tar

Came up with a definition of love about 8 years ago. Based on some philosopical thoughts about consciousness, and general musings, and I just looked at it again, from a scientific brain mechanism point of view and think it might be right. "Love is when you include another entity in your feeling of self." What do you think? Regards, TAR

??? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergediNow, Thought I sort of summed it up nicely. What are you after? Regards, TAR

iNow, Here is an interesting one. http://www.medicineonline.com/news/12/4472/Brain-Scans-Get-at-Roots-of-Prejudice.html I'll probably seem like old tangential TAR again. But there is a method to my madness. This goes back to "putting yourself in the other's shoes" When you recognize kin, you see yourself in them and them in you. When you don't recognize someone of the same species as kin, part of your pack, possible competitors for resources, or deadly enemies, you put them in the bad dorsal area, in with the bad painful stuff, in the enemy category. You are not interested in pleasing them, you are interested in eliminating them or avoiding them. Fight or flight. Members of a group, are kin, and those outside the group are evil things. Family, friends, your high school's team, your company, your county, your religion, your political party, people that speak your language or engage in your culture, are people who you think of as you think of yourself. People whose shoes you can walk in, who you can imagine how they think. Kin. Others might not have your best interests in mind, and you think of them in the dorsal area. Regards, TAR P.S. Likely to bring you pleasure, and who you want to please, as opposed to those who might have other things in mind, other than you. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedP.P.S. The Biblical Religions, Jewish, Christian and Muslim hijack/utilize these mechanism, and make all the believers kin. The holy father, the leader of the pack, who will punish those who go against the pack. And all the members of the family are children of God. Believers and non-believers, the strongest theme in the Koran. And if I might add, just to be objective, the way some secular humanists, who can't quite see how religious people can believe what they believe, can't see how they can think what they think, can't put themselves in their shoes, see them as an impediment to human unity, and stick them in the dorsal area.

Forufes, I think I am catching your drift on the "definition" part of this. If one parses the definition literally it says, if you deprive two individuals of any sensory information about the other, random symbolic information, cannot be transferred magically from one mind to another. On this score, the tests of telepathy have shown no magic. Anyone claiming to have such magic ability, can readily be disproven. Anyone able to determine something about what the other is thinking, by picking up a subtle cue of some sort, can be thwarted by depriving him of the sense he used to pick up the clue. No magic. However. Happens all the time. Posada(the catcher) "knows" when runners are on the move how Jeter(the shortstop) is going to break, and where and when to throw the ball, because they have been together, playing baseball for a long time. As a scientist, I would say nothing magical occurred. But apparent communication from one mind to the other, and back again, was occuring without using sensory perception. They knew what the other was going to do, before they did it. There was no visible sign, no audible signal that the camera or the fans could see or, nobody but Jeter and Posada knew the break and the throw were about to happen. Now certainly the situation was visible to all, so sensory perceptions were in use. And most probably a small body lean, or a subconciously picked up attitude, or a few inches closer to second than Jeter would normally stand in that situation, and an extra foot lead that the runner was taking, tipped Posada off as to what was on Jeter's mind, and that he was about to break, and Jeter knew Posada would throw. No magic. But communication. When two people know each other, and they are not in the same location. They can know what the other person is thinking without using magic. They know the mode of operation of the other. They know how the other thinks, their likes and dislikes. They know the situation. Apparent communication without using sensory perception in this situation is not surprising or unbelievable or magic. The keys, as you said, are already in our hand, it's just so obvious and normal, that any communication we have, that doesn't use overt sight and sound, we don't consider as magic. Regards, TAR

iNow, We are born with the apparatus that at some point develops into, or is hijacked by religion. I was asking, in the same way that children's ability to put themselves into someone elses shoes develops in the 3-5 range. Is there a age at which children exhibit thoughts or ruminations about god? Is there a time when children take on imaginary friends? Is there a time when a conscience develops? As the inate ability to assign agency to the moving grass, to avoid being eaten, developed in our species way back, and this mechanism might be hijacked or adapted for imagining persons to talk to and keep you company, and please you, so other mechanisms, selected for throughout our evolution, are put into use in all the things we do, as humans. Each mechanism that is used for religious thought, probably has other current day uses as well. I was trying to look at each thing we do as permutations of the simple understandable reward mechanism, interacting with the ability to put yourself in another's shoes, and build our species up from rudimentary brain functions, to the complex brain functions and social interactions we exhibit, today. As a child gains body recognition, body control, memory, lessons, language, symbols, other's shoes, values, rules, imaginary friends, authority figures, thoughts of the infinite, awareness of mortality, ways of thinking, and roles to play in a certain order as the brain developes and patterns are reinforced, this order might be analogous to the order in which the underlying required mechanisms were selected for, in our species. Even if the order is wrong, the fact remains that we couldn't do it, if evolution had not selected for the underlying mechanism. To this end, the simpler the underlying mechanism is, the easier it is to comprehend the subsequent development of the functions derived from them. Regards, TAR

