An interesting neurobiological theory about how some people experience God 
The God Effect
- Thread starter Woody
- Start date
What do you think of it?
superluminal said:
This neuroscientist is right on target.
Being an electrical engineer, you are familiar with reactive power and imaginary numbers. Perhaps I can create an analogy that helps explain the God effect to you:
The human mind has an "apparant presense" that is evoked when the language center talks to the emotion center in the human brain. The conversation creates an "apparant presense" that can seem very real to the individual. It's as real as any other experience. Whether God is "really in there" could only be in the experience of the believer as the article explains.
The emotion center has negative and positive feelings. The God effect is a way to "hardwire" the positive feelings to the speech center.
The God effect is real to anyone that experiences it. By reorganizing the way the brain thinks, the mind can turn terrible experiences into good experiences, awful thoughts into good thoughts, etc. If the intensity is increased it can throw the mind out of balance and create "apparant spiritual visions." There are external physical and perhaps internal chemical phenomena that are proposed to evoke this phenomena.
The brain operates on electrical charge, and the earth's magnetic field can influence the thought process. Just as "imaginary numbers" and "reactive power" are used to balance sinusoidal electric current flow, the God effect balances the equation in the human mind with respect to emotion and language.
My assessment:
As a theory, Jesus, is a very real person that had the God effect perfected. With the exception of his miracles, it could naturally explain why he would go to the cross and die for humanity. His followers could likewise be influenced to the point of having visions. Charisma influences the effect, and Jesus was apparantly the most charismatic person that lived. Whether you or I believe he is/was indeed God, is a personal choice. The God effect is real to the person that experiences it. The "God inside" is debatable.
As I said before, the reason I came to Christ is because of anxiety about being unprepared for death. His example, whether real or illusionary, conquers death in the mind of the believer. This is an awesome and liberating experience in the mind of the believer. Used correctly, the God effect can have a huge positive impact on a person's life and on the people around them.
Church-going keeps the synaptic channels in proper working order by providing a regular feedback between the brain lobes.
I find it pretty incredible that old-time primitives from thousands of years ago could figure it all out. The science community apparantly has a long way to go on this phenomena.
Atheism is a roadblock to understanding it. The "God effect" is real in the mind of the believer - it has explainable evolutionary origins in the field of cognizance - and it is healthy when used properly.
Well, thanks for that Woody. I already understood the article pretty well. My main interest was in your take on it.
You are a very strange one.
So, from this I take it you don't believe in an actual god then? That you just accept the neurological foundation of the "god effect" and jesus as an inspiring example of such?
You are a very strange one.
So, from this I take it you don't believe in an actual god then? That you just accept the neurological foundation of the "god effect" and jesus as an inspiring example of such?
superluminal said:
It can be taken two ways, and gets down to the core of existence. What is real? This universe which will someday pass away to nothingness and no longer exist -- is it real? You can say it is real now. Someday it will not be real.
Or could logos transcend all reality into a universe that has no beginning or end? I believe that it does. This is a form of rationality that is greater than science. Science obeys logos. Logos allows you to understand that you exist now.
And what rules would there be for such a place? The rules or laws in effect must allow logos to exist. These "house rules" must contain absolute truth in order to function. Lies kill logos. Many things we think and do as humans would not pass in such a place.
Logos defined from the wiki:
As a christian I believe that Jesus is the embodiment of logos. Other christians believe the same. "The word was made flesh and dwelt among us."
Logos is the word. Man is made in the image of logos, hence the left side of our brain speaks.
Is this exclusive to Jesus? Many people (even undesirables) can inspire feelings which make people feel good and have 'visions'.
Wrong. Jimi Hendrix is :m:
Of course it is real to that person. The way delusion works is that it is very real to the person who holds the delusion, but observers can perhaps make a better judgement. Jihadist's have the same feeling you do, but I think you would agree that they are delusional, which raises questions about you and wether or not you have a delusion, Woody.
In other words you needed a delusion to hide the undesireable parts of life? Some people find great comfort in the acceptance of reality. I don't exactly look forward to dieing, but death itself is a positive thing. Nobody wants to live forever even if they think they do... Forever is a long time that would drive any man insane.
Why would science be interested in emotional highs? If you mean followers of science, then I think you're being arrogant in assuming followers of science have something important missing from their lives.
You think evangelicals 'fainting' when some nutjob puts their hand on their head and shouts "PRAISE GOD!" is somehow a high state of being that any atheist could not achieve? Come on! I would argue that free thought is more important than childish delusions, and that the universe through the eyes of an atheist is a much more interesting and detailed place.
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Hmm. You are clearly getting into a philosophical realm that can ultimately yield only suppositions. What I take from your response is that you believe "god" could be an underlying principle of the universe that transcends reality as we percieve it. And that it manifests itself in humans as (possibly) the "god effect". And that jesus was maximally endowed with an ability to percieve this underlying principle. Did I get that mostly right?Woody said:
W said:
KC said:
W says:
Jimi is my favorite rock guitarist and always has been. I play guitar. He's no where close to Jesus -- lets' see how Jimi fares 2000 years from now. The only visions Jimi created came from LSD. Jesus was so charismatic that he convinced people he was still alive even after he was dead.
Sometimes I have a difficult time drawing the line on reality, because we as humans proudly declare reality to be our perception of it, and this stands in the way. You can say science defines reality, and it does for all things under it's domain - unfortunately science does not explain logos, rather logos explains science. Logos is reality, and science is our perception of reality.
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Woody said:
KC says:
W says:
You really need to study the references I gave you. It is not delusional, and actually an advanced form of cognizance linked to the human speech process. Animals can not experience the God effect.
