The Pointlessness of Prayer

[Stevil]

Well, the brain itself is deciding. Consciously becoming aware of that decision is just the peanut gallery applauding what the brain did.

The idea of the "soul", is it supposed to represent the conscious mind or the subconscious?

[OldGit]

The idea of the "soul", is it supposed to represent the conscious mind or the subconscious?

Exactly.  When there are several independent / semi-independent entities all running in the same brain, who or what is guilty of bad decisions made, which which goes to heaven / hell and what does I/me refer to?

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Well, the brain itself is deciding. Consciously becoming aware of that decision is just the peanut gallery applauding what the brain did.

The idea of the "soul", is it supposed to represent the conscious mind or the subconscious?

I don't buy into the idea of the soul as a separate entity. The Greek word is "psuche", or psyche. It's just the mind, the phenomenon of consciousness and thought. That's my take, anyway.

[xSilverPhinx]

Well, the brain itself is deciding. Consciously becoming aware of that decision is just the peanut gallery applauding what the brain did.

The idea of the "soul", is it supposed to represent the conscious mind or the subconscious?

I don't buy into the idea of the soul as a separate entity. The Greek word is "psuche", or psyche. It's just the mind, the phenomenon of consciousness and thought. That's my take, anyway.

Not a dualist?

[Sweetdeath]

Well, the brain itself is deciding. Consciously becoming aware of that decision is just the peanut gallery applauding what the brain did.

The idea of the "soul", is it supposed to represent the conscious mind or the subconscious?

I don't buy into the idea of the soul as a separate entity. The Greek word is "psuche", or psyche. It's just the mind, the phenomenon of consciousness and thought. That's my take, anyway.

Not a dualist?

[Crow]

Not a dualist?

Was I the only one reminded of The Simpsons.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Not a dualist?

When the body is dead, it's dead - that means the mind, soul, spirit, consciousness, etc. The only Christian hope for eternal life (IMHO) is resurrection.

[Synapse]

I think prayers might give the illusion of control, i.e. that you can do something to affect an outcome you may not otherwise have the power to change. And it's not really surprising that this can occur given that human beings tend falsely assume they have 'magical' control even outside of prayers, i.e. good-luck rituals. Control, even if illusory, can be very comforting, and some might argue that the whole idea of consciousness is based on exactly this idea; that it is just an illusion of authorship. I personally think that this is the right idea, that consciousness is more of a post-hoc feeling of decisions already being processed, rather than an agent of decision making, but it's up for debate. (That dualism is just plain wrong, is less debatable)

But I also think that there is a danger when turning to prayer might not only be pointless (although perhaps comforting) but also counterproductive. I know people who spend nights praying for exam results when they could have been actually studying for it, or spend time praying for a smooth outcome when the time could have been spent trying to predict what can go wrong and preparing contingency plans. Uncertainty can be very troubling, and facing it head-on can be stressful. As a scientifically-minded individual, I like uncertainty because when there is uncertainty, there is knowledge to be discovered. But that mentality may not be for everyone.

[En_Route]

I think prayers might give the illusion of control, i.e. that you can do something to affect an outcome you may not otherwise have the power to change. And it's not really surprising that this can occur given that human beings tend falsely assume they have 'magical' control even outside of prayers, i.e. good-luck rituals. Control, even if illusory, can be very comforting, and some might argue that the whole idea of consciousness is based on exactly this idea; that it is just an illusion of authorship. I personally think that this is the right idea, that consciousness is more of a post-hoc feeling of decisions already being processed, rather than an agent of decision making, but it's up for debate. (That dualism is just plain wrong, is less debatable)

But I also think that there is a danger when turning to prayer might not only be pointless (although perhaps comforting) but also counterproductive. I know people who spend nights praying for exam results when they could have been actually studying for it, or spend time praying for a smooth outcome when the time could have been spent trying to predict what can go wrong and preparing contingency plans. Uncertainty can be very troubling, and facing it head-on can be stressful. As a scientifically-minded individual, I like uncertainty because when there is uncertainty, there is knowledge to be discovered. But that mentality may not be for everyone.

I agree on pretty well all fronts. Of course religion can  also generally engender a  passivity and fatalism in society which often recommends itself to governing institutions- the opium of the people and so on.

[xSilverPhinx]

Not a dualist?

Was I the only one reminded of The Simpsons.

???

Please elaborate?

