| Subject: Meaning |
Author:
Baz
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Date Posted: 06/15/03 4:58pm
In reply to:
Toolyskuff
's message, "Mixed feelings and split brains" on 06/15/03 5:10am
>Reading some of the articles on the front page I
>agreed with debunking of the bible, but then I've
>never really believed it was 'the word of god' anyway.
>Like I mentioned when I first posted I am quite
>confused. Part of me beleives in god or 'something'
>but I have no actual basis for these beleifs and at
>the same time the scientific world can explain most
>things away. Evoloution happened and the evidence is
>pretty conclusive so logically I should have no reason
>whatsoever to beleive in god especialy considering I
>don't have any type of religious upbringing. Sometimes
>when I have 'prayed' I sometimes get the feeling I'm
>just empowering myself unwittingly. This is were my
>head is at at the moment.I stumbled on this site after
>basil posted 'the religious mind' on a forum I
>frequent and it intersted me so I decided to see if
>there was more where that came from, and there
>was.I'll finish up by showing you the post that that
>led baz to post 'religious mind' last week. It may
>help to explain my feelings.
>
>>Do you think that it's possible to believe in God but
>not beleive in religion ? I have a problem with
>organised religion myself, theres too much of the
>human factor involved. Human nature will always
>prevail in any given situation and as humans we always
>strive for more, be it territory, money, power or
>respect. People will always fight, people will always
>argue that they are right and you are wrong (not you
>personaly) so how can an organisation or institution
>not expect for this corruption to creep into the
>system. I don't think it can. That's not to say that
>it's fair to simply dismiss the believers of the
>religion out of hand. I think to have a set of beliefs
>is an individuals perogative. It's easier to get
>things done if you have a purpose or a direction and
>if you are lost in the wilderness a road sign can be
>extremely useful. But I personaly believe that if
>there is 'a god' or 'spirit' that it doesnt live in
>the clouds behind pearly gates but inside each and
>every person. Who knows, one day they might find the
>'god' geneome.
>Toolyskuff<
Here is an extract of a message I posted to this forum some time ago. It puts forward the proposition that almost anything can become meaningful and help direct our lives if we are indoctrinated (and we are all indoctrinated) and this "knowledge" comes to stimulate certain areas of the brain.
Meaning has as much to do with emotion as it has with semantics as without an emotive sub-context language can be rendered meaningless.
Something can be said to have meaning for an individual if there is a neural system in place ( whether innate or learned ) that can process the information it contains or set in train specific reactions.
Dangle a piece of wood of a particular shape ( with a bulging under-surface) in a pond and the male stickleback will go through its mating behaviour. A female stickleback that does not have a swollen abdomen will not stimulate the male. A bulging abdomen has meaning for the male stickleback. The female, for her part, is stimulated by the males colouring, which reddens in the breeding season.
We have two distinct types of meaning in this example: The swollen abdomen has a rational meaning, in the sense that the symbol that elicits the behaviour is directly related to the function of the behaviour. (Swollen abdomen means eggs to be fertilised) The symbol that stimulates the female (redness) is arbitrary, and in this sense, irrational.
The problem is that an individual's indoctrinated systems of premises,rules, laws, religious taboos, etc may be erroneous or irrational, but this does not prevent events and ideas that are mediated by these systems being meaningful and evoking emotion in that particular individual.
When someone tells me that Jesus has saved me, the sentence holds little meaning (unless I nearly drowned and someone called Jesus pulled me to safety): but to the believer the sentence has a very clear semantic and strongly emotive meaning.
Meaning does not only depend on the "programmes" in your brain, there is also an area called the ventromedial cortex where emotion is experienced and meaning bestowed on perceptions. This area is overstimulated during the manic stage of manic depression, and also gives rise to a strange phenomenon some of you may have experienced. Some individuals wake up in the middle of the night with an idea in their heads that is so meaningful that they feel it will change the world. By morning they have forgotten it. Some have had the presence of mind to write it down before they fell back to sleep. In all cases the idea has been nonsense, of the order: Egyptian tanks run best on boiled cabbage. It seems that meaningful episodes, or should I say episodes that are perceived as wonderfully coherent and full of meaning, occur when, for what ever reason, neural traffic is directed through the ventromedial cortex.
So, the appreciation of ideas and events as meaningful depends on one's beliefs and knowledge, and whether or not one has a healthy flow of neural traffic through specific areas of the brain.
This means we are all capable, to varying degrees, at various times, of finding meaning in almost anything. We only have to mentally attach ourselves to something - a movement, a football team - for emotion to be evoked when it is mentioned or we take part in its activities.
Australian Rules football was a complete mystery to me when I first came across it, but having learned a few of the rules, the activity on the field became more meaningful to me.If I had started to support one team, learned all about the individual players and their private lives, the whole thing would have become particularly important and meaningful - although the opera lover, the chess-player, might wonder why.
Baz
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