Christian Belief Through the Lens of Cognitive Science: Part 3 of 6

I Know Because I Know

On a warm afternoon in June, two men have appointments with a psychiatrist. The first has been dragged to the office by his wife, much to his irritation. He is a biologist who suffers from schizophrenia, and the wife insists that his meds are not working. "No," says the biologist, "I'm actually fine. It's just that because of what I'm working on right now the CIA has been bugging my calls and reading my email." Despite his wife's skepticism and his understanding of his own illness, he insists calmly that he is sure, and he lines up evidence to support his claim. The other man has come on his own because he is feeling exhausted and desperate. He shows the psychiatrist his hands, which are raw to the point of bleeding. No matter how many times he washes them (up to a hundred in a day) or what he uses (soap, alcohol, bleach or scouring pads) he never feels confident that they are clean.

In both of these cases, after brain biochemistry is rebalanced, the patient's sense of certainty falls back in line with the evidence. The first man becomes less sure about the CIA thing and gradually loses interest in the idea. The second man begins feeling confident that his hands are clean after a normal round of soap and water, and the cracks begin healing.

How do we know what is real? How do we know what we know? We don't, entirely. Research on psychiatric disorders and brain injuries shows that humans have a feeling or sense of knowing that can get activated by reason and evidence but can get activated in other ways as well. Conversely, when certain brain malfunctions occur, it may be impossible to experience a sense of knowing no matter how much evidence piles up. V. S. Ramachandran describes a brain injured patient who sees his mother and says, "This looks like my mother in every way, but she is an imposter." The connection between his visual cortex and his limbic system has been severed, and even though he sees his mother perfectly well, he has no sense of rightness or knowing so he offers the only explanation he can find (Capgras Delusion).

From malfunctions like these, we gain an understanding of normal brain function and how it shapes our day to day experience, including the experience of religion. Neurologist Robert Burton explains it this way: "Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of knowing what we know arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of reason." (On Being Certain, xi) This "knowing what we know" mechanism is good enough for getting around in the world, but not perfect. For the most part, it lets us explain, predict, and influence people or objects or events, and we use that knowledge to advantage. But as the above scenarios show, our ability to tell what is real also can get thrown off.

Burton says that the "feeling of knowing" (rightness, correctness, certainty, conviction) should be thought of as one of our primary emotions, like anger, pleasure, or fear. Like these other feelings, it can be triggered by a seizure or a drug or direct electrical stimulation of the brain. Research after the Korean War (e.g. R Lifton) suggested that the feeling of knowing or not knowing also can be produced by what are called brainwashing techniques: repetition, sleep deprivation, and social/emotional manipulation. Once triggered for any reason, the feeling that something is right or real can be incredibly powerful -- so powerful that when it goes head to head with logic or evidence the feeling wins. Our brains make up reasons to justify our feeling of knowing rather than following logic to its logical conclusion.

For many reasons, religious beliefs are usually undergirded by a strong "feeling of knowing." Set aside for the moment the question of whether those beliefs tap underlying realities. Conversion experiences can be intense, hypnotic, and transformative. Worship practices, music and religious architecture have been optimized over time to evoke right brain sensations of transcendence and euphoria. Social insularity protects a community consensus. Repetition of ideas reinforces a sense of conviction or certainty. Forms of Christianity that emphasize right belief have built in safeguards against contrary evidence, doubt, and the assertions of other religions. Many a freethinker has sparred a smart, educated fundamentalist into a corner only to have the believer utter some form of "I just know."

Does this mean that rational argumentation about religion is useless? The answer may be disappointing. Religious belief is not bound to regular standards of evidence and logic. It is not about logic but about something more intuitive and primal. Arguments with believers start from a false premise -- that the believer is bound by the rules of debate rather than being bound by the belief itself. The freethinker assumes that the believer is free to concede; but this is rarely true. At best the bits of logic or evidence put forth in an argument go into the hopper with a whole host of other factors. And yet each of us who is a former believer (we number in the millions) reached some point in our lives when we simply couldn't sustain our old certainties. Our sense of knowing either eroded over time or abruptly disappeared. So sometimes those hoppers do fill up.

Given what I've said about knowing, how can anybody claim to know anything?
We can't, with certainty. Those of us who are not religious could do with a little more humility on this point. We all see "through a glass darkly" and there is a realm in which all any of us can do is to make our own best guesses about what is real and important. This doesn't imply that all ideas are created equal or that our traditional understanding of "knowledge" is useless. As I said before, our sense of knowing allows us to navigate this world pretty well -- to detect regularities, anticipate events and make things happen. In the concrete domain of everyday life, acting on what we think we know works pretty well for us. Nonetheless, it is a healthy mistrust for our sense of knowing that has allowed scientists to detect, predict, and produce desired outcomes with ever greater precision.

