Sensory Learning Quotes

Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill,one of the prime reasons you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It's not just a question of how-to, you see; it's a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.

As long as we lean on anything outside ourselves for support, we are going to be insecure. Most of us try to find support by leaning on all sorts of things - gold, books, learning, sensory stimulation - and if these things are taken away, we fall over. To the extent that we are dependent on these external supports, we grow weaker and more liable to upsets and misfortune.

Boys are boys and they do what they want. Women want things too sometimes, but mostly they're just warm sensory boards for men to tweak and rub and learn about themselves and the world through.

It'll be when you first learn to walk that I get daily demonstrations of the asymmetry in our relationship. You'll be incessantly running off somewhere, and each time you walk into a door frame or scrape your knee, the pain feels like it's my own. It'll be like growing an errant limb, an extension of myself whose sensory nerves report pain just fine, but whose motor nerves don't convey my commands at all. It's so unfair: I'm going to give birth to an animated voodoo doll of myself. I didn't see this in the contract when I signed up. Was this part of the deal?

Well-directed thought is a learned skill. To manifest an intention requires laserlike focus, full sensory visualization, and a profound belief.

The true essence of things is invisible to the eyes...Our sensory organs love to lead us astray, and eyes are the most deceptive of all. We rely too heavily on them. We believe that we see the world around us, and yet it is only the surface that we perceive. We must learn to divine the true nature of things, their substance, and the eyes are rather a hindrance than a help in that regard. They distract us. We love to be dazzled. A person who relies too heavily on his eyes neglects his other senses--and I mean more than his hearing or sense of smell. I'm talking about the organ within us for which we have no name. Let us call it the compass of the heart.

Our Human thinking brain operates by way of prediction, comparing new experiences to and constructing its perception from what is already believed to be true due to past experience. Without a mature intuition – thinking and feeling balanced and united—even groups trying to work together will only be capable of experiencing what has been going on in this sensory brain since about the 8th Century to the present.

Interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for granted, and proceeds from there. This cannot be taken for granted, now. Think of the sheer multiplication of works of art available to every one of us, superadded to the conflicting tastes and odors and sights of the urban environment that bombard our senses. Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. (...) And it is in the light of the condition of our senses, our capacities, that the task of the critic must be assessed. What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to See more, to Hear more, to Feel more.

The outside world is loud and demanding so the first step in honing our powers is learning to deal effectively with sensory overload. We have to identify and manage the things that jam our inner guidance system. And that involves turning down the volume on the outside world so we can hear what's going on inside.

Caregiving offers many fringe benefits, including the sheer sensory delight of nourishing and grooming, sharing, and playing. But caregiving does buttonhole you; you're stitched in one place. . . . Paul wasn't on a learning curve but seemed trapped in a circle. He's swoop forward only to loop back again and fall to earth.

Bodily delight is a sensory experience, not any different from pure looking or the pure feeling with which a beautiful fruit fills the tongue; it is a great, an infinite learning that is given to us, a knowledge of the world, the fullness and the splendor of all knowledge...the individual...can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and he can see the animal, as he sees plants, patiently and willingly uniting and multiplying and growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to necessities that are greater than pleasure and pain, and more powerful than will and withstanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive this mystery---which the world is filled with...

What Warcollier demonstrated is compatible with what modern cognitive neuroscience has learned about how visual images are constructed by the brain. It implies that telepathic perceptions bubble up into awareness from the unconscious and are probably processed in the brain in the same way that we generate images in dreams. And thus telepathic “images” are far less certain than sensory-driven images and subject to distortion.

As I traveled, I noticed that in every country, whether I was watching home cooks or professional chefs, and whether they were cooking over live fire or on a camp stove, the best cooks looked at the food, not the heat source. I saw how good cooks obeyed sensory cues, rather than timers and thermometers. They listened to the changing sounds of a sizzling sausage, watched the way a simmer becomes a boil, felt how a slow-cooked pork shoulder tightens and then relaxes as hours pass, and tasted a noodle plucked from boiling water to determine whether it’s al dente. In order to cook instinctually, I needed to learn to recognize these signals. I needed to learn how food responds to the fourth element of good cooking: Heat.

Well-directed thought is a learned skill. To manifest an intention requires laserlike focus, full sensory visualization, and a profound belief. We

There is something I have learned since being paralyzed, and that is that in the absence of sensory information, the imagination always tends to the grotesque.

Montessori called the child under six years old "a sensorial explorer" and based her educational approach for the child's early years upon the child's learning through the senses.

A psychic is a person who knows without being told; who learns without being taught; who sees without being shown.

I learned that impermanence is not merely something that you experience in your sensory circuits. It also informs your motor circuits. It’s a kind of effortless energy that you can “ride on” in daily life. It imparts a bounce to your step, a flow to your voice, and a vibrancy to your creative thought. I also learned about the expansion-contraction paradigm for how consciousness works.

in the Bhagavad Gita. One stanza reads: “Offering the inhaling breath into the exhaling breath and offering the exhaling breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both breaths; thus he releases prana from the heart and brings life force under his control.”2 The interpretation is: “The yogi arrests decay in the body by securing an additional supply of prana (life force) through quieting the action of the lungs and heart; he also arrests mutations of growth in the body by control of apana (eliminating current). Thus neutralizing decay and growth, the yogi learns life-force control.” Another Gita stanza states: “That meditation-expert (muni) becomes eternally free who, seeking the Supreme Goal, is able to withdraw from external phenomena by fixing his gaze within the mid-spot of the eyebrows and by neutralizing the even currents of prana and apana [that flow] within the nostrils and lungs; and to control his sensory mind and intellect; and to banish desire, fear, and anger.”3

The programme into which Cheryl was inducted combined all the different ways the intelligence community had learned could cause intense psychological change in adults and children. It had been learned through the use of both knowledgeable and 'unwitting' volunteers. They were subjected to sensory overload, isolation, drugs and hypnosis, all used on bodies that had been weakened from mild hunger. The horror of the programme was that it would be like having an elementary school sex education class conducted by a paedophile rapist. It would have been banned had the American government signed the Helsinki Accords. But, of course, they hadn't. For the test that day and in those that followed, Cheryl Hersha was positioned so she faced a portable movie screen. A 16mm movie projector was on a platform, along with several reels of film. Each was a short pornographic film meant to make her aware of sexuality in a variety of forms...

However, traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves. The more people try to push away and ignore internal warning signs, the more likely they are to take over and leave them bewildered, confused, and ashamed. People who cannot comfortably notice what is going on inside become vulnerable to respond to any sensory shift either by shutting down or by going into a panic — they develop a fear of fear itself.

It’ll be when you first learn to walk that I get daily demonstrations of the asymmetry in our relationship. You’ll be incessantly running off somewhere, and each time you walk into a door frame or scrape your knee, the pain feels like it’s my own. It’ll be like growing an errant limb, an extension of myself whose sensory nerves report pain just fine, but whose motor nerves don’t convey my commands at all. It’s so unfair: I’m going to give birth to an animated voodoo doll of myself. I didn’t see this in the contract when I signed up.

As Emmanuel Giroux says, paraphrasing The Little Prince, “In geometry, what is essential is invisible to the eye. It is only with the mind that you can see well.” In mathematics, sensory experiences do not matter much; it is the ideas and concepts that do the heavy lifting.

Working simultaneously, though seemingly without a conscience, was Dr. Ewen Cameron, whose base was a laboratory in Canada's McGill University, in Montreal. Since his death in 1967, the history of his work for both himself and the CIA has become known. He was interested in 'terminal' experiments and regularly received relatively small stipends (never more than $20,000) from the American CIA order to conduct his work. He explored electroshock in ways that offered such high risk of permanent brain damage that other researchers would not try them. He immersed subjects in sensory deprivation tanks for weeks at a time, though often claiming that they were immersed for only a matter of hours. He seemed to fancy himself a pure scientist, a man who would do anything to learn the outcome. The fact that some people died as a result of his research, while others went insane and still others, including the wife of a member of Canada's Parliament, had psychological problems for many years afterwards, was not a concern to the doctor or those who employed him. What mattered was that by the time Cheryl and Lynn Hersha were placed in the programme, the intelligence community had learned how to use electroshock techniques to control the mind. And so, like her sister, Lynn was strapped to a chair and wired for electric shock. The experience was different for Lynn, though the sexual component remained present to lesser degree...

