I had a conversation with my Bishop a month or so ago. He is a nice buy, and truly deluded. He is a juvenile justice system councilor by trade. So he is educated, educated in the workings of the human mind even.

He asked me what my "problems" were and I told him I was reluctant to discuss them because a "discussion" is not possible. Some people will believe regardless of the facts and figures, a small number will see the facts and figures and move on and out of Mormonism.

In other words, and I told him this, when discussing these subjects with a non-believer (previously TBM) and a TBM the two will talk past each other, not listening to each other. It's like one is Russian, speaks Russion only, and the other is Chinese, and speaks only Chinese. But then I thought about it and that analogy is actually flawed. The non-believer (previously TBM) actually DOES speak both languages. He/she has lived and believed the ideas of Mormonism but now, based on a review of available facts, does not believe anymore. So he/she is "bilingual". In my case, the Bishop only spoke and understood Russian. He didn't know anything about (or very little) Joseph Smith and his (at least) 34 wives and the other tawdry facts of those "marriages" (under-age, dual marriages, etc.).

I watch cable TV news. There will often times be a discussion of an issue that divides along party lines. They'll have a "panel" of 3,4, or 5 people, with some from each party. Of course I am talking about CNN, not Fox News, they wouldn't do this. Anyway, the "experts" will shout and interrupt each other and essentially "talk past each other". No one convinces the other guy of the wrongness of his/her position. Nobody changes their opinion based on (many times this is the case) a good factual destruction of their position. I decided they are not talking to each other, they are talking to the TV audience, hoping that there is 0.001% of the people listening who actually weigh, anaylze, and accept or reject facts and arguements. Otherwise it is a complete waste of time.

Now the gazelle on the Serenghtee (sorry, my spelling sucks) will make logical decisions. It peaks out from the edges of the forest and gazes upon the lush plains and tall and tempting grass and wants to go out there to graze. BUT, a lion is spotted on a rock in the distance. Wisdom and logical decision making prevail and the gazelle waits for the lion to leave.

Human beings, however, may be told by their tribal elder, whom every one trusts, that the lion is helpless and harmless, and it's OK to go out onto the grassland. And so they do. An illogical decision, of course. Only a higher functioning species would let emotion over-rule plainly obvious facts and employ emotional thinking (I feel good about our tribal elder) and put themselves in harm's way.

Since 1945, the world has slowly developed the means of totally destroying (or largely destroying) the human species (and perhaps many other species). We now have great power, but we still are fatally flawed emotional beings. We spurn factual analysis when it disagrees with what we have been given via our cultural heritage. If you are born in Utah, most likely, you are a Mormon, and will stay a Mormon despite any facts that should persuade you to leave. If you are born in Italy you are most likely Catholic and will stay that way, no matter what. If you are born in Utah, your parents are probably conservative republicans, and you will be also (it breaks down some here, with political affiliation, sometimes a child will adopt the opposite viewpoint, but I'm guessing that is a minority sub-group).

I'm not sure we have what it takes to survive as a species with billions of us living together, butt cheek to butt cheek, on this planet. We still live in insular communities and distrust those "other people" who don't speak our language, have a different skin color, and don't worship God in the "right way". Sometime those "other people" may even have different sexual preferences! God forbid!

There is one possibility where we survive, as a species. We will shortly have the ability to tinker, successfully and productively, with our own genetic code. We may be able to eliminate destructive species traits, like hoarding, selfishness, greed, desire for a dominant status. In other words we may be able to weed out republican traits and greatly admired capitalistic traits, all for the benefit of developing a world community that works together, putting the good of the many ahead of personal gain. Some societies are somewhat that way, in stark contrast to the United States. I worked for a Japanese company, traveld there many times. I would say their culture respects conformity, unity, and service to the greater good over individual greed and promotion. I also worked for a German company, and traveled there many times. To a somewhat lesser and different degree, German society does NOT suffer from the greed and individualistic narcassism that plagues our American culture.

