Pris,
No, I’m not confused about this. You emphatically claimed that you’ve never said that your arguments are perfect, but you did claim your argument/syllogism is perfect. What is there to possibly be confused about? I know what perfection means. You seem to be the one struggling with the term.
Can’t you see the answer is implied in your own statement.
How ALL humans will know the certainty of mortality if not for their DNA therein that automatically enable them the faculty of self-awareness [after 18 months ++]?
ALL humans are programmed within their DNA to be self-aware whether they like it or not, want it or not.
The existential angst will manifest in the later years, i.e. late teens.
Nature has created this existential dilemma but nature has also provide an easy solution [optimal and temporary], i.e. religions. The most effective and immediate solution to deal with the existential angst [anxieties] is religion. This is why >90% of humans are religious naturally.
But being double-edged it is also very obvious religiosity manifest their share of terrible evils and pose a serious threat to humanity - to the extreme of the extermination of the species.
Soon it will be easier for Islam extremists who has nothing to loose to get access to cheap nukes.
That is the problem with your thinking, you don’t imbue into your thinking with the drive for deeper exploration. You have a very hardcore resistant to certain useful knowledge and are always scratching the obvious on the surface ONLY.
Pris,
I’m not convinced. These premises aren’t as simple and straight-forward as you’re attempting to reduce them to. Hence, I don’t believe that it is correct to condense the complex relationship between DNA and how it influences our psychology into a few lines. So I’m not going to draw any definite conclusions.
You’re entitled to your views, but I disagree with your assessment.
I suspect that the fact of evident neuroplasticity would shed doubt on attempts to localize dispositions as arising from specific locations in the brain topography. The brain appears to be more like a chameleon than an earthly geography. HCP is highly speculative.
What will be the side-effect of “moderating” anxiety cells?
He has not shown any scientific study that reveals 'modulation" of anxiety cells. So they have been located in rat brains. So what. Too much information has been left out in P’s account, pertinent information. Or it has been relegated to some distant future wherein the current research might prove to be true.
Setting aside the studies on rat brain for the moment …
If you “modulate” anxiety cells, then you’re going to be reducing all anxiety and not just the anxiety which gives rise to religious beliefs. That reduced anxiety can have unexpected effects.
For example, he wants to reduce terrorism. But it seems likely that existential angst, like fear of death, actually prevents some people from engaging in terrorism. If you modulate their anxiety cells, then you could end up with more terrorist acts. Those acts may not be motivated by passages in the Koran, they may be motivated by other ideologies. It’s not like people will stop acting on their beliefs.
Oh yes, mom says anything good that happens is of God and anything bad that happens is of the devil. Dad says everything is bad and good things are flukes. Alan Watts says whatever happens, I did it. This reminds me of:
My view has always been that it depends whether you’re filling the glass or emptying the glass. I’m not sure what that makes me 
What are self-destructive behaviours?
Do we chase money? Success? Or do we live as paupers? Do we strive to eat healthy? Abstain from smoking drinking? What’s the point when we’re going to die anyway? The point of the dance is to dance, not to get to the other side of the dance floor.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoTmNU_5A0[/youtube]
That’s just as silly as Mom and Dad’s positions.
Serendipper,
Um, any behaviour engaged in to the point that it leads to a severe detriment in a persons quality of life, and that reduces a persons level of functionality?
Clever. If you fill the glass too much it spills over. Don’t fill it enough and you won’t get a decent drink. I like it =D>
Yes I scratched my head on that one for a long time and still don’t have it fully figured out. Even if I the ego is different from I the universe, why would I fight myself? Of course, his position is there is only “I”. Yes, my parents are really screwed up and I’m still realizing the depths of it and what’s worse is I came from them, so I’m screwed up too. I think the only thing I have that they do not is introspection. If you’re crazy, how can you tell? The only thing I know to do is wait a couple years then reread what I wrote and think “Wow I was really screwed up when I wrote that!” But at the time, it seemed ok. So we can’t know if we’re crazy. Everyone else can be crazy, but we can’t see it in ourselves.
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
So is Alan crazy or am I (or you)? Who is mixed up? Part of the reason I am here is to get to the bottom of that.
So suicide bomber is no good? lol
At around 3:15 she says “A good death is its own reward” then the man attacks.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqlaXylsMwQ[/youtube]
So if I jump on a motorbike with the plan to jump a canyon for fame and fortune, but miss and die, was it worth it?
If I spend years living with grizzly bears in the wild to document them before being eaten, was it worth it?
What about Christopher Reeves who fell off a horse and became a quadriplegic?
Or Charles Krauthammer who jumped in a pool at Harvard and broke his neck. Interview youtube.com/watch?v=ZqW7iC42WM0
What is quality of life? What is functionality? What is the point to life?
Have you seen the Pythagoras cup? If you get greedy and fill it too much, it all drains out 
But if someone fills a glass with tea then hands it to me, I’d say “Why it’s only half-full!”
But if a waiter asks me if I need a refill, I’d say “No, thanks, it’s only half-empty.”
So whether it’s full or empty depends which direction it’s going.
Well, there appear to be objects, plants, animals and people outside of me.
I don’t see why I should think that they don’t exist or that they don’t effect on me in ways which are beyond my control.
Serendipper,
… Keeping the glass half full.
That’s a personal evaluation.
If someone is saying “my life sucks”, then he/she ought to do something to change it. And obviously he/she has some idea of what is wrong with that life and what would improve it. In most cases, some improvement is possible - maybe a big improvement is possible.
Yes but I realized one day that we can’t have 1 apple without the entire universe. An apple needs a tree that needs the ground and air which needs a planet which needs a star which needs a universe. A blackhole on the other end of the universe is just as necessary for you to be here as your own heart, and as Alan puts it, the same way you work your thyroid gland is the same way you shine the sun. Or we could say that whatever natural processes that cause your thyroid gland to function are of the same origin as those that shine the sun.
So what is the difference between “you” and “it”? He says this is why meditators focus on breathing because breathing is both something you do and something that happens to you and the purpose is to realize that there is no difference because whatever you do IS something that happens to you and the corollary is whatever that happens to you IS something you do.
Here’s a 6 min video about it:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uieXYC4bPPI[/youtube]
Whatever. If it makes him happy …
I did get some good advice from dad once. He said “You expect too much”. Perhaps I am too idealistic in thinking we could have one year of “normal weather” by random chance instead on once-in-a-century droughts in the summer along with floods in the winter year after year. Why can’t it rain in the summer instead of the winter just by random fluke, just once??? But I expect too much and should feel astonished that we exist at all considering what a rough place the universe is. Yes, he’s right, I’m being arrogant and feeling entitled to good weather as if the universe owes me something.
Life “sucking” is a matter of perspective and expectation. If I’m not king of the world, then life just sucks.
I was originally going to put your post in order at the top, but decided to cut n paste it at the end as a summation because, yes, that’s it and there’s a lot of profundity in analogizing the glass being half full (realistic expectations, not being greedy, counting blessings, the Middle Way of Buddhism)
So you’re confident that he is looney?