Thank you, Aquinas! I love this!
So my first random thought/cool thing I learned yesterday:
I am currently reading The Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett and I read the coolest thing last night! It seems that there may be something entirely circular that goes on in the brain to reinforce phobias (and humour me because I will bastardize the explanation): An individual with a phobia of spiders (for instance) will experience all of the physiological responses associated with the fight of flight response (increased heart rate, etc.) when they see a spider. And because the brain perceives these responses as being associated with a dangerous occurrence and makes the connection to the spider, this reinforces the phobia of spiders. Thus once it has developed, the phobia of spiders is self-reinforcing/self-fulfilling. The human brain is certainly flawed in so many ways, but endlessly fascinating!
Mind you, I explained this to DH last night and he was a little less enthused than I. I guess his interests lie elsewhere.
Anyone else?
