Sunday, November 21, 2010

Catchy Clothing Shop Names

What is to be romantic? The tantrum homeopathic

Before moving to the next paragraph, make a simple experiment: elect five people around them and ask them what they consider, a priori, more romantic, including dinner in the garden with aromatic candles under the stars and moonlight, and a pair of greasy BigMac's the nearest McDonald's with the reconstituted powdered Coke, hopefully, with tap water of questionable potability. What sounds most romantic priori as a gift: a box of chocolates for good with a red bow-shaped heart, or a miniature collector vehicle AT-AT Star Wars and a box of condoms to put "I Will Not Be your father" ? Can write the answer and / or the results of the experiment in the comments.

predict that, statistically, people will look more romantic chocolates and flowers and figurines geeks and junk food. And this is because it is what we breathe, what we see in movies, both current romantic comedies and in such other period set in past centuries in which leaves a very handsome French nobleman who woos the lady treated to gifts, bowing to all the living Christ and reciting poems beautiful and deep blush to caste concubine. How romantic, right? But times have changed, and gestures that were once a symbol of love now seem a pretentious, that is ridiculous in the eyes of the majority, which is the one imposed in each historical period the concept of normality. A fun read with humor about romance understood in terms of sentimentality found in this old post satirical entitled "How be romantic " of The world is crazy.

But not everyone understands the concept of romance as in the previous paragraph, and there are those who consider it a quality of love itself proposing a personalized romance based on the tastes and needs, of each person. Being romantic, from this other point of view, is to know the preferences and needs and satisfy your partner. No more. Personally, I resist a little, not to know and meet the needs of a person, but to consider that is to be romantic because it raises some incosistencias derived from the identification of love with romance as if they were synonymous or had to give necessarily a causal relationship between them:

1) So almost everyone is romantic but not like, because if the only prerequisite to be considered romantic interest is to know the tastes and needs of a person and be willing to cover, only then would it not be romantic abusers and freeloaders.

2) That person may prefer to MacDonald's for dinner in the garden and the chocolate figurines geeks, and that is not typically considered a romantic activity, or does not sound very romantic ... To be romantic is to give flowers? What if the flowers do not like and prefer marzipan? Do marzipan is less romantic than flowers? Why Paris has to be the city of love? Why to be considered romantic in Venice is to take a gondola ride with your partner? Why play Parcheesi can not be romantic?

3) So do not be romantic is not a quality on the idiosyncrasies of people and a personality trait that may or may not, but an absolute disgrace. A person who does not love to be romantic to your partner, because it would be romantic, in these terms, your partner do not mind. And it does not accept it. Something is wrong with that definition.

does not seem reasonable to consider that romance is an expression of affection to dry, that is love, not romance. I believe that romance is more a matter of "style", a more or less specific among the many possible and also to varying degrees. Take good care of a person and not worry about it being romantic, it's just love her (which is a lot). Surely all people who want to know your partner well, who care about her, who care, and yet, by his nature, never say of them that are romantic, romantic simply because it is an adjective not applies to everyone and that says nothing about whether much or little they want their loved ones.

What do you think?

Saturday, November 6, 2010

How To Tie Bed Roof Rack



recently is putting together a good stir with homeopathy, and no wonder. The mess was set up when she stopped being simply a pseudoscience like others, to end formally implemented in the English university, raising blood blisters among critics, skeptics and scientists. Was the University of Zaragoza which has recently established the Chair of Homeopathy , and whose teachings will be funded by Laboratoires Boiron, obviously dedicated to the development of homeopathic medicines and whose official website no advertise here (you can find it easily). According Newsletter of the University, one of its main goals is to publish the White Paper of homeopathy, was supposed to be something like the Bible in this discipline and a tool to disseminate it in society. Wait for the publication of that book and read it carefully, but do not think there's anything new. The principles on which homeopathy is based are well known. Scientific studies supporting them, however, are nonexistent. Here's the problem. Should we allow a discipline that, to date, has failed overcome the status of pseudoscience (can not even give the "prescience"), are formally taught at the University?

