Here is the third in a series of links to recent articles I’ve found ‘of interest.’
The first three articles, in various ways, ‘talk’ about what has happened and is happening in the world about us. Then there is an article about a modern attempt to follow Odysseus’ Mediterranean ‘jaunt.’ And finally, a very short ‘review’ about a topic that continues to interest me – the brain and how we come to believe what we believe.
1. “It All Turns on Affection,” by Wendell E. Berry.
For those of you who are familiar with the wonderful Wendell Berry, here is his 2012 Jefferson Lecture wherein he makes the case that “We do not have to live as if we are alone.”
(“The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities recognizes an individual who has made significant scholarly contributions to the humanities and who has the ability to communicate the knowledge and wisdom of the humanities in a broadly appealing way. Established in 1972, the Jefferson Lecture is the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual and public achievement in the humanities. The lecture is delivered annually in the spring in Washington, D.C.”)
2. “Taxed by the Boss, by David Cay Johnson, Reuters, April 12, 2012.
I’m not sure what to make of this report, but I do think what is contained in it is not widely know: 2700 companies, as a way of encouragement to do business in a state (?), legally keep the taxes they withhold from their workers. Whether this is a good idea or not, I’d sure like to see more information about this ‘practice.’ (Note to those who believe I am unhinged on certain political issues: I have refrained from titling this “Corporate Socialism.”)
3. “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem,” by Thomas Mann and Norman Orstein, Washington Post, April 27, 2012.
Wherein two long time political analysts (one from the Democratic leaning Brookings Institute and one from the Republican leaning American Enterprise Institute) finally shed the ‘both sides are to blame’ reporting to explain what has happened to our political system.
4. “Cruising the Mediterranean: A Modern Odyssey,” by Daniel Mendelhsohn, Travel & Leisure, April 2012
Mendelsohn: “He’s (Odysseus) the first tourist, the first person in either legend or recorded history who traveled because he thought the world was interesting, because he wanted to “know the minds and see the cities of many men,” as the poem puts it. So did we; and for a brief period, we felt a bit like our hero—for the 10 days we sailed, one day for each of the years he had to travel before he got to the home we never managed to see.”
5. “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World,” by Iain McGilchrist, short review of a book “about the origin and making of today’s dominant worldviews, both ours as individuals as those of our collective cultural narrative” – a book I have not read but that will probably be part of my year long attempt to understand how we’ve arrived at a place and time where it seems difficult to have conversations about political and religious issues.
David P. Stang said:
Dear Rick,
Reading your Articles of Interest this morning I was again, as usual, yanked completely off my trolley of pre-set priorities for the day in order to respond, hopefully helpfully, to your recently announced quest regarding “The brain and how we come to believe what we believe.”
This has been an interest of mine since my freshman year in 1957 at Penn State majoring in philosophy. I am not alleging that having devoted 55 years of inquiry into the topic has qualified me as omniscient in such matters, but it has given me the opportunity to see the topic in context.
Something inside me told me to forget my daily priorities, which in this case happens to be a journal article on English spiritualism, and get to work providing some food for thought to lay upon your table. My intent is to present to you a brief overview followed by a talk I gave five years ago that is quite germane to the matter at hand.
Without in any way implying criticism of the way you phrased the issue let me suggest that this phraseology is indicative of the mindset of a materialist reductionist. Why do I assert that? Because those academics with that frame of mind look upon the brain as a self-contained, self-thought initiating machine. This is not to suggest that all academics share the view of brain as machine.
About fifteen years ago I met and befriended James Austin, M.D. a neurologist who chaired, appropriately enough, the Department of Neurology of the medical school at the University of Colorado at Boulder and had just authored a book published by the MIT Press, entitled Zen and the Brain. He told me that the best way to keep up with the topic was too is subscribe to the Journal of Consciousness Studies which I immediately did and have been faithfully reading its articles ever since. That book won the Best Scientific Book of the Year title. In Zen and the Brain James Austin distinguished by chapter those findings and conclusions of which, were wholly supported by laboratory science from those findings and conclusions based upon the extraordinary, otherworldly subjective experiences resulting from his having been a Zen mediatator for over 30 years, for which no scientific explanation to date existed.
