GeoTheo

I really do. I have an inner voice that entreats me not to take various courses of action.
I think this is related to why I am a Christian, however some Christians say I should not listen to it. Other Christians believe it to be the Holy Spirit.
The reason I believe that it is related to why I am a Christian is because it often discourages me from doing things that are also forbidden in the Bible.
If you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about read "The Apology" It operates in the same way.
Though in Socrates case, he seemed to have always obeyed it, wheras I don't. For example I am too fat and have food alergies. The daimon always let's me know when I am about to overeat or eat soimthing I shouldn't, but I often do anyway.
How would an atheist account for somthing like this?

Amen-Moses

We've all got one, well except in certain mental disorders.

In fact we have about 5 all together but only two of them are "verbal" (again except in certain mental disorder cases), the others are connected in other ways for example when attacked we don't have a "voice" saying "do this" because it would be too slow, instead the actee just takes over control at a lower level.

In the case of the two highest actees (sometimes referred to as the "left" and "right" hemispheres and others "logical" and "artistic") it is like an internal dialog between two specialist processing units, sometimes the messages passing between them interact with the audio processing centres giving the impression that the messages are being "heard".

No big deal, just get to like the "other" you, you'll be spending a lot of time together.

Amen-Moses

GeoTheo

So, It is just my subconcious mind you are saying?
I feel like *I* am the one who wants to do the wrong thing and that there is a voice that is saying "No." But really *I* am the one who thinks doing certian things is imoral and another part of me wants to do it anyway?
Like the id the ego and the super-ego getting into an argument? Like the show "herman's head"?
BTW I didn't mean to give the impression that it was an audible voice. I use "voice" for lack of a better word.
Thanks for the interesting insight.
One thing that still bothers me though is that I somtimes only find out later why a certian thing would have been wrong to do.

GeoTheo

I guess it is more like a little headache I get.
But it follows the pattern Socrates describes in "Apology" It never tells me to do anything just prevents me from doing wrong things.
Somtimes it seems prescient. Like for example I will want to wear a raincoat to work because it is drizzling and I get the little headache thingy so I don't take one and then it turns out to be a sunny day. Or I will want to study more for a test I am really worried about but then I get the little headache thingy saying "No don't" so I don't and then I later end up getting an 'A'.
So its kind of like a voice in a way, but It only says one word "NO."

Keith Russell

Greetings:

First, you assume that an atheist would trust that your understanding of this 'headache thingy' is correct--that you have described it correctly.

I'm not sure that I believe you truly understand what is happening; I am not ready to believe that your 'headache thingy' always works like you claim it does.

Second, I often find myself telling myself that I should do something that I really don't want to do. I'm basically lazy, and if I think I can get by with not taking out the trash, or locking the car while shopping, etc., I often don't.

I've learned to listen to this 'voice', though, because often I get 'burned' if I don't do the thing I know I ought to do.

I'm learning to be less lazy. Nothing 'mystical', 'supernatural', or 'spiritual' about this sort of thing, IMO.

Keith.

Infinity Lover

My headache thingy always tells me to take an asperine

But all kidding aside, there is an element of coincidence and interpretation involved.

You can make things as mysterious as you want to, or come to the conclusion that reality can be quite wonderous at times. Your mind can (also) work in mysterious ways. If you have a subconcious desire for supernatural elements in your life, that will influence the way you're inclined to interpret things.

It's not quite unlike being more likely to get ticked off by something, if you're in a grumpy mood.

And if you have headaches on a regular basis, on the one hand that will increase the chance of coinciding with something you can link to the headache...

...on the other hand. If you get those headaches really often. A trip to the doctor might not be bad idea. 'Hearing' something, and paying attention are two different things.

Marcel.

Amen-Moses

To try and clarify a bit these internal "voices" for want of a better word are just vestiges of the intercommunication processes in the brain. The current model seems to indicate that there are several "primative" processing modules that are almost untouched from when we first crawled out of the sea, things like pheremone responses and fight/flight processing which are not under concious control. These "primative" processes tend to "speak" in a primative way, i.e the communication involves certain smells or feelings (goose bumps for example) whilst at the same time, due to the interconnectedness of the brain, triggering later (in an evolutionary sense) parts of the brain to "sense" sights and sounds that are not really there.

An example might be useful. A pheremone response may trigger a primative sexual urge (the erections we all had whilst sat in class for example) that is uncontrollable, at the same time "higher" brain processes can react to the brain activity in the primative centres by invoking memories of pleasurable things (i.e they sense a pleasure stimulus and try to post rationalise it!). This can result in what appear to be weird events that we find hard to explain and in particular can often be mistaken for a "spiritual" experience.

Another example can be extremely powerful responses to adrenalin, the primative centre can trigger adrenalin in response to an immediate perceived threat like someone suddenly grabbing you from behind. This reaction needs to be explained by the brain so absent any information from the "higher" senses, i.e sight and sound, all sorts of horrifying images can spring to mind. This is why walking up behind someone who is armed, even in a nice safe environment, and grabbing them suddenly is not a good idea. It isn't you they strike out at but some mental image of danger!

In a similar sense the higher centres, basically the "you" that resides as referee in I believe the cerebral cortex, and the separate but interconnected "you's" in the "logical" and "artistic" centres are running in parallel. When one is busy, for example when you are concentrating hard on a logical problem the other "side" becomes bored and tries to "interrupt". Normally we are unaware of this because the referee shuts out the messages (although we may suddenly snap out of our concentration and catch a snippet of what the other side was "thinking" and be somewhat surprised, like in "where did that thought come from?") in a similar way that when we are dreaming the referee shuts down comunication with the motor control centres in order to avoid running off a real cliff whilst running away from the dangers in our nightmares.

Personally "I" can somehow "stand back" and watch both sides "thinking" almost like a nuetral observer, it is a strange experience (or at least was when I was very young, now I have got used to it) and is also very useful, if I get a difficult logical problem to solve I just set one side the task of solving it then go away and "watch" the fantasy life going on in the other side (or compose a poem or rerun a song in my head etc), then when the solution presents itself I just pop back and grab it.

This sort of parallel multitasking seems rare in men (like me) but far more commen in women for some reason, maybe due to an increased advantage for someone needing to look out not only for themselves but for infants in their care, allowing them to keep one part of the brain concentrating on gathering food whilst the other is keeping an eye out for danger and another is planning for the future if "daddy2 doesn't come home from the hunt. The male on the other hand is more prone to concentrate entirely on "kill the Mammoth".

Hope I don't sound too weird.

Amen-Moses

Infinity Lover

Multitasking Moses ladies and gentlemen!

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Amen-Moses

What's the address of the Mutant academy again?

Amen-Moses (with the image of a crowd of torch carrying villagers in his head for some strange reason)

1sec

Geo Theo!

Your daimon tells you what's right?
And what's wrong?

Then I'd say that's Plato's daimon
rather than Socrate's one.

Socrates was a "daimon" himself.
Or that's what I think he thought of himself.
But he had to say he believed in their divine existence in order not to be killed.

It seems the trick did not quite work out.