# Uhm... Hey, guys? I think I figured it out. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 3, 2006, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798 "2006-02-03T04:39:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/21 "2006-02-04T01:58:44Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Congratulations, **Muad’Dib** , you have identified the end of the seemingly endless sellotape of human philosophy and are now probing it with your fingernail. Allow me to take it from you and tear you off a good long strip with a satisfying _sssSSCHHHLLLLUUURRCK!_ > > “Meaning” and “significance” are the outputs of parts of the human brain called the [temporal lobes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_lobe), specifically the [limbic system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system) and more specifically still, the ‘gateway’ to it called the [amygdalum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilian_brain) (_pl. ‘amygdala’_). From [this excellent article](http://www.science-spirit.org/article_detail.php?article_id=132): > So the “meaning” and “significance” of your life is _anything that causes_ those neuropsychological effects. Some people get it from the idea of “God”, others (like me) not at all. We all generally get it from family, friends or other human contact. > > And you’re quite correct. I get _enormous_ neuropsychological salience from _understanding the universe_ - “cultivating the mind” if you will. > > So, now you’ve got the sellotape, what are you going to stick? I think this is a great example of why pure materialist answers are so unsatisfying. Knowing that events which we deem significant trigger a certain part of the brain tells us little about why these events are meaningful or significant (at least, not in any non-circular way). ---
**Author:** ![alimarx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@alimarx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alimarx)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/22 "2006-02-04T02:06:18Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > [blah, blah, blah…] > What is to follow is going to often sound like a bunch of new-age hippy bullshit. For that I am sorry because I really hate hippies. They are a bunch of lazy, dirty moochers that take without adding and need to use drugs to give them a false of rightness. Sorry, but if you can’t seem to appreciate the meaning that someone else’s mind might make the world into for them, then I think you’ve just negated everything you’ve said in your OP. Yea, I’m a hippy; I’m not lazy, I’m not dirty, I don’t do drugs, and I try not to prejudge. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/23 "2006-02-04T02:14:05Z")
> [@Richard Parker](#): > > I think this is a great example of why pure materialist answers are so unsatisfying. Knowing that events which we deem significant trigger a certain part of the brain tells us little about why these events are meaningful or significant (at least, not in any non-circular way). That is exactly right. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/24 "2006-02-04T02:17:11Z")
> [@alimarx](#): > > Sorry, but if you can’t seem to appreciate the meaning that someone else’s mind might make the world into for them, then I think you’ve just negated everything you’ve said in your OP. > > Yea, I’m a hippy; I’m not lazy, I’m not dirty, I don’t do drugs, and I try not to prejudge. You are missing the point of what I said. I did not actually mean everyone who calls themselves a hippy is that, but the ones who are “lazy, dirty, drug taking loosers”. All though it is not all, you will have a hard time convincing me, and I believe most folks, that that is not the vast majority of them. Even if it is not, as I admit I did imply, the essence of them. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/25 "2006-02-04T02:23:49Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Well, you got that part wrong. If there is a genetic component to addiction, there is no reason it couldn’t have some survival value. > Also wrong. “Nature” is not a thing that you can “go against”. It would certainly be suicidal (pardon the anthropomorphism) for a species to be entirely homosexual, and such a species wouldn’t exist very long. That still wouldn’t be “going against nature” since it would be the product of nature. Besides, if we assume there is some genetic component that causes homosexuality, it could very well be that the species as a whole benefits from having those genes in its population (at some level). First part: You are right, but what may have once been helpful in nature (such as some folks having a very easy time putting on weight) can turn into a hinderance in the modern world. Second part: You are also right. I should have said that it being against nature, the order of the universe or whatever you want to call it is what the anti-queer crowd base their arguments on. Although homosexuality does go against the biggist and most pragmatic reason for sex (and it lends itself to a whole buch of extra hassles in the life a a gay person), it is not wrong in the same that saying 2+2=5, it is wrong in a sense (or appears to be at first glance) of walking backwords, not evil or really _wrong_ it is just being different without any apperent benifit. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/26 "2006-02-04T02:46:44Z")
Maybe it would sense to you guys if you knew that I am suspected (but not quite positive by a recent doctor) of being high-functioning autistic and am supposed to be physically incapable of realizing any of this; learning it through logical deduction, yes, but really understanding it, no. In the same way that a person with OCD is not actually a neat-freak, but is completely incapable of truly understanding what organizing things is and must either live in total chaos, or in an infinitely tightly wound world where everything is organized in every possible way because although you can sort of figure out organizing, you can never “get it”. It is exactly like that Monk detective. It is not that he is a great detective, but he is so incapable of filtering out the important information that he has had to tediously and mind-numbingly go over every meaningless detail no matter how silly or unrelated it was until he could consciously and logically determine if it was pointless. The minor benefit of this is that although he is forced to go over everything, he does not miss much. It is not so much that I “like to think about things”, but that it never payed off in the way it was supposed to before. How ecstatic would you feel, how increadible would it seem if you were able to just **see** things instead of conciously going over every pixel of vision and calculating from there like a computer? For the first fucking time in my life, I get it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/27 "2006-02-04T03:15:09Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > For the first fucking time in my life, I get it. Well, okay, you’ve said that or variations on it twenty or thirty times. It doesn’t help clarify what your insight actually _is_ and your original post, though you’ve disavowed it, amusingly and confusingly melds Ayn Rand (an objectivist if ever there was one) with some kind of solipsism. Can you give us a summary in 500 words or so? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/28 "2006-02-04T03:23:23Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > First part: > You are right, but what may have once been helpful in nature (such as some folks having a very easy time putting on weight) can turn into a hinderance in the modern world. > > Second part: > You are also right. I should have said that it being against nature, the order of the universe or whatever you want to call it is what the anti-queer crowd base their arguments on. Although homosexuality does go against the biggist and most pragmatic reason for sex (and it lends itself to a whole buch of extra hassles in the life a a gay person), it is not wrong in the same that saying 2+2=5, it is wrong in a sense (or appears to be at first glance) of walking backwords, not evil or really _wrong_ it is just being different without any apperent benifit. The influece of genes on behavior is incredibly complex, and we are only scratching the surface in out attempts to understand this. Assuming that homosexuality is at least partially genetic, the fact that it exists at the levels it does in the population should give pause to syaing it has no “apparent benefit”. Better to assume that there is some benefit that we simply don’t understand at this point. It might simply be the fallout of a suite of genes that allows us to both fall in love and to have close friendships with people we are not in love with. We may benefit, as a population, by having the “gay genes” in our gene pool even if certain individuals end up having a lower possibility of passing on their own genes. And when we encounter our next extinction possibility, the more diverse (no pun intended) our gene pool is, the better off we’ll be as a species. And we will, at some point, encounter an extinction possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/29 "2006-02-04T04:04:55Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > The influece of genes on behavior is incredibly complex, and we are only scratching the surface in out attempts to understand this. Assuming that homosexuality is at least partially genetic, the fact that it exists at the levels it does in the population should give pause to syaing it has no “apparent benefit”. Better to assume that there is some benefit that we simply don’t understand at this point. It might simply be the fallout of a suite of genes that allows us to both fall in love and to have close friendships with people we are not in love with. We may benefit, as a population, by having the “gay genes” in our gene pool even if certain individuals end up having a lower possibility of passing on their own genes. And when we encounter our next extinction possibility, the more diverse (no pun intended) our gene pool is, the better off we’ll be as a species. And we will, at some point, encounter an extinction possibility. You are right but missing the point. It would be highly illogical to assume that a behavior so, seemingly, aberrant must not be overly harmful. Any way, arguing this point is missing the forrest for the trees. ---
**Author:** ![Tevildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/30 "2006-02-04T04:39:20Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > How ecstatic would you feel, how increadible would it seem if you were able to just **see** things instead of conciously going over every pixel of vision and calculating from there like a computer? > > For the first fucking time in my life, I get it. - smiles \* I know what you mean, of course, and epiphanies of this kind can do a great deal of good in our lives. I’m glad that your response so far has been rather more - contained - than that of Another Person Whose Name Escapes Me For The Moment. 😉 However, there are three problems which I’m afraid you’re going to have to face before long. 1. Monday. No matter how spiritually ecstatic you may feel at the moment, the time will come when you have to go to work (or equivalent), buy your food for the week, wash your clothes, clean out the toilet, and return to mundane reality. It’s going to be a let-down; make sure that it doesn’t let you down too far. 2. Communicating your vision. You will, if you want to take this further, put it into a form that someone who has _not_ experienced something similar will understand. Depending on your particular talents, some sort of creative work (poetry, art, music) may be a more effective vehicle than trying to explain it to us unregenerate rationalists. 3. The worst one - dealing with people who don’t understand. No matter how well you express yourself, you can _guarantee_ that some, if not most, of your audience will turn their backs on you, reject you as “just another mystic”. Don’t let this reaction make you lose sight of what you have now; and know when to stop trying to convince the unconvincible. Best of luck! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/31 "2006-02-04T04:39:38Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > You are right but missing the point. It would be highly illogical to assume that a behavior so, seemingly, aberrant must not be overly harmful. What would be highly illogical is assuming that a behavior that is highly selected against on the individual level doesn’t have some value to the population as a whole. Otherwise it would quickly select itself out of existence. > [@](#): > > Any way, arguing this point is missing the forrest for the trees. I have to admit that the forrest here looks more like drug induded ramblings. 🙂 I’m just trying to correct your misunderstandings of biology and genetics. Also, if your premise leads to incorrect conclusions, there is probably something wrong with your premise. ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/32 "2006-02-04T05:25:03Z")
Ok, so straight, christian Americans are the closest to "getting it’? Damn, and I thought you were going to tell us how David Blaine does that hovering thing. Bush already informed of us of this ‘epiphany’. Sorry to hear about your recent diagnosis. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/33 "2006-02-04T05:28:19Z")
