The Nature of Man - Part 1

What is the nature of man?

Who I am is closely associated with what I am. Aside from those special few who believe we are alien hybrid progeny, almost all would agree that we are human beings, indigenous to this planet. But what makes up our composite parts? The difficulty of defining what we are may become obvious when you ponder the following questions:

•          What is the mind?
•          What is the supposed spirit or soul of man?
•          What is thought?
•          Does part of us continue after death?

 The nature of man is often expressed in a more physically relevant way by asking – “What happens when I die?” Is man the result of a simple equation such as this?

 BODY + BREATH (spirit) = PERSON (living soul)

If so then this means modern scientific disciplines dealing with the brain (i.e. psychology, neurology, etc.) are correct with the idea that the MIND is merely a by-product of chemical processes in the brain (behaviourism) and when these processes stop, existence of both body and mind (with all its accumulated memories) ceases.

This makes sense up to a point since they can demonstrate using brain imaging (fMRI, etc.) that there is corresponding activity in the brain in response to various modes of abstract thinking as well as in response to physical stimuli. However, it is also reasonable to propose that these techniques are only designed to detect physical phenomena (i.e. occurrences within the currently detectable 4-dimensions). It is an inherent flaw of scientific study and the “scientific method” that it becomes somewhat self-limiting to the study of phenomena within the physical known dimensions and very little, if any, effort is expended in development of hypotheses and instrumentation for investigation of metaphysical concepts. One might then conclude that such methods are incapable of providing data that may answer the question, “What is the mind?” simply because being physical, they do not provide a mechanism by which they might help us prove or disprove the existence of the metaphysical.

If we look across medical disciplines we may find some interesting things though that can be taken together to form a picture and here I mention only two examples.

Wilder Penfield¹ (neurosurgeon), while working with epilepsy sufferers undergoing open-skull brain operations, found an interesting side-effect. The operation is done under local anaesthetic with the patient conscious and relating to the surgeon the effect of stimuli to the brain. The stimulus is provided by a 2v 60 Hz probe to various areas with the intent of reproducing effects experienced just before having a seizure. That part of the brain is then destroyed in the hope of preventing further epileptic seizures. A small percentage (~10%) of patients experienced effects where they experienced involuntary recall of memories which were so vivid as to include sights, sounds and smells. These events were being experienced while they were simultaneously able to describe them to the surgeon and remain fully aware of the fact that they were in an operating theatre undergoing a procedure². In other instances the surgeon stimulated the motor control areas to move the patients left arm and asked them why they moved it. The patient responded that it wasn’t them that moved it. So here are two examples of the conscious MIND being separate from the actions or operation of the brain. According to the patients, they were completely aware of “themselves” and “they” were noticeably separate from that which was causing the phenomena they were experiencing. This suggests that this indefinable something that we call MIND is in some way separate to the physical actions of the brain, yet dependent upon it for expression.

  

Psychologically speaking, the technique of hypnosis provides additional evidence that indicates that the brain can be acted upon by external influences. You may remember that hypnotic regression was big in the 1980’s and led to a slew of sexual abuse cases by children against parents, etc., some of which were proven to be false³. This caused criticism of this psychological practice⁴ for its consequence, purposeful or unintended, of implanting suggestions by asking questions in a leading way while the patient was in an altered state of consciousness. The idea was to retrieve repressed memories but the result was implanting false ones or significantly distorting memories of past trauma. Today we find hypnosis is still in use in a new and scary way for medical research purposes⁵. In this application, the researchers take healthy individuals and under hypnosis induce false traumatic experiences while studying the brain in an attempt to better understand the effect of psychological conditions like Schizophrenia, Hysteria disorders and other related psychoses. So they cause a healthy brain to mimic an epileptic seizure or a Schizophrenic delusion, etc. and see what the brain does. Why? To better understand how to treat the condition they say. What it does prove is that there is a flaw in in our makeup that can be exploited if we allow it to be.

So what has any of this to do with what makes us human beings? Well simply this. In its quest to fully understand and define the workings of the human mind and body, the scientific world has come up short. It is my opinion that they have inadvertently through unexpected results shown that it is highly feasible that there is a part of man, call it the mind if you will, that exists separate from physical chemical and electrical activity of the brain. But what exactly is the relationship between the mind and the brain? Custance aptly describes the problem…

What was God's purpose in making man MAN rather than angel — i.e., in making him an embodied spirit not just an ethereal one? What role does the body actually play in establishing our personal identity and to what extent does the spirit depend upon the body to function effectively within the framework of the physical world in which we live? What precisely is the relationship between spirit and body (from the biblical perspective) and, alternatively, mind and brain (from the neurophysiological perspective)? It is a fascinating subject, and the evidence suggests that the separation of the two components of the human constitution effectively "extinguishes" the individual, thus demonstrating the need for the resurrection of the body.⁶

Theologically speaking, this has long been a contentious topic. There are doctrinal extremes between those that believe in the formula, BODY + BREATH (spirit) = PERSON (living soul), called annihilationists because in their view after death man effectively ceases to exist, and those that believe in the eternal persistence of some part of man (soul/spirit) after death. You might notice that I refrain from calling that part immortal as some do – more on that later. Throughout history various cultures have speculated on this aspect of the human experience and yet we remain unsatisfied with the current explanations.

