Heart vs Mind - What Makes Us Human

by ballistic 44 Replies latest jw friends

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  Band on the Run

  I am a believer. My denomination is Anglican but I could be comfortable in most mainstream religions. It annoys me that member after member here states that religion is garbage. To back up their assertion, they state what churches believed centuries ago. It bears no resemblance to Anglicanism today. Further, I began to audit a course at the NY Anglican seminary. To save money and to have interfaith dialogue established, most students in the class were not even Anglican. We had Lutherans, Presbyterians, Orthodox, etc. Granted the Witnesses still teach these outdated ideas. Fundies do, too.

  Witnesses and fundies are not all of Christianity. I've never heard of the fall of man, original sin, or any other teachings that atheists here claim all Christians believe. Not a single priest in any geographic area. It is possible that there are breakaway churches. I prayed to "Our Mother in Heaven" in West Virginia. People complimented me afterwards.

  You aren't in the pews on Sunday mornings. I am sometimes. The dialogue is very different. Paul's letters are interpreted radically different from the Witnesses. The Witnesses are NOT Christian.

  When you read Church Fathers, many of them never believed literally. Most parishioners know the great Councils, have read Church Fathers, and never believed these stories as literal truth. Of course, the fundies and Pentecostals are growing by leaps and bounds in the United States, which is one country on the globe. America seems to encourage looniness. The Pope does not believe in these stories as literal truth.

  The Christian Church has its faults. Don't call me someone who believes in the Witness agenda. The Christian Church has nuance. When you choose to define a religion by only one segment of belief, you are not being honest.
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  scotoma

  Emo Phillips was a popular comedian in the late 1980's. He said "I was just thinking - My brain is the most important organ in my body - and then I realized - sure that's my brain talking" Neuroscience has led people to thinking that our brains are the whole show.

  Galaxie: You are confusing the brain with the sensory systems. Our sensory organs give us orientation. The brain has NO sensory organs. In fact our brains have no feeling. Our brains depend on the various sensory receptors, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch/pressure, temperature, proprioception (related to muscle function) nocciception (pain connected to tissue damage).

  This is where modern man is still hindered by the religious concept of a soul separate from the body. The brain is only part of the organism. It's plasticity allows it to change according to the tissue demands of the whole body.

  The "whole" body -brain, gut, muscle, act together. The brain and nervous system usually dominates the body in the case of a perceived emergency.

  The Bible says the desirable thing in man is his "loving-kindness" and the human face of the cherubs suggests this. God is love. Humans are different from animals because of our ability to construct large groups through cooperation (love). Most of our brain power is for perceiving our proper place/function in a clan of about 100-150 and the necessary political/negotiating skills to pull this off.

  Let me add that my references to "GOD" is just as a place holder for the order we perceive in the natural world. Until, humans fully understand that they need each other, GOD is a convenient adaptation to bind people together.
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  jgnat

  Intuition:..instinctive KNOWLEDGE. Knowledge :...facts or experiences - galaxie

  I'm using a finer definition of intuition. It does hold our collective experiences, but it is not the same as language-based knowledge and facts.

  Yes intuition may well have developed first, but by what method: there had to be a sensory organ to process and allow that development. - galaxie

  All sensory input is channelled through the intuitive part of our brain before an edited and summarized version is made available to our consciousness. All my statements are based on recent research, brain scans as people are exposed to experiences. No woo involved.
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  galaxie

  Jgnat. I think we're getting closer to some concensus.

  Simple analogy: You see a light bulb, it is lit, by what means does it manifest light? Of course its by sensing(reacting)to a remote source. That source is the switch. The switch is not the sensor, it is the signal upon which the sensor the bulb reacts, if the bulb is not lit and the switch is in the on position then there is no light why? Because the sensor is inoperative.

  By the same means (circuitry)although much more intricate the brain reacts to or senses the signals.

  Those signals or switches; pain , sight , smell etc are picked up by the main sensor the brain. That is why under anaesthetic the brain(sensor) is tricked into not reacting to the affected switches even if they are being activated.EG tooth extraction, surgery etc..So the conclusion must be brain is the sensor upon which the drug (anaesthetic) is acting upon.

  Anyway back to topic: Heart vs mind what makes us human? I admit my contribution was by way of going back to our early formation which essentially and fundementaly is what makes us modern humans. My reasoning was contrary to Ballistic who seemed to say were creatures with feeling first then brain thought after.

  Of course I'm not sure what stage of creature he was referring to perhaps he is talking about contemporary man?

  In that scenario I would still take the opinion that without the brain there is no emotion , instinct or any other function. Essentially IMO it is the development of our primitive nervous system into the complex circuitry of which the brain is the main cluster that makes us human.
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  jgnat

  The brain is the receiver, not the sensor.

  Our difference may be a matter of semantics. We say "gut", "heart", "visceral", but that is more a matter of convention than fact. We are flooded with an instinct or a feeling (in our intuitive/instinctual mind) and we may even act on it without thinking.

  We are creatures with emotion first and reasoning after.

  What it might require is a broader understanding of the mind, that it is not a simple circuit whatsoever, that our reasoning is not primarily binary but consensus.

  This is what is turning on and off. Notice how many directions the flow may go.

  This is the binary circuit on which all computers are based. On or off.

  

  Since even bats have brains, it's not the brain itself that makes us human or gave us the stunning evolutionary edge. It's how we use our brains.
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  jgnat

  The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Sharon Begley

  The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker
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  paranoia agent

  also read think fast, think slow
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  galaxie

  Jgnat. Yes I agree its how we use our brains, but you'll agree the brain had to develop to be used.

  The bats brain developed in much the same way , but the evolutionary differences make it a bat.

  The brain is the receiver correct, why ? Because it is the primary organ which receives the signals, lets call them sub sensors if you like but they are switches in the circuiratery? Sense . The brain receives these signals as you say the receiver. In order to recieve with the objective of reacting the brain must make sense of the signal hence sensory(of the sences) Sensor:...device which detects or MEASURES the presence of something. The signals for the receiver do not do the measuring that is the brains function. Therefore it follows, by definition it must be the main sensor. Analogy ...if you stub your toe and feel pain what tells you the pain is from the toe rather than the finger? Its the brain sensing the signal from that area. It is the interruption of the break in the nerve circuitry in that area which the brain senses and then we feel the pain its all down to the brain .
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  jgnat

  The brain is not just one big logical organ, and relative intelligence between creatures is not directly related to the size or number of neurons. Logic resides in a teeny tiny section.

  
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  jgnat

  Thanks, paranoia agent. I'll put that on my reading list.

  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-and-slow?from_search=true