Trance helps depotentiate our old programs and gives us an opportunity to learn something new. The only reason why we cannot produce an anesthesia at will, for example, is because we don’t know how to give up our habitual generalized reality orientation that emphasizes the importance of pain and gives it primacy in consciousness. But if we allowed young children to experiment with their sensory perceptual processes in a fun way, they might easily develop skills with anaesthesia that could be very useful when they needed it. This would be an interesting piece of research, indeed.

Our sensory organs love to lead us astray, and eyes are the most deceptive of all. We rely too heavily upon them. We believe that we see the world around us, and yet it is only the surface that we perceive. We must learn to divine the true nature of things, their substance, and the eyes are rather a hindrance than a help in that regard. They distract us. We love to be dazzled. A person who relies too heavily on his eyes neglects his other senses—and I mean more than his hearing or sense of smell. I’m talking about the organ within us for which we have no name. Let us call it the compass of the heart.

There are a few things that need to occur for our loved ones to have more relationships. First, they must learn some social skills and competencies -- especially so for those who are independent and often on their own, so that they will not become victimized by others and can make some connections. Second, for those who require it, they need to have support staff who understand movement differences and sensory challenges and how to include a nonverbal person who uses alternative means of communication. Last, but not least, for friendship to occur, people need to have an open mind, be more flexible, and be more accepting of people with differences.

So much of what we see and hear is not the truth of any given situation; sometimes it’s necessary to close the eyes and be still, to extend our awareness beyond what we’ve been conditioned to believe is our field of sensory operation. Only then can we learn the patience to trust that all the information that we need will come to us.

As a form of body language, when the mind is receptive to the sensory experience, writing speaks the truth about all thoughts and feelings. Now I don’t want to be misunderstood here because this isn’t a special talent or skill. It’s present in all of us. The trick is to discover it, cultivate it and translate it from an internal state to an expressive sensuality. It is truly a creative impulse that unconsciously expresses emotions and can also arouse emotion in the person reading the book. The beauty and harmony of the writer never gets old and there are as many new things to learn each day, as there are varieties of adjectives, nouns and verbs in the world. It is the ultimate way to communicate with your reader.

If you are one of those people who can’t hold a lot in mind at once—you lose focus and start daydreaming in lectures, and have to get to someplace quiet to focus so you can use your working memory to its maximum—well, welcome to the clan of the creative. Having a somewhat smaller working memory means you can more easily generalize your learning into new, more creative combinations. Because you’re learning new, more creative combinations. Having a somewhat smaller working memory, which grows from the focusing abilities of the prefrontal cortex, doesn’t lock everything up so tightly, you can more easily get input from other parts of your brain. These other areas, which include the sensory cortex, not only are more in tune with what’s going on in the environment, but also are the source of dreams, not to mention creative ideas. You may have to work harder sometimes (or even much of the time) to understand what’s going on, but once you’ve got something chunked, you can take that chunk and turn it outside in and inside round—putting it through creative paces even you didn’t think you were capable of! Here’s another point to put into your mental chunker: Chess, that bastion of intellectuals, has some elite players with roughly average IQs. These seemingly middling intellects are able to do better than some more intelligent players because they practice more. That’s the key idea. Every chess player, whether average or elite, grows talent by practicing. It is the practice—particularly deliberate practice on the toughest aspects of the material—that can help lift average brains into the realm of those with more “natural” gifts. Just as you can practice lifting weights and get bigger muscles over time, you can also practice certain mental patterns that deepen and enlarge in your mind.

Our brain is therefore not simply passively subjected to sensory inputs. From the get-go, it already possesses a set of abstract hypotheses, an accumulated wisdom that emerged through the sift of Darwinian evolution and which it now projects onto the outside world. Not all scientists agree with this idea, but I consider it a central point: the naive empiricist philosophy underlying many of today's artificial neural networks is wrong. It is simply not true that we are born with completely disorganized circuits devoid of any knowledge, which later receive the imprint of their environment. Learning, in man and machine, always starts from a set of a priori hypotheses, which are projected onto the incoming data, and from which the system selects those that are best suited to the current environment. As Jean-Pierre Changeux stated in his best-selling book Neuronal Man (1985), “To learn is to eliminate.

This is why questions must be asked and answered truthfully and why we must train our emotions to coincide with what is actually true. Doubt is a necessary part of faith, otherwise it is a blind faith and a deaf faith that deserves to be a mute faith. For, when Helen Keller, who was deaf, blind and had to learn to speak can come closer to the truth than persons with full sensory capacity, perhaps there is something wrong with our religious and spiritual traditions.

little brain in the gut” or the enteric nervous system, also known as the emotional brain. It was discovered in the late nineteenth century, and it is endowed with both sensory and motor neurons; this region contains half the body’s neurons and has a full range of neurotransmitters, hormones, and opiate receptor sites. According to Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler, a pioneering brain researcher, “Your ‘gut-brain’ is also able to learn, remember, and produce emotion-based feelings.

You’ve already learned that you see what your brain believes—that’s affective realism. Now you know the same is true for most feelings you’ve experienced in your life. Even the feeling of the pulse in your wrist is a simulation, constructed in sensory regions of your brain and corrected by sensory input (your actual pulse). Everything you feel is based on prediction from your knowledge and past experience. You are truly an architect of your experience. Believing is feeling.

It'll be when you first learn to walk that I get daily demonstrations of the asymmetry in our relationship. You'll be incessantly running off somewhere, and each time you walk into a door frame or scrape your knee, the pain feels like it's my own. It'll be like growing an errant limb, an extension of myself whose sensory nerves report pain just fine, but whose motor nerves don't convey my commands at all. It's so unfair: I'm going to give birth to an animated voodoo doll of myself.

According to one Islamic model, the soul has three stages. In the first seven years, it is known as the appetitive soul. The primary concerns of children in this stage are eating and wanting attention. The second stage is the next seven years, the age of anger, when kids react strongly to stimuli and are annoyed easily. The third is the rational stage, when reasoning and discernment reach their full capacity. ʿAlī ibn AbīṬālib encouraged parents to play with their children during the first stage, to indulge them, for they are discovering the world. They had been in a spiritual realm and have only recently entered the realm of the sensory. In the second stage, Imam ʿAlī counseled that parents should focus on training and discipline, for, in this stage, young people have a heightened capacity to receive and absorb information and thus learn new things. In the third stage, parents should befriend them and form a relationship that is amicable and full of kindness and companionship. After this, their children, now adults, should be set free.

brain researcher Arash Javanbakht notes . . . In a world where we are simultaneously bombarded with a great deal of stimulation, we learn to focus our attention on important stimuli, while filtering out (gating) less relevant stimuli. Sensory gating (SG) is a way of habituation to repetitious and unimportant stimuli for the brain to reserve its limited resources to focus on important stimuli that need processing.3 It helps us focus on what we have determined, through experience, schooling, and cultural habituation, to be important.

Bodily delight is a sensory experience, not any different from pure looking or the feeling with which a beautiful fruit fills the tongue; it is a great, an infinite learning that is given to us, a knowledge of the world, the fullness and the splendor of all knowledge. And it is not our acceptance of it that is bad; what is bad is that most people misuse this learning and squander it and apply it as a stimulant on the tired places of their lives and as a distraction rather than as a way of gathering themselves for their highest moments.

People don’t come to know the world exclusively through their senses; rather, their affective states influence the processing of sensory stimulation from the very moment an object is encountered.”6 A vital aspect of any object’s meaning resides in the feelings it evokes of pleasure, distress, admiration, confusion. For example, depending on its emotional importance or salience, a viewer may perceive an object as closer or more distant. And this psychobiological feeling is a creature of the past, of expectation, of having learned to read the world.

When repeated shocks and repeated release of serotonin are paired with the firing of the sensory neuron in associative learning, a signal is sent to the nucleus of the sensory neuron. This signal activates a gene, CREB-1, which leads to the growth of new connections between the sensory and motor neuron (fig. 4.5, right) (Bailey and Chen 1983; Kandel 2001). These connections are what enable a memory to persist. So if you remember anything of what you have read here, it will be because your brain is slightly different than it was before you started to read.

Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, M.D., showed that when new memories are formed, the number of synaptic connections in the sensory neurons that are stimulated doubles, to 2,600. However, unless the original learning experience is repeated over and over again, the number of new connections falls back to the original 1,300 in a matter of only three weeks. Therefore, if we repeat what we learn enough times, we strengthen communities of neurons to support us in remembering it the next time. If we don’t, then the synaptic connections soon disappear and the memory is erased.

4. Differentiation—making the smallest possible sensory distinctions between movements—builds brain maps. Newborns, Feldenkrais observed, often make very large, poorly differentiated movements based on primitive reflexes, using many muscles at once, such as reflexively extending their entire arms. They also cannot discriminate among their fingers. As they mature, they learn to make smaller, more precise individual movements. But the movements do not become precise until the child can use awareness to discern very small differences among them. Differentiation, Feldenkrais would

In fact, even if distraction does alleviate your pain or help to cope with it some of the time, bringing mindfulness to it can lead to new levels of insight and understanding about yourself and your body, which distraction and escape can never do. Understanding and insight, of course, are an extremely important part of the process of coming to terms with your condition and really learning how to live with it, not just endure it. One of the ways we speak about it is that the sensory, the emotional, and the cognitive/conceptual dimensions of the pain experience can be uncoupled from one another, meaning that they can be held in awareness as independent aspects of experience. Once you see that your thoughts about the sensations, for instance, are not the sensations themselves, both the experience of the sensory and the cognitive dimensions of the pain experience may change independently. This is also true for our emotional reactions to unpleasant sensory experience. This phenomenon of uncoupling can give us new degrees of freedom in resting in awareness and holding whatever arises in any or all of these three domains in an entirely different way, and dramatically reduce the suffering experience.

that can expand or contract as needed to increase or decrease the amount of data allowed in. They act to prevent sensory overload. In other words, if we consciously perceived everything that was coming in simultaneously as it was happening we would be overwhelmed with sensory experience. This is, in fact, what many schizophrenics and those on hallucinogens experience—and it happens for a specific reason that is most definitely not pathological. It is crucial to our habitation of this planet and this book is about, in part, learning to open sensory gating channels at will to whatever degree is desired—to open the doors of perception.

But when you actually break down the amount of time, energy, skill, planning, and maintenance that go into care tasks, they no longer seem simple. For example, the care task of feeding yourself involves more than just putting food into your mouth. You must also make time to figure out the nutritional needs and preferences of everyone you’re feeding, plan and execute a shopping trip, decide how you’re going to prepare that food and set aside the time to do so, and ensure that mealtimes come at correct intervals. You need energy and skill to plan, execute, and follow through on these steps every day, multiple times a day, and to deal with any barriers related to your relationship with food and weight, or a lack of appetite due to medical or emotional factors. You must have the emotional energy to deal with the feeling of being overwhelmed when you don’t know what to cook and the anxiety it can produce to create a kitchen mess. You may also need the skills to multitask while working, dealing with physical pain, or watching over children. Now let’s look at cleaning: an ongoing task made up of hundreds of small skills that must be practiced every day at the right time and manner in order to “keep going on the business of life.” First, you must have the executive functioning to deal with sequentially ordering and prioritizing tasks.1 You must learn which cleaning must be done daily and which can be done on an interval. You must remember those intervals. You must be familiar with cleaning products and remember to purchase them. You must have the physical energy and time to complete these tasks and the mental health to engage in a low-dopamine errand for an extended period of time. You must have the emotional energy and ability to process any sensory discomfort that comes with dealing with any dirty or soiled materials. “Just clean as you go” sounds nice and efficient, but most people don’t appreciate the hundreds of skills it takes to operate that way and the thousands of barriers that can interfere with execution.

Chronic abuse and neglect in childhood interfere with the proper wiring of sensory-integration systems. In some cases this results in learning disabilities, which include faulty connections between the auditory and word-processing systems, and poor hand-eye coordination. As long as they are frozen or explosive, it is difficult to see how much trouble the adolescents in our residential treatment programs have processing day-to-day information, but once their behavioral problems have been successfully treated, their learning disabilities often become manifest. Even if these traumatized kids could sit still and pay attention, many of them would still be handicapped by their poor learning skills.22

Nevertheless I’d like to end this chapter on a positive note about how research into how humans acquire language is leading to better informed, conscious parents. Though there has been a cultural misunderstanding that a baby’s brain is not developed enough to learn and comprehend language, nothing could be further from the truth. The acquisition of language plays a fundamental role in exercising an infant’s brain and shaping its organization, neural connectivity, and intelligence. Research on the fetal brain’s ability to acquire and download environmental experiences in the womb reveal that the nervous system’s sensory input mechanisms, such as hearing, develop long before the system’s motor outputs—in this case, coordinated muscular control needed for speech. Consequently, the brain’s potential to learn and understand language is not dependent on the infant’s ability to speak.

I grabbed a handful of tarragon and closed my eyes, inhaling its sweet fragrance. I could almost feel my grandmother next to me, smell the aromas embedded into her poppy-print apron, taste her creamy veloutés. Thanks to her, my skills in the kitchen started developing from the age of seven. I'd learned how to chop, slice, and dice without cutting my fingers, to sauté, fry, and grill, pairing flavors and taming them into submission. Just as I'd experienced with my grandmother's meals, when people ate my creations, I wanted them to think "now this is love"- while engaging all of the five senses. For me, cooking was the way I expressed myself, each dish a balance of flavors and ingredients representing my emotions- sweet, sour, salty, smoky, spicy-hot, and even bitter. My inspiration as a chef was to give people sensorial experiences, to bring them back to times of happiness, to let them relive their youth, or to awaken their minds.

The auditory cortex seems to perform a simple calculation: it uses the recent past to predict the future. As soon as a note or a group of notes repeats, this region concludes that it will continue to do so in the future. This is useful because it keeps us from paying too much attention to boring, predictable signals. Any sound that repeats is squashed at the input side, because its incoming activity is canceled by an accurate prediction. As long as the input sensory signal matches the prediction that the brain generates, the difference is zero, and no error signal gets propagated to higher-level brain regions. Subtracting the prediction shuts down the incoming inputs—but only as long as they are predictable. Any sound that violates our brain’s expectations, on the contrary, is amplified. Thus, the simple circuit of the auditory cortex acts as a filter: it transmits to the higher levels of the cortex only the surprising and unpredictable information which it cannot explain by itself.

Forward blocking provides one of the most spectacular refutations of the associationist view.5 In blocking experiments, an animal is given two sensory clues, say, a bell and a light, both of which predict the imminent arrival of food. The trick is to present them sequentially. We start with the light: the animal learns that whenever the light is on, it predicts the arrival of food. Only then do we introduce dual trials where both light and bell predict food. Finally, we test the effect of the bell alone. Surprise: it has no effect whatsoever! Upon hearing the bell, the animal does not salivate; it seems utterly oblivious to the repeated association between the bell and the food reward. What happened? The finding is incompatible with associationism, but it fits perfectly with the Rescorla-Wagner theory. The key idea is that the acquisition of the first association (light and food) blocked the second one (bell and food). Why? Because the prediction based on light alone suffices to explain everything.

Even if I could accept, just for an instant, that I have the power to change physical matter with my mind, and literally manifest all that I desire . . . I’m afraid I see nothing in my life to make me believe I have such power.” She shrugged. “Then you’re not looking hard enough.” “Come on, I want a real answer. That’s the answer of a priest. I want the answer of a scientist.” “You want a real answer? Here it is. If I hand you a violin and say you have the capability to use it to make incredible music, I am not lying. You do have the capability, but you’ll need enormous amounts of practice to manifest it. This is no different from learning to use your mind, Robert. Well-directed thought is a learned skill. To manifest an intention requires laserlike focus, full sensory visualization, and a profound belief. We have proven this in a lab. And just like playing a violin, there are people who exhibit greater natural ability than others. Look to history. Look to the stories of those enlightened minds who performed miraculous feats.

