What are the limitations of our cognitive abilities?

Question

In studying limitations, will we not open up possibilities for overcoming them? Do you have any idea of how these limitations can be explained?

Categorizations, metaphors, aphorisms, antropomorphisms, diagrams, models, correlations, computations... What are these things, and can you shed any light upon what might be beyond them? And if there is a 'beyond'.. could it lie in technology? If so, what is it?

Answer 1

With an instrument displaying such plasticity, I'm inclined to believe that any limitations can be overcome, and they are therefore only temporary. And succeeding in identifying our mistakes is an example of this. We are built with abilities that work very well in most situations, but in some situations they will be the cause of error. Knowing about these things can help you offset them. The answer to your question lies in the sorting out of these things, combined with thinking in new ways - new ways that take advantage of what works well.

Answer 2

your cognitive abilities are limited by your intelligence and your imagination. when faced with a real world situation, those who are more intelligent or imaginative will come up with a better solution than a fat kid raised on cartoons. the limitations are best explained as the point at which the mind cannot find a solution. this can be tested with puzzles of various kinds.

1. a row of pennies with the middle one taken out and put aside. the subject should be told that the penny set aside belongs somewhere. if the subject cannot correctly place the penny back in line with the other ones, that person rates as a "dunce".

but thats just an example. youll know youve come to the end of your cognitive abilities when your mind draws a blank. ive only reached my capacity a few times, and have pushed the limit further several times.

Answer 3

Yes all this is in the mind, but what else is there incognito we cannot full know. To say this is one thing but to believe in this quite another. We cannot believe that there is something we do not understand until we give our mind a reason why. This is the question that leads us to explore the strange world of paranormal and spirituality. The concept of God is the greatest unifying principle for the mind. The mind is like a sphere is light round a candle.

The things of that you have mentioned are great and numerous for each of them a book is required. But if I do not get simple here I might never answer your question. The simplest thing in the world for the mind is to learn to count one, two three and so on. But is this as simple as it looks? Are there some limitations to our mind along the way somewhere? This is what I would like to explore as an answer to your question - very briefly.

What we see through our naked eye, and then through a telescope is marvellous. And the thought of reaching distant stars and galaxies in the far-flung corners of the universe is an enchanting thought. But brilliance does not last in the eyes. Eyes gets used to the brilliance of things. However beautiful a thing may be eye will always search for the new. Can we think about an endless universe without it boggling our mind? Well, the first question is what is it that we call our mind? And is the universe out of our mind, or the universe is a part of our mind?

If you, for example, start to count, lets say, from one onwards, very soon you will realise that there is not end to numbers that you can count. For example, you live a zillion, trillion, million years, fine. And you count all the time. But there is no end. There will always be a number larger then that you have just counted, you see. The last number that you have counted has become part of your mind. It has expanded your mind a little more. And now this new addition to you mind has been able to create a progress in the number line dimension of your mind - yet another number for you to grasp. What ever we see, we see with the help of what we have seen already – what is already in the mind, as the mind. It does not happen in ticks. It can sound like a constant zoom - this keeps happening without a break.

Similarly the cosmos - the universe and beyond - is limitless by virtue of our own mind, you see. Even if we live for zillion, trillion and million years and spend all our time travelling we will not be able to reach the end! For there will always be a new horizon in front for us to discover. New worlds created by our own mind on the basis of what it already has and what it essentially is.

Answer 4

The beyond lies in direct communication with the omniscient Source. Its knowledge encompasses all the techniques that you mention, and extends them to infinity at the ultimate scale: The Universe.

Therefore, the limitations to people's cognitive system lie in people's limited access to the Source. With the entry of humanity into the Spiritual Age, which already took place, this limitation will be gradually lifted.

You may find it inspiring to read "Rational Spirituality" available on the Dhaxem website. Conveyed only in February 2006, it is already the intelligent person's handbook on God, and the Spiritual nature of the Universe.

Answer 5

The limitations of our cognitive abilities can be observed and measured in two ways: Sensors and Paradigms.

Cognitive abilities are based on our 5 senses being able to accept input from our environment. Without these inputs, there is no raw material from which knowledge can be assembled and used. The limits of our senses therefore create a barrier to our acquiring knowledge. Expand our ability to "sense" i.e. through the use of tools and we begin to overcome elementary limits created by our senses. A spectron microscope would be a simple example of expanding our senses to gather new raw material for knowledge.

Units of knowledge, once built, are further assembled into paradigms or models of the real world. These models enable us to better interact with our environment and more importantly, predict outcomes. Paradigms, however, can sometimes lead to stagnant or limited thinking meaning we begin to perceive and sense things through preconceived (paradigmatic) filters.

These preconceived notions cause us to block out other sensoral inputs that ultimately keep us from improving and building upon existing paradigms.

A simple example of Paradigm blockage that retarded the advancement of knowledge involved the world being flat versus being round. Once the paradigm of a flat world was broken, it opened up all kinds of new ways to learn.

The other constructs (categories, metaphors, etc.) you mention are just conventionalities for being able to represent in different ways our understanding of the world we live in. They are man made and therefore able to be destroyed and replaced when appropriate to do so.

What lies beyond them are extensions, some lineal some exponential, that represent advances in humankind knowledge.

