Brainaction

Thomas Kuhn (1970) arrived at his concept of the paradigm from his interest in the history of science. Because science is so well documented in objective form, it provides the ideal resource for study of the way a group advances...

The brain conserves its resources by consigning the great bulk of its routine operations to automatic processing beyond conscious awareness. The automatic use of preset responses makes the brain action relatively effortless. The brain reserves most of its neuronal activity for...

By declaring that I think, therefore I am, Descartes recognised a key element of human brain action, its remarkable capacity for self-awareness, a subtle component of human consciousness that received little attention until recently. Zoltan Torey (2009) argues that it accompanied...

René Descartes captured the essence of human life with cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). Still 400 years later it remains a gritty summary of the mental action that distinguishes the human. It epitomises the level of self-awareness...

I learned psychiatry in a mental hospital, which had its spectacular moments of irrational chaos, but the loony bin I analyse in my book, “Welcome”, is this world that contains us all. As a psychiatrist I had no difficulty recognising the insanity...

I put aside for the time being major horrors such as Nazi Germany or English soccer crowds on the rampage to begin with a minor example of errant group mind. In my home town in November 2012 the local newspaper...

All animal life achieves centrally organised awareness. Each species specialises during evolution in some way to perceive better its environment. Birds excel at  vision and dogs at smell. The vulture manages both. Humans turned inwards to achieve self-awareness. Zoltan Torey (link...

Our minds pose a mystery. We perceive what goes on around us very well. In striking contrast to that magnificent awareness we perceive nothing of how our brains manage it. Electrical recording demonstrates that we have no awareness of the...