Sunday, November 30, 2014

Psilocybin Research

Go to Quora.

Johns Hopkins studies on psilocybin:

Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/P... 

Mystical-type experiences occasioned by psilocybin mediate the attribution of personal meaning and spiritual significance 14 months later
http://csp.org/psilocybin/Hopkin... 

Human hallucinogen research:guidelines for safety
http://csp.org/psilocybin/Hopkin... 

Press Release:
http://csp.org/psilocybin/PressR... 

New York Times article: "Can Mushrooms Treat Depression?"
<A study published last year in the journal Experimental Brain Research found that psilocybin eliminated conditioned fear responses in mice, which has implications for sufferers ofPTSD. And psilocybin has been shown to relieve anxiety, depression and despair in terminal cancer patients, who describe their experience as giving them a new perspective on their lives.>

USA Today: 'Magic mushroom' drug may improve personality long-term
http://www.usatoday.com/news/hea... 

Dr. Roland Griffiths on TEDx:

http://tedxmidatlantic.com/2009-...

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Organizational Culture: Japan vs U.S.

Sometimes the "problem" is that the organization's culture is diverse. For example, in the modern Japanese culture, corporate culture is based on a network of hierarchical relationships rather than the Western pattern of shared values and goals. However, Japanese workers reject a superior whose orders they perceive as detrimental to the organization as a whole - loyalty to the members of the group, or organization, supersedes hierarchical rule. 

Group-think can result in the development of low self-confidence in decision-making as personal evaluation and observation seems more threatening to Japanese. Independence is often seen as anti-conformity. Creative thinkers are regarded as acting negatively against authority rather than seen as seeking new independently-formulated goals.

Various Japanese terms related to conformity: dakyo, kyocho, docho, and ison.

Independence occurs when person is consistent and logical in judgement.

Reference link.

"Blindsight" quotes

"...who looks out from its eyes? What does it reduce to? Who am I?"

Gödel was right after all: no system can fully understand itself."

What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots?” 

People simply can’t accept that patterns carry their own intelligence, quite apart from the semantic content that clings to their surfaces; if you manipulate the topology correctly, that content just comes along for the ride.” 

You can’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to wallow in the sheer beauty of language.” 

...something ELSE set your body in motion, sent an executive summary - almost an afterthought - to the homunculus behind your eyes ...that arrogant subroutine that thinks of itself as The person, mistakes correlation for causality," ...and thinks He moved the finger” 

Perfection’s unattainable but it isn’t unapproachable.” 

The second mouse gets the cheese.” 

We don’t really see anything except a few hi-res degrees where the eye focuses. Everything else is just peripheral blur, just … light and motion. Motion draws the focus.  And your eyes jiggle all the time, did you know that, Keeton? Saccades, they’re called. Blurs the image, the movement’s way too fast for the brain to integrate so your eye just … shuts down between pauses. It only grabs these isolated freeze-frames, but your brain edits out the blanks and stitches an … an illusion of continuity into your head.” He turned to face me. “And you know what’s really amazing? If something only moves during the gaps, your brain just … ignores it. It’s invisible.” 

PREDATORS RUN FOR THEIR DINNER. PREY RUN FOR THEIR LIVES. —OLD ECOLOGIST’S PROVERB”

Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony. Why invent fusion reactors if your climate is comfortable, if your food is abundant? Why build fortresses if you have no enemies? Why force change upon a world that poses no threat?” 

― Peter WattsBlindsight

Monday, November 24, 2014

Eudaimonic Well-being

The Greek word eudaimonia means literally ‘the state of having a good indwelling spirit, a good genius’.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Found on a blog

Did you ever realize how much your body loves you? I mean its always trying to keep you alive. That’s all your body has to live for. Your body is making sure you breathe while you sleep, stopping cuts from bleeding, fixing broken bones, finding ways to beat the illnesses that might get you. Your body literally loves you so much. It’s time you start loving your body back.

u think i am walking around the house with a blanket around my shoulders because i am cold, but in actuality it is my cloak and i am on an adventure

Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.

there are 7 billion people on the planet and you only interact with like a fraction of a fracton of them in your lifetime. imagine how many incredible friendships or relationships you could have but you’ll never meet or get to know those people

People who notice everything but remain silent are to be feared.

Never trust a person who talks to their pets in a normal voice.

I want to be around people that do things. i don't want to be around people that judge and talk about what other people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things.

"Could you please hold this for a second?" hands you my problems and runs away

Making something beautiful requires effort and perseverance.

Once you stop wanting something you get it.

One must accept the fact that others don't see what you do.

You are not free until you have no need to impress anybody.

You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming.

I want to make beautiful things even if nobody cares.

The sign of intelligence is that you are always wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about everything damn thing they are doing in their life.



The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

The Rape of Nanking should be remembered not only for the number of people slaughtered but for the cruel manner in which many met their deaths. Chinese men were used for bayonet practice and in decapitation contests. An estimated 20,000-80,000 Chinese women were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched. Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs, and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them get torn apart by German shepherds. So sickening was the spectacle that even the Nazis in the city were horrified, one proclaiming the massacre to be the work of bestial machinery.

To see/read from original blog, click here