Brains falling out

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AlanFromWichita

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Putting a few things together …

About 20 years ago, I told a man “you should keep an open mind.”

He said, “if you open your mind too much, your brains will fall out.”

I’ve remembered that all this time, and just now figured out how to respond.

If we are afraid our brains will fall out, then we are clinging to those things we already know. If we want the Holy Spirit to instill wisdom in our mind, we can invite Him to do so by opening up a chair so He can come into our mind and visit a while. So if we have faith in God, then we can open ourselves up – our minds and our hearts both – until we are spiritually “naked” before Him with no shame, because we believe that He already knows what our faulty brains look like, and the site of yours falling out might be pleasing to Him, not a distress.

How can God perform surgery to heal your mind of its ills, unless you are willing to let Him get in? If your brains start to fall out, have faith the God will either fix them and return them, or trash them and replace them.

So anyway this morning I’ve been thinking of strategies to “cut through someone’s thick skull.”

God won’t cut through the skull, I don’t believe. He waits for an invitation. Humans are different, though.

Oops gotta go take my kid to school now … hold that thought. (or add your own) … i’ll get back to finish my ideas as soon as I can.

Alan
 
If your goal is to teach somebody what you believe to be a truth, and they won’t hear it, what can you do?

Looking at it like mental/spiritual warfare, we look at the barriers between our mind/heart and those we love, as what needs to be destroyed. So our enemy isn’t our brothers, sisters, and neighbors – the enemy is whatever is between you preventing communication.

Since most of us don’t see our own barriers (plank in the eye) all we can see is our neighbor’s barriers. So then we ask, “how can I get through that barrier?”

Look at the barrier, bushel, speck, whatever of your friend, and ask, “how can I get through that barrier? Do I blow it up, sneak through, disguise myself, what?”

Look at the workman that erected the barrier under the cunning leadership of the devil… that would be your friend. Try as he might to hear the word of God, satan has deceived him such that he has erected a shield against any new ideas that might be the truth. Why is that important, because since your friend built and maintains that barrier at the cunning direction of satan, the your friend just might know where their barriers have weaknesses. So basically, you ask your friend, “what weapon do you suggest I use to destroy the barrier you’ve worked so hard to build and maintain?”

So now back to the real world. The question becomes, how do I teach somebody something that I know, when they are not open to hearing it? What should be my logical strategy?

The best teachers learn from their students every day. How? They leave themselves open for it. That’s fine, but how does that help the students?

So here’s what you can do. You can ask your friend to teach you something that your friend thinks he knows. It doesn’t matter if he actually knows what he’s talking about, shut up and listen and try to hear what he says, no matter how stupid or objectionable it may sound. Really try to empathize with him, and not only get his point literally, but experientially through human empathy. Really try to “feel his pain” as it were. If you can’t let go of your claim that you think he’s being stupid, then do it by trying to imagine, how terrible would life be for me if I were that stupid?

You don’t have to actually understand, you have to to be submissive to your friend, and willing to try to go through his loops of logic. The key is not that you understand him, the key is that he is teaching you how to get through to him on something that somebody else has gotten through to him about in the past.

(That reminds me of an interesting psychological experiment that relates, but I’ll put that in a separate post so I don’t go off on a tangent.)

So basically it’s like saying to your friend, “look I don’t know how to convince you. Why don’t you tell me how somebody has convinced you before, so that I may use the same method to cut through your faulty logic.”

Then it’s like the friend says, “OK, the last time somebody proved something to me, this is what he said… Try that method and maybe you’ll get through to me.”

Of course, very few people are capable of being that honest, open, and direct. So the question becomes, in the real world, what can I realistically say to my friends? I want a script. Give me the words.

How about these?

Maybe you say, “I’d like to tell you something.” Then either your friend doesn’t want to hear it, or says he wants to hear it but when you explain it he stubbornly doesn’t get it.

Instead of asking that question, or at least after you fail the first time, try asking this question: “can you explain something to me?”

