Certainty and Doubts, Hope and Faith

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[Michael]

Some interesting stuff being written about this stupid meltdown.  Doug Rushkoff:
Financial Melt Up
Print Your Own Money

George Soros wrote some interesting stuff that actually aligns well with this thread!  Imagine that...  Here's an excerpt from a review of his book about the current mess:

Soros was once a student of the philosopher Karl Popper, who spent most of his time studying science. Popper came to the conclusion that all scientific statements must be falsifiable and that no scientific theory is ever absolutely true. They are just able to withstand people's attempts to prove them wrong. So long as a theory isn't falsified, it's as good as true. But we're 100% certain about nothing.

The turmoils we see in the markets reflect the turmoils of human thought. The implications of this go far beyond investing. It means that market fundamentalism, the idea that markets are always self-correcting and don't need regulation, is just wrong. Markets are flawed because they reflect human delusions of certainty. Banks make money by issuing loans. If they want to make more money, they need to issue more loans. Absent regulation to stop them, the banks will issue new loans in new ways. They rationalize the risk away by building models based on past experience. The risk models say that the loans are safe. The flaw? All of these new loans fuel an unprecedented housing bubble that the risk models, which are backward looking, can't account for. All of these new loans also create new levels of debt, also unprecedented in history. So the risk models, once again, miss them.

It's time, says Soros, to bring back some of the regulations that were put in place after the Great Depression and then eroded in the decades that followed. Leverage and credit creation, he says, need to be reigned in. Regulators need to start looking to control asset bubbles as they manage the economy for the more usual goals of full employment and price stability.

Soros sees a new economy, indeed a new world order emerging. If the U.S. leaves its fate to the whims of flawed markets, it will lose much of its worldwide influence. Without the dollar as the reserve currency of first choice, the U.S. really has nothing but military supremacy in order to defend its position in the world, and even that, says Soros, has been undermined by the debacle in Iraq.

Soros' message for citizens, investors, politicians and regulators is to approach this new economy and new political order with humility. Be flexible and never dogmatic. Strive to find truth while realizing it's unattainable. It's false certainty that trips us up, in both investing and life.

[Jana]

eew astute!

As a precog, I haven't seen any major event or cultural breakdown. I just woke from a dream in which I bought a big bottle of calming Relationship Pills...the casher insisted on keeping the extra 5c...I suppose this means to allow the hungry to take things from you to reassure themselves.

It is interesting that the four banking corps in default that are being bailed out are now investigated by the FBI for fraud. Sounds like Enron.

Morgan Chase is still paying off lawsuits etc...related to the Enron scandal—
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E0D6123EF934A2575BC0A9639C8B63

The relationship between 9/11 and insurance industry money laundering may be a key factor.

[Michael]

Harking back to the Certainty and Doubts, Hope and Faith question:
Asking the right God question

The study, by psychology professor Dan P. McAdams and researcher Michelle Albaugh, was aimed at finding out about the religious sources of political leanings. They interviewed 128 devout Christians in and around Chicago, and they avoided the usual questions of "How do you know God exists" or even "Why do you believe?" Instead, they asked their subjects to describe what their lives and the world would be like if they did not have faith. In other words, what would the world be like if Christopher Hitchens were right and there were no God?

The study analyzes the results mostly in terms of political divisions. It found that politically conservative Christians described a godless world "as one of incessant conflict and chaos, expressing strong apprehension regarding people's inability to control their impulses and the attendant breakdown of social relationships and societal institutions."

Liberal Christians, on the other hand, had a different set of concerns. For them, a world without God would be "barren or lifeless, lacking in color and texture, an empty wasteland that would not sustain them" and in which they would feel lost.

All of the respondents generally imagined life without God as "entailing fear, sadness, interpersonal isolation and loss of meaning and hope."

The political findings are intriguing, but not nearly as interesting as the way the question and the answers it elicited get at deeper, core issues. It appears that we do believe out of need, but it's not, as Marx suggested, primarily because of material deprivation. Instead, it looks as if faith answers fear, and many different kinds of fear, which we can begin to delineate in some detail.

