Are mood altering chemicals magical?

[Humanist_Activist]

I ask because it seems obvious to me that some people actually think emotions are magic, or come from something immaterial(magical, supernatural, whatever) outside the human brain. My question is in the subject line, wouldn't that make certain chemicals and drugs able to affect the supernatural?

Conversely, how come they are the things that most reliably works, rather than others, like prayer, that don't?

I find myself particularly sensitive to this issue having personal experience with many people that have a variety of, I prefer to call them brain disorders, or diseases. People have a tendency of dismissing mental disorders and diseases as not real, so I prefer to call them what they are because of the organ they affect, seems obvious.

My mom was bi-polar, and the response from much of her family, particularly her parents, is basically that prayer should cure it, but they were "old school" and frankly in denial. It was interesting growing up and having to NOT explain to them why mom had to go away for 2 weeks(in the hospital, to get leveled out), because "they didn't want to hear it". I will say, my Dad though, he was a fucking trooper, and still is, even after mom passed, he dedicated his life to her and us kids, he supported her, unconditionally, despite how she acted sometimes. I will say the drugs got a LOT better by the mid 90s. Her last ten years, she was stable and happy, that's all you can ask for, thank goodness for science.

My best friend has had OCD so bad that she wouldn't leave the bathroom for hours. It was self-focused attention, she would redo her makeup, over and over again, until it was perfect, and many times, it never was, and she would refuse to be seen, by anybody. Thanks to therapy and medication, she's a lot better, and now she's engaged to a wonderful woman who really cares about her and understands her.

My own fiancee is bi-polar, and for a while she was on the wrong set of medications for her, they were so bad that she was unmotivated to even leave bed, she was so depressed, had anxiety so bad, she'd vomit from having a nervous stomach, and would refuse to even interact with others. We switched her to a new doctor, who prescribed her new medications, and it was like turning a switch, all of the sudden, she was herself again, and now she's happy and stable.

The reason I mention this should be obvious, where is the evidence that emotions come from a deity, or the supernatural? I will say that science, particularly neuroscience, hasn't found all the answers yet, but that's the point, isn't it? Should they stop looking where it seems the things are produced, the brain?

If there is a non-material, supernatural aspect to ourselves, our moods, our emotions, our consciousness, it seems to rely on the brain to work on our bodies, basically this "aspect" behaves as if it wasn't there, so, unless there is compelling evidence for its existence, the best assumption to make, particularly from a medical and scientific perspective is to assume it doesn't exist at all.

A further question, for those who believe there's an immaterial aspect to our minds, what do you think are the causes of disorders such as bi-polar, clinical depression, schizophrenia, OCD, ADD, etc.?

[Warren Stupidity]

1. So are electrodes.

Jolt the right circuit, have an emotional experience, perhaps a deeply religious one.

At a point in time where the science of neurology is merging with the philosophy of mind, it is rather ironic that our theists still imagine that this is an unanswerable question demanding "therefore GOD!".

[Humanist_Activist]

3. With some of the side affects of anti-depressents, I'm thrilled that "brain pace-makers" are...

becoming a thing. I also didn't mention the alterations of people's personalities that results from stroke, alzheimer's, and other forms of brain disease and damage.

[gcomeau]

4. In many cases they don't imagine it's unanswerable...

...they *need* it to be unanswerable. So they insist it is.

See: Deepak Chopra. Makes a fortune off convincing people of this kind of nonsense.

[Humanist_Activist]

6. This I don't understand, my mother had stacks of medical books, psychology and psychiatry books etc.

She wanted to know what was wrong with her, and how she can help alleviate it, and she didn't turn to Deepak Chopra for that.

My fiancee majored in psychology in college because of her own keen interest in her mental health.

Anyone who claims such things aren't answerable simply give up far too easily.

[uriel1972]

2. As for the last question...

DEMONS!!!!, no seriously. Some people still believe that. Others believe those illnesses don't exist. There are those that believe they can cure schizo with vitamin B12, I kid you not. Or, if you are a scientologist(sp?), it's aliens.

As a sufferer of a few of those mentioned diseases, I am very grateful to the medical establishment and their pill-pushin' ways, without which I wouldn't be still around.

