Project Reason is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.
Nick is unveiling how humans are prone to supernatural thoughts. I’ve said it before; that tangible scientific evidence only brings us so far in dismissing religion and god altogether (rather than claiming no evidence). The final nudge comes once one understands that the human mind is biologically hard wired to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way. These cognitions are neurologically unavoidable unnatural inquisitions in response to the physical construct of our natural environment ( IE why am I here? What else?). These questions eventually trigger unnatural answers for those who need or were taught to answer them using the supernatural. What nick is trying to bring to the table is how enmeshed religion and science is. Yet, what I see is how far someone need deviate from reality (or evidence) to maintain religious viability.
Science doesn’t have every answer and will never have answers to questions like “why am I here” and that is where the psychedelic fungus of religion lives that people like Nick like to tripp on.
Exactly. He just doesn’t realize that his trip inevitable ends with evidence, which disproves his point anyway. Query whether he has the balls to exercise such thoughts rather than deny, which he so resoundingly accuses us of doing. Either way, the more religion tries to embody science by claiming extrapolations of the truth as gods hand, the more probable it seems that some of these guys might get a light-bulb moment and think, “shit I’m wrong.” Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. After all, the religious delusion is a hell of a stone wall. Some psychologists claim it to be equally as cognitively impenetrable as perception. I really hope information technology would just hurry up and invent a reason app for life. But then I guess many of my sources of fun would be torpedoed. God damn life, huh?
jobyrne8989 - 25 April 2012 10:30 AM
Nick is unveiling how humans are prone to supernatural thoughts. I’ve said it before; that tangible scientific evidence only brings us so far in dismissing religion and god altogether (rather than claiming no evidence). The final nudge comes once one understands that the human mind is biologically hard wired to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way. These cognitions are neurologically unavoidable unnatural inquisitions in response to the physical construct of our natural environment ( IE why am I here? What else?). These questions eventually trigger unnatural answers for those who need or were taught to answer them using the supernatural.
Have not been reading every post so may be off, but wondered how “unnatural” applies to what seems a common human disposition?
Nick is unveiling how humans are prone to supernatural thoughts. I’ve said it before; that tangible scientific evidence only brings us so far in dismissing religion and god altogether (rather than claiming no evidence). The final nudge comes once one understands that the human mind is biologically hard wired to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way. These cognitions are neurologically unavoidable unnatural inquisitions in response to the physical construct of our natural environment ( IE why am I here? What else?). These questions eventually trigger unnatural answers for those who need or were taught to answer them using the supernatural. What nick is trying to bring to the table is how enmeshed religion and science is. Yet, what I see is how far someone need deviate from reality (or evidence) to maintain religious viability.
Science doesn’t have every answer and will never have answers to questions like “why am I here” and that is where the psychedelic fungus of religion lives that people like Nick like to tripp on.
And yet those questions are simply resonances of fundamental instinctual questions that are always present and always require answers which, if not satisfactory, motivate survival related actions. E.g., the question “Who Am I?” derives directly from the self-preservation question “How Am I (right now)?” (e.g., hungry, in pain, etc.) The question “Why Am I Here?” derives from the orientation questions “Where Am I? What’s Going On?” And so on. So these questions get charged with the immediacy of survival. It’s how we relate to and seek to come to terms with such questions that is important.
“m
Wrong, Burt. “How am I” and the likes have biological/physical checkpoints that trigger and calibrate their recurrent inception. Question such as “why am I here” are unnatural questions, which, though highly exercised, have no cognitive relationship to “how am I” until it (“why am I here”) is answered. The process presupposes knowledge regarding authentic self. The answer operationalizes future unnatural thoughts if you answer it with god.
jobyrne8989 - 25 April 2012 10:30 AM
Nick is unveiling how humans are prone to supernatural thoughts. I’ve said it before; that tangible scientific evidence only brings us so far in dismissing religion and god altogether (rather than claiming no evidence). The final nudge comes once one understands that the human mind is biologically hard wired to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way. These cognitions are neurologically unavoidable unnatural inquisitions in response to the physical construct of our natural environment ( IE why am I here? What else?). These questions eventually trigger unnatural answers for those who need or were taught to answer them using the supernatural.
Have not been reading every post so may be off, but wondered how “unnatural” applies to what seems a common human disposition?
Natural cognition is highly limited and normally only good for answering questions, understanding certain developmental milestones, and not much more. It refers only to certain thoughts fundamentally attached to its apparatus in its current biological state. Normal cognition, on the other hand, is highly adaptive to stimuli making what seems natural to be any common thought. .
