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The Misdirected Search for God in the Brain

The 80Beats blog at Discover magazine has a nice little round-up of ‘neurotheology’ news – that is, research into finding the part of the brain responsible for religious experiences. Reading one part made me think just how off-track some researchers are:

Some researchers have hypothesized that religious beliefs are a byproduct of the neural networks used in theory of mind, suggesting that humans first evolved to imagine what other people are feeling, even people who aren’t present — and from there it was a short step to positing supernatural beings

This “positing” of supernatural beings, and variations on the theme (e.g. ‘people want to believe that something is in control of life, and so posit a supernatural being to cool their anxiety’) seem like instances of trying to be too intellectual, and ignoring an obvious fact: that people *see* and *talk to* supernatural beings. They have since the beginning of recorded history, and probably before. We can argue as to whether they are creations of the mind, or objectively real (or on the spectrum between), but there is no ‘positing’ required. Perhaps for left-brained researchers who don’t have the ability to interact with the ‘other’, but not for a large amount of people.

One day, orthodox science might realise how they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater when they casually dismiss ‘alien contact’, near-death experiences and so-on. There’s some seriously interesting discoveries to be made in there, but instead we get psychological analysis of why humans need to ‘posit’ a supernatural being. I find it odd really.

Editor
  1. Self proclaimed skeptics
    Self proclaimed skeptics often make a logical error. This happens when someone has such confidence in his intelligence he thinks he can understand something by reasoning without testing his hypotheses or closely examining the evidence. That is not scientific. Ironically it effects people who think they are smart and causes them not to be.

  2. Close

    Some researchers have hypothesized that religious beliefs are a byproduct of the neural networks used in theory of mind, suggesting that humans first evolved to experience what other people are feeling, even people who aren’t present — and from there it was a short step to positing supernatural beings

    Close, just one word needed changing..if only they’d read Terrance McKenna

    The Love That You Withhold, Is The Pain That You Carry

  3. Swords and shields.
    Blooming eck

    It definitely doesn’t seem to help when scientists try and make overreaching principles that are just gonna do peoples heads in.

    What could be worth discussing though is whether every experience ever seen, heard, thought etc is to be believed, not just by word of mouth, but even to the people experiencing it. If we are able to see and talk to things that aren’t real then there needs to be some mechanism to describe why we do.

    Unfortunately there is so much evidence for evolution these days that any idea for the development of the human mind needs to take into account the wealth of genetic, embryological and phylogenetic evidence. It would be pretty poor if no-one was coming up with natural ideas when biology and anthropology would suggest that one is needed.

    Perhaps it is unimportant to address how ideas can permeate cultures and how the ideas themselves can affect interpretations of experience, and in turn how these abilities relate to biological features, but this would seem to apply to everyone to me, scientist or non-scientist.

    Some experiences are common to us all so would need either a universal, or a biological explanation. Supernatural would fit in here. The other week I had one of my ghost attack experiences where I was pinned down to the bed by an unseen force and couldn’t move. There are scientific explanations for this, but I can just as easily choose to think I was under attack. In fact that is how I beat it and am able to laugh about it when it happens as it will again I am sure. I now approach it psychologically as if I were in the Matrix and am master of my brain, it works well for nightmares as well as ghost attacks. This is one of the utilities of conscious experience above scientific explanation, but it doesn’t undermine the science to me.

    Right now I would say much of the science is speculative anyway in comparison to a firm scientific footing, but much of the alternative is far worse.

    The evolution of neural complexity, the evidence of which can be seen today in the animal kingdom in the differing neural niches adopted across species, as well as in molecular biology, begs the question of the affect of increasing complexity in interpretation of the world. The term ‘agency detection device’ which no doubt covers a large range of sensory and neural apparatus is as good as any for describing what we mean by neural networks (since we are not necessarily talking about central nervous systems here, many animals rely on much simpler nervous systems) abilities to correctly identify external stimulate. There has always been a strong evolutionary argument for overestimating intent and purpose in our environments. If we jump up and our adrenaline glands go crazy, but it was just a branch falling then we are still alive, underestimate and fail to react to the lion stalking us and the genes which may statistically underlie that neural response are not passed on.

