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The heroic and flawed search for certainty…
Browsing All Posts filed under »Sciencing«
Whose the smartest atheist of all?
Reblogged from The Trouble With Science: Jenny: "If I'm going to learn about atheism who should I read?" Peter: " Why waste your time, they're just as biased as the religious extremists." Professor Wiggle: " Dawkins and Dennett are both smart, but Chris Hithens is smarter. He remembers what other big brains forget. He remembers that […]
The Believing Brain #3
February 11, 2012
Shermers basic assumption is that the brain is a believe-making machine that automatically identifies, or constructs, patterns in the flow of experience – I don’t see why religious believers or scientists should have trouble with this. The true believers ‘see’ their trusted patterns as generated by “God”, and most of the scientists see their trusted […]
The Believing Brain #2
February 9, 2012
Michael Shermer’s The Believing Brain is worth a read. He makes the point that the brain is a ‘believing machine’, and acknowledges that many or most of our truths are constructions of the believing brain that may have little or no relationship to ‘reality’. He notes that our brains are the most complex and sophisticated […]
The believing brain
February 5, 2012
In a new book, The Believing Brain, Micheal Shermer says: “We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, personal, emotional, and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture, and society at large; after forming our beliefs we then defend, justify, and rationalize them with a host of intellectual […]
Choosing futures #5
February 2, 2012
We ended the last post with a bit of folklore (where there’s a will there’s a way) And yet the previous posts seemed to discount the power of will or “will power” or resolutions – for example New Years Resolutions. Instead we proposed that when the iron is hot (when you’re hurting enough) throw an […]
Choosing your futures #4
January 30, 2012
So far we’ve talked about throwing an anchor into the future – an anchor strong enough to hold firm as you pull yourself forward on the anchor line against strong currents going in other directions. But maybe some currents are flowing in the direction you want to go. - Certainly that’s the case for those […]
Choosing Your Future #3
January 25, 2012
Wbat if you get stuck in a contract you can’t keep? What we’ve been proposing is throwing an anchor into the future, an anchor heavy enoughenabling to pull yourself forward against the tide. But what if the anchor is so heavy you find yourself sinking… going under? It can happen! So you need to build […]
Choosing your future #2
January 24, 2012
As outlined in the last post you can lock yourself into a life change by contracting to pay a very painful price if you fail to follow the plan. You can pay with money or a treasured possession. Or, you can contract to pay a high psychological price, by parading outside your place of work or […]
Choosing your future #1
January 20, 2012
Science says you can choose at least part of your future. Case: Writer’s block. An author is having trouble completing a manuscript – he promises to meet deadlines but keeps failing to do so until … on New Years Eve he signs a contract with a friend. He agrees to e-mail him at least ten […]
Who decides your future… you or them?
January 18, 2012
Science has some answers, but not all the answers. Science says that several things shape your future, including your genes, your early childhood experiences (how the twig is bent so grows the tree), the place and culture and time you happen live in (for instance the USA, Canada or North Korea or Iran in 2012), and […]
March 14, 2013
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