Is belief hardwired?
It's a fact that supernatural beliefs are widespread across different cultures. They often trail long histories of followers who have relished the feelings of transcendence, thrived on ritual practices and bled to protect their faiths. Although it's a call for belief without substantial evidence, people seem almost inclined to believe in superstitions. But why?
Several sources of empirical evidence regarding religious experiences are available at present. Imaging techniques have revealed alterations in brain activity during religious practices - particularly in the temporal and parietal lobes. Both temporal lobe epilepsy and the use of certain drugs, such as LSD, mescaline and ayahuasca, have reportedly produced hallucinations of a religious nature. More remarkable perhaps is the ability to induce religious states through electromagnetic activation of the brain areas involved in religious experiences.
These studies offer clues to the mechanism underlying religious states and open avenues for furthur research; but by no means do they provide sufficient evidence to answer the most critical of questions yet. Is god and spirituality concepts that we create because we are predisposed to believe in the supernatural?
Links to Horizon documentary God on Brain in five parts, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Enjoy!
Several sources of empirical evidence regarding religious experiences are available at present. Imaging techniques have revealed alterations in brain activity during religious practices - particularly in the temporal and parietal lobes. Both temporal lobe epilepsy and the use of certain drugs, such as LSD, mescaline and ayahuasca, have reportedly produced hallucinations of a religious nature. More remarkable perhaps is the ability to induce religious states through electromagnetic activation of the brain areas involved in religious experiences.
These studies offer clues to the mechanism underlying religious states and open avenues for furthur research; but by no means do they provide sufficient evidence to answer the most critical of questions yet. Is god and spirituality concepts that we create because we are predisposed to believe in the supernatural?
Links to Horizon documentary God on Brain in five parts, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Enjoy!
22 Comments:
I should make myself a rTMS device sometime. Would be "fun" to stimulate my temporal lobes and see what happens :D
The new developments in neuroscience and cognitive science indeed pose considerable trouble many ideas we hold dear - not just weird the hallucinations like you mention but for mind-body duality and the idea of independent souls.
Machines we are, and when it malfunctions, the ghost in the machine reveals itself!
The ghost in the machine reveals it self.0_0
lol.lol
hmmm. me thinks it depends on what you mean by "religious". how would you define a "religious" experience? would someone who never heard of a religion or doesnt know what a god is and doesnt have the slightest hint of this whole concept still get the same "religious" experience from the same stimulations? if so it would be fair to say we are hardwired.
maldiveshealth: whats so funny? seriously mate, i missed it :P
Religious experience are totally very different and unique concepts of human supernatural beliefs.
Ooh that comment reminds me of Ghost In The Shell. Gotta love an anime with brains. Speakin' of which that annoying popup in MSN msnger is totally right about Japanese animation kicking America's ass.
maldiveshealth probably found the use of hyperbole amusing jaa. Or not. Who knows?
Doncha jus love the similarities between religious experience and a garden variety drug-induced high? Or even boduberu for you health freaks. Maakunbe bandu...
Jaa. It'll be my pleasure to witness you build an rTMS if u actually set out to do so. To me, the rest of the comment doesn't quite add up - u seem to be scoffing at dualism one minute only to attribute consciousness a spiritual aspect the very next..
Ye Ashraf, bring on a real-life Mowgli, eh?
Brain scans of a monk and a nun show similar activations yet how each interprets and describes his/her experience is anything but similar: one believes in a god, the other doesn't. Interesting the sorts of explanations ppl could come up with for altered states of minds. Seriously brings the mentality of the prophets into question..
Version-beta. HOW is it different?
Nadha: In reductionist, physicalist, artificial intelligence-nut speak, ghost in the machine refers to the "software" that runs on the machine. When the machine malfunctions, that gets reflected in the software operations - ie. the supposed "soul". When the human brain malfunctions physically, conciousness and the perceived reality gets messed up as Rama's research indicates... I didn't at all mean to allude to Cartesian dualism! yuck :P
Hamza: Indeed, the similarity is striking. Ayahuasca? Salvia anyone? Hotline to God guaranteed!