Anyway, I've come to accept, and expect, the typical responses I get from believing Mormons to any presentation of "facts". They shut off, shut down, and shun you. That's not overstatement or hyperbole. We all know that, we've experienced it many times.

Back to my Bishop. He spoke in church, at the end of a missionary "farewell" (I know they don't call them that anymore, but it still is). He looked at the audience and bore his testimony about Joseph Smith. He said he was a "good man, but not a perfect man" and he knew he was God's great prophet of the latter days. I know, or am pretty sure, he said what he said, the way he said it, for me, because of our conversation about Joseph Smith. So there you have it. He didn't process any of the information I gave to him. He didn't accept it. An educated man. A man, as I said, who specializes in the workings of the mind. I'm sure he's aware of all the tricks people play with in their minds. But he is up there, at the podium, playing the tricks with his mind, in front of everyone.

Survival of our species is not a sure thing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2014 09:40AM by elciz.

This is so funny I'm laughing out loud. Weed out traits. Lol. "Mr. Smith, the doctor will see you now."

There was an article I read, maybe a year ago. There is a Russian biologist who has, since the mid 1960s, been breeding Russian Red (?) Foxes. His objective was to make a sub-breed of foxes that would make good pets...docile, fun loving, affectionate, etc. Well he has accomplished this through selective breeding over many generations. They showed his final product, a very cute red fox that sat on his lap, followed him around, and was toilet trained like a dog. The article mentioned how this is what happened with wolves. The docile ones hung around humans, ate food they gave them, they bred and over time they became more adaptable to living with and liking humans. They became "dogs". The type of thing I'm talking about would accomplish the same goal, but it would be done with knowledge of the human genome about where to start to develop admirable traits (cooperation, selflessness, etc.) and where to weed out gene combinations that are species destructive (selfishness, greed, individualism, etc.). Obviously this is an undertaking that is in the future, it won't and can't be done right now.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2014 11:13AM by jerry64.

Thoroughly enjoyed your post about critical thinking and sticking with the status quo or what you were engrained with from birth wherein Nurture triumphs over Nature.

But if this genetic engineering gets a foot hold as you expect, who gets to decide which traits are admirable? Who is to control the genetic coding system?

This sounds like the perfect set-up to end up with a the same system as bees with expendable drones, and everyone else obediently doing their programmed duty with only one fat queen controlling everything. This image brings to mind either Mike Myers as Dr. Evil or Thomas Monson as, well . . . you know.

This genetic scenario also sounds like it would do physically what the Mormon church attempts to do psychologically--which means if this genetic thing were to happen, the Mormons for the first time would have been leading the charge all along. Now that would be truly ironic.

Yes, that is a potential. However, I think this "self directed evolution" is our "destiny" and the only hope we have for long term survival. The key will be if we can eliminate the risk of creating elite groups of people and dumber, worker class types, or at least that kind of situation. This will be the moment when mankind has to do it right, for once, for species survival. I don't think the United States is the right country to perform this kind of work. Maybe one of the very enlightened countries like Norway.

I don't understand your concern for species survival of mankind when we live on a severely overpopulated planet that has stripped the oceans and the rainforest and everything else to nearly nothing. I am worried about the animals, but man? Where do you get that?

I, kind of, disagree with your premise. Hupeople beings as well as the gazelle operate on the same subconscious level. It might be that hupeople have a higher level of recognizance but even that is debatable.

All animals are primarily instinctual. Their instincts may have evolved to highlight certain patterns and awareness but that doesn't change that the primary decision matrix is instinctual.

