Free Republic

I am talking about normal Christians who do have a working mind. It is a sin for them not to use it. Sure, some folks might be smarter or brighter than others – maybe even have higher IQs and the like. But that is still no excuse. Some Christians will just have to work harder at this and put more effort into it. This is true of all areas of life. In Christ we are to grow and mature in all spheres.The English humourist P. G. Wodehouse once said: “Some minds are like soup in a poor restaurant—better left unstirred.”...

A letter, signed by 124 scholars and posted online last week1, has caused an uproar in the consciousness research community. It claims that a prominent theory describing what makes someone or something conscious — called the integrated information theory (IIT) — should be labelled “pseudoscience”. Since its publication on 15 September in the preprint repository PsyArXiv, the letter has some researchers arguing over the label and others worried it will increase polarization in a field that has grappled with issues of credibility in the past. “I think it’s inflammatory to describe IIT as pseudoscience,” says neuroscientist Anil Seth, director of...

For many people, the mind and brain are interchangeable. They use one word or the other to talk about the same thing: the organ in our skull that we use to think. However, the mind and brain are actually two very different, but interconnected, entities. As a neuroscientist, this reality is the foundation of my life's research and work: The mind works through the brain but is separate from the brain. What is the difference between the mind and the brain? So what exactly is the difference between the mind and the brain? Well, the mind is separate, yet inseparable...

Revolution Calling Yeah do not click on link unless you have an hour to listen to the whole album. Also I really miss the days when there was no autotune and the musicians were really live. ______ For a price, I'd do about anything except pull the trigger For that, I'd need a pretty good cause Then I heard of Dr. X, the man with the cure Just watch the television, yeah, you'll see there's something going on Got no love for politicians or that crazy scene in D.C.‌ It's just a power-mad town But the time is ripe for...

One of the few advantages that come with age – and believe me, there aren’t many – is that one can look back at all the predictions made by futurists that turned out to be wrong. I am still waiting to travel in my flying car or by jet pack. Unless I missed the news, we still have not colonized the moon or Mars. And those colonies at the bottom of the ocean have yet to materialize. One area where it seems that seems particularly wrought with inaccurate predictions is climate. In the 1960s we were all going to die...

The date: January 28, 1972. The occasion: a White House gala celebrating the 50th anniversary of Reader's Digest magazine. The entertainment that night: the wholesome Ray Conniff Singers. The president quipped, "And if the music is square, it's because I like it square!" But what happened next was anything but square. One of the women on stage held up a sign reading "Stop the Killing," and said, "President Nixon, stop bombing human beings, animals and vegetation. You go to church on Sundays and pray to Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ were here tonight, you would not dare drop another bomb....

ANALYSIS Left unaddressed, gaslighting can take a significant toll on your self-esteem and overall mental health You are overthinking... We all have often come across phrases in our daily life at least once or on repeated terms such as -- You have always been crazy; I don’t know what you want me to say; It’s your fault; Everyone agrees with me; That’s not how it happened; Your memory seems to be slipping; I did that because I was trying to help you. Such phrases undermine our trust and belief. The more we hear them, the more we stop trusting ourselves....

In late 2021, the US sanctioned several Chinese entities over the creation of biotechnology that includes "purported brain-control weaponry." That warning seems to align with reports Beijing is pursuing weapons that could disorient or confuse enemy forces, making them easier to subdue. In late 2021, the US government sanctioned several Chinese entities for their involvement in the creation of biotechnology that includes "purported brain-control weaponry." As an aspiring superpower, the Chinese Communist Party has doggedly pursued economic, technological, and military supremacy, often through illegal or questionable means. The US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security now says the Chinese...

Another day, another example of Joe Biden's mental decline. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee spoke on health care at an event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on Thursday. An entire event dedicated to health care and the subject of dementia never came up. Biden, who confuses his wife for his sister, hopes to position himself as the go-to expert on the coronavirus. To demonstrate his profound knowledge on the subject, Biden familiarized himself with the latest statistics on the disease. "You have, unnecessarily, now we have over 120 million dead from COVID," Biden declared. Only the death toll is nowhere near that...

