The Supernatural and Superstition

[Moontanman]

You're speaking of repeatable observations and things that can be measured. Science and measurement simply doesn't apply to many things that are one of a kind or can't be duplicated. Obviously that something happens only once or is fleeting does not mean it exists outside of natural laws but many people see a pattern to some of these events and attribute them to deities, magic, or one of manty categories into which these events might fit.

Something that only happens once could be delusional, in fact if you can't repeat it no matter how real it was to you you have to admit it might not have been real. Do we really want to abandon critical thinking?

 

 

For instance, I one saw an asphalt surface broken up into a checker board pattern that had diamonds rather than squares. This was a quite regular failure but the pattern became more distorted and irregular away from the "center". This isn't extremely unusual but what was remarkable is that every other diamond was wet so it was colored similarly to a checker board. I could not deternmine a cause for this nor even form a reasonable hypothesis. I've seen similar patterns in nature such as moisture on the leaves of redbud trees after a rain. For some of these I have found a cause.

What are you saying here? If you don't know how it happened it must be supernatural?

 

While there is no group of people who believe road gravel plays chess when we aren't looking there are some people who believe unusual events taken in aggrevate suggest ghosts, or deities, or ESP.

yes but if they are honest they have to admit those "unusual" events could be delusions, many people see them not because they are real but because all humans minds operate similarly and have similar delusions...

 

It seems to me that science can't answer very many practical questions so why should we be so quick to simply dismiss other attempts to organize knowledge? Mans' knowledge is exceedingly limited. This doesn't mean we should abandon the tools we use to achieve it but we need to recognize our limitations and few do. It is the fact that we have lost sight of how we came to know what we do that has allowed us to so grossly overestimate our knowledge and to dismiss other perspectives less firmly firmly rooted in our metaphysics.

Can't answer practical questions? Like what? Not to mention that just because we don't know now doesn't mean we will never know..

 

One might be better advised getting advice on "trivialities" like marriage or retirement from a priest or a tea leaf reader than a cosmologist. Science is a very poor tool for answers to practical questions.

Horse feathers, please give examples of "practical" questions science cannot answer.

 

 

I'm sure there's some truth here.

 

Reality exists outside society. Indeed, it is only experienced outside of society.

Society is real, it is part of perceptible reality, what are you going on about here?

 

The purpose for most people who study anything is to seek the reality. That this often become a niche or career choice is secondary to the belief in my opinion. How many atheist priests are likely to exist?

Actually, there is evidence that quite a few atheist priests exist...

 

the relevant material starts at around 02:00

 

[Gees]

Part of the problem with this thread may be the title. Most scientific people have a knee-jerk reaction to the "supernatural". It's only a word but most of us have a mechanistic view of reality and believe that nothing can exist outside of the laws of nature. It's not even relevant that we hardly can begin to understand nature because the assumption is nothing exists outside of it.

 

Hi Cladking;

 

You are correct, the title is a large part of the problem, but this was intentional.

 

When I first started to study at forums, I chose a philosophy forum and subsequently studied the SEP. At that time, I learned that my understanding of consciousness was completely at odds with all accepted philosophy. So I studied more to find out where someone was wrong, me or them.

 

What I discovered is that science is much more compatible with my understanding. The more I looked, the more I found. This surprised me as I had thought that science would prove my understanding wrong, but what I found was that science seemed to support my ideas. So why doesn't anyone else see it? What I finally realized was that it was not science that disclaimed the ideas, it was scientists--people.

 

I'll give you an example. There was a riddle that was very popular in the 70's that goes like this.

 

A man was on his way to work. He had his son in the car, as he was going to drop the boy off at school on the way to work. There was a terrible accident and the man was killed. The boy was seriously injured and flown to the closest hospital for emergency surgery. The surgeon walked into the operating room, took one look at the boy and stated, "I can't operate on him. That's my son." So who is the surgeon?

 

I must have asked 50 people to answer this riddle and no one got it right. People guessed, the step-father, the adoptive father, the natural father, the grandfather, one person even theorized that it was a priest (father). How could so many people be blind to such a simple and obvious answer? If the father was dead, then the surgeon was the mother. Even a ten year old could answer this. The problem was that the idea of a surgeon was so enmeshed with the idea of a male, that people simply could not see what was in front of their faces. A simple truth.

 

People have divided consciousness into two areas; what is within us is consciousness; what is outside of us is God or the supernatural. This division is based on historical belief and no fact. It is a false dichotomy. Sometimes I feel like the explorer, who went into the jungle with his camera. As the natives carry him to the pot of boiling oil, he is screaming, "It is just a camera. It can't steal your souls." But belief is a very powerful thing.

 

So after posting two threads in the psychology and neurology forums with no results, and reviewing the biology forum, I realized that I was not going to get any answers at this site. I know a Physics Professor at a University that can answer my one question that regards physics, so I was already looking into other sites. Before leaving, I decided to test the waters to find out how deep the superstions were, hence the title. Guess I found out. (chuckle chuckle)

 

G

[Moontanman]

A man was on his way to work. He had his son in the car, as he was going to drop the boy off at school on the way to work. There was a terrible accident and the man was killed. The boy was seriously injured and flown to the closest hospital for emergency surgery. The surgeon walked into the operating room, took one look at the boy and stated, "I can't operate on him. That's my son." So who is the surgeon?

I must have asked 50 people to answer this riddle and no one got it right. People guessed, the step-father, the adoptive father, the natural father, the grandfather, one person even theorized that it was a priest (father). How could so many people be blind to such a simple and obvious answer? If the father was dead, then the surgeon was the mother. Even a ten year old could answer this. The problem was that the idea of a surgeon was so enmeshed with the idea of a male, that people simply could not see what was in front of their faces. A simple truth.

 

 

So you asked 50 people and none of them got that one? They must have all been drinking dihydrogen monoxide....

[tar]

Gees,

 

I actually got the answer to that riddle, on my own when I first heard it, over thirty years ago. And I am a man, without the "emotional" grasp of reality you seem to think is required to witness reality properly. I sense that you come to this forum with a chip on your shoulder, as does Moontanman. You both "have a point" in that, in your case, the Bible is sexist, and in Moontanman's case the bible is homophobic, but both arguments, while true, provide good, strong arguments against the God of the bible being "a proper enough god to be real". No true god would be like that. So EVERYTHING in the bible, that is contingent upon the God, as described in the Bible, being an actual entity, that exists outside of human imagination, imposing such idiotic rewards and punishments upon the world, is completely out of the question.

 

That the superstitions of the bible have some merit, like it turns out to be rather a healthy thing to not eat rotten meat, is no indication what so ever that we come to this knowledge only because a non-existent angel of a non-existent god told somebody with handwritting in the sky or voices in a cave. More reasonable to assume that people that ate rotten meat did not fare as well as those that cooked freshly hunted meat and cooked it before eating it, and hence the societal bands against doing the stuff that was not going to work out very well.

 

Scientists figured out it was the germs that caused the disease, AFTER it was known that rotten meat would make you sick.

 

Bottom line, if it is the "truth" you are after, looking for it to exist in the Bible, only for us to gleen it, I think you are mistaken. The "truth" already existed prior the Old testament and the New testament and the Koran, and the truth contained in those works, was a compilation of what was already "known" to man, codified by and for man (and maybe not woman), so the Bible itself, can more or less be disregarded.

 

But you already know this. And are "looking" for the truth surrounding our beliefs in the supernatural, and our adherence to superstitions.

