[coberst]

Analytic Philosophy, Creationism, and Space Program

Humans display an innate desire to ‘lose the body’. In one form or another Analytic Philosophy, Creationism, and the American Space Program are products of the human effort to flee its material body and to send its spirit into a world free of the mortality associated with our body.

“We’ve evolved to be creationists” is a quote from the “The Atlantic Monthly” article “Is God an Accident?”—December 2005 issue.

Paul Bloom, author of the article, informs us that “human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena…this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry”.

Paul Bloom informs us that nearly everyone on earth believes in miracles, afterlife, and the creation of the earth by some supernatural power. While doing research into infant behavior, psychologists have recently discovered that humans are born with a predisposition to believe in some supernatural actuality. These scientists conclude that this predisposition is a random happenstance of cognitive functioning gone awry. These conclusions led to the question “Is God an Accident?”

I have just found the answer to a question that has baffled me for years. Why do non-believers love to talk religion? Perhaps talking about religion is much like ‘whistling past the cemetery’.

Everyone loves to talk religion because we are all born with the “gut feeling” that there is a body/mind duality. Because we “feel” that mind is a “spiritual” entity we easily accommodate heaven, soul, god etc.

Science says that this gut feeling is a result of “cognitive functioning gone awry” and religion tells us that this is a matter of faith.

In the 20th century Anglo-American philosophy took the “linguistic turn”. The characteristic of this style of philosophy “is based on the belief that it is by analyzing language that we come to understand everything that supposedly matters to philosophy, such as concepts, meaning, reference, knowledge, truth, reason, and value.”—George Lakoff

Lakoff considers this turn to linguistics was fundamentally correct but that it was unfortunately too narrowly focused on the work of mathematician Gottlob Frege.

Frege was too narrowly focused upon making mathematics an objective mind-independent reality, which lead him “to adopt a view of all meaning and thought as disembodied and formal…Under Frege’s influence analytic philosophy—a philosophy whose central focus was language—defined itself as formal and logical analysis of allegedly universal, disembodied senses (meanings), propositions , and functions.”

The American space program is an obvious effort to seek out a new world somewhere in the heavens that will be like a giant step for mankind’s effort not only to discard our mortal body but to discard our trashed-out and dying planet.

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

I think that humans try too desperately to move our presumed position between God and animal closer to God and further from our hairy ancestors. What do you think about this flight from the body and the planet?

[bodigami]

Most sciences have made the brain a fetish.
Most philosophies have made the false duality of mind/soul and body a fetish.
Most religions have made a fetish of words.

All of them are wrong. If humans have a soul why hate the body? If humans have a body why hate the soul? If words where just the first type of communication why try to understand truth with them? There must be channels of communication between "matter" and "soul", and words fall short of an explanation of this subtle reality. Also, if this is so, then body and mind have a symbiotic relationship and are part of the same Everything. But humans live in war, even with themselves. Soul and Body should unite, not fight a war that doesn't go anywhere.

[basil_hayden]

This was all covered by Jack Handy in his Deep Thoughts skits on Saturday Night Live back int he day.

[jboogy]

Zensui wrote
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ost sciences have made the brain a fetish.
Most philosophies have made the false duality of mind/soul and body a fetish.
Most religions have made a fetish of words.

All of them are wrong. If humans have a soul why hate the body? If humans have a body why hate the soul? If words where just the first type of communication why try to understand truth with them? There must be channels of communication between "matter" and "soul", and words fall short of an explanation of this subtle reality. Also, if this is so, then body and mind have a symbiotic relationship and are part of the same Everything. But humans live in war, even with themselves. Soul and Body should unite, not fight a war that doesn't go anywhere.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', '[')b]Zensui wrote
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ost sciences have made the brain a fetish.
Most philosophies have made the false duality of mind/soul and body a fetish.
Most religions have made a fetish of words.

All of them are wrong. If humans have a soul why hate the body? If humans have a body why hate the soul? If words where just the first type of communication why try to understand truth with them? There must be channels of communication between "matter" and "soul", and words fall short of an explanation of this subtle reality. Also, if this is so, then body and mind have a symbiotic relationship and are part of the same Everything. But humans live in war, even with themselves. Soul and Body should unite, not fight a war that doesn't go anywhere.

[jboogy]

The brain cannot live without a body ( except in a Futurama episode ), the body will only live with mechanical life-support without a brain. Maybe I don't have the necessary gray-matter to Grok what you all is saying, but when you boil it down to gelatin I think the notion that there's a bunch of ethereal, transparent souls floating around is kinda' far-fetched, same with our brain-conciousness going on extended trips to the outer reaches of space. WHY HAVE I NEVER SEEN A GHOST ? Why won't God or my dead grandparents ever visit me? Why hast thou ghosty-whosties forsaken me?

