Belief vs Knowledge - The Force

ZealotX wrote: The chemicals in your body do not have any outside input. So a chemical reaction without external or internal stimuli would be like a computer typing words on the screen by itself. This simply does not happen. What happens is that you press a key. An electrical signal fires from the keyboard, through the computer's "nervous system", gets processed, and the reaction is to display the corresponding character. Not to be crass, but a good example is sexual arousal. You see something sexual. A thought is generated (consciously or subconsciously) and then you have a "physical reaction" to the stimuli.

Of course they have outside input. Take fear for example. Your walking in the woods and you see a bear. Many physiological changes in the body occure first, accelerating breathing rate (hyperventilation), heart rate, vasoconstriction of the peripheral blood vessels leading to blushing and sanskadania of the central vessels (pooling), increasing muscle tension including the muscles attached to each hair follicle to contract and causing "goose bumps", (piloerection) (making a cold person warmer or a frightened animal look more impressive), sweating, increased blood glucose (hyperglycemia), increased serum calcium, increase in white blood cells called neutrophilic leukocytes, alertness leading to sleep disturbance and "butterflies in the stomach" (dyspepsia). These primitive mechanisms help an organism survive by either running away or fighting the danger. With the series of physiological changes, the consciousness realizes an emotion of fear. So the process is, external danger presents itself, the body reacts, the mind becomes aware of the reaction and realizes thoughts and emotions of fear.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

ZealotX wrote: The chemicals in your body do not have any outside input. So a chemical reaction without external or internal stimuli would be like a computer typing words on the screen by itself. This simply does not happen. What happens is that you press a key. An electrical signal fires from the keyboard, through the computer's "nervous system", gets processed, and the reaction is to display the corresponding character. Not to be crass, but a good example is sexual arousal. You see something sexual. A thought is generated (consciously or subconsciously) and then you have a "physical reaction" to the stimuli.

Of course they have outside in put. Take fear for example. Your walking in the woods and you see a bear. Many physiological changes in the body occure first, accelerating breathing rate (hyperventilation), heart rate, vasoconstriction of the peripheral blood vessels leading to blushing and sanskadania of the central vessels (pooling), increasing muscle tension including the muscles attached to each hair follicle to contract and causing "goose bumps", (piloerection) (making a cold person warmer or a frightened animal look more impressive), sweating, increased blood glucose (hyperglycemia), increased serum calcium, increase in white blood cells called neutrophilic leukocytes, alertness leading to sleep disturbance and "butterflies in the stomach" (dyspepsia). These primitive mechanisms help an organism survive by either running away or fighting the danger. With the series of physiological changes, the consciousness realizes an emotion of fear. So the process is, external danger presents itself, the body reacts, the mind becomes aware of the reaction and realizes thoughts and emotions of fear.

but... you just said "you see a bear". Therefore, you are thinking something as a result of having seen a bear. You don't have physiological changes just by being near the bear. You have to know it's there or have a reason to believe its there. Matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that if someone tells you there is a bear you'll have the same physiological reactions because the trigger is an idea caused by what you either see or simply "believe" to be true.

ZealotX wrote:
The placebo effect would not exist if you were correct.

Actually why cant both of them exist? The placebo effect, much like homeopathy, are ways to fool the brain into thinking something is happening that is really not happening. You will never cure disease with a placebo but you can relieve symptoms. When the mind is conditioned to this response, then upon taking a fake pill, the patient will relax their body, relieve anxiety and stress, stop worrying, things like this also cause a physical response in the body. Another form of external input that allows someone to help themselves to an extent. relieving tension in the muscles will reduce pain. Also the mind is powerful in convincing ourselves of effects that are not in evidence. Take faith healers for example, They have never fixed a single thing in anyone, never cured cancer or fixed a crooked back or raised the dead. However many people believe they have. Same thing as the placebo. Pavlov's dog is another example of this phenomenon. Ring a bell, (external stimuli) the dog salivates because it has been conditioned to expect food. However this does not work in everyone and so the effect can be relegated to just those susceptible to such events and not a truly valid evolutionary factor in how the body processes responses.