    Mankind has a long history of assigning agency where none is actually present. If every ghost or supernatural event ever seen was real there would still need to be some way of describing why we so easily have assigned agency to almost everything else, to all those things we now know are natural. I do not talk about theology, philosophy, or science here, but our minds natural inclination to classify agency until we have had it proved to us that there is none. The way we can see agency detection evolve in nature throughout the animal and plant kingdoms is enough to see that there is an evolutionary component strongly correlated with neural and sensory complexity.

    The counter argument I guess would be of the type that we are seeing what is real, or our increased neural complexity allows us to see what is real. In children agency detection is far more prevalent than in adults. You have to train the mind not to see agency. If we are built to correctly identify agency then agency is everywhere. Some people would like this interpretation  However, somewhere you need to build in what is known about agency detection though the animal kingdom and our evolution.

    We know that the mind is able to hallucinate, not that this is evidence for anything other than not all experience is real.

    The self contradictory nature of the worlds belief systems shows something at the very least about the minds plastic approach to interpretation and much comes down to the marketplace of ideas people grow up in.

    There are religions and belief systems that either do not feature or do not need a ‘God’ so it can still be worth asking why people are driven to the idea and especially why it has so often been a grandfatherly man rather than the limitless other possibilities. Many deity beliefs are often scaled versions of human characteristics and abilities, or combinations with animals etc.

    Psychology is underpinned by biology. I challenge anyone to try and be anything beyond their biology. Metaphysics allows the possible argument that we can leave our biology, but in general we can no more be a cow or a tree than is available to our natural imaginative ability. Likewise a horse is a horse and cannot be a fish. Feral children show how plastic our minds can be, but the limits of this plasticity and of our hormones, physical abilities and mental ones are governed by our biology. In this way it is entirely reasonable to look within our psychology and its biological underpinnings for answers to these questions.

    None of this detracts from supernatural experiences unless we want to say that every one ever experienced is real and that coincidence is impossible, in which case we must come up with an explanation for the biological and anthropological data with regard to the development of false agency detection and the growth and spread of cultural ideas as agency detection rationalisations.

    Of course none of this means that the supernatural is not real, but it is a fair attempt at describing the behavioural evidence widespread throughout humanity.

    Now if someone can point out where this is wrong from an evidential standpoint I will be happy to be proven wrong, and what’s this about Terrance McKenna? All I can find is drug references.

    1. Ask and ye shall receive 😉
      [quote]and what’s this about Terrance McKenna? All I can find is drug references.[/quote]

      I just found out this article at Reality Sandwich. I guess it’s a good place to start learning about McKenna.

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

      1. More on McKenna
        Tss i would have thought you being more in the loop about McKenna, RPJ.. Anyway very short he posits our ancestors following their food came across the easy pickings of mushrooms growing on the manure..consuming lite caused better visual acquity, impotant on the hunt and evading predators. Consuming more mushrooms caused them tripping and linking up, this effect is still testable..not that scientists risk their career for that. Anyway here’s a blog, Transgloballs , that has a series on McKenna, PDF’s his audiobook True Hallucinations and Talks for download..you might want to start here with Food Of The Gods (PDF 3mb).
        McKenna has been on the right track as for as our species development is concerned, unfortunately having been on the fringe of science in a time before the internet has limited exposure of his work to the general public.

        The Love That You Withhold, Is The Pain That You Carry

        1. Well
          The link was meant for daydreamer, FistBorn. I’m no expert on McKenna, but I have read a few things on him during these years—the article Daniel Pinchbeck wrote for the first Darklore book, for example.

