Bible Thumper gets thumped

Every action your brain takes is not predetermined. Every action you do happens inside the brain, yes. But not everything is predictable like your salt example. There is unpredictability with human decision-making, but it still all happens in the brain. Just because everything happens in the brain doesn\'t mean all your actions are predictable. It just means your brain is...well...working.

give me an example then of this unpredictability...

you haven\'t said how we don\'t. I could say, we create the chemical reaction that makes our brains do certain things. As infants we learn to control these chemicals and develop our brain as we grow.  That doesn\'t mean its right.

and how does one start up a chemical reaction in the brain? my guess would be with another chemical reaction.
my point is: everything that goes on in the brain has to be guided by these reactions/processes of nature. Every part of your brain, hell, every part of the universe consists of atoms/molecules/etc that all are bound to react in a certain manner to each other. It\'s not possible for your "concience" to say: okay, I\'m gonna make these two things react, but not those two. Every existing part of the universe WILL react according to predictable patterns. the same goes for all the things your brain consists of.

I can say however, that scientists have done studies to people where they\'ve played around with peoples brains to stimulate certain parts of the body to see how long it takes people to feel anything. Then they play with that part of the body directly.  

Guess which one people feel quicker, people feel the direct touch faster then the brain itself. It\'s quite interesting, they even had cases when people felt things before they were even touched.  The brain is a complex thing, our understanding of it is extremely small. I personally believe we have a "soul" so to speak that controls everything. Problem is when our brain gets damaged this control gets screwed up and translated back to our bodies wrong.

I study psychology and these kind of things are actually what I love about it, so I\'ll try to explain this phenomenon.
It is true that people are able to respond to things before they "conciously" (let\'s call it that for now ) make notice of it. For instance, when you touch something that is hot, you often already retracted your hand before you feel the heat. This can be explained by the fact that the spinal cord is actually a part of your brain (a fact which not a lot of people know). When you touch the heat source the signal is send through the spinal cord to the (rest of the) brain. However, upon reaching the spinal cord, a signal is send back causing the reflex of retracting the hand. because the route to the spinal cord is shorter then the route to the brain, where the sensation of heat is created, you\'ll act before your brain is "aware".

[Evi]

give me an example then of this unpredictability...

You\'re making zero sense.

You\'re making zero sense.

what action of the brain is not caused by physical/chemical reactions?

[clips]

give me an example then of this unpredictability...

I think it kinda varies....i kinda see what you\'re talking about,..but it\'s somewhere between you talkin\' alot of psycho-babble and actually knowing what you\'re talking about,...and a little bit of me actually tryin to understand what it is you\'re sayin\'...

So here it goes unpredictability? in the simplest of terms a person can be routine in his or her daily lifestyle...get up go to work, stop and get coffee etc,...but that same person out of the blue could just take a different route to work, or try a different flavor of coffee....another form of unpredicability could be in the form of extreme behavior....which sometimes can\'t really be explained.

When somebody does something crazy, like kill a baby or commit a horrendous murder in most cases people say that there was a chemical imbalance in the brain that caused such behavior....lawyers for defendants like to call it temporary insanity...which i say bulls**t....during the act you are still in total control...the brain is not telling you to go out and commit the said crime..unless it is triggered by some heavy drug use that affects the brain, you are still in total control of your overall behavior.

The only way i see that there is a definite unpredicability with anyone will only be if they have some type of mental disorder(paranoid schizofrinia) and with that sickness you can be living with someone that has no real control over their actions,...well they have very little but for the most part the mood swings can be extreme and erratic and in most cases the person with the sickness can be gentle and kind one moment and then violent and dangerous the next....that is the only time where i can honestly say that the brain itself is actually "controlling" the person..

