by madmin | Jun 26, 2021 | Philosophy, Psychology, Science
All humans by definition are irrational.
This is the emotional state we are in. We have out grown the animalistic rationale behaving solely on survival, yet animals when not in their everyday behavior of such survival show emotions and irrationale.
Are theists more irrational than non-theists?
The point is here that rational or irrational isn’t a general state of mind. You can be fully rational about one thing and totally irrational about the other. For the deduction whether one person is more irrational than another, we need to look what it would be that we call irrational. Irrational behavior or thinking means it is inconsistent with logic (hence irrational could be equalled to illogical).
So, irrational would be illogical response to specific stimuli, information or knowledge.
For instance, if we know snow is cold, illogical would be to say it is hot. If we know snow melts from heat, it would be silly to say you can’t melt it with a fire. That would be irrational.
Humanity started of as an animal with a totally changing habitat, which gave its nervous system many new possibilities. It didn’t need as much responses (all based on fear meant for survival) to survive anymore, it could predict, plan and imagine. Eventually the huge brain mass was used to make causal connections which weren’t needed for survival of the individual, but for the generation, and next and next. Communication became more complex and caused holding knowledge from one generation to another other than the fear etched instincts that are inherited genetically.
Cognitive knowledge was growing. But this cognitive knowledge was build on emotional knowledge (patternicity), for survival. As with all species, the choice for survival supersedes that of the cognitive mind. Thus fear is still causing people to choose rather on fear than cognitive insights. This is what we can define as irrational (as long as the choice is not warranted by actual stimuli). Patternicity eventually caused agenticity and this is where belief started.
As with every theory, one first has to believe something occurs for a specific reason. At first, like children, humanity saw patterns that seemed connected to arbitrary events. Mostly connected to their own actions. Opening your eyes in the morning would bring the sun back. That kind of magical thinking. But like children, humanity learned how to distinguish more and more.
When more and more humans populated the earth due to the improving temperatures and more secure locations, more and more ‘technological’ advancement came about. BUT, emotions came first, societies grew on the same fears and emotions as the first humans. They still needed soothing for these fears, to not go crazy. Religion was the structure that, based on answers given by ancestors, to these fear questions, controlled the societies (like witch doctors and medicine men and others ), even when people were using less emotional driven choices to decide who should lead (often out of greed, or alpha male protection).
Eventually humanity started to become fragmentised. As everyone (literally) had their own belief, they would teach their children a little bit different. Eventually folklore and superstition were slowly discredited by logical thinking. We now could philosophize what was a rational thought and irrational thought. Something that was (by test and deduction) an illogical choice or reaction to the pletoria of impulses, was seen as irrational. As such, holding to any superstitious idea from before, was seen as irrational, because these ideas were rebuked by science and advancement in human intellect.
Answering that ancestors were both rational and irrational, is correct. We all still are. Humanity doesn’t know everything yet, but we do know where certain ideas came from. We even know that in some way, believing (irrational sometimes) isn’t mutual exclusive or is even required to get to the next step of finding out.
Irrational in a way is subjective to the observer, like quantum physics. Don’t tell Highs by the way.
So, yes, when a person is religious AND chooses to deny humanity’s collected facts, he/she is irrational. If one keeps to religion for the comfort of it, but still tries to find new knowledge to equate away the leftover beliefs, he/she isn’t automatically irrational.
by madmin | Jun 26, 2021 | Culture, Mythology / Religion, Philosophy, Psychology, Science
<some non-specific theist> thank you for bringing pascal’s wager or some statistical change for reality to be what it is, up. I have already explained the error in thinking with when it relates to chance and mathematics by simply stating that we exist, so any CHANCE of reality to be what it is by chance is 1, also on ‘our’ regards on numbers and what we see in the world around us. Quick example: what numbers would we have used if we had more fingers or less? How would we have calculated distance and other ‘equations’?
Anyway, that should already have set you straight, but here is the fun part: Your claim might that the chance of life to have evolved this way is of 10 to power of 54th is worse then the chance that this chance has happened and the outcome you chose to believe that there is yet another level of chance. Basically the chance of your god theory IS <10 to the power of 54th, as it would require us to exist first. Now lets step back, because you will start ranting that that is not what you mean.
What is a theist presupposition?
Here it is: We exist, the universe exists and the chance to that is 1, because it happened.
Now, we go to your theory of a god. Basically it is only assumed from a book to be a workable theory.
Now, lets leave all science away and take the obvious: Can there be a god? what are the odds that this could be true? Well….actually incalculable small, because there is nothing to calculate the chance from. It is an imaginary conclusion. Additionally what would be the chance there would be a superior being, considering to create a universe that consists of NOTHING except for 1 blue planet and decided to create some ‘life form’ there AND knows exactly how to do it, but fails to recognize the fact that what he/she/it created had the chance on rebelling and destroying what he/she/it intended. Then we come to the closure: Taking the moment before the alleged Genesis moment, What are the odds that a super being (what created it? what would it consist of? how did it learn to do something? how did it come create existence without existing (in time and space)? If this was the case, its ideas would not include humans, as he/she/it would not be able to fathom them, as they are only a speck on a speck on a speck on a speck so small, that the chance this being of a totally different energy/signature/element/existence level would recognize or even realize the existence is way smaller then the made up number you though for chance of existence of life as it is now.
