[cheryl j]

What do you mean i came out ? Is the immaterial the realm of science then ? come on .

No, it's not. But that was what you had been saying for about 23 pages. Do I have to go back and show you all the quotes?

So there's really nothing left to discuss at this point.

 Here's one last joke though:
Ironically, the God particle still can't explain why the Catholic Church has mass.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

The reality is that most people hardly ever change their mind about anything that matters to them because they're only interested in taking up those ideas that agree with what they already believe while they reject the rest. It doesn't matter how much you prove them wrong, they will resolutely refuse to see it. It happens in every field and at every level, and because this phenomenon is something I study (Natural General Intelligence and how it goes wrong), I'm still skim-reading this thread, but there's no way I'll be dragged back into wasting any more time writing long posts for it.

(I was just kidding above , in that post of mine to you , i did even  deliberately wrote  many haha there , but Cheryl missed that all , by taking that literally , no wonder ...)
Exactly :
I would be really interested in any potentially  really non-materialist purely scientific studies concerning how beliefs do that to people, since i am a believer too , really .
"The believing brain " by materialist  =atheist Michael Schermer  does contain some truths like the fact that we all prefer certain ideas to other ones, certain beliefs to other ones, via our likes and dislikes that are mainly shaped by psychological cultural nurtural environmental factors .... :but,  i cannot buy his materialist belief non-sense he also does confuse with science , obviously .

Do you have any suggestions regarding any links , non-materialist purely scientific studies concerning how beliefs affect people's intelligence haha ....?  seriously .

P.S.: If reality is exclusively material (It is obviously undeniably not ) = just a matter of physics and chemistry as materialism makes people believe it is  , then we can make sentient machines easily haha = cannot be done, obviously , not today , not tomorrow, and not in a trillion years to come either , simply because reality is not exclusively material physical, obviously ...

So, only hard core fanatic materialists, idiots or fools would deny the obvious undeniable falsehood of materialism , the latter as a secular religion in science ...

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

What do you mean i came out ? Is the immaterial the realm of science then ? come on .

No, it's not. But that was what you had been saying for about 23 pages. Do I have to go back and show you all the quotes?

So there's really nothing left to discuss at this point.

 Here's one last joke though:
Ironically, the God particle still can't explain why the Catholic Church has mass.

(Now that you cannot handle the obvious undeniable fact that the emperor is really naked , you just resort to silly stupid sarcasm , sarcasm that's mostly made up by losers by the way , through their frustrations, envy ,impotence ,  ..., silly stupid sarcasm   that misses its intended target,obviously  ...= pathetic .)

You're a lousy reader , i see : and you're not intelligent , imaginative , creative, sensitive  ...you name it ...enough, not even averagely, sorry,  to grasp my so easy obvious simple undeniable  to grasp statements and facts though, concerning all beliefs , including materialism , that must not be confused with science,obviously   :
I have been the one  who's been wasting my  time on you, guys , all along , from day 1 , in vain = an utter total waste of time, as every truely intelligent decent honest fair ...reader or watcher of this thread can easily obviously see : except you, guys , obviously , Cooper has been a relative exception to that rule concerning just the 3 of you, guys , here participating to this thread : .

I did clearly state the fact that all beliefs are , per definition, unscientific, either religious or secular beliefs for that matter , including that materialist false secular religion in science thus, but are not all necessarily false , as materialism is, as the guy who wrote that article i did display here above for you  again , clearly states and shows  = all beliefs for that matter should be thus left outside of the realm of science = outside of the jurisdiction of science ,including that materialist false secular religion in science , that has been dominating science for so long now ...

P.S.: That materialist = not scientific , obviously , you cannot separate between science and materialism , as i see once again, that materialist = unscientific silly tasteless "joke " is stupid in fact and false , as materialism is : but you're not intelligent enough to understand just that easy obvious undeniable fact ....pathetic.
 I see , once again, that materialists cannot even come up with coherent consistent  "correct " funny  jokes : pathetic indeed .

Worst : those materialist stupid silly not-funny jokes do make materialists laugh haha : they do not even realise the fact that their silly "jokes " do hit them back right in the face , exactly like a boomerang might do, a launched boomerang that misses , obviously , its intended target(s).

Pathetic ...You're so stupid that i cannot but erase you from the pic, no sorry , no thanks for nothing ...

pfff...

