The mans general motion is away from the intellect, represented as math in this case. He sticking more to his senses, because in many times intellect can interfere with senses. How this happens, is senses bring out the emotional side of the human being. you can be moved to tears from the sight of an old friend. Emotion can overwhelm the mind, when nostalgic smells are brought up. A smell can last for years, its one of the senses that bring up old memories, and emotions. Logic and intellect focuses more on the mental side of the human bieng, often interfering with the emotion that senses bring up.
Kind of looking superficially at the article, i have a problem with the title and the beginning paragraph. The title and the introduction make it seem as if your faith and nose have something to do with your brain and how you see truth, but really there is no reason to mention the nose or faith. It makes sense that disbelief and moral outrage take place in the part of the brain that also creates the response in the brain for disgust, because for most occasions people don't like being deceived. I do seem to find no real point for finding where a person has a reaction to true or false statements in the brain, and can these findings be considered enough proof to make it a fact, after all it was only 14 people, but i would probably say that a 1000 people too, asking why not more proof, or at least something more than just there is a reaction within brain, like what would be the significance of knowing this information. It is a little interesting to know that disgust and disbelief are in the similar areas, but is nothing life altering, this information, won't revolutionize psychology, or brain surgery, or anything. I don't understand how where the brain interprets belief and truth, because it merely seems like an individual matter of whether or not a person believes in the statement or not, thats when the question arises is there a universal truth, where everyone knows something as true even if they have never heard of it. That to me seems a little important to know because if it is merely an individual matter than who is to say that it isn't possible for people to develop individual responses in the brain. And it was irresponsible of time magazine to post this article when there were such a small number of test subjects, but then again, time did place Adolf Hitler as man of the year, so their decision making is a little low.
This article seems to suggest that our beliefs (and/or knowledge) we hold about given topics is somehow gained by the senses at the same degree as a bad smell. This article suggests that intuition is equally as much of a sense as smell or sight or hearing is. This would disprove the idea that some people hold that they have complete control over their beliefs at all times. If it is true that belief reactions are as much a part of the senses as vision or hearing, it would suggest that humans (at some point in time) are as in control of their reactions to knowledge claims as they are in control of their reactions to different sights or smells. This article brings up the common ToK idea that many of our knowledge claims are obtained through experiences and that one is able to relate experiences to eachother. Perhaps this "true/false belief sense" is the one and the same coherence that people seem to organize their beliefs and disbeliefs under. This sense of right and wrong statements and the differing neural reactions in likely brought about by the knowledge claim's coherence (or lack of coherence) with a given person's previous beliefs and knowledge. Just as we have the coherence theory in thought I guess we also have the coherence theory in all that we sense in the world. It isnt so much that something smells bad or sounds bad, it is often that it just doesnt fit with the "normal" sounds one is used to. Thus different is often abstracted to mean bad. Similarly as bad experiences with the senses are usually of "different than normal" stimuli, the people's reaction to non-cohering statements are judged as bad or wrong simply because they are different than normally accepted statements. It is easy to view such things as simple math in this manner, however some people take the idea that different is bad too far; such as the prevailing idea that people that are different are bad.
The article gives the results of a study that showed that the neural response to statements regarding their validity was in the same area as the sense of digust, like when someone smells something "bad". Ignoring the specifics of the study the results seem to suggest that our idea of what is true and what is false is as much a sense as smell or sight. But because of the wide range of differences in beliefs among people, this suggests an individual belief pattern in which we all have different degrees of psychological certainty with our beliefs. This article reminds me of the discussion about how senses are really "all in one's head", meaning that perhaps our brains individually sense that a certain belief is "wrong", in the same way that when something smells disgusting to us it isn't because that particular food is ACTUALLY disgusting; it's that to the smeller the scent does not cohere with their idea of "good smell" and therefore smells wrong. Yet this also brings up the question of why some statements cohere more in the belief system of one person than another. If the sense is indeed involuntary the fact remains that there cannot be a "universal truth". It now must be considered whether or not a person's psychological certainty and reaction to his beliefs is truly involuntary and therefore unable to be controlled.
to me there didnt seem to be any really strong evidence that senses truth and knowledge were all linked between your brain and your nose. you can know that something is hot by touching it. its more of a physical connection with it. but i'm not entirely convinced. just because an mri between 14 people showed truth and disgust showed up in the same area of the brain doesnt really mean much of anything.
