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Originally Posted by Liara Covert  Keith: Why are you convinced humans see patterns where none exist? |
'cos we do. Look at an electricity socket and you see a face. Look at a particular cloud and you see a bunny rabbit. Recognition is a key evolutionary survival skill. And false positives tend to be less detrimental than false negatives (it's far preferable to think something is a sabretooth tiger when it isn't than to think something isn't a sabretooth tiger when it is).
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Originally Posted by Liara Covert How do you know we don't each perceive our own individual 'patterns' on some level which are invisible or unfathomable to others? |
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
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Originally Posted by JohnPlace The ability to think for one's self is critical. And I think most spiritual people are doing that (at least to the extent that any group of people does it). |
I never implied otherwise. I was purely referring to the human preference for internal knowledge over external. (How many times do people 'reinvent the wheel' rather than listen to someone else on how to do it?).
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Originally Posted by JohnPlace And when you say that people "resent being told what to do," context is everything. A person actively seeking an answer will have a different frame of mind than a person being "corrected" by someone whom he did not consult for an opinion.
I've also seen enough of human behaviour to know that some people actually enjoy being told what to do -- I've seen far too much of this, in fact. My point is that human behaviour is more variable in this regard than you suggest. |
In both these cases people retain control. In the first they are accepting the absorption of external knowledge that they have deliberately sought out and vetted. In the latter they follow because the leader is leading in a direction they want to go. If he suddenly veers off, resentment will appear.
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Originally Posted by Michael Chui First, this is the first time I've used the multi-quote thingy. So, before I respond to anything, ZOMG! AWESOME!!.  Yeesh, no more opening up the thread again and searching for the post numbers. Yay! |
What's "the multi-quote thingy"? I'm hand-hacking mine...