Also, when you respond, you should try to address what a person is actually saying. Not just talk over them as if what they say is inconsequential, then use what they say in your arguments. For example, pattern recognition is something that KT brought into the discussion, and it is a vital point. Now you are talking about it as though it is something you inferred. Without acknowledging how it came into the discussion, why or giving the person who thought of it any credit. You just take it and run with it, as if it was always part of your hypothesis.
How can you agree I am on the right track when you disagree from the above, i.e.
From my perspective, pattern recognition is as fundamental to human-beings as the fear of death, and is perhaps the basis of fearing death.
My 6-8 claims fear of death precedes pattern recognition while you claimed otherwise.
Note from your linked article;
In psychology and cognitive neuroscience, pattern recognition describes a cognitive process that matches information from a stimulus with information retrieved from memory.[1] en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern … psychology
The pattern recognition as a cognitive process involves the cognitive brain which is related to the ‘higher’ or the part that is evolved after the emotional and primal brain.
Fear of death is triggered from the ‘lower’ emotional and ‘lowest’ primal brain as instincts.
Therefore fear, and fear of death precedes pattern recognition by the higher cognitive functions.
Thus my argument re 1-8 still stands.
Yes, I am claiming every human action [other than procreation-sex related and nurturing] is reducible to the fear of death to avoid death so that the living person can live to produce and take care the next generation.
I am not expecting you to change your position.
The point is what I have presented is true and justified.
You are jumping over because you claim pattern recognition of the cognitive brain precedes and dominate the subconscious fear of death which is false.
Pattern recognition [a higher brain function] evolved to facilitate humans so that they can respond to fear of death arising from the threats of death more efficiently.
Where did I ever claim that?
It is so obvious and evident it was KT who raised the point about pattern recognition.
I am not interested in ‘pattern recognition’ as my fundamental premise.
To me pattern recognition is secondary to the primary basis [fear of death] of why people turned to theistic religions.
Therefore it is not a part of my thesis-proper.
I included pattern recognition in my argument specifically to highlight how it is secondary to the fear of death.
In my thesis proper I will mention ‘fear of death and other instincts/functions’ which the latter will include pattern recognition among other many functions.
I am very familiar with pattern recognition as a basis for a belief in God. I believe it was Michael Shermer who used this argument which to me is still shallow.
“Patternicity”
In 2008, Michael Shermer coined the word “patternicity”, defining it as “the tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise”.[12][13]
“Agenticity”
In The Believing Brain (2011), Shermer wrote that humans have “the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency”, which he called “agenticity”.[14] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia#Related_terms
Note pattern recognition is also linked to schizophrenia, perhaps in its extreme form;
Apophenia has come to imply a human propensity to seek patterns in random information, such as gambling
Apophenia (/æpoʊˈfiːniə/) is the tendency to mistakenly perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things.[1] The term (German: Apophänie) was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia.[2] He defined it as “unmotivated seeing of connections [accompanied by] a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness”.[3][4] He described the early stages of delusional thought as self-referential, over-interpretations of actual sensory perceptions, as opposed to hallucinations.[1][5] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
Okay, but I didn’t say that you claimed anything. I think that if you integrate someone else’s points into your arguments you need to say where they came from. Like when you write an essay and use references for your sources or as you do when you provide links (though obviously not as formal as that). I like your idea re point 7. as you expanded upon pattern recognition nicely with cause and effect and logically concluded your point 8.
But, I don’t think you would have introduced them unless pattern recognition was brought into the discussion. There was no indication that your arguments were going in that direction - none what-so-ever. Ironically, maybe you don’t see the significance of your own point? The one point you made that makes things quite clear (perhaps even apparent), amongst all your other points you boast about, you don’t acknowledge.
I was being specific to those points of yours which I quoted.
Book smart… How can you be afraid of death if you’re unable to recognise it?
How cliche… You’re the one jumping, I specifically said “perhaps”, and I never claimed that.
To ensure humans can find food, ensure physical security and identify threats to death, all humans are programmed with ‘pattern recognition’ and other abilities which fan out to a myriad of activities.
