Comments on: Warning of ghosts in the machine

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:45:02 +0000

In response to Lilian:
The relevant dissimilarity between the two states you describe is that there are other ways to determine whether the thing you’re seeing is really there. As far as I know, there’s no objective means to verify (or falsify) a “spiritual experience” as that term is commonly used. That’s why concepts like faith and mystery are invoked.
I understand why some people want to downplay the religious implications of certain scientific theories, but I find most of their arguments to be efforts to avoid discussion altogether, or attempts to reinterpret people’s religious traditions for them, as Farah and Murphy did in their letter.
Arguments of this sort haven’t worked with evolution (see, e.g.: Steven Jay Gould’s “Non-Overlapping Magisteria). They won’t work with neuroscience, either.

By: Tom Michael

Tom Michael — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:17:01 +0000

I agree with ScottKnick above, that, revisionist or not, most Christians (and those of many other religions) believe in the existence of a non material soul that continues to exist after the death of the body. This concept has lingered in our philosophy as a ghost in the machine, as a dualist perspective, promoted by Descartes idea of “I think therefore I am.”
George above is also correct in saying that Imaging type studies only show associations between brain activity and conscious states, but there is another area which shows definite double dissociations between brain areas and behavior (as well as self reported conscious states) and that is the neuropsychology of brain injured patients. Brain injury provides pretty strong proof that particular brain areas are vital in order for specific conscious states to exist (e.g. use of language).
I have worked with a patient with a condition called Akinetic Mutism, possibly due to damage to his Anterior Cingulate Cortex. This poor chap is incredibly passive, barely moving, and almost never speaking. It is as though he no longer wishes to do anything. Its one thing to read about these conditions, but to look into the eyes of a man who stares blankly into space, with no desire to do anything with his time in this world, really makes you wonder if a small part of his “soul” is no longer with him.
I don’t mean to sound overly dramatic, but for me personally, my experience of working with this man has convinced me that consciousness is entirely physically embodied. I can’t see how part of the mans “soul” could be present and the other part gone.
This also enabled me to understand an aspect of Buddhist philosophy called Anatta, or “no-self”, which is the idea that the self has no intrinsic existence seperate from the conditions that support it. These would be our genes, the environment and the lives we have led.
With this philosophical concept, evolution, psychology and sociology, I can’t see any role for the concept of a soul at all, but I don’t think this makes life any less meaningful.

By: George

George — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:00:58 +0000

“These views were physicalist, and body-soul dualism entered Christian thought around a century after Jesus’ day.”
- False
The term “gave up the ghost” appears frequently in both the new and old testament writings that I have read. Both Farah and Murphy seem to be using the term ‘ghost’ to mean the same thing as the ancient writers meant, the spiritual life that animates the physical being. In addition, the fact that an MRI can detect “hot spots” in the brain is correlation information only, and in no way describes the root cause of perception. That is, the neural hot spots can neither confirm nor deny the ‘ghost’ that perceives.
All religious vs. science debates are based on false premise – always. Religion describes beliefs that can not be verified, where as science is the result of objective verification, and is not affected by belief.

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:40:28 +0000

I don’t see it as a contradiction to spiritual beliefs or experiences. Everything happens in the brain. Vision happens in the brain, too. That doesn’t mean that the things you see don’t exist. Just because the experience of spirituality can be neurally located doesn’t mean than nothing is being experienced.

By: ScottKnick

ScottKnick — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:22:16 +0000

Huh? Most forms of Christianity hold that humans have an immortal soul that survives the death of the body — not simply a body that awaits resurrection. How would it be possible to square that with materialist neurology? There are several passages in the New Testament that explicitly suggest a non-material, immortal soul (e.g. “Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.”) You can argue these are 2nd century interpolations but that’s going to piss off literalist Christians in the same way evolution does.