284: A final conclusion

Like every organism on these planet the homo sapiens is a result of evolution. We may be inclined to think only of his physical appearance, but of course the brain is not exempt from this evolution.

The central nervous system has been the tool in evolution that made us survive in changing environments. Through the millennia it developed two strategies: the capacity for both logical analysis and intuitive reasoning, but one is slow and ponderous while the other is fast and furious.

The idea is that the intuitive part of the mind developed earlier in evolution than the rational part. It makes sense. The brain is wired to see order and structures, so that we can interpret our experiences and decide how to act on them.

Maybe some individuals weren't satisfied with such interpretations and stared to wonder, if there could be other explanations for the phenomena. This might have been the beginning of the evolution of the rational part of the mind.

What crosses my mind here is, that in the jungles of the Amazone there still may live undiscovered tribes. They are still hunters and live in a way their prehistoric answers might have lived.

Do they live in a world, where their supersense has prevailed over the rational part of the brain. Does it indicate how the evolution of the brain is influenced by environment?

How about us? We have our intuitive thinking, to believe there are things out there, where the rational part of the mind says: you are mistaken. Yet we are inclined to believe in psychological essentialism, vitalism, holism.

We are inclined to an intuitive dualism and the idea that the mind can exist independently of the body. All of these ways of thinking are both naturally emerging and yet supernatural in their explanations of the world.

Can we ever get rid of the supersense? Will the evolution of mankind continue and make us evolve into a species that uses logic over and above emotion and intuition?

This seems unlikely and there are some reasons why. In the first place I have said from the beginning that our brain is wired to generate our rationality but also our supersense.

This inclination to hold supernatural beliefs is part of our make-up and it seemingly served us well through evolution, otherwise we wouldn't be here.

There is another reason. Our intuitive thinking makes it possible to hold certain values as sacred. It tells us that there are things we should not question. Something is sacred when members of society regard it as beyond any monetary value.

A situation: a hospital with debts. The managing director gets one million dollars. He has a choice: spend the money on an urgent transplant operation that will save the life of a child or reduce the hospital's debts, which would guarantee the future of the hospital. What would you do? Most people would say: of course …save the child.

And other questionable questionable things: would you love to posses and wear the clothes of a serial killer, or add the meat hooks to your collection of memorabilia, by which the Nazis have hung their victims.

I think that you can regard value ethics as an expression of this conviction, which we share with others in our society and which binds us.

On the other hand when our rational part of the mind would be our only (social) tool everything would be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis. It is material, analytic, scientific. Everything only would have its price.

Some people in our society tend to believe so. How much do I have to pay you for sleeping with your wife? Some of you may frown, others might feel a moral outrage.

Yet I see here a parallel with Jeremy Benthem's attempt to calculate measures of happiness. Utilitarianism as the cost-benefit analysis of moral values.

My conclusion is, that our supersense is deeply embedded in our thinking and ironically makes it possible for us to regard certain supernatural beliefs as rational. And this holds society together.

On the other hand it means that we can have access to the mechanisms of the brain that generate our supersense ideas, which may help us understand their irrationality and function in human life.

By understanding the functioning of the brain more and more we also may understand better and better how to deal with the meaning of the supernatural in human psychology and even with fundamental philosophical questions about the self, identity and consciousness.

For now, the brain and neurological findings are our next station.


