@MaxWilder

I'm not trying to make you pick a side, I'm trying to show your brain already picked one for you the instant you form an idea about anything.

I'm also trying to show that by using the concept of "belief" in too broad a sense, you run counter to centuries of philosophical debate and risk falling into a religious rhetorical trap.

Finally, if you don't like "belief", you should check out neuroscience as they postulate no such thing. It doesn't mean though that there are no mechanisms in the brain that play the role of belief as we understand it in "psychological" or "mental" level (as opposed to a "neurological" or "brain" lelve).

@Bidouleroux, I think you might be projecting your own personal need to pick a side onto others. I really don't have a belief about Universe-level consciousness. It might exist, it might not. I won't pick odds, because that is absurd to do for something that has no evidence pro or con. I am comfortable not knowing.

I will say, however, that if it does exist, it is probably something so different from what we experience in normal life that it is incompressible to our little minds. I will also say that I do hope something like that exists, and that it is tied to our own consciousness somehow so that we don't just "disappear" when we die.

But hoping does not make something so. I understand that, and so I do not count it as evidence pro or con.

I'm not really into quantum physics or neuroscience, but if you have any interesting articles that apply, I'll be happy to read them and maybe they'll influence my "belief". So far I've seen nothing but unsupported theory and conjecture.

I read his new book a couple months ago after I heard Richard Dawkins mention it. It's good, and thought provoking, and he makes his point well. In fact the main problem as a reader is that he makes his point TOO well. It's like an hour in you agree with him and understand his point, but then you've got 7 more hours of him trying to convince you. It really feels like a letter written to other scientists, trying to break them of their acquiescence to religion on questions of well-being, morality and "the good life". But even if you're not the intended audience, it's still fascinating.

I've always thought Richard Dawkins is at his most interesting and inspiring when he's talking about Evolutionary Biology. It turns out the same is true of Sam Harris talking about Neuroscience, which he gets to do a lot of in this book. Somehow I didn't even know he was a doctor of Neuroscience before.


PS: Someone important put a * in front of the below
amazon=http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211

@mgittle

Agree with you partly. However, I think focusing on religion just in terms of neuroscience is far too narrow a view. Religion brings many, many other benefits in socio-cultural and psychological terms (see here and here for two examples). Far more, in my opinion, than the dangers. But that is not an excuse to overlook the dangers either, and it certainly isn't justification of evils committed in the name of religion.

@chtierna

It really depends on what you call "evidence." Harris clearly sets the bar very high--he will only include as evidence anything that can empirically be tested.

But I think most believers do in fact look at the evidence in their own lives--purely subjective evidence. Has this belief system been useful to them? Has it helped them and the people they care about be happy? Can they see positive benefits in their lives? They may not even believe any of the mystical stuff, but if they answer yes to these questions they have very little motivation to change. Honestly, I think for most human beings, the subjective evidence is far more compelling than the empirical when determining our belief systems.

@BicycleRepairMan

But he clearly is telling us what to believe in this video. You are too. Both of you are telling us to believe that those who are religious are delusional. Delusion is a pathological problem caused by illness. Neither the field of psychology nor psychiatry consider religious beliefs to be delusional (Freud did, but not based on any empirical research--it was his personal view). There is no evidence that I am aware of that shows that religious beliefs are delusional in the medically defined sense. They may be "mistaken beliefs" but that is not the same thing.

This may seem off-topic a bit, but let me explain why I hate these kind of videos. "Atheism" means not believing in a god. That's it. Atheists (after the term "fundamentalist atheists" started floating around) have gone to great lengths to protest that atheism is not a belief system (and hence it is impossible for an atheist to be "fundamentalist").

And yet I see more and more videos like this one which in which atheism is clearly being portrayed as a belief system. It is being associated with a positivistic worldview in which only that which can be measured is real or meaningful. Atheists are presented as more rational and logical than other people. And anyone who is not an atheist is demonized as the "other"--for instance, in your own very words as "delusional" --and described in terms of what they are not (i.e. rational, intelligent, etc.) rather than in terms of what they are (i.e. human beings with complex motives and reasons for believing). In other words, atheism is presented as being downright hostile to religion--though oddly enough "religion" is often narrowly defined as Fundamentalist Christianity and Radical Islam.