Though metaphors are omnipresent in language, many of them are effectively dead in the minds of today’s speakers, and the living ones could never be learned, understood, or used as a reasoning tool unless they were built out of more abstract concepts that capture the similarities and differences between the symbol and the symbolised. For this reason, conceptual metaphors do not render truth and objectivity obsolete, nor do they reduce philosophical, legal, and political discourse to a beauty contest between rival frames. // Still, I think that metaphor really is a key to explaining thought and language. The human mind comes equipped with an ability to penetrate the cladding of sensory appearance and discern the abstract construction underneath – not always on demand, and not infallibly, but often enough and insightfully enough to shape the human condition. Our powers of analogy allow us to apply ancient neural structures to newfound subject matter, to discover hidden laws and systems in nature, and not least, to amplify the expressive power of language itself.

You and I are learning to see our trait as a neutral thing—useful in some situations, not in others—but our culture definitely does not see it, or any trait as neutral. The anthropologist Margaret Mead explained it well. Although a culture’s newborns will show a broad range of inherited temperaments, only a narrow band of these, a certain type, will be the ideal. The ideal personality is embodied, in Mead's words, in 'every thread of the social fabric—in the care of the young child, the games the children play, the songs the people sing, the political organization, the religious observance, the art and the philosophy.' Other traits are ignored, discouraged, or if all else fails, ridiculed. What is the ideal in our culture? Movies, advertisements, the design of public spaces, all tell us we should be as tough as the Terminator, as stoic as Clint Eastwood, as outgoing as Goldie Hawn. We should be pleasantly stimulated by bright lights, noise, a gang of cheerful fellows hanging out in a bar. If we are feeling overwhelmed and sensitive, we can always take a painkiller.

The authors’ prior experience in clinical research4 had amply convinced us of the possibility of long-term performance enhancement using psychedelic agents in a safe, supportive setting. Though not deliberately sought, there were numerous spontaneous incidents of what appeared to be temporarily enhanced performance during the drug experience itself. These observations led us to postulate the following: Any human function can be performed more effectively. We do not function at our full capacity. Psychedelics appear to temporarily inhibit censors that ordinarily limit what is available to conscious awareness. Participants may, for example, discover a latent ability to form colorful and complex imagery, to recall forgotten experiences of early childhood, or to generate meaningful symbolic presentations. By leading participants to expect enhancement of other types of performance—creative problem solving, learning manual or verbal skills, manipulating logical or mathematical symbols, acquiring sensory or extrasensory perception, memory, and recall—and by providing favorable preparatory and environmental conditions, it may be possible to improve any desired aspect of mental functioning.

Now to picture the mechanism of this process of construction and not merely its progressive extension, we must note that each level is characterized by a new co-ordination of the elements provided—already existing in the form of wholes, though of a lower order—by the processes of the previous level. The sensori-motor schema, the characteristic unit of the system of pre-symbolic intelligence, thus assimilates perceptual schemata and the schemata relating to learned action (these schemata of perception and habit being of the same lower order, since the first concerns the present state of the object and the second only elementary changes of state). The symbolic schema assimilates sensori-motor schemata with differentiation of function; imitative accommodation is extended into imaginal significants and assimilation determines the significates. The intuitive schema is both a co-ordination and a differentiation of imaginal schemata. The concrete operational schema is a grouping of intuitive schemata, which are promoted, by the very fact of their being grouped, to the rank of reversible operations. Finally, the formal schema is simply a system of second-degree operations, and therefore a grouping operating on concrete groupings. Each of the transitions from one of these levels to the next is therefore characterized both by a new co-ordination and by a differentiation of the systems constituting the unit of the preceding level. Now these successive differentiations, in their turn, throw light on the undifferentiated nature of the initial mechanisms, and thus we can conceive both of a genealogy of operational groupings as progressive differentiations, and of an explanation of the pre-operational levels as a failure to differentiate the processes involved. Thus, as we have seen (Chap. 4), sensori-motor intelligence arrives at a kind of empirical grouping of bodily movements, characterized psychologically by actions capable of reversals and detours, and geometrically by what Poincaré called the (experimental) group of displacement. But it goes without saying that, at this elementary level, which precedes all thought, we cannot regard this grouping as an operational system, since it is a system of responses actually effected; the fact is therefore that it is undifferentiated, the displacements in question being at the same time and in every case responses directed towards a goal serving some practical purpose. We might therefore say that at this level spatio-temporal, logico-arithmetical and practical (means and ends) groupings form a global whole and that, in the absence of differentiation, this complex system is incapable of constituting an operational mechanism. At the end of this period and at the beginning of representative thought, on the other hand, the appearance of the symbol makes possible the first form of differentiation: practical groupings (means and ends) on the one hand, and representation on the other. But this latter is still undifferentiated, logico-arithmetical operations not being distinguished from spatio-temporal operations. In fact, at the intuitive level there are no genuine classes or relations because both are still spatial collections as well as spatio-temporal relationships: hence their intuitive and pre-operational character. At 7–8 years, however, the appearance of operational groupings is characterized precisely by a clear differentiation between logico-arithmetical operations that have become independent (classes, relations and despatialized numbers) and spatio-temporal or infra-logical operations. Lastly, the level of formal operations marks a final differentiation between operations tied to real action and hypothetico-deductive operations concerning pure implications from propositions stated as postulates.

It's be when you first learn to walk that I get daily demonstrations of the asymmetry in our relationship. You'll be incessantly running off somewhere, and each time you walk into a door frame or scrape your knee, the pain feels like it's my own. It'll be like growing an errant limb, an extension of myself whose sensory nerves report pain just fine, but whose motor nerves don't convey my commands at all. It's so unfair: I'm going to give birth to an animated voodoo doll of myself. I didn't see this in the contract when I signed up. Was this part of the deal? And then there will be the times when I see you laughing. Like the time you'll be playing with the neighbor's puppy, poking your hands through the chain-link fence separating our back yards, and you'll be laughing so hard you'll start hiccuping. The puppy will run inside the neighbor's house, and your laughter will gradually subside, letting you catch your breath. Then the puppy will come back to the fence to lick your fingers again, and you'll shriek and start laughing again. it will be the most wonderful sound I could ever imagine, a sound that makes me feel like a fountain, or a wellspring. Now if only I can remember that sound the next time your blithe disregard for self-preservation gives me a heart attack.

Ironically, the same scientific disciplines which shape our milk machines and egg machines have lately demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that mammals and birds have a complex sensory and emotional make-up. They not only feel physical pain, but can also suffer from emotional distress. Evolutionary psychology maintains that the emotional and social needs of farm animals evolved in the wild, when they were essential for survival and reproduction. For example, a wild cow had to know how to form close relations with other cows and bulls, or else she could not survive and reproduce. In order to learn the necessary skills, evolution implanted in calves – as in the young of all other social mammals – a strong desire to play (playing is the mammalian way of learning social behaviour). And it implanted in them an even stronger desire to bond with their mothers, whose milk and care were essential for survival. What happens if farmers now take a young calf, separate her from her mother, put her in a closed cage, give her food, water and inoculations against diseases, and then, when she is old enough, inseminate her with bull sperm? From an objective perspective, this calf no longer needs either maternal bonding or playmates in order to survive and reproduce. But from a subjective perspective, the calf still feels a very strong urge to bond with her mother and to play with other calves. If these urges are not fulfilled, the calf suffers greatly. This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped in the wild continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer really necessary for survival and reproduction. The tragedy of industrial agriculture is that it takes great care of the objective needs of animals, while neglecting their subjective needs.

