Modern neuroscience: Room for the soul?

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Modern neuroscience Room for the soul?
By John Beggs
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Outline

• Introduction
• Neuroscience background
• Free Will
• Ethics
• God
• Conclusions

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Outline

• Introduction
• Neuroscience background
• Free Will
• Ethics
• God
• Conclusions

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Apollos chariot
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or rotation of the earth?
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Science killed Apollo.Will neuroscience kill
the soul?
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Dualism
Body
Mind
Rene Descartes
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Dualism
Body and mind are separate
The mind influences the body
Mind is the fundamental truth
Rene Descartes
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The modern view monism
Antonio Damasio
The brain produces the mind
Body, or matter, is the fundamental truth
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The conflict
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The conflict

• Dualism Just as mind is separate from the body,
  so Free Will, Ethics and God originate
  independently of the brain.

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The conflict

• Dualism Just as mind is separate from the body,
  so Free Will, Ethics and God originate
  independently of the brain.
• Monism Just as the brain produces mind, so Free
  Will, Ethics and God are merely products of the
  brain.

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Outline

• Introduction
• Neuroscience background
• Free Will
• Ethics
• God
• Conclusions

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Trying to explain different levels
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Cortical neurons from rat
1010 neurons in human brain
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Neurons generate voltage pulses
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Output is communicated by pulses through synapses
Memory?
voltage
time
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Each neuron makes and receives many connections
103 104 inputs
103 104 outputs
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If all the inputs exceed a threshold, the neuron
will fire
Otherwise, it wont
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From the lab of David McCormick, Yale University
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Logical operations AND gate
If C has a threshold of 2, then it will fire only
when A AND B fire
A
C
B
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Logical operations OR gate
If C has a threshold of 1, then it will fire
when A OR B fire
A
C
B
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Neurons form networks for processing information
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Networks form the cortical sheet
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The cortical sheet is responsible for higher
functions
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Beggs lab small sections of the sheet
In collaboration with Alan Litke, UC Santa Cruz
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Cortical structure is fairly uniform
Functions are partially localized in cortex
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EEG Electro-encephalogram
Measures electrical activity through the skull
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PET scan Positron emission tomography
Measures glucose metabolism
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fMRI functional magnetic resonance imaging
Measures blood-oxygen level dependent responses
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TMS Transcranial magnetic stimulation
Bulk stimulates cortical regions
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Outline

• Introduction
• Neuroscience background
• Free Will
• Ethics
• God
• Conclusions

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Every physical system that has been investigated
has turned out to be either deterministic or
random. Both are bad news for free will, he
said. So if human actions cant be caused and
arent random, he said, It must be what some
weird magical power? - Michael Silberstein
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Every spear tip we have ever seen has been made
of either flint or bone. Both are bad news for
tungsten. So if you claim that tungsten isnt
flint and cant be bone, it must be what some
weird new material? - Cave Man
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Dualist Free will could exist independently of
some of our brain processes.
Monist Free will is produced by our brain, and
might even be an illusion.
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Benamin Libets experiment
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Readiness potential precedes will to move
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Therefore, there is no free will.
You thought you were deciding, but the decision
was already made by that point!
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Not so fastwhy not this
Prepotential
Will
Are there any examples of our awareness lagging
behind?
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Blindsight
(Lawrence Weiskrantz)
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So, conscious awareness can come after recognition
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Also
Low-level processes are often automatic I can
tie my shoes without thinking about it I can
drive home in my sleep. I have subconscious
biases in my thoughts.
Do these low-level processes truly reflect my
will, or do they just reflect my tendencies?
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Implicit Association Test (IAT)https//implicit.h
arvard.edu/implicit/
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Implicit Association Test (IAT)https//implicit.h
arvard.edu/implicit/
or Good
or Evil
Laughter
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So
My tendencies could be detected by electrodes, or
by questions that you ask me.
But I do not necessarily act on all my
tendencies.
Example I may be angry at someone, but I may
chose to forgive them.
Which takes more willpower anger or
forgiveness?
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Free Will

• Free will may be a new type of process, as yet
  not fully understood.

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Free Will

• Free will may be a new type of process, as yet
  not fully understood.
• Signals of my intentions may come before my
  sensed decision. But my choice may actually come
  before both.

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Free Will

• Free will may be a new type of process, as yet
  not fully understood.
• Signals of my intentions may come before my
  sensed decision. But my choice may actually come
  before both.
• We have many strong automatic tendencies, but
  these are often overruled by our will.

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Outline

• Introduction
• Neuroscience background
• Free Will
• Ethics
• God
• Conclusions