iNow, Well yes, it does address what I am asking. At what age do you figure children entertain "religious" thoughts? Regards, TAR

iNow, Hey, well I'm the one jumping to conclusions here. If you don't see the connections, its probably cause they are not evident. (not there?) Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergediNow, Well perhap I should slow down and ask a question. Take a statement like "children start to mimick you, and your values." Is this process of Mimicking, understood on a neurocortical level? Regards, TAR

iNow, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5854/1305 I didn't subscribe to read the article, just the abstract. Regards, TAR

iNow, http://www.ncaachampionmagazine.org/Championship%20Magazine/ChampionMagazineStory/ArticleListings/tabid/61/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/45/Default.aspx Ok, we have the winning/losing down. Let me go look for the other connections. Regards, TAR

iNow, Well I'll have to go look up some stuff, but I remember years ago reading a study that showed similarities in the chemical rewards to the brain in gamblers, when they win, and drug addicts when they take a certain drug. It took me down a line of thought, that I rightly or wrongly have used to understand people's actions and underlying motivation. For instance, I will sit at a computer screen and play Civilization or Soduko or what ever, and enjoy the "winning". Even though this activity doesn't enhance my life in ANY other way. It isn't social. It doesn't put food on the table, and it certainly doesn't help anybody else or society. Maybe it might improve my understanding of how civilizations build success upon the success of the past, and planning and such, or the Soduko might teach me how to use various directions of logic similtaneously, but basically, the purpose is to conquer the world, or complete the sudoku, and feel good about it. I subsequently viewed this same reward (punishment) mechanism as being somewhat, if not directly and associatively analogous to pleasure/pain, good/bad, success/failure, victory/loss, and when combined with our associations with others right/wrong, love/hate, proper/improper, accepted/not accepted, legal/illegal, and so forth. Interesting to me, is how this idea of what pleases/displeases you can be attributed as well to others, and one can gain pleasure by pleasing another and just the knowledge of the pleasing (even though the other might be unseen, or even imaginary) is pleasing. It can go so far as to explain things like "rationalizing" where you do something hurtful, but search for some other (real or imaginary, internally or externally based) entity that it would please, and therefore make it alright. The calculus of how this all works out, for an individual or a group or a society, or a species is indeed ongoing and complex. Pleasures and pains on one level can outweigh the rewards and punishments on others. Individuals develop personalities based on the formulas that have worked best for them, and fall into roles, that please their friends and family, coworkers, and society, and perhaps nature as well. Cause after all, if we please ourselves, we are pleasing ourselves and we are natural. Regards, TAR P.S. I will go look for some corroborating evidence.

iNow, Wired for religion. Two mechanisms identified in the brain, a reward and punishment mechanism, and a mechanism allowing one to take another's perspective could, when looked at, together, generate many of the phenomena occuring in the mind, and in the brain's interface with other brains. Due to the reward and punishment mechanism, a brain seeks to find the state of reward, and avoid the state of discomfort. Awareness of body, control of body, memory of states, and memory of the sequence of states that resulted in reward all reinforced each other. Pleasurable states and painful states, good and bad positions to take. Self centered but not unable to mimick. Whoops. Mimicking. Haven't thought that through. Do we understand that mechanism? Regards, TAR

I take great offense at that statement, on several diffent levels. Edmond Zedo, I divorce thee. Disregards Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI divorce thee, I divorce thee

