Conventional wisdom holds that the human mind is nothing more than the human brain. This belief derives from materialism. By "materialism" I don't mean the mania to shop unceasingly at the mall. Rather, I mean the philosophy that material reality is all that there is. Immaterial or spiritual realities are, in this view, simply epiphenomena of the material world.
We find the materialist view ably expressed in Francis Crick's The Astonishing Hypothesis. What Crick finds astonishing is that our thoughts, emotions and feelings consist entirely in the physiological activity in the circuitry of the brain. Daniel Dennett argues that "mind" is simply a term for what the brain does. And how do we know that the brain and the mind are essentially the same? The best evidence is that when the brain is damaged, the injury affects the mind. Patients whose brains atrophy due to stroke, for instance, lose their ability to distinguish colors or to empathize with others.
But in his book The Spiritual Brain, neuroscientist Mario Beauregard shows why the Crick-Dennett position is based on a fallacy. Yes, the brain is the necessary locus or venue for the mind to operate. It does not follow that the two are the same. Beauregard gives a telling analogy. "Olympic swimming events require an Olympic class swimming pool. But the pool does not create the Olympic events; it makes them feasible at a given location." Far from being identical to the mind, Beauregard argues that the brain "is an organ suitable for connecting the mind to the rest of the universe."
A provocative idea. Beauregard produces several lines of evidence, but there I focus on just one: the placebo effect. The placebo or sugar-pill effect is one of the most widely-attested phenomena in medicine. One medicine journal notes that "the history of medicine is the history of the placebo effect." So powerful is the impact of the sugar pill that today the effectiveness of drugs is measured by the FDA in comparison to the placebo effect.
Yet as Beauregard points out, the placebo effect is an embarassment to the simple-minded conception of the mind as an ephiphenomenon of the brain. The reason is that this effect shows the mind shaping the brain. The mental expectation of being cured leads to an actual alteration in the physical workings of the brain, and the patient experiences a measurable physiological improvement. One doctor who cured a patient through the placebo effect was asked what he gave the patient that produced such an incredible result. His answer? "Hope."
Beauregard also writes about something I didn't know much about: the nocebo effect. "The nocebo effect is the harmful health effect created by a sick person's belief and expectation that a powerful source of harm has been contacted or administered." So if patients are strongly convinced that a particular pill will give them nausea, they frequently become nauseous, even when the pill they have taken is not the one they expected but only a sugar pill.
Materialism is based on the assumption that the only way to alter the mind is to alter the physical operations of the brain. But Beauregard uses the placebo and nocebo effect to show the reverse. The mind can also regulate the operations of the brain. Beauregard writes that he placebo and nocebo effects are not triggered by the sugar pill but rather are "triggered by the patient's mental state. In other words, they depend entirely on the patient's state of belief."
But if minds can control brains, them minds are not the same as brains. This leads to the unavoidable conclusion that there is an aspect of thought and feeling that lies outside the realm of the material. This is what Beauregard calls "the spiritual brain." Atheists too have one, even if they refuse to admit it.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 22)
31. Oh Jeez.. bigTuna...
I hope that your religion has a self-punishment program, Hailmarys and such.
You, personally, have started GHB on a sexrant.
That is immoral. lma0
not-pboyfloyd at 3:22PM on May 26th 2008
32. When I was in kindergarten and I died at Booth Elementary School. How was I able to see something unexpected like seeing my physical body on the ground without eyes to see? How was I able to move without a body. At that age I ever knew about outer body experiences even thought I had it twice or three times. After that experience, I instantly had a there was a Holy God and that we would all have to answer to before I was ever told about it and that there would be an after life. If my mind could function without the need to be located in a body?
Answer: We are a spirit that possesses a soul which lives in a predetermined body. The very same Holy God who gave us the knowledge of right and wrong also made provision in order for us to have fellowship with him.
http://evolutionfacts.blogspot.com
PROFESSOR X at 7:13AM on May 27th 2008
33. "I hope that your religion has a self-punishment program, Hailmarys and such."
It doesn't, saved by grace, so I'm tempted to make one up. Maybe I'll stick a fork in my eye. It won't happen again.
bigTuna at 3:33PM on May 26th 2008
34. Jeeze, prof x, way to go... Talk about drawing the wrong conclusion from the data observed!
Youre story more confirms my big brain speculation than it does any god, you do realize that, dontcha?
