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“[Narratives] serve as powerful tools for high-level neural network integration. The combination of linear storyline and visual imagery woven together with verbal and nonverbal expressions of emotion activates and utilizes dedicated circuitry of both left and right hemispheres, cortical and subcortical networks, the various regions of the frontal lobes, and the hippocampus and amygdala. The cooperative and interactive activation involved in stories may be precisely what is required for scultpting and maintaining neural network integration while allowing us to combine sensations, feelings, and behaviors with conscious awareness. Further, stories link individuals into families, tribes, and nations and into a group mind linking each individual brain. It is likely that our brains have been able to become as complex as they are precisely because of the power of narratives and the group to support neural integration”
― The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain
― The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain
“In the twentieth century we have become accustomed to the fact that - in the name of the nation - Catholics will fight Catholics, Protestants will fight Protestants, and Marxists will fight Marxists. The charge of blasphemy, if it is ever made, is treated as a quaint anachronism; but the charge of treason, of placing another lyalty above that to the nation state, is treated as the unforgivable crime. The nation state has taken the place of God.”
― The other side of 1984
― The other side of 1984
“An inclusive narrative structure provides the executive brain with the best template and strategy for the oversight and coordination of the functions of mind. A story well told, containing conflicts and resolutions, gestures and expressions, and thoughts flavored with emotion, connects people ad integrates neural networks”
― The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain
― The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain
“In sum, the Trinity is manifest in a creation constituted as an icon of the God who is love, and thus a creation whose very form is Church, whose highest expression is the crucified, resurrected, and glorified Christ”
― Augustine and Modernity
― Augustine and Modernity
“But...freedom has come into the spotlight again. We find ourselves surveilled and managed to an extraordinary degree, farmed for our personal data, fed consumer goods but discouraged from speaking our minds or doing anything too disruptive in the world, and regularly reminded that racial, sexual, religious, and ideological conflict are not closed cases at all. Perhaps we are ready to talk about freedom again - and talking about it politically also means talking about it in our personal lives.
This is why, when reading Sartre on freedom, Beauvoir on the subtle mechanisms of oppression, Kierkegaard on anxiety, Camus on rebellion, Heidegger on technology, or Merleau-Ponty on cognitive science, one sometimes feels one is reading the latest news. Their philosophies remain of interest, not because they are right or wrong, but because they concern life, and because they take on the two biggest human questionsL what are we? and what should we do?”
― At the Existentialist Café
This is why, when reading Sartre on freedom, Beauvoir on the subtle mechanisms of oppression, Kierkegaard on anxiety, Camus on rebellion, Heidegger on technology, or Merleau-Ponty on cognitive science, one sometimes feels one is reading the latest news. Their philosophies remain of interest, not because they are right or wrong, but because they concern life, and because they take on the two biggest human questionsL what are we? and what should we do?”
― At the Existentialist Café
Ryan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ryan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
517 books
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157 friends
741 books
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58 friends
686 books
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106 friends
2,289 books
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32 friends
5,718 books
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73 friends
396 books
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69 friends
11 books
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32 friends
1,934 books
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310 friends
More friends…
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