The Neurology of Belief....

[_truth dancer]

As some of you know, I'm obsessed with how and why humankind believes as we do. :-)

There is an interesting and thought provoking article on Time.com that may be of interest to you, if you share a wonder concerning how and why we think, believe, and behave as we do.

Basically, this article shares some recent research showing that indeed our thoughts, beliefs, and even emotions and mood are more than just a thought or belief. There is absolutely a neurological aspect to it all. In other words, they are the "stuff" of our brains.

This article also shares some research on CBT and how our thoughts impact the actual brain and how it our thoughts change the very physical nature of our brain.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html

I'm thinking more and more, people are going to understand that beliefs are not just a choice, that there is much more to our behavior, mood, and emotions than being righteous or evil.

Ohhhh and make sure and read the end of the article where it talks about the Buddhist Monks and their amazing brains filled with unbelievable evidence that compassion has a physical aspect to the brain!

OK.. so I love this article! LOL!

:-)

~dancer~

[_moksha]

More interesting were the differences between the so-called adepts and the novices. In the former, there was significantly greater activation in a brain network linked to empathy and maternal love. Connections from the frontal regions, so active during compassion meditation, to the brain's emotional regions seemed to become stronger with more years of meditation practice, as if the brain had forged more robust connections between thinking and feeling.

But perhaps the most striking difference was in an area in the left prefrontal cortex--the site of activity that marks happiness. While the monks were generating feelings of compassion, activity in the left prefrontal swamped activity in the right prefrontal (associated with negative moods) to a degree never before seen from purely mental activity. By contrast, the undergraduate controls showed no such differences between the left and right prefrontal cortex. This suggests, says Davidson, that the positive state is a skill that can be trained.

This seems significant. I imagine even Gaz could benefit from this knowledge.

[_Quantumwave]

Hi TD,

As usual, you have posted on a subject that resonates well with my limited understanding. I thoroughly enjoyed the article.

The neuroplasticity of my own brain was just recently demonstrated; at least I am convinced it was. I will attempt to explain without being too verbose.

After experiencing increasing tooth pain for a few days, and being convinced it would not go away, I reluctantly visited my dentist. He replaced an old filling, said there was no abscess, but there was a small crack. He sent me off with a prescription and an appointment for a root-canal/crown. That was Thursday.

Friday afternoon the pain started…in spades! The only relief was ice applied directly above the tooth. Double-doses of Lortab had no effect. Adding multiple-doses of Tylenol/Codeine on top of the Lortab didn’t help…only the ice gave relief. At one point I yelled out with an obscenity, and my 9 yr-old granddaughter came running with “are you OK, Grandpa?”? I was up all Fri night, applying ice. Anyway, it hurt, bad.

Saturday morning (yesterday) I became angry at the dentist for not prescribing something that would control the pain, and why was his expletive office closed on Saturday?! The madder I got, the more the tooth hurt! After realizing what was going on, I decided to cut the dentist some slack, after all, Lortab should work, and he is a good dentist. The pain subsided somewhat.

I then decided to concentrate on what it felt like when the pain was at low-ebb, and after being awake all night, I tried to sleep. I did doze off for short and then increasingly longer periods between pain, and the pain kept reducing until I slept for over two hours and the pain was gone! So far the pain has not returned.

I suppose it could have been coincidence, but my admittedly anecdotal experience was real.

So if my brain was physically changed, I should be able to undergo the root-canal without anesthetic, right? Yeah right! No way, but I am convinced that I was able to somehow produce a natural anesthetic of some sort.

Does that make sense?

[_truth dancer]

Hey QW...

Cool! Glad you are feeling better! Nothing worse than tooth pain!

Yes your story makes perfect sense.

I remember the first time I used hypnoanesthesia ... I was rather uncomfortable. I was certified as a hypnotherapist and had used various forms of visuaization, CBT, and NLP but still, using one's mind to anesthetize someone was a whole different thing.

Anyway, my first experience was of course in training... the volunteer was pretty confident in my ability to get him to a place where he would not feel any pain. He wanted me to stick a needle through the skin between his thumb and first finger once he was hypnotized. I refused (ick)... so a therapist friend jumped in and said that if I did the hypnosis, he would stick the needle through the hand. Ahhhh so after I was fairly confident the "client" was sufficently ready, my friend stuck the needle straight into his hand. Now, we couldn't find a sharp needly, so they found a name tag with a pin on it, ran it though a match and well, stuck this very dull pin through the guys hand. It didn't go through easy but he truly did not feel a thing. Nothing at all. It was pretty amazing!

