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Below, we cover
Modern Man,
whether mental or physical in nature, including human behavior, as well as common diseases and disorders that can impact us.
See also:
Medical Breakthroughs
Mankind
Health & Fitness
Human Sexuality
Note that the Next 16 Topics cover the Human Body:
The Human Body
YouTube Video: Human Body Systems and Functions
Pictured: The Human Body as Elements of the human body by mass. Trace elements are less than 1% combined (and each less than 0.1%).
The Human Body
YouTube Video: Human Body Systems and Functions
Pictured: The Human Body as Elements of the human body by mass. Trace elements are less than 1% combined (and each less than 0.1%).
The human body is the entire structure of a human being. It is composed of many different types of cells that together create tissues and subsequently organ systems. They ensure homeostasis and the viability of the human body.
It comprises a head, neck, trunk (which includes the thorax and abdomen), arms and hands, legs and feet.
The study of the human body involves anatomy, physiology, histology and embryology.
The body varies anatomically in known ways. Physiology focuses on the systems and organs of the human body and their functions. Many systems and mechanisms interact in order to maintain homeostasis, with safe levels of substances such as sugar and oxygen in the blood.
The body is studied by health professionals, physiologists, anatomists, and by artists to assist them in their work.
Composition (also see above Picture):
The human body is composed of elements including hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, calcium and phosphorus. These elements reside in trillions of cells and non-cellular components of the body.
The adult male body is about 60% water for a total water content of some 42 liters. This is made up of about 19 liters of extracellular fluid including about 3.2 liters of blood plasma and about 8.4 liters of interstitial fluid, and about 23 liters of fluid inside cells. The content, acidity and composition of the water inside and outside cells is carefully maintained. The main electrolytes in body water outside cells are sodium and chloride, whereas within cells it is potassium and other phosphates.
Cells:
The body contains trillions of cells, the fundamental unit of life. At maturity, there are roughly 30–37 trillion cells in the body, an estimate arrived at by totalling the cell numbers of all the organs of the body and cell types. The body is also host to about the same number of non-human cells as well as multicellular organisms which reside in the gastrointestinal tract and on the skin. Not all parts of the body are made from cells.
Cells sit in an extracellular matrix that consists of proteins such as collagen, surrounded by extracellular fluids. Of the 70 kg weight of an average human body, nearly 25 kg is non-human cells or non-cellular material such as bone and connective tissue.
Cells in the body function because of DNA. DNA sits within the nucleus of a cell. Here, parts of DNA are copied and sent to the body of the cell via RNA. The RNA is then used to create proteins which form the basis for cells, their activity, and their products. Proteins dictate cell function and gene expression, a cell is able to self-regulate by the amount of proteins produced. However, not all cells have DNA – some cells such as mature red blood cells lose their nucleus as they mature.
Tissues:
The body consists of many different types of tissue, defined as cells that act with a specialized function. The study of tissues is called histology and often occurs with a microscope. The body consists of four main types of tissues – lining cells (epithelia), connective tissue, nervous tissue and muscle tissue.
Cells that lie on surfaces exposed to the outside world or gastrointestinal tract (epithelia) or internal cavities (endothelium) come in numerous shapes and forms – from single layers of flat cells, to cells with small beating hair-like cilia in the lungs, to column-like cells that line the stomach. Endothelial cells are cells that line internal cavities including blood vessels and glands. Lining cells regulate what can and can't pass through them, protect internal structures, and function as sensory surfaces
Organs:
See also: List of organs of the human body
Organs, structured collections of cells with a specific function, sit within the body. Examples include the heart, lungs and liver. Many organs reside within cavities within the body. These cavities include the abdomen and pleura.
Systems:
See also: List of systems of the human body
Circulatory System:
Pictured below: The Human Circulatory System as a Diagram of the human heart 1. Superior Vena Cava 2. 4. Mitral Valve 5. Aortic Valve 6. Left Ventricle 7. Right Ventricle 8. Left Atrium 9. Right Atrium 10. Aorta 11. Pulmonary Valve 12. Tricuspid Valve 13. Inferior Vena Cava (Courtesy of Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)
It comprises a head, neck, trunk (which includes the thorax and abdomen), arms and hands, legs and feet.
The study of the human body involves anatomy, physiology, histology and embryology.
The body varies anatomically in known ways. Physiology focuses on the systems and organs of the human body and their functions. Many systems and mechanisms interact in order to maintain homeostasis, with safe levels of substances such as sugar and oxygen in the blood.
The body is studied by health professionals, physiologists, anatomists, and by artists to assist them in their work.
Composition (also see above Picture):
The human body is composed of elements including hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, calcium and phosphorus. These elements reside in trillions of cells and non-cellular components of the body.
The adult male body is about 60% water for a total water content of some 42 liters. This is made up of about 19 liters of extracellular fluid including about 3.2 liters of blood plasma and about 8.4 liters of interstitial fluid, and about 23 liters of fluid inside cells. The content, acidity and composition of the water inside and outside cells is carefully maintained. The main electrolytes in body water outside cells are sodium and chloride, whereas within cells it is potassium and other phosphates.
Cells:
The body contains trillions of cells, the fundamental unit of life. At maturity, there are roughly 30–37 trillion cells in the body, an estimate arrived at by totalling the cell numbers of all the organs of the body and cell types. The body is also host to about the same number of non-human cells as well as multicellular organisms which reside in the gastrointestinal tract and on the skin. Not all parts of the body are made from cells.
Cells sit in an extracellular matrix that consists of proteins such as collagen, surrounded by extracellular fluids. Of the 70 kg weight of an average human body, nearly 25 kg is non-human cells or non-cellular material such as bone and connective tissue.
Cells in the body function because of DNA. DNA sits within the nucleus of a cell. Here, parts of DNA are copied and sent to the body of the cell via RNA. The RNA is then used to create proteins which form the basis for cells, their activity, and their products. Proteins dictate cell function and gene expression, a cell is able to self-regulate by the amount of proteins produced. However, not all cells have DNA – some cells such as mature red blood cells lose their nucleus as they mature.
Tissues:
The body consists of many different types of tissue, defined as cells that act with a specialized function. The study of tissues is called histology and often occurs with a microscope. The body consists of four main types of tissues – lining cells (epithelia), connective tissue, nervous tissue and muscle tissue.
Cells that lie on surfaces exposed to the outside world or gastrointestinal tract (epithelia) or internal cavities (endothelium) come in numerous shapes and forms – from single layers of flat cells, to cells with small beating hair-like cilia in the lungs, to column-like cells that line the stomach. Endothelial cells are cells that line internal cavities including blood vessels and glands. Lining cells regulate what can and can't pass through them, protect internal structures, and function as sensory surfaces
Organs:
See also: List of organs of the human body
Organs, structured collections of cells with a specific function, sit within the body. Examples include the heart, lungs and liver. Many organs reside within cavities within the body. These cavities include the abdomen and pleura.
Systems:
See also: List of systems of the human body
Circulatory System:
Pictured below: The Human Circulatory System as a Diagram of the human heart 1. Superior Vena Cava 2. 4. Mitral Valve 5. Aortic Valve 6. Left Ventricle 7. Right Ventricle 8. Left Atrium 9. Right Atrium 10. Aorta 11. Pulmonary Valve 12. Tricuspid Valve 13. Inferior Vena Cava (Courtesy of Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Main article: Circulatory system
The circulatory system comprises the heart and blood vessels (arteries, veins and capillaries).
The heart propels the circulation of the blood, which serves as a "transportation system" to transfer oxygen, fuel, nutrients, waste products, immune cells and signalling molecules (i.e., hormones) from one part of the body to another.
The blood consists of fluid that carries cells in the circulation, including some that move from tissue to blood vessels and back, as well as the spleen and bone marrow.
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Digestive System:
Pictured Below: Human Digestive System
The circulatory system comprises the heart and blood vessels (arteries, veins and capillaries).
The heart propels the circulation of the blood, which serves as a "transportation system" to transfer oxygen, fuel, nutrients, waste products, immune cells and signalling molecules (i.e., hormones) from one part of the body to another.
The blood consists of fluid that carries cells in the circulation, including some that move from tissue to blood vessels and back, as well as the spleen and bone marrow.
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Digestive System:
Pictured Below: Human Digestive System
Main article: Digestive system
The digestive system consists of the mouth including the following:
It converts food into small, nutritional, non-toxic molecules for distribution and absorption into the body.
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Human Endocrine System:
Pictured below: The Endocrine System
The digestive system consists of the mouth including the following:
- the tongue and teeth,
- esophagus,
- stomach,
- gastrointestinal tract,
- small and large intestines,
- rectum,
- liver,
- pancreas,
- gallbladder,
- and salivary glands.
It converts food into small, nutritional, non-toxic molecules for distribution and absorption into the body.
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Human Endocrine System:
Pictured below: The Endocrine System
Main article: Endocrine system
The endocrine system consists of the principal endocrine glands: the pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, pancreas, parathyroids, and gonads, but nearly all organs and tissues produce specific endocrine hormones as well. The endocrine hormones serve as signals from one body system to another regarding an enormous array of conditions, and resulting in variety of changes of function
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Human Immune System:
Pictured below: The Human Immune System
The endocrine system consists of the principal endocrine glands: the pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, pancreas, parathyroids, and gonads, but nearly all organs and tissues produce specific endocrine hormones as well. The endocrine hormones serve as signals from one body system to another regarding an enormous array of conditions, and resulting in variety of changes of function
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Human Immune System:
Pictured below: The Human Immune System
Main article: Immune system
The immune system consists of the white blood cells, the thymus, lymph nodes and lymph channels, which are also part of the lymphatic system. The immune system provides a mechanism for the body to distinguish its own cells and tissues from outside cells and substances and to neutralize or destroy the latter by using specialized proteins such as antibodies, cytokines, and toll-like receptors, among many others
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Pictured Below: Human Integumentary system
The immune system consists of the white blood cells, the thymus, lymph nodes and lymph channels, which are also part of the lymphatic system. The immune system provides a mechanism for the body to distinguish its own cells and tissues from outside cells and substances and to neutralize or destroy the latter by using specialized proteins such as antibodies, cytokines, and toll-like receptors, among many others
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Pictured Below: Human Integumentary system
Human Integumentary system
Main article: Integumentary system
The integumentary system consists of the covering of the body (the skin), including hair and nails as well as other functionally important structures such as the sweat glands and sebaceous glands. The skin provides containment, structure, and protection for other organs, and serves as a major sensory interface with the outside world.
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Pictured Below: Human Lymphatic System (Female)
Main article: Integumentary system
The integumentary system consists of the covering of the body (the skin), including hair and nails as well as other functionally important structures such as the sweat glands and sebaceous glands. The skin provides containment, structure, and protection for other organs, and serves as a major sensory interface with the outside world.
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Pictured Below: Human Lymphatic System (Female)
Human Lymphatic system
Main article: Lymphatic system
The lymphatic system extracts, transports and metabolizes lymph, the fluid found in between cells. The lymphatic system is similar to the circulatory system in terms of both its structure and its most basic function, to carry a body fluid.
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Pictured below: The Human Musculoskeletal system:
Main article: Lymphatic system
The lymphatic system extracts, transports and metabolizes lymph, the fluid found in between cells. The lymphatic system is similar to the circulatory system in terms of both its structure and its most basic function, to carry a body fluid.
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Pictured below: The Human Musculoskeletal system:
Musculoskeletal System
Main article: Musculoskeletal system
The musculoskeletal system consists of the human skeleton (which includes bones, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage) and attached muscles.
It gives the body basic structure and the ability for movement. In addition to their structural role, the larger bones in the body contain bone marrow, the site of production of blood cells.
Also, all bones are major storage sites for calcium and phosphate. This system can be split up into the muscular system and the skeletal system.
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Nervous system:
Main article: Nervous system
The nervous system consists of the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system consists of the nerves and ganglia outside the brain and spinal cord.
The brain is the organ of thought, emotion, memory, and sensory processing, and serves many aspects of communication and controls various systems and functions.
The special senses consist of vision, hearing, taste, and smell.
The eyes, ears, tongue, and nose gather information about the body's environment.
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Pictured Below: The Male and Female Reproductive Systems:
Main article: Musculoskeletal system
The musculoskeletal system consists of the human skeleton (which includes bones, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage) and attached muscles.
It gives the body basic structure and the ability for movement. In addition to their structural role, the larger bones in the body contain bone marrow, the site of production of blood cells.
Also, all bones are major storage sites for calcium and phosphate. This system can be split up into the muscular system and the skeletal system.
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Nervous system:
Main article: Nervous system
The nervous system consists of the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system consists of the nerves and ganglia outside the brain and spinal cord.
The brain is the organ of thought, emotion, memory, and sensory processing, and serves many aspects of communication and controls various systems and functions.
The special senses consist of vision, hearing, taste, and smell.
The eyes, ears, tongue, and nose gather information about the body's environment.
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Pictured Below: The Male and Female Reproductive Systems:
Reproductive system:
Main article: Human reproductive system
The reproductive system consists of the gonads and the internal and external sex organs.
The reproductive system produces gametes in each sex, a mechanism for their combination, and in the female a nurturing environment for the first 9 months of development of the infant.
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Pictured Below: Human Respiratory system
Main article: Human reproductive system
The reproductive system consists of the gonads and the internal and external sex organs.
The reproductive system produces gametes in each sex, a mechanism for their combination, and in the female a nurturing environment for the first 9 months of development of the infant.
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Pictured Below: Human Respiratory system
Human Respiratory system:
Main article: Respiratory system
The respiratory system consists of the nose, nasopharynx, trachea, and lungs. It brings oxygen from the air and excretes carbon dioxide and water back into the air.
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Pictured below: Human Urinary System
Main article: Respiratory system
The respiratory system consists of the nose, nasopharynx, trachea, and lungs. It brings oxygen from the air and excretes carbon dioxide and water back into the air.
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Pictured below: Human Urinary System
Human Urinary system:
Main article: Urinary system
The urinary system consists of the kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra. It removes toxic materials from the blood to produce urine, which carries a variety of waste molecules and excess ions and water out of the body.
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Pictured below: Human Anatomy.
Main article: Urinary system
The urinary system consists of the kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra. It removes toxic materials from the blood to produce urine, which carries a variety of waste molecules and excess ions and water out of the body.
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Pictured below: Human Anatomy.
Human Anatomy:
Main articles: Outline of human anatomy and Anatomy
Human anatomy is the study of the shape and form of the human body. The human body has four limbs (two arms and two legs), a head and a neck which connect to the torso.
The body's shape is determined by a strong skeleton made of bone and cartilage, surrounded by fat, muscle, connective tissue, organs, and other structures.
The spine at the back of the skeleton contains the flexible vertebral column which surrounds the spinal cord, which is a collection of nerve fibers connecting the brain to the rest of the body.
Nerves connect the spinal cord and brain to the rest of the body. All major bones, muscles, and nerves in the body are named, with the exception of anatomical variations such as sesamoid bones and accessory muscles.
Blood vessels carry blood throughout the body, which moves because of the beating of the heart. Venules and veins collect blood low in oxygen from tissues throughout the body. These collect in progressively larger veins until they reach the body's two largest veins, the superior and inferior vena cava, which drain blood into the right side of the heart.
From here, the blood is pumped into the lungs where it receives oxygen and drains back into the left side of the heart. From here, it is pumped into the body's largest artery, the aorta, and then progressively smaller arteries and arterioles until it reaches tissue.
Here blood passes from small arteries into capillaries, then small veins and the process begins again. Blood carries oxygen, waste products, and hormones from one place in the body to another. Blood is filtered at the kidneys and liver.
The body consists of a number of different cavities, separated areas which house different organ systems. The brain and central nervous system reside in an area protected from the rest of the body by the blood brain barrier.
The lungs sit in the pleural cavity. The intestines, liver, and spleen sit in the abdominal cavity.
Height, weight, shape and other body proportions vary individually and with age and sex. Body shape is influenced by the distribution of muscle and fat tissue.
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Pictured Below: Human Physiology.
Main articles: Outline of human anatomy and Anatomy
Human anatomy is the study of the shape and form of the human body. The human body has four limbs (two arms and two legs), a head and a neck which connect to the torso.
The body's shape is determined by a strong skeleton made of bone and cartilage, surrounded by fat, muscle, connective tissue, organs, and other structures.
The spine at the back of the skeleton contains the flexible vertebral column which surrounds the spinal cord, which is a collection of nerve fibers connecting the brain to the rest of the body.
Nerves connect the spinal cord and brain to the rest of the body. All major bones, muscles, and nerves in the body are named, with the exception of anatomical variations such as sesamoid bones and accessory muscles.
Blood vessels carry blood throughout the body, which moves because of the beating of the heart. Venules and veins collect blood low in oxygen from tissues throughout the body. These collect in progressively larger veins until they reach the body's two largest veins, the superior and inferior vena cava, which drain blood into the right side of the heart.
From here, the blood is pumped into the lungs where it receives oxygen and drains back into the left side of the heart. From here, it is pumped into the body's largest artery, the aorta, and then progressively smaller arteries and arterioles until it reaches tissue.
Here blood passes from small arteries into capillaries, then small veins and the process begins again. Blood carries oxygen, waste products, and hormones from one place in the body to another. Blood is filtered at the kidneys and liver.
The body consists of a number of different cavities, separated areas which house different organ systems. The brain and central nervous system reside in an area protected from the rest of the body by the blood brain barrier.
The lungs sit in the pleural cavity. The intestines, liver, and spleen sit in the abdominal cavity.
Height, weight, shape and other body proportions vary individually and with age and sex. Body shape is influenced by the distribution of muscle and fat tissue.
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Pictured Below: Human Physiology.
Human Physiology:
Main articles: Outline of physiology and Physiology
Human physiology is the study of how the human body functions. This includes the mechanical, physical, bioelectrical, and biochemical functions of humans in good health, from organs to the cells of which they are composed.
The human body consists of many interacting systems of organs. These interact to maintain homeostasis, keeping the body in a stable state with safe levels of substances such as sugar and oxygen in the blood.
Each system contributes to homeostasis, of itself, other systems, and the entire body. Some combined systems are referred to by joint names. For example, the nervous system and the endocrine system operate together as the neuroendocrine system.
The nervous system receives information from the body, and transmits this to the brain via nerve impulses and neurotransmitters. At the same time, the endocrine system releases hormones, such as to help regulate blood pressure and volume. Together, these systems regulate the internal environment of the body, maintaining blood flow, posture, energy supply, temperature, and acid balance (pH).
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Pictured: Stages of Human Development
Main articles: Outline of physiology and Physiology
Human physiology is the study of how the human body functions. This includes the mechanical, physical, bioelectrical, and biochemical functions of humans in good health, from organs to the cells of which they are composed.
The human body consists of many interacting systems of organs. These interact to maintain homeostasis, keeping the body in a stable state with safe levels of substances such as sugar and oxygen in the blood.
Each system contributes to homeostasis, of itself, other systems, and the entire body. Some combined systems are referred to by joint names. For example, the nervous system and the endocrine system operate together as the neuroendocrine system.
The nervous system receives information from the body, and transmits this to the brain via nerve impulses and neurotransmitters. At the same time, the endocrine system releases hormones, such as to help regulate blood pressure and volume. Together, these systems regulate the internal environment of the body, maintaining blood flow, posture, energy supply, temperature, and acid balance (pH).
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Pictured: Stages of Human Development
Human Development:
Main article: Human development (biology)
Human development is the process of growing to maturity. In biological terms, this entails growth from a one-celled zygote to an adult human being.
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Pictured Below: Human Health and Disease
Main article: Human development (biology)
Human development is the process of growing to maturity. In biological terms, this entails growth from a one-celled zygote to an adult human being.
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Pictured Below: Human Health and Disease
Health and disease:
Health is a difficult state to define, but relates to the self-defined perception of an individual and includes physical, mental, social and cultural factors. The absence or deficit of health is illness which includes disease and injury. Diseases cause symptoms felt, seen or perceived by a person, and signs which may be visible on a medical examination.
Illnesses may be from birth (congenital) or arise later in life (acquired). Acquired diseases may be contagious, caused or provoked by lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol use and diet, arise as the result of injury or trauma, or have a number of different mechanisms or provoking factors.
As life expectancy increases, many forms of cancer are becoming more common. Cancer refers to the uncontrolled proliferation of one or more cell types and occurs more commonly in some tissue types than others. Some forms of cancer have strong or known risk factors, whereas others may arise spontaneously.
Depending on the type of cancer, risk factors can include exposure to carcinogens and radiation, excessive alcohol or tobacco intake, age, and hormone imbalances in the body.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for common diseases impacting Mankind by Type of disease/disorder:
Diseases:
[End of Human Body Topics]
Health is a difficult state to define, but relates to the self-defined perception of an individual and includes physical, mental, social and cultural factors. The absence or deficit of health is illness which includes disease and injury. Diseases cause symptoms felt, seen or perceived by a person, and signs which may be visible on a medical examination.
Illnesses may be from birth (congenital) or arise later in life (acquired). Acquired diseases may be contagious, caused or provoked by lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol use and diet, arise as the result of injury or trauma, or have a number of different mechanisms or provoking factors.
As life expectancy increases, many forms of cancer are becoming more common. Cancer refers to the uncontrolled proliferation of one or more cell types and occurs more commonly in some tissue types than others. Some forms of cancer have strong or known risk factors, whereas others may arise spontaneously.
Depending on the type of cancer, risk factors can include exposure to carcinogens and radiation, excessive alcohol or tobacco intake, age, and hormone imbalances in the body.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for common diseases impacting Mankind by Type of disease/disorder:
Diseases:
- List of cancer types
- List of cutaneous conditions
- List of endocrine diseases
- List of eye diseases and disorders
- List of intestinal diseases
- List of infectious diseases
- List of human disease case fatality rates
- List of notifiable diseases - diseases that should be reported to public health services e.g.hospitals.
- List of communication disorders
- List of genetic disorders
- List of neurological disorders
- List of voice disorders
- List of vulvovaginal disorders
- List of liver disorders
- List of heart disorders
- Mental illness (alphabetical list)
- Category:Diseases and disorders
- Category:List of diseases
- List of disorders
- List of abbreviations for diseases and disorders
- Airborne disease, a disease that spreads through the air.
- Contagious disease, a subset of infectious diseases.
- Cryptogenic disease, a disease whose cause is currently unknown.
- Disseminated disease, a disease that is spread throughout the body.
- Environmental disease
- Lifestyle disease, a disease caused largely by lifestyle choices.
- Localized disease, a disease affecting one body part or area.
- Non-communicable disease, a disease that can't be spread between people.
- Organic disease
- Progressive disease, a disease that gets worse over time.
- Rare disease, a disease that affects very few people.
- Systemic disease, a disease affecting the whole body.
- List from National Institutes of Health
[End of Human Body Topics]
Human Emotions, including Categories of Emotion
YouTube Video of an Emotional Acting Scene by Marlon Brando in the 1951 Movie "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951 film)
Pictured Below:
(TOP) Examples of the type of emotions
(Bottom) Plutchik's wheel of emotions
Click here for a List of Emotions by Category (alphabetical A-Z)
Emotion is any conscious experience characterized by intense mental activity and a high degree of pleasure or displeasure. Scientific discourse has drifted to other meanings and there is no consensus on a definition.
