mcurrie's blog

                Whenever I think of wisdom I see an old man sitting on a bench ready to talk and give advice about life. But I’ve also heard the saying wise beyond their years, where with some children or young adult when you look into their eyes you see the old man or a wise being. Where does wisdom come from? How do people become wise? One method is by Erik Erikson’s eight steps. Erikson’s steps begin when you are first born and with age come certain experiences and problems that a person can overcome and obtain a certain value. If the experience is exaggerated the value can be lost or become a more extreme version of the value. Through these experiences a person in the end develops wisdom.

           Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm begins his tale in the medieval times where everyone knew their role in life, as a peasant or lord, and where people lacked individual freedom. Then an individual finds that they are a separate entity, separate from nature, and they began to discover the world1. With this emerged individual comes freedom, but with freedom comes a feeling of aloneness and a lack of purpose. The individual goes on a quest to fill the void of being alone. The path to maintaining freedom while filling in feelings of doubt and aloneness can lead to negative freedom and positive freedom.

            Religion experiments have been performed to figure out the religious experience, how the pattern of neural synapses will result in feeling embraced and in the presence of the ultimate being. Through these experiments scientists have found parts of the brain that are triggered and even a neuron that is triggered when a person sees or hears the word God. With these findings there is the debate if the brain formed a capacity for religion, if there is a specific neuron that makes one more susceptible to religious belief or if religion is just an imprint, something that forms from exposure.