tar

Edmond Zedo, So what are you? ENTP? Do you look it? Do I look INFJ? Regards, TAR

Mooeypoo, Yes, that is the article I read, before I asked for your help. I sure will appreciate your examples. I think they will help a lot. Is certainly the abilty I am missing, and I will appreciate any insights and examples that will get me closer to being able to do that. Thanks Mooeypoo. Special Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedMooeyPoo, I remember sitting in the livingroom of a Religion Professor, back in my college days with my dad (who was a college professor of Psychology), and a Philosophy Professor (the most brilliant man I have ever met in my life, he solved integral calculus problems for relaxation.) They were having a conversation, completely coherently about a topic, when I realized they were talking, completely coherently, on an other level, about a different topic at the same time. When I caught the drift of a third topic, I realized they were doing it on PURPOSE, they were actually communicating on all three topics/levels and enjoying the challenge and each other's awareness and company. I was amazed. And to this day couldn't tell you if they were not connecting on more levels that I didn't get. When I sense kindred minds, I try to connect on more than one level at a time. I try to talk about more than one thing at once. To me, it is fun and friendly, instructive, and a good way to gain insights the other has, and share and validate my own insights. Sometimes, between kindred minds, you can talk about a topic and reason from both directions at once. Fitting the facts to the story, telling a new story with the facts, and learning new lessons, having the same insights, together. Regards, TAR

Just a thought, just a guess, most likely completely wrong, just floating it, if any part of it is helpful to anybody in fitting any thing together they have noticed. Not intended as science. And I apologize for being so scatterbrained, throwing stuff up in shotgun fashion without thinking it out first. Not scientific. Not notably useful, except to me and the developement of my own worldview. Anyway, I apologize. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedEdmond, 25 was supposed to have merged to 23. I didn't know you were posting 24. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedAnd I have just determined in 150 seconds that Edmond and I have severe personality disorders, and that is why we are both drawn to the psychiatry thread.

Edmond Zedo, Or consider the role of the rightTBJ, the part of the brain found by Rebbeca Saxe, to be the system involved in being able to "see" the thoughts and feelings of unseen others. One of each of the pairs you cited above, has more to do with what is coming in through your eyes. Extraversion,Sensing,Feeling,Perceiving. One of each of the pairs has more to do with what your "second perspective"(my term, not fact), your rightTBJ, is looking at, Introversion, Intuition, Thinking, Judging. Maybe your observations are indeed important and real, but the explanation has to do with how much of YOU (brow, bridge and cheek bone) are in your field of vision (first perspective). And this effects the development of your personality. Do blind people have a strong, developed rightTBJ? What shapes are their faces? Regards, TAR

JillSwift, I didn't get the point of the study. And I didn't even get your explanation until I learned that the "false belief" test was something already discovered years earlier, and she had found the part of the brain that took the "other's shoes" perspective. http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid716696176?bctid=11084256001 But thanks, I think I have it know. Regards, TAR P.S. I just had to watch the clip you linked in the "hijack" thread again, and read your post above about 15 times to figure out the logic, and what was being said, and not said. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedExcuse the merge. Tangential question. Mooeypoo, From post #112 in the "religion hijacks" thread.

iNow, Well sure. To do a proper study you have to focus. This way you get some actual facts, some actual puzzle peices. Still the puzzle need to be put together at some point, using the facts. I am more of a problem solver, puzzle doer, than a scientist. Perhaps that is why I butt heads so much in here. I ACCEPT the science, somebody did the work and gave us a fact to put together with all the other facts that others discovered. But they HAVE to fit together. If a peice has no home in the general puzzle, then it isn't very useful to us in putting the whole story together. Each thing has to fit with the other, the bridge between facts is crucial in both verifying the truth of the fact, and finding its place in the total picture. Regards, TAR