Emotion is often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. In some theories, cognition is an important aspect of emotion. Those acting primarily on the emotions they are feeling may seem as if they are not thinking, but mental processes are still essential, particularly in the interpretation of events. For example, the realization of our believing that we are in a dangerous situation and the subsequent arousal of our body's nervous system (rapid heartbeat and breathing, sweating, muscle tension) is integral to the experience of our feeling afraid.
Other theories, however, claim that emotion is separate from and can precede cognition.
Emotions are complex. According to some theories, they are states of feeling that result in physical and psychological changes that influence our behavior.The physiology of emotion is closely linked to arousal of the nervous system with various states and strengths of arousal relating, apparently, to particular emotions.
Emotion is also linked to behavioral tendency. Extroverted people are more likely to be social and express their emotions, while introverted people are more likely to be more socially withdrawn and conceal their emotions.
Emotion is often the driving force behind motivation, positive or negative. According to other theories, emotions are not causal forces but simply syndromes of components, which might include motivation, feeling, behavior, and physiological changes, but no one of these components is the emotion. Nor is the emotion an entity that causes these components.
Emotions involve different components, such as subjective experience, cognitive processes, expressive behavior, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behavior. At one time, academics attempted to identify the emotion with one of the components: William James with a subjective experience, behaviorists with instrumental behavior, psychophysiologists with physiological changes, and so on.
More recently, emotion is said to consist of all the components. The different components of emotion are categorized somewhat differently depending on the academic discipline.
In psychology and philosophy, emotion typically includes a subjective, conscious experience characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states.
A similar multi-componential description of emotion is found in sociology. For example, Peggy Thoits described emotions as involving physiological components, cultural or emotional labels (anger, surprise, etc.), expressive body actions, and the appraisal of situations and contexts.
Research on emotion has increased significantly over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, medicine, history, sociology, and computer science.
The numerous theories that attempt to explain the origin, neurobiology, experience, and function of emotions have only fostered more intense research on this topic. Current areas of research in the concept of emotion include the development of materials that stimulate and elicit emotion. In addition PET scans and fMRI scans help study the affecting processes in the brain.
Emotions can be defined as a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity. Emotions produce different physiological, behavioral and cognitive changes. The original role of emotions was to motivate adaptive behaviors that in the past would have contributed to the survival of humans. Emotions are responses to significant internal and external events.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Human Emotions:
Emotion is any conscious experience characterized by intense mental activity and a high degree of pleasure or displeasure. Scientific discourse has drifted to other meanings and there is no consensus on a definition.
Emotion is often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. In some theories, cognition is an important aspect of emotion. Those acting primarily on the emotions they are feeling may seem as if they are not thinking, but mental processes are still essential, particularly in the interpretation of events. For example, the realization of our believing that we are in a dangerous situation and the subsequent arousal of our body's nervous system (rapid heartbeat and breathing, sweating, muscle tension) is integral to the experience of our feeling afraid.
Other theories, however, claim that emotion is separate from and can precede cognition.
Emotions are complex. According to some theories, they are states of feeling that result in physical and psychological changes that influence our behavior.The physiology of emotion is closely linked to arousal of the nervous system with various states and strengths of arousal relating, apparently, to particular emotions.
Emotion is also linked to behavioral tendency. Extroverted people are more likely to be social and express their emotions, while introverted people are more likely to be more socially withdrawn and conceal their emotions.
Emotion is often the driving force behind motivation, positive or negative. According to other theories, emotions are not causal forces but simply syndromes of components, which might include motivation, feeling, behavior, and physiological changes, but no one of these components is the emotion. Nor is the emotion an entity that causes these components.
Emotions involve different components, such as subjective experience, cognitive processes, expressive behavior, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behavior. At one time, academics attempted to identify the emotion with one of the components: William James with a subjective experience, behaviorists with instrumental behavior, psychophysiologists with physiological changes, and so on.
More recently, emotion is said to consist of all the components. The different components of emotion are categorized somewhat differently depending on the academic discipline.
In psychology and philosophy, emotion typically includes a subjective, conscious experience characterized primarily by psychophysiological expressions, biological reactions, and mental states.
A similar multi-componential description of emotion is found in sociology. For example, Peggy Thoits described emotions as involving physiological components, cultural or emotional labels (anger, surprise, etc.), expressive body actions, and the appraisal of situations and contexts.
Research on emotion has increased significantly over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, medicine, history, sociology, and computer science.
The numerous theories that attempt to explain the origin, neurobiology, experience, and function of emotions have only fostered more intense research on this topic. Current areas of research in the concept of emotion include the development of materials that stimulate and elicit emotion. In addition PET scans and fMRI scans help study the affecting processes in the brain.
Emotions can be defined as a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity. Emotions produce different physiological, behavioral and cognitive changes. The original role of emotions was to motivate adaptive behaviors that in the past would have contributed to the survival of humans. Emotions are responses to significant internal and external events.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Human Emotions:
- Etymology, definitions, and differentiation
- Components
- Classification
- Basic emotions
Multi-dimensional analysis
- Basic emotions
- Theories
- Ancient Greece, Ancient China, and the Middle Ages
Evolutionary theories
Somatic theories
Cognitive theories
Situated perspective on emotion
- Ancient Greece, Ancient China, and the Middle Ages
- Genetics
- Neurocircuitry
- Prefrontal cortex
Homeostatic/primordial emotion
- Prefrontal cortex
- Disciplinary approaches
- History
Sociology
Psychotherapy and regulation
Cross-cultural research
Computer science
- History
- Notable theorists
- See also:
- Affect measures
- Affective Computing
- Affective forecasting
- Affective neuroscience
- Affective science
- Cannon–Bard theory
- Contrasting and categorization of emotions
- CyberEmotions
- Donald B. Lindsley
- Emoticons
- Emotion classification
- Emotions and culture
- Emotion and memory
- Emotional expression
- Emotional climate
- Emotions in virtual communication
- Empathy
- Endocrinology
- Facial feedback hypothesis
- Facial Action Coding System
- Fear
- Feeling
- Fuzzy-trace theory
- Group emotion
- International Affective Picture System
- James–Lange theory
- List of emotions
- Measuring Emotions
- Neuroendocrinology
- Two-factor theory of emotion
- Sociology of emotions
- Social emotion
- Social neuroscience
- Social sharing of emotions
- Somatic markers hypothesis
- Yerkes–Dodson law
- The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Theories of Emotion
- The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Emotion
Human Intelligence including IQ
YouTube Video: The next species of human | Juan Enriquez TED
YouTube Video: Augmenting Human Intelligence by IBM Research*
* -- IBM Research: Dr. John Kelly, Senior Vice President, Solutions Portfolio & Research at IBM kicks off the 2015 Cognitive Era Colloquium at RPI by introducing the concept of machines augmenting human intelligence - including behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the making of IBM Watson.
Human intelligence is the intellectual prowess of humans, which is marked by high cognition, motivation, and self-awareness. Through their intelligence, humans possess the cognitive abilities to learn form concepts, understand, apply logic, and reason, including the capacities to recognize patterns, comprehend ideas, plan, problem solve, make decisions, retain information, and use language to communicate. Intelligence enables humans to experience and think.
A number of studies have shown a correlation between IQ and myopia. Some suggest that the reason for the correlation is environmental, whereby intelligent people are more likely to damage their eyesight with prolonged reading, while others contend that a genetic link exists.
Theories of Intelligence:
There are critics of IQ, who do not dispute the stability of IQ test scores, or the fact that they predict certain forms of achievement rather effectively. They do argue, however, that to base a concept of intelligence on IQ test scores alone is to ignore many important aspects of mental ability.
On the other hand, Linda S. Gottfredson (2006) has argued that the results of thousands of studies support the importance of IQ for school and job performance (see also the work of Schmidt & Hunter, 2004).
She says that IQ also predicts or correlates with numerous other life outcomes. In contrast, empirical support for non-g intelligence is lacking or very poor.
She argued that despite this the ideas of multiple non-g intelligence are very attractive to many because they suggest that everyone can be intelligent in some way.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about individual Theories of Intelligence:
Improving intelligence
Further information: Neuroenhancement and Intelligence amplification
Measuring intelligence:
Main articles: Intelligence quotient (IQ) and Psychometrics
The approach to understanding intelligence with the most supporters and published research over the longest period of time is based on psychometric testing. It is also by far the most widely used in practical settings. Intelligence quotient (IQ) tests include:
There are also psychometric tests that are not intended to measure intelligence itself but some closely related construct such as scholastic aptitude. In the United States examples include the following:
Regardless of the method used, almost any test that requires examinees to reason and has a wide range of question difficulty will produce intelligence scores that are approximately normally distributed in the general population.
Intelligence tests are widely used in educational, business, and military settings because of their efficacy in predicting behavior. IQ and g (discussed in the next section) are correlated with many important social outcomes—individuals with low IQs are more likely to be divorced, have a child out of marriage, be incarcerated, and need long-term welfare support, while individuals with high IQs are associated with more years of education, higher status jobs and higher income.
Intelligence is significantly correlated with successful training and performance outcomes, and IQ/g is the single best predictor of successful job performance.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Human Intelligence:
A number of studies have shown a correlation between IQ and myopia. Some suggest that the reason for the correlation is environmental, whereby intelligent people are more likely to damage their eyesight with prolonged reading, while others contend that a genetic link exists.
Theories of Intelligence:
There are critics of IQ, who do not dispute the stability of IQ test scores, or the fact that they predict certain forms of achievement rather effectively. They do argue, however, that to base a concept of intelligence on IQ test scores alone is to ignore many important aspects of mental ability.
On the other hand, Linda S. Gottfredson (2006) has argued that the results of thousands of studies support the importance of IQ for school and job performance (see also the work of Schmidt & Hunter, 2004).
She says that IQ also predicts or correlates with numerous other life outcomes. In contrast, empirical support for non-g intelligence is lacking or very poor.
She argued that despite this the ideas of multiple non-g intelligence are very attractive to many because they suggest that everyone can be intelligent in some way.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about individual Theories of Intelligence:
- Theory of multiple intelligence:
- Main article: Theory of multiple intelligences
- Triarchic theory of intelligence:
- Main article: Triarchic theory of intelligence
- PASS theory of intelligence
- Main article: PASS Theory of Intelligence
- Piaget's theory and Neo-Piagetian theories
- Parieto-frontal integration theory of intelligence:
- Main article: Parieto-frontal integration theory.
- Investment theory.
- Intelligence Compensation Theory (ICT).
- Bandura's theory of self-efficacy and cognition.
- Process, Personality, Intelligence & Knowledge theory (PPIK).
- Latent inhibition:
- Main article: Latent inhibition
- Latent inhibition has been related to elements of intelligence, namely creativity and genius.
Improving intelligence
Further information: Neuroenhancement and Intelligence amplification
Measuring intelligence:
Main articles: Intelligence quotient (IQ) and Psychometrics
The approach to understanding intelligence with the most supporters and published research over the longest period of time is based on psychometric testing. It is also by far the most widely used in practical settings. Intelligence quotient (IQ) tests include:
- the Stanford-Binet,
- Raven's Progressive Matrices,
- the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
- and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children.
There are also psychometric tests that are not intended to measure intelligence itself but some closely related construct such as scholastic aptitude. In the United States examples include the following:
Regardless of the method used, almost any test that requires examinees to reason and has a wide range of question difficulty will produce intelligence scores that are approximately normally distributed in the general population.
Intelligence tests are widely used in educational, business, and military settings because of their efficacy in predicting behavior. IQ and g (discussed in the next section) are correlated with many important social outcomes—individuals with low IQs are more likely to be divorced, have a child out of marriage, be incarcerated, and need long-term welfare support, while individuals with high IQs are associated with more years of education, higher status jobs and higher income.
Intelligence is significantly correlated with successful training and performance outcomes, and IQ/g is the single best predictor of successful job performance.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Human Intelligence:
- General intelligence factor or g
- General collective intelligence factor or c
- Historical psychometric theories
- Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory
- Controversies
- See also:
Metabolism including Aging, Basal Metabolic Rate, and Nutrition*
* -- Article by The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
YouTube Video: Losing Weight Over 50 - How To Get Thin Now That Life Has Changed
Pictured: Diagrammatic overview of molecular and cellular changes during skeletal muscle aging. The flowchart summarizes major age-related changes in contractile patterns and muscle metabolism as revealed by proteomic analyses of young adult vs. middle-aged vs. aged human vastus lateralis muscle. (Courtesy of Spandidos Publications)
Article by NCBI: Aging, basal metabolic rate, and nutrition
"Age is one of the most important factor of changes in energy metabolism. The basal metabolic rate decreases almost linearly with age. Skeletal musculature is a fundamental organ that consumes the largest part of energy in the normal human body.
The total volume of skeletal muscle can be estimated by 24-hours creatinine excretion. The volume of skeletal musculature decreases and the percentage of fat tissue increases with age.
It is shown that the decrease in muscle mass relative to total body may be wholly responsible for the age-related decreases in basal metabolic rate. Energy consumption by physical activity also decreases with atrophic changes of skeletal muscle. Thus, energy requirement in the elderly decreases.
With decrease of energy intake, intake of essential nutrients also decreases. If energy intake, on the other hand, exceeds individual energy needs, fat accumulates in the body. Body fat tends to accumulate in the abdomen in the elderly.
Fat tissue in the abdominal cavity is connected directly with the liver through portal vein. Accumulation of abdominal fat causes disturbance in glucose and lipid metabolism. It is shown that glucose tolerance decreases with age.
Although age contributes independently to the deterioration in glucose tolerance, the decrease in glucose tolerance may be partly prevented through changes of life-style variables, energy metabolism is essential for the physiological functions. It may also be possible to delay the aging process of various physiological functions by change of dietary habits, stopping smoking, and physical activity." [End of Article]
Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical transformations within the cells of living organisms.
The three main purposes of metabolism are the conversion of food/fuel to energy to run cellular processes, the conversion of food/fuel to building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates, and the elimination of nitrogenous wastes.
These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. The word metabolism can also refer to the sum of all chemical reactions that occur in living organisms, including digestion and the transport of substances into and between different cells, in which case the set of reactions within the cells is called intermediary metabolism or intermediate metabolism.
Metabolism is usually divided into two categories: catabolism, the breaking down of organic matter for example, the breaking down of glucose to pyruvate, by cellular respiration, and anabolism, the building up of components of cells such as proteins and nucleic acids.
Usually, breaking down releases energy and building up consumes energy.
The chemical reactions of metabolism are organized into metabolic pathways, in which one chemical is transformed through a series of steps into another chemical, by a sequence of enzymes.
Enzymes are crucial to metabolism because they allow organisms to drive desirable reactions that require energy that will not occur by themselves, by coupling them to spontaneous reactions that release energy. Enzymes act as catalysts that allow the reactions to proceed more rapidly. Enzymes also allow the regulation of metabolic pathways in response to changes in the cell's environment or to signals from other cells.
The metabolic system of a particular organism determines which substances it will find nutritious and which poisonous. For example, some prokaryotes use hydrogen sulfide as a nutrient, yet this gas is poisonous to animals.The speed of metabolism, the metabolic rate, influences how much food an organism will require, and also affects how it is able to obtain that food.
A striking feature of metabolism is the similarity of the basic metabolic pathways and components between even vastly different species. For example, the set of carboxylic acids that are best known as the intermediates in the citric acid cycle are present in all known organisms, being found in species as diverse as the unicellular bacterium Escherichia coli and huge multi-cellular organisms like elephants. These striking similarities in metabolic pathways are likely due to their early appearance in evolutionary history, and their retention because of their efficacy.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Metabolism:
"Age is one of the most important factor of changes in energy metabolism. The basal metabolic rate decreases almost linearly with age. Skeletal musculature is a fundamental organ that consumes the largest part of energy in the normal human body.
The total volume of skeletal muscle can be estimated by 24-hours creatinine excretion. The volume of skeletal musculature decreases and the percentage of fat tissue increases with age.
It is shown that the decrease in muscle mass relative to total body may be wholly responsible for the age-related decreases in basal metabolic rate. Energy consumption by physical activity also decreases with atrophic changes of skeletal muscle. Thus, energy requirement in the elderly decreases.
With decrease of energy intake, intake of essential nutrients also decreases. If energy intake, on the other hand, exceeds individual energy needs, fat accumulates in the body. Body fat tends to accumulate in the abdomen in the elderly.
Fat tissue in the abdominal cavity is connected directly with the liver through portal vein. Accumulation of abdominal fat causes disturbance in glucose and lipid metabolism. It is shown that glucose tolerance decreases with age.
Although age contributes independently to the deterioration in glucose tolerance, the decrease in glucose tolerance may be partly prevented through changes of life-style variables, energy metabolism is essential for the physiological functions. It may also be possible to delay the aging process of various physiological functions by change of dietary habits, stopping smoking, and physical activity." [End of Article]
Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical transformations within the cells of living organisms.
The three main purposes of metabolism are the conversion of food/fuel to energy to run cellular processes, the conversion of food/fuel to building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates, and the elimination of nitrogenous wastes.
These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. The word metabolism can also refer to the sum of all chemical reactions that occur in living organisms, including digestion and the transport of substances into and between different cells, in which case the set of reactions within the cells is called intermediary metabolism or intermediate metabolism.
Metabolism is usually divided into two categories: catabolism, the breaking down of organic matter for example, the breaking down of glucose to pyruvate, by cellular respiration, and anabolism, the building up of components of cells such as proteins and nucleic acids.
Usually, breaking down releases energy and building up consumes energy.
The chemical reactions of metabolism are organized into metabolic pathways, in which one chemical is transformed through a series of steps into another chemical, by a sequence of enzymes.
Enzymes are crucial to metabolism because they allow organisms to drive desirable reactions that require energy that will not occur by themselves, by coupling them to spontaneous reactions that release energy. Enzymes act as catalysts that allow the reactions to proceed more rapidly. Enzymes also allow the regulation of metabolic pathways in response to changes in the cell's environment or to signals from other cells.
The metabolic system of a particular organism determines which substances it will find nutritious and which poisonous. For example, some prokaryotes use hydrogen sulfide as a nutrient, yet this gas is poisonous to animals.The speed of metabolism, the metabolic rate, influences how much food an organism will require, and also affects how it is able to obtain that food.
A striking feature of metabolism is the similarity of the basic metabolic pathways and components between even vastly different species. For example, the set of carboxylic acids that are best known as the intermediates in the citric acid cycle are present in all known organisms, being found in species as diverse as the unicellular bacterium Escherichia coli and huge multi-cellular organisms like elephants. These striking similarities in metabolic pathways are likely due to their early appearance in evolutionary history, and their retention because of their efficacy.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Metabolism:
- Key biochemicals
- Amino acids and proteins
Lipids
Carbohydrates
Nucleotides
Coenzymes
Minerals and cofactors
- Amino acids and proteins
- Catabolism
- Digestion
Energy from organic compounds
- Digestion
- Energy transformations
- Oxidative phosphorylation
Energy from inorganic compounds
Energy from light
- Oxidative phosphorylation
- Anabolism
- Carbon fixation
Carbohydrates and glycans
Fatty acids, isoprenoids and steroids
Proteins
Nucleotide synthesis and salvage
- Carbon fixation
- Xenobiotics and redox metabolism
- Thermodynamics of living organisms
- Regulation and control
- Evolution
- Investigation and manipulation
- History
- See also:
- Anthropogenic metabolism
- Antimetabolite
- Basal metabolic rate
- Calorimetry
- Isothermal microcalorimetry
- Inborn error of metabolism
- Iron-sulfur world theory, a "metabolism first" theory of the origin of life
- Metabolic disorder
- Primary nutritional groups
- Respirometry
- Stream metabolism
- Sulfur metabolism
- Thermic effect of food
- Urban metabolism
- Water metabolism
- General information
- Sparknotes SAT biochemistry Overview of biochemistry. School level.
- MIT Biology Hypertextbook Undergraduate-level guide to molecular biology.
- Human metabolism
- Topics in Medical Biochemistry Guide to human metabolic pathways. School level.
- THE Medical Biochemistry Page Comprehensive resource on human metabolism.
- Databases
- Metabolic pathways
- Metabolism reference Pathway
- The Nitrogen cycle and Nitrogen fixation at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
The Human Brain and Human Behavior
Video about the Human Brain: by Allan Jones, TED Talk | TED.com (Click on Arrow to start Video)
The human brain is the central organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum.
The brain controls most of the activities of the body, processing, integrating, and coordinating the information it receives from the sense organs, and making decisions as to the instructions sent to the rest of the body. The brain is contained in, and protected by, the skull bones of the head.
The cerebrum is the largest part of the human brain. It is divided into two cerebral hemispheres. The cerebral cortex is an outer layer of grey matter, covering the core of white matter. The cortex is split into the neocortex and the much smaller allocortex. The neocortex is made up of six neuronal layers, while the allocortex has three or four. Each hemisphere is conventionally divided into four lobes – the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes.
The frontal lobe is associated with executive functions including self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought, while the occipital lobe is dedicated to vision. Within each lobe, cortical areas are associated with specific functions, such as the sensory, a motor and association regions. Although the left and right hemispheres are broadly similar in shape and function, some functions are associated with one side, such as language in the left and visual-spatial ability in the right. The hemispheres are connected by nerve tracts, the largest being the corpus callosum.
The cerebrum is connected by the brainstem to the spinal cord. The brainstem consists of the midbrain, the pons, and the medulla oblongata. The cerebellum is connected to the brain stem by pairs of tracts.
Within the cerebrum is the ventricular system, consisting of four interconnected ventricles in which cerebrospinal fluid is produced and circulated.
Underneath the cerebral cortex are several important structures, including
The cells of the brain include neurons and supportive glial cells. There are more than 86 billion neurons in the brain, and a more or less equal number of other cells. Brain activity is made possible by the interconnections of neurons and their release of neurotransmitters in response to nerve impulses.
Neurons form elaborate neural networks of neural pathways and circuits. The whole circuitry is driven by the process of neurotransmission.
The brain is protected by the skull, suspended in cerebrospinal fluid, and isolated from the bloodstream by the blood–brain barrier. However, the brain is still susceptible to damage, disease, and infection. Damage can be caused by trauma, or a loss of blood supply known as a stroke.
The brain is also susceptible to degenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, dementias including Alzheimer's disease, and multiple sclerosis. Psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and clinical depression, are thought to be associated with brain dysfunctions.
The brain can also be the site of tumours, both benign and malignant; these last mostly originate from other sites in the body. The study of the anatomy of the brain is neuroanatomy, while the study of its function is neuroscience.
A number of techniques are used to study the brain. Specimens from other animals, which may be examined microscopically, have traditionally provided much information. Medical imaging technologies such as functional neuroimaging, and electroencephalography (EEG) recordings are important in studying the brain.
The medical history of people with brain injury has provided insight into the function of each part of the brain.
In culture, the philosophy of mind has for centuries attempted to address the question of the nature of consciousness and the mind-body problem.