Natural cognition is highly limited and normally only good for answering questions, understanding certain developmental milestones, and not much more. It refers only to certain thoughts fundamentally attached to its apparatus in its current biological state. Normal cognition, on the other hand, is highly adaptive to stimuli making what seems natural to be any common thought. .
Natural cognition is highly limited and normally only good for answering questions, understanding certain developmental milestones, and not much more. It refers only to certain thoughts fundamentally attached to its apparatus in its current biological state. Normal cognition, on the other hand, is highly adaptive to stimuli making what seems natural to be any common thought. .
???!
Shit, ok
The polar opposite of extraordinary (literal use of the word) cognition isn’t stability, it’s natural cognition. Natural cognition presupposes cognitive processes such as, say, self-criticism. It refers only to the generally unalterable attentional, memorial, learning, and Inferential procedures directly resulting in evolutionary hardwired thoughts that sustain [life].
I may be able to explain it better once I have a coffee.
Nick is unveiling how humans are prone to supernatural thoughts. I’ve said it before; that tangible scientific evidence only brings us so far in dismissing religion and god altogether (rather than claiming no evidence). The final nudge comes once one understands that the human mind is biologically hard wired to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way. These cognitions are neurologically unavoidable unnatural inquisitions in response to the physical construct of our natural environment ( IE why am I here? What else?). These questions eventually trigger unnatural answers for those who need or were taught to answer them using the supernatural. What nick is trying to bring to the table is how enmeshed religion and science is. Yet, what I see is how far someone need deviate from reality (or evidence) to maintain religious viability.
Science doesn’t have every answer and will never have answers to questions like “why am I here” and that is where the psychedelic fungus of religion lives that people like Nick like to tripp on.
And yet those questions are simply resonances of fundamental instinctual questions that are always present and always require answers which, if not satisfactory, motivate survival related actions. E.g., the question “Who Am I?” derives directly from the self-preservation question “How Am I (right now)?” (e.g., hungry, in pain, etc.) The question “Why Am I Here?” derives from the orientation questions “Where Am I? What’s Going On?” And so on. So these questions get charged with the immediacy of survival. It’s how we relate to and seek to come to terms with such questions that is important.
“m
Wrong, Burt. “How am I” and the likes have biological/physical checkpoints that trigger and calibrate their recurrent inception. Question such as “why am I here” are unnatural questions, which, though highly exercised, have no cognitive relationship to “how am I” until it (“why am I here”) is answered. The process presupposes knowledge regarding authentic self. The answer operationalizes future unnatural thoughts if you answer it with god.
You are being imprecise in your response. I didn’t relate “how am I” to “why am I here” I related it to “who am I.” “Why am I here” was related to the orienting question “where am I, what is going on?” What I was point out, which you apparently missed, was the way that the basic survival related questions, when taken to another level of thought (available to us as self-conscious entities) have natural (not unnatural) correlates. Of course, the basic survival questions are interconnected and the biological and cognitive processes involved in maintain a state in which answers are satisfactory act together: how I am will depend on where I am and who I’m with and so on. But the metaphysical correlates of these questions arise naturally when we start questioning more than basic physical survival. So not unnatural, although because such questions are perhaps unanswerable people often go off into flights of fancy trying to provide quick and facile answers (and culture also provides answers, hence the close connection between culture and religion).
Natural cognition is highly limited and normally only good for answering questions, understanding certain developmental milestones, and not much more. It refers only to certain thoughts fundamentally attached to its apparatus in its current biological state. Normal cognition, on the other hand, is highly adaptive to stimuli making what seems natural to be any common thought. .
???!
Shit, ok
The polar opposite of extraordinary (literal use of the word) cognition isn’t stability, it’s natural cognition. Natural cognition presupposes cognitive processes such as, say, self-criticism. It refers only to the generally unalterable attentional, memorial, learning, and Inferential procedures directly resulting in evolutionary hardwired thoughts that sustain [life].
I may be able to explain it better once I have a coffee.
I was taking “unnatural” as “abnormal,” or pathological. I think you’re using it differently. That’s my problem, but suspect it is also shared by others. You know, our religious friends say being gay is “unnatural,” etc etc etc. I wonder if there isn’t a different way of defining “natural” so as to avoid the freight of “unnatural.”
