mental

30 items found

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“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may pertain to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

— Harry Frankfurt (On Bullshit, pp. 55-56)

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Project MKUltra

One 1955 MKUltra document gives an indication of the size and range
of the effort; this document refers to the study of an assortment of
mind-altering substances described as follows:[28]

  1. Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness
    to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
  2. Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
  3. Materials which will cause the victim to age faster/slower in maturity.
  4. Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
  5. Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized
    diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering,
    etc.
  6. Materials which will cause temporary/permanent brain damage and loss of memory.
  7. Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to
    withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and
    so-called “brain-washing”.
  8. Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
  9. Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
  10. Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
  11. Substances which will produce a chemical that can cause blisters.
  12. Substances which alter personality structure in such a way that the
    tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is
    enhanced.
  13. A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type that the
    individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a
    fabrication under questioning.
  14. Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
  15. Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
  16. A knockout pill which can surreptitiously be administered in drinks,
    food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use,
    provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on
    an ad hoc basis.
  17. A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above
    routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a
    person to perform physical activity.

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How Not to be a Slave to Your Brain: Mindfulness for Mental Health 

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The World Within – C.G. Jung in His Own Words

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What’s So Important About a Body Temperature of 37°C?

More important, each reaction
in the body has an “activation energy” that is temperature dependent. Activation energy is the energy required to initiate a reaction rather than the energy (or heat) produced by a reaction. Moreover, activation energy can vary markedly from one reaction to another. Imagine the difficulty of performing coordinated movements and complex thought processes if the millions of reactions (with their different activation energies) required to perform these tasks occurred at different times as a function of varying brain temperatures. The emerging concept therefore is that the organizational complexity of the brain and the need for complex interaction of neuronal activity require homeothermy. In support of this concept, it is common knowledge that hypothermia is associated with drowsiness and confusion; and that elevations in brain temperature significantly impair mental performance (Engel et ale 1984;Hancock 1981). Although fever is associated with impaired mental processing, even a nontoxic rise in core temperature produced by exercising in the heat significantly increases the frequency of errors on an attention-stress test. Further evidence supporting the importance of homeothermy for normal brain function is the poor temperature regulation (as an example of neuronal processing) in the newborn compared with an adult.

This excerpt from: The Hot Brain.  Carl V. Gisolfi and Francisco Mora.  © 2000 The MIT Press.

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