Edmond Zedo, So what fact are you thinking the testing of this hypothesis might bring to light? Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedEdmond, I have been considering your hypothesis since you expressed it, and reading up on Jung and related stuff, and trying to put many aspects of the recent discussions I have read and been a part of here in the psuedoscience section, and iNow's "religion hijacks" thread, together. I go by a simple rule. Things have to fit together. There are no gaps in reality. Just gaps in our understanding of it. When the "our" refers to one persons understanding, the gaps are greater, than when the "our" refers to all of humanity. I can (and have) had insights that filled gaps in my understanding, that I have subsequently found out were gaps, already filled by others. Filled by putting together, in the logical manner, facts arrived at, by using the objectivity of the scientific method. As much as you may be smart, and observant, and a great knower and logic master, you are not listening to the critisisms leveled at you, concerning your failure to adhere to the tenents of the scientific method. Science is not concerned with filling gaps in your understanding, except to teach you what is already known. Science is concerned with filling gaps in its understanding by arriving at facts and weaving them into their proper place in a thusly enhanced total picture. To find a "new" fact, that will enhance the total picture, you have to work with what is already known. If it is a new fact to you, then you can use what ever method you like to arrive at it. If it is a new fact to science, you have to arrive at it using the scientific method. The people here, (my self excluded) know the scientific method and know how new facts are arrived at. They are not saying that you might not be seeing some glimmer of a new fact. They are telling you how to bring it into focus. You should listen. Regards, TAR

Edmond Zedo, So there is no particular aspect of the typing process, that correlates to brow-nose appearance? Just the final result of the typing process that correlates to brow-nose? So, if your observations are true, I could give you some nose shapes and sizes, some brow shapes and sizes, and you could tell me what? about each nose-brow pair. Regards, TAR

http://www.personalitypage.com/info.html Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedEdmond Zedo, Which aspects of personality, as defined above, are related to brow-nose shape and size, in an adult, according to your observations? Regards, TAR

Edmond Zedo, Indeed there is too much swimming around in EVERYBODIES head, to "take on other peoples ideas right now". But consider this, it is hard to know what other people are considering, what they know, and what they don't. And put on top of that the fact that it seems that people consider stuff in 16 different ways. Everybody has, over their lifetime, had a specific set of experiences and ideas, shared a specific set of ideas and experience with others, and has one of 16 different basic approaches to determining their person. And we each started our lives with a particular set of genes that contained the information to construct our persons. What are the facts involved? Regards, TAR

Martin, Thanks so much for your reply. As well as the others who put me on to facts I was not aware of. I think you have me, exactly right. I came on this board, back in July, because the pictures of the background microwave radiation, made me think about what it really was we were seeing. I thought that the universe might be all within our view. I am still holding that open as a possibility. I did not know at the time that the hubble constant was not constant, nor thought that the universe was expanding so fast at the time of the last scattering, that regions of space could be receeding from each other faster than the speed of light. I thought that was only possible now, as the sizes have increased so. As such, I had maintained that if we were ever close enough to a region of space, for its light to reach us, it will still be reaching us now. Not to go into all the stages of my education since then, and which parts of my ideas were discarded and reborn and so on. I will cut to my current state. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_02.htm#DT The fourth diagram on the linked page, shows space plotted using known observations and fact. It is not unlike a crude diagram I drew and posted at some point back, in the sense that it fullfills some of my imagined view. That is, that when we look out into space we are looking back in time, along the red lines. The further away we see, the longer the light took to get to us. Now we can't see any further back than the 13.7 billion years between the last scattering and now, but that is time, not distance.(note that the end of the red line is at the edge of the universe.) The distance is hard to pin down, because people talk about it in so many different ways, and the distance itself, that the photons have traveled has constantly been changing along the way, stretching them out, so to speak. But let me try to get to some point. And once I do, you might be able to see it as well, or better yet, see where I am getting it wrong, and help me cut away the misconceptions, or point me toward the facts I am leaving out. We have a tendency to build a model in our heads, and then look at the model, all at once. (at least I do, and I am giving other people the same kind of facility, rightly or wrongly.) But the universe does not lend itself to this kind of all at once observation. It is too big, too old AND in constant motion, on scales we can't quite imagine. And most importantly, CANNOT be looked at all at once. Because the speed of light is slow compared to the distances involved, and there is no way to look at the model, all at once, and be imagining what it really looks like, now. What it Really looks like now, is what we see with our equipment, when we look at it. What I am referring to, is the kind of picture that is painted in computer animations, that zoom around, into, and out of an infinite mesh of galaxy strings and clusters, as if there is an observation point, that could see this now. Reality is, if we would model what we would see now, if we were to transport our imaginations to a region of space, we now see as microwave background radiation, and look in the direction of the Milky Way, the Milkyway would look like microwave background radiation. In the universe now,(with all regions being 13.73 billion years old) the photons from the background radiation are just reaching the milkyway, and the milkyway's photons from when we were 300,000 years old are just reaching that region of space. Take a region in space which we are now seeing as microwave background radiation. It cannot be both a region of space 300,000 years old, a flux of hot hydrogen atoms, AND a region of space, 13.73 billion years old, which looks like a galaxy. Its image is what we see and what is real to us, its gravity and photons are reaching us now. All regions of space should be able to be considered, from the same perspective. Our perspective. Well I failed to state my questions in a few sentences as requested. I'll pause here, and try to ask something. Shouldn't a square arc second of space, one light year deep, that is 5 billion light years distant from us contain less matter and space than a square arc second of space, one light year deep that is 6 billion light years distant? If a square arc second of space, one light year deep, is 13.73 billion light years distant from us, shouldn't it contain an incredibly large amount more of matter and space than any square arc second of space, one light year deep, closer to us? Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedIf a 13.7 billion year old observer, located in a region of space that we see as the cosmic background microwave radiation, sees the Milkyway region as cosmic background microwave radiation, how do they see the microwave background radiation that we are currently seeing when we look in the opposite direction?

