"World's oldest calendar" - Mesolithic Lunar Warren Fields Calendar vs Solar Calendar of Neolllthic Stonehenge/Irish Newgrange + Pawnee star chart agrarian Calaendars - Selective Attention = Orientation: William James, John Bargh, Muzafer Sherif, & modern neuroscience, Mannheim, Synergies,
Creators: name: Peck Jr, Charles E
Publisher: name: academia.edu
Year: 2024
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: New Approach Conclusion - Selectivity evolved as a crucial design feature enabling efficient goal-directed action, emerging as organisms developed more complex action repertoires. The interconnection between attention, intention, motivation, and belief has been recognized since William James's observations and is supported by modern neuroscience. In hunter-gatherer societies, spiritual beliefs in animal spirits served a vital psychological function by directing attention and energy toward survival-critical activities. Roy Baumeister's comprehensive theory highlighted how various drives and desires both complement and compete for attention, with spiritual beliefs helping to focus attention on hunting and gathering while engaging imagination, empathy, and social relation skills. 
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 while excluding contrary evidence. 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." Buddha observed "We become what we think" – so "restricted and limited" applies not just to information and data but to awareness as well.  Understanding selective process can help our understanding of various fields, including religious and spiritual beliefs - which it has not been applied to. 

Introduction: Lunar orientation vs Solar Orientation: The archaeological evidence reveals a fascinating contrast in astronomical orientations between different ancient societies.  The Warren Fields site in Scotland, dating back 10,000 years, represents the world's oldest known calendar with a lunar orientation used by hunter-gatherer societies. This lunar focus was similarly reflected in Native American hunter-gatherer cultures, where most tribes reckoned 12 moons to a year. In contrast, later agrarian societies developed more solar-oriented structures, as evidenced by Stonehenge's solar corridor and Newgrange's midwinter sunrise alignment. This shift from lunar to solar symbolism, particularly visible in the transition from Stonehenge 2 to Stonehenge 3, suggests fundamental changes in "selective attention" toward and agrarian focus which changes peoples' orientation.