The realist stance
The chance of life in this universe is 1 for 2 reasons: 1. because we exist and because it can happen again, simply because the universe is so big, that all chances can come to exist at some moment. What is likely? We are god in the future and tried to make our ancestors believe in us, so there would be enough life in the future, or to prevent too much progress to be made, so the errors in the future will be prevented. Anyway, the chance of life by chance is 100% as it happened and we can redo the events. We even can already show how it has become on our world, from the conditions: We breath as the tide of the seas, because all that happens on earth happens from this single effect. Chances are that new life is still created in the depths of the ocean, chances are highly existing life has been created by other conditions on other planets, but those types of life don’t need to be recognizable by us. However the chance is 1, we are proof.
by madmin | Jun 26, 2021 | Neurology, Philosophy, Psychology, Science
Overall introduction
From the moment of conception, our body is build to respond to impulses. Though we could look at the neural responses and the way it influences our psychology from this point, I rather go a bit deeper.
The human neurology is based on millions of years of evolution. Starting (like the conception of our current organism/life) at it’s conception. As humans we are often very easy to add emotions and thoughts to organisms that are not aware like us, don’t have the same intrinsic responses as we have. However, like everything that evolves, our responses are all based on those of who came before us.
To explain what is meant by the inherited responses, I like to take the examples from research, where mice bred from mice that have walked a maze repeatedly. The next generation would be able to solve the maze more easily. Their neural pathways had adapted to possible stimuli. If they merely had the same pathways and had to learn, they would roughly need the same amount of time. This is what we already learned from research on the short term, but we haven’t just come to this point of learning, adapting, living. These adaptions are caused by the way we have evolved. At each point they are the optimum mode of operandi for a species. Until the habitat changes to fast and the adaption within the culture is not possible within enough generations. When a species is the optimum of operandi, a stasis in development can be observed. It means that the neural pathways are optimally used for responding to the environment the organism is living in. We have already found the track back to the initial primates. But the actual decisions are based on much older neural choices/responses to stimuli.
Life is about consumption It is about continuing motion. In organical sense, our bodies have started somewhere as as simple an motion as the tides of the oceans.
The Layers
The human mind is currently the top level of several layers of processes that are going on within us as an organism. Though many other animals show signs of behavior that we describe to ‘intelligence’. Intelligence isn’t necessarily the same as mind/self awareness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence Reference to human and animal intelligence.
In all, we can say that because humans aren’t the only ones with a minimum level of intelligence, it is NOT the mind (the cognitive decision taking) that holds ‘intelligence’.
So, there is a layer before the layer of ‘mind’ that can hold ‘intelligence’.
——— insert from my other blog to be edited in —–
1. Animals don’t have such valuation system (regarding good and bad/right and wrong). They learn what is healthy and what is not, but they are not making a conscious choice to implicate a future situation to mean this cause of effect to be positive or negative on their health. Water is to drink. Positive. No matter if it is poisoned. Some animals have a nose that will tell them that water is undrinkable, yet most don’t have that luxury, because their ancestors lived in environments that had an abundance of clean flowing water, or very little water, so the ‘society’ of the species stayed so small, they would not evolve the reaction to a deadly situation, so that the species would act on instinct (this is a neural pathway created by genetic material).
2. This is also something that animals don’t reasonably have. They can be fierce, deceiving, agressive, but that is from instinct and not by choice (we have choice, because of the abundance of neural options). So, how can we figure out what is objectively good or bad/right or wrong? Any action we do ourselves is with ‘intent’ and as such is already given value by acting. From the point of an animal, we will have to assume, the animal is not too much domesticated, that it will adher to human behavior and be deceitful by choice. Also, we now know that for instance dolphins have the option to choose to be nice to other animals (likely there are more). Now, what would be a thing to see without emotional value?a rock. But we know a rock will just lie and do nothing. Until we pick it up and act with it. It will not influence us, except when we interact WITH it. Automatically putting the value of action on our own part.
—————- end ————
by madmin | Jun 26, 2021 | Philosophy, Psychology, Science
The decision tree theory takes the following premises:
1. The brain and nerve system are evolved as a response system to protect the organism from dying.
2. The Claustrum is the center of all neural nodes and due to its place, houses the consciousness.
3. The Prefrontal Cortex is what causes the organism to be ‘self conscious’.
The model of decision trees, works around the build up of actual decisions depending on other decisions before them. As if the whole brain is molded into a ‘electronic’ circuitry AFTER each learning part gets added.
The results of how this relates to mental disorders etc will be explained in ‘The effects’.
The model starts a single node of decision. This is based in the initial blueprint of the biological organism (genetically inherited brainpatterns).