Listen closely and you will be able to tell what type of logical connections are most likely to work in explaining whatever you want to explain, to him.

Alan
 
It sounds like you’re misunderstanding what he meant when he replied, “Open your mind too much, and your brain will fall out.” Generally, this response is not about opening oneself to God and to the Christian faith. It’s about “being open” to ideas contrary to common sense, e.g. today people are promoting homosexuality, career before family, marriage as unnecessary for the family, that all religions should be treated as equally true, and so on.

“Being open” to all these apparently-bad ideas necessarily leads to the shutting down of one’s faculties of reason (“brain falling out”), because through reason we know these ideas to be bad.
 
I like your idea of asking someone directly how you can persuade them to your way of thinking. Very sneaky! 👍 I don’t think I’d ask “how did someone convince you before”, instead I’d ask “what would it take to convince you?” And I like the idea of asking someone “can you explain something something to me”. It’s much more gentle and non-combative than some of the attitudes I’ve heard here on the forums. If you start off saying “let me tell you why you’re wrong” your friend is going to be defensive. “I know what I know, don’t confuse me with facts.” On the other hand, your friend would be more eager to explain their side. Then if something they say doesn’t sound logical you can ask them again to explain until they explain themselves into a corner. Whereupon you can offer your own explanations.

This probably wouldn’t work with atheists though. If you ask them “what would it take to convince you that God exists” they would answer “scientific proof”.
 
seagal said:
This probably wouldn’t work with atheists though. If you ask them “what would it take to convince you that God exists” they would answer “scientific proof”.
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But just as you can say to a Fundamentalist Protestant, “Where in the Bible does it say that everything has to be in the Bible?” (I think Steve Ray taught me this question), you can say, “Where does scientific reason dictate that everything has to be measurable to exist?”

Is thought a physical thing? How can mathematic truth exist (e.g. 2+2=4) if such truth cannot be measured? (We can only observe things that happen to obey it.) It’s a difficult conversation to have, because there’s usually pride involved and the tendency to stop short of serious thinking, e.g. “Everything is physical and we just don’t know how yet.”
 
I thought of a much more succinct way to describe my suggestion than I wrote above.

Plainly and simply, I’m suggesting that if we really want to be heard by someone, try listening to them first. It might break down some barriers, and it might give you common ground to help explain in terms they understand.

God said from the cloud, “this is my beloved Son. Listen to Him.”

When we listen to others, especially others from whom we don’t think we can learn anything, then we are treating them like God would have us treat Christ himself. When we do that (to the least of His brothers) then we have also treated Christ the way His Father told us to.

This can help whether you are proud or not, and if so, if you know it or not. The proud want to persuade others, but when they listen they might accidentally learn something from the one whose teacher they presumed to be. So it backfires on the proud, but edifies the humble.

I’ll get back to the issue of “brains falling out” in a separate post.

Alan
 
ethereality said:
Is thought a physical thing? How can mathematic truth exist (e.g. 2+2=4) if such truth cannot be measured? (We can only observe things that happen to obey it.) It’s a difficult conversation to have, because there’s usually pride involved and the tendency to stop short of serious thinking, e.g. “Everything is physical and we just don’t know how yet.”
Click to expand...
Now you’re getting into epistemology - not a bad thing at all, though I think it loses people quick for the very reason you mention that they didn’t think that far through.

Also, we need to recognize that what we call science is not the reality, but is analogous to the road map and the terrain. Newtonian mechanics can explain our observations of gravity, but it’s not the same as the apple falling from the tree. Mathematics can show the relationships between quantities, but the field is really a mental construct, a language of nonverbals.To say, therefore, that math rules out God is ludicrous. Faith and reason both serve as modes of inquiries, seeking answers to different questions.
 
losh14 said:
Now you’re getting into epistemology - not a bad thing at all, though I think it loses people quick for the very reason you mention that they didn’t think that far through.

