Do you believe all human behavior is chemical/biological?

[Taverner]

As in do you believe everything we do is a complex form of conditioned response based on external stimuli, the chemical receptors that respond and the secretion and effect of those chemicals?

For example, every time you are touched by another human, your body releases a specific chemical (I think it's seratonin - but I'm not sure.)

When you find something interesting, your brain releases dopamine, which sustains your interest.

Happiness and joy can be attributed to seratonin, and misery and pain can be traced to yet another chemical.

Your body releases natural opioids when it goes through pain - for a real-time example, hold a stretch at a slightly painful point for about a minute. Release - that warm rush that feels really good is your body's natural opioids.

So is everything we feel, think, do and say controlled by these chemicals and various conditioned response memories?

[mainegreen]

1. Yes. Everything in the universe operates on the laws of physics (and by extension chemistry)

No exceptions.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. i never think human behavior is that simple

i thinks its both nature and nurture.

i also think i am tired and cannot write very well now

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. Of course it is.

Now, the question is, do you think that means any less?

[Taverner]

5. For me I agree, and I think it actually means more

Good, Evil, Bad, Good - this renders all of those words obsolete. It changes our very understanding of ourselves and our world around us. In the end, it can make us more empathetic and compassionate too - both of these traits are ones which evolved into our consciousness and have done so for our survival and adaptation.

[Blue-Jay]

4. No. Not really.

Looks like junk science to me.

[WindRavenX]

6. of course

Interactions between the environment and your genes create what we are.

[skygazer]

7. No, I think human behavior is more complex than that

I don't think it fully explains why we have the curiosity and the ingenuity that we do. Humans are always trying to figure out why things are the way they are and to do them better - I don't think that can be explained fully by either chemistry or biology.

[WindRavenX]

9. Humans are no different from animals.

I'm a bit puzzled whenever I hear people say we're different...

[skygazer]

16. We are different

That doesn't mean we're better but we are different. We evolve faster - we change our surroundings to suit our needs which animals only do in a minimal way. That's not necessarily better - we've screwed up our planet enormously - but it is different.

We build homes out of many different materials - animals from generation to generation use the same type of habitat with only slight variations.

We grow and raise food, store it and cook it. Very few animals make changes to their food.

We build and use machinery - few animals use anything other than their bodies to function and those that do don't use anything overly complex.

Biologically and chemically, we're made up of the same stuff but we are different in many ways.

[WindRavenX]

18. No, we're not different.

We're different in how we act. That's all. That's behavior. And all behavior has basis in our genes.

I don't know why people feel the need to anthropomorphize our genetic code or feel we act in fundementally different ways. We're more complex, but that doesn't mean we're fundementally different. All complex behavior has evolutionary origins in simple behavior, that's all.

[skygazer]

20. I'm not sure what you mean by "different" then

We're different in how we act but that's not different? Sounds like a matter of semantics to me. You may as well say we're no different from a plant. Or the Earth itself - we're made up of the same stuff. But most people would probably feel that there are some significant differences.

At any rate, the OP asked for an opinion. I gave mine. I don't have enough knowledge of either biology or chemistry to argue about it nor do I have any desire to.

Peace.

[Taverner]

23. Well...

Roaches and bacteria adapt better than we do, and faster...

Chimpanzees use tools...

Ants farm...

And they have even found monkeys in Japan to dip their bananas into salt water for flavor...

[skygazer]

27. I'll never understand why people post threads asking for an opinion

And then argue with you when you state one. If you have an opinion, what do you need mine for?

[Taverner]

32. Because I came looking for an argument :)

Actually rational discourse :)

[tavalon]

69. We're not

But then, are you sure that the rest of the animal kingdom is nothing more than the sum of their chemicals? I think you are very wrong if you think that. Koko the gorilla would tell you that, I'm sure. Oh, wait, talking is a human trait. We better not tell her, eh?

[Taverner]

10. Sure it can

Over the thousands of years Man has been on this planet, or even go back further to early hominids. Curiosity was rewarded by survival. The hominid that could make a tool to "fish" for ants in an ant hole got to eat, and he meets another well fed hominid female on the next ant hill - they make curious hominid children. Meanwhile, the Freeper Hominid back in the cave who thinks the jury is still out on ant hills, dies sad, lonely and hungry.

Adapt or perish - Hominids just have adaptation built into our brains rather than waiting generations for it to take place.

