Brains, Consciousness, & Mental Health w/ Rob DeSalle
While it seems an obvious reality for people who are naturalistic in their world-view, understanding our brain as the source of all of our behavior, thoughts, and personality, is not necessarily the way most people think. It is surprising how many people have the belief that consciousness is – in one form or another – supernatural.
The enduring belief that consciousness is the manifestation of a nonmaterial phenomenon, such as a soul, and not directly the result of our brains interacting with our environment is an idea which we on ETFF think needs to be challenged.
This month, in particular, the horrific events in Arizona raises the issue of the way our society regards and responds to mental illness, and that seems to call into question whether we believe that our behavior is primarily the result of our brains responding to our environment, or something more.
While many media pundits are quick to use judgmental terms as regards the shootings – such as ‘crazy,’ ‘evil,’ ‘psycho,’ such language fails to get us close to any sort of effective method to prevent or at least reduce the number of such incidents.
The naturalistic alternative to understanding human behavior is embodied in the wonderful new exhibition called “Brain: The Inside Story” at AMNH.
Rob DeSalle is a Curator of Entomology at the American Museum of Natural History. He is affiliated with the AMNH Division of Invertebrate Zoology and works at the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, where he leads a group of researchers working on molecular systematics, molecular evolution, population and conservation genetics, and evolutionary genomics of a wide array of life forms ranging from viruses, bacteria, corals, and plants, to all kinds of insects, reptiles, and mammals.
Rob is also Adjunct Professor at Columbia University (Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology), Distinguished Professor in Residence at New York University (Department of Biology), Adjunct Professor at City University of New York (Subprogram in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior), Resource Faculty at the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, and Professor at the AMNH Richard Gilder Graduate School.
Either we’re completely free or we’re automatons.There is no mister in between.Either our actions are uncaused [completely free] or cannot be other then what they are because our brain cannot be other then what it is and all action is a result of a given brain and it’s interaction with the world.We have no way of knowing whether we’e free or not. If we’re free then it can only be because consciousness is spirit and not matter.Since we would have to step outside the human to answer whether we’re free or not one belief is as valid as another.As a Catholic I choose to believe that we are free-our actions are uncaused because consciosness is spirit. Reasoning is not free.It is contingent on how our brain is and our environment.We can’t help what we believe or how we feel.A reason is not a cause.Whatever our beliefs or feelings we are always free to act or not act on them.If you believe our brain and it’s interface with the world alone compels one’s actions [consciosness is matter not spirit] then asigning ethical responsibility to anyone is a game.
Hello Rose and thanks for your comment. There is no evidence that we are not, like everything else in the “macro” universe, subject to causation; regardless of how it may feel, we simply can not act contrary to cause. I agree with you that this fact has serious implications for the way we understand personal responsibility. Taken to its logical end, our not having free will does mean that a different mechanism than personal responsibility is needed through which we can expect that people will behave in the manner society requires.
And while it is not consistent with your Catholic faith, that mechanism is our healthy innate human inclination to cooperate, to contribute, to positively affect our world, to build, to create, and to feel connected to those around us.
If you subscribe to the traditional view that we are all sinners- selfish, lazy, greedy, and anti-social, and that this is mitigated only by opening our hearts to god- then of course, none of what I’m expressing makes sense. While most people continue to hold such a cynical view of our human nature, social science is increasingly painting a different picture.
When humans are the beneficiaries of the type of environment we require to flourish, we are the most social life form of which we know.
For more on free will and naturalism try the website of my friend and fellow activist Tom Clark- http://www.naturalism.org
Finally, thanks for listening to a program which presents views that differ from your own; to stay better grounded, when possible, I try to do the same.
-Arnell Dowret
I agree with you that the concept of humans as sinners which has been imposed on us by religion has been detrimental to the progress and well being of individuals and societies.We are social creatures inately capable of empathy.Empathy is a choice we extend to those we have identified with .That too is a choice.At the 9-11 anniversary commemeration,for example, we commemorate the people who died that day.Every person ‘s name is mentioned along with a picture of them and positive comments about them are said by their loved ones.Our empathy towards them is expressed.The thousands of people we have killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are never mentioned by name nor do we see their faces or hear from their loved ones.The most empathy we extend to them is to label them colateral damage.No memorial to them is being built.We are capable of choosing empathy and of withholding it.You’re right that belief in God has nothing to do with human empathy or any other possitive human trait.However, it is also true that we are not completely “whole” in the sense that reality often thwarts are will.[You can't always get what you want].Just the fact that we all suffer and die is a manifestation of that brokenness [the Christian term would be fallennes as in the "fall of Adam and Eve" and their banishment from paradise -the absence of suffering and death].That we suffer and die is not a moral issue yet this thwarting of our will[who wants to suffer and die] makes moral choices possible and choices can be either good or bad-selfish or unselfish ,loving or hateful.Yes our innate capacity for empathy mandates we build a society where we can all flourish but our fallenness will always be not only integral to our humanitybut at the heart of it.
