In my last post I commented about the link between the brain and the mind. That post received so much interest and so many comments from all perspectives that I thought it would be useful to explore the topic more systematically. Nobody should be mistaken about the cultural importance of the topic. The link between the mind and the brain is not merely a medical story. Its implications reach into almost all aspects of religion and spirituality including the belief in God, ghosts, angels, devils, and life after death.
When most of us think about the key conflicts between science and religion, we tend to think about Darwin's theory of evolution published in 1859, or Galileo's persecution by the Catholic Church in the 17th century. These famous clashes between science and religion are resolvable. Every sensible modern religion accepts the fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. Liberal religions are gradually accepting the scientific fact of biological evolution.
One disconnect between religion and science, however, is much older, much more profound, and may be much harder to bridge. It dates back at least to Hippocrates in the fifth century BC. At that time there was no formal science as it is recognized today. Hippocrates was nonetheless an acute medical observer and noticed that people with brain damage tended to lose some of their mental abilities. A passage attributed to him summarizes his view elegantly:
"Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. Through it, in particular, we think, see, hear, and distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the bad from the good, the pleasant from the unpleasant..."
About a century later Aristotle famously disagreed with Hippocrates, placing the mind in the human heart. Aristotle listed his reasons, many of which sound vaguely plausible given the analogical and somewhat mystical thinking of the time. How did Aristotle go so wrong in his medical analysis? He was a theoretician. Hippocrates, who worked in a hospital, saw the effects of brain damage every day and grounded his theory in observation. Nobody who spends appreciable time with brain-damaged patients can avoid the obvious conclusion. The brain is the source of the mind.
Another famous view of the brain/mind problem was outlined by Descartes two thousand years later, in the 17th century. In Descartes' view the mind was an ethereal substance, a fluid, that was stored in a receptacle in the brain. When he dissected the human brain he noticed that almost every structure came in pairs, one on each side. The human soul was obviously a single entity and therefore it could not be stored in a double structure. In the end he found a small single object at the center of the brain, the pineal body, and deduced that it was the house of the soul. The pineal body is now known to be a gland that produces melatonin and has nothing whatever to do with a soul.
Descartes' idea, aside from being wrong in the particulars, has a deeper problem. There is no part of the brain that, when damaged, takes away the Cartesian soul. Instead damage to different structures takes away different chunks of the mind. The ability to formulate a sentence? Lost in damage to Broca's area. The ability to understand language? Lost in damage to Wernicke's area. The ability to see, imagine, or comprehend color? Lost in damage to specific regions of the visual system. The ability to think about the space around the body? Lost in damage to another set of brain areas. The ability to intuit the feelings and intentions of others? Impaired after a stroke to a specific network of brain regions. And so on. The mind is a collective and bits of it die when parts of the machinery are mucked up. Even awareness itself, as I wrote about last time, can be splintered apart and compromised by brain damage.
The effect of brain damage is certainly not the only pertinent evidence. Some of the more interesting evidence comes from the direct electrical stimulation of the brain. A little more than a century ago scientists tried applying minute sparks of electricity to surface of the brain, stimulating the circuitry. The technique was improved and elaborated and is now one of the main methods for probing the brain's circuitry. For example, before removing a tumor from a person's brain, a surgeon will expose the brain while the person is awake and under local anesthetic. The surgeon will then study the effect of electrical stimulation, mapping out the function of this and that brain area, to avoid surgically removing any area necessary for language. Some of the most colorful and memorable experiments of this type were done by Penfield in the early 20th century. He found, as have many others since, that electrically tickling a specific spot in the circuitry has a specific and predictable effect on the mind. Whether seeing, hearing, feeling hunger, feeling rage, remembering a scene from childhood, making a coordinated gesture, even feeling as though you've intentionally chosen to make the gesture, these many bits and components of mind can be turned on and off by altering the activity of neurons.
The evidence is now overwhelming that every aspect of the mind is produced by the brain.
The realization that the brain produces the mind is similar in some ways to the theory of evolution before Charles Darwin got to it. Prior to Darwin, the theory of evolution was much discussed and the fossil record certainly supported it, but nobody could point to a plausible mechanism. How exactly did one species evolve over time into many new species? Darwin proposed a mechanism that fit the evidence: natural selection. Survival of the fittest. With the discovery of this simple mechanism, the science of biology was revolutionized.
The idea that the mind depends on the action of the brain is amply supported by the scientific evidence. But nobody knows how a brain produces the inner experience -- the feeling of consciousness. What is the mechanism? That is the question of our time. Many theories have been proposed, including one of my own, and only time and data will tell who is right.
