BS: Alternate beliefs: part II

Subject: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 13 Oct 00 - 11:59 PM

The thread entitled "Alternate Beliefs: A pattern?" Is getting long but it's getting interesting and we need a new thread if we're gonna continue this long enough for Amos to get Little Neo's bikini top off.



Amos, Amos, He's our guy,
If he can't do it, Spaw will try.

If someone smarter than me, can make a blue clicky between this and the old thread, that would be cool.

Rich

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 01:29 AM

I'll tell you what the most fundamental error a living being can make is: it is to accept an identification with energy or solids.

My own perception, regardless of semiotic labeling,is that this a treacherous confusion to fall into because it leads directly to the conclusion that your greatest powers -- to see, know, intend, and create, to perceive -- are fancy curlicues of wiring and sparks caused by carbon-oxygen machinations. What codwallop.

If you elect a belief that evidence is a good way to know and that without it you can't know, why for sure you'll live that experiential track, straight as an arrow. If you believe that belief has nothing to do with your life, it won't. If you believe that the beliefs you really hold (not just the ones you give lip service to) are what sets your experience in certain directions, why then you open the door to doing something about it.

And if you believe that you hold contradictory beliefs, you feel divided, and sort of pushed about by time and event, because which ever one you are favoring at the moment you will be heartily resisting the other, which leaves you exposed to all kinds of cruel fates :>)

Aw, never mind. Some people know who they are, and some have yet to dsicover they are not a what, let alone find the who behind it! Blessings on ye all who tread threads like this one, for your curiousity if nothing more.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 12:21 PM

Amos, Why codwallop? My belief is not that self, creativity, intention and all the rest don't exist, just that there is no need to posit the unprovable to explain it.

Contradiction seem a necessary part of life. Doesn't curiosity grow out of perceived contradictions? How do you resolve those contradictions? Its much easier if you have determined the answer before you ask the question. Freud saddled the world with id-ego-superego, hiding it behind claims of legitimate scientific inquiry.(and using his fame to attack any who disagreed) A nice neat package that explained everything. Except, as we now realize, he creatively edited results to support his pre-determined conclusions. And caused a lot of pain and suffering. His theories wrapped it all up neatly. And precluded the use of drugs to correct chemical imbalances because it was the Mind and its experiences, not the physical structure of the brain that was the problem. The result, for some, was endless years of therapy, trying to fix something that probably doesn't exist. Failure, of course, was the fault of the patient. The various pharmacological solutions to demonstrated chemical imbalances helped a whole lot of people, but a significant number of lay and professionals still look at that as "covering up the problem" or "a crutch". The belief was that the MIND, not the brain that was the problem. After all, if the drugs seem to work, doesn't that suggest that maybe the Mind isn't MIND? At the very least it would seem to indicate that the merely mundane plays a significant role in such things.

Briefly, a comforting belief, the mind as Mind, fixed nothing, helped few and harmed many. (Yeah, greatly oversimplified)

Speaking only for myself, I don't "live the experimental track". Just use as a tool to help make sense of the world. Building a world view is like building a skyscraper. Its much harder if you start on the top floor and work down, no matter how pleasant the view may be from up there.

I seem to have missed something on this, and similar, threads as I have found no one who "have yet to dsicover they are not a what, let alone find the who behind it". Found a lot that don't agree with me, yes. Learned, and hope to learn, more, also yes. Gathered a lot of food for thought. That to. Argued as a skeptic and at least got others considering an alternate way of looking at things, I hope so.

The great danger, when you know the Answer first is that the contradictory evidence is simply ignored. Its also a lot easier that way.

Regards

John

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 04:38 PM

Your statistical summation regarding who have been helped and who have been harmed by an effort to apply Freudian principles doesn't sound like it came from a survey. Furthermore attributing the model to the therapy is like blaming those who dies from leeching on Harvey. The abuses of Freudian approaches are entirely independent of the question of the mind, its nature, and its structure; and lumping them together is simply illogical.

I would like to add that the rationale of taking physical methods of proof and applying them to all phenomena as a sole criteria, and then rejecting phenomena and explanations that rest on the premise that there may be vectors or functions involved that operate outside those ranges because they do not meet that criteria, is perhaps the most circular piece of Byzantine reasoning I have seen. Reminds me of a foo bird.

Furthermore, I was not speaking to the subject of "Mind", as you put it, in the first instance. I don't believe that the major point I have been speaking from has sunk in yet. Nor do I expect that it will.

Your somewhat veiled implication that I am "positing the unprovable" sounds, certainly, like a resounding condemnation of a flawed logical process. But "contradiction is a necessary part of life" as a principle sounds like another, more flawed one, once marketed to the world labeled as dialectic materialism, a key element of the philosophical architecture which informed Marxism.(1)

Regardless, what you are saying -- that one should not call on unprovable or extraordinary elements to account for phenomena if simpler or more demonstrable explanations can be used to account for them -- is sound pragmatic thinking indeed. As soon as you come up with a provable example of a group of wires and switches having an intention, a realization, an actual perception or understanding, I will be delighted to agree with your didactic and supercilious instruction on good scientific reasoning. I will refrain from offering similarly wiser advice about teaching grandmothers to suck eggs. It is as great a flaw to ignore evidence in defense of an old paradigm, as it is to ignore evidence in promoting a new one.

Ask Harvey(2) and Ignaz Semmelweiss about the cost of seeking better models and better results. Semmelweiss -- who dramatically reduced maternity ward childbed mortality by making doctors wash their hands when they came in from other wards -- was eventually run out of town (Vienna) despite saving lives in significant numbers. Harvey flew in the face of ancient established wisdom dating back to the era of Galen the Greek about the tides and humours of the blood and ductless glands. He suggested circulation, valves and pumps. He was almost laughed out of the Academy, except that he came from highly priveleged family, but one of the resounding quotes from a pompous Academy member has survived: "I would rather err with Galen than to be found right with Harvey."

Where do you suppose these cognitive filters in highly qualified, trained, keen-minded intellects comes from? How does this come about? Any ideas? Can you spell "turf"? Or is that too uncharitable an interpretation?