[Humanist_Activist]

5. I don't have one of those diseases, but I remember, vividly, the last manic episode my mother had...

she didn't sleep for 3 days, and she knew something was wrong, but couldn't control it, she tried talking too fast, her mental speed was in overdrive, the look of frustration at not being able to communicate, at being aware of what is wrong, but completely at its mercy, the lack of control over your own emotions. Even after she refused to leave her room and we had to call EMTs to take her to the hospital, it was a conflict, she knew she had to go to get better, but didn't want to leave the safe zone either. It was both horrifying and a relief, my Dad and I dealt with it, cried about it, but she got the help she needed and was stable for the rest of her life.

[rug]

7. No.

Nor are the paintings of van Gogh the product of psychosis.

[Humanist_Activist]

8. Huh?

Can someone parse this for me? How does this post relate to mine?

Also, it seems rather possible that Van Gogh did suffer some type of brain disorder, what type and what severity is speculation.

[rug]

9. Drugs and blood chemistry are not the counterpoint to the question in the OP you reference.

Even though it's probable van Gogh had mental illness, likely caused by chemical imbalance, that does not explain his art.

[Humanist_Activist]

10. No, but it did influence it, I'm sure, just like every product of every human ever produced...

is influenced by their states of mind, their life experiences, their moods and emotions, etc.

Are you saying that his art require some type of supernatural explanation or something? It exists, he made it, it shows his perspective on the world, what further explanation is needed?

All speculations people make beyond this is more to find out about the man himself, or to try to explain his behavior in a historical context.

[rug]

11. That's completely true. It influenced it to a great extent.

But it did not cause it.

No, I'm not saying any art requires supernatural explanation, yet, but a materialist explanation of it, emotions, and consciousness remains lacking.

[Humanist_Activist]

12. How does it remain lacking? At least we know where to look, so we are one up...

on the Egyptians, at least, unless you are claiming there is some type of non-material source, and if so, where is your evidence for that?

That's the issue, the lack of evidence, and if you are claiming that emotions, or even consciousness aren't a product of our brains, then what are they a product of?

[rug]

13. It does not explain abstractions.

If the hypothesis is that they are, as all things, material, where's the data?

If the materialist hypothesis fails, then another can be posited. I'm not convinced it's at that point but it's getting there.

[Humanist_Activist]

14. Really? Because what other hypothesis are possible, what other ones are testable?

States of consciousness and emotional health, are dependent on the physical health of the brain. Is there any evidence saying that our behaviors, emotions, and our ability to think isn't related to our brains at all?

Also, what do you mean by abstractions? Do you mean abstract thought? While it may be uniquely human, its also possible it isn't, indeed, given how much stuff we though were uniquely human(culture, technology, tool usage, language, etc.) that no longer are considered uniquely human, I doubt we are the only species capable of abstract though, even if it is radically different from our own.

[rug]

15. That's not the scientific method.

The hypothesis will stand or fail on its own. Otherwise it's the Hypothesis of the Gaps.

Abstractions are nonmaterial expressions of thought and emotions.

Here's a Dr Who interlude.

[Humanist_Activist]

16. "Abstractions are nonmaterial expressions of thought and emotions." OK, so you just solved it...

since we have pretty good evidence where, how, and under what circumstances thoughts and emotions come from, and abstractions are, by your definition, products of those things. So where's the unsolvable mystery here?

In addition, I asked for an alternative hypothesis that keeps the basic necessities of being able to be scientifically examined, in other words, it would have to be testable, falsifiable, and observable, at the bare minimum.

ON EDIT: On further examination, please define "nonmaterial", because I'm trying to think of something being truly nonmaterial, and I'm coming up short, I mean, if I were to articulate any abstraction, it becomes material, to be recorded and observed, so define what you mean by nonmaterial.

[rug]

17. I wish I did.

By nonmaterial I mean something not composed of matter or energy. Yet it exists.

Knowing what generates it is insufficient. For example, we know where television transmissions come from and the physical principles by which they operate. But how do you explain Honey Boo Boo?

