ALPHABETICAL BRAIN® VOCABULARY HUMANIST FAMILY BRAIN STUDY DISCOVER YOUR ALPHABETICAL BRAIN® HOW TO LEARN THE 15 BRAIN IDEAS FAST August 28, 2022 This website is designed to provide you with accurate scientific knowledge about how your brain's physical structures and your mind's mental functions operate. It is essential for you to learn how your brain works from a scientific perspective if you want to thrive in the future. The main purpose of the Alphabetical Brain® Vocabulary website is to help you understand your mind's mental functions in the most efficient way possible. Therefore, the fundamental presupposition of this website is that you can use your natural willpower and creative imagination and adaptable self-identity to create sensible, effective skill-sets to empower you to use your mind's mental functions more efficiently. To repeat for clarity: the new brain knowledge is centered in the relationships between your WORKING VISUAL MEMORY (short-term memory system) in your prefrontal cortex and your LONG-TERM MEMORY consolidation system in your hippocampus. This basic assumption can be easily understood by anyone who seeks to understand the meaning of his or her life. Essentially, natural willpower and creative imagination are the causes or sources of your adaptable self-identity ("sense-of-self" or "secular-self" or "self"). [Note: The three humanistic names --- "sense-of-self" and "secular-self" and "self" --- are all synonyms for your "self-identity" and your "mind".] The new brain vocabulary can help you establish what is real and what is fake about the many choices you must make every day in our digitized high-tech globalized human society. In addition, your mind can learn to regulate your dynamic mental functions, which include your infinite ability to imagine, reason, and remember everything necessary for your survival and health. Just like the size and quality of your active general vocabulary can define and empower you, the size and quality of your brain vocabulary can shape and activate your unique self-awareness and personal consciousness! Whenever you become aware of this remarkable power of your own mind, you can enhance any memory by combining specific memories of past events or attitudes with your new situational awareness at the present moment. The purpose of routines and rituals is to transform your thoughts and feelings and behaviors --- whenever you accept them willingly. The best way to "erase" or liquidate old unnecessary or useless memories is to deliberately decide to forget them by using your natural willpower and creative imagination to make any desired changes. You will need to relate an old unwanted memory to your current situational awareness in your new social context. This planning process can create a more realistic and useful memory to begin remembering. This logical "re-framing" cognitive process may take several specific efforts to accomplish. For example, when you choose to drive on a strange road, at first it feels unfamiliar until you repeat the trip a few times. Then, it usually feels more natural each time you repeat the trip. The same feeling of familiarity happens when choosing to forget an old unwanted memory after substituting a more desirable memory for it. However, beware of the negative aspect of memories of routines and rituals if you were forced to do something by someone else in the past when you were younger which may have led to unfulfilling behavior. Especially be careful if you now feel that you had been manipulated by an institution or another person such as a former friend or family member. To deal with unfulfilling memories of the past, you can analyze them within your current situational context and either embellish them or forget them due to new factual events or ideas or feelings you are currently experiencing. This natural remembering process of reinforcing or forgetting a memory usually happens unconsciously. But it can be controlled by you --- if you regard it as being important enough for you to spend cognitive energy to learn how to do it! You can organize this "forgetting process" to your advantage by consciously understanding it and knowing what you want to achieve. This process is especially important when you want to forget harmful negative memories from your past. If traumatic negative uncomfortable feelings are related to an unwanted memory from your past, you can facilitate the forgetting process by disclosing essential aspects of that memory to a special friend or therapist. The counseling technique known as "ventilating feelings" generate a new constructive perspective concerning most negative memories of the past. The educational process of understanding how to deal with feelings in the context of the new paradym known as "constructed emotions" in brain science. It is discussed later in this essay. THE POWER OF FORGETTING: Six Essential Skills to Clear Out Brain Clutter and Become the Sharpest, Smartest You by Mike Byster. Harmony, 2014 (352 pages) Click or Tap to Outline and Reviews THE POWER OF FORGETTING For example, you can create more optimistic attitudes and more effective self-talk about your memories in order to strengthen the new memories that you want to save in your long-term memory consolidation system. Also, you can write down or type notes about your thoughts and feelings, which is a form of multi-sensory self-directed