Apple Causes Religious Reaction In Brains of Fans

satuon writes "In a recently screened BBC documentary called 'Secrets of the Superbrands', UK neuroscientists found that the brains of Apple fans are stimulated by images of Apple products in the same areas as those triggered by religious imagery in a person of faith. According to the scientists, this suggests that the big tech brands have harnessed, or exploit, the brain areas that have evolved to process religion."

Comments

Apple Stores

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if I'm alone, but every time I walk past an Apple Store I'm terrified one of the staff is going to come out and offer me a free personality test.

Re:Apple Stores

[Posting=!Working]

If you walked in the store, you passed the test.

Re:Apple Stores

[tangelogee]

It's also amusing how much of a religion opposing Apple seems to be. I have to wonder if the grand irony is lost on you haters.

...kind of how Atheism is as much of a religion as religion itself?

Re:Apple Stores

[Bemopolis]

Well, whenever I use Windows I am convinced of the absence of a just and loving God.

Re:Apple Stores

[enderjsv]

Not really though. Saying something does exist is not the same as saying something doesn't exist. If I said there are no such thing as purple monkeys who drive cars, the lack of evidence suggesting their existence would satisfy most people, especially as the claim is significantly outrageous. However, if I said there WERE purple monkeys who drive cars, people would become far more skeptical.

Lack of evidence that something exists IS a type of evidence that it doesn't exist. It's not full proof, of course, but if it's the only evidence one can go by, it's better to regard it than disregard it and claim the opposite. If that wasn't true, then all kinds of claims could be made including my purple monkey statement and it'd be just as reasonable to say "well, you can't prove it DOESN'T exist, so you're a fool for denying my claim that it does".

Re:Apple Stores

[UnknowingFool]

What I see is that many geeks reduce Apple's efforts down to "simply" this or that. "Apple is all about marketing." In your analysis of the iPod, you've reduced the important contributions to "simply" the color and the wheel. I think many here on Slashdot still don't accept or understand is that Apple does not design their products for us; the target market is general consumers. Thus in your analysis you've ignored the features of the iPod that made it successful for general consumers.

With the iPod, focused more on usability than technical specs that geeks love. For example it was small and could hold a great deal of music. Before the iPod you had to choose between the two with competitors. Apple also shifted the mindset from a file-based system to a media based one. For geeks, they don't see a difference. For an average consumer who considers their desktop as their filesystem, removing the minutiae of having to deal with files increases usability.

None of these things were ground breaking from a geek's perspective. To an average consumer, it was magical. While geeks dismiss them as "inevitable" the question is why did virtually none of Apple's competitors do it first?

Re:Apple Stores

[MachDelta]

You're painting all atheists with the gnostic atheist brush. Most atheists are agnostic/soft/implicit atheists. That is, they don't claim to know weather or not a god exists, but they think it likely that none do.

Re:I'm an atheist but...

[jollyreaper]

As an atheist myself (and a relatively "strong" one at that - I consider the concept of religion to be toxic), I wouldn't be surprised to see the same reaction in rabid Linux users, or rabid Windows users (although admittedly they're a lot harder to find).

As an internet troll myself (and a relatively "strong" one at that) I wouldn't be surprised to see the same reaction in atheists when they see a picture of Dawkins, a smug and self-satisfied French existential movie or a first edition of Origin of the Species.

*ducks, runs*