The Spiritual Brain

[ChinoCoug]

The thread about church opposition to science included mentions of neuroscience reducing humans to automatons.

That got me thinking about a book written by Mario Beauregard, a Catholic neuroscientist in Montreal:

amazon.com/Spiritual-Brain-Neuroscientists-Case-Existence/dp/0061625981/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299856530&sr=1-1

Has anyone read it?

Beauregard did fMRIs of Carmelite Nuns having unio mystico in order to disprove the belief that there is something in your temporal lobe from which spiritual experiences originate.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

I read it. There’s nothing really groundbreaking in it, he just points out that when the nuns got hooked up the monitors and tried to “remember” their mystical experience (he couldn’t wait around for an actual one, since they don’t happen often and you can’t predict when one might occur), the monitors of brain activity of the “remembered” mystical experience showed the activity wasn’t in one particular part of the brain as materialist theories tend to expect. I’m pretty sure most of the rest of the book was written by co-author Denise O’Leary. It’s an ok book but nothing really significant IMHO.

 

[ChinoCoug]

I read it. There’s nothing really groundbreaking in it, he just points out that when the nuns got hooked up the monitors and tried to “remember” their mystical experience (he couldn’t wait around for an actual one, since they don’t happen often and you can’t predict when one might occur), the monitors of brain activity of the “remembered” mystical experience showed the activity wasn’t in one particular part of the brain as materialist theories tend to expect. I’m pretty sure most of the rest of the book was written by co-author Denise O’Leary. It’s an ok book but nothing really significant IMHO.

I believe he actually got them to have the experience.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

I believe he actually got them to have the experience.

Ok, so you didn’t read the book and you’re telling someone who did, what’s in it?

That’s a bit different

 

[ChinoCoug]

Ok, so you didn’t read the book and you’re telling someone who did, what’s in it?

That’s a bit different

I have read the book, just wondering if anyone else has and wants to discuss it.

You either read it a long time ago or stopped right before he said that his original intention was to get them to recall the experiences, but he got lucky and several of them had them.

The rest of your summary sounds accurate though.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

I have read the book, just wondering if anyone else has and wants to discuss it.

You either read it a long time ago or stopped right before he said that his original intention was to get them to recall the experiences, but he got lucky and several of them had them.

The rest of your summary sounds accurate though.

So what did you want to discuss? I found his study to be pretty uninteresting, that’s probably why it only made up less than 10 percent of the book subject.

 

[aQman]

So what did you want to discuss? I found his study to be pretty uninteresting, that’s probably why it only made up less than 10 percent of the book subject.

Don’t know about the nuns, but say it’s important to do the test at the time of the experience, or they’re testing just ordinary memory of whatever. But there was an ekg study of people about habituation that included a zen monk. He just didn’t habituate. He knew hes seen the theobject before, of course, but his brain acted like it was the first time every time. Hey. there’s a skill for married folks, huh? (uh… smileys thing won’t work…)

 

[greylorn]

The thread about church opposition to science included mentions of neuroscience reducing humans to automatons.

That got me thinking about a book written by Mario Beauregard, a Catholic neuroscientist in Montreal:

amazon.com/Spiritual-Brain-Neuroscientists-Case-Existence/dp/0061625981/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299856530&sr=1-1

Has anyone read it?

Beauregard did fMRIs of Carmelite Nuns having unio mystico in order to disprove the belief that there is something in your temporal lobe from which spiritual experiences originate.

It was a decent book, fairly rigorous, and IMO honest in terms of both scientific and religious interpretations. Its problem was relevance.

Anyone who practices science, and some who simply follow it from the outside, realizes that experimental data only gets interesting when they prove, or disprove, an interesting theory.

To his credit, Beauregard did not invent a theory so that his data would apply to it, as many incompetent nits do. His book was one of thousands inviting a theory to explain its data. Mine ought to be printed in a few months if the world doesn’t blow up or go nuts first.

 

[aQman]

It was a decent book, fairly rigorous, and IMO honest in terms of both scientific and religious interpretations. Its problem was relevance.

Anyone who practices science, and some who simply follow it from the outside, realizes that experimental data only gets interesting when they prove, or disprove, an interesting theory.

To his credit, Beauregard did not invent a theory so that his data would apply to it, as many incompetent nits do. His book was one of thousands inviting a theory to explain its data. Mine ought to be printed in a few months if the world doesn’t blow up or go nuts first.

Hahahaha… too late about it going nuts dude. So you’re an author? Cool! Tell us when your leaves fall into public hands.

Cool about the nuns. What about the zen guy who was “always fresh,” heh heh heh?