 

My suggestion is that phenomena are real, and true and explainable and natural and studiable by science and accessable to any and all of us. Anything that is NOT accessable to science is NOT natural phenomena, and by definition, "made up", and imaginary.

 

Which brings us to your use of the word "emotion". I would argue strongly that ones emotions are a real phenomenum, but would also argue that "feeling" at one with the world, does not make it so.

 

It is not likely that we are to find out any "truth", that is not already true, or at least already possible to become the truth.

 

ESP, extrasensory perception, implies that you know about something without sensing it. "Feeling" and "sensing" are closely related terms. In this discussion, I don't think you should divide "emotion" into a special secret category only available to special women with careful focus on the right magical wavelengths. It is either possible to have real "connections" with another, by virtue of sense provided information and focus, and commonly held memories and thoughts, and therefore within the bounds of scientific investigations, or it is not possible and therefore imaginary in nature.

 

Regards, TAR2

[Moontanman]

Gees,

 

I actually got the answer to that riddle, on my own when I first heard it, over thirty years ago. And I am a man, without the "emotional" grasp of reality you seem to think is required to witness reality properly. I sense that you come to this forum with a chip on your shoulder, as does Moontanman. You both "have a point" in that, in your case, the Bible is sexist, and in Moontanman's case the bible is homophobic, but both arguments, while true, provide good, strong arguments against the God of the bible being "a proper enough god to be real". No true god would be like that. So EVERYTHING in the bible, that is contingent upon the God, as described in the Bible, being an actual entity, that exists outside of human imagination, imposing such idiotic rewards and punishments upon the world, is completely out of the question.

 

That the superstitions of the bible have some merit, like it turns out to be rather a healthy thing to not eat rotten meat, is no indication what so ever that we come to this knowledge only because a non-existent angel of a non-existent god told somebody with handwritting in the sky or voices in a cave. More reasonable to assume that people that ate rotten meat did not fare as well as those that cooked freshly hunted meat and cooked it before eating it, and hence the societal bands against doing the stuff that was not going to work out very well.

 

Scientists figured out it was the germs that caused the disease, AFTER it was known that rotten meat would make you sick.

 

Bottom line, if it is the "truth" you are after, looking for it to exist in the Bible, only for us to gleen it, I think you are mistaken. The "truth" already existed prior the Old testament and the New testament and the Koran, and the truth contained in those works, was a compilation of what was already "known" to man, codified by and for man (and maybe not woman), so the Bible itself, can more or less be disregarded.

 

But you already know this. And are "looking" for the truth surrounding our beliefs in the supernatural, and our adherence to superstitions.

 

My suggestion is that phenomena are real, and true and explainable and natural and studiable by science and accessable to any and all of us. Anything that is NOT accessable to science is NOT natural phenomena, and by definition, "made up", and imaginary.

 

Which brings us to your use of the word "emotion". I would argue strongly that ones emotions are a real phenomenum, but would also argue that "feeling" at one with the world, does not make it so.

 

It is not likely that we are to find out any "truth", that is not already true, or at least already possible to become the truth.

 

ESP, extrasensory perception, implies that you know about something without sensing it. "Feeling" and "sensing" are closely related terms. In this discussion, I don't think you should divide "emotion" into a special secret category only available to special women with careful focus on the right magical wavelengths. It is either possible to have real "connections" with another, by virtue of sense provided information and focus, and commonly held memories and thoughts, and therefore within the bounds of scientific investigations, or it is not possible and therefore imaginary in nature.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

Homophobic?

[tar]

Moontanman,

 

Perhaps I confused you with someone else. Or carried something you said in another context, in other threads into this one.

 

Maybe it wasn't you at all, but some bring up the biblical prohibition of homosexuality, and the related societal oppresion of homosexuals by fundamentalists as a prime reason to "disbeleive" in any "truth" or "goodness" or value coming from the book, in the same way that many woman's rights people discount any real authority the book could have on the basis of it's sexism. That is, such pronouncements would not have, could not have, come from an objectively true creator who would not have been, and could not possibly be sexist and homophobic, at the same time as being all-loving and all-knowing.

 

Regards, TAR2

[Moontanman]

Moontanman,

 

Perhaps I confused you with someone else. Or carried something you said in another context, in other threads into this one.

 

Maybe it wasn't you at all, but some bring up the biblical prohibition of homosexuality, and the related societal oppresion of homosexuals by fundamentalists as a prime reason to "disbeleive" in any "truth" or "goodness" or value coming from the book, in the same way that many woman's rights people discount any real authority the book could have on the basis of it's sexism. That is, such pronouncements would not have, could not have, come from an objectively true creator who would not have been, and could not possibly be sexist and homophobic, at the same time as being all-loving and all-knowing.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

 

Well I was kinda hoping that as much as we have discussed this you got more than homophobia out of my objections to religion. Theists do seem to have more than a bit of an erection for homosexuals but the whole cloth of more than one thread thing is really obscene... and lets not forget the abomination of boiling a kid in it's mothers milk...

Oh! And my favorite... the bi monthly stoning of local disrespectful teenagers at the edge of town...

Edited July 11, 2013 by Moontanman

[Gees]

Gees,

 

I actually got the answer to that riddle, on my own when I first heard it, over thirty years ago.

 

Well I didn't. I was in my early 20s and shocked that I could be so blinded by assumption and belief. It was an important lesson for me. This is probably why I remember the riddle so well, as I use it to remind myself to question my assumptions. This is also the point of being here, for others to question my assumptions as long as they do not assume my assumptions.

 

And I am a man, without the "emotional" grasp of reality you seem to think is required to witness reality properly. I sense that you come to this forum with a chip on your shoulder, as does Moontanman.

 

You mistake me. One does not need to have an emotional grasp of reality in order to understand that emotion is a fact of reality. And yes, I have learned to expect trouble, as my initial innocence is gone, and it no doubt shows.

 

You both "have a point" in that, in your case, the Bible is sexist, and in Moontanman's case the bible is homophobic, but both arguments, while true, provide good, strong arguments against the God of the bible being "a proper enough god to be real".

 

While I agree with your point, there is a difference. Homosexuality is viewed as an act. I don't know that this assumption is true, but that is how it is viewed, so there is an argument that supports defining it as a moral or immoral act. I do not agree with this argument, and find it to be idiotic and invalid, but the argument does exist. There is no way that being born male or female can be viewed as an act, so there can be no question as to the morality of this issue. But it is questioned from the initial story of Eve all the way through the Bible. Being female and being immoral are often synonymous in that text.

 

There are quite a few people who have studied this and see it as a "battle of the sexes" that originated with women being the religious leaders initially and men becoming the religious leaders later. The story of Eve is sometimes equated with the story of Lilith. This was touched on in the book/movie The Divinci Code, it's predecessor, Holy Blood Holy Grail, and I believe that Dr. Brown wrote a book entitled, Lilith, but I have not yet read it, so I don't know which way it slants.

 

No true god would be like that. So EVERYTHING in the bible, that is contingent upon the God, as described in the Bible, being an actual entity, that exists outside of human imagination, imposing such idiotic rewards and punishments upon the world, is completely out of the question.

 

Well, I agree with you again, but this is not how I discovered that God, as described, could not exist. The problem is perspectives. Every person that exists has a personal relationship with God, but they also have disputes with each other, so how can one God be on everyone's side? It is not possible. When we thought that there were multiple gods, this could work, but since we have evolved to believe there is only one God, this turns into a paradox.

 

Many people have realized this, and I believe that it accounts for at least some of the Athiest considerations, but we still all believe that we have a personal relationship with God, hence God can not be a being.

