Being Human

Here is an excerpt from Daniel Goleman’s new book, Social Intelligence:  The New Science of Human Relationships.  This connects with what Paul Bloom is discussing in Descartes’ Baby on page 115, where he talks about imitation and mimicry and its relevance to our development.  “When a person performs an action, such as grasping some food, certain neurons in the cortex fire, including some known as “mirror” neurons.  The mirror neurons also fire if the person observes another person performing the same action.”  Not only is this one of the major contributing factors in the development of babies it is suggested that we continue through our lives to respond to the thoughts and actions of the people we are surrounded by.

In this book I aim to lift the curtain on an emerging science, one that almost daily reveals startling insights into our interpersonal world.

The most fundamental discovery of this new science: We are wired to connect.

Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person. That neural bridge lets us impact the brain—and so the body—of everyone we interact with, just as they do us.

Even our most routine encounters act as regulators in the brain, priming emotions in us, some desirable, others not. The more strongly connected we are with someone emotionally, the greater the mutual force. The most potent exchanges occur with those people with whom we spend the greatest amount of time day in and day out, year after year—particularly those we care about the most.

I have worked very hard to gain this education. I deeply value the sharing of information. My voice, my words, my thoughts, are clearly presented. People may hear what I have to say because I give the information in an understandable articulate manner.

When I open a text book or surf the web for information I expect to be presented with  knowledge that someone has worked hard at conceiving and presenting.  Ideas, concepts, theories, and new ways of communicating have changed my thinking and therefore, my life.  I grow, I develop, my mind evolves.  I wake up with a new perspective.  I live and I mature.

My experience with seemingly endless academic research, writing and formatting, rewriting again, discussing and then presenting my discoveries into a comprehensible reasonable presentation is my purpose in being here.

I have the utmost respect for all of you and I believe we can make this site into an important informative tool for all who happen to click on. My point is, there is no mature reason to use foul ignorant language to express ourselves. We have more to offer, don't we?

I found this study about how a child's initial capacity to differentiate words may detect future difficulties with language building ability. This caught my attention mainly because the researchers realized that this is an individual capacity and therefore cannot be neccessarily done in the traditional statistical manner.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep06/words.html

All the discussion this evening about the eye tickled a memory of mine.  Here is a link to an experiment about eyesite on website that has a bunch of interesting games and experiments related to psychology.  Enjoy!

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot1.html