Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer

“In the province of the mind…there are no limits.” -John C. Lilly This was the conclusion of the late neuroscientist and psychoanalyst John C Lilly more than a half a century ago. In a small summary report written for the National Institute of Mental Health entitled Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer (1966-1967), Lilly offered insight into a five-year-long research project

Altered States: Sensory Deprivation and the Mind

Imagine floating in a void abandoned by sound, absent of all light, and devoid of gravity. In this void there is no sense of up and down, left or right; the perceivable contrast between the you-internal and the world-external has faded away. In this void you are simply a plane of being—the “I” who thinks, nothing and everything all at

How Bad Financial News Is Affecting Your Brain (and the Economy)

Our brains are particularly hard wired to focus on more dramatic, bombastic sources of information. “It’s about survival. It’s more important for our survival to avoid the bad than seek the good,” says Kuhnen. This instinctual reaction may have been helpful when avoiding a predator but in a time when information comes to us from sources motivated by a need for attention and profit, these emotional triggers can lead us in the wrong direction.