Archive for March, 2011

So, the twin studies really interested me, partially because my dad is a twin and he's shared some really interesting things with me, but a lot of it was the types of study they've done. The fact that they choose to study something like religion and spirituality is a real comment on how innately that is a part of our lives. It is a core part of who we are and what we choose to believe/no believe, do/not do in that area means a lot to who we are as humans. I also think it is ridiculous that people think they can measure spirituality by someone's church attendance or religious affiliation. I think that we are really way to caught up in trying to find proof for everything. Why can we never settle for knowing that we will never know everything and that faith can only be faith without proof, and without and explanation. I believe that God moves in mysterious ways and that even twins with the same genetics could end up with different spiritual beliefs and levels of faith and understanding while living and breathing in the same environment their entire lives. God made us all individuals, and whether we can grasp that we can't see everything in DNA or not, it's true. Some, and even most things are beyond our comprehension. That's why we are not God.   

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I have some pretty big issues with Darwin’s theory that human emotions are remnants of animal emotions that had once been necessary for survival. I have no idea how to prove any of my concerns, but I also feel that Darwin could never really fully prove his theory either, so here goes it.

First off, I would like to say that I love emotions and the fact that they exist. Because of this, in one sense, I am very glad Darwin theorized on emotions at all. He caused many others to continue the study on human emotions and that I am grateful for. However, I feel so strongly about emotions that I cannot accept that they are merely around because we needed them for survival. Second, I would like to say that the two main arguments I want to share come from a Christian perspective…so I apologize if that makes them irrelevant to some psychologists…or you… but it’s all I have.

My first argument is that God feels emotions. In the Bible he expresses jealousy, anger, love, joy, sorrow, etc. However, God does not need survival instincts to survive. He will never know an end for he is not bound by time. If God is the Almighty that no power could ever match, why would he need emotions for survival? And if humans are made in God’s image, are our emotions given to us purely for survival?

My second argument is more about purpose. Darwin argues emotions evolved from survival instincts. This would mean that the purpose for emotions was mostly selfish; something created for the self to protect the self. However, God and his love operates in exact opposition to this. His love is a love of selflessness, and his emotions follow suit. I do believe that God gave us emotions (as in Ecclesiastes we are told there is a a time for everything and many emotions are listed), but I cannot fathom that God would give us such emotions if only to be used in a selfish way. I believe that emotions are a gift from him that teach us to be selfless. With that selfless emotion we can sacrifice and risk which is the exact opposite of looking out for the self first to ensure survival. God’s love is sacrificial and risk taking. Emotions created to solely ensure survival does not speak a word of sacrifice or risk and I don’t buy it.

My last point is really not an argument but just something I would like to say. In the video we watched in class about Darwin’s theory on emotions, they said that humans show their teeth when they are scared. Well, I just simply wanted to point out that they only showed scared humans..on a roller coaster. Maybe that’s because humans don’t actually make those faces when their scared if they’re not exposed to great heights and winds.

One of the things that has always intrigued me about William James is his perspective on religion and spirituality. What I find particularly fascinating is the way he addresses how we handle our relationship with God when things go wrong in our lives. He posited that there are two kinds of Christians: the “healthy-minded” Christian and the “sick soul”. The healthy-minded Christian tends to view everything optimistically, and ignore the more difficult aspects of life completely. This attitude keeps these kind of Christians happy, but seems to be a rather dishonest way of sugar-coating spirituality and avoiding the tough stuff. The sick soul is the most interesting to me; James described this type of believer as one who grapples with the evils of life and takes on religion even if it causes distress. The sick soul doubts, is frustrated, struggles with God and faith, and yet sticks with it. I feel that although this is not the most pleasant way to deal with spirituality, it is the most realistic. Looking back at questions that great men like Augustine asked about how evil can exist in the world if God is in control, how else can we respond to the difficult issues that arise in life? Although I do not feel we should solely focus on the overwhelming evils in the world to the point where we get as depressed as James’ description of the sick soul, I do think that if we really want to try to make sense of the world instead of just ignoring what we don’t like, we need to struggle with our faith in the manner of the sick soul. I also think that this is a greater testament to others about our faith; the gritty, realistic perspective will ring a lot more true to others in the world struggling to answer the “why’s” of the world’s evils than the happy-go-lucky sugar-coated Christianity.

I must give credit to our very own Dr. Beck, as I started pondering this after reading what he had to say about James in his blog, Experimental Theology, which everyone should check out. He also makes some very interesting to Freud’s view of religion, which are worth looking at.

Evolutionary psychology examines many characteristics of homosapiens, including memory, language, reproductive tendencies, etc. and seeks to identify which traits are evolved from natural selection.

I am sorry, but I really cannot bring myself to agree with evolutionary psychology. It is very interesting to me and I respect the research and the theories that have come about, but I simply cannot entertain the idea of agreeing with it. There are many great things that have been discovered that can be stepping stones for the future of science and psychology, and I hope that one day the creation theory and these findings can better go hand in hand.

Though not always directly, I think that it minimalizes the essence of our existence and inhibits humans from being differentiated from animals. Don’t get me wrong, I know that evolutionary psychology isn’t only about our similarities with animals.

I did find this ridiculous & hilarious video though.. Anna, I’m hoping there’s no relation to the Baba Brinkman.

Short-Term Mating Dance

I think this video is a wonderful representation of how we can dumb ourselves down to act like animals. Sure, we can look at life as a way to find pleasure and… mate like animals do, because that is their only purpose. But my goodness we are robbing our species of so much if we take away the fact that our Lord made us to worship him through that act and that there is an emotional connection made there. It is not only about bettering our species.