In my view, the problem is not that Homoeopathy is not a science. We all know that university is not scientific and no protest about it (Law, Philology, philosophy, even theology, etc). Are areas of knowledge, society and culture are also of interest. The problem is the intention and, above all, the brazenness with which these people it attempts to science and medicine, something that is neither one nor the other. And I have no personal interest in this, not being in fee collection against the formalization of Homeopathy. Moreover, I'm even open to the possibility that their theories may be true. Of course, I think the least we should demand is proven. And I think the correct order is: first show and then formalize it, not vice versa. It's like I am inventing a theory now, and before showing it, I think the university concerned. "To teach what? "Hypothesis? Today

digital daily 20minutes recorded the statement of Javier Lanuza, Professor of Pharmacology who will lead the department, who claimed that homeopathy "is a social reality it's there ". Yes, it certainly is there, but that is not sufficient criteria to make it a chair. A demand for something, although significant, does not mean you have to make graduate study. By this token, there is also demand for mediums, psychics and witchcraft groups, and we are not going to create the chair of Tarot to investigate the reality of astrological charts. I have the impression that if the tarot had the acceptance that is taking homeopathy, would end up going the same. Make a Chair of Homeopathy seems a very dangerous first step that leaves the door open to chaos. It is assumed that what should be taught University must be serious and rigorous whose veracity is established or is of genuine interest or social benefit, not because there are many people willing to buy pure water at the price of gold under the slogan "it works for me."

scientists, critics and skeptics have responded through their digital media to denounce this issue and explain in detail why homeopathy, at least for now, is not science and even why the principles on which it is based are scientifically very questionable, in addition to not being empirically validated. Serve as an example and summary entry "Why homeopathy is a hoax" ,'s blog Migui science and culture. Even more recently the web has created queeslahomeopatia.com with the firm intention to report in detail on the details of this fraud. Any reader who take some time to review these links, you will see that they are offered scientific arguments to refute the claims homeopaths. What do homeopaths? Do you also offer scientific arguments to prove his theories? No, limited to mourn, shouting or playing the victim of a conspiracy antihomeópata appealing to the reader's feelings, trying to move him to gain his confidence by playing dirty, as we read in this entry titled "Homeopathy and its critics" of ABC Homeopathy. Do not miss the comments. Clearly, if there is no scientific, double-blind experiments and stuff, there are no more resources than the tantrum.

  • There is a campaign to collect signatures "by Free University of pseudoscience and obscurantism." You can read and if you're interested, sign the Manifesto here.
  • If you have Facebook, you can also join the group interested "homeopathy, the healing power of absence" , where all members news and stuff we collected in follow-up of the subject and / or the more general "Our favorite magufos" .

Monday, October 18, 2010

Angel Wings With Babies Tattoo



I believe that death is a natural process that has always interested and troubled man to a greater or lesser extent since developing awareness or ability to realize such a phenomenon. And of course, the natural curiosity leads to the need for explanation. The first explanations were supernatural could obviously not be scientific. Are responsible for them religion and esotericism, and even in antiquity the Scientia "had a broader meaning and refers mainly to know who claimed to be esoteric knowledge deepest and highest of all things " (quote from the Wikipedia ), the modern scientific method guide marked a break with the magic and mysticism and the gap between scientific knowledge and other forms of knowledge. In
revolve around death all human cultures and social organizations. Thus his conception of death as an end or as a transit, its belief in life after death on Judgement Day ... act as constraints to the performance of individuals in one way or another. The idea of \u200b\u200bimmortality and the belief in the Hereafter appear in one form or another in virtually all societies and historical moments. However, to date no conclusive evidence for the afterlife.

The second question to emerge from human death and perhaps the most interesting is: What happens to humans after death? Actually, what wonder is what happens to the mental faculties of the person who has died. Some believe it is preserved by the spirit that impelled her mind, raising your consciousness even higher realities, others believe in the migration of the soul of a human being after his death to a level unattainable physically. The Christian religion considers death as the end of the physical permanence of the human being in its flesh, the spirit leaves the physical body deteriorates and is unable to stand under the laws of this finite universe, and immediately turns to God ( Ecclesiastes 12:7).

