Is the brain the source of faith?

[redacted]

That's too easy. Just cite any other branch of psychology which explains things better than behaviorism. For instance, how does behaviorism explain that it takes longer for us to process information in a list of 10 items versus a list of 3 items assuming the same reward?

different stimuli elicit different behaviors. processing speed/reaction speed is a behavior.

did i understand your example correctly? (i'm stoned)

 

[wildcat]

Is the brain the source of faith?

Can brain imaging prove or disprove that the brain is the source of faith?



Related article:
What Your Brain Looks Like on Faith - TIME

The pattern sequence change the number according to the caller?
Yes.
Why?
Ask the caller.

 

[Wandering]

We know that faith is a conscious choice, and that conscious choices are somehow made in the brain. Thus the brain is the source of faith in as much as faith is conscious and observable. However, this observation doesn't preclude the existence of a soul, which would theoretically have control over the brain's function, and thus still be the source not only of faith, but of all conscious choice and free will as well. If the soul exists, it could be said to exist on a different plane of existence, and that while the brain is definitely the source of faith on the physical plane of existence, it may or may not only be relaying/conveying the will of the soul. This can not be shown one way or the other.

Well said!

 

[Totenkindly]

You could be right.

But what makes it so necessary to postulate the existence of a definable object called a "soul," if we can explain behavior on a more observable level and the construct of a soul seems superfluous?

To me, that's the large issue: The necessity of having a soul at all to explain anything only exists because of preconceived "religious" beliefs. To make the theology (or whatever spiritual framework one is inclined to) work, suddenly we need to toss in the construct of a soul. We want it to be true to fit our ideas, so we develop some rationale to explain it.

The existence of the soul isn't really derived from real-live evidence, which is why people still argue about whether or not it exists.

And it's just funny because the early Jews from which Judeo-Christian beliefs [for a soul] spawn from seemed to view this physical, current life as the "spiritual reality." There was no separate soul from the body; the body WAS the person.

Which is why the clean/unclean laws were SO large to them, and sins against the body were BIG sins (no tattoos, no mutilation, no sexual promiscuities, no cross-gender behavior, etc.). Because the body WAS the person. Sinners had their bodies routinely violated; sinners and the damned often had their bodies left out to rot or be eaten by birds and jackals and whatnot. Physical death was the literal punishment for sin; it was damnation.

When you died, your body was interred into "the grave [Sheol]," which was another way of saying the Underworld. That body was you. And the Jews believed that God would one day restore life TO that body -- that JHVH would resurrect the dead who were faithful while the unfaithful were left dead, rotted, in their graves.

(This is the holdover in Christian theology... that the resurrection of the BODY is essential, that we have bodies at ALL even if we want to view ourselves as having "souls" per se. We aren't "souls," our bodies are us.)

 

[Wandering]

But what makes it so necessary to postulate the existence of a definable object called a "soul," if we can explain behavior on a more observable level and the construct of a soul seems superfluous?

Nothing Belief in a soul is just that: a belief. The existence of souls can't be proven, any more than the existence of God.

 

[Totenkindly]

Nothing Belief in a soul is just that: a belief. The existence of souls can't be proven, any more than the existence of God.

Well, then, why not believe in an endless host of things [Ne gone wild] just because we want to?

We seem awfully selective in the things we are willing to believe in without causal links.

 

[Oberon]

of course my premise isn't proven. and you're right, i am a behaviorist. but my logic is sound at least

Well, you're right about that... I can't fault your logic.

do you want to challenge behaviorism? if so, how? i'd definitely like to defend it if necessary.

All right. The classic Freudian approach to the mind is outmoded in a hundred ways, but it has one important strength at least: It recognizes cognition. Cognition provides a coherent explanation for altruism, even altruism to the point of self-sacrifice.

Can behaviorist theory provide an alternative explanation for altruistic self-sacrifice?

EDIT: I hope this isn't considered a derail. It pertains to the OP, I think, in that I'm critiquing the method that dissonance used to arrive at his conclusion.