JillSwift, I liked the Rebbeca Saxe clip. I learned a lot from it, and am not suggesting that I found a hole in it. Just room for a different interpretation of the evidence, if you include the importance of story telling, in the development of children's moral vocabulary. In the clips, we saw peices of each of the interviews with the children. The responses and body language of the children revealed an understanding of earlier moral lessons that the children had learned. The younger boy hung his head at one point, ashamed at what the "pirate" had done. All the children already understood the concept of ownership through, I speculate, the lessons that had been taught to them. Rebbeca Saxe told us that the development of this part of the brain, associated with moral judgements, and Theory of Mind, was slow in developing, and the decision results eminating from this area were both different in various adults, and were affected by magnetic disruption. Such evidence would also be consistent with effective story telling, relaying to the individual, the rules and morals of society, in place to make sure your actions and thoughts considered the rights and feeling of others. Perhaps an enhancement or further example of the truth revealed by her study. But a point that should be carried along with the overt results of her study in terms of what story the results of the study is telling us. Regards, TAR

iNow, I read the full article linked in #206 and particulary latched on to But more for the inclusion of the fact certain words had both real and imagined meaning, then for agreement that the transcendental social was the best vehicle for characterising the role of religion in the social development of our species. Here's an approach that mirrors the direction I think we best go in understanding the mechanisms which religion uses. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2394570 Regards, TAR

Sorry iNow, I was responding to post #97 where you linked Regards, TAR

Mooeypoo, Good to hear from you directly. I imagined I had earned my way off your list. I say a lot of unsupported, tangential, opinion type stuff. And to boot, some of it is wrong. But I am a great lover of knowledge, the scientific method, the great thinkers and scientists upon whose work we have built our lives, and humanity in general. Consequently, I give everybody, initially, the benefit of the doubt, and consider nobody my enemy, until I have good evidence that that is the case. (like if some flies a plane full of passengers into my twin towers.) And as a scientist would, I improve my worldview when new information comes to my attention, and discard the unworkable portions. I learn all the time. But I am subject to comfirmational bias within my own thinking, and I come to this board to subject myself to some peer review. I started this thread, as sort of a vehicle for testing my worldview. My presence on scientific threads, I have found out, is usually a distraction, taking the thread off topic, to discuss some tangential branchoff, and often the ensuing debate is not the aspect I was investigating, or seeking to add an insight to. There are many levels that a story can be talking on. I am the kind of guy that looses the thread of the story(movie) when I see the car way in the background, during a scene where no car should be, if the story was true. It proves to me that the story isn't real, it has been staged, the characters become actors, the scenes become sets, and what ever magic the movie was weaving for me, falls apart. I have to consciously acknowledge that it is just a movie, and work, to get myself back to enjoying the movie, and appreciating its intended purposes. For an example. In the "religion hijacks" thread I had watched a clip of the researcher telling the pirate and the sandwich story. She says "and the wind blows the sandwich off the chest", while she knocks the sandwich off with her hand. Now to me, the story just got complicated, an invisible agent, the authority figure story teller, has pushed off the sandwich and fibbed to the child, assigning the action to the wind. Now the story is completely in the hands of the researcher, as far as the child is concerned, and what is true or not true about the story, is completely up to the imagination of the researcher. She can tell the child anything. The child doesn't know the point of the story, just that the researcher is telling one, and pirate sandwiches are being knocked off of chests. Granted, many tests as these have been constructed and performed in enough different settings with enough different children that much about childhood development can be learned, and accepted as fact. But in the pirate and the sandwich story, the dynamics of story telling are involved. What previous lessons has the child learned from story tellers? What level of authority has been assigned to the reseacher, by the child? (Now Chester, listen to the nice lady, and do what she says, and you will make mommy happy.) What level of intelligence does the child have, on how many levels is the child listening to the story? When the child assigns thoughts or feelings to one or the other of the pirates, are they the child's thoughts, the pirate's thoughts, the researcher thoughts, the child's parent's thoughts, the child's teacher's thoughts, or is the child's answer what the child thinks the researcher, or the child's parent or the child's teacher, would want the child to answer based on lessons learned through previous stories? (or some combination of the above.) Regard, TAR