[skygazer]

12. I don't pretend to be an expert on human behavior

You asked and I answered. And I think a lot of our behavior can be explained by those things. But not all. And I'm not someone who believes it's because some mythical "god" made us "better" than animals because I don't believe we are better and I sure as hell don't believe in god.

But I do think there are things about both animals and humans that cannot simply be quantified. :shrug:

[Taverner]

14. Quantification has it's own issues

Just ask any string theorist :)

What good is quantifying something when it can be in two places at the same time?

[idgiehkt]

8. except the parts that are due to astrological phenomena.

Just kidding. Sort of.

[u4ic]

11. We're far too complex

to pin it down.


But there are many who try and put their lousy behaviour down to 'genetics', 'it's only human nature', etc. :eyes:

[Taverner]

13. Well you can always counter with "well time to get out of the gene pool then..."

SNIP ;)

We may be too complex to understand now, but every day we are becoming less and less complex.

[u4ic]

39. I've heard many researchers say

quite the opposite...the more we discover, the more questions that are raised.

[Taverner]

42. As the genome unfolds, all will make sense

It's not that there aren't more questions - but we know more so we can ask more questions.

[u4ic]

50. I think it's only a small piece of the puzzle

The thing that concerns me more about the genome is the ethics of it. How much of this work is profit driven? Who's going to benefit in the end from it? Multinationals? Doctors? Treatment centres? Will patients? What use is it if only a very small amount of (well off) people can afford to get treatment?

And, being corporate driven, the rush to be the first to map it has the possibility for errors - perhaps serious ones.


Humans are nothing if not arrogant. We have no idea how close we are to understanding anything. In 50, 100, 200 years time (if we last that long), they could be looking back and laughing at our primitive understanding just as we do to Victorian science (some of which brought some understanding, and some which we ridicule - especially in regards to health and medicine).

Unfortunately, science is starting to become the medieval Catholic church - don't question us, we are the ultimate authority. Instead of the openess to learn, it is skeptical, even condescending in some cases, especially in regards to new voices, new theories.




This from someone who isn't religious, btw.


I'm curious...do you look at your wife and your son and think that your love for them is just a series of chemical reactions? That Taverntoddler is just atoms and synapses, or do you see something else? Perhaps something...magical? :shrug: (and I don't mean that the stork brought him...awe, perhaps, which you cannot explain)

[Taverner]

60. You mean the stork didn't bring Tavernertoddler???

Seriously - yes my love for them is chemical. From the seat of my perception, something very primal kicked in the day he was born and suddenly I was no longer at the top of Maslow's hierarchy anymore - he was. I knew, and understood, everything was for him. And I was happy with that. This is purely biological - not magical. As mammals we have evolved to take care of our young, since they aren't lizards who can walk right out of the egg. Does the fact that it is biological make it any less special? Of course not! If anything, for me it makes it more special. It lets me sleep at night knowing that there is someone out there willing to die for my son - and I have direct control over that person.

[sammythecat]

43. That's what I seem to read too.

Given enough time, and if we keep from driving ourselves to extinction, I see no reason why mankind might not find the answers to everything. That's kind of fantastic, but given enough peaceful time...

After all, we only have a history going back around 5,000 years or so. We haven't been here long at all in terms of the Universe, and look at the stunning advances in technology and science in the last hundred years. If we behave ourselves we've got billions more to go.

Who knows, we may become Godlike in our power and wisdom some time in the future. I know, sounds fantastic, even preposterous to some, but I think the possibility is real and can't be denied.

[u4ic]

52. Only 5000 years?

Do you mean recorded history? That we settled and became an agricultural society? (I believe it's been longer than that).

Or are you religious and believe in creation? (I may not believe it, but you'll get no condescending attitude from me).


While yes, there have been stunning advances, some of them are backfiring on us in terms of the effect of climate change. Mining/manufacturing them, for example. A crackberry, for example...cool...except it can also mean your job, once 9-5, is now 24/7. A lot of these advances only bring us more work, in the end.

We can't look at technology without looking at its impact - the positive, and the negatives.

In terms of godlike - even though I don't believe in an old guy with a beard in the clouds, I believe in some sort of Universal Energy/Consciousness, or Life Force...call it what you will. It IS within us...