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Neuroethics the examination of how we want to
deal with the social issues of disease,
normality, mortality, lifestyle, and the
philosophy of living informed by our
understanding of underlying brain
mechanisms -The Ethical Brain, by Michael
Gazzaniga (emphasis his)
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Prefrontal lesions amoral behavior
Phineas Gage
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Clearly, the health of our brain affects our
ability to make moral choices.
But should we also look to the brain to tell us
what is morally right?
If you are a dualist, then no.If you are a
monist, then yes.
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Jonathan Cohen
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A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks
toward five people who will be killed if it
proceeds on its present course. The only way to
save them is to hit a switch that will turn the
trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it
will kill one person instead of five.
Most people hit the switch, saving five
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As before, a trolley threatens to kill five
people. You are standing next to a large stranger
on a footbridge that spans the tracks in between
the oncoming trolley and the five people. In this
scenario, the only way to save the five people is
to push this stranger off the bridge, onto the
tracks below. He will die if you do this, but his
body will stop the trolley from reaching the
others.
Most people refrain from pushing, letting five die
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How does the brain respond to these two dilemmas?
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Going furtherShould one smother a crying baby
to death to protect the lives of many when enemy
soldiers are approaching?  Here they compared the
activation patterns in the brains between those
who approve (utilitarians) and those who do not
(deontologists).
Deontologists Dont smother emotional brain
areas dominate
Utilitarians Smother cognitive brain areas
dominate
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"The social-emotional responses that we've
inherited from our primate ancestors . . .
undergird the absolute prohibitions that are
central to deontology. In contrast, the 'moral
calculus' that defines utilitarianism is made
possible by more recently evolved structures in
the frontal lobes that support abstract thinking
and high-level cognitive control." 
- Greene and Cohen
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(Descriptive) Before, they were telling us how
the brain responded to these dilemmas.
(Prescriptive) Now they seem to be suggesting
what we should do.
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If they are correct
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If they are correct

• Utilitarianism, being most recent, is correct

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If they are correct

• Utilitarianism, being most recent, is correct
• Deontological views, being most ancient, are
  incorrect

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If they are correct

• Utilitarianism, being most recent, is correct
• Deontological views, being most ancient, are
  incorrect
• Joshua Greene should give up his federal research
  funding, because we could feed many more people
  than just him with it.

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If they are correct

• Utilitarianism, being most recent, is correct
• Deontological views, being most ancient, are
  incorrect
• Joshua Greene should give up his federal research
  funding, because we could feed many more people
  than just him with it.
• Intellectual superiority equates with moral
  superiority

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Outline

• Introduction
• Neuroscience background
• Free Will
• Ethics
• God
• Conclusions

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Does God exist?
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Does God exist?
Dualist God could exist independently of our
minds
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Does God exist?
Dualist God could exist independently of our
minds
Monist God only exists in our minds
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Julian Jaynes (1920-1997)
Gods voice? Thats just the other hemisphere
talking.
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There arerecent examples of TE, like one of
the founders of the Seventh Day Adventist
Movement, Ellen White. Born in 1827, she suffered
a brain injury aged 9 that totally changed her
personality. She also began to have powerful
religious visions.
Temporal lobe epilepsy (TE)
Disruptions of this general area may also lead
to increased ritual behavior.
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Michael Persinger
80 of Dr Michael Persinger's experimental
subjects report that an artificial magnetic field
focused on left temporal lobe brain areas
gives them a feeling of 'not being alone'. Some
of them describe it as a religious sensation.
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Scientists like Andrew Newberg want to see just
what does happen during moments of faith. He
worked with Buddhist, Michael Baime, to study the
brain during meditation. By injecting radioactive
tracers PET scan into Michael's bloodstream as
he reached the height of a meditative trance,
Newberg could use a brain scanner to image the
brain at a religious climax.
So, religion is something that only
happens occasionally?
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Out-of-body experience?
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Even Richard Dawkins
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The God Module
People with temporal lobe epilepsy had religious
hallucinations After seizures, they were more
prone to prefer religious words over erotic
words. Control group preferred erotic words.
V.S. Ramachandran
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I see my wife she produces activity in my visual
cortex
Seizure or stimulation causes activity in my
visual cortex even when my wife is not there.
Therefore, my wife is always an illusion?
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Religion is not just

• Feeling another presence
• An out-of-body experience
• Ritual
• A climactic moment of faith

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Just because activity in the brain correlates
with experiences of God does not mean that God
does not exist.
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Outline

• Introduction
• Neuroscience background
• Free Will
• Ethics
• God
• Conclusions

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Conclusions

• Mental functions are produced by the brain

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Conclusions

• Mental functions are produced by the brain
• This includes mechanisms of will, moral choice,
  and perceptions of God

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Conclusions

• Mental functions are produced by the brain
• This includes mechanisms of will, moral choice,
  and perceptions of God
• From this it does not follow that

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Conclusions

• Mental functions are produced by the brain
• This includes mechanisms of will, moral choice,
  and perceptions of God
• From this it does not follow that
• Free will is an illusion

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Conclusions

• Mental functions are produced by the brain
• This includes mechanisms of will, moral choice,
  and perceptions of God
• From this it does not follow that
• Free will is an illusion
• Utilitarianism is correct

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Conclusions

• Mental functions are produced by the brain
• This includes mechanisms of will, moral choice,
  and perceptions of God
• From this it does not follow that
• Free will is an illusion
• Utilitarianism is correct
• God is an illusion

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Accept the science, but be critical of the
non-scientific conclusions.
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Other interesting topics

• Mind reading fMRI scans
• Remote control of rats
• Neural control of prosthetic limbs
• Mentally moving a cursor for shut in patients
• Closed loop experiments Brain in a dish
• Split brain experiments
• Hemineglect
• Prosopagnosia
• The case of H.M. no new memories
• Gay rams?
• Spiritual machines?

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Modern neuroscience Room for the soul?
Thanks!
By John Beggs
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Religious experience has a cognitive component
Differences between happy emotions and religious
thoughts involve cognitive areas