veritassium did a video replicating a FASCINATING study that proves that logical people get dramatically less logical when they encounter facts that contradicts their deeply held beliefs; they get even less logical that “non-logical” people
so they don’t consolidate the 2 sides of themselves; instead they apply their logic to the things that they don’t care much about and get less logical on the subjects/topic that they care more about it.
Man brains are so weird. Thank you for that video!
the part that’s weird to me is that “non-logical” people are always equally non-logical and they’re always the same whether it’s something they care deeply about or not.
they never have to wonder about consolidating. lol
Ignorance is bliss right?
To me, that sums up the meaning of the eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The nakedness represents our innocence/vulnerability, so we as humans seek to hide it, in order to protect ourselves, from being hurt by others, especially those who have some perceived advantage over us. The garden was a safe space of ignorance. But it’s illusory, and so I’m not entirely convinced the serpent (representing wisdom, not just knowledge) did us a disservice. But you’d have to delve into hermetic kabbalah to get the whole story. I’ve only scratched the surface, and that’s over the last couple of years. Life has it’s demands.
Yes adam and eve are a good example
‘Man brains’ is different to ‘Man, brains’.
Man: Brains are so Weird
Also can someone help my uncle jack off the horse?
👋
You likely also participate in rituals that were taught to you that are not solely grounded in logic or science. Do you do things in a certain order for no reason other than your parents taught you to do so? Do you avoid eating certain foods because you never ate them growing up?
People who are raised religious may not be fanatic believers, but they may still be “culturally religious” e.g. take part in Ramadan, avoid eating pork, because that’s the way they grew up, and a lot of the time it means they can be included in cultural matters of the community they come from.
As for why some people are proper religious, fully believing and all, I also don’t think all beliefs have to be rational. Some beliefs are comforting. If it helps someone to get through a difficult time by believing there’s a higher power rooting for them, or who has pre-planned their suffering for a greater good, they may choose to believe that because it’s mentally easier. Arguably that is a rational belief anyway because it benefits you and makes your life easier to get through.
I get your sentiment but all the rituals I picked up in life are nowhere near the seriousness of a religion though. You’re talking about choosing something that could potentially affect you for eternity vs me not wanting to eat guinea pigs because I didn’t grow up in Peru.
I understand that people find comfort in religion and a lot do it as a way to calm their existential crises but my question is how someone who is otherwise logical can separate religious beliefs into another folder. They knowingly fool themselves into believing something that may not be true or possibly even being tricked into following a false idol but they don’t apply those rules elsewhere.
If it helps someone to get through a difficult time by believing there’s a higher power rooting for them, or who has pre-planned their suffering for a greater good, they may choose to believe that because it’s mentally easier.
Additionally, it can be a catalyst for seeking novel solutions and developing strengths we never knew we have if we can get over the victim mentality and allow it. I’m not saying that’s always the case. A stroke of fortune is often required.
Yes, I know a guy like this. I’m not aware of his considerations of how he is able to separate science from religion, other than I guess the fact that they are two separate things.
There was a woman in my microbiology program who did not believe in evolution. We extracted dna in labs and put plasmides into ecoli and such. It was weird.
No, there are no such people.
Doublethink, bro. Doublethink.
You’re saying I could be thinking twice as fast 👀
Not you, no
/s
I had a colleague a few years ago, who wasn’t dumb. He’d question everything, often discussing things down to excruciating details. Like, you seriously couldn’t shut him up, with how much he was putting everything into question.
Except when it came to the bible. That was what he considered unquestionable truth.
One time, I felt like I kind of got through to him. We were discussing the Big Bang and whatnot, and I told him that I don’t believe that actually started the universe, which really caught him off-guard, because he thought all the science people were a big hivemind and no one’s allowed to disagree. I’m guessing, because that’s how he’s been taught about the bible, so he just assumed the enemy is taught the same way.
And yeah, I explained to him that I don’t believe it started things, that I don’t believe in creation (the fundamental concept as well as the non-evolution thingamabob), because things don’t just randomly start existing. When you produce a chair, that’s just some atoms rearranged from a tree, which is just some atoms rearranged from the ground and the air, which is rearranged from yet another place. That explanation also kind of got to him, because it really is all around us that things don’t just pop into existence, ever.What’s also kind of interesting/funny, is that he did not actually have a terribly good understanding of the bible.