NOTE: Practice your most effective relaxation techniques before you begin these exercises (refer to Chapter 6 if necessary). People are better able to concentrate when they are relaxed. Listening -Pay attention to the sounds coming from outside: from the street, from above in the air, from as far away as possible. Then focus on one sound only. -Pay attention to the sounds coming from a nearby room—the kitchen, living room, etc. Identify each one, then focus on a single sound. -Pay attention to the sounds coming from the room you are in: the windows, the electrical appliances. Then focus on one sound only. -Listen to your breathing. -Hear a short tune and attempt to re-create it. -Listen to a sound, such as a ringing doorbell, a knock on the door, a telephone ringing, or a siren. How does it make you feel? -Listen to a voice on the telephone. Really focus on it. -Listen to the voices of family members, colleagues, or fellow students, paying close attention to their intonation, pacing, and accent. What mood are they conveying? Looking -Look around the room and differentiate colors or patterns, such as straight lines, circles, and squares. -Look at the architecture of the room. Now close your eyes. Can you describe it? Could you draw it? -Look at one object in the room: chair, desk, chest of drawers, whatever. Close your eyes and try to picture the shape, the material, and the colors. -Notice any changes in your environment at home, at school, or in your workplace. -Look at magazine photos and try to guess what emotions the subjects’ expressions show. -Observe the effect of light around you. How does it change shapes? Expressions? Moods? Touching -When shaking a person’s hand, notice the temperature of the hand. Then notice the temperature of your own hand. -Hold an object in your hands, such as a cup of coffee, a brick, a tennis ball, or anything else that is available. Then put it down. Close your eyes and remember the shape, size, and texture of the object. -Feel different objects and then, with your eyes closed, touch them again. Be aware of how the sensations change. -Explore different textures and surfaces with your eyes first open and then closed. Smelling and Tasting -Be aware of the smells around you; come up with words to describe them. -Try to remember the taste of a special meal that you enjoyed in the past. Use words to describe the flavors—not just the names of the dishes. -Search your memory for important smells or tastes. -Think of places with a strong tie to smell. These sensory exercises are an excellent way to boost your awareness and increase your ability to concentrate. What is learned in the fullest way—using all five senses—is unlikely to be forgotten. As you learn concentration, you will find that you are able to be more in tune with what is going on around you in a social situation, which in turn allows you to interact more fully.

Stopping, calming and resting are preconditions for healing. If we cannot stop, we will continue on the course of destruction caused by unmindful consumption. To attain well-being, we need to take care not only of our bodies but also of our minds. Mindfulness practice is central to seeing the interdependence of mind and body. Learning to mindfully consume sensory impressions can help us reduce our craving, anger, fear, sadness and stress. Desire is a kind of food that nourishes us and gives us energy. If we have a healthy desire, such as a wish to save or protect life, care for our environment or live a simple, balanced life with time to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, our desire will bring us happiness. If we allow anger to come up in our mind consciousness and stay for a whole hour, for that whole hour we are eating anger. The more we eat anger, the more the seed of anger in our store consciousness grows. If you have a friend who understands you well and offers you words of comfort and kindness, the seed of loving-kindness will arise in your mind consciousness. We must learn to nurture wholesome seeds and to tame unwholesome ones with mindfulness, because when they return to the store consciousness, they become stronger regardless of their nature. When we water seeds of forgiveness, acceptance and happiness in the people we love, we are giving them very healthy food for their consciousness. But if we constantly water the seeds of hatred, craving and anger in our loved ones, we are poisoning them. We must find the source of our desire to eat too much of the wrong foods. Perhaps we eat out of sadness; perhaps we eat out of our fears for the future. If we cut the sources of nutriment for our sadness and fear, sadness and fear will wither and weaken and with them the urge to overeat. The Buddha said that if we know how to look deeply into our suffering and recognize its source of food, we are already on the path of emancipation. The way out of our suffering if through mindfulness of consumption - all forms of consumption and not just edible foods and drinks. When we pause with mindfulness, we recognize that our family member must be suffering somehow. If one is happy and peaceful, one would not behave with such anger. Mindfulness practice can help reveal this kind of insight. We should avoid associating with individuals and groups of people who do not know how to recognize, embrace and transform their energy of hate, discrimination or anger. In order to have the strength and energy to embrace painful feelings, we must nourish our positive feelings regularly. We should learn to treat our unpleasant feelings as friends who can teach us a great deal. Just like a mindfulness bell, unpleasant feelings draw our attention to issues and situations in our lives that ar enot working and that need our care. Proceeding with mindful observation, we will gain insight and understanding into what needs to be changed and how to change it.

Myth 1: Infants don’t remember anything, so experience in infancy doesn’t really matter. Reality: The infant brain has a huge capacity for memory. Memories from infancy are stored in the brain as implicit memory, which makes up the emotional brain, the unconscious mind, and the foundation for lifelong mental and physical health. Myth 2: Responding to cries spoils an infant or teaches an infant to be dependent. Reality: Responding reliably strengthens a baby’s emotional brain circuits, helps them grow confidently independent, and gives them the gift of stress regulation for life. Myth 3: Babies can and need to learn to self-soothe, which means go from a state of high stress to a state of safety on their own. Reality: Babies cannot self-soothe because they do not have the brain parts to do so until way beyond infancy. Myth 4: Babies are resilient, so experience in infancy doesn’t matter. Reality: Experience in infancy matters. It interacts with genes to influence mental health. Myth 5: We can’t make a difference to our baby’s mental health outcomes if our baby inherits mental health genetics and intergenerational trauma through epigenetics. Reality: Nurture makes an impact on inherited DNA and epigenetics to reduce or silence mental health effects. Myth 6: Everyone falls in love with and knows what to do with their baby right away. Reality: Lots of time touching, smelling, and looking into your baby’s eyes slowly builds your love, knowledge, and relationship with your baby. Myth 7: Having a baby impairs your brain function. Reality: Having a baby changes your brain to give you nurturing superpowers. Myth 8: Being with my baby is doing nothing. Reality: Being with my baby is vital brain-building, circuit-sculpting, cycle-starting activism for my baby’s future. Myth 9: Only pay attention to your baby’s stress and emotions when there’s a reason for them. Reality: All of your baby’s stress and emotions need to feel welcome and safe. Myth 10: Since my baby will be with a grandparent, a nanny, or at daycare, I should reduce my care at home to prepare them. Reality: Providing my baby with as much nurture as possible when we are together is what they need to build their brain. Myth 11: You need to buy things for your baby’s brain development. Reality: Your presence is the key to your baby’s brain development. Myth 12: I need swings, seats, and containers to take care of my baby. My baby needs lots of classes and socialization to thrive. Reality: The sensory experiences from my body are the only thing my baby needs. Myth 13: I should feed my baby on a schedule. Reality: Feed your baby when their body is experiencing physiological signals of hunger and showing hunger cues. Myth 14: Breastfeeding or body feeding past six or twelve or twenty-four or thirty-six months is extra, spoiling, or for no reason. Reality: Breastfeeding or body feeding at six or twelve or twenty-four or thirty-six months is brain-building and nurturing. Myth 15: Holding a baby is doing nothing. Reality: Holding a baby is seriously hard and brain-building work. Myth 16: Newborn babies are happy with a swaddle, hat, pacifier, and bassinet. Reality: Newborns are happy on someone’s skin, chest-to-chest, covered by a blanket—no swaddle, hat, pacifier, or bassinet needed. Myth 17: Babies’ stress and emotions don’t matter and can be ignored. Reality: Babies feel transformational stress and a huge range of emotions that influence how their brains and bodies develop. Myth 18: If we respond to our crying, clinging babies, we teach them that that behavior is good, so they learn to cry and cling more. Reality: When we respond to crying and clinging, babies cry less, and we build the infant brain to be more independent later. Myth 19: There’s no difference if I hold my crying baby; they’re crying anyway. Reality: Holding my crying baby provides a nurture bath to their brain regardless of how long they cry...

A sensory education seems to have the potential to free up a child from many of the old barriers to trying new food.

When children are exposed through ‘sensory education’ to a wider range of flavours they start to love complexity and be bored by simplicity.

The experience of tasting food is far more multi-sensory than is the case with hearing, sight or touch, which is why it requires the most sophisticated part of our brain to process it. In fact, eating is influenced by hearing, sight or touch, as well as flavour: we prefer apples that crunch loudly, steaks that look blood-red, sauces so smooth they seem to caress the inside of our throats.