[Humanist_Activist]

18. Can you give an example of something nonmaterial?

I'm puzzled because, from what I know of physics, everything is composed on either matter or energy(or both), at least in part.

As far as your example, Honey Boo Boo, while puzzling as to why some people like it, I don't understand your question in this context.

Even thoughts that stay in your head are not nonmaterial, they are composed of electrochemical signals in your brain that are organized in a particular fashion to produce the contents of that particular thought, perhaps even calling up a memory or two, etc.

I think my confusion stems from the fact that I don't see why a show like Honey Boo Boo needs an explanation outside of a cultural or social explanations, you seem to be creating a limitation, or a lack, that doesn't really exist. Even when talking about pure information, its still relies on matter and energy to produce it, store it, transmit it, etc. its a product of the material, so isn't nonmaterial.

Going back to information, as this seems to be what you are talking about with "abstraction", information is reliant on matter and energy to produce it, first in the creative processes of a brain(not necessarily human, or even biological), then it needs to be stored, first internally, in the aforementioned brain, then externally, on some storage medium, a material object. That storage medium can even be the final product, such as canvas for a painting, a piece of paper for a poem, etc.

But if you want to talk about the merits of the contents of the information being transmitted, used, etc. That isn't a question for physics or medical science, but for the social sciences, anthropology, for older things, archaeology.

[uriel1972]

19. Patterns and emergent properties...

The whole is more than the sum of it's parts. The orange is more than x amount of carbon atoms and y amount of oxygen atoms and so on. It is the arrangement of the individual parts that make something what it is.

We don't need a supernatural explanation for expressions of human behaviour than we need them for fruit. Like love, art is just another expression of a human behaviour. It has a natural, material cause.

We create and enjoy art because it activates certain receptors in the brain. If that seems dry and dull then so be it, go back to your Van Gogh viewing and give it no more thought.

Oh and all forms of human expression are art even Honey Boo Boo. I am not saying I enjoy it but it remains a form of human expression.

[Humanist_Activist]

20. I find emergence to be fascinating, our consciousness is an emergent property of our complex brains.

Indeed, I actually made a post, a long time ago about this, though not from the angle of appreciating art, though I can see that as well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/121813804

I blame early 19th century romanticism, which we still have the dregs of, existing today, for making such things seem dry and dull, or even worse, thinking its demeaning or diminishing of ourselves or the world around us.

[Jim__]

21. Roger Penrose on the existence of a nonmaterial reality.

From wikipedia's page on Roger Penrose:

Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS (born 8 August 1931), is an English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College.

Penrose is known for his influential work in mathematical physics, in particular for his contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their contribution to our understanding of the universe.[1]

And an excerpt from an essay by Penrose:

...

Whether we look at the universe at the quantum scale or across the vast distances over which the effects of general relativity become clear, then, the common-sense reality of chairs, tables and other material things would seem to dissolve away, to be replaced by a deeper reality inhabiting the world of mathematics. Our mathematical models of physical reality are far from complete, but they provide us with schemes that model reality with great precision – a precision enormously exceeding that of any description that is free of mathematics. There seems every reason to believe that these already remarkable schemes will be improved upon and that even more elegant and subtle pieces of mathematics will be found to mirror reality with even greater precision. Might mathematical entities inhabit their own world, the abstract Platonic world of mathematical forms? It is an idea that many mathematicians are comfortable with. In this scheme, the truths that mathematicians seek are, in a clear sense, already “there”, and mathematical research can be compared with archaeology; the mathematicians’ job is to seek out these truths as a task of discovery rather than one of invention. To a mathematical Platonist, it is not so absurd to seek an ultimate home for physical reality within Plato’s world.

This is not acceptable to everyone. Many philosophers, and others, would argue that mathematics consists merely of idealised mental concepts, and, if the world of mathematics is to be regarded as arising ultimately from our minds, then we have reached a circularity: our minds arise from the functioning of our physical brains, and the very precise physical laws that underlie that functioning are grounded in the mathematics that requires our brains for its existence. My own position is to avoid this immediate paradox by allowing the Platonic mathematical world its own timeless and locationless existence, while allowing it to be accessible to us through mental activity. My viewpoint allows for three different kinds of reality: the physical, the mental and the Platonic-mathematical, with something (as yet) profoundly mysterious in the relations between the three.