learning. This way of "memorization by association." requires you to focus on the words and definitions until you can create a logical story to explain their meanings to yourself. If you write a journal or diary, or make check-lists, you can create an immersive multisensory learning environment in addition to using the spaced-repetition method of memorization to reinforce and shape your new memories about the physical structures of your brain and the mental functions of your mind. This procedure provides better outcomes than if you simply imagine or perceive something; and then do not have a specific strategy for remembering it. The 15 major brain-ideas emphasized on this website are significantly involved in your longevity and health. They are inseparably linked to each other in their interactive properties. This specific new scientific brain knowledge can easily be learned and become part of your new self-awareness. All 15 brain-ideas are defined and described from several scientific perspectives in special major files on this website. The links to the files are listed on this website's homepage Index. The 15 brain-ideas can be memorized once you decide to motivate yourself to learn about their interactive relationships. This is an essential requirement for you to consider since these exciting consequential ideas are not widely discussed either intimately or publicly. Strong traditional cultural taboos severely limit discussions about social class and caste distinctions among both explicit and implicit brain facts and ideas. You will be able to consolidate and retain the new brain information easily in your long-term memory consolidation system after you have learned about it by purposefully repeating the learning exercises promoted on this website. They include the spaced repetition technique and the flash card method of memorization. You can learn how your mind's mental functions (brainpower) can be improved at any age by the new brain knowledge. This new knowledge can strengthen your own self-identity (sense-of-self or secular-self or self) and your self-esteem (good feelings about your yourself) based upon facts — not fears! In the context of the new brain vocabulary, those names for your "self-identity" are what you experience as your "mind". The new scientific evidence proves that your natural willpower and your adaptable memory are in fact self-constructed perceptions about reality. These perceptions are based upon a combination of internal biological and external psychosocial class influences and cultural caste influences. They are just as "objective" as the Earth and the Universe, even though — because of our English language structure — you experience them as being the "subjective" core of your human existence. With the new brain knowledge, you can experience your brain functions with more actual self-control. The new brain knowledge includes new thinking skill-sets, which can replace thinking in dichotomies with thinking in continuums for making comparisons and contrasts among data. It can help you replace false traditional superstitious magical mythical religious thinking with true modern secular scientific thinking based on the scientific method and progressive humanistic democratic enlightenment ideas and values. It is important to know the true scientific facts were expressed by specific words that were derived from experimentation and a thorough review process. You must take a very serious critical look at the scientific brain ideas on this website because so many false ideas about the human brain and its mental functions in the past. They were baked into the linguistic structure of the primitive English language of the past, way before scientific knowledge was created in the modern world during the past 500 years and brain knowledge has been developed during the past 10 years! Therefore, our understanding of the human brain and mind has become progressively more correct during the past several hundred years and especially the last two centuries since the American Revolution when citizens created modern democratic rights for white Christian and Deist males. In the process, they abolished kings and queens as supreme rulers and created a constitutional democracy that separated church and state! During this vastly consequential time period, American English has emerged from Latin and other European languages --- after the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the Scientific Revolution. The new scientific knowledge communicated via the new scientific words has generated vast new knowledge about everything. The modern scientific brain vocabulary has finally given us a truer and more accurate understanding about how human brains and minds really work based on both scientific experimentation and the common-sense personal experience of educated people. To summarize, the new brain knowledge explains how your brain's physical structures and your mind's mental functions are in dynamic synergistic interactive relationships. They are described by the 15 brain-ideas emphasized on this website and illustrated by the following Circle of Consciousness Symbol©: CIRCLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SYMBOL© The quickest way for you to get a new true perception of the relationship between your brain and your mind and the source of your natural willpower and creative imagination is to memorize the following four paired diagrams of the Circle of Consciousness Symbol.