Brain science behind 'belief'

Zion,

I see, just as the lake is the source for the river.

I agree that it is a very good question. And I believe that I know what you are saying when you state

; your are referring to the ability to imagine, to the apparent great flexibility of our imagination. Imagination can be a very powerful tool to further determine the nature of both inner and outer reality.

This appears to be true in terms of both 'inner' and 'outer' manifestations; yes, I agree. And I would say that sanity is not always obvious, although oftentimes it is obvious. I have noticed that people oftentimes expend large amounts of energy being involved in self-deception and denial of the truth in order to "make things good happen," when really this is a sad contradiction; I believe that when people live humbly and honestly, whether it be a leader of a country or a CEO of a corporation or a hobo on the street, that there is a great intrinsic reward that is not always obvious.


David



.

 

Since the collective unconscious was mentioned...

Couldn't we (humanity) be described as one entity, made up of constituent parts called humans, just as the cells in our body make up each one of us?

We are as unaware of each individual cell in our body as they are of us, yet we exist because they exist, specifically because they co-exist, or do they co exist because of us?

I do believe in God, but at the same time, I don't believe in anything that isn't, essentially, real. I just think God is everything. Absolutely everything.

Humanity is the human part of god, but that doesn't mean humanity is the only part of God we, as humans, should listen to.

I kinda think atheists are weird, even though, in precise fact, we believe in exactly the same things. Agnosticism (meaning "without knowledge" -> so you're looking for the truth rather than claiming to have it) sort of means you don't know what you believe in, and I suppose that is true of me because there are limits to our/my knowledge and understanding of the physical world, but the physical world, from the sub-micro to the super-macro, is all I believe in.

 

of course there's more to everything then "meets the eye", how could there not be? yet there is equaly no reason to expect any of it to have the slightest thing to do with anything anyone has ever immagened. if you think there is, i suspect you have no real grasp of the proportions of this universe that surrounds us nor of the diversity of it.

as for supernatural, isn't that kind of a self contradiction? some things don't happen very often. does that make them less 'natural' then things that do?

 

Natural refers to childish interpretation of events.

Like a child thinking it can cover up a spill with a towel and its mom will not notice.

 

Hmmmm . . . that may be. But by the same logic, light is a delusion of the eyes, sound is a hallucination created by the ears. Aroma and flavor? That's just your nose and tongue trying to con you. Touch? That's just crazy talk, your skin wants to fool you into believing there is really something out there.

And what about ideas, meaning, inspiration? Maybe they are also just generated by the brain, maybe they also don't "exist." Maybe, outside of your brain, nothing exists, not even these squiggles on your "screen."

Now what?

 

Wellmet my friend.

Good to hear your words so long missed

Much has been said in this thread of 'supernatural'
Yet is not the term simply a sound we make to describe that which
we do not understand?

We have a racial self image. One we transpose from our ego's onto
our race. That we know how things work and who we are.
But humanity does not know that much really.
We dont even KNOW, what time space and mater are.
The stuff that reality is made of is still mostly a mystery.
We look out and in at the totality that we can only see from the
perspective of the children that we are.
And then we try to agree on what we have seen.
And call that..fact.

We aint seen nothing yet

Occam

 

‘99.999% of what affects our reality will be undetectable by our senses. Man must learn to think for himself rather than follow blindly what he has been taught.’ Buckminster Fuller
'The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.' H. J. Haldene
'Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted.' Albert Pike

‘Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.’ Albert Einstein

 

Wellmet blackguard.

Wiser men than we show us a path to understanding.
We should not fear walking it.

Occam

 

The great thing about my lack of wisdom is that as a consequence of that, I have a lot of men that can show me the path, well, and women, children, animals, etc. I once read that knowledge is the product of study, while wisdom is the product of action.
That has been my experience as well, those who I find to be quite wise are invariably survivors of very challenging and dangerous past experiences.
I also feel that good judgement comes from experience, and that experience comes from bad judgement. I have personally confirmed the latter point numerous times.
Winston Churchill is someone whose quotes I admire, and his advice on dealing with difficulties in life is, "If you are going through hell... keep going."
Ben Franklin said to never give advice, wise men don't need it and fools won't take it.
I am optimistic about my wisdom growth, though, because in the last few years I have seen some progress....minimal to be sure, but I can see it.

 

Blackguard

Were pretty much in agreement on this issue.

Funny that u say 'the last few years'.
The same goes for me. Think it could be a result of
trying to maintain a dynamic mind/perspective in this
'persistant illusion' we call reality

Occam

 

Just because we may have a section of the brain devoted to spiritual processes does not mean there isnt a higher power enabling us to percieve it. Maybe spirituality is more physical than we think, and this link every religion seeks to make with the divine is just a physical energy we can all connect with. After all weve got to have a way to think spiritually, its not just some floating idea that hovers around in our heads.

 

Euripedes, "Cleverness is not wisdom."
Shakespeare, "To thine own self be true."
I am not totally sure what maintaining the dynamic mind/perspective means, but if I have the right idea, yeah, I think that could be the reason. It certainly has alot to do with how much importance I attribute to 'mind'. My life has been showing me one thing, and my mind has been stubbornly declaring that it cannot be so. Well, I finally gave myself some credit, and accepted what I have experienced. It can be so. An obstacle that consistently stymied me was the firm attachment to the belief that if I cannot see how it can be so, then it cannot be. That doesn't make sense to me now. It is so, I don't need to know how it can be, cuz it is.

 

Blackguard

One that defines not through preconception based on social and
personal conditioning but by observation and analysis.
A constant feedback on understanding/belief that does not allow
want or desire to play any part in understanding 'what IS'.
For 'What IS' exists independent of any human desire for it to
be or not.