We do not properly understand why it is that physical behaviour is mirrored so precisely within the Platonic world, nor do we have much understanding of how conscious mentality seems to arise when physical material, such as that found in wakeful healthy human brains, is organised in just the right way. Nor do we really understand how it is that consciousness, when directed towards the understanding of mathematical problems, is capable of divining mathematical truth. What does this tell us about the nature of physical reality? It tells us that we cannot properly address the question of that reality without understanding its connection with the other two realities: conscious mentality and the wonderful world of mathematics.

Of course, we don't have to accept Penrose's opinion. But, given his expertise on the nature of the universe, we should not just dismiss what he has to say.

[rug]

23. That's a mouthful.

Thanks for this info. There's a lot in there to consider.

[uriel1972]

26. A return to Platonic forms...

It is not impossible to be very smart and totally off-beam. I would have thought mathematics describe the universe, not create or define the universe. The argument from authority is to be regarded with caution.

On the other hand I could be wrong and he could be right, in which case the universe is crazier than I would ever be.

[Jim__]

27. Penrose bases this on his belief that mathematical truths are timeless and objectively true.

If that is correct, they cannot be dependent upon the beliefs and/or knowledge of temporally constrained intelligent agents.

This is not an argument from authority. Penrose acknowledges in the essay that many experts disagree with him. At the end of the essay the person who posted it describes discussions that he has on this with a group of people - not all agree. My point is that these issues are not simple and are worth serious discussion.

[uriel1972]

31. 'Objectively true' for a human endevor seems a big ask...

Everything we know is mediated through the all too painfully fallible human senses. The mathematical 'Truths' we hold so dear may one day turn out to be laughably false.

Our mathematical system is constrained by the universe, that is to say 'Timeless' seems nonsensical. But and I will repeat what I said earlier, he may be right.

I just don't see Platonic forms, a one true chair perfect and existing outside the universe, of which all chairs are a shadow as a reasonable belief.

Again, intelligence and qualifications are no barrier to outlandish belief. Is Penrose religious and might that not influence him if he was?

[uriel1972]

32. I see that he is not , but believes there is a purpose to the universe...

A bit of a contradiction, but there you go.

[Jim__]

37. Your response actually supports Penrose's position.

You say:

'Objectively true' for a human endevor seems a big ask...

Penrose's position is that mathematics is not an essentially human endeavor; mathematical truths are discovered by mathematicians, not invented by them. As posted previously:

... It is an idea that many mathematicians are comfortable with. In this scheme, the truths that mathematicians seek are, in a clear sense, already “there”, and mathematical research can be compared with archaeology; the mathematicians’ job is to seek out these truths as a task of discovery rather than one of invention. ...

Part of his argument is that the precision of mathematics exceeds anything we would expect from human invention:

An important point to be made about these physical theories is that they are not just enormously precise but depend upon mathematics of very considerable sophistication. It would be a mistake to think of the role of mathematics in basic physical theory as being simply organisational, where the entities that constitute the world just behave in one way or another, and our theories represent merely our attempts – sometimes very successful – to make some kind of sense of what is going on around us. In such a view there would be no particular mathematical order to the world; it would be we who, in a sense, impose this order by describing, in an elaborate mathematical scheme, those aspects of the world’s behaviour that we can make sense of.

To me, such a description again falls far short of explaining the extraordinary precision in the agreement between the most remarkable of the physical theories that we have come across and the behaviour of our material universe at its most fundamental levels. ...

You also seem to be under the naive impression that Penrose is some kind of solitary figure advocating for mathematical platonism. He isn't. You've probably heard of Kurt Gödel and Bertrand Russell, two of the top logicians of the 20th century. You may not have heard of Massimo Pigliucci, but he is a philosopher and has written an interesting column discussing mathematical platonism.