[jimtzu]

the responses on both sides of the spectrum speaks volumes of their fear based relationship with the world,both inside and out,  a lack of trust in themselves and for others.

from where does this fear arise?

[Michael]

the responses on both sides of the spectrum speaks volumes of their fear based relationship with the world,both inside and out,  a lack of trust in themselves and for others.

from where does this fear arise?

Well I'm sure you can answer that one as well as anyone else around here Jim.  So I take the question as rhetorical...

------------------
In my morning perusal of latest internet offerings, I happened upon yet another interesting article-summary of the financial crisis (which is worth reading I think)

In which this paragraph struck particular interest:

10 The Black Swan. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is my kind of economist. The basis of his philosophy is that, “The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in.” He advocates “tinkering” as our best mean to change the world - and his theory of the markets take into account many of the previous points. While he was running his own hedge fund in the 1990s, he turned his own knowledge of his lack of knowledge - and others’ lack of knowledge - into enormous profits. It came at the expense of losing a little money 364 days of the year - but making enormous profits in that one remaining day. He would bet on market volatility - which he understood financial firms repeatedly underestimated. Taleb’s key insight is that we know very little of the world itself - and will be more often fundamentally wrong than right. The example he uses is the Black Swan as described by David Hume:

No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.

This fundamental unknowability of the world must inform our actions, and perhaps points to some solutions. We must attempt to resolve this crisis by tinkering with different solutions, and seeing what works, while being mindful that our actions will inevitably have consequences we do not imagine. And remember - at any point - a black swan could come around and reshape our world suddenly - as 9/11 did, as the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand to start World War I, as did the invention of the personal computer, as has this financial crisis. The solution will not come from our determined application of fixed ideas, but by our openness to the possibility that we may be wrong, even as we are determined to act. We must see the shades of gray and acknowledge that we do not fully understand the world, yet still act - tinker, if you will.

Excerpt from The Black Swan Theory from Wikipedia:



Background

The theory was described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan. Taleb regards many scientific discoveries as black swans—"undirected" and unpredicted. He gives the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, the first world war, as well as the September 11, 2001 attacks as examples of Black Swan events.[1]

The term black swan comes from the ancient Western conception that 'All swans are white'. In that context, a black swan was a metaphor for something that could not exist. The 17th Century discovery of black swans in Australia metamorphosed the term to connote that the perceived impossibility actually came to pass. Taleb notes that John Stuart Mill first used the black swan narrative to discuss falsification.

Non-philosophical epistemological approach

Taleb's black swan is different from the earlier (philosophical) versions of the problem as it concerns a phenomenon with specific empirical/statistical properties which he calls "the fourth quadrant".[2] Before Taleb, those who dealt with the notion of improbable, like Hume, Mill and Popper, focused on the problem of induction in logic, specifically that of drawing general conclusions from specific observations. Taleb's Black Swan has a central and unique attribute: the high impact. His claim is that almost all consequential events in history come from the unexpected—while humans convince themselves that these events are explainable in hindsight (bias).

One problem, labeled the Ludic fallacy by Taleb, is the belief that the unstructured randomness found in life resembles the structured randomness found in games. This stems from the assumption that the unexpected can be predicted by extrapolating from variations in statistics based on past observations, especially when these statistics are assumed to represent samples from a bell curve. These concerns are often highly relevant to financial markets, where major players use value at risk models (which imply normal distributions) but market movements have fat tails.

Taleb notes that other functions are often more descriptive, such as the fractal, power law, or scalable distributions; awareness of these might help to temper expectations.[3] Beyond this, he emphasizes that many events are simply without precedent, undercutting the basis of this sort of reasoning altogether. Taleb also argues for the use of counterfactual reasoning when considering risk.[4][5]

[Michael]

The certainty epidemic

We all seem convinced we're right about politics, religion or science these days. What makes us so sure of ourselves?