The discussion

[13:25] herman Bergson: Thank you...
[13:26] herman Bergson: You have the floor ^_^
[13:26] Simargl Talaj: People living in hunter-gatherer subsistence mode are not more intuitive, less rational. They're rational, with different data.
[13:26] Simargl Talaj: I reject also that purely rational life would be amoral. Logic proceeds from premise, actions from objectives. If my premise/objective is harmlessness, I am rational and ethical.
[13:26] Alarice Beaumont: i would like to join your conclusion of the embedding in our thinking :-)
[13:27] herman Bergson: Yes Simargl your first remark is right.
[13:27] Simargl Talaj: hunter-gatherers tell us nothing about brain evolution because they are not primitive.
[13:27] herman Bergson: what I only wanted to bring to your attention is the contingency of the development of the mind
[13:27] Simargl Talaj: They tell us only about culture in relation to environment.
[13:28] AristotleVon Doobie: so, as rational humans we recognize that the collective as large as it has gorwn cannot hold together, so we invent a paste to secure it
[13:28] herman Bergson: Yes Aristotle...that seems to be the man function of our supersense
[13:29] herman Bergson: the hunter-gatherers have certainly the same evolution of the brain as we have...
[13:29] AristotleVon Doobie: an artificail state of affairs for a portion's benefit
[13:30] herman Bergson: but their environment didn't probably provoke rationality to survive....I dont know
[13:30] Simargl Talaj: Indeed hunter gatherer life requires more rationality than urban life.
[13:30] herman Bergson: What is interesting is that science and technology developed in Europe mainly...
[13:31] AristotleVon Doobie: I suspect the brainstem is fixed and our cerebral cortex only attempts to keep it in check
[13:31] herman Bergson: The chinese culture shows a lot of scientific insights long before the European ones developed...
[13:32] Simargl Talaj: as did the Arabs
[13:32] Simargl Talaj: no culture keeps the lead at all times
[13:32] AristotleVon Doobie: and that our cerebral evolution is self-determined
[13:32] herman Bergson: There never was a Chinese or arabic Newton or Copernicus for instance
[13:32] Gemma Cleanslate: there are many conflicts in this situation i think
[13:32] herman Bergson: It is not about the lead Simargl
[13:32] Gemma Cleanslate: perhaps perception is part of the answer
[13:33] herman Bergson: It is about the effect on global development of the species...
[13:33] Simargl Talaj: to be rational and to be learned are two different things. Science requires not only rationality but texts, precedents, giant shoulders to stand upon.
[13:33] herman Bergson: So the history of science is an interesting source of information...
[13:34] Simargl Talaj: There is no evidence of European brains having any greater rational faculty than those of desert aborigines. Science is an effect of history, not evolution.
[13:34] herman Bergson: That is not the point Simargl....
[13:34] Bejiita Imako: ah
[13:34] Alarice Beaumont: hmmm
[13:34] Gemma Cleanslate: i think it is cultural also
[13:34] herman Bergson: What this is about is the relation between evolution of the brain and environment
[13:35] herman Bergson: the relation between environment and the development of culture
[13:35] Gemma Cleanslate: the math that europeans used came from the east
[13:35] herman Bergson: Yes Gemma...that is SOOO remarkable…
[13:35] herman Bergson: Our logic comes from india
[13:35] Alarice Beaumont: yes Gemma,, isn't that fascinating?!
[13:35] herman Bergson: our math comes from arabic scientists in the 10th century
[13:36] Simargl Talaj: Herman, so are you asking "Is it possible to dispense with supersense, cuz its intuitive basis is maybe not needed now?"
[13:36] Bejiita Imako: aaa yes
[13:36] Bejiita Imako: like Algebra and such
[13:36] herman Bergson: Then you misunderstood Simargl...
[13:36] Bejiita Imako: and the numbers we use are arabic symbols
[13:36] AristotleVon Doobie: seems the Europeans were good at reaping other culture's evolutionary progress
[13:36] herman Bergson: I said it is part and parcel of our brain /mind
[13:37] herman Bergson: Dawkins would love to discard of supersense I guess
[13:37] herman Bergson: I think that is a mistake....
[13:37] herman Bergson: It would mean to deactivate about 50% of our brain I guess
[13:38] herman Bergson: Besides as Aristotle also noted....it works as a social paste...
[13:38] herman Bergson: We NEED values to control our social behavior
[13:38] Gemma Cleanslate: ♥ LOL ♥
[13:38] Gemma Cleanslate: that is not a good picture in my eyes
[13:38] Gemma Cleanslate: social paste
[13:38] Simargl Talaj: I reject that values can only emerge from the antirational.
[13:38] herman Bergson: social glue..Aristotle used paste
[13:38] Gemma Cleanslate: :-)
[13:39] AristotleVon Doobie: some of us apply oil to keep the paste from adhering
[13:39] herman Bergson: That Simargl was the idea of the utilitarians too.
[13:39] Simargl Talaj: To the conttrary I believe evil emerges chiefly from the antirational.
[13:39] herman Bergson: antirational????
[13:39] Simargl Talaj: witch hunts illustrate this
[13:39] Simargl Talaj: that which is believed in spite of and against rational examination
[13:40] Simargl Talaj: and rejects the validity of rational examination
[13:40] AristotleVon Doobie: there is always a benefit to someone in every atrosity
[13:40] herman Bergson: that is our definition more or less of supersense, yes
[13:41] herman Bergson: The cost-benefit analysis is what the rationality comes up with to establish values
[13:41] herman Bergson: What do we win - what do we loose...
[13:42] AristotleVon Doobie: how much did the church benefit from the crusades, how much are we paying for it today?
[13:42] Simargl Talaj: If you properly assess benefit and cost, this is moral. If my sense of "cost" includes your pain.
[13:42] herman Bergson: and the matter is, that we value certain things that cant be expressed in terms of money
[13:43] herman Bergson: As I said before...study Jeremy Benthem and John Stuart Mill on this approach of ethics
[13:43] Simargl Talaj: It is irrational to assess such things in terms of money. So that failure is not a failure of the rational.
[13:44] Simargl Talaj: it is a failure to be rational.
[13:45] herman Bergson: I guess that is a rational conclusion Simargl :-)
[13:45] Bejiita Imako: aaa trye
[13:45] Bejiita Imako: true
[13:46] Bejiita Imako: not all value can be expressed in money
[13:46] herman Bergson: Well...thank you all for your particiaption.....
[13:46] AristotleVon Doobie: money is a very rational motive
[13:46] AristotleVon Doobie: Thanks, Professor
[13:46] Bejiita Imako: what is a human worth for example
[13:46] herman Bergson: We'll move on to the next stage of our quest about the brain/mind
[13:46] Bejiita Imako: a life cant be measured in money
[13:46] AristotleVon Doobie: yet it is
[13:47] AristotleVon Doobie: or at least in trade for it
[13:47] Simargl Talaj: in fact we measure our own lives in money when we decide to take a risk because avoiding it would be too expensive.
[13:47] herman Bergson: Exactly bejiita
[13:47] AristotleVon Doobie: money equals survival
[13:47] Bejiita Imako: money is just a way we use to put value on things
[13:48] herman Bergson: A would call that an American way of thinking with a failing healthcare system, Simargl :-)
[13:48] Bejiita Imako: cause we want to have something back for doing something, ex, make a product
[13:48] AristotleVon Doobie: LOL and now we have a new frontier after the election,all hell is breaking loose
[13:48] Simargl Talaj: <= outraged American, advocate of national healthcare
[13:48] Gemma Cleanslate: oh yes ari
[13:48] Gemma Cleanslate: ♥ LOL ♥
[13:49] Gemma Cleanslate: me too simargi
[13:49] Bejiita Imako: hahah
[13:49] Bejiita Imako: yes
[13:49] herman Bergson: Ok this is of the record now...
[13:49] herman Bergson: officially class is dismissed
[13:49] Gemma Cleanslate: ♥ LOL ♥

