Resources for a Teenager – 'Natural Sciences'

The fifth in a series of posts detailing those resources I’m finding useful on my own particular (life) journey.

Meta

I did Biology A Level, back in the mists of time.

To much of how science is presented seems to be a fait accompli. I prefer to create my own understanding from the evidence that’s out there, and how it evolves over time.

The List

The rationale

1. Chaos – I remember reading this and being inspired, daunted, and made tearful with frustration. Top notch popular science.
2. Genius – Dick Feynman’s life combined tragedy, playfulness, profound insightful and periods when he lost his way. Another powerful account of leaders willing  to speak truth to power (i.e. the final chapter).
3. Emergence – seemingly a ‘parallel’ track to Chaos. Another breakthrough and disruptive discipline in the Sciences. You might be spotting a theme here…
4. The Fractalist – part autobiography, part inspirational story of survival, part the midwifery of a new branch of science / maths. Inspirational exposition of success in the face of huge challenges, combining a gentleness of manner with first-class determination and courage.
5. You are the Placebo – important insights into the way we create our identity from within. The challenge is doing something about this, though
6. Mycelium Running – a powerful story of how fungi

To read:

At Home in the Universe – I’ve started reading, but got side-tracked. More insights, this time from complexity theory (cf Emergence above)     

Gut – having a dairy  intolerance, I have an interest in things relating to my gut, the microbiome, and all things relating

Learning from the Octopus – I must get beyond the initial chapters. It’s about how we can learn from the natural world

Soft-Wired – there are too many determinists out there. Our brains alter according to how we use them.

The Arrow of Time – I need to read this to understand why time only goes one way

Relativity – I started this, but got stuck with time going faster and slower depending on where you are #drat

Quantum Theory – I want to understand more about entanglement et al.

Systems View of Life – how to bring things together as a whole

The Storytelling Animal – humans as narrative making and seekers

    

The Task

The Scientific Method offers powerful ways to understand ourselves and the Cosmos.

However, scientists are humans – after all – so IMHO we should take responsibility for our own synthesis of whatever insights we have gleaned so far from the natural world, and beyond.

Actually, my immediate task is to read more of these books – both on my Kindle, and from my bookshelf... #oops

Feedback

Any thoughts, additions, amendments – whatever – please add in respectful and constructive comments below. Thank you!

Goodreads

I endeavour to record what I’m reading via my profile on Goodreads.

Join us for the North East Premiere of 'HAPPY' on World HAPPY Day

Background

You may be aware that I’ve been working at happiest Limited since last June. I feel very fortunate to have learnt a great deal, and discover a treasure trove of resources around the practice of happiness. I.e. that one’s level of happiness and well-being is something that one can grown, through regular practice and habitual behaviour.
This post provides the context to a happiness-related event I’m involved in organising in Newcastle upon Tyne, and invites you to attend and bring your friends!

Happiness at Work event

I was thrilled to attend the recent Happiness at Work event, organised by Codeworks:

This month we’re taking a different approach to our Think and a Drink event with the topic of Positive Psychology and its effects in the workplace.  We’ve got speakers and discussions and even a chance of taking part in some of the very first research studies on the subject with our friends at Northumbria University.  Here’s a little taster of what you can expect.
Positive Psychology is a new branch of Psychology which focuses on enabling people to grow and fulfil themselves. Professor Martin Seligman, who is generally credited with igniting the interest in positive psychology when he was appointed President of the American Psychological Association in 1998, describes it as enabling people to ‘flourish’. A positive psychological state in which we feel positive emotions, engagement, achievement, positive relationships and a sense of meaning in our lives.
Research also demonstrates that a positive psychological state seems to protect against illness and prolong longevity. It also enhances resilience, very important given the challenging and unpredictable economic climate we are experiencing.

At that event, the seeds of local action were sown, so please read on for details of the event in February.

We’re showing a movie, and you’re invited!

We’re showing a movie on 11th February in Newcastle upon Tyne. Once in the afternoon, and for the second time in the evening. Please use these links to book online.
The following is the descriptive blurb:

Happy People = Happy World

On World HAPPY Day, February 11, 2012, thousands of people will join together in communities across the globe to watch the film HAPPY and begin their journeys toward healthier, and happier lives. We want everyone in the North East and Cumbria to be part of this amazing, worldwide event so we are screening the film twice, at 2.00pm and 6.30pm, at The Centre for Life in Newcastle.

World HAPPY Day inspires action for increasing happiness in our own lives and in the world. Research suggests that happy people are healthier and live longer, they are more likely to care for the environment and less likely to commit crimes or go to war. Happy people help others more often and are more optimistic and creative. Increasing happiness benefits us as individuals and communities in infinite ways – it is a goal worth sharing.
Roko Belic, director of the Academy Award® nominated “Genghis Blues” now brings us HAPPY, a film that takes us from the bayous of Louisiana to the deserts of Namibia, from the beaches of Brazil to the villages of Okinawa to explore the secrets behind our most valued emotion.