 

That the superstitions of the bible have some merit, like it turns out to be rather a healthy thing to not eat rotten meat, is no indication what so ever that we come to this knowledge only because a non-existent angel of a non-existent god told somebody with handwritting in the sky or voices in a cave. More reasonable to assume that people that ate rotten meat did not fare as well as those that cooked freshly hunted meat and cooked it before eating it, and hence the societal bands against doing the stuff that was not going to work out very well.

 

Scientists figured out it was the germs that caused the disease, AFTER it was known that rotten meat would make you sick.

 

Well, there is a great deal more on this subject that you do not seem to know about, but I can not comment on it. Before walking back into that swamp, I would need a map of the quicksand, as I still have no idea of how I stepped in it in the first place. So we will not share.

 

Bottom line, if it is the "truth" you are after, looking for it to exist in the Bible, only for us to gleen it, I think you are mistaken. The "truth" already existed prior the Old testament and the New testament and the Koran, and the truth contained in those works, was a compilation of what was already "known" to man, codified by and for man (and maybe not woman), so the Bible itself, can more or less be disregarded.

 

I do not agree. The first thing that must be understood when trying to find truth is that there is no THE truth--it does not exist. There are truths, but not a singular truth. Anyone who says differently is trying to sell something. I am looking for small simple truths that can be used to build an understanding, and maybe one day a theory. Like looking for facts.

 

When dealing with emotional issues, and religion is all about emotion, one must be able to first sort the emotions out logically. I thought that it was very insightful of EdEarl, when he explained in another thread that his issues with parents were entwined with his issues with his religion. This is generally true and psychology has noted it. So to study religion, one must be able to sort out God, religion, the Bible, and parental issues.

 

Long ago I decided that the concept of God exists, but not in the way described in religion. Religion is a necessary social requirement for spiritual understanding. The Bible is simply a history book, and I forgave my parents for their little idiosyncrasys. There is no reason to disregard a history book when studying history. There is also no reason to take it as absolute fact.

 

My suggestion is that phenomena are real, and true and explainable and natural and studiable by science and accessable to any and all of us. Anything that is NOT accessable to science is NOT natural phenomena, and by definition, "made up", and imaginary.

 

Agreed. Everything is natural or man-made.

 

Which brings us to your use of the word "emotion". I would argue strongly that ones emotions are a real phenomenum, but would also argue that "feeling" at one with the world, does not make it so.

 

I am not sure what you are arguing about. Emotions are very real, and I can't imagine how you got the idea that "'feeling' at one with the world" was relevant to anything. What? Are you talking about connections?

 

It is not likely that we are to find out any "truth", that is not already true, or at least already possible to become the truth.

 

Agreed. But consider that just over 50 years ago, we knew that there was some connection that all species had, but we did not understand it. So although we understood, that an oak tree that was infested with pests, would notify the neighboring oak trees to produce a chemical that would discourage the pests, we thought this communication was through the root system. We did not yet understand pheromones.

 

ESP, extrasensory perception, implies that you know about something without sensing it. "Feeling" and "sensing" are closely related terms.

 

Think about the words "extrasensory perception". What do they mean? They mean that we have another, extra, sense that we perceive things through. That sense is emotion. Emotion is not thought, it is experience. Just like our other senses, we experience emotion, we experience sight, we experience taste, smells, tactile sensations, and sounds. This is the reason that emotion will not store properly in memory, because it is an experience. Most people do not realize this, so if you have questions or knowledge regarding this, please say so. I have been looking for experts to help me understand this aspect of emotion.

 

Feeling is more closely related to awareness, as we become aware of something that we feel. Feeling is also a less potent emotion, as the stronger the feeling, the more likely we are to call it emotion. Awareness and emotion are different experiences that we sense. I think that they are the same thing in different strengths.

 

In this discussion, I don't think you should divide "emotion" into a special secret category only available to special women with careful focus on the right magical wavelengths.

 

When you are willing to state things like, "the right magical wavelengths" in a serious discussion, how can you accuse me of coming here with a chip on my shoulder? It has a lot more to do with hormones than women, and I think that I have already stated this a number of times.

 

I did not "divide 'emotion' into a special secret category". Religion did that when it divide the within, souls, and the without, God. Philosophy did when it decided to ignore emotion because that leads to religion. If you go to the SEP and type in the word emotion for a search, unless things have changed drastically in the last year, you will get Stoicism, some eastern religions, or anything else to do with controlling emotion--and a few articles on feminism. If you look to science, you will note that the disciplines that deal with emotion are "soft" sciences, like psychology and animal behaviorism. Recently, neurology joined forces with endocrinology, because it had no choice--so emotion is finally being studied there. I am just exposing this information. Don't shoot the messenger.

 

It is either possible to have real "connections" with another, by virtue of sense provided information and focus, and commonly held memories and thoughts, and therefore within the bounds of scientific investigations, or it is not possible and therefore imaginary in nature.

 

Do you mean like the imaginary pheromones that oak trees produce?

 

Your conversation is interesting and intelligent. I await your response.

 

G

[Moontanman]

 

Well I didn't. I was in my early 20s and shocked that I could be so blinded by assumption and belief. It was an important lesson for me. This is probably why I remember the riddle so well, as I use it to remind myself to question my assumptions. This is also the point of being here, for others to question my assumptions as long as they do not assume my assumptions.

 

 

You mistake me. One does not need to have an emotional grasp of reality in order to understand that emotion is a fact of reality. And yes, I have learned to expect trouble, as my initial innocence is gone, and it no doubt shows.

 

 

While I agree with your point, there is a difference. Homosexuality is viewed as an act. I don't know that this assumption is true, but that is how it is viewed, so there is an argument that supports defining it as a moral or immoral act. I do not agree with this argument, and find it to be idiotic and invalid, but the argument does exist. There is no way that being born male or female can be viewed as an act, so there can be no question as to the morality of this issue. But it is questioned from the initial story of Eve all the way through the Bible. Being female and being immoral are often synonymous in that text.

 

There are quite a few people who have studied this and see it as a "battle of the sexes" that originated with women being the religious leaders initially and men becoming the religious leaders later. The story of Eve is sometimes equated with the story of Lilith. This was touched on in the book/movie The Divinci Code, it's predecessor, Holy Blood Holy Grail, and I believe that Dr. Brown wrote a book entitled, Lilith, but I have not yet read it, so I don't know which way it slants.

 

 

Well, I agree with you again, but this is not how I discovered that God, as described, could not exist. The problem is perspectives. Every person that exists has a personal relationship with God, but they also have disputes with each other, so how can one God be on everyone's side? It is not possible. When we thought that there were multiple gods, this could work, but since we have evolved to believe there is only one God, this turns into a paradox.

 

Many people have realized this, and I believe that it accounts for at least some of the Athiest considerations, but we still all believe that we have a personal relationship with God, hence God can not be a being.

 

 

Well, there is a great deal more on this subject that you do not seem to know about, but I can not comment on it. Before walking back into that swamp, I would need a map of the quicksand, as I still have no idea of how I stepped in it in the first place. So we will not share.

 

 

I do not agree. The first thing that must be understood when trying to find truth is that there is no THE truth--it does not exist. There are truths, but not a singular truth. Anyone who says differently is trying to sell something. I am looking for small simple truths that can be used to build an understanding, and maybe one day a theory. Like looking for facts.