          When it comes to psychedellic literature, my personal backbone is more influenced by Castañeda’s books—and yes, I’m aware that most of what he wrote is BS, but just like in McKenna’s experience, there are a few precious mushrooms buried beneath his pile of cow manure 🙂

          —–
          It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
          It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

          Red Pill Junkie

          1. McKenna
            Terence McKenna was one of the most brilliant and literate minds of the 20th century, being rather familiar with his philosophical and scientific ideas, I really don’t trust someone like Daniel Pinchback for an adequate commentary on him, despite how great psychedelic pop culture makes Pinchback out to be.
            Maybe this is the cynical side of my indigo personality 😛

    2. Agency?
      Hi daydreamer,

      [quote=daydreamer]The term ‘agency detection device’ which no doubt covers a large range of sensory and neural apparatus is as good as any for describing what we mean by neural networks…

      Mankind has a long history of assigning agency where none is actually present. If every ghost or supernatural event ever seen was real there would still need to be some way of describing why we so easily have assigned agency to almost everything else, to all those things we now know are natural. I do not talk about theology, philosophy, or science here, but our minds natural inclination to classify agency until we have had it proved to us that there is none.[/quote]

      I’m not comfortable with the idea of ‘agency’ used in a scientific context. Does ‘agency’ exist at all as an objectively verifiable property?

      What is the definition of ‘agency’? Free will? Spirit?

      Surely the attribution of ‘agency’ to anything is an act of superstition?

      Proving there is no ‘agency’ is like proving there is no God – it can’t be done.

      ——

      I don’t believe in belief!

      Perceval

      1. Hi Perceval
        Thanks for the good comment, nice and short as well. I wish I could do that!

        It might be worth starting with a look at closed and opened minds. The mind is open when a conclusion is not yet reached. Do I have 2 eyes and a nose? Yes. Conclusion reached, so the mind closed on this question.

        Of course it is not that easy. We could be dreaming right now. Neither of us may have any form of which to speak. In fact, you might not exist, or to you I might not.

        Agency is a term used to describe intentionality. Can intentionality be verified scientifically? If we say it cannot then there is no such thing as science. If we have no ability to say whether something occurs due to causal laws or intention then we are blind.

        The tricky thing in any debate like this is that it is very easy to say that something could be something else, but ultimately if ideas of natural laws keep producing results then the argument will be moribund. It becomes a choice made to think that way rather than a descriptive construct of nature.

        Given that it seems we can find descriptive laws that describe reality with a high degree of accuracy, such as with electricity or thermodynamics etc, and hence place these within the bracket of non-agency the question of psychologists becomes why we, especially when young, find it so easy to anthropomorphise these natural events, such as thunder and lightning. It is only easy to see the argument when it is occurring in places we understand well though.

        Paradoxically, especially from the perspective of this site, it requires a closed mind, that thunder and lightning are not exclusively or occasionally the result of Thor or Zeus. This might seem a weaker position against the possibility that something occasionally causes thunder and lightning outside of a natural framework. However any description we can make is ultimately an imaginative construct until it becomes backed by some evidence (any will do for a cursory consideration, but the stronger the better obviously). So we end up pitching imaginative constructs against evidential constructs, then it becomes easier to see which is more reasonable.

        [quote] Surely the attribution of ‘agency’ to anything is an act of superstition?[/quote]

        I had to go to the dictionary to disprove this!

        Firstly we start by proving to a reasonable degree that something is natural. There are millions of things in this bracket.

        A falling brick from a roof will do. If the brick falls at 9.8m/s2 then it is falling under gravity. If agency is involved then it is having no affect anyway as the object is acting as it would without the agent. Like if fell with it, but didn’t do anything to it.

        Now if I do interfere with the falling brick in some way. Say I fire a high pressure gas at it to change its angle and hence agency interferes with the brick, would this be superstition?

        The definition of superstition is (from the Oxford English Dictionary):

        Superstition
        a widely held but irrational belief in supernatural influences

        It is a circular reference though so we need to know what supernatural is too.

