In his book A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, V.S. Ramachandran says it "never ceases to amaze me" that "all the richness of our mental life--all our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts, our ambitions--is simply the activity of these little specks of jelly in our brains. There is nothing else." Here is the voice of materialism, the doctrine that holds that matter is all that there is, and mind is simply an epiphenomenon of matter. It is the intellectual foundation of the new atheism espoused by Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett and others.
Dawkins, Pinker and Dennett offer nothing to prove the doctrine, and neither does Ramachandran. The best Ramachandran can do is cite exotic ailments: the fellow who could recognize shapes but not faces; the fellow who thought his mother was an imposter in disguise, the patient who responded to pain with laughter, and so on. Turns out that these peculiarities emerge as a result of damage to particular parts of the brain.
But so what? When I bash my radio, the sound stops. Does that mean the radio is creating the sound waves? Isn't it more reasonable to say the radio is simply the instrument or conduit that makes it possible for us to hear those sound waves? Similarly when it rains on the Wimbledon tennis court, play is cancelled. Does this mean that the tennis court is responsible for Federer's serve? No, it simply shows that Federer's serve requires a tennis court for us to be able to watch and appreciate it. In the same vein, all that Ramachandran's outlandish examples prove is that the brain is the site or venue where mental activity takes place. The brain may well be the necessary vehicle for mental activitity. It does not follow that brains and minds are identical.
In his excellent new book The Spiritual Brain, neuroscientist Mario Beauregard turns Ramachandran's argument on its head. He shows that if matter can shape mind, it's equally true that mind can shape matter. In my last post I offered one line of Beauregard's evidence, focusing on placebo and nocebo effects. Here I offer a second. Beauregard matches Ramachandran with his own list of ailments: patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, patients who are depressed, patients who have various phobias such as fears of spiders and cats, and so on.
It turns out that many of these disorders are the result of mental traumas of one sort or another. These traumas leave scars or effects on the physical structure of the brain. Drugs can sometimes help, but frequently they have unpleasant side effects. So what many skilled health care professionals now do is they train the patients to think differently about their condition. For instance, patients who are scared of spiders are shown and taught that most spiders are quite harmless. Eventually the patients train their minds learn to control their paranoia.
Now here is the remarkable thing. When the patients learn to use their wills to control their fears, researchers have discovered that this mental activity also changes the workings of the patients' brains. In other words, mental activity can change the very structure and distribution of the neurons and circuits in the brain. Call it "mind over matter."
What Beauregard is saying that that since minds can regulate brains, therefore minds are not the same as brains. And if my countryman Ramachandran is amazed that little pieces of matter can shape our mental life, I am equally amazed that purely mental events can remake the physical operations of our brains. One day we will figure all this out, and then I predict we will find that minds are much more than an epiphenomenon of matter.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 26)
1. http://www.evolutionfacts.blogspot.com
Professor X at 7:18AM on May 28th 2008
2. That's right. As far as atheists are concerned, they will go so far to deny the existence of god as creator unto the invalidation of their own thoughts and their own existence.
Today on Evolution Facts (on the top right Panel) See how Atheism is a Catastrophic Failure.
http://evolutionfacts.blogspot.com
Where are you? Where is the real you? Where mind-volition-creativity exist? Even though darwin said that after he adopted his make-believe concept of darwinism, he lost all appreciation for the arts and music. Are you in one quadrant of the brain? Does the core your identity fit in just in one brain cell or are all thoughts just a mass of chaotic random accidental chemical reactions? Without a choice. Ultimately, a true atheist or a person who truly attempts to subscribe to the philosophy must conclude that humanity including his/her own, doesn't have a "soul-spirit" and nothing but an accident drives the well-designed ship of his body. Even with all the order, harmony and purpose that appears an atheist must theologically be blind to it and by faith call it an illusion. So then, if their own thoughts are invalidated by adherence to their philosophy, one way or another, atheists do not exist.
http://atheistsareimaginary.blogspot.com/
An Atheist No More at 7:20AM on May 28th 2008
3. ALSO TRUE FOR THAT REMARK OF "WHEREVER YOU PUT YOUR ATTENTION, IN THAT YOU TURN OUT TO BE". VERY IMPORTANT REMARK FOR OUR CHILDREN AND WHERE THEY ARE PUTTING THEIR ATTENTION TO. TV, MOVIES AND PROPAGANDA IS A VERY EFFECTIVE AND DANGEROUS BRAIN WASHER, AND ARE SETTING STANDARDS. SO RESTRICT OUR OWN THOUGHTS INTO BEING POSITIVE AND ONLY SEE WHAT IS GOOD, AND NOBLE, AND PURE AND BEAUTIFUL AS THE BIBLE SAYS,IS A CONSTANT EXTRA EXERCISE FOR THE MIND, ESPECIALLY WITH THAT NEGATIVE STIMULUS OF CRITICISMS, ILLNESS AND INMORAL INPUTS THAT IS CONSTATNTLY FEEDING US ....
pet at 7:27AM on May 28th 2008
4. It is a shame that so many people are starved to death in American hospitals because arrogant doctors have an atheistic point of view in valuing human life. They say that if the person is not responsive to their liking they are killed or "put out of their misery." It reminds me of Hilter's rationale. Many awoke out of coma just before they were about to cut into them. Just because the person does not have access to parts of their the brain organ you express themselves to perform the tasks they desire DOES NOT MEAN they are not human and not alive. Those with paralysis are just one example. They have a soul. There are more and more people who have left their bodies at clinical death and came back to tell about it.