© The four metaphorical diagrams identify the dynamic intimate interactive tangled relationships that exist among the essential 15 brain-ideas explored on this website: CIRCLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SYMBOL© IMAGINE THE NAMES OF THE 15 BRAIN IDEAS OUTSIDE YOUR AMAZING BRAIN TAP, CLICK or SWIPE: AND IMAGINE THE NAMES OF THE 15 BRAIN IDEAS INSIDE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS Diagram #1 IMAGINE ALL 15 RED ARROWS OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE THEY INDICATE THAT YOU HAVE LITTLE OR NO CONSCIOUS INTEGRATED BRAIN KNOWLEDGE NOW MEANING OF THE CIRCLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SYMBOL® The Circle of Consciousness Symbol® diagram graphically symbolizes a simplified holistic view of the global connectivity necessary for the existence of human consciousness, including your natural willpower and your creative imagination. In other words, your consciousness depends upon all 15 brain-parts and mind-functions coexisting to produce optimum self-awareness and self-control over your bodily movements. The 15 brain-ideas featured on the 15 brain flash cards, which introduce them, all have quick links to files that are named DETAILS and SOURCES. In addition, essential QUOTES, from the perspective of science about human consciousness and your natural willpower, are documented with references to a sample of the best neuroscience, biology, psychology, sociology, and philosophy books and magazines. The quotations about human consciousness are directly accessible at the "Quotations about Human Consciousness" link at this website's homepage Index. The text on both sides of the 15 brain-flash-cards, and their 15 brain-diagrams, provide an easy way to learn the basic details required to understand your mind's mental functions. They were created to convey a powerful visual image or "map" of the previously unimaginable coalescence of the many diverse and interactive physical structures of your awesome self-manifesting holistic brain and your mind's mental functions. They have evolved within the complex modern psychosocial cultural world to produce your dynamic natural willpower and your creative imagination which ultimately produce your adaptable self-identity ("sense-of-self" or "secular-self" or "self"). [Note: These three synonyms for yourself (self-identity) are names for your mind.] instantly go to: DETAILS ABOUT THE CIRCLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SYMBOL® By deliberately repeating this learning process several times, you can easily integrate and retain the new brain information in your long-term memory consolidation system. The new brain knowledge explains how your dynamic natural willpower and creative imagination and your adaptable self-identity are produced by your mind's fine-tuned self-organized memories and the phenomenon known scientifically as "neuroplasticity" (or "plasticity," for short). It is the instinctual biological changeability of your evolutionary brain which can be controlled by your emergent culturally informed mental functions or "mind". The strength and relevance of your mind's mental functions depend on the depth of your personal knowledge which in turn depends upon the quality of your life-long learning habits and your life-long educational choices. Together, the 15 brain-ideas are significantly involved in your health and longevity. They are inseparably connected to each other in their interactive properties. And they will be more useful to you when they become a part of your total dynamic personal tacit knowledge once they are fully memorized. But first you must learn the details about them and memorize by association their interactive relationships. The easiest way to do this self-directed learning is by using the "spaced-repetition method" of memorization. You need to use a strategy such as this one because the important scientific ideas about your brain are not widely taught and discussed in our economically and religiously segregated society, all seven days of each week! This is because understanding your mind's mental functions as the true cause or source of your self-awareness and consciousness is replacing the false superstitious explanations of traditional religious cults and philosophies. The taboo about talking in public about the mind's mental functions is caused by the history of our American social caste system and the political censorship of secular humanistic evidence-based ideas about human nature. They have been censored in most classrooms of American public elementary and high schools, and especially private Christian elementary schools. American universities and colleges are not exempt from the widely practiced political taboos against the expression of scientific thinking across academic disciplines. However, in this semantic context, "knowledge is power," because both your adaptable self-identity and your fragile self-esteem (good feelings about yourself) can be strengthened as you seek to master the new brain knowledge and optimize the curiosity factor by asking "WHY?" everyday: PLASTICITY The new brain knowledge explains how your brain's dynamic adaptable LONG-TERM MEMORY consolidation system produces your "fine-tuned self-organized memories". You are able to activate these