From: JT Thompson (veridicus@outgun.com)
Date: Sun Jun 02 2002 - 13:52:49 MDT
Blunderov,
I do not know very much about this “doppelganger-you are observing yourself-that’s two people!” oddity that you speak of. Rhinoceros, you said that “Against all odds, the self-aware person which I experience is no else but I, and this could just be not so.” Why could this not be so?
To many modern neuroscientist this philosophical despair surrounding this “self-awareness” hurdle you two alluded to earlier-why mental states represent internal emotions or interactions with external objects-lifts with the consideration of the brain in a Darwinian context: evolution has crafted a brain that is in the business of directly representing whatever the organism interacts with. The brain possesses devices within its structure that are designed to manage the life of the organism in such a way that the internal chemical balances indispensable for survival are maintained at all times. These devices are neither hypothetical nor abstract; they are located in the brain’s core, the brain stem and hypothalamus. The brain devices that regulate life also represent, of necessity, the constantly changing states of the organism as they occur. In other words, the brain has a natural means to represent the structure and state of the whole living organism. How is it possible to move from such a biological se
lf to the sense of ownership of one’s thoughts, the sense that one’s thoughts are constructed in one’s own perspective, without falling into the trap of invoking an all-knowing homunculus who interprets one’s reality? For an elaboration on this popular explanation commonly posed by modern neuroscientist, I suggest you read the distinguished Antonio Damasio’s book “The Feeling of What Happens” which suggests that the biological foundation for the sense of self can be found in those brain devices that represent, moment by moment, the continuity of the same individual organism. He gives a fairly shallow and quite restricted explanation of consciousness, self-awareness, and the mind. “To say that mind comes from brain is indisputable, but I prefer to qualify the statement and consider the reasons why the brain’s neurons behave in such a thoughtful manner.”
What is sadly comical about everyone from Kandel to Searle to Damasio, to Satcher, Crick to Judd (all very distinguished philosophers, neuroscientist, neurologists, and Nobel laureate biochemist) is that there is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever to support such explanations of mind being produced by brain. “They are not statements of scientific fact but rather articles of quasi-religious faith cloaked in the language of science. No philosopher, scientist, or psychiatrist even pretends to have any idea how brain processes could possibly produce the mysterious and ineffable experience of human consciousness.” This rampant “neurophilosophical” reasoning was largely my personal motivation for seeking an undergraduate education in neuroscience and psychology. My personal belief in spirit the subsequent contradictions with this growing “brain creates mind” idea and the scientific materialism it reflects have convinced me that this field will impact humanity more deeply than any other area of scienc
e. These ideas are so strongly held by so many scientists nowadays that it is considered unscientific even to question it. Nevertheless, it is a seriously misguided belief, and I want to emphasize that the reasoning generally used to justify it does no stand up to careful scrutiny. The reasoning goes such, because the symptoms of mental illness can be alleviated by changing brain chemistry, mental illnesses must really be disorders of brain chemistry and therefore mind (and soul) must really be brain. This line of “neurophilosophical” reasoning is taken so much for granted nowadays that it can be quite startling to realize how little sense it actually makes. We could with equal logic argue that if a tree disease can be cured by changing the chemistry of the soil, then tree diseases must really be soil disorders and therefore trees must really be soil! There is no logical or scientific reason not to assume that the soul is a distinct entity, rooted in the brain and dependent on it for consciousness just
as a tree is rooted in the soil and dependent on it for life. I challenge anyone to refute this! (to refute it, you have to prove - not simply assume - that brain processes actually do cause consciousness) Taking this logic seriously we must conclude that modern psychiatric opinion is simply wrong. Mental illness cannot be just a chemical imbalance in the brain. Rather, it is a disharmony of body, brain, mind, and spirit within the whole person: an inner conflict of the soul. Such a disharmony may include a chemical imbalance in the brain as one of its elements, but the chemical imbalance itself is not the mental illness, nor does it cause the mental illness. Unfortunately, entrenched beliefs tend to be impervious to logic, and so our blind cultural faith in scientific materialism has now brought us to the point where we are willing to accept extravagant and potentially dangerous uses of medication that could never be justified on the basis of scientific evidence alone.
Blunderov you asked me What do you mean by “God” precisely? And how do you know that what you think is “God”, is in fact “God” - how can you be sure? Also, where did it come from?” Things that transcend mankind tend to also transcend the language and mental faculties of mankind. Certain experiences cannot be adequately understood unless they are shared. But then, where exactly would a person have to be in order to share my inner experience, to know what it was really like to hear the sound of “one hand clapping”, to glimpse the “face of god”? Could a person have a similar experience while listening to a concert, chanting in unison at a meditation retreat, or walking alone on the beach? The place you gotta be to understand another person’s inner experience is an indefinable inner place-the place where experiencing happens. This is a metaphorical place, like Ithaca of Homer’s Odyssey, or the Rome that all roads lead to. It is a place we must all struggle to get to, only to discover that we have been t
here all along.
“None by his own knowledge, or by subtle consideration, will ever really understand these things. For all words and all that one can learn or understand in a creaturely way, are foreign to the truth that I mean and far below it.” -John Van Ruysbroeck (1293-1381)
“Science without religion is lame,
religion without science is blind” - Albert Einstein
Sincerely,
James (JT)
-Frattaroli, Elio M.D. “Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain - Becoming Conscious in an Unconscious World” see: http://www.eliofrattaroli.com/
-Damasio, Antonio R. Scientific American “How the Brain Creates the Mind”
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