Also, we need to recognize that what we call science is not the reality, but is analogous to the road map and the terrain. Newtonian mechanics can explain our observations of gravity, but it’s not the same as the apple falling from the tree. Mathematics can show the relationships between quantities, but the field is really a mental construct, a language of nonverbals.To say, therefore, that math rules out God is ludicrous. Faith and reason both serve as modes of inquiries, seeking answers to different questions.
Click to expand...
I think math can be seen as a particular set of expertise – that changes from time to time – the involves learning the words and symbols to describe it, integrally with learning how the symbols interact to perform whatever exercises and tests the teacher wants us to perform.

Religion could be looked at from the same bias. God is Truth, and to claim to describe Him or define Him using human words construct by human minds, is ignorant and/or boastful. True religion, on the other hand, would be IMO the whole of all your beliefs and your motives and how those things interact to manifest in your works.

Any worldly religion is only a pointer to a painting of God expressed in words, deeds, thoughts, and actions. We embody it and preserve it across generations, by fixing it into standards that will transcend many generations of man without being distorted. To learn the religion is to learn the beliefs, and receive the sacraments and other benefits, integrally with learning the terminology to describe.

So without being in the same room, any thought we convey is done with a package of words. We type stuff on the keyboard, wrap it up, and press submit.

One philosopher I heard said that a “thing” is a think. When we name things, we define them as one part of God’s creation, as if it could exist or be adequately defined independent of the context into which God placed it. Once we give it a name, it can be talked about by itself… so the “thing” is identified by a name, and defined by a set of thoughts that are designated to mean “part of the thing” and “not part of the thing” and separate the entire universe by giving it one of those labels.

I’ve heard there are two types of people in this world. Those who divide people into two types, and those who don’t.

Alan
 
One thing I suspect, but don’t intend to try to prove,

If a saying is a common one, then people are generally likely to internalize it, without necessarily challenging or proving it to themselves. That is, say something often enough and people will believe it.

So people try to make the analogy true and useful.

The problem is, they throw the baby out with the bathwater. They either don’t notice there’s a baby, or they believe the baby is wrong or evil. The saying may have had some value, even if not in the way that the Dominant Mentality thinks about it.

When I think of “open mind,” I mean a mind open to new ideas. That does NOT mean that one must automatically accept those ideas. If your mind is closed to new ideas, even if you say, “I won’t listen to anything that particular man says,” then you are limiting God as to what instruments He may use to teach you something so new that it breaks open new meanings even to things you already thought you knew. So in defending your present beliefs without allowing any ideas that seem they may be false, you are telling God, “I know enough on this matter that I’m not listening to you any more on this issue.”

When I think of “brains falling out” I think that implies we will be stupider for having opened our mind than if we hadn’t. If this is the context of the saying, then I reject it out of hand.

Alan
 
I found this quote while looking for another one:

“An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it”

The site didn’t say who said it, but I like it.

Alan
 
bump. I have another idea.

I think it was Einstein who first pointed out that to solve a problem in N dimensions, you need to be able to analyze it using N+1 dimensions.

For example a two dimensional problem of how to go to the store.

One person might say, “turn left, right, and left again.” Another might say, “right, then left” is the correct way.

If you never saw a map, you may not know which of them is right, or if either or neither is right. All you can do is set out in faith on one of them and hope it is right. You really can’t try to mix the two, because that just doesn’t work. If you miss the store, you have no instructions on how to find it.

Now, let us look at the (approximately) two-dimensional earth surfaces from up, a third dimension, and now we’re looking down as if at a map. We can use a map or a helicopter to get that point of view. Now you can not only see where the two sets of directions lead, but you can come up with alternate routes, stops along the way, and even corrections when we get off course.

Another idea I came up with was a “stereo” approach to reality. Two people, for example a man and a wife, have different backgrounds and though processes. If they look at the same reality, they will undoubtedly agree on some things, and see other things differently. By using two views that are nearly the same but separate, with close communication you can get a sense of “depth.” In stereo, two viewpoints – whether audio or visual – of the same sound/object gives depth information. More so for a hologram.

Alan
 
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