ZealotX wrote:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

ZealotX wrote: The chemicals in your body do not have any outside input. So a chemical reaction without external or internal stimuli would be like a computer typing words on the screen by itself. This simply does not happen. What happens is that you press a key. An electrical signal fires from the keyboard, through the computer's "nervous system", gets processed, and the reaction is to display the corresponding character. Not to be crass, but a good example is sexual arousal. You see something sexual. A thought is generated (consciously or subconsciously) and then you have a "physical reaction" to the stimuli.

Of course they have outside in put. Take fear for example. Your walking in the woods and you see a bear. Many physiological changes in the body occure first, accelerating breathing rate (hyperventilation), heart rate, vasoconstriction of the peripheral blood vessels leading to blushing and sanskadania of the central vessels (pooling), increasing muscle tension including the muscles attached to each hair follicle to contract and causing "goose bumps", (piloerection) (making a cold person warmer or a frightened animal look more impressive), sweating, increased blood glucose (hyperglycemia), increased serum calcium, increase in white blood cells called neutrophilic leukocytes, alertness leading to sleep disturbance and "butterflies in the stomach" (dyspepsia). These primitive mechanisms help an organism survive by either running away or fighting the danger. With the series of physiological changes, the consciousness realizes an emotion of fear. So the process is, external danger presents itself, the body reacts, the mind becomes aware of the reaction and realizes thoughts and emotions of fear.

but... you just said "you see a bear". Therefore, you are thinking something as a result of having seen a bear. You don't have physiological changes just by being near the bear. You have to know it's there or have a reason to believe its there. Matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that if someone tells you there is a bear you'll have the same physiological reactions because the trigger is an idea caused by what you either see or simply "believe" to be true.

Yes, you see a bear, your body reacts, the emotion of fear is generated in the mind, and then the thoughts occure of "I gotta get outa here"! Then you run. Its event, body reaction, emotional response, thought, action.

You can cure or aid recovery with placebos. They ran medical tests on the effectiveness of prayer. They found the only thing prayer affects is the mind -- and the mind has great untapped power over our physiology.

ren wrote: ... the mind has great untapped power over our physiology.

No. The picture of fundamental principles that govern our world on resolutions remotely interesting to us is complete. All of the power that "the mind" (what ever that is supposed to be) can possibly have over our physiology (again, assuming that expression can actually mean something coherent in one way or another) is either well tapped and mapped or nowhere near "great".

Gisteron wrote:

ren wrote: ... the mind has great untapped power over our physiology.

No. The picture of fundamental principles that govern our world on resolutions remotely interesting to us is complete. All of the power that "the mind" (what ever that is supposed to be) can possibly have over our physiology (again, assuming that expression can actually mean something coherent in one way or another) is either well tapped and mapped or nowhere near "great".

This sounds like 3rd person omniscient to me. What scientific basis are you standing on to make this claim?

“We know very little about the brain. We know about connections, but we don’t know how information is processed," she said. Learning, for example, doesn’t just require good memory, but also depends on speed, creativity, attention, focus, and, most importantly, flexibility. Understanding exactly how the neural pathways function could lead to improved treatments for depression, genetic disease, and many other conditions, she explained.

Neuroscientist and Nobel Laureate Tom Südhof, MD, PhD, echoed those sentiments, telling the audience: “Medicine is a craft… It’s empirical, but we don’t know how to treat [problems] if we don’t understand the disease and the underlying biology."

Mapping the components of the brain is far more complex than mapping the human genome, Südhof said. He encouraged researchers tackling big challenges to "stick with it," and he reminded the audience of the incremental nature of scientific discovery: "There is never a single discovery that changes science… Science works as a process that extends over decades.”

https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2016/11/08/challenges-in-neuroscience-in-the-21st-century/

I agree with Ren. We really don't know what we don't know. I can say I know computers but that doesn't mean I know how CPU's actually work and everything they can do. There is a mass of potential that we're still writing new apps for every day.

It seems to me that belief is very powerful in what it can enable the brain to do. But this is hard to prove. It's like trying to prove a subconscious reflex. I've seen a lot of weird and crazy stuff on the internet that I didn't think humans could do. And sure, a lot of these examples are likely hoaxes. I'm not trying to make a case for levitation and the like. However, considering different things like the effect of stress on the body, placebos, hypnosis, etc. one should be open minded about the potential.

