(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

I made this comment in challenging_god yesterday and wanted to record it here for posterity, and perhaps discussion.

It regards what I am calling "the Neoplatonist Fallacy."

The Neoplatonists believed that the things in the cosmos are like thoughts in the Mind of God. In their view, Mind is the most real substance; manifest form follows from Ideal (or Mental) form.

This is a fallacy, though, because of the way the human brain processes sensory input. Of course things when examined begin to take on the properties of mind, because that is the way the perceptual faculties in the brain break down sensory input.

For example, we have neural pathways that represent the cardinal numbers; a neuron for "one," an neuron for "two," a neuron for "three," and so on. We have neurons for recognizing circles, squares, triangles, etc. These things therefore seem "eternal" because they precede thought; they are central to our experience of the universe.

So naturally when we examine the universe, things appear to be patterned in intelligent ways. We have NO OTHER WAY of perceiving the universe.

Edit. What makes this so difficult to realize is the fact that sensory data is edited so that things seen or heard which do not fit easily into our pre-developed conceptualization pathways is discarded or ignored. Our mind overlooks a great deal of raw input from the outside world in order to quickly develop a real-time sense of the immediate surrounding. It can take a great deal of effort and conscious concentration to learn how to see outside of the neural censor.

Comments

[igferatu.livejournal.com]

Could be...Didja hear the one about the guy who buys a roach motel as an investment property? That one's a real thorax-slapper.

Maybe the local dumpster is hosting the roacharmonic orchestra tryouts. I hear the acoustics are fabulous.