Why are we so emotional when we reply to threads?

I'm old to computers and the InterWebs, but new to A2K. I appreciate the thoughtful replies and see there is a good amount of wisdom here. But I do have concerns based around the truth of your comment, squinney. My concern is while there is a significant membership and a goodly amount of viewers (readers?)--so say the view numbers anyway-- the actual core seems quite small. This isn't necessarily bad, but it means that the core is tight. I know that when people come and go from the core it changes the make-up. Sometimes this works for the good of the group, and sometimes for the bad.

+ 1

So where do you fall in terms of Rene Descartes ideas about brains and minds? It helps to know this when answering your question, because some believe we're biological machines, and others believe we're spiritual beings living inside a biological host. For instance when one become flush from embarrassment the biologist is going to say it due to a complex biological process. Where as someone with a more holistic view is going to say there is an emotional (mental) biological interaction.

Here are some of the ideas that I support. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5QObhuLxso
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuwNfPca_Pw&feature=related

Very simple..

Most of us are ruled by emotion.
- by stress
- by megalomania
- by god complex
- by hate
- by love
- by group think
- by flock instinct
- by idiocy
- by psycosis
- by skitzophrenia
- by pride (religion, honor ..etc)

Yes I do think that you have the right answer

Some posters initiate direct and indirect personal attacks on others,
who feeling provoked, decide to teach the offender a lesson.





David

Why do you think that's best for them or you? Isn't there some worth in trying to work things out with people, or even "agreeing to disagree"?

No, it's quite unfinished, I have left it open for someone intelligent to challenge my postulation. If none can do so, I'll finish it at some later point in time.

If thats the case we may dead and gone because I think that we will continue to improve on our understanding of this subject for eternity

Rubbish, the basic algorithms are very simple, only the surficial preception changes.

I may finish my writings in 14 days or so.

Those videos present interesting concepts. I was talking to my graduate son, who has a degree in microbiology, about these same things. And while anecdotally we can know that a person’s personality changes and that cranial material gain or loss can be ascertained through scientific method, it isn’t possible to measure personality or soul or spirit. Thus it is necessary to use conjecture when talking about how much “you” is connected to brain tissue.

Anyway ... going back to the topic of this thread let me answer it using the concepts presented by Steven Pinker and Dr. Eagleman.

The simplest answer to the question presented by this thread is self preservation. Let me explain.

Let’s consider the facts from the point of view we are our brain. If we are our brain then any social deviance demonstrated by a person is evidence of a defective brain. Max Muller presented much the same thing. Based up Muller’s material 33,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized. From reading Muller’s material Hitler believed he was doing the world a favor by eliminating all those who he saw as less than perfect (Aryan). If one is to ascribe to Dr. Eagleman’s and Pinker’s view then you would have to admit Hitler’s goals to purify humanity was right and justified.

Obviously as Westerners born into a culture that is based on reductionist’s and materialist’s views we feel deeply the cost of being view as less than perfect. Because of this we each fight for our right to be right (Aryan if you will), since the cost of being wrong is equated with expendable. Thus the answer to your question from this point of view is that our emotional responses are a biological reaction born of self preservation developed via evolution.

Pronounce you seem to be very reasonable. and I do mean it.
I do have someting for you to consider though. You seem to me to be spiritaul and I very well may be wrong and I think that this does help me to see, "that is me, knowing that I could be wrong."

You seem to be what I would call reasonable when you gave your final answer. [ our emotional responses are a biological reaction born of self preservation developed via evolution.]

You mentioned that we are not able to measure personality or soul or spirit. I would say that is some what true if you are a spirtual person.
If we look at the personality part of your statement and we hypothetically place you as a friend of the person who had the tamping rod blasted thew his head and you knew this person and after the accident he was no longer the same person his mores seem to have changed would you reason that it was from some other thing? Maybe the devil made him do it?

One not need look further than lobotomy to see how personalities can be adjusted through brain trauma. I would guess that there is probably a good deal of evidence correlating personality to brain trauma. But how can we know how much soul, spirit, or you is associated with the physical body? I know of no scientific method for determining the quantity or quality of a person's soul. Because of this I believe science should make a clear delineation between the corporeal and non-corporeal human. Science is the study of nature as perceived by our senses, and should go no further.

So where science leaves off spiritualism picks up. From a spiritualistic perspective concerning Phineas Gage's accident and brain trauma could very well have left him vulnerable to demonic attack and possession. (This is pure conjecture at this point because I don't know enough about the case, and all I'm doing is providing another perspective on the topic.) But this belief by spiritualists is not without some type of empirical evidence. I could recite many spiritual events that I know, because the participants have described their experience to me. But even so the point can't truly be grasped until one experiences a spiritual event for themselves.

It isn't hard to find spiritual evidence, but there are some issues that have to be overcome to gain such knowledge. I'll list them here:

Suspend disbelief (skepticism will prevent the perception)
Don't have fear (if their is fear the spiritual event is very likely to be bad)
Prepare oneself with prayer (opening this part of ones being up allows for greater perception of spiritual things)
Seek peace (turmoil will cause the event to be diluted and hard to perceive)
Be open minded to new things (pretty much what it says)

The experience will be unique to each person. One odd example I know of concerns a 36 year old woman who was a hard core Hells Angels biker chick. One night while sleeping (around 2 a.m.) she heard a voice telling her to call a number. Twice she heard the voice and dismissed it as her imagination. By the third time she could not sleep and was greatly distressed. So she called the number and it was to a hotel room of a visiting evangelist that was in her country for a conference. She told him of the voice and that she was supposed to be baptized. He met with her at 3 a.m. that night and baptized her in the ocean. During the baptizing process she became violently ill and, as she told me, vomited many times as the demons left her. There is much more to the story, but my point is that for her there wasn't any conscious decision to one day be spiritual. It just came upon her unexpected and dramatically.

Just like Phineas Gage her personality changed in that event. Her husband hated her after that and repeatedly tried to kill her. He broke many of her bones over an eleven month period and sent her to the hospital multiple times. His comment to her was, "Can your savior save you from this?" In one of the last events he slit her throat and left her to die. She tells of how angels came to her and kept her alive until help came.

Since this thread I've been wondering if some people are spiritually dead and devoid of anything other than a body. I suppose it could be possible that some people are just biological robots. I don't know about that, but I know for others there is more than just biology to their lives.

Like I said Pronounce I think you are very reasonable.

Your quote [ From a spiritualistic perspective concerning Phineas Gage's accident and brain trauma could very well have left him vulnerable to demonic attack and possession]

You seem to suggest that brain trauma can change a persons spirituality from a god serving person to a demonic serving person. Is this correct or do I misunderstand you?

Very observant of you ossobuco. The said truth is english is my language and it is easily seen that my spelling and sentence structure are extremely poor.

The written word can be a very good way of conveying the writer's emotional state and beliefs, provided he or she writes qualitatively and quantitatively enough. And if he or she just "pretends" his emotions, eventually his or her true emotions will surface: nobody can hide forever, or perfectly.

I am trying to cut down on my time spent here. I prefer to communicate with my friends and reasonable people in that shortened time.

you are assuming that readers are more skilled at picking up mood and emotion than most posters here appear to be

Sarcasm's an emotion?