iNow, The article, left out two important considerations, in considering the order in which things had to happen. One, as brought up by a comment after the article, was the unmentioned facility of "language". Another was the thorough consideration of where and when the rudimentary components required for an organism to possess "imagining" or other component facilities developed in other life forms, along with human evolution. (in terms of human evolution, the required components for the brain mechanisms required for our discussion had to be present at certain points in the history of organisms on Earth that would give other organisms, tracable back to the same part of the tree, the same rudimental mechanisms to evolve from.) The first, language, requires in my opinion, inclusion as being crucial to the discussion. What mechanisms were required, or which facilities of our brain are responsible for symbol formation? What is a symbol, symbolizing? How important is language to thinking? Are there any thoughts you can have without language? How much communication is possible, without language? Answers to questions like these are important to separate evolved mechanisms, from the subsequent development of a species, based on the species "use" of the mechanism. Children are often studied to try and understand, what comes first. There are real analogies between the development of a embryo to a mature adult, and the evolution of a single cell to a modern human. But one is the development of an already fully evolved human, and the other is the evolution of the human organism through natural selection. If one is to consider early "modern man" as more or less a fully evolved human, then the developments since, are just that, developments, and the stuffs before that are the important considerations to be looked at, in terms of our evolution from the primordial muck. Regards, TAR

Stories are at the heart of human understanding. The story an electron tells us when it hits our eye or equipment. The story an authority figure tells us to teach us. The story we tell ourselves to explain and plan our thoughts and actions. The story we tell our teacher to explain our failures. --- (some defintions from Google) narrative: a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio ... a piece of fiction that narrates a chain of related events; "he writes stories for the magazines" floor: a structure consisting of a room or set of rooms at a single position along a vertical scale; "what level is the office on?" history: a record or narrative description of past events; "a history of France"; "he gave an inaccurate account of the plot to kill the president"; "the story of exposure to lead" report: a short account of the news; "the report of his speech"; "the story was on the 11 o'clock news"; "the account of his speech that was given on the evening news made the governor furious" fib: a trivial lie; "he told a fib about eating his spinach"; "how can I stop my child from telling stories?" --- Life tells us a story, that each of us views from our unique perspective. We all have access to our own stories. There are groups of individuals that share the same story. And together, their story becomes again unique. But a unique story does not assure objective truth. What stories are we to trust? Regards, TAR

Severian, Although I appreciate the defense of possibly pertinent tangential forrays, and the underlying defense of "being able to talk on different levels at the same time," I will yield to iNow, the authority to police this thread. I do not possess the proper language to stay on topic. I might have some of the ideas, but large portions of them are already understood, already defined, and terms are already agreed upon to address them, and deal with them and their combinations, and interrelationships. I drew iNow off topic in his last post, because he was giving me some info, backing up Dawkin on the challenge I had made to Dawkin's opening statement. He was not being hypocritical. Plus, iNow already knows, from a private message, that I WILL refrain from posting my opinions on this thread, at his request. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedP.S. And the request has been made, and other than this post, complied with. I will find a different way to voice my opinions.

