(September 21, 2012 at 6:52 am)Stimbo Wrote:

(September 21, 2012 at 3:56 am)Tobie Wrote: (which is very probable, given that there is extraterrestrial life, albeit only lichen, in our own solar system)

Is this true? If so, do you have anything I can look at? Not trying to be arsey, I'm genuinely interested in case there's some report I've not heard about; which, with the meds I'm on, wouldn't surprise me in the least.

I don't, sorry. I recall reading it in a book a while ago - it wasn't clear about whether it was only hypothetical or not, however. There was recently an experiment done that showed that lichen could survive in mars-like conditions.

I'm aware of experiments using extremophiles, though not lichens. The Martian atmosphere, being almost pure carbon dioxide, would probably be ideal conditions for plant life and would make seeding the planet with suitable lichen spores or whatever for the purposes of oxygenation a viable possibility. I would be surprised, in a nice way, if anything could be grown in the Martian soil, which to the best of my understanding is far too oxidised to sustain life (though having said that: http://www.space.com/12695-mars-soil-lif...study.html). We live in interesting times.

genkaus Wrote:That's my point. Is that "personal experience" a part of the cognitive faculties? Or is it the point where you analyze the experience that cognition comes in.

cog·ni·tion
Noun:
The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

I think, at least under this defintion, that most of personal experiences fall into this category. Emotions would probably at least one aspect of personal experience that would not be considered cognitive, but understanding and analyzing our emotions would be under cognitive faculties.

genkaus Wrote:Experience - pure experience - is not prima facie knowledge unless it has been processed and analyzed by our mind. The personal experience your theist felt was the result a complicated social situation and represented just a warm feeling and a presence. Using his cognitive faculties would have required him to analyze that experience. But he skipped that part and took it as the prima facie evidence of god.

I'm saying that when theists say that they feel the presence of god, they are not using their cognitive abilities. The feeling itself may very well be a result of their cognitive abilities - such as the subconscious processing the information - but since they didn't use their cognitive faculties and jumped straight to the conclusion, that is not where the fault lies.

I think the experience of god does fall under cognivitve, because under the defintion you provided cognition is knowledge gained through the senses. Any experience of god would need to be perceived, thus being filtered through the senses.

Even if the actual experience is not cognitive, I still see what the theist takes away from that experience as a failure of those cognitive abilites and not simply a failure to utilize them. Take for example the theist I mentioned before. He was actively asking people what a natural explanation for his experiences could have been, but when given different scenarios, he dismissed everything, choosing to believe it was god. I think most people, regardless of religious affiliation, will eventually consider the nature of their experiences, which is where, at the very least, they engage their cognitive faculties.

Lichen very often -are- extremophiles.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012EGUGA..14.2113D

(September 20, 2012 at 9:07 pm)Polaris Wrote: Only thing I don't believe in which I attribute to my beliefs is the possibility for alien life in the universe.

Hmmm.....

200 billion galaxies.

Each with 100 - 200 billion stars each.

2 in every 25 stars are class m (like the sun). That would be a minimum of 2 billion class M planets in our galaxy alone.

Stars with planets are the rule. The latest count of extrasolar planets is 838, just in our galactic neighborhood.

Amino acids, water, and other ingredients for life are abundant in the universe.

And you really believe that there is no other life in that immensity?

(September 21, 2012 at 8:42 am)Faith No More Wrote: I think, at least under this defintion, that most of personal experiences fall into this category.

I disagree. Personal experiences won't fall into these categories unless used to gain understanding or knowledge. Cognitive faculties are not only identified by description (referring to specific actions of the mind), but also through prescription (what those actions are to accomplish).

(September 21, 2012 at 8:42 am)Faith No More Wrote: Emotions would probably at least one aspect of personal experience that would not be considered cognitive, but understanding and analyzing our emotions would be under cognitive faculties.

But if the understanding and analysis is missing, would it still be under cognitive faculties.

