The divine anxiety

I wasn’t intending to suggest that I haven’t any emotional investment.
The only regard to lacking emotion that I was referring to was regarding gods.
In the same way, just because I lack any emotional drive towards homosexual attraction, this does not infer that I lack sexual drive itself.

The cardinal center of what I have been discussing is that our magnified sensory of emotion mixed with our magnified quality of identity (what a cup is, what a dream is, what the universe is, what “I” am, what “you” are, what existence is, etc…) and our increased capacity of causal forethought is what is the very cause of religion; being that with all of this increased amplitude and frequency, especially in an cognitively associative capacity, there is a greater rattling upon the bamboo stick as it is racketed upon the ground.
Following the bamboo stick analogy, religion is the means of interpreting how to move the body and the swinging of the bamboo stick to maintain control over the stick as we swing it around.
One way will say to swing it slower, another will say to take pauses, another will say to move the body with the rattling of the stick, another will instruct how to become stronger in an idea of resisting the rattling, and another will push for focusing upon the time after the stick is done being racketed as the coping method of the rattling during racketing, etc…

A stick is a simple thing.
Existing as a human is far more complicated, especially when it comes with a brain function which creates identity, and subconscious emotional recognition therein, of existence itself.

Regarding our limits:
Now personally, I don’t see a need for gods to comprehend the idea of extending our capacity beyond our limit, or understanding that we have one.
Humanity has done this with and without gods.
Gods will probably always be with humans; I don’t see a means of stripping that out unless we have a radical evolutionary change to our biology that is as radical as the difference between H. Erectus and H. Sapiens Sapiens.
How we reach beyond our limit is by our imagination.
We imagined to fly; impossible; and then we did.
We imagined to be in space; impossible; and then we did.
We imagined knowing the order of nature; impossible; and then we did (and still are).

When we write stories of grand civilizations, be they aliens or fantasy, and imagine of them that which is far beyond our reach today - we set the bar of what we then reach for.
Star Trek is one of the easiest examples; the Martin Cooper, the inventor of the first mobile phones openly states he saw the tricorder being used by Captain Kirk and it inspired him to make a mobile phone.
Look at us today, we haven’t a tricorder, but we have this brilliant result that is just short of a tricorder (and in some ways, better than).

H.G. Wells outlined atomic bombs fictionally (chain reacting, perpetually exploding bombs).
And it was only after reading his idea of atomic bombs that physicist Leo Szilard then had the inspiration for a neutron reaction - which permitted for the creation of the atomic bomb.

Quentz,

Of course; I wasn’t intending to suggest isolation.
That’s impossible.
The simplest example of this is that being on Earth, for us, cannot be ignored.

That said, I don’t see it as predetermined.
Everything is malleable; it is just a gradient of how quickly malleable one thing is compared to another.
Throw shale at a cliff and eventually you will make a mark on that cliff that some archaeologist will find later. However, the alteration to the shale that you are throwing will be instantly witnessed by you even in the first throw.

I can’t help but think from your assertions that religion is a natural or even necessary thing. However why do you think this exaggeration of identity and emotion is a bad thing. You have not led me to believe it confuses anything. If you enjoy feeling why not feel as much as you can? But the real question you have left unasked is who is exaggerating and who has the causal forethought. Whoever or whatever that is what denies it the ability or right to do as it pleases? Do you see some great truth that this somehow confuses? Or why do we have this capacity to exaggerate?

I didn’t say it’s a bad thing; nor was I ever stating it confuses anything.
Where did that impression come from?

But your question also doesn’t apply to me.

Regarding gods?
Let me try this out and see how it works for you; perhaps it’ll make sense then?

If you enjoy sex, why not have as much sex as you can?
Ergo, be gay and straight!

err…
I can’t just be theistic anymore than I could just be gay or straight.
It’s not like I can just pick one and go with that.
(Well, I suppose I could, but then I would be a miserable person for living a liar’s life.)

Exaggeration would be causal forethought.
There’s really little difference between H.G. Wells exaggeration and forethought.
They are two names of imagination and only apply subjectively to the scenario.
What is forethought in one case is exaggeration in another, or to another, etc…

Generally other people in count more than “you” stop “you” from doing freely whatever you “please” if what you “please” is problematic and needing to be stopped in their view.