Yeah these are very interesting researches. But, to denounce religious beliefs on the basis of their origin might amount to a 'genetic fallacy'. Although religious beliefs may arise/originate from our brain (meaning even if we are hard-wired), that itself does not tell anything about their truth values.
Following Lucretius, Russell says religion is born of fear. Again, this doesn't itself tell whether the propositions, if any, of religion are true or not.
a:
Umm, I agree that it this does not, for now, have any bearing on the truth value of religion(s). But the more interesting question this brings is the finding itself that the religious feeling/state of a human can be externally effected/manipulated. This poses scientifically valid questions on causality. As more evidence and research flows in, it is very likely that if/when a causal link is established and given that it becomes a established as a "condition" that can be "fixed", we can quite correctly attribute to this being yet another manifestation of a neurological disorder! This probably can be regarded as being in the same league as young children having conjured up imaginary friends...
Yes Jawish, I think still the original question may remain. Let's assume religious 'experiences' are imaginary. What does this mean? Does this imply there is no external reality corresponding to those religious experiences? Or does this only mean the experiences are creations of the brain AND the bearer of the ‘experiences’ and others (scientists, philosophers) do not know of any reality that corresponds to those experiences? Does this mean every such particular 'experience' will never have any reality corresponding to it, whether or not such particular experiences are absolutely created by the brain (some even qualifying as disorders) and whether or not none knows of any reality corresponding to them?
I think to know the truth value of such 'experiences', we cannot rely on their origins as such, at least not always. To know that all religious experiences are devoid of reality, we may need other means. A child may have an absolutely fantastic idea of a creature living on another planet. This is an imaginary idea because it is 1) a creation of its brain 2) none (including the child) is (normally as opposed to abnormally) aware of such reality. But, these two conditions do not exclude its possibility immediately. However, this is only so if I do not assume that to qualify as imaginary, that thing of imagination will not have a reality at all. But if I assume that, that goes beyond mere origin; we need other ways to determine whether such imaginary things at all have a reality.
Let’s take hallucination to see if this can be further clarified. To be a hallucination, does the hallucination require that there be not a reality corresponding to it? Can a person have a hallucination which but by coincidence correspond to a reality? I’m not sure of how psychologists define hallucinations. But my thinking is that if a person can ‘see’/ ‘hear’/ ‘feel’/etc things that are not there, she/he may even ‘see’/ ‘hear’/ ‘feel’/etc. things that really are there but she/he only ‘sees’/‘hears’/‘feels’/etc only as hallucinations, meaning his/her ‘seeing’, ‘hearing’, ‘feeling’ are not like a normal person’s seeing, hearing, feeling. That is, hallucinations are created by his/her nervous system; perhaps most of the time (or all the time the psychiatrists have studied) such that the hallucinations do not correspond to any external reality, but sometimes they ONLY coincidently correspond to a reality.
Now religious experiences might well be such ‘hallucinations’. But, my point is will they never ever correspond to any reality? Can there never even be a coincidental correspondence?
a:
What do you mean by reality? I am not too sure that your definition of reality (or even hallucination) agrees with mine, or that it is what would be posed as a formal scientific definition.
There are two types of reality that we might concern ourselves with here: 1. external reality and 2. internal reality. Science, which undoubtedly is the best tool humanity has developed towards uncovering truth, has established that there is an external, shared and universal construct independent of the individual perception of reality that is common to all. The specifics of this reality is based on experimentation and evidence. The test/verify part of the scientific method proves that there are certain key aspects of "reality" that is common to all. The speed of light, the gravitational constant, the laws of motion etc are fixed, inviolable and govern anyone within this greater external construct.
From what I gather of what you said, it seems what you are referring to really is internal reality, ie. a persons particular representation of the external reality. A person (mostly) relies on sensory information to develop a mental representation which we colloquially refer to as reality. However, this 'reality' is known to differ from person to person - due to genetic make up, the development of the brain and sensory organs.