memories due to the "executive function" of your WORKING VISUAL MEMORY in your brain's prefrontal cortex. It manages your brain's amazing neuroplasticity or virtually infinite adaptability. You can become self-educated or enlightened, without the need for divine assistance, if you use the new brain vocabulary. The word neuroplasticity or "plasticity" refers to your evolutionary brain's ability to "change itself by itself", even subconsciously when you are asleep! Many other historical sources for this fundamental idea are described in other files on other links on this website. To repeat to reinforce this major idea, the phenomenal process of plasticity, has both biological and psychosocial aspects, as noted above. It is the reason you have your natural willpower function and your creative imagination function. Together, these two primary mental functions give you the cognitive power or "mental force" to think for yourself and control your own unique thoughts and feelings, if you were not trained through childhood to let others do your thinking about major issues for you. This new scientific version of secular humanistic "self-control" is significantly supported by the new idea of "constructed emotions." It gives you the freedom to create your own adaptable self-identity ("sense-of-self" or "secular-self" or "self") and your own self-guided humanistic behavior whenever you choose to make your own decisions based upon scientific facts instead of dead myths from the deep past. [Note: Other humanistic names for your "self-identity" are "sense-of-self" or "secular-self" or "self", which are all synonyms for your "mind".] Now it is possible to use modern computerized microscopes and the scientific method of investigation to explore and understand your brain's physical structures and your mind's mental functions. And it is important to not be confused by hundreds of old traditional assumptions and opinions. The words that describe them were added to the English language during ancient times and repeated incessantly for many centuries. That was before the scientific method of analysis was invented.And it was long before there was any reliable scientific knowledge to explain how the genuine physical structures of the brain and the mental functions of the mind actually worked! But now, finally, after 300,000 years of human evolution, there is solid empirical experimental knowledge that explains the true relationships and interactions inside your human brain that are connected to your body's nervous system through sensory and motor neuronal pathways. Now, early in the 21st century, you can learn what is truly real about your mind. The awesome scientific research to understand nature and the universe and your brain by making discoveries and inventions have resulted in a vast amount of systematic knowledge during the last few hundred years, and especially during the past few decades. It is important to know that the new brain knowledge has been accumulating at accelerating rates of progress. The new brain experiments dazzle the human imagination just as the earlier scientific experiments amazed our predecessors. Those scientists produced reliable objective knowledge about reality our new brain knowledge is built upon. Now neuroscientists are teaching us what is true about the mental functions of our minds. The new evidence-based brain facts explain how your natural willpower is caused by the interactive relationships of your prefrontal cortex's random-access-like working visual memory and your relatively permanent hard-drive-like long-term memory consolidation system located in your hippocampus, which in turn is located in your limbic system. To clarify this somewhat complicated sequence of interactive relationships among your brain's main parts, which produces your mind's mental functions, it is important to know that your limbic system is often referred to as your "emotional brain" or sometimes even your "social brain." This is because your limbic system contains your amygdala which is the sourcce of your intense feelings — either positive or negative. It is involved in empathic loving feelings or angry hostile feelings regarding other people or even regarding yourself! However, an emerging fact among biologists and educated people in general gives credit to the physical structure of the "mammalian brain." It has evolved with similar functions across all animals classed as "mammals." They have dramatically different brain structures and anatomies and behaviors from reptiles, for example. Mammals are known to have larger brains in relation to their total body size and have a different common structure than other species such as reptiles and birds. When Homo sapiens became the only human beings migrating around the world, they needed to protect their own group as they hunted for food and looked for safe surroundings in which to raise their children. This same idea relates to human civilization itself with respect to human evolution and the essential need for cooperation and collaboration within competing social groups. As human communities grew from about 30-50 people at the beginning in Eastern Turkey to small cities in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, intergenerational families and kin relationships became the primary groups necessary to guarantee security and greater longevity. Now it is clear to scientists