The scientific method has been called "institutionalized doubt" because it forces us to question our assumptions. Scientists stake their hopes not on a specific set of answers but on a specific way of asking questions. Core to this process is "falsification" -- narrowing down what might be true by ruling out what can't be true. And to date, that approach has had enormous pay-offs. It is what has made the difference between the nature of human life in the Middle Ages and the 21st Century. But knowledge in science is provisional; at any given point in time, the sum of scientific knowledge is really just a progress report.

When we overstate our ability to know, we play into the fundamentalist fallacy that certainty is possible. Burton calls this "the all-knowing rational mind myth." As scientists learn more about how our brains work, certitude is coming to be seen as a vice rather than a virtue. Certainty is a confession of ignorance about our ability to be passionately mistaken. Humans will always argue passionately about things that we do not know and cannot know, but with a little more self-knowledge and humility we may get to the point that those arguments are less often lethal.

Robert A. Burton, On Being Certain
V. S. Ramachandran (TED talk), A Journey to the Center of Your Mind

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Comments

[Kaushik Ch]

Jesus wanted everyone to be Christ, not christian, and Buddha wanted everyone to be a Buddha, not Buddhists. I think both would have been shocked at the rigorous institutions and beliefs constructed in their names. Let go of beliefs, be present, and the world opens up.

[Mriana]

Very thought provoking article and very interesting.

[shiggityx2]

"And yet each of us who is a former believer (we number in the millions) reached some point in our lives when we simply couldn't sustain our old certainties. Our sense of knowing either eroded over time or abruptly disappeared."

This is what happened to me during my third year attending a Christian college. I was a philosophy major and took a philosophical theology course where I read many articles on theories of atonement, incarnation, the trinity, original sin, God's relationship to time, and the conflict between God's omniscience and the concept of free will. After all of that research and a genuine period of trying to understand the nature of God, I had nowhere to go accept logically conclude that everything I had been told up until that point was based on nothing but a fear of the unknown.

I don't believe in gods, but I could be dead wrong and will face whatever consequences a supposed god would have for me because I decided to use the brain I was born with.

[Zanti]

What was the Christian college in question? Just asking.

Because I'm getting vibes that tell me you're yet another former literal believer, though I apologize if I'm wrong.

[shiggityx2]

I was never a literal believer of most of the Old Testament and understood natural selection as soon as I learned about it in middle school, but the pastors at the church I grew up in tried to teach me otherwise. I did believe in the Resurrection, heaven, sin, and the Trinity. Once I stopped believing in a physical hell, the rest of it started to erode more quickly.

The school I attended is in Santa Barbara and I believe I received a good education there. I don't think I could have made as informed of a decision about my beliefs if I was not required to study the Bible and write papers on religious subjects. Many of my friends came to similar conclusions or now claim agnosticism, but it was certainly an overwhelming environment at times to be shedding what I thought was such a large part of my identity.

[Zanti]

As always, you approach religion as a fundamentalist. Those of us who aren't (or weren't, at any point in our development) have a hard time relating to what you describe as religion, since it isn't what we describe as religion.

For instance, your concept of "rational argument about religion" involves using logic and evidence (or lack thereof) to undercut literal belief in the supernatural details of religion. Your whole series depends on that stereotype of faith, it seems.

At any rate, in many of my faith-themed debates with brights and the like, I find my opponents unwilling to, or incapable of, hearing what I'm actually saying. Once I i.d. myself as a person of faith, they assume--even if we're arguing about the price of hood ornaments in West Bosgodia--that I'm arguing for a belief in magic. And that I have some issue with science and logic. No amount of clarification on my part gets through to them--once their minds are set on a particular course, nothing can compel them to stop and reconsider. Cognitive flexibility, this is not.

You're correct insofar as the incorrectness of being certain about anything, but you might consider allowing "anything" to include science itself. I'm not suggesting we doubt the findings of science or stop praising its admirable record of correcting itself at every turn, but we tend to treat science as the one and only reliable portal to truth, and how can we be sure?

[HeevenSteven]

"but we tend to treat science as the one and only reliable portal to truth, and how can we be sure?"

Well, when you discover another portal, I'll surely be all ears and so will the Nobel committee.... Guess they'll have to come up with a new prize... The Nobel prize for Zantification.

[Zanti]

Key phrase: "the one and only reliable...." The phrase qualifies and clarifies my point.

I'm suggesting we question our tendency to place absolute faith in the observations of science. Valerie seems to be making a similar point. *Absolute* faith, mind you. It doesn't mean we should doubt science as science--it means absolute faith in science (which translates to a certainty that it, and it alone, provides all the answers worth having) is a mistake. That doesn't translate to doubting our senses as much as maintaining a healthy skepticism regard them, and especially regarding any construct therefrom.

