Mind Field

It was during a Superbowl party that some friends and I were looking at my modest library and began discussing the human mind, of all things. Well, someone put forth the suggestion that the mind is a non-physical entity of the body and brain in much the same way that kickers are the non-physical entities of football teams. Hmmm, someone’s been smoking Rene Descartes again.

My reply was swifter than Bruce Lee’s fists. I replied that it was silly to suppose any duality between the mind and body since consciousness is an activity of the brain. This is indisputable (though we don’t know why brain activity leads to consciousness). In layman’s terms our minds, acting largely as an organization devise, arise to integrate and provide an interpretation of the world around us as perceived by our senses. Having operated on the brains of patients who are awake, scientists have located sites that stimulate the sense of smell, reflexes, emotions, hallucinations, and out-of-body experiences (OBE’s). You see, it’s a new thing educated people are doing; they’re called scientific journals and people should read them more often. But I suppose I care more about these kinds of things, so I’ll take it upon myself to bring the rest of the team up to speed.

Theists more so than agnostics seem to be fans of Dualism (the belief in a spiritual realm that supersedes physical reality) while there is no good evidence for such a state of affairs than say, Quadralism or Hexalism. I would also like to add that if we’re going to argue over realms of existence superseding each other, how do we determine which realm is ‘superior’ or answerable to another? Theists take for granted the notion that their unseen and immeasurable realm of spirituality, where God coincidently resides, is the immutable master over all. As usual, such a supposition is undertaken with absolutely no more evidence than a pair of crossed fingers.

Let’s do something crazy and ask an important question: Do ideas survive on their own when no one is around? The answer is “No, are you out of your mind?” (Well, not unless you’re a Platonist or fan of the Irish philosopher George Berkley…in which case you are out of your mind since you can’t provide the slightest evidence.)

But how do ideas even begin to happen? What goes into making a concept meaningful between two people? First, you think of an idea which is a physical event in your brain that is the culmination of experiences related to the real world we live in; ideas do not appear out of thin air. To transmit this idea to another person, you need a physical transport system such as text or language. (Sorry, but ESP hasn’t come close to verification. Even if valid it would have to be shown to be a non-physical event using non-physical means to transport thoughts which is not outside the realm of possibility if you’re at all familiar with the “spooky action at a distance” in physics.). Then, my senses receive your data, which is also a physical event. My brain interprets the data through a biological process, organizes the information and compares it against what I already know about the world. At some point I conclude with or without reason whether you are insane or not. There is never a point where the exchange of information between people is anything other than a physical process. Ideas do not exist without a brain around to think of or transmit them.

Now we might ask if the mind can exist without the brain. If you’re thinking “yes” then I’d like to know where the mind goes when someone is in a coma. Why don’t people revived from comas tell us about the wonderful places their mind has been while the body was laid up? If the mind can exist without the brain, why do personality and intelligence disorders sometimes arise from trauma and injury to the head? Why, if duality exists, do most people experience memory loss in old age? This tells us the brain and ‘mind’ must be intimately related somehow. The theistic objection here is that if the physical transport system of the mind is damaged, misinterpretations by the brain of what the mind wants will naturally occur.

      

Such a defense raises some questions. For example, which “you” would survive death into the afterlife? People display different personality traits throughout their entire life; the young “you” is surely most different than the old “you.” Would personality changes come with experience in the afterlife as they do in our earthly lives? If ideas come from some netherworld, would we be privy to all the knowledge in the universe come the afterlife? Now please feel free to ask your own questions on the matter that you haven’t used your brain to think of.         

In the laboratory where scientists have studied monks meditating and achieving nirvana, snapshots of the brain during this time record unusual brain chemistry. However, consciousness cannot be shown to “go” anywhere during this time. The transcendence of physical reality does not occur. The last time I checked, monks still needed to eat. I guess that’s because transcendence is not a practical state to be in if you intend to provide your brain with enough energy to meditate and achieve transcendence. Honestly, I wouldn’t see the point of the brain continuing to register any activity if the transcendence of physical reality has occurred. Does it not defeat the point? Perhaps we haven’t developed the means by which to measure “where consciousness goes” in these instances of meditation, but the theist cannot dismiss out of hand the possibility that it’s all just in the head.