I'm an agnostic atheist. That means I don't believe in any particular deity though I don't deny the possibility he/she/it/them may exist. I make no claims about my rationality or that of others. I make no claims about the nature of human knowledge. When I say I'm an atheist I mean I don't believe in a god or gods. That's all atheism should mean. Being an atheist does not make one any better than any other human being on the planet. The condescension that I see in most of these videos is, frankly, disgusting. The fact remains that neither atheists nor believers have any concrete evidence that their particular side is correct. You don't agree with the other side? Fine. But if you want to be treated with respect (and judging by these videos, atheists so desperately do) you need to act in a way that is worthy of respect. That is what will get people listening seriously to what you have to say. Not chastising them as if they were a child.

I agree with what your saying, trust me. But, as I was trying to point out we've, as a species, gone to great lengths to hurt ourselves and negate progress. That is what I was alluding to when I said: "I've seen the worst and the best of things we have in this world come from humans. Many of our terrible aspects can be linked to mental illness, abuse, no education, etc... ".

In many cases the "evil" or "good" are a neutral aspect anyway (if you look at it from a evolution point of view). But, evolution also shows why many of the things we consider good are merely evolutionary necessities to survive, i.e. grouping, society, negative impacts on the group by mentally ill group-mates--leading to punishment/exile/or death. This is present in the animal kingdom as well. There have been some recent books covering this very point and they're quite good; if you wish to read one, my advice would be for "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris.

Lastly, I know science will not have all the answers. But, if we can deal with the problems I listed above it will bring us closer to a day with understanding; but, many problems will still be left (as technology gets more advanced, it requires less and less people to cause near fatal problems for cities-->countries-->and then the world. If we can't find a way to fold the people back into society willingly we may ultimately fail. By the mid-point of this century, maybe even sooner, it may only take one scientist with a vendetta or a psychotic break (caused by the mind or drugs) to create a virus that targets human specific genetics--if that scientist can throw in some nano-tech... That might be it.

Or we could end up with nano-bots able to self-replicate in our bodies and provide us with protection from viruses, bacteria, other nanites, and able to give you your daily medication as well.

The future is clearly open-ended right now, but I don't think it's quite as dim as justanotherday postulates. Yet, science and religion in the long-term are most likely completely incompatible. Religion can stay in the background without causing conflicts, but if it's at the core or upfront competing with science they'll always rub each other the wrong way--as they are nearly polar opposite in function and approach.

/Yes, I do think the "Atheist" in the video is a Anti-theist. It doesn't mean he's wrong, but he is approaching a solution in the opposite direction that I would suggest (unless the religious leader is like the scientist above in my example: psychotic, mentally ill, etc...).

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
I didn't want to derail your conversation there, but as an aside, science has also been a great cause of pain and death. It is has a neutral bias, as I would also see religion. The state of it is largely in the hands of the humans at the helm. We have medicine, but we also have machine guns. We have the United Christian Children's fund, but we also have sexual abusing Fathers.

In reply to this comment by kceaton1:
>> ^justanotherday:

Interesting. I guess everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Besides, given his past, I can see why he is bitter. Life can be cruel. It is hard to embrace any authority when it fails you so miserably. I still don't see why some believers and non-believers can not get along. Of course, the media only focuses on the few that can't get along. The majority of believers and non-believers can get along. Neither can definitively prove the other side is completely right or completely wrong. So they do a sort of agree to disagree. I do believe that anyone, with any kind of sense, realizes that there is much more to humans that transcends all beliefs. We are more than we appears. More than the sum of our parts. At least science proves that concept. But that does not conclude anything else except just that we are more.
--In the final analysis, I think we will find the true answer is beyond all human perceptions. One can't possibly think we are the highest intelligence in the multi-verse space-time. That would be arrogant at best. If we are, then it is a sad multi-verse space-time. If we are not, then the possibilities are endless.--


The only problem with how you put this is that you are giving a value to something we can't reliably judge for ourselves. It's the same gripe he has with religion. Religion likes to contribute to it's own definition and no other relative position is welcome.