There was this headline for a TED talk: The brain didn't evolve to see what is real. It evolved to see what is useful. I chuckled because it reminded me of Packer's statement that "Not everything that is true is useful." But we see what we want to see, what we need to see. If the truth isn't useful to the way we're building our lives, then we ignore it. Unless you're the vigilant type you don't go looking for truth that can mess up what you have going. We like -- maybe even need -- a degree of ignorance. Seeing everything clearly, knowing everything, might drive us crazy. Maybe we need that wrapping of illusion, delusion and stupidity in order to keep us from despair, depression and suicide.

I think that the primary function of our sensory bias is to allow for group cohesion. Or it might be the other way around. Group cohesion has bred sensory bias into us.

The animal kingdom is primarily dedicated to one objective: survival.

Mankind may have started with a focus on survival, but evolution and the ability to learn, be adaptable, even be logical, has left us with a smorgasbord of new objectives and gifted the human race with a wide spectrum of goals beyond mere continuance of the species. At the same time we have been bestowed with an entire spectrum of tools both mental and physical to achieve these goals.

These broadened possibilities have provided the more superior of mankind autonomy and control over not only his survival, but freedom from survival, control of comfort, stimulation, sexuality, and ability to make a good pizza.

Still it is a spectrum and many have remained at the end of the scale that is "herd mentality" not wishing to be responsible for their own choices and often operating out of fear, choosing safety in numbers. That is why the number of world wide members are so important to the Mormons. Also, it is said that if you want to make anything believable, put a number to it.

These are those that look to the Mormon religion to keep them safe, make them feel worthwhile, and insure their triumph over other mortals in the end as they receive their heavenly reward for being part of a herd.

Those who leave the herd are those that have the courage to think for themselves and make their own choices. I would venture to say that they are the ones to grasp logic and value it. Perhaps all humans aren't logical, but many are--at least often enough.

My life began when I stopped caring what anyone thought as I left the Mormon herd mentality behind.

"They'll have a "panel" of 3,4, or 5 people, with some from each party. Of course I am talking about CNN, not Fox News, they wouldn't do this."

The statement above illustrates your point and shows that you are also not bi-lingual. Welcome to humanity, fellow deluded one.

People of all stripes are equally incapable of considering different viewpoints. There is no such thing as a way of thinking that allows a person to entertain various viewpoints more than another way of thinking. There is no spectrum of such an ability - from incapable to capable.

There is no philosophy that successfully encourages considering many viewpoints. There is no philosophy that successfully discourages people from considering different viewpoints.

Mormonism does not restrict a person's ability to consider different viewpoints.

or not.

I like your analogy of the uni-lingual TBM and the bi-lingual ex-mormon. It’s true, Mormons know mormonism while ex-mormons know that AND what it is to be not mormon. What we are they may become…



I don’t like your way of using the phrase “logical decisions” when applied to animals. Logic is a human capability. It is a mental abstraction involving precise, conceptual ways conclusions and premises go together. Animals don’t need logic to hunt, avoid being hunted and survive; and if you hang out with a few human hunters you’ll find logic gets in the way if used at all. What you are calling “logical decisions” should be called “instinct”.

Also, consider Hume: “reason is the slave of the passions.” First we feel (intuit, instinct) then we reason (think). That may seem to bolster your argument but think again.



Finally, your ideas about tinkering with the genetic code to “eliminate destructive species traits” and “weed out republican and…capitalistic traits” frightens me, terribly. I don’t believe such a thing is remotely possible (genes are not nearly as deterministic as the popular media portrays them) but the sentiment behind the desire is frightening.

Unfortunately, there may be a way for your sentiments to be realized, outlined by the things uttered by Facebook and Google execs and in the Silicon Valley more generally. Their vision for Humanity frightens me.

Here is Nicholas Carr, of the famous “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” question, reacting to the latest from Android’s Sundar Pichai (the comment section is enlightening):

http://www.roughtype.com/?p=4708

I like the way Carr concludes:


“I guess it’s no surprise that what Pichai expresses is a robot’s view of technology in general and automation in particular — mindless, witless, joyless; obsessed with productivity, oblivious to life’s everyday textures and pleasures. But it is telling. What should be automated is not what can be automated but what should be automated.”