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

we understand that the brain works on chemical reactions, but to say these reactions are predictable is retarded. Every brain is unique, you said it yourself. Hence every reaction we have would be unique.

and yes, i do believe that we control such reactions. Only when these chemicals get altered or the brain itself is damaged do we lose that control. (to a point)

[GmanJoe]

Experts in this field, like Behavioural scientists, wouldn\'t that far as what politie is theorizing. Maybe he\'s an actuarialist and can use numbers to predict EVERYTHING! Like Chaos Theory....

we understand that the brain works on chemical reactions, but to say these reactions are predictable is retarded. Every brain is unique, you said it yourself. Hence every reaction we have would be unique.

and yes, i do believe that we control such reactions. Only when these chemicals get altered or the brain itself is damaged do we lose that control. (to a point)

I\'m not trying to disprove that each brain can be unique, that\'s beside the point.

I think it kinda varies....i kinda see what you\'re talking about,..but it\'s somewhere between you talkin\' alot of psycho-babble and actually knowing what you\'re talking about,...and a little bit of me actually tryin to understand what it is you\'re sayin\'...

So here it goes unpredictability? in the simplest of terms a person can be routine in his or her daily lifestyle...get up go to work, stop and get coffee etc,...but that same person out of the blue could just take a different route to work, or try a different flavor of coffee....another form of unpredicability could be in the form of extreme behavior....which sometimes can\'t really be explained.

When somebody does something crazy, like kill a baby or commit a horrendous murder in most cases people say that there was a chemical imbalance in the brain that caused such behavior....lawyers for defendants like to call it temporary insanity...which i say bulls**t....during the act you are still in total control...the brain is not telling you to go out and commit the said crime..unless it is triggered by some heavy drug use that affects the brain, you are still in total control of your overall behavior.

The only way i see that there is a definite unpredicability with anyone will only be if they have some type of mental disorder(paranoid schizofrinia) and with that sickness you can be living with someone that has no real control over their actions,...well they have very little but for the most part the mood swings can be extreme and erratic and in most cases the person with the sickness can be gentle and kind one moment and then violent and dangerous the next....that is the only time where i can honestly say that the brain itself is actually "controlling" the person..

the only thing you\'re describing there is the difference between ordinary tasks and.. well... not so ordinary tasks... the basics are the same. I understand what you all are saying, but it is all not an argument against my theory. Just because we can do things that aren\'t ordinary doesn\'t mean we suddenly have control over them...
Like I said earlier, you feel like you are in control, but that\'s just an illusion. You are all just describing the feeling of that illusion.


I think we can all agree that nature follows rules. (like the salt example again) these rules are very complex, but they are 100% trustworthy nonetheless. this means that every atom in the universe will follow these rules. it\'s not something you can control. when water gets heated it will vaporize, if it gets frozen it wil become ice. (I\'m not an expert on chemistry and physics so making examples is difficult). This is just a basic example of the enormously complexity that is this reality we\'re living in. Understanding that these rules are always followed is key to understanding this theory, because, just like sand, water, iron, carbon and so forth, we humans are, in the end, all just a collection of these atoms that follow strict rules. Knowing this, I\'ll ask my question a third time: how would we humans, if we were to have a conciousness (a real one, not the illusion), control these rules and bend them, so that we take real control, and not just have the illusion that we control our decisions?

Experts in this field, like Behavioural scientists, wouldn\'t that far as what politie is theorizing. Maybe he\'s an actuarialist and can use numbers to predict EVERYTHING! Like Chaos Theory....

earlier on in this thread I gave you a quote from a very famous (american ) philosofer who closely resembles my thoughts on this issue, daniel dennett.
look up his work, especially the book: conciousness explained. it has some very interesting ingishts in this matter...

[GmanJoe]

Sounds like a quack to me.

I\'ll ask my question a third time: how would we humans, if we were to have a conciousness (a real one, not the illusion), control these rules and bend them, so that we take real control, and not just have the illusion that we control our decisions?

Well, your examples only list only physical realworld elements. Indeed, these have actual limitations, but THAT\'s where creativity and a clear conscious come into play. That\'s where we are forced to take responsibility and learn life\'s lessons ; to do something "good" or "bad" in the context of what we call our reality.