[dlorde]

Some years past: characters: DC: Dan Coyote; RM: Reasonable Man

DC: There is no doubt - materialism is a false (and heretical) doctrine!

RM: Why think you so?

DC: Why? Sir, it cannot explain flames; is that not reason enough?

RM: Some say that flames are the volatile fluid phlogiston, contained within the burning materials, and released by combustion thereof.

DC: Phlogiston? Pah! Mere alchemy. It is inconceivable; no material force can explain that hot, bright, ephemeral, animated phenomenon - that form akin to life itself; it is obvious the explanation lies not with mundane materialism. No; it is certain: flames are caused by dragons.

RM: But I see no dragons...

DC: They are dragons of a world beyond. They remain forever beyond our reach, outside our ken, outwith alchemy's domain, commanded only by God.

RM: How then can we know of them?

CD: 'Tis obvious; for there is extraordinary flame, and upon this fact materialism says nothing and does remain silent; and dragons do breathe flame. Surely therefore, dragons. Where are your wits?

RM: Er, As you will... methinks a continuing pursuit of alchemy, poor though it is, has more prospect - for the pursuit of that which is beyond pursuit is a surely a fool's errand - and like the apprentice dispatched for a 'long weight', we should have a long wait before we did get satisfaction.

CD: Hah! as I thought! fools thou art which cannot see the invisible, for 'tis there before your unseeing eyes... etc.

Exit, foam-flecked, gesticulating.

[alancalverd]

Do not be lazy : take a dictionary and look for the word "existential " .

I will give you the following obvious hint :

In his "Selfish Gene " , lunatic Dawkins quotes some materialist scientist  saying :

or in words to that same effect at least :

"...Darwin's theory of evolution is the only valid answer to our existential question .All pre-Darwinian attempts to answer just that were /are not only worthless , but they must be totally dicarded as well "

Sorry, chum, quoting somebody else's answer is not the same as asking the question.

Here's my answer to the most important question I can think of: 4.

Now, to quote you, don't be lazy, go and look up the question.

I have a strong suspicion that you don't know what the "existential question" is either.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Some years past: characters: DC: Dan Coyote; RM: Reasonable Man

DC: There is no doubt - materialism is a false (and heretical) doctrine!

RM: Why think you so?

DC: Why? Sir, it cannot explain flames; is that not reason enough?

RM: Some say that flames are the volatile fluid phlogiston, contained within the burning materials, and released by combustion thereof.

DC: Phlogiston? Pah! Mere alchemy. It is inconceivable; no material force can explain that hot, bright, ephemeral, animated phenomenon - that form akin to life itself; it is obvious the explanation lies not with mundane materialism. No; it is certain: flames are caused by dragons.

RM: But I see no dragons...

DC: They are dragons of a world beyond. They remain forever beyond our reach, outside our ken, outwith alchemy's domain, commanded only by God.

RM: How then can we know of them?

CD: 'Tis obvious; for there is extraordinary flame, and upon this fact materialism says nothing and does remain silent; and dragons do breathe flame. Surely therefore, dragons. Where are your wits?

RM: Er, As you will... methinks a continuing pursuit of alchemy, poor though it is, has more prospect - for the pursuit of that which is beyond pursuit is a surely a fool's errand - and like the apprentice dispatched for a 'long weight', we should have a long wait before we did get satisfaction.

CD: Hah! as I thought! fools thou art which cannot see the invisible, for 'tis there before your unseeing eyes... etc.

Exit, foam-flecked, gesticulating.

What , on earth, are you talking about again ?

What exit ? what foam-flecked......? RU hallucinating ?

Coming from a so-called  scientist , this is really ludicrous : don't be stupid or biased :
As a scientist , you should at leat try to be relatively objective fair honest unbiased , as much as possible though , even though objectivity is a myth , even at the level of exact sciences, let alone elsewhere .
Did science ever prove the "fact ", or rather the materialist belief assumption,  to be "true "  that the universe or reality are exclusively material ?
Absolutely not , never , ever = how can science  ever  go beyond its material realm for that matter, science's material realm that's not what all there is out there , obviously  .

Once again, all beliefs are ,per definition , unscientific ,whether they happen to be religious or secular beliefs , including that materialist secular religion in science thus , but they are not all necessarily false , as materialism ,obviously undeniably , is .
In short :
All beliefs , the secular and the religious ones  alike , should be kept outside of science ,and outside of the jurisdiction of science ...

