Are we all just automata?

I was struck by this story yesterday from Agence France-Presse.  Researchers declared the Buddhist monk, Mathieu Ricard, the happiest man they had ever tested. 

“Ricard, a globe-trotting polymath who left everything behind to become a Tibetan Buddhist in a Himalayan hermitage, says anyone can be happy if they only train their brain.

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson wired up Ricard’s skull with 256 sensors at the University of Wisconsin four years ago as part of research on hundreds of advanced practitioners of meditation.”

Okay, so what's the big deal?  The monk, Mathieu Ricard explains it this way.

"It's a wonderful area of research because it show that meditation is not just blessing out under a mango tree but it completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are."

If you missed the big deal, what drew my attention was that the monk turned neuroscience on its head: meditation changes the brain!  First, this is a strike against T.H. Huxley who believed each of us was no more that an automaton.

“The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be completely without any power of modifying that working, as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.... The soul stands to the body as the bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness answers to the sound which the bell gives out when it is struck ... to the best of my judgment, the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men.... We are conscious automata" (William James, The Principles of Psychology Volume One, p. 131).

In a nutshell, Huxley believed that it is the brain that acts; consciousness is an illusion; an epiphenomenon if you like.

Following in the footsteps of T.H. Huxley—and not out of step with cognitive neuroscience—we learn that Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner,

“rejects entirely the noiton of human beings as free agents, asserting that all behavior is in fact involuntary and that the notion of conscious will is simply an illusion that facilitates social life” (Kelly & Kelly, Irreducible Mind, p. 345).

But if all this boils down to the conclusion that we are automata, why consciousness in the first place, or why the illusion of self-agency when our actions are involuntary?  As for the Buddhist monk, Mathieu Ricard, are we supposed to believe that one day his brain just decided to meditate while another brain decided to kill itself while still another brain decided to drop out of school and sell drugs?

 Let me conclude with this.  One of Bishop George Berkeley’s detractors said to him that the "ideas" were simply phenomena of the brain.  To this Berkely rejoined: "But is not the brain itself only a sensually percepted thing?  If it is so, the brain itself can be reduced to the "ideas"" (i.e. to the elementary units of perception).  Maybe the good Bishop’s dictum, "esse est percipi"(to be is to be perceived) is more true than we think. 

Comments

[Chet]

Materialists aren't aware of the intrinsic contradiction that the brain itself cannot be perceived but via the mind. All judgements regarding the meaning of external data are also subject to 'internal' processes. It's a per formative contradiction. If its true, then it's false.

[minx]

My master told me;

"Where your spiritual mind rests on the undivided light of our Lord, your worldly mind is formed in the heart of darkness.

It is easy to doubt, stumble and fall in darkness, while light brings clarity and the wisdom that follows it."

[恒和]

"But is not the brain itself only a sensually percepted thing?" - That's an excellent argument. They (materialist philosophers) posit the brain as both the perceiver of everything (but not a passive one, an active perceiver that actually constitutes, constructs the perceptible world), and ALSO a perceived object among many in the world. So that which composes the world is also a composed object among many. That's a contradiction that materialist philosophers cannot resolve. They're in denial about this apparent logical contradiction.

The placebo effect: Science still can't explain that, and isn't it the perfect example of "mind over matter"?

Next is the status of the observer in quantum mechanics:

"The rules of quantum mechanics are correct but there is only one system which may be treated with quantum mechanics, namely the entire material world. There exist external observers which cannot be treated within quantum mechanics, namely human (and perhaps animal) MINDS, which perform measurements on the brain causing wave function collapse."

Let alone that dramatic study at Cornell University that showed participants are affected by psychological phenomena from the future? There's actually empirical proof for precognition, it's just a google search away.

Seems to me that we're living in fascinating times, a major paradigm shift seems to be underway!

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." (Max Planck, founder of quantum theory)

[Java Junkie Foghorn Leghorn]

heres your greek catch phrase old boy

τί τάχιστον; Νοῦς. Διὰ παντὸς γὰρ τρέχει.....(..).

What is the fastest thing? The mind. It travels through everything....(and instantly) — Thales