(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best books about neuropsychology

> What, in fact, is “equality”? ... This means, of course, that equality of all men – the egalitarian ideal – can only be achieved if all men are precisely uniform, precisely identical with respect to all of their attributes. The egalitarian world would necessarily be a world of horror fiction – a world of faceless and identical creatures, devoid of all individuality, variety, or special creativity

Equality to me means equality of opportunity, not whatever this guy is talking about.

> Suppose that we observe our culture and find a common dictum to be: “Redheads are excitable.” Here is a judgment of inequality, a conclusion that redheads as a group tend to differ from the nonredhead population. Suppose, then, that egalitarian sociologists investigate the problem, and they find that redheads do, indeed, tend to be more excitable than nonredheads by a statistically significant amount. Instead of admitting the possibility of some sort of biological difference, the egalitarian will quickly add that the “culture” is responsible for the phenomenon: the generally accepted “stereotype” that redheads are excitable had been instilled into every redheaded child from an early age, and he or she has simply been internalizing these judgments and acting in the way society was expecting him to act. Redheads, in brief, had been “brainwashed” by the predominant nonredhead culture.

This can be shown using priming, it is not a mere hypothesis put forwards for political ends.

> But why were redheads singled out? Why not blondes or brunettes? The horrible suspicion begins to loom that perhaps redheads were singled out because they were and are indeed more excitable and that, therefore, society’s “stereotype” is simply a general insight into the facts of reality. Certainly this explanation accounts for more of the data and the processes at work and is a much simpler explanation besides.

Interesting how the author has chosen such a morally neutral term - "excitable". "Why would people be motivated to make up the idea that redheads are excitable? They wouldn't, therefore it must be true." Not so for the most damaging labels which are actually attached - women are stupid, incapable of real work, are gentle, should be gentle, etc. Any writing about women's role from 100 years ago or more would shock the modern reader, because of its obvious falseness (as proved by women today). This same justification could have been made 100 years ago as well - "where do these stereotypes come from? They must be rooted in truth". Yet the author wants to make the same justification now.

> Since egalitarians begin with the a priori axiom that all people, and hence all groups of peoples, are uniform and equal, it then follows for them that any and all group differences in status, prestige, or authority in society must be the result of unjust “oppression” and irrational “discrimination.”

It's not an axiom, it's the fact that so many studies attempting to actually quantify those differences have come up blank. Therefore it remains my default assumption when people ask new questions like "are redheads more excitable"?

> Of course, one neglected reply is that if, indeed, men have succeeded in dominating every culture, then this in itself is a demonstration of male “superiority”; for if all genders are equal, how is it that male domination emerged in every case?

Considering how entrenched gender roles are, it seems unreasonable to

> Irving Howe outlines several important biological differences between the sexes, differences important enough to have lasting social effects. They are: (1) “the distinctive female experience of maternity” including what the anthropologist Malinowski calls an “intimate and integral connection with the child . . . associated with physiological effects and strong emotions”; (2) “the hormonic components of our bodies as these vary not only between the sexes but at different ages within the sexes”; (3) “the varying possibilities for work created by varying amounts of musculature and physical controls”; and (4) “the psychological consequences of different sexual postures and possibilities,” in particular the “fundamental distinction between the active and passive sexual roles” as biologically determined in men and women respectively. 8

None of which contradicts the view of egalitarianism, only the author's strawman image of egalitarianism.

> the recently growing call for bisexuality by Left intellectuals.

Another strawman, I don't know what this man's reading but it must be some pretty radical stuff.

> Professor Richard Herrnstein has recently estimated that 80 percent of the variability in human intelligence is genetic in origin. Herrnstein concludes that any political attempts to provide environmental equality for all citizens will only intensify the degree of socioeconomic differences caused by genetic variability.

This assumes that genetic variability is caused by socioeconomic differences. No "intelligence genes" have been identified nor their prevalence in socioeconomic classes been measured.

> Suppose two handfuls are taken from a sack containing a genetically diverse variety of corn, and each grown under carefully controlled and standardized conditions, except that one batch is lacking in certain nutrients that are supplied to the other. After several weeks, the plants are measured. There is variability of growth within each batch, due to the genetic variability of the corn. Given that the growing conditions are closely controlled, nearly all the variation in the height of the plants within a batch will be due to differences in their genes. Thus, within populations, heritabilities will be very high. Nevertheless, the difference between the two groups is due entirely to an environmental factor - differential nutrition. Lewontin didn't go so far as to have the one set of pots painted white and the other set black, but you get the idea. The point of the example, in any case, is that the causes of between-group differences may in principle be quite different from the causes of within-group variation.

Additionally, the amount of socioeconomic mobility varies between countries (mostly relating to how the government chooses to raise and spend money, see the great gatsby curve), while the biology of inheritance doesn't.

Herrnstein seems to be suggesting that currently socioeconomic differences are not caused by genetic variability (perhaps they're instead caused by.. entrenched inequality caused by insufficient state redistribution of assets? See the great gatsby curve and my other reply in this thread), but in the future they would be. This seems like a good future to have as it comes closer to the idea of a meritocracy, just noting that genetic factors of intelligence are a merit. Seems fine to me.

The rest of it is stuff about communism which I don't really support. A good quote from Gray though.

> the egalitarians are acting as terribly spoiled children, denying the structure of reality on behalf of the rapid materialization of their own absurd fantasies.

On the country, I believe they are grounded in empiricism.

> Since their methodology and their goals deny the very structure of humanity and of the universe, the egalitarians are profoundly antihuman; and, therefore, their ideology and their activities may be set down as profoundly evil as well.

Tell that to all those happy people in progressively taxed countries.

>I agree with you here. So does this mean you disagree with TRP's stance on this topic?

I've never been one for towing the party line.

> Interesting. I still don't really get it honestly. women are emotionally trained to place responsibility for their feelings onto their partners? What does this mean, and what leads you to believe that?

There are 2 parts to this. One is well explained by Women's Infidelity by Michelle Langley, and is also it's a common criticism feminism makes of popular culture. Society conditions women that marriage or a relationship with a man will make them happy. That they need to find the right guy who will complete them (the implication that without a man they are incomplete). This is bullshit of course, no one can make anyone else happy. You have to learn to be happy yourself.

The second part is that while society conditions men to be stoic (avoid and suppress their feelings) girls are taught to over identify with them. Women who aren't emotionally whole often surrender to their feelings, rather than simply accept them, while understanding the distinction between their being and what they feeling in any given moment.

TRP accurately observes that women end marriages (and probably relationships) more than men, but concludes falsely that this is because women cannot love the way men can. In reality, it's the combination of what I described above. Women enter into relationships thinking that will magically make them happy and they will feel whole and complete and loved. When this doesn't happen because it was never realistic to begin with, they begin to feel sad, anxious, and often angry. While a man would probably bury these emotions until he explodes (or becomes depressed) women both act on them and blame their partners due to how they have been emotionally conditioned.

>There is an huge amount of psychological evidence to support this assertion, and anyone who has spent any time working on emotional healing and therapy will quickly see that I am correct.

Here are some links, but these are books not easily digestible articles. The important thing to understand is that core emotional problems are the same amongst all people. It's the external expression of that pain that is often gendered. Reading about the difference between NPD and BPD will shed some let on this.

Women's Infidelity

Facing Co-Dependence

The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion

Healing the Shame that Binds You

Healing Your Aloneness

Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization

>I don't really see what this has to do with gender. Both partners need to feel that expression of love. Dread Game actually seems to be based around purposely withdrawing love and affection, which seems irreconcilable with the idea of unconditional love.

What tends to be gendered is the preferred expression of love (love language). Different people need and express love differently, and sometimes couples don't have compatible styles of showing affection. In cases where one partner will not work on the issue, that partner is withdrawing their love. I agree that dread game is not compatible with unconditional love, and I don' think I ever said it was compatible.

Both of what you describe hearing from the neuroscientist and ex-nun sound much more like a few off the cuff anecdotes than actual well researched positions that you should count on as meaningful in deciding whether you personally continue with the practices described in TMI.

To start with the ex-nun. In what sense is she a meditation expert and what is her understanding of TMI? As has been already stated elsewhere on the thread TMI is not a novel system that has been dreamt up complete with trademarks and a mystical backstory. It's a modern synthesis of very well established meditation approaches from both Tibetan and Theravadan schools that have a long historical pedigree. Mindfulness of breath, body scanning, metta, walking meditation and the like are all staples of Buddhist meditation across the world. In that regard stating that there is no enlightenment to be gained by following it really needs some further clarification on her part. What about the system makes enlightenment impossible?

On the neuroscience front maybe Minsky is considered outdated, I have no way of knowing personally, but I do know that the attention/awareness distinction is what Culadasa considers the core of how his approach differs from others. If your ex boss failed to comment on that then I'm sceptical he's given the book a thorough reading. The scientific backing for attention and awareness being separate but related in the way Culadasa describes is discussed in great detail in The Master and his Emissary so you could look into that if you want.

What role science can or should play in your decision is seems very important to you. Some of the blurb for TMI may have bigged up the science side of things a bit much. Certainly prior to the recent unpleasantness that was the main criticism that we heard about the book and Culadasa. However, those of us who are familiar with the system know that TMI is a meditation book that also contains some very well thought out theoretical models to explain what you experience if you follow the meditation instructions. Currently science has great things to say about the benefits of basic levels of mindfulness but is not ready to endorse ideas around awakening. If you want to do practices that are rigorously evidentially backed up then you can take a course like MBSR or MBCT. However, these courses are short and they do not offer a detailed long term progression. In fact, the aim is that at the end of them you go off and seek out your own personal practice. You'll also note if you take a course that they are teaching you the same basic techniques you find in TMI: mindfulness of breath, body scan, metta and so on.

The scientific speculation that is in TMI is useful insofar as it can help demystify the experiences that occur in deep meditation and thus help people find a clear and well mapped route through the territory. Ultimately the book has become popular through word of mouth because it delivers on what it promises and so each copy sold inevitably leads to a high number of personal recommendations to others. If you want to pursue the benefits of advanced levels of mindfulness then it is still one of the best options out there despite Culadasa's recent controversial behaviour.

quite long - 400 pages

Fair warning: I'm only ~50 pages in but I'll be honest: it is quite a dense read but I think that is the subject and not the author's style at play.

I actually like the writing style because she is from before the modern age of slang and relaxed writing. there is a sincere grace to her writing style, and that makes for a pleasurable reading experience (IMO).

She structures her sentences to include only one idea and avoids phrases in apposition, split infinitives and other distractions and nuisances. So she is an untiring author. Also she is not in love with her own words, so things are nice and direct and succinct.

She has a habit of associating things that i would have thought to be unrelated, but upon further consideration may well be related. for example, she says that the characteristics of self-idealisation (as opposed to the healthy self-realisation) include:

• the most decisive characteristic is an utter disregard for himself, for his self interests
  
  
• the indiscriminateness of compulsive drives (distractions) - since the aim is not what is being undertaken, but something toxic
  
  
• the quality of insatiability - no amount of distraction can ever satisfy, because it is not what the victim really wants or needs
  
  
• the reaction to its frustration - since the need is so strong, when these distractions fail, the response is very uncomfortable for the victim, and appears to others as excessive.
  
  (I have paraphrased her - she calls the desire to self-idealise the quest for glory - the above characteristics are aspects of this toxic quest).
  
  
  
  I just dip in and out - a few pages at a time and then I think about them. Almost every page - right from the first - seems to offer some genuinely worthy insight.
  
  I'd have loved to meet her. She comes across like a very sincere, likeable and interesting person.

>sigh, "exists" and "is" are such difficult words, I get lost easily when trying to express what I think they "are".

I have this problem too, with "is" and its variants. You might find E-Prime (English minus all forms of the verb "to be") an interesting solution to some of these difficulties. I have been practicing it lately and using it throughout this conversation. Wilson probably oversells the idea, in his enthusiasm, but I like the way writing in E-Prime gets rid of most metaphysical thinking and orients my thought toward the operational.

>I'd consider that a "god of the gaps" type argument where we just push it into the unknown, "subjectivity of the quantum wave-form collapse" or something similar.