The pseudoscience of phrenology attempted to localize personality attributes to regions of the cortex in the 19th century. In science fiction, brain transplants are imagined in tales such as the 1942 Donovan's Brain.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Human Brain:
YouTube Video: Science of Persuasion*
* -- by Robert Cialdini: Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University has spent his entire career researching the science of influence earning him a worldwide reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation. Dr. Cialdini’s books, including Influence: Science & Practice and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, are the result of decades of peer-reviewed published research on why people comply with requests. Influence has sold over 3 million copies, is a New York Times Bestseller and has been published in 30 languages. Because of the world-wide recognition of Dr. Cialdini’s cutting edge scientific research and his ethical business and policy applications, he is frequently regarded as the “Godfather of influence.”
To inquire about Dr. Robert Cialdini’s speaking, Steve Martin, CMCT or any of our other Cialdini Method Certified Trainers (CMCTs) please contact INFLUENCE AT WORK at 480.967.6070 or info@influenceatwork.com.
Human behavior refers to the array of every physical action and observable emotion associated with individuals, as well as the human race. While specific traits of one's personality and temperament may be more consistent, other behaviors will change as one moves from birth through adulthood.
In addition to being dictated by age and genetics, behavior, driven in part by thoughts and feelings, is an insight into individual psyche, revealing among other things attitudes and values. Social behavior, a subset of human behavior, study the considerable influence of social interaction and culture. Additional influences include ethics, encircling, authority, rapport, hypnosis, persuasion and coercion.
The behavior of humans (and other organisms or even mechanisms) falls within a range with some behavior being common, some unusual, some acceptable, and some beyond acceptable limits.
In sociology, behavior in general includes actions having no meaning, being not directed at other people, and thus all basic human actions. Behavior in this general sense should not be mistaken with social behavior, which is a more advanced social action, specifically directed at other people.
The acceptability of behavior depends heavily upon social norms and is regulated by various means of social control. Human behavior is studied by the specialized academic disciplines including:
Human behavior is experienced throughout an individual’s entire lifetime. It includes the way they act based on different factors such as genetics, social norms, core faith, and attitude.
Behavior is impacted by certain traits each individual has. The traits vary from person to person and can produce different actions or behavior from each person. Social norms also impact behavior.
Due to the inherently conformist nature of human society in general, humans are pressured into following certain rules and displaying certain behaviors in society, which conditions the way people behave.
Different behaviors are deemed to be either acceptable or unacceptable in different societies and cultures. Core faith can be perceived through the religion and philosophy of that individual. It shapes the way a person thinks and this in turn results in different human behaviors.
Attitude can be defined as "the degree to which the person has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the behavior in question." One's attitude is essentially a reflection of the behavior he or she will portray in specific situations. Thus, human behavior is greatly influenced by the attitudes we use on a daily basis.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Human Behavior:
The brain controls most of the activities of the body, processing, integrating, and coordinating the information it receives from the sense organs, and making decisions as to the instructions sent to the rest of the body. The brain is contained in, and protected by, the skull bones of the head.
The cerebrum is the largest part of the human brain. It is divided into two cerebral hemispheres. The cerebral cortex is an outer layer of grey matter, covering the core of white matter. The cortex is split into the neocortex and the much smaller allocortex. The neocortex is made up of six neuronal layers, while the allocortex has three or four. Each hemisphere is conventionally divided into four lobes – the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes.
The frontal lobe is associated with executive functions including self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought, while the occipital lobe is dedicated to vision. Within each lobe, cortical areas are associated with specific functions, such as the sensory, a motor and association regions. Although the left and right hemispheres are broadly similar in shape and function, some functions are associated with one side, such as language in the left and visual-spatial ability in the right. The hemispheres are connected by nerve tracts, the largest being the corpus callosum.
The cerebrum is connected by the brainstem to the spinal cord. The brainstem consists of the midbrain, the pons, and the medulla oblongata. The cerebellum is connected to the brain stem by pairs of tracts.
Within the cerebrum is the ventricular system, consisting of four interconnected ventricles in which cerebrospinal fluid is produced and circulated.
Underneath the cerebral cortex are several important structures, including
- the thalamus,
- the epithalamus,
- the pineal gland,
- the hypothalamus,
- the pituitary gland,
- the subthalamus;
- the limbic structures, including
- the amygdala and the hippocampus;
- the claustrum,
- the various nuclei of the basal ganglia;
- and the basal forebrain structures, and the three circumventricular organs.
The cells of the brain include neurons and supportive glial cells. There are more than 86 billion neurons in the brain, and a more or less equal number of other cells. Brain activity is made possible by the interconnections of neurons and their release of neurotransmitters in response to nerve impulses.
Neurons form elaborate neural networks of neural pathways and circuits. The whole circuitry is driven by the process of neurotransmission.
The brain is protected by the skull, suspended in cerebrospinal fluid, and isolated from the bloodstream by the blood–brain barrier. However, the brain is still susceptible to damage, disease, and infection. Damage can be caused by trauma, or a loss of blood supply known as a stroke.
The brain is also susceptible to degenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, dementias including Alzheimer's disease, and multiple sclerosis. Psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and clinical depression, are thought to be associated with brain dysfunctions.
The brain can also be the site of tumours, both benign and malignant; these last mostly originate from other sites in the body. The study of the anatomy of the brain is neuroanatomy, while the study of its function is neuroscience.
A number of techniques are used to study the brain. Specimens from other animals, which may be examined microscopically, have traditionally provided much information. Medical imaging technologies such as functional neuroimaging, and electroencephalography (EEG) recordings are important in studying the brain.
The medical history of people with brain injury has provided insight into the function of each part of the brain.
In culture, the philosophy of mind has for centuries attempted to address the question of the nature of consciousness and the mind-body problem.
The pseudoscience of phrenology attempted to localize personality attributes to regions of the cortex in the 19th century. In science fiction, brain transplants are imagined in tales such as the 1942 Donovan's Brain.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Human Brain:
- Structure
- Gross anatomy
Microanatomy
Cerebrospinal fluid
Blood supply
- Gross anatomy
- Development
- Function
- Motor control
Sensory
Regulation
Language
Lateralisation
Emotion
Cognition
- Motor control
- Physiology
- Neurotransmission
Metabolism
- Neurotransmission
- Research
- Methods
Imaging
- Methods
- Clinical significance
- Society and culture
- The mind
Brain size
In popular culture
- The mind
- History
- Comparative anatomy
- See also:
YouTube Video: Science of Persuasion*
* -- by Robert Cialdini: Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University has spent his entire career researching the science of influence earning him a worldwide reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation. Dr. Cialdini’s books, including Influence: Science & Practice and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, are the result of decades of peer-reviewed published research on why people comply with requests. Influence has sold over 3 million copies, is a New York Times Bestseller and has been published in 30 languages. Because of the world-wide recognition of Dr. Cialdini’s cutting edge scientific research and his ethical business and policy applications, he is frequently regarded as the “Godfather of influence.”
To inquire about Dr. Robert Cialdini’s speaking, Steve Martin, CMCT or any of our other Cialdini Method Certified Trainers (CMCTs) please contact INFLUENCE AT WORK at 480.967.6070 or info@influenceatwork.com.
Human behavior refers to the array of every physical action and observable emotion associated with individuals, as well as the human race. While specific traits of one's personality and temperament may be more consistent, other behaviors will change as one moves from birth through adulthood.
In addition to being dictated by age and genetics, behavior, driven in part by thoughts and feelings, is an insight into individual psyche, revealing among other things attitudes and values. Social behavior, a subset of human behavior, study the considerable influence of social interaction and culture. Additional influences include ethics, encircling, authority, rapport, hypnosis, persuasion and coercion.
The behavior of humans (and other organisms or even mechanisms) falls within a range with some behavior being common, some unusual, some acceptable, and some beyond acceptable limits.
In sociology, behavior in general includes actions having no meaning, being not directed at other people, and thus all basic human actions. Behavior in this general sense should not be mistaken with social behavior, which is a more advanced social action, specifically directed at other people.
The acceptability of behavior depends heavily upon social norms and is regulated by various means of social control. Human behavior is studied by the specialized academic disciplines including:
Human behavior is experienced throughout an individual’s entire lifetime. It includes the way they act based on different factors such as genetics, social norms, core faith, and attitude.
Behavior is impacted by certain traits each individual has. The traits vary from person to person and can produce different actions or behavior from each person. Social norms also impact behavior.
Due to the inherently conformist nature of human society in general, humans are pressured into following certain rules and displaying certain behaviors in society, which conditions the way people behave.
Different behaviors are deemed to be either acceptable or unacceptable in different societies and cultures. Core faith can be perceived through the religion and philosophy of that individual. It shapes the way a person thinks and this in turn results in different human behaviors.
Attitude can be defined as "the degree to which the person has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the behavior in question." One's attitude is essentially a reflection of the behavior he or she will portray in specific situations. Thus, human behavior is greatly influenced by the attitudes we use on a daily basis.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Human Behavior:
- Factors
- See also:
Human Nature
YouTube Video: RSA ANIMATE: Language as a Window into Human Nature
(In this new RSA Animate, renowned experimental psychologist Steven Pinker shows us how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings. Taken from the RSA's free public events programme www.thersa.org/events.
Pictured: Human nature: Six things we all do
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—which humans tend to have naturally, independently of the influence of culture.
The questions of what these characteristics are, how fixed they are, and what causes them are among the oldest and most important questions in philosophy and science.
These questions have particularly important implications in ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life.
The complex implications of such questions are also dealt with in art and literature, while the multiple branches of the humanities together form an important domain of inquiry into human nature and into the question of what it is to be human.
The branches of contemporary science associated with the study of human nature include anthropology, sociology, sociobiology, and psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology, which studies sexual selection in human evolution, as well as developmental psychology.
The "nature versus nurture" debate is a broadly inclusive and well-known instance of a discussion about human nature in the natural sciences.
These questions have particularly important implications in ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life. The complex implications of such questions are also dealt with in art and literature, the question of what it is to be human.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification:
The questions of what these characteristics are, how fixed they are, and what causes them are among the oldest and most important questions in philosophy and science.
These questions have particularly important implications in ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life.
The complex implications of such questions are also dealt with in art and literature, while the multiple branches of the humanities together form an important domain of inquiry into human nature and into the question of what it is to be human.
The branches of contemporary science associated with the study of human nature include anthropology, sociology, sociobiology, and psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology, which studies sexual selection in human evolution, as well as developmental psychology.
The "nature versus nurture" debate is a broadly inclusive and well-known instance of a discussion about human nature in the natural sciences.
These questions have particularly important implications in ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life. The complex implications of such questions are also dealt with in art and literature, the question of what it is to be human.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification:
- Overview
- Classical Greek philosophy
- Christian theology
- Created human nature
- Fallen human nature, including:
- Empirical view
- Realistic view
- Regenerated human nature
- Total transformation
- Modernism
- Natural science
- See also:
Mental Disorders, including a List of Mental Disorders
YouTube Video: The Truth about Mental Health Disorders
Pictured: Common Mental Disorders for (L) Adults and (R) Children
Click here for a List of Mental Disorders.
A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that may cause suffering or a poor ability to function in life.
Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitting, or occur as a single episode. Many disorders have been described, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. Such disorders may be diagnosed by a mental health professional.
The causes of mental disorders are often unclear. Theories may incorporate findings from a range of fields. Mental disorders are usually defined by a combination of how a person behaves, feels, perceives, or thinks.
This may be associated with particular regions or functions of the brain, often in a social context. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health. Cultural and religious beliefs, as well as social norms, should be taken into account when making a diagnosis.
Services are based in psychiatric hospitals or in the community, and assessments are carried out by psychiatrists, psychologists, and clinical social workers, using various methods but often relying on observation and questioning.
Treatments are provided by various mental health professionals. Psychotherapy and psychiatric medication are two major treatment options.
Other treatments include social interventions, peer support, and self-help. In a minority of cases there might be involuntary detention or treatment. Prevention programs have been shown to reduce depression.
Common mental disorders include depression, which affects about 400 million, dementia which affects about 35 million, and schizophrenia, which affects about 21 million people globally.
Stigma and discrimination can add to the suffering and disability associated with mental disorders, leading to various social movements attempting to increase understanding and challenge social exclusion.
The definition and classification of mental disorders are key issues for researchers as well as service providers and those who may be diagnosed. For a mental state to classify as a disorder, it generally needs to cause dysfunction. Most international clinical documents use the term mental "disorder", while "illness" is also common. It has been noted that using the term "mental" (i.e., of the mind) is not necessarily meant to imply separateness from brain or body.
According to DSM-IV, a mental disorder is a psychological syndrome or pattern which is associated with distress (e.g. via a painful symptom), disability (impairment in one or more important areas of functioning), increased risk of death, or causes a significant loss of autonomy; however it excludes normal responses such as grief from loss of a loved one, and also excludes deviant behavior for political, religious, or societal reasons not arising from a dysfunction in the individual.
DSM-IV precedes the definition with caveats, stating that, as in the case with many medical terms, mental disorder "lacks a consistent operational definition that covers all situations", noting that different levels of abstraction can be used for medical definitions, including pathology, symptomology, deviance from a normal range, or etiology, and that the same is true for mental disorders, so that sometimes one type of definition is appropriate, and sometimes another, depending on the situation.
In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) redefined mental disorders in the DSM-5 as "a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.”
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Mental Disorders:
A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that may cause suffering or a poor ability to function in life.
Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitting, or occur as a single episode. Many disorders have been described, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. Such disorders may be diagnosed by a mental health professional.
The causes of mental disorders are often unclear. Theories may incorporate findings from a range of fields. Mental disorders are usually defined by a combination of how a person behaves, feels, perceives, or thinks.
This may be associated with particular regions or functions of the brain, often in a social context. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health. Cultural and religious beliefs, as well as social norms, should be taken into account when making a diagnosis.
Services are based in psychiatric hospitals or in the community, and assessments are carried out by psychiatrists, psychologists, and clinical social workers, using various methods but often relying on observation and questioning.
Treatments are provided by various mental health professionals. Psychotherapy and psychiatric medication are two major treatment options.
Other treatments include social interventions, peer support, and self-help. In a minority of cases there might be involuntary detention or treatment. Prevention programs have been shown to reduce depression.
Common mental disorders include depression, which affects about 400 million, dementia which affects about 35 million, and schizophrenia, which affects about 21 million people globally.
Stigma and discrimination can add to the suffering and disability associated with mental disorders, leading to various social movements attempting to increase understanding and challenge social exclusion.
The definition and classification of mental disorders are key issues for researchers as well as service providers and those who may be diagnosed. For a mental state to classify as a disorder, it generally needs to cause dysfunction. Most international clinical documents use the term mental "disorder", while "illness" is also common. It has been noted that using the term "mental" (i.e., of the mind) is not necessarily meant to imply separateness from brain or body.
According to DSM-IV, a mental disorder is a psychological syndrome or pattern which is associated with distress (e.g. via a painful symptom), disability (impairment in one or more important areas of functioning), increased risk of death, or causes a significant loss of autonomy; however it excludes normal responses such as grief from loss of a loved one, and also excludes deviant behavior for political, religious, or societal reasons not arising from a dysfunction in the individual.
DSM-IV precedes the definition with caveats, stating that, as in the case with many medical terms, mental disorder "lacks a consistent operational definition that covers all situations", noting that different levels of abstraction can be used for medical definitions, including pathology, symptomology, deviance from a normal range, or etiology, and that the same is true for mental disorders, so that sometimes one type of definition is appropriate, and sometimes another, depending on the situation.
In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) redefined mental disorders in the DSM-5 as "a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.”
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Mental Disorders:
- Classifications
- Disorders
- Signs and symptoms
- Causes
- Drugs
Genetics
Models
- Drugs
- Diagnosis
- Prevention
- Depression
Anxiety
Psychosis
Mental health strategies
Prevention programmes
Targeted vs universal
- Depression
- Management
- Psychotherapy
Medication
Other
- Psychotherapy
- Epidemiology
- History
- Ancient civilizations
Europe
Europe and the U.S.
- Ancient civilizations
- Society and culture
- Religion
Movements
Cultural bias
Laws and policies
Perception and discrimination
- Religion
- Mental health
- See also:
- Erving Goffman
- Mental illness portrayed in media
- Mental illness in American prisons
- National Institute of Mental Health
- Psychological evaluation
- Parity of esteem
- NIMH.NIH.gov – National Institute of Mental Health
- International Committee of Women Leaders on Mental Health
- Psychology Dictionary
- Metapsychology Online Reviews: Mental Health
- The New York Times: Mental Health & Disorders
- The Guardian: Mental Health
- Perring, Christian (22 February 2010). "Mental Illness". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- "Insane, Statistics of". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
- Adverse Childhood Experiences: Risk Factors for Substance Misuse and Mental Health Dr. Robert Anda of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control describes the relation between childhood adversity and mental health (video)
Discrimination
YouTube Video: Protests in Charlottesville take a violent turn (CBS News)
(Violent clashes have broken out between white nationalist protesters and police and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. CBS News justice reporter Paula Reid joins CBSN from the protest.)
Pictured: Different forms of Discrimination include (Clockwise from upper left) Age; Race, Religious, and LGBT.
In human social affairs, discrimination is treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person based on the group, class, or category to which the person is perceived to belong rather than on individual attributes.
This includes treatment of an individual or group, based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or social category, "in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated".
It involves the group's initial reaction or interaction going on to influence the individual's actual behavior towards the group leader or the group, restricting members of one group from opportunities or privileges that are available to another group, leading to the exclusion of the individual or entities based on logical or irrational decision making.
Discriminatory traditions, policies, ideas, practices, and laws exist in many countries and institutions in every part of the world, even in ones where discrimination is generally looked down upon. In some places, controversial attempts such as quotas have been used to benefit those believed to be current or past victims of discrimination—but have sometimes been called reverse discrimination.
In the US, a government policy known as affirmative action was instituted to encourage employers and universities to seek out and accept groups such as African Americans and women, who have been subject to discrimination for a long time.
Since the American Civil War the term "discrimination" generally evolved in American English usage as an understanding of prejudicial treatment of an individual based solely on their race, later generalized as membership in a certain socially undesirable group or social category. "Discrimination" derives from Latin, where the verb discrimire means "to separate, to distinguish, to make a distinction".
Moral philosophers have defined discrimination as disadvantageous treatment or consideration. This is a comparative definition. An individual need not be actually harmed in order to be discriminated against. They just need to be treated worse than others for some arbitrary reason. If someone decides to donate to help orphan children, but decides to donate less, say, to black children out of a racist attitude, then they would be acting in a discriminatory way despite the fact that the people they discriminate against actually benefit by receiving a donation.
In addition to this discrimination develops into a source of oppression. It is similar to the action of recognizing someone as 'different' so much that they are treated inhumanly and degraded.
Based on realistic-conflict theory and social-identity theory, Rubin and Hewstone have highlighted a distinction among three types of discrimination:
The United Nations stance on discrimination includes the statement: "Discriminatory behaviors take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection." International bodies United Nations Human Rights Council work towards helping ending discrimination around the world.
United Nations documents:Important UN documents addressing discrimination include:
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Discrimination:
This includes treatment of an individual or group, based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or social category, "in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated".
It involves the group's initial reaction or interaction going on to influence the individual's actual behavior towards the group leader or the group, restricting members of one group from opportunities or privileges that are available to another group, leading to the exclusion of the individual or entities based on logical or irrational decision making.
Discriminatory traditions, policies, ideas, practices, and laws exist in many countries and institutions in every part of the world, even in ones where discrimination is generally looked down upon. In some places, controversial attempts such as quotas have been used to benefit those believed to be current or past victims of discrimination—but have sometimes been called reverse discrimination.
In the US, a government policy known as affirmative action was instituted to encourage employers and universities to seek out and accept groups such as African Americans and women, who have been subject to discrimination for a long time.
Since the American Civil War the term "discrimination" generally evolved in American English usage as an understanding of prejudicial treatment of an individual based solely on their race, later generalized as membership in a certain socially undesirable group or social category. "Discrimination" derives from Latin, where the verb discrimire means "to separate, to distinguish, to make a distinction".
Moral philosophers have defined discrimination as disadvantageous treatment or consideration. This is a comparative definition. An individual need not be actually harmed in order to be discriminated against. They just need to be treated worse than others for some arbitrary reason. If someone decides to donate to help orphan children, but decides to donate less, say, to black children out of a racist attitude, then they would be acting in a discriminatory way despite the fact that the people they discriminate against actually benefit by receiving a donation.
In addition to this discrimination develops into a source of oppression. It is similar to the action of recognizing someone as 'different' so much that they are treated inhumanly and degraded.
Based on realistic-conflict theory and social-identity theory, Rubin and Hewstone have highlighted a distinction among three types of discrimination:
- Realistic competition is driven by self-interest and is aimed at obtaining material resources (e.g., food, territory, customers) for the in-group (e.g., favoring an in-group in order to obtain more resources for its members, including the self).
- Social competition is driven by the need for self-esteem and is aimed at achieving a positive social status for the in-group relative to comparable out-groups (e.g., favouring an in-group in order to make it better than an out-group).
- Consensual discrimination is driven by the need for accuracy and reflects stable and legitimate intergroup status hierarchies (e.g., favoring a high-status in-group because it is high status).
The United Nations stance on discrimination includes the statement: "Discriminatory behaviors take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection." International bodies United Nations Human Rights Council work towards helping ending discrimination around the world.
United Nations documents:Important UN documents addressing discrimination include:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. It states that:" Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
- The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. The Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination. The convention was adopted and opened for signature by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 December 1965, and entered into force on 4 January 1969.
- The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. Described as an international bill of rights for women, it came into force on 3 September 1981.
- The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights instrument treaty of the United Nations. Parties to the Convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law. The text was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 13 December 2006, and opened for signature on 30 March 2007. Following ratification by the 20th party, it came into force on 3 May 2008.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Discrimination:
- Types of Discrimination
- Legislation
- Theories
- State vs. free market
- See also:
- Ableism
- Adultism
- Affirmative action
- Ageism
- Allport's Scale
- Anti-discrimination law
- Antiziganism
- Apartheid
- Apostasy in Islam
- Arab Slave Trade
- Colorism
- Cultural assimilation
- Dignity
- Discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS
- Economic discrimination
- Employment discrimination
- Egalitarianism
- Equal opportunity
- Equal rights
- Ethnic penalty
- Favortism
- Genetic discrimination
- Genocide
- Heightism
- Ingroups and outgroups
- Institutionalized discrimination
- Intersex human rights
- List of countries by discrimination and violence against minorities
- Microaggression theory
- Persecution
- Racial segregation
- Realistic conflict theory
- Racism
- Reverse discrimination
- Second-class citizen
- Sexism
- Sizeism
- Social conflict
- Speciesism
- Slavery
- State racism
- Statistical discrimination (economics)
- Stereotype
- Structural violence
- Stigma management
- Xenophobia
- Topics.law.cornell.edu
- Legal definitions
- Discrimination Laws in Europe
- Behavioral Biology and Racism
Cancer, including a List of Different Cancers as well as Treatment Options
YouTube Video: Cancer treatment drug heading for US approval (by CNN 7-13-17)
Pictured: (L) Symptoms of cancer metastasis depend on the location of the tumor. (Courtesy of Mikael Häggström); (R) The incidence of lung cancer is highly correlated with smoking. (Courtesy of Sakurambo - Vectorized version of Image:Cancer smoking lung cancer correlation from NIH.png, originally published on the nih.gov)
Click here for a List of Different forms of Cancer.