By Robert Burton

Feb. 29, 2008 | Certainty is everywhere. Fundamentalism is in full bloom. Legions of authorities cloaked in total conviction tell us why we should invade country X, ban "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in schools, eat stewed tomatoes, how much brain damage is necessary to justify a plea of diminished capacity, the precise moment when a sperm and an egg must be treated as a human being, and why the stock market will revert to historical returns. A public change of mind is national news.

But why? Is this simply a matter of stubbornness, arrogance or misguided thinking, or is the problem more deeply rooted in brain biology? Since my early days in neurology training, I have been puzzled by this most basic of cognitive problems: What does it mean to be convinced? This question might sound foolish. You study the evidence, weigh the pros and cons, and make a decision. If the evidence is strong enough, you are convinced there is no other reasonable answer. Your resulting sense of certainty feels like the only logical and justifiable conclusion to a conscious and deliberate line of reasoning.

But modern biology is pointing in a different direction. It is telling us that despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of "knowing what we know" arise out of primary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of rationality or reason. Feeling correct or certain isn't a deliberate conclusion or conscious choice. It is a mental sensation that happens to us.

The importance of being aware that certainty has involuntary neurological roots cannot be overstated. If science can shame us into questioning the nature of conviction, we might develop some degree of tolerance and an increased willingness to consider alternative ideas -- from opposing religious or scientific views to contrary opinions at the dinner table.

I call the mental sensation of certainty the "feeling of knowing." Everyone is familiar with the most commonly recognized feeling of knowing. When asked a question, you feel strongly that you know an answer that you cannot immediately recall. Psychologists refer to this easily recognizable feeling as a tip-of-the-tongue sensation. The frequent accompanying comment as you scan your mental Rolodex for the forgotten name or phone number is: "I know it but I just can't think of it." You are aware of knowing something, without knowing exactly what this sensation refers to. The most profound feeling of knowing is the "aha," a spontaneous notification from a subterranean portion of our mind, an involuntary all-clear signal that we have grasped the heart of a problem. It isn't just that we can solve the problem; we "know" that we understand it.

To understand what I mean about the feeling of knowing, read the following paragraph at normal speed. Don't skim, give up halfway through or skip to the explanation. Because this experience can't be duplicated once you know the explanation, take a moment to ask yourself how you feel about the paragraph. After reading the clarifying word, reread the paragraph. As you do, pay close attention to the shifts in your mental state and your feeling about the paragraph:

A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill but it is easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.

Is this paragraph comprehensible or meaningless? Feel your mind sort through potential explanations. Now watch what happens with the presentation of a single word: kite.

In an instant, you are flooded with the "aha" feeling that the paragraph makes sense. There's no time for deep consideration and evaluation. Before you can reread the paragraph, your unconscious mind has already sorted through various possibilities, determined that the sentences collectively fit the description of a kite and sent you notification.

Determining how this involuntary feeling of knowing happens takes us into the enormously complicated details of neurobiology. To simplify them for this discussion, let me borrow a term, "hidden layer," from the artificial intelligence community.

By mimicking the way the brain processes information, A.I. scientists have been able to build artificial neural networks (ANNs) that can play chess and poker, read faces, recognize speech and recommend books at Amazon.com. While standard computer programs work line by line, yes or no, all eventualities programmed in advance, the ANN takes an entirely different approach. The ANN is based upon mathematical programs that are initially devoid of any specific values. The programmers only provide the equations; incoming information determines how connections are formed and how strong each connection will be in relationship to all other connections. There is no predictable solution to a problem -- rather, as one connection changes, so do all the others. These shifting interrelationships are the basis for "learning."

With an ANN, the hidden layer is conceptually located within the interrelationships between all the incoming information and the mathematical code used to process it. In the human brain, the hidden layer doesn't exist as a discrete interface or specific anatomic structure; rather, it resides within the connections between all neurons involved in any neural network. A network can be relatively localized or widely distributed throughout the brain. Proust's taste of a madeleine triggered a memory that involved visual, auditory, olfactory and gustatory cortices -- the multisensory cortical representations of a complex memory. With a sufficiently sensitive fMRI scan, we would see all these areas lighting up when Proust contemplated the madeleine.