Regards,

A

(1)http://www.uta.edu/english/cgb/marx/dmaterialism.html
(2)http://www.lucknow.com/horus/etexts/hallexpt.html

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 04:42 PM

Re Semmelweiss: (a) http://www.treasure-troves.com/bios/Semmelweiss.html
(b) http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/5/0,5716,68445+1,00.html

A

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 04:52 PM

That double post was an accident -- I was practicing my "double-jointed thumb technique for the resolution of foundational hurdles to superstructural exposure in rotary environments".

Sorry.

A

duplicate posting deleted
- el joeclone -

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: MarkS
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 05:22 PM

Semmelweiss was presumably picketed by "Citizens Opposed to the Washing of Hands in Toxic Substances." Makes a nice comparison to the Luddites of today whenever something new is offered.
MarkS

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 09:49 PM

"The abuses of Freudian approaches are entirely independent of the question of the mind, its nature, and its structure; and lumping them together is simply illogical."

I wasn't talking about the abuses, but the legitimate uses of his theories. If his theoritical structure of the mind is wrong, then free association delivers no insights, provides no secondary evidence of that nature or of the casues of the client's problems. The Freudians, especailly while Freud was still alive, have a lot in common with the good burghers of Vienna and the memebers of the Royal Academy when it comes their response to work in chemical imbalnces.. The connection I was aiming for was that of a theory, fairly widely accepted, that claimed a strong scientific basis. (I allow that the theory may ber right). The direct and indirect proof offered itsn't very conclusive. And all those chemicals do work.

I don't recall teh part whre I said that Will, intent, self and so on, should or will have to do with electrical circuits and wires. Or that there is any need to build a self-aware machine to demonstrate that will, self and so on have a lot, and maybe everything, to do with cells, neural pathways and biologically based electrical impulses. Or will, mind and so on are a result of those elements. There may be something that exists as separate from that structure. If it is of a nature that allows for some of the alternate beliefs discused in this thread that would be extraordinary. (And pretty cool), The proof, whether direct or indirect should also be extraordinary. And account for or discredit what we currently have evidence for.

" I would like to add that the rationale of taking physical methods of proof and applying them to all phenomena as a sole criteria, and then rejecting phenomena and explanations that rest on the premise that there may be vectors or functions involved that operate outside those ranges because they do not meet that criteria, is perhaps the most circular piece of Byzantine reasoning I have seen. Reminds me of a foo bird."

Rereading what I've written, I don't think I said that. Physical proof is an element. As is the development of a theory taht can predict what will happen before there is a direct or indirect proof. As is preponderance of evidence, and congruence with more established theories. The lack doesn't preclude consideration of the thoery.

I recall that one of the early validations of Einstein's work (long before more direct evidence seemed to validate Relativity) was that it predicted the orbital patern of Mercury. Something Newton's math didn't. And a number of explanations were put forward in support of Newton's math. Relativity allowed an explaination o fhtat orbit. On the ohter hand Relativity can't explain why the EPR Paradox may be paradoxical, but it seems to happens all the same. And means that we have experimental evidence of a phenomena, at the quantum level, the violates Relativity.

Contradiction was meant in the sense of the all those paradoxical things that go against "accepted" beliefs, not dialectically.

Cognitive Theory is a very young field. I know that Maslow developed a fairly complex theoritical structure that dealt with the nature of learning, and supported it with some fairly rigorous experiments that didn't go beyond the physical structure. Circurel developed the idea of "mental organs of social organization" (my words not his) to explain the "syntax" of social structure that were similar to Chomsky's theories on language. None of which precludes the existance of whatever it is that I will never understand. The Ptolomic model, with great dificulty, predictied were the planets would be, based on the flawed geocentric model. Copernicus came up with the truer model. What we know know about the mind, self and so on, may be Ptolomic and Copernicus is just around the corner. BTW, I seem to recall that behavioristic models (which are closer to the bolts and wires allusion) of language were discreditied by research in neurophisology that showed that the brain couldn't hold enough stimuli/response sequences to allow us to talk.

I do have a bad habit, unintentional, of sounding supercilious. Sorry if it offended you. The methodology I try to apply, isn't "mine", however. And I would never try to teach my grandmother to suck eggs. Disgusting habit, that.

You seem to imply that I am in denial. (Being charitable and ignoring the implied ad hommium) What you specifically believe, don't believe, want to believe or need to believe, wasn't where I was going. Why you believe the way you do, and reasonings in support of it were. My intent was and is not to teach, but to learn. The past few posts seem to make it clear that we are working at cross purposes. (Leaving open the possibilities of comments about my lack of ability to learn, of course)

Regards John

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Amos
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 09:25 AM

Those who picked up the demand for Cool Hand Luke sound bytes in another thread will recognize the source of my apologetic reference: "Whyat we have hyar is a faylyoor to camyewnicate". It is clear that I attributed to your prior post certain implications you didn't intend to put into it. So I think we are less at cross purposes than we might have been.

And don't take my frustrated remarks about "sinking in" personally. They were not meant to be personal, just venting and ranting.

Re Freudian theory versus psychopharmacology: Itis true that thousands of hours of Freudian analysis can be spent to little or no benefit, which indicates there is serious dissonance between real function and predicted function.

It is true as well that a very limited set of depressive or other extreme conditions can be offset, dampened or made tractable by psychopharm answers. But there is a reasonable argument to be made that these are essentially the equivalent of putting sawdust in the crankcase of a used car to make it sound better.

By Freudian abuses I did not mean unethical conduct by practitioners but the kind of abuse that comes from enforcing a failed model or an unworking process.

I believe that psychiatry of the class that depends on free association, Jungian archetypal intepretations, and physical systemic approaches including dependency on pharmacologicals, insulin shock, thermal shock, electroconvulsive therapy, and enforced models and imposed explanations are complete profound failures, and that some of them are worse than failures but are themselves psychotic devices produced by degenerates. But that's just my opinion.

