The Psych Student

Before discussing it, I offer you the chance to watch From Science to God by Peter Russell. (and apologies to Sarah Silverman for alluding to her film Jesus is Magic in the post title)

Peter Russell is an author and filmmaker who seems ever eager to bridge what many see as a gap between science and religion, however, it seems like he’s trying to make a bad relationship work. Not that one can be both scientific and religious, but that the two things must somehow be shackeled in ways that don’t really work for the purposes of shaping a new worldview.

This post actually started off as a response to a friend who had shared the video with me (that’ll learn ya). The basic notion here, that science can now be dismissed as a means of answering certain questions on the basis that the questions are really quite old and science hasn’t fully solved them yet, is what I’d classify as a sort of a new mutation of Neo-Luddism. I have a different piece of writing on Modern Luddites in general that seems to be taking quite a bit of time, but for now, and in this post I’d like to focus just a bit on the spiritual strain. Spiritualists take a lot of things for granted about science that often seems more like an analysis of what they are seeing in the mirror rather than an objective assessment, and this film is a perfect example. Read the rest of this entry »

Wired reports: The visual and audio feedback presented to Erik Ramsey, a locked-in man who uses an experimental wireless brain-computer interface to produce vowel sounds. As the system expands, he could eventually form consonants as well.

In the above clip is Professor Martin Seligman, renowned on the subjects of depression and abnormal psychology, who has become since around the 90′s a proponent of Positive Psychology.

This video is a TED talk he gave on July 21, 2008, in which he delves into what Positive Psychology is; moving the science beyond just treating those people suffering from something to helping people achieve actual happiness and meaningful lives. Being that it’s TED, he ties it back to technology, science and design at the end, but it’s essentially a very similar talk to the one I heard him give last Tuesday on the subject of “Positive Psychology and Positive Education” as part of the British Psychological Society Lecture Series.

There’s a lot to be said for what Seligman is evangelizing, and a number of areas worth exploring, but what interested me quite a bit was the notion of flow. Read the rest of this entry »

Possibly somewhat off topic here, but this short animation which summarizes chapter one of the book Imagining the Tenth Dimension by Rob Bryanton is a great exercise in perception. Bryanton narrates your journey from a single point in the first dimension up through all possible infinities and beyond and ends up giving you a brief moment of zen as you actually think you might get what string theory is all about. A great ride through a roller coaster of a thought experiment.