        Supernatural
        Attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature

        So, would this attribution of agency to the change in angle of the falling brick fit into the meaning of superstitious?

        Clearly it does not fall within ‘[a] force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature’ so it is not definable as supernatural, so it cannot be superstitious.
        This argument only covers your statement that all acts of agency definition might be superstitious though, not individual acts.

        1. clarification
          Maybe too short – I’m not sure I communicated my point with efficiency (or fully thought it through), so here’s another try.

          ‘Agency detection’ is a question of perception. It’s more sophisticated than the merely formal pattern-recognition which is especially tuned to the recognition of human faces, animal forms etc., which can result in paraeidolia.

          ‘Agency’ is a way of modelling the world (i.e. in terms of agents and non-agents). Replacing the term ‘agency’ with the term ‘intentionality’ gets us nowhere. Perhaps an agent can be loosely described (not scientifically defined, mind you) as an aspect of the perceived environment with particularly complex behaviour.

          Agency detection therefore is an aid to survival, especially when the environment is potentially life-threatening – e.g. a hunting lion. It’s true that agency-detection may be over-sensetive as a result of evolutionary selection – the crack of a twig may or may not represent a lion, but it’s best to be on the safe side! It becomes a question of probability.

          (Whether there is a difference between humans and animals with regard to agency-detection is hard to say. Agency detection in humans at least, seems to involve the concept of the ‘self’. In forming a self-concept, we are, in effect, assigning agency to our complex ‘inner’ environment as it relates to our ‘outer’ environment – via our behaviour.

          We then infer the presence of a self or agent in aspects of our ‘outer’ environment, based on their behavioural characteristics. This should not be confused with anthropomorphisation, which is an overextension of this process.

          If animals do agency-detection, do they have a self-concept? What about plants, which show ‘behaviour’ modification in response to that of animals and, indeed other plants?)

          Anyway, I was using the term ‘superstition’ to describe this unproven inference, this act of ‘faith’, particularly to make the point that belief in ‘supernatural’ agents is exactly the same thing. Perhaps when we believe in ‘supernatural’ agency, we are merely hedging our bets, like the animal that hears a twig crack in the forest. I was also emphasising the point that ‘agency’ is a perceptual construct – not a scientific one.

          Ultimately, in evolutionary terms, the question of whether the perceived agent (self, lion or god) corresponds to anything in ‘reality’ (or which can be scientifically verified) is irrelevant. Agency detection is an evolved way of modelling the world, and any model is a representation of reality, not reality itself. If belief in ‘supernatural’ agencies has survival value (and thousands of years of human cultural evolution would suggest that it may well do), then so be it.

          ——

          I don’t believe in belief!

          Perceval

          1. structure vs intentionality?
            There is a common belief that structure never arises from chaos. This seems similar to the belief that purposeful actions cannot arise from un-purposeful simple matter.

            The first belief is clearly wrong – structure arises all the time when hot materials cool down. It is called a “phase change”.

            When I was an embryo, I had no intentions. Now I do have some, and I act independently. And I am not composed of the same atoms as I was when I was an embryo – there is something arising out of the interaction between my atoms.

            —-
            It is not how fast you go
            it is when you get there.

          2. Hay Earthling
            Hay Earthling
            Again, bang on the nose. Its a real shame that there is this misconception. Its like the one that evolution is random, as if you could generate the natural world through randomness! Complete gobbledygook
            Mutation random (though not random across the genome!), evolution by natural selection – non random.

            The ‘Me’ of last year, or 10 years ago no longer exists. I am a pattern or arrangement of particles, fields and waves. This is what is transferred into the future. Generally ‘the self’ is fine until something scrambles or damages the pattern, like alzheimers, though there’s the possibility this isn’t permanent damage to it, its just putting up barriers like messing with a traffic pattern. Damage the pattern enough though and we’re in trouble.

