48 replies to this topic

[Junk Master]

Not to get off topic with the religion thing but I thought you'd find this functional neuroimaging study abstract interesting--

"Abstract
The commonsense view of religious experience is that it is a preconceptual, immediate affective event. Work in philosophy and
psychology, however, suggest that religious experience is an attributional cognitive phenomenon. Here the neural correlates of a
religious experience are investigated using functional neuroimaging. During religious recitation, self-identi®ed religious subjects
activated a frontal±parietal circuit, composed of the dorsolateral prefrontal, dorsomedial frontal and medial parietal cortex. Prior
studies indicate that these areas play a profound role in sustaining re¯exive evaluation of thought. Thus, religious experience
may be a cognitive process which, nonetheless, feels immediate."

[TheFountain]

Not to get off topic with the religion thing but I thought you'd find this functional neuroimaging study abstract interesting--

"Abstract
The commonsense view of religious experience is that it is a preconceptual, immediate affective event. Work in philosophy and
psychology, however, suggest that religious experience is an attributional cognitive phenomenon. Here the neural correlates of a
religious experience are investigated using functional neuroimaging. During religious recitation, self-identi®ed religious subjects
activated a frontal±parietal circuit, composed of the dorsolateral prefrontal, dorsomedial frontal and medial parietal cortex. Prior
studies indicate that these areas play a profound role in sustaining re¯exive evaluation of thought. Thus, religious experience
may be a cognitive process which, nonetheless, feels immediate."

Or maybe certain thought processes are inexplicable?

It seems that this attempt to localize these to a specific area of the brain is yet another in an endless stream of attempts to objectify the subjective.

Is what was witnessed in these neuroimaging scans the cause or the effect? If it was the effect then the 'cause' remains unknown, an antecedent of the neurological result (activation of specific circuits/transmitters).

Like I said before I think religion is just a perversion of the subjective factor. To go into greater detail about the subjective factor:

1-It is the part of the mind that makes "personalized sense" of sensory objects so that a slight degree of variation exists between individuals processing the experience of said objects.

2-The part of the mind that experiences "primordial images". Or what Jung defined as universal archetypes that need no apparent external correlative to function, but simply enter the consciousness by way of the unconscious field of reality or what he called "the collective unconscious".

So the subjective factor has aspects which both are dependent and independent of external objects for perceptual cognition.

This is likely the seat of "spiritual experience". But since human beings have a tendency to base judgments on fear, those fears are often then morphed into a series of organized forms of expression meant to be "shared with the public". This latter actually perverts the purpose of the experience, since it was apparently meant to be personal, not collective. Could this be why organized religions give birth to prejudice and attempts at outer control of everything? Because they are misusing a very real subjective experience that is being artificially collectivized in an attempt to make other's experience a personal truth vicariously?

[Raza]

Subjective experience doesn't require dualism and mystique. Its relevance to explaining and respecting life and behaviour isn't lessened by reducing it to its physical, objective mechanisms, piece by piece as we can manage. On the contrary, the more we manage to explain it, the better we'll know how to benefit from it.

Organized religions give birth to prejudices and controlling social mechanisms because they're groups of people sharing a (by them) valued characteristic. Humans tend to get self-important and unsympathetic to outsiders when they clump together too much, organized religiously or ideologically - even when there isn't anything wrong with their unifying message.

Edited by Raza, 21 June 2012 - 01:40 PM.

[Junk Master]

Nice Raza. Lots of psychology showing the more fearful, and pessimistic people are about the future, the less tolerant they are of different ideologies.

We're way off the anxiety topic now, but I've always been interested in evolutionary theories explaining solitary, transcendant, religious experiences.

[TheFountain]

Subjective experience doesn't require dualism and mystique. Its relevance to explaining and respecting life and behaviour isn't lessened by reducing it to its physical, objective mechanisms, piece by piece as we can manage. On the contrary, the more we manage to explain it, the better we'll know how to benefit from it.

Organized religions give birth to prejudices and controlling social mechanisms because they're groups of people sharing a (by them) valued characteristic. Humans tend to get self-important and unsympathetic to outsiders when they clump together too much, organized religiously or ideologically - even when there isn't anything wrong with their unifying message.

The cause and effect is more like this. "We have a subjective function, thus we have spiritual experience through out history, which in some cases has been malformed into organized religious cults". All i'm saying with certainty is that subjective experiencing is absolutely indispensable for complete individuality, for some of us. Other's might do absolutely fine with the irrevocable extraverted model. And as such these subjective experiences cannot always be collectively determinable, and why should they be? That is how religions start, by trying to collectivize one or two peoples subjective experiences. Jesus might have been a real person, he might have had real subjectively determined inner experiences. But they became perverted and collectivized, thus formed into an organized religion that has misplaced the subjective function in the collective sphere, where it does not really belong to that degree. I would say that the closest thing to an organized subjective experience would be art. Particularly abstract art. It's also a lot more civilized and realistic to express these experiences this way than through the artifice of religion. Does it make them less real? Perhaps only if you view life through the unforgiving veil of material objects.

