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

Hi p-c.....

you might notice I've responded to a couple of your posts already and the posts might seem slightly... hostile, for want of a better word. Just thought I should say, I realise that you are playing the devil's advocate yourself a lot of the time. I just thought I should jump on yours because no-one seemed to be really refuting even your most flawed arguments...

...so, if I'm responding to yours a lot, it's just in the spirit of adding to the discussion. I look forward to some interesting debates.

P-C,
I still don't see the 'non-intellectual' approach being a 'faith approach' as such, since to me faith seems likely to come as a result of a shift in world-view, though I'm not exactly a world expert on faith.

Maybe for the very young, they may simply accept what someone tells them as being true because they are used to authority-figures telling them things which they believe, and possibly for an older [stereotyped?] *cult* victim, they may be particularly vulnerable and looking for some certainty and simplicity, which a charismatic peron may be able to provide whether in extreme politics or extreme religion.

However for mainstream religions, I'd guess that the process of getting to faith for an adult would be a gradual one, with people starting off with some degree of suspension of disbelief and possibly even a wish to believe, yet still requiring some convincing via a set of arguments that are adequately consistent, even if some elements may be vague enough to seemingly leave a great deal of room for manouvre to an outside observer.

I'd think that a religious world-view might come largely before any faith as such. It seems likely to be quite easy to explain a religious view of the world to someone and have them understand it even if they are not the kind of person ever likely to start believing - I don't see faith being required to externally simulate being a believer.

For some people the final process of 'faith' may simply be of 'unintentionally deciding' that one particular religious explanation is the one that they want to use.
It could be argued that such a decision is or isn't a rational one - if one explanation seems to be 'better' than the others, maybe it would be a rational choice even if not a long-winded intellectual one?
It might be suggested that such a decision is subconscious/nonconscious, yet I can quite see that though it could be some gradual process, it *could* also be a more sudden one of which someone is pretty much instantly aware, and since much 'consciousness' does seem to be a slightly delayed commentary on what the mind has already dedided to do, I'd guess there was much room for debate about how conscious such a decision was or wasn't.
(Do you have to *decide* to decide for a decision to be conscious, etc...)

2SP:

Oh I think you ought to direct your spotlight toward these; we can't have misinformation flying about unchallenged, can we?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

That seems OK to me, I think. My speculation is that the message of religion appeals much more to the nonconscious mind, and to the way it 'thinks' () than it does to the conscious mind, and the way *it* thinks.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

The thing is, it would seem that adoption of a different world-view would be a process requiring conscious thought.

For example, taking a deliberately simplistic /nonspecific view of an arbitrary religion as being along the lines of:
a) There is a great deity
b) That deity is responsible for much of the good in the world, such as things generally seen to be good by the target audience, whether sun, rain, flowers, fluffy animals, fish to eat, love, cures for diseases, or whatever.
c) If there are events which are mixtures of good and bad, the good things are often down to the goodness of the deity, possibly acting through human or other agencies.
d) If there are seemingly bad things, they are either not the fault of the deity, or part of some higher pattern of good which we can't hope to (shouldn't try to) fully understand.
e) Possibly there are some evil powers in the world who are responsible for some bad things that happen, possibly bad thgings happen due to people not being in touch with the deity.
f) It is good to see the goodness of the deity in good things.
g) Faith is a good thing in itself.
h) Doubt is something to be ignored, or to be overcome as quickly as possible, (or possibly to be wrestled with but eventually overcome).
i) If there are things hard to understand, it isn't necessarily the best thing to try and understand them - some things will be mysterious, since we can't understand things as well as deities can.
j) etc.

Then whether one thinks any or all of those points apply to a particular religion, it would seem that actually adopting any of them as possible parts of a world view would require a degree of conscious thought, certainly initially, and possibly for ever.

Potholer:

Why do you think that this is so? It *is* the sort of assumption that we all make, but is it valid, I wonder? I think we have already accepted that there are some things which are decided upon, and controlled by, the nonconscious mind, yes? Could a religious conversion be governed by (or concerned mainly with) such a thing?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Woo! New person. Welcome, 2_short_plancks

Very witty name

Potholer:

>>"Why do you think that this is so? It *is* the sort of assumption that we all make, but is it valid, I wonder? I think we have already accepted that there are some things which are decided upon, and controlled by, the nonconscious mind, yes? Could a religious conversion be governed by (or concerned mainly with) such a thing?"