This distinction helps us evaluate whether hallucinations, childhood imaginary friends and even religious experiences can be chalked up to quirks in the internal reality of an individual. The drug induced hallucinatory world is easy to identify as a sham because we alter the mental state via manipulation of chemicals. Then there are the hallucinations by schizophrenics, whose delusions rise due to a malfunctioning brain. We confidently deduce both of these as hallucinations because much of it violates the laws of external reality. Then there are the religious experiences which is discussed here as possibly a manifestation of a malfunctioning brain. The religious experience differs from the above two in that this sort is more subtle. The delusions don't (usually) go to the extent of a schizophrenic but nevertheless departs from external reality and like the other two hallucinations, we are beginning to see neurological evidences for how and why it occurs.
A claim that this has no truth value with regards to religion itself is akin to claiming that schizophrenia gives access to a great facet of reality. If brain disorders are proven to be the origin of religious/spiritual feelings then there becomes established a causal link to those feelings and the cause being a malfunction in the brain allows us to classify it in the same category just as any hallucination.
If we are to consider that religious experiences really elucidate a better representation of external reality then we should equally consider that hallucinogenic and schizophrenic delusions might also be just as valid. Or how about a solipsist view of reality??
Jaa:
Thanks for your reply.
I’m using the word, reality somewhat tentatively, and cautiously. That is why I was not much eager to explain it. I’m using the word in relation to ‘truth value’. That is, something to be true, there should be a reality corresponding to. For example the proposition, there exists green creatures on Mars, is only true if there really are green creatures on Mars. The methodology to uncover the truth may well be science. Another example: There is a god. This statement is only true if there really is something corresponding to the word god. The methodology for it is controversial. Firstly, because there is disagreement on the NOMA basis. For me, I’m not sure even if the statement is meaningful as such. But that is not related to our concerns here. So, I’m using ‘reality’ in relation to establishing the truth values of statements, some of which maybe scientific and some may not be. Whether unscientific statements are worth our scrutiny is another matter.
Having clarified how I’m using the word, I will again try to clarify my original position: the origin of an idea/statement/‘experience’ does not necessarily or always has a bearing on its truth value. I’m using experience in quotes because I’m not ready to call hallucinations/mental visions, etc all experiences in the way say I am having experience of writing this comment.
Having re-asserted my position, I will again try to clarify, why, in spite of such ‘experiences’ as triggered by CLE being on par with hallucinations, delusions, disorders, that to assent to their truth value, it may not be sufficient to rely on their origin (in this case Central Lobe epilepsy.) My reasoning was this: a hallucination most of the time may not have any reality corresponding to its content (ie. if a hallucination is about seeing a cat in a room, there will not be a cat there); but, some hallucinations may simply, only, by coincidence may correspond to a reality (ie. if a hallucination is about seeing a cat in the room, by sheet coincidence there may be a cat.) Now, this latter is a hallucination, because the sufferer of the hallucination does not really see a cat, as a normal person sees one. His ‘experience’ or hallucination is a mere creation of his brain without the normal mechanism. The normal mechanism is the cat reflecting light rights to the eyes, and the subsequent creation of the image.
So, if such hallucinations are possible, which I think may be possible, then, we cannot simply depend on their origin to see their truth values. That is some hallucinations, although they are hallucinations, will, by coincidence, have a reality corresponding to them. But such hallucinations cannot be knowledge, in any significant sense of the term, because the sufferer is having them not in the ‘right’ way, nor would the sufferer establish its truth value by definition of hallucination. That is to say, the sufferer is not having the hallucination by, for example, the scientific way. But, the content of his hallucination, can, by coincidence, be true.
Let’s assume religious ‘experiences’ of the Central Lope Epilepsy are on par with hallucinations. Now the above account can also be applied to them. Some (perhaps almost all such experiences) will not have a reality corresponding to their content. But, this does not mean by sheer coincidence some ‘experiences’ may not have a reality corresponding to them.
