A Free-for-All on Science and Religion

New York Times ^ | 21 November 2006 | George Johnson

[snarks_when_bored]

The point about the lab experiences is that they're experimentally produced using apparatus. The only conclusion one ought to draw is that having a mystical experience doesn't imply that some non-neural, external reality is being contacted during the experience. The far greater likelihood is that the brain is just functioning in a way that it doesn't ordinarily function.

[syriacus]

I'll take your question as kindly meant and so answer it

I'm happy you didn't assume it was ill-intended, for it wasn't. I can see you've done some heavy reading. I've read biographies and philosphical/theological works by Thomas Merton, Tolstoy, Albert Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell (who was surprisingly illogical), Bernard Nathanson, etc. I especially enjoy reading bios of people who have returned to Church.

But, again, what one experiences and how one interprets what one experiences are two very different things.

I could hardly agree with you more. People use "reason" and "logic" after-the-fact, in order to "prove" that something they feel to be true, is really true. That foible is a big part of the human condition. It's not terribly harmful, as long as people don't impose their wishes on others, while pretending they are doing what's best for everyone.

[syriacus]

Or perhaps the turning point occurred at a more solemn moment, when Neil deGrasse Tyson, ...suggested, that blind nature, not an intelligent overseer, is in control.

Not so unexpectedly Neil deGrasse Tyson turns up in Wikipedia's list of "Atheist scientists" when you search on google.

[snarks_when_bored]

Enough for now, don't want to drive off one of the few courteous posters on these topics!

I'm not easily driven off, g_w (not always a good quality, I'll concede!). I also don't rile easily...indeed, I don't recall more than one or two posts out of my over 5,600 posts on FR that expressed genuine anger at another poster, although quite a few have expressed anger and outrage at murderous events and their vicious perpetrators around the world.

This issue of authority and trust is tricky. Who really speaks with authority about matters for which evidence is lacking? Whom should we trust about such matters? Unless one is prepared to subordinate one's own judgment to the judgment of another person or a religious tradition, one's only recourse is to try to decide for oneself how things stand. Since I was a youngster, that's been my way, and, now that I'm an oldster, it's still my way.

Best regards to you and to yours...

[syriacus]

TThe only conclusion one ought to draw is that having a mystical experience doesn't imply that some non-neural, external reality is being contacted during the experience

Of course. It like manner, it doesn't imply that some non-neural external reality is not being contacted during the experience.

In the case of odors, additional testing is necessary in order to determine if
1. the "odor" is merely a sensation existing in the artificially stimulated brain
or
2. the odor really exists externally and the person is sensing it
or
3. the person senses an odor because of artificial stimulation, and, (coincidentally) the odor exists outside the brain.

I guess that, in the case of religious experience, someone could be feeling a "fake" religious experience at the same time that God is really present and being authentically experienced by someone else.

[snarks_when_bored]

Yes, I've read a bit of Merton, much of Bertrand Russell (every reader of Russell, though, should read George Santayana's classic essay, "Bertrand Russell's Searchlight").

But, again, what one experiences and how one interprets what one experiences are two very different things.

I could hardly agree with you more. People use "reason" and "logic" after-the-fact, in order to "prove" that something they feel to be true, is really true. That foible is a big part of the human condition. It's not terribly harmful, as long as people don't impose their wishes on others, while pretending they are doing what's best for everyone.

I'm reminded of F. H. Bradley's famous apothegm: "Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct..."

[snarks_when_bored]

I always seek the simplest explanation that is consistent with the observed phenomena (that is a metaphysical prejudice, of course, a version of the classic principle of sufficient reason). If the brain can be shown to be a producer of a mystical experience (as the transcranial magnetic stimulation experiments appear to show), the assumption that something else is the producer is an added hypothesis that doesn't seem required by the evidence. Until some additional evidence appears that requires the supposition that external reality is being contacted in a mystical experience, I'll stick with the (tentative) hypothesis that the brain is the source.

[syriacus]

I'll stick with the (tentative) hypothesis that the brain is the source.

Why arbitrarily place the source of only one type of experience within the brain, when the other sources are ordinarily outside the brain.

Why make religious experience so "extra-ordinary"?

[snarks_when_bored]

I'll stick with the (tentative) hypothesis that the brain is the source.

Why arbitrarily place the source of only one type of experience within the brain, when the other sources are ordinarily outside the brain.

Why make religious experience so "extra-ordinary"?