 

When dealing with emotional issues, and religion is all about emotion, one must be able to first sort the emotions out logically. I thought that it was very insightful of EdEarl, when he explained in another thread that his issues with parents were entwined with his issues with his religion. This is generally true and psychology has noted it. So to study religion, one must be able to sort out God, religion, the Bible, and parental issues.

 

Long ago I decided that the concept of God exists, but not in the way described in religion. Religion is a necessary social requirement for spiritual understanding. The Bible is simply a history book, and I forgave my parents for their little idiosyncrasys. There is no reason to disregard a history book when studying history. There is also no reason to take it as absolute fact.

 

 

Agreed. Everything is natural or man-made.

 

 

I am not sure what you are arguing about. Emotions are very real, and I can't imagine how you got the idea that "'feeling' at one with the world" was relevant to anything. What? Are you talking about connections?

 

 

Agreed. But consider that just over 50 years ago, we knew that there was some connection that all species had, but we did not understand it. So although we understood, that an oak tree that was infested with pests, would notify the neighboring oak trees to produce a chemical that would discourage the pests, we thought this communication was through the root system. We did not yet understand pheromones.

 

 

Think about the words "extrasensory perception". What do they mean? They mean that we have another, extra, sense that we perceive things through. That sense is emotion. Emotion is not thought, it is experience. Just like our other senses, we experience emotion, we experience sight, we experience taste, smells, tactile sensations, and sounds. This is the reason that emotion will not store properly in memory, because it is an experience. Most people do not realize this, so if you have questions or knowledge regarding this, please say so. I have been looking for experts to help me understand this aspect of emotion.

 

Feeling is more closely related to awareness, as we become aware of something that we feel. Feeling is also a less potent emotion, as the stronger the feeling, the more likely we are to call it emotion. Awareness and emotion are different experiences that we sense. I think that they are the same thing in different strengths.

 

 

When you are willing to state things like, "the right magical wavelengths" in a serious discussion, how can you accuse me of coming here with a chip on my shoulder? It has a lot more to do with hormones than women, and I think that I have already stated this a number of times.

 

I did not "divide 'emotion' into a special secret category". Religion did that when it divide the within, souls, and the without, God. Philosophy did when it decided to ignore emotion because that leads to religion. If you go to the SEP and type in the word emotion for a search, unless things have changed drastically in the last year, you will get Stoicism, some eastern religions, or anything else to do with controlling emotion--and a few articles on feminism. If you look to science, you will note that the disciplines that deal with emotion are "soft" sciences, like psychology and animal behaviorism. Recently, neurology joined forces with endocrinology, because it had no choice--so emotion is finally being studied there. I am just exposing this information. Don't shoot the messenger.

 

 

Do you mean like the imaginary pheromones that oak trees produce?

 

Your conversation is interesting and intelligent. I await your response.

 

G

 

 

After reading this it is obvious we had a failure to communicate, most of what you say is not only reasonable but I agree. Your seeming need to lend credence to the idea the bible contains history or any information of note when it is legends and mythology taken from surrounding cultures and shoe horned into mono theism is a bit disconcerting. The bible is historically about as accurate as a novel about alien invasion set in New York City that uses the names of real people and places.

 

While this is not the correct thread your ideas about homosexuality being an act is suggestive of it being a choice when in fact homosexuality is the same as your gender, you are born that way.

 

The information about the bible and it's supposed accuracy is very similar to the cultural conditioning that prevented you from getting the riddle, I have made an intense effort most of my adult life to reverse such cultural programming, I am not always successful but I do make the effort. I liken such cultural programming to racism, we grow up with these cultural memes being told to us as the truth, people who are different are somehow inherently inferior to us or hostile to us because we are superior. It's circular and easy to believe because it confirms the biases we have listened to our whole lives, it takes effort to over come such cultural programming.

 

The idea of the supernatural has been driven away from reality into some sort of mysterious realm but it was not always like that, many things that have obvious and testable effects on reality were once thought to be supernatural but those things fell to the tools of scientific inquiry, what we have left is a desperate plea to special status for things unknowable.

 

Superstition is different and more related to OCD IMHO, I am a bit OCD, I carry around lucky objects for no reason other than it satisfies my OCD to do so.

[cladking]

 

My suggestion is that phenomena are real, and true and explainable and natural and studiable by science and accessable to any and all of us. Anything that is NOT accessable to science is NOT natural phenomena, and by definition, "made up", and imaginary.

 

 

So how did the pyramid builders study radioactivity? Surely, in the countless centuries before the Curie's at least a few people observed phenomena related to radioactivity. Is the fact that none studied it really indicative of the nature of the observers or the nature of radioactivity? Is the fact that we know so much about the relative sizes and energies of radioactivity proof that we know everything and that no anomylous observations can occur in the future? How can we be sure that when some new attribute is first observed that the observer will be able to duplicate and study it? How can something not exist simply because we don't observe or study it unless nature was far simpler before we began to learn about it 40,000 years ago?

 

How can we even be sure that the first observer to see something new will even be knowledgeable of the state of the science and competent to know it is a new phenomenon he is witnessing?

[Moontanman]

 

 

 

So how did the pyramid builders study radioactivity? Surely, in the countless centuries before the Curie's at least a few people observed phenomena related to radioactivity. Is the fact that none studied it really indicative of the nature of the observers or the nature of radioactivity? Is the fact that we know so much about the relative sizes and energies of radioactivity proof that we know everything and that no anomylous observations can occur in the future? How can we be sure that when some new attribute is first observed that the observer will be able to duplicate and study it? How can something not exist simply because we don't observe or study it unless nature was far simpler before we began to learn about it 40,000 years ago?

 

 

 

 

 

That analogy is weak, the ancient Egyptians didn't think there was an effect that they couldn't explain and so deemed it supernatural. Once the effects of radioactivity were observed it feel to the tools of science quite fast. The supernatural doesn't allude to simply things that are unknown. I alludes to things that have some effect but none that can be detected or tested, this is a fundamental difference from things like radioactivity...

[cladking]

 

 

 

That analogy is weak, the ancient Egyptians didn't think there was an effect that they couldn't explain and so deemed it supernatural. Once the effects of radioactivity were observed it feel to the tools of science quite fast. The supernatural doesn't allude to simply things that are unknown. I alludes to things that have some effect but none that can be detected or tested, this is a fundamental difference from things like radioactivity...

 

 

You are essentially suggesting that we now know everything and all possible observations related to radioactivity have been made and can be explained. You are further suggesting that the ancients had no knowledge at all about anything at all. Ancient people saw everything as being about gods and magic so there was no room for any knowledge at all.

 

This is illogical in the extreme. If we already know everything we might as well shut down research and quit fretting about dark matter. Why study radiation at all if it's settled science? If the ancients were superstitious then they mustta used ramps and beavers mustta built their first dam by accident. If memory serves the ancients used some radioactive glow in the dark chemicals as pigments in paint or ceramics. I believe Pliny spoke of it. Be this as it may what logic is there in assuming a primitive understanding of something is equivalent to a lack of understanding? They did invent agriculture and cities so their knowledge mustta had some utility.

 

At what point exactly did the human race pass from superstition to omniscience? Was it 1942? 1982? 1492?

 

I, for one, still have questions.

Edited July 11, 2013 by cladking

[Moontanman]

You are essentially suggesting that we now know everything and all possible observations related to radioactivity have been made and can be explained. You are further suggesting that the ancients had no knowledge at all about anything at all. Ancient people saw everything as being about gods and magic so there was no room for any knowledge at all.