There is no question that chemicals have physical effects on a fairly predictable basis. But they can have highly destructive effects on the intricate system that is a human being, including numbing his cogntive abilities in an effort to suppress his unwanted thoughts, which is pretty hamfisted to myway of thinking, inducing tardive dyskinesia, reducing the individual will to live, or act, and others -- almost like watching television!

All I meant about Freud is that he was doing groundbreaking work, and he came up with a rough approximation of what he thought was happening. I don't know for sure but I believe the big push to "be scientific" was not born with him. I believe it occurred in the organizational efforts to found the APA in New York State but don't quote me on that. That was where the first law requiring that practitioners hold medical degrees, which was not part of Freud's vision of his work, I think. I think it was an effort to gain scientistic respectability.

What he contributed was the interesting notion that the guided attention of the individual could serve as a tool to undo neurosis and possibly even psychosis. This is a big step. That it did not get built in his framework into a routinely successful methodology is a good reason to overhaul the methodology and the model, but I would be wary of rejecting the whole paradigm.

I've seen a lot of counseling session reports, and one thing that seems to come out of them in a repeating pattern is that the best results (by personal assessment and by observation) come when the individual retains the sovereign authority to say for himself what he sees, what he thinks, and how he thinks things are. Different schools of therapy undermine this by suggesting, imposing belief systems and labels, or explaining to the individual what he "needs to realize". These are, I think, attributes of therapy in the hands of Prussian cavalry officers.

As for "alternative beliefs" I submit that Wonder bread, lawn flamingoes and the Boy Scouts are as much alternative beliefs as proposing a spiritual facet to human nature. Or at least proposing that there are aspects of human nature that are apparently major elements in the core -- abilities like perceiving, awareness, and so on -- that there is no ready explanation for in physical terms except to say "oh its the complexity that explains it", which is kind of silly. Here's a quote from an online discussion of the mechanisms of aural perception, for example:

"The Organ of Corti is a gelatinous mass about 4 cm long and is composed of some 7500 interrelated parts.The Organ of Corti is enclosed in the cochlea which is deeply imbedded in the temporal bone (the hardest in the body) is one of the best protected parts of the body. It is related to a series of tiny sensing bumps in fishes that are located along the body in rows just under the skin. These tiny bumps are used by fish to sense slight movements of water. The Organ of Corti operates in a similar way. It is filled with fluid, surrounded by other fluid and responds to movements in these fluids - those movements induced by sound waves.

The fluids filling and surrounding it act as shock absorbers, and so do the springy membranes which support it. It is even isolated from the normal body supply lines, for the faint pulsing of blood through capillary vessels would be detected as background noise.

The capillaries nearest to the organ of Corti end at the wall of the cochlea; nutrients on their way out are carried to and from the capillaries by the endolymph fluid that bathes the organ.

The organ of Corti is shaped like the jam in a jam roll. It spirals around within the cochlea. The basilar membrane supports the organ which contains a mass of cells almost touching the branch endings of the auditory nerve. From these cells sprout fine hairs, (23,500 of them) rising in orderly rows like the bristles of a very soft brush. The hairs stick through the dome of the organ, their ends embedded in a thick overhanging sheet, the tectorial membrane.

These hairs are transducers. As the basilar membrane bellies in and out, it pushes and pulls the complex of tissues above it. The hairs' cells of the organ of Corti ride with the basilar membrane. The hairs have their tops embedded in the tectorial membrane and their roots fixed in the hair cells, so the motion of the basilar membrane bends and twists and pulls and pushes the hairs. Under these physical stresses the hairs generate electrical signals which stimulate the auditory nerve (also known as the acoustic nerve and the eighth cranial nerve) - a bundle of about 30,000 individual fibres.

Eventually, in a way still not fully understood, the electrical signals running through the auditory nerve stimulate the hearing centres of the brain. In the cells of the auditory cortex lies the mystery of the sensation of hearing."

Somewhere this process jumps in quality from a chain of stimuli=>responses to a perception. This jump is not just "more of the same stuff" (quantitative), it is qualitative. Your carefully chosen sound waves penetrate your lover's pearl-studded ears and go through the conniptions described and, at some point along this track of electro-mechanical translations, Lo! Understanding Is. Perception is. Wow. Every instant in which someone participates in this process is alnost as amazing as a new baby, from some perspectives. And to think all this is "a mystery deeply embedded in the cells of the cortex". I don't think so.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 03:22 PM

Amos,

Thanks and if I offended, apologies back. I'll admit my initial take on ceretain parts of your post was personal. Fortunately, I didn't post my first draft and I got most of that flavor out of what I did post. For what I didn't, I take it all back. (Subject to counter retraction should evidence warrant, of course)

I'd agrue that a lot of therapy, of any flavor is a lot more than flawed. IMHO 'degenerates" somehow fails to capture the full flavor. I like the Piet Hein Grok which goes (I think I remember it right)

My Faith in doctors is immense, Only one thing spoils it. There pretense Of authorized omniscience.

Substitute "therapists" for doctors, mix in degenerates and it captures the flavor.

I've always viewed psychopharmacology as step one. The next step is to develop new behavior patterns that work. Then to find a world view, find meaning, that works. (Highly unsatisfactory wording but the best I can come up with). But all those lovely pills offer instant karma. Highly attractive.

Sadly, it was Freud who claimed that his theories were firmly routed in science. At least so several books that have come out over the past couple of years claim and seem to document fairly well.

I hope you don't have anything against plastic lawn flamingos. Somehow they seem to sort of sum up a lot of society.

Loved the quote on the Organ of Corti. Clearly the triumph of style over substance. Or maybe the substitution of style for substance. And I agree with what you seem to be saying. That kind of thing has as much relation to meaning as a blueprint does to living in the actual house. To hear, we have to have the Organ of Corti (among other physical structures). How we interpret what we hear is vital.

On the other hand, having discovered the functionality of the Organ of Corti, if I claimed that we hear because of, say, an interplay of some undetectable energy fields, what would be the response?

As a general questions, while there is a basic need to develop meaning in life, why does that need seem to express itself in the need to create extraordinary means?