Is that so difficult to understand ?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Do not be lazy : take a dictionary and look for the word "existential " .

I will give you the following obvious hint :

In his "Selfish Gene " , lunatic Dawkins quotes some materialist scientist  saying :

or in words to that same effect at least :

"...Darwin's theory of evolution is the only valid answer to our existential question .All pre-Darwinian attempts to answer just that were /are not only worthless , but they must be totally dicarded as well "

Sorry, chum, quoting somebody else's answer is not the same as asking the question.

Here's my answer to the most important question I can think of: 4.

Now, to quote you, don't be lazy, go and look up the question.

I have a strong suspicion that you don't know what the "existential question" is either.

Chum ?

Did  your dear mum not teach you how to behave properly ?
Or did you just unlearn just that ?
Try to learn how to behave properly again, then, and only then , i would be willing to engage your silly obvious non-sense you seem to confuse with "wisdom " , informed opinion , facts .........
Deal ?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

One of the core issues here are , as follows , folks :

Has science ever proved the "fact ", or rather materialist belief assumption , to be "true " , that reality is exclusively ...material ? Obviously...not .

Is that so difficult to understand ?

A materialist is just like someone who happens to look at reality through a key hole , that's all, while declaring to and trying to make  the rest of the world believe that that subjective materialist belief key-hole assumption is all what there is out there haha .

Worse : our materialist in question wanna make the people believe that his / her subjective materialist belief key-hole assumption  is a "scientific fact " .....haha

Worst : our materialist in question cannot but apply some sort of elaborate magical   "emergence " trick performance , in order to reduce reality to just matter or material processes = physics and chemistry , through science , turning science into magic , into a belief = a paradox = any belief for that matter is ,per definition , unscientific , but not necessarily false as materialism, obviously undeniably, is .

But , even that materialist extraordinary unscientific magical "emergence " trick performance , cannot make the other more important part of reality go away of course , so, our materialist in question just wishes that that immaterial part of reality will just vanish by itself some day haha

In short :

True reality as a whole has been disproving materialism all along , all sciences for that matter have  been doing the same to materialism too ,  obviously and undeniably , so, only materialists , fools and idiots would believe in that  materialist belief magical key-hole assumption , that's obviously and undeniably , not only false , but also and per-definition ...unscientific = a materialist belief assumption thus .

Final note :

Our materialists founding -fathers haha knew all along  that their materialist key-hole belief assumption vision ( a secular materialist form of Paulus' christian religious alleged vision near Damascus )  was of course  false and unscientific , so,they decided to dominate science from that time on, in order to sell their materialist belief to the people in a scientific package, in order to turn  that materialist magical belief to a "scientific " one : that way , materialism  can therefore be easily bought by the people : so, any attempts from any non-materialist beliefs to try to approach the immaterial side of reality science can ,obviously undeniably and per -definition, not approach as such , any of those non-materialist beliefs , especially the religious ones , would be logically branded as .....false ,as supernatural paranormal superstitious ,  or as magic , God delusions, fairy tales , or worse , as our dlorde here above shows ...

How convenient  and elaborate has that materialist magical trick belief key-hole assumption vision been  all along indeed .......

= replacing its Eurocentric medieval christian religion  by its materialist magical one , replacing the christian theology and magic by  the materialist ones in no less than science  ....amazing indeed ..= THE biggest scam and the ultimate con in all the history of mankind = an understatement .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

A very typical case of the mainstream materialist belief   at work  in science : The "Brain Creates Consciousness " haha :  on Scientific American :  Aunt Millie's  Mind by Michael Schermer :

http://www.michaelshermer.com/2012/07/aunt-millies-mind/

It's like saying that Obama, for example , or CNN... appearing on tv were / are created by the tv set where they happen to  appear ,or that they do live inside the tv ,so, when the tv is damaged , or just some specific parts of it at least , which results in making the tv stop 'displaying " Obama,CNN, .... for example, or any other specific images for that matter , then , that means that the tv used to create those tv images haha , when it used to function ....= the magical materialist  belief assumption "emergent property " trick regarding the origins or nature of consciousness haha = the brain creates consciousness = consciousness is just an emergent property from the evolved complexity of the brain = consciousness is just physics and chemistry or neuro-chemistry = unbelievable  unscientific bullshit , in science  haha .

[alancalverd]

Chum ?

Deal ?