Edited by TheFountain, 21 June 2012 - 02:46 PM.

[Raptor87]

Well no wonder that mental problems are increasing

What´s more bothersome with this is....

Is it possible to be objective while doing an intellectual analys of something? Opinions formed through a fear state might make people a little bit judgemental, hehe.

And also if this is true, aren´t we creating a worldview through science and forgetting the human to human relation, meaning that we are objectifying ourselves and our relations and thus forgetting basic human behaviour? Which is needed if we wan´t to function on a social level!

Paradoxically I have noticed that trying to objectify everything is what leads to greater anxiety. Learning biology entails a high degree of objective thinking. This makes one hyper-aware of anatomical processes which can enhance the sense of fragility. I think the 'subjective factor' as Jung called it is necessitated for this very reason. We have to encourage subjective experience just as much as objective attainment of knowledge. I don't think a complete process of individuation is possible any other way.

I don´t see how the things relate, you are not talking about abstractions and generalisations here are you?

[TheFountain]

Well no wonder that mental problems are increasing

What´s more bothersome with this is....

Is it possible to be objective while doing an intellectual analys of something? Opinions formed through a fear state might make people a little bit judgemental, hehe.

And also if this is true, aren´t we creating a worldview through science and forgetting the human to human relation, meaning that we are objectifying ourselves and our relations and thus forgetting basic human behaviour? Which is needed if we wan´t to function on a social level!

Paradoxically I have noticed that trying to objectify everything is what leads to greater anxiety. Learning biology entails a high degree of objective thinking. This makes one hyper-aware of anatomical processes which can enhance the sense of fragility. I think the 'subjective factor' as Jung called it is necessitated for this very reason. We have to encourage subjective experience just as much as objective attainment of knowledge. I don't think a complete process of individuation is possible any other way.

I don´t see how the things relate, you are not talking about abstractions and generalisations here are you?

Are you calling the subjective factor an abstraction? Are you an individual? Do you have thoughts which bypass objective determinants? Dreams which are not necessarily determined by daily events? Artistic interests which defy logic? I fail to see how any of this is an 'abstraction'. Especially where there is emotion and meaning involved.

[baden-baden]

http://www.frontiers....00008/abstract
http://psych.wisc.ed...Li_CSP_2012.pdf

+ Seems to be linked with Adenosin receptors A1R and A2AR (mostly A2AR). Indeed a theory is : anxiety lowers A2AR, lowering A2AR implies higher neuronal activities, more hippocampus choline consumptions, etc. thus higher cognitive functions... unfortunately I haven't right here the studies; maybe there's no studies on this specific matter. This theory is just a correlative idea, along with the reading of this other study: http://www.plosone.o...al.pone.0021899

I have written some items on the very subject, but, for now it's only in french:

http://amplicog.fr/2...plus-longtemps/
http://amplicog.fr/2...t-intellectuel/
http://amplicog.fr/2...tement-lodorat/

I'll try to translate it in the coming weeks.

I'm also really wondering what kind of "bizarre" link there could be between BDNF and A1R/A2AR... and stress. Because lowering stress seems to augment the BDNF levels, and thus augmenting cognition... and with this anxiety thing I found the contrary (stress enhancing cognition...).

Edited by baden-baden, 27 June 2012 - 08:37 PM.

[Brafarality]

I want to say there is no correlation, but I am not sure. I want to think I have little anxiety, but that is probably more wishful thinking than reality. I find the very thought of the correlation disagreeable, but that does not make it untrue. And, not sure about anyone else, but I think an ocean separates IQ and imagination, and since I could care less about IQ without imagination, my speculations may be poorly formed and not charged with the right amount of emotional bias. Bobby Fisher may have a profoundly high IQ, but he is essentially rubbish from the point of view of originality, imagination and creativity. He could probably beat Van Gogh on every IQ test ever devised but is not 1/100000000000 the genius that Van Gogh is. Same for the most pathetic of creatures, Marilyn Vos Savant. I have yet to see someone more useless. Could probably beat Beethoven, Melville, Whitman, Shakespeare, Cezanne, Renoir, Eliot and Wordsworth on any IQ test, which should indicate how little IQ tests are worth.
Therefore, after a long tirade, I apologize and say that unless the topic was meant for the great original minds of history, then it is not one on which I have an opinion. Just my rephrased perspective.

Edited by Brafarality, 28 June 2012 - 02:53 AM.

[hippocampus]

IQ does correlate with creativity up to IQ of 120, but after that it doesn't correlate anymore. so, there is some connection, but it's complicated.

sth like this:


source: http://megasociety.o...49/iq&pear.html

[Brafarality]

IQ does correlate with creativity up to IQ of 120, but after that it doesn't correlate anymore. so, there is some connection, but it's complicated.

sth like this:


source: http://megasociety.o...49/iq&pear.html

Thanks for this link. Wow, that high IQ society is out to prove in any way it can that they can be pinnacle minds while still having high IQs. There is an anxiety over being too smart to be creative that they are very aware of, and it taps into the folk wisdom of the 120 IQ threshold, which I believe is set lower.

