Mental regression

Re: Mental regression


The persons that the stated that watching TV doesn't stimulate the brain are wrong. You can always learn a lot from many programs, and if you learned it is because you have concentrated which means you've stimulated your brain. Of course there are extremes, you shouldn't watch TV all day.

Likewise, meditating is the brain taking a break and you shouldn't do it forever. Again no extremes on anything.

Television, like anything that is a reflection of the broad spectrum called life, can be stimulating or brainless, depending on what you decide to watch. Entirely vapid programming can actually have a meditative and soothing effect on the mind, whereas more intelligent, well-written shows can stimulate the intellect.

Try meditating on the word "progress" !

There are actually books written alleging that television
viewing changes the shape of the human brain's form if there is overexposure to it during a child's formative years. Endangered Minds Why Children Don't Think and What We Can Do About It. by Jane M. Healy, Ph.D. suggests that too many parents are plugging their small fry into television and it has created a generation of functionally illiterate preschoolers (who get to kindergarten not knowing nursery rhymes and common songs.) They go on to be fuzzy thinkers and also need special extra stimulation in order to learn in classroom settings (a teacher alone can't hold their attention the way Sesame Street w/all its 3 minute switches can.) Neural Darwinism may be occuring with internal competition for the brain's function- and altering its shape along the way(this theory is Dr. Gerald Edelman's, from Rockefeller University, according to the aforementioned book.) Television is blamed for the changes in the way children think, the reason they aren't able to comprehend the same classic books at junior high and high school level that their parents were expected to read, report on, and discuss.

princess writes:


This is very true I believe. The previous generation, before television became a national pastime and long before there was an internet, most Americans sent their young children to Sunday School or Hebrew School or Greek School etc. Subsequently in grammar school they learned to draw and apply color with crayons and thereby developed their sense of space and design and perspective.

They were expected to have rudimentary reading skills by the end of First Grade and were required to demonsrate reading comprehension. Most children of that era loved books: The Hardy Boys, The Bobbsy Twins, Nancy Drew, Nurse Barton, fairy tales, Uncle Remus, etc. etc. etc.

They were expected to memorize extensively: nursery rhymes, Bible verses, poetry, famous passages, multiplication tables, math theorums. names, dates, events. They had to learn to tell time via the big hand and the little hand.

They were expected to play in imaginative ways: cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, Rocket Man, Knights of the Roundtable, etc. etc.

These kids were apparently seldom afflicted with ADD or other behavior disorders. The child who could not master the required curriculum was held back to try again and that was rare. By the time they reached college, children were completely literate with sufficient skills to support themselves in many ways, with or without a college degree. They were focused and usually mentally disciplined and capable of three dimensional thinking.

Kids these days are too often fed what they know via eye candy and are too often more indoctrinated than educated. They are skilled at operating computers and other technological devices, but because too much information is available with a keystroke, I think they are too often disadvantaged at analysis and critical thinking.

I could be all wet, but this is what I have observed. And I honestly don't see any solution other than through what would appear to be extreme tactics.

im a newb to this and compared to you guys... still a immature mind

but i agree when people say you can learn from tv, i have learnt a great deal, as the way i learn is different. as you may be aware there are different ways people learn.

so this depends on how you learn, for example i can 'look' at graphs and tell you the regression of lines etc...

but put a equation infront of my face and it takes me two or three times as long, mindless tv programs de-stimulate the mind

but tv shows vary, for example i know a guy that watched star trek constantly, he loves the show right... but he hasn't got a degree or anything, only did the o-level in physics, but as you talk to him he'll baffle you with over-rated and commercialised theories of warp coils etc...


rgds

I shouldn't think during meditation.

And before I forget, without english I would hardly be able to speak ANY english. I probably wouldn't even have a computer connected to the internet or anything like that. I'd be far less educated in a variety of matters (as a direct consequence of those 2 things) but who knows, maybe I'd be healthier, happier and bruised on a day to day basis.