As for the Jihadist's, I have already posted a thread on that-- check it out. The process is rational but the ethics are questionable. I'm sorry, but this is how the human mind works, like it or not. The same power can be used or misused.
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W said:
to which KC responded:
Woody says:
What is reality? Before the big bang, what was reality? After the universe collapses, what will reality be? Somebody in the "next universe" could say there was an internet with sciforums and a guy named KC. Everyone else in the next universe would say, "That's a delusion - nobody can know that." So to someone that doesn't know you exist, you are just a delusion. Logos is the ultimate reality, it exists whether we do or not, it defines the laws of science, the big bang, and everything else that ever was or will be. The only remaining question -- is logos a person or a thing?
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Woody said:
KC says:
W says:
Scientists are studying the phenomena. It is called cognizance, not arrogance, and it will probably be the ultimate breakthrough for artificial intelligence -- realizing what cognizance is and how it works. It doesn't say you have to believe in God, but it explains the evolutionary underpinnings that link speech with emotions, which provide the "religious perspective" that some of us humans have. Without emotion you become just a machine -- good luck finding a mate.
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W said:
KC says:
You say it is "nuts" and it makes you sound uneducated. It's like the person that says chemical imbalance is insanity -- a person that makes this claim is woefully inadequate in their understanding.
You also call it childish delusions, but the "delusions" are provided by grown ups, not children. All the religious patriarchs had some age on them. I think you are deluding yourself. It is advanced cognition at work, not the mindset of a 3 year old, not insanity, not a disease. Nobody is saying you have to believe in God. The effect is real, but is the cause God or just the human mind? Even if it is just the human mind, it doesn't prove or disprove god.
I think you will understand it better if you read about it instead of being cynical.
KC said:
W says:
Jimi is my favorite rock guitarist and always has been. I play guitar. He's no where close to Jesus -- lets' see how Jimi fares 2000 years from now. The only visions Jimi created came from LSD. Jesus was so charismatic that he convinced people he was still alive even after he was dead.
Sometimes I have a difficult time drawing the line on reality, because we as humans proudly declare reality to be our perception of it, and this stands in the way. You can say science defines reality, and it does for all things under it's domain - unfortunately science does not explain logos, rather logos explains science. Logos is reality, and science is our perception of reality.
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Woody said:
KC says:
W says:
You really need to study the references I gave you. It is not delusional, and actually an advanced form of cognizance linked to the human speech process. Animals can not experience the God effect.
As for the Jihadist's, I have already posted a thread on that-- check it out. The process is rational but the ethics are questionable. I'm sorry, but this is how the human mind works, like it or not. The same power can be used or misused.
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W said:
to which KC responded:
Woody says:
What is reality? Before the big bang, what was reality? After the universe collapses, what will reality be? Somebody in the "next universe" could say there was an internet with sciforums and a guy named KC. Everyone else in the next universe would say, "That's a delusion - nobody can know that." So to someone that doesn't know you exist, you are just a delusion. Logos is the ultimate reality, it exists whether we do or not, it defines the laws of science, the big bang, and everything else that ever was or will be. The only remaining question -- is logos a person or a thing?
----------------------------------------------------
Woody said:
KC says:
W says:
Scientists are studying the phenomena. It is called cognizance, not arrogance, and it will probably be the ultimate breakthrough for artificial intelligence -- realizing what cognizance is and how it works. It doesn't say you have to believe in God, but it explains the evolutionary underpinnings that link speech with emotions, which provide the "religious perspective" that some of us humans have. Without emotion you become just a machine -- good luck finding a mate.
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W said:
KC says:
You say it is "nuts" and it makes you sound uneducated. It's like the person that says chemical imbalance is insanity -- a person that makes this claim is woefully inadequate in their understanding.
You also call it childish delusions, but the "delusions" are provided by grown ups, not children. All the religious patriarchs had some age on them. I think you are deluding yourself. It is advanced cognition at work, not the mindset of a 3 year old, not insanity, not a disease. Nobody is saying you have to believe in God. The effect is real, but is the cause God or just the human mind? Even if it is just the human mind, it doesn't prove or disprove god.
I think you will understand it better if you read about it instead of being cynical.
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superluminal said:
Yes, but in addition to that I believe that Jesus either performed miracles and/or controlled human minds to the point that people actually thought they saw miracles being performed. If his charisma was that powerful then it borders on what we would call supernatural and tends to indicate he is God regardless of the miracles.
If Jesus is the ultimate embodiment of logos then he could possibly have the power to define his own rules. Logos had the power to create science, so it is possible that logos can overule science if it has volition just as we have volition. So is logos a machine with no volition or is it life as we are? In addition can logos think like we think -- is it cognizant? Logos allows us to understand life and death, does logos have the same understanding? It is hard for me to imagine logos as something inanimate.
The question to me -- does logos even care about humans? I take Jesus' word for it, and his example to show that logos is a thinking and feeling entity just as we are.
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Well, you clearly have taken this quite far in your own mind. It's an interesting theory, but is there any evidence for this, or is it just more human philosophising. I think it's just that. Why do you give such strong weight to such a thing?
superluminal said:
Science is a product of philosophy. You are looking for answers with the wrong paradigm. You are looking for scientific evidence, and as I explained before -- science doesn't govern logic. However logic determines how the laws of science will govern. Don't get me wrong, science is a great thing, but science and the universe it governs haven't always been here.
So I ask you-- is logic real or is it just a human mental process? We use logic to evaluate and understand our universe which existed long before humans had the ability to think. Is this an irrational thing for us to be doing? Is logic just a vain imagination?
Because I realize I exist. Cognizance is reality to the human mind.