The hidden layer thus offers a powerful metaphor for the way the brain processes information. It is in the hidden layer that all elements of biology (from genetic predispositions to neurotransmitter variations and fluctuations) and all past experience, whether remembered or long forgotten, affect the processing of incoming information. It is the interface between incoming sensory data and a final perception, the anatomic crossroad where nature and nurture intersect. It is why your red is not my red, your idea of beauty isn't mine, why eyewitnesses offer differing accounts of an accident or why we don't all put our money on the same roulette number.

The powerful feeling of knowing arises out of the hidden layer's unconscious calculation of correctness, be it recognizing a face or believing an idea is right. The greater the likelihood of correctness, as determined by your unconscious, the stronger the sense of certainty.

In his bestselling "Blink," New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell describes gut feelings as "perfectly rational," as "thinking that moves a little faster and operates a little more mysteriously" than conscious thought. But he's flying in the face of present-day understanding of brain behavior. Gut feelings and intuitions, the Eureka moment and our sense of conviction, represent the conscious experiences of unconsciously derived feelings.

Look at the feeling of knowing in the light of evolution. It explains how we learn. Compare it with the body's various sensory systems. It is through sight and sound that we are in contact with the world around us. Similarly, we have extensive sensory functions for assessing our interior milieu. When our body needs food, we feel hunger. When we are dehydrated and require water, we feel thirsty. If we have sensory systems to connect us with the outside world, and sensory systems to notify us of our internal bodily needs, it seems reasonable that we would also have a sensory system to tell us what our minds are doing.

To be aware of thinking, we need a sensation that tells us that we are thinking. To reward learning, we need feelings of being on the right track, or of being correct. And there must be similar feelings to reward and encourage the as-yet unproven thoughts -- the idle speculations and musings that will become useful new ideas.

To be an effective, powerful reward, the feeling of conviction must feel like a conscious and deliberate conclusion. As a result, the brain has developed a constellation of mental sensations that feel like thoughts but aren't. These involuntary and uncontrollable feelings are the mind's sensations; as sensations they are subject to a wide variety of perceptual illusions common to all sensory systems. Understanding this couldn't be more important to our sense of ourselves and the world around us.

It's not easy, of course, but somehow we must incorporate what neuroscience is telling us about the limits of knowing into our everyday lives. We must accept that how we think isn't entirely within our control. Perhaps the easiest solution would be to substitute the word "believe" for "know." A physician faced with an unsubstantiated gut feeling might say, "I believe there's an effect despite the lack of evidence," not, "I'm sure there's an effect." And yes, scientists would be better served by saying, "I believe that evolution is correct because of the overwhelming evidence."

I realize that this last sentence runs against the grain of those who have fought the hardest to establish science as the method for determining the facts of the external world. It is particularly loathsome when you feel that you are playing into the hands of religious fanatics, medical quacks and word-twisting politicians. But in pointing out the biological limits of reason, including scientific thought, I'm not making the case that all ideas are equal or that scientific method is mere illusion. My purpose is not to destroy the foundations of science, but only to point out the inherent limitations of the questions that science asks and the answers it provides.

Substituting believe for know doesn't negate scientific knowledge; it only shifts a hard-earned fact from being unequivocal to being highly likely. Saying that evolution is extremely likely rather than absolutely certain doesn't reduce the strength of the argument, and at the same time it serves a more fundamental purpose. Hearing myself saying "I believe" where formerly I would have said "I know" serves as a constant reminder of the limits of knowledge and objectivity. At the same time as I am forced to consider the possibility that contrary opinions might have a grain of truth, I am provided with the perfect rebuttal for those who claim that they "know that they are right." It is in the leap from 99.99999 percent likely to 100 percent guaranteed that we give up tolerance for conflicting opinions, and provide the basis for the fundamentalist's claim to pure and certain knowledge.

