'A Science of Man' to transcend 'The Man of Science'

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Mangetout]
What makes you think we don’t do this already? What other reason would people have for making a decision, except for information that provokes it.

Better still, why not dispense with all this verbosity and describe a concrete example of when this happened, and why it was a bad thing.
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I often post a thread regarding psychology because it is important to our comprehendion of our self; such comprehension is important for the health of our society. Often these posts received negative remarks that imply gross ignorance of this domain of knowledge. When questioned the responder drifts away, thus verifying the degree of ignorance driving the remarks. Why such behavior is not good for a society that places heavy emphasis upon the judgment of the citizens can be easily deduced.

Like wise, the sound-bite and bumper-sticker mentality of our culture, as displayed by the need for bumper sticker explanations, is harmful to our nation and to the world that depends upon an intellectually sophisticated population.

22

Is that meant to be the concrete example I asked for? Sheesh.

What I was looking for was something along the lines of “In 1823, the Royal Astronomical Society decided to abandon the Hollow Candy Moon Theory in favour of The Solid Cheese Moon theory, despite there not being any new evidence to provoke such a shift”.

The reason people drift away from your discussions is not because your logic challenges them, it’s because whatever it is you’re trying to say is dressed up in such tortured and incomprehensible verbosity, it hurts to read it.
It can’t possibly be necessary.

23

[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Is that meant to be the concrete example I asked for? Sheesh.

What I was looking for was something along the lines of “In 1823, the Royal Astronomical Society decided to abandon the Hollow Candy Moon Theory in favour of The Solid Cheese Moon theory, despite there not being any new evidence to provoke such a shift”.

The reason people drift away from your discussions is not because your logic challenges them, it’s because whatever it is you’re trying to say is dressed up in such tortured and incomprehensible verbosity, it hurts to read it.
It can’t possibly be necessary.
[/QUOTE]

Many ideas are too big and complex to fit on bumpers. Learning new ideas need not be so unpleasant. Curiosity is the key, followed by the developing of questions. When we read with a question in mind we are likely to keep our attention focused. Our schooling has taught us all to be sleep-readers. Such habits are difficult to change but I think that you will find that it is worth the effort.

24

I tend to be skeptical of any sort of philosophical entreaty that begins, and concentrates on basically begging the reader to agree with something that will be revealed to the reader by agreeing with the point of view (usually fairly nebulously defined) of the writer. Instead of promising me great insights which are to come, spit out some of these great insights up front, and you have a better chance of convincing me to sign up for your newsletter.

Tris

“Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.” ~ Anonymous ~

25

[QUOTE=coberst]
I think that it is very important that adults get an intellectual life. We can no longer afford the luxury of going through our adult life without some intellectual investment in our self and in our community. I think that we should consider that the end of our formal education marks the begining of our adult intellectual adventure.
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Don’t have a problem with what you say, but intellectual pursuits alone will only gain knowledge, and what is needed most in my opinion is wisdom.

I listened to some of the Becker material, and downloaded the whole thing for later study. The part I listened to is materialistically oriented and I think would fit right in with the beliefs of most posters here. He does suggest we gather knowledge from many different disciplines before making any decision. The speaker derides religion, and says nothing about spirituality, at least in the part I listened to. He wants us to use science to study man, as you stated in the OP. All in all I see little difference in his ideas and what could be termed mainstream science.

I find myself agreeing with his conclusions on why man treats man so badly, but I either didn’t get to the part where he offers solutions or he has none.

I didn’t see anything really new, but I have yet to hear it all. It does have more depth to it than most studies.

His words leave out the emotional/spiritual side of man. I wish it were true, but we humans will never meet in peace intellectually. Systems of law can not be enforced well enough to allow for that while enjoying individual freedoms.
I believe the only we humans will live in peace is through love.

26

[QUOTE=coberst]
Many ideas are too big and complex to fit on bumpers. Learning new ideas need not be so unpleasant. Curiosity is the key, followed by the developing of questions. When we read with a question in mind we are likely to keep our attention focused. Our schooling has taught us all to be sleep-readers. Such habits are difficult to change but I think that you will find that it is worth the effort.
[/QUOTE]

Please don’t blame your incomprehensibility on your audience.