Otherwise we\'d be walking zombies or just creatures acting on pure animalistic instinct.

There\'s evidence enough that the non-physical elements such as psychological doings can have far greater effects on people\'s lives than physical actions/ events.

Saying we have no true consciousness in context of our reality is walking a slippery slope towards feeling no responsibility, thus being prone to mindlessly follow any power institute which claims it\'s some kind of an almighty fate, or any other addictive factor such as drugs or alcohol ( Hey, there\'s a reason why they say  "religion is the Opium of the people"  )

I do believe in a God, but to me God is something vastly different from what any known religion/faith tries to tell people. I believe God is something infinitely bigger and that earth and mankind are certainly NOT the centre of Godly creation. How the fuck did mankind get so arrogant to think that they are centre piece Godly creation. We have six senses, a rational limited mind and detection machines ; There\'s no way we can claim to know what LIFE all encompasses. Even if we can not see it, smell it, hear it or whatever, it doesn\'t give any human the right to state for truth to say that there is no life where he cannot detect it. We are far too limited to make such claims.

An ant walks on my enter button of the keyboard; hey, the ant indeed senses the keyboard... but it still doesn\'t ( probably ? ) know what an "enter button" actually is and it doesn\'t even understand what "plastic" is . What I\'m trying to say is ; even if we DID detect other life forms outside of our range of detection ; our minds would come short to even comprehend it.

That\'s why i believe God is far greater than what "they" say. Certainly not something which created "Man to His image".  The universe as we know it might be even as small to God as an atomn to one life size man. There\'s no God specially for mankind. Human\'s made it up imo, just to try to somewhat comprehend it all. I think God is not something personal. It ( I refuse to refer to God as "Him" ) is the ultimate Creation and there\'s purpose to it and all life ; for us, we just need to live a life\'s lesson in the limited context of our reality. Taking more responsibility to learn and evolve.

I already had big convo\'s/discussions about God with my girlfriend and her community ; she\'s a real Catholic. - but that\'s another story.

There\'s evidence enough that the non-physical elements such as psychological doings can have far greater effects on people\'s lives than physical actions/ events. .

being a psychology student, I can assure you that psychological doings are very much based on physical elements.

Saying we have no true consciousness in context of our reality is walking a slippery slope towards feeling no responsibility, thus being prone mindlessly follow any power institute which claims it\'s some kind of an almighty fate.

this, is exactly my point! Although you feel responsible for your actions, ultimately you aren\'t.
This all boils down to one question. What do you consider to be your "self"/"concience"? I\'d very much like you all to give me an answer to that question.

being a psychology student, I can assure you that psychological doings are very much based on physical elements.

Personally, I believe humans and physical life are Godly "force" materialized ; indeed, physical elements with physical attributes.

The soul is the essence of that force, but it switched state when it came into physical being. All it\'s human life accumilated experiences and lesson will transition into Godly force again, once we exit this human life. Yes, you could say i believe in Godly Force/our soul exiting the material dimension and going back into it\'s original state of pure force again, but this time it evolved thanks to materialised life\'s lessons ; which has effect for the next stadium to Godly force. I do not believe in \'absolute\' right or wrong, but i do believe each our decisions might pose a good or bad element with certain consequences.  

That\'s what Hideo Kojima actually tells in MGS2 ; we are tied to limited contextual circumstances ; in our case, a physical reality. But our "Self" is each our decision to each situation. Just because a carpenter only has one tool, a hammer to his disposal, doesn\'t mean his "Self" ( That, of being a carpenter with his own unique ways ) is nothing more than the limited tool he has.

And that\'s what i think earth life is ; a set of limited materialised contexts as a means of lesson for the soul.

a godly "force" materialized?

I can\'t argue against that, since it\'s impossible to prove a negative, so I\'m gonna ask of you to give me some kind of prove for that...