iNow, Boy that study was sort of a flop, wasn't it? Seems we could learn more about mind in interpreting the actions and thoughts of the test givers, than the children. Brings me back to a response I had over in the evolution thread to the statement by the guy in the clip, about how 40% or something like that, of the population of the U.S. believes the Earth was created 4,000 years ago. My response was, at the time, "Well I won't give fodder to ignorance" and pursue a line of thought over a fine point, that would potentially reinforce people's false belief in a rather large point. Later that day, I rethought my reaction and wondered why I let one guy's statement of a fact, which was contrary to my understanding of the facts, erase my observations and understandings of people, over a 55year lifetime?! What question was asked? How did we arrive at that 40% figure? Was not explained in the clip, just the statistic, and the statistic certainly affected me emotionally and drew me toward the desire to be on the team that would seek to erradicate this ignorance. Maybe I should slow down a bit, I thought, and trust my worldview, a little more. 40% of the people I have talked to in the U.S. are NOT that ignorant. What sorts of people are in that statistic? After reading the report of the study you linked, above, I am doubly sure, I can doubt the statistic, and trust (for the time being) my worldview. I am not saying that I am not making some false assumptions about the concepts other's are entertaining. In fact I am saying that I know, I am making false assumptions, I have to be. To some I attribute too many insights, and to some I attribute too few. Can we talk about intelligence for a moment? I think it has pertinence to our topic in terms of what "mind" we assign to others. This relates to assigned attributes of any diety we might believe in, and also relates to religion, in terms of one human's ability to "trick", another. ((along the line of thought, that religions often have "followers" that listen to authority figures (Jesus, Mohammed, Confucius, preists, cult leaders, mullahs, Popes, philosophers, and such.)) Years ago, in high school, I came up with a personal view or "personal theory of intelligence" which I still entertain. It goes like this. One person cannot even "imagine" what it is like to have more intelligence than they have. If they could imagine it, then they would BE more intelligent. One CAN imagine being less intelligent however, by handicapping aspects of their own abilities, and imagining the results. As such, it is reasonable to assume that one sits somewhere in a chain where many people are less intelligent and many people more intelligent. There thus exists the one most intelligent person in the world, and the one least intelligent, with EVERYBODY, other than these two, falling somewhere inbetween. Now, given the fact, that one cannot imagine what it means, to be more intelligent (although one can be aware that there is such a thing.) and given the fact that one can imagine the limitations of one less intelligent, there arises the potential for a more intelligent person to "fool" or trick a less intelligent one, and the potential to not be able to fool or trick someone with more intelligence, who could instead consistently fool you. Someone around your same level could fool you, sometimes, and sometimes not. (Parents can fool their children into believing Santa Claus is real, people can play jokes on you, cult leaders can earn your devotion, con men can operate, etc.) One person can know something is staged while another believes it to be real. I developed a "professional sports" continuum around this personal thesis. Professional Wrestling, Roller Derby, Horse Racing, Pro Basketball, Pro Football, and Pro Baseball. Each one successively having more people that considered the sport "real" competition. I personally think the last two or three are real competition, but just because its hard for me to see how they could stage it. (Although I have noticed an unusual amount of forth quarter, game changing holding calls, and some hits up the middle in late innings where the short stop seems to run across and wave at the ball as it goes by.) Back to topic. Thus, one of our mechanisms, assigning agency, is affected, in terms of the intelligence we ourselves possess. Both individually, and as a group, (maybe even as a Species.) And our ability to imagine, what another is thinking, is also saddled with the handicap, or complication, that the other mind may be more or less intelligent than our own. This complication is in addition to the complications already discussed of different culture, history, intentions and such. Regards, TAR

Edmond Zedo, An argument for floating your hypothesis on this board. There are incredible minds here, that can think of stuff that I cannot even comprehend. And they are good, honest people to boot. I cannot prove they are honest and good, but it sure seems that way to me. But here is my proof that there are incredible minds here, that can tell you where your idea is flawed, or that can show you where it has already been thought of and incorporated, or that could encourage and enhance your idea, which ever. One poster around here ajb, had in his interests, a kind of math I had never heard of. Suppose, just for argument sake that this math would be useful in your study, or that this math was an example of the mind doing what you think, in your hypothesis, the mind does. Maybe not, but in any case, how would you know without asking? Going back to the idea of many thoughts having already been had, have you ever thought of THIS! http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9812009 "On the Duflo formula for $L_\infty$-algebras and Q-manifolds Authors: Boris Shoikhet (Independent University, Moscow) (Submitted on 1 Dec 1998 (v1), last revised 7 Dec 1998 (this version, v2)) Abstract: We prove a direct analogue of the classical Duflo formula in the case of $L_\infty$-algebras. We conjecture an analogous formula in the case of an arbitrary Q-manifold. When $G$ is a compact connected Lie group, the Duflo theorem for the Q-manifold $(\Pi TG,d_{DR})$ is exactly the Duflo theorem for the Lie algebra $g = Lie G$. The corresponding theorem for the Q-manifold $(\Pi TM,d_{DR})$, where $M$ is an arbitrary smooth manifold, is a generalization of the Duflo theorem for the case of smooth manifolds. On the other hand, the Duflo theorem for the Q-manifold $(\Pi \bar T_{hol} M, \bar\partial)$, where $M$ is a complex manifold, is a generalization of the M. Kontsevich's ``theorem on complex manifold'' [K1], Sect. 8.4. Comments: 11 pages, LaTeX2e Subjects: Quantum Algebra (math.QA) Cite as: arXiv:math/9812009v2 [math.QA] Submission history From: Boris Shoikhet [view email] [v1] Tue, 1 Dec 1998 19:42:25 GMT (10kb) [v2] Mon, 7 Dec 1998 12:32:39 GMT (10kb) Which authors of this paper are endorsers? Link back to: arXiv, form interface, contact." Regards, TAR

