The terrorist mind

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Feb 13, 2015 at 14:31

Hi, Waza

It's been a few days since you posted this, and I haven't seen a counter-post; though I know I've posted in response to most of your points. When responding, moreover, I always need to keep a "weather eye" on the O.P., to see how far afield we're going with this conversation.

The O.P. is about what might be called a terrorist attack in Sydney. Our main interest in this, of course, is the fact that we are both familiar with Sydney. This fact tells other readers very little about the attack there, though it certainly has helped with our getting toknow each other. We also went off on a discussion of science, philosophy and religion. Those are interesting subjects in their own right, and I am pleased to see that you are about as interested in them as I am.. Again, however, I don't know how much the average reader is interested in these things.

I suppose we could talk about the state of mine of the hostage-taker, noting that his "state of mind", as I have pointed out, is not the same as his "state of brain". The brain is a complex generator of squirts and juices, which "open and close circuits". Somehow, when we are carrying unresolved issues in our brains, the brain sets about to try to resolve these. This process is what I believe dreaming is largely about. The euphoria associates with the release of certain chemicals is not actually "pleasure", as my son once pointed out to me, but "the feeling we get when we know we're right". More recently, my wife told me that we get a pleasurable sensation -- again, generated by these chemicals in the brain -- when we have "solved a problem".

Our ideas about what is the "right answer" and the "wrong answer", then, as well as a fundamental understanding of what brings what is called "peace of mind", are clearly connected with this mechanism that goes on in our brains (not necessarily our minds). Sometimes I've noticed, when awakened out of a dream, that my dream has led me to a certain logical process that, upon awakening, I see wasn't logical at all. 2 + 2, for instance, can = 5 in a dream, if our minds create a dream environment where this is logically sound thinking. What matters during that time isn't that we find absolute truth. What matters to our brains, is that we stop struggling with the answer to the problem "2 + 2 = x", and close down that portion of our thoughts so that the brain can get on to more important matters such as regulating our digestive juices.

Despite all of the above, which suggests that our minds might actually be running themselves, I must add that there is a character in our minds (minds, not brains) that seems to be "in charge" in our dreams. I've even had dreams which seemed to be headed on a bad course, in which case I have consciously ran the dream in "reverse" to a "restore point", then purposely re-dreamed it to a more satisfactory outcome. This "main character" in our dreams (our own self) therefore does not necessarily move in a direction the mind wants it to go. It heads off in a direction that seems right to it; though the brain is able to "steer" the self by causing unpleasant things to happen in the dream. Our "selves", then, are free moral agents, like Adam and Eve in the Bible; and our brains are acting like nature, orchestrated by God. Our lives, then, are the interplay of these two things.

Having said all this, that "nut case" in Sydney that pulled off the hostage drama, along with suicide bombers and their sympathizers, were free moral agents, or "spirits". Those spirits were convinced in a direction of "bad dreams", as it were, continually putting stress on their brains and actually causing physical harm to them internally; but because they lacked or rejected Godly wisdom, they were unable to "reset" and resolve their issues, and the result was a mad rampage. In the hereafter, I expect God to set guardian spirits in the way, issuing a consuming fire, to prevent such spirits from interacting with those of just men.

There's my armchair analysis of the miscreant.

Greet Goldilocks for me.

Shalom shalom :-)

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