that the interactivity of the two major human memory systems evolved to help Homo sapiens win the fierce competition for survival during the past 30-60 thousand years as they fought other species of dangerous mammals to survive. But the struggle to survive started hundreds of thousands of years earlier as hominids (any members of a "family" called Hominidae] who stood erect and were bipedal primate mammals. The class we are in included recent humans together with extinct ancestral and related forms. And in some recent classifications, humans are included with the ape species: bonobo, gorilla, chimpanzee, and orangutan. Humans, as well as the other ape species, interbred repeatedly and thereby were able to survive against all kinds of bacteria and viruses that were prevalent. Our human memory had to remember the vital survival information coded at both the unconscious genetic level and the conscious self-awareness level of existence. In addition, this new scientific approach to understanding human nature and human behavior involves the development of a new specialized scientific brain vocabulary as well as our extensive general vocabulary of words whose meanings we can recognize immediately and also the word meanings we have to figure out by their context in sentences. For example, the function of your working (short-term) memory system has a fast information processing speed called "fluid intelligence." It "peaks in your 20s and declines considerably at older ages." In contrast, the function of your long-term memory consolidation system is called "crystallized intelligence." It involves what you actually know and how well you can access that knowledge. It improves throughout middle age, and then "declines far more slowly than fluid intelligence, if at all in old age," according to Alison Gopnik. See the information box below to realize Gopnik's extensive research and writing credits: MEANING OF LIFE FROM BIRTH TO DEATH Alison Gopnik, the author and child development expert at UC Berkeley, confirmed the brain facts about "crystalized intelligence" (long-term memory) and "liquid intelligence" (working (short-term) memory system) in an article about the cognitive advantages of growing older featured in the Wall Street Journal (October 2, 2018). Gopnik is also the author of the following three books about child development and parenting skills: [1] The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn by Alison Gopnik. William Morrow, 1999 (i-xv, 279 pages) [2] The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009 (i-x, 288 pages) [3] The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Alison Gopnik. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016 (i-x, 302 pages) Links to outlines and reviews of Gopnik's three books will be online soon. The new scientific approach to understanding human nature and human behavior can help you understand your brain's physical structures and your mind's mental functions in the context of the 15 brain-ideas. They represent hundreds of trillions of intricate interactive relationships among the parts of your brain. They are the true cause of your conscious self-awareness and your adaptable self-identity. The alphabetized list of definitions of the 15 brain-ideas can provide you with a comprehensive linguistic context with which to study your brain and your mind. Those words can provide a fascinating scientific perspective about the reality of your brain's physical structures and your mind's mental functions. In addition, you can discover many other new brain words on your own to add to this unique modern evolutionary context of meaning for optimally understanding how you can think about your own healthy brain and its possible dysfunctional aspects. You can view the complexity of your brain structures and mental functions at the following Brain Glossary List where the 15 brain-ideas are marked in BOLD RED. They deal primarily with your intellectual and emotional control systems and your memory circuits. And they involve complicated interactive neuronal feedback and feedforward circuits or "wiring." These circuits or neuronal pathways make your adaptable self-identity (sense-of-self or secular-self or self) possible: instantly go to: ALPHABETICAL BRAIN® VOCABULARY GLOSSARY HOW TO USE YOUR BRAIN AND MIND WISELY This new educational focus can provide you with a practical way to think about your brain's phenomenal power to understand how your adaptable neuroplastic brain and creative intentional mind can be organized by you to work together to transform your subjective self-awareness into an objective self-identity (sense-of-self or secular-self or self) without the need for divine influence. Instead, what you need to learn are the correct scientific words and the correct appreciation for the role of science in modern life. In this scientific context, a good mantra/meme to frequently replay in your mind is: "Scientific thinking trumps ancient traditional superstitious magical mythical religious and spiritual thinking all the time!" After you have memorized the 15 brain-ideas and have learned to manage your thinking habits, you will be able to systematically organize your long-term memory consolidation system. You can choose realistic chunks of data (categories or topics) to transform your self-awareness with new memories to strengthen your adaptable self-identity. Since