Anyway, I'm totally convinced our thoughts and experiences (like meditation and even music) can change the physicality of our brains.

I think we are just beginning to comprehend this power! I think the more we know the more we will accept, understand, and have compassion for others.

In other words, maybe we will be less ready to judge others if we know that their brain functions a certain way... ya know?

~dancer~

[_harmony]

In other words, maybe we will be less ready to judge others if we know that their brain functions a certain way... ya know?

~dancer~

I doubt that. It's just wishful thinking, TD. Look what happened when the genetics behind homosexuality was published. Did that change the way LDS look at gay members? Not hardly. They simply ignored the science and continued in their belief that homosexuality is a choice. I have no faith that this new knowledge will in any way help anyone to be less judgmental. We like being judgmental. We like thinking we're superior. We like looking down on others. Anything that brings us down from our G&S building is not what we want to hear.

Not gonna happen, TD. Sorry.

[_Sam Harris]

This is an encouraging article, proof that you can change your thought patterns, and through doing so change your life. You are what you think. I used to take that lightly, the idea that the thoughts you expressed into the universe could and would change your existence if you expressed them enough. Makes me think twice about what I allow into my sphere of influence.

Thanks for the article, TD. I stuck it in my favorites, it's a very good thing to go back and read from time to time. I think I'm going to pick back up the practice of meditation. :-)

Harmony, you are right that there are always going to be those who are skeptical of science. But just like the Catholic church finally apologized to Gallileo, so can the mental stragglers learn. They may not do so in this life, but hey, they have the beyond to keep learning, we hope.

This article really gives me hope, because I'm trying really hard not to let negativity into my life any longer. For the first time in my life I'm truly happy, and for the most part, I want to stay that way. Life throws curveballs, but that doesn't mean you have to agonize getting out of bed each morning. That used to be me. These days, most of the time I give thanks. The other times I just grunt and roll back over.

[_rcrocket]

They simply ignored the science and continued in their belief that homosexuality is a choice.

What is the best LDS source for your assertion that Church leaders ignore science and state that homosexuality is a choice? Last ten years would be preferable.

P

[_Coggins7]

here is an interesting and thought provoking article on Time.com that may be of interest to you, if you share a wonder concerning how and why we think, believe, and behave as we do.

First find an intellectually substantive source of science reporting and then perhaps we can discuss something.

[_Coggins7]

I doubt that. It's just wishful thinking, TD. Look what happened when the genetics behind homosexuality was published. Did that change the way LDS look at gay members? Not hardly. They simply ignored the science and continued in their belief that homosexuality is a choice. I have no faith that this new knowledge will in any way help anyone to be less judgmental. We like being judgmental. We like thinking we're superior. We like looking down on others. Anything that brings us down from our G&S building is not what we want to hear.

Here we go again. OK, listen up one and all, especially you Harmony, because you're beating a long dead horse and you need to get with the program if your going to make claims about empirical science. There is not a shred, not a particle, of evidence that homosexuality has any direct, causal connection to genes. Every single such study (the Simon Levay study being the most sensational) claiming to show such has been discredited and homosexuality remains a bio/psycho/social phenomena involving a complex matrix of influences and biases of which genetics is only one (and in many individual cases, is probably not a factor at all).

It is uttely amazing how stuff like this gets logded in the popular mind because of the Zietgeist of a particualr time and is then, regardless of the evidence or actual facts of the matter, impossible to dislodge or stop. It just keeps rolling along like a freight train without brakes on greased tracks if it integrates well with fashionable ideological notions.

So go ahead and beat the dead horse some more, and the dog, and the cat, and see if you can include Godzilla in there bacause he has a tendency to come back regardless of how much you beat him (or, is that Freddy Kruger?).

Loran

[_rcrocket]

OK, listen up one and all, especially you Harmony, because you're beating a long dead horse and you need to get with the program if your going to make claims about empirical science. There is not a shred, not a particle, of evidence that homosexuality has any direct, causal connection to genes.

This is very true, but I don't see how it makes a difference to LDS theology.

P