And here he is reacting to the recent clandestine psychological experiment Facebook conducted:

http://www.roughtype.com/?p=4745


There are 7+ Billion of us. We will survive, but being human may look a lot different. Who needs to tinker with genes when you have the gods of Silicon Valley? And where there be gods there be prophets (a Canadian, as the Fates would have it):


“The computer could program the media to determine the given messages a people should hear in terms of their overall needs, creating a total media experience absorbed and patterned by all the senses. … By such orchestrated interplay of all media, whole cultures could now be programmed in order to improve and stabilize their emotional climate.”

—Marshall McLuhan, 1969—

http://www.roughtype.com/?p=4743

Human, bidding you to be careful what you wish for...

I'm a bit of a skeptic, bordering on nihilism. What if human directed genetic engineering is an inevitable next step in evolution? We may think it sounds horrible but I think it almost seems linear.

jacob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm a bit of a skeptic, bordering on nihilism.

Me too, but I'm very skeptical of nihilism;^)


> What if human directed genetic engineering is an
> inevitable next step in evolution?

How do you arrive at "inevitable"? It would seem that we have evolved to make choices.

We may choose to continue monkeying around there but I don't think it'll result in large forms of behavioural changes. Cure a genetically based disease, probably, but make people less greedy, highly unlikely.

HUMAN: "I don’t like your way of using the phrase “logical decisions” when applied to animals. Logic is a human capability. It is a mental abstraction involving precise, conceptual ways conclusions and premises go together. Animals don’t need logic to hunt, avoid being hunted and survive; and if you hang out with a few human hunters you’ll find logic gets in the way if used at all. What you are calling “logical decisions” should be called “instinct”."

COMMENT: If by "logical decisions" is meant deliberation over alternatives, and using reason to select one alternative over the other, it is clearly incorrect to say that logic does not apply to animals. Anyone with a pet dog knows that. So, how do they do it without language? The is the central question. To simply deny animals the capicity to reason, based upon lack of language is to adopt an athropocentric bias that is not supported by the evidence.

Language is a human capacity, and, it so happens that human beings use language to reason. The fact that animals don't use language for this purpose (if indeed this is true on a primative level) does not mean that they cannot make abstractions, or that they do not reason. Animal "concepts" are not linguistic, but they are abtracted from animal perceptions as given through conscious experience. Biologically speaking, they do have a neocortex. This means that they can take data from the association cortexes, including the sensory and motor cortexes, and make correlated judgments, i.e. "reason."

Your view that animals are limited to instinct is very much an antiquated position, and is undermined by modern neuroscience. I suggest the following: Robert W. Lurz ed. "The Philosophy of Animal Minds;" Marc D. Hauser, "Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think;" and even (somewhat surprisingly, Antonio Damasio, "Self Comes to Mind," particularly page 26.; Also, Julie Smith and Robert W. Mitchell, "Experiencing Animal Minds")(Note: Julie Smith is my sister as it turns out, and this is one thing we agree on.)

While it's true the view of "instincts only" is antiquated, and it's true that animals can "reason", weigh alternatives etc, I still maintain that animals do not employ logic as I termed it: "mental abstraction involving precise, conceptual ways conclusions and premises go together." Animals cannot make syllogisms, for example.

But you're right, animals have been shown to be capable of some very basic reasoning, but I wouldn't call it "logical". I haven't seen evidence that any monkey ape or gorilla is capable of this, for example:

All Apes are mortal,
"Adam" is an Ape
Therefore "Adam" is mortal.

But I'm intrigued: are syllogisms possible sans language? Interesting question.



(Cool about your sister. Vis this the same one you get into it with about literature?)

