ANOTHER PANTHEISM DICUSSION

Beth Love said

I was attacked by a German Shepard, and i can tell you, I most certainly did not think everything through, I was lucky enough to have a fully functional instincual reactor...and instantly determined that there was nought to be done than kick some dog ass. I went for him, and he turned and ran, tail tucked. There's a place for intellect, an important place, but it isn't everything it thinks it is.

Reply by George Thomas

That is my point exactly. I'm a strictly materialistic, reductive determinist. WOW... lotta verbiage there, eh?

I go with the definition by evolutionary psychology that emotions evolved for the regulation of behavior or the mechanisms of behavior. My behaviors are strictly determined by the emotional signals (i.e. preference determiners) that control me. Emotions are physiological electro/chemical states in the body that range from intense to barely noticeable, but all action is preceded by a "preference" (i.e. an emotional setting in the synaptic landscape created by genetic and environmental conditions) that sets off a series of synaptic firings that reveal to the outside world what my behaviors actually look like. A spoken thought is also a behavior but my natural human duplicity makes my spoken thoughts untrustworthy or trustworthy, depending on the circumstances of the moment in which they come forth out of my mouth and body. The interesting thing is that language can be used to hide our true selves whereas our actions can't hide our "true self".

What is a true self? To my way of thinking, my true self is my biological self as expressed through its behaviors which are controlled through my electro/chemical makeup at the time of any action. Of course, experience is constantly readjusting (reevaluating) and altering that electro/chemical substrate. Also my tendency to think about or not think about my past behaviors also influence my current electro/chemical state. If I visualize a past experience and have feelings about it, that experience of having feelings about the past is readjusting my electro/chemical substrate. Thus our intellectual life reveals the process by which behavior is changed. Being reflective or un-reflective is a genetic condition, I believe, and also one of those conditions that separate the Hamlets (liberals) from the Genghis Khans (conservatives). PS: I'm revealing an emotional preference here, but I'm not feeling particularly fond of either one at the moment. I expect I respect the middle of the road average responder to the environment.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE HUMAN WHO SUSPENDS JUDGMENT?

Currently, slowly, working my way through a Darwin biography.... I couldn't help drawing a comparison between a repeated comment (by the biographers) about why an Owen or a Lyell hesitated to make the jump to "transmutation"... i.e. "evolution" while a handful of others, like Darwin, did, and similar comments by people discussing free will versus determinism. Always, those reluctant naturalists stated "fears" that it degraded mankind to put him in the biological line of monkeys.

In almost every situation when we're discussing free will, those opposed to determinism fear that we will lose "moral accountability" if we agree that human behavior is determined by electro/chemical factors beyond our control. Darwin's reply in his journals was that he opposed the arrogance of that idea which put humankind on a pedestal in the discussion of biology. He got this from his Fueguian [sp] experiences.

There is nothing scientific about a moral or fearful objection to the facts of natural selection or determinism. Of course, I know there's nothing scientific about my conclusion that we can measure the accuracy of the facts by the depth of the fear that they arouse in the human subconscious, but it's interesting to contemplate: the deeper the fear the nearer the truth. But who or what is fearing the concept of powerlessness? And why? Would accepting our powerlessness be harmful to our survival or would it create an entirely new world consciousness?

Imagine how fearful we would be if we had to suspend our judgment about all human behavior since those judgments are vital to our survival....... but........ only in a hunter/gatherer society?

YELLING AT THE PRESS

Lou,

I've hounded you in past about the paper becoming more relevant. This instance of the girl who has injured herself with acid is a case in point.

One of your commentators mentioned "Munchausen's syndrome". That syndrome, as well as many more, are being deeply explored in the fields of neuroscience and/or evolutionary psychology. Unlike psychology of the past, these new fields are hard science, based in new techniques for imaging and analyzing the brain and its functions.

Central to their findings is the idea that the brain is not and has never been a blank slate upon which any culture can write any lesson which they care to. The core finding of these new sciences is that the brain is an accumulation of hundreds and thousands of minute adaptations over time (minute computing devices with specific and limited duties) which have culminated (for the moment) in the modern brain which first appeared between 50 and 100 thousand years ago with all its strict limitations and its soaring strengths.

Reading in these fields will open any mind (and the minds of your readers) to what an amazing device the brain is. It contains all that is us, all the chemistry of our feelings and thoughts. The brainRus, so to speak, and its physical functioning produces every nuance of personality that others perceive in us. These states which we label "emotions" and talk about as if they were some sort of soul-state or airy-fairy presence within us are actually electro-chemical states of the body which evolved for the regulation of human decisions. Understanding these basic facts would go a long way toward humanity's beginning to get ahold of ourselves and our actions. Right now, we humans are pretty much by nature out of control of our actions.