          3. Hi Perceval
            Pretty much

            Hi Perceval

            Pretty much bang on the nose I think for how evolutionary biologists think of it I think. Perhaps the term ‘agency detection’ is not so easy to sum up without examples, especially for us right now. Perhaps with some reading it becomes clearer. I understand intentionality in this concept as an object having intention towards the individual who is making the judgement. A falling branch doesn’t have any intention of hitting you, where as a lion does have an intention of eating you. If a branch falls on your head though you might be fine saying that it had the intention of hitting you, this is the sort of circumstance where they are saying that intentionality is incorrectly inferred. The general consensus is that there are objects capable of intention and those that are not. Science is in a large way about categorising them I guess, and this idea of agency detection is about trying to describe how the brain models the difference and the mistakes it makes. This sounds like a reasonable starting point.

            Points to disagree with though rest around sciences roll in defining where these intentional/non intentional actions occur within nature. For those preferring descriptions outside of scientific mainstream then the boundaries are different, although the same model still works, it just produces different results with a different input.

            A big part of the evidence for imperfect agency detection comes from evolutionary biology. Actually a big part of the evidence for imperfect sensory apparatus comes from the idea that they have biologically evolved. Most of what I’ve read about agency detection hasn’t mentioned human beings once. It’s all about invertebrate evolution.

            Animals definitely have ‘agency detection’, which is sort of cheating as the term is coined to describe something we see in biology. Do animals have a concept of self? I think so, although that is probably quite variable and I’d say will depend of the complexity of the animals nervous system. I would be sceptical of any idea that they have a sense of self like ours, but obviously some animals show very sophisticated behaviour and perception and aspects of what we call self awareness. Its worth baring in mind that there is a broad range of self awareness in humanity, especially when brain damage is concerned; and we all lose it for half the day as well!

            I’m one of the scientists who have no problem with science being called an act of faith. Everything is. Just so long as people respect evidential means of arriving at conclusions then I’m fine with the term. We can never know anything to 100% so even something like the occurrence of evolution or gravity, both of which are at about 99.99% as actually existing. All that is happening now is people are arguing over how they happen. I have ‘faith’ in both. This blurs the linguistic boundaries a little admittedly. Pretty much everything I’ve seen on this site so far has been backed by some evidence (plus some properly scientific) so it is quite different to systems that profess that none is actually better. By there definition science uses 5-10% faith, maybe 1-0.1% where it’s at its best, and they use 99.99% faith.

            And, yep, I miss used anthropomorphisation! I didn’t mean anything quite that strong, especially when the idea is clearly more directed at reading false intention in natural events than thinking natural events have human like qualities. They’re not completely dissimilar ideas, but it wasn’t the best word.

  4. Sometimes a cigar…
    “Some researchers have hypothesized…” Why are they allowed to hypothesise, but others, such as Graham Hancock, are not? It’s even more outrageous considering the data Hancock presents in his book Supernatural — what evidence do the researchers have to show that it’s all Freudian psychoanalysis?

    It’s inexcusable that respectable research is shunned because of the stigma attached to natural hallucinogenic drugs and shamanic experiences, or because the researcher doesn’t have the right PhD or peers. Well, someone who does have the “right” PhD is Dr Rick Strassman. He has solid data to back up his theories on spirituality and psychedelics. And hey, let’s ignore David Lewis-Williams, as well as countless other scientists who have demonstrated there is more to the shamanic experience than Freudian hallucinations. Unfortunately, as Greg points out, the status quo would rather hypothesise with their PhDs than deal with the solid data Lewis-Williams, the McKennas, Hancock, Strassman, et al, have discovered.

    1. Hello
      I’m not here to cause trouble. Beliefs are beliefs. I’m having mine challenged here much more than your’s believe me!

      The shunning of any research should only occur on merit of the data and conclusions themselves. So any shunning can be inexcusable. There is no doubt shunning is occurring on both sides though. I’m not refering to specifics or this case in particular though.

