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God
Jan 8, 2006 4:41:16 GMT -4
Post by turbonium on Jan 8, 2006 4:41:16 GMT -4
I don't like the word 'atheist' as it usually implies some sort of militant viewpoint and that there is a set of beliefs of some kind involved. But surely this God stuff is all nonsense isn't it? Belief in The Bible is no more reasonable than belief in Ovid's Metamorphoses or Norse Sagas. (Or, indeed, to use the old analogies, Santa Claus, pixies or leprechauns.) This guy puts it pretty well (warning: quite long articles). He does get a bit militant and angry but his points are mostly valid. And the final few paragraphs of the second piece are quite beautiful. Getting back to the original issue here, I think that we need to make the distinction between "God" and "religion". The author of the linked articles uses the fictional "Santa Claus" as a metaphor for "God" as a fictional character, or at least as being an entity not proven to exist. The main argument he makes, however, are how present-day interpretations of Biblical passages have been imposed on Western society as dogma that unjustly restricts individual freedoms. "God", however, can also be viewed as something other than a "person" as ascribed through the Bible or the Torah. or as Allah in the Koran, or polytheistic "Gods" as "beings" in Hindu scriptures. "God" is also equated by some to not be a person or being, but rather, for example, as the Absolute Infinite (as posited by the mathematician Cantor).
Others may not believe in the personification of a "God", but relate the word to an infinite, universal, all-encompassing "power" or "force" that we are too limited to comprehend as humans. Others think that "we" are all part of a collective Universe that defines "God" as "All That Is". The basic point I'm making is that the main argument of the author would be more convincing if he had understood and thus clarified that it is not an unproven "God" he has a problem with, but rather the societal imposition of religious dogmas. He seems to declare himself an atheist not so much because he sees no proof of God's existence, but primarily over how "believers in God" have unjustly prohibited his free will, and declared how he must conduct himself within society. I would think the author would oppose the same edicts and dogmas which he feels infringe on his freedoms today (with no proof that "God" exists) as he would if proof of "God" ever was found to undeniably exist. I don't disagree with that view, either. But whether one is an atheist or not is quite simply irrelevant. to his main point of contention.
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Post by turbonium on Nov 9, 2005 21:21:11 GMT -4
OK, so there is a physical medium, air, that can move in particular patterns. Building on this view, why should anger be restricted to being inside the body? Let's say you come home late one day and your wife starts hollering at you and throwing pots and pans at you for missing the supper she worked so hard to cook. There are physical media here: Her body, your body, the pots and pans, the air through which they fly, the cold supper in the trash. These too move and interact in particular patterns. Can't we say that anger is an aspect of all that patterned activity?
Scientists could certainly measure it. They could, for instance, measure how fast she throws the cookware at you and thereby come up with a measure for how angry she is. If it was my wife throwing the cookware, it would severely test the limits of a radar gun's maximum speed measurement!! ;D
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Post by turbonium on Nov 9, 2005 2:40:53 GMT -4
In my thought experiment, I cut all the connections to anger cube of neurons. I am purposely isolating the cube because I want to see if the notion of anger as a distinct entity or brain pattern makes any sense
Certain entities are only measurable, or "existent" within distinct media. For example, sound waves do not "exist" in a vacuum or outer space, unlike electromagnetic waves. Within our atmosphere, these mechanical waves are measurable and do "exist". As well, anger as a distinct entity may only "exist" or be measurable as "anger" within the living organism itself, but not external of it. The Earth and it's surrounding atmosphere could be considered another "body" where sound exists as an entity, but does not exist isolated outside of that body
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Post by turbonium on Nov 5, 2005 7:48:16 GMT -4
You open up my head and sever any connection going to or coming from the from the 3 mm cube of anger neurons in my amygdala and you then hook up your electrodes to it. When you stimulate the cube to oscillate in the anger pattern, do I then feel angry?
I would say yes. The neural activity is what illicits the anger response. We can already cause involuntary physical and emotional responses by stimulating the cortex at specific locations. Brain damage to certain areas can cause permanent states of depression, fear, etc. We are all affected by changes in our brain's "wiring", whether there is an emotional trigger or a physically imposed trigger for those changes.
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Post by turbonium on Oct 29, 2005 23:27:45 GMT -4
You should re-read and think about Peter B's posts in this thread. Emotions are observed in all sorts of animals. You don't necessarily need to measure neural patterns in a dog to understand how it came to be that a it barks and snarls angrily at a neighbor dog who comes into its yard and tries to take its bone away
Of course, we can easily observe anger in animals without needing to measure it. But my point is that we are able (or will be able in the future) to prove it "exists" through scientific measurements. From this, we will be able to analyze if there are any generational changes in the emotional responses of animals and humans.