I ask the questions here. You simply refuse to answer them.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Dear folks :

I will tell you a story that will , hopefully , clarify or explain how humanity got stuck in this current materialist predicament in science   and elsewhere , as follows :

via this "caricature " of those historic cultural intellectual social economic political ...Eurocentric events :

Once upon a time , there was a barbaric ignorant superstitious medieval Europe where the one and only existing authority and ultimate source of knowledge was personified by  the catholic church  only  , anyone who would have dared to challenge the church's ultimate authority would have been branded as a heretic , would get put to death , imprisoned , banned ....burned alive as a result ,as Galileo and many others were literally burned  alive  to death , just for challenging some of the dogmas of the church .....so, the people  who happened to find hemselves under the supremacy of the medieval church lived in fear , ignorance , backwardness, superstition, magic  ...and knew nothing about  the universe and about themselves except  through the church ....

There was another religious civilization in the East that happened to be advanced , florishing , prospering ....both at the material intellectual cultural scientific and at other fields as well ...

The new born Eastern religious civilization was expanding and therefore threatening the supremacy of the church on its own territory ,both literally and figuratively ,  threatening to wipe out the authority of the church as well , such an authority of the church that was the only source of subjecting its followers via fear  , intimidation, oppression, ignorance , superstition ....

Our medieval church declared war to our newly born Eastern advanced progressive religious revolutionary civilization : centuries of war  sealed the hatred , hostility , rivalry ...between the 2 from that time on : those historic mutual hatred , hostility , rivalry .. products of those bloody christian -muslim wars were inherited later on by the western secular 'enlightenment " movement ...
That eastern religious civilization "invented " science even , science that represented 1 of its  most major and powerful secret weapons ,together with rational moderate faith , tolerance , equality for all human beings , religious tolerance , freedom in the Islamic sense at least ,reason, logics , maths .....

Those bloody encounters between the 2 made the medieval christians learn a lot from our Eastern tolerant progressive revolutionary developed advanced religious civilization in many ways : which  triggered the Italian renaissance ,the protestant reformation and most , if not all, of that so-called Eurocentric 'enlightenment " movement that paved the way to modernity ,via reason logic maths , via science mostly , science  and the rest  Europeans inherited from that advanced religious  Eastern  civilization, the latter that went down later on , as a result of the fact that its followers went into the dangerous lethal slumber of self-confidence , power and certainty ,decadence, .... by neglecting the pursue of science they "invented " and practiced , by turning their backs to the pursue of knowledge in the broader sense .....facts which resulted in their intellectual religious spititual social intellectual philosophical material military political economic ...decline , while Europe was waking up from its slumber at the same time , thanks to those priceless contributions of that declining Eastern religious civilization  .
The dark auhtority of the church was no match watsoever , not even remotely close thus , for the wonderful lights of reason logic maths , no match for the wonderful bright lights of science ...
Our Europeans at that time could easily debunk the false dark ignorant superstitious ...authority of the church ,and reject it as a result .

Since christianity was rejected ,thanks to science , reason , logic ...Europeans doubted everything that could not  be measured , observable , falsifiable , reproducible , empirical .......

One dominant current of thought was represented by mechanistic materialism  which gave birth to both liberalism and marxism, among other currents of thought extensions  of materialism and secularism thus , mechanistic materialism that was introduced to Europe for the first time by Descartes at the level of the natural sciences , while leaving the mind to the church ,leaving the mind to the church  for fear of meeting the earlier fate of all the previous Galileos victims of the church's intolerance and fascism , which resulted in the creation of modern philosophy ...

materialism was then extended to philosphy and to the rest , later on ....including to all sciences ,despite the fact that almost , if not all , those European "enlightenment ideals " were borrowed originally from that advanced Eastern religious civilization , including the scientific method thus .
Dualism in the philosophy of mind was thus rejected and was replaced by Spinoza's monism that was turned into materialist monism , later on , in science .
William James' pragmatism in philosophy , in science and elsewhere was another development among many , later on ...
All that , and especially science gave Europe so much power , knowledge and more at the military material technological industrial economic scientific philosophic cultural intellectual social ...levels that Europe felt it was strong enough to subject the rest of humanity  under the 'enlightenment " pretext ( almost in the same fashion when US Bush junior invaded Irak ,for example ) , while in fact Europe was just motivated by subjecting and enslaving  the non-western peoples ,via imposing its own  'enlightenment "  ideals values and principles , just in order to steal their resources its economies and growth needed so much ...to complete its global domination , as almost all empires and imperialists do to other weaker nations, peoples, civilizations  .....

