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Since January 1, 2014
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My Notes on Massive Open Online Course:
Buddhism and Modern Psychology
The Buddha said that human suffering—ranging from anxiety to sadness to unfulfilled craving—results from not seeing reality clearly. He described a kind of meditation that promises to ease suffering by dispelling illusions about the world and ourselves. What does psychological science say about this diagnosis and prescription—and about the underlying model of the mind?
Notes on 18 Lectures I Watched in This Course:
Naturalistic Buddhism
Feelings and Illusions
The First Two Noble Truths
Buddhism as Rebellion Against Natural Selection's Agenda
The Eightfold Path and the Matrix
Mindful Meditation
The Default Mode Network
The Evolution and Purpose of Feelings
Anātman: Buddha's Concept of the Not-Self
The Five Aggregates and the Non-Self
Left Brain, Right Brain, and The Self
Delusions of the Self
What Mental Modules Are Not
The Modular Theory of the Mind
Modular Theory of Mind and the Non-Self
Mind Modularity, Cravings, and Self Control
The Experience of the Not-Self
The Exterior Version of the Non-Self
2 People I Have Learned About in this Course:
William James (1842-1910)
Father of American psychology
  • founder of functional psychology with Peirce and Dewey
  • influenced Husserl
George Romanes (1848-1894)
Canadian-born English evolutionary biologist who laid the foundation of comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes between humans and other animals
  • the youngest of Charles Darwin's academic friends
  • invented the term neo-Darwinism, which is still often used today to indicate an updated form of Darwinism (i.e. transmission of characteristics from parent to child through genetic transfer rather than Darwin's "blending process")
  • our base feelings are fundamentally about approach and avoidance of phenomena in our environment: approaching a rattle snake feels bad, approaching food feels good
  • we assume our primate relatives have these feelings as well, and this may go down to very simple organisms
4 Vocabulary Words I Learned in this Course:
beneffectance, n. the quality of consciousness which leads people to reinterpret events in such a way that they put themselves in a favorable light and increase their readiness to take credit for success but not for failure, enhancing their actions both in internal and external dialogue in order that they appear to themselves and to others to be morally good.  "In psychological research literature, there are several indications that a beneffectance bias is associated with effective performance in situations in which perseverance might be the critical determinant of effectiveness."
equanimity, n. the quality of being calm and even-tempered  "Naturalistic Buddhism can give people a sense that their lives have meaning, consolation in times of sorrow, and equanimity as they encounter the turbulence of life."
promulgate, v. promote or make widely known (an idea or cause)  "These experiments suggest that the conscious self can promulgate and apparently believe wildly untrue stories about what is actually true of the natural world."
valence, n. negative or positive psychological value assigned to something based on its attractiveness  "When you are curious about something, it flips the valence from unpleasant to pleasant."