I hope I'm making sense, it's a bit late for me. ;)

[sammythecat]

53. Perfect sense. And it's even later now

That 5,000 years was meant to be an arbitrary, but decently realistic number. It turns out my
arithmetic was all wrong. I meant to go back 2,000 years before the Egyptians. In my head, as I
wrote, I thought Egyptians = 3,000 years ago instead of 3,000 b.c. So, I should have said 7,000
instead of 5,000. I was trying to think of a time when humans really started getting into a groove.
Where significant changes started happening every few hundred years instead of every 5-10,000
years.

My history of mankind might not be up to snuff, but the point I was trying to make was that, "You
think we're smart and know a lot after 7,000 years, just wait till you see what we find out during
the next million years. Or next BILLION years". And I did try to include the all important caveat, "if we keep from driving ourselves to extinction." That is a huge "if".

I agree with everything you said about the negative effects of technology. We're at ~7,000 years of
"modern" civilization and we're already heading into an extremely serious crisis. I purposely didn't mention the possibility that technology could lead to our destruction. I was trying to make my point with the assumption that we could hold ourselves together for a few billion more years and
that the advances in knowledge will be simply unimaginable to us now. Arthur C. Clark had a good line that seems appropriate, he said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Think primitive tribesman and a laser.

I think scientists and psychologists of today would be stunned if they knew of what we'll know in
another hundred years, let alone a million or more. As far as I know, and I'm just a guy with no
training, there isn't even a commonly accepted definition of free will. We're miles away from an
understanding of what it is and how it works. Knowing that, it seems a bit preposterous for
someone to blithely roll out a formula like a+b+c-5= free will, and that's that, it's settled.

As for the godlike thing: In an ideal situation where we don't kill ourselves off, we could be around for several more billion years. We can't even properly grasp the concept of several billion years, let alone the new knowledge acquired in that length of time. Rocket ships to the moon will likely seem more primitive than a chimpanzee using a stick to forage for termites.

And think of this. Using round numbers, this planet has been here 5 billion years. The universe,
we think, is 15 billion years old. Most scientists "believe" there is likely to be a LOT of life
sprinkled throughout the universe. The possibility is very real that there may be a civilization out
there that were already a billion years old before this planet was even formed. If, big if, that's so, what are they up to? They must have acquired some wisdom if they've kept themselves together
this long, and they surely would have technology that would seem like magic to us. Are they by
now, immortal, wise, and good? Who knows? It's fun to think about though.

And no, I'm not religious, and I don't believe the creation story. I did 12 years in Catholic schools and remained a believer the till my mid-twenties. Now I'm a fairly hard core agnostic leaning toward atheist. But I do try hard to keep an open mind. As open as I can.

I apologize if I rambled. That's a bad habit I have. It looks as if I've written you a damn letter here. Sorry about that. I've been up all night, but there's about a foot of snow out there and it's
Saturday, so what the hell. I enjoyed responding. I like subjects like this. :)

On edit: You said you believe it IS within us. I tend to agree. I don't think we're quite as dull as some say. I think there are mysteries out there, and in us, that haven't even been thought of yet.

[u4ic]

65. I agree with you about other life

in the Universe.

One thing I have to wonder about, though - what are we looking for - for what we define as 'life'?

Life evolved on earth as an adaptation to this planet. Life forms on other planets may not have the same characteristics. (and it doesn't mean little green men, as I'm sure you know)



Thanks for your explanation. :-) :hi:

[sammythecat]

66. Surprise !!

I've returned and resurrected this thread! I really wanted to respond but couldn't till tonight. Had to do some digging to find the thread again. :(

So,
What are we looking for? How do we define life? For myself, I'd combine the 2 questions into 1
and say we'd be looking for some kind of recognizable intelligence with which we could communicate.

It wouldn't take an alien observer long to figure out humans are intelligent life forms. We might not demonstrate a whole lot of wisdom, but it's clear we have some significant intelligence. They'd
see lots of contraptions all over the place that require some level of smarts. Likewise, remote
observation of their world would LIKELY show that we were looking at something very significant.

I stressed the word "likely" because it's also possible that any observed manifestation of their
intelligence would be so alien that it would be unrecognizable to us. We might not even realize we
were looking at signs of intelligence. And here I am going off into the fantastic again in that I'm
thinking of beings that have been around for maybe a billion years. Who knows what their civilization would look like? Could be anything, and most likely something completely
unexpected. They might have contraptions, or they might not. They might not even have visible
bodies. We're taking about possibly a billion years of evolution and technology here.


