h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The only problem with that is that we have to wait for you to do something anti-social before we can take steps. Someone has already gotten hurt. Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we can figure out you're insane now, before you hurt someone, then maybe we can correct the erroneous belief or get you the medical care you need. The cost to society would be much lower than incarcerating you and dealing with the aftermath for the victims and their families.

As a society we already practice this sort of thing. We do not tolerate bigotry, misogyny, racism, etc. If I said I thought Norwegians were a subhuman species of primate, you guys would descend upon me like a pack of wolves, for doing nothing more than expressing a thought... because you know where that sort of thinking leads.

>>"In this case, it is safe (from society's point of view) to allow complete freedom of belief and thought, because members of the society are constrained by their *actions*."

But people don't get persecuted for what they actually think in any society. Even in the most totalitarian regimes, people are persecuted for the action of expressing what they think (or some other action), or the fear that they might express what someone *thinks* they think. The latter case breaks down into two sub-cases depending on whether the individual actually does or doesn't think what someone thinks they think.

In many cases, even when it is known that someone has heretical thoughts, it may be that a system is more concerned about whether people are seen to conform than whether they privately believe the official line. When people were forced to recant or change beliefs by various religions in the past, it seems likely that much of the time it would have been suspected they didn't really mean what they said, but if it was judged likely they wouldn't be an actual threat, little actual action was taken against them.

Regarding the issue of the beneficial *behaviour* of believers, non-beleivers may well wonder, if there *is* clear evidence that certain kinds of behaviour are beneficial to society, why those behaviours can't simply be explained and taught without requiring the support of beliefs for which there isn't clear evidence to get people to follow them?
Does the obvious and explicable need dressing up in guesswork and mysticism in order to be saleable?

Fair points, BtM. But, as Math asked some postings ago, how will you know what my (dangerous) beliefs are? And how do you distinguish those who merely entertain 'radical' thoughts from those that might pursue them into action? After all, if you want to address all those people who have thought about (say) murder, you'll be after most of us!

Let's remember that most people who commit anti-social acts aren't insane (or aren't generally considered so). Are they to be treated differently, or will you attempt to pre=empt their offences too? How?

In short, I think it's most appropriate to constrain only people's actions, because to do otherwise is impractical.



Yes, that's probably so. But wouldn't you think that even a general desire to want to control people's thoughts - i.e. permit/allow thoughts/beliefs - is the top of an equally slippery slope?

Pattern-chaser

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We both know that slippery slope is a logical fallacy, so I don't need to address the last bit. And to avoid the equivocation fallacy from coming back at us, I've never suggested any sort of "thought control." I've merely suggested that society should stop allowing people to spew utter drivel and be restrained from even commenting.

Everyone has expressed some sort of an anti-social idea from time to time. The idea or the belief is just one indicator to be taken into account along with a variety of other factors.

For instance, let's say I collect guns, and I've expressed an interest in firearms from a purely historical perspective. No harm, right?

Now let's say I collect guns, and I've expressed an interest in overthrowing the government. There's nothing inherently wrong here, is there? But certainly someone should be keeping an eye out for other indicators.

Now let's say I collect guns, and I've expressed an interest in bringing one to work and mowing down my coworkers. At this point some sort of intervention might be a good idea. That's not to say the FBI need to be breaking in my door, because, again, I haven't done anything yet. But alerting the security at work to pay particular attention to me might be a good idea. It'd also be a pretty good idea to get people to talk to me about what my true intentions are. If it turns out I'm really psycho, it's best to find out early. And if it turns out I'm not, then the worst thing I've had to endure is some possibly unwanted scrutiny.

Hi BtM

Have you seen "One flew over the cuckoo's nest"? There is no such thing as sanity or insanity, it is a construct to allow those who consider themselves to be sane to detain and abuse those they believe to be insane.

Now before you descend like a wolf upon the fold I am not saying that there are no people with neurological or psychological illnesses. However, correcting someone's erroneous beliefs is incredibly dangerous. Who determines what is erroneous - Freud? Jung?

No so long ago anyone professing pagan beliefs could well be sectioned as being insane (and many were). Christianity was the obvious truth and to believe in anything else was clearly mad. Only twenty years ago in the UK and the USA hundreds of children were taken away from pagan parents for their 'protection' as their parents met the definition of dangerously mentally ill.

Homosexuality was considered a psychological aberration. Psychologists actually tried ECT and lobotomy to try and 'cure' it.

What is anti-social behaviour? By my count the most dangerous examples of this are carried out by men (and it is mostly men) who would not meet the present classification of insanity. They are greedy and powerful, but quite, quite sane. Hail to the chief.....

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\

>>"Christianity was the obvious truth and to believe in anything else was clearly mad."

There may have been political persecution of various believers (often one Christian against another), but were Jews or Muslims considered to be *mad* for believing in their religion?

I'd have thought that many people actually locked up for being religious lunatics would have been professing some kind of Christian faith, whether claiming to have seen various visions, to hear God, or to be one or other long-dead biblical figure.