 

This is illogical in the extreme. If we already know everything we might as well shut down research and quit fretting about dark matter. Why study radiation at all if it's settled science? If the ancients were superstitious then they mustta used ramps and beavers mustta built their first dam by accident. If memory serves the ancients used some radioactive glow in the dark chemicals as pigments in paint or ceramics. I believe Pliny spoke of it. Be this as it may what logic is there in assuming a primitive understanding of something is equivalent to a lack of understanding? They did invent agriculture and cities so their knowledge mustta had some utility.

 

At what point exactly did the human race pass from superstition to omniscience? Was it 1942? 1982? 1492?

 

I, for one, still have questions.

I suggested no such thing, strawman much?

[Gees]

How can something not exist simply because we don't observe or study it unless nature was far simpler before we began to learn about it 40,000 years ago?

 

Cladking;

 

You are a philosopher. I almost fell off of my chair laughing when I read your above statement. I love it.

 

Regarding the Egyptians, here is something that I find interesting. I read somewhere that the Egyptians thought that consciousness was something that came from the heart, not the head. This, of course, was laughed at, because we now know that consciousness comes from the brain. But the more I study this subject, the more convinced I am that conscious awareness is more related to emotion than it is to thought, as we cannot think ourselves conscious. It is something that we feel and are aware of, and when we think of feeling and emotion, we identify it with the heart. It will be damned disconcerting if we find out that Egyptians, who lived thousands of years ago, were smarter than we are. (chuckle chuckle)

 

Before all of the silliness happened, you were discussing your views on the sub/unconscious aspect of mind, and I wrote a response to you in my computer. So please consider the following:

 

I know that you have issues regarding the sub/unconscious mind, and many of your complaints are valid. But that does not negate the fact that the unconscious exists. I will grant that it is interpreted badly and many of the ideas are ludicrous, but there is one man that I know of, who has studied it, and I think that you would find his work interesting. If you go to Wiki and look up Ignacio Matte Blanco, who worked with Anna Freud, there is a one-page synopsis on his work.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Matte_Blanco

 

He broke the unconscious aspect of mind into levels or layers and defined each of them, which may be interesting if you have done any research on the Eastern religions as some of them also broke the unconscious into levels. A comparison would be interesting. Another thing that he did was find a logic in the unconscious, and this is the part that I find interesting. The unconscious does not recognize time and sees past, present, and future as the same thing. Psychology recognizes this and knows that this is the reason that a trauma from childhood can seem real and imminent in the present and future. What therapy does is identify the trauma, and expose the idea to the logical thought of the rational mind, so that it can be seen as over, finished, in the past. This is the cure.

 

The other thing that he discovered is that the unconscious expects connected things to be equal. It recognizes only the link between two thing. As an example, the unconscious would know that if Mary is Ruth's mother, then Ruth is Mary's mother--a connection, but no cause and effect. Psychology also recognizes this aspect of the unconscious. So emotion, which rules the unconscious, would imply a sameness to things, which is probably where "projecting" and bonding comes from. The unconscious would expect that if I like you, then you like me; if I hate you, then you hate me. So this creates a lot of "group think" that explains our tendency to gather together with like people, and to push people that are different away. It is an emotional reaction guided by the unconscious. Again this has to be brought to the attention of the rational mind for review.

 

But I do not study psychology, I study consciousness, so I see these things from a different perspective. If the unconscious aspect of mind sees past, present, and future as the same thing, then it has no concept of time. If it sees connections as being equal, then it has no concept of cause and effect. That means it does not understand time and space. Why would that be? Well, the obvious answer would be that it has no experience with time and space. Again, why would that be? Because it is not within time and space? Maybe. I am sure that other people have realized this, but it is just too spooky to think about. (chuckle)

 

This is one of the things that brought me back to the idea of the Aether as being the source. Of course, some people say that the Aether does not exist, but Einstein thought that it did, and he was a pretty bright guy. So I am going with Einstein on this one.

 

What do you think?

 

G

[cladking]

 

Before all of the silliness happened, you were discussing your views on the sub/unconscious aspect of mind, and I wrote a response to you in my computer. So please consider the following:

 

I know that you have issues regarding the sub/unconscious mind, and many of your complaints are valid. But that does not negate the fact that the unconscious exists. I will grant that it is interpreted badly and many of the ideas are ludicrous, but there is one man that I know of, who has studied it, and I think that you would find his work interesting. If you go to Wiki and look up Ignacio Matte Blanco, who worked with Anna Freud, there is a one-page synopsis on his work.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Matte_Blanco

 

He broke the unconscious aspect of mind into levels or layers and defined each of them, which may be interesting if you have done any research on the Eastern religions as some of them also broke the unconscious into levels. A comparison would be interesting. Another thing that he did was find a logic in the unconscious, and this is the part that I find interesting. The unconscious does not recognize time and sees past, present, and future as the same thing. Psychology recognizes this and knows that this is the reason that a trauma from childhood can seem real and imminent in the present and future. What therapy does is identify the trauma, and expose the idea to the logical thought of the rational mind, so that it can be seen as over, finished, in the past. This is the cure.

 

The other thing that he discovered is that the unconscious expects connected things to be equal. It recognizes only the link between two thing. As an example, the unconscious would know that if Mary is Ruth's mother, then Ruth is Mary's mother--a connection, but no cause and effect. Psychology also recognizes this aspect of the unconscious. So emotion, which rules the unconscious, would imply a sameness to things, which is probably where "projecting" and bonding comes from. The unconscious would expect that if I like you, then you like me; if I hate you, then you hate me. So this creates a lot of "group think" that explains our tendency to gather together with like people, and to push people that are different away. It is an emotional reaction guided by the unconscious. Again this has to be brought to the attention of the rational mind for review.

 

But I do not study psychology, I study consciousness, so I see these things from a different perspective. If the unconscious aspect of mind sees past, present, and future as the same thing, then it has no concept of time. If it sees connections as being equal, then it has no concept of cause and effect. That means it does not understand time and space. Why would that be? Well, the obvious answer would be that it has no experience with time and space. Again, why would that be? Because it is not within time and space? Maybe. I am sure that other people have realized this, but it is just too spooky to think about. (chuckle)

 

This is one of the things that brought me back to the idea of the Aether as being the source. Of course, some people say that the Aether does not exist, but Einstein thought that it did, and he was a pretty bright guy. So I am going with Einstein on this one.

 

What do you think?

 

G

 

I'm like a babe in the woods discussing consciousness. I do understand some of what you're saying but my perspective is very very different. My perspective comes from taking consciousness entirely for granted (and somewhat selfishly). My interest has always been the nature of thought rather than consciousness. I believe thought is the result of impulses (consciousness?) being processed by the brain. This processing is built from language and beliefs as well as bits and pieces of things like math, logic, unconscious, experiences etc etc... This structure I call "attention pockets" because our very awareness is defined from experience, knowledge, and belief.

 

People are almost infinitely adaptable and do much of the wiring of their berains themselves. Once we view something one way or accept something as normal it becomes quite difficult to unseat out perspective. Beliefs have largely replaced instinct and our beliefs are shaped (and integrated) largely when we are young making us a product of our time and place. The better educated a person is the more he is a product of his time and place. This may not be relevant but I do believe that most things most people have ever been taught is wrong.

 

Obviously there is a great deal going on in the mind (brain and body) of which we aren't aware. Indeed, I suspect even the ganglia and nervous system have a low level consciousness that is fully aware of us (the mind), but we are barely even dimly aware of them. It is these separate consciousnesses that are muscle memory. They are also critical to the functioning of the entire animal. You can't have your feet racing off in different directions in an emergency especially if the best strategy is to stand and fight. There are many layers to thought (consciouness?) and we can't be aware of them all simultaneously meaning a great deal of activity is beneath the level of consciousness, awareness, or thought. Much of the brain seems to be not directly even connected to thought so there are, no doubt, some very highly complicated interconnections.