267: Supersense introduced

Would you buy the house in which a serial killer abused and murdered 19 young girls and burried the bodies in the backyard? In some American states the seller of the house is obliged by law to reveal the history of the house.

When I was a Bruxelles about ten years ago they were restoring a house, that dated from 1450. I have forgotten what the function of the building was…some castle or palace. I picked up a little piece of an old brick and kept it. It is still on my desk here. Why?

What drives the souvenir hunter or for instance the collector of Nazi memorabilia? Memorabilia collectors and fetishists behave in a very special way. They attribute to material objects invisible features that make them unique and irreplaceable.

This behavior is very common through the ages. In the Middle Ages there was a lively trade in bits of wood of the cross of Jesus. If we would collect them all now and assemble the pieces, we probably can build a house of all the wood.

What is it with these objects, that we believe that they have special qualities? It is a matter of fact, that we can not scientifically proof these qualities. Thence these qualities are supernatural.

This brings us to the quintessential question: why do we believe in the supernatural?

Whenever our beliefs rely on mechanisms and phenomena that go beyond our understanding of nature, we're in the field of supernatural beliefs Of course there are a lot of things we can not explain, but this doesn't make them supernatural.

Take for example the problem: how does my mind control my body? We are inclined to see the mind as a not material thing more or less independent of our material bodily. How do these two entities interact?

How to explain all this? The answer has to be found in human nature and in particular in the way we think and in how our thinking developed from childhood to adulthood.

It seems that somewhere in the process we have developed that special frame of mind regarding other people and our environment: we'll call is SUPERSENSE, as suggested by Bruce Hood.

To explain things with reference to supernatural forces is in harmony with our ideas about how the world functions, with all kinds of hidden structures and mechanisms.

We have to expand our quintessential question. We not only will ask "why do we believe in the supernatural?", but also "What is the source of this way of thinking about the world?"

Some immediately will point at religion as the primary source. Religions teach us a lot of supernatural things. A lot of miraculous events, which they want us to believe in, defy all laws of nature.

But you don't need to be religious at all to believe in the supernatural and feel your supersense in action. All forms of superstition, for example, are based on our supersense.

Sometimes we hardly notice the influence of our supersense. Do you remember that creepy feeling, when you entered that dark corridor, or the feeling of being watched by those staring eyes in that painting on the wall behind you, or your reluctance to touch certain things?

We can use all kinds of scientific methods to investigate the brain to discover how the mind works, but the supernatural eludes us here completely.