I was downloading a bunch of files on my computer recently to a flash drive when a weird thought hit me: Will it ever be possible to download a person's mind onto a memory chip? I mean your brain is like a memory storage so theoretically wouldn't it be possible to download that memory to another location such as a memory chip. Of course, if it could be a pretty boring existence since what the hell kind of fun could you have stuck inside of a high memory flash drive sitting in the corner of a shelf?

Lithium is a potent psychiatric drug, one of the primary prescribed medications for bipolar disorder. But it’s also an element that occurs naturally all over the Earth’s crust — including in bodies of water. That means that small quantities of lithium wind up in the tap water you consume every day. Just how much is in the water varies quite a bit from place to place. Naturally, that made researchers curious: Are places with more lithium in the water healthier, mentally? Do places with more lithium have less depression or bipolar or — most importantly of all — fewer suicides?...

I am sad for America

Mind your Mind! A Reflection on the Battleground of the Mind Msgr. Charles Pope • May 11, 2016 • In the Gospel for Mass yesterday (Wednesday after Ascension), the Lord said that the world would hate and persecute the disciples and He thus prayed that we would be consecrated in the truth. In the first reading, St. Paul warned the presbyters that after his departure “savage wolves” would seek to mislead the faithful. We hardly ever talk like this today, but there is a great battle for our hearts and minds. How seriously do we consider this battle?There is...

Perhaps one of the most intriguing and interesting phenomena in quantum physics is what Einstein referred to as a "spooky action at a distance" - also known as quantum entanglement. This quantum effect is behind what makes quantum computers work, as quantum bits (qubits) generally rely on entanglement to process data and information. It's also the working theory behind the possibility of quantum teleportation. The long and short of it is this: entangled particles affect one another regardless of distance, where a measurement of the state of one would instantly influence the state of the other. However, it remains "spooky"...

From time to time I hear from old friends, and sometimes from strangers, wondering why I occupy myself with what they regard as “woo-woo” stuff – that is, New Thought and positive-mind traditions. They are right about my commitments. Since the 2014 publication of my One Simple Idea, a history and analysis of positive-mind metaphysics, I have grown more dedicated to exploring the use and viability of the core mind-power thesis, which is: thoughts are causative. My aim is not to disembark from “serious” esoteric traditions (more on that in a moment); nor is it to discontinue my work as...

“Cutting through disinformation about consciousness is vital, because neuroscience is moving toward a mind-controlled society, based on the idea that individual awareness is an illusion, and stimulus-response is the key to shaping a new Collective of synchronized ‘happy’ brains.”

The first step toward an in-depth understanding of adult behavior is to comprehend its origins in childhood. Whether adaptive or maladaptive, the enduring patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that define adult personality begin in the early years of life. In fact, our earliest experiences with caretakers and others, acting on inherited temperament factors, strongly determine our later personality traits, including those expressed in political values and beliefs. The dispositions of the liberal mind are no exception: his hopes and fears, beliefs and passions, values and morals are in great measure the legacy of his childhood from birth through...

Our top 12 stories of 2014. #9: When a man was fitted with a new heart, his mind changed in unusual ways. Why? The answer reveals a surprising truth about all our bodies, says David Robson. Every second or so, Carlos would feel a small “bump” hitting his tummy. It was the beating of his “second heart”. The small mechanical pump was meant to relieve the burden of his failing cardiac muscles, but Carlos (not his real name) disliked the sensation. The beat of the machine seemed to replace his pulse, a sensation that warped his body image: as the...

Do you feel lost? Does your mind reside within a state of chaos, confusion, disorder, and does it perhaps carry with it an anxiety over what the future may hold? In part 2 of our series on the soul, we will explore, and expose, some of the darkness that resides within us due to living in a fallen world. We will add discernment to the darkness as the path to restoration will require a connection and a decision by you. Find out how, on this edition of Making Sense with Rob Case. To access this podcast, please click HERE or...

Researchers conducting the largest ever study into near-death experiences have discovered that awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down, revealing more about what happens when we die. Scientists at the University of Southampton studied more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals across Britain, Austria and the United States. Around 40% of patients who survived described "awareness" during the time before their hearts were restarted, when they were clinically dead. One 57-year-old man, a social worker from Southampton, described the noise of the machines and what the medical staff were doing during this time....