psych2030_assignment 3 ++

Level of Cognitive 1

Running head: TRANSCENDENTAL COGNITIVE QUALITY

Level of Cognitive Complexity and Abstraction of a Transcendental Being

Conrad H. Ng

York University


Abstract

This study analyzes the power of transcendental being. The hypothesis includes Can God

create a thought that can not be understood. Jesus of the Christian religion participated in

the study while there remain doubts about the truth of the participant’s identity. The

participant completes a 30 trial study of generating and abstracting premises which were

recorded and analyzed by a super computer. The results show massive power in both

abstraction and universalization of the generated premises abilities. However, the result

suggests a limit in the English language for cognitive ability as well as a limit in the

study’s identification of a non deceitful transcendental being. This study nevertheless

provides evidence for the transcendental being as both powerfully developmental and

regressive.


Level of Cognitive Complexity and Abstraction of a Transcendental Being

The notion of monotheism has mainly been a Western concept (Gerrard et al

2005) While many cultures and religions continue to challenge monotheism, one premise

and contradiction has plague the monotheistic ideal since the question was first proposed

by Simpson, “Can God microwave a burrito so hot that even he can not eat it?” (Simpson,

2005, 1) As suggested by Maldini and Nesta (2003) this basic question has the potential

for putting known metaphysical as well as metapsychological reality, knowledge and

order into doubt. Since, Donald and Duck (as cited in Simpson, 2005) has suggested that

the basic diet of God does not consists of burritos; the question proposed by Simpson

cannot be tested. However, it has been suggested that God thinks and may process some

cognitive ability which maybe tested psychologically (Donald, Duck and Simpson,

2006).

This research hopes to provide some understanding of the proposed question by

examining; can God think similar to those of human minds? And can God think with

such complexity that the thoughts itself becomes incoherent, even to God? This basic

hypothesis may provide a better understanding concerning the nature of divine order and

power, therefore this research may re-align current metaphysical and metapsychological

contradictions within our understanding and scientific paradigm. This research examines

God’s, Jesus’, cognitive ability by counting the number of cognitive complex thoughts

generated and the number of abstraction possible. These cognitive abilities are

operationalize by counting the numbers of linked premises generated verses the numbers

of conclusions form from the generated linked premises within a given timeframe.

Perhaps once and for all the questions of, “Can God microwave a burrito so hot that even


he can not eat it?” (Simpson, 2005, 1) and; is God’s cognitive ability similar to the human

mind? (Donald et al, 2006) maybe answered.

Method

Participant

Figure 1 showed the poster used in the universal search for Jesus which was

placed at major churches around the world. Participant was given the choice of the

experiment and that the world wide search would be called off pending a response for the

experiment. The participant was male and appeared to be in his thirties however he was

recorded to be 2007 years old at the time of the experiment. Upon recruitment and

explanation of the experimental procedures, participant was also informed that he may

drop out at anytime during the experiment and still be compensated with fifty Canadian

dollars.

Procedure

The experiment was performed on Earth at York University, Canada, at a constant

room temperature of twenty-four degrees Celsius. The participant claiming to be Jesus

was also tested by a local Reverend in bible knowledge and was asked to turn water into

beer in order to ensure identity of the participant. One super computer which has infinite

computational power made by NOMAC incorporated model number 1348c along with a

software call DCPC version 1.15a was specially formulated by NOMAC was used to

count the number of and determine the validity of the participant’s premises and

concluding statements. In this particular experiment, it was logical to use infinity as the

measurement unit since the participant was thought to have great abilities. This

experiment attempted to use a double blind procedure and requires at least one research


lab assistant to ensure the validity of the data and to reduce researcher bias during

analyses. A second set of randomly allocated data set was also created by the super

computer and the sets of data were analyzed by two different researchers. The real data

set was announced by the super computer after the researchers completed their analyses.

In a thirty-two trials experiment, the participant was first asked to type up in the English

language as many coherent premises as he can into the super computer within ten

seconds. A premise was defined as a proposition supporting or helps to support a

conclusion. The second task for the participant was to enter into the same super computer

as many concluding statements from his previous premises as possible within ten

seconds. A concluding statement was defined as the last main division of a discourse,

containing a summing up of the points and a statement. The participant should be able to

sum up all of his premises into the least possible number of concluding statements. These

two sets of data were then compared and scored in the number of abstraction of premises

into concluding statements.

Results

For this experiment, we obtained the mean numbers of premises generated and the

mean numbers of concluding statements abstracted. Table 1 presents, for both number of

premises generated and the numbers of concluding statements abstracted, the degrees of

freedom, the means and the standard errors.

The mean difference in the number of premises and number of abstraction was

highly significant, t(30) = 6.002 p < .05. In order to determine the validity of the dataset

the Spearman’s rho was calculated. However, there was no significance Spearman’s rho

correlation, r(32) = -.41 p < .82. Figure 2 presents a scatter plot of each set of results,


which may explain the resulting lack of correlation.