At this point, nobody really fully understands conscious awareness, so I think all we can do is bet on what future research will show, but I didn't mean to suggest a quantum solution. I had in mind something more like a very sophisticated massively parallel analog recurrent (feedback) neural network, which we already know share several interesting properties with consciousness. I can't make a good case for this view succinctly in a reddit post, but Paul Churchland develops this idea in The Engine of Reason, which I highly recommend. Unlike a "god of the gaps" hypothesis, we should eventually have the ability to test this idea, though I suspect we would end up looking at the results of many little tests, rather than one crucial experiment.

>This is my issue with conscious AI. I'm a software guy and have no problem with AI being intelligent, as in it has the ability to solve problems.

I agree. I also agree that it doesn't have to have experience to intelligently solve problems - I think we have lots of examples of unconscious machines that solve sophisticated problems - even much of the "intelligent" processing in our brains flies under the radar of awareness, so I think we can put to rest the notion that awareness will accompany any fancy cognitive process.

Dude, all I can say is read this book, because I don't have time to quote all the studies mentioned in it:

Delusions of Gender:The Real Science Behind Sex Differences
by Cordelia Fine

I will address what I have time to off the top of my head:

>Mens' brains are, on average 10% larger. Wikipedia, Web M.D., DailyMail, reporting on research done by the University of Cambridge

Sir, brain size as a link to intelligence was a thing in Victorian times. But there is still no strong correlation between brain size and intelligence. if it were true, Elephants would be the dominant species of the land. Are you going to cite phrenology next?

>Men are better suited to withstand pain.

childbirth
Also you would not believe how often gender being primed in a study affects the results. Were these people told we're seeing who can stand more pain. Were men feeling their masculinity was at stake and withheld longer? Also why does this come into equality. When it comes to choice I have seen a hell of a lot more women endure.

>The difference in laymans' terms, is that grey matter is associated with processing and depth of analysis, while white matter is associated with speed of response and speed of neural activity. I.e, men potentially process 6-7 times more heavily, while women process potentially 6-7 times less deeply, but at a rate that is potentially 10 times faster.

Well this is misleading as hell. You do dance around the fact at what it suggests, and what its assumed parts of the brain do, but negate to mention the overwhelming lack of evidence connecting these brains structures with measurable human behaviors. Humans have wildly varying brains, and on average which is they key word all over your argument, women and men can have different structure, but the structures being responsible for measurable differences? No, someone looked at it and said 'oh, must be why women are good at languages'. Also you speak as if all of these areas are mutually exclusive. That a person will be one way or another. But negate to include the numerous humans who are good at both languages and mathematics?

Interesting one researcher who is a big advocate of gender differences Simon Baron-Cohen, when discussing his tests for empathy quotients, and typing brains into a female and male type brain, was able to show (under his conditions of what a male brain is) that most men have a male brain. But even his research found that just under 50% of women have a female types brain. Research has consistently shown there is a great number of women who are much more similar to what we believe the average man is. So many in fact, that anyone who insists on segregating all people on the basis of gender is negating that their theories fall flat when faced with the people to whom 'on average' does not describe.

Generally your whole argument- (and its sad, because I can see how confident you are in this, you really do feel superior and justified in your neurosexism) - is flawed because nearly all of it is based and correlation and causation assumptions. (i.e - more men do maths, mens brains are different, therefore, mens brains make them good at maths) Well, Kids whose parents own coffee makers are proven to be are more intelligent, that doesn't mean proximity to coffee makers raises IQ.

You are not unbiased here. You had beliefs, and saw something to back them up, and took it, have you looked for flaws, have you actually tries to say 'now, is it possible this isn't so simple?) I'm guessing not, because you don't want to, you are comfortable with what you believe.

You don't want to think about poor controls, gender priming in exams, stereotype bias or anything that would require you to doubt yourself for a split second.

I'm proven to have a gender neutral brain. I don't fit female patterns, my psychiatrist suggested I have mild autism. What do you have to say about me and my right to equality?

Actually, I can't be assed to pull out my kindle and search for each of your points, seriously, just read the book.
It covers everything you've mentioned. With lots of cited research articles so you can double check it all. The point of the book is that we are astoundingly sure that science backs up sexism as a society, but under further investigation, most of the science can be debunked, and what little there is at best shows a slight margin. Socialization is overwhelmingly responsible for the result on which most assumptions are based.

Read that, then we'll talk.

I also recommend bad science by Ben Goldacre. Which covers the topis of people relying on studies way to easily and not realizing how shoddy the methodology is.

There are a plethora of books on consciousness.

From the science side of things the neuroscientist Antti Revonuso has a book "Consciousness: the science of subjectivity" which has a good mix of the philosophy and science of consciousness. Christof Koch, probably one of the leading neuroscientists who study consciousness, has a few books as well. The Quest for Consciousness is one of his, which has lots of neuroscience particularly visual neuroscience in it. That is mainly science, not much philosophy. Another neuroscientist who studies consciousness is Stanislas Dehaene who wrote a good book Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts. Click on the image of each book on the left in amazon (which opens up a preview) and scroll to the contents page and see if any of these books are the kind of thing you are looking for.

From the philosophical side there is (among many others) Susan Blackmores "Consciousness: An introduction" (an introductory book David Chalmers recommends) and William Seagers "Theories of Consciousness: An Introduction and Assessment". There is also a great book that has short (5-7 pages) sections on philosophers and neuroscientists and their respective theories of consciousness by Andrea Eugenio Cavanna and Andrea Nani called "Consciousness: Theories in Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind". The first half of Michael Tye's book "Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind" is great for an overview of 10 philosophical problems of consciousness. It is very accessible and there are summaries of each problem provided. There are also great resources online such as Van Gulick's SEP article on consciousness, which would actually be a great place to start, and use it as a place to lead you to areas you are most interested in. Here is also a brief introduction to the philosophy of mind (the main philosophical discipline that deals with consciousness).

So there's a few links to some books and online articles, which should be more than enough to get you going.

By the way, there is a free masterclass on consciousness with Christof Koch on the World Science U website. You may also be interested in that.

Additionally you may like to check out the subreddit /r/sciphilconsciousness, which is all about the sharing and discussion of content related to the science and philosophy of consciousness.

>I don't understand spirituality. Feeling of oneness and such. What does it mean? It doesn't make sense to me.

There's a school of thought in cognitive science that your mind has two gross modes of apprehending reality roughly corresponding to the left and right hemisphere - the right deals with the bigger picture and helps orient your attention to things that might be important, and the left thinks in a way that's closely tied to language and that constantly divides things up, categorizes and puts borders around things.

In the West, and especially in any technical field - basically, if you're part of any demographic that reddit skews towards - our education, careers, philosophies and so on have all worked together to train us to approach the world more in the second way: we want everything to have crisp conceptual borders, to be binnable into classical categories, and if you can't describe it with language, well, it's probably not really all that real.

The way most people describe spiritual experience is on the opposite end of the spectrum, so much so that to even call the usual ways of talking about it "descriptions" can seem too generous to people that prefer to look at the world in strictly rational and linguistic terms. The talk tends towards vague feelings, abstruse metaphor, "I know it when I see it", "I can't really describe it to someone else who hasn't also experienced it", and so on. In view of the rational vs. big picture cognitive dichotomy, that might be because this different way of thinking actually takes place in different parts of the brain that are mutually inhibitory with your linguistic faculties.

If you've managed to craft a life for yourself where you get by on your rational faculties, it might be hard to even picture why being able to see the world in the fuzzier and less linguistically mediated way would be useful, so maybe I can illustrate with an example:

Picture a young male redditor 20-24 who's in or recently out of college with an engineering degree, trying to find his way in the world. He's done everything right, focused on school, got good grades, asked for and followed career advice he got online. He's reasonably fit and maintains a fairly disciplined lifestyle. Maybe he's even in his first career-type job, making decent money... but he comes to /r/meditation complaining about anxiety and maybe some underlying feelings that he's not sure of his place in the world. His relationships suck and he has a hard time talking to women. Sometimes he comes off as argumentative, pedantic or excessively detail-oriented and totally misses why this might interfere with attaining the social life he so desperately desires.

Sound familiar?

There are lots of approaches to address any one particular facet of what's wrong with this young man, but one way to take a broader view is to see that he's spent the greater part of his life developing his ability to pick things apart and categorize them and give them linguistic labels, and in so doing he's left behind his ability to relax, to be OK with necessarily imperfect and incomplete explanations for the world and everything that happens in it, to take the broader view, to paint his experiences in colorful metaphors and so on. In other words, he's highly mentally developed and spiritually underdeveloped.

Meditation can make up some of the steps on the road to fixing this. So can traveling, building a new relationship to music, taking time off and living aimlessly for a little while, learning to express yourself artistically, and other favorite pastimes of liberally educated baristas that reddit tends to enjoy looking down on.

I need to do some reading to see how scientifically valid the idea about the two thought systems is, since they tend to be presented in a left-brain/right-brain dichotomy which I know many popular sources overstate the importance of. The wikipedia page on it seems to be pretty well cited, though maybe not explicitly for spirituality versus rationality. There's a book The Master and His Emissary about it that I'm meaning to read that might be interesting if you want to read more about these ideas. If you can't tell though, a lot of the above description cribs from my own life. There's personal truth in it even if that hasn't shown up on fMRIs and in longitudinal studies yet. See if it resonates.

Someone close to me used to strongly believe in God, and also believe that they were going to hell. It's an incredibly hard place to be, mentally, and I'm sorry you're going through that.

On the subject of God's morality and justice: keep in mind that these descriptions of God are all written by humans, and then edited and re-written by other humans over and over many times. It's quite possible to have a conception of God that doesn't rely on the Bible, and that may be a direction you want to go.

As for the personal experience, I've always felt that those are important to an individual (they carry a lot of emotional power), but we have to be careful about how we interpret them.

A lot of spiritual experiences can also be explained as physical/chemical things happening in the brain. These experiences can be profound and open us up to new ideas, and when they occur in the context of religion, they are often interpreted as being from God or from a spirit. Just keep in mind that they can also be interpreted as being a natural result of your brain's own activity. It's something to consider, anyway.

Personally, I like to read books about the brain and popular science books on neurology. How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker was a very good one, for instance. That type of reading helped me a lot when I needed to put my thoughts and experiences in context.

Good luck.

1. This page, and all its links, is a great place to start for someone who also wants to understand in depth: http://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/page.php?ID=29
   
   
2. I found an amazing brochure by Mayo Clinic (geared at teens, but great for anyone) that explains the basics extremely well, but am now having difficulty finding it again on the internet. I'll try to find it and get back to you.
   
   
3. If you are interested in the scientific details and enjoy reading hardcore science journal articles, start by reading abstracts on PubMed. Message me about papers or topics and I'm happy to pass on what I can!
   
   
4. This book is less science-y, but has loads of relatable tips, stories, information- a very good place to start: http://www.amazon.com/POTS-Together-Stand-Riding-Dysautonomia/dp/1466371501

A combination of becoming very well-read in Horneyan psychoanalysis (especially her books Our Inner Conflicts and Neurosis and Human Growth. Also Self-Analysis), smoking marijuana, and finding God. And finally finding a really good therapist. And time, lots of time.

Ultimately it was about swallowing my pride and committing to see things as they are, as best as I can tell, regardless of how I might feel about that. Recognizing that learning the truth about something (in my case, ways I have hurt certain people in the past), even if a bitter pill, cannot actually harm me. It's just knowledge.

That might sound cryptic, but it's the best way I can think of to put it. The Horney books really helped, because they exposed me to myself in ways I found it very difficult to deny. Reading them while high on good weed was especially an experience, because I made the emotional connections much more easily (believe it or not you can learn to read while high if you work your way past the super-short-attention-span phase). Once I saw certain connections I simply could not deny, I discovered what it means to be in dire need of forgiveness (this is tough to explain, but let's just say it's hard to be somebody committed to the truth and then realize that means you have to carry around an awful truth about yourself). I asked for it, and had an experience of grace half a year later.

A few years of a mix of blessings and involvement in spiritual kookery and I eventually found a fantastic therapist, and the two of us are working together to uncover the inner bullshit that keeps me down, and to set me free.

That was a bit long-winded, but you asked.

Since when is it taboo to read "mein Kampf?" Might be but who actually cares (aside from politicians). Learn basic statistics and learn about the predictive value of IQ tests (how the hell did I even end up having to defend that stuff, I prefer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences).

Actually most of thoses models of cognition with all their "faculties" and spooks are probably nonsense (https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Foundations-Neuroscience-M-Bennett/dp/140510838X).