I draw two personal lessons from the neuroscience of mind.
First, far from dismissing mind, or spirit, or soul as nonsense, I see these quantities as far more precious precisely because they are vulnerable and finite. In a sense I've become more spiritual as my scientific understanding deepens and I realize that spirit is a passing conjunction of information.
Second, the neuroscience of the mind gives me a wonderful opportunity to work on a scientific problem that is truly meaningful. About 25 years ago Francis Crick, famous for his role in understanding DNA, posed a question. Is it possible for brain science to address consciousness, a topic traditionally studied by philosophers and theologians? The answer is a definite yes. Many neuroscientists including myself have joined that effort.
Portal:Mind and Brain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Still playing god-proxies’ games?
Theo-religio-philosophical conundrums that do not exist?
Nietzsche calls them ’shadows of God’ -- Gay Science sections 108-127.
Philosophical knots inherited from dead xian culture;
Imported from teleology (Purpose) and cosmology (Design).
Copernicus (unintentionally) killed Aristotle and Plato;
Darwin killed both Purpose and Design in biology.
(God-proxies hate creativity).
Free will? Unfree will? There is no ‘will’, free or unfree.
“The primitive sign of wanting is trying to get.” -- Wittgenstein
Minds and bodies? There are no ‘minds’; there are no ‘bodies’.
“A nothing would be as good as a something about which
nothing could be said” -- Wittgenstein.
Only persons using language, creating cultures, exist.
There are no monads.
Epicurus has a 'swerve' -- QM indeterminacy is not analogous.
Uncaused events explain nothing.
Universal deterministic causation would not preclude novel events -- Spinoza.
Universal mathematical necessity does not preclude creativity.
Very ancient notions of dead ‘body’ and ‘last warm breath = psyche/anima/soul’;
Wishful thinking about post-mortem existence tarted up as a reward for good behavior.
‘Intention’ as a precursor to ‘willing’ is morality as social control by god-proxies.
“When will these shadows of God cease to trouble us?” -- Nietzsche
the anti_supernaturalist
Not as good as you may assume. While I have no doubt that you are an exceptionally skilled communicator in the public *scientific* commons, you are not just preaching to the choir here.
I obviously don't expect you to look anyone up. But when you take the time and effort to *respond* to a particular post in the first place, you can reasonably be expected to have taken the time and effort to *read* it. You seem to be admitting, without blushing, that you only read *parts* of the individual posts that you respond to. That would explain most of the resulting confusion and frustration that others here have been forced to ignore.
Among other things, this is a forum for honest debate and the exchange of ideas -- provided you have the confidence and inclination to use it as such. Now, if you're more comfortable using it as a sniping point or smorgasbord table, then have at it. But you are not the final arbiter of how a blog works or is supposed to work. It *can be* anything, but it *is* what you choose it to be.
Finally, and I mean FINALLY, you've contributed a concrete example for which I can thank you. You are, of course, correct; I used the word "theory" incorrectly in this instance. But you assume it's because I don't know a theory from a speculation, or a conclusion, or a thesis, or a belief, or a fact, or a hypothesis, or a principle, or an assumption, etc. The quote in question is the title of the article! Is this not more likely an example of poor word choice?
You seem to think that an advanced degree is required to grasp the meanings of general terms. Yeah, yeah -- scientific process, methodology, peer review, global institutions -- we get it. You rubber stamp it on most of your posts. Some of us wake up in cold sweats at 3:00am screaming the words! We get it, OK?
"Again, your inconsistent post shows that you don't know what science is. Clearly, like Aldous Huxley wrote "some people process and some people don't"."
We could market a drinking game based upon the number of times you accuse me, and others, of not knowing what science is. And with each of your posts, it becomes more and more apparent that no one but a fellow scientist could pass your litmus test. You suggest, and admittedly not without some justification, that the only way to really know something is to experience it. Consequently, if you're not actually part of the scientific community, accredited and degreed, then you know nothing of science and are unfit to comment on anything related to it -- which is practically everything.
Yes, most of us do not have a scientific background. But you deny us even a layman's understanding of science -- to say nothing of the additional, albeit comparatively minimal, exposure to it that many of us have had in our academic careers. You pronounce us ignorant of science simply because we don't sacrifice ourselves at its altar, as you have. And we must endure your scorn.
Oh, and thank you for presenting such a shining example of Huxley's hallowed objectivity. A more accurate observation, such as "Some people process differently than others," wouldn't have been as provocative, would it?