So, back to "what are we looking for", how do we recognize intelligent life when we see it without
any contraptions or other obvious clues? Place a naked human and a naked alien alone together
on a tiny desert island. They could be as different in form as an octopus and a monkey. How
does one gauge the intelligence level of the other? Well, if I was the guy I might pick up 3 stones, draw 3 lines in the sand, toss one of the stones away and then erase one of the lines. Stuff like that might demonstrate some mathematical ability beyond a counting horse. The alien might place 2 more stones in my hand to see what I'd do next. I don't have a clue what comes after this and I'd probably not be a very good ambassador. But I don't think it would take too long for one to recognize the intelligence of the other.

I really do believe in the possibility of beings out there who could have been advancing in wisdom
and knowledge for millions if not billions of years. No one knows of course, but intuitively, for me, this scenario is more likely than one in which we are alone in a universe of literally countless suns.

I can't really grasp the concept of a being with a billion years of history behind it and
what that would mean. That never really occurred to me till just a bit ago. I got to figuring:
I'm no historian so just for the sake of argument let's say modern history started 2000 years ago
and let's say you took a course in which each week you studied a century of history. That's
hardly an in depth study. Just a cursory view really. It would take you 20 weeks to complete the
course. If you were to do the same thing with the billion year history of the planet Xenop, it would take you 192,308 YEARS! And I really don't have a way to figure how long it would take to make a cursory examination of their physics, chemistry, psychology, etc.

It's just speculation of course, but if these Xenopians were to exist, I can't picture them to be
anything other than god-like to us. Truly, they would seem magical.

One last fantasy. These Xenopians have a billion years of technology and all the physical and
human sciences. They have also learned how to keep a civilization together for a billion years. I
think evil always, eventually leads to destruction. Goodness leads to peace. I think these
Xenopians would, almost by necessity, be peaceful, benign, and good. And their goodness may
very well be as god-like as their science.

I think if these Xenopians know of us it would be unlikely they would meddle with us in any way
we could perceive. They would not communicate with us directly, if at all. I don't think they would
want to somehow advance our technology. Hell, we're not mature enough to handle the
technology we already have. We're like 6 yr.olds with daddy's power tools. And as far as
imparting wisdom and goodness to us, well I don't think it's possible. You can't GET wisdom. You
have to mature into it. Besides, I think we already know what we should do. We're just having a
hard time dropping the Pride, Envy, Greed, etc. We're on our own with these problems. The
Xenopians know it's necessary we solve them ourselves. I think time and experience is the road
to wisdom and goodness. There is no easier way and there are no shortcuts.

Ok, this really is the last fantasy. I promise.

Xenopians are immortal. If everything else were true, immortality ought to be something they
achieved long, long, ago. Child's play to them. Even now, here on Earth, science is taking baby
steps toward this very thing. Whether we achieve this in hundreds or thousands of years the
methods we use might seem very crude to the billion year old Xenopians. Maybe they control
their body with their mind. Maybe they don't even have bodies except when they take one on if it
serves a purpose. Who knows. Sounds crazy but a billion years of history sounds crazy too when
you think about it.

Ok. So far: They're immortal. They are supremely good and wise. And they're science would give
Albert Einstein a killer migraine within half an hour. What if they know what the IT is within us that makes us, us. That makes you, you and me, me. Whatever it may be, whether certain
combinations of atoms and molecules or something we humans can only describe now with
religion or magic. Whatever it is, they know all about it. What if they can resurrect the dead! If they could they'd surely want resurrect their loved ones. The loved ones would want to resurrect their ancestors, and on it would go. Maybe there really is an eventual life after death! Whether it be now or sometime in the far future, maybe we do have a god, and he lives in an apartment on
Xenop! Or maybe it's our own descendants who will become god-like. Who knows.

I hope this doesn't make me sound nutty. It's just fanciful speculation. I neither believe or
disbelieve any of this. I do believe, however, that just about anything is possible given the age and vastness of the universe.

I'm afraid I took your simple question and just took off running through the entire house with it. I almost never get the chance to talk about this stuff. Even though it's fun to me, most think it silly and impractical. A couple minutes and they're done with it.
I hope it's a little coherent. It's very late and I've got to get to bed. I'm not going to reread what I've written. Spell checker is as far as I'm going. Sorry I waited so long. See ya around.