Discussion

The study results show that the participant processes similar cognitive ability

when compare to human beings at premise generation and premise abstraction however

this ability are at a greater magnitude. While this study might reaffirm the hypothesis of

Donald, Duck and Simpson (2006) that God thinks and processes some cognitive ability

similar to that of human mind; the participating transcendental being shows that he

cannot always create a thought that he can abstract and therefore may not understand his

own thoughts at some levels. Rather there appears to be some cognitive dissonance

among some of the samples as the abstraction became more numerous than the previous

number of premises. This study may provide some hint to Simpson’s initial question

concerning, “Can God microwave a burrito so hot that even he can not eat it?” (Simpson,

2005, 1) Logic deduce that God might be able to microwave a burrito so hot that even he

cannot eat it at times since Jesus, a God, both created abstraction and universalization of

his past thoughts. This study has profound metaphysical and meta-psychological

implication on the nature of transcendental beings and humans alike as the results seem to

suggest a both a developmental and a recessive transcendental being.

Yet, it is still uncertain concerning the nature of this research’s generalizability.

For example, the research suggests that God may be capable of eating the microwave

burrito at times yet it might not correlate that gods of other cultures would be capable of

similar abilities. This research however at parts reaffirms divine status within the western

religious world and the unbound cognitive psychological nature of divine power since the

participant performed these task in the infinity scale. Yet, this study also provide some


evidence for transcendental cognitive stability since there was a significant finding that

complex thoughts are generally broken down while there was a lack of instructions

followed. Since, pre-existing knowledge of the difference in gender does not exist. This

research may not be generalize onto the female population of goddesses since the

participant is a male. The implication of this study will however remain within the divine

realm which is as hypothesize excludes Buddhism (Maldini & Nesta, 2003).

Alternative explanation for the results might question the computational limits of

both the hardware and software while there may have been a mix-up in the data

collecting, storage and retrieval process. However, this is not the case since the computer

is capable of infinite computation. Another explanation may be cause by a limit in the

English language as a tool for cognitive abilities and philosophical logic. The cognitive

ability of God/gods might not overlap in all aspect of the mind and therefore the study

might have exclude aspects of divine, non-human, abilities. However, this is the best

method we know thus far. Temperature might be a factor in the difference between

different cognitive sources of transcendental beings since it has been scientifically

suggested by Graham and Schambaugh (1997) that hell is exothermic while heaven is

endothermic. This experiment remains at a constant of twenty four degrees Celsius which

might explain a difference in cognitive ability due to temperature since twenty four

degrees Celsius may not the normal temperature of a transcendental being of heaven or

hell. Another possible weakness of this experiment maybe from the knowledge that God

is a timeless being (Maradona and Pele, 2000). It might not be possible for God to have a

limited calculable number of infinity as data. It might be suggest that the participant was

simply holding back his generative ability. However, Jesus is a being of truth and justice.


Unlike the premises of the Great Aristotle for mortals, divine truth maybe

virtuous but it does not require development nor regression. Truth belong to the

set of the abstract; which is most pure and abstract can not be destroy nor created.

It exist for because i. (Maradona and Pele, 2000).

Jesus might not have participated in the experiment since the generated data might

instead represent another transcendental being, the Devil, who is attempting to spread bad

publicity for other divine beings. The Devil is also known to process great power that is

beyond human limits. The inability of humans to grasp divine concepts and divine reality

remains a puzzle however this study provide evidence that some form of transcendental

being might be at interaction with our mortal world. We have only touch on the question

of if it can ever be answer, If transcendental being eats burrito; “Can transcendental being

microwave a burrito so hot that even it can not eat it?” (Simpson, 2005, 1) At the moment

from the data of this study, the answer is possibly.


References

Donald, D., Duck, D., & Simpson, H. (2006). Alternative to Transcendental Eating

Habits. Journal of Transcendental Philosophy, 15, 507-523. Retrieved May 28,

2007, from Blackwell database.

Gerrard, S., Gigs, R., Henry, T., Pirlo, A., Terry, J., & Zidane, Z. (2005). Western

Thoughts and World Religion. Journal of Religious Psychology, 56, 56-67.

Graham, T., & Schambaugh. (1997). Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic? Inbox Humor.

Retrieved April 1, 2007, from

http://www.pinetree.net/humor/thermodynamics.html

Maldini, P., & Nesta, C. (2003). Eastern Religious Thoughts. Journal of Anthropology,

67, 1-10.

Maradona, D., & Pele, E. (2000). Gods of Football. In D. Beckham & J. Edwards (Eds.),

The Creation of Gods by Social Cultivation (115-116). Lala Land, Dreamworld:

Dreamworks.

Simpson, H. (2005). Philosophy of Homer Simpson (2nd

ed.). Toronto: Pearson

http://www.pinetree.net/humor/thermodynamics.html


Author Note

Conrad H. Ng, Department of Psychology, York University.

I thank Dr. Heather Jordan, Professor of Psychology at York University, for her

many detailed guidelines concerning the APA format.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Conrad H. Ng, 55

Crazy Road, ONT A1A2A2.


Table 1

Mean and Standard Error of Generative Complexity and Abstraction

df Mean Standard Deviation

Linked Premises Generated 15 77.8 15.0

Abstracted Conclusions 15 53.0 17.8

p < .05


Figure Caption

Figure 1. Poster for recruitment and world wide search for Jesus.

Figure 2. Dataset of number of linked premises generated and the numbers of

conclusions form from the generated linked premises.


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Premises Concluding statements

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psych2030_assignment 3 ++

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