A related consideration is to distinguish between felt knowledge -- such as hunches and gut feelings -- and knowledge that arises out of empiric testing. Any idea that either hasn't been or isn't capable of being independently tested should be considered a personal vision. Shakespeare does not demand that we accept Hamlet as representing a universal truth. We agree and judge him according to the standards of art, literature and personal experience. Hamlet is neither right nor wrong. If in the future, Hamlet is found to have a gene for bipolar disorder, we are entitled to reassess our initial interpretations of Hamlet's relationship to his mother. Hamlet is a vision. No matter how seemingly reasonable and persuasive, each begins with a very idiosyncratic perception that seeks its own reflection in the external world. Each writer's personal sense of purpose drives the arguments, picks out the evidence and draws conclusions. Such ideas should be judged accordingly -- as visions, not as obligatory lines of reasoning that must be universally shared.

To retreat from claims of absolute "knowing" and certainty, popular psychology needs to explore how mental sensations play a fundamental role in generating and shaping our thoughts. We can't afford to continue with the outdated claims of a perfectly rational unconscious or knowing when we can trust gut feelings. We need to rethink the very nature of a thought, including the recognition of how various perceptual limitations are inevitable.

At the same time, if the goal of science is to gradually overcome deeply embedded superstition, it must be seen as a more attractive and comforting alternative, not as inflammatory exhortation and confrontation with a none-too-subtle whiff of condescension. Try to peddle the vision of a cold, pointless world at a Pentecostal revival meeting and you have an inkling of the challenge. In a recent survey, nearly 90 percent of Americans expressed the belief that their souls will survive the death of their bodies and ascend to heaven. Such beliefs, no matter how counter to the evidence, provide the majority of Americans with a personal sense of meaning. If forced to choose between reason and a sense of purpose, most of us would side with purpose. This apparent choice isn't even an entirely conscious decision. If science hasn't yet made a dent in such beliefs, it seems unlikely that further efforts will miraculously turn the tide.

Such discussions pose the same ethical problems inherent in placebo treatments. Simply put, a placebo effect is a false belief that has real value. To insist that there is no soul or afterlife is the moral equivalent of taking away the placebo effect arising out of an unscientific belief. Studies have shown that sham arthroscopic surgery can allow some patients to walk comfortably again. No one should recommend sham knee surgery, yet many physicians are comfortable recommending less drastic but unproven treatments for pain.

The answer lies in a personal risk-reward calculation -- how to provide comfort without undue side effects or cost. But the intentional use of a placebo comes at a cost. Even without side effects or excessive cost, the precedent of falsely representing benefits of a treatment has its own long-term undesirable effects. The most serious would be the erosion of trust between the physician and patient. On the other hand, eliminating all placebo treatments because they are intellectually dishonest raises its own set of problems, including the cynical zeitgeist of valuing science over compassion. There isn't an easy solution or right answer; each of us will calculate the risk versus reward according to our own biology and experience.

In medicine, we are increasingly developing ethical standards for complex medical decisions that allow for hope and the placebo effect, yet don't fly in the face of evidence-based medical knowledge. The guiding principle of the Hippocratic oath is primum no nocerum -- above all, do no harm. This same principle should be a cornerstone of how science competes in the world of ideas. Science needs to maintain its integrity while it retains compassionate respect for aspects of human nature that aren't "reasonable."

This balance of opposites extends to all aspects of modern thought. For example, it doesn't make sense to ask someone if he'd like to take a placebo; the very question strips the placebo of much of its intended benefit. Similarly, it isn't clear how to have a reasonable discussion on the nature of the self that both maintains the integrity of science -- the self is an emergent phenomenon and not some separately existing entity -- and allows each of us to feel that we are individuals and not mere machinery. I cannot imagine a world in which we fully accepted and felt that we were nothing more than fictional narratives arising out of "mindless" neurons. And I cannot imagine how much empathy we would have with others if we saw disappointment, love and grief solely as chemical reactions. Faced with this chilling interpretation of our lives, it isn't surprising that most people opt for the belief in material "souls" and/or anticipate that real live virgins are patiently awaiting their arrival in heaven.