Kurt Gödel was a mathematical platonist. An excerpt from his page at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Kurt Friedrich Gödel (b. 1906, d. 1978), “established, beyond comparison, as the most important logician of our times,” in the words of Solomon Feferman (Feferman 1986), founded the modern, metamathematical era in mathematical logic. His Incompleteness Theorems, among the most significant achievements in logic since, perhaps, those of Aristotle, are among the handful of landmark theorems in twentieth century mathematics. His work touched every field of mathematical logic, if it was not in most cases their original stimulus. In his philosophical work Gödel formulated and defended mathematical Platonism, involving the view that mathematics is a descriptive science, and that the concept of mathematical truth is an objective one. On the basis of that viewpoint he laid the foundation for the program of conceptual analysis within set theory (see below). He adhered to Hilbert's “original rationalistic conception” in mathematics (as he called it);[1] he was prophetic in anticipating and emphasizing the importance of large cardinals in set theory before their importance became clear.

Bertrand Russell was a platonist for at least part of his life, of a slightly different flavor than Penrose - he believed that mathematical entites had independent being but not existence - but a Platonist nonetheless. From his page in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

When Russell rebelled against idealism (with his friend G.E. Moore) he adopted metaphysical doctrines that were realist and dualist as well as Platonist and pluralist. As noted above, his realism and dualism entails that there is an external reality distinct from the inner mental reality of ideas and perceptions, repudiating the idealist belief that ultimate reality consists of ideas and the materialist view that everything is matter, and his pluralism consists in assuming there are many entities bound by external relations. Equally important, however, is his Platonism.

To cite someone with more of a philosophical background rather than a mathematical one, Massimo Pigliucci has 2 doctorates in biology and one in philosophy. One of his columns discusses mathematical platonism. An excerpt from that column:

...

To begin with, just to clear the air of a possible misunderstanding, mathematical Platonism — despite the name — bears little correspondence to Plato’s theory of forms. The latter, it may be recalled, was based on the notion that the world as we perceive it is but a pale reflection, a shadow (as in the famous metaphor of the cave) of the real world of pure concepts, to which, however, it is related. So for Plato there are the chairs of our everyday experience and then there is the ideal of a Chair, there are good things in the world and the ideal of Good itself, and so on.

Mathematical Platonism, instead, is a much more metaphysically circumscribed notion about the ontology of a particular category of abstract objects, those of concern to mathematicians (like numbers, sets, and so on). To be precise, Linnebo defines mathematical Platonism as the conjunction of these three theses:

Existence: There are mathematical objects.

Abstractness: Mathematical objects are abstract.

Independence: Mathematical objects are independent of intelligent agents and their language, thought, and practices.

...

As to the last paragraph from your post:

Again, intelligence and qualifications are no barrier to outlandish belief. Is Penrose religious and might that not influence him if he was?

It really just shows that you are not at all current on the status of mathematical platonism among a subset of philosophers and mathematicians. No one needs to accept this philosophy; but any opposition has to contend with serious arguments. Religion has nothing to do with it.

[AtheistCrusader]

40. Error.

Agree on the first bit, but the latter, you cannot know.

You might be ok rephrasing that as 'nor was van Gogh's ability to paint the product of psychosis'.
But the content of the paintings may well be, or not, impossible for you to declare.

[rug]

42. Psychosis is terribly destructive and incoherent. It is indeed a pathology.

That cannot be said of van Gogh's paintings. Art, regardless of what influences it, has a coherence, even if the subject is chaos.

As an example, look at this artist's self-portraits as his Alzheimers worsened. (Yes, pyschosis is not dementia but you take my point.

http://www.williamutermohlen.org/index.php?Itemid=95&id=48&option=com_content&view=article

http://www.technologyreview.com/photogallery/429486/dementia-the-self-portraits-of-william-utermohlen/

The art is seen through the illness, not because of the illness.

[Act_of_Reparation]

22. Xenu!

He's also been known to cause dry mouth, drowsiness, irritability, and compulsive dishonesty.

[trotsky]

24. Along those lines...

if emotions, personality, and so forth have a supernatural origin (i.e, come from a "soul" or whatnot), how is it even possible for physical chemicals to affect them? Or brain injuries? Or even lack of sleep?

[uriel1972]

25. Ignore the man behind the curtain...

We aren't supposed to point out the impossibility of a non-material entity acting on a material entity without leaving a trace.