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Not all tumors are cancerous; benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body.
Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bleeding, prolonged cough, unexplained weight loss, and a change in bowel movements. While these symptoms may indicate cancer, they may have other causes. Over 100 types of cancers affect humans.
Tobacco use is the cause of about 22% of cancer deaths. Another 10% is due to obesity, poor diet, lack of physical activity, and excessive drinking of alcohol.
Other factors include certain infections, exposure to ionizing radiation and environmental pollutants.
In the developing world nearly 20% of cancers are due to infections such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human papillomavirus infection. These factors act, at least partly, by changing the genes of a cell.
Typically many genetic changes are required before cancer develops. Approximately 5–10% of cancers are due to inherited genetic defects from a person's parents. Cancer can be detected by certain signs and symptoms or screening tests. It is then typically further investigated by medical imaging and confirmed by biopsy.
Many cancers can be prevented by not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, not drinking too much alcohol, eating plenty of vegetables, fruits and whole grains, vaccination against certain infectious diseases, not eating too much processed and red meat, and avoiding too much sunlight exposure.
Early detection through screening is useful for cervical and colorectal cancer. The benefits of screening in breast cancer are controversial. Cancer is often treated with some combination of radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy.
Pain and symptom management are an important part of care. Palliative care is particularly important in people with advanced disease.
The chance of survival depends on the type of cancer and extent of disease at the start of treatment. In children under 15 at diagnosis the five-year survival rate in the developed world is on average 80%. For cancer in the United States the average five-year survival rate is 66%.
In 2015 about 90.5 million people had cancer. About 14.1 million new cases occur a year (not including skin cancer other than melanoma). It caused about 8.8 million deaths (15.7%) of human deaths.
The most common types of cancer in males are lung cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and stomach cancer.
In females, the most common types are breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer and cervical cancer.
If skin cancer other than melanoma were included in total new cancers each year it would account for around 40% of cases.
In children, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and brain tumors are most common except in Africa where non-Hodgkin lymphoma occurs more often. In 2012, about 165,000 children under 15 years of age were diagnosed with cancer.
The risk of cancer increases significantly with age and many cancers occur more commonly in developed countries. Rates are increasing as more people live to an old age and as lifestyle changes occur in the developing world. The financial costs of cancer were estimated at $1.16 trillion USD per year as of 2010.
Cancers are a large family of diseases that involve abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. They form a subset of neoplasms. A neoplasm or tumor is a group of cells that have undergone unregulated growth and will often form a mass or lump, but may be distributed diffusely.
All tumor cells show the six hallmarks of cancer. These characteristics are required to produce a malignant tumor. They include:
Signs and Symptoms:
Main article: Cancer signs and symptoms
When cancer begins, it produces no symptoms. Signs and symptoms appear as the mass grows or ulcerates. The findings that result depend on the cancer's type and location. Few symptoms are specific. Many frequently occur in individuals who have other conditions.
Cancer is a "great imitator". Thus, it is common for people diagnosed with cancer to have been treated for other diseases, which were hypothesized to be causing their symptoms.
People may become anxious or depressed post-diagnosis. The risk of suicide in people with cancer is approximately double.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Cancer:
Treatment of Cancer:
Cancer can be treated by any of the following methods:
The choice of therapy depends upon the location and grade of the tumor and the stage of the disease, as well as the general state of the patient (performance status). A number of experimental cancer treatments are also under development. Under current estimates, two in five people will have cancer at some point in their lifetime.
Complete removal of the cancer without damage to the rest of the body (that is, achieving cure with near-zero adverse effects) is the ideal goal of treatment and is often the goal in practice.
Sometimes this can be accomplished by surgery, but the propensity of cancers to invade adjacent tissue or to spread to distant sites by microscopic metastasis often limits its effectiveness; and chemotherapy and radiotherapy can have a negative effect on normal cells.
Therefore, cure with nonnegligible adverse effects may be accepted as a practical goal in some cases; and besides curative intent, practical goals of therapy can also include (1) suppressing the cancer to a subclinical state and maintaining that state for years of good quality of life (that is, treating the cancer as a chronic disease), and (2) palliative care without curative intent (for advanced-stage metastatic cancers).
Because "cancer" refers to a class of diseases, it is unlikely that there will ever be a single "cure for cancer" any more than there will be a single treatment for all infectious diseases.
Angiogenesis inhibitors were once thought to have potential as a "silver bullet" treatment applicable to many types of cancer, but this has not been the case in practice.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Treatment of Cancer:
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Not all tumors are cancerous; benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body.
Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bleeding, prolonged cough, unexplained weight loss, and a change in bowel movements. While these symptoms may indicate cancer, they may have other causes. Over 100 types of cancers affect humans.
Tobacco use is the cause of about 22% of cancer deaths. Another 10% is due to obesity, poor diet, lack of physical activity, and excessive drinking of alcohol.
Other factors include certain infections, exposure to ionizing radiation and environmental pollutants.
In the developing world nearly 20% of cancers are due to infections such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human papillomavirus infection. These factors act, at least partly, by changing the genes of a cell.
Typically many genetic changes are required before cancer develops. Approximately 5–10% of cancers are due to inherited genetic defects from a person's parents. Cancer can be detected by certain signs and symptoms or screening tests. It is then typically further investigated by medical imaging and confirmed by biopsy.
Many cancers can be prevented by not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, not drinking too much alcohol, eating plenty of vegetables, fruits and whole grains, vaccination against certain infectious diseases, not eating too much processed and red meat, and avoiding too much sunlight exposure.
Early detection through screening is useful for cervical and colorectal cancer. The benefits of screening in breast cancer are controversial. Cancer is often treated with some combination of radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy.
Pain and symptom management are an important part of care. Palliative care is particularly important in people with advanced disease.
The chance of survival depends on the type of cancer and extent of disease at the start of treatment. In children under 15 at diagnosis the five-year survival rate in the developed world is on average 80%. For cancer in the United States the average five-year survival rate is 66%.
In 2015 about 90.5 million people had cancer. About 14.1 million new cases occur a year (not including skin cancer other than melanoma). It caused about 8.8 million deaths (15.7%) of human deaths.
The most common types of cancer in males are lung cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and stomach cancer.
In females, the most common types are breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer and cervical cancer.
If skin cancer other than melanoma were included in total new cancers each year it would account for around 40% of cases.
In children, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and brain tumors are most common except in Africa where non-Hodgkin lymphoma occurs more often. In 2012, about 165,000 children under 15 years of age were diagnosed with cancer.
The risk of cancer increases significantly with age and many cancers occur more commonly in developed countries. Rates are increasing as more people live to an old age and as lifestyle changes occur in the developing world. The financial costs of cancer were estimated at $1.16 trillion USD per year as of 2010.
Cancers are a large family of diseases that involve abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. They form a subset of neoplasms. A neoplasm or tumor is a group of cells that have undergone unregulated growth and will often form a mass or lump, but may be distributed diffusely.
All tumor cells show the six hallmarks of cancer. These characteristics are required to produce a malignant tumor. They include:
- Cell growth and division absent the proper signals
- Continuous growth and division even given contrary signals
- Avoidance of programmed cell death
- Limitless number of cell divisions
- Promoting blood vessel construction
- Invasion of tissue and formation of metastases
Signs and Symptoms:
Main article: Cancer signs and symptoms
When cancer begins, it produces no symptoms. Signs and symptoms appear as the mass grows or ulcerates. The findings that result depend on the cancer's type and location. Few symptoms are specific. Many frequently occur in individuals who have other conditions.
Cancer is a "great imitator". Thus, it is common for people diagnosed with cancer to have been treated for other diseases, which were hypothesized to be causing their symptoms.
People may become anxious or depressed post-diagnosis. The risk of suicide in people with cancer is approximately double.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Cancer:
- Local symptoms
- Systemic symptoms
- Metastasis
- Causes
- Pathophysiology
- Diagnosis
- Classification
- Prevention
- Screening
- Management
- Prognosis
- Epidemiology
- History
- Society and culture
- Research
- Pregnancy
Treatment of Cancer:
Cancer can be treated by any of the following methods:
- surgery,
- chemotherapy,
- radiation therapy,
- hormonal therapy,
- targeted therapy (including immunotherapy such as monoclonal antibody therapy)
- and synthetic lethality.
The choice of therapy depends upon the location and grade of the tumor and the stage of the disease, as well as the general state of the patient (performance status). A number of experimental cancer treatments are also under development. Under current estimates, two in five people will have cancer at some point in their lifetime.
Complete removal of the cancer without damage to the rest of the body (that is, achieving cure with near-zero adverse effects) is the ideal goal of treatment and is often the goal in practice.
Sometimes this can be accomplished by surgery, but the propensity of cancers to invade adjacent tissue or to spread to distant sites by microscopic metastasis often limits its effectiveness; and chemotherapy and radiotherapy can have a negative effect on normal cells.
Therefore, cure with nonnegligible adverse effects may be accepted as a practical goal in some cases; and besides curative intent, practical goals of therapy can also include (1) suppressing the cancer to a subclinical state and maintaining that state for years of good quality of life (that is, treating the cancer as a chronic disease), and (2) palliative care without curative intent (for advanced-stage metastatic cancers).
Because "cancer" refers to a class of diseases, it is unlikely that there will ever be a single "cure for cancer" any more than there will be a single treatment for all infectious diseases.
Angiogenesis inhibitors were once thought to have potential as a "silver bullet" treatment applicable to many types of cancer, but this has not been the case in practice.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Treatment of Cancer:
- Types of treatments
- Symptom control and palliative care
- Research
- Complementary and alternative
- Special circumstances
- See also:
Eating Disorders including Types of Eating Disorders and Any Impact on Development
YouTube Video: A First-Person Account of Binge Eating Disorder by WebMD
Pictured: Comparison of Anoxeria and Bulimia Treatments
Click here for a List of Eating Disorders.
An eating disorder is a mental disorder defined by abnormal eating habits that negatively affect a person's physical or mental health. They include:
Anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse are common among people with eating disorders. These disorders do not include obesity.
The cause of eating disorders is not clear. Both biological and environmental factors appear to play a role. Cultural idealization of thinness is believed to contribute. Eating disorders affect about 12 percent of dancers.Those who have experienced sexual abuse are also more likely to develop eating disorders. Some disorders such as pica and rumination disorder occur more often in people with intellectual disabilities. Only one eating disorder can be diagnosed at a given time.
Treatment can be effective for many eating disorders. This typically involves counselling, a proper diet, a normal amount of exercise, and the reduction of efforts to eliminate food.
Hospitalization is occasionally needed. Medications may be used to help with some of the associated symptoms. At five years about 70% of people with anorexia and 50% of people with bulimia recover. Recovery from binge eating disorder is less clear and estimated at 20% to 60%. Both anorexia and bulimia increase the risk of death.
In the developed world binge eating disorder affects about 1.6% of women and 0.8% of men in a given year. Anorexia affects about 0.4% and bulimia affects about 1.3% of young women in a given year.
During the entire life up to 4% of women have anorexia, 2% have bulimia, and 2% have binge eating disorder. Anorexia and bulimia occur nearly ten times more often in females than males. Typically they begin in late childhood or early adulthood. Rates of other eating disorders are not clear. Rates of eating disorders appear to be lower in less developed countries.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Eating Disorders:
Eating disorders and development:
Eating disorders typically peak at specific periods in development, notably sensitive and transitional periods such as puberty.
Feeding and eating disorders in childhood are often the result of a complex interplay of organic and non-organic factors. Medical conditions, developmental problems and temperament are all strongly correlated with feeding disorders, but important contextual features of the environment and parental behavior have also been found to influence the development of childhood eating disorders. Given the complexity of early childhood eating problems, consideration of both biological and behavioral factors is warranted for diagnosis and treatment.
Revisions in the DSM-5 (see next topic) have attempted to improve diagnostic utility for clinicians working with feeding and eating disorder patients. In the DSM-5, diagnostic categories are less defined by age of patient, and guided more by developmental differences in presentation and expression of eating problems.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Eating Disorders & Development:
An eating disorder is a mental disorder defined by abnormal eating habits that negatively affect a person's physical or mental health. They include:
- binge eating disorder where people eat a large amount in a short period of time,
- anorexia nervosa where people eat very little and thus have a low body weight,
- bulimia nervosa where people eat a lot and then try to rid themselves of the food,
- pica where people eat non-food items,
- rumination disorder where people regurgitate food,
- avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder where people have a lack of interest in food,
- and a group of other specified feeding or eating disorders.
Anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse are common among people with eating disorders. These disorders do not include obesity.
The cause of eating disorders is not clear. Both biological and environmental factors appear to play a role. Cultural idealization of thinness is believed to contribute. Eating disorders affect about 12 percent of dancers.Those who have experienced sexual abuse are also more likely to develop eating disorders. Some disorders such as pica and rumination disorder occur more often in people with intellectual disabilities. Only one eating disorder can be diagnosed at a given time.
Treatment can be effective for many eating disorders. This typically involves counselling, a proper diet, a normal amount of exercise, and the reduction of efforts to eliminate food.
Hospitalization is occasionally needed. Medications may be used to help with some of the associated symptoms. At five years about 70% of people with anorexia and 50% of people with bulimia recover. Recovery from binge eating disorder is less clear and estimated at 20% to 60%. Both anorexia and bulimia increase the risk of death.
In the developed world binge eating disorder affects about 1.6% of women and 0.8% of men in a given year. Anorexia affects about 0.4% and bulimia affects about 1.3% of young women in a given year.
During the entire life up to 4% of women have anorexia, 2% have bulimia, and 2% have binge eating disorder. Anorexia and bulimia occur nearly ten times more often in females than males. Typically they begin in late childhood or early adulthood. Rates of other eating disorders are not clear. Rates of eating disorders appear to be lower in less developed countries.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Eating Disorders:
- Classification
- Signs and symptoms
- Causes
- Mechanisms
- Diagnosis
- Prevention
- Treatment
- Outcomes
- Epidemiology
- Economics
- See also:
Eating disorders and development:
Eating disorders typically peak at specific periods in development, notably sensitive and transitional periods such as puberty.
Feeding and eating disorders in childhood are often the result of a complex interplay of organic and non-organic factors. Medical conditions, developmental problems and temperament are all strongly correlated with feeding disorders, but important contextual features of the environment and parental behavior have also been found to influence the development of childhood eating disorders. Given the complexity of early childhood eating problems, consideration of both biological and behavioral factors is warranted for diagnosis and treatment.
Revisions in the DSM-5 (see next topic) have attempted to improve diagnostic utility for clinicians working with feeding and eating disorder patients. In the DSM-5, diagnostic categories are less defined by age of patient, and guided more by developmental differences in presentation and expression of eating problems.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Eating Disorders & Development:
- Avoidant/Restrictive Intake Disorder (ARFID)
- Pica
- Rumination disorder
- Anorexia nervosa
- Bulimia nervosa
- Binge eating disorder
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5)
YouTube Video: What DSM-5 Means for Diagnosing Mental Health Patients by PBS Hour.
Pictured: Book cover of DSM-5, Copyright owned by the American Psychiatric Association
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) is the 2013 update to the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) classification and diagnostic tool. In the United States the DSM serves as a universal authority for psychiatric diagnoses. Treatment recommendations, as well as payment by health care providers, are often determined by DSM classifications, so the appearance of a new version has significant practical importance.
The DSM-5 was published on May 18, 2013, superseding the DSM-IV-TR, which was published in 2000. The development of the new edition began with a conference in 1999, and proceeded with the formation of a Task Force in 2007, which developed and field-tested a variety of new classifications.
In most respects DSM-5 is not greatly changed from DSM-IV-TR. Notable changes include the following:
In addition, the DSM-5 is the first "living document" version of a DSM.
Various authorities criticized the fifth edition both before and after it was formally published.
Critics assert, for example, that many DSM-5 revisions or additions lack empirical support; inter-rater reliability is low for many disorders; several sections contain poorly written, confusing, or contradictory information; and the psychiatric drug industry unduly influenced the manual's content.
Many of the members of work groups for the DSM-5 had conflicting interests, including ties to pharmaceutical companies.
Various scientists have argued that the DSM-5 forces clinicians to make distinctions that are not supported by solid evidence, distinctions that have major treatment implications, including drug prescriptions and the availability of health insurance coverage.
General criticism of the DSM-5 ultimately resulted in a petition, signed by many mental health organizations, which called for outside review of DSM-5.
Click here for more about The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).
The DSM-5 was published on May 18, 2013, superseding the DSM-IV-TR, which was published in 2000. The development of the new edition began with a conference in 1999, and proceeded with the formation of a Task Force in 2007, which developed and field-tested a variety of new classifications.
In most respects DSM-5 is not greatly changed from DSM-IV-TR. Notable changes include the following:
- dropping Asperger syndrome as a distinct classification;
- loss of subtype classifications for variant forms of schizophrenia;
- dropping the "bereavement exclusion" for depressive disorders;
- a revised treatment and naming of gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria,
- and removing the A2 criterion for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because its requirement for specific emotional reactions to trauma did not apply to combat veterans and first responders with PTSD.
In addition, the DSM-5 is the first "living document" version of a DSM.
Various authorities criticized the fifth edition both before and after it was formally published.
Critics assert, for example, that many DSM-5 revisions or additions lack empirical support; inter-rater reliability is low for many disorders; several sections contain poorly written, confusing, or contradictory information; and the psychiatric drug industry unduly influenced the manual's content.
Many of the members of work groups for the DSM-5 had conflicting interests, including ties to pharmaceutical companies.
Various scientists have argued that the DSM-5 forces clinicians to make distinctions that are not supported by solid evidence, distinctions that have major treatment implications, including drug prescriptions and the availability of health insurance coverage.
General criticism of the DSM-5 ultimately resulted in a petition, signed by many mental health organizations, which called for outside review of DSM-5.
Click here for more about The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).
Mental Health including Body Image and Self-Esteem
YouTube Video: To reach beyond your limits by training your mind
(By Marisa Peer | TEDxKCS)
Pictured: Negative perceptions of Mental Health, Body Image and Self-esteem
YouTube Video: To reach beyond your limits by training your mind
(By Marisa Peer | TEDxKCS)
Pictured: Negative perceptions of Mental Health, Body Image and Self-esteem
Mental health is a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of mental illness. It is the "psychological state of someone who is functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioral adjustment". From the perspective of positive psychology or holism, mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life, and create a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health includes "subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, inter-generational dependence, and self-actualization of one's intellectual and emotional potential, among others."
The WHO further states that the well-being of an individual is encompassed in the realization of their abilities, coping with normal stresses of life, productive work and contribution to their community. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how "mental health" is defined. A widely accepted definition of health by mental health specialists is psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's definition: the capacity "to work and to love".
Mental Health and Mental Illness:
According to the U.S. surgeon general (1999), mental health is the successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people, and providing the ability to adapt to change and cope with adversity. The term mental illness refers collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders—health conditions characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior associated with distress or impaired functioning.
A person struggling with their mental health may experience stress, depression, anxiety, relationship problems, grief, addiction, ADHD or learning disabilities, mood disorders, or other mental illnesses of varying degrees.
Therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurse practitioners or physicians can help manage mental illness with treatments such as therapy, counseling, or medication.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Mental Health:
Body Image is a person's perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his book The Image and Appearance of the Human Body (1935).
Human society has at all times placed great value on beauty of the human body, but a person's perception of their own body may not correspond to society's standards.
The concept of body image is used in a number of disciplines, including psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy and cultural and feminist studies. The term is also often used in the media. Across these disciplines and media there is no consensus definition.
A person's body image is thought to be, in part, a product of their personal experiences, personality, and various social and cultural forces. A person's sense of their own physical appearance, usually in relation to others or in relation to some cultural "ideal," can shape their body image. A person's perception of their appearance can be different from how others actually perceive them.
Research suggests that exposure to mass media depicting the thin-ideal body may be linked to body image disturbance in women. This meta-analysis examined experimental and correlational studies testing the links between media exposure to body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal, and eating behaviors and beliefs with a sample of 77 studies that yielded 141 effect sizes.
Effects for some outcome variables were moderated by publication year and study design. The findings support the notion that exposure to media images depicting the thin-ideal body is related to body image concerns for women.
A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association found that a culture-wide sexualization of girls and women was contributing to increased female anxiety associated with body image.
Similar findings associated with body image were found by an Australian government Senate Standing Committee report on the sexualization of children in the media. However, other scholars have expressed concern that these claims are not based on solid data.
Body image can have a wide range of psychological effects and physical effects. Throughout history, it has been extremely difficult for people to live up to the standards of society and what they believe the ideal body is.
There are many factors that lead to a person’s body image, some of these include: family dynamics, mental illness, biological predispositions and environmental causes for obesity or malnutrition, and cultural expectations (e.g., media and politics).
People who are both underweight and overweight can have poor body image. However, because people are constantly told and shown the cosmetic appeal of weight loss and are warned about the risks of obesity, those who are normal or overweight on the BMI scale have higher risks of poor body image.
This is something that can lead to a change in a person's body image. Often, people who have a low body image will try to alter their bodies in some way, such as by dieting or undergoing cosmetic surgery.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Body Image:
Self-esteem:
In sociology and psychology, self-esteem reflects a person's overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth. It is a judgment of oneself as well as an attitude toward the self. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself, (for example, "I am competent", "I am worthy"), as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame.
Smith and Mackie (2007) defined it by saying "The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it.".
Self-esteem is attractive as a social psychological construct because researchers have conceptualized it as an influential predictor of certain outcomes, such as academic achievement, happiness, satisfaction in marriage and relationships, and criminal behavior.
Self-esteem can apply specifically to a particular dimension (for example, "I believe I am a good writer and feel happy about that") or a global extent (for example, "I believe I am a bad person, and feel bad about myself in general").
Psychologists usually regard self-esteem as an enduring personality characteristic ("trait" self-esteem), though normal, short-term variations ("state" self-esteem) also exist. Synonyms or near-synonyms of self-esteem include: self-worth, self-regard, self-respect, and self-integrity
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Self Esteem:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health includes "subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, inter-generational dependence, and self-actualization of one's intellectual and emotional potential, among others."
The WHO further states that the well-being of an individual is encompassed in the realization of their abilities, coping with normal stresses of life, productive work and contribution to their community. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how "mental health" is defined. A widely accepted definition of health by mental health specialists is psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's definition: the capacity "to work and to love".
Mental Health and Mental Illness:
According to the U.S. surgeon general (1999), mental health is the successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people, and providing the ability to adapt to change and cope with adversity. The term mental illness refers collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders—health conditions characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior associated with distress or impaired functioning.