In particular, I was puzzled by this comment of yours:
"It's already complicated enough. We don't need your Occam's Razor shaving it down to nothing."
Here you imply that bringing neuroscience into the discussion of the soul and consciousness will make an already complicated subject even more complicated. How? By shaving it down to nothing. Please explain.
The Soul is either given Eternal Life (Heaven) or Destroyed (Hell)
Why? Science will advance to its peek.
Not sure if they will release the information.
"a river of consciousness....poured into sentient beings....along the spiritual path...blah, blah, blah, blah"
If you haven't got something meaningful or sensible to say, keep it to yourself. No one cares about your meaningless, personal revelations.
this is a question that fails to understand the very term infinite. ie no beginnings no endings no boundaries and interesting; infinite cannot be defined. for to define inifinite is to limit infinite.
"and even if matter exploded from nothingness"
nothing can come from nothing. zero times zero is always zero. always.
the western mind confuses the term the eastern religions use: emptinesss. emptiness is not nothingness. emptiness is pure awareness, ie no flow of thoughts. ie the mind with an "emptiness" of thoughts.
there is awareness, no thoughts, and there is consciousness ie flow of thoughts. evolution of the soul is about greater and greater awareness. awareness is primary ie first cause.
"Science is reverse engineering...studying "creation", the design of another".
interesting statement. this might qualify as a nice analogy for materialism. except infinite does not design it manifests and expresses and we look upon the manifestation as creation. we look upon that expression as life. we are expressions of that that is. kind of scary sometimes to think we are expressions of the infinite that that is. :-)
"It took a preexisting intelligence to design and build this computer so that I could come on here and give you a hard time about your silliness" my kind of humor. :o)
That statement sounds as if you've had minimal first-hand and long-term experience with animals. Or that you view animals with a human-ego-biased mind.
You don't exactly know what you're talking about. I've seen my pets, "free think" and I'm sure I've seen birds and such build very creative nest and "remembered" where to fly back to, so their young could eat.
From reported cases of reincarnation, of which there are many of various qualities of documentation, it seems that conscious memories are an artifact of the mind, but not necessarily of the soul itself. That spark that realizes it exists and has a self-identity carries a deeper and more profound but immediately inaccessible memory that we can only be tricked into accessing sometimes. It appears that when the brain dies the mind dies with it, but there is yet something that moves on and sometimes returns in a new life, with a new brain, cultivating a new mind.
Defining the 'mind' is not defining the 'soul'. One is not equivalent to the other.
If on the other hand you're comfortable with your beliefs then by all means, proceed with them in peace. I don't need you to conform to what I think.
anyway..why is it that I can't remember a time I didn't exist ? I've heard nasty rumors that at one time I wasn't here,but,there is no real proof of that in my memory .So why should I accept their assertions that there is or was a "past" that I was not a part of
Teaching at three universities I saw this group think and herd effect up front and personal. That word nurturing in this quote taught at universities gave me a smile. Pure naiveté.
Example: every business school in America teaches this idea of leadership is pay for performance in spite of its destructive elements to organizations and even to a nation’s future unfoldment.
Who do you think these universities keep? Those that challenge the existing dept paradigms? Not.
I left university life to become a consultant and got to travel the world and all of America. This gives one an interesting perspective on the human mind and its cherished beliefs and paradigms.
Religion and politics and yes universities and even scientists and yes we consultants are classic examples of this group think and herd effect.
This idea that science is not subject to these human cherished beliefs and herd effect and that the scientific method is conducted as pure science is very naïve to say the least.
The process of religion, on the other hand, is something entirely different. It is about the entirely irrational subjective experience of being human inside the mechanism. It is about the heart, the emotion, the compulsion that moves us and animates us, and for which the real reasons are opaque and unavailable to science or to us for the foreseeable future. It is about the meaning of the life intentionality which exists only inside the mechanism, the source of life's meaning and morality.
Certainly science and religion can disagree, for the way to reconcile our experience with the underlying physical reality from which it emerges is not obvious. It has been debated for eons. Still science and religion are dealing with two different worlds and two different ways of knowing. They are not competing directly in any way.
But, there is plenty of reason to believe there is a "God"
I don't know what the heck a soul is..I just know I have one..and it isn't created by my dna or brain
Many professors or lead researchers do consulting for other academic groups and most common, for private companies. In my area of profession, they often sit on Scientific Advisory Boards of companies to advise on the science and the future directions.
Most of these professors made a living off of challenging paradigms. It takes a long time of doing the work, good work, and building great teams of people.