Scientific explanations of death are appealing to the properties of matter and the physical-chemical and biological properties of living tissues. The body's inability to maintain homeostasis or internal dynamic balance of all system parameters that would produce the physical effect we call death. But more interesting than death itself, or just interesting but fascinating (at least for me) are the psychological aspects associated with death in animals with higher cognitive functions, consciousness and culture animal: humans.

As we saw the other day , Raymond Moody was the first to want to address the issue in a rigorous and systematic, with the difficulties inherent in this type of issues. He listed the visions and sensations that patients reported who suffered near death experiences and recorded his observations in the book Life After Life . The scientific or natural explanations Moody offers in her book are not very enlightening to say, whether the author's partisanship or weakness of science in those years. Then you will find the theories that drive the modern neuroscience regard.

Fallacies in Psychology , the skeptic and controversial Rolf Degen provides an overview of the main features of NDEs reported by Moody offering alternative explanations. First, these experiences are described accompanied by feelings of peace and happiness, with visits from angels and other beings of light, but Moody does not seem to be aware that historically, and in the medieval period in particular, have reported such experiences very different:
As noted by the historian Professor Peter Dinzelbacher, University of Stuttgart, in Greek antiquity Individual accounts should be raised (anabioseis) as well as decreases in the inner world (katabaseis), but has not reached us neither. From the Middle Ages, by contrast, form their own genre, starting with the apocalyptic writings and visions of martyrs. This vision literature contains descriptions of visits to the Beyond the dead not communicated to people you trust. In the anthologies, ie, collections of lives of saints and other clerical writings of the sort, are also referred to such presences that appear to him dying in the last extremity.

Sometimes it is visited by emissaries of the mythological realm of Christianity, perhaps Jesus himself, Mary, a saint or an angel. But there was more frequent terrible vision of hell and other powers of darkness. For example, account of Bishop Martin of Tours that his last words before dying were: "What I want here, bloodthirsty beast?" .

Nor can hide in the medieval view, most often, the dying man looks led to Hell, understood as the region of eternal punishment. The figures that come their way in these places are not bright, but dark, and then return to life is taken as warnings of what might have happened in the absence of repentance necessary. However, it is almost exclusively involved the medieval stories where those images of doom. Which, according Dinzelbacher reflects the fact that today we have another image of divinity, which is the good God, rather than the vengeful and avenging God of dies irae. Today the psychological interpretation of the passions to play down the ideas of guilt and just punishment, and especially the New Age movement prefers to imagine a utopian era of harmony and spiritual progress. So dominant for the modern man's belief in a happy transit.
But we must also take into account other cultures, where the stories are narrated have nothing to do with Christian culture:
The Swiss climbers, for example, whose experiences of near-death in 1891 published the geologist Albert Heim in the yearbook Jahrbuch des Schweizer Alpenclubs not crossed the Underworld and in the Middle Ages, and passed through no tunnel, but fell into a mountain landscape "with a beautifully blue sky dotted with pink puffs." The Hopi Indians when they die the prairie road crosses the eternal hunting grounds and India go to heaven mounted on a cow.
Personally, I think, without denying the universality of death as a physical phenomenon, at least part of the experience associated with it can easily be due to purely cultural. Other issues, however, may be more physiological, if we consider that can be reproduced artificially by the use of drugs. According to the psychiatrist Karl Jensen, "intravenous injection of 70 to 150 ml of ketamine can reproduce all aspects of the NDE" . Indeed, the effects of this substance are rather unpleasant, so doctors often administer anesthesia mixed with other substances. In addition, "there is not a single feature of the experience that has not been obtained also by surgical stimulation of the parietal lobes, or by weak electromagnetic fields or other artificial stimuli, "summarizes the psychologist Persinger.

