On Being and Bad Science

It is a little later than I had planned; but, once again my sermon ran long. I don't like to stop in the middle of a thought and that meant that I got home late. Before I left for church I had read some news articles and this one in particular caught my attention. Oh, for those who are wondering, yes, I mostly have my voice back, it is still weak; but, mostly functional and I spoke very little all weekend in order that I might be ready for my sermon tonight.

Anyways, here is th article. CNN - Ted Network - Unraveling the mystery of consciousness

In the article it says, "On the side of understanding, we can point to the process of sensory representation as an important part of consciousness. Most of what we are conscious of (conceivably all that we are conscious of) consists of representations of objects and events in the sensory modalities in which our brains trade, for example, vision, hearing, touching, smelling, taste, sensing the state of our body's interior." I want you to think about that, is it true? I would disagree with his premise because it does not fit the facts that we know. If you would like an example, I will give two. First we have Helen Keller, born deaf, dumb and blind, yet AFTER she learned language she was able to tell the rest of us what it was like to be purely emotion. The second one is achieved by using an isolation tank, that is a tank with a saline solution that allows you to float, within the tank you are denied all sight, sound and feeling. They refer to this as sensory deprivation. Anyone placed within one of these tanks will begin hallucinating within minutes and the hallucinations are vivid. We are sensory beings by nature.

The writer continues on and comes to an amusing backwards conclusion. He finally says, "I believe to be conscious of our perceptions is to have ongoing representations of streams of events that affect our bodies, cause feelings, and become felt representations." His premise is that because we have bodies we are capable of having experiences, that our minds "map" there experiences (we organize them via thoughts) and that it results in an emotional response. He is wrong. We have emotions, we organize them with symbols or language and that is how we control our actions. He has it backwards, now the question is why? What is the premise that he is operating under?

So, if the most basic part of our consciousness is emotions, why does he assume that the most basic part of us is thought (symbolism to describe emotions)? Why make that assumption? The answer is because he hates the consequence of the opposite? His most basic assumption is that we are merely a mechanical response to stimuli. He does not believe in a soul and individuality, a true self. He believes that there is no self will. He does not find us unique merely consequences. His philosophy is garbage and his science is worse.

For all their efforts they cannot understand how we can have emotions prior to learning how to organize thoughts, they see thoughts as creating emotions rather than emotions having been the reason that we needed to create thoughts. I do hope you understand that it is a question of which came first and that the writer has given the least likely answer because of his bias. You matter, we all matter and only evil people would try and convince you that you do not matter, that life is not important because once they do that they then begin determining which lives are more meaningful. Peace and I wanted to post something heavy after having posted lighter fair.