The brain: hardwired to produce God, or to perceive God?

[Oolon Colluphid]

Just came across what sounded a fascinating paper, though, despite its provenance, I fear it's likely to disappear up its own arse on further investigation...

Cognitive Processing, 27 May 2009 [Epub ahead of print]

Is our brain hardwired to produce God, or is our brain hardwired to perceive God? A systematic review on the role of the brain in mediating religious experience

Fingelkurts AA, Fingelkurts AA.
To figure out whether the main empirical question "Is our brain hardwired to believe in and produce God, or is our brain hardwired to perceive and experience God?" is answered, this paper presents systematic critical review of the positions, arguments and controversies of each side of the neuroscientific-theological debate and puts forward an integral view where the human is seen as a psycho-somatic entity consisting of the multiple levels and dimensions of human existence (physical, biological, psychological, and spiritual reality), allowing consciousness/mind/spirit and brain/body/matter to be seen as different sides of the same phenomenon, neither reducible to each other. The emergence of a form of causation distinctive from physics where mental/conscious agency (a) is neither identical with nor reducible to brain processes and (b) does exert "downward" causal influence on brain plasticity and the various levels of brain functioning is discussed. This manuscript also discusses the role of cognitive processes in religious experience and outlines what can neuroscience offer for study of religious experience and what is the significance of this study for neuroscience, clinicians, theology and philosophy. A methodological shift from "explanation" to "description" of religious experience is suggested. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion between theologians, cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists.

I'm off to try to find the full thing...

[Eudaimonist]

Interesting! Please do find the full essay. I like how they say that mind and body are two sides of the same phenomenon and that mental agency can exert downward causal influences, though I'm puzzled by the claim of a form of causation "distinctive from physics".


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Oolon Colluphid]

Reporting back: There's a hell of a lot to digest in this paper, but I think everyone interested in both 'theology' and brains (paging Febble!) ought to read it.

ETA: Have downloaded the pdf. It'll take some good hard reading before I'll be able to comment further, but if anyone wants it, PM me your email addy.

[Febble]

Reporting back: There's a hell of a lot to digest in this paper, but I think everyone interested in both 'theology' and brains (paging Febble!) ought to read it.

ETA: Have downloaded the pdf. It'll take some good hard reading before I'll be able to comment further, but if anyone wants it, PM me your email addy.

PDF would be cool, thnx.

ETA: S'OK, got it.

[Febble]

This bit:

...only humans have developed a form of causation distinctive from physics: conscious agency (see above).This means that humans are driven not only by survival and reproduction but also by complex sets of insights, motives, intentions, thoughts and beliefs. These mental processes and events do exert a ‘‘downward’’ causal influence on physical processes (brain plasticity and the various levels of brain functioning) but are not themselves a direct product of physical causes. This would in principle allow divine influences on human thoughts and motives at the same mental level that other persons influence them.

And "above" is:

Having consciousness (as an emergent property of a complex neurophysiological system; Revonsuo 1995, 2001) humans exercise a form of causation distinctive from physics: conscious agency which can be described by means of ‘circular causality’ (Varela and Thompson 2003).

WTF?

They conclude:

It follows from this brief critical review of the arguments for the ‘‘perceiving’’ point of view that evolution managed to evolve an organ—the brain—capable not only of
reflecting on itself but of experiencing something than itself (see Newberg et al. 2001a, b). This became possible due to the emergence of a form of causation distinctive
from physics: mental/conscious agency which (a) is neither identical with nor reducible to brain processes, (b) which exerts ‘‘downward’’ causal influence on brain plasticity and the various levels of brain functioning.


Geez. I mean, that's what I used to believe, but I was smart enough to know there was no evidence for it. And they don't present any.

[lpetrich]

The "top-down causality" seems to imply mind-body dualism, the existence of some special mind-stuff.

I had started a thread a few months back on The Fall of Vitalism (http://secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=553). I think that that's relevant here because the same thing is happening to mind-body dualism, even if it is not quite as far along. It is also relevant here because it provides good lessons in emergent phenomena, though such lessons can easily be learned from familiar objects like construction toys (yes, I started a thread on Favorite Construction Toys? (http://secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=1850)).