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Screening Programme

Afternoon

2.00pm ‘Happy Networking’ – an opportunity to relax over a drink, catch up with friends and meet lots of new, like minded people
3.00pm ‘HAPPY’ – be one of the first in the North to experience the inspiring new film by Roko Belic
4.30pm ‘Happy talk’ – share your feelings about the film, learn more about the psychology and growth of happiness and find out more about forthcoming Happiness events, including the foundation of a Happiness group in the region.
5.30pm Event draws to a close

« Click here to book the matinee »

Evening

6.30pm ‘Happy Networking’ – an opportunity to relax over a drink, catch up with friends and meet lots of new, like minded people
7.30pm ‘HAPPY’ – be one of the first in the North to experience the inspiring new film by Roko Belic
9.00pm ‘Happy talk’ – share your feelings about the film, learn more about the psychology and growth of happiness and find out more about forthcoming Happiness events, including the foundation of a Happiness group in the region.
10.00pm Event draws to a close

« Click here to book the evening showing »

The Film

Happy - A Documentary Trailer from Wadi Rum Films on Vimeo.
For more information about ‘HAPPY’ go to - http://www.thehappymovie.com

How you can get involved

Please come and join us – the links again: afternoon and evening. Come to both if you like ;-). Key activities:

• share your feelings about the film,
• learn more about the psychology and growth of happiness and
• find out more about forthcoming Happiness events, including the foundation of a Happiness group in the region.

NLP Practitioner – first impressions

Introduction

I’m putting this post together after completing the ‘Practitioner’ course of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which finished on Monday.

[I’ve made extensive use of links to NLP-related articles on Wikipedia – which has a suite of pages addressing the gamut of issues in this area.]

Preconceptions

I must admit that I’m pretty sceptical of people who profess to turn your life around like Tony Bobbins (ok, so it’s a spoof), and I’m not really a big fan of TV hypnotists and Vic Reeves-style “I Will Cure You” stuff.

Loose impressions I’d picked up about NLP included such tropes as ‘vulcan mind control’ and something to do with the Dark Side. ;-D

My background

Perhaps this is all a bit of an amorphous mass of my own preconceptions, but I’m a psychology graduate, and have an interest in self-improvement and have read up about skills like Emotional Intelligence and assertiveness (amongst others).

The course itself

You should be able to find more information about the course from this link, but essentially it was about providing a practical introduction to skills that attendees could use for improving self-awareness and communication with other people.

Tutor and assistants

The course was run by Kay Cooke of The ME Group in Hexham, Northumberland. Kay is an accredited NLP Trainer, and was assisted by presence of a revolving team of Master Practitioners (i.e. people trained with skills to assist other people [my typology]).

Structure

The course comprised two 4-day clusters, run from Friday morning through to Monday night (i.e. over the weekend). Hours were 9.30 until 4.30-5 o’clock.

At times it was quite full-on, and was pretty much a synthesis of best practice tools and techniques for communication (e.g. “Deep structure and surface structure” from Noam Chomsky). There was a combination of theoretical learning, and practical exercises (e.g. visualisation) both with Kay and between other members of the group.

The Group

It was a small group of 5, with 3 men and 2 women. Ages ranged from late teenager to middle-age {I think I can get away with that! ;-)}.

I think the small group worked well – there is a lot of material to cover, and a larger group might well be more difficult for the trainer to optimally instruct.

Impressions

My over-arching feeling was that Kay draws upon a deep well of learning, training and personal insight to deliver a (potentially) tricky subject very adeptly. She made it look ‘simple’ when that’s definitely not the case.

When I questioned her about the wider context that NLP sits in (i.e. how we all live, in our different ways) she posited that NLP material is ‘simple’, and in many ways I would agree with her. However, NLP material definitely challenges many implicit and unconscious assumptions we all make about living.

What’s working for you, what would you like to change?

Kay made clear that the NLP framework is just that – a framework. If you’ve got things in your life which are going well, great: but if you’ve got stuff you’d like to work on, then NLP might be able to help.

There was also an ongoing discussion about process versus content: in that what I might call ‘traditional’ / ‘talking’ therapies, the therapist and client talk through issues; whereas NLP typically keeps content out of the interaction and seeks to come to a different perception of issues and events, in order to influence how the client’s subconscious is dealing with them.