iNow, Jillswift, I submit myself for inspection on this topic. I have the mind of a child. Just have had it for 50+ years. I still consider some minds trickable, others less trickable, others more trickable. And I consider that reality itself is not trickable. I do not assign the universe a human mind, because a human mind would be trickable. However, I am perfectly aware that the universe can create trickable minds. My evidence is that I have one. Now I am with JillSwift, that there is no evidence of any purpose, any direction to the universe, other than to exist and create all the entities that arise when stuff and energy exist and create entities, and the entities have no meaning or form, cause or effect, definition or purpose, until a trickable mind observes such. But here on Earth we have a lot of trickable minds. Observers of an untrickable, purposeless, previously unobserved universe. When I had my long talk with God, when I was 13, I remember thinking about the cosmos, with an infinite amount of Universes, created and ended, for an infinite amount of time, and it all happening in one mind, which had no beginning, and no end. No father, no mother, nobody and nothing that wasn't it. No friends, no neighbors, nowhere to go, nothing different to be. I felt bad for this entity. It was all there was, ever, and all that would ever be. Seemed like an empty, lonely state for the cosmos to be in, to know everything like that. No surprises, nothing new, no movement, and no where to go. But I was part of it, a tiny, temporary part, and that was my job, to be me, and NOT know everything. I understood this entity and appreciated my role. But it was sort of a private agreement, just between the entity and me. No one else would understand. Regards, TAR

iNow, I thought that was the topic. Our opinion of the truth or falseness of what other people believe. And our opinion of what is going on in the mind of the universe. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedTo quote JillSwift. "It isn't until our brains started thinking in terms of purpose that the universe started having purpose." Regard, TAR

iNow, "I'm actually pretty awful with analogies, but I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt." Actually I believe you are rather excellent at it. Consider the fact, that there is really no tree in your brain, but an analog of one that your brain has managed to form from photons striking your rods and cones. You "see" a tree. The tree is not in your brain. Only an analog image. An "imagined" "analogy". The tree is real. The great majority of your consciousness, is built from analogies. You are truely (as a human) very excellent at forming analogies. Regards, TAR

iNow, Sorry. I did get the posters mixed up. I went by memory, I should have paged back. But one error in fact does not invalidate my entire post. I will step away if my "contributions" are a distraction from the thread's purpose. Just say the word. I know you don't believe in souls. I believe your example was well stated and correct. I was looking at it, at a different level. Stripping it down to components and mechanisms that would be available to a TAR organism and an iNow organism. We both have the ability to form analogies. And we both have the ability to make an analogy between our brain's state, and another's brain state. We can "put" ourselves in the other person's brain. And of course we are not literally doing this. There is no physical aster fibers that reach out to the other mind. But the analogy can be made. We can imagine what the other is thinking. This morning I was driving along a road, sort of rural, with houses on both sides and a doe crossed from left to right about a hundred yards ahead. Knowing that deer often travel together, I slowed, and watched the left side for another to cross, a fawn crossed, and as I reached the spot, still looking to the left, a buck emerged from the woods. I stopped to let him cross to his family (now out of sight in the woods somewhere to my right). Instead, he stopped, so as not to be hit by a car. We looked at each other, and once I saw he was stopped and waiting for me, I proceeded. Regards, TAR