Vitalism used to be a common and reputable position, especially when opponents of vitalism were doing little more than speculating in a vacuum. But it has not been possible to isolate life-stuff or vital force in the lab, and molecular-biology-based mechanistic hypotheses have been enormously successful. Thus, vitalism was discredited as a "vital force of the gaps" theory.

[Matty]

Sounds related to Lewis Wolperts research in 6 IMpossible things before breakfast. (http://www.amazon.com/Six-Impossible-Things-Before-Breakfast/dp/0393064492)That brain growth and development was altered/directed based on the feedback loop of causative cognisance and tool usage and also related to brain expansion following the move to bipedality (which of course required enhanced causative analysis processing etc etc)

[Rilx]

By quotes (Febble and Oolon) I don't find the article most interesting. I feel I've seen much alike lately. For instance
This bit:
..These mental processes and events do exert a ‘‘downward’’ causal influence on physical processes (brain plasticity and the various levels of brain functioning) but are not themselves a direct product of physical causes. This would in principle allow divine influences on human thoughts and motives at the same mental level that other persons influence them.

Here's my response to coberst's thread "Is basic consciousness in early animal forms?" (in TR, not SC) concerning mostly Antonio Damasio's The Feeling of what Happens:

Damasio proposes “that the term feeling should be reserve for the private, mental experience of an emotion, while the term emotion should be used to designate the collection of responses, many of which are publicly observable.”
Thus emotions are deterministic processes which execute physical causality, while feelings only inform about the state of affairs without causally enforcing any behaviour. Feelings make you conscious of e.g. pain but don't determine your actions. Emotions might make you tremble and bite your teeth but you are free to consciously continue suffering.
What I there call "free will" seems to be the same thing which, by Fingelkurts, "would in principle allow divine influences on human thoughts". Would anyone object? :D
Obviously by divine influence, my last sentence seems to become confirmed by the passion of Christ ...

[Febble]

Sounds related to Lewis Wolperts research in 6 IMpossible things before breakfast. (http://www.amazon.com/Six-Impossible-Things-Before-Breakfast/dp/0393064492)That brain growth and development was altered/directed based on the feedback loop of causative cognisance and tool usage and also related to brain expansion following the move to bipedality (which of course required enhanced causative analysis processing etc etc)

Well, I'm not buying (and never would have):

This became possible due to the emergence of a form of causation distinctive from physics: mental/conscious agency which (a) is neither identical with nor reducible to brain processes, (b) which exerts ‘‘downward’’ causal influence on brain plasticity and the various levels of brain functioning.

Of course there isn't (any evidence for) a "form of causation distinctive from physics". There are levels of analysis distinctive from physics, where we say I kicked your ass as opposed to "a cascade of neural firing in my brain triggered by set of stimuli X resulted in a complex series of muscle activations that accelerated my foot towards your rear" but that's not a distinct "form" of causation from physics, it's a distinct description of causation from physics. And jolly useful it is too.

There are certainly re-entry loops whereby the brain's output ("mind") is re-entered as input, and that's where consciousness is generated IMO, but it's perfectly accountable in terms of physical causation.

[BigEvil]

This would in principle allow divine influences on human thoughts and motives at the same mental level that other persons influence them.

These type of sentences drive me crazy.

One might as well say, "This would in principle allow snowflakes to have telepathic influences on human thoughts and motives at the same mental level that other persons influence them. "

If you have as much evidence for the divine as you have for telepathic snowflakes, it equates.

[Febble]

But worse, there's no "this" in the first place.

[Valheru]

Bugger the paper and all that reading. Think about first principles for a moment and what we observe in the real world.

1) Not everybody is religious.
2) Not everybody who is religious, believes in the same God
3) Those who believe in the same God, usually perceive him/she/it differently to other members of the same "sect".

If people were hardwired to perceive god - we'd all perceive the same God.
If people were hardwired to produce god - we'd all produce the same God.

The fact is that there is no hardwiring at all, because not everybody believes or perceives the same stuff.

The question is somewhat dishonest because it ignores questions that should be asked and issues to be considered, beforehand.

Religion exists, but that's not because the human mind is hardwired for it. We are hardwired to perceive patterns - we are pattern matching whores, slavering bitches for seeing bits of order in chaos. THAT is what we are hardwired for.