Also that book ("mein Kampf") is mostly about various conspiracy theories regarding WW1, jews etc. I once told my German teacher (back when I was still some "German kid") I read part of it but not all. She said why not? I told her it was too d*amn boring. Then she agreed. Didn't get jailed btw.

"but if you're honestly indexing people by IQ scores- maybe you could use a more nuanced understanding of intelligence."

How would I even do that? "You disagreed, sit down and take this test!" Idgaf about people's actual IQ scores. What matters is what they say and do. Throw in some tit-for-tat.

"One day you'll meet an incredibly attractive interesting girl and you'll want to sleep with her "

I am not ordered around by my ** and will not change opinions based on that. And where I live there are plenty of attractive "girls" so what.

"while talking to her you'll use words like "special", "autistic", and "schizophrenia" to describe crazy dysfunctional things or people you see in the world."

Big deal. If she cannot take some hyperbole then we are just no fit. Both parties move on, done. Also, if she felt genuinly insulted, why would I still want to sleep with her "anyway"? What kind of scumbags do you take men for?

"because she has a brother with autism or Downs and you didn't know."

That's life. If she gets "triggered" by my word-choice (btw who rants on about how bad all kinds of things are when they are attracted to someone lmao) then that's her right. Can't be helped.

"Just a helpful tip to save you from future humiliation. "

How is not getting to sleep with some random person I am attracted to humilating? Are most males humilated most of the time because of a bit rejection!?

Ps:
" could support his claims against biological determinism."

I am not a biological determinist.

"I check my white privilege all the time, thanks very much. That's why"
"post-Brexit Islamophobia in Europe makes the American Jim Crow South seem progressive. ""

//

" let the job market decide what you study at university instead of your political passions."**

Good advice for the kids. Agreed.

Hello, cognitive neuroscientist here. As you may guess, I find it rather preposterous that you suggest that "consciousness exists externally and independently from the brain." In my field, we study the relationship between brain states/events and behavior, many of these states which require the conscious phenomenological experience (perception) of stimuli.


It may be the case that you have a fundamentally different definition of conscious ness than the ones that are often used in experimental settings in my field. In my case, I'm referring to consciousness as the ability to attend to, perceive, and ultimately recognize that you have perceived. For example, you can present people with stimuli for periods of time that are so brief, that there responses to those stimuli are effectively random (they're guessing), which we could then infer that the stimuli weren't consciously perceived at all. In fact, we can even "shut off" parts of the brain in real-time and see the effects on behavior using a method called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Here's a concise paper on the topic. Pay particular attention to the section "creating virtual patients", as well as figure 3.

Here is another more recent paper that seems to discuss consciousness from a broader perspective.

Here is another even more recent paper that seems to directly assess your question. This one seems more technical, but try to stick through it. With this paper, be sure to look at the references! It seems like it could be a good source for you. In fact, if you see any other papers in the reference list that you find interesting, let me know and I'll get them for you :) It appears that this researcher is generally interested in consciousness, and has a trade book available that seems right up your alley here.

That all being said, I think it's very important to note that you seem to be making a claim (consciousness exists outside of and independently of the brain) that has no real empirical evidence to support it. What evidence can you bring to me that would change my view? I have given you one of many sources that demonstrate the casual manipulation of conscious perception via manipulation of the synchronous activity of the brain. How would your perspective respond to the vast literature that has reported similar findings (both in TMS studies and with lesion patients)? According to your perspective, would we have to manipulate some unknown source literally detached from the body of the person being studied do observe these disruptions in conscious perception? Overall, I'm not certain how your perspective can hold up empirically. In order for your idea to be taken seriously from a scientific perspective, it first needs to be falsifiable (able to be demonstrated false). I'm not sure how this can be accomplished here, unless I'm missing something.

Finally, I would highly suggest that you do more basic reading in cognitive neuroscience. I would suggest this textbook.

Please take the time to read the information that I have provided for you. Afterwards, if you have any questions, let me know :)

> The idea that the mind is in some way non-physical.

The mind is a product and an element of the physical brain. It may not be concretely tangible (i.e., you can't hold a mind), but that does not mean it is not a part of the physical universe. Physics explains the mind quite well, actually. The neurons in our brain are developed in compliance to the laws of physics and biology, the neurochemicals in our brain are physical substances, and the electric currents in our brains that communicate signals between neurons operate in compliance to the laws of physics.

Evolution also provides insight into the development of consciousness. While, sure, humans are the only terrestrial species with advanced enough consciousness to develop religious and philosophical ideas, we know now that many animals have forms of consciousness and proto-consciousness like what we would expect if humans evolved consciousness from simple origins. The mind is perfectly explainable through naturalistic sciences, and our naturalistic model of human consciousness makes predictions that are falsifiable.

I'd suggest reading Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works. Here's a talk he gave on the book. I'd also suggest his The Stuff of Thought, The Language Instinct, and The Blank Slate.

I'd also suggest Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. While it's main thrust is to show how science can inform morality, it offers some pretty decent layperson explanation of consciousness, and it is written by an accomplished neuroscientist (whatever your opinion on his religious works may be). His pamphlet-esque Free Will also covers some good ground here.

> All able-bodied humans are born with the ability to learn language.

Not at all true. You can be able-bodied and learning disabled. There was a nonverbal autistic student at my middle school years ago who ran track. Trivial point, but still incorrect.

> I would argue humans also have a Spiritual Acquisition Device.

I would argue that this argument is SAD. (pun; sorry.)

You're positing a massively complex hypothetical neurological infrastructure to link human brains to a divine alternate universe or dimension that has never been shown to exist. Not only has this neural uplink never been observed, but it is entirely unnecessary, as neuroscientists and psychologists have a perfectly functional, testable model of consciousness without it. You're adding a new element to that model that is functionally redundant and untestable. Occam's Razor would trim away your entire posited element out of extraneousness and convolution.

Since people have already answered about the anarchist part thoroughly, just throwing my two cents out there: veganism is not necessary for being an anarchist (and in fact, depending on the country it is illogical to expect for everyone to be vegan). As for the fact that there can be 20 genders, that is a very complex topic. Essentially, gender is a social construct that assigns certain roles, characteristics, features, stereotypes to each sex (for example: women need to wear make-up, use high-heels in certain jobs, pink-color coded, long hair, they are more submissive, passive, and also nurturing; while men are strong, 'they like blue', are aggressive, usually short hair, etc. Super basic, but there are some books you can check if you're interested: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-Behind-Differences/dp/1848312202#reader_1848312202) Gender would be something like 'femininity' and 'masculinity'. Women, in this axis, are and have been historically oppressed due to their sex (this all for Engels started with Agriculture, you can read his 'Private Property, Family and the State'). It is for that reason that gender differs from society to society, it is not a universal concept (for example, in China, girls had to undergo foot binding). Sex is a material reality, that is, humans as a species are sexually diphormic, that is, there are two sexes (which also include 'deviations' from these sexes which come with complications such as intersex and different syndromes but that are still included under sexual diphormism). But sex does not equal gender. Brains aren't gendered. The mainstream left seems to have sided with a very liberal notion that identity makes reality, in which everyone can decide their gender (whatever that means? and which has no impact on reality), and instead of abolishing gender and letting everyone just be, it seems to side with the fact that femininity and masculinity equal sex, rather than divorce sex from the social construct that is gender and accept it as a material reality. While radical/materialist/marxist feminism proposes the abolition of gender, in doing so, sex would have no connotations at all as to how a person should dress, behave, or what their role in society is, etc and would be free to be themselves. In my opinion, it is radical feminism which has more solid foundations and a very solid theory. This is not even scratching the surface on the topic, though, and I'm not sure it's understandable, but I hope my comment was of some help. I strongly recommend you research this thoroughly, always keep a critical stance on what you read (on whatever you read, honestly), and come to your own conclusions, which can change when you know more, and they should.


As for 'left-wing', many ideologies can be lumped there, so you've got to be careful and always have a critical eye.

> It's quite interesting how little we understand the human brain.

Neil Degrasse Tyson makes an interesting point that Astrophysics and nueroscience are similar fields - in both cases, the list of things we don't know is longer than the list of things we know.

There's a book I read last year by a neurosurgeon at U California called On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not that covers the huge role the unconscious plays in decision making. It touches on both how little we know about the brain, and on how much more important external inputs are to the process of thinking than we normally account for. It's a good read.

> I felt that some of the descriptions of the mechanics between the emotional and rational mind were intuitively wrong, and my intuition is almost always right, but I couldn't figure out while I was there why and how it should be.

Now this is interesting. What sort of things felt 'off' to you? I'd love to figure out where the seeming disconnect was for you, I've felt the same way for a number of techniques which appear tangentially related to DBT.

>I found the experience of understanding alcoholism for the first time to be extremely enlightening.

How was it described in the class?

> “Do YOU take the effort to try and understand the reasons why people disagree with you and regularly use critical thinking to refine your own opinions, even entertaining ideas you strongly disagree on in your gut in order to evaluate if part of them connects to your existing knowledge?”

I’m fairly confident I do a better job of that than most average people (not saying I’m perfect at it, and its some I try to keep in my mind on a daily basis and something I try to practice in a daily basis).

I have an entire bookshelf at home that has all sorts of “brain” and psychology books on it (again, not saying that to brag, because I’m definitely not perfect at it). I just try to build up a wide enough variety of resources so any time I’m struggling with something I can use the resources I have to brainstorm innovative or alternative approaches or different understandings of an issue.

Books like:

• Mind Hacks: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain https://www.amazon.com/dp/0596007795/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_GV4pDb7B8X8YB
  
  
• What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite https://www.amazon.com/dp/1616144831/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_a14pDbWT2RD5V
  
  
• The Little Blue Reasoning Book: 50 Powerful Principles for Clear and Effective Thinking https://www.amazon.com/dp/1897393601/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_814pDb5B9J61X
  
  (theres alot more but to be honest I’m already in bed and its been a long day and I’m to lazy to get up and skim across my bookshelf).
  
  > “Listening to people we disagree with is HARD. “
  
  Its not hard if the person is respectful and can back up their different opinion or preference with good legit factual evidence and common sense reasoning. Its one thing to say:
  
  
• “I prefer 4x4 vehicles,.. but thats because I live up a country road that the County doesnt plow and I also do construction as a side job, so having a 4x4 often helps me get to remote job sites”.
  
  Thats a completely logical and purpose-driven choice that makes sense.
  
  But if a person says:...
  
  
• “4x4 are just supierior vehicles and only libtard morons drive anything else!!”
  
  I’m not going to waste my time “trying to understand” that persons point of view. Sorry, I’m just not. Its not worth my time.
  
  > “ something as trivial as if you prefer dogs or cats or neither.”
  
  I generaly try to completely avoid those conversations. People can have different preferences. That typically doesnt effect me. So I dont care. Whether someone prefers chocolate ice cream or sunny days over rainy days,.. is entirely irrelevant to me.
  
  > “Maybe it's just plain time to retire the idea of "us vs them" and recognize that there's just "us" in a wide range of configurations.”
  
  Totally agree. Although I’m not sure thats an issue of “not understanding each other”. Thats certainly 1 aspect of it,.. but I can help other people without understanding them. (Hell, I can help complete strangers without even knowing a single thing about them).
  
  Societies problems these days have a lot more to do with narrowmindedness, selfishness and laziness. “Whats in it for me?” is heard a lot more often than “What can I do to help?”

I entered Neuroscience not really knowing much about programming and now some 8+ odd years later I have two companies willing to pay me six figures for software I've written (mostly est. off royalties but 5 figs. up front). So I've gone through pretty much every stage of expertise there is. For most people, Matlab is sufficient and this book exists which I haven't personally used but looks great. Python may or may not be a great investment. Matlab dominates systems neuroscience so if you go into a 'Matlab lab' that's all you'll use and while it will be nice to have some Python expertise you won't actually use it. On the other hand, there is a movement to use non-Matlab software (more so in Europe) and the stuff in Python is really good. There is a big Python community and a lot of people just like it (and have come to dislike Matlab).


But want to get serious? Learn C and C++. There is simply no substitute for these if you want to write fast, standalone applications. In addition there's enough code, usually in critical applications tied to hardware, written in either of these that it is very good to know in case you have to go in and look/fix. So for the second reason my recommendation would be to learn C.

Hi there,

Some suggestions for ya!

