senexa

http://dmoz.org/Science/Biology/Physiology/

Each medicine is very different in how in interacts with juice, milk, food, alcohol, etc., so you should always check on the specific medicine's properties and warnings. Here's a great resource for doing just that: http://www.rxlist.com/

Jordan, the problem may not be with your concentration ability at all but with accessing of the neural network of long-term memory storage. Maybe your diet is contributing if you are eating a lot of preservatives and fast-food, or maybe you are not getting enough sleep to allow your brain time to adequately sort and store the learning and memories you entered into the data banks during the day. Either way, you can help yourself by attaching your reading time to tactile experience. A good way to do this is to highlight important sentences with a highlighter pen, and jot down a note in the margin about that thought. The very act of writing something out in long-hand will help move it from your short-term or working memory into the long-term, recoverable memory you need for scholarship. Here's a cool site that you might find helpful: http://www.memorymentor.com/

Perhaps the point for human beings is in the wondering itself? I suspect that this increases with age, finally becoming the central theme of the final stages of old age. Personally, I think it is preparation for the next journey, like study for some cosmic SAT. Psychologically, it is the effort to understand your place in the world at large and within your own sphere in particular; thereby giving you a firmer footing for the living of your own life, which seems essential to mental health. I wonder, though, about the society we live it that sees such normal emotions of sadness, depression, melancholy or death thoughts as abnormal. We deny these emotions so strongly (mostly to enable the pharmaceutical companies to sell more product) that we place great art, music, philosophy and social growth in danger of extinction. There's a great article in The Atlantic this month on Lincoln's clinical depression and how it shaped his thought and abilities to enable greatness. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200510/lincolns-clinical-depression

Well, the heart is not one muscle but a muscle group. It contracts in stages. The right and left atria contract simultaneously, followed by contraction of the ventricles. All the muscles relax brief before the next round. Every muscle rests between bursts of activity, even if only for a nanosecond. The pauses can be increased in length by illness, causing arrhythmias; but can also be increased by direct training such as yoga excercises to increase longevity.

What do you collect? Odd bits of wood, dried flowers and feathers. Why do you collect (how did it start)? I think it is my fascination with death and dying that got me started. An incredible beauty is present with the spareness of roots and driftwood. I started collecting roots when I was a child, along with odd stones found in the sandbars of the Allegheny River. My husband brings me wildflowers a couple of times a week. I let them dry in the vase, and the resultant form and color can blow you away. I have dried flowers all over the house. I also have a feather board, which is essentially a dreamcatcher filled with feathers that have found their way to me, but that is cultural (Native American) rather than an actual collector's action. What makes you keep adding to your collection? I have found that I require a space of beauty in order to be able to think well, so I try to have such items in every room to rest my mind by looking at them. This sounds like a very interesting project ... maybe you could share the results with us?

Amen to that! I quite agree with you that a mistake has been made here in the restrictive nature of this particular forum. But then, the same mistake has been made throughout the history of scientific thought as those whose careers are deeply embedded in existing theories fight against new ideas, i.e., Einstein, Darwin and Galileo. The sad thing is that open discussion on even the wilder ideas could lead everyone to a new understanding and even possibly to exciting discoveries.

About twenty-five years ago, Annamarie Colbin wrote an excellent book, Food And Healing: How What You Eat Determines Your Health, Your Well-Being And The Quality Of Your Life [ballantine Books (Trd Pap) 1996]. She reviewed the interactions between eating and cravings, i.e., eat a lot of red meat and you will crave chocolate. The book is out of print, but here's a good alternative: http://www.naturopathyworks.com/pages/cravings.html On a purely anecdotal level, my kids actually do each really like the things I craved during each of their pregnancies (watermelon for one, saltines with butter for another, and Kraft macocheese with a side of canned peaches for the third.)

Pseudoscience is by definition "an unscientific or trivially scientific theory... that appears to be presented as scientific" according to the American Heritage Dictionary. It is a derogatory term, designed to minimize or belittle the comments of people as not measuring up to a purely scientific standard. This is vastly different from pondering and/or exploring the boundaries of existing knowledge in an intellectual discourse. Although I agree that research should be performed and any results presented, there are times when the pure thought should excite some interest in pursuing the subject further. Every single scientific discovery came from someone looking at a thing from a different perspective, and most were laughed at initially. That is what a theory is, a thought process taken to a logical conclusion and then proven repeatedly. A theory is not a fact. I see no problem with someone throwing out a theory for others to disprove or refute; it is how we all learn. Morphology is a great example. When Sheldrake proposed the morphic field in the 70s, he offered a prize for its refutation in the classical manner.