It's worth considering if a religious world-view is required for faith, (apart from faith taken on as a fact on the basis of someone else's assumed correctness and authority).

When it comes to things like seeing [deity]'s presence in the world, it would seem to me to require an element of consciousness to think things like "That lovely flower is one of the things that {deity] has created for our enjoyment" - all the identification of what is seen with the works of one or more divine beings seems to need some kind of verbal-level reasoning, which is likely to be conscious most or all of the time.
Maybe over time someone can make an almost purely emotional connection between seeing nice things and feeling [deity]'s love, but it's hard to see how things might start off at that level.
Maybe the decision to adopt a particular view as correct (the final 'leap of faith'?) is not a conscious one, but I'd still reckon that there would likely have been an ongoing process involving consciousness for most people.

Clearly, if there actually *were* one or more deities, then presumably they could convert people any way they saw fit, making all bets or logical reasoning somewhat moot.
Also, people can certainly have religious/spiritual experiences, sometimes for purely internal reasons, though sometimes due to stress or psychoactive substances, and from such an experience, such people may come to have faith that there is *something* 'out there' before undertaking any conscious search for what the something actually is.
In either of those respects, faith could precede conscious thought.

Hi Potholer!

Although I'm sure it's obvious, can I first state that I don't really disagree with anything you're saying? My speculation is based on hunches and some pretty vague maybe's.

<...some kind of verbal-level reasoning, which is likely to be conscious most or all of the time.>

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree." If the poet is to be believed, these words sprang unbidden from he-knew-not-where. These days, I think many people would assume it emerged from his nonconscious mind. My point? That the nonconscious mind is capable of creating poetry, which is probably the most sophisticated use of verbal-level reasoning I can think of.

Is it worth taking a little time out to consider what we think the nonconscious mind might be, and therefore what capabilities it might have? [I've made a start here - http://pattern-chaser.blogeasy.com/main.page.run - because h2g2 doesn't allow journal entries to be edited, and this is something I don't think I can get close to in one attempt. ]

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Hi PC

Not ignoring your question, just suddenly have a lot of things to do.

I'll be back

*waves distractedly @ new participant*

Welcome, 2_short_plancks

>>"If the poet is to be believed, these words sprang unbidden from he-knew-not-where."

Or from the last bottle or two of laudanum? I'm not sure how much trust I'd put in that particular poet's recollections. However, I'll go with your point for now.

>>"These days, I think many people would assume it emerged from his nonconscious mind." My point? That the nonconscious mind is capable of creating poetry, which is probably the most sophisticated use of verbal-level reasoning I can think of."

Well, it's certainly possible for the mind to *generate* language in what seems like a fairly effortless process much of the time, possibly even a non/sub-conscious one, though one whose *results* seem likely to be unavaoidably noticed pretty much straight away by the *conscious* mind.

In any case, I'd suggest that actual *reasoning* such as someone unsure of a potential new belief system might indulge in would be rather more conscious than poetry generation.

Having to analyse a situation in the context of verbal rules (describing what gods do and don't do, etc) with no obvious non-verbal meaning, as one seems to be forced to do when looking at the world through the filter of a particular belief system seems to me likely to require conscious thought.
If there is a particular situation of mixed 'goodness', and someone is trying to reconcile that with their idea of a loving God, it seems the only possible options are some kind of conscious verbal reasoning, or relying on pure faith and ignoring the issue.

Maybe over time some people come stop wondering how to square the world with their ideas of a deity, and people brought up with a religion may come to accept it before they really think critically about it, but I'd have thought for an adult 'converter', given the vagueness of a description like 'God', they would be very likely to form their idea of what a deity really *was* from how they saw that deity relate to what happens in the world, which does seem to require some thought and uncertainty.
I don't quite see how someone could *puzzle* over something vague, and even of uncertain existence, yet likely so personally important without a serious conscious contribution.
Or do people really not think that much when choosing a [new] religion? To me it would be a bit scary if normal people didn't think quite a lot about such a choice, even if there may be emotional or other non-rational contributions to the decision.