The fact that religion may be a result of this tendency to pattern match, is irrelevant. It's a symptom, not a cause or primary objective to our mental wiring.

[BigEvil]

But worse, there's no "this" in the first place.

That was basically my understanding also but I didn't feel knowledgeable enough to comment on it. Similar to the "Mind and Body" thread. I can follow the conversation to a certain degree with great interest but don't have the familiarity to activily participate.

[BigEvil]

Religion exists, but that's not because the human mind is hardwired for it. We are hardwired to perceive patterns - we are pattern matching whores, slavering bitches for seeing bits of order in chaos. THAT is what we are hardwired for.

The fact that religion may be a result of this tendency to pattern match, is irrelevant. It's a symptom, not a cause or primary objective to our mental wiring.

This is what I expected the thread to be about from reading the thread title. I was somewhat surprised to find that the paper seems to be saying that the brain is constucted with an antenea for supernatural reception.

[HinduWoman]

Our brains are also hardwired to accept what authority figures tell us instead of figuring everything out for ourselves.
Religion is a byproduct of that wiring as well.

[Matty]

Of course there isn't (any evidence for) a "form of causation distinctive from physics".
well yeah. but without all the silliness it sounds kinda related to Wolperts book :)

[lpetrich]

Valheru, that problem has been addressed for mystical experiences -- people in different places converge on having similar sorts of experiences. So they are either perceiving the same thing or else hallucinating the same thing.

Bertrand Russell in his book "Religion and Science" has a chapter on that subject, in which he states that they tend to converge on these opinions about:

Real Reality is one
Real Reality is timeless
Real Reality is good

The first one of these agrees rather well with the research by Newberg and D'Aquili on brain scans of people who make a career out of meditation and contemplation.

Their parietal lobes quiet down, and since those parts of their brains are involved in distinguishing self from nonself, they thus start to perceive reality as one homogeneous jelly.

I don't know how this might explain the other aspects that Bertrand Russell had pointed out, including the experience that one is perceiving a more real sort of reality than the rest of one's perceptions.

We have a sense of time tracking, one which gets strong when we are bored, and weak when we are doing something enjoyable. It may be a way of warning us not to do something unproductive. So if time tracking shuts down, one will perceive timelessness.

As to perceiving a more real sort of reality, that might be connected with some system we may have for indicating the relevance of various perceptions. Only some of them will be relevant for whatever it is that we are doing at any time, so we may have some unconscious way of ignoring the irrelevant ones. One does have to marvel at how much of our mental processing is unconscious and behind-the-scenes.

-

There is a potentially serious epistemological problem here, one that cannot be waved away very easily. It can be explained by an analogy with the phantom limb or stump hallucination that some amputees experience. If you experience it, you face a conflict in your largely-unconscious modeling of reality.

I think that we have such modeling, because that explains why we claim that we perceive objects when we really have sensations of light and sound and touch and various other things. We don't see objects -- we see patterns of light. That explains why we conclude that rainbows and clouds are solid objects -- our auto-interpretation of light patterns produces that conclusion.

Returning to the phantom limb, our perception modeling faces a conflict. The phantom-limb perception indicates that the limb is still present, while a very self-consistent model derived from the rest of our perceptions indicates that it is absent. There are three possibilities:

Possibility | PL correct | Others correct
Limb absent | | X
Limb a ghost | X | X
Limb "normal" | X |


The first possibility is what one first thinks of when one thinks of phantom limb syndrome, that the perception of a present limb must be false. The second one is what the word "phantom" suggests: the limb still exists, but it does not show up in one's other perceptions. The third one depends on arguing that one's non-phantom-limb perceptions are somehow illusory.

Applying this discussion to mystical experiences, brain research is consistent with option 1, that they are false perceptions.

However, a lot of mystics have advocated versions of options 2 and 3. The experience is either of some additional plane of reality or else one's other perceptions are of illusions. This, I think, explains many of the odder metaphysical systems that philosophers and theologians have come up with.

-

Returning to modeling of perception, it can malfunction in various ways.

Capgras delusion is the belief that someone or something has been replaced by an impostor. One believes that continuity of identity has somehow been interrupted.

Cotard delusion is the belief that one is dead or nonexistent or is decomposing or has lost blood or internal organs.