I enjoyed your latest show om the brain and I’m looking forward to more shows about consciousness.
I want to try to answer the question posed by your guest about why people are disturbed at the notion that we have no soul and are just a brain. As a catholic I’m one of those people and can give you my answer.Your guest said that because the brain is so complex,[the neural pathways and their possible conection so varied] ,that it is as if we had free will so it does not really matter in life that we don’t.I know what she means,yes when you feel hungry ,the fact that your experience of hunger is purely physical does not negate the experience and the same for all experiences even the most subtle[consciousness of self itself or love] and therefore it is as if we had free will for all intents and purposes.Of course “as if” is not the same as actually, and though it doesn’t effect life whether we have free will or are automotons[yes very very very intricate ones but automatons none the less if we are just physical],belief in the added layer of free will or soul shelters people from the reductionist view which turns life into a game [meaningless] which in a “dark night of the soul” say or another life experience is painful[We crave meaning that is independent of our situation; a true transcendence of our brief contingent reality where it is not up to us to continuously have to create or give meaning]Though the workings of the brain are intricate and fascinating, I think we already know that no two brains are exactly the same because no two people are exactly the same.A person is a brain [biologically] and we already know that.It is not really surprising to learn that by manipulating parts of the brain you alter perception,feelings,thoughts even judgements.We already know that because we are physical beings[brains]and we are each unique not only because we occupy separate space but because our brains[neural connection,neural patterns] are different, as you said;as varied as are fingerprints.
Therare twomore reasons that I find disturbing to believe we are just physical beings.The first is obvious -it means no afterlife and the idea of the self ceasing to be as well as the extinction of our loved ones is a catastrophic thought.How could it not be?Of course nature’s answer is “So what” and wishing it were not so does not make it not so.[Though Bob Dylan says "Some things are too terrible to be true".]However,people have the capacity to posit a meta reality;a reality outside our reality that explains the fact that there is this reality.It’s an infinite regress but just as if you’re inside the ball of wax you can’t know about it in the same way as if you were outside it,it is a plausible belief to have a metaphysical belief system[though there is no physical evidence for it since it is about the physical world,not of it ,it is logically plausible to have a religious belief system. Although there is no evidence for consciousness existing outside the brain[all experimental evidence of the brains suggests otherwise] the reality is that the physical properies of the brain and its workings do not explain consciousness.Cells are matter;chemicals and electricity are physical things- particles.atoms,etc. Matter, no matter how it moves cannot explain thought, an idea is not a cell or an atom.Physical matter touching other objects cannot explain thoughts.Although we can show how parts of the brain[matter] determine certain states of consciousness.Consciosness it self is not explained.Matter is not thought,matter moving is not thought.Descartes’ insight “i think therefore i am”expressed the ineffable.I think people who persist in their belief that we have a soul are not anti-scientce nor do I think they simply lack understanding the the immense complexity of the workings of the human brain[they may or may not find it interestin]but they have this “common sense” awareness that physical structures are not thoughts.Physical structures,[atoms,cells,cellular mechanics] due to possitive and negative elecrical charges can attract and repel each other,therefore movement occurs but movement is not thought.Even an answer to the question what is life has not been given though we know the properties and functions of living things we don’t really know what life is.People will “hang their hat” on the idea of a soul because in truth science cannot explain consciousness[thought] and only consciousness as spirit[soul] makes sense to common sense religious people like myself.
The other reason that it is disturbing to believe we are just brains is from a psycological, social even political aspect. No one wants to be perceived as an object, where every word, every pain,joy ,every laugh or smile is perceived by another as deterrmined.That our most heartfelt expressions our ourselves can be objectified is demeaning. Of course it is often people in positions of power; shrinks, teachers, judges, etc, who are people most likely to have this deterministic view of people because they are more educated in the sciences.The people who are subordinate to these people can resent just knowing they are being objectified-even if treated well by such powerful people.Even on your show you made a joke about the brains of the tea partyers. I know it was just a joke but it shows how in the socio-political realm this objectifying of people could become dangerous.
Can’t wait for your next wonderful show though.