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Post by turbonium on Oct 29, 2005 23:02:56 GMT -4
Let's say you did probe your wife's brain when she was angry at you. (I'm sure that would only get you in more trouble, but bear with me.) In all the processes going on, what would qualify as anger? To keep it simple, let's say you discovered that whenever she was angry, and only when she was angry, that you detected the chemical element cobalt. Would you suggest to us, then, the anger is really cobalt? Would cobalt in a silver mine, in a sense, be pure anger?First - the female brain will forever remain one of the world's greatest unsolved mysteries! ;D But to use your example - say that cobalt is an element detected when one exhibits anger. That could be only one of several indicators of anger. Say cobalt is also detected as prevalent in other emotions, such as fear. So cobalt in a pure form does not mean it is "pure anger" or fear. We may be able to narrow the emotion down by measuring other indicators within the brain, such as brain wave frequency. Beta frequencies are measured from 14 to 30 cps. These are associated with fear and anger, excitement and tension within the subject. Further, as linked below, there appears to be a distinction between fear and anger in the amygdala, an area of the brain..... www.dartmouth.edu/~sbs/Adams%20et%20al%20Science%202003.pdfThe amygdala is thought to be part of a neural system responsive to potential threat (1). Consistent with this is the amygdala’s well-documented sensitivity to fear faces. What is puzzling, however, is the paucity of evidence for a similar involvement of the amygdala in the processing of anger displaysI realize that we have only scratched the surface of our understanding of the human mind and emotions, but primary indicators are that we may someday be able to measure and analyze individual emotions and their "evolution" over generations.
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Post by turbonium on Oct 27, 2005 22:57:39 GMT -4
I understand your point about "evil" as a concept developed by humans to explain certain actions by people. I wanted to point that out earlier but didn't have the time. But I was also mentioning evil as an extension of an emotion, anger, which may be eventually proven to 'exist' in the same way as light or sound. If something can be quantifiably measured in this way, we can also say that it is a phenomenon that exists.
Now, as "evil" is really an arbitrary label we put on something or someone as an act carried out for no reason other than death and/or destruction, we indeed may not be able to verify it "exists" in some measurable way. And, a psychotic may actually take "pleasure" out of committing a murder, and if his brain functions were to be measured, they may show that to be true - to wit, no "anger" is detected in the brain waves and synaptic processes. His brain may be "wired" abnormally and skew the ability to measure his brain compared to a normaly functioning brain.
But emotions will possibly, in the future, be able to be proven to exist, as much as light or sound currently are measurable and quantifiable.
So, if and when emotions are scientifically measurable, could this also lead to a way to analyze the progress or "evolution" of human emotion over future generations, similar to how we can currently measure the physical changes over time, such as height, weight, etc?
I'm putting forth the possibility that while human 'physical' evolution may be shown over tens of thousands of years, it may be shown that mental processes progress or "evolve" at a much faster rate. And that we are only unable to demonstrate that because we have yet to develop the technologies to properly measure that progression.
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Post by turbonium on Oct 22, 2005 7:55:45 GMT -4
We may talk about the evil in OJ Simpson's murder of his wife. But that doesn't mean there is a distinct evil entity that exists apart from the brutal act of stabbing, as if evil were some sort of shadow or spirit that accompanied the stabbing. It is the physical act of murder that we label as evil. This is a complex act performed in a vastly complex social context. There is no one component that constitutes "evil". We just use the word "evil" as if it referred to some sort of distinct entityFirst off, OJ didn't do it - in fact, he's dedicated his life to catching the real killers, even if he has to play every golf course in the country to find them! As for "evil" not being "real", I'm going to argue that it may one day be proven that it is real. Not concrete like a table or chair, perhaps, but as real as light or sound. We can already measure brain wave frequencies, and know that they vary depending on the person's mental state. We can also identify regions of the brain with high levels of neuron activity - for example, the amygdala is a brain region involved in anger and other emotions. Eventually, we may be able to measure each emotion's unique identifying values. So, we will be then able to measure and identify "anger" as we now are able to identify sound wave frequencies. Is it also possible to eventually discover that "evil" exists in the same way? If we eventually can prove "anger" exists, as much as light or sound exist, it isn't impossible to consider. There may be identifying data measurements that indicate the existence of "evil" within one's mind.- perhaps only at times when acts such as murder are carried out.
