Conservatism's Religious Fundamentalism Linked to Brain Damage

[thaicurious]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5500821/

… participants with vmPFC lesions reported greater fundamentalism….underlying the effect of neural damage on fundamentalism…the extent of dlPFC volume loss…indirectly affected fundamentalist beliefs through its effect on cognitive flexibility and openness…

 

… patients with lesions…are more prone to judge extreme…behaviors as more acceptable…

 

…certain religious beliefs do not generally update in response to evidence, and that conservatism is especially notable in the case of fundamentalist beliefs…

 

…Cognitive flexibility and openness are by no means the sole predictors of religious fundamentalism…other factors...play a role in modulating adherence of religious beliefs....factors contributing...range from genetic predispositions related to cognition to a host of peer and other social influences…

 

… regions in the PFC...contribute to the formation of fundamentalist beliefs and that there was a functional relationship between fundamentalism, openness and cognitive flexibility. Fundamentalist thinking, therefore, eschews deliberation in favor of rigid conviction...belief maintenance is vital for social prediction...if religious beliefs were prone to change over the course of experience due to deliberative or other processes, they could not function as predictors of social response, that is, as ideological commitments. That is one reason why we suspected that neural networks associated with openness and cognitive flexibility would affect the commitment to religious convictions, independently of social event processing.

Edited January 2, 2020 by thaicurious

[OneMoreFarang]

No surprise there.

[sirineou]

So I am confused, Does brain damage causes religious fundamentalism or does religious fundamentalism causes brain damage. 

 I mean other than the brain damage caused to others, by  stoning, blowing up and other negative  expressions of religious fundamentalism,

[Kinnock]

So are low ceilings a common architectural feature in the Middle East?

[thaicurious]

Jokes appreciated but aside, there's real implications to being able to map the brain. Non fundamentalists could have guessed that fundamentalists tended not to be real flexible, but how interesting to see where in the brain this occurs and then to prove it by seeing in some the damage there and what behavior and thinking that damage causes. Now not all inflexible are damaged by injury as some might have that area of the brain malfunctioning by genetics while others might be convinced of fundamentalism by socialization as the study points out.

 

But what are the implications of knowing this. Should we have more compassion for those who have no choice but to think as a fundamentalist? Should we be at least less upset with them? Should they be prevented from making policy governing those who are not inflicted with an inflexible brain?

 

What of a pathological liar, is that due to a malfunctioning brain? Should that person be allowed to be president of the most powerful country this planet has ever known? Does a pathological liar have a choice in lying? What are other aspects to a brain that causes a person to lie? Are these dangerous to society for such a person to be in such a position?

 

Will one day people be required to get qualifying MRI's done of their brains to see what structures are forcing them to think in what ways?

[spidermike007]

21 minutes ago, thaicurious said:

Jokes appreciated but aside, there's real implications to being able to map the brain. Non fundamentalists could have guessed that fundamentalists tended not to be real flexible, but how interesting to see where in the brain this occurs and then to prove it by seeing in some the damage there and what behavior and thinking that damage causes. Now not all inflexible are damaged by injury as some might have that area of the brain malfunctioning by genetics while others might be convinced of fundamentalism by socialization as the study points out.

 

But what are the implications of knowing this. Should we have more compassion for those who have no choice but to think as a fundamentalist? Should we be at least less upset with them? Should they be prevented from making policy governing those who are not inflicted with an inflexible brain?

 

What of a pathological liar, is that due to a malfunctioning brain? Should that person be allowed to be president of the most powerful country this planet has ever known? Does a pathological liar have a choice in lying? What are other aspects to a brain that causes a person to lie? Are these dangerous to society for such a person to be in such a position?

 

Will one day people be required to get qualifying MRI's done of their brains to see what structures are forcing them to think in what ways?

With certainty, the most basic of psychological evaluations would have disqualified Trump from the outset. Not a bad requirement for a candidate. There is no question that his unhinged and juvenile nature makes the world infinitely more dangerous. 

 

I do not think a pathological liar is really capable of being honest. Unless it suits his agenda, or leads to making a profit. 

[thaicurious]

9 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

With certainty, the most basic of psychological evaluations would have disqualified Trump from the outset. Not a bad requirement for a candidate. There is no question that his unhinged and juvenile nature makes the world infinitely more dangerous. 

 

I do not think a pathological liar is really capable of being honest. Unless it suits his agenda, or leads to making a profit. 

To your first part, "theoretically" disqualifying is probably more correct because in practice the Constitution (1787) predates modern psychology. While there was a Treatise on Madness circa 1758 (thank you google), what we recognize as psychology wasn't established until the mid 1800s and then the ability to physically observe the brain was not until the 1900s, long after qualifying rules were set by the founding fathers. Only recently is there serious mapping of the brain with regard to thought generation, various behaviors, etc., aside from other research into consciousness itself.

 

The founders did know about con men, thus the electoral college itself (tho now broken) plus the ability to remove a president via impeachment (we'll see if that's broken too). Also we have the 25th Amendment for when a president becomes incapacitated by whatever reason. But those things don't stop a brain damaged person from becoming president which ought to now be part of American and worldwide discussion.

 

Because where a fundamentalist might never win-over the majority of the electorate (most of whom are far from fundamentalism even if religious), it turns out that a con man can get to at least the majority of the electoral college (when broken ie party loyal rather than independent as designed) though both conditions (physical or genetic damage) might be mappable, detectable: but then a whole host of other discussions tag along such as the freedom to be all you can lawfully be regardless of physical capabilities, etc.