Perhaps a new topic could be introduced. It could be called Ponderables, for those of us who like to nibble at the edges of the unknown and share those thoughts with others. Then the discipline-bound scientists would not be offended and would not even have to open the threads; and the rest of us could exchange wild ideas, new theories, estoteric propositions and questions regarding the boundary fields of known science without being labeled as lesser beings.

There's was a really good lecture on cognitive science given by Evan Thompson at the University of California Santa Barbara, and he defines empathy as follows: "As an intentional capacity, empathy is the basic ability to comprehend another individual's experience, a capacity that underlies all the particular feelings and emotions one can have for another.[vi] To exercise this capacity is to engage empathy as an intentional act and an intentional process. As a unique kind of intentional act, empathy is directed toward, and thereby has as its intentional correlate, the experience of another person.[vii] Although empathy so understood is founded on sense perception (of the Other's bodily presence), and can involve inference in difficult or problematic situations (when one has to work out how the Other feels), it is not reducible to some additive combination of perception and inference'after the fashion of the theory that says we understand others by first perceiving their bodily behaviour and then inferring or hypothesizing that their behaviour is caused by experiences or inner mental states similar to those that cause similar behaviour in us. Rather, in empathy we experience the Other directly as a person, that is, as an intentional and mental being whose bodily gestures and actions are expressive of his or her experience and states of mind. Finally, as an intentional process, empathy is any process in which the attentive perception of the Other's state or situation generates a state or situation in oneself that is more applicable to the Other's state or situation than to the subject's own prior state or situation." He goes on to investigate the types of empathy and the ways to become more proficient. He ends by saying, "Put another way, I think that giving subjective experience an active and creative role to play in cognitive science through the use of first-person methods is as much an ethical step as a methodological one. My long-term hope is to see in my lifetime a flourishing contemplative, phenomenological, and experimental science of the mind." There is an exceptionally good bibliography attached. Having lived with an abundance of this for sixty years, I offer a couple of thoughts: If you want to block an empathetic response that is threatening to overwhelm you, eat peanut butter. It is a quickly digested protein, and the process of digestion will pull your energy away from cognitive function. If you want to enhance it, eat a lot of chocolate or a huge amount of meat (like a great big steak) or fast. All of these almost poison your system, enabling the cognitive process to accelerate. Mostly, realize that you are not nuts and you are not weird. As has been noted, every being has this ability. Some folks are so afraid of it that they block it all out. Some folks cherish and foster it. Some folks want to make money from their skill. Some folks use it for religion. But for all it is a biologically necessary survival mechanism.

Thank you very much, Martin. I will gladly do some reading and thinking as you suggest. It will probably be over the weekend, as I usually drop in here while I'm working and just answer off the top of my head. This sounds like it needs more thought than that ... so keep an eye on this space and maybe we can dialogue about our thoughts .... and you can answer the questions I know I will have.

Truth in advertising first of all ... I have never liked Hawking or agreed with much of his conclusion(s) on just about anything. This whole thing smacks of self-aggrendizement (IMO). Basically, he just said that this is what he has decided to be the truth, and then jumbled together a lot of the points of criticism and new understandings from the past ten years or so. These are ALL theories, folks. To say that Hawking's latest wunderkind announcement actually advances our understandings is comparable to saying you believe in WMD because Bush decided they were there. Others have been doing far more interesting work, without all the fanfare: Gravitational vacuum condensate stars Mazur and Mottola PNAS.2004; 101: 9545-9550. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/blackhole_history_030128-1.html http://www.lanl.gov/worldview/news/releases/archive/02-035.shtml

I very much like your forest fire analogy. Would you mind if I used it sometimes (not for publication or anything)?

I am Seneca from the Allegany Reservation in New York, so your reference to the behavior of the Allegheny Mound ants really gave me a good laugh!