If your only point is that animals cannot perform "logical" constructs using language, then O.K. But this seems to me to be a trivial point, because all it means is that animals do not use language, since syllogisms require language. Syllogisms are formal logical structures within a language system. They cannot be mere mental constructs. Thus, animals cannot think "syllogistically" without language. This, however, says nothing about their cognitive abilities outside of language, including their ability to make mental abstractions in the course of basic reasoning. It is very difficult to understand how animals reason without language, since we as humans are so dependent upon language.

Basically, I take your response as saying that the term "logical" should be narrowing construed to involve language. But when you use the word in the context of "decisions" as in your stated discomfort with animals making "logical decisions," you seem to be suggesting that decisions also require language, which is false. Alternatively, if "logical decisions" simply intended to mean decisions involving language, again that to me is trivially true; i.e. obvious.

Yes. Same sister. She has been an "animal rights" advocate for many years, and has influenced me greatly on this issue. (She is a vegan, while I am only a vegetarian, which tells you the state of my "progress" in this regard.) I am deeply tuned in to animal cruelty issues, which made me perk up when you noted the incident at the farm factory in Canada in a prior post. Perhaps animal rights would be an interesting discussion on the Board sometime.

HB

Hey man, it's a trivial point, fine; but then why did you pick-up on it and ignore the real thrust of my response to elciz, a poster who would like to jerry-rig our DNA to get rid of "republicanism" of all things, and would like us to be less emotional and more like the "logical" animals on the Serengeti?

So let's agree: animals think, animals reason, but animals do not use logic. Also, we don't know how to think about how animals think and reason because our own reasoning and thinking is too language-based to see past. Language is the water our minds swim in. The water an animal's mind swims in is unknown and an interesting question.



Based on ethics and not on health I'd be a vegan, but I lack the courage of my convictions, alas. I don't think it is wrong to eat meat but it is certainly wrong to mistreat the animals we eat when they are alive. Since I continue to eat meat and dairy (sparingly, but I LOVE ice cream), I pay sometimes 4times the supermarket value for products from operations that encourage consumers to actually visit their facility/farm/operation. And we actually do just that.

The reason-based, factory/economic model of large dairy and meat production is beyond grossly unethical, it is one of our greatest shames as a species today. The following is obviously going in the wrong direction:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/28/284118937/-ag-gag-bill-takes-effect-in-idaho-bans-undercover-filming-at-farms

What's worse is the trend of calling animal-rights activists "terrorists" and therefore possibly subject to things like this:

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/guantanamo-north-ndaa-indefinite-detention-coming-soon-town-near-you

How's that freedom working out for you? Happy 4th of July!



I would love to see a discussion on RfM about animal rights. These kinds of seemingly off-topic discussions are important to recovery because once we leave LDSinc we come to realize that we are suddenly responsible for ourselves and no one is going to tell us anymore what is the right thing to think and do. When I first arrived at RfM the heavily mormon topics, especially history, were most interesting to me and fuelled my anger etc. But eventually I started reading the more off-topic posts, which made me realize that there is a much larger world available to me, a world that offered more, both more good and more bad, and that I'm more or less on my own while navigating through it.

Human

In a primitive society at least, survival favored those living in groups. Surviving in a group largely hinges on conformity.

Another school of thought theorizes that language (which made logic possible) evolved not to identify truth but simply as a means of getting ones way. I know my wife often gets her way in our family by simply out-talking the rest of us who eventually get mentally exhausted. The end of the conflict is rarely marked by the epiphany "oh yeah, I guess she has won me over with her sterling logic." She wears us out and gets her way.

Also self-delusion in limited quantities can be beneficial. I am a much better singer than I was five years ago, probably because the critique of my singing five years ago was inflated which kept me singing.

Your analysis seems too reductionist IMO. It's more complicated than that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2014 04:29PM by mrtranquility.

at one time (Long time ago), humans had to be 'good hunters' & other Basic survival skills.


Now, it's more an issue of out-smarting another human (atty's, accountants, etc) than basic nature-human smarts.