 

People can become anything but they do become their beliefs. If you believe that dreams are important then you will begin having memorable dreams and they can become important. I believe these are just memories of random nerve firings in our sleep and these firings are partially processed as thought. We can learn about how we think or what we believe from them. But many things occur of which we aren't aware and it's entirely within the realm of reason that some of these might be exposed to consciousness because of a dream.

 

Let me try to get back to the point.

 

We are what we eat but it's even more true that we are what we believe and any belief is possible. We are fed many of our beliefs as a child so become a product of the civilization in which we are born. Society generally does an exceedingly poor job of creating citizens allowed to excel in their strenghts and instead pidgeon holes almost everyone.

 

Regarding the Egyptians, here is something that I find interesting. I read somewhere that the Egyptians thought that consciousness was something that came from the heart, not the head. This, of course, was laughed at, because we now know that consciousness comes from the brain. But the more I study this subject, the more convinced I am that conscious awareness is more related to emotion than it is to thought, as we cannot think ourselves conscious. It is something that we feel and are aware of, and when we think of feeling and emotion, we identify it with the heart. It will be damned disconcerting if we find out that Egyptians, who lived thousands of years ago, were smarter than we are. (chuckle chuckle)

 

 

Most of what you've been told about the Egyptians is false or, more likely, applies only to the Egyptians after 2000 BC.

 

I do agree that emotion and consciousness are intimately related but I think of emotion as a sort of vector total of the mind/ body reaction to stimulus. This mind/ body reaction is far greater to stimuli related to things that are extremely important to us. The death of the neighbor's dog has far less impact on us than the death of our own. It's easy to get along with somebody else's troubles. Emotion is probably much more an amygdalan response governed by experience and the higher brain centers.

I suggested no such thing, strawman much?

 

You said;

 

That analogy is weak, the ancient Egyptians didn't think there was an effect that they couldn't explain and so deemed it supernatural.

 

 

And then defended the statement. Since they knew almost nothing about almost everything it would seem to follow that they were superstitious. If they could lift 6 1/2 million tons of stone and we're too afraid to even apply the science to determinine how it was done it makes us the superstitious people. But more importantly and equally relevantly you also said;

 

 

Once the effects of radioactivity were observed it feel to the tools of science quite fast.

 

And defended this. There is a strong implication that you believe we pretty much have knowledge of radioactivity all zipped up; that we understand the nature of all radioactive decay and the emitted energy. Further there is the implication that we know how all radioactive things behave under all conditions and parameters.

 

I deny that we know much of anything about the subject even though we can do a good job of measuring and predicting decay rates and specific emissions. There's simply no reason to believe our understanding is the only possible understanding and it's absurd to believe our knowledge is even close to being complete.

[iNow]

There's simply no reason to believe our understanding is the only possible understanding and it's absurd to believe our knowledge is even close to being complete.

This would be the strawman moontanman referenced. He's not suggested that we understand everything and our current understanding is the only one possible. You're either intentionally misrepresenting him or you are having some fairly significant challenges with reading comprehension. Which is it?

[Gees]

iNow;

 

My thought is that it is comprehension. I have the same problem when reading Moontanman's posts. Consider his following response to me from post # 84 above.

 

Your seeming need to lend credence to the idea the bible contains history or any information of note when it is legends and mythology taken from surrounding cultures and shoe horned into mono theism is a bit disconcerting. The bible is historically about as accurate as a novel about alien invasion set in New York City that uses the names of real people and places.

 

I think that Moontanman's point is that information from the Bible is invalid, but his example shows otherwise.

 

If I read "a novel about alien invasion set in New York City that uses the names of real people and places", I could glean reams of information from it. First there would be a description of New York City, then the people, then the places, how they relate to each other, their routines and values, that Moontanman states would be valid information.

 

Then because I know enough about psychology to understand that entertainment is simply adult play, and that play is how we learn about things that concern us, I could extrapolate reams of information from that depending upon how popular the novel was. So I could learn all about the fears, emotions, expectations, and values based upon the characters in the novel.

 

So it can be difficult to comprehend Moontanman's ideas if one does a lot of thinking. His point is not clear.

 

G

[science4ever]

As I get it the term supernatural as a word are a very late comer.

Religion has been with us some 4 thousands of years or much more

but the term supernatural maybe at most since the middle age

and are some philosophical invention to be used in debates?

 

AFAIK there are natural science and natural history and natural religion

and the supernatural is a kind of construct that is rhetoric .There is no evidence

for that there exist anything like what the term refers to is there?

 

I bought a book that Bertrand Russell had been Editor to. The history of Western Philosophy

or similar name. I looked up Naturalism in the index and it was nowhere to be found.

 

I find that odd. I thought it existed since the old Greeks Atomists or something.

These terms naturalism and supernaturalism is just words they only exist for philosophers.

[Moontanman]

iNow;

 

My thought is that it is comprehension. I have the same problem when reading Moontanman's posts. Consider his following response to me from post # 84 above.

 

 

I think that Moontanman's point is that information from the Bible is invalid, but his example shows otherwise.

 

If I read "a novel about alien invasion set in New York City that uses the names of real people and places", I could glean reams of information from it. First there would be a description of New York City, then the people, then the places, how they relate to each other, their routines and values, that Moontanman states would be valid information.

 

Then because I know enough about psychology to understand that entertainment is simply adult play, and that play is how we learn about things that concern us, I could extrapolate reams of information from that depending upon how popular the novel was. So I could learn all about the fears, emotions, expectations, and values based upon the characters in the novel.

 

So it can be difficult to comprehend Moontanman's ideas if one does a lot of thinking. His point is not clear.

 

G

 

 

If the novel asserted that the current governor decided to build a mile high replacement for the twin towers would that be accurate information just because i mentioned the governor?

[tar]

science4ever,

 

I am not sure where I read it, or whether I am getting terms mixed up, but I think metaphysical and supernatural themselves got mixed up, when chapters on such where found "after" those on the physical on natural sciences.

 

As such supernatural need not mean impossible, or magical or "other than" science, but merely those true things which we will take up after getting the physical and natural into good perspective.

 

Gees,

 

Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, made a very good, if not excellent try at looking at our understanding in a logical fashion, and structured a fine science of metaphysics. I have not read the whole thing, so I can't teach it or quote its ideas properly, but he does "start" with our a priori intuition of space and of time, as you alluded to.

 

This, he builds logically into a table of judgements or concepts/understandings we have, and this into the Categories which cover, in general, everything and anything we can "say" about a thing, or "think" about a thing.

 

Since the intuitions of space and time, already are "in there", I am not sure where you are conceiving this "emotion" is falling in Kant's scheme. Or if you think it is something he missed.

 

Perhaps "the heart" IS important to the scheme, since it beats, and we "feel" the duration of its beat throughout the "space" of our bodies. Everything else, cause and effect, inherence and subsistence, reciprocity between the agent and patient, possibility-impossibility, existence, non-existence, necessity-contingence, unity, plurality,totality, reality, negation, and limitation, are concepts we have, based on judgements that we make based on analogies to what we already know...the beating of our own heart.

 

Regards, TAR2

[Gees]

If the novel asserted that the current governor decided to build a mile high replacement for the twin towers would that be accurate information just because i mentioned the governor?