I'd still reckon it was a [quite possibly *incorrect*] perception of threat that would likely be the deciding factor in whether to consider someone as needing treatment or confinement.

>>"No so long ago anyone professing pagan beliefs could well be sectioned as being insane (and many were)"

How many were?

Well, looked at objectively, there aren't really many rational religions. Possibly it's more a case of *which* irrational beliefs come to be tolerated at one time or another due to various political factors - the sheer weight of numbers of their followers, their percieved threat to the state, the percieved value in persecuting them, etc.

Many countries are now arguably in a state where there is a default tolerance (failing to intervene in various screwball cults hiding behind the mantle of religion unless they get *very* strange), with pockets of intolerance generated by extreme elements in mainstream religions looking for scapegoats and devils.

Agreed. The theoretical and practical difficulties make it a non-starter, IMO.



I think this question rather answers itself. If most people are already on board, then the answer is "no, it wasn't necessary". Otherwise, there must be a significant number of people who do not currently subscribe to your meme, whatever it may be. Thus what you think of as "obvious and explicable" is probably not so to them. It seems some kind of sales pitch is in order. Unless you'd rather sit back, accept the current consensus and wait for people to change their minds of their own accord. ... It might happen.

Pattern-chaser

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BtM:

"We"? I know no such thing.

<...so I don't need to address the last bit>

How convenient.

<...Now let's say I collect guns, and I've expressed an interest in bringing one to work and mowing down my coworkers. At this point some sort of intervention might be a good idea. That's not to say the FBI need to be breaking in my door, because, again, I haven't done anything yet. But alerting the security at work to pay particular attention to me might be a good idea. It'd also be a pretty good idea to get people to talk to me about what my true intentions are. If it turns out I'm really psycho, it's best to find out early. And if it turns out I'm not, then the worst thing I've had to endure is some possibly unwanted scrutiny.>

In other words, let's apply common sense, as we already do, and not try the offensive, divisive and impractical course of attempting to control people's beliefs and thoughts.

Pattern-chaser

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I refer to mind-body dualism (duality?) which is usually attributed to Descartes.

On the one hand, the holistic-perspective enthusiasts (I include myself here) see the separation of mind and body as a nonsense. If you try to treat the two as though they are genuinely independent, you can miss more than you observe. Much of what makes a human being is the inter-relationships between the embodied mind and the 'mindful' body. Conclusion: probably a villain.

On the other hand, if you can avoid the trap of forgetting that they don't exist in isolation, the mind-body split can offer a useful and worthwhile perspective.

+ The physical world, which we could call the 'bodyworld', comprises all of space-time, specifically excluding such minds, souls, spirits, gods and supernatural creatures of all sorts. The bodyworld is what we conventionally see as being 'outside' of ourselves.

+ Similarly, the mindworld is all those things that are real, but not part of the bodyworld. These are conventionally seen as being 'inside' ourselves. [Although much of the mindworld is actually outside of our individual selves. I think this is because the mindworld exists within time, but not in three-dimensional space. Besides time, it has one or more 'dimensions' within which it exists.] Conclusion: probably a hero.

My concepts of bodyworld and mindworld are not exactly the 'mind' and 'body' that Descartes wrote about. I prefer them mainly because they offer a human perspective. [I look outside myself and see the world of the body, of physical things, so I call it the bodyworld. Similarly with the 'mindworld', the world of non-physical (but mostly real) things.] I don't think I've made changes that would significantly affect Descartes' reasoning.

Any thoughts?

Pattern-chaser

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I have been reading lately about the nonconscious mind. It seems there are attitudes/feelings/emotions/opinions that are controlled by the conscious mind, and some that are owned and controlled by the nonconscious mind. The latter are not easily (if at all) changed by conscious volition (i.e. because the conscious mind wants it to change).

I *wonder* - this is entirely speculative! - if it could be that religion presents itself in such a way that it is more acceptable to the nonconscious, that it 'gets through' to the nonconscious in a way that rational and intellectual discussion cannot.

Comments?

Pattern-chaser

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It's possible that aspects of religion appeal to the emotional side of some people's minds - some people seem able to *love* a deity they have no direct experience of, and I guess anyone who's been in love can understand how resistant to reason such a state can render some people, whether for general good (seeing the positive in someone, forgiving small faults, wanting to care for them, seeing/feeling that they are wonderful despite *logically* knowing they aren't any more objectively attractive than many other people of the same gender) or for ill (staying with an abusive partner).
Guilt seems to be another emotion used by some religions as a way to cling onto the mind, and I dare say there are others.
However, I'm not sure I'd call the emotions nonconscious simply because they aren't under complete rational control, since their products in terms of mental states are both easily available to conscious thought processes, and also ignorable to some degree when trying to make conscious decisions.

