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 7 of 22)
91. n-pbFloyd, I guess religion makes strange bedfellows. Who would have thought those two would pair up.
Isn't that michelle the same one that used to ask questions all the time and then would ask for more explation from you and W. Hays?
JefFlyingV at 12:37AM on May 27th 2008
92. Jeffeboy, what do your comments have to do with the subject matter? NPboy, these happen all the time.JiffyDo ,pedaphiles are everywhere, especially public schools.Do you know Pete Townsend? Hardly a Catholic priest.
B Sheen at 12:45AM on May 27th 2008
93. Yea, Jeff...
... that one has a 'style' of her own. Michelle and I contributed to the 'largest D'Souza blog comments ever' (over 1500 comments) a while back.
I think she thought that she could just tire me out.
not-pboyfloyd at 12:48AM on May 27th 2008
94. By the way"Davey and Goliath" were put on by the Lutheran Church.
B Sheen at 12:49AM on May 27th 2008
95. Bishop sheen, thanks for the link. I'm a real believer now, loved the documentation and graphic pictures. Algae-lugi!!
JefFlyingV at 12:49AM on May 27th 2008
96. "NPboy, these happen all the time." - B Sheen.
Sure they do, that is why James Randi gave the Catholic church his million dollars for proof of the supernatural. Not.
not-pboyfloyd at 12:51AM on May 27th 2008
97. Well there bishop, blame society as much as you want, but there is something wrong in the society of the catholic hierarchy that was more interested in protecting the priests as oppossed to protecting those innocent children.
JefFlyingV at 12:54AM on May 27th 2008
98. Floyd sorry about the slow response, not often I get to talk to a dead bishop, must be a 30 year risen type of deal, satan must of unclenched his jaw to let that one get away.
JefFlyingV at 12:58AM on May 27th 2008
99. ATHEIST
Reply to: 78. Went to church yesterday had a great time with all the other parishiners.Praying and singing are hearts out .
__________
You're the victims of a Con Game.
that gives you something in common.
Of course you sing. But do you understand what you're singing?
A church is just a place for happy, dumb people to hang out and not have to use their brains.
You're surrounded by people who haven't used their brains for anything EVER... not even in school, and certainly not since then.
We don't care about your holidays.
But we think you're pathetic. Praying to... are you listening.... a man who had conversations with invisible demonic spirits... to keep God from torturing you for eternity.
Losers.
William Hays at 1:00AM on May 27th 2008
100. Thanks bishop, I couldn't really remember who sponsored the cartoon, saw it once when I was four. Thought it was dumb, never watched it again.
Why the b sheen choice for a name?
JefFlyingV at 1:02AM on May 27th 2008
101. WTF, satan must captured him again, didn't seem like he's much of a talker.
So Floyd, michelle got a crush on athiests? Whats it like for you and Hays to have a christian groupie?
JefFlyingV at 1:09AM on May 27th 2008
102. (DAMN), Bishop can you still hear me? Do you really think the pope will be the head of all the churches again, or is that another of those fallability ideas?
JefFlyingV at 1:18AM on May 27th 2008
103. Jeff.. I understand completely... it's a blog. Sometimes I'll be battering away on the keys one minute ... next I'm watching T.V. or getting dinner... that's just the way blogs are.
not-pboyfloyd at 1:22AM on May 27th 2008
104. So are you and William glad you have a trophy christian groupie girl?
JefFlyingV at 1:29AM on May 27th 2008
105. Perhaps this is too simplistic, and others have already seen this, but has D'Souza considered that it IS the brain shaping the brain? Thoughts cannot exist apart from neurons organized in a particular way, and the neural activity we experience as a thought can indeed give rise to other neural activity that would not have existed but for the previous neural activity.
What does any of this have to do with the immaterial soul? It's like saying software is soul for a computer, especially if it is really good software and can modify itself to work better and better in response to inputs.
Not that I care for computer analogies, either, because the brain is qualitatively different. But computers sure beat swimming pools.
Gigi at 1:33AM on May 27th 2008