All our scientific methods don't seem to work on the supernatural. Every time we try it, we find nothing. But this lack of scientific credibility does seem to undermine our belief in the supernatural at all.

It looks as if the supernatural is all around us and that we have our supersense to see it.

So the questions we are going to try to answer are: Why do we believe in the supernatural and What is the source of this way of thinking about the world?

We'll start with that this Thursday ….. :-)

The Discussion

[13:27] Abraxas Nagy: wow interesting
[13:27] AristotleVon Doobie: yes very
[13:27] Bejiita Imako: aaa really :)¨
[13:27] herman Bergson: thank you Abraxas
[13:27] Gemma Cleanslate: the east would give us good reasons :-)
[13:27] Gemma Cleanslate: eastern thought about mysticism that is
[13:28] AristotleVon Doobie: if one could believe in supernatural
[13:28] herman Bergson: Well Gemma..we'll come to that certainly
[13:28] Abraxas Nagy: mmm the merge between quantum mechanics and eastern thinking
[13:28] AristotleVon Doobie: of course there is no proof
[13:28] Alarice Beaumont: or the greeks with their gods
[13:28] Gemma Cleanslate: exactly
[13:28] Bejiita Imako: aaa yes
[13:28] Gemma Cleanslate: no proof anywhere
[13:28] herman Bergson: Wait.....
[13:29] herman Bergson: We should keep the problem clearly formulated...
[13:29] herman Bergson: The problem is that we believe in things that defy natural laws, the laws of physics etc.
[13:30] herman Bergson: And we hold these beliefs to be TRUE!!!
[13:30] herman Bergson: so as a real part of reality
[13:30] herman Bergson: And the problem with these beliefs is that we cant investigate them and test them scientifically
[13:31] itsme Frederix: the point is that the proposition is: supernatural beliefs are natural . I guess Bruce has a good point with that.. The 2nd is that is is quite efficient to use these supernatural conventions.
[13:31] AristotleVon Doobie: is it a possibility that the destination was arrived at by the rails of a agreed upon collective thinking or rather misthinking?
[13:31] herman Bergson: Yes Itsme...very true...but you are reading ahead lol
[13:32] itsme Frederix: well you gave a clue
[13:32] herman Bergson: Yes..the supernatural is natural....but that has severe consequences...
[13:32] herman Bergson: and those we are going to study in on coming lectures...
[13:32] AristotleVon Doobie: are they natural? I think not, they must be implanted
[13:32] itsme Frederix: lets first define why it is natural, it looks like it has been evolved in our brains
[13:32] herman Bergson: Well Aristotle....
[13:33] herman Bergson: there are two points that make the supernatural natural...
[13:33] AristotleVon Doobie: evolved or repeatedly nurtured, itsme?
[13:33] herman Bergson: one is: the culture we live in
[13:33] itsme Frederix: Bruce claims evolved
[13:33] herman Bergson: two is: the construction of our brain
[13:34] AristotleVon Doobie: I agree culture can be contaminating to good thought
[13:34] itsme Frederix: our brain seems to be wired up with circuits that support supernatural
[13:34] herman Bergson: and yes Itsme...the evolution of the brain is a major point in this discussion
[13:34] herman Bergson: Beware Itsme....
[13:35] herman Bergson: This statement has consequences...
[13:35] herman Bergson: I do not remeber if you attended the introduction on September 2?
[13:35] itsme Frederix: but I do, I did
[13:35] AristotleVon Doobie: can the evolution of the brain be affected by hearsay evidence or does that require empirical data??
[13:35] Abraxas Nagy: nope
[13:36] herman Bergson: But there I have stated that this project will take its stand in materialism...
[13:36] Abraxas Nagy: ah
[13:36] Josiane Llewellyn: I think dreams are part of why we believe in a supernatural world and sense.
[13:36] AristotleVon Doobie: I suppose I will be your counterpoint LOL
[13:36] Alarice Beaumont: Hi Qwark :-)
[13:36] Bejiita Imako: hi Qwark ㋡
[13:36] herman Bergson: There are emirical data about the evolution of the brain Aristotle...
[13:36] itsme Frederix: well by stating the brain is wired for supersense you do the materialization, you just have to find the circuits then ... voila