 Connecting the Dots

I have to be honest here and say that I don’t have some smoking gun revelation to share but in all my study I have yet to find a hypothesis that I was completely happy with. Scientifically, there are too many unknowns while philosophically and theologically the instances of confirmation bias⁷ are all to frequent for my liking. So I offer the following points in the hope of describing the current direction of my thinking on this topic. In no way have I plumbed all depths, fleshed out or critiqued these ideas to any great degree as that is a somewhat protracted task not yet completed. I have used the intelligent machine analogy in an attempt at simplifying things somewhat.

1.       There is a metaphysical part of man that persists after death. For simplicity I will call it spirit.

2.       Our spirit is linked to the machine (body + brain) and requires the machine to allow expression in the space/time dimension in which we live. Without the body, the spirit still exists but is cut-off or silenced and is no longer capable of interaction with the physical dimension.

3.       The machine is computer controlled. This computer is called the brain and it is a learning engine that is incredibly intuitive. This is seen in phenomena such as:

a.       Subconscious actions like breathing, heart pumping, etc. carried out without thought yet still able to be regulated or altered by conscious thought.

b.      Addiction. Our brain displays associative learning where it associates an action with certain stimulus. So for example when we get stressed and have a cigarette, the body remembers the stimulus and the effect. Some way along this process if we decide we don’t want to smoke anymore, the body does not understand. It has learned by our previous behaviour that a nicotine shot accompanies the build-up of certain stress hormones and tries to make that happen. It tries to convince us by producing cravings. For often repeated behaviour this is accompanied by physical changes as well with the build-up of neural networks that are extremely sensitive and responsive to the slightest stimulus such as just the smell of tobacco.

4.       BUT, there is someone at the keyboard! Our spirit (wherein resides our concept of mind apart from the body) can control the computer (brain) to varying degrees. This control mechanism can be called the will. You may have heard of the terms willpower and strength of will. The exercise of our will is an indication of the weakness or strength of control that our spirit is exercising over our bodies through the spirit/brain interface or keyboard control. To be honest many people are just lazy and allow the body with its incredible associative learning capacity to dictate our behaviour for us. They effectively exercise very little control and are said to have no willpower.

5.       Here we see a major weakness. As discussed above, if we surrender control of the keyboard, we lose control of the brain and thus also control of the body. This surrender can be involuntary as in the case of the surgeon probing the brain, or voluntary as in the case of the subject of hypnosis. One of the major components to hypnosis is the willingness of the subject to want to or believe they can be hypnotised.

6.       I have read where the difference between Hypnosis and Eastern Meditation⁸ has been described as only a matter of semantics surrounding objects and techniques of focus. In this context it would still constitute a willing surrender where, by altering your state of consciousness, you willingly take your hands off the keyboard and step aside.

So the “Ghost in the Machine”⁹ turns out to be the spirit at the keyboard, but which spirit you allow to have access to your keyboard is up to you.

Reference

1. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Wilder_Penfield.aspx
2. http://www.custance.org/Library/MIND/chapter5.html
3. https://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm
4. http://www.hypnocenter.com/articles/therapist-beware-of-false-memories
5. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140702-why-i-asked-to-be-possessed
6. http://custance.org/Library/Journey/Part_II/connections.html
7. http://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/confirmation_bias.htm
8. For example, http://www.asch.net/portals/0/journallibrary/articles/ajch-46/otani.pdf
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine

Why Are We Here?

Why Are We Here?

Since this is my first ever blog post I thought I should start with the topic that has persistently occupied my thoughts for as long as I can remember. From the day I was old enough to read it seemed that I was gripped with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. I still remember the day I pulled apart an old broken alarm clock to see how it worked inside. Oh, they use springs, gears and levers. Question answered. I really didn’t see the need to put it back together – it was already broken. Eventually I learned that knowing how to reassemble things was also important. As I got older I started to wonder about the weightier questions, the answers to which seemed beyond the physical.

·         Who am I?

·         Where did I come from?

·         Why am I here?

·         How should I live my life?

What does it all mean? There must be a purpose to this existence because I felt it in my bones, but like a shadow glimpsed from the corner of my eye that disappears when I try to look directly at it, the answers were eluding me. Everyone had an opinion but who was to say which was right, and anyway where does one start this quest?

I began by looking at the world around me. I loved the sciences and dearly wanted to be a paleontologist, geologist and archaeologist all at the same time. As time went on I worked my way through many subjects finally coming back around to religion and philosophy after realising that, somewhat typically for me, I had perhaps begun at the end rather than the beginning and I should have looked at myself first.

Know Thyself

This old Delphic maxim given as Gnothi Seauton in Greek or Nosce te ipsum in Latin, is probably one of the most important instructions we could take on board.

To find the answer we must first ask “Who Am I?”

People the world over struggle through life unhappy in their own skin because they never find the answer to this question. Many don’t even know to ask it yet still subconsciously seek the answer as evidenced by their actions, searching for identity, love and acceptance yet not understanding why it eludes them.

This simple admonishment, “know thyself”, can lead you to ask some very important follow-up questions that were really the questions I started with. Paradoxically, people can be quite selfish in their behaviour and yet we avoid self-examination like the plague. Likewise I struggled through life because I had not developed any techniques for self-analysis and, since my self-identity was a little shaky, introspection and correction was often painful.

To know thyself was the guiding quest for many great thinkers throughout history and I can think of no better way to start.

In the words of the Psalmist:

                “…what is man that You are mindful of him”? (Psalm 8:4)