PERCEPTION

• Ways of understanding or being aware of sensory information and reality

• Five senses, Sixth sense• Physiological constraints (biology)• Cognitive constraints (embodied) • Illusions, role of memory, emotions, blind sight• Limits of logical approaches• Neuroscience Explosion (FMRI , molecular

biology, and computers

WAYS TO DECIDE

• Authority• Revelation• Instinct• Intuition• Reason• Psyche

How Do We Know We KnowFeeling or Intellect

–Water is wet–2 + 2 = 4–Capgras Syndrome–E=MxC Squared–Atoms–Quarks–Quantum Theory–God

AUTHORITY

• Parents• Roles (teacher, coach, religious leaders)• Laws• Uniforms and Social cues (norms)• Learned vs. instinctual

REVELATION

• Direct experience via spirit contact• Indirect experience through senses• Belief independent of natural phenomena• Is there a religion gene or instinct?• Has religion evolved?• Temporal lobe seizures (St Theresa)• Persinger’s deep brain stimulation

INSTINCT

•Built in or hard wired• Inherited•Not learned•Considered animalistic

Intuition

• Unconscious or preconscious• Effortless and fast• Adaptive based valuation, not precise• Association based, like a metaphor, • Automatic, not flexible• Practice (muscle memory)• Learned

Reason

• Conscious• Takes Effort• Slow• Rule based like logic• Flexible• Can be practiced but takes a long time• Can not reliably predict future as rules based

on the past (stock market)

PSYCHE

• Psychodynamic (Freud, Jung, Adler, Klein etc)• Psychophysiologic (conditioning, aversion,

hypnosis, CBT, addiction, etc)• Abnormalities of cognition or perception• Combinations

FREE WILL

•Determinism•Agency•Combination•Neuro-ethics and neuro-jurisprudence•RESPONSIBILITY

Decision Defects• Delusion (hallucination)• Illusion ( perceptual constraints)• OCD (can’t be sure)• Decision influences (non conscious effects, loss

aversion, relativity)• Wrong premise (bad information)• Wrong logic (faulty thinking)• Wrong guess (intuition fails)• Compulsion ( determined by instinct)• Misled

DECISION MAKING

• How do we know the basis of any given decision or conclusion?

• Are decisions made consciously, unconsciously, both?

• Can we change our minds? Value of rational discourse vs. appeal to un or preconscious?

• Can we protect ourselves?

Further Viewing Decisions

• Daniel Kahnemann http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=12301

• Jonah Lehrer Fora TV How we decide• Dan Ariely

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html

• Robert A Burton http://youtube.com/watch?v=QL12cd4d0ro4

• Robert Cialdini Http://bigthink.com/robertcialdini

Themes

• Worldview • Internal vs. External• Reductionism vs. Dualism vs Emergence• Consciousness, Constraints on Knowing• Strange or Wonderful Mathematics• Fundamental Weirdness of Matter, Space and

Time• Feeling of Knowing• Implications for Discourse

Science vs. Religion Debate

Many Hours of challenging thought• Beyond Belief Series of Meetings on The Science

Network • The Four Horsemen Google Videos• Templeton Foundation• Wright and Goldberg on Blogging heads• Kuhn Closer to Truth• Faraday Institute St Edmunds Cambridge• Clayton Clayton’s Emerging