As u say. A stubborn desire for it to be[or not to be] so.

An example that applies to just about EVERYONE reading this.
Is the desire to believe reality was created

This is PURE social conditioning. A product of the conceptual
limmits of humans.
In Einsteins quote.. How 'persistant' do you think he imagined
reality?
Occam suggests he considered the persistance..
Infinite [it has ALWAYS existed]

Occam

 

Prejudging, subjectivity, perspective, desire, revulsion, avoidance, pattern-manufacture, false assumptions, conditioning, logic, faith...
etc.
I have only those few, that I can recall, influential variables I need to factor into my observations. If I eliminate those ones, I sometimes actually perceive something quite clearly.
But, I never get all of them out of there. I cannot help but feel, and judge based on my past. I just try to remember that.
It is like Buddha and desire. Being content with nothing is the best vantage point from which to observe.
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
I take comfort in the knowledge that at least I know I don't know what is going on. Or I am quite sure I do. I know that there is always the chance I am wrong.

 

So if this is true, and its an evolutionary trait, would that mean people who don't naturally tend to believe are further along the pike evolutionary-speaking? lol

Anyway, i'm an atheist but I think certain things may not be as clear cut as some atheists seem to think, especially when it comes to dying. I don't believe when we die that its just nothingness after that. I don't have a belief about after we die period because theres no way of knowing scientifically yet, and i think people who buy into that shit aren't being true to the core idea of atheism(show me and i'll believe).

There could just as easibly be some continuation of our existence after death as not. But it doesn't have anything to do with somebody's 900 foot imaginary friend. Its a part of science we don't understand yet. Hell, I'll even go as far to say that there could be some sort of greater force at work in the universe. But its definitely not anything like our childish descriptions. I just think its a useless exercise as a race to make up something to believe when we don't have a real answer. Why?

 

'I just think its a useless exercise as a race to make up something to believe when we don't have a real answer. Why?' jerrygarciasguitar
Well, if I knew that....
Psychologists have concluded that our brains try to find patterns in everything. If someone saw a number of disparate, inexplicable events, and told others of them, they would ask what it meant, or what caused them, or how they can be possible, etc. Once set on the path of determining a root cause, ones brain starts connecting the dots and positing possible patterns that add up to various conclusions. The problem is, those conclusions are nowhere near proven. Though the explanation may satisfy many, some would doubt it and embark on a similar speculative exercise. Everyone is different, so there would be many different views. Just because some sequence of events can be neatly explained by a theory does not make it fact, but I am sure many of the supporters of these conjectures didn't know that.

 

GuitarMan

Lets start there.
You 'believe' there is no god.
Why?
There is no way you can actually show there is no god
There is no logical agruement that you can use to do
so either as you exist on earth.And cannot leave.
While god 'may logically' exist outside your mighty range
of perception. Or any other on this earth.

Thus " there is no god" can only be 'believed to be true'
Because you desire it to be so.

Occam

 

If a certain part of your brain is stimulated with an electrical current, you can be made to see a flower that doesn't exist.

Or smell something that isn't there.

 

I have temporal lobe epilepsy. I have read quite a bit about this. I know, for example, that the visions of St. Paul, Mohamed, Moses, Christ, and Buddha, actually do resemble the complex partial seizures of temporal lobe epilepsy. Different people with TLE have different kinds of seizures. People can hear voices. They can feel separated from their bodies, as if they're floating above themselves. The seizure can actually involve feeling at one with God. (Dostoevsky described his seizures that way.) Things can feel unreal. Van Gogh said his seizures made things surreal, and yet more real.


Many people with TLE tend to be hyperreligious. This has been proven to have to do with their scar tissue being where it is, in their temporal lobe.

Complex partial seizures can make space and objects seem distorted. Guess who else had it? Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland.

I can tell you that, even though I know that my own seizures (which are not religious experiences) are very real and powerful, I know that they are caused by scar tissue in my brain. They distort reality for me. Can you imagine what conclusion I might have come to without the benefit of Medical science? If I didn't know about the scar tissue, maybe I would have to conclude that some evil, unseen force was causeing this. Maybe I would have concluded that God was angry with me.

Sadly, many epileptics and many religious people still believe that seizures are caused by demons or God's wrath. I sometimes get frustrated when I talk to other epileptics online and they believe very strongly that their seizures have grown worse or returned because God is angry with them.

I am glad that this phenomenon is being explored. I am glad that some light is being shed on this topic. Even in this day and age I have been accused of being possessed by demons and of having been cursed by God when people witness a seizure. Fucking ignorance. What, oh what, could I have done at the age of 1 to have pissed a benevolent God off so much?

 

So? That doesn't mean flowers don't exist. That's all I'm saying. Just because you can stimulate a part of a brain and give a person a religious experience doesn't mean God doesn't exist.

Also, to my knowledge, you can't stimulate an area of the brain and have someone experience something that has no basis in reality whatsoever. Even if what they are experiencing doesn't, or doesn't seem to, exist...it still has its foundations in something real. You can't smell a smell that has never existed; you can't see an object that has no foundation whatsoever in reality. So why should religious experience be any different? It's obvious to me that that part of the brain exists because there is something real and persistent about God/spirituality.

Maybe it's just that a God could exist. It is possible...always has been, always will be. That is certainly persistent, and naturally we have evolved to include it in our brains, I think.

I think God is the most advanced, evolved life form conceivable. We know life exists...how long does it have to evolve before it possesses the attributes of God? Is it totally unreasonable to think this may have happened somewhere, sometime over the course of all existence? Not really.