Materialism ,  secularism,  "democracy " ...became the new religions,   secular ones , replacing the medieval christianity , as the newly established concept of the "nation-state " was replacing the church , and the concept of the "good citizen " was replacing the medieval christian concept of the "good believer ", among many other radical changes ,that did establish the secular , materialist ...establishment as the new supreme ultimate authority ,while  taking a free ride on the unwilling backs of reason, logic maths , science ...to the point where secularism and materialism could not be differentiated from them = they were one : reason ,logic ...science have become secular materialist atheist , together with the rest of all sciences ,all so-called human sciences ,  together with philosophy, art , literatures ...while so generously haha leaving just a tiny piece of the rich delicious cake to the church at the level of the private domain of man ......
Christianity was obvioulsy exluded from politics ,from the public domain and from the rest as well , while the church was only allowed to clean the spiritual and other messes caused by secularism materialism atheism that have become the new rulers , the new ultimate authority and power ...in the name of reason, logic , science , 'enlightenment " ...
The rest is ...history ...

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Chum ?

Deal ?

I ask the questions here. You simply refuse to answer them

.

Easy , dude : do not be brutal or patronizing : we are not here in court , in a police station, we are not gangsters haha ...

Do not try to put any kindda gun on my head ...that's not how things go .

Ok, sorry indeed : i thought chum was an insult , i looked it up , it was/is  not , i think , ok .

The existential question means : who are we ,as human beings , where do we come from , how did we come to exist , in the first place to begin with ...how did we get here , on earth ...

Materialists , obviously , think that their own materialist version of evolution , or their belief materialist misinterpretation of Darwin's exclusively biological physical scientific theory of evolution , materialists think thus that their own belief materialist version of evolution was / is "the only valid answer to our human existential question , and that all pre-Darwinian attempts to answer just that question , especially those delivered by religions, are not only worthless and false , but must also be totally discarded " .

Reducing everything to just matter and to material processes = physics and chemistry , including evolution itself , life , consciousness ,human language , feelings , emotions , reality  as a whole thus + their origins evolution and emergence  ....our silly lunatics materialists think they have been debunking religions , via science , which is absolutely not the case , obviously thus .

Materialists are thus completely wrong , simply because beliefs , either secular or religious , the immaterial side of reality ...are outside of the material realm and jurisdiction of science and :
simply because all beliefs are , per definition, unscientific , either the religious or the secular ones, including materialism thus , but not all beliefs are necessarily false , as materialism is .

Comprende , chum amigo ?

[cheryl j]

Dear folks :

I will tell you a story that will , hopefully , clarify or explain how humanity got stuck in this current materialist predicament in science   and elsewhere , as follows :

via this "caricature " of those historic cultural intellectual social economic political ...Eurocentric events :

Once upon a time , there was a barbaric ignorant superstitious medieval Europe where the one and only existing authority and ultimate source of knowledge was personified by  the catholic church  only  , anyone who would have dared to challenge the church's ultimate authority would have been branded as a heretic , would get put to death , imprisoned , banned ....burned alive as a result ,as Galileo and many others were literally burned  alive  to death , just for challenging some of the dogmas of the church ..

Actually, it was Giordano Bruno who got burned at the stake. Bruno was a Franciscan Friar. He believed, like Copernicus, that the Earth rotated around the sun. He said the sun was just a star and the universe had lots of them. He even wondered whether there were other planets with people on them out there. So they burned him.

Galileo just got house arrest. (He recanted rather than die) I guess he didn't care whether theologians believed his empirical findings - no skin off his nose. While under house arrest he wrote "Two New Sciences" about his experiments with motion and materials.

[dlorde]

...
As a scientist , you should at leat try to be relatively objective fair honest unbiased , as much as possible though , even though objectivity is a myth , even at the level of exact sciences, let alone elsewhere .

I completely agree.

Did science ever prove the "fact ", or rather the materialist belief assumption,  to be "true "  that the universe or reality are exclusively material ?
Absolutely not , never , ever

Of course not; the 'materialist belief assumption' is not verifiable or falsifiable. If the immaterial is undetectable to science, it is immaterial to science, which can deal only with the observable; and if you can observe something it's not immaterial - is it?

... how can science  ever  go beyond its material realm for that matter, science's material realm that's not what all there is out there , obviously  .