One time, I don’t know how we got to that topic, but I was like, wait, isn’t there a commandment that says you shouldn’t be using god’s name in vain? And at first he just said no, there’s not, to then start really heavily thinking when I didn’t back down. But yeah, I had to then look it up to confirm it, because he did not know his commandments.
That was his worst moment by far, but we had many bible debates, where I, with my shitty school knowledge and never having been interested in any of it, was telling him things he didn’t know.To my mind, the question is the same for evolutionists and creationists: where did the stuff come from that caused the big bang and where did God come from. And the answer is the same: it’s always been there. I agree about rearrangement of atoms. And also, Adam is atom but that’s a whole metaphysical discussion of kabbalah/quabala and I am doing this in between chores so I’m not particularly interested in opening that can of worms at this moment.
That explanation also kind of got to him, because it really is all around us that things don’t just pop into existence, ever.
But they do! Not a classical scale, but on the quantum scale this literally happens all the time.
Hmm, I’m no expert, but I think I looked into this a while ago and it turned out to be pop-sci misinformation. What I’m finding from looking this up right now seems to confirm that it’s not actual empty space, but rather space with electro-magnetic fields or in a “false vacuum”, whatever that is precisely. If you happen to know a specific keyword for this phenomenon, though, I’d look into it some more.
I’d be very surprised if Quantum Fluctuations are pop-sci misinformation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
Hmm, but that seems to be again that there’s actually fields there, rather than proper nothing. At the very least, I would still say that the universe already existed before the Big Bang, if there was fields spanning all over the place and they just needed quantum fluctuation to turn into something you can touch. Especially, because “touch” is still just an interaction with a field.
And I’m not trying to say that the phenomenon itself is pop-sci misinformation, but rather how it’s portrayed. They’ll write a title like “How Quantum Fluctuation Creates Something from Nothing”, which is technically something you could say, because “nothing” doesn’t have a sharp definition. But it’s also misleading as people will not think that “nothing” could also mean that there is actually still fields there. Instead, they will interpret it as proper nothing. And pop-sci journalists do that, because it brings in clicks, unfortunately.
The end scares most people so much that logic gets thrown out the window.
I’m curious what you mean by “drop their skepticism.”
I believe the universe was created and I also believe that modern science does an incredibly good job describing the way it functions to the best of our ability. I do not believe the idea of religion is 100% at odds with science
By drop their skepticism I mean dropping their scientific mindset of theories are not facts, an experiment needs to be reproduceable, etc. I don’t believe that science disproves religion but I do believe there are too many unproveable aspects of most religions for me to be too skeptical to believe in fully
Gotcha gotcha
There is plenty of science with a non-reproducible basis. Richard Dawkins has gone as far to say that evolution is fact. And yet we have never observed one species changing into another - sure, the headlines say we have, but when you drill right down into the source material the best you can find is “these creatures do not normally reproduce with each other”. Note the wording: “do not normally”. Not “cannot”, which is what the headline fundamentally requires in order to be truly accurate.
Evolution in complex organisms takes millions of years so no it’s not something you’ll witness in your life time. The evolutions you do witness are in faster aging, less complex organisms such as microbes which we can practically witness evolving in real time. Evolution isn’t a theory, it is an inevitability, those that survive their surroundings pass on their genes, that is all that evolution is.
Also we can see evolution at work when bacteria develop resistance to medications.
Right, that’s the type of microbial evolution I mean
Not everyone who is deeply religious is a true believer. Some just see it as a community, and the rigid adherance to the rules as the key to that community. One of the rules is to always say you’re a true believer, though. My sister in law is like this. She just decided one day to join a religion, researched the ones with the perks that best suited her and joined it.
My aunt joined a humanist church, which is basically “religion” for atheists. It was literally just Sunday mass without the worship.
The way i think about it:
The brain has two halves (hemispheres)
The left hemisphere does rational thinking
the right hemisphere does magical thinking (which probably also covers religion)
Both of these hemispheres developed through evolution, because both of them are useful and beneficial to your life. That is why you should employ both.
Would that not require hypocrisy in a lot of areas?
What if I were to propose to you that there’s no way to prove that matter comes before consciousness? For all you know, everything exists inside consciousness but most people believe matter is the prior condition. This is pure logic. But when it’s brought up to science minded people, they tend to get very uppity about it.