What lies beyond it does not lie IN technoloy but it does lie WITH technology. Part of what lies "beyond" as you call it is the natural instinct to live as long as one can: immortality.

Immortality in an intellectual manner is fully achievable today; a physical immortality is not. We cross at this point into metaphysics where the governing laws of existence change.

The paradox here is quite literally that the more we know and learn, the more we realize how much more there is to know and learn. It is an infinite cycle.

Got that?

Answer 6

Human limitations are limitations of senses.What the eye can see,feel,hear etc are limited.The sense organs have limitations,say cannot see beyond few hundred metre,cannot hear beond a limit.These can be overcome to extent by scientifc devices.But even they have limitations.To cross the limitations you have to develop sixth sense.This includes intution to certain extent.Development of mind power is essential as mind can travel faster than light.The techniques of using sixth sense(Yoga and Meditaion) was known to the ancient and the secrets are no longer known.If Nostradums predictions are looking into the future ,there must be a way to see future.It requires a lot of research to develop science of Sixth Sense in order to over come limitations.Physical limitations can be overcome mentally.

Answer 7

The brain is a remarkable thing.

Yes, there are 'restrictions' that we face in terms of our senses;
our mortality. The mechanisms of the brain itself has limits that it can't go beyond: we need sleep for example and we can't fly or do many other things that are prohibited by the logic of evolution.

Another major 'deficiency' is the fact that we evolve rather slowly
although our thoughts and technologies advance at an increasing pace the tools that we use to think are not current.

Evidence of this can be qualified in the fact that taller men have
more likelihood of getting married than their shorter counterparts. Evidence of this (and more) have been researched, The foll. link explores this using the issue of size, and touching slightly on men's sensitivity to women's fat deposits (hips t!ts & @rse)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/sizematters.shtml

My point is size matters to us today, although it's completely irrelevant in today's society and this is evidence that our brain uses some archaic developments to function today.

My theory is that man is using evolution to rise above and beyond Himself. The first man to have a brain could not have functioned fully in our environment. A few centuries from now it's likely that the people living in the C20th won't be able to function fully in whatever future technology that science will have evolved us into
and the human brain is central to that.

My argument is that nature has no limitations, only barriers. Time is the only thing that can seriously deter nature from success.

Global warming for example, will only devastate nature because it does not have enough time to evolve adaptations to the coming changes. The dinosaurs had the same problem.

The human mind using only a fraction of its abilities has brought us so far when things develop there will be those among us who will move forward with it.

Whatever vacuum of knowledge there is out there our nature, our science, our technology our BRAINS will fill it.

If we have the time.

Answer 8

Not at all, rather it encourages a more realistic evaluation and discrimination of "spiritual" claims. Cognitive skills included the ability to objectively and analytically evaluate the evidence and claims as well as the capability to reject previously held positions. Edit: What "Jerome" said is not "dogma", perhaps you should choose your words less literally and more knowingly.

Answer 9

The sense organ perceptions are the limit....
Only when a person 'consciously' evolves beyond these sensory perceptions, using 'self-awareness' (the only thing we know without the help of sense organs), as a basic tool, we are capable of transcending these limited abilities, and shall then become truly "unlimited" by experience !

Answer 10

Yes many r self centered...it is how the generation was formed. If people don't come together the world's resouces will be depleted at 2050.

The most common athiest are fools they stopped believing in god only for personal gain. But after all the partying or personal gain they will at some point crash and in desparation rejoin a new religion. The better athiest believes in " the golden rule" and just tries to live his/her life the best they can. Some people who believe in a higher more mysterious sense of god than a strict religion often are classified as athiests. Some athiests are similar to Buddhists trying to free their mind or of what some call "mental crutches" which many religions are. But everyone has a mental crutch, well almost.

Ah yes, it's all what u were raised on. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists (well few, also in buddhism they have the choice to embrace a faith with buddhism), and Hindus are the majority and they all have their share of ignorant fools who believe their's is the one and only path. Also there are human flaws influenced in the Bible. They all equally believe in their faiths, whose to say who is right?

But heres the catch. Some people can respect all faiths with the current information so available, but with it some they just stop caring because of a somewhat overload of information and modern idols.

I hope that someday soon something will unite all people to work for the common good...perhaps a book or movie portraying our religious futures could snap them out...but like one "beatles" song about a utopia sadly that can never be gained, there will always be atleast one fool.

Everything is in a cycle; phsychoanalization (patterns of one's mind), the Bible (sin, disaster, repentance, salvation), kharma, reincarnation, nature, and Steven Hawkins theory (there have been many civilizations like ours throughout the universe, but at one point it detroys itself through over exhaustion of resources, or extinction (nukes)). There are ups and downs...your job is to make sure the next down isn't as low as the next one so eventually we will keep pushing upward.

My personal philosophy is follow the golden rule and embrace god. Of all religions i must say i respect buddhism the most, it brings people together like christianity was meant to do.

Hope I was of some help,
Until next time,
Yours truly,
Wranderer

Source(s):

My Mind



and some belief is that god is a man made thing, made by collected mental energy that can control certain tyhings such as crop growth, get 1000 desparate people u can make a new religion. 1 persons mental energy is what u would call luck