Psych / Behavior:
  
  
• The Blank Slate
  
• How The Mind Works
  
  PUA / Attraction:
  
  
• Bang
  
• Mystery Method

There's this book called The Tell-Tale Brain by Dr. V.S. Ramachandran (maybe you heard of him--he spoke at Beyond Belief 2006 and TED).

Anyway, here's a quote about OBJECTIVITY in art in his book and he goes into DETAIL about why it's true.

http://i.imgur.com/UtxlnUV.png

Looks like you lose, ASSHOLE.