On the rightside panel of this website below see the video news footage of a man who was RAISED FORM THE DEAD IN JESUS' NAME in Florida.
http://evolutionfacts.blogspot.com
Michael Bickle at 7:35AM on May 28th 2008
5. I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. D'Souza here. In my opinion thoughts amount to nothing more than neurological functions within the brain. Sorry... I'm a materialist. ;)
What you call "thinking about a condition differently" is just another way of describing behavior therapy and psychological conditioning.
Tony Messinger at 7:35AM on May 28th 2008
6. However, when a person realizes the pre-programming within all life forms exists now even the materialist must acknowledge the intelligent being who had a MIND over and Befind such MATTER. Just because some people may have a theo-phobia doesn't mean we all must ban any talk about our creator.
His existence is one thing, but knowing Him is always another.
http://evolutionfacts.blogspot.com/#the_message_that_we_were_born_to_hear
Bobby Fisher at 7:54AM on May 28th 2008
7. I agree with pet. As in the past saints were for all religions, with this perennnial bombarding of homosexuality and violence throughout tv, movies computer games and computers itself today any kid that develops as normal, straight and with principles is a saint. Not wonder orthodoxes religious people only allow they children to watch supervised videos that would shape their minds in a rightful ways.
laury at 8:12AM on May 28th 2008
8. What the HECK is going on with AOL? The only post I've seen for days is Einstein's God and now all of a sudden new stories are coming out of everywhere
Strados at 8:18AM on May 28th 2008
9. Here we go again!!
DD posts his personal interpretation of an opinion expressed by someone he equates with atheism, extrapolates this to include other "leading" atheists (who, he implies, represent "orthodox" atheist thinking) and then encourages his ultrareligious sycophants to come out of the woodwork to "support" his implication that somehow this is why non-believers are all misguided fools or, alternatively, are inspired by Satan.
Atheists (or agnostics) are NOT a homogeneous group, any more than "believers" are. (Note the continued disagreement as to interpretation of scripture repeatedly demonstrated on this blog or the myriad doctrinal disputes among the many different Christian sects.) Moreover, there is no common doctrine among non-believers nor any "faith", other than a common questionintg as to whether a Deity exists or requires any modification of human behavior to "worship" or placate him/her/it.
Harvey at 8:31AM on May 28th 2008
10. Is very clear and very well exposed in the bible, (Romans 12, 2). You can only transform you live through the transformation of your mind. These Doctors are coming to realize that matter is the result of mind, just now, and it has been written for centuries in the bible....at least let me tell, FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!
alka at 8:33AM on May 28th 2008
11. Ramchandran is your countryman, now???
I thought you were a patriotic American.
You are a fraud among frauds!
America's Most Gangsta at 8:41AM on May 28th 2008
12. "Does that mean the radio is creating the sound waves?"
This wording is very specific, very carefully chosen. The argument is not about creation but generation (and you know full well about semantics). The radio generates the sound, the specific sound that comes from that specific radio.
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"It does not follow that brains and minds are identical."
I don't recall anyone here saying that brains and minds were identical per se. That wording is very carefully chosen as well. All the materialists said was that the brain gives rise to the mind.
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"I am equally amazed that purely mental events can remake the physical operations of our brains."
Those "purely mental events" are all physical occurences. The brain is not some mysterious room where physical stimuli goes to become ethereal. It almost sounds like a Berkeley argument, "Once physical stimuli has gone into the brain it ceases to exist in the classic sense. The only reason it still does exist is because it is held in the mind of God."
Except instead of using the 'mind of God' you're using the 'mind of man.'
I find the fact that matter can function, in the capacity that it can, in the brain, to be miraculous, not mundane or common.
It is almost like you're reasoning from Ramachandran's argument in reverse; your reasoning is more of a reaction than an action in of itself.
His words were loaded. Jelly does not act in this type of amazing capacity. You know this. But just because you know that 2 + 2 = 6 is incorrect doesn't mean that any number that is not six is going to be correct.
So it follows that you can't just put any number down. You have to do the calculation yourself, otherwise you're more relying on his calculation than anything.
oneblood at 8:47AM on May 28th 2008
13. Bravo Harvey, you've hit the nail on the head. I'm more than willing to debate with someone who disagrees with my position if we're not going to continually bait each other through generalizations.
oneblood at 8:51AM on May 28th 2008
14.
Renzo salutations, I have always enjoyed your facetious arguments.
So Renzo, feathers or Lead?
JefFlyingV at 9:18AM on May 28th 2008
15. I'm happy at least that DD ended his essay with "... someday we'll figure this out and I suspect ..."
Fact is, no one -- not Dawkins, not DD, not Ramachandran, not the Pope -- knows for sure the boundaries, if any, between brains, minds, and souls. It's those who 1) think they know and 2) believe that their "knowledge" gives them the right to cram their beliefs down the throats of others that are dangerous.
Fundamental Agnostic (i.e., nobody really knows anything)
Trixie Schizo at 9:37AM on May 28th 2008