[cbayer]

28. Of course not and there is lots of data about

both most recreational mood altering chemicals and mood altering pharmaceuticals.

Prior to this, I think there was a "magical" explanation, which is why some native people incorporated them into their ceremonies.

I wholeheartedly support your use of the term "brain disorder" and I wish we could make that change. I am guilty of continuing to use some terms that I think should be changed, because that's the accepted nomenclature.

Glad that your friends and family were able to get stabilized. Medications have indeed come a very long way for serious disorders.

But when we speak of brain disorders, we are talking about disease. Medications, if they are effective, put things back in order, generally by either increasing or decreasing a particular neurotransmitter or group of neurotransmitters.

So we are not talking about what we would consider "normal" emotional states - those that most people experience, but are accepted as something to be expected and not an illness.

I believe there is a neurochemical explanation for those emotions as well.

Things start to get more complex when you talk about emotions that are unexpected, seem to exceed what is normally experienced but do not represent illness.

Things like inspiration, awe, frenzy, I guess.

[uriel1972]

29. Um there is no reason...

for 'unexpected emotions' to be anything else but brain states induced by neurotransmitters. That we don't expect or understand why we feel them is no reason to involve the supernatural.

Ockham's razor can be translated to be "Don't invent, when things can be adequately explained by existing knowledge." Not that I'm saying we know everything about the brain, we don't, but we know enough to discount, spirits, muses and demons.

[cbayer]

30. I agree, but they are much more complex, unique and personalized, imo.

So they are harder to explain… so far.

I didn't say a word about the supernatural.

I am quite familiar with Occam's Razor, but I disagree that we know enough to complete dismiss that there are things that may exert external influence. I think we just don't know.

In watching "The Hours" last night, I was struck by a particularly poignant and rather mysterious line uttered by Virginia Woolf.

When asked by a child what happens when we die, she said "We return to where we came from".

She said no more.

[uriel1972]

33. If not through a natural material agency...

then what is left, but the supernatural?

[cbayer]

34. What we define as supernatural now may be natural later.

If one uses supernatural as a perforative to dismiss those who believe that there are things we don't understand, they will reach one conclusion.

If one uses supernatural merely to describe things for which we have no current explanation based on our understand of nature, they will reach an entirely different one.

[uriel1972]

35. True, I agree on this...

Still the emotions you describe are, perfectly normal, everyday occurrences and don't need special explanations, beyond the firing of neurons in response to information from the senses and the bath of neurotransmitters that they live within.

[cbayer]

36. Yeah, I was rushed and didn't really thing through the list of emotions

I was trying to get to.

Also, I'm not sure it is "emotions" I am trying to describe.

I tend to think you are probably right, but I'm not willing to completely shut that door yet.

Many before us have been mightily surprised by a new discovery.

[Humanist_Activist]

38. That is something I have an issue with, calling something we don't have a full understanding...

of supernatural is putting in other implications that are the opposite of your own conclusion. The most we can honestly say is "We don't know".

All you are illustrating is the horrible track record of supernatural believers and their beliefs that have been debunked by science so far.

If one uses supernatural in the way you describe, they are being dishonest.

[cbayer]

39. I don't understand your post.

Where do you draw the line between "We don't know" and "supernatural"? Who defines what goes in which category?

If evidence becomes available for something you now personally define as supernatural, have you been dishonest? I don't think so.

If there is never evidence for something you think science will eventually explain, have you been dishonest?

[Humanist_Activist]

43. I don't view the supernatural as valid category for anything related to reality...

its a category of fantasy.

We either know about something, or don't know about it yet(roughly), that's it. No saying its supernatural simply because we don't understand it, that's dishonest if you should know better. Calling it supernatural is trying to assert that it is "above" nature, that it isn't natural, and further, that natural explanations cannot be discovered. Its too loaded a word.

As far as the answer to your last question, no, because I'm not making up an answer to satisfy my ignorance, I simply live in a state of not knowing, and being open about it. You need to be more specific about the thing in that last sentence.

[cbayer]

44. You and others are the one that deem some things you don't know as "supernatural"

and it is generally in an effort to dismiss them.

But who decides what is or is not ultimately knowable?

