The Brain Processes Facts and Beliefs the Same Way | Newsweek BeliefWatch: Lisa Miller | Newsweek.com:
"Harris, Kaplan, et al. put 30 people in fMRI machines. Half of them were committed Christian believers, the kind of Christians who would immediately agree with the statement 'Jesus ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father.' Half were committed atheists, the kind who would agree with the statement 'The belief that Jesus ascended to heaven is clearly false.' Up on a screen before them, participants would read declarative statements. Some were statements of religious belief, some of religious disbelief. Some were statements about more ordinary facts. Participants had to push buttons—indicating true or false—as the researchers watched their brains light up. Belief in God, disbelief in God, and belief in simple empirically verifiable facts all lit up the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that governs your sense of self. We are, in some sense, what we believe."
It ain't quite as simple as Newsweek would have you believe, but the disconnect between fundies and scientists seems to reside in the same area of the brain. A religious belief and a science fact lie in the same parts of the brain as self image. No wonder we can't talk to each other.
Getting Iraq right
10 hours ago
4 comments:
You left out one of the most important points mentioned in the article:
The fMRI experiments do not pertain to these largest questions, of course. But they do show (again) what neuroscientists already know. "Intuition" and "reason" are not two separate activities. They're interconnected.
One more vote for thinking of the mind as being a "unity..."
Very Big Grin
Nah. Intuition and reason are part of the data evaluation and integration part of the brain AKA the mind. No duality, evolution put it there, not God, but conceptually different from the perception areas of the brain. And while you are at it better add spirituality to intuition and reason. The "Ah ha, that is right!" is neither intuition nor reason.
All the faculties, together, make up the unity that is "mind" and the mind and body together make up the unity that is the individual human. Any compartmentalizations of the whole are only useful for the convenience of analysis and in no way represent actual functioning.
Have it your way. The body and brain react to stimuli in a rather prosaic fashion, common to most living things. Add the mind to mediate those reactions and you get a much more versatile organism. One wonders if the religious participants in the study have reached that versatile stage. Stimulus - God says. Response - pray. Thank you I will keep my mind.
Post a Comment