This is a 'good fit' for Mormonism, it tends to keep leaders in positions of dominance over the rank-and-file.

First i'd like to say I enjoyed getting a view of your critical thinking process and thank you for sharing that.

I'm still new to looking at the world through the eyes fo evolution, but messing with human DNA to eliminate "bad" traits sounds frightening, not to mention unethical.

How many successful mouse trials would need to be done before anyone would volunteer to have their genes manipulated? Or their child's? How many generations would need to be observed before their evolutions were determined to be desirable? ANd how would we objectively decide what those traits are?

I'm fascinated with the potential of stem-cells to cure and treat diseases. I have a hard time accepting that we as a species can objectively determine something as subjective as what personality traits are desirable for the reasons you've articulated. The reality of the problem precludes our ability to solve it. It would be a situation of might makes right. If we had this technology 50 years ago you can be sure at least one trait that is embraced today would not exist. I'm thinking of homosexuality specifically but there might be others as well. like I said, ethical black hole.

I'm new to the marketplace of ideas so feedback would be appreciated, positive or negative.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2014 07:51PM by morrison.

"Survival of our species is not a sure thing."

Actually, it is. All of the horrific things that could have happened so far didn't and won't because mass intention propagating backward in time pushes us off of that timeline.

I've often thought about the evolution of emotional thought. It has evolved over a long period of time for good purposes. However it will take a long time for evolutionary processes to adapt to a rapidly changing set of variables in modern society and environments. The question in my mind is not whether or not humans will make the necessary adaptations in mental acuity to do better at interpreting reality from fantasy and making better decisions but will humans do it before they destroy themselves? I just don't know.

I think that many of us use the words "evolution/evolve" and "change" interchangeably. I know I've been guilty of using the words "evolution/evolve" in a way that can be narrowly defined as "change over time". While I think that's OK when we're not talking about biological evolution, I worry when biological evolution is at the core of the discussion.

Basically, elicz, what you are discussing about selecting for behavioural traits, as well as overall survival of the human species, belies a fundamental misunderstanding of "evolution" as it pertains to biological organisms.

While I could explain all of the mechanisms involved, it has been better outlined on this website:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Edit: Sorry Pooped, this wasn't in reply to you, but I must have pressed the wrong button! Again, sorry!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2014 09:44PM by sassypants.

What fascinates me is that we all like to point out how the "other people" are members of cults.

Meanwhile we are all still worshipping the cults of socialism, government programs, feminism, materialism, exmoism, marriage, etc, etc.

Yes, I still do stupid stuff. I keep discovering more stupidity every day. I finally realized that my worship of growing my own food is BS.

"There is one possibility where we survive, as a species. We will shortly have the ability to tinker, successfully and productively, with our own genetic code. We may be able to eliminate destructive species traits, like hoarding, selfishness, greed, desire for a dominant status. In other words we may be able to weed out republican traits and greatly admired capitalistic traits, all for the benefit of developing a world community that works together, putting the good of the many ahead of personal gain."

You really think we can improve the species by rewarding weakness? We exist because the dominant survive.

Witness the dramatic rise in illegitimate children raised by single moms that has occurred since our bogus War on Poverty. Which has resulted in more poverty and crime. But it makes everyone feel good because we are "developing a world community."

Of course, the feminists like it because they are out to prove they don't need no stinkin' men. Meanwhile, the men are paying taxes to support those who supposedly don't need them.

There are cults everywhere you look, yet nobody thinks they belong to one.

"The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" Jonathan Haidt

I just finished reading this which covers many of the topics discussed here. I found it very interesting.

So you think that we should go back to eugenics. Good luck convincing the population to go along with it.

The majority of people are like herd animals, contributing nothing but just mindlessly consuming and performing pointless rituals until their day of death.

It's a minority who are capable of making tangible advancements. If not for that minority, we'd all still be living in caves and cowering from the demons in the shadows.