Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Hinduthvaite · 10-18-2002, 07:31 AM

New researches in neuro physiology (which are now at least five years old) particularly by Michael Persinger Andrew Newberg and Vyalanur Ramachandran have a tremendous philosophical and theological outcomes. It is my opinion that mystical and religious experiences may be a Darwinian adaptation built into us (and selected)so that we can withstand the meaninglessness death throws into our lives. Hindu Brahman and Buddhist Sunyata both transcend the little conscious self and make it merge with a Cosmic Self which may well be some neural circuits faaling asleep and some others waking up.

-Aravindan Neelakandan

10-18-2002, 08:31 AM

I had one a few years ago (no shit). It was the most amazing experiance of my life, but I took some Ritalin, which probably had a good hand in causing it. It was so powerful that I do not know what to make of it, but I think it definitely is some part of your brain falling asleep and another part being very active. I wish I could meditate, so I could try to see if I can make it happen again.

For two weeks after it happened, I felt as if life could not be any better if it tried. -an understatement

Psycho Economist · 10-18-2002, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hinduthvaite:
It is my opinion that mystical and religious experiences may be a Darwinian adaptation built into us (and selected)so that we can withstand the meaninglessness death throws into our lives.

You should check out Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer... he's an anthropologist who works with the type of Cognitive and Neuro people you mentioned.

His conclusion is that religious thinking isn't to help an already-sentient organism deal with death as you suggest, but a byproduct of predator-prey management skills meant to help someone in the middle of the food chain.

"When in doubt", the organism's thinking goes, "assume what you're seeing is caused by something with a will and capacity for intentions towards you"... and then rule out the possiblity. A line of reasoning that's as applicable to cats pouncing on string as it is to being anxious about banging shutters in the winds, as it is to seeing "the face of God" in the clouds.

However, since we humans are sentient, but not all of us are good at statistics, when we're confronted by any type of coincidence our first reaction is to think there was a deeper meaning about why the coincidence "had to" have happened.

Most organisms aren't smart enough to have existential angst about death, but everyone in the middle of the food chain (ourselves included) has some capacity for predation and for predator avoidance.

sweep · 10-18-2002, 02:48 PM

a person who never dreams goes slowly insane.

In other words, there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that people quite readily jump gaps to form conclusions if they cannot find an explanation for apparently absurd phenomena. Another way to cope with input of this kind, is to laugh

for the n'th time- immortality is impractical, the self becomes manifest during the interaction of the body and the environment. If the environment does not equip us with the mental tools to establish meaningful links with it, we form opinions of our own, particular in humuns, the capacity to dream

as for neural systems waking and shutting, that to me, at least, indicative of the environment, which dictates the way the brain forms and what connections it develops.

Sarpedon · 10-20-2002, 06:20 AM

What a fascinating thought Psychoeconomist! I will have to find that book, probably a difficult task. That seems to be a most reasonable explaination. I wouldn't be surprised, however if it is a combination of many of these issues that give rise to religion. I consider the desire for eternal life to simply be a by product of the survival instinct. If we put the predator prey thinking together with the survival instinct, along with a brain that is much bigger than it needs to be, coupled with the capacity for abstract, symbolic thought and communication, perhaps religion is inevitable.

Ramen · 10-20-2002, 12:24 PM

Zen and the Brain by Dr. James Austin is another book to consider looking into.

Quote:

Newsweek

May 7, 2001

Religion And The Brain
In the new field of "Neurotheology," scientists seek the biological basis of sprituality. Is God all in our heads?

Author: Sharon Begley
With Anne Underwood

One Sunday morning in March, 19 years ago, as Dr. James Austin waited for a train in London, he glanced away from the tracks toward the river Thames. The neurologist--who was spending a sabbatical year in England--saw nothing out of the ordinary: the grimy Underground station, a few dingy buildings, some pale gray sky. He was thinking, a bit absent-mindedly, about the Zen Buddhist retreat he was headed toward. And then
Austin suddenly felt a sense of enlightenment unlike anything he had ever experienced. His sense of individual existence, of separateness from the physical world around him, evaporated like morning mist in a bright dawn. He saw things "as they really are," he recalls. The sense of "I, me, mine" disappeared. "Time was not present," he says. "I had a sense of eternity. My old yearnings, loathings, fear of death and insinuations of selfhood vanished. I had been graced by a comprehension of the ultimate nature of things."