all of your memories are "re-constructed" memories, they can be updated anytime you bring specific memories (and their associated feelings) into your conscious self-awareness. Then, you can alter the memory by evaluating its current relevance in your life at the moment. By knowing that the "executive control functions" of your prefrontal cortex (plural: prefrontal cortices), which are known as your working visual memory system, operate in conjunction with your long-term memory consolidation system in your hippocampus. You will be able to use your natural willpower and creative imagination to create a fresh new context for the mental process of "re-framing" your "constructed-emotions" about any memory that you want to change. In other words, you can change any old useless memory by associating it with new thoughts and feelings which you decide are more relevant to your current values. You will be using your long-term memory consolidation system that was based upon some past thought or feeling which you may have experienced long ago when it was first created in your mind. You can get started by simply planning to study the 15 brain-ideas at regular intervals by using the brain images and associated text on the 15 brain flash cards. One way to create a reinforcement schedule is to plan to spend 20-30 minutes at the same time every day or every other day and in the same place in order to focus on your brain and mind to better control your behavior. That is when using good critical thinking skills and good critical reading strategies are essential for using your time wisely whenever you make important choices and consequential decisions in your life. To repeat, learning how to "forget" old memories is a powerful way to help you establish the new habit of studying the 15 brain-ideas and their interactions for your benefit. In addition, you can strengthen your relationships with family and friends at the same time that you reinforce your own new brain knowledge by sharing the brain vocabulary with them. QUICK REVIEW With proper study, the 15 brain ideas and the evidence-based facts that support them can become a part of your declarative memory circuits. located in the hippocampus part of your limbic system.. The memory "triggers" are in your long-term memory consolidation system. Then your working (short-term) memory system, which is in your prefrontal cortex, can use the new factual memories about your brain's physical structures and your mind's mental functions to evaluate your readiness for making effective choices and decisions related to your brain study goals and plans. These new memories can activate your imagination, and logical reasoning abilities, and various memory resources. They all have "triggers" stored in your long-term memory's consolidation system. Thus, you can use your mind's mental functions to perceive the natural wonders of the real world and also all of the useful fantasies that you can imagine. But you must understand the truth about your adaptable self-identity (sense-of-self or secular-self or self) in order to optimize your opportunities and possibilities to transcend any childhood traumas or mis-education that you might have experienced. Now you can use your natural willpower and creative imagination to create a stable mature (well-grounded) rational growth mindset that includes empathy for others. This amazing educational process of self-guided change in your behavior completes the journey from ignorance to self-awareness to self-actualization to self-transcendence! This is the true arc of becoming a fully-functioning fulfilled woman or man, no matter what age or nationality. By learning the new brain information, you will have the opportunity to expand your self-awareness and change your self-identity as you become a more enlightened science-oriented humanistic person. You can use this new way of organizing brain knowledge to develop a modern 21st century philosophy of life for your future personal growth and social influence. Such deep introspection can change your adaptable self-identity and increase your unique self-worth and creative ability to achieve self-actualization and self-transcendence. You can overcome any childhood maladaptive habits or behaviors, which you may have developed during your journey along the path to becoming an adult. Note: See in context the 15 brain ideas, including: working memory #1; neurons #2; dendrites #3; axons #4; nucleus of a neuron #5; glial cells #6; synapses #7; potentiation #8; connectome #9; plasticity #10; cerebrum #11; prefrontal cortex #12; limbic system #13; pleasure circuit #14; and your long-term memory #15. RECOMMENDATION: You may print this text and read it and edit it by adding or deleting ideas. Also you can underline or highlight with colored inks or read it out loud to use proven memory boosters to help you capture this brain information in your long-term memory. Then, you can read your edited version of these ideas according to a reinforcement schedule, such as in a few hours and then in a few days. Also, you can repeatedly skim your version of this section several times during the next week or two to take advantage of the power of the spaced-repetition method of memorization. REMEMBER ALWAYS: You Are Your Adaptable Memory! instantly return to: WEBSITE INDEX ALPHABETICAL BRAIN® VOCABULARY produced by Infinite Interactive Ideas®