I don’t see a confusion with any of our abilities.
Why do we have the ability to exaggerate?
A) Lie
B) Imagination

More detail needed?
We care to lie because we have empathetic response (we can sense a “bad vibe” when approached) and emotionally driven desire to assemble into social roles, typically of normality but not always, and have the causal forethought that aids in playing out variable solutions to obstacles.
We have an imagination for related reasons of variable solutions to obstacles, as well as the capacity/

Now, if instead, you are asking me why we can have the ability for causal forethought in such a manner as we do (which is really where the ability to exaggerate is made possible), then I would point to our neurological difference from a Chimpanzee; whereby in the Chimp they have the world’s highest short term memory response observed (there’s not possibility yet conceived of a human matching a Chimpanzee’s short term memory), yet they lack anything beyond around 12 hours of planning.

I really cannot understand why you think I want you to be theistic? As for sexuality you are either gay or straight and many people are both. If you have some proof that any person is only one or the other I would sure like to hear it. Your dependence on biological detemination is totally without proof and lacking a wealth of socilogical and psycholoogical data. I do sense a sincere fear of a moral failure in your description of a wretched fellow because it seems that you believe you are unable to grow or learn anymore than you already restrict yourself to. Again I ask what is this great truth that you would belie if you experimented? I mean really comparing being theistic to being gay or straight is so far removed from reality as to be joke. I cannot understand how you could depend so greatly on biochemical realities as to even think a lie exists. How does chemistry know truth? But no I was not asking why we have the ability for causal forethought I was asking who was having it. Simply pointing out that chimpanzees are trying to discover it does not answer who is having it in your mind or anyones mind.So I will ask it again who is having it and why does that person not have the right to command any biochemical responses the way I manage any appetite for food?

Your suggestion was to feel as much as possible.
The only emotion I stated lacking was an emotional drive to believe in gods.
Ergo, I can only conclude the emotion you would suggest I feel would be the only emotion I lack; the emotional drive to believe in gods.

You are a strange person to me.

sigh
Alright.

I didn’t say a person was only one or the other.
I stated that if I were one and had no emotional drive to the other; then I could not just jump out and say I’m the other honestly.
And homosexuality in neurological formation of brains due to genetic alterations is known.
We can make, for instance, female mice homosexual in labs by altering the FucM gene and lowering estrogen which then causes the brain to develop less akin to female mice and more akin to male mice brains.

No. It’s with some proof.
I’m not saying there can’t be people that are biologically one sexual orientation and choosing another due to psychological conditions.

Again, my point was that I cannot just choose a different sexual orientation as if I’m choosing a different cereal.
Your suggestion on “feeling as much as possible” was unto like asking me to just flip a switch somewhere in my sexual orientation.
It’s an emotion.
Not a cognition.

Because I have no capacity to emotionally have a drive to desire gods I’m in a fear of moral failure because I believe I’m unable to grow and learn anymore?

Sorry, no.
I’ll be good on the growth; thanks for the concern though.

That’s an empty sentence.
I don’t even know what you are discussing at this part of the conversation.

Why is it a joke?
In principle, it is the same.
As I said above, the choice is an emotional one; not a cognitive one.

Polygraph.

Who has causal forethought?
Many primates, elephants, dolphins, a bunch of others, and humans are at the top (well, we can’t test all the hominids that didn’t make it so we assume ours was above theirs until someone finds a way to show that one of the hominids topped us).

I never said someone didn’t have any ability, or right, to command their biochemical responses (hell, the effect of leveraging that very control is one of my primary studies in religions of humanity…ask Quentz; the guy who opened the thread. He’s worked with some of what I’ve been working on in that regard.).
I specifically said that was what religion was.

You know…question…honestly: is English your second language?
If so; that would explain allot and I could understand this confusion a bit.

