This is not to for a minute to suggest child molestation isn’t appalling and disgusting. I have spent lots of time listenint the victims. The kudos is for doing something that may break down the barriers of seeing others as demons rather than people who do frightful things.

Hi Chris, if not immaterial parts then wholistic emergent phenomena. The problem with the material/immaterial split is how they communicate. There then is usually posited a third term (but is this material or immaterial and if neither then what? and on and on). I think our reality is not reducible to the material. There are various forms of materialist philosophy – all unsuccessful in my view – they can’t give an account of any distinctly human phenomena in my view. The recent US revival of this kind of thing just ignores the problems in the philosophy as if they had neve been identified (maybe the writers are just plain ignorant). I don’t find this intellectually impressive.

David Hume pointed out long ago that no one has ever seen a cause. Since then empiricism has just been bluffing.

I’m not claiming to have the answers on how to talk about all this but I do think materialism is just reductionist.

One of the big takeaways was that it all begins with a fantasy in the mind of the molester. These monsters would allow themselves to think about committing their crime first and that would lead them to position themselves into situations where it could take place, and then they carry out their fantasies if and when the opportunity arose.

I know, it’s heavy and difficult subject matter, but I think it proves the point rather convincingly that thoughts and fantasies are extremely powerful.

BTW, just so you know, child molesters go after kids with low self-esteem, low confidence, quiet types. You’re better off to raise your kids to be loud, expressive, and with high self confidence in order to prevent this type of awful abuse.

Sorry for bringing the conversation to such a dark place, but I thought it was too important not to mention.

And the same quantum physics experiment conducted by different experimenters with different hopes and expectations will still turn out the same!

Still, like you say, there are a couple of ways in which it seems generally accepted that our thoughts and emotions do influence reality — one being the unconscious mind, which I think you’re referring to, and which I’m going to dive deeper into in the next post. As you also observed, even philosophers who claim that thoughts and feelings are mere “epiphenomena” of neurochemical activity don’t (and can’t) really act like they have no free will when it comes to living their own lives.

Maybe the difference between the “Secret” view and the view of modern psychology and philosophy is more a difference of degree rather than kind.

This is Cory. I read your stuff on a pretty regular basis and was surprised to see over on Mindfulconstruct that Melissa has pitted us against each other on our supposedly opposing viewpoints on self-help. I think she’s going to put our guest posts back to back and see if there’s something there to look at. It should be fun!

But anyway, I don’t think that thoughts create anything physical outside of our own bodies unless you extend the meaning insofar that thought leads us to create something physical like building a chair or something. I don’t buy the message of The Secret that thoughts alone are as powerful as they say.

I remember when I was young another kid told me that for every new thing we learn we get a new crease in our brains. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I always have imagined it to be the case, at least metaphorically.

Thoughts create constructs in the mind. And while we may not be able to watch these constructs crystallize in a CAT scan, they are definitely as real as real can be.

Walking around with healthy constructs will bring goodness into the world, because each choice you make in life will be influenced by your healthy beliefs. So, yes, thoughts create things most definitely.

Free will is a tough one. It sort of doesn’t really help you by believing you have no free will, because then you’re just giving your power away to a perceived greater force.

“I’m just gonna snort all this cocaine, because my life is already determined anyway.”

You have to believe that your thoughts, actions, and choices are under your own volition in order to take responsibility for your own life.