Regards John

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Amos
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 06:26 PM

Subtle energies is a straight path toward the interface between energy (in the sense of Newtonian and Planck) and something other, and I could say more and then some but I am leaving for the airport for two weeks on the road. Talk to ya later.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Helen
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 08:50 PM

Sceptic/John said:

"The great danger, when you know the Answer first is that the contradictory evidence is simply ignored. Its also a lot easier that way."

This sums up what I feel when being told (by the not-so-better class of sceptic - *grin*) that the psychic phenomena I have experienced but cannot yet prove does not exist because the most effective and scientifically controlled experiments to prove them have not yet been developed - *because* there are many scientists who don't believe in psychic phenomena in the first place and therefore don't see the point in *wasting their time* in proving what probably doesn't exist anyway.

I said in the Explaining the Unexplained thread that I would be prepared to submit to well designed, scientifically controlled experiments, conducted by scinetists or sceptics who are prepared to work proactively and positively with me to do it properly - not to try to impose the wiring/nuts & bolts methodologies onto what is essentially a very-hard-to-pin-down process.

And one of the reasons it is so hard to pin down is that psychic abilities link very much to ethics, principles, values, emotional feelings and other human fundamentals. Teasing out the process from such close connections will never be easy. The military uses of psychic powers e.g. remote viewing have shown a method which had some outcomes - whether they will be proven with scientifically controlled experiments is another matter - but over the period of time that those experiments/procedures were conducted a set of conditions and processes were developed which may provide a good starting point for designing and developing experimental methods which are conducive to getting closer to real evidence, one way or the other.

I admit to feeling extremely frustrated, personally, with myself because I cannot express what I have experienced in the same scientific terminology that you and Amos are using. I am following the discussion very closely, though, and I tend to agree with what Amos is saying, but I can also see that we are all having trouble seeing from each other's perspectives. Luckily for me, I think differences of perspective are what makes the world go around, but it is frustrating for me, knowing what I have experienced, and not being able to translate it into the same language as the sceptics & scientists. I have been submitted to what someone in the other thread referred to as "analytical disdain" - a thoroughly painful experience because I too believe that "ideally" that should be a contradiction of terms. That's why I laughed out loud, John, when I read your comment about finding myself a better class of sceptic.

Part of the personal differences in perspectives and the related translation/communication challenges which I have been thinking about (this is not thread creep, and we don't really need to start it up here, IMO) is the different ways of thinking/perceiving/relating etc as put forward by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator etc. I'm ENTP, if that means anything to you, which means I'm intuitive, a thinker and a perceiver - therefore I am not likely to only look for cold hard evidence to explain my reality, but an ESTJ or ISTJ is more likely to rely on cold, hard evidence.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Troll
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 12:24 AM

Yes, Helen. Do find yourself a better class of skeptic. Poor John tries so hard to use all those big words in the right context.I'm afraid that it's the result of a liberal arts education and the mild delusion that he is an intellectual.
But he does try.
Amos, if Skeptic (John) HAD taken it personally, you would have known it in no uncertain terms. So far he has been extremely kind in his postings
Actually, he is a vicious little rat with a tongue like a razor-blade dipped in sulphuric acid.
And those are his GOOD points.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: sophocleese
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 08:22 AM

Ooh trolly, can you give any evidence for your belief in John's venom?

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 09:52 AM

Helen,

Hopefully I am a better class of skeptic as I don't know if your psychic experience was real or not. I know that Rhine's data at Duke was looked at carefully a couple of years ago and there is fairly strong evidence he forced the results. Recent experiments in England using, using a ganz field, indicated that there may be something there.

It is not the psychic experience alone that I consider, but what else it might imply. The stuff I read about the government's remote viewing experiments was fairly pointed in claiming that the controls were, at best, designed to support a forgone conclusion. If you have a link/book, please let me know.

Please don't not participate because Amos and I are into jargon (my choice of words). For me, if you say something I don't understand, I'll ask.

Your statement that psychic phenomena is linked to "ethics, principles, values, emotional feelings" is one I haven't heard . Could you expand on that?

Re Myers-Briggs - The first time I was INTP, A year later ESTJ.(which upset the group leader facilitating the seminar no end) I like Myers-Briggs as an excellent means to facilitate communication. There's not a lot of evidence that the classification is anything more than a situational snapshot.

Amos, I look forward to your return.

To All re: Troll's comments. As you may have guessed, we are acquainted. A burden I have learned to live with. I will comment that no matter how much he tries to hide it, he knows how to spell as many big words as I do. Just not what they mean. And while I do have delusions of being a intellectual. Troll, I have found, has delusions of competency. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, he persists in the delusion.

One truth, I can be very....acerbic...lets say. So if I get that way, feel free to call me on, respond in kind or send money.

Troll, I will ignore your first comments as they are clearly motivated by jealousy and the various personality defects the psycho-active pharmaceuticals haven't been able to correct.

As to your final compliment. Thanks. I try.

Regards

John

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Troll
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 10:21 AM

Sophocleese... As you can see by the above post,Skeptic and I are indeed acquainted. You will also notice that he did not deny the truth of my statements regarding his character(or lack of it).
He will no doubt claim that he will not dignify my statements by responding to them. In point of fact, he knows that the truth is a defense in libel cases (John Peter Zenger vs The Commonwealth of Massachusetts) and has no desire to have me bring up even more of his "endearing little idiosyncrasies".
As far as MY delusions of competency, I think that this posting should prove conculsively that I am competent to defend myself when the need arises.
My spelling and proofreading abilities may be faulty on ocassion, but my wit? Never!

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 10:39 AM

I just wanted to mention that I'm enjoying this discussion immensely.

I just have a couple of ideas I'd like to toss into the fray. First, about the "contradictions" that we find in life. It seems to me that the world itself is rather seamless; the contradictions that I seem to find are in my perceptions of that world. It's only when I try to apply language to my experiences that things start to break apart.