A person struggling with their mental health may experience stress, depression, anxiety, relationship problems, grief, addiction, ADHD or learning disabilities, mood disorders, or other mental illnesses of varying degrees.
Therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurse practitioners or physicians can help manage mental illness with treatments such as therapy, counseling, or medication.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Mental Health:
- History
- Significance
- Perspectives
- Mental well-being
- Children and young adults
- Prevention
- Cultural and religious considerations
- Emotional improvement
- Emotional issues
- Treatment
- Activity therapies
- Biofeedback
- Expressive therapies
- Group therapy
- Psychotherapy
- Meditation
- Spiritual counseling
- Social work in mental health Prevalence and programs
- Roles and functions
- History
- United States
- Canada
- India
- Australia
- See also:
- Ethnopsychopharmacology
- Health
- Mental environment
- Reason
- Sanity
- Technology and mental health issues
- World Mental Health Day
- Related disciplines and specialties
- Mental health in different occupations and regions
- National Institute of Mental Health (United States)
- The National Mental Health Development Unit (NMHDU), England
- Health-EU Portal Mental Health in the EU
Body Image is a person's perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his book The Image and Appearance of the Human Body (1935).
Human society has at all times placed great value on beauty of the human body, but a person's perception of their own body may not correspond to society's standards.
The concept of body image is used in a number of disciplines, including psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy and cultural and feminist studies. The term is also often used in the media. Across these disciplines and media there is no consensus definition.
A person's body image is thought to be, in part, a product of their personal experiences, personality, and various social and cultural forces. A person's sense of their own physical appearance, usually in relation to others or in relation to some cultural "ideal," can shape their body image. A person's perception of their appearance can be different from how others actually perceive them.
Research suggests that exposure to mass media depicting the thin-ideal body may be linked to body image disturbance in women. This meta-analysis examined experimental and correlational studies testing the links between media exposure to body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal, and eating behaviors and beliefs with a sample of 77 studies that yielded 141 effect sizes.
Effects for some outcome variables were moderated by publication year and study design. The findings support the notion that exposure to media images depicting the thin-ideal body is related to body image concerns for women.
A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association found that a culture-wide sexualization of girls and women was contributing to increased female anxiety associated with body image.
Similar findings associated with body image were found by an Australian government Senate Standing Committee report on the sexualization of children in the media. However, other scholars have expressed concern that these claims are not based on solid data.
Body image can have a wide range of psychological effects and physical effects. Throughout history, it has been extremely difficult for people to live up to the standards of society and what they believe the ideal body is.
There are many factors that lead to a person’s body image, some of these include: family dynamics, mental illness, biological predispositions and environmental causes for obesity or malnutrition, and cultural expectations (e.g., media and politics).
People who are both underweight and overweight can have poor body image. However, because people are constantly told and shown the cosmetic appeal of weight loss and are warned about the risks of obesity, those who are normal or overweight on the BMI scale have higher risks of poor body image.
This is something that can lead to a change in a person's body image. Often, people who have a low body image will try to alter their bodies in some way, such as by dieting or undergoing cosmetic surgery.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Body Image:
- Media Impact
- On women and in general
- On men
- On fashion industry
- Social media and disorders
- Measurement
- Figure preferences
- Video projection techniques
- Questionnaires
- Gender differences
- Weight
- Race
- See also:
Self-esteem:
In sociology and psychology, self-esteem reflects a person's overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth. It is a judgment of oneself as well as an attitude toward the self. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself, (for example, "I am competent", "I am worthy"), as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame.
Smith and Mackie (2007) defined it by saying "The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it.".
Self-esteem is attractive as a social psychological construct because researchers have conceptualized it as an influential predictor of certain outcomes, such as academic achievement, happiness, satisfaction in marriage and relationships, and criminal behavior.
Self-esteem can apply specifically to a particular dimension (for example, "I believe I am a good writer and feel happy about that") or a global extent (for example, "I believe I am a bad person, and feel bad about myself in general").
Psychologists usually regard self-esteem as an enduring personality characteristic ("trait" self-esteem), though normal, short-term variations ("state" self-esteem) also exist. Synonyms or near-synonyms of self-esteem include: self-worth, self-regard, self-respect, and self-integrity
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Self Esteem:
- History
- Effect on public policy
- Theories
- Measurement
- Development across lifespan
- Types
- Importance
- Neuroscience
- Criticism and controversy
- See also:
- Assertiveness
- Blue Eyed
- Clinical depression
- Dunning–Kruger effect
- Emotional competence
- Fear of negative evaluation
- Gumption trap
- Hubris
- Identity
- Inner critic
- Invisible support
- List of confidence tricks
- Optimism bias
- Outline of self
- Overconfidence effect
- Passiveness
- Performance anxiety
- Self-awareness
- Self-compassion
- Self-esteem functions
- Self-esteem instability
- Self-evaluation maintenance theory
- Self image
- Shyness
- Social anxiety
- Social phobia
- Suicide prevention
Body Language including Sexual Attraction
YouTube Video: Make Body Language Your Superpower
by Stanford Graduate School of Business
YouTube Video: Body Language & Sexual Attraction
Pictured below: TOP: Body Language; BOTTOM: Sexual Orientation
Body language is a type of non-verbal communication in which physical behavior, as opposed to words, are used to express or convey information. Such behavior includes facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement, touch and the use of space. Body language exists in both animals and humans, but this article focuses on interpretations of human body language. It is also known as kinesics.
Body language must not be confused with sign language, as sign languages are full languages like spoken languages and have their own complex grammar systems, as well as being able to exhibit the fundamental properties that exist in all languages.
Body language, on the other hand, does not have a grammar and must be interpreted broadly, instead of having an absolute meaning corresponding with a certain movement, so it is not a language like sign language, and is simply termed as a "language" due to popular culture.
In a community, there are agreed-upon interpretations of particular behavior. Interpretations may vary from country to country, or culture to culture. On this note, there is controversy on whether body language is universal. Body language, a subset of nonverbal communication, complements verbal communication in social interaction. In fact some researchers conclude that nonverbal communication accounts for the majority of information transmitted during interpersonal interactions.
It helps to establish the relationship between two people and regulates interaction, but can be ambiguous. Hence, it is crucial to accurately read body language to avoid misunderstanding in social interactions.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Body Language:
Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual's ability to attract the sexual or erotic interest of another person, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice. The attraction can be to the physical or other qualities or traits of a person, or to such qualities in the context where they appear.
The attraction may be to a person's aesthetics or movements or to their voice or smell, besides other factors. The attraction may be enhanced by a person's adornments, clothing, perfume or style. It can be influenced by individual genetic, psychological, or cultural factors, or to other, more amorphous qualities. Sexual attraction is also a response to another person that depends on a combination of the person possessing the traits and on the criteria of the person who is attracted.
Though attempts have been made to devise objective criteria of sexual attractiveness and measure it as one of several bodily forms of capital asset (see erotic capital), a person's sexual attractiveness is to a large extent a subjective measure dependent on another person's interest, perception, and sexual orientation. For example, a gay or lesbian person would typically find a person of the same sex to be more attractive than one of the other sex.
A bisexual person would find either sex to be attractive. Asexuality refers to those who do not experience sexual attraction for either sex, though they may have romantic attraction (homoromantic, biromantic or heteroromantic) or a non-directed libido.
Interpersonal attraction includes factors such as physical or psychological similarity, familiarity or possessing a preponderance of common or familiar features, similarity, complementarity, reciprocal liking, and reinforcement.
The ability of a person's physical and other qualities to create a sexual interest in others is the basis of their use in advertising, film, and other visual media, as well as in modeling and other occupations.
In evolutionary terms, it is thought that female humans exhibit different sexual behaviors and desires at points in their menstrual cycle, as a means to ensure that they attract a high quality mate to copulate with during their most fertile time. Hormone levels throughout the menstrual cycle affect a woman's overt behaviours, influencing the way a woman presents herself to others during stages of her menstrual cycle, in attempt to attract high quality mates the closer the woman is to ovulation.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "Sexual Attraction":
Body language must not be confused with sign language, as sign languages are full languages like spoken languages and have their own complex grammar systems, as well as being able to exhibit the fundamental properties that exist in all languages.
Body language, on the other hand, does not have a grammar and must be interpreted broadly, instead of having an absolute meaning corresponding with a certain movement, so it is not a language like sign language, and is simply termed as a "language" due to popular culture.
In a community, there are agreed-upon interpretations of particular behavior. Interpretations may vary from country to country, or culture to culture. On this note, there is controversy on whether body language is universal. Body language, a subset of nonverbal communication, complements verbal communication in social interaction. In fact some researchers conclude that nonverbal communication accounts for the majority of information transmitted during interpersonal interactions.
It helps to establish the relationship between two people and regulates interaction, but can be ambiguous. Hence, it is crucial to accurately read body language to avoid misunderstanding in social interactions.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Body Language:
- Physical expressions
- Other subcategories
- Tone of voice
- Universal vs. culture-specific
- Applications
- Kinesics
- See also:
Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual's ability to attract the sexual or erotic interest of another person, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice. The attraction can be to the physical or other qualities or traits of a person, or to such qualities in the context where they appear.
The attraction may be to a person's aesthetics or movements or to their voice or smell, besides other factors. The attraction may be enhanced by a person's adornments, clothing, perfume or style. It can be influenced by individual genetic, psychological, or cultural factors, or to other, more amorphous qualities. Sexual attraction is also a response to another person that depends on a combination of the person possessing the traits and on the criteria of the person who is attracted.
Though attempts have been made to devise objective criteria of sexual attractiveness and measure it as one of several bodily forms of capital asset (see erotic capital), a person's sexual attractiveness is to a large extent a subjective measure dependent on another person's interest, perception, and sexual orientation. For example, a gay or lesbian person would typically find a person of the same sex to be more attractive than one of the other sex.
A bisexual person would find either sex to be attractive. Asexuality refers to those who do not experience sexual attraction for either sex, though they may have romantic attraction (homoromantic, biromantic or heteroromantic) or a non-directed libido.
Interpersonal attraction includes factors such as physical or psychological similarity, familiarity or possessing a preponderance of common or familiar features, similarity, complementarity, reciprocal liking, and reinforcement.
The ability of a person's physical and other qualities to create a sexual interest in others is the basis of their use in advertising, film, and other visual media, as well as in modeling and other occupations.
In evolutionary terms, it is thought that female humans exhibit different sexual behaviors and desires at points in their menstrual cycle, as a means to ensure that they attract a high quality mate to copulate with during their most fertile time. Hormone levels throughout the menstrual cycle affect a woman's overt behaviours, influencing the way a woman presents herself to others during stages of her menstrual cycle, in attempt to attract high quality mates the closer the woman is to ovulation.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "Sexual Attraction":
- Social and biological factors
- Sexual attraction and high anxiety
- Enhancement
- Sex and sexuality differences in sexual attraction
- Sexual preferences and hormones
- See also:
- Body odor and subconscious human sexual attraction
- Erotic capital
- Erogenous zone
- Human height
- Human physical appearance
- Interpersonal attraction
- Koinophilia
- Mating system
- Physical attractiveness
- Sexual arousal
- Sexual dimorphism
- Sexual field
- Sex in advertising
- Sexual selection
- Sex symbol
- Sexual Attraction Among Humans
- FaceResearch – Scientific research and online studies on the role of faces in sexual attraction
- www.lookism.info deconstruction of attraction and beauty standard
Diabetes
YouTube Video: Symptoms and Signs of Diabetes
Pictured: Overview of the most significant symptoms of diabetes
Diabetes mellitus (DM), commonly referred to as diabetes, is a group of metabolic disorders in which there are high blood sugar levels over a prolonged period. Symptoms of high blood sugar include frequent urination, increased thirst, and increased hunger. If left untreated, diabetes can cause many complications.
Acute complications can include diabetic ketoacidosis, hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state, or death. Serious long-term complications include cardiovascular disease, stroke, chronic kidney disease, foot ulcers, and damage to the eyes.
Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough insulin or the cells of the body not responding properly to the insulin produced.
There are three main types of diabetes mellitus:
Prevention and treatment involve maintaining a healthy diet, regular physical exercise, a normal body weight, and avoiding use of tobacco. Control of blood pressure and maintaining proper foot care are important for people with the disease. Type 1 DM must be managed with insulin injections. Type 2 DM may be treated with medications with or without insulin. Insulin and some oral medications can cause low blood sugar. Weight loss surgery in those with obesity is sometimes an effective measure in those with type 2 DM.
Gestational diabetes usually resolves after the birth of the baby.
As of 2015, an estimated 415 million people had diabetes worldwide, with type 2 DM making up about 90% of the cases. This represents 8.3% of the adult population, with equal rates in both women and men.
As of 2014, trends suggested the rate would continue to rise. Diabetes at least doubles a person's risk of early death. From 2012 to 2015, approximately 1.5 to 5.0 million deaths each year resulted from diabetes. The global economic cost of diabetes in 2014 was estimated to be US$612 billion. In the United States, diabetes cost $245 billion in 2012.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Diabetes:
Acute complications can include diabetic ketoacidosis, hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state, or death. Serious long-term complications include cardiovascular disease, stroke, chronic kidney disease, foot ulcers, and damage to the eyes.
Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough insulin or the cells of the body not responding properly to the insulin produced.
There are three main types of diabetes mellitus:
- Type 1 DM results from the pancreas's failure to produce enough insulin. This form was previously referred to as "insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus" (IDDM) or "juvenile diabetes". The cause is unknown.
- Type 2 DM begins with insulin resistance, a condition in which cells fail to respond to insulin properly. As the disease progresses a lack of insulin may also develop. This form was previously referred to as "non insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus" (NIDDM) or "adult-onset diabetes". The most common cause is excessive body weight and not enough exercise.
- Gestational diabetes is the third main form and occurs when pregnant women without a previous history of diabetes develop high blood sugar levels.
Prevention and treatment involve maintaining a healthy diet, regular physical exercise, a normal body weight, and avoiding use of tobacco. Control of blood pressure and maintaining proper foot care are important for people with the disease. Type 1 DM must be managed with insulin injections. Type 2 DM may be treated with medications with or without insulin. Insulin and some oral medications can cause low blood sugar. Weight loss surgery in those with obesity is sometimes an effective measure in those with type 2 DM.
Gestational diabetes usually resolves after the birth of the baby.
As of 2015, an estimated 415 million people had diabetes worldwide, with type 2 DM making up about 90% of the cases. This represents 8.3% of the adult population, with equal rates in both women and men.
As of 2014, trends suggested the rate would continue to rise. Diabetes at least doubles a person's risk of early death. From 2012 to 2015, approximately 1.5 to 5.0 million deaths each year resulted from diabetes. The global economic cost of diabetes in 2014 was estimated to be US$612 billion. In the United States, diabetes cost $245 billion in 2012.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Diabetes:
- Signs and symptoms
- Causes
- Pathophysiology
- Diagnosis
- Prevention
- Management
- Epidemiology
- History
- Society and culture
- Research
- See Also:
Infectious Diseases including a List of Infectious Diseases
YouTube Video: What You Need To Know About Infectious Disease
Pictured: (L) Culex mosquitos (Culex quinquefasciatus shown) are biological vectors that transmit West Nile Virus; (R) About Meningitis
Infection is the invasion of an organism's body tissues by disease-causing agents, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to these organisms and the toxins they produce. Infectious disease, also known as transmissible disease or communicable disease, is illness resulting from an infection.
Infections are caused by:
Hosts can fight infections using their immune system. Mammalian hosts react to infections with an innate response, often involving inflammation, followed by an adaptive response.
Specific medications used to treat infections include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, antiprotozoals, and antihelminthics.
Infectious diseases resulted in 9.2 million deaths in 2013 (about 17% of all deaths). The branch of medicine that focuses on infections is referred to as infectious disease.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Infections:
Click here for an alphabetical List of Infectious Diseases.
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that affects part or all of an organism and that consists of a disorder of a structure or function. The study of disease is called pathology, which includes the study of cause.
Disease is often construed as a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions, particularly of the immune system, such as an immunodeficiency, or by a hypersensitivity, including allergies and autoimmunity.
When caused by pathogens (e.g. malaria by Plasmodium ssp.), the term disease is often misleadingly used even in the scientific literature in place of its causal agent, the pathogen.
This language habit can cause confusion in the communication of the cause-effect principle in epidemiology, and as such it should be strongly discouraged.
In humans, disease is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person.
In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections, isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and atypical variations of structure and function, while in other contexts and for other purposes these may be considered distinguishable categories.
Diseases can affect people not only physically, but also emotionally, as contracting and living with a disease can alter the affected person's perspective on life.
Death due to disease is called death by natural causes.
There are four main types of disease:
Diseases can also be classified as communicable and non-communicable. The deadliest diseases in humans are coronary artery disease (blood flow obstruction), followed by cerebrovascular disease and lower respiratory infections.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Diseases impacting Humans:
Infections are caused by:
- infectious agents including
- nematodes such as
- parasitic roundworms and pinworms,
- arthropods such as
- fungi such as ringworm,
- and other macroparasites such as tapeworms and other helminths.
Hosts can fight infections using their immune system. Mammalian hosts react to infections with an innate response, often involving inflammation, followed by an adaptive response.
Specific medications used to treat infections include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, antiprotozoals, and antihelminthics.
Infectious diseases resulted in 9.2 million deaths in 2013 (about 17% of all deaths). The branch of medicine that focuses on infections is referred to as infectious disease.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Infections:
- Classification
- Signs and symptoms
- Pathophysiology
- Diagnosis
- Prevention
- Treatments
- Epidemiology
- History
- Society and culture
- Fossil record
- See also:
- infectious disease (medical specialty)
- Host-pathogen interface
- Bioinformatics Resource Centers for Infectious Diseases
- Biological contamination
- Blood-borne disease
- Coinfection
- Copenhagen Consensus
- Cordon sanitaire
- Disease diffusion mapping
- Foodborne illness
- Globalization and disease
- Human microbiome project
- Infection control
- Infectious disease dynamics
- Isolation (health care)
- Membrane vesicle trafficking
- Infectious disease eradication
- Infectious disease in the 20th century
- List of causes of death by rate
- List of diseases caused by insects
- List of epidemics
- List of bacterial vaginosis microbiota
- Multiplicity of infection
- Neglected tropical diseases
- Nosocomial infection
- Quarantine
- Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeler (STEM)
- Social distancing
- Spillover infection
- Threshold host density
- Transmission (medicine)
- Tropical disease
- Ubi pus, ibi evacua (Latin: "where there is pus, there evacuate it")
- Vaccine-preventable diseases
- Waterborne diseases
- European Center for Disease Prevention and Control
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
- Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA)
- Infectious Disease Index of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)
- Infection Information Resource
- Microbes & Infection (Journal)
- Table: Global deaths from communicable diseases, 2010 - Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Click here for an alphabetical List of Infectious Diseases.
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that affects part or all of an organism and that consists of a disorder of a structure or function. The study of disease is called pathology, which includes the study of cause.
Disease is often construed as a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions, particularly of the immune system, such as an immunodeficiency, or by a hypersensitivity, including allergies and autoimmunity.
When caused by pathogens (e.g. malaria by Plasmodium ssp.), the term disease is often misleadingly used even in the scientific literature in place of its causal agent, the pathogen.
This language habit can cause confusion in the communication of the cause-effect principle in epidemiology, and as such it should be strongly discouraged.
In humans, disease is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person.
In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections, isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and atypical variations of structure and function, while in other contexts and for other purposes these may be considered distinguishable categories.
Diseases can affect people not only physically, but also emotionally, as contracting and living with a disease can alter the affected person's perspective on life.
Death due to disease is called death by natural causes.
There are four main types of disease:
- infectious diseases,
- deficiency diseases,
- genetic diseases (both hereditary and non-hereditary),
- and physiological diseases.
Diseases can also be classified as communicable and non-communicable. The deadliest diseases in humans are coronary artery disease (blood flow obstruction), followed by cerebrovascular disease and lower respiratory infections.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Diseases impacting Humans:
- Terminology
- Concepts
- Types by body system
- Stages
- Extent
- Classifications
- Causes including Types of causes
- Prevention
- Treatments
- Epidemiology
- Society and culture
- See also:
- Cryptogenic disease, a disease whose cause is currently unknown
- Developmental disability, severe, lifelong disabilities attributable to mental or physical impairments
- Environmental disease
- Host-pathogen interface
- List of incurable diseases
- Mitochondrial disease
- Plant pathology
- Rare disease, a disease that affects very few people
- Sociology of health and illness
- Health Topics, MedlinePlus descriptions of most diseases, with access to current research articles.
- OMIM Comprehensive information on genes that cause disease at Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man
- CTD The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database is a scientific resource connecting chemicals, genes, and human diseases.
- NLM Comprehensive database from the US National Library of Medicine
- Health Topics A-Z, fact sheets about many common diseases at Centers for Disease Control
- The Merck Manual containing detailed description of most diseases
- Report: The global burden of disease from World Health Organization (WHO), 2004
- Free online health-risk assessment by Your Disease Risk at Washington University in St Louis
Congenital Disorders ("Birth Defects"), including a List of Congenital Disorders.
YouTube Video: What is a Congenital Disorder?
Click here for a List of Congenital Disorders.
A congenital disorder, also known as birth defect, is a condition existing at or before birth regardless of cause. Of these disorders, those characterized by structural deformities are termed "congenital anomalies" and involve defects in a developing fetus.
Birth defects vary widely in cause and symptoms. Any substance that causes birth defects is known as a teratogen. Some disorders can be detected before birth through prenatal diagnosis (prophecy).
Birth defects may be the result of genetic or environmental factors. This includes errors of morphogenesis, infection, epigenetic modifications on a parental germline, or a chromosomal abnormality.
The outcome of the disorder will depend on complex interactions between the pre-natal deficit and the post-natal environment.
Animal studies indicate that the mother's (and likely the father's) diet, vitamin intake, and glucose levels prior to ovulation and conception have long-term effects on fetal growth and adolescent and adult disease.
Animal studies have shown that paternal exposures prior to conception and during pregnancy result in increased risk of certain birth defects and cancers. This research suggests that paternal food deprivation, germ line mutations, alcohol use, chemical mutagens, age, smoking habits and epigenetic alterations can affect birth outcomes.
However, the relationship between offspring health and paternal exposures, age, and lifestyle are still relatively weak. This is likely because paternal exposures and their effects on the fetus are studied far less extensively than maternal exposures.
Birth defects are present in about 3% of newborns in USA. Congenital anomalies resulted in about 632,000 deaths per year in 2013 down from 751,000 in 1990.
The type with the greatest numbers of deaths are congenital heart disease (323,000), followed by neural tube defects (69,000)
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Congenital Disorders:
A congenital disorder, also known as birth defect, is a condition existing at or before birth regardless of cause. Of these disorders, those characterized by structural deformities are termed "congenital anomalies" and involve defects in a developing fetus.
Birth defects vary widely in cause and symptoms. Any substance that causes birth defects is known as a teratogen. Some disorders can be detected before birth through prenatal diagnosis (prophecy).
Birth defects may be the result of genetic or environmental factors. This includes errors of morphogenesis, infection, epigenetic modifications on a parental germline, or a chromosomal abnormality.