Alien hand syndrome is the belief that parts of one's body are independent of one's conscious control.

[premjan]

Incomplete evolution business, is all.

[Rilx]

We are hardwired to perceive patterns - we are pattern matching whores, slavering bitches for seeing bits of order in chaos.
And we are hardwired to fear some patterns we perceive. That's heritage from our evolutionary ancestors, which have survived because of the hardwired fear for shapes of their enemies. It's a short step to interprete this kind of mystic fear as "fear of God".

[macronencer]

...the research by Newberg and D'Aquili on brain scans of people who make a career out of meditation and contemplation.

Their parietal lobes quiet down, and since those parts of their brains are involved in distinguishing self from nonself, they thus start to perceive reality as one homogeneous jelly.

Thanks for this snippet lpetrich - I've not heard it expressed like that before, and it makes sense. I have meditated a little, and I have experienced these feelings to a small degree (I'm not at all mystical, I just did it to relax). It does sometimes feel as if you are blending with the rest of the world.


Regarding "producing gods"... has anyone read Julian Jaynes? He had some interesting ideas about that. I don't think they were widely accepted, but food for thought anyway.

The book is called "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". He actually thought that our consciousness had evolved to a new qualitative state since 5-10,000 years ago, and that our prior form of consciousness used the left and right hemispheres of the brain in a more separated way: the upshot is that people used to hear voices telling them what to do, and, unaware that these came from their own brains, ascribed them to gods. I can't remember all the evidence he cites now, but it was a fascinating read. He suggests that the experiences of modern-day mental patients hearing voices may be a throwback to this earlier form of mind. It doesn't take much of a stretch to arrive at various corollaries involving visions and revelations in holy books... ;)

[JamesBannon]

The OP sounds like a load of bollocks to me.

I take issue with lpetrich, however. Perceptions (as with experience) are neither true nor false, they are experiences. Phantom limb pain, or other aspects of the same experience, is not "imaginary pain". The experience is genuine, it's just that the brain maps the source of the experience to the non-existent limb.

[Garrett]

Phantom limb pain, or other aspects of the same experience, is not "imaginary pain". The experience is genuine, it's just that the brain maps the source of the experience to the non-existent limb.
Okay, the experience occurs, but the mapping is between the feeling and the what? If the limb doesn't exist, how can it be part of a mapping?

The question isn't entirely idle. If brains can map to stuff that doesn't exist, why is it "bollocks" to think the brain is wired to believe in gods?

[JamesBannon]

Phantom limb pain, or other aspects of the same experience, is not "imaginary pain". The experience is genuine, it's just that the brain maps the source of the experience to the non-existent limb.
Okay, the experience occurs, but the mapping is between the feeling and the what? If the limb doesn't exist, how can it be part of a mapping?

The question isn't entirely idle. If brains can map to stuff that doesn't exist, why is it "bollocks" to think the brain is wired to believe in gods?

The point is the limb does exist, in a physical sense, inside the head, even though it has recently disappeared from the body.

[Febble]

The first one of these agrees rather well with the research by Newberg and D'Aquili on brain scans of people who make a career out of meditation and contemplation.

Their parietal lobes quiet down, and since those parts of their brains are involved in distinguishing self from nonself, they thus start to perceive reality as one homogeneous jelly.

Do you have a citation for this? I'm a bit skeptical. "Distinguishing self from non-self" is not a regional specialisation as far as I am aware. And if I'd had to pick a key region, it probably wouldn't be the parietal lobes. Which, in any case, are large, multifunctional and include areas inversely correlated with each other :)

[Febble]

Phantom limb pain, or other aspects of the same experience, is not "imaginary pain". The experience is genuine, it's just that the brain maps the source of the experience to the non-existent limb.
Okay, the experience occurs, but the mapping is between the feeling and the what? If the limb doesn't exist, how can it be part of a mapping?

The question isn't entirely idle. If brains can map to stuff that doesn't exist, why is it "bollocks" to think the brain is wired to believe in gods?

It's a good question, because I think mapping x to y is probably a misleading way of putting it.

Better to think simply that removal of the limb doesn't remove the brain area that registers that it is there.

[RBH]

Valheru wroteIf people were hardwired to perceive god - we'd all perceive the same God.
If people were hardwired to produce god - we'd all produce the same God.