Second, as far as the "Freud vs Pharmaceuticals" discussion, why discard the possibility that both have their place and can be of use when correctly applied. As I see it, problems arise when a singular revelation (or two) get expanded into a grand theorem. Although I know it's difficult to sell just a "little bit of wisdom", it seems that mistakes arise when you try to pump up an idea and apply it in too many situations and circumstances. There are people who were helped by Freudian practitioners as well as people who were horribly misserved. You can say the same for electro-shock and drug therapy over the years. You can say it about religion or about Miss Manners, too, if you'd like. "One size fits all" does not work in this world. Never did. Never will. Hopefully.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: sophocleese
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 11:15 AM

Okay Troll and Skeptic thank you for clearing that one up. At the moment I don't know that I can add anything to this discussion but I am reading it with interest.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 12:22 PM

Troll, The "wit" comment is too easy. By half. I think my point is made by your inability to recognize when you are being humored. I will ignore the ad hommium attacks. It is clear that you mistook my observations as such, as opposed to a simple recounting of fact that they were.

Bartholomew, A caveat that I am arguing from an Ideal Type, not the reality. Freudians have relented somewhat.

The problem I have with Freud (based on what I remember from college and recently reading a couple of books versus an in depth study), is that his theories and psychoanalysis (which is in decline), makes a number of assumptions about why we are the way we are. About the mind. If, as a pure Freudian therapist, I believe in the unconscious, Oedipal Complex, ego, superego and all that, I will direct the therapy that way and assume that is the cause of problems.

That sympathetic listening can be very helpful is fairly well documented. But if I think that there is something like Freud's unconscious (truly unknowable motivations, emotions and so on, versus knowable but unrecognized ones), that leads to, at a very simplistic level of argument (and donning my cynic persona), a "cure" being more luck than intent and ability.

Freud is to the mind as Ptolemaic Astronomy is to the universe might be a good analogy. Freud's concepts were brilliant, innovative, creative and complex. So was the philosophical basis of Alchemy.

What if there is a chemical basis to the problem? Acute Depression, for example. If, as a Freudian, I maintain its because of unrecognized conflicts, oedipal urges or unresolved penis envy, the probability of effective change seems limited. Even if I use chemicals to bridge the crisis, if I'm still focused on the unconscious and thinking that free association provides insight into same, refusing to accept there may be a chemical imbalance that needs to be corrected.(cynic persona again) I'm back to random success.

If, conversely, medications are used, along with behavior modification (to unlearn all the coping mechanisms that were used just to fight off the depression) and that is coupled with facilitating the patient reintegrated "world view" (to use a touch-feely term), I think the patient and the world are better served. Chemical based depression means that a person has gone through life using most of their energy to deal with basic problems that are second nature to most people.. So the balance is adjusted by the medicine and the person needs to learn how to live without spending all their energy just getting by. Needs to learn normal coping mechanisms and not worry if they never got over wanting to have sex with their mother or father.

I don't think chemicals alone are the answer, either. And they are abused by professional and client alike. A big part of living is the meaning people give to their lives. I just don't see that a Freudian approach deals with that. Nor that chemicals are always needed. Sometimes, a lot of times, to listen to friends of mine in the field, people just need someone to listen.

Sorry to go on so long. As I said, this is not something I've researched to any depth. Hopefully I haven't mis-attributed things to the Freudist that don't belong their.

Without getting into it deeply. I would tend to agree that elements of the world are seamless. The meaning given to those elements isn't. But then, there's Choas Theory that says that the seamlessness is an illusion.

Regards John

Subject: RE: Ethics and Psychic Abilities
From: Amos
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 09:25 PM

Ability, as it is found in living centers of awareness, is subject to as many variables as physical elements are. You don't use uncoated steel for marine environment structures for good reason; the chemistry alone is harsh enough to reduce it to uselessness in short order.

Ability can be corroded, in a roughly parallel vein, depending on the owner. Some of the radical elements which could be said to corrode ability are those that can found in any grade school -- harsh, challengining invalidative remarks, emotional abuse, the pressure to subscribe to really stupid realities or be outcast from the tribe, physical fear and threats, and so on.

But much more important than those are the things we ikmpose on ourselves. Beings seek to be, as best as they can, "good" at all times, even when they are so swamped with confusions and traumatic overlays that they can no longer see what it is. When they fail, that is when they perceive that they have done something that is more harmful than it is good (either because they have or because they have been persuaded this is the case) they tend to pull back from the people, groups or areas in the world where they feel they have done bad. A typical pattern is the moocher or sponge who comes and lives on you for a month without regard for exchange and then starts discvovering that he can't associate iwth you anymore, has to leave and discovers how bad you are and never commmunicates again.

One of the thing that leaves people "psychically" blinbd is shutting down their own perceptions because of this tendency to pull away from connecting with two many spots where harm has been done. This is why it sometimes happens that you see "miraculous" benefits from confession -- just getting over the obsession to withold all by itself relieves strain and improves ability.

Don't get jme wrong, this is not the only factor that can contribute tot he underminiing of ability.

Abilities such as seeing remotely or knowing before the event are potentially things anyone can do; but obsessive agreements on limitation, or calculations of self-effacement, or automatic mechanisms of "being normal and rational" tend to suffocate the perception of them. ANd while itmay not work quite this way in the physical framework, it is pretty normal in the realm of the self that when you really decide you cannot see something it turns black pretty quick.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Troll
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 10:28 PM

Skeptic...I'm glad you spotted the "wit" line.It's difficult to find straight lines that you can grasp. I am very sorry that you could not find anything to DO with it however.
As regards the ad hominem attack, my choices are somewhat limited as argumentum ad baculum is not wise on so public a forum and I happen to agree with your arguments.
And lastly...
YOU are humoring ME?

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 09:00 AM

Amos,

As I essentially agree with the "we have meet the enemy and they is us", I'd like to consider the second assertion.

It would seem that there are two ready explanation for "Knowing before the event". Inductive reasoning as a talent that soem people are better at than others, perhaps because they can accept it, or true precognition.

The latter would seem to negate causation as an fundamental of the universe (barring the Uncaused Cause). Granted that scientist, (even the reasonable ones), get very evasive when asked to define "time", to know of the event before the cause is a hard one to deal with if I accept that causation is a universal.

