Joomla! site syndication http://www.happymind.co.uk 2010-03-11T09:41:59+01:00 http://www.happymind.co.uk http://www.happymind.co.uk/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png text/html 2007-12-21T09:42:51+01:00 http://www.happymind.co.uk http://www.happymind.co.uk/articles/psychology/are-you-content.html Image © Eldan (http://www.eldan.co.uk/). Katherine Power writes about the science of happiness. Until recently psychology used to have much to say on mental illness, but little about what makes us happy. For the last half century the darker aspects of our mental lives – depression, neurosis, obsessions and paranoia – have been extensively studied, while the positive emotions were largely ignored by science. But thanks to people like American psychologist and writer Martin Seligman, positive emotions are now hot topics in academic circles. Even politicians are taking notice. “Happy politics has arrived,” argues BBC home editor Mark Easton, who believes that politicians are increasingly trying to make us happier, not just richer. text/html 2007-03-25T13:55:09+01:00 http://www.happymind.co.uk http://www.happymind.co.uk/articles/ethics/one-pill-to-make-you-happier.html Katherine Power talks to philosopher David Pearce about utopian pharmacology. The word ‘hedonism’ conjures up a ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle’, so you might expect David Pearce, the Brighton-based author of The Hedonistic Imperative, to be a womanising party animal. Instead, David leads a quiet life, running a small web hosting business and, in his spare time, expanding his website, listening to music and meeting friends at his home from home, Starbucks in Borders, where he drinks copious amounts of black coffee and keeps up with the news.HedWeb, which includes David’s numerous writings and musings, started in 1996 and now gets around 200,000 unique visitors a month. The core idea of David’s online manifesto is that we should use biotechnology to abolish all forms of suffering throughout the living world. More speculatively, David predicts that our descendants will be motivated by gradients of bliss which may be orders of magnitude richer than anything we can experience today. text/html 2007-02-07T04:57:52+01:00 http://www.happymind.co.uk http://www.happymind.co.uk/articles/psychology/madly-in-love.html Image © Eldan (http://www.eldan.co.uk/). Katherine Power writes about the science of love. Expressions like 'madly in love', 'crazy for you' and 'lovesick' may be more accurate than we think. When we fall in love, our brains experience an explosion of powerful chemicals. The neural profile that emerges has led some scientists to compare the initial stages of love to mental illnesses like obsessive compulsive disorder and mania, the manic phase of manic depression. Helen Fisher, a researcher at Rutgers University and the author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0805077960?ie=UTF8 tag=hapminthephia-21 linkCode=as2 camp=1634 creative=6738 creativeASIN=0805077960) believes we evolved three systems related to matters of the heart: the first deals with lust, the second with romantic love – also known as attraction, obsessive love, passionate love or 'being in love' – and the third with attachment. Fisher's theory is that the three systems motivate us, respectively, to mate, focus our attention on a particular partner, and stick with that partner long enough to look after the children we may have. text/html 2007-02-07T05:49:39+01:00 http://www.happymind.co.uk http://www.happymind.co.uk/articles/futurology/interview-with-blay-whitby.html Katherine Power interviews Blay Whitby, who works at the Department of Informatics at the University of Sussex and is the author of Artificial Intelligence: A Beginner's Guide (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1851683224?ie=UTF8 tag=hapminthephia-21 linkCode=as2 camp=1634 creative=6738 creativeASIN=1851683224). (This is the longer version of an interview originally published in Rocks Magazine, February 2007 issue.) What is Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what is its purpose?AI is the study of intelligence in humans, animals, and machines and the attempt to engineer intelligence into any type of artifact.One purpose of AI is to understand what intelligence is and how it works. The second is to build useful technology. As a matter of history, AI has been very successful at both. text/html 2007-02-07T05:42:47+01:00 http://www.happymind.co.uk http://www.happymind.co.uk/articles/editorials/the-smile-of-early-spring.html Image © Eldan (http://www.eldan.co.uk/). Was it the smile of early springThat made my bosom glow?'Twas sweet, but neither sun nor windCould raise my spirit so. Was it some feeling of delight,All vague and undefined?No, 'twas a rapture deep and strong,Expanding in the mind! Anne Bronte, In Memory of A Happy Day in February.