Meaning Of Life Human Nature And Delusions

Whatever are your beliefs, background, education, political views or interests, one thing is sure: this book will engage you, teach you something new, and more importantly make you to re-think deeply about critical aspects of your daily-life, including sex, love, food, physical activities, diseases, work and stress, and how you see and deal with other people, other animals, and the planet in general. Indeed, it focuses on topics that have fascinated people from all places and historical periods since times immemorial: Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Are we progressing, and will we thrive? It does this by integrating in a unique fashion information from ancient Greek, Sumerian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim texts to high-tech brain research, facts about near-death experiences, Covid-19, QAnon conspiracies, virtual reality and dating aps; from Adam and Eve to the rise of misogyny and racism to Black Lives Matter, Me-Too, Hollywood romantic movies and Disney fairy-tales. Contrary to notions about 'human progress' and 'Homo Deus' defended by authors such as Harari, Pinker and Dawkins, it shows that human history instead involves the repetition of similar imaginary tales created by a combination of traits found in other animals and the uniquely human obsession about 'cosmic purpose' stories related to our awareness of death's inevitability. Organized religions appeared later, chiefly during the rise of agriculture and 'civilizations'. Diogo navigates mesmerizing untold stories revealing a paradox: these events and the industrial 'revolution' increased inequality, oppression, slavery, subjugation of women, famines, plagues, 'work', stress, and suicides. Data from psychology, biology, neurobiology, and cross-cultural studies of hunter-gatherers and so-called 'developed' societies reveal an even more profound paradox: within all forms of life, the 'sapient being' is the one immersed in Neverland's world of unreality - truly a Homo irrationalis, fictus and socialis believing in fictional tales about cosmic 'duties', 'romantic meant to be', demons, inferior 'races' and 'genders', conspiracies, and 'justified' slavery, warfare, genocides, and animal abuses. Importantly, such tales play, on the other hand, crucial functions such as help coping with death and a plethora of societal troubles, decreasing stress, or preventing drug and alcohol abuse. An optimist and passionate wondered and wanderer, Diogo provides enthralling details about the history of religion, discrimination, romantic love, warfare, diseases and Earth's biodiversity illustrating how 'virtue is in the middle' and that we - with our intriguing combination of beliefs, bodily needs and desires, artistic abilities, and mismatches between our senses' illusions and the cosmos' reality - are not 'better' or 'worse' than the other millions of captivating living species. This powerful and urgently needed message has critical repercussions for how we understand, care about, and mindfully enjoy living in this splendid planet, in the reality of here and now. Pre-publication comments: "I applaud the enormous work that Diogo has invested in this follow-up to his widely acclaimed Evolution driven by organismal behavior book, and the challenge of getting people to think beyond and outside of our usual set of definitions and expectations. The case-studies provided in the book are fascinating and insightful" (Drew Noden, Award-winning Emeritus Professor, Cornell University) "Rui Diogo is becoming the Slavoj Zizek of evolutionary biology" (Marcelo Sanchez-Villagra, Director of the Paleontological Institute and Museum of the University of Zurich)

"This book presents new philosophical work on delusions and their impact on everyday human behavior. It explores a cluster of related topics at the intersection of philosophy of mind and psychiatry, while also charting the historical development of work on delusions. Within psychiatry, there are several disputes about the nature and origin of delusions. Whereas some authors see only an abnormal phenomenon that needs to be treated by psychological or pharmacological means, others hold that delusions can be psychologically adaptive and even have epistemic benefits. This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of contributors to build consensus around what delusions are and how they impact the human mind. Part 1 provides readers with an informed historical discussion of delusions and carefully examines the contemporary impact of these historical perspectives. Part 2 analyzes the impact of contemporary views of delusions on the mental and emotional life of human agents. Finally, Part 3 explores the normative frameworks of delusions and analyzes the impact of some of their behavioral consequences on the daily life of subjects and their caregivers. The Philosophy and Psychology of Delusions is essential reading for researchers and graduate students working at the intersection of philosophy, psychiatry, and psychology"--

The book identifies most human nature characteristics defining the behavior of humans and contrasting them with socialist beliefs. Most political systems forget to consider human nature in their approaches and choose to apply biased policies invented by bureaucrats. People's behavioral mechanisms are different. No two people have the same amount of aggressiveness or defensiveness in a specific scenario. Socialism imposition of a unique viewpoint that has to be accepted by everybody is a misunderstanding of human's idiosyncratic nature.

Most textbooks and atlases of human anatomy chronicle only a few cases of muscle variations in the "normal" human population, or of muscle anomalies within congenital malformations. Consequently, there is a misconception of what is considered "normal" human anatomy and what that looks like. Each person within the "normal" population has at least a few muscle variations, and there are millions of individuals born globally each year with muscle anomalies. There are crucial knowledge gaps between what is taught, what students learn, what textbooks and atlases show, and what truly happens in nature and within our species. This handbook fills this gap by: 1) providing a comparative evolutionary context for muscle variations and defects in humans, 2) summarizing the major types of variations and anomalies found in humans, and 3) including didactic figures for a visually engaging learning experience. This book is of interest to students, professors, and researchers in biological anthropology, comparative anatomy, functional morphology, zoology, and evolutionary and developmental biology, as well as to clinicians and practicing health professionals. Key Features Summarizes most recorded variations and anomalies for each muscle in the human body Provides information on the comparative anatomy of each muscle, including evolutionary differences from our closest living relatives, the apes Includes didactic illustrations of the variations and anomalies for a visually engaging learning experience Comprehensively reviews literature to document prevalence information for each variation and anomaly, within humans Related Titles Brown, D. E. Human Biological Diversity, 2nd ed. (ISBN 978-1-138-03753-3) Diogo, R., et al. Understanding Human Anatomy and Pathology: An Evolutionary and Developmental Guide for Medical Students (ISBN 978-1-4987-5384-5) Diogo, R. Muscles of Chordates: Development, Homologies, and Evolution (ISBN 978-1-138-57116-7)

Today most of us accept the consensus that madness is a medical condition: an illness, which can be identified, classified and treated with drugs like any other. In this ground breaking and controversial work Richard Bentall shatters the myths that surround madness. He shows there is no reassuring dividing line between mental health and mental illness. Severe mental disorders can no longer be reduced to brain chemistry, but must be understood psychologically, as part of normal behaviour andhuman nature. Bentall argues that we need a radically new way of thinking about psychosis and its treatment. Could it be that it is a fear of madness, rather than the madness itself, that is our problem?

This book presents a sort of a climbing up to a complex, contextual knowledge of who you and we are,what makes us destroy our life prospects and how to come over this hurdle which is built up in our minds/brains. The book presents thus an understanding of the human condition/nature and a way to transcend and evolve beyond these self defeating mechanisms to a new, upgraded Homo.