Interesting Topics to Learn

04/12/2025

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The placebo effect

The placebo effect is a beneficial health outcome from believing a fake treatment (like a sugar pill or sham procedure) works, triggered by expectation, conditioning, and the patient-provider relationship, leading to real brain changes and the release of natural painkillers (endorphins, dopamine) that improve symptoms, even if it doesn't cure the underlying disease.

Astrology

Astrology is a pseudoscience/belief system claiming celestial positions influence human lives and events. (horoscopes)

Deja vu

the uncanny feeling that you've experienced a new situation before, even though you know you haven't.

Lucid dreaming

Lucid dreaming is when you become consciously aware you're in a dream, often during REM sleep, allowing for potential control over the dream's story, characters, and environment, offering enhanced creativity and therapeutic uses for nightmares with techniques like reality checks.

Manifestation

The practice of bringing desires into reality through focused thought, belief, and action, often linked to the Law of Attraction, where positive thinking attracts positive experiences, but also involves concrete steps like clarifying goals, vision boarding, and taking inspired action, aligning inner beliefs with outer effort for tangible results, rather than just wishful thinking.

The subconscious mind

The subconscious mind operates below conscious awareness and stores memories, beliefs, and automatic functions, influencing thoughts and behaviors without direct knowledge.

The laws of the universe

"Laws of the universe" refer to fundamental principles governing reality, encompassing both scientific laws (physics, gravity, relativity) that describe the cosmos, and metaphysical/spiritual laws (like the Law of Attraction, Cause & Effect, Vibration) which are seen as guiding human experience and consciousness, often listed as 7 or 12 key principles in spiritual teachings.

Dark matter & dark energy

Dark matter and dark energy are invisible components making up most of the universe, but they do opposite things; Dark matter has attractive gravity, holding galaxies together, while dark energy has repulsive gravity, causing the universe's expansion to accelerate.

Love

Love is a complex, powerful emotion and state of being involving deep affection, care, warmth, and strong attachment, manifesting as romantic desire, familial bonds, platonic friendship, or benevolent concern for others, acting as a core human motivator and frequent theme in arts, studied across psychology, biology, and sociology.

Astronomy

the scientific study of celestial objects (stars, planets, galaxies, etc.) and phenomena beyond Earth's atmosphere, using physics, chemistry, and math to understand their origin, evolution, and behavior.

Dopamine

Dopamine is a crucial brain chemical (neurotransmitter) and hormone that regulates mood, motivation, pleasure, movement, and reward.

Angel numbers

Spiritual messages, guidance, or warnings from angels and the universe, often appearing in daily life on clocks, license plates, or receipts.

Dreams & the sleeping brain

Dreams are vivid mental experiences primarily occurring during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, when the brain is highly active; almost like being awake, but with a unique neurochemical state that allows for illogical, emotional narratives.

Time travel

the hypothetical movement through past or future.

The fourth dimension

The fourth dimension is an extension of the third dimension, and in physics, it's often represented by time. It's a fundamental concept in modern physics theories, including Einstein's general relativity, which describes the universe as a four-dimensional continuum.

Grandfather paradox

The Grandfather Paradox is a famous time-travel thought experiment highlighting a logical contradiction: if you travel back in time and kill your own grandfather before your parent was conceived, you would prevent your own birth, meaning you couldn't have existed to travel back and kill him in the first place, creating an impossible loop.

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Personification of evil

describes a person, being, or entity that perfectly embodies or represents the concept of evil, showing extreme wickedness, cruelty, and a lack of morality

Cannibalism

the practice of eating the flesh of one's own species.

Moon

The Moon is Earth's natural satellite, a large, rocky body that orbits our planet and shines by reflecting sunlight, appearing in our night sky with changing shapes (phases) as it orbits.

Religions

Religions are systems of belief and worship, often involving faith in a higher power, sacred texts, rituals, and moral codes, providing meaning, community, and purpose, with major world religions like Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism guiding billions, alongside thousands of other traditions, indigenous beliefs, and non-religious philosophies. All shaping cultures and individual lives.

Mythology

Mythology is a collection of traditional stories, beliefs, and legends from a culture, often featuring supernatural beings like gods and heroes, that explain the world, its origins, and human experiences, serving purposes similar to religion by providing meaning, unity, and moral guidance, though often studied academically as literature or folklore.

Witch trials

Witch trials were periods of mass hysteria, persecution, and execution for alleged witchcraft, most famously the Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693) in colonial Massachusetts, where fear, religious extremism, and social tensions led to over 200 accusations, 20 executions (mostly by hanging), and deaths in prison.

Tarot

Tarot is a deck of 78 symbolic cards used for self-reflection, guidance, and exploring life's experiences through storytelling, originating as a 15th-century Italian card game before evolving into a divination tool.

Mythical creatures

Spirits, Demons, Angels, Wendigos, Banshees, Onis, Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, Witches, Aliens, Sirens, Mermaids, Dragons, Hydras, Phoenixs, Unicorns, Gorgons, Goblins, Fairies, Bigfoot, etc

Tortures

Scolds bridle, the hook, thumbscrews, tongue tearer, pear of anguish, knee splitter, the boot, chair of torture, the rack, judas cradle, iron maiden, hanging cages, dunking, hanging, catherine wheel, strappado, stocks, pillary, heretic's fork, the brazen bull, rat torture.

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School systems

A school system is the organized structure (public or private) for education, covering levels like elementary, middle, and high school (K-12), managed by districts and states, providing standardized learning for core subjects, and culminating in higher education (college/university) with various options for students.

Human rights

Human rights are fundamental rights and freedoms inherent to all people, regardless of race, sex, nationality, or any other status, ensuring dignity, equality, and justice; they cover civil, political, economic, social, and cultural aspects, like the right to life, freedom from torture, education, and expression, and are protected by international law, obligating states to uphold them.