Nick is unveiling how humans are prone to supernatural thoughts. I’ve said it before; that tangible scientific evidence only brings us so far in dismissing religion and god altogether (rather than claiming no evidence). The final nudge comes once one understands that the human mind is biologically hard wired to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way. These cognitions are neurologically unavoidable unnatural inquisitions in response to the physical construct of our natural environment ( IE why am I here? What else?). These questions eventually trigger unnatural answers for those who need or were taught to answer them using the supernatural. What nick is trying to bring to the table is how enmeshed religion and science is. Yet, what I see is how far someone need deviate from reality (or evidence) to maintain religious viability.
Science doesn’t have every answer and will never have answers to questions like “why am I here” and that is where the psychedelic fungus of religion lives that people like Nick like to tripp on.
And yet those questions are simply resonances of fundamental instinctual questions that are always present and always require answers which, if not satisfactory, motivate survival related actions. E.g., the question “Who Am I?” derives directly from the self-preservation question “How Am I (right now)?” (e.g., hungry, in pain, etc.) The question “Why Am I Here?” derives from the orientation questions “Where Am I? What’s Going On?” And so on. So these questions get charged with the immediacy of survival. It’s how we relate to and seek to come to terms with such questions that is important.
“m
Wrong, Burt. “How am I” and the likes have biological/physical checkpoints that trigger and calibrate their recurrent inception. Question such as “why am I here” are unnatural questions, which, though highly exercised, have no cognitive relationship to “how am I” until it (“why am I here”) is answered. The process presupposes knowledge regarding authentic self. The answer operationalizes future unnatural thoughts if you answer it with god.
You are being imprecise in your response. I didn’t relate “how am I” to “why am I here” I related it to “who am I.” “Why am I here” was related to the orienting question “where am I, what is going on?” What I was point out, which you apparently missed, was the way that the basic survival related questions, when taken to another level of thought (available to us as self-conscious entities) have natural (not unnatural) correlates. Of course, the basic survival questions are interconnected and the biological and cognitive processes involved in maintain a state in which answers are satisfactory act together: how I am will depend on where I am and who I’m with and so on. But the metaphysical correlates of these questions arise naturally when we start questioning more than basic physical survival. So not unnatural, although because such questions are perhaps unanswerable people often go off into flights of fancy trying to provide quick and facile answers (and culture also provides answers, hence the close connection between culture and religion).
They’re naturally correlated but not natural. Natural cognition develops into normal cognitive processes, but the integrity of the dynamic is jeopardized because we (humans) hardly revisit, let alone have the ability to realign the maladaptive processes we face when the supernatural enters the equation at such a young age.
I apologize for missing the original point, but I get it now. What do you think of mine?
Natural cognition is highly limited and normally only good for answering questions, understanding certain developmental milestones, and not much more. It refers only to certain thoughts fundamentally attached to its apparatus in its current biological state. Normal cognition, on the other hand, is highly adaptive to stimuli making what seems natural to be any common thought. .
???!
Shit, ok
The polar opposite of extraordinary (literal use of the word) cognition isn’t stability, it’s natural cognition. Natural cognition presupposes cognitive processes such as, say, self-criticism. It refers only to the generally unalterable attentional, memorial, learning, and Inferential procedures directly resulting in evolutionary hardwired thoughts that sustain [life].
I may be able to explain it better once I have a coffee.
I was taking “unnatural” as “abnormal,” or pathological. I think you’re using it differently. That’s my problem, but suspect it is also shared by others. You know, our religious friends say being gay is “unnatural,” etc etc etc. I wonder if there isn’t a different way of defining “natural” so as to avoid the freight of “unnatural.”
Not w/o having a better appreciation of where you’re coming from. May be impossible to avoid some language freight here, but would be best to avoid “unnatural.” Hell, cancer is natural.. Am in the dark here with a one-battery pen-light.
Don’t know if this post addresses the “natural” vs. “unnatural” issue, which paints and “either/or” dichotomy, but let me offer this instead. Rubber hammer hits knee, knee jerks. No cognition involved. I see a truck coming at me in the wrong lane, some very quick cognition to the effect that “I’m toast.” I read about some European countries defaulting, so I purchase more silver or gold, lots of intervening cognitions there.
Maybe some of the issue is the “distance” between the eliciting stimuli and the eventual consequent thought. Nothing “natural” or “unnatural,” just the number of steps and the “linkage” between those steps. Guy sees an apple falling from a tree and ends up postulating gravity. Someone else is pulled by a man from an earthquake shattered house and praises god for having saved her. In one case we have the development of a theory of physics, in the other, confirmation of some deity. She apparently did not ponder about who/what go her there to begin with, but I quibble.
