"World's oldest calendar" - Mesolithic Lunar Warren Fields Calendar vs Solar Calendar of Neolithic Stonehenge/Irish Newgrange + Pawnee star chart agrarian Calaendars -  Selective Attention-Orientation: W James, John Bargh, Muzafer Sherif, & Mannheim
Creators: name: Peck Jr, Charles E
Publisher: name: academia.edu
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: Attention (Title)
subject: Center for World Indigenous Studies
subject: Blaan (Philippine people)
subject: Filipino Americans--Psychology
subject: Filipinos
subject: University of Pittsburgh. Dept. of Anthropology
subject: Society for Applied Anthropology
subject: India. Dept. of Archaeology
subject: England--Stonehenge
subject: Scottish Americans
subject: Irish studies
subject: Stone worship
subject: Association for Humanistic Psychology
subject: Existential psychology--History

description: Selective Attention: W James, John Bargh, Muzafer Sherif, & Mannheim - Social Roles & religious beliefs 
Selective attention is a fundamental aspect of human consciousness that shapes how we perceive and interact with reality. Research shows that attention, intention, and motivation are intricately connected, with emotions playing a crucial role in directing attention to significant stimuli. Neuroscience concludes that selective attention emerged through evolution as a design feature of our complex sensorimotor system. 
What makes selective attention important is that as William, James pointed out – and neuroscience has confirmed – to focus attention requires ignoring and excluding other stimuli and information. Selective attention can influence academic and scientific perspectives, as researchers tend to focus on specific aspects – particularly the materialist tendency to focus on physiological data while excluding information that doesn't fir that framework or fit neatly into laboratory experiments – such as symbolism (Rollo May), social activities and group related emotions (Kay Deaux – social identity theory), producing extreme individualism (Hay, Gergen, etc.), as well as inadequate models for spirituality and religion! 
Iain McGilChrist observes that the materialist "rigid adherence" to strict quantification and laboratory actually "restricts and limits" data and informaiton available for analysis. Jeremiah Lasquety-Reyes, author and expert on Filipino ethics stated "this extreme adherence to materialism is too restrictive and limiting, and frankly fails to capture so many richer aspects of human experience and psychology." My argument is that "restricted and limited" applies not just to information and data but to awareness as well. My argument is that accepting the widespread assumption that "science equates to quantification – which may be true for physic or chemistry but excludes social knowledge (Gergen, Maimone, E. Halas) – creates a materialist "mindset and worldview" which generates a serious researcher bias. Human consciousness is a totally different "paradigm – dimension" than physics.  Buddha observed "We become what we think." On top of that there are numerous studies that show psychologies can become "self-fulfilling prophecies"  
As Iain McGilchrist observes, attention is "boring" - but pivotal. DiSalvo emphasizes – there are two sides to the selective attention coin – 1. the focus of attention and 2. the exclusion of other information. William James is famous for the insight that the world is "one great blooming, buzzing confusion" (to an infant). Understanding the selective attention process can help our understanding of various fields, including religious and spiritual beliefs - which it has not been applied to – in particular to early spiritual - religious beliefs such as the hunter gatherer beliefs in animal spirits which from a purely psychological-social viewpoint served to focus attention on animals – their source of sustenance and survival. That is a good counterpoint to the pervasive maladaptive idea of the "supernatural" or supernatural beings". It si supernatural because - first by definition it is a fallacy, specifically the Definist fallacy. The definition of the supernatural is that it is outside the scope of science which makes it a loaded term. Secondly, the supernatural comes with baggage such as powers, absolute knowledge, etc.