What I have learned over the years relevant to the issue at hand is that how one views the brain, the mind, and consciousness depends upon one’s general intellectual orientation. The materialist reductionists hold that the mind is an illusion because consciousness is created by, and only by, the brain. The leading materialist reductionist scholar on that issue is Daniel Dennett who authored a book entitled, Consciousness Explained. This book was trashed not only by non-materialist reductionists but by a large number of materialist reductionist scholars themselves. The best book on the functioning of the brain written by a reductionist neurologist that I have read is Incognito by David Eagleman.
And moving toward the center of the spectrum of scholars interested in the topic we find those that seek to find a middle way between the materialist reductionists at one end of the spectrum and those who I refer to as the ‘revelationists’ at the other end of the spectrum who assert that God is the source of all critically meaningful knowledge. Those in the middle of the spectrum tend to search for ways to integrate so-called empirical or science-based knowledge with knowledge that science has no explanation for. What I mean by this latter type of knowledge is what paranormal psychologists, some psychiatrists and anthropologists studying shamanic consciousness are interested in. Persons in this category include Ian McGillchrist, the man whose ideas you featured in your today’s blog. He is a psychiatrist whose understanding of consciousness has been shaped by a brain-fixated materialist science approach, but subjectively tempered with his compassion for the emotional well-being his psychiatric patients are seeking. Dr. James Austin fits in this category as well as he highly respects the research results of medical science, while simultaneously realizing that many aspects of consciousness are quite puzzling to scientists.
The best book on consciousness I have ever read was written by a psychology professor named Allan Combs, whose book Consciousness Explained Better, sought to rebut Daniel Dennett’s materialist thesis. Combs admits up front in his book that many aspects of consciousness are not created by the brain. In fact, the last word of the title of his book is meant to impugn many of the conclusions Dennett reached in his own book.
Another scholar, one Pim van Lommel, who happens to be a Dutch cardiologist was initially amazed by the descriptions given to him by his patients who were flat-lined (in medical terms, brain dead) about what was happening to them on the so-called other side. These Near Death Experiences propelled Dr. van Lommel into years of exhaustive study of such phenomena. The results of this research culminated in the publication of his book entitled, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience. The author declared that “brain activity isn’t consciousness.” Van Lommel also asserted “I strongly believe that consciousness cannot be located in a particular time and space. This is known as ‘non-locality’. Complete and endless consciousness is everywhere in a dimension that is not tied to time or place, where past, present, and future all exist and are accessible at the same time.”
What I have discovered myself through 15 years of reading books such as I mentioned above and The Journal of Consciousness Studies, is that the journal’s authors are from a variety of different academic disciplines – including many sub-branches of psychology, psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience, anthropology, philosophy and other academic specialties. At one end of the spectrum are the materialist reductionists and still in the middle but closer to the other end of the spectrum are those trending toward not only acceptance of and study of, but also participation in, altered or mystical mind states. Like most other academics, the whole lot of them tend to go at each other hammer and tong. Hence, by reading contributions from both sides as well as the middle I have acquired an appreciation of the many and diverse approaches available to your quest for ascertaining more knowledge of “the brain and how we come to believe what we believe.”
I was invited five years ago to give a talk on how we come to know what we know. Philosophers prefer to use the term ‘knowledge’ over ‘belief’ perhaps because since Aristotle the study and theory of how we come to obtain knowledge is known as ‘epistemology’. It is from this perspective that I presented my talk on “Ways of Knowing.” I hope you find it useful.
Your Pal,
Dave
Richard Miller said:
Dave,
I’m posting your speech, “Ways of Knowing” in The Outer Loop section of this website as I think it should stand alone, separate from the Comments above.
Much thanx and hopefully I didn’t ruin your entire day.
R
Andres said:
It is amazing how the brain works. That’s ineritsteng that in class you didn’t have a problem writing what came to mind. For me I automatically froze and felt like I didn’t want to write the wrong thing so I hesitated on what to write but then I felt like I was forcing myself to think of things that I should be writing instead of writing freely what came to mind. After I realized that I was completely over thinking this task I just jotted down what ever popped into my brain.