Importance of ethical dimension

One of the things I struggled with at first was how one might be able to use powerful tools and techniques in such a way which was responsible and ethical. The penny dropped during the second 4-day cluster, in that:
a) I was only training for the Practitioner level, so interventions with other people were probably beyond my skill level, and
b) the ethical context was using NLP is / was absolutely crucial

I think this boils down to only ‘helping’ people if they ask to be helped, and—even then—closely observing the person to ensure any assistance was appropriate and that the flow of any intervention closely matched the situation. If you take someone on a ‘journey’, you’ve got to be able to bring them back, as it were…

Conclusions

Why the controversy?

The two founders of the NLP movement had a falling-out, and in compiling this post, I became aware of the extensive controversy surrounding NLP (e.g. vis-a-vis science).

Kay’s training is validated by The Society of NLP (logo to the right).

Whilst I understand that people often have very good reasons to get heated about things, personally I found the material pretty insightful and resonating (although not sure what that says about me! ;-D).

Part of the toolkit

Viewed in the context of many other ways of seeing the world, I felt it was an entirely legitimate subject area, and useful addition to the canon of self-improvement activity.

‘Everything in moderation’ is a useful dictum, and I personally gained some useful insights and elements of new self-awareness. What’s so bad about that? I’m still waiting to learn the vulcan mind control techniques <sigh>.

So, a summary of my first impressions. Doubtless there will be others, and I will do my best to post them here. :-)

The Diving Bell and the Butterly - IRL #3

Final post on this: I recently came across a headset from a company called Emotiv. It sells something called the "EPOC Neuroheadset". Apparently it reads your brainwaves and you can control video games and virtual worlds. It can represent emotions in a robot-like interface, presented via a computer screen: see where I'm going here?

I haven't heard back from them yet - I dropped them a line about how appropriate this kind of tool might be for someone with major brain damage, but another potential way to unlock The Groom's world?

Blurb from their website follows. I realise it's a bit long-winded, but explains things infinitely better than I could!:

• "Emotiv EPOC™
• The Emotiv EPOC now makes it possible for games to be controlled and influenced by the player's mind. Engaging, immersive, and nuanced, Emotiv-inspired game-play will be like nothing ever seen before. Based on the latest developments in neuro-technology, Emotiv has developed a new personal interface for human computer interaction.
• The Emotiv EPOC uses a set of sensors to tune into electric signals naturally produced by the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expression. It connects wirelessly with all game platforms from consoles to PCs. The Emotiv neuroheadset now makes it possible for games to be controlled and influenced by the player's mind.

[...]

• Technology
• Emotiv's core technology was developed based on our research into the human brain - the central control center for all our interactions and experiences.
• The brain is made up of approximately 100 billion nerve cells, which are called neurons. With the billions of active neurons, the brain tissue contains a myriad of active current sources that cause the local electrical potential to endlessly fluctuate with a great deal of variability.
• Each human brain is unique, both physically and functionally. The folding of the cortex of the human brain is also highly individual, meaning the way in which the external surface of the brain is folded individualizes the potentials, regardless of how functionality is mapped in each brain. Using non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG), it is possible to observe each person's individual electrical brain activity.
• At Emotiv, we've created a robust system and methodology for detecting and classifying both human conscious thoughts and non-conscious emotions. This revolutionary patent pending neural processing technology makes it possible for computers to interact directly with the human brain. By the detection of thoughts and feelings, our technology now makes it possible for applications to be controlled and influenced by the user's mind.

[...]

• Detection Suites

  The Emotiv Game Developer SDK comprises of our development neuroheadset and proprietary toolkit, which incorporates our unique set of detection suites. Detection suites can be used alone or combined for an even more spectacular game play experience.
  
  

  Affectiv™ Suite
  The Affectiv suite monitors player emotional states in real-time. It provides an extra dimension in game interaction by allowing the game to respond to a player's emotions. Characters can transform in response to the player's feeling. Music, scene lighting and effects can be tailored to heighten the experience for the player in real-time. The Affectiv suite can be used to monitor player state of mind and allow developers to adjust difficulty to suit each situation.
  
  

  Cognitiv™ Suite
  The Cognitiv suite reads and interprets a player's conscious thoughts and intent. Gamers can manipulate virtual objects using only the power of their thought! For the first time, the fantasy of magic and supernatural power can be experienced.
  
  

  Expressiv™ Suite
  The Expressiv suite uses the signals measured by the neuroheadset to interpret player facial expressions in real-time. It provides a natural enhancement to game interaction by allowing game characters to come to life. When a player smiles, their avatar can mimic the expression even before they are aware of their own feelings. Artificial intelligence can now respond to players naturally, in ways only humans have been able to until now."

So, I was thinking that someone afflicted by Locked In syndrome (and others like it) could communicate with others using a tool, by being present together in a Virtual World environment. Probably expensive, but a really positive way to use this technology. :-D

See also my earlier posts - here and here.