 

[inocente]

Beauregard did fMRIs of Carmelite Nuns having unio mystico in order to disprove the belief that there is something in your temporal lobe from which spiritual experiences originate.

I’ve not read the book but read a few of Beauregard’s research papers. Whatever he privately believes and may argue in the book, his scientific conclusions don’t appeal to anything outside the brain:

With the emergence of self-consciousness, self-agency, and self-regulatory metacognitive capacities, evolution has enabled humans to consciously and voluntarily shape the functioning of their brains. - mapageweb.umontreal.ca/beauregm/Beauregard2007_Progress.pdf

The study on the nuns is here. He says the nuns recalled but did not have visions during the experiment. The last page in particular is filled with lots of realistic ifs-and-buts about all that is currently unknown, and Beauregard doesn’t attempt to draw any conclusions beyond “These results suggest that mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions and systems.”

 

[aQman]

The study on the nuns is here. He says the nuns recalled but did not have visions during the experiment. The last page in particular is filled with lots of realistic ifs-and-buts about all that is currently unknown, and Beauregard doesn’t attempt to draw any conclusions beyond “These results suggest that mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions and systems.”

So we use our brains when we do stuff. Hoodathunk?

 

[ChinoCoug]

I’ve not read the book but read a few of Beauregard’s research papers. Whatever he privately believes and may argue in the book, his scientific conclusions don’t appeal to anything outside the brain:

With the emergence of self-consciousness, self-agency, and self-regulatory metacognitive capacities, evolution has enabled humans to consciously and voluntarily shape the functioning of their brains. - mapageweb.umontreal.ca/beauregm/Beauregard2007_Progress.pdf

The study on the nuns is here. He says the nuns recalled but did not have visions during the experiment. The last page in particular is filled with lots of realistic ifs-and-buts about all that is currently unknown, and Beauregard doesn’t attempt to draw any conclusions beyond “These results suggest that mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions and systems.”

That is odd. In the book he says the nuns managed to have mystical experiences.

“The scanner room is certainly nothing like a retreat center; it looks more like something you would find at NASA. Despite that, the nuns managed to experience a mystical state during the mystical condition.”

p. 270

 

[ChinoCoug]

I’ve not read the book but read a few of Beauregard’s research papers. Whatever he privately believes and may argue in the book, his scientific conclusions don’t appeal to anything outside the brain:

With the emergence of self-consciousness, self-agency, and self-regulatory metacognitive capacities, evolution has enabled humans to consciously and voluntarily shape the functioning of their brains. - mapageweb.umontreal.ca/beauregm/Beauregard2007_Progress.pdf

The study on the nuns is here. He says the nuns recalled but did not have visions during the experiment. The last page in particular is filled with lots of realistic ifs-and-buts about all that is currently unknown, and Beauregard doesn’t attempt to draw any conclusions beyond “These results suggest that mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions and systems.”

Are you up to date on recent neuroscientific data that suggest no soul exists? If you address some of it, that’d be great.

 

[inocente]

That is odd. In the book he says the nuns managed to have mystical experiences.

Can’t say as I’ve not read the book. It might be down to how Beauregard defines the terms.

He gives “Mystical condition” a technical definition in the paper – “subjects were asked to remember and relive (eyes closed) the most intense mystical experience ever felt in their lives as a member of the Carmelite Order. This strategy was adopted given that the nuns told us before the onset of the study that “God can’t be summoned at will”. … The phenomenology of the mystical experience during the Mystical condition was assessed with 15 items of the Mysticism Scale [21 - R.W. Hood Jr., The construction and preliminary validation of a measure of reported mystical experience]. This scale, which comprises 32 items, aims at measuring reported mystical experience.”

He then says “Summed scores of 15 or above were considered significant for a given item.” Perhaps he then calls these high scores “mystical experiences” in the book.

 

[inocente]

Are you up to date on recent neuroscientific data that suggest no soul exists? If you address some of it, that’d be great.

I’m not a specialist here so don’t take this as gospel.

Researchers take a mystical experience to be real, i.e. not only is it as subjectively real as any other experience, what’s going on in the brain can be objectively investigated. Many people report mystical experiences to various degrees, no matter what their beliefs, so it’s assumed to be part of normal life, i.e. you’re not flaky if you have one. Some surveys show greater psychological well-being in those who have reported an experience, but similar experiences are also associated with various illnesses, so a lot of the research has medical benefits.

Science is confined to studying natural phenomena and can’t decide whether a non-material soul exists, even in principle. It’s a good idea to read the original research papers where we can (most are online), be sensibly skeptical (there are a few really dubious bits of work, e.g. Michael Persinger), and ignore all those who interpret results to support their own agendas.