F. Scott Fitzgerald described an easy-to-accept but difficult-to-accomplish solution: "The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." This juggling act requires us to keep in mind what science is telling us about ourselves while acknowledging the positive benefits of nonscientific or unreasonable beliefs. Each opposing position has its own risks and rewards; both need to be considered and balanced within the overarching mandate -- above all, do no harm.

Just as we learn to cope with the anxieties of sickness and death, we must learn to tolerate contradictory aspects of our biology. Our minds have their own agendas. We can intervene through greater understanding of what we can and cannot control, by knowing where potential deceptions lurk, and by a willingness to accept that our knowledge of the world around us is limited by fundamental conflicts in how our minds work.

Which leads us back to the beginning. Certainty is not biologically possible. We must learn (and teach our children) to tolerate the unpleasantness of uncertainty. Science has given us the language and tools of probabilities. That is enough. We do not need and cannot afford the catastrophes born out of a belief in certainty.

From "On Being Certain" by Robert A. Burton, M.D. © 2008 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Press.

[Jana]

‘Feeling correct or certain isn't a deliberate conclusion or conscious choice. It is a mental sensation that happens to us. I call the mental sensation of certainty the "feeling of knowing."”

The dread of paradox, ambiguity, and uncertainty is a subconscious stress we bare in our drive for legitimacy (goodness, confirmation of worth). The need to know and the need to be right are as fundamental a need to the socialized human as the need for sex and companionship. This drive to know is the motivation of our religion and our science…religion being an archaic method of explaining reality prior to the establishment of the scientific method.

We are in a collective identity crisis, propelled by the tide of globalization, the pressures of having to restructure human society in a world in which both our God and our Reason have failed to create the paradise we envision. We are having to second guess everything, even the underlying basis of the self’s “need to know.” Why, What For and Who does it serve?

[jimtzu]

despite all our mental and emotional constructs, don't we live in-between (the paradox) ? 
communication comes from the gap between the words and ideas...   clarity arises in the space between out thoughts. i believe  the great unknowing is the source of all creativity (evolution).  if everything were totally certain, there'd be no need to continue.

[Francis]

What we call certainty is the experience of mitigated doubt. Doubt can never be permanently vanquished; only mitigated. Science and reason are methods for mitigating doubt. Faith is a direct assault on doubt itself. Doubt is the vaccine that protects the mind against the disease of certainty.

[Jana]

Clever words, but I am certain I have got the chemistry down:

“The sense of brokenness—of identifying with a need to be fixed—is the source of our misplaced religious concepts of “original sin.” A more appropriate word for sin is “dysfunction.” Original sin is the dysfunctional patterns imprinted within our emotional body that unconsciously drive us into self-destructive behavior. These must be neutralized if we are to re-enter an experiential awareness of our authentic vibrational essence.” 116, The Alchemy of the Heart, Michael Brown

How to deal with the glaring contradiction and pros and cons of life? Compassion prevents one from being driven mad by the duality. Our refuge is in compassionately embracing our panic and fear—not judging it as good or bad, just accepting “what is” with Mothering love or authentic vibrational essence…for when we love we are not afraid of our fear. As Michael Brown says...we no longer reject our own experience! Letting go of the need to be right and the need to know…that is by giving up “certainty” we can relax into the fundamental YES of our existence and allow all that we are (left and right hemisphere) to sync into Being. You need the spaceousness of the open heart…a bigger container for “feeling” in order to navigate the duality, otherwise you will be driven mad by the forces of attraction and repulsion. Self-inhibited, self-rejected, self-chastened, double guessed.