Another theistic defense postulates that the human brain only uses a small percentage of its capacity. Sometimes, theists and other spiritualists argue that we only use 10-12% of our brain; a popular common misconception. Therefore, they postulate, perhaps the areas of the brain that seem inactive are actually busy being connecting the mind to a higher or unseen reality, being that again, we haven’t devised a means of detection. Or, that at least these areas of the brain we haven’t been able to access yet because, “We’re not ready for it.” Yes, someone actually said that to me. Again there is no good reason to suppose any of this. You can’t tell me it can’t possibly be that these areas of the brain are dormant because they are no longer necessary. We are obviously getting by without using the whole brain if it actually were the case we only use a small portion of it and if there were any advantage to using the whole brain, we would seem likely to already be doing it. We need only to consider possibilities to cast suspect on a world of duality.

The human mind is a tool, albeit the most important tool in our arsenal. Even though it may allow us deep experiences and fantastic ideas, it cannot do so without the physical component of the brain. No brain, no deep experiences or fantastic ideas. Now, does this tool have a purpose? Yes. The ability to problem solve and think abstractly provides us with adaptability. This increases individual survival as well as the collective survival of the species. That is the human mind’s greatest asset. It is also the mind’s greatest liability.

Problem is, our interpretations of the world are highly subjective to our sensory experiences. Moreover, what happens to our interpretations of the world when some of our senses aren’t working? I am continuously awed by theists who should know better but fail to consider these questions because it would challenge their faith. Is it reasonable, I ask, not to consider what if our senses are working, but due to nurturing and conditioning we draw false conclusions of reality? Does the mind make any more sense of the world than is necessary for a person to live?

Maybe author Scott Adams understands: “There is more information in one thimble of reality than can be understood by a galaxy of human brains. It is beyond the human brain to understand the world and it’s environment, so the brain compensates by creating simplified illusions that act as a replacement for understanding…the delusions are fuelled by arrogance, the arrogance that humans are the center of the world, that we alone are endowed with the magical properties of souls and morality and free will and love.”

That’s almost hard to argue with. However, some things can be known with some degree of certainty through reasoning or evidence. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it still make noise? Yes it does. Leave a microphone and recorder in the woods if you don’t believe me. Even if there are no means with which to record it, the rustling of the air (noise) has still occurred. Even if one dies, there is still a world for living people to participate in, unless the world is a figment of my imagination (or of God’s imagination, as George Berkley might say).

If the world is not my imagination, then an objective reality exists whether or not I can know it. But as I have pointed out, at least some truths can be objectively known. If the world is my imagination (and my brain is in a jar somewhere), I still need to deal with the world how I imagine it, a world where apparently immutable laws of physics apply. If I’m only dreaming that some true reality exists, then God’s existence can be equally true or untrue depending upon what I felt like believing when I woke up in the morning. If we don’t perceive more of reality than is necessary to live, then there’s a good chance that believing in God isn’t particularly practical. It would depend upon the individual. Believing in God would become more of a whim since it has little practical value in helping you, say, outrun a lion.

On the other hand, if God does exist outside of our minds and it’s one of those few things we could know, again, we might wonder why God wouldn’t make us all goddamn sure of it. What is God afraid we would do with immutable knowledge of His existence? Why exist unless this is all some kind of test? It would benefit us tremendously to know what’s really going on, oh great and all-loving God, unless you have a practical reason for sending people to hell or some other equally gruesome fate. Again, we’re never privy to God’s reasoning. Are God’s plans beyond our ability to understand? This is a common theistic defense that explains nothing.

It’s not that our thoughts are without some physical existence. God does exist, at least as a concept which arises from the physical process of thinking. But God, nor any “soul”, exists when there isn’t anyone around to imagine such nonsense. Even if a soul did exist, there isn’t anyway for us to know how far divisions go. If the body is a subject of the soul, is the soul subject to a super soul? This would seem ridiculous, but I’m only following the theist’s line of thinking that arbitrarily chooses to end the divisions with duality.

