Faith/Observation
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: a spiritual vortex, Colorado
Posts: 844
Hi don
interesting site! strange conclusions tho
i have no problem with the limbic system as an originating biological point for notions of god etc.
but this guy really needs to brush up on his evolutionary theory!!
“Since increased complexity and progressive cerebral encephalization is characteristic of the evolution of life on this planet, the same could be expected elsewhere.
Uh no-----good sci fi, baad biology!- that “progressive cerebral encephalization� has been the domain of one species only- us. complexity does happen in other animals, but intelligence is often NOT the outcome- faster, bigger, more poisonous- these are all options for complex adaptations. in addition, a lineage may adapt to a new environment, but its predecessor can thrive unchanged.
In fact, the ‘cost/benefit’ factor of evolution places an incredibly delicate limitation on the rise of intelligence- large brain=difficult births, vunerable to severe injury. Greedy brain =20% of our total input of nutrients. Long child rearing. And all that cognition slows down simple functions.
the DNA evidence seems to suggest that at one point in the not too distant past humanity was down to less than 10,000 individuals- today that would mark us as an endangered species! was a miracle we made it- a good case of the flu and it would have been over....
And we are a pretty small blip on the time scale- the jury may well be out on whether our poulation pressures, the befouling of our own nest or our inadverdent genetic tinkering [say, antibiotics] will insure that we are not a quick blip as well....
lets face it - no aliens to save our a$$!
So. on to brain function-
our author is pretty dated when he wishes to relegate “primitive emotions’� to the region of the hypothalmus. That ol ‘triune brain’ model is seen , in the context of evolutionary biology, to be discredited . First because , evolution doesn’t leave earlier foundations within the same animal unchanged [we use to say what about the appendix, but it has apparent use in the immune system]- so our emotional circuitry was not left untouched either.. Second, because it is easy for evolution to reprogram emotions-didn’t take but a twinkling [in evolutionary time] to develop Rottwielers and Golden Retreivers within a single species’...
Why the author chose to stay with this model is puzzling because later on he does speak to the the ‘multimodality of angygdaloid neurons’
what is understood today is that the limbic system and the cerebral cortex work in tandem. the amygdala is the area which gets not only sensory input from the limbic but abstract, complex info from the cerebral cortex.; the amygdala then passes its signals to , among other areas, the frontal lobes [decision maker]
Basically then, emotions set off the process of all the sub goal routines which end up , finally,with a decision. without them, there would be no impetus to action- Emotions are the trigger mechanisms for thinking, with no definite boundary between thinking and feeling.
hold on to that thought [or feeling or thought or...]
this still does nothing to get to my core observation that sobriety requires a belief in a non proveable meaning for one’s existence. And that this unproveability lies outside the realms of science, mathematics or logic. To describe free will as residing in the anterior cingulate sulcus, or god notions to be in the limbic system does nothing to describe the crux of existence, it leaves out the HOW and the WHY all those fuzzy concepts: consciousness, sentient, will ethics come into being, - if you say ‘get over it, it just does’, then i have to respond that you have made a choice to believe that.
almost as fundamental is the concept of an emotional/thinking continuum. the brain does not operate in an emotional vacum - this may help explain why, even when faced by the mounting unmanageability in my life, i still chose to drink. It is a non mathematical, courtroom definition of probability: “degree of belief warranted by the information just presented� [always gets back to belief-]
or, in my case “life pretty much bites, oh well, what th hell�
which i just could not think my way out of [or feel... or think... or ...nevermind]
later-
mackat
interesting site! strange conclusions tho
i have no problem with the limbic system as an originating biological point for notions of god etc.
but this guy really needs to brush up on his evolutionary theory!!
“Since increased complexity and progressive cerebral encephalization is characteristic of the evolution of life on this planet, the same could be expected elsewhere.
Uh no-----good sci fi, baad biology!- that “progressive cerebral encephalization� has been the domain of one species only- us. complexity does happen in other animals, but intelligence is often NOT the outcome- faster, bigger, more poisonous- these are all options for complex adaptations. in addition, a lineage may adapt to a new environment, but its predecessor can thrive unchanged.
In fact, the ‘cost/benefit’ factor of evolution places an incredibly delicate limitation on the rise of intelligence- large brain=difficult births, vunerable to severe injury. Greedy brain =20% of our total input of nutrients. Long child rearing. And all that cognition slows down simple functions.
the DNA evidence seems to suggest that at one point in the not too distant past humanity was down to less than 10,000 individuals- today that would mark us as an endangered species! was a miracle we made it- a good case of the flu and it would have been over....
And we are a pretty small blip on the time scale- the jury may well be out on whether our poulation pressures, the befouling of our own nest or our inadverdent genetic tinkering [say, antibiotics] will insure that we are not a quick blip as well....
lets face it - no aliens to save our a$$!
So. on to brain function-
our author is pretty dated when he wishes to relegate “primitive emotions’� to the region of the hypothalmus. That ol ‘triune brain’ model is seen , in the context of evolutionary biology, to be discredited . First because , evolution doesn’t leave earlier foundations within the same animal unchanged [we use to say what about the appendix, but it has apparent use in the immune system]- so our emotional circuitry was not left untouched either.. Second, because it is easy for evolution to reprogram emotions-didn’t take but a twinkling [in evolutionary time] to develop Rottwielers and Golden Retreivers within a single species’...
Why the author chose to stay with this model is puzzling because later on he does speak to the the ‘multimodality of angygdaloid neurons’
what is understood today is that the limbic system and the cerebral cortex work in tandem. the amygdala is the area which gets not only sensory input from the limbic but abstract, complex info from the cerebral cortex.; the amygdala then passes its signals to , among other areas, the frontal lobes [decision maker]
Basically then, emotions set off the process of all the sub goal routines which end up , finally,with a decision. without them, there would be no impetus to action- Emotions are the trigger mechanisms for thinking, with no definite boundary between thinking and feeling.
hold on to that thought [or feeling or thought or...]
this still does nothing to get to my core observation that sobriety requires a belief in a non proveable meaning for one’s existence. And that this unproveability lies outside the realms of science, mathematics or logic. To describe free will as residing in the anterior cingulate sulcus, or god notions to be in the limbic system does nothing to describe the crux of existence, it leaves out the HOW and the WHY all those fuzzy concepts: consciousness, sentient, will ethics come into being, - if you say ‘get over it, it just does’, then i have to respond that you have made a choice to believe that.
almost as fundamental is the concept of an emotional/thinking continuum. the brain does not operate in an emotional vacum - this may help explain why, even when faced by the mounting unmanageability in my life, i still chose to drink. It is a non mathematical, courtroom definition of probability: “degree of belief warranted by the information just presented� [always gets back to belief-]
or, in my case “life pretty much bites, oh well, what th hell�
which i just could not think my way out of [or feel... or think... or ...nevermind]
later-
mackat
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