I think that it is weird that the nose is the least complicated parts of the body concidering the fact that you can recognise so many different smells and now that i think about it is really your brain that recognises all the smells, and your nose is really just the path way that the smells take from your nose to your brain. but this leads me to the next point. would a smell still smell the same it if it had a different name. so the symbols we recognise as our mathmatic symbols curently would or entire world be different if our symbols were different i think so. not just the fact that signs would look different but much bigger changes then that.
I think that it is fair to say that our beliefs are acquired in the same way as we form opinions about bad smell. The truth is, we simply do not know how our brain works. I remember when we watched that movie about how people who had lost limbs would receive a sensation of "being touched" when they touched some part of their body (i.e. the chin). It turns out in the end that the sensation the people were having had a logical explanation. I know that this is a little off-topic, but I think it reiterates the point that the many functions of our brain are inter-related in ways we do not fully comprehend. For a more related example, I want to talk about a personal experience I have every time I think of my grandpa. Every time I hear someone talk about my grandpa, I always identify with what they say by remembering what his voice sounded like. My memories of him, who is was, what he did, etc. can be identified by what his voice sounded like. Much of what I think about him comes from this sensory experience I had when I was around him. thus, my opinion of him stems more from my auditory sense than from anywhere/thing else. That is how I relate to this article. Also, I think this article brings up many good points in relation to the neural activity that occurs and thus influences learning. Have you ever said something that made somebody literally squirm? I have. The reason I bring this up is because this example helps prove the article's point that beliefs are gained through sense perception. This is because of the fact that when I say something that makes someone upset (presumably because it was against something they said), it caused BOTH a physical and an emotional reaction. Consequently, this leads me to assume that beliefs are equally as much physical (sense perception) as they are emotional.
One question that I had while reading this article was about the test that Harris conducted. He said that the statements "torture is good" and "2+2=5" activated the same part of the brain. I want to know if it activated that area to the same level for both statements. I'm not sure if they can measure that, but it would be interesting to see if some false statements created more of a reaction than others. The other thing that I thought of while reading was: If the anterior insula processes fear and disgust as well as the reaction to the statement we claim to know as false, does that mean that we are afraid of or disgusted by wrong statements? I don't know if I agree with that, but it is interesting to consider because they are all processed in the same portion of the brain. This relates to a few class discussions about humans wanting to have facts that we can rely on to know.
Since I am a Christian, it is hard for me to not be biased here, but I have a very hard time believing that my sense of faith is based in the part of the brain that handles foul smells. Could it be that moral disgust and olfactory disgust take place in the same area of the brain? Yes, that's entirely possible. Does it mean that they are related or affect each other in any way? No! There is no way to prove or disprove that. Neuroscience is often involved with guessing. The human brain is more complex than anything we have ever studied in our history and most of the "facts" we claim to know about it are merely hypotheses that line up with experimental data. Smells can somewhat be linked to emotions, like when you feel happy yet hungry when you walk past Burger King and smell the flame-broiled goodness. However, linking smells to something much more established like political and religious beliefs seems a little absurd. I'll retract that statement the next time it starts smelling bad when I see a communist. =Michael Benitez=
You know what this all comes down to is what we learned about the brain and that it will see, hear, smell, feel, and think whatever is the easiest to comprehend. Like the article said, when the subjects were faced with something that did not agree with their beliefes or knowledge, their brain immediately rejected it as being false, because that part of the brain reacted to the comment. The part of the brain that works at believing things are false started to flare up therefore showing that they disagreed with it and disproved it because thats not what they believe and its not easy to comprehend.