I see your point about someone making something up to account for things they don't know. I'm not sure that I agree that religion falls into that category, though, as many believe they have evidence, both personal and historical.

[Humanist_Activist]

45. I call explanations people make for things they don't know supernatural...

when they make superfluous additions(such as gods, demons, spirits, etc.), invoke that its "impossible" to know, or say the claims are beyond our comprehension, or move the goal post, constantly.

As far as what is knowable and what isn't, that's decided by asking if its falsifiable, in other words, can the belief or idea be proven wrong, and we are talking about beliefs and ideas, not simple the "Unknown" with a capital U, that's too broad a category.

It also needs to be testable and the testing repeated by others, and the explanation has to adequately explain what something is, or how it works, and be better at matching the data than other explanations.

For example, the hypothesis of Gods is, in general terms, not falsifiable, because they are usually not of this Earth, particularly the Deist God, who doesn't interact with the Universe at all, except to start it, so we can't test for something that doesn't interact with what we measure.

Now many of the claims of actions and attributes of gods are falsifiable, such as reports of certain miracles or natural phenomenon, but we have found, in every case, that there was a viable, material, explanation for these phenomenon that better fit the facts.

Not to mention the fact that supernatural "explanations" don't explain anything, they don't answer the "how" questions at all, and then insert "why" questions where it doesn't make sense.

[cbayer]

46. There have been many, many things that were thought to be supernatural

at some point and are now known.

At the time, they might have been deemed falsifiable due to limitations in knowledge, instruments or method.

When they were challenged with a new explanation, they were no longer considered supernatural. And at that point it could be tested and retested.

I think it would be foolish to rule out things that we don't know. Even if they are improbable, one is much more likely to miss something if the door has already been closed.

And I think this is true for many things, not just religion.

You are right, supernatural explanations don't really explain anything, nor are they necessarily meant to.

But I will maintain that until there is evidence to the contrary, I think it's in our best interest to leave the doors open.

[Humanist_Activist]

48. So we are to leave the doors open for everything that's not falsifiable?

How is that useful?

I mean, if its not falsifiable, there cannot, by definition, be evidence to the contrary, it also isn't testable in the real world.

You also seem to have discarded the probability that something is true or exists with lack of evidence for it being true or existing.

In this thread, we are talking about the nature of our self, our emotions, thoughts, consciousness, etc.

There seem to be two competing ideas, in general, the first is that these phenomenon and behaviors we exhibit, from emotions to philosophy, are products of our brains, billions of neurons working together to create, well, you and me.

The competing idea is that some unknown or unknowable force(soul, spirit, ki, whatever) is directing our bodies to give the appearance of the above, while itself being independent of the body, and apparently, detectability.

The evidence for the first idea is the fact that mood-altering drugs and other things that directly interact with our brains leads to everything from changing our emotions to altering our personalities, sometimes drastically. This includes not only drugs, but brain damage, brain electrode stimulation, etc.

The evidence for the second idea is lacking, because apparently our souls are pretending they don't exist, at least not as puppet masters. So since they aren't falsifiable or testable, in this regard, is the idea of their existence supposed to be a door left open while it collects dust?

[cbayer]

49. How is it harmful?

Again, things once thought not the be falsifiable were eventually found to be testable and false (or true)

Science is driven by this notion, is it not?

Probabilities can help define what is worth pursuing or not, but unless there is zero probability, I would indeed argue for keeping the door open.

There is a third idea possible. That would be that there is something that influences those billions of neurons that is separate and not understood. While our understanding of the brain has advanced amazingly, our understanding of the mind remains cloudy, at best.

I lean towards there not being an external "force" and towards everything being eventually explained neurochemically. But I am not sure.

If we have souls, I don't think they are pretending at all. I just think we are pretty clueless at this point.

But, in a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years, people may laugh at our ignorant dismissal of something we just didn't have the tools or insight to understand.

Collecting dust is not such a bad thing, but that's not really the case. Many people continue to look. Who knows what they will find.

By the way, Contact is one of my favorite movies. I had the opportunity to visit the Very Large Array in New Mexico. It changed my perspective a great deal.