Agreed. Science is limited to the material realm, and I'm fine with that. We'll just carry on observing, learning, and explaining how palpable reality works, just as always. You're welcome to ponder the impalpable & immaterial in peace.

All beliefs , the secular and the religious ones  alike , should be kept outside of science ,and outside of the jurisdiction of science ...
Is that so difficult to understand ?

I completely agree.  Science should continue to observe, make testable hypotheses, test the hypotheses, learn. It need only concern itself with the observable.

I hadn't realised we agree on so much!

[cheryl j]

....Materialists , obviously , think that their own materialist version of evolution , or their belief materialist misinterpretation of Darwin's exclusively biological physical scientific theory of evolution...

"In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation."   - Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

[alancalverd]

The existential question means : who are we ,as human beings , where do we come from , how did we come to exist , in the first place to begin with ...how did we get here , on earth ...

To which the answer is: we are naked apes; we evolved and diverged from other apes in east Africa; and as yet we haven't traced our ancestry back to the first living cell or been able to replicate biogenesis, but we've only been unravelling the puzzle for a few years whereas nature has been complicating it for ever, so don't expect too much progress too soon - and the fog of mysticism promulgated by religious parasites hasn't helped.

The honest scientific answer to many questions is "I don't know - yet." Compare that with the dishonest religious answers "You can't possibly know" or "It was all done by a man with a beard in the sky, who you can't see but I know exists, for reasons that only he can comprehend. But because I know he exists, I have authority over your behaviour" and you will see why I have a deep disdain for mysticism, faith, and all that crap.   

Once upon a time , there was a barbaric ignorant superstitious medieval Europe where the one and only existing authority and ultimate source of knowledge was personified by  the catholic church  only  , anyone who would have dared to challenge the church's ultimate authority would have been branded as a heretic , would get put to death , imprisoned , banned ....burned alive as a result

and just this week the government of Malaysia has decreed that only muslims may use the word Allah. I'm not sure what the penalty is for other people saying or writing it, but plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose in the world of barbaric ignorant superstition.

[cheryl j]

The reality is that most people hardly ever change their mind about anything that matters to them because they're only interested in taking up those ideas that agree with what they already believe while they reject the rest. It doesn't matter how much you prove them wrong, they will resolutely refuse to see it. It happens in every field and at every level, and because this phenomenon is something I study (Natural General Intelligence and how it goes wrong), I'm still skim-reading this thread, but there's no way I'll be dragged back into wasting any more time writing long posts for it.

Thoughts on Bias:

It does seem true that people rarely change their positions even with contradictory evidence. Bias is a tricky problem to control and creeps into experiments in unexpected ways. Pollsters, at least those ones sincerely interested in finding out what people think, and not collecting evidence to build a case, often rephrase the same question a dozen different ways in case the wording influences people to chose one answer over another.

I can think of times when I absolutely and completely changed my mind about something. When I was fifteen, I believed in astrology. The reason why I came to believe in it was because  there was a neighbor lady who was an astrologer, and I liked her, and astrology seemed to explain why people had different personalities. We had to write a paper in my freshman biology class and that was the topic I chose, carefully citing many references about the moon's effect on emergency room visits and the tides, etc. I don't remember the grade I got; I think it was a B- or something. But I do remember that Mr. Soldo did not laugh at me, or embarrass me, or throw a hundred statistics at me that proved I was wrong. He said it was thoughtful and well written, but mentioned a few things that planted a seed of doubt in my mind, and then I went on to learn about photosynthesis and glycolysis and evolution in that class, and that is really when my mind changed. I understood, on my own, that this old idea wasn't compatible with my new ones. They could not co-exist if they were contradictory.But I really liked photosynthesis and glycolysis better. I had a crush on science. 

I can think of examples of other people changing their beliefs. It is usually slowly, by qualifying a belief in some way, and making exceptions. This is sometimes true for racism, and although some people see others who harbor any racist beliefs as "closet racists," I see it as a transition from one concept to another. A racist begins believing "people of different races are different or inferior in important ways." But he meets a person of another race who violates his expectations. So, he concludes "People of that race are inferior, but Bob is an exception. Bob is special." Then perhaps he meets more people like Bob, and decides "There are two types of people of that race, good ones and bad ones." Finally it becomes, "Maybe race has nothing to do with the qualities I dislike in people."  That is the pattern most people follow.