Because of the extremeties of my experiences and constant moral erosion that resulted from my choices, I exhibit far less emotion than the average person when discussiong truth and dealing with non-truth. The only disgust I feel is when energy and time are continually wasted because of refusal or lack of motivation to search for truth and be honest. I recognize that these emotions may play a part in a case by case basis for me; however, when we deal with truth in actuality, it will always come back to the honesty and bravery to face the fear of insecurity or vulnerability.I think that this article recognizes a truth about people universally. We can recognize truth and have felings of security which stem from familiarity with certain concepts; if we are unsure, then we are often fearful of that ignorance. People tend to want to feel safe and secure in their beliefs because of fear of how others might view them at a point of vulnerability. For this reason it is always easier to do things via email or one to one because it helps to remove our social fears or hindrances. The fear is something that is hard to face because we are survivors and danger goes aainst our survival so we are naturally repelled by it. I think this can help us self-analyze some of our learning disabilities, and perhaps once we have self actuialized we will recognize why we may have a innate dislike of an idea or contradiction to that which we are secure with as of now. Ideas which test that security or force you to a point of insecurity are particularly hard for a person to handle becauuse it is the ignorance of how to make the right decision about what to believe which frustrates us and hinders our ability to figure things out our come back to a safe, non-vulnerable point away from fear. Perhaps it is even an impatience to consolidate that security, but I think it comes back to a social fear in many cases.
That was an interesting article, yet i wonder how they can measure what part of the brain is triggered and how they know that. i do not mean to sound ridiculous but i do not always have faith in science and what it tells us. I did however find it interesting that the nose would be connected with lies. Does that mean that whoever coined the phrase 'snif out a lie" already claimed to know something along these lines, if so then that would make these findings nothing knew. Although i am very suspect of the article, i do think it was interesting that lies and disgust triggered the same area, and i wonder if that ha to do with how many of us are brought up. Some for religious purposes and others for morality teach their kids not to grow up as liars, and as kids they read us about pinochio and his large nose. Maybe it triggered the same area because as a society we frown upon liars, and we punish those who do so, it has become a learned reaction. I do not think it has any value to new knowledge or to knowledge i think it is simply a learned reaction.
Check out the article about the connection between senses, truth, and knowledge at the link below:
12 comments:
The mans general motion is away from the intellect, represented as math in this case. He sticking more to his senses, because in many times intellect can interfere with senses. How this happens, is senses bring out the emotional side of the human being. you can be moved to tears from the sight of an old friend. Emotion can overwhelm the mind, when nostalgic smells are brought up. A smell can last for years, its one of the senses that bring up old memories, and emotions. Logic and intellect focuses more on the mental side of the human bieng, often interfering with the emotion that senses bring up.
Kind of looking superficially at the article, i have a problem with the title and the beginning paragraph. The title and the introduction make it seem as if your faith and nose have something to do with your brain and how you see truth, but really there is no reason to mention the nose or faith. It makes sense that disbelief and moral outrage take place in the part of the brain that also creates the response in the brain for disgust, because for most occasions people don't like being deceived. I do seem to find no real point for finding where a person has a reaction to true or false statements in the brain, and can these findings be considered enough proof to make it a fact, after all it was only 14 people, but i would probably say that a 1000 people too, asking why not more proof, or at least something more than just there is a reaction within brain, like what would be the significance of knowing this information. It is a little interesting to know that disgust and disbelief are in the similar areas, but is nothing life altering, this information, won't revolutionize psychology, or brain surgery, or anything. I don't understand how where the brain interprets belief and truth, because it merely seems like an individual matter of whether or not a person believes in the statement or not, thats when the question arises is there a universal truth, where everyone knows something as true even if they have never heard of it. That to me seems a little important to know because if it is merely an individual matter than who is to say that it isn't possible for people to develop individual responses in the brain. And it was irresponsible of time magazine to post this article when there were such a small number of test subjects, but then again, time did place Adolf Hitler as man of the year, so their decision making is a little low.
