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What
the Neuroscience Community Thinks About the Mind/Brain Relationship
by Mano Singham
The idea that the mind is purely a product
of the material in the brain has profound consequences for religious
beliefs, which depend on the idea of the mind as an independent
controlling force. The very concept of 'faith' implies an act
of free will. So the person who believes in a god is pretty much
forced to reject the idea that the mind is purely a creation
of the brain. As the article Religion on the Brain in the May
26, 2006 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education (Volume 52,
Issue 38, Page A14) says:
Pope John Paul
II struck a similar theme in a 1996 address focusing on
science, in which he said theories of evolution that "consider
the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter,
or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible
with
the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity
of the
person."
As I wrote
yesterday, the flagging
intelligent design creationism (IDC) movement seems to be hoping
for some
fresh energy to
emerge from the work of psychiatric researcher Dr. Schwartz.
Or at the
very least they may be hoping that they can persuade the
public that the mind does exist independently of the brain. But
they
are going to have a hard time getting traction for this idea
within the neurobiology community. There seems to be a greater
degree of unanimity among them about the material basis of
the mind than there is among biologists about the sufficiency
of
natural selection.
Stephen F. Heinemann, president
of the Society for Neuroscience and a professor in the molecular-neurobiology
lab at the
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in La Jolla,
Calif.,
echoed
many scientists' reactions when he said in an e-mail
message, "I
think the concept of the mind outside the brain is absurd."
But
the ability of the neurobiology community to do their
work unfettered by religious scrutiny may be coming to
an end as
increasing numbers of people become aware of the consequences
of accepting
the idea that the mind is purely a product of the brain.
People might reject this idea (and be attracted to the
work of Dr.
Schwartz), not because they have examined and rejected
the scientific evidence
in support of it, but because it threatens their religious
views. As I discussed in an earlier article, people who
want to preserve
a belief system will accept almost any evidence, however
slender or dubious, if it seems to provide them with
an option of retaining
it. As the article says:
Though Dr. Schwartz's theory
has not won over many scientists, some neurobiologists worry
that this kind of argument
might resonate with the general public, for whom the
concept
of a soul, free
will, and God seems to require something beyond the
physical brain. "The truly radical and still maturing view
in the neuroscience community that the mind is entirely
the product
of the brain presents the ultimate challenge to nearly
all religions," wrote
Kenneth S. Kosik, a professor of neuroscience research
at the University of California at Santa Barbara, in
a letter to the
journal Nature in January.
. . .
Dr.
Kosik argues that the topic of the mind has the potential
to cause much more conflict between
scientists
and the
general public than does the issue of evolution.
Many people of faith
can easily accept the tenets of Darwinian evolution,
but it is much harder for them to swallow the
assumption of
a mind
that
arises solely from the brain, he says. That
issue he calls a "potential
eruption."
When researchers study the nature
of consciousness, they find nothing that persuades
them that the
mind is anything
but a
product of the brain.
The reigning paradigm among
researchers reduces every mental experience to the level of cross
talk between
neurons in
our brains. From the perspective of mainstream
science, the electrical
and chemical communication among nerve cells
gives rise to every thought, whether we are
savoring a cup of coffee
or
contemplating the ineffable.
. . .
Mr.
[Christof] Koch [a professor of cognitive and behavioral biology
at the California
Institute of Technology]
collaborated for nearly two decades
with the late
Francis Crick, the
co-discoverer of DNA's structure,
to produce a framework for understanding
consciousness. The key, he says,
is to look for the neural correlates of consciousness
- the
specific patterns of
brain activity that
correspond to particular conscious
perceptions. Like
Crick, Mr. Koch follows a strictly
materialist paradigm that nerve
interactions
are responsible for mental states.
In other words, he says, "no
matter, never mind."
Crick summed
up the materialist theory in The
Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific
Search
for the Soul
(Scribner, 1994). He described
that hypothesis as the idea that "your
joys and your sorrows, your memories
and your ambitions, your sense of
personal identity
and free will, are in fact no more
than the behavior of a vast
assembly of nerve cells and their
associated molecules."
What many people may
find 'astonishing' about Crick's
hypothesis is that among
neurobiologists
it is
anything but astonishing.
It is simply taken for granted as
the way things are. Is it surprising that
religious
believers
find such
a conclusion
unsettling?
Next: What does "free
will" mean
at a microscopic level?
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