Call it a mystical experience, a spiritual moment, even a religious epiphany, if you like--but Austin will not. Rather than interpret his instant of grace as proof of a reality beyond the comprehension of our senses, much less as proof of a deity, Austin took it as "proof of the existence of the brain." He isn't being smart-alecky. As a neurologist, he accepts that all we see, hear, feel and think is mediated or created by the brain. Austin's moment in the Underground therefore inspired him to explore the neurological underpinnings of spiritual and mystical experience. In order to feel that time, fear and self-consciousness have dissolved, he reasoned, certain brain circuits must be interrupted. Which ones? Activity in the amygdala, which monitors the environment for threats and registers fear, must be damped. Parietal-lobe circuits, which orient you in space and mark the sharp distinction between self and world, must go quiet. Frontal- and temporal-lobe circuits, which mark time and generate self-awareness, must disengage. When that happens, Austin concludes in a recent paper, "what we think of as our 'higher' functions of selfhood appear briefly to 'drop out,' 'dissolve,' or be 'deleted from consciousness'." When he spun out his theories in 1998, in the 844-page "Zen and the Brain," it was published not by some flaky New Age outfit but by MIT Press.

[ October 20, 2002: Message edited by: peeramid ]

Psycho Economist · 10-21-2002, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sarpedon:
What a fascinating thought Psychoeconomist! I will have to find that book, probably a difficult task.

Thank you very much. Any decent, mid-sized or better university library should have a copy. I also found it in an independent bookstore (it was science-bent enough to have an anthropology section, but it was hardly a niche shop), or you could visit your favorite online-mega-bookseller-of-death, it's in hardcover and paperback, and it's comprable in price to most other science-section paperbacks (think Dawkins).

Quote:

I consider the desire for eternal life to simply be a by product of the survival instinct.

He tackles lots of more shamanistic religions, in addition to presenting a good evolutionary case for the simplified argument I abstracted. The Life Everlasting(tm) is a big factor in Christianity's memetic staying power and current popularity, but hardly a feature common to most (believers through time) religions.

(Just hope you get this one)

10-22-2002, 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sweep:
a person who never dreams goes slowly insane.

But it is an evil age when old men have dreams.

Dreaming is evidence of self alienation and may be good for young people to explore some horizon's.

This same is not true for old people who by then must know who they are and will have lived their dream.

Answerer · 10-22-2002, 08:14 AM

Does anyone know the exact way of explaining mystic through scientifical explanation?

10-22-2002, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Answerer:
Does anyone know the exact way of explaining mystic through scientifical explanation?

Good question and I don't remember but there is science out on it. There seems to be a blank spot right in the middle of our conscious mind and this is where the "religious experience" can be duplicated and replicated.

There is much more on this but I don't keep track of it.

10-18-2002, 07:31 AM	#1
Hinduthvaite Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Nagercovil Posts: 24	Of Brain and Mystical Experience New researches in neuro physiology (which are now at least five years old) particularly by Michael Persinger Andrew Newberg and Vyalanur Ramachandran have a tremendous philosophical and theological outcomes. It is my opinion that mystical and religious experiences may be a Darwinian adaptation built into us (and selected)so that we can withstand the meaninglessness death throws into our lives. Hindu Brahman and Buddhist Sunyata both transcend the little conscious self and make it merge with a Cosmic Self which may well be some neural circuits faaling asleep and some others waking up. -Aravindan Neelakandan

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10-18-2002, 08:31 AM	#2
Divide et Impera Guest Posts: n/a	I had one a few years ago (no shit). It was the most amazing experiance of my life, but I took some Ritalin, which probably had a good hand in causing it. It was so powerful that I do not know what to make of it, but I think it definitely is some part of your brain falling asleep and another part being very active. I wish I could meditate, so I could try to see if I can make it happen again. For two weeks after it happened, I felt as if life could not be any better if it tried. -an understatement

10-18-2002, 02:48 PM	#4
sweep Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: sugar factory Posts: 873	a person who never dreams goes slowly insane. In other words, there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that people quite readily jump gaps to form conclusions if they cannot find an explanation for apparently absurd phenomena. Another way to cope with input of this kind, is to laugh for the n'th time- immortality is impractical, the self becomes manifest during the interaction of the body and the environment. If the environment does not equip us with the mental tools to establish meaningful links with it, we form opinions of our own, particular in humuns, the capacity to dream as for neural systems waking and shutting, that to me, at least, indicative of the environment, which dictates the way the brain forms and what connections it develops.

10-20-2002, 06:20 AM	#5
Sarpedon Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Minnesota, the least controversial state in the le Posts: 8,446	What a fascinating thought Psychoeconomist! I will have to find that book, probably a difficult task. That seems to be a most reasonable explaination. I wouldn't be surprised, however if it is a combination of many of these issues that give rise to religion. I consider the desire for eternal life to simply be a by product of the survival instinct. If we put the predator prey thinking together with the survival instinct, along with a brain that is much bigger than it needs to be, coupled with the capacity for abstract, symbolic thought and communication, perhaps religion is inevitable.

10-22-2002, 08:14 AM	#9
Answerer Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Singapore Posts: 3,956	Does anyone know the exact way of explaining mystic through scientifical explanation?

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