      There seems to be a bit of annoyance that the status quo ‘read majority’ are skeptical of these ideas, but this is perfectly normal. This is going to need alot of data and some well thought ideas argued in a very professional manner to uproot the orthodox ideas. You seem very confident that both the data and conclusions are rock solid though and strong enough to uproot more standard ideas, which is why im giving them a go. I’ll give my thoughts along the way though.

      I’m furiously reading as much as i can here to try and catch up a little. I’m trying to get hold of their orignial data though, if you can help me find that it would be helpful. Might not be too tricky though, at the mo im just reading what people have said i should read so i can form an idea.

      daydreamer

  5. Nail On The Head
    THANK YOU! These kind of “studies” always make me feel so uneasy & you’ve articulated how I feel exactly.

    p.s. I’ve really gotten addicted to this site… I NEED my Daily Grail! Daily.

    1. Greg has a PhD too you know
      He’s known in some circles as Dr. Feelgood 😉

      Daily Grail addiction is dangerous… to the Status Quo.

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

  6. In Biblical Perspective
    If we approach from a Judeo-Christian theological standpoint, you have an all-powerful Creator/God who makes Man to fit into the world God builds. Would not the mind of such a created man be oriented to need God? His biology would reflect the place prepared for him and have “fingerprints” all over it. If that man is severed from direct knowledge of God by circumstance, his mind would naturally seek for an agency to fill that void and even fabricate an agency if necessary. I attribute the human fascination for dictators to this possibility.

    Man is built to worship.

    Roughly, you won’t find God in the brain, but you will find his handiwork. This explanation can also be adapted to other theories where Man is a created entity or where he lives and develops in an environment inclusive of the supernatural, his brain reflecting deity or spirit.

  7. Scary Supernatural
    What about supernatural beings that aren’t sugar and spice? We can’t be imagining demons and shadow people for comfort and psychological reassurance.

    Shamans, mystics, priests, and ordinary people report frightening encounters with supernatural beings that don’t wish us well and want to harm us and cause trouble.

  8. Non-ordinary states of consciousness & reductionist explanations
    Hi there, last year I was a BA(hons) student in the philosophy department at the University of Canterbury, Chch, NZ, before that I obtained majors in psychology and biological sciences after first majoring in philosophy (the only thing that could hold my right-brained attention at the time). I found the psychology department generally much more concerned with the maintenance of political scientific structures and materialist ideology than real, fascinating, and paradigmatically advanced research. People who pander to convention get good grades and scholarships, those who challenge it are largely ignored.
    Anyway, I wrote a philosophical thesis (for my research project in the philosophy department) about non-ordinary states of consciousness and their implications which involved, first, systematically showing how completely inadequate reductionist/orthodox theories from neuroscience are, and second the implications for an idealist ontology (mind/conscious being primary). The scientific evidence that I included was quantum mechanics and FT after Bell & Bohm, as well as Alan Watts ecological perspective and the Penrose/Hamerhoff quantum microtubule model so well explained in ‘Inner paths to outer space’ (which really helped me articulate the science involved without sounding too complicated/obscure).
    Although I didn’t mention how idealism (or similar) has been the philosophical position for occult groups throughout history, I did use logical rules to make it pretty much impossible to refute the survival of consciousness and the truth value of god/cosmic consciousness experiences, natural or entheogenically induced. The only problem is that none of the highly regarded professors in the department had an adequate literacy in the area (Michael Grosso wasn’t on hand :P), so I had the job of informing them about it all in a philosophically convincing way I guess. Most staff and postgrads are involved in circuit 3 (the Leary/RAW 8-circuit model) philosophical games that are going nowhere in comparison with serious study of non-ordinary states of consciousness, which reminds me of a quote you folks posted recently “The need for mystery is greater than the need for answers”, or something like that. My thesis supervisor, who showed much patience in allowing me to write such an “unusual” thesis he had little background in, said “ooh, Rupert Sheldrake, yeah he’s a bit dodgy” when I mentioned him once. One younger staff member (a PhD student who obviously felt his reality tunnel being threatened) dismissed the truth value of psychedelic consciousness prima facie, I found myself mentioning the skinwalker ranch and quoting quantum physicists in order to try and remind him of how strange and misunderstood “reality” evidentially is, and how obsolete materialist philosophy is. I’m hoping to write a book about all this within a year or two, because it’s such an important topic to wake people up to (Gurdjieff!), but that is still in the planning stages.