I can think of times, when I  very quickly changed my opinion, when it was easy, with out shifting gradually. This summer I worked for an elderly couple. She seemed like a very nice old lady, sweet, talkative, baked cookies, but kind of "simple minded.". After about nine weeks, she casually mentioned that she used to be a computer programmer in aeronautics. She worked with Univac. My impression of her, who she was and her interests,  wasn't just a little off, it was way, way,  almost a 100%, wrong.

So why is it so easy to radically changes ones mind in some cases but not others? Because the beliefs were only held for a short time? Because it doesn't threaten the ego or self worth? Because one has nothing to gain or lose either way? Because the evidence seems more factual and not fuzzy or interpretable in multiple ways?

When choosing his cabinet members, Abraham Lincoln picked adversaries like William Seward and Salmon Chase. (They weren't adversaries to him, they were adversaries to one another.) Likewise, in 2009, Chinese president Hu Jintao picked two opposing faction leaders, Xi Jimping and Li Keqiang, to make decisions about Chinese economic policy. As long as one still has control, it's an advantage to let a team of rivals present their best arguments, and fight it out. It saves you a lot of work. And even if you have a bias towards one position or another, somehow ones ego is less threatened when that position is being presented, and attacked by someone else. You can just sit back and listen, and see how it plays out.

Some neuroscientists suggest that that is how the brain works - separate components that are like a team of rivals, each trying to interpret information or solve a problem in their own way, each vying for attention and control. Is there a "you" that decides? Is there an Abraham Lincoln of the brain? Or is the "you" whomever presents the best argument at that moment to the body? Whether you are a materialist like me, or a mystic like Don, that really is the big question, the essence of the hard problem of consciousness.

[dlorde]

Excellent post, Cheryl!

As for the last part, I think there is a 'you' that decides, but it does so as a composite (i.e. I don't think there's a single conscious controller , it just often feels that way) .

Currently I lean towards the idea that consciousness, which seems to depend on the breadth of synchronised activity across the brain, and the number of regions involved, becomes increasingly active when there is no clear 'winner' among the possible solutions from competing processes, or when high-level deliberative thought is required, and so the cogitation is opened to a wider selection of contributing brain areas, e.g. those with less direct influence, to achieve a broader consensus.

When the areas involving planning, behavioural modelling, linguistic and high-level abstraction processing are all involved, we have a higher level of consciousness than when they are not. These features are important to sophisticated social coordination and interaction, and a sense of self is particularly useful here, both as a consistent representation or avatar for the individual in different contexts, and for what-if modelling of social interactions.

For me, the feeling that the verbal, deliberative, consciously aware self is the 'real' you, and in control, is the main illusion of consciousness; it seems quite reasonable that processing should be arranged to express relevant aspects of behaviour through the convenient & unitary representative 'avatar' of the concept of self. In other words, the conscious self is less a controller than an (apparently) integrated representative and spokesman for the underlying composite of processes.

These ideas are all speculative and open to revision. Your mileage may vary

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

The existential question means : who are we ,as human beings , where do we come from , how did we come to exist , in the first place to begin with ...how did we get here , on earth ...

To which the answer is: we are naked apes; we evolved and diverged from other apes in east Africa; and as yet we haven't traced our ancestry back to the first living cell or been able to replicate biogenesis, but we've only been unravelling the puzzle for a few years whereas nature has been complicating it for ever, so don't expect too much progress too soon - and the fog of mysticism promulgated by religious parasites hasn't helped.

First of all :

Try to read carefully what i am saying : clear formulations concerning  what one tries to discuss here regarding evolution, consciousness, life , beliefs , science , materialism ...are very decisive , if one wanna understand what's going on at those   latter specific levels, and if one wanna progress in this dicussion  :
I think that the  exclusively  material side of evolution represented by the scientific Darwin's exclusively biological physical material theory of evolution , when Darwin's scientific   material (Do not confuse material with materialism ) theory of evolution thus does not cross the boundaries of the material realm and jurisdiction of science at leat , can tell us only about the material side of evolution though ....relatively speaking then , relatively speaking , simply because there is still a lot to be known and discovered about all those missing links and gaps Darwin's scientific exclusively biological material physical theory of evolution and all its scientific post-Darwin updates up untill now cannot yet answer yet ....

