Pseudoscience, mumbo-jumbo, claptrap, old-fashioned nonsense? What’s Tony moaning about this week?
My pal Rupert is a former consultant gynaecologist. He is spending some of his retirement years thinking about the conundrums of life. He insisted I read an article in ‘New Scientist’. I’m glad I did, but more because of its amusement value. It is about ‘lifting the lid on the unconscious’ and giving ways to achieve this. I realise you are bubbling with anticipation at the coming revelations but first the preamble stuff:
- Almost all the brain’s activity happens below the level of consciousness
- There are glitches – tweak them and your system will work better
- 40% of behaviour is habitual
That’s enough of the academic claptrap. Now the juicy bits. Here they are
FIVE ways to use your brain more effectively (and become a Monday Moaner):
Tears come from the heart and not from the brain
Leonardo da Vinci (d.1519, painter/sculptor)
5 Ways To Use Your Brain
ONE: ‘Take a hot bath’. Hang on. Is this cerebral writer off their rocket? It’s actually a lady (Emma Young) but I’m so nervous about breaching gender correctness, I am not revealing that. Here’s the copy: ‘If you’re feeling lonely, a hot bath may make you feel better. Research reveals that we unconsciously associate physical warmth and social warmth.’ If you are in the bath reading the ‘Moan’ and playing with your rubber ducks, this does not apply to you.
TWO: ‘Think yourself full’. It says looking of pictures of particular foods decreases your appetite for that type of food. Similarly spending a few moments imagining you are full will help you choose a smaller portion.
The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around
Thomas A. Edison (d.1931, US inventor)
THREE: ‘Smell something fishy’. The article says ‘’it smells fishy’ is a metaphor for distrust in more than twenty languages. Fishy smells make us more alert to misleading information. Emma’s point is that unconscious vigilance for rotten fish makes us even more wary in general.
READER’S NOTE – I wish I was making this up, but it’s what she has written, promise!
Pseudoscience?
FOUR: ‘Get your house in order’. Crime rates are linked to broken windows, litter and graffiti. And, says Emma, ‘even asymmetry and wonky edges can activate mental metaphors such as ‘crooked politicians’’
(At last, we can talk about Brexit. Mr Moan knows best on the outcome which is nobody knows. What will happen is that Parliament will dither and fiddle. MPs will take their three weeks minimum Christmas holidays and then they and the leaders of the civil service will go skiing in January. 29 March 2019 will come rather quickly and, thank goodness, we will be out of the Europe Union. We can then regain our position as one of the world’s great trading nations.)
The human brain is an incredible pattern-making machine
Jeff Bezos (54, Founder, Amazon)
FIVE: ‘Don’t be deceived’. ‘We are consciously bad at spotting liars’, writes Professor Emma. Now this is interesting. She says that fidgeting and averting eye contact are not signals of deception. Better to trust your intuition because we have an unconscious sense of who is lying to us.
It’s called a pen. It’s like a printer hooked straight to my brain
Dale Dauten (67. US corporate thinker)
Emma’s long article, full of pseudoscience, continues to be tedious but does end positively. ‘Unlocking the knowledge in your unconscious mind could be as simple as believing that you can do it.’
I hope that my pal Rupert was more successful at delivering babies than he is at recommending articles I should read!
(Tony’s views are his own personal views and do NOT reflect the views of MrandMrs50Plus.com)
