How to Use Humanizing Habits of Mind to Create a Spiritual Consciousness More men become good through practice than by nature. —Democritus Background A basic principle of the quadrune mind model of spiritual consciousness is that people are not born either spiritually enlightened or spiritually fallen. Also, being spiritually conscious does not mean having a holier-than-thou attitude […]
Category: Human Mind
Introduction If you were to ask a human being and a bat, “What is it like to have a mind?,” you would expect to get unimaginably different answers. What is less expected is that if you asked four different people the same question, you could receive four unimaginably different answers. In 1974, philosopher Thomas Nagel famously asked […]
Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped,and the insight to know the one from the other.—Reinhold Niebuhr, 1937 Introduction In the quadrune mind model of spiritual consciousness, we state that the purpose of a Human life is to reduce suffering and increase healing, but what does that […]
Background When I was about 9 years old growing up in Oklahoma in the 1950s, I remember stating my opinion to a grown-up man. It started out with “I think…” about some forgotten topic. However, I do remember his response: “Do you think or do you know?” Well, I doubt if I really knew what I was talking about, but […]
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Silent Behaviors
The Differences among Automaticity, Solemn Rituals, Spiritual Rituals, and Awe Recent posts have described incidents of unusually silent behaviors of people: Sacred Spaciousness in a Physically Tiny Montreal Restaurant suggested that a Human mentality was dominant in the vignette presented, while Automaticity: Humans Behaving Like Machines described examples of speechlessness when a reptilian mind was dominant. In this post […]
Introduction To define religion and spirituality is difficult to do. Yet, it is important that we have some understanding of what these words mean for the quadrune mind model of spirituality and this blog. The best definitions of “religion” and “spirituality” for the quadrune mind model come from Bowling Green State University. Spirituality is defined as “the […]
(A Human-Minded Practice) Becoming more Human-minded is ultimately a process of becoming more aware and mindful of our behaviors and how we can change them so that our choices positively impact the world around us instead of intentionally or unintentionally harming it. Similar to eating and procreating, consumption is a “survival” activity that is often […]
(A Comparison of Two Religious Politicians, Josh Hawley and John Lewis, in Light of the Quadrune Mind Model) Josh Hawley and John Lewis each has lived his life in service to what he believed was right. But does that mean they have both lived spiritual lives? For the quadrune mind, it’s the level of consciousness, […]
Introduction In previous posts we have profiled each of the three pre-Human mentalities: the reptilian mind (as seen in Donald Trump’s behavior), the old mammalian mind (as seen in Temple Grandin’s understanding of animals), and the new mammalian mind (as seen in Tara Westover’s intellectual journey). These profiles are not meant to demonize anyone, but […]
A New York Times opinion piece written by Emily Esfahani Smith called on us to look for meaning, rather than happiness, to survive and even thrive during the coronavirus lockdown. We agree, and this blog explains why meaning is more important than happiness based on the quadrune mind model of human consciousness. The answer is in the […]