A theoretical explanatory model that links the ECM issues like the light at the end of the tunnel, the sensation of being dragged through it and the retrospect of life, which includes Rolf Degen alluding to his colleague, psychologist Susan Blackmore, and part of the idea of \u200b\u200bcerebral hypoxia:
The hidden depths of the brain is an organ particularly sensitive to lack of oxygen, the hippocampus, which is the central switching memory. Is the filter that determines which memories to consciousness will and why others do not. In situations of greatest danger to life, nervous inhibition disappears, as demonstrated by the experiments with rats. In the emerging consciousness of memory images without hindrance, and the brain, which always tries to make sense of the information it receives, making chaos in retrospect, just the "movie of life."

If oxygen deprivation persists, Blackmore continues the theoretical model, it causes a general disinhibition nervous. This model has been possible to simulate by computer the vision of light at the end of a tunnel. This view is probably linked to the primary structure of the optical cortex, the meeting place of the sensations in the brain lighting. "They are much more numerous nerve cells under the center of the visual field and peripheral exceedingly scarce change" . But as they disconnecting inhibitory neurons (because they consume more energy and oxygen than the other), and largely uncontrolled discharges nerve, the brain interprets the signals save neurons from optical and a glow. "And in the center of vision is more nerve cells active, you get the feeling that the light at the end of a tunnel" . As downloads increase, expands the visual field invaded by the glare, and this is what produces the illusory sense of traveling at light speed.

The Rudolf Virchow University Clinic of the University of Berlin has shown that lack of oxygen which causes the visual manifestations of matter. Doctors cause a loss in 42 adolescents by the method of giving up to 22 seconds of hyperventilation, followed by a sudden pressure on the rib cage. This is how the experimenters produce acute cerebral hypoxia. Subsequently, subjects counted visions and representations very similar to those of the NDE.
Recent studies also indicate a possible relationship between these phenomena and a high level of carbon dioxide in the blood. For the feeling

bypass, called a out-of-body-trip , one of the most legendary and prolific figures in all literature pseudoscientific, Degen again referring to his colleague Blackmore offering a possible explanation in terms of psychology Cognitive
A symptom that often occurs during the attacks is that patients believe they are outside or feel as duplicates. The contemplation of the scene in front of bird cognitive psychologists explain it by saying that our brain constructs at all times three-dimensional image that surrounds us. The sum of these three-dimensional images of a bird's eye view. "Close your eyes and try to imagine a bird's eye view where you are now. You'll be amazed how easy it is ".
Another characteristic pointed out by Moody is the fact that people returning from the ECM undergo a profound change in his personality, his attitude towards life and his understanding of death. Even many embrace religion. I think the change in attitude and religious motivation are easy to do with one's own psychological interpretation that the patient is from trauma, which also could influence their personality. However, Degen reports that the psychologist Persinguer goes a step further:
Persinguer psychologist has been raised even if the changes triggered by the NDE does not really reflect brain injury. "Most of the incentives mentioned in connection with the ECM can certainly be compared with an insidious destruction of brain cells' . That loss would affect in particular hippocampal neurons. But this center, when deaths occur cellular neuroplastic modification presented below. That is, the remaining neurons form new dendrites and synapses. Outwardly, these adaptation processes could take the appearance of a personality change. Moody
ECM recognizes that artificially induced experiences recounted similar in some respects, but thinks there are more differences than similarities. However, remember once again that Moody's position may be compromised. Anyway, neuroscientific explanations do not cover all aspects of ECM. For example, does not explain why some experiences are happy and some rather unpleasant, and possible cultural differences or exactly how they influence the neurobiological level experience suffered. Currently research is ongoing large-scale study called AWARE Human Consciousness Project, involving 16 hospitals in the UK and U.S. 9, coordinated by a team from the University of Southampton. Studies culminate in March 2011. It is less.