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:37PM on May 26th 2008
35. ATHEIST
The problem with Out of Body Experiences is...
IF you were outside your body, how could you SEE?
You didn't have any eyes.
You didn't have anything PHYSICAL that could interact with light, and produce the impression of SEEING.
but.. if you had a MEMORY... if your brain went into a chaotic state where MEMORIES were pulled up in different ways... you would have SEEN what you saw with your eyes.
From my experience on this boards, people who claim to have been outside their bodies are simply dimwits who LIE and refuse to examine their own memories of what REALLY happened.
Because the BETTER explanation would be obvious.
There is NO GOD. God does NOT exist.
Having a chaotic dream of being above your body... does NOT mean God exists.
Dimwit.
William Hays at 3:40PM on May 26th 2008
36. Having a chaotic dream of being above your body... does NOT mean God exists.
Dimwit.
William Hays at 3:40PM on May 26th 2008
--------------------------
Agreed. Even if I do have a mystical bent, the OOB experience is proof of nothing. Nobody's ever come back with new information. There are even hospitals with signs posted high off the floor in the O.R. where the patient could never see it, just in case they have an OOB experience while on the table and could then be tested on whether they remembered seeing the sign... The OOB experiences happened, in the usual detail, but nobody ever saw the sign....
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:46PM on May 26th 2008
37. Uh, Brian-?
Drawing the 'wrong' conclusions from the data is the nature of religion in general, n'est pas? As close as we both are, the 'truth' is even stranger than the fiction we have imagined. Cool, huh?
Robert at 3:48PM on May 26th 2008
38. And during my one lucid dream experience, the whole thing started with an OOB experience, during which I was lucid enough to realize that it was really all in my head. A very vivid dream. I tried to look out the window and see a rock or a plant, something I'd not payed any attention to before, some minor previously-unnoticed thing outside that I could remember and go back and check to see if it was really there when I woke up, and it all just got foggy when I tried... So I came to the conclusion right there in the middle of the "OOB" that it wasn't really an "OOB." And I also recall thinking that it was SO VIVID, that if I wasn't a habitual "tester of all things" I might have fallen for it and really thought that I'd been out of my body.
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:52PM on May 26th 2008
39. ATHEIST
We've talked about the Resurrection accounts in the New Testament. In one account, a woman walks in a garden and sees the gardener. Then, a few moments later, she realizes the gardener was actually Jesus.
this happens all the time in dreams. Dreams are chaotic and fluid. You see a person... and then you realize it's a different person. Because there isn't actually a person there. You jump from one memory to another without interruption.
Simple enough... but the Christians refuse to consider the possibility of a dream being written down. They evade. They call up Defense Mechanisms.
same logic applies to this dimwit's Out of Body Experience. Until he demonstrates that he's willing to examine ALL the facts and search for the Correct Answer... his conclusion that his experience proves that "God exists" is simply NONSENSE.
William Hays at 3:57PM on May 26th 2008
40. Robert, I didn't think I'd be compelled to ever talk to you again, but here I am.
One evening not so long ago you objected to everything I said, all night long. And now, you claim some kinship to me. As if we are both privy to the same eternal truth or something.
I do not like to talk to the snakes in the grass. Sorry. So you'll understand if I rarely even acknowledge your presence in the future.
Godless Heathen Brian at 4:05PM on May 26th 2008
41. And then you kick it all to pieces...Sigh! I guess I was right. Ah, well- hope springs eternal.
Later-
Robert at 4:09PM on May 26th 2008
42. PerfesserX says, "How was I able to see something unexpected like seeing my physical body on the ground without eyes to see?"
There is a scientific explanation for this. It has something to do with how the brain works. Look it up if you want to know the truth.
not-pboyfloyd at 5:10PM on May 26th 2008
43. Stuck on #42, eh-?
How apropos...
To be continued.
Robert at 5:56PM on May 26th 2008
44. So Dinesh--why is it that people who undergo lobotomies then have different personalities?
Yeah, you whimpering liar: you know the answer. The brain is the source, you idiotic Cartesian Dualist.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 5:56PM on May 26th 2008
45. Never put Descartes before des horse.
-Robert Heinlein
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:03PM on May 26th 2008