[xSilverPhinx]

I think prayers might give the illusion of control, i.e. that you can do something to affect an outcome you may not otherwise have the power to change. And it's not really surprising that this can occur given that human beings tend falsely assume they have 'magical' control even outside of prayers, i.e. good-luck rituals. Control, even if illusory, can be very comforting, and some might argue that the whole idea of consciousness is based on exactly this idea; that it is just an illusion of authorship. I personally think that this is the right idea, that consciousness is more of a post-hoc feeling of decisions already being processed, rather than an agent of decision making, but it's up for debate. (That dualism is just plain wrong, is less debatable)

But I also think that there is a danger when turning to prayer might not only be pointless (although perhaps comforting) but also counterproductive. I know people who spend nights praying for exam results when they could have been actually studying for it, or spend time praying for a smooth outcome when the time could have been spent trying to predict what can go wrong and preparing contingency plans. Uncertainty can be very troubling, and facing it head-on can be stressful. As a scientifically-minded individual, I like uncertainty because when there is uncertainty, there is knowledge to be discovered. But that mentality may not be for everyone.

That's interesting...but at what level does this 'authorship' occur? What's the difference between Skinner's superstitious pigeons and mammals of higher cognitive capacity?

(I'm another who's very interested in the subject)

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Not a dualist?

Was I the only one reminded of The Simpsons.

???

Please elaborate?

Homer Simpson's soul - see this article:  http://genealogyreligion.net/gandhis-dualism-and-homers-soul

[Crow]

Not a dualist?

Was I the only one reminded of The Simpsons.

???

Please elaborate?

Homer Simpson's soul - see this article:  http://genealogyreligion.net/gandhis-dualism-and-homers-soul

I was thinking of the tomaco episode where homer goes around slapping people with a glove and challenging them to a dual, until he bumps into a southern gentleman who accepts his dual.

[Norfolk And Chance]

Not a dualist?

When the body is dead, it's dead - that means the mind, soul, spirit, consciousness, etc. The only Christian hope for eternal life (IMHO) is resurrection.

One step closer to atheism...

And to the OP, of course prayer is pointless.

[Synapse]

That's interesting...but at what level does this 'authorship' occur? What's the difference between Skinner's superstitious pigeons and mammals of higher cognitive capacity?

It's hard to say, really, at what level the perception of consciousness is at, particularly because it is difficult to judge what is conscious and what is not. I know that neuroscientists are working with philosophers to try to pinpoint the neural substrates that support the experience of consciousness, and there are increasingly more complex forms of conscious experience that are supported by more complex brain functions. So, for example, thalamocortical oscillations might enable 'synching' between different brain structures that creates a certain unified perception of an event, and this might make the human experience of consciousness richer than animals which don't have such a neurological feature. It can get pretty technical and the research is very ongoing, but is is pretty telling that there have been multiple experiments, using a variety of tasks, where brainwaves or neuronal activity that predicts your actions can be measured before you actually can report your conscious desire to perform that action. Even aesthetic preferences can be predicted from fMRI signals. (http://www.visionsciences.org/abstract_detail.php?id=548)

Looking at it form a more psychological view, the pigeon's 'superstitious belief' is the product of operant conditioning (which occurs unconsciously), which also occurs in animals with greater cognitive capacity. But the involvement of the higher cognitive capabilities i.e. a better memory span and the ability to learn socially, makes this more complex. It could be a result of natural cognitive biases such as the availability heuristic, where because X makes you think of Y, you 'consciously reason' that there is some strong association there, when in fact the association between X and Y really was made through unconscious processes in the first place. When the idea is already in your head, you start to find more 'evidence' that fits that schema (incidentally, human beings do have a confirmation bias). It might seem very consciously motivated on the surface, but it might all be driven by unconscious processes. Incidentally, this is also a reason why I think it is dangerous to trust ideas that are not peer-reviewed. At least when you can independently confirm the associations, it is going to be less likely that the association is an illusory one driven by a quirk in the unconscious processing.

So basically, I tend to think that all cognition start off unconscious. You can be aware of some of them, but that probably is because the activity there has crossed some threshold. The idea that you can consciously initiate any cognition might just be an illusion. I don't know if what I wrote makes any sense or it sounds like gibberish, but if anyone is interested in some reading on the topic, I'd recommend Daniel Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will. You can read a short paper he wrote on the subject as a starter: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/private/wegner-trick.pdf