Google

Monday, July 14, 2008

My experiences point to truth but yours are classic examples of brain rot?

The one-way-only skeptics at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst New York assure us that they know why other people have spiritual experiences:
Amherst, New York (July 11, 2008)The very same processes that enable our brain to be so dramatically successful are frequently the same ones that lead us into error. Epilepsy, drugs, damage, and stresses can cause the brain to function in ways that lead people to believe they have experienced or witnessed something supernatural or paranormal. But although dramatic errors and anomalies of experience often result from the malfunctioning brain, many cognitive errors and illusions occur when the brain is functioning normally. Join us for The Skeptic’s Toolbox 2008, where we will explore the ways in which the normally and the abnormally functioning brain can lead us astray and create cognitive illusions.
It would be just as easy to show that one-way-only materialist skepticism is an illusion caused by a glitch in the brain. If the materialists were right, they could never know they were because their brains are supposedly kludges.

Mario and I debunk a whole whack of this stuff in The Spiritual Brain. It was the funniest part of the book, as I explained shortly after turning in the manuscript.

See also:

"So you don't stick to your goals? Blame your kludgebrain - or maybe not?"

Evolutionary Psychology: Eliot Spitzer is a kludgebrain! psychologist opines (but so are we all)

Labels: ,