The fact is that there is no hardwiring at all, because not everybody believes or perceives the same stuff.That doesn't necessarily follow. One could argue that there's a good deal of variability in the hard wiring, just as there's a good deal of variability in most other phenotypic traits. I'm sympathetic to the notion that humans, by virtue of our big brains and because we have theories of (our own and other peoples') mind, are over-committed to agency explanations, but that doesn't imply that all humans have that trait in the same degree.

Do you have a citation for this? I'm a bit skeptical. "Distinguishing self from non-self" is not a regional specialisation as far as I am aware. And if I'd had to pick a key region, it probably wouldn't be the parietal lobes. Which, in any case, are large, multifunctional and include areas inversely correlated with each other Yeah, that struck me, too. The parietal is a many-splendored area of cortex, sort of a grab bag.

[Ray Moscow]

G.K. Chesterton once wrote that people often point out that people are sometimes ruined by religion, and that this must mean that God is not real. He compared it to pointing to an alcoholic as proof that brandy did not exist.

(It's a funny sleight of hand to confuse religion and God, but I thought it was clever.)

[Febble]

Valheru wroteIf people were hardwired to perceive god - we'd all perceive the same God.
If people were hardwired to produce god - we'd all produce the same God.

The fact is that there is no hardwiring at all, because not everybody believes or perceives the same stuff.That doesn't necessarily follow. One could argue that there's a good deal of variability in the hard wiring, just as there's a good deal of variability in most other phenotypic traits. I'm sympathetic to the notion that humans, by virtue of our big brains and because we have theories of (our own and other peoples') mind, are over-committed to agency explanations, but that doesn't imply that all humans have that trait in the same degree.

Do you have a citation for this? I'm a bit skeptical. "Distinguishing self from non-self" is not a regional specialisation as far as I am aware. And if I'd had to pick a key region, it probably wouldn't be the parietal lobes. Which, in any case, are large, multifunctional and include areas inversely correlated with each other Yeah, that struck me, too. The parietal is a many-splendored area of cortex, sort of a grab bag.

Too much neuroimaging is crap, unfortunately - lists of regions that "light up" or are "correlated" with some noisy measure of something or other.

It's the wrong approach, IMO, for anything but really simple, experimenter-manipulated, variables.

[Valheru]

Variability in the "wiring" implies that it's not "wiring" in the first place. How can randomness act as proof for a constant? That doesn't make sense in the least, RBH.

[Febble]

Variability in the "wiring" implies that it's not "wiring" in the first place. How can randomness act as proof for a constant? That doesn't make sense in the least, RBH.

Yeah, it's wiring. Wiring can be varied. In fact, it varies as a function of use :)

[Valheru]

I don't get what point you're trying to make, because you're stating the obvious. So it's variable. We all know that. What I'd like to know is how you logically equate "variable" wiring to "fixed" wiring as a result of the wiring being variable!

It makes zero sense whatsoever, and it's not because I'm dumb.

[Febble]

I don't get what point you're trying to make, because you're stating the obvious. So it's variable. We all know that. What I'd like to know is how you logically equate "variable" wiring to "fixed" wiring as a result of the wiring being variable!

It makes zero sense whatsoever, and it's not because I'm dumb.

Well, I wasn't sure what your point was. You said:

Variability in the "wiring" implies that it's not "wiring" in the first place.

What did you mean? I just meant that "variability" doesn't imply "no wiring".

ETA: did you mean that variability in the wiring implies it isn't "hard" wiring"? In which case, I'd partially agree - how our brains are "wired" depends on both inherited factors and life experience.

[JamesBannon]

Variability in the "wiring" implies that it's not "wiring" in the first place. How can randomness act as proof for a constant? That doesn't make sense in the least, RBH.

Yeah, it's wiring. Wiring can be varied. In fact, it varies as a function of use :)

This. Everything we do, say, experience is represented by "wiring" in some way or another. It's how the brain works. This doesn't mean that it is controlled by genetics or that it has always been there from birth.

[Berthold]

Yeah, it's wiring. Wiring can be varied. In fact, it varies as a function of use :)
Like language. There's a precondition to acquire a language easily, but it depends on the environment, which.