Certainly, it does seem that many religions seem keen on getting people to believe before those people are even old enough to be capable of much rational thought, so there may be something in what you say from that extent, but possibly it's more a case of planting an interpretative world-view such that people come to see pretty much anything good as evidence of divine creation, and possibly to see much of what is bad as the work of the devil.
I'm unsure even then how much a world-view is subconscious - it may be hard to changeas an act of will, though it may well be amenable to slow drift, but almost by definition, many strong world-views have intellectual defences against outright assualts even by reasoned argument (the views of heretics are inspired by satan, and aren't worth listening to, faith gets better if tested, etc.

If religions were inherently appealing to areas of the mind where reason had no effect, I guess fewer might have been historically scared of dissenting views, with ceasing to believe potentially punishable by anything up to and including death.

Hi Potholer!



I think I'd agree with you. But, for the sake of this discussion, can we agree that (some, not all) 'personality attributes' are not subject to direct control or change by our conscious minds? [The literature does seem to agree that this is the case, although that doesn't make it true....]

Assuming we can continue on the above basis, perhaps the faith approach eases acceptance by the nonconscious mind, in comparison with a more direct, intellectual approach? Religious conversion is quite a different thing from becoming intellectually convinced of a particular point or school of thought, wouldn't you say?

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>>"perhaps the faith approach eases acceptance by the nonconscious mind, in comparison with a more direct, intellectual approach?"

Could you expand on that a little - what is the 'faith approach' as opposed to an intellectual one?

OK, let's consider religious conversion. As a nice, clear-cut example, let's assume someone had no religious belief, who has converted to religion 'R'. I think we can agree that such a change of heart is very unlikely to take place as a result of rational intellectual argument (a conscious-mind process)? But such changes *do* take place, via what we might call the 'faith approach'.

My speculation is that this 'faith approach' (potentially) has a much greater effect on nonconsciously-controlled 'personality attributes' than rational interchange.

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Taliesin:

P-C:

Taliesin:

Well the God in whom the Roman Catholics taught me to believe is a good start. He is a triple-O God, in the 'traditional mould'.

Go for it!

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Regarding conversion: I think it's very rare that you encounter a conversion which happened on the basis of rational reasoning using scientific principles. This does sometimes happen - or at least, I've read about someone who claimed to have converted to Christianity after a scientific study of all religions.

Now, we can pick a hole in that to start with, because there are so many religions that studying them all would probably take you significantly more than your normal lifespan. Therefore, perhaps he only investigated the ones most people think of - Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism etc.

So that one would be an oddity anyway.

Most people I know who are religious came to it one of two ways: the first is by epiphany or sudden realisation; the second is by 'seeking'.

Epiphany is a good example of an irrational act. It just happens - you're on the loo and it strikes you, or you're walking somewhere and it's like a bolt of lightning that hits you and rearranges the way you view the world. Presumably these are generated in the unconscious mind and don't pounce on your conscious self until they're fully-formed and ready to do serious damage - rather like a nuclear missile, the subconscious mind sees little point in firing it without its warhead.

'Seeking' is a little more consciously directed, stemming from a realisation of 'something missing' or 'something wrong', usually. A lot of Pagans come to Paganism this way, frequently because they were dissatisfied with a previous religion.

Personally I had a bit of a mixture - I sought, and my seeking was ended by a (metaphorical) bolt of lightning out of the sky.

So I think the process of obtaining and holding a religion can, in general, be shown to be a process of the irrational mind.

However, this does NOT mean that religion is incompatible with rational thought, although some religious paths do appear to set themselves up in opposition to certain rational thought patterns.

Thanks for that, MaW! It occurred to me last night that, if my speculation has any merit at all, when religious people tell us not to subject it to intellectual scrutiny, but to go with the 'faith' (i.e. uncritical acceptance) approach, *maybe* what they're saying is:

'don't bother considering this intellectually/rationally in your conscious mind, there's no point. The message we offer is aimed at your nonconscious mind.'

Perhaps this is analagous to me finding Guiness adverts entertaining, but Pot Noodle adverts annoying. The former are aimed at me (and people like me), whereas the latter has an entirely different target market.

I'm starting to wonder if this speculation has some genuine value. ... Any comments?

Pattern-chaser

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It might do. Not all religious movements discourage intellectual analysis though - Paganism generally encourages some things, although this of course varies across the incredible variety of paths which fall under that particular banner. And despite the acceptance of intellectual scrutiny, there's still a general element of subconscious acceptance taken as a given in people, which I suppose is summed up by the idea of "I just *know* that it's right".

Some level of intellectual rigour was noted though, when Steve Wilson (a fairly well-known London-based Witch) gave a talk on Archaic Witchcraft, a tradition he was busily founding at the time, which requires practical coven skills to progress through the first two degrees, and for the third degree requires a predetermined successful act of magic to be performed by the candidate.

Tough one, eh?

Name:2_short_plancks

Chair title:Devil's Advocate and Seeker of the Ephemera of Permanence

Any beliefs you'd like to list so we can make fun- er... discuss them:The necessity for a cohesive moral code; and, er... the fundamental inter-connectedness of all things contiguous

Welcome, 2SP!

Pattern-chaser

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