It will perhaps be asked how I am able to extend the compresence of bodies to minds, and whether I do not do so through a turning back upon myself which restores projection or introjection. ls it not within myself that I learn that an "Empfindbarkeit" and sensorial fields presuppose a consciousness or a mind? But in the first place this objection assumes that another person can be mind for me in exactly the same sense as I am for myself, and after аll nothing is less certain—others' thought is never wholly a thought for us. Furthermore, this objection would imply that the problem here is to constitute a different mind, whereas the one who is constituting is as yet only animate flesh himself; nothing prevents us from reserving for the stage when he will speak and listen the advent of another person who also speaks and listens. But above all this objection would ignore the very thing that Husserl wanted to say; that is, that there is no constituting of a mind for a mind, but of a man for a man. By the effect of a singular eloquence of the visible body, Einfühlung goes from body to mind . When a different behavior or exploring body appears to me through a first "intentional encroachment," it is the man as a whole who is given to me with all the possibilities (whatever they may be ) that I have in my presence to myself in my incarnate being, the unimpeachable attestation. I shall never in all strictness be able to think the other person's thought. I can think that he thinks; I can construct, behind this mannequin, a presence to self modeled on my own; but it is still my self that I put in it, and it is then that there really is 'introjection.' On the other hand, I know unquestionably that that man over there sees, that my sensible world is also his, because I am present at his seeing, it is visible in his eyes' grasp of the scene. And when I say I see that he sees, there is no longer here (as there is in "I think that he thinks" ) the interlocking of two propositions... If the other person is to exist for me, he must do so to begin with in an order beneath the order of thought. For my perceptual opening to the world, which is more dispossession than possession, claims no monopoly of being and institutes no death struggle of consciousness. My perceived world and the half-disclosed things before me have in their thickness what it takes to supply more than one sensible subject with "states of consciousness"; they have the right to many other witnesses besides me. When a comportment is sketched out in this world which already goes beyond me, this is only one more dimension in primordial being, which comprises them all... The other person is not impossible, because the sensible thing is open. The other person becomes actual when a different comportment and a different gaze take possession of my things. And this articulation of a different corporeality in my world is itself effected without introjection; because my sensible existents—through their aspect, configuration, and camal texture—were already bringing about the miracle of things which are things by the fact that they are offered to a body, and were already making my corporeality a proof of being. Man can create the alter ego which "thought " cannot create, because he is outside himself i n the world and because outside himself in the world and because one ek-stasis is compossible vnth other ek-stases. And that possibility is fulfilled in perception as vinculum of brute being and a body. The whole riddle of Einfühlung lies in its initial, "esthesiological" phase; and it is solved there because it is a perception. He who "posits" the other man is a perceiving subject, the other person's body is a perceived thing, and the other person himself is "posited" as "perceiving. " It is never a matter of anything but co-perception.

Just as you learned helplessness, you can learn hope and optimism. Activity will build greater self-efficacy—the belief that you have some mastery over the events in your life and can better meet challenges as they arise.

The functions to be established by the child fall into two groups: (1) the motor functions by which he is to secure his balance and learn to walk, and to coordinate his movements; (2) the sensory functions through which, receiving sensations from his environment, he lays the foundations of his intelligence by a continual exercise of observation, 7 comparison and judgment. In this way he gradually comes to be acquainted with his environment and to develop his intelligence. At the same time he is learning a language, and he is faced not only with the motor difficulties of articulation, sounds and words, but also with the difficulty of gaining an intelligent understanding of names and of the syntactical composition of the language.

Agency starts with what scientists call interoception, our awareness of our subtle sensory, body-based feelings: the greater that awareness, the greater our potential to control our lives. Knowing what we feel is the first step to knowing why we feel that way. If we are aware of the constant changes in our inner and outer environment, we can mobilize to manage them. But we can’t do this unless our watchtower, the MPFC, learns to observe what is going on inside us. This is why mindfulness practice, which strengthens the MPFC, is a cornerstone of recovery from trauma.12

Mozart's music on a smartphone can't redeem or compensate for our lust for the ludicrous. Suckers for empty promises, false hopes, and pseudoscientific babble, we are our own worst enemies. Few people take the time to learn how brains process sensory input in misleading ways and how subconscious biases influence conscious thinking. The result is a global population teeming with easy targets for digitized nonsense and deception.

information available from the retina and other sensory organs is not sufficient to reconstruct the world. Size, distance, and other properties need to be inferred from uncertain cues, which in turn have to be learned by experience. Based on this experience, the brain draws unconscious inferences about what a sensation means. In other words, perception is a kind of bet about what’s really out there.

From the moment you entered the world, you have been learning all the time, and as a baby and young child the speed and power of your learning were enormous. Most of this learning was unconscious, occurring through a simple cycle of learning that James Zull, a biologist and founding director of Case Western Reserve University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE), calls the exploration/mimicry learning process.2 This cycle uses only a limited part of the brain and the sensory and motor regions without intervening reflection and thinking. The child learns language in this way, mimicking and repeating the sounds of the mother’s voice. Through this process, we learn many complex skills from walking, talking, reading, and writing to even more sophisticated expert skills, such as medical diagnosis.

It is very important to understand that ultimately, meditation is not about getting anything—meditation is entirely about letting go. In fact, I can summarize my entire twenty-plus years of meditation practice in just two words: letting go. The entirety of my practice is learning to let go. For example, early on, I learned to let go of my addiction to constant sensory and mental stimulation. A bit later on, I learned to let go of restlessness and distraction during sitting meditation. Much later on, I learned to let go of some amount of greed, hatred, anxiety, and destructive ego. And at the current stage of my practice, I’m learning to let go of clinging, aversion, ill will, my dependence on sensory pleasure in general, and my need to fluff up my identity and ego. The entire process is nothing but letting go.

There is nothing wrong with attraction, but we are easily carried away by what looks appealing, feels good, or sounds right. In solutude we learn to create space between sensory stimulation and decision-making.

The emotions we experience don't reflect our external reality; they reflect our internal reality. We don't see the world as it is; we see the world as we are. That's why prayer is so critical. It's a way of seeing reality - and, more specifically, the reality that is beyond that reality we can perceive with our five senses. Some things cannot be perceived with the five senses; they can only be conceived by the Holy Spirit. Some things cannot be deduced by deductive reasoning; they can only be imagined by the Holy Spirit. Some things cannot be learned by logic; they can only be revealed by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit compensates for our sensory limits by enabling us to conceive of things we cannot perceive with our five senses. Think of it as a sixth sense. The revelation of the Spirit gives us extrasensory perception, in the truest sense of that phrase. He helps us see the invisible and hear the inaudible. But that sixth sense has to be cultivated, much like our five senses do. Our spiritual vision develops much like our physical vision does.

Boys are boys and they do what they want. Women want things too sometimes, but mostly they're just warm sensory boards for men to tweak and rub and learne about themselves and the world through.

He knew our sister was a picky eater and through no fault of her own. It wasn’t as if Ev enjoyed having sensory issues. She had spent years in occupational therapy to learn to handle them. But Michael came from the same school of thought as our parents. They were educated people, but they believed Evelyn should just get over being autistic.

SHADOW: You are overwhelmed by the energy of others, and this can sometimes lead to impulsive reactions. You sometimes feel emotions, seemingly out of the blue, and cannot understand what caused these feelings. NEED: You need time alone to recover or process information at a very deep level. GIFT: You might be an empath or highly sensitive person (HSP). An empath is someone who can feel other people’s feelings with their heightened intuition. An HSP is someone who is acutely aware of external stimuli on a sensory level. Your gift is feeling energy. When you learn how to understand the feelings that come your way from others as powerful messages, you can become an energy alchemist. With practice, instead of absorbing the energy of other people and situations, you can turn intuitions into important messages that bring light within yourself and to others. The ability to recognize and name these emotions is a beginning point for working with spiritual energy toward a place of peace and harmony for all.

That’s not necessarily bad—until it becomes so pleasing and engaging to the brain that we begin to prefer it to other less-stimulating, less-busy sensory input. An infant or toddler consumed by a screen is missing out on other critical forms of learning about the world. They should be exploring what things feel like, smell like, taste like. They should be making sense of their world using all their sensory tools.