:)

:hi:

[Schema Thing]

15. To the extent that thought is chemical reaction....

yes. Extremely complex and not very well understood chemical reaction, but chemical reaction nonetheless. And yet we can also, to an extent, control those chemical reactions, refine them, make them work in our favor.

I robot? IYIYI robot!

[Karenina]

19. It's time for Mother Earth

to slap us into the next realm. :evilgrin:

[Random_Australian]

17. Well.... that's a long, long oversimplification, but yes, the objective world is all there is.

At least as far as we know, and it has more than adequate attributes to make humans. :)

[Taverner]

21. Not really where I was going - more like where does free will fit in?

And if you believe in all of this, as do I, how do you reconcile free will?

[liontamer]

26. free will is also a function of our biology n/t

[Random_Australian]

29. OOOOOOOOOH! I LOVE THIS QUESTION!

Ok, you know about wavefunctions right? Or perhaps not. Anyway, for sufficiently small things, something that has not interacted for a while becomes a wavefunction; that is, it is no longer there in terms of a deterministic thing. So it is unpredictable (except statistically).

And you should know about chaos too - anything with a Lyapunov exponent higher than one that has a small change will become exponentially different to what it would have been had that small change not occured.

Put the two together and you get:

Small upredictable thing + thing which makes small changes larger = large unpredictable changes in cognition = freewill.

:)

[Taverner]

33. Interesting....

And of course, we would be the conduit by which the change can have an even greater effect...

Question though - is the wavefunction truly random, or is it just part of a pattern we don't understand?

[Random_Australian]

34. Neither. We understand it sure, but it is not random-random.

It says there is a certain chance of the particle bieng in a certain place. So you might have a 35% chance it is in 'orbit' around one atom, 64% chance it is between two atoms, and a 1% chance it is elsewhere. (Example arbitrary) So until you look to see where it is, it's in all those places. Then you look, and there is no way of knowing where it will be, BUT you do know what chances you have. :)

[sammythecat]

46. I don't think we can

I don't think we really have all the answers we'd need before we can reconcile free will or not, despite the fact that someone on this thread has posted an actual formula for free will. Sometimes I think we become arrogant with a little knowledge and think we know it all.

The geometry of Euclid was all the shit for a couple thousand years. Past scientists took it for granted that it applied everywhere and in all cases. Well, scientists now know it doesn't apply to the very large and the very small.

To think that we can take the knowledge we now have, give it a good going over, and come up with an accurate and precise definition of free will and what it means to be human is both very premature and arrogant. We're not finished by a long shot. We haven't found all the answers, and this one may be the last to be found.

[wildhorses]

22. perhaps it is all that you know, dear friend

i, however would beg to differ...

imagination, spirit, hope...these words suggest a different set of circumstances

[Random_Australian]

28. What on earth makes you think they are not in this physical world, as you?

That is my point. I know these things, and more, and know them well.

I think that they are part of the physical world; and I don't see how their existence could make it seem like there is more than the physical world.

[wildhorses]

31. perhaps the physical

has a broad defintion...

and all that is
is physical
metaphysical
and
mystical

[Random_Australian]

35. No, I mean, all that is made out of chemistry.

(Well, physics, but you know what I mean)

What makes you think there is more to your thoughts than what exists in this objective world?

[wildhorses]

36. explain this to me then---

identical twins both abused
one grows up to be a kind and loving parent and a contributing member to society
the other grows up to be a drug addict...

[Random_Australian]

37. What's to explain? This is what you would expect with a chemical system.

I'm not getting you.

We live in a system where differences from an identical starting point grow exponentially, right? So we would expect this, right?

[wildhorses]

38. i expect nothing and demand less

and i am continually amazed at all that is awesome...

[Blue-Jay]

24. I'm a little confused by your use of the word "all" with regards to human behavior.

Certainly, there is a scientific basis for the idea of genetic predisposition. And yes, there is a (albeit shaky) scientific basis for reacting to natural pheromones.

However... To imply that learning/environment has NO effect on behavior (you said "all") is irresponsible and unproven. Did I misread you?

[liontamer]

25. yes, but that doesn't change the nature of human behavior

just our understanding of it. That's like saying "do you believe that all light is a function of photons?"

[SPKrazy]

30. I Do Believe That Is How The Body And Brain Work

I also think there is something more to being human... what that is? spirit? I think so... can't prove it so it is just what I think,

:shrug:

[hunter]

40. There's no way to do the math, so it doesn't matter.

Even if you knew the math.