If God cannot be proven to be true or false, it would do the world a good bit of justice to dispense with the idea of gods. By freeing ourselves of less delusional delusions, we free up more time to learn things that can be known as well as identify and deal with actual threats to our existence, like intolerance and martyrdom. The collapse of theism replaced by actual thinking would increase the chances of survival for all of us. After all, religion has proven unable to control itself, what with Inquisitions, Crusades, and wars of and on terrorism. Maybe that’s because people who say they believe in God really do not; or maybe their god is a primitive, bloodthirsty prick. Believe in God if you want, but for the love of Christ keep it to yourself.

In the end, it’s worth remembering that dinosaurs were around eighty times as long as humans have been around. Yet we view their brains as vastly inferior to ours. Trees have been around even longer than dinosaurs and they don’t even have brains! So what makes anyone think they know what they’re talking about (besides me and my superiorly advanced brain)? What makes anyone think our ability to think is so special? Will our brains help us as a species to survive as long as dinosaurs or trees? Only time will tell. Delusions will not. 

My NDE

It happened in 1994. What was supposed to be a mundane trip to the garage to get a something – I don’t remember what – turned into the most bizarre experience of my life. I had a near-death-experience (NDE).

Before I get to my experience, I am writing this blog entry in reference to an article I read a few days ago on “death science,” an emerging branch of science investigating the possibility of life beyond death. Now, I am not going to say whether there is life after death or not, I don’t know and it’s going to be an extremely difficult thing to test (much less prove) but I agree in part with Socrates, who regards death in any manner a win since we either go into an eternal sleep or enter a blissful spiritual realm (as related in Plato’s Apology). I have also experienced some of the qualities typically associated with NDE’s through meditation; infinite happiness and infinite sorrow. But, I did not experience either during my NDE. In reading about the experiences of other NDE’ers, it seems my experience was atypical. Here’s what happened.

I was going out the back door of my mother’s house to the garage. The back door was a screen door and although it was the summer, she still had the winter glass installed. Annoyed about going out to the garage for something I thought I had already brought in the house, I pushed the door open too forcefully which broke the spring at the top of the door. The door came back towards me rapidly and in an effort to protect myself, I stuck out my right arm. The glass struck the tip of my elbow and shattered, cutting my forearm in three places, the largest gash being three inches long. I saw blood fly everywhere and knew immediately I was in trouble, so I grabbed my right arm with my left hand to apply pressure. Instinctively, I ran towards the neighbor’s house for help since my mother was not home and I knew I couldn’t dial a phone. The neighbor, Jimmy, wasn’t home, so I had to run downstairs to his tenant’s apartment, get passed the guard dog there, and ask the tenant to call an ambulance.

I slumped against the wall outside their door to wait for help. Meanwhile, the dog was barking in my face which at this point meant little to me. Then, nothing. It was like someone flicked a switch and turned me off; I’d blacked out from blood loss.

The next thing I was aware of was something like a ball approaching me, but I understood this mass of whatever-it-was to be my life experiences. It struck me like a tidal wave and over the next split-second, I re-lived everything that had ever happened in my entire life up to the point I blacked out, after which I blacked out again. At some point I’d woken up and the dog was biting and scratching at me, but I don’t remember who pulled him off. Eventually, the EMT’s arrived and put me on a gurney and whisked me off to the hospital. There, my surgeon said there was so much blood, he initially thought I was a gunshot victim and then sewed me up with 120 stitches. Because I was still in danger from blood loss and because the doctor started stitching me up before the local anesthesia could start working, I would not get to reflect on me NDE until the next day.

While the NDE was bizarre, it wasn’t life changing. I suppose it should be, though, because if I am going to re-live my life again when I die, I should be pursuing more pleasures and spend less time worrying or being stress-out over life’s little challenges. Then again, was it really an NDE? How close was I to dying? The anecdotal evidence surrounding NDE’s implies some truly strange things happen in the brain when one is near death, but should it mean anything beyond possibly being the brain’s one last gasp to save itself? While I can certainly see an evolutionary reason why some NDE’er experience extreme happiness during an NDE, I don’t see why other NDE’ers would experience extreme sorrow or have an experience such as mine. To be clear, I am not trying to make a case for an afterlife here, just that such experiences deserve a great deal more research. Undoubtedly, such research will either be extremely pleasing to theists, or, just the opposite. Unlike many atheists, I do think this avenue of research deserves to be pursued if for no other reason than it will help us to understand the brain.