All of our experiences appear to be brain-generated. A large class of them that we call 'perceptive' result from energetic events that impinge upon our bodily surfaces (the eyes, the ears, the skin, the tongue, the nasal passages). Some of them result from signals sent to the brain from our internal organs and muscles (the 'proprioceptive' experiences). Mystical experiences are special in that they don't fit the pattern of either ordinary perceptive or ordinary proprioceptive experiences. Yet, that doesn't mean that they're not brain-generated. The transcranial magnetic stimulation experiments show that certain floating states or states in which one feels that one is in contact with, or being watched by, an external 'being' correspond to specific patterns of direct brain stimulation. The reasonable hypothesis is that such states occur naturally when the brain produces on its own similar patterns of stimulation. It appears (to me, anyway) that chanting and other breathing control mechanisms, prolonged meditation, or the ingestion of psychotropic substances of various sorts are techniques for getting the brain to produce the stimulation patterns that correspond to mystical experiences. Of course, temporal lobe epilepsy and other neural disorders can also be the source of such experiences. St. Paul's experience on the road to Damascus comes to mind; also, it's thought that Muhammad was a temporal lobe epileptic.

[syriacus]

I always seek the simplest explanation that is consistent with the observed phenomena (that is a metaphysical prejudice, of course, a version of the classic principle of sufficient reason)

We are amazingly similar. This is the very reason that I consider a fetus to be a person from the moment of conception.

[syriacus]

The mere fact that mystical experiences can be reproduced by stimulating the brain does not mean they are merely inner brain experiences, any more than brain sight, taste, touch, hearing, smelling are merely inner brain experiences.

At any rate, you brought up "brain activity," and we have discussed it, and it seems that one person's inner religious experiences doen't prove anything, either way, to an outsider. As you have said, the experiencer interprets his own inner experience.

Back to my original point --- Much real religious growth involves a person's interactions with the world around him. That is the feedback mechanism that enables the person to grow spiritually, to become stronger in his faith.

That is the real "journey" for most religious people. A spiritual person has an interior life of prayer, but he also sees the very real changes in the quality of his interactions with the world around him as well as with God. Onlookers can often see these changes in the religious person, too.

It may be an indirect proof of the validity of religion, but it is a satisfactory proof to rational people.

After all, even though scientists could not "see" the atom, they knew it existed because they experimented and "observed" its interactions with the world around it.

[syriacus]

Of course, temporal lobe epilepsy and other neural disorders can also be the source of such experiences.

Exactly! Non-existent smells and sounds can be generated by the brains of epileptics or psychotics.

Once again, that does not prove that sounds and smells do not exist independently of persons with these conditions.

St. Paul's experience on the road to Damascus comes to mind; also, it's thought that Muhammad was a temporal lobe epileptic..

But, what counts is Paul's change after the experience. The historical man, St. Paul, would be "a nobody" if he didn't spend decades on his spiritual (and geographic) journeys.

What counts is the change in Paul's relationship to God and his fellow man. (Among other things, he stopped persecuting Christians.)

As you point out, Mohammed had an "experience" too. The fruits of his experience were not the same as Paul's.

I have my own opinions, but I'll let you decide which man really "got religion."

[snarks_when_bored]

I'll summarize my current views on the matters we've been discussing, syriacus:

All experiences are body/brain-generated (no body/brain, no experiences);

Some experiences have causes external to the body/brain and correspond to what we call external reality (sights, sounds, touches, tastes and odors, in ordinary circumstances), although it's possible for body/brain stimulations of special sorts to produce them without there being external correlates;

Some experiences have no causes external to the body/brain and correspond to no external reality, being purely the result of body/brain activity (proprioceptive experiences, mystical experiences, imaginative experiences, etc.).

The notion that mystical experiences involve some sort of contact or communication with a non-physical realm of being or a non-physical Being is purely fanciful; there's no evidence for it other than anecdotal accounts, nor is it the simplest hypothesis for explaining these experiences.

That's my take on things at the present time, a take which is always subject to being revised should new evidence come to my attention.

Best regards...

[syriacus]

Thanks for taking the time to summarize your beliefs. My belief is that Christ is the greatest person who ever lived on earth, so I'll give His ideas and suggestions more weight than I give anyone else's. I sometimes think of Him as the world's most experienced guide, who's willing to help men on their safaris through life.

[syriacus]

I forgot to say...
"Best Regards" to you, too.

[Kevmo]

Thanks for posting this. I'm pinging DaveLoneRanger for his list.

I saw this article in the Mercury News this weekend with the Title, "Scientists urge colleagues to challenge religion's grip". It had a biased subtitle of "Fiery defense of reason over faith erupts at forum." That assumes that some people don't come to a rational and reasoned acceptance of Jesus Christ before faith ever really enters the picture.

When I see the unabashed attempts at indoctrination by some scientists who defend "teaching our children at a very young age" it reinforces my conclusion that we are witnessing the birth of a new religion.

It's also posted at dome of the sky http://domeofthesky.com/