    1. Interesting
      Looks like you’re heading into a pretty rough future in clear antagonism with the Academic mainstream.

      God bless you 🙂

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

    2. Philosophy
      [quote]People who pander to convention get good grades and scholarships, those who challenge it are largely ignored.[/quote]

      I found this particularly difficult when i studied philosophy myself. I absolutely loved the subject. By far the largest part of the enjoyment of philosophy was the freedom to think and to debate. This seemed the essence of philosophy to me.

      Then when it came to the exams it became a history subject. Describe one philosophers views and others counter arguments. Boring.

      Pandering to convention though is another way of saying education. That always felt like it wasn’t the purpose of philosophy to me. Philosophy was training you to think and argue your own points. Obviously if you go into a maths exam and ignore the answers and put down what you think they should be, therefore not pandering to mathematical convention your screwed! Philosophy always felt above all that because there are no right or wrong answers.

      This is where is can fall into the trap though. There are no right or wrong answers. Spend a lifetime invested in creating non-material philosophy and there still will be no right or wrong answers. The only way to know will be to compare them to the evidence. In this philosophy becomes the same as other subjects. It must interact if the end game is to define reality, rather than possible ones.

      This is where the work of people like Rupert Sheldrake is good. It doesn’t matter is he hasn’t hit the nail on the head. His methodology is correct if he wants to win over scientists on the fence and begin the sort of movement necessary to overturn orthodox ideas.

  9. It is always possible that
    It is always possible that the reason some people see things around them is due to the brain (central processor) shorting in some way and allowing other data that is meant to be kept outside of the usual thought stream in, and so people see things they shouldn’t, and that other people can’t see.

    I have done my own personal (not truly scientific) research into how my brain works, and have found that I tend to filter out some information whilst other information is given priority. What is given priority is decided by me, so when I spot/calculate/consider something based on data I have sensed, someone nearby will not necessarily do the same and therefore be unaware of what I see.

    Hallucinating is what is said to occur because whilst one person indicates they something, others indicate they do not see this same thing. Who is right? Can the person who doesn’t see it be absolutely sure that it isn’t there just because they failed to spot it? What was that person thinking of at the time, and how different is it to what the other person was thinking?

    Variables exist all of the time and we need to think very carefully before we say something isn’t there, is imagination, just because someone hasn’t seen it. Our mind cannot visibly think of everything at once. Unless of course we work within the same mental area of space, just like linking into the world wide web at the same time. Even so we don’t all look at the same information at the same time and may sometimes never come across information that others consistently access.

    We are limited beings, and our thoughts are limited too. We need to accept there is much going on outside our immediate comprehension.

    Carol A Noble

    1. Thoughtful comments
      Thoughtful comments. Quite right from multiple perspectives too.

      Psychologists have been onto this for an age now and have much experimental evidence for mental perceptive trickery. They are now being joined by the neurologists to create understanding of how this happens compared to just knowledge of the effect and how to make it happen.

      I guess magicians and illusionists have been well onto understanding these effects for a long time before scientists ever developed methods of investigating and understanding them.

      Childhood imaginary friends are good examples of the minds ability to visualise. I guess all the brain has to do is pass imaginings up through the visual cortex and we are going to see them visually, since this is our ‘visual processor’.

      There is also no need to consider it a ‘shorting’ or ‘error’ in the brain. Evolution only guides the senses to be accurate enough to assist in statistical survival of the genes (not the individual, but the genes in the group). It does not create senses that give perfect representations of their environment. In this sense there is nothing wrong with our senses, they are working perfectly, they just aren’t even designed to get it right all the time. Just to correlate enough with macroscopic reality enough of the time to ensure statistical survival of the genes for those senses.