I am thankful for my experience. When I reflect on it, knowing what I know now, I remind myself that I need to spend more time on sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll and a little less time being mean to Justin Bieber.

The Internet: Humanity's Collective Consciousness

My wife asked an interesting question last night: Given all the information readily available on the Internet, why go to school to learn anything? Granted, it’s difficult to acquire hands-on skills via the Internet, but in terms of the information that is available, why memorize anything when almost any information is so readily accessed? My wife asked this question in a negative sense, meaning she disapproved of the way (American) society is shaping up and being educated when compared to what we went through as children. [Oh, god, we’ve reached that age.]

I distinctly remember what a big deal it was when my junior high school got Commodore 64’s. At the time, the Internet was still just a gleam in Al Gore’s eyes. As I finally got around to finishing my B.S. in 2011, I recall students in college math and physics class being allowed to use their phones or other devices during tests. Although I did not cave into that temptation, I suppose such is the way we integrate ourselves with technology. Yes, it is easy to view the Internet’s influence as negative when we had it so ‘hard’ when my wife and I were growing up. Really, though, that negativity stems from a sense of foul play, of the game changing and no longer being fair to the older generations. This by itself doesn’t make the Internet unworthy of the degree to which it is currently used. I see nothing inherently wrong with the Internet such as it is, as a repository for information we would otherwise be holding in our own brains. That’s pretty much how I view the Internet as a whole, like a brain, only it’s everyone’s brain. (Well, everyone who has a connection.)

Think of all the kinds of information we upload. Reliable information, unreliable information, real-time information, memories, procedures, our likes, our dislikes, and we answer self-assessment quizzes. We can train, do commerce, and socialize through the Internet; there is a lot we do through the Internet that we used to do without it. The difference is that now, we can do many things faster and our reach can be global (which has had the unexpected consequence of proliferating subcultures). So why so much adversity to technology, especially from older people?

One obvious answer is that people get set in their ways and believe what was an already adequate way of doing things (for them) does not need to change. Getting set in one’s ways prohibiting learning, which is too bad since learning helps maintain cognition. A second answer might be that people generally fail to see the Big Picture. In this context I’m talking about people seeing the Internet for what it really is; our collective consciousness. We access the same things – types of information – from the Internet in a manner similar to how we use our own brains, the difference being that the source of information is kept external to ourselves and is more reliable in its presentation (not more reliable in accuracy, though, and we cannot recall feelings or emotions from the Internet. Not yet, anyway). Ultimately, the Internet is neither good nor bad; it just is what it is. I believe aversion for the Internet stems from something a bit more subtle; the vulnerability of the Internet to those who rely too heavily upon it or wish to abuse it.

I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with students using the Internet to do their physics or math tests but doing so does make those students vulnerable should the Internet ever go away. Whereas I was able to do my physics or math work by pulling information out of my head, other students are relying on the assumption that the Internet will always be there for them when they need information. If the point of terrorism is to disrupt lives, I don’t understand why terrorists do not try to destroy the infrastructure that supports the Internet or do not try to disrupt its operation more often. Have you been around people who are otherwise always connected when the Internet is disrupted for more than an hour? It’s a little bit frightening. That’s because they are left alone with their own brain when the Internet, The Brain as I like to call it now, is so much more entertaining seeing how their desire to always be connected has deprived them of actively participating in life and gaining experiences. (Being constantly connected also prevents contemplative or reflective thought among a species that already engages in it so infrequently.)

Indeed, why bother to learn anything when you can just access The Brain? Because if the The Brain were to ever go away, humanity’s technological progress would be thrown back at least two hundred years, and I do not believe most people today could survive a day in even the most advanced country in 1814, or a Third World country today. Of course, that’s what Western countries would become if The Brain died; there’d be societal collapse, seeing how people would no longer have bank accounts and therefore could not buy food and don’t know how to garden and can no longer access that information on a device they overpaid for…you get the picture. Relying on The Brain too much leaves one vulnerable. Is that what we want in a world where it seems that despite all the information in The Brain, people still don’t seem to know anything?

As consciousness is an emergent property of our brains and our brains are made up of discreet cells vulnerable to failure, so too may the cells (people) of The Brain fail. We should be required to memorize information and be able to apply skills for if we cannot, then what are we? Merely individual cells that aren’t terribly important to consciousness.