This article seems to suggest that our beliefs (and/or knowledge) we hold about given topics is somehow gained by the senses at the same degree as a bad smell. This article suggests that intuition is equally as much of a sense as smell or sight or hearing is. This would disprove the idea that some people hold that they have complete control over their beliefs at all times. If it is true that belief reactions are as much a part of the senses as vision or hearing, it would suggest that humans (at some point in time) are as in control of their reactions to knowledge claims as they are in control of their reactions to different sights or smells. This article brings up the common ToK idea that many of our knowledge claims are obtained through experiences and that one is able to relate experiences to eachother. Perhaps this "true/false belief sense" is the one and the same coherence that people seem to organize their beliefs and disbeliefs under. This sense of right and wrong statements and the differing neural reactions in likely brought about by the knowledge claim's coherence (or lack of coherence) with a given person's previous beliefs and knowledge. Just as we have the coherence theory in thought I guess we also have the coherence theory in all that we sense in the world. It isnt so much that something smells bad or sounds bad, it is often that it just doesnt fit with the "normal" sounds one is used to. Thus different is often abstracted to mean bad. Similarly as bad experiences with the senses are usually of "different than normal" stimuli, the people's reaction to non-cohering statements are judged as bad or wrong simply because they are different than normally accepted statements. It is easy to view such things as simple math in this manner, however some people take the idea that different is bad too far; such as the prevailing idea that people that are different are bad.
The article gives the results of a study that showed that the neural response to statements regarding their validity was in the same area as the sense of digust, like when someone smells something "bad". Ignoring the specifics of the study the results seem to suggest that our idea of what is true and what is false is as much a sense as smell or sight. But because of the wide range of differences in beliefs among people, this suggests an individual belief pattern in which we all have different degrees of psychological certainty with our beliefs. This article reminds me of the discussion about how senses are really "all in one's head", meaning that perhaps our brains individually sense that a certain belief is "wrong", in the same way that when something smells disgusting to us it isn't because that particular food is ACTUALLY disgusting; it's that to the smeller the scent does not cohere with their idea of "good smell" and therefore smells wrong. Yet this also brings up the question of why some statements cohere more in the belief system of one person than another. If the sense is indeed involuntary the fact remains that there cannot be a "universal truth". It now must be considered whether or not a person's psychological certainty and reaction to his beliefs is truly involuntary and therefore unable to be controlled.
to me there didnt seem to be any really strong evidence that senses truth and knowledge were all linked between your brain and your nose. you can know that something is hot by touching it. its more of a physical connection with it. but i'm not entirely convinced. just because an mri between 14 people showed truth and disgust showed up in the same area of the brain doesnt really mean much of anything.
I think that it is weird that the nose is the least complicated parts of the body concidering the fact that you can recognise so many different smells and now that i think about it is really your brain that recognises all the smells, and your nose is really just the path way that the smells take from your nose to your brain. but this leads me to the next point. would a smell still smell the same it if it had a different name. so the symbols we recognise as our mathmatic symbols
curently would or entire world be different if our symbols were different i think so. not just the fact that signs would look different but much bigger changes then that.
I think that it is fair to say that our beliefs are acquired in the same way as we form opinions about bad smell. The truth is, we simply do not know how our brain works. I remember when we watched that movie about how people who had lost limbs would receive a sensation of "being touched" when they touched some part of their body (i.e. the chin). It turns out in the end that the sensation the people were having had a logical explanation. I know that this is a little off-topic, but I think it reiterates the point that the many functions of our brain are inter-related in ways we do not fully comprehend.
For a more related example, I want to talk about a personal experience I have every time I think of my grandpa. Every time I hear someone talk about my grandpa, I always identify with what they say by remembering what his voice sounded like. My memories of him, who is was, what he did, etc. can be identified by what his voice sounded like. Much of what I think about him comes from this sensory experience I had when I was around him. thus, my opinion of him stems more from my auditory sense than from anywhere/thing else. That is how I relate to this article.
Also, I think this article brings up many good points in relation to the neural activity that occurs and thus influences learning. Have you ever said something that made somebody literally squirm? I have. The reason I bring this up is because this example helps prove the article's point that beliefs are gained through sense perception. This is because of the fact that when I say something that makes someone upset (presumably because it was against something they said), it caused BOTH a physical and an emotional reaction. Consequently, this leads me to assume that beliefs are equally as much physical (sense perception) as they are emotional.
