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tychomorpheus

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If evolution proves to be in the end the explanation to existence then you have to understand that your brain is the highest achievement billions of years of work have produced. Use it. If evolution turns out not to be the explanation to existence then stop creating so much bad karma.
 
My brain? or the brain? and why our brain? how do we know not a dolphins brain...or a dog's brain? or a cats? many of them have trained us to feed and care for them while they lie around and do as they please. Heck, some have got to where we follow them around with little bags... Have many humans acheived that level of superiority?
 
Um, Wil, you're forgetting the whole neo-cortex thing. Big difference in evolution of human brains and our closest relatives the primates. Thats why our forehead must look so funny to chimps. :p
 
Paladin said:
Um, Wil, you're forgetting the whole neo-cortex thing. Big difference in evolution of human brains and our closest relatives the primates. Thats why our forehead must look so funny to chimps. :p
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Is the neo cortex to blame for us worrying more about our pets health than our own?
 
Well, we all don't do that Wil, but worrying about the future is very human. The example you give is of a somewhat neurotic state, logically you must take care of yourself before you can really care for another. I can only look after my loved ones in an effective way if my own health is taken care of.
Unless you are trying to explain altruistic behavior in which case the prefrontal lobe most assuredly comes into play.
 
seattlegal said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism
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Ah SG! I was waiting for someone to mention this. And it is quite true, yet I find it interesting that in the human mind we can reflect (or ruminate) on the consequences for allowing ourselves to suffer in order to do another good.

When Richard Davidson showed a group of monastic students in Dharmsala how they monitor brainwaves during compassion meditation the young monks all laughed. He thought they they were laughing at the crazy looking sensor array placed on the head. Dr. Davidson found out later that they were laughing because they were monitoring the head and not the heart!
 
Yeah but what if the evolution is "just a theory". How does out large brain help / change our karmic experience? Since most of our "feelings" do not originate in the frontal conscious cortex but we are guided by "hunches", "experieces" etc would the mith of the riddle that most heroes experience mean that we should use our conscious reasoning in making our way trough life?
 
Not to worry Tycho, our brains work with both the amygdala and prefronal cortex to help us make skillful decisions. In other words, we use reason and feeling to come to our best decisions. At least when we aren't deluding ourselves because of ignorance or desire. The circuits in the brain for reason and feeling are intertwined, and research shows that we are actually "hardwired" for empathy. So there is always more good going on than evil if we look at the billions of people in the world, there are billions of chances for things to go wrong, but mathematically, it works out in favor of the good.
 
tychomorpheus said:
Yeah but what if the evolution is "just a theory". How does out large brain help / change our karmic experience? Since most of our "feelings" do not originate in the frontal conscious cortex but we are guided by "hunches", "experieces" etc would the mith of the riddle that most heroes experience mean that we should use our conscious reasoning in making our way trough life?
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You can use your conscious reasoning to change your patterns of feelings--you can consciously reason out that it is better to feel sympathetic joy when another person succeeds instead of feeling jealousy or envy, and then take the needed steps to change unwholesome patterns.
 
My understanding is that evolution is about how life adapts and progresses from simple organisms to complex organisms. It was never about explaining existence.
It is meant to be a way of understanding nature.
The official position of science is that God is not a suitable explanation for any natural phenomena.
But I am not bound by scientific rules.
I think natural processes are worth trying to understand but I certainly know there is more to life than what science observes.
 
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