That sounded a bit more aggressive than was intended. I'm not saying that it isn't *possible* for many people to reconcile their idea of a deity with the way the world is, just that I think it probably takes consciousness to do so for as long as someone considers the question "What is deity's part in this situation?" to be worth asking themselves on a regular basis.

Hi Potholer

The points you raise are good ones. The reason I've sidestepped so many of them is that my speculation is far from a fully-formed hypothesis. I think it's clear, for a start, that I ascribe to the nonconscious mind quite a bit more than you do. This is as a result of my recent reading, I'm sure.

The workings of the nonconscious mind, by definition, take place outside our (conscious) awareness, so they're easy not to notice! Which is a weird thing to say: I'm stating the obvious, but it *isn't* obvious!



Possibly? Are you aware of 'generating' language? Surely you just sort of frame your thoughts, and the words just fall out of your mouth? (That's more or less how it seems to me, and - I assume - everyone else?) I assume that things I do of which I'm unaware are probably the doings of my nonconscious mind.

Without getting carried away, my consciousness - me! - is just a bolt-on addition to a viable and functional organism: my body and nonconscious mind. Consciousness adds new and worthwhile abilities, or it would never have survived natural selection. But I think our conception of ourselves is weighted heavily (unavoidably) because our consciousness is the bit we're aware (conscious! of.

Time for bed, said Zebedee.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I may not be aware of the actual process of *generating* language, and words may not always be the product of thoughts which were previously in the spotlight of my consciousness, but I think I'm extremely likely to be consciously aware of *having-just-generated* it.

Simply having thoughts of *any* origin condensed into words seems likely to attract the attention of the 'serial-processing, language-related, attention-focussing' unit that seems to be a pretty large part of consciousness.

Taking a different example, leave religion to one side, and imagine a set of 'rules' of how to see society relating to a political/social 'ism' (eg communism, capitalism, feminism, etc). It doesn't matter that the rules are actually accurate of a particular philosophy, and possibly the more simplistic the better for the sake of a thought experiment.

Imagine someone wondering if there was much *to* a particular system, and whether it was worth adopting. Given a set of rules of explanation/analysis, could someone look as a series of situations and try and interpret those situations in the light of a set of rules *without* conscious verbal reasoning.
Could they actually adopt a social philosophy as 'correct' *before* getting an idea if the rules made any sense?

Maybe if not naturally skeptical, and not presented with any difficult cases, someone *may* be able to get into a self-reinforcing spiral of 'everything makes sense', where their confidence in a system very rapidly increases, and they see more and more application for it. However, even then, there is at least some risk of mixing up the *outcome* of a strong belief in the particular system with the speed of conversion, and possibly assuming the now-*obvious* belief predated any analysis of the applicability of the rules.

In a similar vein, especially given the possible parallels for some people between religious faith and love, if you met someone you found intriguing/potentially attractive/etc right from the start, and who had no obvious downsides, and you grew rapidly stronger in your confidence in their qualities, you may come to think you 'loved someone from first sight' when in fact you had in the past felt just as initially positive (or at least non-negative) about many people who you *didn't* actually end up falling for.
It is possible (maybe even probable) in hindsight to confuse a rapid *process* with an *event*, and/or to consider the personally important result of a process (love or faith) as being the only important thing, and simply forget the details of the process which led up to it.

In a religious situation where there was actually an *expectation* of some event of blinding-light conversion, being touched by [deity], etc, the temptation to analyse (and/or start to *honestly* mis-remember) one's own history of adoption of a belief as some instant event may be very great, or even overwhelming.

PS
P-C, I'm trying to stay cool-ly philosophical and speculative on this thread. If I seem to be getting heated on anything, do please just say something quietly. I am doing some thinking out loud, so it's possible I may say things with potential negative meanings which I didn't intend (for a change )
I don't want to get mixed up with hotter feelings from any other threads I may be involved in elsewhere, so the odd prod would be appreciated.

I see you conceive of this process as a conscious one. To me, your description was a bit disjointed; unconvincing. Not because of any lack in you or your writing, but maybe because the process is partly or wholly nonconscious? Religious conversion seems often to accompany the 'it felt right' feeling. I think MaW mentioned it. This nudges me toward a NC explanation.



It certainly seems possible that someone could nonconsciously evaluate and adopt an 'idea' before or without conscious consideration. Is that an acceptable response?

