Reply to comment

This week is all about picking sides. Are you on the brain side or on the soul side? Was Emily Dickinson crazy or was it Descartes that was off kilter? I will freely admit that I am currently associated with the ‘brain’ side, but I see no need to be mutually exclusive. We need to be honest: we know so little about the brain and so little about the human soul (even if there is such a thing). I challenge anyone to prove to me that ghosts/spirits don’t exist. I challenge you to prove to me that behavior is solely governed by the mind. Granted, these challenges seem both outrageous and a bit ill-conceived, but they illustrate the point that we do not know.

When it comes to understanding behavior, history hasn’t been very kind to us. We, us right now, at this very moment, are the pioneers discovering the brain. Look where we were a couple hundred years ago: first we believed that the heart determined our actions and then we measured our brain’s capabilities and our own relative intelligence levels by the size and location of bumps on our heads. Right now, it feels like we are in a guess-and-check phase; in reading some of the articles about how we are learning about the brain I seriously question if scientists even know what they are doing in there or what they are looking for. (This is not to say there isn’t fabulous technology and gadgets out there, it just means that we have the tools but we can’t always understand the results.) What we know about the brain are answers to questions science doesn’t even know how to pose.

There seems to be quite a bit of fear on both sides of the argument in my opinion. Let’s say that the brain really does control all behavior and that over time we will find out all the details and nuances. Maybe Dawkins was right, maybe it is all about our genes and our behavior is just another manifestation of evolution and survival of the fittest. If everything that we know about ourselves, our friends, our lovers, everything about the world and our behavior in it is determined by formulas and hormone levels then it would seem that we aren’t as amazing of a species as we make ourselves out to be. That is a scary thought for many people. I would not even attempt to fathom the implications of defining, formatting and characterizing the human brain. I don’t mean to be bleak here, but I am just laying it out as it could be. One of the most attractive things about the human race is that no two people have the same thoughts, perceptions or behavior. And regardless of how much we know about that anterior organ of our body, I don’t think the human species is in any way made less complex or interesting.

I don’t understand why you need to be on one side or the other: the problem seems to be that we have a “higher-power”-of-the-gaps idea. Right now, when we know so little about the brain it is easy to pick a side and feel valid in doing so, since we don’t know enough to rule out one or the other. But as we learn more, it seems to me that a spirit or soul could have increasingly less presence if science can explain the same phenomena that we attribute to the soul now. I don’t think it needs to be so black and white (and no, I am also not advocating for a Design model of behavior).

Human behavior, perception and beliefs are currently beyond the scope of what science can understand. However, in my mind, regardless about how much science “knows,” not everyone will be a textbook case. It comes back to the good ol’ debate of nature versus nurture. The idea of ‘behavior’ itself is a loaded, complex and complicated concept and one that we haven’t even scratched the surface of its foundation. There is a lot that we don’t know about the brain and about human life in general, and so until we know more I don’t feel the need to lock myself into a team. We’ll just have to see where this goes…