Normally my point 6 would be;
To ensure humans can find food, ensure physical security and identify threats to death, all humans are programmed with a range of mental abilities which fan out to a myriad of activities.
I will not mention ‘pattern recognition’ specifically [note put it in ‘…’] if you have not brought it up to argue your case.
The range of mental abilities, would include many other mental instincts and abilities, e.g. intellect, reasoning, planning, computation, communication, language, basic morality, philosophy, etc., etc., beside ‘pattern recognition’.
The level of these activitities are not critical to my main argument.
Generally, I can avoid point 6 and just mentioned;
To avoid death, all humans are programmed with the fear of death and the threats of death. If details of threats are needed I will raise point 6.
Rather is book ignorance …
I have already explained.
The subconscious fear of death is the primary instinct as compared to ‘recognize’ which root is cognition by the cognitive brain. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition
All humans will eventually know the fact of mortality via real empirical evidences of death everywhere and will ‘recognize’ they are also mortals.
But recognition is at the conscious level of the higher brain, but this recognition as I had explained do not trigger the conscious fear of death since this in naturally and inherently suppressed most of the time except intermittently. Otherwise if the person have a persistent conscious fear of death, that is a psychological issue identified as Thanatophobia, which require treatment.
But my focus here is the subconscious fear of death which is an instinct which precedes any pattern recognition and other activities by the conscious mind.
The subconscious fear of death do not manifest consciously as a conscious fear of death because this path is suppressed, but the subconscious fear of death is so powerful and terrible that it leaks indirectly as very uneasy feelings of anxieties, despair, depression, Angst and the likes.
Theists rely on theistic religions to soothe this terrible discomforts which is very effective and works immediately.
Once this subconscious fear of death is soothed subconsciously, theists [with an inherent defense mechanism] will do their utmost to keep it there even to the extent of killing their own son [in case of Abraham] or even killing themselves [jihadists] to ensure the terrible existential pains do not bubble up from beyond their subconscious mind to the conscious mind. Theists will put up all other sorts of defenses against non-theists and other believers to ensure their balm [security blanket] is not taken away.
It is the same with you putting up all sorts of very weak defenses against my arguments which you are in no position to support. This is why I do not expect you to change your mind and facing a cold-turkey session.
That’s book ignorance…
Read Michael Shermer’s book.
I know that all along and to me ‘pattern recognition’ and ‘agenticity’ is a secondary root cause of theistic religions but NOT a primary root cause.
Since I am onto this subject, I make it a point to exhaust all materials related to the subject, so that I will not be caught as ignorant of the point.
I am always on the look out for anything I may have missed with the hope someone from the forum will point it out for deliberation.
As you are aware, both of us have been a long time in this subject [I believe I have spent more time on it] and I have had the opportunity to be informed by many of what I have missed [& I closed those holes] to the extent by now there would be very little I would have missed or is ignorant of.
That doesn’t explain how you interpreted what you claimed I stated - that is my point. Not what you think I should of stated. My claim was clear, and this is not the first time you’ve done this in discussion with me. If you interpret statements/claims as something that they don’t actually mean, that is a problem for your arguments in terms of analysis and synthesis.
Since you’ve done this with me, where my claim was very simple, isn’t it possible that it could be occurring with other forms of data and information which are complex, since they are more difficult to interpret?
I don’t think that you are doing it on purpose, but the fact that you didn’t actually answer my question is conspicuous. If you are doing it on purpose, then what you stated is a strawman argument.
You have misunderstood my points many times and even have changed some of them to suit your points.
I am not sure of what is the contention above.
I believe you were the one who started the doubt on my point earlier.
You have to explain if you think I am not right on your point.
Whatever the misunderstanding, my position is this;
Factually, ‘pattern recognition’ is preceded by the subconscious fear of death.
The subconscious fear of death to avoid death so as to enable humans to live to reproduce and nurture, evolve the faculty of ‘pattern recognition’ and many other instincts in all human beings.
I am not focused on “pattern recognition” [you and KT’s point] specifically, but rather would lump it together with other instincts and mental function within ‘many other instincts’ to deal with the threat of death to alleviate the impact of the subconscious fear of death.
