it's not explained, it's recognized and accepted as known phenomena. i am inclined to believe that these people have a gift rather than a disorder, possibly part of human evolution. isn't that how that works? beneficial abnormalities? i could see reducing associations to color as being beneficial in its simplicity. when i speak of altered states i don't associate them in any way with a deity as people understand that term in the traditional sense. no shiva, no allah, no god of the bible. i am talking about recognizing the real physical scientifically explainable phenomena that tie into certain human experiences that feel somehow supernatural or divine, as i have explained in more detail in other posts.
Yea it is used wrong quite a lot, just like most words. The point I was trying to make is that just because you can reach an altered state without drugs or being crazy doesn't mean there is a god. There are many many many ways to alter your consciousness and most of the time our brain does it without us knowing.
How is something not explained if we know the location in the brain where the gene mutation occurs, what that part of the brain does for said human, and therefore what that person will experience? Gift and disorder are just different personal takes on mutations. Gift being beneficial and disorder not so much. If you want to call colored numbers a gift then so be it. But I am going to call it what it is.. a genetic mutation.
It always makes me laugh when people put such stock in science when they're trying to break down those who are spiritual. Science is CONSTANTLY in flux. It's not fixed. We have a reigning theory for years, and then that theory is bumped out of place by the next reigning theory. What we think we know now my be turned upside down tomorrow by what we think we will know for the next 10 years, which will yet again be turned upside down and pushed to the side. That's the nature of science. It is not as infallible as some in this very thread would have others believe. Science does not know all. Not even close. We're only beginning to truly understand the world around us, so why so-called "atheists" bash on the spiritual constantly makes no sense to me. Spirituality and science are but 2 sides of the same coin: trying to make sense of everything that goes on around us. One of the last classes I took in med school was called "spirituality and the brain." The entire class was nothing but looking at brain scans from people undergoing a mystical experience and trying to extrapolate why those experiences were happening. The point of the class, as we were told in the end, was not to get something right or wrong, as there were no right or wrong answers in the class. It was to show us how much we DON'T know about our world and all of the things that go on, and to not put too much stock in what we "think we know." Just in case anybody was wondering: the brain scans of somebody undergoing say, a schizophrenic episode, look nothing like the brain scans of somebody undergoing a mystical experience. So it's not craziness that causes people to be spiritual.
+rep Lukas, it makes me laugh too but then i remember these are the people that are perceived as 'smart' :/
from all i understand about synesthesia which is what i think you are talking about there is still only a basic understanding of what goes on. i just found an article from 2007 that seems to shed a bit of light as to what happens but the condition varies to such extent that it is hardly concrete knowledge.
Well of course there will be variation in people with the disorder. I mean there are quite a bit of numbers and colors, people with the disorder probably all have different colors for 1 for example. But this doesn't mean that we don't understand the disorder.
it's always the same argument in threads like these. nothing is ever solved, or so it seems. some people are just so closed-minded. you guys should all watch this video. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Science Saved My Soul.[/ame] don't know how to embed youtube vids here, plus im really high right now but just watch that shit. it's long but it's worth it i promise edit: it embeds for you... fucking nice
i love videos like that... shit that reminds me how tiny i am, how far we've come, and how far we have to go.
Good to see some clarification. I think this thread is starting confusion..but ive been blowed most the time so im not understanding every ones points clearly. Guess ill call myself agnostic now... even though i liked the sound athiest better
s'all good brotha! stay zooted! i'm glad i could be of any assistance at all... lol these threads sure can get hectic
Yeah, since putting stock in anything else makes sense... I'm sorry but without science, things like the computer you're on wouldn't be around. I haven't seen religion create anything else as productive. Science is an evolving (changing) field, but that doesn't make it any less practical. We adjust it to fit our current view of things, if it doesn't reflect the view we must adjust the theory. As long as spirituality requests some belief in supernatural then science will never ever touch it. Like I stated previously, I need a definition of what being spiritual is before I hammer away on it. People love to get their dick tied up on semantics so I won't bother wasting my breath.
Your use of quotation marks around the term mental illness leads me to believe you have never had any real experience dealing with patients in a psych ward. Let me tell you, many of them are not well and could not function in society without bringing harm to themselves or to others. Do you realize that people with paranoid schizophrenia often have delusions that those close to them or even complete strangers are out to get them? Those with schizophrenia will then act accordingly, e.g. attack or otherwise harm said individuals to "protect" themselves from the perceived danger. Imagine if they had attacked a loved one of yours. How would you react? Would you calmly accept that perhaps their version of reality is different than your own and thus they are not to blame in any sense? My guess is no, but people constantly surprise me on this board Yeah obviously they are irrational beliefs, but that doesn't negate the fact that people form beliefs based off of limited knowledge. Even today everyone does so because our knowledge is still extremely limited. Every belief you hold is based off of limited knowledge to an extent and could be proven false tomorrow with new advancements in science, unless you are claiming to have absolute knowledge on the universe. Any new advancement in knowledge that countered one of your previous held beliefs would make you an irrational person by your logic. I'm not saying you are an irrational person, but your statement that believing something without knowing it to be true makes one irrational is stupid. I believe there are alien lifeforms somewhere in the universe no matter how simple they may be. I don't know that they exist, but as we are witnesses to life persisting in one part of the universe it stands to reason life developed elsewhere. My beliefs aren't dogmatic and I could certainly be wrong. Do you believe it is irrational for me to hold such beliefs?
Agnostic ehh? I have jumped the band wagon multitudes of times, from Christian, to Atheist, to Agnostic, to Satanist, to Atheist, to Christian once more, to Chanceist Agnostic Buddhist. My final resting place. Chanceist: I know depending on your culture and life experiences, your beliefs change. Agnostic: I know that I may never know with absolute certainty that a God exists/doesn't exist. Buddhist: I believe we are all one, and are connected in some way. And we each have the ability to unleash one hundred percent our potential.
I never claimed science wasn't valid. I have an MD in neurobiology, clearly I think science is valid. Read my post again. I'm talking about those who rail against the spiritual because they believe science to be the end-all in every single argument. Such is a juvenile view of science, because it doesn't take into account science's own admission that it is ever evolving. If you're not one of those people (I don't think you are) then so be it. But there are quite a few of those people in this very thread. I don't think science supplants the spiritual. For some people it does, and that's fine. To them I would say they just have too narrow a view of the spiritual, formed by the bullshit they grew up around, like mainstream Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Spirituality extends far beyond that, and can be an extremely useful tool in reforming your psyche, just like the science of psychology is today. Religion is watered down science. Spirituality is the science of the mind and heart. 2 sides of the same coin. 2 different paths to the same place. People who understand what spirituality is, apart from organized religion, are able to see this.
Anyone who inflicts harm on innocent people obviously sees the world differently than people who despise violence. So yes I would be upset if anyone inflicted harm on me or a loved one, no matter their mental state. I also believe schizophrenics could be much better "treated" but psychologists and other doctors don't invest the time to walk in their individual shoes so they say "He's schizophrenic and nothing we can do will help him, put him in the mental hospital". By treated I mean get them to a state where they can function in society. I don't care if they still have multiple personalities... if they can function in society and do not inflict harm on anyone then they do not have a mental illness, they are just unique.
What leads you to believe people with schizophrenia are treated the way you described? And just so you know, schizophrenia is not the same thing as dissociative identity disorder. A lot of people make that mistake.
you're welcome man, thanks for watching! i'm thinking about making a thread just for it because it really deserves to be watched... in fact, that's what i'll do right now.