iNow, "Our points" are an interesting analogy to religion. That is where discussion (in an objective, somewhat detached, stick to the facts way,) of the emotionality these areas raises is crucial. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedJillSwift, and Forufes, I hope I didn't hurt your feeling, or make you think I was talking negatively about you at all, in my post suggesting we had some interesting mix of brains and viewpoints to add realistic info to the discussion. It might not be the usual scientific info, with proper study, and correlation, and error bars. But it does provide a certain level of peer review, being that we all have brains. I did however assume that you would be open to be "experimented" on. Which might not be the case. Not that I am planning any secret agenda, or setting any traps, but how we respond to each other, what beliefs we hold, what ideas we protect, and what ideas we attack have a lot to do with the topic. That being "what nuerocortical structures and mechanisms, (hijacked or adapted) are in play when it comes to beliefs and religion". (iNow, forgive my rewording, I don't think we are not talking about "How Religion Hijacks Neurocortical Mechanisms, and Why So Many Believe in a Deity", just wanted to give an idea of how I (TAR) am approaching the discussion.) For instance, iNow uses an example to Forufes, saying more or less "if you were born in such and such a place with such and such religious and cultural background, you would have Muslim beliefs or Hindu beliefs, or whatever you were brought up believing." What I found interesting about the example was, number one, a scientist (iNow), talking about Forufes's soul, as a thing that was detachable from Forufes's body, and placable in a different human body, with different history, in a different setting. And number two, the fact that a human soul was being considered (in the example) in some plain vanilla version, that was as interchangable as an electron. My point being, the person would not be Forufes. He/she would have different genes, different parents, different history, different culture, different lessons, different enemies, different friends, a completely different person. It would not be Forufes. It would be Abdul. Now, I know what iNow meant. "Imagine" you are this other person. But he didn't say that. And our ability to imagine what other people are thinking and feeling, and our ability to misunderstand what other people are thinking and feeling, based on what we think they should be thinking and feeling if we were "in their shoes", is at the very heart of this topic. Regards, TAR

iNow, "I think you missed the point of my analogy. The point is, the systems evolved independently. When they come together in one organism, the result is the emergent property of belief. Let's not stretch the analogy too far. No matter how many philosophers you quote in an attempt to demonstrate otherwise, we still evolved specific solutions to specific problems, and when taken together, those solutions result in things like a predisposition toward belief." My point in approaching your analogy the way I did, was not an indication of me not understanding your point, it was an attempt to lead you to insights and points that I have. My insights and points, derived from a lifetime of "looking at the evidence", are not exactly the same as your points, derived as well from a lifetime of "looking at the evidence". There therefore resides an area, where my points and yours, are both valid points. Its exploring this area, and that there is such an area, that I think has crucial pertinence to this thread. Current participant in this thread, are both observers, and the observed, we each have ourselves, and the others to inspect for "points" and why they are reached, in respect to the subjectively viewed "human brain". iNow an atheist and scientist. JillSwift, a scientist who has found out she is an excellent person to understand when exploring this topic, since she doesn't have the exact same neurocortical facilities as most other humans. Forufes who has "found" Christ. TAR who has arrived at a worldview that parses the figurative and literal components of everybodies beliefs, to arrive at what is literally true, and what is figuratively true. We are all here. We have knowledge of the world, we have knowledge of history, we have the internet to explore any aspect of reality, and any view of it we find pertinent. AND we all have brains, and we all are making points. Seems we might learn something. Regards, TAR