Nick is unveiling how humans are prone to supernatural thoughts. I’ve said it before; that tangible scientific evidence only brings us so far in dismissing religion and god altogether (rather than claiming no evidence). The final nudge comes once one understands that the human mind is biologically hard wired to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way. These cognitions are neurologically unavoidable unnatural inquisitions in response to the physical construct of our natural environment ( IE why am I here? What else?). These questions eventually trigger unnatural answers for those who need or were taught to answer them using the supernatural. What nick is trying to bring to the table is how enmeshed religion and science is. Yet, what I see is how far someone need deviate from reality (or evidence) to maintain religious viability.
Science doesn’t have every answer and will never have answers to questions like “why am I here” and that is where the psychedelic fungus of religion lives that people like Nick like to tripp on.
And yet those questions are simply resonances of fundamental instinctual questions that are always present and always require answers which, if not satisfactory, motivate survival related actions. E.g., the question “Who Am I?” derives directly from the self-preservation question “How Am I (right now)?” (e.g., hungry, in pain, etc.) The question “Why Am I Here?” derives from the orientation questions “Where Am I? What’s Going On?” And so on. So these questions get charged with the immediacy of survival. It’s how we relate to and seek to come to terms with such questions that is important.
“m
Wrong, Burt. “How am I” and the likes have biological/physical checkpoints that trigger and calibrate their recurrent inception. Question such as “why am I here” are unnatural questions, which, though highly exercised, have no cognitive relationship to “how am I” until it (“why am I here”) is answered. The process presupposes knowledge regarding authentic self. The answer operationalizes future unnatural thoughts if you answer it with god.
You are being imprecise in your response. I didn’t relate “how am I” to “why am I here” I related it to “who am I.” “Why am I here” was related to the orienting question “where am I, what is going on?” What I was point out, which you apparently missed, was the way that the basic survival related questions, when taken to another level of thought (available to us as self-conscious entities) have natural (not unnatural) correlates. Of course, the basic survival questions are interconnected and the biological and cognitive processes involved in maintain a state in which answers are satisfactory act together: how I am will depend on where I am and who I’m with and so on. But the metaphysical correlates of these questions arise naturally when we start questioning more than basic physical survival. So not unnatural, although because such questions are perhaps unanswerable people often go off into flights of fancy trying to provide quick and facile answers (and culture also provides answers, hence the close connection between culture and religion).
They’re naturally correlated but not natural. Natural cognition develops into normal cognitive processes, but the integrity of the dynamic is jeopardized because we (humans) hardly revisit, let alone have the ability to realign the maladaptive processes we face when the supernatural enters the equation at such a young age.
I apologize for missing the original point, but I get it now. What do you think of mine?
Well, I’m with Dennis on the term “unnatural.” To much baggage attached to that, also to “supernatural.” I get what you’re saying, but the words get in the way a bit (isn’t that a line from a song). I would say that religious thought is a natural outcome of normal cognitive processes, to make an analogy, so are other forms of abstract thought such as mathematics. It’s all “natural” in that sense, and that’s a large part of the problem. What is required are methods and validity criteria for testing the results of the thought. For example, I recall seeing an interview with John Nash where he was asked why he believed all the paranoid fantasies he had. His reply was that they were believable because they came from the same place in him mind that his mathematical thought came from. Regarding the problems arising from cultural conditioning, that is a real issue. In part, the cultural “background” is a mish mash of fantasies held by people who have not grown out of them - an educational issue - and for parents an issue of concern (assuming they’re not promoting indoctrination with their own fantasies).
Nick is unveiling how humans are prone to supernatural thoughts. I’ve said it before; that tangible scientific evidence only brings us so far in dismissing religion and god altogether (rather than claiming no evidence). The final nudge comes once one understands that the human mind is biologically hard wired to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way. These cognitions are neurologically unavoidable unnatural inquisitions in response to the physical construct of our natural environment ( IE why am I here? What else?). These questions eventually trigger unnatural answers for those who need or were taught to answer them using the supernatural. What nick is trying to bring to the table is how enmeshed religion and science is. Yet, what I see is how far someone need deviate from reality (or evidence) to maintain religious viability.
Science doesn’t have every answer and will never have answers to questions like “why am I here” and that is where the psychedelic fungus of religion lives that people like Nick like to tripp on.