Second : Do not confuse the materialist version of evolution = the materialist belief assumption -misinterpretation of evolution , with Darwin's purely scientific exclusively biological physical theory of evolution , the latter when it does not cross the boundaries of the material realm or the jurisdiction of science :
There are actually many missing "links " regarding the alleged "fact " , or rather the materialist belief assumption that homo-spaiens allegedly do share the same ancestors with chimps , despite the fact that human and chimps do seem to share 99 % DNA material with each other = humans are not just DNA biology physiology environment nurture = DNA "did not create " man's body and mind ...as such lunatics materialists such as Dawkins and co say ...= we are not just machines driven or "created shaped " by our genes DNA through the natural selection of evolution , otherwise , try to explain to me how consciousness, life ,....came to exist just via physics and chemistry as those materialist magical "emergent " trick performances wanna make you believe they were / are ...

What do you make of the human mind or consciousness in all this then ?  what do you make of life ...?
Can either the materialist neo-Darwinian version of evolution, or Darwin's materialist version of evolution ( The latter that should not be confused with Darwin's purely scientific exclusively material theory of evolution though ) , let alone Darwin's purely scientific exclusively biological physical theory of evolution ,account for such processes fully such as life , consciousness , memory , human cognition, human conscience ....let alone their evolution emergence and origins , just via physic and chemistry ?
Do you see how we get back to the same square zero , regarding the fact that science's realm is exclusively material , while materialism in science as a secular belief = unscientific per definition , while the materialist belief in science goes beyond the scientific method by reducing life , consciousness, human cognition .....to just physics and chemistry ?  ...

Do not confuse also Darwin's  purely scientific exclusively biological physical material theory of evolution , with Darwin's materialist version of evolution, while you are at it , and tell me then how consciousness in general in all species and in inanimate matter , including human consciousness, the evolution of life ,  can be  fully explained by either  the unscientific materialist belief assumptions in science , or by science whose realm is exclusively material ? 

Finally : do not confuse the origins of life , with the evolution of life , the latter's material side is covered by Darwin's purely scientific theory of evolution ...

The honest scientific answer to many questions is "I don't know - yet." Compare that with the dishonest religious answers "You can't possibly know" or "It was all done by a man with a beard in the sky, who you can't see but I know exists, for reasons that only he can comprehend. But because I know he exists, I have authority over your behaviour" and you will see why I have a deep disdain for mysticism, faith, and all that crap.   

Science is not about hoonesty or about any other judgements of value , ethics ....Science is all about facts , a matter of facts when it science is pure science = when science is delivered from any belief fo that matter , such as materialism in science , once again , science is not a matter of opinion or of belief thus .
So, before talking about religions that are , per definition and nature , unscientific , unscientific in the modern scientific sense at least , ( Religions are another kindda science , positive science , in the sense that they trigger and rely on the individual and collective religious experiences of their followers both on the material reality ground , and on the spiritual side of man or of reality ...Long story thus ) , so, before talking about religions and science = 2 totally different " things " or rather processes qua nature definition function and role , you have to be aware , first ,of that materialist secular religion dominating in science today , you still do confuse with science ........

Once upon a time , there was a barbaric ignorant superstitious medieval Europe where the one and only existing authority and ultimate source of knowledge was personified by  the catholic church  only  , anyone who would have dared to challenge the church's ultimate authority would have been branded as a heretic , would get put to death , imprisoned , banned ....burned alive as a result

and just this week the government of Malaysia has decreed that only muslims may use the word Allah. I'm not sure what the penalty is for other people saying or writing it, but plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose in the world of barbaric ignorant superstition.

That's another totally different issue  : irrelevant to our present discussion thus .

[cheryl j]

...I think that the  exclusively  material side of evolution represented by the scientific Darwin's exclusively biological physical material theory of evolution , when Darwin's scientific   material (Do not confuse material with materialism ) theory of evolution thus does not cross the boundaries of the material realm and jurisdiction of science at leat , can tell us only about the material side of evolution though ....relatively speaking then , relatively speaking , simply because there is still a lot to be known and discovered about all those missing links and gaps Darwin's scientific exclusively biological material physical theory of evolution and all its scientific post-Darwin updates up untill now cannot yet answer yet ....

Second : Do not confuse the materialist version of evolution = the materialist belief assumption -misinterpretation of evolution , with Darwin's scientific exclusively biological physical theory of evolution ,

Well, if we are confused about the theory of evolution, apparently Darwin was as well. Too bad you weren't there to correct him.