Really you are so deep in denying identity that it is difficult to communicate. You lay down this emotion to believe something, which I accept as your free opinion to be fact. Its not fact. Why on earth would I care what emotions you have or lack. I was referring to the who is having the emotion, who has authority the emotion is irrelevant. I am certain that you find anyone who does not agree with you as strange. To be able to peddle all this emotion to believe stuff you must either be very isolated or surrounded by yes men. Once again in terms of sexuality I care not for anyones orientation I am stating that there is no evidence that it is caused more by biochemistry more than learnd behavior. I agree that you cannot choose one or the other, you may be able to learn one or the other and there is always the presence of atavism in your DNA. But you can choose, and who is choosing and why does that person have the ability to choose concepts that are not material in nature. You keep talking about gods but that concept does not exist in nature so how can you choose to have emotion for it or not. How can biological wiring understand something that is not material. The very idea that choice is an emotion is absurd. Choice may be willed by an emotion but choice is a cognitive act not an emotion. If you think I have language as a second language, how about this guy I have asked twenty times who is choosing and he responds with classes of primates. Classes of primates are not who. They are categories of what’s. Really your speach is much ado about nothing. What are you hiding?

Perhaps you could be more clear about what choice you are referring to.

I’m not really certain how I’ve upset you, nor do I understand how you arrive at the conclusions of your thoughts that provoke your responses from what I write, but I’m willing to try.
I don’t understand, at this point, what your central interest is?

I think you feel if you have no emotion for an idea, it proves to you that the idea is null and void. Its circular reasoning. I have no emotion for an idea therefor the idea must be false or an illusion. Which affirms that I have no emotion for it. I agree that we are limited to making sense of sensory data but that does not answer anything it creates the problem , for instance we had no concept of germs for centuries but they still existed. We are beings that have the ability to handle all sorts of concepts, ideas and even forms that exist in a completely immaterial way. If we were limited to biochemical or even computer like reasoning this could not be. No effect can exceed the sum of the cause. You say “I have no emotion for an idea” great but before you can have the emotion the “I” must exist who experiences the emotion or lack of it. The abilities of the “I” are what your philosophy is avoiding. That is why I keep asking who or what is the “I”. If you end analysis with the circular argument it has no real value in a philosophical sense because it is based on assumptions that you either do not see, do not understand or cannot answer. By the way you are much easiier to understand when you are angry. Its as if an entirely different person is speaking. I like the angry one better.

Ah, I see where the confusion is coming from.
You were thinking that I have concluded that there are no gods simply because I have no emotional drive to regard any gods.
That is not the case, as they were separate commentaries.

Firstly, I’m an existentialist and a student of history. There’s no room in these for arguments from emotion, especially ones which - as you thought I was doing - then are used to argue an absolute.

As I state regularly around here, I am foremost a transtheist; meaning that I don’t care if there are or are not gods (this is the emotional part); this is not why I am interested in religion or spirituality.
If I am pressed, then I would then explain that I don’t believe it to be likely for there to be gods (this is the logical part, not related to the emotional part previous).

Even as a young child who was Christian and assumed the god of my parents by default and had never thought about the idea of this god not being true, I was not interested in my god.
I was interested in the nature of being, how to live.
When we studied Jesus and the class would center around the divinity of Jesus, I would be interested in the behavior of Jesus.
When pat question and answer time came and answers to “Why do you love Jesus?” were met with alterations of “Because he first loved me” or “Because he died for my sins”, I was responding with, “But what if he didn’t?”, because to me; that was kind of Jesus’ point - unmerited compassion.

I’ll cut the tangent there, but my point in that example is that I’ve never been interested in my relationship to any god personally.
I also don’t happen to believe any are existent, but I also do not claim to show that such is the case in argument.
I don’t care to convince anyone of such, so I was not stating that I believe gods are non-existent simply because I do not feel an emotional drive towards them.
Again, that logic would make about as much sense as me claiming that because I don’t feel an emotional drive towards a sexual orientation that therefore such sexual orientation simply does not exist.
No, sorry if that’s what you collected from my comments; but this was not my point.

Also, to be more explicit; I still have a deep emotional drive to be spiritual, and I actively am deeply spiritual.

Hopefully that helps clear some of the confusion up.

