Freedomain Radio

http://www.newsweek.com/id/78178

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14761-voting-republican-may-be-a-survival-response.html

http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/09/10/brains-of-liberals-conservatives-may-work-differently/1691.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1196554/posts

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1828689/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11freedman.html

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2007/09/political-ideology-and-brain-function.ars

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102169531

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440575/

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070524_ideological_leaning.html

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/060124_political_decisions.html

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/the-unconscious-situation-of-our-consciousness-part-ii/

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=938223

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/11/09/the-situation-of-reason/

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/27/42/11170

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/11/15/the-unconscious-situation-of-our-consciousness-part-i/

The video:

Stef, a couple of questions:

1. I still experience a fear response when encountering ideologies contrary to my beliefs, I have trouble watching shows like Michael Moore's movie about "Capitalism", etc... I do have a lot of mecosystem conversations as of late where one part of me takes a socratic approach, ensuring clarification about what the other part of me is trying to say even though that part of me might disagree, and this has helped me to work through it, especially in handling internal conflicts and in fact even external ones. But I'm wondering if there are any exercises with these movies that you would suggest trying to work through that anxiety, given the point where I am at with this now.

2.  The conclusion at the end was quite shocking to me, but not surprising, if that makes any sense.  In other words, I know reason and evidence doesn't work to change any one's mind if they reject reason and evidence to cling in fear to their ideology. (did I get that right?)  Yet reason and evidence are what we know as philosophers to be vital in discovering what's true and what's false, including all the evidence used in this video.  So what would you suggest as an alternative to using reason and evidence when we encounter people who are afraid of opposing ideas? Or is that kind of not possible?

The Ernest Becker Foundation has a lot of great info on fear of death, and has been a major contributor to the new field of Terror Management Theory. Becker's book Denial of Death was groundbreaking in putting these issues in an understandable form for the average person.

It would be great if you could get someone like Sheldon Solomon to do an interview.

What happened at 24:54?

Stef,

I don't think I'm overlooking anything in saying that this is you most important video you've made. Thank you SO much for going through all of the research with the experts in the field to SHOW people the truth behind applying UPB to all people including children. Obviously, to try to appeal to people's reason, through logical argument, that they are too traumatized to accept logical argument would be a contradiction, but by being empirical you definitely stand a chance at really motivating people to get into therapy.

Also, I think its incredible that you've been able to do all of this very important work while raising Isabella. That's an incredible achievement. I really admire your committment to the truth my friend!

-Phil

This is a fantastic video.

This video is a masterpiece! Actual science to shine more light on what we're trying to achieve. It makes soo much soo much more clear to me about the processes taking place in the mind and human interaction. It really takes a good hard swing at this idea of politics and religion is a choice bullsh't. Possible knocking it out for good but I'm not sure yet about that. Just WOOOAUUUAAAAAUUUUUUWWW. Beautiful amazing video.

Excellent work Stefan.

What the conscious mind may claim is empirical evidence, may not be at all. Some people, perhaps many see (perceive) what they want to see. Oblivious to what their brain has blocked them from consciously perceiving/be aware of.

Learning how to program or train the subconscious mind to do ones bidding is imperative. To instruct the subconscious to use incoming information to best benefit the desire of the conscious mind. A person must be careful in what he and she desires.

For example, is it any wonder that when I tell myself, I'll probably forget to unplug the coffee maker before leaving on vacation, that I forget to unplug the coffee maker.

Anyhow, leaving aside the small category of people that welcome physical and or mental abuse, regarding empirical evidence that is self-referential in relation to the non-initiation of force principle, aside from masochists, people don't want to be abused. This is not ideological.

As well, most people will reject initiation of force against other people. They don't want other people to be abused -- for the most part, anyways. This is when/where ideology may creep in.

I think only an insane person would say: "You may abuse me."

My law/contract saying that you can't abuse me trumps your law/contract that says you can abuse me. My law/contract that says you can't abuse me trumps your law/contract that says you can abuse me because you have been instructed/hired/elected by another person to abuse me.

Unfortunately, a piece of paper won't stop bullets.

To abuse me is to make me your slave. To coerce me is enticement to involuntary servitude.

But you use reason and evidences in your video about why evidences and reasons don`t work.

Incredible video!

This is a great finale to the BiB series!

I so remember when I first got to FDR how I asked why "we" aren't sick, too. Now I at least understand the biological basis for why that is.

This really helps me to feel authentic empathy and sympathy for the deranged around us and take a cooler attitude thereto. And since this apparently is from cutting edge research in neurobiology I wonder how long it will take to get into the educational and therapeutic mainstreams.

Hey Stef, great video!

I had a negative emotional reaction to one of your sources, however: http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/the-unconscious-situation-of-our-consciousness-part-ii/

I read the article, and I don't have a problem with the idea of people wrongly attributing an action or event to their will.  Many of the experiments seem to demonstrate this.  But the first experiment mentioned, where the readiness potential (RP) of moving a finger is measured and compared to when a subject reports that they have decided to move their finger, seems poorly constructed, and I think the implications of the experiment are much farther reaching than the authors seem to suggest.

My understanding is that there was no priming or external manipulation of any kind in this particular experiment to influence the individuals' perception of their will.  So if this experiment were valid, it seems that it would imply that all of our actions are not actually willed by us, which is a much stronger claim than that people often think they have willed actions that they have in fact not.  For this reason, I think it is important to point out what I think are this experiment's flaws.

My main criticism is that they are relying on the subjects verbally expressing when they have made the decision to move their finger, and they are claiming that the moment that the subject reports this decision is the moment that the subject experiences having made the decision.  I believe this contradicts their observation that there is a 0.5 second delay between the RP onsetting and the subject's finger actually moving.  Speaking is an action in itself and if we assume that there is a similar delay for speaking, then the RP for saying "I decided to lift my finger" should have actually onset before the RP for moving the finger, which would imply that the subject experienced having made the decision before the RP for moving the finger onset.  This contradicts their conclusions.

I imagine that the two RPs could overlap and there could be different delays for different types of actions, so that greatly complicates measuring them.  This experiment does not prove that the subjects did not will their fingers to move because when the subjects experience making the decision could be at precisely the same moment that the RP onsets, there is simply a delay between them making the decision and them reporting it.  It only shows that there is a delay between deciding and acting.

What do you think?  Or am I guilty of trying to rationalize my biases