Powerful belief can make you both hear and see things that aren't there

[oliver_denom]

Turns out that under the right circumstances, you can make yourself hallucinate.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/ ... ucinations

[LaMachina]

Wow, pretty fascinating!

Maybe all the talk of maintaining faith and choosing to believe really does give positive results??

I'm also always intrigued at how much this stuff hinges on how an individual's brain operates. It makes me wonder how anyone can be properly judged for unbelief when the very brain we use to experience the world can vary so much.

[deacon blues]

Wow, pretty fascinating!

Maybe all the talk of maintaining faith and choosing to believe really does give positive results??

I'm also always intrigued at how much this stuff hinges on how an individual's brain operates. It makes me wonder how anyone can be properly judged for unbelief when the very brain we use to experience the world can vary so much.

I agree empha...enfactical....enphaticallee.......you're right. Judge not that ye be not judged.

[deacon blues]

From the article: "More than 300 years ago, the philosopher Rene Descartes asked a disturbing question: If our senses can't always be trusted, how can we separate illusion from reality? We're able to do so, a new study suggests, because our brains keep tabs on reality by questioning its own past expectations and beliefs. Hallucinations occur when this internal fact checking fails, a finding that could point towards better treatments for schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders."

Does this mean we should doubt our doubts, or doubt our reason?