And yet those questions are simply resonances of fundamental instinctual questions that are always present and always require answers which, if not satisfactory, motivate survival related actions. E.g., the question “Who Am I?” derives directly from the self-preservation question “How Am I (right now)?” (e.g., hungry, in pain, etc.) The question “Why Am I Here?” derives from the orientation questions “Where Am I? What’s Going On?” And so on. So these questions get charged with the immediacy of survival. It’s how we relate to and seek to come to terms with such questions that is important.
“m
Wrong, Burt. “How am I” and the likes have biological/physical checkpoints that trigger and calibrate their recurrent inception. Question such as “why am I here” are unnatural questions, which, though highly exercised, have no cognitive relationship to “how am I” until it (“why am I here”) is answered. The process presupposes knowledge regarding authentic self. The answer operationalizes future unnatural thoughts if you answer it with god.
You are being imprecise in your response. I didn’t relate “how am I” to “why am I here” I related it to “who am I.” “Why am I here” was related to the orienting question “where am I, what is going on?” What I was point out, which you apparently missed, was the way that the basic survival related questions, when taken to another level of thought (available to us as self-conscious entities) have natural (not unnatural) correlates. Of course, the basic survival questions are interconnected and the biological and cognitive processes involved in maintain a state in which answers are satisfactory act together: how I am will depend on where I am and who I’m with and so on. But the metaphysical correlates of these questions arise naturally when we start questioning more than basic physical survival. So not unnatural, although because such questions are perhaps unanswerable people often go off into flights of fancy trying to provide quick and facile answers (and culture also provides answers, hence the close connection between culture and religion).
They’re naturally correlated but not natural. Natural cognition develops into normal cognitive processes, but the integrity of the dynamic is jeopardized because we (humans) hardly revisit, let alone have the ability to realign the maladaptive processes we face when the supernatural enters the equation at such a young age.
I apologize for missing the original point, but I get it now. What do you think of mine?
I would say that religious thought is a natural outcome of normal cognitive processes, to make an analogy, so are other forms of abstract thought such as mathematics…
We all agree that it’s normal to question the supernatural. Religious thought is something different because it requires answers beyond cognitive ability. Religious thought is an unnatural response to either conditioning or one’s cognition doing something it shouldn’t be doing. Of course religion is so widely accepted that the phrase ” it’s normal to think about religion” is normal. But to explain how we got here in the first place, it helps to understand the human proclivity to exercise cognition in an extraordinary way, and then receive answers from the delusional or manipulative. I mean, just imagine being one of the first few lied to about sky people. Holy shit would that be exciting and easy to accept; especially since you’ve been lugging around the completely normal supernatural inquisition. Voila, god.
It simply is not right for me now to just ignore what is happening as a result of meaphysical repression on the young. It is really the same as tolerating any other form of child abuse. That is why I want to learn what is so attractive about metaphysical repression to make it the dominant influence it has become. What better way to begin than to experience the denial of the heart as is the norm here in favor of glorifying the literal mind.
Anyone who doesn’t buy your bullshit is guilty of child abuse!? Holy god shit with peanuts are you fucked up.
I didn’t ask you to buy it. A majority as has been proven both online and in the real world don’t buy it and serve to suppress eros in one way or another. Just because the odds are against me is no reason to become part of this majority. Simone had the courage to “annoy the Great Beast.” Perhaps I should strive for similar courage.
You quote Simone more then a preacher quotes Jesus, the claimed son of god. Quoting Simone nobody’s views on nothing makes your arguments even more pathetic then they already are, which is saying a lot.
It simply is not right for me now to just ignore what is happening as a result of meaphysical repression on the young. It is really the same as tolerating any other form of child abuse. That is why I want to learn what is so attractive about metaphysical repression to make it the dominant influence it has become. What better way to begin than to experience the denial of the heart as is the norm here in favor of glorifying the literal mind.
Anyone who doesn’t buy your bullshit is guilty of child abuse!? Holy god shit with peanuts are you fucked up.
I didn’t ask you to buy it. A majority as has been proven both online and in the real world don’t buy it and serve to suppress eros in one way or another. Just because the odds are against me is no reason to become part of this majority. Simone had the courage to “annoy the Great Beast.” Perhaps I should strive for similar courage.
You quote Simone more then a preacher quotes Jesus, the claimed son of god. Quoting Simone nobody’s views on nothing makes your arguments even more pathetic then they already are, which is saying a lot.
What is even more pathetic is your inabiility to post an adequate insult worthy of your righteous indignation. You should have at least concluded with “Yo momma sucks.” As it is , it is too wishy washy.