Related Entries:
death Pseudosciences
Life After Life

Monday, October 11, 2010

Male Brazilian Waxing, Mt Dora, Fl

Psychobiology of death Life after life

Life After Life (1975) is the title of Raymond Moody's book is the first attempt, with its successes and its failures, to formalize or standardize in some way the characteristics of what baptizes himself in this essay as near-death experiences (ECM / NDE), creating a school and driving, unfortunate and uncritically, to creating authentic pseudo calls to endorse formally the existence of mystical properties, supernatural or paranormal of human beings on this type of physical experiences, assuming that there is also evidence of the Hereafter and the metaphysical separation of body and mind or soul or whatever, against the wishes of the author's own:

But also deeply concerned about near-death experiences are not perverted, transforming the excuse for a new cult. This phenomenon should not be identified with me or any other person who has studied. The near-death experience is very common and very different perspectives are needed to address it in all its complexity.

But Moody's fears came true. Moody

doctorate in Philosophy and subsequently extended to specialize in psychiatric medicine. He was interested in philosophy of medicine, but recounted the experiences of patients who had been at death's door attracted his attention by the way, was curious and went to collect case studies on the subject. This book is the fruit of that first collection. His research involved the study of 150 clinical cases, but only personally interviewed 50 people. Their material draws on three types of cases: experiences reported by subjects who have been clinically dead and have been revived, experiences reported by subjects from accidents or illnesses have been very close to physical death and testimony of third persons who some subjects, before dying, they told their experiences.

While not a scientific test, the book does not pretend to be a clear attempt to scam. The author shows some caution and his intentions seem sincere and try to be more or less neutral. Not to protect any specific position, but basically present the facts he found, offering different possible explanations were handled at that time, including biological (but at that time were not very accurate). However, although he tries, he can not help expressing some of partisanship as he did believe in the Hereafter. The book includes a section explaining the methodology employed and the author is the first to acknowledge that their research is not strictly scientific because it is based on testimony in a sample not properly randomized and uncontrolled situations (medical emergencies), and even gives some brief instructions on how to end further research more rigorously. Moody

found in the testimony that he handled a series of patterns or common elements of the experiences reported, and were independent of patients' cultural beliefs. However, Moody does not forget to tell us that the sample was rather small, that all respondents belonged to the Judeo-Christian tradition and, obviously, not all subjects who have been on the brink of death then refer mystical experiences, many do not remember anything, so that the sample is chosen from among those who have something interesting to say.

Gathering all the elements mentioned by subjects who experienced ECM, Moody produced a story complete theoretical model or type of experience, therefore, is not a representation of the ECM of a person, but a theoretical abstraction that should be clear at least the following essential aspects: although there are similarities, no account is identical to another ; no subject concerns all elements of the narrative kind, though always present most of them, and the order in which they occur can vary from one experience to another.

In total, Moody produced a list of 15 items (which are actually 14 because one of them can not be considered a characteristic of the ECM, as it only refers to the fact that when the patient wakes up, to tell their experience to others, often complain that they do not believe) or feeling ineffability can not explain in words what happened, claim to have listened to doctors or spectators to report their own death, feelings of peace and quiet, perception of noise or hum sometimes unpleasant feeling of being pushed by a dark tunnel body experiences (out-of-body) ; encounter with others, which were supposedly there to ease the transition to death or to inform them that they must return to their bodies, the perception of an intense bright light, the panoramic review of his life approaching a kind of border or boundary; desire to return to the physical body (except in cases where it reaches a certain depth of experience, in which case they often want to stay), change of attitude in their lives to return, which includes a new vision of death and religion, and Many people report events in the physical while the experience occurred. In any case, as the author concedes, the different versions reported by the patients may simply represent different ways of interpreting individual, describe or recall the basis of experience. Finally, Moody said a number of significant parallels between the stories reported by patients and some literary texts from different periods and cultures, such as the Bible the Tibetan Book of the Dead , some writings of Plato and the mystical experiences reported by Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth century naturalist in a later period of his life underwent a religious crisis began to speak of spiritual experiences.

Among the explanations offered, are the supernatural and the natural or scientific (pharmacological, physiological, neurological and psychological), which, in my opinion, the author was rushing too much to discredit. Perhaps in this section is where the author relies too. In the next post we will see the modern critical to the principles of Moody and current scientific explanations (and more elaborate than in 1975) for most of its premises.

Source: Life After Life (1975), Raymond Moody. Related Entries

:
death Pseudosciences
Psychobiology of death