 

Moontanman;

 

We do have a communication problem, and I expect that it is because we think differently. I will answer your question this time, in the hope that you can understand how I view these things, but I do not wish to debate it as we are getting off topic.

 

The answer to your question would be no, as I don't care if the governor stated it or a begger stated it. It is not relevant to me whether the statement is true or false, as I am not looking for belief or faith in the novel or the Bible. What I am looking for is facts.

 

Because this is a statement out of context, we are going to have to posit, or assume, some things. First I will assume that you are still talking about the people and places being accurate, and I must assume that the twin towers are the ones that regard 911. So following is how I might consider the above assertion.

 

The assertion is that a "current governor", so this tells me a lot. First that governors change and that this is not a king, or president, but a governor; so a review of the types of governments at the time of this event will bring me to democracy and that will give me lots of information.

 

Next we have the governor "decided", so are we stating that this governor has the authority to decide this issue? This goes to validity of the statement, as I would have to investigate whether or not a governor would have the ability and authority to simply decide the issue. A governor is not a king and answers to other people, so there would be much to consider here.

 

Then there is the "mile high replacement"; so in this part of the statement I would have to consider feasibility, utility, and general usefulness of a mile high replacement. Mile high elevators? There are questions regarding the technical abilities of this time, the feasibility of a building this tall, the ability to maintain a building this tall, the usefulness and marketability of this building and whether or not people could park their cars, get to and from work, there would be safety issues and even insurance issues. There would be a lot to consider to see if this is a real idea.

 

If I decided that it is simply not feasible, then I would have to consider whether the statement is a lie, or if the governor lied, and for what reason. Are we talking about a political move to make people feel better and vote for the guy, or are we talking about a pipedream of an arrogant and phallic symbol? Is this a civilization in decline that is claiming things that are unreal, or is it a civilization that is growing and accomplishing things beyond their prior capabilities?

 

Then there is the "twin towers", so this brings the world politics and issues to the front because it was the "world" trade center, was on US soil, and was destroyed by a faction of a small nation that is not happy with world trade. So there are a lot of world political issues here.

 

So whether or not the statement is true, one can extrapolate a wealth of information by considering these ideas and comparing them to everything else that we know about that time. This is how I study the Bible. I pull it apart and look for facts, truth, and wisdom. I do not accept what it says at face value simply because it says so.

 

G

Tar; I will respond to your post later. I have to rest now.

[tar]

Gees,

 

Had a waking thought this morning about chemicals, pheremones and the Oak trees "telling" each other to bolster up against the pests.

 

The hormones of a man and a woman are different. The hormones in a male, tell the male one set of things, and those in a woman tell her a different set of things. I recall, back when my wife had regular periods, that there was a time of the month where i could expect some different behavior, emotions and somewhat unpredictable thoughts from her.

 

There is not a good way to describe this difference in the way a man feels, and a woman feels, because you have to be "having" the hormones, and "feeling" their effects to really "know" what it is like. Complicating modern life somewhat is our scientific mastery of hormones and our ability to administer them to each other artifically, such as in certain contraceptives, that "tell" a woman to "feel" more like a man would feel, which seems to confuse a woman's body into not acting like a woman in those areas that would release an egg, and prepare the uterus' walls to receive a fertilized one and get all the chemicals in order to facilitate the presence of a healty spermazoa and so on.

 

Waking thought being, that "information" comes in at least two strengths. One strength is enough to modify ones model of the outside world that is held as memories, and the next strength is enough to significantly modify the chemical reality and the physical relationships going on in the brain/heart/body complex.

 

In both strengths something changes the form on the inside of the brain/heart/body complex.

 

A "thought" is rather weaker than a "feeling" in this regard. A thought can be right or wrong, workable or unworkable, here in one moment, and gone the next, whereas a "feeling" has more of a basis in the actual awareness of the current situation the brain/heart/body complex is in.

 

When an elephant sits down on top of me, we both "know" I am being crushed, but its me that "feels" the pressure.

 

When you speak of connections and emotions and the things one is atune to, there seems to me to be plenty of room for the chemical and physical reality of the world to "get in" to our awareness of it, to where we can "feel it", for real, whether we "know it" or not.

 

Regards, TAR2

[Gees]

Tar;

 

A very insightful post. I feel like I am finally reaching some people. After spending almost 40 years studying the paranormal, religion, life, and people, I finally started to look at philosophy and science in the last few years to see what they think of the understanding that I developed over the years. As I stated before, philosophy does not seem to know much, but I think that science is investigating consciousness in a number of different fields and does not realize it. Most of science still believes that conscious awareness emits from the brain, but they don't seem to remember that the brain is saturated in chemicals and hormones.

 

I think that hormones are the key to unlocking consciousness. So I will try to share some of the things that I have learned about hormones. First, we have not come close to mastering hormones. Second, hormones are much more than sexual hormones, they are the stuff of life. Consider:

 

1. We know that hormones are communicators. That is their job. They govern communication between cells, between body systems, and between the body and the world outside of the body with regard to bodily needs; such as, food, shelter and habitat, danger, and sleep, to name a few.

 

2. All species, whether plant or animal, have hormones of some kind--if they have more than one cell. We have a different name for the ones that are in plants, but they do the same job. Since all species, up from one cell species, have some kind of hormone, and hormones are communicators, it is pretty safe to say that hormones are necessary to turn a group of cells into a single life form that works as a unit. So hormones create a sort of cooperation that promotes the life form.

 

3. All of our most basic instincts that hold us to life work with basic hormones. From Wiki:

 

Hormones have the following effects on the body:

• stimulation or inhibition of growth
• mood swings
• induction or suppression of apoptosis (programmed cell death)
• activation or inhibition of the immune system
• regulation of metabolism
• preparation of the body for mating, fighting, fleeing, and other activity
• preparation of the body for a new phase of life, such as puberty, parenting, and menopause
• control of the reproductive cycle
• hunger cravings
• sexual arousal

A hormone may also regulate the production and release of other hormones. Hormone signals control the internal environment of the body through homeostasis.

 

4. Hormones will substitute for each other--most people do not realize this. An example would be when a person has all of the symptoms of low thyroid, but testing shows the thyroid levels to be good, but the estrogen levels to be very low. The doctor theorized that the thyroid hormones were substituting for the estrogen hormones, which were low, so he wrote a prescription for estrogen which solved the thyroid problem. Once the estrogen levels improved, the thyroid hormones went back to doing their normal work. In another example, a patient was given massive doses of steroids in the hospital because of inflamation, and in response the body shut down the insulin produced in an attempt to balance the hormone levels, resulting in the patient becoming a raging diabetic while in the hospital. As soon as the problem was resolved and steroids were no longer needed, the patient stopped being a diabetic. Hormones are self balancing, which means that they can get very tricky when we think that we are correcting or adjusting a problem.

 

5. Pheromones are very much like hormones, but they seem to work outside of the body. We are discovering more pheromones almost daily, and it is pretty safe to assume that all species that have hormones most likely also produce pheromones. The thing that I find interesting about pheromones is that they again seem to be a communication between like life forms. In the example that I gave earlier about the oak trees, it was noted in the article that this information regarding pests did not inform elm trees, or maple trees, or pine trees--only oak trees. So it appears that hormones create a kind of communication between cells and systems within, but the pheromones create a kind of communication between the species. There will be more on this when I discuss the mental aspects.