Let me say in advance that, if you or others elect to take my words as a swipe against science in favor of religion, you're simply proving what I said about the inability and/or unwillingness of brights, etc. to process what's said to them. Be bright and don't.

[Zanti]

"Healthy skepticism regarding them," I mean. Not "regard them."

Absolute faith, remember. I'm not arguing we should distrust science, though I'm now taking bets on how long 'til someone takes that as my position. I say within 30 minutes. It'll probably happen a lot faster than that.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

You're making quite a bunch of statements and as a result, the net result of your stance is both true and self-contradictory (and hence some of what you say is false).

Anyone who indeed does treat science as the one and only reliable portal to truth is in deep trouble. That's because many things of high relevance in everyday-practice are far from scientific truths.

[Zanti]

What did I say that you consider false?

[rudyinbama]

Exactly what "of high relevance in everyday-practice" is scientifically false?

[Valerie Tarico - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi Zanti -
What I am interested in understanding is the broad main current of religious belief. There have always been side streams of mysticism and nontheistic spiritual experience. I personally think that these too can be explained in natural terms. But in this series i'm trying to lend a few insights into the phenomenon of "belief."

[Zanti]

Which you're defining in terms of fundie faith, wherein "Jesus walks with me" means that the guy is literally walking by my side, and, sure, go ahead and photograph us. J. will be happy to sign the prints. THAT kind of literal belief.

Or that Noah dragged dinosaurs onto the Ark--which must have been hard, considering how much those things would have weighed.

Mainline faith is something more abstract, more literary (as opposed to literal), and savvy. Savvy in the sense that those of us who "believe" are placing our belief in the truths that accompany the mythology of faith. We know that things can be true without being factual--poems, paintings, music, and movies are other examples of same. Homer's "Odyssey" is one of the most extraordinary versions of the human journey to grace the oral tradition and find its way onto paper--but, in admiring the brilliance of that epic poem, we don't have to literally believe in the legends recorded there. In fact, Homer is one of the finest examples of the "reality" of myth--stories which aren't true but which are packed with power and insight. What is more real than insight? Or the power of a great story? Science can't test either, but we'd be lost without them.

[minimalist syntax]

Zanti, I share that experience where once you identify yourself as Christian people are unwilling to really hear anything you have to say. I absolutely agree with you that this series does depend on the stereotype of faith based on evangelica­l-fundamen­talism. I love how we are accused of not believing in science and being idiots or having left our brains at the door. It is particularly interesting I think because since we are all anonymous bloggers here (except Valerie), you never really know anyone's true intellectual credentials.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

In any decent culture of debate, the intellectual credentials play no role. Only the argument itself counts. As a matter of fact, the very idea of both the 'gymnasium' and the 'university' are built on that very notion in the platonic sense, or in the socratic sense of the role of the eros in knowledge expansion.

I can see neither where the series depends on the stereotype nor where christianity is dismissed without further qualification (or indeed where it is dismissed at all).

[JohnFromCensornati]

"I love how we are accused of not believing in science and being idiots or having left our brains at the door."

Should I indulge your passion more often?

[Merlin7]

Unfortunately the people who need to read this the most are least likely to read it. They think they already have all the answers, because the Bible (or Koran or whatever) told them so. Perhaps someday scientists will discover a medication that will cure people of religious belief, and the stuff will be sprayed from airplanes to effect the cure en masse. What a wonderful day that would be! Just think about all the lives that would be saved, all the misery prevented, all the money that would be diverted from the hookers-and-cocaine budgets of various evangelists.

[SiberianRat]

You're right, they won't read it or will and in their minds they'll proclaim how right they are and how wrong the article is. I'm not a Marxist, but he was 100% right when he said that "religion is the opiate of the masses." It's probably more dangerous than actual opium addiction. I think the underlying fear/ego combination feed it, and unless people can somehow get in touch with that and work to change it, they're doomed to a life of toxic, hate-filled addiction to religion.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

It was Lenin who said that religion is opium to the people.

[Zanti]

You'd never know that, in our current pop culture, bashing faith is the hip thing to do. Anyway, I think that post got you in the club. Now it's time to pay any membership dues, or recruit, or whatever the next step is. Congrats.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

It may be hip to bash faith, but that doesn't make it square.

How about making all the sense there is of whatever it is that's in this faith-type­-of-thing?

Beyond bashing. Beyond fees. Beyond discipleship.

Wouldn't that be something?

[Valerie Tarico - Huffpost Blogger]

In my mind "hip" trivializes the motivation behind most of the critique of faith. Faith is killing people. Many of us think of it as one of the biggest threats to our survival as a species. That goes a bit beyond trendy.

[perelmanfan]

A brilliant exegesis like this deserves some comments, HuffPo people!

Wait...actually, I'm not so sure...

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

Does it help to remove a bunch of borromean rings from surrounding space? Will that help you to psych?

[minimalist syntax]

That's kind of trinitarian.