It has been argued that causation is nothing more than an imposed construct and that time is not a continuum but simply is. The latest from the world of quantum theory seems to have found an exception to Einstein's Relativity Theory, but that is at the quantum, not macro, level.

If I have the "knowing before the event" of my front window being broken at some future time, a vision if you will, of the broken window, I am; 1. Experiencing the event before the cause. 2. Inductively (and in my mental background) reasoning that the kids always play baseball out front, that the probability is that sooner or latter they will break the window and when they do I'll say See! Proves the point. Or, if it doesn't happen, I won't remember that I thought it would. 3. Other.

What are the beliefs, ideas and so on needed for precognition?

Regards John

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Helen
Date: 19 Oct 00 - 11:22 PM

John,

Andres, on the Explaining the Unexplained thread, pointed me towards this article, but then we both interpreted it differently. On my reading of it Dr Edwin May is saying that he thinks that the methods were flawed which the CIA used in their investigations and report into the remote viewing project, and that they deliberately excluded data and methodologies which would have given positive evidence about the effectiveness of outcomes achieved by remote viewing.

I'd really like you, & Amos, & others to read it and tell me what you think that Dr May is saying because Andres & I couldn't agree on this.

CIA AIR Report on Remote Viewing, Dr. Edwin C. May response, Cognitive Sciences Laboratory, Anomalous Cognition Remote Viewing Scientific Research http://www.lfr.org/csl/media/air_mayresponse.shtml

I also wonder whether you are jumping to the point of looking for causes & explanations rather than just doing the experiments to see whether precognitive abilities can be proven. You are worrying about the nature of time and what precognitive abilities might mean for those time theories rather than thinking about how experiments could be designed to investigate these abilities. My suggestion is, work out effective, scientifically controlled data-gathering experiments or studies and worry about the consequences after the data is gathered & analysed.

But, on a personal note, I have to say that time has always been a bit rubbery for me, in the sense that you are referring to it. There can be a number of explanations for that though, in the context of precognition - some psychic, some "ordinary".

I've been thinking about examples to illustrate the difference between what could be erroneously referred to as psychically transmitted or precognitive information and what seems to me to be correctly labelled as that.

Example 1: three days ago I had an overwhelming sense that something disastrous had happened or was going to happen, which I did not yet know about consciously. I tried to analyse it to find the source of the feeling but it didn't yield any more information. Yesterday I discovered that my credit card was missing from my wallet, and by a process of reviewing possibilities I realised that I had probably left it in the ATM (automatic teller machine) about 3 days ago. I think, therefore, that that was the source of this sense of dread & fear. My subconscious knowledge, which I hadn't examined consciously, was pointing out that I had forgotten to do something really important which could have terrible consequences financially.

Example 2: In December 1989 I had gone down to the mainstreet during a mealbreak at work & I was standing waiting for a traffic light to change at the pedestrian crossing. I was suddnely overwhelmed by a a very similar, but much stronger sense of dread & fear. I stood there trying to analyse the source of the fear, and looked around at all of the people nearby and across the road trying to work out whether there was anything wrong.

After using logic & deduction I then tried to analyse it through my psychic abilities. All I could get was that it wasn't any one particular person who was in danger, and it wasn't any one particular spot nearby. It wasn't just one or two people, but everyone who was the target, and then my logical/analytical side started to put forward scenarios, and the nearest I could get to it was that a large event, such as an overturning semi-trailer truck, would affect a lot of people in a very short time.

I tried to analyse the feeling over the next week, but could get no more information.

A week later I was standing at exactly the same spot, waiting to cross the road, (I had not stood on that spot again since the last week until now) but everything had changed for me and everyone around me. The Newcastle (Australia) earthquake had hit that morning, without warning, and with very little documented previous earthquake activity in this area. Everyone in this city was in varying degrees of shock over this earthquake, with some people having lost their houses, and some other people killed or injured.

I suddenly knew what the overwhelming sense of dread & fear had been. A week later I would be standing at exactly the same spot feeling exactly that feeling, for a very good reason.

Example 3: I went to a musical afternoon at a church (I don't go to church very often, but I used to go to this one for a period of about a year, approx. 15 years earlier.) When the congregation sang the well known hymn, How Great Thou Art, I suddenly found myself crying, and I had no idea why. Three months later at my Aunt's funeral the congregation was asked to sing How Great Thou Art and I was crying as I sang it. I had not sung that song for years, nor had any reason to think of it before the first occasion, or between the first & second occasions. Logic and reason gave me no understanding of why this hymn should make me cry but the very next time I had to sing it was when I was crying because of grief at loss of a close relative.

These examples can be analysed and other reasons attributed to the feelings I had on the first occasions, but there is also the possibility that some other process was at work.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Ringer
Date: 20 Oct 00 - 01:55 PM

If, Skeptic, you "accept that causation is a universal", are you not, in the last analysis, equating everything, even humanity, with machinery? If my behaviour is the result of causal chains, how can I accept praise for helping an old lady across the street, or be blamed for stealing the contents of a blind man's begging bowl? Both are the result only of my genes and environment.

And if causation applies also to my thoughts, then I'm only thinking what I think now because of my past experiences, including that time a fly farted on my head when I was three. So I have no reason to think that my thoughts bear any correspondence to reality: they're not necessarily true, they're just caused (why should the two coincide?). And if they're not true, I have no reason to believe that causation is a universal. But equally, reason is invalidated.

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: NightWing
Date: 20 Oct 00 - 02:43 PM

Bald Eagle,

Not sure why causation would imply that everything is a giant machine. If we set up the row of dominos so that they will fall when the first is pushed, that is an example of causation. However, humans (and probably most other animals) appear to have at least some degree of free will. I can choose whether or not to push the first domino. I can even stick my hand into the line of dominos and stop them before they reach the end.

Yah, yah! Simplistic as hell, but a reasonable analogy.

However, Skeptic, I'm not prepared to accept that "causation is universal" implies the impossibility of precognition. No, I have NO experience with precog; never even known anyone who did. (My possibly psychic experiences lie more in telepathy.) But please explain your reasoning more completely; mine is not thought through.