Hmm, we do seem to be ruining the OP’s enlightenment. We’re like epiphanic ants. [sub]or we’re stealing his ep-i-phan-ic basket, whatever[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/34 "2006-02-04T05:31:24Z")
Muad’dib: I’m glad you had this moment of clarity. Enjoy it fully. There will be fewer and fewer of them as you get older. Why is this in Great Debates? ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/35 "2006-02-04T06:18:53Z")
It’s witnessing, man. That’s why it’s in Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/36 "2006-02-04T06:28:05Z")
I think your OP is interesting. What I’m going to say to you is not meant to make fun of what you are experiencing. And I really don’t want to debate you on these topics. I’m just hoping that in your private writing and thinking, maybe you will consider exploring some of these thoughts. > [@](#): > > **Muad’Dib** : For that I am sorry because I really hate hippies. They are a bunch of lazy, dirty moochers that take without adding and need to use drugs to give them a false of rightness. > [@](#): > > **alimarx** : Sorry, but if you can’t seem to appreciate the meaning that someone else’s mind might make the world into for them, then I think you’ve just negated everything you’ve said in your OP. > > Yea, I’m a hippy; I’m not lazy, I’m not dirty, I don’t do drugs, and I try not to prejudge. > [@](#): > > **Muad’Dib** : You are missing the point of what I said. > > I did not actually mean everyone who calls themselves a hippy is that, but the ones who are “lazy, dirty, drug taking loosers”. All though it is not all, you will have a hard time convincing me, and I believe most folks, that that is not the vast majority of them. Even if it is not, as I admit I did imply, the essence of them. What _is_ a hippy actually? **Is it possible that you have created an image and a label to go with it without actually knowing individuals?** Most “hippies” don’t refer to themselves as such and didn’t even back in the sixties and seventies. About the only time that we 'fess up is when someone drags out the old stereotype that you used: He is a hippy because he is a lazy, dirty, drug-taking loser. And he is a lazy, drug-taking loser because he’s a hippy. Round and round. > [@](#): > > Now you may say “Ryan, but what about then sunlight that falls on a flower? Is that not good for the flower? It makes it so it can live, grow and exist?” > > Yeah, but the flower is pointless. Is it possible that the sunlight falling on the flower is not pointless when you focus your awareness on it? > [@](#): > > Yes it does, but without mind it does not matter. It is no different from a random piece of sand colliding with another on the beach of a world a billion miles away. If there is no mind to experience it, to make something of it, it may as well not have happened. What happens when a mindless thing that is an essential link in the food chain becomes extinct? > [@](#): > > In the last century many people became confused about what it means to be prejudiced. They started saying that all prejudice is wrong, that you only think it is wrong because you see things and live in a different perspective, therefore no one can really say what is good, bad, right, wrong, true, false. Isn’t there a difference in prejudging and in being discerning? The person in the restaurant who chooses to eat fresh meat instead of rotten is not acting out of _prejudice_, but out of _informed_ judgment. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/37 "2006-02-04T06:57:11Z")
Sorry, I hit submit a little soon. > [@](#): > > **Maud’Dib:** : It is in that why that were all the same. The United States of America is still the greatest and most moral of nation because it was founded on this ides (“we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that amoung these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness”) The United States was founded on some _beautiful_ ideals. Someday I hope they will be fulfilled. They are not yet. All citizens are certainly not treated equally in this country. And I see our leaders lapsing into conduct that is totally against everything that I was taught that I could count on from my government. Our health care system is a disaster. Our homeland security system failed. I know of other countries where there is no poverty and no one has to worry about health care. I don’t think they are torturing any prisoners at the moment. Our founding documents are incredibly moving. But we have to make them _real_. When will you become **aware** of the awareness of others and of **their** rights to their own **Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness**? I agree with everything you said about creativity! Find those activities that just absorb your time and all sorts of interesting things can start to happen. One thing leads to another. Enjoy! ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/38 "2006-02-04T13:38:15Z")
> [@Richard](#): > > think this is a great example of why pure materialist answers are so unsatisfying. Knowing that events which we deem significant trigger a certain part of the brain tells us little about why these events are meaningful or significant (at least, not in any non-circular way). > [@Muad'Dib](#): > > That is exactly right You two guys _honestly_ can’t think of a reason why seeing your mother or a predator might elicit a different reaction than seeing an umbrella? ---
**Author:** ![booklyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@booklyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklyn)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/39 "2006-02-04T16:21:52Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Hmm, we do seem to be ruining the OP’s enlightenment. > We’re like epiphanic ants. > [sub]or we’re stealing his ep-i-phan-ic basket, whatever[/sub] You are going to hell in a handbasket! ---
**Author:** ![zuma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9c0ed/32.png) [@zuma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zuma)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhm-hey-guys-i-think-i-figured-it-out/342798/40 "2006-02-04T17:17:31Z")
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