Edmond Zedo, Just wondering. When you "typed" Mooeypoo, did you do it based on the careful measurements of the brow and nose in her Avatar? Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedSide question on the Myers-Briggs test. Can a group of family and friends answer a Myers-Briggs test, on behalf of a subject, and score the same as the subject scored? Can an expert in the Myers-Briggs test and the methodology behind it, observe a subject (how they looked, what they did, what they said, where they went, how they reacted to stuff) for a 24 hr. normal day, and type that person accurately? If so, would that not prove that personality can be typed by appearance? If so, then that would not be anything new for Edmond to observe or prove. However, if the brow-nose alone, without any other expertise or observation could reliably predict which of the 16 personality groups a subject would subsequently type as, this would be curious fact which would have to tell us something about either personality, or how we type it, or both. Or something about the brow-nose's effect on personality, or personality on the brow-nose, or the brain on brow-nose, or personality on the brain, or the brain on personality, or some causation or correlation or another. So Edmond. I think you should drop the occipital cortex stuff and other speculations out of your hypothesis. Such things would come after establishing the fact that personality types can be determined by nose-brow ALONE. Now I have also noticed you are not saying that brow-nose alone can type a person. You seem to be saying that it correlates to the N/S aspect alone. And somehow you tie that to I/E. So I think it crucial you strip it down to what personality aspect exactly you have noticed the correlation about. Then see if that aspect could always be determined "by someone else's observation of" or specific measurement of the brow and nose alone. Regards, TAR

iNow, I like this soft secular approach. I think it more scientific than the hard secular, which can appear "holier than thou" on occassion. Puts us all on a more even playing field. Regards, TAR

Edmond Zedo, "instinctive knowing (without the use of rational processes)" Is the widely accepted meaning of the word intuition. You define it as an indepth analysis of the incoming information, perhaps even with a little Zedo natural talent built in. You can't base a hypothesis on a word that means one thing to you, and the opposite to the rest of the english speaking world. Much of your thinking seems to be based on your self defined meaning of intuition. Now consider this. If your definition of intuition is exactly opposite the normal usage, and you think that Jung's normal usage of the term produces exactly the wrong interpretations of the facts, you are actually agreeing with his interpretation. Thus, to get a good hypothesis going, you first have to make it, based on the normal definition of the word intuition. If you are talking about something else, like in depth, rational analysis of information, then that is what you should call it. These definitions and what kind of thing is happening in the brain when the phenomena is occurring, is crucial to get straight between all participants (us humans) right at the get go. Otherwise there is nothing in particular to correlate occipital cortex size to. Next, you completely ignored a fact that was pointed out to you, that the functionality and developement of an area of the brain was proportional to other aspects, other than size. This makes one wonder what relationship size would have at all to the preferences in personality that functionality and development in a certain area, might be correlated to. Third, you expressed no change of direction plans when I pointed out that it is thought that basic personality is pretty much set, by the age of five. Shouldn't observations of child facial structure have gone up on you site? Regards, TAR