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Post by turbonium on Oct 20, 2005 1:46:23 GMT -4
Hi peter - yes, the subject is very overwhelming in its scope, and I am not anticipating or suggesting this thread will lead to the unlocking of the mysteries of the universe! ;D I was partially inspired to begin this topic by the ongoing developments within the field of quantum physics. That is, the sub-atomic theories and hypotheses, the Alain Aspect experiments, Dr. Bohm's studies, etc. This field opens up questions about what is physical reality, how all material (or immaterial) may actually be interconnected throughout the universe, that what is perceived by us as physical is almost entirely non-physical at sub-atomic levels. And so on..... pw1.netcom.com/~wolfpapers/myarticles/Soul%20and%20death%20Q&A.pdfFrom the above link... Dr. Fred Alan Wolf earned a Ph. D. in theoretical physics from U.C.L.A.... Dr. Wolf has taught at the University of London, the University of Paris, the Hahn-Meitner Institute for Nuclear Physics in Berlin, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and San Diego State University in the United States."We have the illusion that our human bodies are solid, but they are over 99.99% empty space. If an atom is blown up to the size of an entire football stadium, the dense part of the atom would be comparable to the size of a single grain of rice placed on the 50 yard line. Now why is that important? Because in an atom, the nucleus accounts for 99.99% of all of the matter or mass. Atoms are mostly made of space. So although we experience ourselves as being these solid human bodies, it’s more like “who we are” is an awareness or consciousness that lives in space "Non-Locality is defined as phenomenon that occurrences on one side of the Universe can instantly effect 'matter' on the other side of the Universe. There are implications from this regarding space and time being illusory. Physicist Barbara Brennan said... "Quantum physics is beginning to realise that the Universe appears to be a dynamic web of interconnected and inseparable energy patterns. If the universe is indeed composed of such a web, there is logically no such thing as a part. This implies we are not separated parts of a whole but rather we are the Whole."
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Post by turbonium on Oct 19, 2005 22:18:48 GMT -4
What do you mean by "abstract thinking", to pick one, and how is this "spiritual" or "ethereal"?
Abstract "things" are sometimes defined as "ethereal" - those things that do not exist in reality or exist only as sensory experience, like the color red. Is the number 3 real? Are hate or happiness real? Are their effects real? Or are they just "abstract ideas" created by humans?
As for the word "spiritual", there are several defintions, some of which relate to religion. But for my purposes, I am using the terms "spiritual" or "spirituality" as defined below. .. 1. Consisting of spirit; not material; incorporeal; as, a spiritual substance or being.
2. Of or pertaining to the intellectual and higher endowments of the mind; mental; intellectual.
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Post by turbonium on Oct 19, 2005 2:34:58 GMT -4
You have to avoid the temptation, however, when confronted by a person acting purposefully--including inventing and abstract thinking--in concluding that there must be some sort of driving force operating the person, such as a spirit. You won't be able to explain how the person does what he does because no such explanation is readily evident, but that is no reason to deny that it is the person who is doing the acting.
No, I'm not trying to imply a "higher power" is behind our thoughts, actions, behaviors, creations, etc. In fact, I see each person as the orginator of his or her own such processes or thoughts. It's the development of the species to higher levels of existence that I'm interested in understanding, or at least contemplating. That development may or may not be explained through evolutionary theories or a synthesis of evolution theory with other phenomena - and if it can be, then what mechanisms would or could be involved.
Or, do we need to consider that evolution theory is limited to the interaction of species with the physical world? That non-physical development and progress over several generations do not fit in to such a theory. And, could a better grasp of knowledge in that regard also lead us to come around full circle, so as to consider these new-found theories or evidentiary sources are also a better explanation for our development than evolution theories?
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Post by turbonium on Oct 15, 2005 3:54:39 GMT -4
Well - there is some interest. Thx for the replies. I should have really not taken a giant leap into spiritual evolution, as I meant it not as how religions originated, but rather how humans could have possibly "evolved" into a species that exists in ways beyond the physical realm - we think in abstract, we invent, we dream, we love, we hate, some of us have premonitions of some type -maybe such as I've had (hopefully not, as two of them were quite unpleasant when they unfolded), or various experiences from some of those here may have had in the past....We write books, create music, art, etc.
I'm interested in trying to assess a plausible theory of evolution in regards to very ethereal concepts. . That is, I'm trying to tie in evolution with the development of human psyche, intelligence, and non-physical phenomena (beyond our currently measurable, physical spectrum).
To avoid being too far reaching in the topic, I would like to start with concepts of evolution which consider the development of higher intelligence and senses of emotion, from the primitive (or lower primate) mind to the human mind.
What would spur, in evolutionary theory, a transition of a species from primitive and purely instinct based into a sentient species, with well developed emotions and abilites to think in highly logical terms, and also in abstract, or artistic terms?
I agree, these things are not likely ever measurable or possible to analyse to any degree. But it does make me wonder..
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Post by turbonium on Nov 11, 2005 5:45:19 GMT -4
That's funny. It reminded me of an interview with a Washington DC cop, who was giving advice on how to best avoid getting shot by the DC sniper. He said "Walk sideways". True story. I wish I could find a link to the article.
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Post by turbonium on Sept 16, 2005 19:29:56 GMT -4
Can't somebody just zap them with Raid? ;D
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Post by turbonium on Sept 8, 2005 22:32:24 GMT -4
I've never really delved into this subject, but I've heard that chemical analysis of the soil and plants from some crop circles indicate differences from the rest of the crop. Is this true?
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