Beliefs be like that.
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Do you think Christianity and the western idea of God is the only religious idea in existence?
To me, that’s a rather pointless thought experiment, similar to the conspiracy theory that we’re in a big simulation. Like, yeah, there’s no way to disprove this idea, but if it were the case, then we still gotta work within the constraints that we’re given. It’s not like you can be conscious differently or escape the simulation or whatever.
Science-minded folks might dismiss that idea perhaps less favorably as “unscientific”, but that’s basically saying the same thing. If there’s no way to prove or disprove an idea, then we call it “unscientific”, which is kind of just means there’s no point in spending time thinking about it. This is also taking into account that it would be provable or disprovable, if it had an impact on our reality. Theoretically something could have an impact on our reality and then trick us into believing that it does not, but yeah, at that point we need quite a lot of unproven theories stacked on top of each other and there’s still nothing we can do about it…
i’d say it’s less that people “get very uppity about it” and more that it’s not something that’s particularly relevant. we have no evidence for or against, and the outcome doesn’t really change how we interact with the world
likewise the universe could be entirely chaos and everything that exists in this instant: your memories and understanding of the universe and everything to back it up could just be the current arrangement of things and will be torn apart in the very next instant
but it’s not really a useful position to form conjectures from: if it is, it doesn’t matter what you do; if it isn’t, then you should act as if the universe will be here and that your memories are valid
we have no evidence for or against, and the outcome doesn’t really change how we interact with the world
I’ve heard it described as “flying spaghetti monster for the religious” because, much like FSM, it’s a useful allegory to frame the point, but not very interesting beyond that.
I see where you’re drawing the correlation because we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of higher powers the same as I can’t tell you whether you are a brain floating in amniotic fluid running through a simulation or not. People approaching philosophical questions usually reach an impasse because that is the nature of philosophy.
But a religious person would be more akin to someone telling you that they know we are in fact floating brains powering an AI civilization. They can’t provide you with solid proof but you are incorrect if you think otherwise.
But a religious person would be more akin to someone telling you that they know we are in fact floating brains powering an AI civilization. They can’t provide you with solid proof but you are incorrect if you think otherwise.
Some do. The loud/belligerent don’t necessarily make a majority. The rest know that faith is exactly that, and know the difference between faith and belief and proven facts.
No but the latter is what science-minded people do. They insist that matter comes before consciousness without being able to prove it, though what’s extremely obvious in everyone’s direct experience is that consciousness is needed before anything else is said about the world. It’s a false status quo.
There is a prevelant theory but it’s still an unanswered philosophical question that noone truly intelligent would tell you they knew definitively. Anyone asserting that matter 100% comes before conciousness is on the same wavelength as someone telling you there is 100% a god controlling everything.
So we can at least agree that people who are confident in something unproveable are objectively unintelligent.
I wouldn’t say unintelligent, I would say untrained to think beyond certain constraints. We break through one barrier, then another.
A big part of intelligence is understanding when you don’t know something. You’ll find that there are a lot of people who will make things up as they go because they don’t want to admit they don’t know something, which is unwise. So being confident in something that noone can know is not typically an intelligent thing to do.
Most people can be taught knowledge but your intelligence potential is mostly genetic, set at birth based on how well your processes run. Environmental factors will affect how much of your potential you will achieve.
On the face, it seems reasonable, but I’m not so sure. I’ll think about that.
I think you may be taking the word unintelligent as an insult, which it of course can be used as one but in this context I’m not using it as an insult.
They mentioned that science minded people will confidently say matter comes before conciousness as proof that logical people are confident in unproveable things as well. That statement was false to begin with because it was based on that science minded person being logical.
Being confident in something unproven is not the logical or intelligent thing to do so I was explaining why that example doesn’t work as the example they gave was not of a logical intelligent thinker that I was asking about in my title.
Unintelligent? Maybe. Maybe the rest have had the power of imagination constrained so long, it’s atrophied. But exercise may restore a degree of it.
Your intelligence is your ability to learn, It would be hard to argue that someone is very good at learning if they are confident in things they can’t prove. If Neil degrasse told me he knew exactly what happened after death then I would reconsider anything I’ve learned from him.
