Feeling Something Is True Is Not an Argument for Something Being True

Everyone has their own unique upbringing filled with distinctive experiences. These pivotal events lay the foundation to how we will relate to the world and the information we receive from it. I doubt many would argue with the notion that our personalities and behaviors are shaped by our experiences. It’s rather easy to overlook our past history’s influence on us and forget how deceptively powerful they can be. Perhaps it is due to our brain’s ability to mask its own limitations by bridging the gaps between any perceived inefficiencies. Or in other words, we can’t see the gaps found at the end of our cognitive limitations because part of what our brain does is hide these from our conscience mind so that we experience reality more smoothly.

There are so many things that the brain is doing that we are not aware of most of the time. For instance, our hearts beat and our body temperature stayed regulated without any conscience effort. Well, it appears that our ideas and beliefs might also arise in a similar fashion, starting deep from within an inaccessible place of our minds that we are not aware of until it reaches a certain level into our consciousness.

Our emotions are no exception to this notion either. Usually, we do not think of our feeling of certainty, or our feeling of being right, as an emotion. However, I have come across more recent discoveries made through research being done in this area of brain science that has shifted my view to consider the feeling of “knowing” to be classified more as an emotion. Even just philosophically, this is a fun conversation to have and ponder upon. But, when boiled down to the bones, it all comes back to describing a feeling. A feeling like an emotional state of being, or you know, like an emotion. So, like with the other examples of how things enter into our consciousness, the feeling of “rightness” begins with a process in the brain that we do not consciously initiate. I can even vividly recall experiencing this feeling in certain instances of my dreams where nothing makes sense but know what I’m supposed to do or where I’m supposed to be. This might also lend some insight into feelings of déjà vu. Our brains might just be interpreting a situation as being familiar and produce the feeling of familiarity without our conscience awareness, sort of like knowing without knowing. Some people who have damaged parts of the brain that are needed for functioning properly lose their ability to experience any sort of feeling of certainty. Think of that for a second. These people report to recognize that everything about a person, place or thing to be identical to something they used to know like a person they are married to or even their own children, but without the feeling of certainty they insist these things to be imposters. So, sometimes our feelings of being right can obviously throw us off from time to time.     

Now, it might seem obvious that our feelings of something being true are not arguments or good explanations to support something being true. Like saying something is right because it feels right. Just think of all the instances in which people can’t explain what they saw, but still protest they know what they saw. These are some reasons why we should be cautious of individuals that operate with no shadow of a doubt, making claims of absolute knowledge or absolute certainty about anything. In many circumstances, this feeling can act as an obstacle to the process of expanding our understanding and acquiring new knowledge.

The inspiration for this train of thought came from something I read in Carl Sagan’s, The Demon-Haunted World. This all comes back to why understanding the inquiry process of science is so important to EVERYONE in ANY field.

     

"Science is different from many another human enterprise — not, of course, in its practitioners being influenced by the culture they grew up in, nor in sometimes being right and sometimes wrong (which are common to every human activity), but in its passion for framing testable hypotheses, in its search for definitive experiments that confirm or deny ideas, in the vigor of its substantive debate, and in its willingness to abandon ideas that have been found wanting. If we were not aware of our own limitations, though, if we were not seeking further data, if we were unwilling to perform controlled experiments, if we did not respect the evidence, we would have very little leverage in our quest for the truth." (Sagan 1997)

     


Reference:

Sagan, Carl. 1997. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Antiscience. (pg 263). Ballantine Books.

The Rain Dance: Myth and Truth

Culture has the remarkable ability of influencing our perspectives of things without us even being aware of it. Some things get engrained into our minds during our childhood that we simply do not ever think to question.  Sometimes we assume things that are a part of our popular culture are true, but rarely ever look into them for ourselves. Some things are so old that we assume they have always been there. Introduce the notion that some things are also to be considered as sacred, and therefore questioning them is considered to be an act of disrespect that is often discouraged by shaming, and you have the recipe for conjuring up a belief that can go on to take on a life of its' own because when the legend gets printed in our minds it becomes fact in our lives. In this special case, I decided to dive into the surrounding beliefs of a subject commonly associated with Native culture that is most often taken out of context and misrepresented, the Native American Rain Dance.