The Quest for Consciousness by Christof Koch. Minimal neuroscience background required, but the more you know, the more you'll derive from this book. Focused on illustrating how complex networks can manifest behaviour (and consciousness). Outside of Koch's regular pursuits as an electrophysiology, he worked alongside Francis Crick (ya that one), to study arousal and consciousness. It's a fantastic read, and it's quite humbling.

Rhythms of the Brain by Gyorgy Buzsaki. Written for neuroscientists and engineers as an introductory textbook into network dynamics, oscillations, and behaviour. One of my favorite books in the field, but it can also be the most challenging.

Treatise of Man by Rene Descarte. Personal favorite, simply because it highlights how far we've come (e.g. pineal gland, pain, and animal spirits).

Synaptic Self by Joseph LeDoux provides the fantastic realization that "you are your synapse". Great circuit/network book written with a lot of psychological and philosophical considerations.

Finally...

Physical control of the mind--towards of psychocivilized society by the one and only Jose Delgado. (In)Famous for his experiments where he stopped a bull charging at him through amygdala stimulation- along with some similar experiments in people- Delgado skirts the line between good intention and mad science. It's too bad he's not taught more in history of neuroscience.

Not only that, but we may not have any control over it at all.

Apparently some research has shown that any conscious decisions, such as you deciding to write your comment or to read my comment, are done automatically by the brain and then decoded by your "interpereter", which makes sense of the situation (and past situations up to that point) and gives you a reason as to why you did that, making you think it was a conscious action.

For example, you decide you are hungry, so you reach out in front of you, pick up an apple and eat it. What actually happens is your brain, being in charge of everything, knows you are hungry so moves your arm to eat the apple. This information, your arm moving and the consumption of the apple, is sent through your interpreter to make sense of it. It knows you were hungry already and it knows that apples make you less hungry and it knows that your arm is used to pick things up when you eat them. It stitches this information together to make it seem like you are having the conscious thought to move your arm to eat the apple because you are hungry. So it feels like you are in charge of doing all of those things when really you were not!

What is even more amazing is that this sending and receiving of information takes some time to do, so there is a gap of a few milliseconds between the physical action occurring and your brain to finish interpreting it. This means that what you are perceiving at this very moment is actually what happened a few milliseconds ago!

Okay, okay sorry for all the words and the poor explanation. I just finished reading this book and I was eager to share some of the information I learned.

Welcome to the club. Sometimes it feels like I'm the only member, then people like you and OP come along to remind me that I'm not alone. That doesn't solve anything, but it makes things a little better knowing that this struggle isn't unique to me, and that people have climbed out of this same hole before.

> I know I'm choosing isolation but at the same time reaching out to people is just like the last thing I wanna do

There's a book that I read a while ago and plan on re-reading that touches on this subject. It's called What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite by David DiSalvo and I highly recommend it. The gist of it is that our subconscious minds are wired in our own ways and any changes to that wiring (even positive changes) will cause you emotional distress because our minds hate change. So while you really crave human contact, your mind believes that you're not worthy of love, and now when someone actually shows you those feelings, you'll feel uneasy and rationalize it based on that script in your head.

Best of luck to you.

Recommended reading:
On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, by Robert Burton.

> You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001--you know these things, well, because you just do.

> In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton shows that feeling certain―feeling that we know something--- is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. An increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. In other words, the feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen.

> Bringing together cutting-edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know. Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain challenges what we know (or think we know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason.

https://www.amazon.com/Being-Certain-Believing-Right-Youre/dp/031254152X

I usually don't say things to these people. I give them books, sometimes alongside gifts of really luscious teas, food or other things they might like. Usually, they read the books and come back a little changed and more amenable to new ideas.

I don't have any titles in particular for your situation because I haven't come across that specific problem in years, but DELUSIONS OF GENDER by Cordelia Fine is my current go-to, all around.

I think they are trying to be 'one of the guys', and honestly, I think their reaction is part of a denial of feminism that comes from being totally overwhelmed by the patriarchy. Gender fatigue, I think it's called. (So, maybe a book on that.) It usually breaks a few years later if they're lucky. Hope you're able to make it work! (And good on you for fostering this program!)

> When I have anxiety attacks, he tells me to "just focus" on my goals and don't let my anxiety deter me from my goals.

He's right and wrong. Like most of us. We shouldn't let anxiety take over. But should we focus? Or should we stop trying to focus? Think of the Zen archer, who stops trying to hit the target, and instead centers himself.

The whole 'scientific proof' thing is a blind alley, and our desire for it just shows our preconceptions. Someday they'll prove that meditation lowers cortisol levels and raises serotonin and GABA levels. Will that explain everything? Or will people then say we're just junkies, looking for a cheap, legal, natural fix? Does it matter?

If you really wish to pursue that track, I can't think of anything better than this: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-spiritual-brain-science-and-religious-experience.html If that's out of your price range, there are books on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/The-Spiritual-Brain-Neuroscientists-Existence/dp/0061625981

Still, I'm convinced there's something else going on, but I don't want to get too hippy-dippy about it. So I'll just say there's something all major traditions have in common, from Carmelite nuns in the west to Buddhist monks in the east. Reaching a state of quiet contemplation is difficult, but has real benefits. When people try to explain it, they reveal their own preconceptions, but there's something underneath all that. Something intangible, which we can't quite touch, but still real.

On a lighter note, there's something amusing about the Camp Pendleton Marines practicing mindful meditation. I respect Marines and what they do... but if they're really, truly practicing mindful meditation, they won't be Marines for long...

>Why is it such a leap of logic, our whole personality and memories are stored in the brain, why not emotions.

You're just using the analogy of a computer. People didn't think of brains in this way before computers were invented. And no neuroscientist will say straight up that "personality and memories are stored in the brain", because it makes no sense, it is fluff talk. Personality and memories are not things that can be stored anywhere.

>A human body without a brain cannot be happy (being dead and all)

The same is true of any vital organ. But either way, nowhere have I denied that the brain is of vital importance for a human, even psychologically. What I have denied is your shifting of subject, anthropomorphizing the brain. It has no justification whatsoever.

>A brain without control of a body can definitely be happy though, im sure people with locked-in syndrome who can only move an eyelid experience happiness

We would never know, since a brain has no way to be happy (not to mention: a brain is a body part, not a subject, so we don't understand what it means for a brain to be happy any more than we understand what it means for a lung to be happy). You are like someone taking the sentence "my heart is broken" literally, rushing to the hospital. Such sentences concern the person, not the organ.

>So only the brain is required for happiness

Nonsense.

See this talk, it might alter some of these opinions of yours. The lecturer has also written extensively on neuroscience, here. In short, you're wrong.

Thank you for taking the time, really fascinating to see.

"Rather, aging is an opportunity to express a more rounded out personality as the tug towards becoming authentic becomes more persistent and real."

How does aging cause re-align our switch to authenticity? Does reflection on aging ground our perception of becoming? Are there daily aspects of life we can focus on to improve our consciousness and its awareness of aging/becoming?

I'm sure its one a lot to pick apart. For anyone interested in neuroscience regarding the hemispheres of our brain (and it relates to authenticity a tad bit: https://www.amazon.com/Master-His-Emissary-Divided-Western/dp/0300188374 and I'm reading 'Presence' currently and its diving into the authentic self---but nothing in the context of aging and becoming.

Yes, yes yes.

The problem is that, compared to us, that the child having a temper tantrum over feeling inconvenienced and uncomfortable is 10 times taller than us, and can wipe us out with a single swing of its arm.

It's like the way school integration is happening in Hartford, Connecticut. It simply didn't work to make white families integrate schools through busing.They get "uncomfortable," cite something like test scores, and move farther away.

In Hartford, they used the money won in court over segregated schools to remake their schools into specialized magnet schools and marketing the hell out of them, so white suburban families would choose to send their kids into the city, achieving the goal of integration in an indirect but effective way.

With most people, we have to find the indirect way to effect change. There are few people in this world who can face their deepest flaws and have the courage to change. The number 1 response to a challenge of our beliefs is defensiveness and withdrawal. (I think I found that in [this book about the brain] (https://www.amazon.com/Makes-Brain-Happy-Should-Opposite/dp/1616144831/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=sharpbrains-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325), but it was from the library and it's been awhile.)

Although my experience so far has actually been different from what you've seen--in a super liberal area of a blue city in a blue state, white people I know have been trying to figure out what to do non-stop, and there were walk-outs at several majority high schools and universities.

Cryonics does have a basis in science, you know, and I’ve had my own arrangements for cryonic suspension with the Alcor Foundation since 1990, funded by life insurance. Cryonicists want to develop “medical time travel” or an ambulance ride across time to try to benefit from the better medical capabilities of future societies.

Refer to:

1. General but outdated background information on the idea, mainly of historical interest now:

The Prospect of Immortality (1964), by Robert Ettinger:

http://www.cryonics.org/book1.html

2. “Cryopreservation of rat hippocampal slices by vitrification” (a peer-reviewed scientific paper):

http://www.21cm.com/pdfs/hippo_published.pdf

>Microscopic examination showed severe damage in frozen–thawed slices, but generally good to excellent ultrastructural and histological preservation after vitrification. Our results provide the first demonstration that both the viability and the structure of mature organized, complex neural networks can be well preserved by
vitrification. These results may assist neuropsychiatric drug evaluation and development and the transplantation of integrated brain regions to correct brain disease or injury.

3. Mike Darwin’s Chronosphere blog:

http://chronopause.com/

Mike goes back nearly to the beginnings of cryonics in the late 1960’s, and his blog offers a metaphorical gold mine of information, including references to a lot of scientific papers, about the field and its current but probably surmountable problems.

4. MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung defends cryonic suspension as a feasible scientific-medical experiment in his book Connectome, and I have it on good authority that he plans to speak at Alcor’s conference in Scottsdale, AZ, this October:

http://hebb.mit.edu/people/seung/

http://www.amazon.com/Connectome-How-Brains-Wiring-Makes/dp/0547508182

http://www.scribd.com/doc/100220308/Aschwin-de-Wolf-s-review-of-Connectome-by-Sebastian-Seung

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/New_Cryonet/message/2609

http://www.alcor.org/blog/?p=2492

• Purves text isn't that easy but a great and thorough introduction.
  
• Gazzaniga's text is fantastic but less on the biology side of things.
  
• Others have mentioned Kandel's text but I don't think that's a good first text for anyone wanting to "dip their toes" in.
  
• Someone else also mentioned the Bear text, which is very good.
  
  Those are really all you'll need; from there you will find things on your own or from professors.

While there is still much we don't know about the brain and how it works to generate consciousness, we are not completely in the dark and a lot of exciting work is being done. Here is a good article in scientific American about it:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-consciousness/

If you'd like to explore it further I can personally recommend synaptic self by Joseph LeDoux.
Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are https://www.amazon.com/dp/0142001783/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_40PEDb8MH4JXZ

It's a very good book.

I think we are far in the clear at this point in asserting that consciousness is generated in the brain. I don't think it will be long before we can actually read the contents of consciousness digitally.

I believe that educating yourself about shame is the best thing you can do for yourself and ultimately others. Read (or listen to) "Daring Greatly" and "Neurosis And Human Growth". These books have lead to discovery which has lead to understanding which has lead to peace, for me. 100% chance they will help you too. :)

---

https://www.amazon.com/Daring-Greatly-Courage-Vulnerable-Transforms/dp/1592408419/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=daring+greatly&qid=1567279095&s=gateway&sr=8-3

---

https://www.amazon.com/Neurosis-Human-Growth-Struggle-Self-Realization/dp/0393307751/ref=sr_1_1?crid=EQAV5UKFJ9YP&keywords=neurosis+and+human+growth+karen+horney&qid=1567279160&s=gateway&sprefix=neurosis+%2Caps%2C197&sr=8-1

None at all...it's almost the opposite for me. I can't tell you how many times I've had my heart broken by cute trans baristas at the local queer cafe. :(

>emerging science is showing that transwomen have a brain that morphologically female and transmen have a brain that is morphologically male

The science behind gendered brain morphology is inconclusive and often misrepresented. Cordelia Fine recently wrote an excellent book on gender and the brain called Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, which does an exceptional job of examining the actual science and debunking a lot of claims. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in neuroscience, gender, and sexuality.

