Personal Research

Author: bill

  • An Ancient Recommendation

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    Know Thyself! — Socrates Subjective experience is a strange subject. Studying your own experience is a different kind of challenge than is researching subjects such as chemistry or physics. When doing conventional research, we can safely assume that the cause-and-effect principles are the same in different laboratories. The results obtained by one scientists can be…

  • Miscellaneous Traps for the Soul

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      A trap is only a trap if you don’t know about it. If you know about it, it’s a challenge. ― China Melville The understanding that all of my thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are mental processes created by my nervous system is called Meta-Cognitive Awareness. Those who lack Meta-Cognitive Awareness are more certain of their…

  • Is it Better to be Gullible or Skeptical?

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    The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.  —  Bertrand Russell An ancient school of thought known as Skepticism taught that nothing can be known with certainty; they advised us to suspend judgment so as to remain free of…

  • A Strange Case of Reification

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    This case description is loosely based on real events. The telling is modeled on Robert Louis Stevenson’s gothic novella: "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde." However, in the current presentation the sinister serum that turns the rational Dr. Jekyll into the destructive Mr. Hyde is the reification of his pathogenic beliefs. De-Reifying…

  • Editing Your Fictions

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    Most people walk through the world in a trance of disempowerment. Our work is to transform that into a trance of empowerment  —  Milton Erickson The Personal Research Tool identifies the interpretive lens that is responsible for unwanted reactions to events that happen. This is a cognitive therapy tool designed to identify the thinking errors…

  • Suggestion Can Enhance Will

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    From our birth to our death we are all slaves of suggestions  —  Emile Coue Hypnotic Suggestion is a direct and powerful method to intentionally influence your subjective reality. The method is to take reification to its logical conclusion and act as if the suggested reality was literally true. Stage Hypnosis The method of hypnotic…

  • Reification & De-Reification

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    Umpire #1 —  I call’s ’em as I sees ’em Umpire #2 —  I calls ’em as they are Umpire #3 —  They ain’t nothin’ until I calls ’em The brain receives a lot of sensory input. To make sense of the complex environment with which we have to cope, the nervous system summarizes and abstracts from the…

  • The Phenomenal Truth

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    “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”  —  Marcus Aurelius  The understanding that thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are mental processes created by your nervous system is called Meta-Cognitive Awareness. We do not see the world as is really is, only as it looks from…

  • The Soul Illusion

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    I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.  —  Irvin Yalom Some otherwise competent individuals repeatedly and knowingly act counter to their own interests. They are not intending to hurt themselves; they are taken in…

  • The Study of Experience. . . From the Inside

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    Who looks outside, dreams Who looks inside, awakens — Carl Jung As remarkable and complex a structure as a neuron is, it does not possess consciousness. Consciousness requires a complex nervous system comprised of many neurons and sense organs. The nervous system you were born with is among the most complex structures in the universe,…