Bhassler wrote:Charles Sanders Peirce demonstrated that information that is perceived below the threshold of awareness can still affect judgement. Just because something is not well understood does not mean it does not exist, nor does it mean that it necessarily operates via any mechanism outside of ordinary, every day occurrence.
Indeed, everyone on the thread seems to be in agreement that "stuff like this happens".
If you want to follow an ESP type descriptive model, fine - how do you train it?
If you want to follow an evolutionary, neurophysiological, neuroplasticity model, fine - how do you train it?
At the moment, I'm happy with my fairly simple model:
1. Cerebral asymmetry - the right hemisphere takes in the entire context without separating details
2. Interoception/empathy - the insular cortex, especially in the right hemisphere, integrates and compares the entire physiological state of the body with sensory information and nonverbal communication from everyone in the environment and compares these with all past experience, giving an overall emotional tone that includes threat levels (via the amygdala) and adjusts autonomic balance and cognitive/perceptual activity accordingly. The insula tells us both our own emotional/physiological states and the emotional/physiological states of those around us. Insula is the current popular locus for this function, most likely not all there is to it, of course.
3. Mirror neuron system - also involved in "Emotional contagion" or "emotional empathy" along with the insula. we feel other people/creatures' actions in our own bodies and through this we know some of what they are doing, what they have just done, and what they are potentially about to do.
4. "Cognitive Empathy" involving more frontal areas of the brain, more or less unique to humans and capable of representing another person's thoughts or mind - "what are they thinking about?" "what does that person think of me?" kind of stuff, can be conscious but is also constantly happening on an unconscious level.
SO - how to train? The advantage of using a mind-brain model is that we can use the wonderful concept of neuroplasticity! Use the mind to CHANGE THE BRAIN. All it takes is practice and attention. So, using the brain-based points above, we can:
1. train the right hemisphere by PAYING ATTENTION TO CONTEXT. Learn to reduce the activity of the left hemisphere, ie less words, less mental chatter. More "expansive awareness". things like "looking far" or "soft focus" of the eyes. "listening behind" or 360 degree listening. etc.
2. train the interoception/empathy circuit by PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT'S HAPPENING INSIDE THE BODY! changes in breathing, heart rate, digestive function, subtle muscle tensions, feelings in and around the organs, etc and their associations with the mental/emotional state. Pay attention to nonverbal signals of all sorts from other people, animals, relate the nonverbal information to what you know or feel about their emotional and mental states, what they are saying, doing, etc. Notice how your own internal feelings are changing in response to the nonverbal signals of other people, and how they are responding to you. Tap into and pay attention to this world and your brain will change to get better at it.
3. train your body! train every part of the body to become conscious and aware of the movements and possible movements of every part. get to know how each little bit feels as it moves through all of its possible movements. Mimic other people's movements and posture - mimic animals movements and postures so you know in your own body how it feels to move like they do. Pay attention, spend time watching people/animals and actively induce the feelings of their movements in your own body while staying still.
4. spend time "putting yourself in other people's shoes" or "seeing the world through their eyes". imagine what it's like to be them, not just physically but emotionally and mentally, imagine being from their background or what it would be like to have their parents or to be going through what they are going through...imagine what it's like to be a dog or a cat or whatever. This is exactly the kind of stuff the empathy researchers are trying to get into primary school education these days, because they've shown that this is exactly the stuff which kids with their growing brains need to do to train the parts of the brain which do this! Ie if you don't ever imagine what it's like to actually BE someone else you will be really crap at it!
Now, except for number 4. I think you'll notice that all of the above methods are stock-standard parts of the classic IMA training package. I.e. this brain-based model gives us training methods that are identical to those of the empirical, time-tested eastern traditions. They work, and they make sense. Hooray!