Yeah, it is definitely hard sometimes to sort out the pseudo-science stuff because there are a lot of charlatans out there when it comes to this subject. Consciousness and the Brain is pretty good IMHO. There are lots of science-ish books, like books on artificial intelligence, that touch on consciousness, referencing legitimate published scientific papers, but they invariably wind up being speculation; sometimes really good speculation, but still not what I would consider neuroscience. The actual neuroscience text book I've been reading doesn't have a lot on consciousness, but they do talk about consciousness as "awareness of something". They also talk a little about the default mode network, which you should do a web search for, because it is really interesting. But at the top of the short section they do have directly on consciousness, they say this:

> There are challenges right at the outset; even defining consciousness is controversial. Suffice it to say numerous definitions have been offered over the years, and numerous models of consciousness have been proposed. Our intent is not to jump into this controversy.

So no matter what you find, be forewarned that it is likely bullshit. If you are really interested in the subject, an actual neuroscience 101 textbook, while a bit pricey for casual reading, can be highly educational.

He isnt the only one who has that mind however. I played esport games for 10 years now and I have seen many like him. They have high, often unrealistic, expectations on things and often assume and take these conditions as a given as they are trying to do their best. One thing goes wrong, even the tiniest of detail, they would treat it as unfair and that they are entitled to get the conditions they required to perform their best to even just start trying. Another good example would be EG DotA2 player Mason who could never play public games because he has unrealistic expectation for pub players.

In a psychological field, I think this condition was described quite accurately as Neurosis(referring to these players as Neurotic) and a detail study could be found in Karen Horney study on the matter. Her book Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization is rated very highly among the people who selfdiagnosed themselves with this condition and many reviews stated that it helped them found themselves.

If you are reading this Naniwa, definitely consider checking the book out. At least try reading the first chapter or so. Best wishes.

Sorry to hear that you are suffering and can't get proper help now. I also suffer from 'the tyranny of the should' since childhood, to a point, just like you described: "zero ability to get any pleasure from anything I should do". Getting into therapy helps, 3 time a week for me for the last 2.5 years.

But if you don't have access the therapy or analysis, here is my two-cents :

I have find reading these two book from Karen Horney help me to gain some perspective :

Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization ( this one also got an audio book version, if you like being read to.)

https://www.amazon.com/Neurosis-Human-Growth-Struggle-Self-Realization/dp/0393307751

Her other book Self-Analysis could also be helpful, if you want to attempt to do some work on one's own https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1095974M/Self-analysis

​

>I don't mind having friendly banter and discussing topics with others, giving an insight that might not be readily available, but I regretfully do not have the time to become a teacher on here and educate on the basic concepts of a field.

So you don't have enough time to share one testable hypothesis that you're investigating? That seems awfully convenient.

>Google is a valuable resource, just make sure people cite their sources.

I use library.nu frequently too.

That's where I found this:

http://www.amazon.com/Adapting-Minds-Evolutionary-Psychology-Persistent/dp/0262524600

>If you are a member of a university then the library research catalogs are a valuable resource as well.

University library is where I found this:

http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Innateness-Connectionist-Perspective-Connectionism/dp/026255030X

Perhaps you should read it because unlike any EP research it proposes predictive quantitative models.

>And many more so are not.

Am I to believe that modularity is not at all a common (probably the more common) viewpoint given the massive amount of "research" I could find tying it with EP?

I'm sympathetic with your view, but I do think the people who espouse it generally do a woeful job of coming up with concrete, putative examples of situations where getting the 'philosophy' wrong has led to any scientific blunders (forgetting any nonsense from the pre 20th century, before anybody starts banging on about phlogiston).

Note that it is fairly easy to point to discussion sections where scientists produce some meandering bumble of tautologies. But the methods and results are generally more sound..

Oh, and you're certainly not alone. For example, you may find some common ground in something like Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. It is interesting to note, however, that Peter Hacker's thesis is in some sense the opposite of yours. He thinks there is a fundamental chasm between philosophy and science, but that the former can give you some useful tools for doing the latter (much like maths provides science with useful tools)

The language ideas, if I recall correctly, are discussed in Wolf's Proust and the Squid. I think she talks about the brain activity needed to read kanji versus latin letters, and more genreally the degree of automatization / abstraction you can achieve with different language / writing systems. It remember feeling like it didn't go super deep but it might be worth checking out!

The blind painter is amazing, to the extent that, honestly, I do also find myself a bit on the skeptical side (maybe being influenced be that video of a blind man drawing a cat, which turned out a lot more like you'd expect...) It's fascinating question though. I'd tend to think that we do have an abstracted representation of spatial information that could be informed by any modality including touch. Abstract from perception anyway, not from the body or motor system.

There are lots of variants of the identity theory, but let try to articulate one version. It's the sort of account that Paul Churchland gives in The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul (which I strongly reccomend!).

Here's an optical illusion. If you look at the inverted flag for 30 seconds, when the screen then goes blank, you'll see the red stripes of the American flag. Of course, there aren’t really any red stripes that you see. What I mean when I say "you'll see red stripes" is that you'll have a certain experience that you might characterize by using those words. There is a certain phenomenal character, a certain "what-it's-likeness", to that experience. That character is what we might call "experiencing redly." The identity theorist says that experiencing redly is identical to undergoing a certain neurophysiological process.

To explain why one might think this, you have to think about what's going on in your brain when you look at that optical illusion. When you look at the green stripes of the pre-image, the green and blue cones in your eyes are doing a lot of work. When the image turns off, these cones are fatigued, and so the red cones are more active relative to these ones. The relative activation of these cones sends a signal to your visual cortex where these activation levels are represented in a vector-space in your brain. There are vector spaces corresponding to each of your sensory modalities. The one corresponding to color vision we might call "color space."

Now, your brain also has self-monitoring capacities by which it is able to represent its own activity and integrate it into a higher-order representation. The higher-order representation of the activity in a certain region in the color space is what we called "experiencing redly." On such an account, both the first-order and the second-order representation are cashed out in purely neurophysiological terms. Accordingly, qualia are complex neurophysiological processes.

Of course, there remain many questions to be asked about such an account, but I don't see any obviously insurmountable philosophical problems with an account that thinks about qualia along these lines.

-------------

Edit: Just a note to the person who responded (the comment seems to have been deleted):

Lots of philosophers of mind are internalists about phenomenal qualities like color. So they'd reject the claim that colors exist in the world. Adam Pautz, for instance, defends phenomenal internalism on empirical grounds. One of the main arguments he gives is what he calls "the argument from structure." The basic idea is this:

Colors bear certain structural relationships to each other, and that’s essential to their being the colors that they are. It’s essential to something’s being violet for instance, that it is closer to red than it is to green. Thinking of colors in terms of the brain's vector-representation of quality spaces preserves this structure. However, if you think of colors as physical properties of things in the world (such as the reflectance properties of objects), this structure is not preserved. Consider that the wavelengths of light corresponding to violet are around 400nm, and those corresponding to the color green are around 550nm, whereas those corresponding to red are around 700nm. Accordingly, if we wish to identify colors with some physical property, there is more reason to identify them with internal states than external ones.

> Like what reading? I like to read!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sexing-Body-Politics-Construction-Sexuality/dp/0465077145

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Bodies-Matter-Discursive-Limits-Sex-Routledge-Classics/041561015X/ref=pd_sim_14_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNDN34DGBXQGMJRNHAEQ

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sexing-Brain-Lesley-Rogers-2000-06-01/dp/B01HC0RD82/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481591782&sr=1-2&keywords=sexing+the+brain

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-Behind-Differences/dp/1848312202/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNDN34DGBXQGMJRNHAEQ

http://bennorton.com/gender-is-not-alone-the-social-construction-of-sex/

http://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2003/Extreme_Problems_with_Essential_Differences/

would be good places to start, plus numerous other papers, some books and blog posts I don't have quite the google-fu to relocate, and a lot of more tangential stuff. (I originally came to this mostly through the study of the theory of bodies and embodiement in art, as well as my spouse's academic studies in gender and sexuality). In getting to grips with this material and the general position it's important to move away from the facile strawman of the idea that biology is disregarded in a social constructionist view; more profoundly, social constructionists realise that social environment reshapes biology.

>Yeah it is. If you believe trans women only transition because of quote unquote "gender" which is purely social...you're wrong.

But what is a 'gender role'? If you restrict it to something as facile as 'girls like pink' then you can make anything absurd. It's worth remembering that the term 'gender roles' was originally coined by the sexologist John Money to describe the behaviours inhabited by unassigned intersex individuals trying to express a single binary gender identity. From a performative standpoint, gender roles are the entirety of the behaviour with which we signal the gender identity we wish to and are trained to project towards society. To say such things are not bound up in the trans experience is simply wrong; many trans folk experience feelings of dysphoria at being identified as their wrong gender, and lessening of these feelings or even positive counter-feelings at being identified as their correct gender. This is purely a matter of social perception. Therapeutically speaking, people transition because it helps to alleviate their feelings of dysphoria. Whether the underlying cause of the dysphoric state is genetic, epigenetic, foetal or psychological (or even spiritual) or some subtle combination of factors which differs on an individual basis is immaterial to the benefits provided by transition to the majority of those who seriously seek it. This is, it is important to note, only the medically legitimised narrative of the trans experience.

http://www.amazon.ca/Connectome-How-Brains-Wiring-Makes/dp/0547508182 This was a great book for not only gaining a better understanding of what you're trying to figure more out about, but it also gives a great look into the operations of the brain. I highly recommend.

Consciousness is...tricky. From what I've studied, all we are really confident in saying about it now is that it's entirely dependent on the brain. If you change the brain, it directly effects consciousness. How consciousness, a non-physical entity, can arise from exclusively physical attributes is still under discussion. What Dennett is offering in the video is a re-characterization of the entire discussion. People seem to be looking for a "real" magic trick to explain consciousness. Dennett is making the case that just as there really is no "real" magic, there's only illusions to make you believe there's magic, that there's no "real" magic to consciousness. It's an illusion, in a non-deceptive sense. Consciousness is what happens when the extremely complex systems in your brain interact in the way they do.

If you want some books to read about the mind and brain, check out Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (NY Times Bestseller List 2011) and Connectome by Sebastian Seung. Kaheman will change the way you think about the way you think. He outlines the to "systems" that operated the way you think, and then outlines the biases he's discovered that causes the way you think to be wrong. Connectome outlines the processes of the brain and how the brain is wired to give a somewhat speculative look into Connectome science (mapping all the neurons in the brain and their connections to eachother) and makes claims that once we do this we will better understand the brain and consciousness because the physical structure of the brain is hypothesized to matter a great deal.

As a moderately related point to consciousness, you may want to ask that if consciousness is dependent on the brain, what does that mean for free-will. You should check out Free Will by Sam Harris. It's extremly short--more of an essay. Then look at what Dennett says about free-will. They very strongly disagree, and Sam has said that he hopes to sit down with Dennett and discuss it. When that happens it will be really interesting, and worth having at least a small background on the issue.

Um, to be honest I haven't read much from neuroscience other than Libet's Experiment and the clinical neuropsychologist Paul Broks saying, “We have this deep intuition that there is a core… But neuroscience shows that there is no center in that brain where things do all come together.”

There are some articles and books I have in my reading list, but once you get that this can be easily confirmed in DIRECT EXPERIENCE, the other materials are just superfluous, IMO. Here, I'll share them anyway.

“Who’s There?” Is The Self A Convenient Fiction?

Ego Trick: In Search of the Self

The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity

What Exactly Is the Self? Insights from Neuroscience

Neuroscience of Self and Self-Regulation

The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self

Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain

And check out The Ascent of Humanity for a thorough discussion of the implications of the separate self on lots of aspects of our (collective) lives. Eisenstein traces all of the converging crises of our age to a common source, which he calls Separation. It is the ideology of the discrete and separate self that has generated these crises; therefore, he argues, nothing less than a "revolution in human beingness" will be sufficient to transform our relationship to each other and the planet.

1. Humans exhibit empathy, self-reflection, intentional deceit, and emotion by way of physical computation, so in principle computers can do it, too, and in principle you can upload the human mind into a computer. (There's a good chapter on this in Seung's Connectome, or for a more detailed treatment see FHI's whole brain emulation roadmap.)
   
   
2. No, it's not possible to have a 100% guarantee of Friendly AI. One specific way an AI might change its initial utility function is when it learns more about the world and has to update its ontology (because its utility function points to terms in its ontology). See Ontological crises in artificial agents' value systems. The only thing we can do here is to increases the odds of Friendly AI as much as possible, by funding researchers to work on these problems. Right now, humanity spends more than 10,000x as much on lipstick research each year than it does on Friendly AI research.