Last night I didn’t sleep at all, and I happened to hear on the BBC that the Anterior cingulate cortex lights up during the emotion of rejection. Thus it seems that learned low dopamine utilization in the bridge between the two hemispheres due to repeated episodes of rejection is undoubtedly associated with the pain, numbing, depression, loss of confidence and loss of cognitive acuity when we feel rejected by others or ourselves (self-error).
Rapid shifting of the eyes side to side (EMDR--Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Therapy), or any binaural therapy such as throwing an object from hand to hand, walking, or Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping) would help overcome the brain damaging effect of rejection and build confidence. Crossing over the body movement or body positions as well as art and dance would also help ease up the anesthetizing effect in the central hemispheric cross communications.
The Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex, which resembles a "collar" form around the corpus callosum, the fibrous bundle that relays neural signals between the right and left cerebral hemispheres of the brain. Heightened ACC activity (generally associated with reduced dopamine utilization) reduces capacity to learn how to use visual cues for anticipating rewards. A typical task that activates the ACC involves eliciting some form of conflict within the participant that can potentially result in an error and consequent frustration. The ACC seems to be especially involved when effort is needed to carry out a task such as in early learning and problem solving. Many studies attribute functions such as error detection, anticipation of tasks, motivation, and modulation of emotional responses to the ACC. Because the ACC is intricately involved with error detection and affective responses, it may very well be that this area forms the bases of self-confidence and in evaluating the extent of the error and optimizing subsequent responses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior_cingulate_cortex

[Michael]

Wow!  Such a pleasure to hear someone articulate what has been rattling around the brainpan inarticulately.  Sam Harris does really great here:

[Jana]

eew fantastic.
So simple when you hear it. Sams being doing his homework...if only he was an evangelist preacher then he might do some good.
We have to get over the idea that religion/spirituality is something separate/different from any other area of life...science indeed should be just as concerned with right and wrong as "law and justice" is. Science should be just as spiritual as spirituality, and just as political as politics.
We had the industrial revolution, but we are yet to have the scientific revolution...develop the scientific lens and the problems of fundamentalism, mythic-literalism, archaic superstition, etc...are overcome. If churches really cared about their flock they would be teaching science from the pulpet. Yet we also have to be wary of materialism and fundamentalism in science also

[Daniel Pinchbeck]

Good article:

The Age of Uncertainty

Daniel Pinchbeck

Recently, I have taken as my personal mantra the not very transcendent phrase, "I don't know." The list of things I feel unsure about seems to be steadily increasing. For instance, I don't know if our solipsistic species will survive much longer, and sometimes I am not even sure how much I care. I don't know if Barack Obama is a warm-hearted leader who will unite people at a time of adversity, or the most brilliant puppet ever put forth by the New World Order conspirators (who, as radio journalist and documentary filmmaker Alex Jones suggests, may be plotting a program of rapid depopulation). I don't know if the increase in UFO sightings means we are approaching a benevolent contact experience or a horrific predatory ambush. I don't know if global warming is mainly caused by human action, or if it is part of a phase transition of the entire solar system, as the Russian scientist Dmitriev proposes.

I don't know if men and women should be monogamous or if it is better to be bonobo-like in one's erotic habits. I don't know if we will develop some type of new energy technology that will rescue us from Peak Oil, or if we are destined to see industrial civilization devolve and disintegrate as fossil fuel becomes scarce. I don't know whether to learn to grow food and harvest rainwater or to master some weird new esoteric discipline like Vortex Healing or Keylontic Science. I don't know if free will exists, or if we are conditioned robots, performing an illusory spectacle scripted by Hindu deities or dreamtime ancestors. I don't know if we should get rid of religions or create a really cool new one.

I don't know whether to stockpile gold or create an intentional community. I don't know whether to stay in Manhattan or head for the hills. I don't know whether we are approaching global enlightenment or regressing into barbarism. I don't know whether biotechnology and nanotechnology will fuse to give us immortal physical bodies or if we will all croak as our mistreated planet falls apart. I don't know if anything special will happen on December 21, 2012. I don't know if I should start a riot or throw a party. I don't know whether to panic or relax.