Behavior is just a big branching tree pruned by chaos, just like evolution. There is stuff built into us that responds to the nature of the pruning (life has evolved to optimise behavior just as it has evolved to optimise evolution) but the outcome of thought is not deterministic. You can't predict the outcome based on the inputs, you can only go by some general rules and statistics, and there are always going to be surprises.

I don't think we can argue about spirits and souls and stuff like that when we hardly know anything about the basic stuff of the universe. I think it's an illusion that we actually understand certain things because you always end up in a circular argument -- we understand things because those are the things we understand. For the most part we can't even see the things we don't understand. And you can't really say there is anything outside the realm of physics/chemistry/biology because as soon as you can see it, then it's inside that realm.

We don't know even the basics of how minds work, only a few hints and clues and rules of thumb, so who's to say what it's really about. For the most part it's undefined. Matter can be arranged in ways that have surprising physical properties, and we don't see all the dimensions of the problem. We can't even tell what the dimensions we do "understand" are all about, especially when we talk about the "spooky" behavior of photons and such.

But I'm not a mystic, I don't trust in supernatural explanations of the common sort. I don't go around trying to figure out what a soul is. It's just another word, and the only way it's important is the behavior it engenders in other people, which is the only way any word is important.

If you could go back in time, say, to ancient Greece, and try to explain something like radio waves, unless you had a whole lot of demonstrations and the time to teach modern electromagnetic theory, and the tools to build radios, then the understanding of radio waves would be no different to the ancient Greeks than their understanding of religion. Their understanding of religion, no matter how farfetched and impossible you might think it, would still be more important than the understanding of radio waves.

Personally, I'm much more radical than attributing human behavior to "chemical/biological." I don't think there is any such thing as thought, even if I use that word. Language is only loosely coupled to reality, and it describes a whole lot of things that don't actually exist, or simplifies things such that language actually causes harmful behaviors because the words can be put together in ways that do not correspond to any reality.

To me, we are all just a big bundle of behaviorial widgets of various origins. These behavioral widgets are no different than any other evolved feature -- no different than any physical feature, and just as diverse in the human population as skin color or any other variable feature.

Maybe I think that way because I seem to be missing a few behavioral widgets, sort of like being an albino missing the pigments for skin color.

[Deja Q]

41. No, not everything we do is about gettin' laid...

:rofl:

[mentalsolstice]

44. No, and I guess that's why I believe in some sort of higher being

There are certain emotions in the animal kingdom (not just talking about humans) that can't be explained by science. Especially when some emotions go completely against what we've learned to expect and simply can't be explained.

[izzybeans]

45. There are forces external to the body that provide the stimulus so no. No human

behavior is purely biological. But we do have bodies and they must operate so its not purely social or ecological either.

Your emotions are heavily bound up with your beliefs and habits, which are grounded in language, created by humans, transmitted through communication, so on and so forth.

[hunter]

48. How's anything grounded in language?

I can say any damned thing I want to, and it doesn't have to reflect reality in any way.

Falling stars and eagles, chains that clank, solid tree trunks
The landscape of my surroundings fills my head with noise.

Who knows, maybe it's profound, but actually it's some random stuff I cobbled together. The first line was generated entirely using random numbers, and I played with the second line to relate it to the first, and maybe set a tone reflecting my immediate emotional state.

Do you think I should pay attention to the voices in my head? Are the trying to tell me something? Is it the voice of God, perhaps?

Down that path lies madness, for me anyways. I recoil in horror at the thought people are "grounded in language," but it explains a lot, doesn't it?

:yoiks:

[swag]

47. I just keep praying for that damp fart.

[Nikia]

49. We go beyond our feelings all the time

At least I do, as do many other people.

[leftofthedial]

51. no.

some of it is also scatalogical

[mike_c]

54. yes

eom

[BluePatriot]

55. Probably...

...but our ego wants us to think otherwise.

:shrug:

[realisticphish]

56. Yes

All human behavior is based on tiny neurons firing, billions at a time, in mind-bogglingly complex patterns. We are like EVERY OTHER ANIMAL EVER, except we have a more complex brain, allowing us more complex behavior. It's astounding what a little cell that can only do one thing can accomplish when joined with other. And that, my friend, is why I'm a psych major.