Principles of Neuroscience is a grad-school level book. I would not recommend shelling out $100 for it.

This book, Cognitive Neuroscience by Michael Gazzaniga, is a great book for someone at your age. It's super cheap and very easy to understand.

If you go with a textbook from an author like Kandel or Purves or Bear, you are going to be jumping straight into the deep end and might easily get discouraged.

Some excellent popular book options are:

The Tell Tale Brain - V.S. Ramachandran

Phantoms in the Brain - V.S. Ramachandran

Synaptic Self - Joseph LeDoux


Also mentioned by other posters, Norman Doidge and Oliver Sacks.

All of these are really approachable for beginners and I enjoyed them all greatly as an undergrad way back when.

Ditto on the GEB (if you have the attention span to get through it).

Though, if somebody wants a cheaper/more 'lay' introduction to neurology, I highly recommend Beyond The Zonules of Zinn, and In Search Of Memory, for nice 'big-picture' reads on the subject.

EDIT: This one isn't totally neurology, but it gives a really awesome rundown on the development of written language and reading in the brain: Proust and the Squid.

We've actually been discussing this in class last week. I've been pondering on this, because I remember being suggested to be mindful of learning styles when it comes to language learning. My professor suggested reading [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/Proust-Squid-Story-Science-Reading/dp/0060933844).

She said that reading was a human invention, as opposed to, say, sound. For instances, babies do not need to learn how to hear sound, but humans have to learn how to read a certain language/character system (I'm not quite sure if I'm using the terms correctly).

Hopefully, this can be edifying. I hope to be able to read this, since I haven't yet!

Read the FAQ on the sidebar to answer all of your questions.

It's a central, scientific understanding of the ketogenic lifestyle that sugar is a harmful and addictive substance. Whether you consciously know it or not, you (and everyone else considering keto) want and need carbs. Dozens of people every week, like any other addict looking to indulge their addiction, come here eagerly looking to CKD as a magic fitness solution that still lets them get their fix.

We exercise tough love here. Suck it up.

Hi!

I was diagnosed with POTS a year ago, so I know how scary this is. I urge you to get this book! It has a ton of tips! POTS - Together We Stand: Riding the Waves of Dysautonomia by Jodi Epstein Rhum.

If you purchase the book from Amazon ($24.99), please be sure to login at smile.amazon.com and choose Dysautonomia International as the charity of your choice. Amazon will donate a percentage to DI!

Hope this helps. :)

This is a book I read for my Neurotheology class last semester:

http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Brain-Neuroscientists-Case-Existence/dp/0061625981/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269527656&sr=8-1

Its got evidence from a lot of very interesting studies, and presents a lot of very interesting ideas. I can tell you that it seriously rattled my Atheist mind, and I actually intend to reread it more critically over the summer (i.e. when I have more time).

Highly recommend!

A descent selection so far from the other comments. I'll throw in a few, as well:

​

• Carl Sagan - Demon Haunted World
  
• Greg M. Epstein - Good Without God
  
• Michael Shermer - Why People Believe Weird Things
  
• Sean Carroll - The Big Picture
  
• John Loftus - Why I Became an Atheist
  
• A.C. Grayling - The God Argument
  
• Kenneth Daniels - Why I Believed
  
• Robert A Burton - On Being Certain
  
  ​
  
  Some of the above is specifically related to atheism, while others I've used to help shape and inform my understanding and my worldview. Out of the entire list, the Carl Sagan book and the Sean Carroll book rank highest, for me, in level of importance. Those books didn't just change what I think, they changed how I think, and I am forever indebted to them.

Check out matlab for neuroscientists you can probably skip the first couple of chapters as they deal with the very basics. The later chapters get into more specific subjects, designing experiments, and analysis techniques. They even provide datasets online for you to play with. I hope that helps!

exactly.

it's subconscious movements causing the sticks to spin. the whole left side of your brain is in charge of pattern recognition. that's what it does, every second you're awake, remember everything and find patterns. it's an evolved need, because if you couldn't recognize the pattern of tiger prints meaning a tiger was near by, you got eaten. only a fraction of this pattern recognition and memory is available to your consciousness.

dowsing is your subconscious leveraging past experience, and pattern recognition to take a guess at where something will be. your old super had been to thousands of job sites, had seen prints for thousands more jobs. there's hundreds of details you don't consciously notice when walking around on a job site, like the location of stubs before the walls go up, but all that gets noticed by the left side of your brain.

come back a month later, grab the sticks and "magically" they cross where the pipe is.

an interesting book that touches on the subject, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061906107/

The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self. Thomas Metzinger.

Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Brain. Michael Gazzaniga (neuroscientist)

Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience. Gregg Caruso and Owen Flanagan, Eds. (Part 3: Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Meaning in Life has 6 essays by Derk Pereboom, Caruso, Gazzaniga, and others, and other essays scattered throughout the book are also pertinent)

That is a WebMD article. I sincerely hope that you're not basing your opinion on scientific fact off of WebMD. The idea that there are definitive male and female brains is entirely unsupported through vigorous scientific testing. Although there are small differences, they are minimal and vary widely. Here are just a few articles to jump off of:

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811915007697

I would also encourage you to read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393068382?ie=UTF8&qid=&ref_=tmm_hrd_swatch_0&sr=

Steven Pinker discusses this in How the Mind Works. I think your summary jibes very well with his description.

• laughter is noisy because it's a form of communication
  
• laughter can dress actual aggression as "fun"
  
• causing laughter is very often a display of wit meant to lift the actor and degrade the object.
  

Dude, you've gotta read "How the Mind Works"!!! It's a great read.

Won't lie, I probably won't sit down for a 3 hour youtube video while I'm still in the office.

Found this tasty quote from him though, with a quick bit of google-fu:

> Milo: We hear a lot from scientists, we hear a lot in particular the female scientists, but the fact is that there are some, there is some, reason to suppose that there is an advantage to being a man in certain subjects. There’s reason to suppose that gender essentialism, biological determinism, whatever you want to call it the fact that there are male brains and female brains may indeed have some basis in science.

source

I'll add that this view of male/female brains is now wholly debunked in science. Additional.

So maybe he perceives a broader range of male identities than Joe Rogan but at root he still believes in the same (debunked and harmful) idea, just to a different degree.

Every single "person with similar views as nolimitsoldier" I have encountered has always fallen into 1 of the following groups.

1. "12-24 Naive" This is the age where people tend to dismiss feminism without taking any initiative to learn about new and old feminist theories. I understand why so many people in this group so readily believe misconceptions about feminism. It is due to lack of knowledge or background regarding the new and old feminist theories. Also why nolimitsoldier believes all feminists think they are artists / photographers is beyond me. I blame the countless people who don't take the time to learn about the concepts and definitions regarding feminism and much of the media. Isn't until people mature and take the initiative to learn about feminism and realize that modern societies are still patriarchal, misogynist, and sexist.
   
   
2. "Man Eaters" This misconception is the standard among those who still disregard feminism. Most I have met lack any true knowledge on the feminist theory and believe the myth that all feminist are hairy man hating lesbians. Feminists come from all background and genders so this couldn't possibly true. This stereotype is false. Myth:Feminists are man hating lesbians
   
   
3. "Corporate" Again more misconceptions. People complain about feminism, woman, etc, while not understanding what feminism has to do with the plight of the woman. At the end of the day it'll depend on the person and the person they're respecting if they're a good leader or not. Because believe it or not people come from all different backgrounds and cultures! It just goes against our cultured societal beliefs that women can be good leaders. **A side example of this is the iron my shirt incident with Hillary Clinton
   
   
4. "more bullshit" The definition of feminist varies in each textbook but they all mean the same thing in the end: people seeking the equal treatment of women. Men already dominate the world. This hasn't allowed women to dominate or control men in any way. And feminists aren't seeking the domination of men, we are seeking the equality of genders.
   
   To learn more about feminism you can read or watch the following websites,books, or videos:
   
   Youtube Videos or Channels:
   
   

• Tony Porter:A Call to Men
  
• Feminism Survey:Men on the Street
  
• Missrepresentation Documentary Trailer
  
• Joss Whedon's Equality Now speech
  
• Feminist Frequency
  
• Trixie Films
  
  Websites/Blogs:
  
  
• Finally Feminism 101
  
• Feminist Frequency
  
• Geek Feminism
  
• The F-Word
  
• Feminist Peace Network
  
• Gender Across Borders
  
• Feministing
  
• Feministe
  
• Tiger Beatdown
  
• Feminist Teacher
  
• The Feminist Hub
  
• Lipstick Feminists
  
  Books:
  
  
• Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by Bell Hooks
  
• Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings
  
• Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
  
• Gender Knot Revised Ed: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy by Allan G. Johnson
  
• Feminist Theory: A Reader by Wendy Kolmar
  
• The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory
  
• Third Wave Feminism: Expanded
  
• Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women's Movement
  
• Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity by Chandra Talpade Mohanty
  
• Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation
  
• Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation
  
• Enlightened Sexism by Susan J. Douglas
  
• Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape
  
• The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today by Kat Banyard
  
• Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune
  
• Transforming a Rape Culture by Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher and Martha Roth
  
• Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Ulrich
  
• Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power

TL;DRs are fine, but I still encourage you to read the whole article.

For further reading see www.amazon.com/Connectome-How-Brains-Wiring-Makes/dp/0547508182/

Just heard a podcast about Michael Gazzaniga. I'm planning to read Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain. Maybe you'd like it too.

This is exactly how I currently understand humor and laughter.

Sources for my opinion:
Psychology Today article, and (credentials for Provine)
Steven Pinker's book, and (credentials for Pinker)

I actually disagree pretty strongly with the Language Instinct take on language acquisition (I sympathize more with the empiricist/emergentist camp--see Re-thinking Innateness) but I agree that Pinker is important/influential nonetheless

This does a great job of explaining the recent experiments scientists are using to probe consciousness. It also puts forth a very reasonable hypothesis for what gives rise to consciousness.

Excellent example of your mind taking information and organizing it into a more familiar experience. Take this gif for example. Our brains can take visually perceived information and anticipate that, based on previous experience, there should be a sound associated with it. follow up text

I'll have to check out The Master and His Emissary some time. It was mentioned in 79 - Professor Andrew Gurevich. They also discussed The Alphabet Versus the Goddess which I've read and enjoyed. It relates neurology and linguistics.

Two things, (1) I'm going to recommend mostly books and not textbooks, since you're going to read plenty of those in the future. And (2) I'm going to only focus on the area of cognitive psychology & neuroscience. With that being said:

Beginner:

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales By Oliver Sacks

Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives By Dean Buonomano

Kludge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Mind By Gary Marcus

The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament By Robert M. Sapolsky

The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers By Daniel L. Schacter

Intermediate: (I'm going to throw this in here, because reading the beginner texts will not allow you to really follow the advanced texts.)

Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind By Michael S. Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry & George R. Mangun

Advanced:

The Prefrontal Cortex By Joaquin Fuster

The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness By J. Allan Hobson

The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning By Keith J. Holyoak & Robert G. Morrison

https://www.federaljack.com/ebooks/Consciousness%20Books%20Collection/Paul%20Churchland%20-%20Engine%20of%20Reason%20-%20Seat%20of%20Soul.pdf

Anyway, it's available on google by searching for "engine of reason"+"seat of the soul"+pdf.
I'm not praising piracy, by the way, a girl stole my hard copy many years ago and I remember that it was available for free on MIT resources.

Nonetheless, it's cheap enough and I really suggest the hard-copy.It's worth every penny!
https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Reason-Seat-Soul-Philosophical/dp/B005DIAZCW

We already have "dynamic models inspired by a new kind of "developmental connectionism," a marriage of connectionist models and developmental neurobiology, forming a new theoretical framework for the study of behavioral development.". Chomsky would not approve.

I don't have a lot of time but you will find more info about agency with:

• Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain
  
• Neuropsychology of the Sense of Agency (not read)
  
  There is a lot more in the bibliography if you want to dig in it. Overall, neuroscience show that virtually all human cognitive features can be decomposed. Crazy at first when we learn about clinical neuropsychology but so interesting!

