The business of reason

By MatthijsPosted on August 19, 2013July 22, 2020Cat Cognition & Methodology, Miscellaneous musings1 Comment

"The reason cannot grasp all truth in its embrace because truth is too infinite for it; but still it does grasp the something of it which we immediately need, and its insufficiency does not detract from the value of its work, but is rather the measure of its value. For man is not intended to grasp… Read More »

The Mindful Rat

By David C. NiermannPosted on December 3, 2012December 6, 2012Cat Cognition & Methodology, Psychology2 Comments

What if I told you that we are behaving like conditioned rats inside a Skinner Box? Let me go back in history a little bit. About one hundred years ago, Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning in his famous experiments with dogs. The dogs heard the ringing of a bell and then received food. After several… Read More »

How to do research in Indian Psychology?

By MatthijsPosted on October 9, 2011February 8, 2013Cat Cognition & Methodology2 Comments

One of the hallmarks of Indian Psychology is the central role it gives to consciousness. But how do you study consciousness? Consciousness is quintessentially subjective, and mainstream science does its level best to be as objective as possible. Can subjective and objective research be brought together in one single framework? During the last few hundred… Read More »

Why do we need Indian Psychology?

By MatthijsPosted on July 17, 2011November 3, 2011Cat Cognition & Methodology, Society2 Comments

When modern psychology discovered in the beginning of the 20th century that introspection was not a very reliable method of enquiry, it did not discover anything new. The Indian civilization had discovered this thousands of years ago. What was different however, was how modernity reacted to this discovery. It is good to stand still at… Read More »

Some further musings on knowledge and the brain, on science and yoga

By MatthijsPosted on May 9, 2011May 9, 2011Cat Cognition & Methodology, Miscellaneous musingsLeave a comment

Even the tiniest particle of matter, however small, must have within itself all the knowledge of the universe. The reason that it must be like this, is that the particle must know the laws that govern it, and as all the laws of physics are supposed to hang together, this means it must know the… Read More »

Early morning musings on mind, brain, time and coffee

By MatthijsPosted on May 8, 2011May 9, 2011Cat Cognition & Methodology, Miscellaneous musings2 Comments

Early morning thoughts stream slowly and meander leisurely through the mind without much of discipline. Yesterday I fixed a new mirror in the bathroom. The old mirror is still laying next to it. Seeing them both, I remember the adventures with "mirror-books" that Fynn describes with so much love in Mr. God, this is Anna. With some… Read More »

The objective and the subjective!

By DivyaPosted on December 4, 2010March 22, 2017Cat Cognition & Methodology, IPI, Psychology1 Comment

I came across this interesting passage from the book “The Varieties of Religious Experience” by Wiliam James. Here it is: "The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can… Read More »