These new findings are as important in the long run as Darwin's discover of the mechanisms of natural selection in the biological world. Is it not the duty of a newspaper to inform the public of new findings which may alter humanity's self-perceptions and our functioning in the Cosmos?

David Brooks, the once-upon-a-time conservative writer, brought up this new field of science in a recent conversation with Charlie Rose. He sees its importance as much as anyone in your line of work. That's why I mention him.

Good luck and good reading,
--
George Thomas

YEP. NO! YEP... OKAY, WE'RE STILL DETERMINED

(The following is taken from another contribution of mine in a continuing discussion about free will on the World Pantheism Movement website I belong to.)

I sometimes think that a person needs to be involved in crisis situations before they can uncover the determinism that drives their own human behavior. Because we can reflect ahead (interesting turn of phrase, eh) in most cases, we seem able to ignore that the ultimate determinant in any decision is our emotional life (the mechanisms evolved for the regulation of our behaviors). We can tell other people, "I'm not going to the dance because Emily's going to be there." Or we can say we can't go because we "have homework to do". In discussing our decisions with others, language makes us supply calculations or reasons for our decisions, but quite often we don't relate the feelings that actually determined our decisions. Often we're not even aware of the emotional currents that underpin our decisions. If it was fear of the hurt of seeing ex-girlfriend Emily that kept us from going to the dance, we seldom say that we were afraid. We leave it up to our friends to understand what's going on. And people spend a good deal of their lives reflecting upon other people's behaviors, and they generally do so by trying to think about what others are/were feeling when they made a decision. Note the verb "to make" in the phrase? It reveals that we imagine decision making as an activity that can be formed or shaped. Language colors all our discussion about human behavior.

By the way, if you want to get deeply into the difference between a liberal and a conservative mentality, I believe it's in their capacity for self-knowledge, their capacity for getting in touch with the emotions that underlie their behaviors. The liberal tends to be a Hamlet and the conservative leans toward Genghis Khan. Action versus reflection. The reason we go at each other so mercilessly is that we don't accept that the others' underlying emotional life predetermines their thoughts and actions. So we blame them for their actions. We imagine them in out mental lives as responsible for their emotional reflexes.

Anyhow... to return to the theme of crisis in decisions. In a barroom brawl is one instance where our determinism becomes apparent. Think about all the immediate decisions that can flow from the conflict. Anywhere from running from the bar to participating joyously in the fray or, in the middle, seeking a balcony view where one can watch from safety. Among those who participate, are some who'll grab a beer bottle, break it and try to cause serious harm to an opponent. While another can only use his fists. Another might pick up a handy pool cue. Of course, depending upon which opponent faces you, you might graduate to a broken beer bottle if your opponent has one.

My point is that these decisions in crisis situations are flowing from every piece of experience that has formed our emotional cores up to the moment of decisions, the mechanisms which control your behavior. You may have rehearsed your behaviors all your life by imagining them through, but in crisis your decisions are based upon the exact alignment of all your experiences at the moment they trigger your action. And when I say alignment, I mean every synapse and chemical reaction that has been repeatedly rehearsed by every imagining of behavior and every feedback for every behavior that you've had in the past. You are so primed for action that you don't need to think about it. The switches activate and the behavior begins, but those behaviors are conditioned by so much individual experience as well as genetic inheritance that no person can take any credit for how he acts in a crisis.

Later, after the crisis passes, we often discuss our behavior with others, but by then, we're already shading our discussions, feelings and reactions to the crisis even from ourselves. How many people can tell a relative stranger, "Man, am I a coward! I ran from that bar like a chicken with its head cut off!" No we'll say, "Them damn fools was a trying to kill each other. I got the hell out of there!" Our fear is obvious to another person, but think about all the shades of meaning that can attach to an action that is motivated by fear? No wonder, the more civilized we get, the less we are in touch with crisis situational thinking. A hunter gatherer was always in crisis and those who hunted the mastodon effectively (fearlessly) stood out and became the leader and those of us more cautious became the shamans. Et cetera!

I still side with determinism even though our less dangerous existences nowadays allow us time to imagine (reflect) upon our behaviors and imagine that we control them when, deep down, it's a single uncontrollable synapse that tips the balance of behavior in each decision.