I really like this book so far!
https://www.amazon.com/POTS-Together-Stand-Riding-Dysautonomia/dp/1466371501

i will only admit that your statements are postulatory. i'm just attacking the apparent lack of rigor in your model of understanding. as for me putting something forward... well... that's another story.

oh, and now you just made me think of this book... as for your "quite clear answer", i don't think there's anything proven for that. we're in the realm of thought experiments. brains in a vat and all that. i guess we've got stuff like locked-in syndrome, or that recent thing about possible "consciousness" in supposedly braindead people (or whatever it was - can't remember it clearly right now). but that's not giving us any sort of "clear answer". again, you're either jumping to conclusions, or not thinking things thoroughly through.

also, if you're allowed to toss out statements like your initial one, i'm plenty allowed to toss out equally "rubbish" ones. :P

Actually the research is there and a lot of is very reputable stuff carried out by psychologists with controls and peer review and so on.

For example did you know that when a woman is taking a test in a male-dominated room of people also taking the test, her score (once you control for natural aptitude which the researchers are able to do statistically) is inversely proportional to the number of men in the room?

Stuff like this is all around us. Men don't know it and don't see it, and therefore don't think it exists. Women know it exists, but men don't listen to us.

Source

Elman, Bates, Johnson, Karmiloff-Smith, Parisi, Plunkett, Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development

A nice overview of connectionist theory and what neural networks can tell us.

If you are interested in how our brains process text in general, pick up a copy of Proust and the Squid.

Have you heard of the book The Spiritual Brain?

https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Brain-Neuroscientists-Case-Existence/dp/0061625981

I read a bit of it recently, seems interesting.

Food for thought: http://www.ldonline.org/article/6394/

Having dyslexic kids, I am obviously a fan of explicit, systematic, phonemic-based instruction. The way my mind processes the "reading war" is this; we all become whole word readers eventually, which is the ultimate point of reading instruction - reading fluently, essentially by memorization, without having to decode every single word. But, before you get there, you need a thorough, systematic, explicit, phonemic based approach in order to become that whole word reader. Those who excel naturally with reading will develop into readers either way; for the 30-40% of kids who struggle with reading development, they will only benefit from a phonemic approach.

If you really want to dive deep into the science behind the reading brain, http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Squid-Story-Science-Reading/dp/0060933844

I think for the sake of discussion people interested in the topic of gender differences in the brain need to read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. In this book she works her way through the scientific literature that has been published on the subject of sex differences in the brain...and among other revelations of poor study design and tentative conclusions being blown out of proportion by the media, she agrees with your conclusion: "Male and female brains are almost completely alike".

Anyone who wants to learn more about this should read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-Behind-Differences/dp/1848312202

Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization by Karen Horney

The Master and his Emissary: the Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Ian McGilchrist. Life changing

Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney

Steven Pinker - How The Mind Works

Hmm, not a PDF copy. Unless this works? It's £2.50 on Kindle! And only £7.30 on Prime. Amazon link.

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker

I read a book a couple of years ago: Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. The question you bring up wasn't discussed explicitly, from what I can remember, but here's my sense of it after reading the book. The speed at which you read most likely has to do a lot with how your brain formed while you were first learning to read, and probably can't be changed all that much afterwards.

The Ego Tunnel by Metzinger

Consciousness and the Brain by Dahaene

Self Comes to Mind by Damasio

Consciousness and the Social Brain by Graziano

According to http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393068382 the current movement around gender brain differences is based on shoddy research or misunderstood/misinterpreted research.

I believe the conclusion is that there is little evidence at the moment either way.

Have you read Delusions of Gender ?

Chapter 25 of this book goes into this subject.

Strangely it's the only chapter lacking citations IIRC.

They say it and put it in academic papers, apparently. Read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine.

Cognitive Neuroscience, by Michael Gazzaniga

> At the same time, people get angry the second a question can be answered by evolutionary psychology, especially in a way that reinforces gender norms. While evolutionary psych is a new and contentious field, it lends solid, scientific reasoning for all kinds of gender norms, among other things. That upsets people who believe gender is entirely a social construct.

I'm sure it offends the sensibilities of clean-slate-ists, but I think its a mistake to think that the 'people who get angry' are so easily pidgeon-holed and written off. I think that there is probably a tendency in popular science to overstate and oversimplify the differences between men and women, and a tendency to think of genetics as biological fatalism, rather than acknowledging the way environmental factors like culture and upbringing can affect behavior universally (sociology), and even alter gene expression (epigenetics). Whenever you take a study like this and immediately take the position of the biological fatalist and look for the evopsych explanation, you're discounting the immense power of these other factors, and just plain doing bad science. It's not so hard to think that our cultural assumptions about men and women create a bias that makes us want to see those assumptions reflected in our data. And I think that's a good reason to be very cautious.

Edit:
I've found Delusions of Gender to be a good book that argues from a scientific perspective about the way popular science is overstating our differences.

Came expressly to post that link.

His book The Master and His Emissary is illuminating and presents compelling arguments.

None of which, as far as I can see, is at odds with this study.

No.

Read a book. May I suggest:

How the Mind Works

Consciousness Explained

The Crucible of Conscoiusness

The Astonishing Hypothesis

The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature

I think it's something like, "These people only think the way they do because they are ignorant and haven't been exposed to the truth yet. This (book|pamphlet) is so self-evidently true that I can't imagine how someone could fail to be convinced."

One book I recently read that shed a lot of light on this general subject area for me was "On Being Certain" by Robert Burton, a neurologist. In some respects this is the most depressing book I've read in years.

> Please do not "transplain" philosophy to me. I grouped them together only in reference to their being irrelevant to this discussion about biology. Go to a subreddit on philosophy if you really want to argue that either of their views change biological facts, and send me a link when you've posted the argument. I disagree, but this is not the place to discuss it.

There are already philosophical works which show how philosophy can influence biological studies and change intepretation of them. For examle https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophical-Foundations-Neuroscience-M-Bennett/dp/140510838X

> pause for thought.

to be pendantic, he paused because his brain entered flight mode then his eyes registered the children and his brain switched to fight mode. he may have had the after thought "RUN, oh shit kids, PICK THEM UP" but in reality his brain automatically acted and "he" was not consciously making any of these decisions

read this book as it completely explains how the human brain works and that our concept of consciousness is actually made up by our brain and decision making is ultimately out of our control

> What is consciousness?

Since neuroscience started to research this topic seriously, there's no more reason for mysticism. There's textbooks about it now. I personally read Dehaene's book and it cleared up all of my confusion.

After /u/hopeless_poet was gifted the book [Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0143126261/ref=aw_wl_vv_dp_3_6?colid=2A05ZAVPIGIXE&coliid=I3RXBO7N8BX5IE) his body itched with the desire to observe a brain himself. The thought of a stranger strapped onto a table, squirming and pleading for release, a sharp scalpel in his hand so carefully cutting through skin and bone, so transfixed in the process that the ear-wrenching screams were nothing more than background noise -- it was a thought that fueled him, a thought that controlled his existence and made it impossible for him to concentrate on his everyday life activities. He longed for the blood, for the fragile organ that, like magic, manages to give functionality to such disgusting, undeserving creatures. This desire soon overpowered him and he began to drive endlessly into the night, stopping only when he had found a good location, and proceeding to walk the streets in search for the perfect test subject. At last, after tireless weeks of searching, he found her. She, too, walked the streets at night, but her intentions were much more appalling. She was the scum of society, a pathetic drug addict willing to sell every inch of herself in attempt to satisfy her foul habit. His disgust and anger rose as he watched her - she wouldn't be missed by anyone, nor would her disappearance even be noticed. It was easy to subdue her and he did so quickly and efficiently, making sure no one saw or heard. He threw her in the truck of his car carelessly, like he would any other useless object. He brought her into his house and dragged her down to the basement that he had been perfecting for weeks in preparation for this moment. A single lightbulb swung silently in the middle of the room like a pendulum, serving as a reminder that his victim's time was running out. Directly below it was a metal table with restraints attached and next to it lay all the tools he would need. He strapped her onto the table, as he had done so an in-numerous amount of times before in his thoughts. His tools lay in front of him, glistening in the little light there was. She pleaded with him to let her go, she could give him money, drugs, sex. "Shut up, you pathetic whore," he growled as he punched her. The begging stopped. He picked up his scalpel...

HOPELESS_BRAINSURGEON. COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU. DECEMBER 2017.

Meditation goes against our survival instincts; it requires your left-brain to let down its guard for long enough that your right-brain can widen/deepen your awareness. The left-brain sees this as a completely "pointless" and potentially dangerous task and so puts up a fierce resistance. (And even the right-brain would rather be scanning for external threats than experiencing internal bodily sensations – which explains the 'monkey mind' worrying that tends to rush in to fill the void of threats.) See: McGilchrist's The Divided Brain: Book; [Video] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI):

Your warping the facts.

>Reduced physical activity,3 particularly from reduced school-based physical education,4 and specific food manufacturing and marketing practices (e.g., vending machines in schools,5 increased portion size,6 increased availability of fast-food,3, 7, 8 use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)9) comprise the Big Two explanations proffered for the obesity epidemic and are frequently cited as targets of potential public health interventions. We do not intend to imply that the Big Two are not salient contributors to the epidemic. Rather, we offer that the evidence of their role as primary players in producing the epidemic (as well as the evidence supporting their potential ability to reverse the trend if manipulated) is both equivocal and largely circumstantial – that is, the hypothesized effects are underdetermined by the data.

They are stating that Reduced physical activity and specific food manufacturing are the two factors. THis is because they know (like any intelligent person) that if you take in a lot of calories and don't burn them, you'll get fat. Learn to read and/or substituting your own facts into the article.

>There's the CDC (who also have an extensive section devoted to obesity, which belies the notion that is a simple concept): http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/contributing_factors.htm

>Overall there are a variety of factors that play a role in obesity. This makes it a complex health issue to address.

There are factors as to why there is an epidemic, but the root cause of fat people is high calorie intake with too low levels of exercise to burn off the excess calories. Your cite does not dispute my argument in the least.

>That's what you aren't getting. It has been, in the past, socially desirable to be obese (Egyptions, Romans, even various stages of British royalty demonstrate this). The basis for the desire isn't what is healthy, but rather much like a winter tan (or in developing nations, being pale), it is what is difficult to achieve (or more accurately, harder to achieve for those who aren't wealthy) given the current state of society.

You also need to realize that medicine at this time was little more than prayer. The understanding of healthy was minimal at best, especially since most wouldn't live nearly as long as we do today. Times and social norms change.

Also, human sexuality doesn't evolve towards things that are hard to do, rather what is more healthy. Fat at that time was a sign of being healthy as there was so much famine in the area. Between the two extremes (starving and gluttony) gluttony wins, but it doesn't make it a healthy choice.

>Losing significant amounts of weight is brutal. It requires an unrelenting focus and quite severe discomfort. It effects you physical health, mental health, your job performance, and your social life (and none in a good way). Sure the end goal provides a big payoff, but it's a hell of a ride, and when you get there you still have underlying problems, because it is far easier to regain the weight you lost at the end. The success rate in terms of keeping the weight off, regardless of diet/exercise regime is 2-5%. That means if you are effective 10% of the time, you are a health guru! And it's not that these people are lazy or lack discipline, because they will keep trying again and again, despite the failure!

Extreme weight drops are medically dangerous. This is why starving yourself is bad. It has to be gradual, just like how people pack it on, if you do it over a very small amount of time, you'll run into HUGE medical problems as well. If your smart, eat right (real food as opposed to empty calories) and have a good exercise plan, you will have little to no problems what so ever. TO avoid Kidney stones, be sure to drink LOTS of water, not only will it flush your system of toxins, it'll keep your kidneys flushed and healthy. This may lead to short-term water-retention however if your unaccustomed to drinking so much water.

>Yup totally missing the mark. I'm not suggesting it is a disease. I'm merely suggesting that prejudicial attitudes towards the obese are just that: prejudice, not the product of some well founded rational process.

Then you don't understand how the mind works. We make millions of subconscious calculations of risk and probabilities every day. It's programmed into our minds to do so. This is why you can find someone attractive, your brain does symmetry calculations, as well as "is this person free of disease, do they have child bearing hips, etc". You can't deny the fact that our brains make calculations and decisions on the fly.

Two great books on this subject are Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works and Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. Both talk about these calculations and how they evolved into these set of automatic rules and calculations, that you seemingly refer to as prejudice.