      I had an hallucination once where i was attacked by a giant mosquito. I can’t be sure it was an hallucination though, but in the end when i hit it it broke apart and collapsed into my mouth. It was over a foot wide! Not nice 🙂

      Imagination and belief play a big role in interpretation of perception. Be it from a Muslim, Christian, spiritual, pantheist or atheist perspective. All groups are likely to interpret data in how they would like to see it, and can be particularly adept at ignoring other groups data. This is perhaps one of the best ways to explain features of our differing cultures.

      I come from a background of thought where everything is possibly hallucination and miss representation of perception and the only way to get out of this trap is by building devices to gain a ‘truer’ picture. In effect replacing our senses, which to a degree lie to each of us, with sensors that people of different perspectives can use globally. This may only be a good way of investigating certain aspects of ‘reality’ though.

      Throughout your comment can be read a request for humility from all sides. Humility can also occur by opening your mind to new possibilities, by accepting that we might be wrong.

    2. Reposted from the Guardian newspaper – UK
      Imagine that your state legislature has decided to revamp the way that health and medicine are taught in public schools. To do this, they must tackle the “germ theory of disease”, the idea that infectious disease is caused by microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria. The legislature, noting that this idea has many vocal opponents, declares that it is “only a theory”. Many people, for instance, think that Aids has nothing to do with viruses, but is the byproduct of a dissipated life. Christian Scientists believe that disease results from sin and ignorance, spiritual healers implicate disturbed auras and shamans cite demonic possession.

      In light of this “controversy”, the legislature sets up a school board that includes not only doctors, but also shamans, faith healers and, for good measure a few “psychic surgeons” who pretend to extract veal cutlets from patients’ intact bodies. Taking account of these diverse views, the board recommends that from now on all teaching of modern medicine must be accompanied by a discussion of its weaknesses, including the “evidence” that Aids results from drug use and malnutrition, as well as from impure thoughts and evil spirits. And our failure to understand the complexities of chronic fatigue syndrome might be seen as reflecting its causation by an inscrutable and supernatural designer.

      There is more to the article, but it starts to get a bit virulent towards the Texas school board.

      It could spur a debate about what rights we have to demand our own interpretation be taught.

      Most spiritual ideas aren’t in conflict with sciences bigger ideas. Big bangs, expanding universes, geological histories, germ theories of disease, evolution etc etc etc

      You can still have telepathy, quantum consciousness etc if all the above is taken for granted, though it still intersects parts of those ideas.

      What about the things that are disproved though? Or by its philosophical nature can nothing be disproved. Is it about time Zeus’s trident made a come back?

      As a side thought it is also apparent that scientists today are following a long religious tradition. One outcome of biblical theology proposes that one special nature of early Israelite religion is the removal of God from the natural world, placing him not as a physical figure like other deities, but as spirit. This was useful as prior to that deities were linked to the natural world and were as fickle as storms and droughts. In fact, if you know where to look, there are still references in the Old Testament linking Yahweh to the ‘Storm of the Seas’ using the same language as found in other religions of that time. Perhaps it was slang at the time it was written, but it could also indicate the transition point between Yahweh as a more Earth bound deity and the future Yahweh of spirit.

      The modern explanation of disease resulting from germs and viruses, genetic abnormality and general cell function failures is another step and can actually be seen as beneficial to the God type. Rather than removing Gods power it removes yet another area that can cast doubt on the goodness of God, just like the storms and plagues did in the past. It is interesting that today, for example, the Archbishop of Canterbury stated that God will not save us from global warming, echoing back to those early Israelites who distanced god from nature to place him as spirit.

      1. Hmmm
        Good food for thought.

        —–
        It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
        It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

        Red Pill Junkie

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