The biochemistry of our body stems from our awareness.[5] Belief-reinforced awareness becomes our biochemistry. Each and every tiny cell in our body is perfectly and absolutely aware of our thoughts, feelings and of course, our beliefs. There is a beautiful saying ‘Nobody grows old. When people stop growing, they become old’. If you believe you are fragile, the biochemistry of your body unquestionably obeys and manifests it. If you believe you are tough (irrespective of your weight and bone density!), your body undeniably mirrors it. When you believe you are depressed (more precisely, when you become consciously aware of your ‘Being depressed’), you stamp the raw data received through your sense organs, with a judgment – that is your personal view – and physically become the ‘interpretation’ as you internalize it. A classic example is ‘Psychosocial dwarfism’, wherein children who feel and believe that they are unloved, translate the perceived lack of love into depleted levels of growth hormone, in contrast to the strongly held view that growth hormone is released according to a preprogrammed schedule coded into the individual's genes!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802367/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/jacobs-staff/201504/what-we-choose-believe-the-power-belief

So the first link deals more with the biochemistry and the second the psychological impact. There are tons of self help books about positive thinking and habits of successful people. At this point I don't know what else could prove this point.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

ZealotX wrote:
The placebo effect would not exist if you were correct.

Actually why cant both of them exist? The placebo effect, much like homeopathy, are ways to fool the brain into thinking something is happening that is really not happening. You will never cure disease with a placebo but you can relieve symptoms. When the mind is conditioned to this response, then upon taking a fake pill, the patient will relax their body, relieve anxiety and stress, stop worrying, things like this also cause a physical response in the body. Another form of external input that allows someone to help themselves to an extent. relieving tension in the muscles will reduce pain. Also the mind is powerful in convincing ourselves of effects that are not in evidence. Take faith healers for example, They have never fixed a single thing in anyone, never cured cancer or fixed a crooked back or raised the dead. However many people believe they have. Same thing as the placebo. Pavlov's dog is another example of this phenomenon. Ring a bell, (external stimuli) the dog salivates because it has been conditioned to expect food. However this does not work in everyone and so the effect can be relegated to just those susceptible to such events and not a truly valid evolutionary factor in how the body processes responses.

So then you agree with me. Or at least you're willing to concede half way, that we are both correct and that there is a 2 way street between the endocrine system and the nervous system. That's good enough for me as far as the point I was actually trying to make.

ZealotX wrote:

Gisteron wrote: The picture of fundamental principles that govern our world on resolutions remotely interesting to us is complete. All of the power that "the mind" (what ever that is supposed to be) can possibly have over our physiology (again, assuming that expression can actually mean something coherent in one way or another) is either well tapped and mapped or nowhere near "great".

This sounds like 3rd person omniscient to me. What scientific basis are you standing on to make this claim?

The existence and unparalleled success of QFT and QCD in general and the standard model in particular. There are still margins of error but they are so far on the opposite of "great" as to warrant saying something very much like that on the scales relevant in our daily lives the fundamentals are indeed fully understood.
Every bit of my expression there is chosen with care, I should stress. I specified that I'm talking about fundamental principles, because I mean only those and not each and every ever so subtle consequence. I specified relevant resolutions, because there exist open mysteries we already know about that only matter on, say, intergalactic scales, and the riches of which will remain beyond our reach at least until the upcoming heat death of the universe. I'm not saying we know everything, far from it. A lot of work is still ahead of us, by all means, but the basics that matter in practice are something we have covered beyond any reasonable need for worry.
There is no ghost pulling levers, or idling until we let it. The mind (depending on how we define it) is either not actually separable from the body that produces it in which case it makes little sense to speak of it as having power over physiology, or it is and its untapped power resides entirely within the margins of error that are so slim that for all intents and purposes there might as well not be any at all.

Yes, we don't know what we don't know, but we do know what we do know and that puts upper bounds on the maximal magnitude effects we don't yet know about can have on us. We may not know what lies outside of the walls, but we do know that inside the room we are locked in we cannot hear it, so what ever is out there can only be so loud. We would know that something is out there otherwise.

I've experienced some crazy stuff. Went on six month benders. My mom is very controlling. My brothers are career criminals. All my experiences have shaped the person I am today. If I hadn't went through what I did, I would not know the world and some of the people in it. I'm always trying to experience new things. Meet new people and make friends.