Finally, going way back up the thread, I have to agree that "belief" (perhaps "faith" would be a better term) tends to blind the believer to reality. I try to avoid "believing" in things. I have certain opinions about reality, but they are always subject to change upon evidence to the contrary.

Fascinating conversation!!!

BB,
NightWing

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 11:12 AM

Helen,

I read Dr. Mays paper the way you did.

His arguements that they failed to contact others involved in the study to explain the results seems a little convoluted. On the one hand he argues that the analysis of data was methodologically flawed. On the other he seems to be pushing for anecdotal evidence to invalidate the study. If the meta-analysis was flawed, it can be demonstrated using statistical analysis. And he ends with the implication of some great government cover-up.

If he is correct in his criticism of the statistical methodology, then the report was so much fluff. Why he didn't stop there isn't made clear, exactly. He comes across more like a true believer than a critic, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the issue. I got the feeling that he was arguing that the problems with the study prove there is something there, which doesn't follow.

Bald Eagle,

Helen, What I got out of the article was that : 1. Dr. May feels their methodology was flawed because they used inconsistent criteria in evaluation of data and failed to contact those involved in the various programs. 2. They didn't contact experimenters or subjects to get their take of the studies. 3. They didn't contact end-users. 4. It was all a big conspiracy.

1. If the methodology was flawed (and it sounds like they used meta-analysis to review the CIA data), that can be demonstrated. At worst case, the raw data is probably available under the Freedom of Information Act and could be looked at again. 2. Contacting those involved in the study would seem to be of use only if the conspiracy theory is correct. 3. Contact of end users would provide anecdotal (versus more rigorous statistical) data and would be of questionable benefit. 4. If it was a big cover-up, well, my take on the government when it comes to things like this is not to attribute to a planned conspiracy what can be easily explained by incompetence. If Dr. May's assertions about the data analysis is correct, throwing in all the rest is unnecessary. It raises questions about his motives.

Dr. May starts out with what seems to be valid methodological criticisms and then wanders around, throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the mix. There seems to be an implicit argument that the defects of the government study prove the ESP experiments are valid.

BTW, Thanks for the examples. They raise interesting questions.

Bald Eagle, I don't think that causation implies anything quite so mechanical. Causation states that things don't happen spontaneously, that there is a link between causes(s) and effect(s), and that first there is some cause (or series of causes) followed by some result. Knowing what result a given cause or series of causes(or vice versa) isn't a requirement for causation to exists. In your example, all the things you mention, genetics, environment, past experiences, are the cause of your decision to help the old lady across the street. What that decision is isn't predictable even in a mechanistic view of cause and effect, in part because it is "causes" not just "a cause". Chaos Theory indicates that even defining all the causes, (especially in a complex systems) at best allows for statistical approximations. I could say that based on all the variables there is a high probability that you will help the old lady. It is by no means certain. The more complex the system, the less reliable the probabilities.

NightWing, Accepting that effect follows cause makes precognition paradoxical. How can you experience something before the cause of it? It's the classic time travel paradox. (Assuming Einstein was right about time). You have knowledge of something before it occurs (is caused). So you change it so it doesn't happen. How could you then have known it was going to happen? In my example of the broken window, if the precognitive event was real and I go out and stop the kids from playing baseball in the front yard, then the window didn't get broken, so how did I have a vision of it being broken, which means I wouldn't stop the kids from playing baseball, which means..............

Regards John

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: GUEST,Helen (using IE)
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:00 PM

I have been thinking about precognition & telepathy.

In some examples, which might on first analysis seem like precognition, it is really more likely to be telepathy. Example, if someone says he/she will ring come & pick me up tonight and we will go out somewhere and I get a really strong feeling that it isn't going to happen, (or the way it often works for me) I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be going out somewhere or I keep making alternative plans and have to consciously remind myself that I'm going out instead, and then on further analysis I realise that I am psychically picking up that it probably isn't going to happen as planned. The reason for this supposed precognition is possibly that I am telepathically picking up from the other person that they have changed their mind or their circumstances have changed and they can't come. If they have changed their mind, or have regretted making the plans, but don't know how to tell me that then they are more likely to be *dwelling* on the thought of how they are going to tell me the bad news and that is a good mental atmosphere for transmitting telepathically.

So, if the "precognition" is related to a person's thoughts, actions, intentions etc then it could be telepathic more than precognitive. But, my precognitive experience a week prior to the earthquake, when I was standing in exactly the same spot as a week later, after the event, and feeling all those feelings - how can I explain that? It's possible that I could have picked up subconsciously on vague earth-tremors which heralded the earthquake, but why was it when I was standing in that exact spot? Questions, questions.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:46 PM

Let us take two very very different fundamental departure points and extrapolate extreme cases from them, just as a sort of Socratic argument. The first is that systems at all levels are constrained by material law including those material laws not yet identified, but that that is the full scope of existence; in oter words, thought, aesthetics, spirituality, justice, ideals, openikons, beauty, sadness, and everything else that we categorizze as important to human nature are merely extensions of the same elements that make up any chemical or biochemical or electrochemical complex. All data, memory, intention and imagination are simply interqactions between layers of a ocmplex physical system. Seeing is only optical, plus a blackbox for those loevels of complexity (neural nets or something) that the brain seems to stiull guard from our full insight so far.

From this perspective, spiritual or psychic phenomena are laughable errors in analysis even if the phenomena might somehow occur -- precognition is just highly subtle deduction, remote viewing is merely intelligent extrapolation,l and telepathy is a coincidental parallel computation, not an exchnage of knowing. The rest can be explained as attributable to com-plexities we haven't penetrated yet, but not different in quality.

As an interesting exercise, construxt a set of explanations for the same set of "facts" based on the postulate that all existence is a variation oin Know, as a core abilkity; that know includes the ability to not-know, to know while ignoring, and that the common structyures of the universe are simply this same ability submitted to a fairly simple set of rules of agreementand rules of engagement, for the sake of, say, making a playing field. In this model, the boundaries that seem physical are simply instancesof compliance with the core postulatesneeded to maintain the apparency of a phsyical universe; for example, the belief that space iscontinguous and seamless, or the construct that requires particles to appear to "persist" in order to bring about the seeming unidirectional flow of time.