The outcome of the disorder will depend on complex interactions between the pre-natal deficit and the post-natal environment.
Animal studies indicate that the mother's (and likely the father's) diet, vitamin intake, and glucose levels prior to ovulation and conception have long-term effects on fetal growth and adolescent and adult disease.
Animal studies have shown that paternal exposures prior to conception and during pregnancy result in increased risk of certain birth defects and cancers. This research suggests that paternal food deprivation, germ line mutations, alcohol use, chemical mutagens, age, smoking habits and epigenetic alterations can affect birth outcomes.
However, the relationship between offspring health and paternal exposures, age, and lifestyle are still relatively weak. This is likely because paternal exposures and their effects on the fetus are studied far less extensively than maternal exposures.
Birth defects are present in about 3% of newborns in USA. Congenital anomalies resulted in about 632,000 deaths per year in 2013 down from 751,000 in 1990.
The type with the greatest numbers of deaths are congenital heart disease (323,000), followed by neural tube defects (69,000)
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Congenital Disorders:
- Classification
- Primarily structural
Primarily metabolic
Other
- Primarily structural
- Causes
- Epidemiology
- United States
- See also:
- Malformative syndrome
- ICD-10 Chapter Q: Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities
- Idiopathic
- List of ICD-9 codes 740-759: Congenital anomalies
- March of Dimes
- Mitochondrial disease
- Supernumerary body part
- CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities
- Birth Defect Research for Children
Genetic Disorders, including a List of Genetic Disorders
YouTube Video About Genetic Disorders
Click here for a List of Genetic Disorders.
A genetic disorder is a genetic problem caused by one or more abnormalities in the genome, especially a condition that is present from birth (congenital).
Most genetic disorders are quite rare and affect one person in every several thousands or millions.
Genetic disorders may be hereditary, passed down from the parents' genes. In other genetic disorders, defects may be caused by new mutations or changes to the DNA. In such cases, the defect will only be passed down if it occurs in the germ line.
The same disease, such as some forms of cancer, may be caused by an inherited genetic condition in some people, by new mutations in other people, and mainly by environmental causes in other people.
Whether, when and to what extent a person with the genetic defect or abnormality will actually suffer from the disease is almost always affected by the environmental factors and events in the person's development.
Some types of recessive gene disorders confer an advantage in certain environments when only one copy of the gene is present.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Genetic Disorders:
A genetic disorder is a genetic problem caused by one or more abnormalities in the genome, especially a condition that is present from birth (congenital).
Most genetic disorders are quite rare and affect one person in every several thousands or millions.
Genetic disorders may be hereditary, passed down from the parents' genes. In other genetic disorders, defects may be caused by new mutations or changes to the DNA. In such cases, the defect will only be passed down if it occurs in the germ line.
The same disease, such as some forms of cancer, may be caused by an inherited genetic condition in some people, by new mutations in other people, and mainly by environmental causes in other people.
Whether, when and to what extent a person with the genetic defect or abnormality will actually suffer from the disease is almost always affected by the environmental factors and events in the person's development.
Some types of recessive gene disorders confer an advantage in certain environments when only one copy of the gene is present.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Genetic Disorders:
- Single-gene
- Autosomal dominant
Autosomal recessive
X-linked dominant
X-linked recessive
Y-linked
Mitochondrial
- Autosomal dominant
- Many genes
- Diagnosis
- Prognosis
- Treatment
- See also:
- FINDbase (the Frequency of Inherited Disorders database)
- Genetic epidemiology
- Inborn errors of metabolism
- Population groups in biomedicine
- Mendelian error
- Public Health Genomics at CDC
- OMIM — Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, a catalog of human genes and genetic disorders
- Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center (GARD) Office of Rare Diseases (ORD), National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities
- Genetic Disease Information from the Human Genome Project
- Global Genes Project, Genetic and Rare Diseases Organization
I have chained together the following 3 Topics as reasoning methods that People interactively use to form opinion, then to make a decision.
Common Sense vs. Intuition vs. Reasoning
YouTube Video: 3 ways to make better decisions -- by thinking like a computer | Tom Griffiths TED
Pictured: A diagram representing the constitution of the United States as proposed by Thomas Paine in his publication "Common Sense" (1776)
Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things that are shared by ("common to") nearly all people and can reasonably be expected of nearly all people without need for debate.
The everyday understanding of common sense derives from philosophical discussion involving several European languages. Related terms in other languages include Latin sensus communis, Greek κοινὴ αἴσθησις (koinē aísthēsis), and French bon sens, but these are not straightforward translations in all contexts. Similarly in English, there are different shades of meaning, implying more or less education and wisdom: "good sense" is sometimes seen as equivalent to "common sense", and sometimes not.
"Common sense" has at least two specifically philosophical meanings. One is a capability of the animal soul (Greek psukhē) proposed by Aristotle, which enables different individual senses to collectively perceive the characteristics of physical things such as movement and size, which all physical things have in different combinations, allowing people and other animals to distinguish and identify physical things.
This common sense is distinct from basic sensory perception and from human rational thinking, but cooperates with both. The second special use of the term is Roman-influenced and is used for the natural human sensitivity for other humans and the community.
Just like the everyday meaning, both of these refer to a type of basic awareness and ability to judge that most people are expected to share naturally, even if they can not explain why.
All these meanings of "common sense", including the everyday one, are inter-connected in a complex history and have evolved during important political and philosophical debates in modern western civilization, notably concerning science, politics and economics.
The interplay between the meanings has come to be particularly notable in English, as opposed to other western European languages, and the English term has become international.
In modern times the term "common sense" has frequently been used for rhetorical effect, sometimes pejorative, and sometimes appealed to positively, as an authority. It can be negatively equated to vulgar prejudice and superstition, or on the contrary it is often positively contrasted to them as a standard for good taste and as the source of the most basic axioms needed for science and logic.
It was at the beginning of the eighteenth century that this old philosophical term first acquired its modern English meaning: “Those plain, self-evident truths or conventional wisdom that one needed no sophistication to grasp and no proof to accept precisely because they accorded so well with the basic (common sense) intellectual capacities and experiences of the whole social body".
This began with Descartes' criticism of it, and what came to be known as the dispute between "rationalism" and "empiricism". In the opening line of one of his most famous books, Discourse on Method, Descartes established the most common modern meaning, and its controversies, when he stated that everyone has a similar and sufficient amount of common sense (bon sens), but it is rarely used well.
Therefore, a skeptical logical method described by Descartes needs to be followed and common sense should not be overly relied upon. In the ensuing 18th century Enlightenment, common sense came to be seen more positively as the basis for modern thinking. It was contrasted to metaphysics, which was, like Cartesianism, associated with the ancien régime.
Thomas Paine's polemical pamphlet Common Sense (1776) has been described as the most influential political pamphlet of the 18th century, affecting both the American and French revolutions. Today, the concept of common sense, and how it should best be used, remains linked to many of the most perennial topics in epistemology and ethics, with special focus often directed at the philosophy of the modern social sciences.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Common Sense:
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired.]
Different writers give the word "intuition" a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.
There are philosophers who contend that the word "intuition" is often misunderstood or misused to mean instinct, truth, belief, meaning but rather realms of greater knowledge and other subjects, whereas others contend that faculties such as instinct, belief and intuition are factually related.
The word intuition comes from the Latin verb intueri translated as "consider" or from the late middle English word intuit, "to contemplate".Intuition Peak on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named in appreciation of the role of scientific intuition for the advancement of human knowledge.
Click on and of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Intuition:
Reasoning:
Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.
It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature. Reason, or an aspect of it, is sometimes referred to as rationality.
Reasoning is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reasoning may be subdivided into forms of logical reasoning (forms associated with the strict sense):
Along these lines, a distinction is often drawn between discursive reason, reason proper, and intuitive reason, in which the reasoning process—however valid—tends toward the personal and the opaque.
Although in many social and political settings logical and intuitive modes of reason may clash, in other contexts intuition and formal reason are seen as complementary, rather than adversarial as, for example, in mathematics, where intuition is often a necessary building block in the creative process of achieving the hardest form of reason, a formal proof.
Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. It is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination.
In contrast to reason as an abstract noun, a reason is a consideration which explains or justifies some event, phenomenon, or behavior. The field of logic studies ways in which human beings reason formally through argument.
Psychologists and cognitive scientists have attempted to study and explain how people reason, e.g. which cognitive and neural processes are engaged, and how cultural factors affect the inferences that people draw. The field of automated reasoning studies how reasoning may or may not be modeled computationally. Animal psychology considers the question of whether animals other than humans can reason.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Reasoning:
The everyday understanding of common sense derives from philosophical discussion involving several European languages. Related terms in other languages include Latin sensus communis, Greek κοινὴ αἴσθησις (koinē aísthēsis), and French bon sens, but these are not straightforward translations in all contexts. Similarly in English, there are different shades of meaning, implying more or less education and wisdom: "good sense" is sometimes seen as equivalent to "common sense", and sometimes not.
"Common sense" has at least two specifically philosophical meanings. One is a capability of the animal soul (Greek psukhē) proposed by Aristotle, which enables different individual senses to collectively perceive the characteristics of physical things such as movement and size, which all physical things have in different combinations, allowing people and other animals to distinguish and identify physical things.
This common sense is distinct from basic sensory perception and from human rational thinking, but cooperates with both. The second special use of the term is Roman-influenced and is used for the natural human sensitivity for other humans and the community.
Just like the everyday meaning, both of these refer to a type of basic awareness and ability to judge that most people are expected to share naturally, even if they can not explain why.
All these meanings of "common sense", including the everyday one, are inter-connected in a complex history and have evolved during important political and philosophical debates in modern western civilization, notably concerning science, politics and economics.
The interplay between the meanings has come to be particularly notable in English, as opposed to other western European languages, and the English term has become international.
In modern times the term "common sense" has frequently been used for rhetorical effect, sometimes pejorative, and sometimes appealed to positively, as an authority. It can be negatively equated to vulgar prejudice and superstition, or on the contrary it is often positively contrasted to them as a standard for good taste and as the source of the most basic axioms needed for science and logic.
It was at the beginning of the eighteenth century that this old philosophical term first acquired its modern English meaning: “Those plain, self-evident truths or conventional wisdom that one needed no sophistication to grasp and no proof to accept precisely because they accorded so well with the basic (common sense) intellectual capacities and experiences of the whole social body".
This began with Descartes' criticism of it, and what came to be known as the dispute between "rationalism" and "empiricism". In the opening line of one of his most famous books, Discourse on Method, Descartes established the most common modern meaning, and its controversies, when he stated that everyone has a similar and sufficient amount of common sense (bon sens), but it is rarely used well.
Therefore, a skeptical logical method described by Descartes needs to be followed and common sense should not be overly relied upon. In the ensuing 18th century Enlightenment, common sense came to be seen more positively as the basis for modern thinking. It was contrasted to metaphysics, which was, like Cartesianism, associated with the ancien régime.
Thomas Paine's polemical pamphlet Common Sense (1776) has been described as the most influential political pamphlet of the 18th century, affecting both the American and French revolutions. Today, the concept of common sense, and how it should best be used, remains linked to many of the most perennial topics in epistemology and ethics, with special focus often directed at the philosophy of the modern social sciences.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Common Sense:
- Aristotelian
- Roman
- Cartesian
- The Enlightenment after Descartes
- Kant: In aesthetic taste
- Contemporary philosophy
- Catholic theology
- Projects
- See also:
- Counterintuitive
- Appeal to tradition
- A priori knowledge
- Basic belief
- Common knowledge
- Common sense response to the Diallelus problem
- Commonsense reasoning (in Artificial intelligence)
- Doxa
- Endoxa
- Folk wisdom
- Knowledge
- Norm (sociology)
- Ordinary language philosophy
- Phronesis, practical wisdom
- Pre-theoretic belief
- Public opinion
- Rational choice theory
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired.]
Different writers give the word "intuition" a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.
There are philosophers who contend that the word "intuition" is often misunderstood or misused to mean instinct, truth, belief, meaning but rather realms of greater knowledge and other subjects, whereas others contend that faculties such as instinct, belief and intuition are factually related.
The word intuition comes from the Latin verb intueri translated as "consider" or from the late middle English word intuit, "to contemplate".Intuition Peak on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named in appreciation of the role of scientific intuition for the advancement of human knowledge.
Click on and of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Intuition:
- Philosophy
- Psychology
- Eastern philosophy
- Hinduism
- Buddhism
- Islam
- Western philosophy
- Freud
- Jung
- Modern psychology
- Colloquial usage
- See also:
- Artistic inspiration
- Brainstorming
- Common sense
- Cognition
- Cryptesthesia
- Déjà vu
- Extra-sensory perception
- Focusing
- Inner Relationship Focusing
- Grok
- Insight
- Instinct
- Intuition and decision-making
- Intuition pump
- Intuitionism
- Intelligence analysis#Trained intuition
- List of thought processes
- Medical intuitive
- Morphic resonance
- Nous
- Phenomenology (philosophy)
- Precognition
- Preconscious
- Rapport
- Religious experience
- Remote viewing
- Serendipity
- Social intuitionism
- Subconscious
- Synchronicity
- Tacit knowledge
- Truthiness
- Unconscious mind
Reasoning:
Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.
It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature. Reason, or an aspect of it, is sometimes referred to as rationality.
Reasoning is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reasoning may be subdivided into forms of logical reasoning (forms associated with the strict sense):
- deductive reasoning,
- inductive reasoning,
- abductive reasoning;
- and other modes of reasoning considered more informal, such as:
Along these lines, a distinction is often drawn between discursive reason, reason proper, and intuitive reason, in which the reasoning process—however valid—tends toward the personal and the opaque.
Although in many social and political settings logical and intuitive modes of reason may clash, in other contexts intuition and formal reason are seen as complementary, rather than adversarial as, for example, in mathematics, where intuition is often a necessary building block in the creative process of achieving the hardest form of reason, a formal proof.
Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. It is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination.
In contrast to reason as an abstract noun, a reason is a consideration which explains or justifies some event, phenomenon, or behavior. The field of logic studies ways in which human beings reason formally through argument.
Psychologists and cognitive scientists have attempted to study and explain how people reason, e.g. which cognitive and neural processes are engaged, and how cultural factors affect the inferences that people draw. The field of automated reasoning studies how reasoning may or may not be modeled computationally. Animal psychology considers the question of whether animals other than humans can reason.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Reasoning:
- Etymology and related words
- Philosophical history
- Reason compared to related concepts
- Traditional problems raised concerning reason
- Reason in particular fields of study
- See also:
- Confirmation bias
- Conformity
- Logic and rationality
- Outline of thought - topic tree that identifies many types of thoughts/thinking, types of reasoning, aspects of thought, related fields, and more.
- Outline of human intelligence - topic tree presenting the traits, capacities, models, and research fields of human intelligence, and more.
The Human Condition including the Meaning of Life and One's Morality
YouTube Video by Monty Python and the Meaning of Life
Pictured: Clockwise from Upper Left Corner: The Inevetability of Death, Religion and the Meaning of Life, A Quote about the Meaning of Life; and Homer Simpson's constant struggle between Right and Wrong
The human condition is "the characteristics, key events, and situations which compose the essentials of human existence, such as birth, growth, emotions, aspiration, conflict, and mortality." This is a very broad topic which has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed from many perspectives, including those of the following:
As a literary term, "the human condition" is typically used in the context of ambiguous subjects such as the meaning of life or moral concerns.
Each major religion has definitive beliefs regarding the human condition. For example, Buddhism teaches that life is a perpetual cycle without satisfaction, death, and rebirth from which humans can be liberated via the Noble Eightfold Path.
Meanwhile, Christianity teaches that humans are born in a sinful condition and are doomed in the afterlife unless they receive salvation through Jesus Christ.
Philosophers have provided many perspectives. An influential ancient view was that of the Republic in which Plato explored the question "what is justice?" and postulated that it is not primarily a matter among individuals but of society as a whole, prompting him to devise a utopia.
Two thousand years later René Descartes declared "I think, therefore I am" because he believed the human mind, particularly its faculty of reason, to be the primary determiner of truth; for this he is often credited as the father of modern philosophy. One such modern school, existentialism, attempts to reconcile an individual's sense of disorientation and confusion in a universe believed to be absurd.
Many works of literature provide perspective on the human condition. One famous example is Shakespeare's monologue "All the world's a stage" that pensively summarizes seven phases of human life.
Psychology has many theories, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the notion of identity crisis. It also has various methods, e.g. the logotherapy developed by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl to discover and affirm human meaning. Another method, cognitive behavioral therapy, has become a widespread treatment for clinical depression.
Ever since 1859, when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, the biological theory of evolution has been significant. The theory posits that the human species is related to all others, living and extinct, and that natural selection is the primary survival factor. This has provided a basis for new beliefs, e.g. social Darwinism, and for new technology, e.g. antibiotics.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Human Condition: ___________________________________________________________________________
The meaning of life, or the answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?", pertains to the significance of living or existence in general. Many other related questions include "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", or "What is the purpose of existence?"
There have been a large number of proposed answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. The search for life's meaning has produced much philosophical, scientific, theological, and metaphysical speculation throughout history.
Different people and cultures believe different things for the answer to this question.
The meaning of life as we perceive it is derived from philosophical and religious contemplation of, and scientific inquiries about existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness.
Many other issues are also involved, including:
Scientific contributions focus primarily on describing related empirical facts about the universe, exploring the context and parameters concerning the "how" of life. Science also studies and can provide recommendations for the pursuit of well-being and a related conception of morality.
An alternative, humanistic approach poses the question, "What is the meaning of my life?"
Questions about the meaning of life have been expressed in a broad variety of ways, including the following:
These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about The Meaning of Life:
Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper.
Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".
Moral philosophy includes moral ontology, or the origin of morals, as well as moral epistemology, or knowledge of morals.
Different systems of expressing morality have been proposed, including deontological ethical systems which adhere to a set of established rules, and normative ethical systems which consider the merits of actions themselves. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule, which states that: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."
Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Morality:
- religion,
- philosophy,
- history,
- art,
- literature,
- anthropology,
- psychology,
- and biology.
As a literary term, "the human condition" is typically used in the context of ambiguous subjects such as the meaning of life or moral concerns.
Each major religion has definitive beliefs regarding the human condition. For example, Buddhism teaches that life is a perpetual cycle without satisfaction, death, and rebirth from which humans can be liberated via the Noble Eightfold Path.
Meanwhile, Christianity teaches that humans are born in a sinful condition and are doomed in the afterlife unless they receive salvation through Jesus Christ.
Philosophers have provided many perspectives. An influential ancient view was that of the Republic in which Plato explored the question "what is justice?" and postulated that it is not primarily a matter among individuals but of society as a whole, prompting him to devise a utopia.
Two thousand years later René Descartes declared "I think, therefore I am" because he believed the human mind, particularly its faculty of reason, to be the primary determiner of truth; for this he is often credited as the father of modern philosophy. One such modern school, existentialism, attempts to reconcile an individual's sense of disorientation and confusion in a universe believed to be absurd.
Many works of literature provide perspective on the human condition. One famous example is Shakespeare's monologue "All the world's a stage" that pensively summarizes seven phases of human life.
Psychology has many theories, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the notion of identity crisis. It also has various methods, e.g. the logotherapy developed by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl to discover and affirm human meaning. Another method, cognitive behavioral therapy, has become a widespread treatment for clinical depression.
Ever since 1859, when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, the biological theory of evolution has been significant. The theory posits that the human species is related to all others, living and extinct, and that natural selection is the primary survival factor. This has provided a basis for new beliefs, e.g. social Darwinism, and for new technology, e.g. antibiotics.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Human Condition: ___________________________________________________________________________
The meaning of life, or the answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?", pertains to the significance of living or existence in general. Many other related questions include "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", or "What is the purpose of existence?"
There have been a large number of proposed answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. The search for life's meaning has produced much philosophical, scientific, theological, and metaphysical speculation throughout history.
Different people and cultures believe different things for the answer to this question.
The meaning of life as we perceive it is derived from philosophical and religious contemplation of, and scientific inquiries about existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness.
Many other issues are also involved, including:
- symbolic meaning,
- ontology,
- value,
- purpose,
- ethics,
- good and evil,
- free will,
- the existence of one or multiple gods,
- conceptions of God,
- the soul,
- and the afterlife.
Scientific contributions focus primarily on describing related empirical facts about the universe, exploring the context and parameters concerning the "how" of life. Science also studies and can provide recommendations for the pursuit of well-being and a related conception of morality.
An alternative, humanistic approach poses the question, "What is the meaning of my life?"
Questions about the meaning of life have been expressed in a broad variety of ways, including the following:
- What is the meaning of life? What's it all about? Who are we?
Philosopher in Meditation (detail) by Rembrandt - Why are we here? What are we here for?
- What is the origin of life?
- What is the nature of life? What is the nature of reality?
- What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of one's life?
- What is the significance of life? – see also § Psychological significance and value in life
- What is meaningful and valuable in life?
- What is the value of life?
- What is the reason to live? What are we living for?
These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about The Meaning of Life:
- Scientific inquiry and perspectives
- Psychological significance and value in life
Origin and nature of biological life
Origins and ultimate fate of the universe
Scientific questions about the mind
Nature of meaning in life
- Psychological significance and value in life
- Western philosophical perspectives
- Ancient Greek philosophy
Enlightenment philosophy
19th century philosophy
20th-century philosophy
- Ancient Greek philosophy
- East Asian philosophical perspectives
- Mohism
Confucianism
Legalism
- Mohism
- Religious perspectives
- Western religions
South Asian religions
East Asian religions
- Western religions
- In popular culture
- Popular views
- To realize one's potential and ideals
- To achieve biological perfection
- To seek wisdom and knowledge
- To do good, to do the right thing
- Meanings relating to religion
- To love, to feel, to enjoy the act of living
- To have power, to be better
- Life has no meaning
- One should not seek to know and understand the meaning of life
- Life is bad
- See also:
- Scientific explanations
- Origin and nature of life and reality
- Value of life
- Purpose of life
- Miscellaneous
Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper.
Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".
Moral philosophy includes moral ontology, or the origin of morals, as well as moral epistemology, or knowledge of morals.
Different systems of expressing morality have been proposed, including deontological ethical systems which adhere to a set of established rules, and normative ethical systems which consider the merits of actions themselves. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule, which states that: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."
Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Morality:
- Philosophy
- Ethics
Descriptive and normative
Realism and anti-realism
- Ethics
- Anthropology
- Tribal and territorial
In-group and out-group
Comparing cultures
- Tribal and territorial
- Evolution
- Neuroscience
- Brain areas
Mirror neurons
- Brain areas
- Psychology
- Politics
- Religion
- Positions
Empirical analyses
- Positions
- See also:
Idealism vs. Pragmatism including Practical Idealism
YouTube Video: Pragmatic Idealism Andy Posner at TEDxProvidence
Pictured Below: Top as Example of Idealism; Bottom as Example of a Pragmatist
In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.
In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society. As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit. Idealism thus rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind.
The earliest extant arguments that the world of experience is grounded in the mental derive from India and Greece. The Hindu idealists in India and the Greek Neoplatonists gave panentheistic arguments for an all-pervading consciousness as the ground or true nature of reality.