As regards love at first sight, and the like, I can't help feeling that our difficulty in analysing such things is due to the analysis being done by one part of the mind - consciousness - of a process which took place *unobserved* in another - nonconscious.



I'll let you know, should the need arise....

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

It's not that I concieve of the whole process being solely rational/conscious/whatever, but more that I don't see it as particularly likely the process would happen without some conscious awareness along the way.

It is still debatable whether consciousness is really a decision-making process as such, or effectively a process of awareness of some of what is happening in the brain. neither is consciousness necessarily rational, nor all rational data-processing conscious or even potentially visible to consciousness.

Short of actually having some true divine inspiration (which would arguably render the process supernatural, rather than conscious *or* non/unconsious), it would seem the ideas of what a particular religion meant would have to be absorbed via language, which seems generally difficult to achieve without someone being aware of those ideas at least initially.
Similarly, it seems hard for someone to nonconsciously mull over the meaning of linguistic descriptions of concepts without being likely to become aware they were doing it.

Were someone to be moving from one religion to another, they may well have active concepts of a deity they believe in already in their head. In that situation, the faith comes first as far as the conversion is concerned, but the process seems basicaly one of renaming, and one would have to go back to the point where religious faith originally entered their head.

For an adult of no prior faith actually choosing freely to adopt one for the first time, (ignoring high-pressure promotion in cults, etc) I'd wonder what their reasons for checking out religion actually were.

For some people, traumatic events can cause them to gain faith (just as they can cause others to lose theirs). If someone had particular issues that they desperately wanted answers to, and a particular faith seemed to provide such answers, seeing that the answers made some kind of sense would seem to be a precondition of accepting the faith.
Even for someone with less pressing concerns I'd still have thought that people generally had some questions that a faith may give possible answers to in order to be likely to end up adopting that faith.
Ther could be many other reasons, including ones I haven't considered, but I'd be interested in the kinds of scenarios where faith might be likely to precede more detached conscious considerations in the case of someone taking up a religion from scratch.

Ah, I wouldn't think that the conscious mind was kept wholly in the dark (I see how I could've given that impression), but simply ignored what it felt was uninteresting.



They would become *aware* of something they were doing *nonconsciously*? I suggest not. It's very difficult to come to terms with sharing 'yourself' with another mind so capable, and yet be unable to consciously examine it, isn't it?



Agreed. But what if they made the sort of intuitive sense that might satisfy the nonconscious mind of the suitability of this religion? Would this not meet your requirement?

Finally, another tiny addition to my speculation: science has data, whose usefullness is expanded manyfold by a framework on which the data can be hung, and different bits associated. Scientific theories fill this need for the conscious mind, leading to understanding, explanations and predictive power. What if religion fills the same role, but for the nonconscious mind?

A man called Julian Jaynes believes consciousness emerged around the time of Homer. Around the same time, the beginnings of science emerged. Maybe because the newly-arrived conscious mind needed a mental framework to work effectively, and the old existing framework (religion) was unsuitable? More speculation, of course....

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Well in my case (I was an agnostic before becoming a Pagan) I started looking around at religions because I thought I was missing something, and that feeling came from associating with committed Christians for the first time in my life. They had something I didn't and coupled with going to Uni that left me feeling quite adrift.

So I was looking for something to grab onto, and I read about a few things and I always thought that magic was probably something more than just a delusion, and I'd talked to a friend who is also a Pagan. So the ideas were there.

But it took a while until everything really fell into place, and that happened quite spontaneously. It *felt* like divine inspiration, but the knowledge was already there. Purely rational analysis suggests self-delusion, but experience since then suggests to me that there is something more going on than that. I think, though, that the mind has to be shown a method of understanding it in order to gain access to that sort of feeling, as it were.

There are, however, many ways of doing that, and thus the selection of different religions. They are all looking at the same candle through different coloured glass, as someone once said.

And is the candle real? I don't know what it actually is, but I know what I can do with its light.

Ugh, and the end of that post sounds really fluffy and wishy-washy. It wasn't intended to come out that way.

Which reminds me: language formation is a conscious experience to some extent. After we've learned language, we do a lot of it instinctively, but when I'm writing fiction or formal writing, I'm thinking very consciously of grammar and phrasing etc. to create a careful impression.

This conscious thought largely disappears during casual writing and conversation, in favour of thinking about chocolate, or possibly sex.