[Humanist_Activist]

50. Your third idea is just my second one, reworded...

But the issue is this, for example, on the existence of this "something", is it matter and/or energy? Does it interact with matter or energy? If so, then we should be able to detect it now, perhaps we don't have the sensitivity, but if the answer to either of those questions is no, then whatever it is that you are proposing is nonsensical, like a square circle.

Many ideas can be dismissed due to the impossibility or self contradictory nature of them, or the fact that their existence would mean that everything we know to this point is wrong, such as the fundamental forces, or the nature of matter and/or energy, etc.

The thing is, there are true mysteries out there, for example, what happened at the Big Bang? When will we correct the current, inaccurate, cosmological model of the universe? Etc.

The details of the brain are a mystery too, but so far, there hasn't been anything to suggest any outside force, and further more, our minds are, at best, the conscious reflection of our brains, our brains are us, from all the evidence we have gathered, any cloudy understanding does NOT invoke any need for an outside agency except the environment we grow up in.

Also, to your first question, it can be harmful in the same way some people discard the germ theory of disease and opt for faith healing or other alternatives that are contraindicated by medical science. Plenty of people think the Mind is separate from the Brain, and that it should be a matter of willpower to overcome almost any issue with the Brain, particularly the more subtle ones. This manifests itself in many ways, from simply telling people to "buck up" to overcome a brain disorder, or to pray for relief from some deity/spirit.

Frankly I have seen this type of attitude manifest in many ways, its a type of prejudice, I think that is born out of deep seated cultural indoctrination in a "mind/body" duality that frankly doesn't really exist.

[cbayer]

51. Let's look at the example of the germ theory.

They were definitely interacting with matter and energy, but could not be detected. Even the concept was completely foreign.

If we then turn that from something too small to be detected to something too large to be detected, there may, in fact, be a force of some kind that is interacting with matter and energy, but we can't detect it. Should we stop looking?

The mind/body dichotomy I think we mostly agree on. I also thinks it's a prejudice and, like you, object to the term mental illness. Those psychiatric illnesses which are clearly neurochemical are much more easily treated (these days) than those which are much less clearly so (like severe personality disorders), so the distinction remains, even among the professionals who use Axis I and Axis II to differentiate them.

[Humanist_Activist]

52. Actually, the idea that we are made of smaller parts is an old one...

in empiricism, granted, only the general idea was accurate, the details were mostly wrong, but then we invented the microscope, and were able to see these things first hand, first our own cells, then independent organisms, etc. finally a theory of disease that fit the data that we found ALREADY, was proposed, and low and behold, it was probably the one theory that lead to the most profound changes in how we live, how long we live, and how healthy we are while we live. Without it, the foundations of everything from the proliferation of vaccinations to the discovery on antibiotics wouldn't have happened.

[AtheistCrusader]

41. Absolutely not.

This is why I see no reason whatever to assume the existence of a 'soul' or any supernatural extension of our consciousness.

Like your choice of mind-altering chemicals, permanent traumatic brain injury produces somewhat predictable damage to a personality. Punch a hole through certain parts of the brain, and you get a somewhat-understood effect now, and it doesn't come back. So I reject the antenna-like or anchor-like nature of the brain pulling in some extra dimensional whatever, that exists before, after, beyond our bodies.

We're just software, running on squishy wet hardware. Alter the hardware, alter the ability of the software to run.

[Humanist_Activist]

47. I have a small quibble with your comparison, I don't think the computer...

comparison works all that well.

Our hardware directly determines our software, if it were, its more blurry with us than with the computers we build. You can, after all, easily switch out software, not so much with the human brain. Our brains literally reconfigure the layout of the neurons to store new memories, discard old ones, and perform "routine" maintenance, for lack of a better term.

This is really interesting, the brains of every individual animal that displays any complex and learning behavior is unique to that animal, in a physical sense, if we were to dissect your brain, and then mine, on the cellular level, there will be significant structural changes, something you can't say of our hearts or livers, assuming neither of us suffer disorders, diseases, or defects in those organs.

In general they have the same shape, same functions, but the details are different, and that I find fascinating. So our software influences our hardware, and vice versa. Its complicated.