In contrast, the Yogācāra school, which arose within Mahayana Buddhism in India in the 4th century CE, based its "mind-only" idealism to a greater extent on phenomenological analyses of personal experience. This turn toward the subjective anticipated empiricists such as George Berkeley, who revived idealism in 18th-century Europe by employing skeptical arguments against materialism.
Beginning with Immanuel Kant, German idealists such as G. W. F. Hegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Arthur Schopenhauer dominated 19th-century philosophy. This tradition, which emphasized the mental or "ideal" character of all phenomena, gave birth to idealistic and subjectivist schools ranging from British idealism to phenomenalism to existentialism.
The historical influence of this branch of idealism remains central even to the schools that rejected its metaphysical assumptions, such as Marxism, pragmatism and positivism.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Idealism:
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce later described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."
Pragmatism considers thought an instrument or tool for prediction, problem solving and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.
The philosophy of pragmatism "emphasizes the practical application of ideas by acting on them to actually test them in human experiences". Pragmatism focuses on a "changing universe rather than an unchanging one as the Idealists, Realists and Thomists had claimed"
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Pragmatism:
Practical idealism is a term first used by John Dewey in 1917 and subsequently adopted by Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi Marg 2002). It describes a philosophy that holds it to be an ethical imperative to implement ideals of virtue or good. It further holds it to be equally immoral to either refuse to make the compromises necessary to realise high ideals, or to discard ideals in the name of expediency.
Practical idealism in its broadest sense may be compared to utilitarianism in its emphasis on outcomes, and to political economy and enlightened self-interest in its emphasis on the alignment of what is right with what is possible.
International Affairs:
In foreign policy and international relations, the phrase "practical idealism" has come to be taken as a theory or set of principles that diplomats or politicians use to describe or publicize their outlook on foreign policy. It purports to be a pragmatic compromise between realism, which stresses the promotion of a state's "narrow" and amoral self-interest, and idealism, which aims to use the state's influence and power to promote higher liberal ideals such as peace, justice, and co-operation between nations.
In this view, realism is seen as a prescription for Machiavellian selfishness and ruthlessness in international relations. Machiavelli recommended political strategies for reigning, or potential, princes; the infamous teachings gravitate around his vision of the overarching and ultimate goal of any Prince, remaining in power.
These strategies range from those that, today, might be called moderate or liberal political advice to those that, today, might be called illegal, immoral or, in the U.S., unconstitutional. For better or worse, Machiavelli is by name, like novelist George Orwell, modernly associated with manipulative acts and philosophies that disregard civil rights and basic human dignity in favor of deception, intimidation, and coercion.
This extreme form of realism is sometimes considered both unbecoming of nations' aspirations and, ultimately, morally and spiritually unsatisfying for their individual people. Extreme idealism, on the other hand, is associated with moralist naiveté and the failure to prioritize the interests of one's state above other goals.
More recently, practical idealism has been advocated by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Philip D. Zelikow, in the position of counselor to the department. The latter has defended the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration as being "motivated in good part by ideals that transcend narrow conceptions of material self-interest." Zelikow also assesses former U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt as practitioners of practical idealism.
SECRETARY RICE: "Well, American foreign policy has always had, and I think rightfully had, a streak of idealism, which means that we care about values, we care about principle. It's not just getting to whatever solution is available, but it's doing that within the context of principles and values.
And at a time like this, when the world is changing very rapidly and when we have the kind of existential challenge that we have with terrorism and extremism, it's especially important to lead from values. And I don't think we've had a president in recent memory who has been so able to keep his policies centered in values.
The responsibility, then, of all of us is to take policies that are rooted in those values and make them work on a day-to-day basis so that you're always moving forward toward a goal, because nobody believes that the kinds of monumental changes that are going on in the world or that we are indeed seeking are going to happen in a week's time frame or a month's time frame or maybe even a year's time frame. So it's the connection, the day-to-day operational policy connection between those ideals and policy outcomes". - Condoleezza Rice, Washington Post interview
Singaporean diplomat and former ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Tommy Koh quoted UN Secretary-General U Thant when he described himself as a practical idealist:
"If I am neither a Realist nor a Moralist, what am I? If I have to stick a label on myself, I would quote U Thant and call myself a practical Idealist.
I believe that as a Singaporean diplomat, my primary purpose is to protect the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and economic well-being of the state of Singapore. I believe that I ought to pursue these objectives by means which are lawful and moral. On the rare occasions when the pursuit of my country's vital national interest compels me to do things which are legally or morally dubious,
I ought to have a bad conscience and be aware of the damage which I have done to the principle I have violated and to the reputation of my country. I believe that I must always consider the interests of other states and have a decent regard for the opinion of others.
I believe that it is in Singapore's long-term interest to strengthen international law and morality, the international system for curbing the use of force and the institutions for the pacific settlement of disputes.
Finally, I believe that it is in the interests of all nations to strengthen international co-operation and to make the world's political and economic order more stable, effective and equitable. — "Can Any Country Afford a Moral Foreign Policy?"
Critics have questioned whether practical idealism is merely a slogan with no substantive policy implications." (Gude 2005)
U.S. presidential politics:
The phrase practical idealism also was used as a slogan by John Kusumi who ran as an independent candidate in the 1984 presidential elections. This was the first introduction of the phrase in U.S. presidential politics. (United Press International 1984) (New Haven Journal Courier 1984) (New Haven Register 1984)
Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore also used the phrase in the 1990s, as did Republican Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the 2000s.
American political scientist Jack Godwin elaborates on the doctrine of practical idealism in The Arrow and the Olive Branch: Practical Idealism in US Foreign Policy.
See also:
In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society. As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit. Idealism thus rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind.
The earliest extant arguments that the world of experience is grounded in the mental derive from India and Greece. The Hindu idealists in India and the Greek Neoplatonists gave panentheistic arguments for an all-pervading consciousness as the ground or true nature of reality.
In contrast, the Yogācāra school, which arose within Mahayana Buddhism in India in the 4th century CE, based its "mind-only" idealism to a greater extent on phenomenological analyses of personal experience. This turn toward the subjective anticipated empiricists such as George Berkeley, who revived idealism in 18th-century Europe by employing skeptical arguments against materialism.
Beginning with Immanuel Kant, German idealists such as G. W. F. Hegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Arthur Schopenhauer dominated 19th-century philosophy. This tradition, which emphasized the mental or "ideal" character of all phenomena, gave birth to idealistic and subjectivist schools ranging from British idealism to phenomenalism to existentialism.
The historical influence of this branch of idealism remains central even to the schools that rejected its metaphysical assumptions, such as Marxism, pragmatism and positivism.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Idealism:
- Definitions
- Classical idealism
- Idealism in Indian and Buddhist thought
- Subjective idealism
- Transcendental idealism
- Objective idealism
- See also:
- Cogito ergo sum
- Mind over matter
- Neo-Vedanta
- New Thought
- Solipsism
- Spirituality
- Idealism at PhilPapers
- Idealism at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
- "Idealism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- "German idealism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- 'The Triumph of Idealism', lecture by Professor Keith Ward offering a positive view of Idealism, at Gresham College, 13 March 2008 (available in text, audio, and video download)
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce later described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."
Pragmatism considers thought an instrument or tool for prediction, problem solving and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.
The philosophy of pragmatism "emphasizes the practical application of ideas by acting on them to actually test them in human experiences". Pragmatism focuses on a "changing universe rather than an unchanging one as the Idealists, Realists and Thomists had claimed"
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Pragmatism:
- Origins
- Core tenets
- Anti-reification of concepts and theories
Naturalism and anti-Cartesianism
Reconciliation of anti-skepticism and fallibilism
Pragmatist theory of truth and epistemology
- Anti-reification of concepts and theories
- In other fields of philosophy
- Philosophy of science
Logic
Metaphysics
Philosophy of mind
Ethics
Aesthetics
Philosophy of religion
- Philosophy of science
- Analytical, neoclassical, and neopragmatism
- Legacy and contemporary relevance
- Effects on social sciences
Effects on public administration
Effects on feminism
Effects on urbanism
- Effects on social sciences
- Criticisms
- List of pragmatists
- See also:
- American philosophy
- Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography
- Pragmatic theory of truth
- Pragmatism as an eighth tradition of Communication theory
- Scientific method#Pragmatic model
- New legal realism
- General sources
- Journals and organizations: There are several peer-reviewed journals dedicated to pragmatism, for example:
- Contemporary Pragmatism, affiliated with the International Pragmatism Society
- European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, affiliated with the Associazione Culturale Pragma (Italy)
- Nordic Studies in Pragmatism, journal of the Nordic Pragmatism Network
- Pragmatism Today, journal of the Central European Pragmatist Forum (CEPF)
- Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, journal of the Charles S. Peirce Society
- William James Studies, journal of the William James Society
- Other online resources and organizations
- Pragmatist Sociology
- Pragmatism Cybrary
- Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway
- Centro de Estudos sobre Pragmatismo (CEP) — Center for Pragmatism Studies (CPS) (Brazil)
- Charles S. Peirce Studies
- Dutch Pragmatism Foundation
- Helsinki Peirce Research Center (Finland), including:
- Institute for American Thought
- John Dewey Society
- Neopragmatism.org
- Peirce Edition Project
- Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy
Practical idealism is a term first used by John Dewey in 1917 and subsequently adopted by Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi Marg 2002). It describes a philosophy that holds it to be an ethical imperative to implement ideals of virtue or good. It further holds it to be equally immoral to either refuse to make the compromises necessary to realise high ideals, or to discard ideals in the name of expediency.
Practical idealism in its broadest sense may be compared to utilitarianism in its emphasis on outcomes, and to political economy and enlightened self-interest in its emphasis on the alignment of what is right with what is possible.
International Affairs:
In foreign policy and international relations, the phrase "practical idealism" has come to be taken as a theory or set of principles that diplomats or politicians use to describe or publicize their outlook on foreign policy. It purports to be a pragmatic compromise between realism, which stresses the promotion of a state's "narrow" and amoral self-interest, and idealism, which aims to use the state's influence and power to promote higher liberal ideals such as peace, justice, and co-operation between nations.
In this view, realism is seen as a prescription for Machiavellian selfishness and ruthlessness in international relations. Machiavelli recommended political strategies for reigning, or potential, princes; the infamous teachings gravitate around his vision of the overarching and ultimate goal of any Prince, remaining in power.
These strategies range from those that, today, might be called moderate or liberal political advice to those that, today, might be called illegal, immoral or, in the U.S., unconstitutional. For better or worse, Machiavelli is by name, like novelist George Orwell, modernly associated with manipulative acts and philosophies that disregard civil rights and basic human dignity in favor of deception, intimidation, and coercion.
This extreme form of realism is sometimes considered both unbecoming of nations' aspirations and, ultimately, morally and spiritually unsatisfying for their individual people. Extreme idealism, on the other hand, is associated with moralist naiveté and the failure to prioritize the interests of one's state above other goals.
More recently, practical idealism has been advocated by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Philip D. Zelikow, in the position of counselor to the department. The latter has defended the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration as being "motivated in good part by ideals that transcend narrow conceptions of material self-interest." Zelikow also assesses former U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt as practitioners of practical idealism.
SECRETARY RICE: "Well, American foreign policy has always had, and I think rightfully had, a streak of idealism, which means that we care about values, we care about principle. It's not just getting to whatever solution is available, but it's doing that within the context of principles and values.
And at a time like this, when the world is changing very rapidly and when we have the kind of existential challenge that we have with terrorism and extremism, it's especially important to lead from values. And I don't think we've had a president in recent memory who has been so able to keep his policies centered in values.
The responsibility, then, of all of us is to take policies that are rooted in those values and make them work on a day-to-day basis so that you're always moving forward toward a goal, because nobody believes that the kinds of monumental changes that are going on in the world or that we are indeed seeking are going to happen in a week's time frame or a month's time frame or maybe even a year's time frame. So it's the connection, the day-to-day operational policy connection between those ideals and policy outcomes". - Condoleezza Rice, Washington Post interview
Singaporean diplomat and former ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Tommy Koh quoted UN Secretary-General U Thant when he described himself as a practical idealist:
"If I am neither a Realist nor a Moralist, what am I? If I have to stick a label on myself, I would quote U Thant and call myself a practical Idealist.
I believe that as a Singaporean diplomat, my primary purpose is to protect the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and economic well-being of the state of Singapore. I believe that I ought to pursue these objectives by means which are lawful and moral. On the rare occasions when the pursuit of my country's vital national interest compels me to do things which are legally or morally dubious,
I ought to have a bad conscience and be aware of the damage which I have done to the principle I have violated and to the reputation of my country. I believe that I must always consider the interests of other states and have a decent regard for the opinion of others.
I believe that it is in Singapore's long-term interest to strengthen international law and morality, the international system for curbing the use of force and the institutions for the pacific settlement of disputes.
Finally, I believe that it is in the interests of all nations to strengthen international co-operation and to make the world's political and economic order more stable, effective and equitable. — "Can Any Country Afford a Moral Foreign Policy?"
Critics have questioned whether practical idealism is merely a slogan with no substantive policy implications." (Gude 2005)
U.S. presidential politics:
The phrase practical idealism also was used as a slogan by John Kusumi who ran as an independent candidate in the 1984 presidential elections. This was the first introduction of the phrase in U.S. presidential politics. (United Press International 1984) (New Haven Journal Courier 1984) (New Haven Register 1984)
Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore also used the phrase in the 1990s, as did Republican Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the 2000s.
American political scientist Jack Godwin elaborates on the doctrine of practical idealism in The Arrow and the Olive Branch: Practical Idealism in US Foreign Policy.
See also:
- Gandhi's Practical Idealism, analysis by the Gandhi Peace Foundation
- "If I Were Graduation Speaker" opinion article in Christian Science Monitor by Josiah H. Brown, 24 May 1996; asks, “To what kind of work should a practical idealist aspire?”
- American Practical Idealism speech by Al Gore, 1998, Vice-President of the United States
- Canadian Practical Idealism writings by Akaash Maharaj, 1998-2003 National Policy Chair of the Liberal Party of Canada
- At State, Rice Takes Control of Diplomacy, Washington Post, 31 July 2005, and the interview transcript
The Mind and Logical Reasoning
YouTube Video: Logical argument and deductive reasoning exercise example*
*-by Khan Academy
The mind is a set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory.
The mind is usually defined as the faculty of an entity's thoughts and consciousness. It holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation, and is responsible for processing feelings and emotions, resulting in attitudes and actions.
There is a lengthy tradition in philosophy, religion, psychology, and cognitive science about what constitutes a mind and what is its distinguishing properties.
One open question regarding the nature of the mind is the mind–body problem, which investigates the relation of the mind to the physical brain and nervous system. Pre-scientific viewpoints included dualism and idealism, which considered the mind somehow non-physical.
Modern views center around physicalism and functionalism, which hold that the mind is roughly identical with the brain or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity.
Another question concerns which types of beings are capable of having minds. For example, whether mind is exclusive to humans, possessed also by some or all animals, by all living things, whether it is a strictly definable characteristic at all, or whether mind can also be a property of some types of man-made machines.
Whatever its nature, it is generally agreed that mind is that which enables a being to have subjective awareness and intentionality towards their environment, to perceive and respond to stimuli with some kind of agency, and to have consciousness, including thinking and feeling.
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different cultural and religious traditions. Some see mind as a property exclusive to humans whereas others ascribe properties of mind to non-living entities (e.g. panpsychism and animism), to animals and to deities.
Some of the earliest recorded speculations linked mind (sometimes described as identical with soul or spirit) to theories concerning both life after death, and cosmological and natural order, for example in the doctrines of Zoroaster, the Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient Greek, Indian and, later, Islamic and medieval European philosophers.
Important philosophers of mind include:
Psychologists such as Freud and James, and computer scientists such as Turing and Putnam developed influential theories about the nature of the mind. The possibility of non-human minds is explored in the field of artificial intelligence, which works closely in relation with cybernetics and information theory to understand the ways in which information processing by non-biological machines is comparable or different to mental phenomena in the human mind.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Human Mind:
There are two kinds of logical reasoning besides formal deduction: induction and abduction. Given a precondition or premise, a conclusion or logical consequence and a rule or material conditional that implies the conclusion given the precondition, one can explain that:
See also:
The mind is usually defined as the faculty of an entity's thoughts and consciousness. It holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation, and is responsible for processing feelings and emotions, resulting in attitudes and actions.
There is a lengthy tradition in philosophy, religion, psychology, and cognitive science about what constitutes a mind and what is its distinguishing properties.
One open question regarding the nature of the mind is the mind–body problem, which investigates the relation of the mind to the physical brain and nervous system. Pre-scientific viewpoints included dualism and idealism, which considered the mind somehow non-physical.
Modern views center around physicalism and functionalism, which hold that the mind is roughly identical with the brain or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity.
Another question concerns which types of beings are capable of having minds. For example, whether mind is exclusive to humans, possessed also by some or all animals, by all living things, whether it is a strictly definable characteristic at all, or whether mind can also be a property of some types of man-made machines.
Whatever its nature, it is generally agreed that mind is that which enables a being to have subjective awareness and intentionality towards their environment, to perceive and respond to stimuli with some kind of agency, and to have consciousness, including thinking and feeling.
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different cultural and religious traditions. Some see mind as a property exclusive to humans whereas others ascribe properties of mind to non-living entities (e.g. panpsychism and animism), to animals and to deities.
Some of the earliest recorded speculations linked mind (sometimes described as identical with soul or spirit) to theories concerning both life after death, and cosmological and natural order, for example in the doctrines of Zoroaster, the Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient Greek, Indian and, later, Islamic and medieval European philosophers.
Important philosophers of mind include:
- Plato,
- Descartes,
- Leibniz,
- Locke,
- Berkeley,
- Hume,
- Kant,
- Hegel,
- Schopenhauer,
- Searle,
- Dennett,
- Fodor,
- Nagel,
- and Chalmers.
Psychologists such as Freud and James, and computer scientists such as Turing and Putnam developed influential theories about the nature of the mind. The possibility of non-human minds is explored in the field of artificial intelligence, which works closely in relation with cybernetics and information theory to understand the ways in which information processing by non-biological machines is comparable or different to mental phenomena in the human mind.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Human Mind:
- Definitions
- Mental faculties
- Mental content
- Relation to the brain
- Evolutionary history of the human mind
- Philosophy of mind
- Scientific study
- Mental health
- Non-human minds
- In religion
- In pseudoscience
- See also:
- Outline of human intelligence – topic tree presenting the traits, capacities, models, and research fields of human intelligence, and more.
- Outline of thought – topic tree that identifies many types of thoughts, types of thinking, aspects of thought, related fields, and more.
- Cognitive sciences
- Conscience
- Consciousness
- Explanatory gap
- Hard problem of consciousness
- Ideasthesia
- Mental energy
- Mind–body problem
- Mind at Large
- Neural Darwinism
- Noogenesis
- Philosophical zombie
- Philosophy of mind
- Problem of other minds
- Sentience
- Skandha
- Subjective character of experience
- Theory of mind
There are two kinds of logical reasoning besides formal deduction: induction and abduction. Given a precondition or premise, a conclusion or logical consequence and a rule or material conditional that implies the conclusion given the precondition, one can explain that:
- Deductive reasoning determines whether the truth of a conclusion can be determined for that rule, based solely on the truth of the premises. Example: "When it rains, things outside get wet. The grass is outside, therefore: when it rains, the grass gets wet." Mathematical logic and philosophical logic are commonly associated with this type of reasoning.
- Inductive reasoning attempts to support a determination of the rule. It hypothesizes a rule after numerous examples are taken to be a conclusion that follows from a precondition in terms of such a rule. Example: "The grass got wet numerous times when it rained, therefore: the grass always gets wet when it rains." While they may be persuasive, these arguments are not deductively valid, see the problem of induction. Science is associated with this type of reasoning.
- Abductive reasoning, a.k.a. inference to the best explanation, selects a cogent set of preconditions. Given a true conclusion and a rule, it attempts to select some possible premises that, if true also, can support the conclusion, though not uniquely. Example: "When it rains, the grass gets wet. The grass is wet. Therefore, it might have rained." This kind of reasoning can be used to develop a hypothesis, which in turn can be tested by additional reasoning or data. Diagnosticians, detectives, and scientists often use this type of reasoning.