27

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Doesn’t your quote make the opposite point to the one you’re making? I thought the idea behind it was saying that while there are sort of mental icebergs, where a small conscious presence has a large unconscious one, there are some times when what is simple and obvious is just that. We could say a person smokes a big cigar because they have unconscious fears their manhood is small; on the other hand, maybe they just like smoking cigars.

Other than that I don’t have a problem with your post (for once! :wink: ). Psychologists can tend to focus on the chemical processes in the brain rather than the more nebulous concepts of self. But I would argue that there are plenty still who choose to study through theory-based analysis of observed responses or through study of patient-practioner dialogue. I suspect that possibly our differences in seeing how much focus on the physical aspects of the brain comes from our different ideas as to how much the physical represents the mental, though. If I thought as you did on that i’d probably agree totally.
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Freud in his later years was belittled for his use of sexual symbols. In an interview for the press Freud stated: “these symbols are merely the tools of my trade, it is love that heals.”

Perhaps this statement is the best testimonial of his life and work.

It is easy for skeptics to destroy the beliefs, of those with whom they disagree, they don’t even use evidence anymore, but very hard to destroy the good works done with those beliefs.

28

[QUOTE=lekatt]
Don’t have a problem with what you say, but intellectual pursuits alone will only gain knowledge, and what is needed most in my opinion is wisdom.

I listened to some of the Becker material, and downloaded the whole thing for later study. The part I listened to is materialistically oriented and I think would fit right in with the beliefs of most posters here. He does suggest we gather knowledge from many different disciplines before making any decision. The speaker derides religion, and says nothing about spirituality, at least in the part I listened to. He wants us to use science to study man, as you stated in the OP. All in all I see little difference in his ideas and what could be termed mainstream science.

I find myself agreeing with his conclusions on why man treats man so badly, but I either didn’t get to the part where he offers solutions or he has none.

I didn’t see anything really new, but I have yet to hear it all. It does have more depth to it than most studies.

His words leave out the emotional/spiritual side of man. I wish it were true, but we humans will never meet in peace intellectually. Systems of law can not be enforced well enough to allow for that while enjoying individual freedoms.
I believe the only we humans will live in peace is through love.
[/QUOTE]

Although Becker does offer a start of a solution his effort is more of an attempt to illuminate the problem and to supply the knowledge that could go into a solution.

His solution is to make dramatic changes in our colleges and universities. I think that such a solution is possible only when the American citizens first develop a greater degree of intellectual sophistication through self-actualizing self-learning.

29

[QUOTE=coberst]
Although Becker does offer a start of a solution his effort is more of an attempt to illuminate the problem and to supply the knowledge that could go into a solution.

His solution is to make dramatic changes in our colleges and universities. I think that such a solution is possible only when the American citizens first develop a greater degree of intellectual sophistication through self-actualizing self-learning.
[/QUOTE]

I appreciate your reply, but humans have always looked outside themselves to find out why things weren’t working, when they should have been looking inside themselves for the answer. The only thing that needs changing is us, we are the problem, change yourself and the world will change with you.

30

[QUOTE=lekatt]
I appreciate your reply, but humans have always looked outside themselves to find out why things weren’t working, when they should have been looking inside themselves for the answer. The only thing that needs changing is us, we are the problem, change yourself and the world will change with you.
[/QUOTE]

That might be a good statement to attribute to what Becker is trying to teach us.

31

[QUOTE=lekatt]
Freud in his later years was belittled for his use of sexual symbols. In an interview for the press Freud stated: “these symbols are merely the tools of my trade, it is love that heals.”

Perhaps this statement is the best testimonial of his life and work.
[/quote]
Possibly. However, his statement does not seem to be a rebuttal. He accepts using sexual symbols as tools. He wasn’t belittled for using sexual symbols because people thought that they wouldn’t work (well, in some cases they did), or because they thought he had missed the underlying importance of love. They belittled him for it because he did seem to see a lot of things as being sexual symbols when other thought they weren’t. He accepted that not everything was sexual, but still, the amount of things he tended to support with his ideas of oedipus/electra complexes is significantly higher than many would consider reasonable. Just as you castigate psychologists for focusing too much on the chemical side of things, Freud I would argue focused too much on the unconscious and the role of sex and parental relationships as a part of that.

But we’re all skeptics. Just skeptics of different things. And if there’s good done, hey, that’s great. But likewise it is equally hard to destroy the bad things done, and likewise it is easy to compare something with some helpful returns with something giving superior returns.