We would also be arrogant if we don't consider the fact that we may be the smartest thing there is. We know already that there were most likely ancestors and perhaps non-ancestors in human past that had a high IQ; due to the size of their neo-cortex. The difference is that our lineage brokered the gap between minds with an extremely descriptive language and body language piece of construction in our brain.

Also, you describe humanity as "sad". I've seen the worst and the best of things we have in this world come from humans. Many of our terrible aspects can be linked to mental illness, abuse, no education, etc... Don't give aliens the benefit that they will not have to deal with the same issues.

Finally, science has made HUGE strides in not only understanding ourselves, but also the environment and creatures around us. In 100 years, out of the 250,000 years we've been around, we've made strides that would seem impossible just a decade earlier. In 1995 when I left graduated from high school the Internet was good for gaming and small-scale communications. In one decade it had become HUGE, allowing you to do things never imagined before (even gaming saw the same leap--just from the advancement of the Internet; WoW is a good example). The Internet is now on the verge of becoming threaded into our everyday life; this is true for a nearly endless list of technological changes and scientific knowledge.

Science also has made great leaps in understanding our psyche (soul for others) and our overall brain and psychology. If you want some quick rundowns on what we know don't look at psychology (as it tends to be secondary to neuroscience), look at neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

>> ^justanotherday:

Interesting. I guess everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Besides, given his past, I can see why he is bitter. Life can be cruel. It is hard to embrace any authority when it fails you so miserably. I still don't see why some believers and non-believers can not get along. Of course, the media only focuses on the few that can't get along. The majority of believers and non-believers can get along. Neither can definitively prove the other side is completely right or completely wrong. So they do a sort of agree to disagree. I do believe that anyone, with any kind of sense, realizes that there is much more to humans that transcends all beliefs. We are more than we appears. More than the sum of our parts. At least science proves that concept. But that does not conclude anything else except just that we are more.
--In the final analysis, I think we will find the true answer is beyond all human perceptions. One can't possibly think we are the highest intelligence in the multi-verse space-time. That would be arrogant at best. If we are, then it is a sad multi-verse space-time. If we are not, then the possibilities are endless.--


The only problem with how you put this is that you are giving a value to something we can't reliably judge for ourselves. It's the same gripe he has with religion. Religion likes to contribute to it's own definition and no other relative position is welcome.

We would also be arrogant if we don't consider the fact that we may be the smartest thing there is. We know already that there were most likely ancestors and perhaps non-ancestors in human past that had a high IQ; due to the size of their neo-cortex. The difference is that our lineage brokered the gap between minds with an extremely descriptive language and body language piece of construction in our brain.

Also, you describe humanity as "sad". I've seen the worst and the best of things we have in this world come from humans. Many of our terrible aspects can be linked to mental illness, abuse, no education, etc... Don't give aliens the benefit that they will not have to deal with the same issues.

Finally, science has made HUGE strides in not only understanding ourselves, but also the environment and creatures around us. In 100 years, out of the 250,000 years we've been around, we've made strides that would seem impossible just a decade earlier. In 1995 when I left graduated from high school the Internet was good for gaming and small-scale communications. In one decade it had become HUGE, allowing you to do things never imagined before (even gaming saw the same leap--just from the advancement of the Internet; WoW is a good example). The Internet is now on the verge of becoming threaded into our everyday life; this is true for a nearly endless list of technological changes and scientific knowledge.

Science also has made great leaps in understanding our psyche (soul for others) and our overall brain and psychology. If you want some quick rundowns on what we know don't look at psychology (as it tends to be secondary to neuroscience), look at neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

i apologise for assuming you liked freud - i think i have my wires crossed with someone else. in any case i am always glad to hear when people are suspicious of him, because there is good reason to be. i highly recommend reading "the unknown freud" by frederick crews.

to respond point by point:

1. yes, i agree that the human condition has been examined for thousands of years, and that 'psychology' in some form began with the ancient greeks, if not earlier. but this is oversimplifying things dramatically, and it becomes an argument of definition. i refer to psychology as psychological SCIENCE, which -is- (relatively) new. this difference is not trivial -- until the 19th century, our hypotheses about the human condition were untested. psychological science allows us to see if our philosophies about human perception, cognition, and behaviour, are demonstrably true.

2. the humanists/third wave occupied an important space and time, but were overshadowed by behaviourism/cognitivism. still, i think a lot of people outside of psychology have heard of abraham maslow and his 'hierarchy of needs'. not only that, but humanist psychologists were responsible for the development of the 'client-centered approach', which was hugely influential. i would disagree with you here and say that in research, and clinical psychology, humanist trends are vitally important. in fact, a relatively new sub-discipline within psychology called "positive psychology" is burgeoning. i would suggest that perhaps the reason it seems discouraged is because psychology is so unbelievably broad now, and neuroscience is becoming increasingly popular, that it seems as though interest in wellbeing is small. i don't think it truly is.

3. well, i suspect here we have a true divide that we can't agree on. you believe we have failed in understanding the human condition because of something i believe doesn't exist. i think we understand the human condition fairly well, given our short (scientific) time at examining it. but it is an unwieldly, hugely complex beast, and we are just at the beginning.

and with regard to your points on bashing psychology:

1. if you want to understand a human, it is useful to understand the workings of the brain. would you let a surgeon operate without training? i'm not sure what the problem is with emphasising that students of the science of human thought and behaviour learn how the biology of the mind works.

2. yes, rates are up. population is also up. ability to diagnose accurately is also up. recognition that people have problems, instead of pretending they're fine, is also up. look, i see what you're saying, and it's perfectly reasonable, but i think this problem is enormously complex, and blaming psychology is misplaced.

>> ^enoch:

SDGundam nailed it.
and i dont have anything against psychology as a whole,to do so would be ignoring the many MANY advancements in understanding the human mind.
that being said i have to admit a revulsion to freud (his discovery non-withstanding) i found his conclusions entirely bleak and apocalyptic as i also did neitzche.
this is my opinion but i could make a strong argument for my case.
now i am going to engage in a tactic i really dislike (the bullet argument) but i shall do so in order to maybe communicate a bit where i am coming from NOT to win/lose an argument.
because i do not see this as an argument ...just a differing of opinion based on not only my own bias and prejudice but berticus as well.(hmmm..maybe it IS an argument LOL).
1.psychological/behavioral sciences are new in name only.history reveals that understanding the human condition and mind have been studied for thousands of years see:mystery schools,jesuits etc etc.
2.i am gladdened by the new batch of "humanists",though in american higher education this is..discouraged..due to employment issues,money etc etc.those who do pursue that branch of study might as well become hippies or a talk show host.not much money in that field.
3.you are correct in the vast literature concerning the things we are talking about and should there be any surprise in that fact?
i dont think so.it is the fundamental part of being human to talk about the things that touch us,to attempt to understand ourselves as people and as a society... for good or ill.
i have come to the conclusion (maybe incorrectly) that the great philosophers/psychologists of our time have ultimately failed in their conclusions due to the fact that they totally ignore the ongoing battle between spirit and ego.
humanists at least recognize that there is something more.they may not call it spirit/soul but they do realize that there is a dynamic that people like freud missed entirely.
hell..freud concluded that the ego was EVERYTHING..which puts him in the douchebag column.(mass marketing anyone?).
does this dismiss freud accomplishments? no.
just as i wont dismiss neitzche (even though he was a depressive asshat who we would call EMO nowadays).
i find hegel to be particularly abominable in his conclusions but that does not detract from his brilliance.
jung and r d lang's conclusions were just as flawed and for the same reasons the freud/hegel were flawed.
their conclusions lacked a complete dynamic.
this "third wave" is beginning to address these flaws but the way i see it the elements they are bringing to the table have been in front of us for 3000 yrs.
hence my comment.
let me end this particularly long comment with a few points to why i may be perceived as bashing psychology (rightly so in my opinion).
1.greater and greater pressure put on students to pursue bio-chem for a choice in the field.
2.in america suicides are up.unhappiness is up and the new "maladies of the day" bi-polar,adhd and panic anxiety disorder are up by staggering rates.over the past 20 yrs anti-psychotics,ssri's and sedatives are up exponentially..1000's of percentage points higher than 20 yrs ago.
all with the avg time before diagnosis? 1 1/2 hrs.
i could go on for quite a bit longer but i feel these points suffice to make my point.
conclusion=epic fail.
while my comment may have had a snarky flavor my sentiments were sincere.
i am over-joyed that practical applications based on a more humanistic approach are seriously being considered instead of pumping people full of meds (with full understanding that meds are a necessity at times).
i am assisting a friend who just entered her master program for psychology and i am appalled at the depth of indoctrination and lack of opposing philosophies and understanding and she is being pressured to pursue bio-chem and marginalize any other train or pursuit.
please understand that i am self taught and most likely have gaps in not only my studies but understanding and welcome any opposing thoughts or understanding my friend.
you have always been respectful berticus and while at times we may disagree thats exactly how i look at it..a disagreement and not a forum on who we are as people.
if my thought process is wrong or misguided i would love to hear what you have to say my friend.

@Yogi Actually, my brother spent the past decade or so in rehab. He repeatedly ODs on the day he gets out (with drugs he got while in). Trust me, it's jail for white people with rich parents. It doesn't work. The only thing that keeps him out of it is fear of going back to real jail. If those consequences aren't real, well, what's to stop you from popping that next pill, or bumpin' that next line?

Also, I'm working on my PhD in sensory neuroscience. Don't talk to me about silly scientists.

This is the best way to show that your consciousness, soul, psyche, perception, etc... Is not the core of your mind to say. There is no inner cluster that we "exist" at then grab information and use it. We are more like a connection of various information and inputs/outputs that float on top of a giant constantly idling, shifting, turning, braking, etc... engine.

Our "averaged" perception is the norm. If your brain runs, tuned differently, then the human being floating above has no chance to modify it's ability to change any information you use. This is what makes it hard for some of us to grasp these concepts. Because, by definition our perception and continuity of thought are a delusion. This why acid and associated drugs bend and sway reality, perceptually.

We can only do so much with chemicals as most of the problem is underlying within the engine. How it retrieves memory for you, what comparisons it makes, and what chemicals it orders or re-actively orders for any given input and output; by the brain or our psyche.

----
The brain is a magnificent machine. Even when it seems to spout out insanity you know it is doing a large amount of comparative study, memory consolidation, and giving active personalities/ai to illusions that are very much real to the person involved.

I wonder if we will find a connection one day between our "true perception" or awareness being linked to the ability for the mind to compare data from dream states to input/outputs. Perhaps, our ability to make that final leap is to be able to break the dream barrier from the none. Leading to our first true self measurement of self and comparison to the rest.

Fiction vs. reality? Could it be that simple.

/My rant for the week, have at it you neuroscience geeks.

Alright @enoch, I'll take up your challenge.

I have many questions that I would like answered, that nothing answers yet. I am not very interested in why I exist, because I don't think there is any particular meaning in that - I can read meaning in to my existence, sure, but there's no outside meaning to my existence or anything's existence. Some may view this as cynical, I see it as reasonable.

I am very interested in how. How does my brain work, how do I have a consciousness, how does my body influence my mind, and vice versa.

Why does regular physics break down at sub-atomic levels? Does this fact ripple up throughout the scales, so a quantum fluctuation affects my mood in the end?

Are dreams just random firings of neurons? Are they something else? We often see some sort of meaning in our dreams (and sometimes none at all), why is that? Do we make up the meaning as we go along, or do we project meaning into our dreams for ourselves to interpret? After all, if dreams are in fact created by ourselves, instead of just random, there must (or might) be some underlying meaning in it.

Our psyche is interesting, because our entire view of the world depends on it. A madman may see the world different than me, everyone may see the world different than me, why is that? Is it merely a physiological difference, is it something else? I don't know at this point.

Just because I am an atheist, a militant, rabid one at that, doesn't mean there is nothing that I believe. I believe a lot of things, that I have not had demonstrated. Many things just make sense to me, so I don't question them further. It's hard to list these things without being inane; stuff like gravity, physical laws, the properties of objects so on.

I have my own theories on more advanced stuff, which is completely open to ridicule, but they are things I believe based on my own observations and what I have seen from others more learned in the respected fields. Obviously, when I journey on to guesswork like this, I keep in mind that it might not be like this at all, but so far I think so.

An example: gwiz665's theory of consciousness.

The consciousness is an emergent property of our complex brain structure. It is a very mechanistic thing, which runs like software on our brain hardware. Obviously, I don't know much about our hardware, but this is a very interesting subject. I think that given enough computer power, we can simulate it in a turing machine, but I've grown uncertain as to how this can be accomplished. Hopefully neuroscience will get some insight into this, they're certainly working on it.

I think we can physically see our consciousness, but it's just really, really hard. We can theoretically see which programs run on a computer too, by looking at the electrical currents in the computer, but without knowing how exactly the computer interprets those data, we're pretty much in the dark. It's the same with the mind vs. brain.

I believe that our perception of our consciousness is different from what it actually is. We have very little privileged knowledge about our consciousness, because our brain, basically, makes it up as it goes along. I think there's significant ret-conning going on at all times as well, because our consciousness does not pick up all senses at all times, but our brain does - when something is important enough, it is written into our conscious narrative. How this weighing of importance happens is extremely important to me, how do we value things? We obviously have a way in our consciousness, where we associate meaning, value etc. to things, but what happens at a lower level? How is memory distributed in the brain, how is consciousness, how is deduction etc.

I basically make the assumption that the brain is a computer. A massively parallel computer, which processes a nearly infinite number of threads at once (~1 per neuron). How this is organized is beyond me, I black box it - it just makes sense at this point. It may be very wrong, but it seems to work and answer some questions.

I also assume that I'm right until something tells me otherwise - I think it's the only way to live. I can't doubt everything all the time.

@lampishthing

Regarding the balance of evidence for or against religion, I've previously written:

We might have faith in the esential spiritual hypothesis, that there's an invisible spiritual material (soul, spirit, universal consciouss etc.) that invisibly perturbs neural circuits to make it look as if the brain is self-contained, but 1. modern history is a relentless chipping away of magical thinking like that, and 2. science will finish reverse engineering the human brain in 20-50 years, so I humbly don't recommend betting too much money on that hypothesis.
...
The neuroscience of religion basically shows mystical feelings are just turning off some neural circuits and over-activating others. For example, 'oneness with the universe' is just turning off the neural circuits we develop in infancy that allow us to distinguish between self and world, between where my hand stops and the table starts (one is "me" .. the other is not).

(Originally from: http://blog.videosift.com/dag/On-Atheism?loadcomm=1#comment-910402 )

@cybrbeast:

I think you're mixing up the meaning of dominance. The paper you quoted use dominance in the context of which side of the brain has more activity as measured by EEG. Whereas in the vast majority of cases in neuroscience dominance refers to which side of the brain contains the language centers: Wernicke's and Broca's areas in the case of language dominance, and of course motor dominance in terms of handidness.

Anyways, thanks for the link. I have to say though, the paper you provided had a pretty poor experiment design. Ie: It had a small sample size, no control group, and some significant confounding factors (some of which are mentioned in the discussion) which is probably why the paper was published in s small journal like "Brain and Cognition". Seriously, biased experimenters asking all the questions WTF. In any case, it's interesting to see some evidence even if the evidence (in the paper you linked) is rather weak and quite old. It'd be nice to see a recent systematic review on the topic. Also, EEG readings are quite crude and it'd be interesting if someone can do some fmri studies and see exactly what parts of the brain are activated instead of the incredibly vague localisation to each hemisphere.

>> ^cybrbeast:
>> ^mentality:
The brain doesn't alternate dominance between the two halves or else you'd wake up one day left-handed and another day right handed. As Raaagh said, it'd be nice to see the study as this sounds like another case of the media and journalists coming up with false conclusions by mis-interpreting scientific data.
mentality, that's a baseless assumption that's completely wrong.
From: Asymmetrical Hemispheric Activation and Emotion - The Effects of Unilateral Forced Nostril Breathing
"Changes in nostril breathing efficiency, known as the nasal cycle, were first described by Kayser (1895) and have been well documented since (Keuning, 1968). The relative engorgement of nasal mucosa in each nostril changes over a period ranging from 25 to more than 200 min, resulting in a rhythmic shift of nasal dominance from left to right. Werntz et al. (1983) demonstrated a lateralized rhythm of cerebral hemispheric activation that is associated with the nasal cycle. The relative EEG activity in the left and right hemispheres shifts back and forth with a periodicity comparable to the nasal cycle. The phases of the cerebral and nasal rhythms are tightly coupled and there is a correlation of the dominant nostril with increased EEG activity in the contralateral hemisphere. In two-thirds of the subjects, the cerebral rhythm was an actual shift in dominance between the hemispheres. In the rest of the subjects, the relative changes were comparable but one hemisphere remained dominant throughout."
Also:
"Werntz, Bickford, and Shannahoff-Khalsa (1987) showed that this relationshop between increased air flow in one nostril and actication in the contralateral hemisphere is maintained during unilateral forced nostril breathing (UFNB). When either nostril was blocked so that subjects were forced to breath through the other, there was a shift toward relatively greater EEG activity in the hemisphere contralateral to the open nostril. When forced breathing was changed to the other nostril, the relative EEG activity between the hemispheres shifted as well."
which is why they used the tissues in QI.
Finally
"When the right nostril was dominant, subject performed relatively better on verbal tasks for which the left hemisphere is specialized and during left nostril dominance subjects performed relatively better on spatial tasks for which the right hemisphere is specialized."
I'll have to try that on my next exam

>> ^ReverendTed:
>> ^gwiz665:
but one thing is fairly evident, there is no ethereal element to it.
How is this "evident"? The physical model does not accommodate unified experience. Just as you suggested, the body and the brain are simply organic machines. They should only "do" - impulse in, algorithm run, impulse out, and there is no reason for them to "be aware" of it. There is no step in the prescribed process where a cell does anything more than pass along an electrical stimulus to some other cells. (Which, again, I'm fine with - it's just that awareness remains completely unaccounted for.)


It is evident, because we cannot observe it directly OR indirectly. You'll agree with me, I presume, that we cannot observe something that is not material or physical, yes? Much like we cannot observe dark matter/energy (if that exists), but we can see the influence it has on the physical world.

We cannot see any influence on the physical brain from the consciousness, it goes the other way around . the physical brain determines the conscious thought.

And the consciousness is not aware of how the input/output works either, like I said, we have no introspective knowledge other than what the brain presents to "us". A car's speedometer does not know how much CO² the car releases into the world either. (Obviously there are some differences between a static closed thing like a speedometer and a dynamic, changing system like a brain, but it's a metaphor. )

There is no step in a computer either, which would account for how we can perceive programs on it - we just can, because we use certain filters and tables, which determines what that particular 1 or 0 means. You cannot see whether you run word, firefox or world of warcraft on a computer very easily, by looking at the electrical impulses, but that's the only way we have to analyze the brain right now.

Imagine having to reverse engineer a program on a computer, with only the hardware available? It's possible, but fuuck, it's hard. That's what neuroscience is trying to do (I think).

The only dualistic aspect between body and mind is that of hardware and software.

The brain is full of chemical reactions and electrical impulses, in the same manner as a computer is composed of silicon and electrical impulses. in the computer the electrical impulses are interpreted to be programs and processes forming a higher level "language" in several stages. The brain seem to interpret some of ours as consciousness, memories, thoughts. We, obviously, have no special insight introspectively into how our brain works, since we are limited by its own interpretation of itself. By studying neuroscience, we might be able to decipher how this interpretation happens, but one thing is fairly evident, there is no ethereal element to it. There is no connection from the material to the immaterial. If there is something immaterial, and I doubt it, it has no dicernable influence on the material world and in the end, is not really important (though it would be interesting).

I'm a fan of some of the neurological elements of religion.

The neuroscience of religion basically shows mystical feelings are just turning off some neural circuits and over-activating others. For example, 'oneness with the universe' is just turning off the neural circuits we develop in infancy that allow us to distinguish between self and world, between where my hand stops and the table starts (one is "me" .. the other is not).

I think one of the bottom lines of human behavior is that the more energy, speed, and perseverance the individual has, the better. However much you have, more is better. IMHO, managing your neural circuits creatively, but without actually believing made-up stuff, is the best of both worlds.