See also:
![When Did the Human Mind Evolve to What It is Today? By Erin Wayman Smithsonian Magazine June 25, 2012 Archaeologists are finding signs of surprisingly sophisticated behavior in the ancient fossil record. Archaeologists excavating a cave on the coast of South Africa not long ago unearthed an unusual abalone shell. Inside was a rusty red substance. After analyzing the mixture and nearby stone grinding tools, the researchers realized they had found the world’s earliest known paint, made 100,000 years ago from charcoal, crushed animal bones, iron-rich rock and an unknown liquid. The abalone shell was a storage container--a prehistoric paint can. The find revealed more than just the fact that people used paints so long ago. It provided a peek into the minds of early humans. Combining materials to create a product that doesn’t resemble the original ingredients and saving the concoction for later suggests people at the time were capable of abstract thinking, innovation and planning for the future. These are among the mental abilities that many anthropologists say distinguished humans, Homo sapiens, from other hominids. Yet researchers have no agreed-upon definition of exactly what makes human cognition so special. “It’s hard enough to tell what the cognitive abilities are of somebody who’s standing in front of you,” says Alison Brooks, an archaeologist at George Washington University and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “So it’s really hard to tell for someone who’s been dead for half a million years or a quarter million years.” Since archaeologists can’t administer psychological tests to early humans, they have to examine artifacts left behind. When new technologies or ways of living appear in the archaeological record, anthropologists try to determine what sort of novel thinking was required to fashion a spear, say, or mix paint or collect shellfish. The past decade has been particularly fruitful for finding such evidence. And archaeologists are now piecing together the patterns of behavior recorded in the archaeological record of the past 200,000 years to reconstruct the trajectory of how and when humans started to think and act like modern people. There was a time when they thought they had it all figured out. In the 1970s, the consensus was simple: Modern cognition evolved in Europe 40,000 years ago. That’s when cave art, jewelry and sculpted figurines all seemed to appear for the first time. The art was a sign that humans could use symbols to represent their world and themselves, archaeologists reasoned, and therefore probably had language, too. Neanderthals living nearby didn’t appear to make art, and thus symbolic thinking and language formed the dividing line between the two species’ mental abilities. (Today, archaeologists debate whether, and to what degree, Neanderthals were symbolic beings.) One problem with this analysis was that the earliest fossils of modern humans came from Africa and dated to as many as 200,000 years ago--roughly 150,000 years before people were depicting bison and horses on cave walls in Spain. Richard Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford University, suggested that a genetic mutation occurred 40,000 years ago and caused an abrupt revolution in the way people thought and behaved. In the decades following, however, archaeologists working in Africa brought down the notion that there was a lag between when the human body evolved and when modern thinking emerged. “As researchers began to more intensely investigate regions outside of Europe, the evidence of symbolic behavior got older and older,” says archaeologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria in Canada. For instance, artifacts recovered over the past decade in South Africa-- such as pigments made from red ochre, perforated shell beads and ostrich shells engraved with geometric designs--have pushed back the origins of symbolic thinking to more than 70,000 years ago, and in some cases, to as early as 164,000 years ago. Now many anthropologists agree that modern cognition was probably in place when Homo sapiens emerged. “It always made sense that the origins of modern human behavior, the full assembly of modern uniqueness, had to occur at the origin point of the lineage,” says Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist at Arizona State University in Tempe. Marean thinks symbolic thinking was a crucial change in the evolution of the human mind. “When you have that, you have the ability to develop language. You have the ability to exchange recipes of technology,” he says. It also aided the formation of extended, long-distance social and trading networks, which other hominids such as Neanderthals lacked. These advances enabled humans to spread into new, more complex environments, such as coastal locales, and eventually across the entire planet. “The world was their oyster,” Marean says. But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition. But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition. Working memory allows the brain to retrieve, process and hold in mind several chunks of information all at one time to complete a task. A particularly sophisticated kind of working memory “involves the ability to hold something in attention while you’re being distracted,” Wynn says. In some ways, it’s kind of like multitasking. And it’s needed in problem solving, strategizing, innovating and planning. In chess, for example, the brain has to keep track of the pieces on the board, anticipate the opponent’s next several steps and prepare (and remember) countermoves for each possible outcome. Finding evidence of this kind of cognition is challenging because humans don’t use advanced working memory all that much. “It requires a lot of effort,” Wynn says. “If we don’t have to use it, we don’t.” Instead, during routine tasks, the brain is sort of on autopilot, like when you drive your car to work. You’re not really thinking about it. Based on frequency alone, behaviors requiring working memory are less likely to be preserved than common activities that don’t need it, such as making simple stone choppers and handaxes. Yet there are artifacts that do seem to relate to advanced working memory. Making tools composed of separate pieces, like a hafted spear or a bow and arrow, are examples that date to more than 70,000 years ago. But the most convincing example may be animal traps, Wynn says. At South Africa’s Sibudu cave, Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, has found clues that humans were hunting large numbers of small, and sometimes dangerous, forest animals, including bush pigs and diminutive antelopes called blue duikers. The only plausible way to capture such critters was with snares and traps. With a trap, you have to think up a device that can snag and hold an animal and then return later to see whether it worked. “That’s the kind of thing working memory does for us,” Wynn says. “It allows us to work out those kinds of problems by holding the necessary information in mind.” It may be too simple to say that symbolic thinking, language or working memory is the single thing that defines modern cognition, Marean says. And there still could be important components that haven’t yet been identified. What’s needed now, Wynn adds, is more experimental archaeology. He suggests bringing people into a psych lab to evaluate what cognitive processes are engaged when participants make and use the tools and technology of early humans. Another area that needs more investigation is what happened after modern cognition evolved. The pattern in the archaeological record shows a gradual accumulation of new and more sophisticated behaviors, Brooks says. Making complex tools, moving into new environments, engaging in long distance trade and wearing personal adornments didn’t all show up at once at the dawn of modern thinking. The appearance of a slow and steady buildup may just be a consequence of the quirks of preservation. Organic materials like wood often decompose without a trace, so some signs of behavior may be too ephemeral to find. It’s also hard to spot new behaviors until they become widely adopted, so archaeologists are unlikely to ever locate the earliest instances of novel ways of living. Complex lifestyles might not have been needed early on in the history of Homo sapiens, even if humans were capable of sophisticated thinking. Sally McBrearty, an archaeologist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, points out in the 2007 book Rethinking the Human Revolution that certain developments might have been spurred by the need to find additional resources as populations expanded. Hunting and gathering new types of food, such as blue duikers, required new technologies. Some see a slow progression in the accumulation of knowledge, while others see modern behavior evolving in fits and starts. Archaeologist Franceso d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux in France suggests certain advances show up early in the archaeological record only to disappear for tens of thousands of years before these behaviors--for whatever reason--get permanently incorporated into the human repertoire about 40,000 years ago. “It’s probably due to climatic changes, environmental variability and population size,” d’Errico says. He notes that several tool technologies and aspects of symbolic expression, such as pigments and engraved artifacts, seem to disappear after 70,000 years ago. The timing coincides with a global cold spell that made Africa drier. Populations probably dwindled and fragmented in response to the climate change. Innovations might have been lost in a prehistoric version of the Dark Ages. And various groups probably reacted in different ways depending on cultural variation, d’Errico says. “Some cultures for example are more open to innovation.” Perhaps the best way to settle whether the buildup of modern behavior was steady or punctuated is to find more archaeological sites to fill in the gaps. There are only a handful of sites, for example, that cover the beginning of human history. “We need those [sites] that date between 125,000 and 250,000 years ago,” Marean says. “That’s really the sweet spot.” [End of Article] ___________________________________________________________________________ The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately 7 million years, from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago. The first 3 million years of this timeline concern Sahelanthropus, the following 2 million concern Australopithecus and the final 2 million span the history of the genus Homo in the Paleolithic era. Many traits of human intelligence, such as empathy, theory of mind, mourning, ritual, and the use of symbols and tools, are apparent in great apes although in less sophisticated forms than found in humans, such as great ape language. Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about The Evolution of Human Intelligence: History Hominidae Homininae Homo Homo sapiens Homo sapiens intelligence Models Social brain hypothesis Criticism Social exchange theory Sexual selection Critique Intelligence as a disease-resistance sign Ecological dominance-social competition model Intelligence dependent on brain size Group selection Nutritional status See also: Behavioral modernity Brain size Encephalization quotient Fisherian runaway Human evolution Noogenesis Primate cognition Race and intelligence ___________________________________________________________________________ Outline of Human Intelligence: The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human intelligence: Human intelligence is, in the human species, the mental capacities to learn, understand, and reason, including the capacities to comprehend ideas, plan, solve problems, and use language to communicate. Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks to access Outline of Human Intelligence: Traits and aspects Emergence and evolution Augmented with technology Capacities Types of people, by intelligence Models and theories Related factors Fields that study human intelligence History Organizations Publications Scholars and researchers See also: Active intellect Cognition Cognitivism Downing effect Educational psychology Fertility and intelligence Individual differences psychology Intellectual giftedness Knowledge Mental event Mental operations Neurocognitive Passive intellect Sex and psychology Scholarly journals and societies Intelligence (journal homepage) International Society for Intelligence Research (homepage)](/uploads/2/2/5/6/22560980/editor/development-of-human-intelligence_1.jpg?1539702133)
When Did the Human Mind Evolve to What It is Today?
By Erin Wayman
Smithsonian Magazine
June 25, 2012
Archaeologists are finding signs of surprisingly sophisticated behavior in the ancient fossil record.
Archaeologists excavating a cave on the coast of South Africa not long ago unearthed an unusual abalone shell. Inside was a rusty red substance. After analyzing the mixture and nearby stone grinding tools, the researchers realized they had found the world’s earliest known paint, made 100,000 years ago from charcoal, crushed animal bones, iron-rich rock and an unknown liquid.
The abalone shell was a storage container—a prehistoric paint can.
The find revealed more than just the fact that people used paints so long ago. It provided a peek into the minds of early humans. Combining materials to create a product that doesn’t resemble the original ingredients and saving the concoction for later suggests people at the time were capable of abstract thinking, innovation and planning for the future.
These are among the mental abilities that many anthropologists say distinguished humans, Homo sapiens, from other hominids. Yet researchers have no agreed-upon definition of exactly what makes human cognition so special.
“It’s hard enough to tell what the cognitive abilities are of somebody who’s standing in front of you,” says Alison Brooks, an archaeologist at George Washington University and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “So it’s really hard to tell for someone who’s been dead for half a million years or a quarter million years.”
Since archaeologists can’t administer psychological tests to early humans, they have to examine artifacts left behind. When new technologies or ways of living appear in the archaeological record, anthropologists try to determine what sort of novel thinking was required to fashion a spear, say, or mix paint or collect shellfish.
The past decade has been particularly fruitful for finding such evidence. And archaeologists are now piecing together the patterns of behavior recorded in the archaeological record of the past 200,000 years to reconstruct the trajectory of how and when humans started to think and act like modern people.
There was a time when they thought they had it all figured out. In the 1970s, the consensus was simple: Modern cognition evolved in Europe 40,000 years ago. That’s when cave art, jewelry and sculpted figurines all seemed to appear for the first time. The art was a sign that humans could use symbols to represent their world and themselves, archaeologists reasoned, and therefore probably had language, too.
Neanderthals living nearby didn’t appear to make art, and thus symbolic thinking and language formed the dividing line between the two species’ mental abilities. (Today, archaeologists debate whether, and to what degree, Neanderthals were symbolic beings.)
One problem with this analysis was that the earliest fossils of modern humans came from Africa and dated to as many as 200,000 years ago—roughly 150,000 years before people were depicting bison and horses on cave walls in Spain.
Richard Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford University, suggested that a genetic mutation occurred 40,000 years ago and caused an abrupt revolution in the way people thought and behaved.
In the decades following, however, archaeologists working in Africa brought down the notion that there was a lag between when the human body evolved and when modern thinking emerged. “As researchers began to more intensely investigate regions outside of Europe, the evidence of symbolic behavior got older and older,” says archaeologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria in Canada.
For instance, artifacts recovered over the past decade in South Africa— such as pigments made from red ochre, perforated shell beads and ostrich shells engraved with geometric designs—have pushed back the origins of symbolic thinking to more than 70,000 years ago, and in some cases, to as early as 164,000 years ago.
Now many anthropologists agree that modern cognition was probably in place when Homo sapiens emerged.
“It always made sense that the origins of modern human behavior, the full assembly of modern uniqueness, had to occur at the origin point of the lineage,” says Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Marean thinks symbolic thinking was a crucial change in the evolution of the human mind. “When you have that, you have the ability to develop language. You have the ability to exchange recipes of technology,” he says. It also aided the formation of extended, long-distance social and trading networks, which other hominids such as Neanderthals lacked.
These advances enabled humans to spread into new, more complex environments, such as coastal locales, and eventually across the entire planet. “The world was their oyster,” Marean says.
But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition.
But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition.
Working memory allows the brain to retrieve, process and hold in mind several chunks of information all at one time to complete a task. A particularly sophisticated kind of working memory “involves the ability to hold something in attention while you’re being distracted,” Wynn says.
In some ways, it’s kind of like multitasking. And it’s needed in problem solving, strategizing, innovating and planning. In chess, for example, the brain has to keep track of the pieces on the board, anticipate the opponent’s next several steps and prepare (and remember) countermoves for each possible outcome.
Finding evidence of this kind of cognition is challenging because humans don’t use advanced working memory all that much. “It requires a lot of effort,” Wynn says. “If we don’t have to use it, we don’t.” Instead, during routine tasks, the brain is sort of on autopilot, like when you drive your car to work.
You’re not really thinking about it. Based on frequency alone, behaviors requiring working memory are less likely to be preserved than common activities that don’t need it, such as making simple stone choppers and handaxes.
Yet there are artifacts that do seem to relate to advanced working memory. Making tools composed of separate pieces, like a hafted spear or a bow and arrow, are examples that date to more than 70,000 years ago. But the most convincing example may be animal traps, Wynn says.
At South Africa’s Sibudu cave, Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, has found clues that humans were hunting large numbers of small, and sometimes dangerous, forest animals, including bush pigs and diminutive antelopes called blue duikers. The only plausible way to capture such critters was with snares and traps.
With a trap, you have to think up a device that can snag and hold an animal and then return later to see whether it worked. “That’s the kind of thing working memory does for us,” Wynn says. “It allows us to work out those kinds of problems by holding the necessary information in mind.”
It may be too simple to say that symbolic thinking, language or working memory is the single thing that defines modern cognition, Marean says. And there still could be important components that haven’t yet been identified.
What’s needed now, Wynn adds, is more experimental archaeology. He suggests bringing people into a psych lab to evaluate what cognitive processes are engaged when participants make and use the tools and technology of early humans.
Another area that needs more investigation is what happened after modern cognition evolved. The pattern in the archaeological record shows a gradual accumulation of new and more sophisticated behaviors, Brooks says. Making complex tools, moving into new environments, engaging in long distance trade and wearing personal adornments didn’t all show up at once at the dawn of modern thinking.
The appearance of a slow and steady buildup may just be a consequence of the quirks of preservation. Organic materials like wood often decompose without a trace, so some signs of behavior may be too ephemeral to find. It’s also hard to spot new behaviors until they become widely adopted, so archaeologists are unlikely to ever locate the earliest instances of novel ways of living.
Complex lifestyles might not have been needed early on in the history of Homo sapiens, even if humans were capable of sophisticated thinking. Sally McBrearty, an archaeologist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, points out in the 2007 book Rethinking the Human Revolution that certain developments might have been spurred by the need to find additional resources as populations expanded. Hunting and gathering new types of food, such as blue duikers, required new technologies.
Some see a slow progression in the accumulation of knowledge, while others see modern behavior evolving in fits and starts. Archaeologist Franceso d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux in France suggests certain advances show up early in the archaeological record only to disappear for tens of thousands of years before these behaviors—for whatever reason—get permanently incorporated into the human repertoire about 40,000 years ago. “It’s probably due to climatic changes, environmental variability and population size,” d’Errico says.
He notes that several tool technologies and aspects of symbolic expression, such as pigments and engraved artifacts, seem to disappear after 70,000 years ago. The timing coincides with a global cold spell that made Africa drier. Populations probably dwindled and fragmented in response to the climate change. Innovations might have been lost in a prehistoric version of the Dark Ages. And various groups probably reacted in different ways depending on cultural variation, d’Errico says. “Some cultures for example are more open to innovation.”
Perhaps the best way to settle whether the buildup of modern behavior was steady or punctuated is to find more archaeological sites to fill in the gaps. There are only a handful of sites, for example, that cover the beginning of human history. “We need those [sites] that date between 125,000 and 250,000 years ago,” Marean says. “That’s really the sweet spot.”
[End of Article]
___________________________________________________________________________
The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately 7 million years, from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago.
The first 3 million years of this timeline concern Sahelanthropus, the following 2 million concern Australopithecus and the final 2 million span the history of the genus Homo in the Paleolithic era.
Many traits of human intelligence, such as empathy, theory of mind, mourning, ritual, and the use of symbols and tools, are apparent in great apes although in less sophisticated forms than found in humans, such as great ape language.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about The Evolution of Human Intelligence: ___________________________________________________________________________
Outline of Human Intelligence:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human intelligence:
Human intelligence is, in the human species, the mental capacities to learn, understand, and reason, including the capacities to comprehend ideas, plan, solve problems, and use language to communicate.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks to access Outline of Human Intelligence:
By Erin Wayman
Smithsonian Magazine
June 25, 2012
Archaeologists are finding signs of surprisingly sophisticated behavior in the ancient fossil record.
Archaeologists excavating a cave on the coast of South Africa not long ago unearthed an unusual abalone shell. Inside was a rusty red substance. After analyzing the mixture and nearby stone grinding tools, the researchers realized they had found the world’s earliest known paint, made 100,000 years ago from charcoal, crushed animal bones, iron-rich rock and an unknown liquid.
The abalone shell was a storage container—a prehistoric paint can.
The find revealed more than just the fact that people used paints so long ago. It provided a peek into the minds of early humans. Combining materials to create a product that doesn’t resemble the original ingredients and saving the concoction for later suggests people at the time were capable of abstract thinking, innovation and planning for the future.
These are among the mental abilities that many anthropologists say distinguished humans, Homo sapiens, from other hominids. Yet researchers have no agreed-upon definition of exactly what makes human cognition so special.
“It’s hard enough to tell what the cognitive abilities are of somebody who’s standing in front of you,” says Alison Brooks, an archaeologist at George Washington University and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “So it’s really hard to tell for someone who’s been dead for half a million years or a quarter million years.”
Since archaeologists can’t administer psychological tests to early humans, they have to examine artifacts left behind. When new technologies or ways of living appear in the archaeological record, anthropologists try to determine what sort of novel thinking was required to fashion a spear, say, or mix paint or collect shellfish.
The past decade has been particularly fruitful for finding such evidence. And archaeologists are now piecing together the patterns of behavior recorded in the archaeological record of the past 200,000 years to reconstruct the trajectory of how and when humans started to think and act like modern people.
There was a time when they thought they had it all figured out. In the 1970s, the consensus was simple: Modern cognition evolved in Europe 40,000 years ago. That’s when cave art, jewelry and sculpted figurines all seemed to appear for the first time. The art was a sign that humans could use symbols to represent their world and themselves, archaeologists reasoned, and therefore probably had language, too.
Neanderthals living nearby didn’t appear to make art, and thus symbolic thinking and language formed the dividing line between the two species’ mental abilities. (Today, archaeologists debate whether, and to what degree, Neanderthals were symbolic beings.)
One problem with this analysis was that the earliest fossils of modern humans came from Africa and dated to as many as 200,000 years ago—roughly 150,000 years before people were depicting bison and horses on cave walls in Spain.
Richard Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford University, suggested that a genetic mutation occurred 40,000 years ago and caused an abrupt revolution in the way people thought and behaved.
In the decades following, however, archaeologists working in Africa brought down the notion that there was a lag between when the human body evolved and when modern thinking emerged. “As researchers began to more intensely investigate regions outside of Europe, the evidence of symbolic behavior got older and older,” says archaeologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria in Canada.
For instance, artifacts recovered over the past decade in South Africa— such as pigments made from red ochre, perforated shell beads and ostrich shells engraved with geometric designs—have pushed back the origins of symbolic thinking to more than 70,000 years ago, and in some cases, to as early as 164,000 years ago.
Now many anthropologists agree that modern cognition was probably in place when Homo sapiens emerged.
“It always made sense that the origins of modern human behavior, the full assembly of modern uniqueness, had to occur at the origin point of the lineage,” says Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Marean thinks symbolic thinking was a crucial change in the evolution of the human mind. “When you have that, you have the ability to develop language. You have the ability to exchange recipes of technology,” he says. It also aided the formation of extended, long-distance social and trading networks, which other hominids such as Neanderthals lacked.
These advances enabled humans to spread into new, more complex environments, such as coastal locales, and eventually across the entire planet. “The world was their oyster,” Marean says.
But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition.
But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition.
Working memory allows the brain to retrieve, process and hold in mind several chunks of information all at one time to complete a task. A particularly sophisticated kind of working memory “involves the ability to hold something in attention while you’re being distracted,” Wynn says.
In some ways, it’s kind of like multitasking. And it’s needed in problem solving, strategizing, innovating and planning. In chess, for example, the brain has to keep track of the pieces on the board, anticipate the opponent’s next several steps and prepare (and remember) countermoves for each possible outcome.
Finding evidence of this kind of cognition is challenging because humans don’t use advanced working memory all that much. “It requires a lot of effort,” Wynn says. “If we don’t have to use it, we don’t.” Instead, during routine tasks, the brain is sort of on autopilot, like when you drive your car to work.
You’re not really thinking about it. Based on frequency alone, behaviors requiring working memory are less likely to be preserved than common activities that don’t need it, such as making simple stone choppers and handaxes.
Yet there are artifacts that do seem to relate to advanced working memory. Making tools composed of separate pieces, like a hafted spear or a bow and arrow, are examples that date to more than 70,000 years ago. But the most convincing example may be animal traps, Wynn says.
At South Africa’s Sibudu cave, Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, has found clues that humans were hunting large numbers of small, and sometimes dangerous, forest animals, including bush pigs and diminutive antelopes called blue duikers. The only plausible way to capture such critters was with snares and traps.
With a trap, you have to think up a device that can snag and hold an animal and then return later to see whether it worked. “That’s the kind of thing working memory does for us,” Wynn says. “It allows us to work out those kinds of problems by holding the necessary information in mind.”
It may be too simple to say that symbolic thinking, language or working memory is the single thing that defines modern cognition, Marean says. And there still could be important components that haven’t yet been identified.
What’s needed now, Wynn adds, is more experimental archaeology. He suggests bringing people into a psych lab to evaluate what cognitive processes are engaged when participants make and use the tools and technology of early humans.
Another area that needs more investigation is what happened after modern cognition evolved. The pattern in the archaeological record shows a gradual accumulation of new and more sophisticated behaviors, Brooks says. Making complex tools, moving into new environments, engaging in long distance trade and wearing personal adornments didn’t all show up at once at the dawn of modern thinking.
The appearance of a slow and steady buildup may just be a consequence of the quirks of preservation. Organic materials like wood often decompose without a trace, so some signs of behavior may be too ephemeral to find. It’s also hard to spot new behaviors until they become widely adopted, so archaeologists are unlikely to ever locate the earliest instances of novel ways of living.
Complex lifestyles might not have been needed early on in the history of Homo sapiens, even if humans were capable of sophisticated thinking. Sally McBrearty, an archaeologist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, points out in the 2007 book Rethinking the Human Revolution that certain developments might have been spurred by the need to find additional resources as populations expanded. Hunting and gathering new types of food, such as blue duikers, required new technologies.
Some see a slow progression in the accumulation of knowledge, while others see modern behavior evolving in fits and starts. Archaeologist Franceso d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux in France suggests certain advances show up early in the archaeological record only to disappear for tens of thousands of years before these behaviors—for whatever reason—get permanently incorporated into the human repertoire about 40,000 years ago. “It’s probably due to climatic changes, environmental variability and population size,” d’Errico says.
He notes that several tool technologies and aspects of symbolic expression, such as pigments and engraved artifacts, seem to disappear after 70,000 years ago. The timing coincides with a global cold spell that made Africa drier. Populations probably dwindled and fragmented in response to the climate change. Innovations might have been lost in a prehistoric version of the Dark Ages. And various groups probably reacted in different ways depending on cultural variation, d’Errico says. “Some cultures for example are more open to innovation.”
Perhaps the best way to settle whether the buildup of modern behavior was steady or punctuated is to find more archaeological sites to fill in the gaps. There are only a handful of sites, for example, that cover the beginning of human history. “We need those [sites] that date between 125,000 and 250,000 years ago,” Marean says. “That’s really the sweet spot.”
[End of Article]
___________________________________________________________________________
The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately 7 million years, from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago.
The first 3 million years of this timeline concern Sahelanthropus, the following 2 million concern Australopithecus and the final 2 million span the history of the genus Homo in the Paleolithic era.
Many traits of human intelligence, such as empathy, theory of mind, mourning, ritual, and the use of symbols and tools, are apparent in great apes although in less sophisticated forms than found in humans, such as great ape language.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about The Evolution of Human Intelligence: ___________________________________________________________________________
Outline of Human Intelligence:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human intelligence:
Human intelligence is, in the human species, the mental capacities to learn, understand, and reason, including the capacities to comprehend ideas, plan, solve problems, and use language to communicate.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks to access Outline of Human Intelligence:
- Traits and aspects
- Emergence and evolution
- Augmented with technology
- Capacities
- Types of people, by intelligence
- Models and theories
- Related factors
- Fields that study human intelligence
- History
- Organizations
- Publications
- Scholars and researchers
- See also: