Moral conduct in the absence of commandments.

“Thou shalt love puppies.”

Does the above Commandment explain why people dutifully gravitate to homeless puppies, adopt them, feed them and love them? Of course not, because there is no such commandment. Nor are there any other abstract moral principles requiring us to love puppies. We love puppies because the urge to love small tame animals is deep in our bones. We love puppies because we are built to love (contrary to those who claim that life is fundamentally dog-eat-dog -- Consider also, that the “struggle for existence” is only a conceptual metaphor with limited application). Our human bodies are pre-rigged to take care of cute little mammals, especially when they appear to love us back. We would love puppies even if there were a commandment telling us to NOT love puppies.

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Instant Rockstar and Instant Respect

Now you don't have to learn how to play the guitar. All you need to do is pretend that you can play guitar. At my neighborhood Walgreens, there is now a big display featuring Paper Jamz plastic and cardboard string-less guitars (electronic sensors pick up where your hands are). For only $25 ($15 extra if you want a separate amp made mostly out of cardboard), you can be an "Instant Rockstar." I picked up one of these "guitars" to see whether I could feel like an "Instant Rockstar" right there in the aisles of Walgreens. I felt the glow of stardom for only a few seconds, because you can't actually play Paper Jamz guitar like you can play a real guitar (I play the guitar professionally). You can't play individual notes, you can't play precise rhythms, the sound range is extremely limited, there are no dynamics and there is only one genre offered: distorted rock chords. Each of these five models of "guitar" is loaded with only three songs. Once you master the three songs on one of the guitars, you'll need to go back to Walgreens and pay $25 for a different model in order to play three more songs. Instead of real guitar lessons, just go to Rockstarz Academy. The manufacturer of the Paper Jamz "guitar" tells you that you'd be wasting your time and money to buy a real guitar and learn how to play it. The Paper Jamz display actually includes a video promo with this opening line: "Why play an electric guitar when you can play Paper Jamz?" Why, indeed? I would offer one good reason why you might want to forgo the Paper Jamz "guitar." When you play a fake guitar instead of a real guitar, you will get fake respect, instead of real respect. To paraphrase and expand the Paper Jamz motto, "Why live a real life when you can watch TV and pretend to be living a life?" Amotz Zahavi made it clear that in order to be reliable, a signal means to be expensive. If you want lots of respect, then, go practice hard so that you really learn how to play the guitar, and then come back and impress people by playing real songs. Paying $25 and then banging on a piece of plastic and cardboard isn't going to get you much respect, unless your audience consists of three-year-olds. Then again, I'm probably missing the point because massive numbers of Americans are under the delusion that reality is the way they desire it to be, rather than the way it actually is. Buying a cardboard guitar can bring instant respect to many teenagers because they believe it can. We are a society that craves instant respect. We show off our gadgets and toys to the have-nots for instant respect. We join the military so we can carry guns, wear uniforms and blow things up in order to get instant respect, even though we've floundered through life until then. We celebrate family tragedies, sickness and addictions because these bring us respect as high-ranking victims. We strive to shake hands with Hollywood and sports celebrities, because this brings us instant respect. We become fans of professional sports teams in the hopes that they will win their championship, which seems to bring us respect. I hope that everybody buying a Paper Jamz guitar really takes the time to impress their friends by "playing the guitar" before they lose all interest in "playing" the three songs programmed into their "guitar." I'm not denying that this gadget is technologically impressive or that it could be fun for a small child. But within a few months after buying a Paper Jamz guitar, this gadget will undoubtedly end up in the back of the closet, and it will eventually be tossed into a landfill with all the other gadgets we buy in our attempts to gain instant respect.

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Real life mind meld

Michael Balter reports that scientists are honing in on the real-life mechanism that allows two minds to meld during conversation:

Scientists have traditionally considered talking and listening to be two independent processes. The idea is that speech is produced in some parts of the brain, including a region known as Broca's area, and understood in others, including a region known as Wernicke's area. But recent studies suggest that there's actually much more overlap. For example, partners in a conversation will unconsciously begin imitating each other, adopting similar grammatical structures, speaking rates, and even bodily postures. This overlap helps people establish a "common ground" during conversation and may even help them predict what the other is going to say next . . . Some researchers think that so-called mirror neurons, which fire when one individual observes the actions of another, might be involved in these interactions.
The scientists conducting the study argue that the experiments they've conducted demonstrate that listeners are active participants to successful conversations.

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The other use of the imagination

Imagination is often used for play, but Timothy Williamson reminds us that imagination is critical for serious thinking:

[I]magination is not only about fiction: it is integral to our painful progress in separating fiction from fact. Although fiction is a playful use of imagination, not all uses of imagination are playful. Like a cat’s play with a mouse, fiction may both emerge as a by-product of un-playful uses and hone one’s skills for them.

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Near death experiences as purported evidence of a soul

At AlterNet, Greta Christina has written an article titled, "Why Near-Death Experiences Are a Flimsy Justification for the Idea That We Have Immortal Souls." She argues that the evidence supporting the independent soul is "unfalsifiable."

[It] is flimsy at best. It is unsubstantiated. It comes largely from personal anecdotes. It is internally inconsistent. . . . The evidence supporting the "independent soul" explanation is flimsy at best. It is unsubstantiated. It comes largely from personal anecdotes. It is internally inconsistent. It is shot through with discrepancies. It is loaded with biases and cognitive errors -- especially confirmation bias, the tendency to exaggerate evidence that confirms what we already believe, and to ignore evidence that contradicts it. It has methodological errors that a sixth-grade science project winner could spot in 10 seconds. And that includes the evidence of near-death experiences. There is not a single account of an immaterial soul leaving the body in a near-death experience that meets the gold standard of scientific evidence. Not even close.
Christina bristles at the believer argument that scientists are "biased." Yes, they are, but not in the way that many believers argue:
Scientists are human, too: they don't want to die, and they'd be just as happy as anyone to learn that they were going to live forever.
Christina also points out that the trauma of near death is an altered brain state that can account for any altered perception:
Weird things often happen to people's minds during altered states of consciousness. Exhaustion, stress, distraction, trance-like repetition, optical illusion, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, sensory overload... any of these physical changes to the brain, and more, can create vivid "perceptions" that are entirely disconnected from reality. It's been extensively demonstrated. And being near death is an altered state of consciousness, a physical change to the brain.
I agree with Christina's arguments. I would extend them to those who suggest that they can give accurate accounts of what it is like to have a stroke, relying solely on introspection.

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