32

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Possibly. However, his statement does not seem to be a rebuttal. He accepts using sexual symbols as tools. He wasn’t belittled for using sexual symbols because people thought that they wouldn’t work (well, in some cases they did), or because they thought he had missed the underlying importance of love. They belittled him for it because he did seem to see a lot of things as being sexual symbols when other thought they weren’t. He accepted that not everything was sexual, but still, the amount of things he tended to support with his ideas of oedipus/electra complexes is significantly higher than many would consider reasonable. Just as you castigate psychologists for focusing too much on the chemical side of things, Freud I would argue focused too much on the unconscious and the role of sex and parental relationships as a part of that. But we’re all skeptics. Just skeptics of different things. And if there’s good done, hey, that’s great. But likewise it is equally hard to destroy the bad things done, and likewise it is easy to compare something with some helpful returns with something giving superior returns.
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Freud used the symbols to help people, the number of times he used them had nothing to do with the reality of the situation. He cared about his patients, he knew what really healed them. Psychoanalysis worked, it cured the patients that completed the counselling. It was essentially a wise and loving individual helping another to learn how to cope with life. The symbols and methods varied. But it was too long and too costly, so it disappeared. Today there is more mental illness, depression, anxiety, suicides, etc., than ever before. Chemicals that don’t cure anything are given. The chemicals turn people into zombies, the symptoms are still there and come back stronger if the pills are stopped. It is a disgrace. But it is cheap and quick. So it will continue. Spiritual values could help, even cure mental disorders if they were used. Alcohol anonymous and other twelve step programs are examples of this.

When we find people who care about other people the cures will be there.

33

See, i’d be with you on the amount of things that pills are expected to cure. Technically it isn’t as if people are expecting you to be cured through drugs; there is acceptance that really all that’s happening is a dampening of symptoms. Drugs certainly aren’t perfect, and often they don’t affect the underlying cause. But sometimes we just can’t cure things (or don’t know how to yet), and a relaxing of symptoms is the most people can hope for. I’m not sure what you’re talking about when you speak about using “spiritual values”; seriously, if there was some miracle cure (pun intended), don’t you think it’d be used? It’d take longer, I would wager, but it’s much cheaper then drugs. I seem to recall AA’s success rate isn’t all that far off the success rate without them; could you rustle up some stats for me? I’m sure you have some in mind, otherwise you wouldn’t make such a bold claim, but if not, i’m sure they have some on their website. It’s the kind of thing you’d advertise pretty heavily.

It’s pretty ludicrous to claim spiritual values could help or cure *all * mental illnesses, so i’m sure you can’t be saying that. What mental illnesses are you talking about? For example, I have OCD. Is this something that could be cured through spiritual values, or merely helped? What exactly would this entail me doing?

34

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
See, i’d be with you on the amount of things that pills are expected to cure. Technically it isn’t as if people are expecting you to be cured through drugs; there is acceptance that really all that’s happening is a dampening of symptoms. Drugs certainly aren’t perfect, and often they don’t affect the underlying cause. But sometimes we just can’t cure things (or don’t know how to yet), and a relaxing of symptoms is the most people can hope for. I’m not sure what you’re talking about when you speak about using “spiritual values”; seriously, if there was some miracle cure (pun intended), don’t you think it’d be used? It’d take longer, I would wager, but it’s much cheaper then drugs. I seem to recall AA’s success rate isn’t all that far off the success rate without them; could you rustle up some stats for me? I’m sure you have some in mind, otherwise you wouldn’t make such a bold claim, but if not, i’m sure they have some on their website. It’s the kind of thing you’d advertise pretty heavily.

It’s pretty ludicrous to claim spiritual values could help or cure *all * mental illnesses, so i’m sure you can’t be saying that. What mental illnesses are you talking about? For example, I have OCD. Is this something that could be cured through spiritual values, or merely helped? What exactly would this entail me doing?
[/QUOTE]

Yes, spiritual values can lessen all mental illnesse and cure many, that is what I am saying. The reason most don’t try them is they don’t believe there could be any value in doing them. So they laugh at them and pass them by for the pills.

I had OCD, stuttering, anxiety attacks, and migraine headaches most of my life, they all left shortly after my near death experience along with the heart problem that caused the NDE.