You either define prejudice very loosely or include it as any reason we choose one thing over another. I choose to eat a sandwich over a pile of feces because I'm prejudice. I choose a beautiful wife over an ugly one because I'm prejudice. I prefer healthy citizens over fat ones because I'm prejudice.

I think I grasp what you mean now, but I still think your fractally wrong on the idea. it's not prejudice you see, but the wonders of the brain picking the better choices for our genes, and by extension, ourselves which is not quite the same thing.

>Oh, so you don't agree with the dualistic conception of mind and body? Then how do you explain the fact that you would still be capable of thinking even if your legs and arms were chopped off?

I think you do not understand dualism. The dualism does not exist between brain and the rest of the body. It exists between a disconnected "mind" and the body, which includes the brain.

Even if your dualism revolves around the brain and the rest of the body, you would still be wrong as the brain is part of the body itself and secondly the way we perceive the world is defined by the whole of our bodies and not just the brain. You should read more about how human thought is formed, what affects it and why the idea of dualism is a necessary illusion that the brain creates in order to provide incentive for our actions. This is a good book to start.

Chopping extremities and organs off does not change any of this. Just because I can function with less organs does not mean that something exists within each of us that is somehow separate from the rest of our bodies. It just means that our bodies are capable of functioning with less.

>It can't be a "fact" because slavery has existed, and in some parts still does exist. If it were a "fact" that people controlled their bodies, then slavery, i.e. ownership over other humans, could not be possible. But it is possible.

Slaves still control themselves. They are simply coerced (or brainwashed) in following the orders that others give them.

If you want to oppose slavery, just go ahead and oppose slavery (there's many other perfectly valid reasons to do so). There's no reason to imagine a mind-body dualism in order to do this.

>Where? All I see is that you simply asserted that ownership does not exist. But mere assertion is not scientifically permissible.

When you make anything more than an assertion based on linguistics this might hold some water. Until then, I am content to dismiss your assertions immediately.

>If it is, then aren't we simply arguing over whether or not the dualistic concept holds, rather than the logical implications of holding either view?

You want to argue that mind-body dualism holds? I suggest you start by considering all of these first.

>where the mind can exist without the body (i.e. some advanced life support system that keeps alive a floating head or brain or whatever).

What mind exists? How do you know it exists? How can this "brain in a jar" communicate that it exists? Do you realize how much you must advance into pure science-fiction in order to even make a coherent case for dualism?

>If I hold the mind to be strictly biological, i.e. physical, then am I logically permitted to hold the dualist concept?

No, because you have no means of separating between the two.

>I think that it is impossible for me, or anyone, to own their own minds,

Ah, but then, by your own argument and the use of your language (i.e "own their own minds"), you have already conceded that we do in fact own our minds. That there is something external to our minds that is doing the owning. Do you see how absurd it is to argue with linguistics?

>I don't see any reason why ownership of external physical objects to the body is metaphysically valid, but the body, which is also external to the mind, can't be owned.

Because, again, the body is not external to the mind. You have simply made an arbitrary separation between the meat that does the thinking and the meat that does the acting, even though this is a very very very simplified understanding of how human bodies work and ignores all the many nuances that affect our behaviour which do not lie with the brain or even controlled in any meaningful sense by it.

>I don't know. Maybe the dualist view is wrong, but the fact that one can still think and form thoughts even though they lose a limb somehow gives me the impression that the mind is separate from the body.

It's very easy to get impressions, but it is also unscientific.

You are appealing to authority and ignoring my arguments. If you need a source with credentials to take me seriously, then read Disorders of the Self: New Therapeutic Horizons: The Masterson Approach or Schizoid Phenomena, Object-Relations and the Self by Harry Guntrip or Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney.

These are all experienced and well credentialed psychologists who describe SPD as a process driven by shame.

The head psychiatrist could be wrong. He wouldn't be the first nor the last psychiatrist to make a mistake.

>Hacker is a philosopher with apparently very little understanding of neuroscience. Hacker simply isn't qualified to even be talking about neuroscience the way he is. Kandel's written fucking textbooks on the subject. And don't say "argument from authority," I'm sure you can see how these accomplishments are relevant.

Hacker is criticizing a definition of a psychological term not a neurological term, not research nor experiments or their results, just their interpretation and definition of the phenomena. There is a difference between studying the brain/neuroscience and defining psychological vocabulary, expertise regarding the brain/neuroscience does not ensure expertise regarding psychological concepts. So, following this differentiation, Hacker is perfectly within his domain, the domain of psychological concepts and their definition, which is a subset of the philosophy of psychology. Can you not see how these two areas are not identical, and not even necessarily related? It is the same for someone who knows about different kinds of vehicle but knows nothing about how engines work, and it is like an automotive technician defining driving as "any movement of the vehicle". Clearly that definition is too broad, hence, criticism of the definition results. Kandel is like an engine technician with a definition of vehicle that reads 'anything that can move', I hope this example illustrates how, while Kandel can no doubt be an expert in one area, this doesn't make in infallible in another related, yet separate area, thus, he is not immune from sound criticism. And while Hacker is not an expert in the design of neuroscientific experiments, nor in neuroscience generally, he is an expert in the domain of psychological terms, which a part of cognitive neuroscience, and this is largely where his criticisms are aimed, in his area of expertise, so to dismiss Hacker because he is a philosopher and not a neuroscientist, hence not competent in the area we are discussing is to be mistaken.

More to the point, Hacker has written numerous articles and books with neuroscientists who agree with his positions, with whole chapters dedicated to the history of cognitive neuroscience's development in specific areas, such as memory see:

https://www.amazon.ca/Philosophical-Foundations-Neuroscience-M-Bennett/dp/140510838X

https://www.amazon.ca/History-Cognitive-Neuroscience-M-Bennett/dp/1118346343/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466490478&sr=1-2

http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/scr/hacker/docs/CovertCognition.pdf

Your criticism amounts to a car technician yelling at a automotive salesman "you know nothing about how cars work! How can you tell me the definition of a car!" The domains are related but not identical, expertise in one is not expertise in the other.

>And don't say "argument from authority," I'm sure you can see how these accomplishments are relevant.

I never said that, he is no doubt an authority on neuroscience, but not an expert on the definition of psychological terms. As I have said above, definitions are not empirical matters, science does not discover what memory is, we first define it, as Kandel has, and then using this definition we discover empirical facts (such as whether a given creature does indeed remember something).

>Yes, your leg muscles have slightly optimized the schema which controls running. They have learned how to run better.

So any change in performance is learning, gotcha, and when I get slower I guess I learn that too, and when I limp because I'm sore I guess I'm learning as well, and you can see how this cascades it calling every change in behaviour a form of learning, which is no definition at all.

"performance changes as the result of experience, which justifies the term memory"

Milner, B., Squire, L. R. and Kandel, E. R., 1998. Cognitive neuroscience and the study of memory. Neuron 20, 445–68.

>The keywords being you and I, since neuroscientists don't debate it.

They do, see Hacker's work with the well known neuroscientist Maxwell Bennett: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Bennett_(scientist)#Awards_and_lectures

>So far, a field of strawmen....

Please read the quotation provided from Kendel's work.

>No, their handicap is affecting their memory, as the electrical shock was to the slug. The difference being the inability to hear acts as a filter for stimuli, whereas the shock works more directly as an input.

Right, a performance change as a result of experience, so deafness is caused by experience, causing a change in performance, but you admit its not memory, hence you reject Kendel's definition, hence you agree with Hacker.

>Oh there's a new one: false dichotomy. See last point.

This is actually funny, I've provided the source, it confirms what I have said and Hacker has said all along. There is no false dichotomy, you just assumed there was because you thought it wasn't his definition.

>As I said, it's as bad an analogy as the broken leg one.

It's not an analogy. It's an example of how a broken legs falls under his definition of memory. There's nothing analogous about it, it's literally using his definition to make an example of how poor it is.

>Which is hilarious, because you're building strawmen with his work!

See above quote, no strawmen involved.

>My frustration largely stems from the fact that what envision this subreddit to be, it isn't.

I know where you are now, as far as perspective of how "hateful" everything feels. I have been at this for quite some time (about 10 years, not this subreddit, but as an MRA) and in that time you sort of get a thick skin and "troll X-ray" glasses.

I can tell you the "secret" but it's not so much knowing, it is building up the expertise to spot. Basically I read everything and analyze it by essentially ignoring opinion (very large portion of content) and confront either opinions presented as facts, or facts (and citations) themselves.

this is just a small part of it. I really, really (believe) I know where you are now, and what I probably don't have the ability to relay is that "No, we don't have some central leader, government backing, social support system" or ANYTHING of that nature.

People outside of this reddit imply that "Anywhere that isn't a female space is a male space" That MRA's are redundant.

When your own experience in trying to make a club showed you, no, "The MRM gets less support than even a LGBT club". How does it feel to be ignored even on that level?

White supremacists, God yes, that is probably our largest problem (outside of reddit) this subreddit a while back had to scare away "stormfront", Men's News Daily was shut down mainly because it became a conservative talking points hub.... Yes, "Men's Rights" crosses over some paths traveled by less savory individuals, but the paths themselves are not evil.

I am going to be writing a lot because it's the least I can do, (You did try making a club FUCK YEAH!). Trying and failing is almost better than trying and succeeding. The push-back and failure to do so is data in-itself of something that is horribly wrong.

I don't even know where to begin.

Intro

I'll try and relay to you in the quickest manner possible as much pertinent information that I think will be valuable to you at the stage you currently are at. A lot of it you may already know. I also suspect you may still have a bit of a "white knight" shell, and am not sure how far through the looking glass you have come. Some of the sources I link to might seem misogynist on the surface, but that, I wish to claim (my opinion) is because society as a whole so conflates constantly "feminism" with "female" that to attack one is synonymous with attacking other. I am cutting the intro short.


Who

Christina Hoff Sommers

Angry Harry

ManWomanMyth

Paul Elam

Warren Farrel

Glenn Sacks (older content)

There are others, but those are the cornerstones that have shaped my foundation

What

I have read so many articles, news reports, studies and what-have-you, just listing them will be of no service. I think the most valuable single point pieces I have found are below.

Is there Anything good about Men
An American Psychological Association Invited Address

Consad Report - "An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women
Abstract overture, link to PDF of study on the above page. DOWNLOAD AND READ FULLY. This study was first removed from US government portals then it was moved and hidden a number of times. I know this because I have used it multiple times over the last few years and it likes to go "walk about".

Man, Woman, Myth MRA Documentary series
A must watch, beginning to end, MUST WATCH. He also has a youtube channel but the channel doesn't have all the videos. The above link is the complete collection and really is worth your time. It is UK based but nearly everything has relevance in any western country. (UK, US, Australia run nearly parallel with male issues as it pertains to law)

Male Studies: A Consortium of Scholars
This was the first symposium of the "Male studies" proposition. It is very poor quality and difficult to hear at times, but a very powerful academic perspective of the issues with males in today's society. Christina Hoff Sommers really shines in the piece.

Edge:THE SCIENCE OF GENDER AND SCIENCE
A Harvard debate that focuses not on IF their is a different intelligence distribution between men and women, but why. The data that is covered alone is invaluable. This is not a "men are better than women" issue. It is a piece of the puzzle and explains in part "why" men are over-represented in the technical sciences.

Books

See you in 100 years.
-Not a "direct" MRA resource, but an invaluable account as to why gender roles existed in our recent history that is outside any "corrupt" sense of a patriarchal conspiracy.

The War on Boys
-Beyond the boy focus, it is also a great 2ndary deconstruction as to just how corrupt or faulty institutionalize feminism has become.

The Myth of Male Power

How the Mind Works
-Valuable as it is essentially a collection of studies by all sorts of parties that explain through experimentation as to why humans behave the way they do, including the gender differences. Steven Pinker summarizes but the studies aren't his.

I know it is a lot of data and content,

One thing I want to relay. "Decide for yourself". I was raised a feminist, all the way down to carrying a "Pro choice" sign when I was 7 or 8 in a protest line. I became an MRA when I tried to argue against them. I challenged them for proof, and when they supplied it I sought out counter-evidence to refute the claims, this was 10-11, maybe a bit further ago. And as hard as I tried reality and logic did not mesh with the "cornerstones" of feminism, to the talking points.

I know you aren't coming from the same point, but I wish to state that the MRM, and the history of it is so much more than this subreddit.