I sensed a secular humanist bias in the study. Made me wonder, if the same study was constructed with half republicans and half democrats, or half hard secularists, and half soft secularists, and the questions constructed with appropriately related content, that the results would have been the same. Regards, TAR

Mooeypoo, Thanks for the example. Excellent. Regards, TAR

Well yes, I did that myself, last night, when I was considering my "how much of YOU is in your field of view as you develop your other's shoes perspective" The ways we found to feel good, and the ways we found to avoid feeling bad, at ages 3-5, probably have a whole lot to do with the strategies we have been employing ever since. This insight gave me additional insight into my wife's needs to do, and the pleasure she takes in doing the things she does, that I have no need to do. I find my pleasure in other pursuits that she see no value in. But it gave me insights into my own personality, and gave me ways to better understand other individuals as well. If this is the only advantage that proving your correlation will give us, then we might just as well use my insight. Regards, TAR

Edmond Zedo, Well I think we all know this Edmond. That is why we have injured parties, wars, divorces, revolutions and such, and its also why we have the courts of laws, international treaties, divorce laws, elections and so on. Its also why we have organisational structures, and follow established rules, that force us to respect the wills of people we don't understand how they could ever be pleased with what pleases them. The problem with you and me, is we both have a worldview that we put together in a consistent, logical fashion. Everything falls into nice complex categories, and we figure we know other people better than they know themselves. We figure, that since we put ourselves in their shoes, and have ourselves figured out, in terms of what is good and bad, rewarding and painful, that everybody elses actions and stated desires, can be sorted out, using the same criterion, and our view of them, is clearer then their view of themselves, because our view is an "objective" view as opposed to their subjective view of themselves. If a crowd of people view us a certain way, and we know them to be mistaken, we will be satisfied that they are wrong, and we are right, and that will give us pleasure. Well, we are wrong Edmond. Not that we can not have insights and share them with others. But that we don't get, what other people get. Sure, they don't all get, what we get. But that's the point. We are talking about individual wills, individual minds, individual intentions, individual opinions, and EVERYBODY has them, and everybody gets it. We can join groups and find ways to please the whole group. We make a few sacrifices for the good of the group, and the whole group make sacrifices for us. That is what society is about. But every body here already knows these things. Everybody has already viewed themselves objectively, as the group views them. People are able to do this. It's not a natural talent that only Edmond Zedo, or TAR has. So you are good at typing people into categories. We all are. A lot of people that look stupid, really are. And a lot of people that look smart, really are. A lot of people that look sloppy have personality characterists that differ from people that look neat, a lot of people that look bold and confident, really are, and a lot of people that look shy and tentative really are. The question here is does the shape, position, and size of the nose and brow, in reference to the eyes, determine something factual about the personality preferences of an individual. And can this determination be made by anyone who knows the correlation. One thing that has to be established, is what, about a persons personality, is it, that is being determined? You are at odds with Jung on this, and you are at odds with me, on this, so I think it has to be discussed in full, so we know what aspect of personality we are talking about in the first place. And the second part would then be to establish the brow-nose to personality aspect correlation in a way that anybody could measure. Then we would have an objective fact we could all work with. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedor perhaps you are interested in designing a triple blind test

http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud3.htm Hmm... around the same time our face is growing into our field of view, and our capacity to put ourselves into someone else's shoes is developed...Hmm Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedP.S. If personality is just about fully developed by age five and the shape of the face is correlated to the personality, its shape THEN (0-5) would be more important than its shape as an adult. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedEdmond Zedo, I know you have confidence in yourself, and you have thought this all through to your own satisfaction, but you think that you have viewed it objectively, and that is your mistake, that is what makes it backward. Science is the closest thing we have to objectivity, and you keep placing your own subjective view of objectivity above the scientific view, which IS objective. Regards, TAR Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedEdmond Zedo, I know this is hard to talk about, and get a good handle on, but you cannot possibly have a thought, that is not in your head, in your brain, your thought. Completely subjective. The most objective thought you can think, is still you thinking it. You can not even START to get objective by yourself. You need science to do it. Regards, TAR