I just put into practice what I learned in the experience, nearly everyone does because the experience is so powerful. Most people look upon spiritual values as making them weak, vulnerable, and spineless. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What happens is that you become more aware of who you are, understanding yourself will set you free.

There is no authoritarian God to believe in, or any God for that matter, but it is necessary to believe in yourself. On the chance you might be interested to hear more, this is not the place or the thread. Email me.

35

No thanks. I’m not all that willing to put my mental health in the hands of someone who claims to speak to Jesus reasonably regularly, and i’m certainly not willing to do so on a one-on-one basis so others can’t poke holes in your arguments. No offense meant. I am happy for you that you were able to get over your problems, though. We can disagree all we want, but that doesn’t mean i’m not pleased you’re well. :slight_smile:

I’m afraid I still don’t see what you mean by “spiritual values”, though. You say you put into practice what you learnt, that people look on them in a certain way, yet you haven’t actually defined what they are. What exactly did you do?

36

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
No thanks. I’m not all that willing to put my mental health in the hands of someone who claims to speak to Jesus reasonably regularly, and i’m certainly not willing to do so on a one-on-one basis so others can’t poke holes in your arguments. No offense meant. I am happy for you that you were able to get over your problems, though. We can disagree all we want, but that doesn’t mean i’m not pleased you’re well. :slight_smile:

I’m afraid I still don’t see what you mean by “spiritual values”, though. You say you put into practice what you learnt, that people look on them in a certain way, yet you haven’t actually defined what they are. What exactly did you do?
[/QUOTE]

You are funny, billions of people practice spiritual values everyday. They are the foundation of every major religion on this earth. Nothing new, actually very old. Though not realized by most, they teach you to gain control of your life. The three basic ones are love, forgiveness, and non-judgement. I won’t post here anymore on this subject, I am very surprised the wolves have not decended to render any serious discussion of the subject to bits.

37

[QUOTE=lekatt]
You are funny, billions of people practice spiritual values everyday. They are the foundation of every major religion on this earth. Nothing new, actually very old. Though not realized by most, they teach you to gain control of your life. The three basic ones are love, forgiveness, and non-judgement. I won’t post here anymore on this subject, I am very surprised the wolves have not decended to render any serious discussion of the subject to bits.
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps fewer people would attack your positions if you did not open every post with an insult. As long as you post as though you have some higher truth that makes you better than everyone else (then scurry back to pretend you have not done that), you will do nothing to promote the beliefs that you claim to wish to extend.

You do not appear to have come to spread “truth,” but simply to jeer at people who do not accept your view of the world. You behave in exactly the manner that you criticize in other posters. If you truly wanted to proclaim your good news, you should try practicing it.

38

[QUOTE=lekatt]
You are funny, billions of people practice spiritual values everyday. They are the foundation of every major religion on this earth. Nothing new, actually very old. Though not realized by most, they teach you to gain control of your life. The three basic ones are love, forgiveness, and non-judgement. I won’t post here anymore on this subject, I am very surprised the wolves have not decended to render any serious discussion of the subject to bits.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve got to admit, i’m far from perfect, but while i’m not religious I like to think I do live my life by love, forgiveness, and non-judgement. I would imagine that most people do, and I don’t see why they are “spiritual” values; I am not a spiritual person, yet I follow them. Likewise, I imagine there are plenty of atheists or agnostics or even people who are religious but don’t have those as part of their religious beliefs who try to incorporate them into their lives.

That the “wolves” have no descended rather suggests a change of opinion is required. After all, that’s what open-minded people do; accept new evidence and admit they may have been wrong.

Your post does lead me to two questions, though. First off, do you believe that most people don’t live their lives like this? And secondly, you’ve suggested it was your NDE that inspired you to act this way. What were you like before it?

Edit: Just read tomndebb’s post. He has a point. For someone who claims to live their life as an open-minded person with capital-l Love as their primary concern, you don’t appear all that loving. Even when not provoked. Of course, in person you could be quite lovely to all and sundry, but based solely on your behaviour on these boards I would say you can’t attribute your health to spiritual values because you don’t appear to *practice * love of others, forgiveness for those you see as wronging you, and certainly not non-judgement (especially when the wolves appear to be off somewhere enjoying tasty gazelle).

39

I apologize for having said anything, no offense intended.

40

I haven’t taken any offense. But good luck in avoiding that next time.