So you are admitting to misunderstanding my initial claim?
You don’t understand what I’m asking you?
What is the point if you don’t understand what I’m saying? If you can’t grasp a simple contention like this, how will you understand more complex issues?
Why I don’t understand you is from the basis you are ignorant of loads of things related to this topic.
If you review back it is because you do not understand my point from your own lack of knowledge. Then it spin out of control to this. Besides this contention whatever it is [I have not given it serious consideration], is not significant to my proposed argument at all.
If you think whatever this point is critical to the argument, let’s retrace to the original divergent. Show me why you think your point is critical to show my premise is false?
It is not a question of cognition or the subconscious mind has some kind of agency.
So it is not the case of, the subconscious mind is aware then fears it.
As I had stated, DNA-RNA wise all humans are ‘programmed’ to avoid death so as to live.
To avoid death, DNA-RNA wise all humans are ‘programmed’ to with a fear-response that respond to any potential death via the threats of death spontaneously as programmed.
In the case of the fear response, there are two path-ways, i.e.
In the The conscious Pathway, the conscious brain process the information and response accordingly.
However there are emergency in case of real dangers, there is a short-cut [note the dotted path] where is brain response immediately even before the person is aware of the danger and threat.
Thus the subconscious fear of death will respond automatically and spontaneously without awareness and cognition.
How is the subconscious mind able to recognise death, if not through information relayed to it by the conscious mind?
Similarly, how is the subconscious mind able to do this, if it is not acting upon information relayed from the conscious mind? Do you believe that the subconscious mind is innately aware of death? If so, by what mechanism?
Nope information [data] are received in the brain via the sense organs and internally generated.
Non-humans and animals do not have a conscious mind like humans but their brain/mind [equivalent to our subconscious mind] response to threats of death which trigger the fear of death response.
The conscious mind can generate information received from the sense organs or internally via thinking, reflection, etc.
I have already mentioned the subconscious mind is controlled by the DNA-RNA which is programmed to avoid death with fear of death from a 3 billion years of evolutionary history.
So the program that trigger the fear response [re death in this case] is innate.
But we cannot equate the subconscious mind with the term ‘aware of’ which meant ‘conscious’. How can the subconscious be conscious in this specific case?
The subconscious mind is simply instinctual and triggers upon the relevant stimuli.
Thus when the common and numerous data of death [corpse, etc.] or threat of death is received via the sense organs, the fear response is triggered immediately without the person being conscious of it.
Note the short-cut pathway to the triggering of fear in the above diagram.
What is critical to my point is the subconscious mind is triggered so constantly with the data of death so many times that there is turbulence and turmoil within the subconscious brain/mind that the conscious mind is not aware of.
Instead those turbulence and terrible turmoils exude indirectly as Angst, anxieties and existential pains that reverberate throughout the psyche of the person. To relieve these existential pains, theists jump to grab onto to theism which provide immediate relief. That is why the majority are theists.
Marx was to the point on his ‘religions are the opium of the masses.’
It is the opium to relief that ‘pains’ that are turbulent within their psyche.
Unfortunately many non-theists resort to the real ‘opium’ to relieve the same existential pains exuded indirectly from the subconscious fear of death.
When one is unconscious as during sleep and dream, one can still cognize [recognize] which is the work of the higher brain.
All humans has cognitive abilities in their ‘higher’ brain, but this cognitive abilities is not shut off when one is unconscious.
It is reported some of those who were in coma [extremely unconscious] did recognize their relatives and friends when they visit and speak to the person in coma.
Note the human brain is 90% an mammalian brain inherited from our animal-mammalian ancestors. This is the part that is the subconscious brain. This brain act more on instincts and auto-pilot rather than cognitively driven.
Whatever brain is specific to homo-sapiens or humans is merely added on while we are humans, which is 10% or less. This is the part of the brain that enable self-conscious and human cognition or recognition.
Nb: some mammal and animals [primates, dolphins, elephants, crows] are said to have basic cognitive abilities, but it is so basic thus not critical to the argument.
The above is driven by the subconscious fear of death to avoid death.
It not precisely autonomic but a sub of it.
Note the term ‘subconscious’ which I had used from the start.