Personally I think everything can be explained naturally and we are wonderfully made, but that can’t tell us there’s no soul, it will just give us a better idea about it.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

That is odd. In the book he says the nuns managed to have mystical experiences.

“The scanner room is certainly nothing like a retreat center; it looks more like something you would find at NASA. Despite that, the nuns managed to experience a mystical state during the mystical condition.”

p. 270

I have a problem with that inference that they “experienced a mystical state”. All the great mystics, such as John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, said you can not bring on a mystical state (such as the Prayer of Quite, Pray of Union, etc.) through your own actions. Recalling a previous Prayer of Quite isn’t going to cause a genuine mystical state, which can only be caused by an interaction from God. So I have my doubts about these so-called “mystical states” while under monitors.

 

[greylorn]

Are you up to date on recent neuroscientific data that suggest no soul exists? If you address some of it, that’d be great.

Yes, you did not put your question to me.

There cannot be any neurological scientific data suggesting that “soul” does not exist. By definition, the “soul” is a “spiritual” entity, meaning that it is not a part of the physical universe, not subject to physical laws and energy transfer considerations, etc. Because soul is conveniently defined to be beyond the purview of science, its existence or not will always be a matter of belief, never a subject of scientific inquiry.

Religions have made a specific point of excluding “soul” and “God” from the purview of scientific inquiry.

If there is some component of human consciousness which is independent of the brain-body system, it is not the “soul” of classical religious belief.

So, forgetting about the traditional concept of soul which is fundamentally meaningless, what have neurological researchers discovered? Some interesting things which strongly suggest that some components of thought and body management are independent of the brain. (E.g: Wilder Penfield’s 1947 experiments in which he stuck an electric probe into the open brains of conscious neurosurgery patients, used it to control movement of specific body parts (arm, hand, finger) and challenged the patient to override his control.)

The Penfield experiments are old, but have yet to be resolved. There is more modern stuff. But forget about science vs. soul, until the Church decides to define the soul in terms that physics can deal with.

 

[greylorn]

I have a problem with that inference that they “experienced a mystical state”. All the great mystics, such as John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, said you can not bring on a mystical state (such as the Prayer of Quite, Pray of Union, etc.) through your own actions. Recalling a previous Prayer of Quite isn’t going to cause a genuine mystical state, which can only be caused by an interaction from God. So I have my doubts about these so-called “mystical states” while under monitors.

You might want to take a serious course in Buddhist-style meditation, then revisit your statement. I promise you that you will believe differently after your beliefs are treated with a few doses of experience.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

You might want to take a serious course in Buddhist-style meditation, then revisit your statement. I promise you that you will believe differently after your beliefs are treated with a few doses of experience.

And you might want to take a serious course in Christian mysticism, which is what we’re talking about here. When Buddhist meditate, whatever they experience, they don’t feel they are in union with God, last I checked Buddhism is pretty silent on God. But if you’re talking about Christian mysticism, and the subjects of this study ***were ***Carmelite nuns, then; a) they don’t sit around meditating and going “ohhhmmm” while in contemplation, which maybe in your naivety you think they are doing. And b) they subscribe to the understanding that the “Prayer of Quiet” and other mystical unions come about when God decides to give them, that you can’t bring one on by any of your own efforts, such as “remembering” previous mystical states.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

So, forgetting about the traditional concept of soul which is fundamentally meaningless, what have neurological researchers discovered? Some interesting things which strongly suggest that some components of thought and body management are independent of the brain. (E.g: Wilder Penfield’s 1947 experiments in which he stuck an electric probe into the open brains of conscious neurosurgery patients, used it to control movement of specific body parts (arm, hand, finger) and challenged the patient to override his control.)

The Penfield experiments are old, but have yet to be resolved. There is more modern stuff. But forget about science vs. soul, until the Church decides to define the soul in terms that physics can deal with.

You must be talking about the same Wilder Penfield who said the following in his book “The Mystery of the Mind”;
“Taken either way. the nature of the mind presents the fundamental problem, perhaps the most difficult and most important of all problems. For myself, after a professional lifetime spent in trying to discover how the brain accounts for the mind, it comes as a surprise now to discover, during this final examination of the evidence, that the dualist hypothesis (the mind is separate from the brain) seems the more reasonable of explanations. Since every man must adopt for himself, without the help of science, his way of life and his personal religion, I have long had my own private beliefs. What a thrill it is, then, to discover that the scientist too can legitimately believe in the existence of the spirit!”