The brain is a network of nodes, which will respond to a certain amount of tension (like a resistor). The tension will result in a (current visualisation) sonar like result to the claustrum.
So, the autonomous vital functions don’t fall within the decision tree’s context. The initial ‘breath of life’ is caused by the initial functions of the body (compression of the chest and decompression, causing first breath), the heart cells are responding to electrical stimulation, so while the body is alive, the heart will receive electrical impulses.
The first decisions are ‘etched’ (fixed pathway for the (neural) electrical current to create a certain response from the stimulus) based on input received from all the senses. The body’s receptors are evolved to respond to the same impulses as it’s parent’s body, adapted to perhaps small differences which have influenced the parent’s body with heavy pain or fear (Emotional hard etching). This is why children start to learn from the moment the neural network reaches a certain level of completion.
Lets call this period (the womb based learning period) the blueprint etching. This means the period, where most of the learning is ‘testing’ the ‘ancestral’ learning or ‘genetic inherited’ brain pattern. Here the most basic of neural paths that the species/family parent brain has passed on, are most easily activated. These will be the initial decision root. From these initial markings, the rest of the tree is based on these response fixes.
by madmin | Jun 26, 2021 | Philosophy, Psychology, Science
Effects:
The decision tree model/theory provides (in my opinion) a possibility to research what causes a person to emotional/cognitively fall into certain decision patterns.
One of the things I feel is best diagnosed and treated with the model for instance, is Multiple Personality Syndrome.
When the model is extended with the emotional/cognitive inheritance model (actually the ‘pre-conscious’ model) it also gives insights into the base of schizophrenia, and religiosity (which in my opinion are closely related, due to the ‘whisper’ effect.)
Explanation of effects with the model:
A quick example how MPS is explained by the model: The second personality mostly is a person who is fully functional regarding language and agility, but lacks ‘morals’ or decision that one makes depending on emotional results. This shows that in cases of sever trauma (mostly emotional trauma), the branch or sometimes a whole tree of a personality’s ethical/emotional decisions are ‘unrooted’. The new personality is a choice of the brain, to ignore the initial branch/tree results, meaning other parts of the brain will be used to ‘rewrite’ these choices. Hence the observed effects of a person with such trauma having less moral conflicts or regressing to childlike behavior. Why the person can alternate between the two branches, might have to do with the ‘mending’ of the mind, or the fact that the impulses are sent to both trees, but at certain moments will have more chances of initiating a result from the initial tree, instead of the new tree.
Using the model, it should be traceable by the amount of difference within the personalities, at which level the person has been traumatized. Ranging from Trust, to logical causality, to consistent rationalization.
Required research:
fMRI and high resolution scan of brain activity during different activities/active personalities.
Predictions:
During such scans, there will be a different level of activity in the brain, though these might be very close in neuron bundles (ie. Current technological resolution might fail to observe).
by madmin | Jun 26, 2021 | Philosophy, Psychology, Science
From this model and theory behind it, from a scientific point of view, predictions should be able to be made.
I think the biggest changes will come, in finding the bridging part in this model, from neurological to psychological.
Currently I see many mentions and results from researches saying: Oh, this and this thought comes from this and this hormone change or is influenced by your stomach.
Though these researches have been done thoroughly and correct, they fail one thing. They conclude something that is not related DIRECTLY.
See, of course the amount of processing in the stomach influences the brain, because the brain is the mechanism of the organism to secure correct feeding (energy intake). It secures survival from that perspective. However, there is no direct calculation possible from ‘enzym A’ in the stomach causes you to want a ‘Snickers’. Why not? Because there is an intrinsic structure which the body responds with, to changes in the intestines. However, it depends on how the brain is trained to respond to direct responses, but also how the brain is influenced on a more biological level by changed content of the intestines, whether it will respond in the same way each time.
Imagine:
You eat something very sour. You have already eaten sour the last few days. The pH in your intestines are raising and many bacteria needed for digestion die. The body will create hormones to support growth of these bacteria or at least the required pH level in the intestines. This can cause the rest of the body to receive these hormones or enzymes too, causing changes on cellular or intercellular level of behavior. This can influence the ‘throughput’ of information in the brain, but even cause certain resistance levels of neurons to change.
Does this mean you suddenly require a specific named combined food type that is wrapped in a specific color and has specific colors on them, based on the change of flora in your intestines? NO. The body is trying to restore optimal working and causes the organism to comply to this. This can cause ‘cognitive’ effects, but these are not directly induced. These are ‘collateral’ effects. The organism’s physiological processes are not aware (or should not care either) whether the organism’s neural system is further developed than the process requires to influence the organism to maintain life support/primary function: Life.
So, how will this change from the model?
Taking into account the above, with the model/theory I hope we will be able to connect all the dots and find out WHY certain individuals have a higher chance of getting ‘cognitive’ disorders, from changes in the biological inner space of the body.
The model/theory will also ensure the evolutionary theory/process will be bound on this level. We can calculate from it, which ancestral species would have had what traits and what traits we KNOW were there before certain lines and have been removed from the organisms traits.