So, just because the ‘experiences’ are purely created by the nervous system, it does not necessarily, or always, mean there may never be a reality corresponding to them. If there is a reality then the content of such experiences are true!
I hope the above clarifies things more.
I wrote Central Lobe and CLE. It is not Central Lobe, it is Temporal Lobe...so, TLE, not CLE, either. If the author of the blog wishes she can correct those errors. Thanks.
a, I take it that the question you are posing is, are hallucinations giving access to a reality that we don't normally have access to. If the difference is at the sensory level, because of altered sensitivity, it should be reflected in the areas receiving that information in the brain. But that is not what we see happening in the brain scans. We see activity in the processing areas (in the absense of abberant activity in the reception areas). It is as if the brain's registering stimuli, but there IS no stimuli - which is what we call a hallucination. Hence, the conviction that the phenomenon is brain-based. Psychedelic drugs are not changing the sensory sensitivity, they are changing the neurotransmitter levels in the brain. In "religious hallucinations", seizures that orginate in the temporal lobe spread out to a greater portion of the lobe, which in turn produces the visions, voices, uncontrollable shaking, etc.
Do bear in mind that hallucinations are only part of a "religious experience". In Islam for instance, such reports are held "true" only for prophets, and not for anybody else.
And a, my intention is not to denounce religious experiences. In fact, I find it downright admirable that ppl could switch to an altered state of consciousness by sheer concentration of the mind. It's just the supernatural crap that I don't dig..
nadha:
I'm sorry I haven't still been able to clarify my position. I'm not positing the possibility that hallucinations may give access to a reality that we do not normally have. Rather, I'm saying hallucinations sometimes may, ONLY coincidently, correspond to things that actually are out there!
My concern is the logical distinction between origin of something (proposition), and its truth value.
a: A bit frustrated eh, I can understand hehe. Thanks for the reply.
I do understand your point about the fact that it would be a genetic fallacy to declare that having explained the source of the religious experience is a negation of the validity of religion.
The point of my previous comment was to assert that given the scientific approach to evaluation of the probability of such phenomena/events being true, we can quite correctly assume the religious experience to be a disorder for all practical purposes because:
a. There is no evidence to support the experience as being representative of any reality other than pure imagination. Like I said, we quite casually take this same approach with regard to hallucinations via drugs, and the imaginary world of schizophrenics - they are all assumed crazy because there is no known "reality" that it could be true.
b. The experience, physically, bears the same brain activity as that results from any artificial method we use to induce a false reality either by direct injection of neuronal signals and is the same as the artificial experiences created by the brain by itself as in the case of hallucinations.
While these cannot, as you rightly say, be taken as incontestable proof that religious experience is a disorder, it however does suggest that for all practical purposes the experience can be assumed a disorder. This doesn't break any more rules than saying that. After all, a definite negative is cannot be proved! ;)
a: before you comment any more, i suggest you try a hallucinant/psychoactive substance yourself.
thank you :)
Jaa: Yes a little frustrated at myself.
My point is: can such 'disordered' 'experiences' NEVER, SIMPLY by COINCIDENCE correspond to some (external) reality?
Ashraf: The same question to you.
a: It certainly can. I didn't/don't deny that! The possibility exists... and that I wholeheartedly accept. However, I had the "BUT..." argument that following that as to why that possibility is as unlikely as any other disorder/delusion. :)
Jaa:
Yep. I personally do not believe that such religious 'experiences' have an external reality to them because there is hardly any independent evidence to back them up...
Hey guys hang on a sec!...I heard Jaa and Nadha are married...If so, why on earth they discuss their thoughs here? Is it because they want to FORCE us to belive something those beliefs they have...I mean THOSE...if you know what i mean..:P? Or perheps is this what Maumoon call "DHEYTHERE DHURUKURUN"...lol...Double sided YOU.kikiki
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