Attention is a yin to the yang in focus. Attention (mindfulness) and attention (focus) work together to provide a true, rounded experience of both being centered on the task at hand (whatever it may be), as well as being fully aware of, and responsive to, the many facets of the moment in which you are. In most forms of meditation you must demonstrate a certain level of concentration as well as free mind. What You’ll Get Out of It You must expand your mind and embrace the fullness of the moment in which you are. We might compare our sensitivity to light: When we concentrate on something, we could say we're "shining a spotlight" about it. Instead of shining a spotlight on one particular thing, as we exercise transparent consciousness, we may suggest that we encourage our awareness to "shine" in every direction around us, like the glow of a candle flame. This light of consciousness surrounding us will be referred to as our area of knowledge. The response area is the total sum of all the sensory input. The practice of open consciousness is an experiment of encouraging the senses to feel the fullness of the present moment, being mindful of even the subtleties you would usually forget, neglect or completely miss, such as the warmth of the air around you or the occasional crackling of floorboards. When we just accept and allow things to be as they are, we disengage instinctively from the urges that would try to control or change things. In passivity or indifference, this isn't a custom–quite the contrary. This is an exercise of opening your mind and encouraging you to obtain all the knowledge you can potentially before you make any moves or take any action. Remember that the term makes. We don't push ourselves to pick up on sensory input; perception simply grows from a state of quiet, comfortable allowing. We have a biological tendency to "brace for impact" when we are resistant to something that is happening, which means we withdraw and tighten up the muscles in our body. The subconscious then automatically begins to think all the way things could or ought to be different from what they are. When we're open to something, we seem to be more enthusiastic about the unexpected, and even more willing to embrace, leaving the body more at ease. It helps us to be more open to learning what we're doing and to learn. With an open mind we strive to see more options on issues and multiple perspectives. Open Awareness Meditation will strengthen the ability to see things as they really are and embrace them for what they are.

Attention is a yin to the yang in focus. Attention (mindfulness) and attention (focus) work together to provide a true, rounded experience of both being centered on the task at hand (whatever it may be), as well as being fully aware of, and responsive to, the many facets of the moment in which you are. In most forms of meditation you must demonstrate a certain level of concentration as well as free mind. What You’ll Get Out of It You must expand your mind and embrace the fullness of the moment in which you are. We might compare our sensitivity to light: When we concentrate on something, we could say we're "shining a spotlight" about it. Instead of shining a spotlight on one particular thing, as we exercise transparent consciousness, we may suggest that we encourage our awareness to "shine" in every direction around us, like the glow of a candle flame. This light of consciousness surrounding us will be referred to as our area of knowledge. The response area is the total sum of all the sensory input. The practice of open consciousness is an experiment of encouraging the senses to feel the fullness of the present moment, being mindful of even the subtleties you would usually forget, neglect or completely miss, such as the warmth of the air around you or the occasional crackling of floorboards. When we just accept and allow things to be as they are, we disengage instinctively from the urges that would try to control or change things. In passivity or indifference, this isn't a custom–quite the contrary. This is an exercise of opening your mind and encouraging you to obtain all the knowledge you can potentially before you make any moves or take any action. Remember that the term makes. We don't push ourselves to pick up on sensory input; perception simply grows from a state of quiet, comfortable allowing. We have a biological tendency to "brace for impact" when we are resistant to something that is happening, which means we withdraw and tighten up the muscles in our body. The subconscious then automatically begins to think all the way things could or ought to be different from what they are. When we're open to something, we seem to be more enthusiastic about the unexpected, and even more willing to embrace, leaving the body more at ease. It helps us to be more open to learning what we're doing and to learn. With an open mind we strive to see more options on issues and multiple perspectives. Open Awareness Meditation will strengthen the ability to see things as they really are and embrace them for what they are. By practicing Open Awareness Meditation, you will cultivate: Discernment Open Awareness Meditation allows us to better appreciate the moment we are at. The more we know the more educated our choices can be in any situation. Through cultivating conscious awareness, we develop discernment by being more sensitive to the larger picture, and how it is connected to the present moment.

AGENCY: OWNING YOUR LIFE “Agency” is the technical term for the feeling of being in charge of your life: knowing where you stand, knowing that you have a say in what happens to you, knowing that you have some ability to shape your circumstances. The veterans who put their fists through drywall at the VA were trying to assert their agency—to make something happen. But they ended up feeling even more out of control, and many of these once-confident men were trapped in a cycle between frantic activity and immobility. Agency starts with what scientists call interoception, our awareness of our subtle sensory, body-based feelings: the greater that awareness, the greater our potential to control our lives. Knowing what we feel is the first step to knowing why we feel that way. If we are aware of the constant changes in our inner and outer environment, we can mobilize to manage them. But we can’t do this unless our watchtower, the MPFC, learns to observe what is going on inside us. This is why mindfulness practice, which strengthens the MPFC, is a cornerstone of recovery from trauma.12 After I saw the wonderful movie March

And this brought me back to the problem of the localization of a percept. The fundamental idea of the theory as it was later published (Hebb, 1949) was that repeated exposure to a given sensory stimulation will organize an assembly, and the difficulty I have already referred to now became inescapable. A familiar object is recognizable at different distances, at different angles, and in different parts of the visual field—left, right, above or below the direction of vision. In each case, the retinal stimulation is different and so a different cortical excitation results. In each case, it seemed, a separate assembly would be required, amounting to a large number for each recognizable object and meaning that visual recognition would have to be separately learned for each direction, distance, and aspect of the object as seen. An improbable conclusion, to say the least. Regretfully, I saw that the idea would not work. It was too interesting to give up entirely, but I could not take it seriously. The

Reference frames in the old brain learn maps of environments. Reference frames in the what columns of the neocortex learn maps of physical objects. Reference frames in the where columns of the neocortex learn maps of the space around the body. And, finally, reference frames in the non-sensory columns of the neocortex learn maps of concepts. To be an expert in any domain requires having a good reference frame, a good map.

Infants (one month to twelve months)—Infants benefit from having opportunities throughout the day to be active and outdoors. Physical activity encourages organization of the sensory system and important motor development. Toddlers (twelve months to three years)—Toddlers could benefit from at least five to eight hours worth of active play a day, preferably outdoors. They will naturally be active throughout the day. As long as you provide plenty of time for free play, they will seek out the movement experiences they need in order to develop. Preschoolers (three years to five years)—Preschoolers could also use five to eight hours of activity and play outdoors every day. Preschoolers learn about life, practice being an adult, and gain important sensory and movement experiences through active play. It’s a good idea to provide them plenty of time for this. School age (five years to thirteen years)—Young children up to preadolescence could benefit from at least four to five hours of physical activity and outdoor play daily. Children in elementary school need movement throughout the day in order to stay engaged and to learn in traditional school environments. They should have frequent breaks to move their body before, during, and after school hours. Adolescents (thirteen years to nineteen years)—Adolescents could benefit from physical activity three to four hours a day. Children in the teens still need to move in order to promote healthy brain and body development, regulate new emotions, and experience important social opportunities with friends out in nature.

The comparison is neither wrong nor awkward since it can enlighten and fragrance life journey if one understands that as the context of knowledge and insight of education, but not as competitive or complex.” — E.S Quotes by Bertrand Russel and Ehsan Sehgal “Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.” — Bertrand Russell “Humans are born with incredible knowledge of the six senses; worldly education is the creation of humans based on the six senses. Education may be untrue, but it does not make anyone stupid.” — Ehsan Sehgal 27–06–2024 Note: Adding the content of ChatGPT will enlighten the comparison of both quotes. “The quotes by Bertrand Russell and Ehsan Sehgal both critique the impact of education on human intellect, but they come from different perspectives and imply distinct understandings of education and human nature. Bertrand Russell: “Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.” Russell’s statement reflects a critical view of formal education systems, suggesting that these systems can mislead and dull human intellect rather than cultivate it. Russell was known for his philosophical skepticism towards established norms and institutions, and this quote aligns with his broader critique of how education can sometimes propagate conformity, dogma, and uncritical thinking, rather than fostering genuine understanding and critical reasoning. Ehsan Sehgal: “Humans are born with incredible knowledge of the six senses; worldly education is the creation of humans based on the six senses. Education may be untrue, but it does not make anyone stupid.” Sehgal’s perspective acknowledges an inherent, almost instinctual knowledge in humans, related to their sensory experiences. He seems to argue that while education is a human construct built upon these senses and might be flawed or even incorrect, it does not fundamentally impair human intelligence. Instead of making people stupid, education is portrayed as a potentially misguided but still valuable attempt to structure and expand upon the innate understanding people have through their senses. Comparison: Innate Knowledge vs. Learned Ignorance: Russell: Suggests that ignorance is natural, but stupidity results from flawed education. Sehgal: Suggests that humans are born with an innate form of knowledge and that education, though potentially flawed, doesn’t diminish this intelligence. Critique of Education: Russell: Directly critiques education as capable of making people less intelligent. Sehgal: Critiques the truthfulness of education but separates this from the impact on intelligence. Nature of Human Intellect: Russell: Implies that human intellect can be compromised by poor education. Sehgal: Implies that human intellect remains robust despite the imperfections of education. Both quotes invite reflection on the purpose and effects of education. Russell warns against complacency and the acceptance of flawed educational paradigms, urging reform to foster true critical thinking. Sehgal, while acknowledging the fallibility of educational systems, seems to maintain a more optimistic view of human intellect’s resilience.