Something seems to be happening that is beyond my capacity to understand or articulate. I can only assume other people are feeling this way as well. We are witnessing the collapse of the old, rigidified structures, while the new hasn't come into realization yet -- that is, if there is going to be a new anything. A change seems to be happening at the level of logic, which is becoming less dualistic, less "either-or," and more binary, "both-and." Former diametric opposites are moving toward confluence, as well as dissonance, in various areas: Like tweaked out psychonauts, the physicists at CERN discuss opening portals into other dimensions. As the financial system evaporates, incredible new gizmos like Pandora and Cool Iris spread freely on the Internet. Obama references Chicago 1968 in his acceptance speech at Grant Park, then hires as his economic advisers the guys who, under Clinton, deregulated the banking system, causing the current disaster.

Reality is becoming more improvisational and up-tempo. Although I don't pretend to have certainty about it, the ideas that Jose Arguelles, Terence McKenna and others have proposed about time speeding up and going through ever-faster fractal spirals of historical pantomime -- including, alas, the mass suffering usually caused by historical convulsions - seem increasingly on the mark. If we are shifting away from dualistic separation and linear logic to a binary thought marked by polarities, this also suggests a shift from the modern historical perspective to a revived mythological consciousness. Like processes in the unconscious, myth resolves oppositions through symbol and image, without need of rational explanation. A society that reintegrates mythic thought at a deeper level of awareness will be able to handle seemingly contradictory perspectives without breaking down.

I don't know if we will live to see the birth of such a new worldview as part of a regenerated civilization, or if we only get to see the decline and fall of our current dinosaur. It does seem that ever-increasing numbers of people are done with it and ready to move on, but move on to what?

Some theorists propose we have reached a point in evolution where we have the capacity to consciously co-create reality, and choose our own script for the future. Sometimes, this feels fuzzily plausible to me. On the other hand, our past actions and intentions have created the reality we experience now. It seems highly unlikely we can phase-shift to hyperspace, the fifth-dimension, or whatever it is until we have learned how to take proper care of this material world and those who share it with us. Although maybe I am wrong and we will get a free pass. I just don't know.

[jimtzu]

refreshing to read in this age of theories of EVERYTHING.   keeping curiousity alive while resting in the mystery.

[Jana]

"If we are shifting away from dualistic separation and linear logic to a binary thought marked by polarities, this also suggests a shift from the modern historical perspective to a revived mythological consciousness. Like processes in the unconscious, myth resolves oppositions through symbol and image, without need of rational explanation. A society that reintegrates mythic thought at a deeper level of awareness will be able to handle seemingly contradictory perspectives without breaking down." Daniel Pinchbeck, realitysandwhich.com

While not exactly an identity crisis because there is no great depression and disillusionment because we are ready to give up the old and move onto the new...we are in a stopping, feeling, reassessing point. We have left the dysfunctional family with the tyrannical father and now we have to figure out what to do with our lives. Currently the human experiment is bankrupt and we have got to get back to the earth, to the forces of nature...to be reinformed in a new vision. Man-made is mad-made, but deep within knowledge of the true way is seeded in our flesh. For we ARE nature on re-membering our source, that is where the true power lies.

July 21 [1930] Walter Russell says that the fundamentals of science are so hopelessly wrong and so contrary to nature, that nothing but a major surgical operation upon the present primitive beliefs can ever put them in line for a workable 'cosmogenetic synthesis'.


I went and saw Pinchbeck on Weds, and while not wowed having been all wowed out with Marko Rodin, the important thing was his honesty about unsurity...a kind of courage to see the Unknown...which is perhaps a step up from egoic myopia to a more geometric lens...mulpiplex vision. It takes the entheogen users to really describe this state/stage we are in because they are used to extreme reality-shifts. So Pinchbeck's greatest gift to us at present is his articlation of uncertainty which loosens our "need to know and need to be right."

Can you see how this in itself will open up new possibilities, a higher order, and provide new energy that was once spent in ego-reinforcement/defense, which we can now use to realize our collective dream.