 

[Wandering]

Well, then, why not believe in an endless host of things [Ne gone wild] just because we want to?

Because we don't have equal reason to believe in all things.

IOW, if you prefer: just because we can't prove something to someone else, doesn't mean it hasn't been proven to us.

 

[Oberon]

IOW, if you prefer: just because we can't prove something to someone else, doesn't mean it hasn't been proven to us.

I have attempted to make this point on several occasions, but it doesn't seem to bear any weight.

 

[Totenkindly]

IOW, if you prefer: just because we can't prove something to someone else, doesn't mean it hasn't been proven to us.

That seems likely, since we all have different standards that have to be met and have little to go on otherwise except experience.

It just makes conversation and truth-sharing difficult. We might as well be from different planets sometimes.

After all, the astrologist lays the same sort of claims, as inscrutable as these discussions of the soul, but I'm not going to give her credibility just because she claims "something has been proven to her" that has not been proven to me.

 

[Wandering]

That seems likely, since we all have different standards that have to be met and have little to go on otherwise except experience.

Little? I wonder: what *else* do we have to go on, in your idea?

It just makes conversation and truth-sharing difficult.

Agreed.

We might as well be from different planets sometimes.

In a way, we are. From different worlds at least, as in "every man is his own world".

After all, the astrologist lays the same sort of claims, as inscrutable as these discussions of the soul, but I'm not going to give her credibility just because she claims "something has been proven to her" that has not been proven to me.

Credibility is quite an elastic complex in my mind.

 

[Totenkindly]

Little? I wonder: what *else* do we have to go on, in your idea?

Well, while we can all access various forms of "knowing" something, essentially we each claim that certain authorities are more credible than others.

And experience is a form of knowing that is still parsed through our list of credible authorities, in order of priority. [Logic; emotion; mentor/teacher; cultural institution; religious tenets; etc.]

So unless we are discussing the raw sensory experience, it's already been filtered through our natural preferences. We have to make a conscious effort to re-parse our experience and view it from alternate perspectives.

(I'm sorry, I'm probably wandering off-topic here since I'm not sure where I was going with everything...)

 

[redacted]

Well, you're right about that... I can't fault your logic.



All right. The classic Freudian approach to the mind is outmoded in a hundred ways, but it has one important strength at least: It recognizes cognition. Cognition provides a coherent explanation for altruism, even altruism to the point of self-sacrifice.

Can behaviorist theory provide an alternative explanation for altruistic self-sacrifice?

EDIT: I hope this isn't considered a derail. It pertains to the OP, I think, in that I'm critiquing the method that dissonance used to arrive at his conclusion.

well i honestly didn't mean to get myself in a position where i was defending strict behaviorism, with no internal states. that isn't what i originally tried to say, although i let myself go in that direction for a post or two.

i think my original point was that every human concept exists in physical form, so 'faith' must be in the brain somewhere. because where else would 'faith' be?

(then we were talking about 'justice', which the same logic applies to)

and then you were questioning my premise that everything is physical.

basically, i have nothing much to say to that. if you don't agree that everything is physical, my argument doesn't hold. i shouldn't have tried to defend behaviorism in the first place. i should have defended the specific behaviorist stance that includes mental states.

but if you do disagree (you don't believe everything is physical), why? and how do you explain things that aren't physical affecting things that are physical?

 

[Athenian200]

but if you do disagree (you don't believe everything is physical), why? and how do you explain things that aren't physical affecting things that are physical?

I think people who believe that not everything is physical have no reason for doing so except a leap of faith. They'd probably confess not understanding the nature of things, and to having given up questioning at that point in order to accept things on faith. The only way to have faith is to stop asking questions and believe without understanding.

I personally could never do that. Sometimes I think it would be easier, but... I just can't bend that way. It just doesn't work for me somehow.

 

[wildcat]

Is the brain the source of faith?

Can brain imaging prove or disprove that the brain is the source of faith?



Related article:
What Your Brain Looks Like on Faith - TIME

Faith is a store.
Yesterday does not cognite.

What do you know of yesterday?
Nothing.

When do you know?
You know now.