It’s not that being deaf means we have naturally heightened other senses; our brain just learns how to support the other senses differently.

contact—emotional networks integrate with sensory and motor systems to connect social and emotional meaning with behaviors.

The memory had borne its burial well, had returned to her intact, untarnished, fully dimensional, part of her living history, complete with visceral analogues—tastes, smells, sensations—actual voltage. It was a sightless memory, however, clothed in darkness, which she took to mean that the remembered events had taken place at night. Either that or the girl she had been was resolutely shut-eyed, had decided from the outset to curtail the offensive sensory input. Initially, the explosion within had been all pain and alarm, but later on she learned the trick of surrender, came to understand that...

Counsel: The holiness of the servant lies in his freeing his knowledge and his will. He should free his knowledge from fanciful, tangible, and imagined things, and from all perceptions which he shares with animals. His continuing study and his ranging learning should rather be concerned with eternal divine things that are quite free from having to come closer to be perceived by the senses, or move farther away so as to be hidden from them. So he will become free himself from all tangible and imagined things, appropriating from the sciences what would remain were one deprived of sensory organs and imagination, and so be refreshed by forms of knowledge that are noble, universal, and divine, concerned with eternal and everlasting objects of knowledge and not with changeable and imaginable individuals. As for his will, he should free it from revolving around human participations that stem from pleasure of desire or from anger, the enjoyment of food, sex, clothing, what can be touched or seen, or whatever pleasures come to him only by way of his senses and his body. In this way he will desire nothing but God-great and glorious; he well have no share except in God, no longing except to meet Him, no happiness except being near to Him. Even if paradise with all of its happiness were offered to him he would not turn his aspiration towards it, nor would the worlds [of heaven and earth] satisfy him, but only the Lord of these worlds. In sum, sensory and imaginary perceptions are shared with animals, and one should rise above them in favour of what is properly human. Animals also vie with man in human sensuous pleasures, so one should free oneself from them. The aspirant is as exalted as the object to which he aspires, as one who is intent on what enters his stomach is as valuable as what comes out of it, but whoever is intent on nothing except God-great and glorious-finds the level commensurate with his intent. And whoever elevates his mind above the level of imagined and tangible things, and frees his will from the dictates of passion, will lodge in the abundance of the garden of holiness.

What would we learn from an alien? It could be astonishing. We’d quickly find out if life necessarily needs a genetic code, a cell membrane, similar kinds of appendages, and familiar sorts of sensory organs.

When a child plays, he learns valuable skills that he will use as an adult.

It now seems clear that a capacity to learn would be an integral feature of the core design of a system intended to attain general intelligence, not something to be tacked on later as an extension or an afterthought. The same holds for the ability to deal effectively with uncertainty and probabilistic information. Some faculty for extracting useful concepts from sensory data and internal states, and for leveraging acquired concepts into flexible combinatorial representations for use in logical and intuitive reasoning, also likely belong among the core design features in a modern AI intended to attain general intelligence.

"Find out more" interactives "Find out more" interactives appeal to visitors of all levels of interest—from those who just want to grasp the big picture to those who wish to dig deeper. Gaming interactives Gaming interactives appeal to those who learn by doing rather than being shown or told (sometimes referred to ask kinaesthetic learners). These do not need to be digital—many of the best game-based interactives are mechanical and kinetic. They are often a great way of helping visitors to see how dry content can be applied to more exciting scenarios. Environmental interactives Environmental interactives are immersive interactive experiences, often on a large scale, intended to connect with users in an emotional and awe-inspiring way by carrying a powerful, overarching message. Often, these pieces feel closer to art installations than interactives The main outcome of the interactive is often a sensory impression, rather than an intense learning experience.

So as soon as you think a new thought, you become changed—neurologically, chemically, and genetically. In fact, you can gain thousands of new connections in a matter of seconds from novel learning, new ways of thinking, and fresh experiences. This means that by thought alone, you can personally activate new genes right away. It happens just by changing your mind; it’s mind over matter. Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, M.D., showed that when new memories are formed, the number of synaptic connections in the sensory neurons that are stimulated doubles, to 2,600. However, unless the original learning experience is repeated over and over again, the number of new connections falls back to the original 1,300 in a matter of only three weeks. Therefore,

counselors, often confuses stages, states, and lines. He mentioned that clients could move through all four stages (sensorimotor to formal operations) in a single counseling session. People do not actually develop through four (or even two) stages in a day. Rather, different lines of development may be differentially developed, so that a client may appear to exhibit very rudimentary development in one aspect (for example, morality) and advanced development in another (scientific or mathematical thinking). Similar phenomena (clients’ appearing to exhibit the qualities of different stages of development) can be accounted for by distinguishing between stages and states of consciousness. For example, a client may have a developmental center of gravity that hovers around the formal-reflexive mind but experience a state of panic or intense depression during which he resorts to the type of illogical and contrary-to-evidence thinking that characterize preoperational thinking. There are a few places where Ivey seems to distinguish between stages and states, as when he is describing a concrete operational client with whom the counselor finds various deletions, distortions, overgeneralizations, and other errors of thinking or behaving that “represent preoperational states” (1986, p. 163, italics added). This is an important point. The basic structures are not completely stable; otherwise, they would endure even under extreme stress. Hence, developmental waves are conceived of as relatively stable and enduring—far more stable and enduring than states of consciousness, but also far from rigidly permanent structures. Levels and Lines of Development Ivey also wrote of how clients cycle through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development: Each person who continues on to higher levels of development is also, paradoxically, forced to return to basic sensori-motor and pre-operational experience… . the skilled individual who decides to learn a foreign language … must enter language training at the lowest level and work through sensori-motor, preoperational, and concrete experience before being able to engage in formal operations with the new language. (Ivey, 1986, p. 161) People do not revert from the capacity for formal operational thinking to sensorimotor, except perhaps because of a brain injury or organic disorders of the nervous system. Piaget was very emphatic that cognitive development occurs in invariant stages, meaning that everyone progresses through the stages in the same order. At the same time, it is true that just because an individual exhibits formal operational thinking (a stage or level of cognitive development) in chemistry and mathematics does not mean that she automatically can perform at mastery levels in any domain, such as, in this case, a foreign language. This is another example of the utility of Wilber’s (2000e) distinguishing the sundry lines

Just as the discoveries of medication and surgery led to therapies to relieve a staggering number of conditions, so does the discovery of neuroplasticity. The reader will find cases, many very detailed, that may be relevant to someone who has, or cares for someone who has experienced, chronic pain, stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain damage, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, autism, attention deficit disorder, a learning disorder (including dyslexia), a sensory processing disorder, a developmental delay, a part of the brain missing, Down syndrome, or certain kinds of blindness, among others.

The first thing you should learn when pursuing spiritual consciousness is how to recognize and acknowledge the opposition -- who or what opposes your agenda?

brain-friendly training uses the following five general elements to enhance learning: 1. Positive emotional experiences 2. Multi-sensory stimulation and novelty 3. Instructional variety and choices 4. Active participation and collaboration 5. Informal learning environments

He read John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding and made an about-face in his approach to the problem of how people think and learn. He came to the conclusion that “knowledge” was not something divorced from the rest of life, but that a man’s senses helped to teach him truth. In other words, sensory experience and thinking must go together. Again, Edwards saw the importance of uniting the mind and the heart.

When the brain is trying to process the auditory information and make sense of it, the vestibular system can help and the brain is trying to do just that…move! Therefore, you will see the child trying to get vestibular input via fidgeting in the seat, trying to stand up, rocking back on the chair, bouncing in the chair, etc. The brain thrives on movement to learn, attend, and process information. It is unfortunate that our society and educational system has decided that sitting still is the best way to learn.

A trigger is nothing more than a sound, a smell, or some other form of sensory input that our threat-response system associates—however tangentially—with our experiences of past painful learning.