[lateStarter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', 'T')he brain cannot live without a body ( except in a Futurama episode ), the body will only live with mechanical life-support without a brain. Maybe I don't have the necessary gray-matter to Grok what you all is saying, but when you boil it down to gelatin I think the notion that there's a bunch of ethereal, transparent souls floating around is kinda' far-fetched, same with our brain-conciousness going on extended trips to the outer reaches of space. WHY HAVE I NEVER SEEN A GHOST ? Why won't God or my dead grandparents ever visit me? Why hast thou ghosty-whosties forsaken me?

[jboogy]

Ahhhhhh.....I just need a little faith, is what you're saying. If I believe real hard and click my heels together three times, I, in one way or another, will live on beyond my earthly bod. Thank God and pass the biscuits, I have achieved Nirvana, or a reasonable facsimile.

[oswald622]

from an evolutionary perspective it seems highly unlikely that we would have a religious "sense" as some kind of accidental flaw. would we evolve sight if there were nothing to see, or hearing if there were nothing to hear? it seems more likely to me that we have an innate religious sense because there is a supernatural realm to be sensed.

[ivanillich]

Try reading Dialectic of Enlightenment by Horkheimer and Adorno. Pretty much on to this in the 40's. Human reason is the attempt to overcome myth, but in this attempt reverts to its opposite (myth). To call this biological, as the article does, however, is just another attempt to transcend history and material reality and establish science as the new unquestioned master.

[FreakOil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oswald622', 'f')rom an evolutionary perspective it seems highly unlikely that we would have a religious "sense" as some kind of accidental flaw. would we evolve sight if there were nothing to see, or hearing if there were nothing to hear? it seems more likely to me that we have an innate religious sense because there is a supernatural realm to be sensed.

[bodigami]

Sorry, my first reply was written quickly... basically it was a reaction to something I've seeing quite often: people starting to think, but using only part of mind (the left side of the brain). This may not be so, because I didn't read the full post. OP, sorry for hijacking this thread, but I will explain this further.

First: words are an aproximation of our thoughts. We actually think without words, but use words as a form of communication and storage. Words are not deep.

Soul is related to the image of some form of ghost that lives within the body. But as far as we know, soul is either not understood or unfairly negated. Soul exists, but we need to be surer that we're refering to the same phenomenom. Basically Soul is Mind that wants to be eternal. I say wants because unless we experience death we will not know for sure if this soul is eternal or if it's all bullshit. So, negating Soul should not be done unless we understand it fully.

We evolved to be adaptable and flexible... but our Civilization and Culture has started an internal war within Humanity's Soul. Because if we think in an specialized way, we will never see the Whole... which is key to living life and being happy.

I don't ask for faith in one truth, I ask for seekers of truth. And this journey may be eternal. Now, if you're seeking for truth, do you really believe to be on the Path? Are you sure that your mind's life has going somewhere? Why not? really, this is important.

Because if there are many seekers of the truth, we can communicate our ideas in a calm way and evolve them further. This may not be eternal, because mind may not be eternal... but it will evolve the state of the art of Humanity as a specie, as one worldwide mind. The worst that can happen, if we're honest with ourselves, is that we can be more happy in this very life.

Well, that is a better aproximation of what I meant.

metta

[BigTex]

Another interesting theory is that much of our surplus intelligence that does not appear to have survival value (such as the propensity toward spirituality) is actually the result of elaborate and complex early mating rituals.

Perhaps our spirituality is the human equivalent of a large spread of colorful feather on a male bird that the lady birds find attractive.

The question now is how an enhanced spiritual awareness would provide an advantage in a mating ritual.

Maybe the spiritual cave man would tell the cave ladies that the cave god had sent him a message, and the message was that all of the cave ladies should sleep with him many many times.

When the other cave men saw that this worked, they might have started doing it too.

It might have been as simple as that.

There are modern precedents for this kind of thing.

Rasputin is probably the best example.

[FreakOil]

I've just reread the OP, and I'm getting the impression that people are misinterpreting Coberst. It seems to me like classic scientific materialism.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'p')sychologists have recently discovered that humans are born with a predisposition to believe in some supernatural actuality. These scientists conclude that this predisposition is a random happenstance of cognitive functioning gone awry.

[coberst]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreakOil', 'I')'ve just reread the OP, and I'm getting the impression that people are misinterpreting Coberst. It seems to me like classic scientific materialism.

Am I way off base here?

[FreakOil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coberst', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreakOil', 'I')'ve just reread the OP, and I'm getting the impression that people are misinterpreting Coberst. It seems to me like classic scientific materialism.

Am I way off base here?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreakOil', 'T')houghts and emotions in the brain are just the result of chemical reactions.

[coberst]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreakOil', 'T')houghts and emotions in the brain are just the result of chemical reactions.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coberst', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreakOil', 'T')houghts and emotions in the brain are just the result of chemical reactions.

[Stratovarius]

If anyone didn't know, coberst is a banned member from www.galilean-library.org/academy . He always posts this random crap that sometimes doesn't make any sense then runs when someone questions him about it.