Either one of these core sets of postulates can readily explain all observed phenomena. We have a mainstream tendency or bias toward the former set, because ... well never mind why. But from an objective perspective the arguments for both cases become indeterminate when carried far enough. The all-is-matter school disappears in a postulated complexity that we just haven't figured out yet. The all-is-Knowing school tends yto get lost identifying ultimate provenance, and accounting for certain logical loops that occur within the material school of thought. Neither one can actually, point by point, answer all arguments or questions or arguments. In the final analysis, therefor, it kind of has to be lkeft to the individual viewer/thinker to appreciate the nature of the universe according to his preferred set. For either set, evidence that supports only the other is usually deemed iraational (meaning outside the premises and scope of argument). This gets pretty silly after a few times around the inside of the blender! :>)

Regards,

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Ringer
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 09:40 AM

Sorry for the delay - I've been otherwise engaged.

NightWing: if all is caused, there can be no such thing as free-will, an "uncaused effect". That's my argument.

Skeptic: aren't you mixing up predictability with causation? I don't think that Chaos Theory says anything about cause and effect, though it does, I agree, have a lot to say about the unpredictability of complex systems (I'm no expert on CT: shoot me down, do, if I'm wrong). But my argument has got nothing to do with predictability. If there are no uncaused effects then my thoughts, too, are caused, and I can't see why caused = true (when we can see the cause of thoughts, we discount them, eg when the drunkard claims to see pink elephants we don't bother looking for them). Therefore I have to argue that cause-and-effect is not universal, because the converse leads to the reductio ad absurdem:

there are no uncaused effects
therefore I cannot rely on my thoughts being true
therefore I have no reason to suppose that there are no uncaused effects

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 07:12 PM

Besides, if you postulate causation as an act of Will then it is subject to all the slippery volatility thatwill itself is subject to; and tracing sources in a purely mechanistic string basis becomes imponderably unwieldy because of the unnatural additive constraints on the computation.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 12:25 PM

Bald Eagle,

I don't see "cause=true". True would seem to imply some deeper meaning. A cause is. An effect is. There is a sequential link between them the two that is causation. You seem to be arguing that "true" is a physical property, like density. And if cause is true, in the sense you mean, then effect (thoughts) would also be true. Chaos Theory, at least in my limited understanding, presupposes the causal relationship. Where it gets away from the traditional reductionist school is in arguing (and demonstrating both mathematically and practically) that even if the causes are known, the effect isn't always predictable. Even the pattern of the unpredictability isn't always predictable. Its like the quantum idea that you can know either the exact position or exact momentum of a particle/wave, but never both. The chain of causation, if you will, still exists. As an example, chaos theory can predict the volume output of water coming out of a garden house. The reductionist argued that more volume and pressure on one end was directly related to the volume of output on the other, up to the point where the hose burst. Experimentally, that didn't happen. After a certain input of pressure and volume, the output began to vary, erratically, or unpredictably, if you will. Traditional Newtonian physics cannot explain why the relationship isn't linear.

The alternative is that there are both caused and uncaused events, effects or what ever. That would seem to be based on the same level of Truth as the drunks pink elephants, a totally subjective reality. Unless there is some criteria that can be agreed on as to what constitutes caused versus uncaused, you get back to reality as a socially agreed on thing, with some underlying, undiscovered factor that determines when cause works.

Predictability is, IMO, the big myth linked to causation. It feels safer, logical and all that. (As well as being boring, irrational and no fun at all). I just don't view predictability as been a requirement of causation. And if the relationship to cause and effect is non-linear, then free will, intent and all the rest seems possible.

Regards

John

Subject: RE: BS: Alternate beliefs: part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 27 Oct 00 - 04:06 PM

Amos, For consideration without implications.

You've argued in the past that the truth is somewhere in the middle of the two extremes you gave. I still question whether these are mutually exclusive to such a degree that it is truly "either..or". Or that the "material law" as characterized isn't more of a middle ground.

To accept what you categorize as the "material law" when it is, essentially, convenient, (when it reenforces what I want to believe) but not when it doesn't support what I want to believe, seems to be in the "Knowing" mode. That is, I'll accept the material laws for this but not for that, the criteria being...what?. Each mode would seem to have an internal logic with the "Knowing" not having any real criteria for what is known, it would embrace the "material law" construct when necessary. Conversely, accepting the material law as an absolute in the old reductionist/predictability sense seems in the same mode.

Why do material causes yielding, essentially, spiritual events (such as opinion, will, and so on) cause such a problem? I would argue they are a problem only if predictability is grafted to the material causes model. (And I'm not sure "material" is exactly the right word when you think about quantum states and superstring). I think its amazing bordering on the astounding that a jumble of nerves and neural nets and experiences and hormones and interactions and butterflies flapping their wings in Brazil, can produce the remarkable outcomes and diversity it does. If chaos theory holds at that level, such outcomes as intent, will and the rest will remain blessedly unpredictable as to specifics, but understandable as to genesis.

Reformulating your models, the "Knowing" and the "Material- Predictable" and combinations of the two are not medians and extremes but different words for the same thing. The other extreme, if you will, would seem to be a combination of any the following: data/experimental based, logically based, or a combination of the two.

It would seem that the first complex requires that there either has to be an explanation/acceptance or a rejection of all things, material, spiritual or psychic, (or a rejection because it doesn't fit the pattern of materialism/predictability and is therefore impossible): The second would seem to allow for, both inherently and philosophically, the unknown and the unknowable.

To tie it back (albeit loosely) to the thread, is there in some people a need (caused by all those neural nets and experiences and hormones and interactions, though outcomes are not necessarily predictable) to have a unified world view that either embraces or rejects the unknown as a necessity?. Which came first, the psychic experience or the need for same to explain something.

Regards John