iNow, The poison meal is certainly possible, but not really likely, cause kitchen lore, was probably built up over the years, to warn people against preparing or not preparing foods in a way that would result in chemicals that would kill you if combined with the chemicals produced if another food was prepared or not prepared in a certain way. The combination you presented may have been unique, but the particular combination which formed the poison, would have been present in a great number of other unique meal combinations, and should have been run across before and been added to kitchen lore, or into law. (Though shall not eat beasts, killed by unknown cause, lying on the side of the road.) Besides, reality usually does not come up with things out of nowhere, with no other consequence or connections. Some of your guests should have found that they had a "funny" taste in their mouth between course three and four, or a few guests may had decided not to finish their tapioca after seeing Burt keel over, or people may have reason to put down their forks when the peice of strawberry, dropped accidentally into the salad dressing left on the salad plate, turned blue and started smoking. No, religion has too many connections, on too many levels to be tossed off as a bad aftertaste. We are talking about reality here, and reality doesn't miss a thing. Religion has been a part of human society, since there was human society. Guy at work brought back a bunch of posters from a printing show and I latched on to a huge poster, of a beautiful ornate library. We guessed it was in some palace in Viena. Goolged "beautiful libraries" and found it. Library of the Benedictine Monastery of Admont, Austria http://my.opera.com/RichardCooper/albums/showpic.dml?album=467365&picture=6474208 Hardly the work of ignorant folks. "This library is one of the most important cultural properties of our country and is one of the largest late Baroque works of art in Europe. Perhaps a little overenthusiastically but at the same quite justifiably, since the early 19th century the Admont library has been called the “eighth wonder of the world”. It represents a repository of knowledge containing examples of the artistic and historical development of books over the centuries - from the manuscripts of the medieval Admont writing school over the collection of incunabula (early printed books) to the fully developed printing process." And check out http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6142691.ece "Stanley Jaki, a Benedictine priest and a physicist, was best known for his scholarly contributions to the philosophy of science and theology. In 1987 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for his work on analysing “the importance of differences as well as similarities between science and religion, adding significant, balanced enlightenment to the field" As believers in Anthropomorfic Gods, and people who take the Bible as literal truth, should not ignore the evidence, so to, the truth, of our inextricable connection to the universe, should not be ignored by the rest of us. The evidence that we are of and in reality is clear. Our proclivity, neurocortically based, to notice the universe, forces us to...um... notice the universe. Now, none of us have the only brain. And, none of us are blocked from noticing reality by someone else's worldview. So, the "truth" is automatically accessable to any of us, access does not depend on our religious beliefs. Belief, is not a requirement to be a part of reality. It's automatic. If you are human, you are real. Belief, is not a requirement to notice reality. It's automatic. If you are human, you notice reality. Points being; if you think that your worldview is the only way to access truth, you are mistaken, and if you think someone else can't see the truth, you are mistaken. Whoops, that was a long way to go, just to get to an insight we already had when we heard the "blindmen and the elephant" story. Sorry. Regards, TAR

Edmond Zedo, A suggestion. If its real, somebody probably already thought of it. And most likely, suprisingly early, like 1897 or something. There is a funny thing, about ideas, that are about the real world. They actually fit, they are actually real. And being that there are 4 billion minds around and a whole bunch who were around earlier, a lot of things about reality have been noticed. Even before the internet, I noticed that you could hear a joke for the first time, and then from a completely different source, unconnected in any way you knew of, you would hear the same joke, (different wording perhaps) later that day. Such I think it is with ideas. Something happens in the world, some new information surfaces, through technology or observation, or study, or experimentation, and lots of somebodies have novel ideas that stem from it. They put the same two and two together, as somebody else does. And good ideas seem to spread like wild fire, like a good joke. And bad ideas, just don't fit, just don't work, and are quickly debunked and discarded. In individual minds, and in the greater, peer review sense. Float your idea, and if its good, it will be improved upon, refined, tested, and merged into the activities and thoughts it pertains to. If someone else takes it, and does the work, and gets the name, and becomes a millionaire and immortal to boot... then whoops, bad suggestion. You should have done the work and written the paper. Regards, TAR

iNow, I had some ideas I wanted to explore, concerning "intention" and purpose and such, but after being surprised by the fact (in the clip) that so many people still "actually" ignore the evidence and think the world was literally created by God just several thousand years ago, I will cease and disist. My debate was intended for like minded individuals, concerning some fine points. Not suited for the gross point debate that is obviouly and unbelievably still alive. I will supply no fodder for ignorance. Regards, TAR

iNow, So back to the hijacking. Had a thought, that hijacking was an odd term for an adaptation. Seems that part of what a living organism does is adapt to the situation. That would include the environment, and the tools brought to the party, in the form of the organism itself. Now some of those problem solving tools, may have been developed for earlier reasons (successful adaptions), but we are talking about a complex organism here that continually built the next set of features and characteristics off of earlier successes. If your eyes developed because you could look for food, doesn't mean you can't use them to spot a mate, or see approaching danger, or read smoke signals, ...or a computer screen. Are we hijacking our eyes, and our optical cortex, when we read a post? And just a little question on "an area of the brain lighting up." If an area lights up when thoughts of a moral, decision making nature, are had, and this is framed circuitously as an area of the brain that religion has hijacked, or vice-a-versa, doesn't that say more about the link between religion and morality, then what hijacked the others neurocortextural adaptation? Regards, TAR