[ghostsofgiants]

57. I'm not sure I really understand what you're trying to say.

Are you trying to emphasize nature over nurture? I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, and in fact, I'd argue that both are very important in forming a person's behaviour.

[varkam]

58. It's electrical, too!

Inter-neuronal communication is based on electrical discharge, whereas intra-neuronal communication is based on chemical release (so that multiple neurons can "talk" to one another).

Bear in mind, however, that dopamine and serotonin are but two neurotransmitters that we've implicated as playing important roles in behavior but there are hundreds of other neurotransmitters that probably play their respective roles as well.

For my money, I don't think there is any such thing as a "mind", or at least anything such as a brain-independent mind. If you change the brain you change our subjective experience of the world. Take LSD and you go on a trip, lop off your frontal lobe and you have a lot less personality. There's no good evidence to lead people to accept the fact that we have some kind of brain-independent mind. The only reason that is tempting is because we have always liked to see ourselves as "special". If we're just meat-machines, well...that doesn't sound too special.

[Taverner]

61. True - my lack of understanding of biochemistry kept list to a minimum

There are thousands of other chemicals at play, and often times you don't get one chemical, but a "cocktail" of chemicals. For example, during sex Dopamine, Seratonin and Opioids are released.

And I look at the seperation of the mind and brain as being an illusion. There are parts of our body which do "mind like things" (such as the spinal cord). Exactly how much and how much of an effect this has is unknown. Again, your spinal cord can't reason, but the medulla is more spinal cord than brain, and it is responsible for your fight or flight reflexes.

Also, I have never ruled out the idea of passing memories on genetically. We know instincts can be passed through genes - it would not surprise me that all these people who have memories of past lives are merely accessing their inherited memories. Again, I'm fully willing to accept this to be all pure quackery too. I just think it's an avenue we haven't fully investigated yet.

[bridgit]

59. as a practical matter yes...

[Orsino]

62. Nah. Sometimes it's conventional, and sometimes nuclear. n/t

[thefool_wa]

63. Everything that happens in our bodies

is a result of a chemical/electrical reactions. It is the soul which interprets these reactions as consiousness and awareness.

So yes, and no.

[atomic-fly]

64. interesting to ponder

chemical and electrical atomic, sub atomic.
And now as a type, I am exsisting on another level.
I need a few hours to explore this...maybe a life time.

[Solon]

67. All I know is that certain chemicals help...

;)

[tavalon]

68. Wow, I wish humans were that simple

Do I think they have a huge effect? Absolutely. But we are much, much more than that which makes us up. Thank goodness. Otherwise, I would find this life rather pointless and by this point, more than a little boring.

[NuttyFluffers]

70. what is your question? are you arguing for strict behaviorism?

are you asking whether we are stuck in a bio-chemical deterministic world devoid of free will?

well, interesting question, so let's look at a recent subject. explain to me how bio-chemical determinism has made you sit at your terminal, cognate this topic, and compelled you to post it here. was it a trick of the light of the supermarket you visited recently which compelled you to eat a certain meal, which gave you a touch of indigestion, which compelled your thinking, leading up to this? at some point every thought and action should be explainable, within the confines of our meager human capacity, by methodical process of elimination and the scientific method. if your hypothesis (if as i understand it, this is your post's hypothesis) you should be able to reduce such previous actions, and perhaps your next post as well, to its basic components and be able to map a causal chain which would not have deviation if performed repeatedly in a scientific environment (if it is even possible to develop an environment to even study something so complex).

or are you asking "if all human behavior is chemical/biological" that all has to be interpreted through these responses. since we can only measure certain things, it is only natural that all our recorded data will be compilations of physical and chemical reactions of corporeal beings. naturally we are trying to study brain waves and see if we can find any new information, perhaps even a causal point, where things are more than just a "reaction to a reaction," so we'll have to wait and see. but philosophizing broadly before we have a larger understanding of what is really going on does not bode well for the hypothesis standing the test of time.

actually, it brings up interesting questions: have you ever done anything that was contrary to the desires of your body, the conditioning of your memories, the feelings of your "heart," and/or the pressures of your environment/society, etc? if so, how is that possible? if you chose pain, inertia, or nullity, etc. over pleasure, for whatever reason, was that predetermined? and if so, why would the system allow this (efficiency? selection?)? at what point would you consider the system breaking down, or is it always perfect because you will continually define the response of things within the system after the fact? thoughts to consider...