And, they purposefully exclude creativity in supposedly non-intellectually demanding fields, such as music and art, since that would result in almost no correlation whatsoever between creativity and IQ if IQ is above 105, or something like that.

I am a member of one of these pathetic super high IQ societies but am too ashamed to admit which one and think it a great stain on my self esteem that I had to boost my then-flagging esteem by joining such vileness. They almost make my skin crawl and make me want to cringe with disgust.

Of course, YOU have nothing to do with any of this! You just posted a link! Dont want to seem personal.

Maybe because you simply need a minimum IQ to learn certain fields, there is a correlation between being in the field at all and IQ, but not between creative accomplishment and IQ within that field. Otherwise, there is no evidence whatsoever that there is any link between IQ and creativity, provided the minimum intelligence is there to learn or be a part of a field/genre/artform at all.

[Raptor87]

http://www.plosone.o...al.pone.0034244

[Major Legend]

I believe the model may be psychological more than physiologial. It make sense for people with better cognitive ability to be more prone to develop anxieties via negative thoughts, thus generating a high degree of possible negative outcomes within their perception, but on the other hand they would also be more prone to achieving greatness than normal people, at least on an purely intellectual level.

I believe some forms of intelligence is useful for improving social behaviour, thus improving confidence and lessening anxiety, whilst other forms of intelligence seems detrimental to socialising, thus generating anxiety.

It is also equally possible that there is a space of cognitive ability between above average and extremely intelligent/crazy where cognitive ability is high enough to give confidence to the performer being able to stay one step ahead of the environment of people, but not so intelligent that it becomes debilitating.

I believe most of the anxiety types, lie in the above average scenario, because its enough cognitive ability to get you thinking, but not enough that you can solve or recall solution to problems fast enough to not have anxiety about it. Make sense?

Edit: and that intelligence has many different forms and types, and some arguably can be learned. visual creativity is different from audio creativity and different from linguistic talents, iq is different from photographic memory and so on and so forth.

Edited by Major Legend, 09 September 2012 - 08:39 PM.

[Raza]

This is a pointless discussion. Intelligence is not a single variable in the mechanics of the brain; even derived values like working memory or situational learning ability are measurable only because we defined them first. "Intelligence" would have to be some sort of average of a whole lot of different practical mental abilities, and cannot be said to cause anything in the internal workings of the brain.

Some real neurological variables that contribute to intelligence will almost certainly contribute, directly or indirectly, to anxiety. Others will directly or indirectly contribute to confidence and calm. The two certainly can and do exist independently of each other. You really have to get a lot more specific for this question to become meaningful.

Edited by Raza, 09 September 2012 - 08:52 PM.

[ScientiaPotentiaEst]

Interesting topic. I've been a "visual thinker" all of my life. When talking to people formally and informally, I always imagine the words and the sentences. If that makes any sense. Anywho, I've been having anxiety issues for the past couple of months or so. The weird thing is, it started when I hadn't been drinking alcohol for a while (about 4 -5 months). I know ethanol is a depressant and toys around with GABA but I'm a bit afraid to correlate the two.
Any thoughts on this?

tl;dr Can alcohol decrease anxiety and therefore decrease the deficit of potential intelligence caused by extreme self-criticism?

[Major Legend]

Highly probable, but the withdrawal should start immedietely not 4 5 months down the line unless youve develop a habit of anxiety due to not having alchohol as a anxiolytic. Alchohol is bad for you anyways you could look at taurine, gaba or picamilon.

And no your intelligence isnt improve on alchohol for sure! But it makes you less inhibited giving you the illusion of flow.

[ScientiaPotentiaEst]

The thing is I wasn't really a heavy drinker. I used to drink 1- 2 times a week, about 3-4 beers per session. Shouldn't that lower 'exposure' lower the withdrawal or at least make it less noticeable? It's bad if taken excessively but in moderation I think it might be beneficial but as we all know no study has conclusively shown said benefits. I will look into those 3 substances. Thank you.

Here's the thing about that. I have PTSD. It inhibits my confidence which in turn inhibits my intelligence or so I have felt it to be. Intelligence getting suffocated by the piles of doubts. When I used to drink it boosted my confidence and those piles of doubt were gone. Which made room for intelligence (but not at peak ofcourse as I'm intoxicated).

[Hologram]

It makes sense that more intelligent people would spend more time thinking about the meaning (or lack of it) of life and their own mortality, and be more prone to existential depression/anxiety. The dumb have the opiates of religion and popular culture.

I drive myself insane over this.

[Raptor87]

http://www.telegraph...-higher-IQ.html