As we watched the TedTalk on the Phantom limbs a couple weeks ago a friend of mine brought up and showed me this audio excerpt. As the study of physiology grew and Scientists are starting to make more and more connections between the brain and the mind they are starting to understand that psychology has much more than behavioral processes. As the ted talk showed us the brain can play tricks on us and vice versa fairly easily. When we visually stimulate the brain to think that our tightened phantom limb is being stretched out by using the mirror box, we can see a very distinct connection between our physical and mental processing. When watching this video correctly it can have similar effects. By adjusting the volume and audio densities in this clip we tick our brain into experiencing and almost visualizing a haircut. I think it is so interesting and also creepy how easily our senses and manipulate our brains into experiences. This clip will make you think, and view your brains capacity for auditory sensory competently differently. More »

I found Darwin’s argument that human emotions are remnants of animal emotions to be very interesting.  After watching the video of how closely human facial expressions are to those of chimpanzees made this argument that much more fascinating.  There is still such a huge gap between emotions experienced by animals compared to those of humans that makes this theory a bit flimsy to me.  Although human emotions are on a much bigger spectrum, I could see how they may have originated from emotions necessary for survival.                                                                                                                                                                                                                Another thing I found to be intriguing was that human emotions are culturally universal.  Dr. Ekman observed that an isolated culture in Papua New guinea could reliably identify basic emotions in pictures of people from cultures which they were unfamiliar.  Through this universal expression of emotions, Dr. Ekman claims that one could determine if a person were lying.  He uses the faces microexpressions to reveal what a person may be attempting to conceal.  These microexpressions flash at a rate of .066 to .04 of a second and happen involuntary.  In essence, Dr.Ekman believes that the human face is a natural lie detector.  Although I am not sure of the reliability of Dr. Ekman’s methods,  this theory of human evolution has definitely spiked my interest in expression of emotion.

In our text they discuss the concept of “imageless thoughts”. I find this concept to be interesting for several different reasons. Imageless thoughts are those such as searching, doubting confidence and hesitation. The fact that he came up with a concept to explain how exactly judgments were made is fascinating. Once I read this I was immediately drawn to the way he experimented and made his discoveries.

His technique involved giving his subjects problems to solve and then ask them to report on the mental operations they engaged in to solve them. They were also asked to describe the types of thinking involved at different stages of the problem solving process. How could someone come up with the idea that we have “imageless thoughts” from such a simple experiment such as this one.

Does this mean that God could be categorized as possibly a subcategory under an imageless thought in some sense? People are constantly searching and even doubting at some points in their lives whether God exists or not. I had never heard of imageless thoughts before but after reading this it makes sense that they would be imageless, when you are searching for something you do not have an idea of what it may look like, same goes with doubting or hesitating. I cannot think of any other thoughts that do not have an image that go along with them.

http://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us/rid=1074810630828_527067884_3/Oswald%20Kulpe.htm

The above website gives us a little more information on who Kulpe was and some of his other psychological findings.

Ok, I know the song does not really have a lot to do with William James and his view of free will, I just thought it would be a nice intro. The idea of free will has always been interesting to me, especially as a Christian because of the whole choices or the will of God thing that pops up so often. I like how obvious it seems when James says that because you can choose to believe in free will then it is true. I feel like having free will is something that God has blessed us with. I do not think God’s goal in making us was to have us run down the path he set out for us with no decisions involved. We were given a brain and the ability to make decisions, so it is obvious we are supposed to use it for something, right?

I really like what William James had to say about human behavior. He felt that behavior was governed by instinct. He states that these behaviors develop with in a lifetime and he called these patterns of behaviors habits. I would have to agree. God gave us all some basic instincts of survival such as acceptance, security, or even sex. But we take these basic instincts and develop terrible habits. We allow the world to condition us to these instincts to the extreme, or better yet, not take them serious at all. We allow money, power, and sex to rule our lives for pure pleasure and prestige; then we are conformed to the world! James states that a habit is formed by repetition. But he adds that we have to place our self in circumstances that encourage good habits and discourage bad ones. He also adds that we should force ourselves to act in ways that are beneficial to us, even if it is at first distasteful and requires effort. Today, we act on what feels good at the time. We have become a society that is in it for mere convenience and pleasure. As I see what is taking place in the world today, I hope that we all can learn from James’ wisdom.

Since reading chapter ten for class a few weeks ago, Spencer’s ideas towards the poor have bugged me. Spencer was a firm believer in survival of the fittest and “created” Social Darwinism. Spencer believed that those not able to fend for themselves, because of social class, should not be helped. He believed in laissez-faire policy which would leave these people on their own with no help the government. Our book quotes Spencer’s opinion on the policy as follows, “If [individuals] are sufficiently complete to live, they do live…If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best that they should die”. Granted this is an extreme view but it makes me really think if its completely wrong. On one hand I can see how this would be beneficial to society. By the government not taking care of some of these people, i.e. drug addicts, taxes many not be as high or those tax dollars would be going to something more beneficial like education instead of supporting these people’s drug habits. However on the other hand some people honestly need it and their situation may not be entirely their fault. Due to the way things have changed in the past few years it has been hard on many people to provide for themselves and their families, I don’t believe that those people should be punished for that. I personally believe that our government is suppose to help us to a certain extent but we should not completely rely on our government to hand us everything.