[13:37] Qwark Allen: ㋡ ˜*•. ˜”*°•.˜”*°• Helloooooo! •°*”˜.•°*”˜ .•*˜ ㋡
[13:37] Qwark Allen: Hey! friends ,-)
[13:37] Bejiita Imako: Hooo!!!
[13:37] Bejiita Imako: Hoooo!
[13:37] herman Bergson: Hi Qwark..:-)
[13:37] bergfrau Apfelbaum: hi qwark :-) and hii hope :-)
[13:37] Abraxas Nagy: Hiya Qwark
[13:37] Alarice Beaumont: but some people are more superstisious then others
[13:37] AristotleVon Doobie: yes, but can hearsay make the brain evolve?
[13:37] Beertje Beaumont: hi Qwark
[13:37] herman Bergson: EVenRodney!! Welcome:-)
[13:37] Abraxas Nagy: hiya hope
[13:37] Rodney Handrick: hi herman
[13:38] hope63 Shepherd: hi all of you.. just ignore my presence and let me listen for a while..
[13:38] herman Bergson: We will pay attention to the evolution of the brain Aristotle in future lectures
[13:38] Qwark Allen: sorry got here late, there was a lot of trafffic to cross the bridge
[13:38] itsme Frederix: why hearsay, you are founding supersense in hearsay?
[13:38] herman Bergson: Hi Hope ^_*
[13:38] AristotleVon Doobie: if I tell you god spoke to me and you believe me, will you children believe it too?
[13:38] hope63 Shepherd: smile.. hello old friend herman:)
[13:38] Alarice Beaumont: Hope ..:-))
[13:38] Alarice Beaumont smiling heartily
[13:39] AristotleVon Doobie: what else is our beliefs without data to prove them but hearsay?
[13:39] herman Bergson: I guess so Aristotle....they have a natural inclination to believe such things, reported by an authority
[13:39] Rodney Handrick: just so you all know caileach in rl is living through earthquakes
[13:39] itsme Frederix: I'm really sorry, but I supersense my wife needs me now. Sorry
[13:40] AristotleVon Doobie: :)
[13:40] Gemma Cleanslate: ♥ LOL ♥
[13:40] Gemma Cleanslate: ok
[13:40] herman Bergson: smiles
[13:40] Gemma Cleanslate: oh that is good rodney
[13:40] AristotleVon Doobie: yes Rodney I was thinking of her this morning reading the paper
[13:40] herman Bergson: not everyone can say that Itsme..lol
[13:40] Gemma Cleanslate: was thinking of her the other day
[13:41] Adriana Jinn: yes we think of everyone
[13:41] AristotleVon Doobie: LOL, wave you hand and I submit that the hearsay must be repeated to the next generation
[13:41] herman Bergson: Ok I guess...we get diverted....
[13:41] Rodney Handrick: I forget how to raise my hand
[13:42] Gemma Cleanslate: always
[13:42] herman Bergson: So maybe better to move on to next Thursday with our discussion
[13:42] Alarice Beaumont: honestly.... me too Rodney
[13:42] herman Bergson: To conclude our discussion of today I especially want to thank Gemma Cleanslate. She drew my attention to an interesting website --> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/
[13:42] Rodney Handrick: thanks gemma
[13:42] Gemma Cleanslate: yw
[13:42] Bejiita Imako: ah
[13:42] herman Bergson: A very nice website that shows the history and physiology of the brain and more
[13:42] Bejiita Imako: lets see what that can be
[13:43] Gemma Cleanslate: lots of information
[13:43] AristotleVon Doobie: it was a series wasnt it?
[13:43] herman Bergson: So thank you all for your participation today....hope to see you next Thursday again!
[13:43] AristotleVon Doobie: thanks Professor
[13:43] herman Bergson: Class dismissed
[13:43] Bejiita Imako: interesting topic for sure this ㋡
[13:43] Abraxas Nagy: thank YOU professor
[13:43] Bejiita Imako: thanx
[13:44] Josiane Llewellyn: thank you Professor
[13:44] Rodney Handrick: wow... that was fast!
[13:44] herman Bergson: There will be lots more Bejiita ^_^
[13:44] Abraxas Nagy: i sure hope so
[13:44] Beertje Beaumont: Thank you Herman:)
[13:44] Bejiita Imako: great
[13:44] Bejiita Imako: ㋡
[13:44] Adriana Jinn: thankyou herman
[13:44] Jozen Ocello: thanks Professor
[13:44] Gemma Cleanslate: ♥ Thank Youuuuuuuuuu!! ♥
[13:44] Gemma Cleanslate: see you thursday
[13:45] Adriana Jinn: always so interesting
[13:45] Bejiita Imako: aaa
[13:45] Abraxas Nagy: see you all on thursday
[13:45] Jozen Ocello: I'm afraid I've not done much reading ... but I will read up before Thursday
[13:45] Adriana Jinn: thanks a lot to all
[13:45] Jozen Ocello: thanks and see you on Thursday
[13:45] Jozen Ocello: bye all
[13:45] Bejiita Imako: ill try show up
[13:45] Alarice Beaumont: thank you Herman :-)