One question that I had while reading this article was about the test that Harris conducted. He said that the statements "torture is good" and "2+2=5" activated the same part of the brain. I want to know if it activated that area to the same level for both statements. I'm not sure if they can measure that, but it would be interesting to see if some false statements created more of a reaction than others. The other thing that I thought of while reading was: If the anterior insula processes fear and disgust as well as the reaction to the statement we claim to know as false, does that mean that we are afraid of or disgusted by wrong statements? I don't know if I agree with that, but it is interesting to consider because they are all processed in the same portion of the brain. This relates to a few class discussions about humans wanting to have facts that we can rely on to know.
Since I am a Christian, it is hard for me to not be biased here, but I have a very hard time believing that my sense of faith is based in the part of the brain that handles foul smells. Could it be that moral disgust and olfactory disgust take place in the same area of the brain? Yes, that's entirely possible. Does it mean that they are related or affect each other in any way? No! There is no way to prove or disprove that. Neuroscience is often involved with guessing. The human brain is more complex than anything we have ever studied in our history and most of the "facts" we claim to know about it are merely hypotheses that line up with experimental data. Smells can somewhat be linked to emotions, like when you feel happy yet hungry when you walk past Burger King and smell the flame-broiled goodness. However, linking smells to something much more established like political and religious beliefs seems a little absurd. I'll retract that statement the next time it starts smelling bad when I see a communist.
=Michael Benitez=
You know what this all comes down to is what we learned about the brain and that it will see, hear, smell, feel, and think whatever is the easiest to comprehend. Like the article said, when the subjects were faced with something that did not agree with their beliefes or knowledge, their brain immediately rejected it as being false, because that part of the brain reacted to the comment. The part of the brain that works at believing things are false started to flare up therefore showing that they disagreed with it and disproved it because thats not what they believe and its not easy to comprehend.
Because of the extremeties of my experiences and constant moral erosion that resulted from my choices, I exhibit far less emotion than the average person when discussiong truth and dealing with non-truth. The only disgust I feel is when energy and time are continually wasted because of refusal or lack of motivation to search for truth and be honest. I recognize that these emotions may play a part in a case by case basis for me; however, when we deal with truth in actuality, it will always come back to the honesty and bravery to face the fear of insecurity or vulnerability.I think that this article recognizes a truth about people universally. We can recognize truth and have felings of security which stem from familiarity with certain concepts; if we are unsure, then we are often fearful of that ignorance. People tend to want to feel safe and secure in their beliefs because of fear of how others might view them at a point of vulnerability. For this reason it is always easier to do things via email or one to one because it helps to remove our social fears or hindrances. The fear is something that is hard to face because we are survivors and danger goes aainst our survival so we are naturally repelled by it. I think this can help us self-analyze some of our learning disabilities, and perhaps once we have self actuialized we will recognize why we may have a innate dislike of an idea or contradiction to that which we are secure with as of now. Ideas which test that security or force you to a point of insecurity are particularly hard for a person to handle becauuse it is the ignorance of how to make the right decision about what to believe which frustrates us and hinders our ability to figure things out our come back to a safe, non-vulnerable point away from fear. Perhaps it is even an impatience to consolidate that security, but I think it comes back to a social fear in many cases.
That was an interesting article, yet i wonder how they can measure what part of the brain is triggered and how they know that. i do not mean to sound ridiculous but i do not always have faith in science and what it tells us. I did however find it interesting that the nose would be connected with lies. Does that mean that whoever coined the phrase 'snif out a lie" already claimed to know something along these lines, if so then that would make these findings nothing knew.
Although i am very suspect of the article, i do think it was interesting that lies and disgust triggered the same area, and i wonder if that ha to do with how many of us are brought up. Some for religious purposes and others for morality teach their kids not to grow up as liars, and as kids they read us about pinochio and his large nose. Maybe it triggered the same area because as a society we frown upon liars, and we punish those who do so, it has become a learned reaction. I do not think it has any value to new knowledge or to knowledge i think it is simply a learned reaction.
Post a Comment