So the next part:

I wasn’t outlining a philosophy.
I have only outlined two philosophies: Bomanism, and Modular Spirituality.
The central focus in the former is a type of relationship with, “I”; the second is more a philosophy of how to build a spiritual philosophy.
My second passion is neurology.

It was not clear to me at all, that you were interested in the identity of, “I”.
If that is your interest, simple enough.

That is a very long discussion; and perhaps one we should open in a different thread so that we don’t completely derail this one.
But in brevity, “I”, is a culminating identity held in conceptual focal of our consciousness largely derived from implicit assimilation over time and is not the same as, what in Bomanism I call, “self nature”; but to express it without lingo, “me now”, without conception in mind of, “I”, as myself.

I wasn’t angry, though.
I was flummoxed, and at a loss of the basis of the discourses direction, but now I can see what was causing the confusion and it should be easier.

My primary point in this thread was a discussion of what our “divine anxiety” is.
To loop back, my original and continual focus has been based on this post:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=178005#p2283034

I had no interest in making claims about what does or does not exist in realms of divinity, and certainly would not make such a case based on emotional plea.

Jason thank you for the candid revelation to the history of your perspective. One of my favorite parts of Neitzche is his commentary on how all philosopphy is a kind of self analysis or confession by each philosopher in examining self. And really how could it be any diffrent. I am interested in hearing more of your ideas on the self or “I”. I had many of the same experiences growing up in Catholic school and I too saw my parents as gods. I still strugle with knowing that I inherited my conscience from them. I like the lyrics in a Velvet Underground song where Lou Reed sings " A child who was raise by an idiot and that idiot becomes you". l will have to learn about Bomanism but my passion is in understanding being. For me God is nothing but unlimited being. I am a firm believer that everything else is creating God in our own image and likeness. I think philosophy is more the study of unbuilding others spiritual philosophies or arguments until we find their implicit assumptions. Implicit assumptions are where we find that the ideas do not hold water on their own. For instance how can God be one, if one is a limited unit? That limitaion eliminates that concept from applying to an understanding of God.

Well, if you want to see Bomanism, sites.google.com/site/bomanism/, that’s the site.
I don’t have much remark on the rest of what you wrote.
Not how I think, nothing wrong with it to me, rock it if it works for you.
Make that bamboo stick shake how you want it to.

Jayson I would like to hear your thoughts on neurology.

We should probably do that in PM if you want to talk to me directly about neurology.
Don’t really want to railside Quentz’ thread (though I know he loves some Nuero talk. :stuck_out_tongue:)

sounds like a plan

Yea I’d prefer it if you derailed the thread. :smiley:

….and besides, there must be something neurological ~ in terms of the whole body, about how creatures go into shock as a defence mechanism when being killed and eaten for example.

Perhaps I could start by making the challenge; how does anything to do with the personal experience of death, get into our genes? Once dead we cannot reproduce and carry the info over.

I suppose at the cellular level there is a recoil against damage, and that sets a chain reaction throughout the body and brain. Still why is that there, if there isn’t a need? …if there isn’t anything alive in life to protect, …if we were purely chemical etc. seems to me that there is a mental stimulus all the way down the line, and perhaps the whole experience is being realised continuously.

See also;
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=178112

Goes in with my other latest debates concerning the informational universe.

I am not a molecular biologist, but the basics are founded in Amino Acids and the fact that these basic chemical compounds can be formed completely unrelated to concerns for life; yet once formed, can begin cellular excitement under circumstance.
Abiogenesis is a field of studying this fractional threshold between life and non-life.

At our point today, however, the complex reactions are primarily due to the markup of cells.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(biology#Functions
You can see a cell outlined there.

It is quite as you said, “there is a mental stimulus all the way down the line, and perhaps the whole experience is being realised continuously.”
The why of that being there loops back to the Abiogenesis and how Amino Acids produce into proteins and from there, the rest.
This isn’t to say we have a solid answer, because we don’t.
It was so long ago that we don’t know exactly how it happened, but we can recreate models in labs today of cellular genesis.