 

To your second part, using what might be a truth is not necessarily being honest as both lies and truths can be used to deceive. Recent science shows that pathological lying is indeed physical, leaving its victim with no choice but to lie. It is caused by an overabundance of white matter in the brain which also causes the brain to make associations which do not exist in reality, thus the pathological liar's tendency towards conspiracy theory. They see this happening and that happening and the brain tells them these things are connected though they might not be. The condition is described as being in opposition to autism where victims often have trouble with lies as shown in their disconnect with much of humor which is often dependent upon at least a twist of truth.

 

But where it is easy to have compassion for someone who has trouble with a lie, it might not be as easy to have compassion for someone who has trouble with the truth even if that's the fault of their own brain. Also where we might restrict an autistic person from some professions based on the severity of their condition though they might be quite smart and focused--maybe a great mathematician, maybe not such a great fighter pilot--we've no similar safeguards to protect the world from a pathological liar particularly one high functioning in other areas be that charm, greed, manipulation or acting skills.

[swissie]

Well meant, but too academic.

There is a thread running under "do you believe in God and why". A battle raging on for over 5000 posts already, with no end in sight.
Predictably: 50% believe in some sort of "God". (I want to believe). The other 50% believe in science (I want to know).
If this is connected to individual neurological "wirerings" within a individual human brain is simply not known (yet).
But one thing is for sure, taking History into account for the last 5000 years, surely, the ones that "want to believe" have caused more grief to humanity than the ones that just "want to know".
And so it is.

[thaicurious]

7 hours ago, swissie said:

Well meant, but too academic.

There is a thread running under "do you believe in God and why". A battle raging on for over 5000 posts already, with no end in sight.
Predictably: 50% believe in some sort of "God". (I want to believe). The other 50% believe in science (I want to know).
If this is connected to individual neurological "wirerings" within a individual human brain is simply not known (yet).
But one thing is for sure, taking History into account for the last 5000 years, surely, the ones that "want to believe" have caused more grief to humanity than the ones that just "want to know".
And so it is.

My bad on two of those parts, I'd no idea this was a popularity contest but also I thought I was making small talk. Ooops.

 

As to the wiring aspect, yes, that is already at least partially mapped. This study in the OP also found that the area previously thought to be the so-called "God spot" is--if I recall correctly what I'd quickly read--less specifically about God or spirituality but rather more about believing generally. That could be the believing utilized by religion, or a believing that the sun will rise tomorrow.

 

As to what train of thought has caused more grief, religion or science, I've no idea. Let's google to maybe see if anyone's done that research....

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/is-religion-the-cause-of-_b_1400766

“Encyclopedia of Wars,” authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare.

 

More relevant to this thread might be what's caused more misery, not science v religion but rather religion generally v fundamentalism specifically which is now shown linked to brain damage.

 

As to the wiring of it, yes, people tend to be wired or not towards empathy, towards compassion or towards sociopathy; towards analytics or towards intuition. It is not the wiring that necessarily makes someone's brain inflexible. Indeed, someone wired towards religion can be quite flexibly imaginative, thus the varied religions.

 

My interest here is small talk about the damaged brain which had we already as part of the conversation, we might not have a fundamentalist making laws in Congress, we might not have a pathological liar executing of those laws upon the people of such a great nation born of liberalism in the Age of Enlightenment.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States

a broad political philosophy centered on what many see as the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems and the separation of church and state, right to due process and equality under the law

[OneMoreFarang]

On 1/3/2020 at 12:32 AM, sirineou said:

So I am confused, Does brain damage causes religious fundamentalism or does religious fundamentalism causes brain damage. 

Whatever, it was god's will. ???? 

[NCC1701A]

 

 

[Lacessit]

I've always considered people who believe in an entity that can't be detected by any of the senses are brain-damaged.

[thaicurious]

On 1/4/2020 at 6:47 AM, NCC1701A said:

 

 

Good scene; brilliant casting, great acting.

 

But a third option that's neither necessarily happenstance nor intelligent design--as quantum mechanics shows the observed dependent at least in part on the observer--could be that we were Vishnu all along.

 

On 1/4/2020 at 6:47 AM, Lacessit said:

I've always considered people who believe in an entity that can't be detected by any of the senses are brain-damaged.

Except not all of reality is shared empirically--known one to another--through the typical five senses plus proprioception plus neuron sensors plus kinesthetic receptors, etc.

 

I can spit. You can spit. Alone we know we spit. Alone we know each other can spit. Together we know each can spit. Together we can observe each spit. We can spit independently, We can choreograph our spitting. We have empirical evidence of each person's spit. We can see it, feel it, film it.

 

But how do you know I dream. How do I know you dream. Can you see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, hear it? Or can you just tell someone about it? But oh look, we happen to all be saying about the same thing about it. We describe our dreaming similarly enough and often enough that we independently accept knowing that each other dreams as real as knowing each other spits without thinking ourselves brain damaged though without all the evidence that our senses gather about spitting.

 

So some of human experience we can share with each other through the typically known senses, but others we can not. That doesn't make one more real than the other. That doesn't make thinking one more brain damaged than thinking the other. Brain damage is something we can measure. Thinking as a religious person has at least as far as I've read not been shown to be a result of brain damage. Thinking as a fundamentalist has.