(September 21, 2012 at 8:42 am)Faith No More Wrote: I think the experience of god does fall under cognivitve, because under the defintion you provided cognition is knowledge gained through the senses. Any experience of god would need to be perceived, thus being filtered through the senses.

But it's not an actual experience of god, is it? The theist is experiencing something. I'm saying that if he had used his cognitive faculties to analyze the situation, he'd have come to a different conclusion.

(September 21, 2012 at 8:42 am)Faith No More Wrote: Even if the actual experience is not cognitive, I still see what the theist takes away from that experience as a failure of those cognitive abilites and not simply a failure to utilize them. Take for example the theist I mentioned before. He was actively asking people what a natural explanation for his experiences could have been, but when given different scenarios, he dismissed everything, choosing to believe it was god. I think most people, regardless of religious affiliation, will eventually consider the nature of their experiences, which is where, at the very least, they engage their cognitive faculties.

I think we're going around in circles here. I'll try to state my case once more and you can point out where do you think I went wrong.

1. We have a constant stream of experience (perception) going into our minds. Sights, sounds, smells, feelings etc. This is just raw data that we get.

2. We then analyze and think about this experiences, once we are capable of it. We try to understand and categorize them.

3. Based on our memory and what we've already learned, this process can have different outcomes.
a) We can understand which category the particular experience falls into. We can then go on to understand the causal relationships with other experiences.
b) We can see that the content of our current experience is at odds with some of the concepts we already hold. Thus we can go on to question both the current experience and the ones that we hold.
c) We see that the current experience does not qualify for any of the known categories and put it in unknown or not-understood.

4. What we've experienced and analyzed then becomes a part of our body of knowledge.

The steps 2, 3 and 4 representing the body of our cognitive process. Now, this is how I see the process applied to theists you mentioned.

Scenario 1: Assume, a person A has never known the concept of god.

1. As per point 1 and 2, he has some novel experience and attempts to classify it.

2. As per point 3, since there are no existing categories, that experience is put into the category of unknown.

3. This could trigger another response in form of an emotion, such as the desire to know or the discomfort at not knowing.

4. This is the point at which, I think, there is a failure of application of the cognitive process. Instead of analyzing and trying to understand this new input, the person may instinctively create a new category. This category would not be from memory or existing knowledge and it can be given any name - god, angel, devil, karma etc.

5. Once that is done, the cognitive process kicks back in and the new category is then adorned with other attributes based on memory and existing knowledge, such as power, invisibility, greatness etc.

Scenario 2: A person B has never known of a concept of god and his cognitive faculties are not well-developed either. Such as a child.

Event 1: The person is taught the concept of god by another person, such as a parent or a teacher.

Event 2: The person has an experience that, due to undeveloped cognitive faculties, he cannot understand nor can he classify it as unknown.

These two events can take place in any order. And since the person's cognitive faculties are not developed, the existence of inexplicable experiences (for him) is not an issue.

1. Upon being taught the concept of god, the person accepts it at face value and creates the said category in his mind without understanding the concept itself. This is not a failure of cognitive faculties, bit simply the result of absence of them.

2. Later on, upon development, the cognitive faculties kick in and the inexplicable experiences, now or of the past, get classified into that category and he refers to the experience as experiencing god.

3. Upon experiencing something that contradicts the said category, he'd question and examine the experience (which is an application of cognitive process), but not question the existing "knowledge" (which is a failure to apply cognition).

I think that a combination of these two scenarios is often sufficient to explain why any type of theist believes in god. However, as I see it, the creation of that category is the result of failure to apply the cognitive process - by necessity or by choice - and not that of the process itself.

Retaining the category when there is no reason to question it, does not, in my opinion, indict the cognitive process itself. For example, compare the cognitive process to that of a computer. There is raw input data in both cases, there is processing based on the concepts that have been hard-coded and then there is the conclusion. Now, if the encoded software contains an error, that would lead to wrong conclusions, but the fault lies not with the process itself, since it was not involved in that particular input.