It is triggered spontaneously without the person being conscious of it or putting any conscious effort to it.
Note the diagram above which show the bypass [the short-cut to the amygdala] from the normal fear response.
To be honest, i did not read the whole thread so pardon me for if i missed anyting.
Juat as happened in the case of other religions, Budhism is also misunderstood by and large, even being the most popular eastern religion in the west. And, the reason is that very same; religions, especially like Budddhism, are more about in person practices instead of theorital discussion. When one starts practicing, concepts become clear automatically.
Just as one cannot learn any sport only by reading books, religions are also cannot be understod by only litrature. But yes, litrature with practice helps a lot.
All eastern religions, be it vedanta, jainism, all schools of Santmat or even Buddhism, are based on a same and very simple premise; There is something in each and every living being which is immotral and unchangeable and one has to reach to it, understand and unfold it. Some call it soul or spirit, some consciousneess but it is typically called Shurti( one that listens).
it is only that the ways to accomplish this very goal are somewhat different, that is why we have differnt relgions. Whenever a new explorer tries to reach at the goal, his journey and ecperiences are bound to be somewhat different from previous achievers, and with every successful attmept, we get a new religion.
Now coming to Buddhism, it is totally wrong to conclude that Buddism asks for suppress emotions. I do not know from where people get this impression. Prerhaps, form the life style of Monks, but that is not the whole story. Buddhism only asks not to be carried away foevever with the emotions. It says that always remember that whatever changes and their affects are happening around you are temorary so do not get too much involved with it and keep this back of your mind that all this will keep coming and goning but you(shurti) will last forever. So,be only a witness of all it instead of part. It does not expect that one will not be affected by the noise and become totaly immune to the changes. Contrary to the general perception, Buddhism does not ask to resist emotions but flow with those for the time being. The whole emphasis is on to not to make any effort in any direction but just witness all that from the sideline.
Let me take an example to clear my point. Think of a small piece of wood floating in ther ocean. It can never remain standstill in the water beacse the coming waves will keet it moving. Now, thing to understand here is that whether the wood is moving by itself of the waves making it move, cretainly the waves. On the other hand if the piece of wood wants to be absolutely stand still in the water it has to make an effort in order to do so. Buddhism asks not to do that effort But keep floting with the waves. That is precisely what the terms like emptiness and just be there stand for in Buddhism.
The second most misunderstood term is detachment. Detachment is not abondening anything by force. it is all about being immune to anything. Means, neither presene nor absense of anything particular thing should affect one. This is a bit subtle. i will again take an example to make it comprehensiable.
Think of a person who is very addicted to spicy food and caanot eat anything without spices. The common perception will say as he is very much addicted to spices thus to deatch himself from spices he shoold stop eating spices at and thus will became detached from spices. But, that is only half truth.
let us take another route to addresss this issue. Now, that person starts having double spicy food one time and totally bland food second tome. if he continues this practice for some time, the time will come when spices will lose relevance for him. he would not mind either spicy or bland food thus became detached from spices. Now, neither presence nor absense of spices matters to him.
That is precisely Buddhism asks to achieve in the case of emotions and feelings. it does not ask anyone to run away from anything but to be that peice of wood floating with the waves but to remember that you are wood not waves.
Hello zinnat, you have been away for quite a while, good to hear from you.
I can agree with all your points above.
I presented similar points in the prior posts;
One of the main contention and the criticism of Buddhism by KT is Buddhism promotes the concept of no-self [anatta, anatman], thus shaking the foundation of the normal person to function properly, i.e. induce monks into asceticism and giving up ordinary life.
I disagree with KT on the above.
My point is Buddhism-proper leverage on the two-truths theory, i.e.
‘there is self - empirical’ and
‘there in no self - transcendent’
which is to be applied appropriately to the proper situations, and one is to be centered on the Middle-Path to optimize one’s well-being.
Do you have a view on the above?
One of Buddhism’s core principle is ‘anatman’ [non-self] which is a counter to the ‘atman’ of Vedanta in Hinduism. If I am not mistaken, you are more inclined towards Hinduism, thus you may not agree with the the principle of anatman?
