The Unexperimented Experiment

Excuse the non-word.

Dr. Vaughn Bell's theoretical experiment involving the investigation of paranoia is an important one. He suggests that mental health professionals judge a person's so-called delusions as severe or based on real circumstances. A private investigator would then research the patient's claims to see how valid they are. I think this would be a great experiment because, as Bell notes, it would allow us to see how much our brain exaggerates fear. It would also help determine whether a person actually has a mental illness or not; I'm sure there are some people out there who are on medication that they don't need to be on. This will never be a realized experiment, but what we would learn from it would be valuable.

Other Blogs

As I would consider myself a paranoid person, the blog about paranoia from PsycPORT.com was of interest to me. Basically, it says that paranoia isn't just for schizophrenics and doesn't always require professional help (phew). While the actual figures vary greatly, everyone agrees that paranoia is on the rise. It's not always a bad thing to be more aware of your surroundings, but if the paranoia is too severe, it can cause stress, leading to health problems. Now for Shannon's version of the moral of the story: Unless some dude is following you everywhere and staring up at your bedroom window every night, shut up, you'll be fine.

Next up, we have laughter! Yay! Ever laugh for no reason? Good for you! When you laugh, you release happy hormones and help your body relax and get rid of stress, which sucks. It also strengthens your immune system for some reason... but that can help your body fight cancer and other serious ailments. There are actually "laugh clubs" nowadays-- I know-- that meet and just practice laughing. And you know what's funny?(Haha. Puns.) I was laughing when I read this article. Nothing was amusing about it, I just laughed. So LAUGH PEOPLE! If you need help I'll come to your house and do a funny dance.


So I just read a blog about infidelity. And now I'm depressed. Apparently humans aren't meant to be with one person for their entire life; we're not monogamous. One author suggests that while everything else around us has changed, marraige hasn't, which explains the increase in infidelity. And while it is more common than it used to be and our idea of marraige apparently isn't modern enough to fit our lifestyle, infidelity is still painful and socially unacceptable, or at least frowned upon. It's likely you're going to be cheated on and/or greatly hurt by one or more people you're romantically involved with because humans are not monogamous by nature. But that's just according to this article, and they're just a bunch of wankers.

Future Uses of Neuroscience

It's hard to say what the future holds, but neuroscience will have something to do with it. Someday everyone will have little chips in his/her head that connect their thoughts to the objects in their house(the tv, the radio, the computer, maybe we'll get funky and try to talk to the curtains, who knows). Forget about those pesky remotes and all their tiny buttons and complicated workings. We'll have iTunes in our heads! So during class we could play music and the teachers wouldn't know it. Haha. Basically we'll all be voluntarily psychic. If you don't want someone to know something, you'll have some nice sort of firewall to protect that information, but your mind will be able to send messages to people. So yeah. Cool.