In a way, what you are asking is similar to asking why a computer opponent in a shooting game wants to avoid being shot by you.
If you drill down the amazing quantity of components, even in just Amino Acid formations and functions (not even counting RNA and the rest), the possible algorithmic outcomes for reactions to variable inputs of interactions is quite simply mind blowing.

In another way, it is something akin to asking why the skin on water wants to reform when there is a hole.
Answer that, and then multiply the complexity by at least a googol of variable outputs and you might have a hazy concept to grasp in the mind as to how this all works.

But like I said, I’m not a molecular biologist; I grasp the concepts, but I can’t spell them out in finite detail (though I do enjoy them doing so!)

Indeed the variety and amounts are mind-blowing, and the information involved equally or more so. If all of that is like a computer program, that simply acts like it doesn’t want to be shot due to its programming, then I don’t see why it would be any different in us or other creatures. yet we know from our own experience that there is something there [an experiencer] which does not want to be killed or suffer injury.

We could as easily say that going into shock when being attacked is biological, the cells react to such stimuli, then on a personal and subjective level such things may be induced by fear ~ even when illusory, and so is purely mental. On one level and in origins there may not be a need [as like a computer program], but later there is a need which the origins fulfil. Funny how it works out like that eh.

Think on those definitions for a moment, though.
What is “killed” or “injured”? To what molecular cell structure?
The basic reaction that we observe on the cellular level is akin to a desire for boundary, containment, and solidarity within its unit.
Cells typically only appear to break this conservation if there is potential of gain in some nutrient in the exchange.
Cells work like Bronze Age city-states, essentially.
A wall surrounding, a network of exchanges and conversions within that produce the gain of nutrients cyclically between components within, and the transfer between it and other cells should the right product arrive without threat to the integrity of the “cell-city-state”.

If anything, I would flip your quandary around and state that humanity reflects our smallest biological components rather than examining how our smallest components have what appears to be a concept we have at high levels of cognition.
Take, for example, globalization: what happens in a dish with multiple cultures of bacteria?
At first? Nothing. They all develop rather independent of each other.
Then little by little they near each other from growth.
Then they begin touching, possibly moving away where needed, or attempting to combine in part.
Eventually, space is removed as a liberty and all cultures of bacteria are forced to an ultimatum of lacking space for continued growth mostly independently.
Either they all die, all but one dies and it is the successor, some die and some combine into a new culture that survives, or they all combine into one “globalized” culture.

The question, then, is regarding when looking at a cell; is it regarding death?
Or, possibly, instead is it regarding retention and not death?
Instead of “knowing” anything, the cell is running on a program of instructions that are saved and permeated into it (rna, dna, protein) which determine the type of reaction to have to alterations to its components.

This then, brings your question down to the subject of why dna has storage capacity at all.
But this is empty, because truly, it actually leads down to the simpler form: rna.

So the question becomes primarily: how does rna work, how did it come to be this way, and why?

Well It certainly matters to masses of cells lol [e.g. humans animals etc]. see also below…

Ah so they wish to keep integrity. that’s interesting because when the first life-forms emerged [so i am told] one single cell contained another and gained a nucleus [the undamaged ‘consumed’ cell]. So it would seem that integrity is fundamental rather than harm ~ at least at this level. There is though as you say an effort to move away from the potential of loosing integrity.
.

Its eidos [info set] keeps it intact, so it aims to keep its integrity such that its eidos network is kept. That is; the relationships are kind of bound together [are in relationships], and something which would break that set of connections is rejected.
.

Well info is a kind of knowing, but anyways I agree that external chemical stimuli interacting and the electrical signals which are usually emitted in such an exchange, would cause the eidos to react. In simpler terms different relationships are formed or not formed according to their compatibility to one another.

I suppose then that shock [even when induced from an illusory source] in the subjective mind would create a universal bodily effect, such that the cells all react at once in a kind of chain reaction of information exchanges. electrical impulses etc are the same or similar as on the macroscopic as on the cellular level and I’d expect in some way on the RNA level.
I assume that RNA is bound by its eidos? Otherwise you’d never arrive at it from random chemicals mixing, certainly not the complexity we see in DNA.

_