Well, I was going to argue that step number one in the process, the gathering of raw data, would be considered cognition, but after looking at your defintion...

Quote:cog·ni·tion
Noun:
The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

...the whole thing seems to hinge upon the 'and understanding' portion of the definition. I'd always considered cognition, perhaps wrongly, to be the acquiring of knowledge or understanding through throught, experience, and the senses. To me, gathering data fell under the defintion of cognition, but after looking through a few different defintions, it seems I was wrong on that front.

Also, I disagree that when a theist classifies an experience as god, that is a failure to use cognitive faculties. The act of classification puts it under cognition, regardless of whether it is the correct classification or not. I see this as a misuse of the cognitive faculties. Likewise, I think the mere act of classifying an experience as unknown would requiring engaging the cognitive falcuties, albeit a very tiny portion of those faculties. To me, it seems inevitable that as soon as we have any sort of experience, our brain is hardwired to classify that experience, thus utilizing cogntion.

(September 21, 2012 at 4:42 pm)Faith No More Wrote: To me, it seems inevitable that as soon as we have any sort of experience, our brain is hardwired to classify that experience, thus utilizing cognition.

(spelling correction in quote is mine)

To a degree, this seems reasonable, whether said cognition is conscious or not.

Cognition is of course not necessarily rational or free from bias or distortion, and does not guarantee an correct or coherent answer, even within the constraints of one's own assumptions.

From my perspective, it is less useful to consider whether cognition has occurred, but rather to consider what degree it is being influenced by bias, distortion, and irrationality, as well as how coherent it is with one's assumptions and other beliefs.

Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:(spelling correction in quote is mine)

Ugh...thanks. I don't have a goddamn real-time spellchecker on this browser. It's the only browser for the iPad that flash videos, which is why I continue to use it.

(September 21, 2012 at 4:42 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Also, I disagree that when a theist classifies an experience as god, that is a failure to use cognitive faculties. The act of classification puts it under cognition, regardless of whether it is the correct classification or not. I see this as a misuse of the cognitive faculties. Likewise, I think the mere act of classifying an experience as unknown would requiring engaging the cognitive falcuties, albeit a very tiny portion of those faculties. To me, it seems inevitable that as soon as we have any sort of experience, our brain is hardwired to classify that experience, thus utilizing cogntion.

That is sort of what I was saying: That while the classification of an experience as god is not a failure of using the cognitive facilities, the creation and integration of this category - which is required prior to the said classification, is. To put it in simpler terms, once you accept the concept of god as an all-powerful force deciding your fate, then, if yo attribute all experiences to god, you are using your cognitive faculties correctly. However, the error came before - at the point when you did accept such a concept. That was the point at which you failed to utilize cognition.

---

(September 21, 2012 at 4:54 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: To a degree, this seems reasonable, whether said cognition is conscious or not.

Cognition is of course not necessarily rational or free from bias or distortion, and does not guarantee an correct or coherent answer, even within the constraints of one's own assumptions.

From my perspective, it is less useful to consider whether cognition has occurred, but rather to consider what degree it is being influenced by bias, distortion, and irrationality, as well as how coherent it is with one's assumptions and other beliefs.

Interesting argument. Wouldn't the processes causing bias, distortion and irrationality be something other than cognition itself? In which case, is it the faculty of cognition itself to blame or is it an error caused in its development?

To elaborate, we all are born without any cognitive faculties. And from some point after that we start developing these faculties. But each development uses whatever has been acquired before it as a basis. . Thus, ultimately, there would be many concepts that have been accepted at either face value or because they were accepted on the basis of other concepts that were taken at face value. My position is that any bias or distortion is the result of this failure to apply the cognitive thinking towards some of the concepts that you have accepted as true. In which case, it is not the faculty itself that is inherently untrustworthy, but the errors made in its development which can be corrected for. That while it is true that cognition is not necessarily rational or free form bias or distortion, it can be made so by finding the cause of the said bias and correcting the cognitive process by reapplying it to the principles that caused it.