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Consciousness — the internal dialogue that seems to govern one's thoughts and actions — is far less powerful than people believe, serving as a passive conduit rather than an active force that exerts control, according to a new theory proposed by an SF State researcher. Associate Professor of Psychology Ezequiel Morsella.
Morsella and his coauthors' groundbreaking theory, published online on June 22 by the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, contradicts intuitive beliefs about human consciousness and the notion of self.
According to Morsella's framework, the "free will" that people typically attribute to their conscious mind — the idea that our consciousness, as a "decider," guides us to a course of action — does not exist. Instead, consciousness only relays information to control "voluntary" action, or goal-oriented movement involving the skeletal muscle system.
http://scienceblog.com/79096/theory-consciousness-free/
Wonder if Edward Bernays would agree with this assessment. Enjoyed watching the very intriguing documentary, The Century of the Self a 2002 British television documentary series by Adam Curtis. It focuses on how the work of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and Edward Bernays influenced the way corporations and governments have analyzed, dealt with, and controlled people.
You can see the documentary: The Century of the Self | Happiness Machines | Episode 1
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday July 03 2015, @07:47AM
I have read not one but two distinctly different short stories, each of which takes place in an All You Can Eat restaurant in which a space alien bankrupts the proprietor by teleporting the food he eats from his stomach to his home planets, in hopes of saving his people from widespread famine.
One was called "All You Can Eat". I don't recall the other.
I don't know whether they were independently written, or whether the magazine editors of the day weren't really on the watch for copyright infringement.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by AnonTechie on Friday July 03 2015, @10:21AM
All You Can Eat - Harvey L & Audrey L Bilker.
Children of Infinity: Original Science Fiction Stories for Young Readers [goodreads.com]
An anthology of short science fiction stories all about young people. "Wingless on Avalon", "Half Life", and "Wake up to Thunder". Wake up to Thunder is surely the story that inspired the popular movie trilogy "The Matrix".
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday July 03 2015, @11:01AM
I used to read science fiction all day and all night.
One of my sister's elementary school teachers once sent Jeannie home with a note so that my mother could take the admittedly unusual step of convincing Jeannie not to read so much. Wasn't paying attention to her lessons, see.
I failed three out of four quarters of eighth grade english, as a result of Mrs. Whitworth's very first words to me being "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS BUSINESS ABOUT YOUR GRADES!"
Civil disobedience, see. I was often, quite sternly informed I would be held back from high school but I didn't want to give Mrs. Whitworth the satisfaction so I passed my time during her classes by reading nonfiction spaceflight history books. (Fairfield, California is the site of Travis Air Force Base, so the county library had quite an impressive collection.)
I read for pleasure all the way up until September 1982 when I started at Caltech as an Astronomy major. Ironically it was not all the science or math that destroyed my reading, but the literature and history.
I smiled at first, you made me really happy and I will purchase the book.
But I am fifty-one years old now. I cannot get those lost years back.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]