 

6. Another interesting thing about hormones is that they have the ability to turn on and off different parts of DNA, which makes me wonder how involved they are with evolution. When a new species does evolve, do the pheromones from the prior species interact with the new, or is there a new set of pheromones that is unique to the new species? Is there an overlap between species regarding pheromones? Could pheromones unintentionally influence another species? There seems to be some disagreement here, and if I can find the article in, I think if was Scientific American, I will post it here.

 

I actually know very little about hormones and am far from an expert, but the above are some of the physical attributes of hormones that I have discovered. I will post the mental attributes later.

 

G

 

Couldn't find the article--no surprise. I am horrible with Google. If anyone else can find it, there was a group of scientists who were arguing with the EPA and stating that hormons/pheromones work differently at different levels, and it does not take a lot to create unforseen changes. The EPA disagreed.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Gees

[Gees]

Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, made a very good, if not excellent try at looking at our understanding in a logical fashion, and structured a fine science of metaphysics. I have not read the whole thing, so I can't teach it or quote its ideas properly, but he does "start" with our a priori intuition of space and of time, as you alluded to.

 

Tar;

 

I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. I missed answering this post. Don't know why except that I have not been well, and doctors are a pain.

 

I have never read Kant's Pure Reason, but I know that a lot of other people in different forums have used his work to challenge mine, so I don't believe that our thinking is in aline in this matter. As a philosopher, Kant was brilliant, and i agree with much of what I know about his work, but his ideas regarding God tell me that he was more involved with the rational mind than the whole mind. Considering that he lived and worked in the 1700's, it would be expected that he would delve into learning about the rational mind, which needed to be understood. But he believed that God was not real, only a necessity for ethics and morality--a belief that many people share today. So I don't believe that he understood emotion, the unconscious mind, the "supernatural", or God.

 

Although many people may disagree, it appears that Kant was a dualist, as he saw emotion, the unconscious, religion, and God as something separate. Most people consider a dualist as a person who accepts God and sees matter as different from spirit, but anyone who sees them as divided is actually a dualist.

 

This, he builds logically into a table of judgements or concepts/understandings we have, and this into the Categories which cover, in general, everything and anything we can "say" about a thing, or "think" about a thing.

 

The important word here is "thing". He studied the rational mind only.

 

Since the intuitions of space and time, already are "in there", I am not sure where you are conceiving this "emotion" is falling in Kant's scheme. Or if you think it is something he missed.

 

Well, I think he missed something, and doubt that the intuition of time and space are already "in there". I think that these "intuitions" are learned. If one considers the adult rational mind, then the concepts of time and space are well entrenched, but they are not known and understood at birth.

 

Have you ever watched an infant sitting in a high chair pick up a piece of food, drop it off the side, and be delighted with the way that it always goes down--just like magic! They will often smile and clap their hands like they performed some great trick. Peek-a-boo is another example of a baby learning that things can still exist when they are not seen. For the first few years of life, an infant spends most of it's time studying cause and effect, gravity, and time and space, so it is reasonable to consider that they do not know about these things yet.

 

Dr. Blanco's study of the unconscious mind indicates that it is not familiar with time and space. But the rational mind is designed to work with physical reality and the senses that show us physical reality, so I expect that we start to learn about this as soon as we are part of physical reality--when we are born.

 

Spinoza's work is much more in aline with my thinking. He was not a dualist, but a neutral monist, even though he lived 100 years before Kant. Spinoza was also a determinist, so our ideas are not fully compatible, but he understood emotion better than anyone I know of--for his time. His understanding of the passive and agressive sides of emotion has been called a precursor to Freud, so he studied emotion. I do not believe that he studied the supernatural. He believed that God was real, but not a being--as I do. He saw God as an impersonal part of nature, or maybe one could say a law of nature, much like laws of physics.

 

I first became aware of Spinoza when someone mentioned to me that his understanding of consciousness was in aline with the Verdanta tradition, or philosophy, of India--so was mine. We are not perfectly in accord in our thinking, but it is close; Spinoze saw life, consciousness, as being motivated by "need", I see it as "want". Neither of our words are actually correct and other philosophers have tried to name this motivation as "will", but we are all talking about the same thing.

 

It is my thought that I have a real advantage over the philosophers that came before me, because of science. People like Spinoza had to deal with physical cause and effect that could be understood, but I know about pheromones; I know about radio; I know about cell phones. So I can conceive that a communication and connection does not have to be magical to exist without an observable cause.

 

G

[Moontanman]

 

Tar;

 

I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. I missed answering this post. Don't know why except that I have not been well, and doctors are a pain.

 

I have never read Kant's Pure Reason, but I know that a lot of other people in different forums have used his work to challenge mine, so I don't believe that our thinking is in aline in this matter. As a philosopher, Kant was brilliant, and i agree with much of what I know about his work, but his ideas regarding God tell me that he was more involved with the rational mind than the whole mind. Considering that he lived and worked in the 1700's, it would be expected that he would delve into learning about the rational mind, which needed to be understood. But he believed that God was not real, only a necessity for ethics and morality--a belief that many people share today. So I don't believe that he understood emotion, the unconscious mind, the "supernatural", or God.

 

Although many people may disagree, it appears that Kant was a dualist, as he saw emotion, the unconscious, religion, and God as something separate. Most people consider a dualist as a person who accepts God and sees matter as different from spirit, but anyone who sees them as divided is actually a dualist.

 

 

The important word here is "thing". He studied the rational mind only.

 

 

Well, I think he missed something, and doubt that the intuition of time and space are already "in there". I think that these "intuitions" are learned. If one considers the adult rational mind, then the concepts of time and space are well entrenched, but they are not known and understood at birth.

 

Have you ever watched an infant sitting in a high chair pick up a piece of food, drop it off the side, and be delighted with the way that it always goes down--just like magic! They will often smile and clap their hands like they performed some great trick. Peek-a-boo is another example of a baby learning that things can still exist when they are not seen. For the first few years of life, an infant spends most of it's time studying cause and effect, gravity, and time and space, so it is reasonable to consider that they do not know about these things yet.

 

Dr. Blanco's study of the unconscious mind indicates that it is not familiar with time and space. But the rational mind is designed to work with physical reality and the senses that show us physical reality, so I expect that we start to learn about this as soon as we are part of physical reality--when we are born.

 

Spinoza's work is much more in aline with my thinking. He was not a dualist, but a neutral monist, even though he lived 100 years before Kant. Spinoza was also a determinist, so our ideas are not fully compatible, but he understood emotion better than anyone I know of--for his time. His understanding of the passive and agressive sides of emotion has been called a precursor to Freud, so he studied emotion. I do not believe that he studied the supernatural. He believed that God was real, but not a being--as I do. He saw God as an impersonal part of nature, or maybe one could say a law of nature, much like laws of physics.

 

I first became aware of Spinoza when someone mentioned to me that his understanding of consciousness was in aline with the Verdanta tradition, or philosophy, of India--so was mine. We are not perfectly in accord in our thinking, but it is close; Spinoze saw life, consciousness, as being motivated by "need", I see it as "want". Neither of our words are actually correct and other philosophers have tried to name this motivation as "will", but we are all talking about the same thing.

 

It is my thought that I have a real advantage over the philosophers that came before me, because of science. People like Spinoza had to deal with physical cause and effect that could be understood, but I know about pheromones; I know about radio; I know about cell phones. So I can conceive that a communication and connection does not have to be magical to exist without an observable cause.

 

G

 

 

These things do have observable, empirical and rational causes, they are not without observable causes, in fact they rely on completely physical, observable causes to operate... how do they compare to the supernatural?

Edited July 16, 2013 by Moontanman