Is neuroscience good for religion? Probably not. Especially, if its agenda is to make minds and brains identical. As a matter of fact, for some time the goal of neuroscience as been to get away from the dimensions of consciousness or mind and move to physical dimensions, preferably brain's this amounting to a single variable. Neuroscience is, in effect, trying to prove that mind is not greater than the sum of the biological body’s physiology and anatomy. This, in short, could end up being a hammer blow to Buddhism which rests on the knowledge that immaterial mind when fully realized is intrinsically free of the psychophysical (skandha) system—and the brain.
In this direction, to make us believe that mind is not greater than the body, neuroscience is taking ordinary correlation and stepping it up to plausible identity. Indeed, neuroscience lays out an identity theory that all mental states are identical with physical states. For example, by means of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) neuroscientists can watch the red glow of fear waxing from a structure of the brain known as the amygdala, although they have no idea what the particular emotion of fear is about if they did an MRI on a frightened person who has told them nothing specific about their fears.
And here before us is the essence of the identity theory, viz., that fear of losing my job, for example, and the physical change in the brain at the same time add up to identity which can only mean the brain is producing fear—with me being a hapless, fictional witness of this brain’s fear.
However, it should also be pointed out that other parts of the body, too, can come under the identity theory. Perhaps the stomach also creates fear since fear and gastrointestinal problems often go hand in hand! I have seen stage actors run to the toilet to vomit just before their scene comes up they are so frightened. Giving weight to this, the use of antacids is widespread in the U.S. which means that the gastrointestinal system is creating a lot of fear these days—if we are to believe in the identity theory.
In light of the above, the question can be raised, are minds and brains correlational rather than identical? The answer is yes. Correlation always implies interdependence of two variables, for example, a column of mercury and ambient air temperature. Between the two variables, namely, the mercury and the air temperature, we say there is an absolute correlation. Still, this is not identity—and never can be. The ambient temperature of the air in my laboratory and the mercury are not identical as any knave can see.
From this, it begs the question that mind and brain are even in the same category. First of all mind is not a physical object. An object, that is a scientific object, must have shape and background. If we assume that mind is a physical thing, it has neither shape nor background as might a table or or a human brain. Mind, to be sure, is even difficult to define.
Do we equate mind with Hegel’s Geist or spirit? Is mind like Schopenhauer’s ‘will’ or Bradely’s ‘sentience’? Is mind simply the soul? If we turn to psychology for a plausible definition, is mind the conscious process including dispositions and predispositions which individualize and constitute our mind? Does this same mind include capabilities such as intelligence, aptitudes, both innate and learned?
There is simply no way to conclude that the mind and brain are identical or the same, a single variable (in this case the brain). Yes, there is correlation and we might add—absolute correlation—between our mind and our brain. But still, even absolute correlation isn’t automatically, identity.
Thus far, it appears that religion is safe from neuroscience as safe as is mathematics and cosmology. These fields of study, I need to say, don’t have physical objects either such as brains. Things like space, time, force, mass, density, velocity, volume, etc., are metaphysical objects having neither shape nor background as might a physical object. And still we worship mathematicians and cosmologists.
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