"As I began to look into the situation, it became apparent that it stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of Native American religion." (Nez 2013)

*The Myth of the Rain Dance first appeared in the Skeptical Briefs, Volume 23.1 Spring of 2013 edition.  It can also be accessed online at:
http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/the_myth_of_the_rain_dance/.

A Background Interview Featuring the Origin Story of How I Discovered Skepticism

I am so grateful for the opportunities that have arisen through my work with skeptical activism. Since the start of this blog, I have found and joined a local Skeptics in the Pub meetup group and took part in the establishment and founding of a non-profit educational organization, the Phoenix Area Skeptics Society (PASS). For the most part, it is quite rare to find people doing things they are passionate about with intentions of receiving praise or recognition for them. The work is the reward. However, sometimes positive attention and the constructive criticism from peers can have a profound impact on validating efforts. So, I was proud to take part in this interview with the deputy editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, research fellow at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and the go to scientific paranormal investigator Benjamin Radford. He is author or co-author of six books and over a thousand articles on skepticism, critical thinking, and science literacy. Topics that he covers include urban legends, the paranormal, and media literacy. The newest book from Mr. Radford is titled, The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media Panics and Hoaxes. Amongst all of this great work educating the public, he also finds the time to be a columnist for Discovery News and LiveScience.com.

Seeing my name and this blog under the Center for Inquiry banner displays to me a respect for Native American beliefs that rarely get acknowledged. The voices from the First Nations of people in America got just a bit louder.

You can follow the link to the entry on the CFI website by clicking in the text or by going here.    

This interview originally appeared in the Skeptical Briefs newsletter, Volume 21.3, Fall 2011, which featured a longer version. 

Guest Spot on Freethoughtify

It is not too often that I focus on writing articles which include my own personal perspective. I have made a great effort to look at the subjects that I post on here with the most objective eye as possible by utilizing all of the critical thinking, scientific, and skeptical skills that I have learned through both my formal and personal education. When it comes to Native American culture and beliefs I want to show ultimate respect by depicting them, not as I view them, but as closely to how they were depicted by those tribes practicing them. In most cases, my point of view is not relevant to those types of historical and cultural accounts, so it doesn't get included and is normally weeded out. However, there are those rare occasions in which I do get an opportunity to speak from a frame of reference that reflects my way of looking at and interpreting the world. Well, I present to you one of those special opportunities that I was more than grateful to have in this post titled Native Atheist that I did as a guest blogger for Freethoughtify, "an atypical secular" blog site.       

"While I still feel like an outsider amongst my family, friends, and ethnic group like a minority amongst minorities, I am still more than grateful to have found my way to reason and scientific thinking. Now, I feel that sense of awe and wonder that I was always looking for in acknowledging that I belong to something greater than me called the Universe. I found my humanism and a different spiritual view for my ever-present love for life in understanding the way the world really appears to be." (Nez 2013)

References:

Nez, Noah. 2013. Native Atheist. Freethoughtify. Can be accessed online at: http://freethoughtify.com/native-atheist/.

         

An Artist Rises

As many of you might already kind of know, I am a bit of a social activist. But, not everyone is privy to the information that I am also an artist. Writing has allowed me to exercise some of the creative energy that I have been storing away since becoming involved in other efforts. There was a few things that I felt compelled, almost obligated, to tackle first. Such as, writing about things that are not being reflected in society or our American culture that I strongly felt should be. The biggest example being, the importance of utilizing science to help us to better determine our policies and decisions for the future. Not just for Native Americans, but for all people and all circles of life. However, there are some things, like emotions and experiences, that cannot quite be put into words to adequately encapsulate a situation in its' entirety. This is where art can be of great assistance.