I’m not so sure about that. Anyway I can only speak for myself. I’m not ”100% confident” in my personal beliefs. I
believewhat I put out in thought, word and deed eventually comes back around, although perhaps not in the exact way or form, from the same venues, that I put it out there. Can I prove it? No and that’s why it’s “faith” and "belief.” I’m not trying to convince anyone, but am open to discussion, when I’ve time and inclination, and feel it’s in good faith.Are you otherwise a very logical person in other aspects of life? Because it sounds like you may not be the type of person I’m talking about.
You’re wiggling a bit but let’s go with that and get to your original question.
Based on your responses, you probably hold a core belief that matter comes before consciousness. You’re smart enough to admit it’s not a certainty but you’ve probably lived your whole life fairly assured it’s the case. You speak English well so you have at least been exposed to western culture - which is very materialistic (religious or no, Christianity is also functionally materialistic), and so the core belief both serves you well, and is positively reinforced.
Any new information you get is subconsciously aligned to this core belief. Any decision you make is informed by it. You have a network of data in your head and it all connects to this and some other core beliefs. The same way a religious person can be highly logical but they hold a different core belief and so subtly, everything they know aligns to that belief. The more irrational the core belief, the more convoluted the links are of course but it makes sense to them - they just may not be able to represent it to you with the symbols that is language. And sometimes you’ll just get them doing the loading screen face when they try to rationalize their views - then it just becomes a question of which core VALUE is deeper for them; rationality or their religious view.
If rationality is more valuable, it necessarily demolishes the religious view. It demolishes a core belief to which they have aligned all their knowledge about the world. Which is a hell of a trip, and can be very scary. Which is also why rationality often loses.
Born and raised in north america, went to a baptist church as a kid so I’m fairly familiar with the bible as well as different types of religious people you’ll meet.
As an agnostic now, my only core belief is I know that I don’t know. That’s something I apply to any philosophical question so it’s alien to me that some people can separate logic and religion.
For me, I get that logic too is just models that predict things. Backwards or forwards. But it doesn’t answer what anything is. You can only EXPERIENCE what something is, but you can never accurately represent it. Because the moment you try to represent an experience, it’s not the experience itself, just a representation. So logical conclusion is that the only way to know something for sure, is to experience it as it is before any representation.
People with religious experiences may get to the ineffable truth but then they get enamored by their own attempts to represent it. They focus on the representation, instead of the experience, and they start to insist that their representation is the bestest and most correctest - because everything in their head aligns to it. Then it just becomes a matter of who has the most charismatic foghorns and the most appealing representation. Which has a very reasonable logic of it’s own, as far as it goes.
Logic is reasoning based on proveable facts so no it’s not going to tell you what something is, just how probable something is.
That wouldn’t be the logical conclusion because we are limited as humans. We make mistakes, we don’t understand everything, we misremember, we can even gaslight ourselves such as the mandela effect. If 50 people told me they experienced an alien abduction, that doesn’t make it logically true, now if they were to show me proveable facts of the abduction then I would be more inclined to believe.
I’m not sure what you mean with the last paragraph, you are clearly describing illogical subjective experiences but calling them “very reasonable logic of it’s own”. What you are describing isn’t logic, what you’re describing is the opposite of logic. Someone claiming something they believe is true but can’t provide validity.
Maybe some hold both in esteem and sort ideas accordingly holding all is a bit of the whole.
Sure, many people do that kind of a dance or compartmentalization. But that only lasts as long as nothing severe comes to challenge it. Sudden death of a loved one is a cliche but commonly forces people to conclude something.
Death is a certainty. That’s what it leads me to conclude. Idk what happened after death. I do know sweating it isn’t benefitting me or my loved ones. What does benefit all of us is loving each other and doing what we can for each other with the time we have.
Historically/anthropologically, conforming to the beliefs of the society you live in is the most logical thing a human can do for their survival.
In the sense that people who aren’t really religious go to church to conform?
In the sense that people who aren’t actually being watched by a higher power will legitimately believe they are because believing anything else can be hazardous to their health.
I consider myself a very logical person. I consider myself “religish”. Mainly, the idea of death being the end makes me very anxious, so I choose to believe it’s not, which inherently brings one to religion of some sort.
Tbh I think a lot of people bury that logical side deep down and compartmentalize. The narrative we tell ourselves can be quite powerful.
