Review - The Spiritual Brain, by Mario Beauregard
Mario Beauregard
When I set out reading The Spiritual Brain, I found myself secretly hoping that Mario Beauregard would weaken my resolve towards materialism and my strong disbelief for concepts like ‘the soul’, ‘mystical experiences’, ‘life after death’, and others. I’ll admit that I don’t believe there's any kind of soul, but it’s only because the best evidence I’ve seen points to this conclusion. It’s not just a belief, it’s an educated guess grounded within evidence that we -- humanity -- have now accumulated.
I have experienced evidence that the mind is separate from the body (like nonmaterialists might propose) – but I also have evidence that the mind is inextricably linked to the body; ergo likely a result thereof (not the opposite). The evidence that mind and body are separate comes from stoically rising above experiences of pain and discomfort, then willing forward, despite bodily rationale telling me to stop and pull back. It comes from seeing martial artists break piles of bricks because they believe they can, as opposed to rookie fighters simply crushing their bones to dust on that same pile -- the fact that drive and determination outdo apathy and laziness. Because my mind can rise above bodily conditions and because I have willpower leads me to believe the mind is a separate state of being from the body, or at the very least an emergent property comprised of matter we don't know how to measure or account for yet.
Evidence that the body is totally linked to the mind comes from states of consciousness being created by altered neural conditions. We can give someone anesthetics and see them fall somewhere within a gradient of consciousness with their decision-making capacity following suit. We have removed portions of animal brains and seen them completely stricken with rage, or inappropriate degrees of love and infatuation. In neuroscience, we have studied human conditions in which areas of the frontal cortex have been destroyed and the individual becomes unable to experience emotion, despite their best efforts otherwise. When a part of the brain is destroyed – the “mind” loses this aspect of its functioning.
The search for effects of the mind on the brain.
Neuroscientist Richard Davidson scans the ongoing brain activities of Buddhist monks.
So which position is more true? Does this brain-state create spirituality chemically? Or does spirituality transcend simple biological explanations?
Main Thesis / Main Idea:
The current zeitgeist within neuroscience that every state of perception and reality is chemically, biologically determined by various brain-states is incorrect. Concepts like the soul, separation of mind and body into a physical component and a purely mental component are possible.
Ideas Addressed:
--Does current neuroscientific evidence support the idea that there is a soul or "mind"?
--Does the mind survive death?
--Is materialism correct?
--Can things in human nature like altruism, self-sacrifice, etc., be explained by spirituality?
--Can evolutionary theory account for spiritual states?
--Can the mind possibly result from a series of simple interlocking parts?
--Is the human mind simply an “upgraded” version of the chimpanzee mind?
Completely honest about half the time. For a spiritual book, this is very refreshing.
Speaking out against staunch materialism is courageous.
Lends legitimacy to fringe (but possibly very useful) research methods in neuroscience.
Succinctly dismantles the "pop neuroscience" answers for God genes, God spots, God circuits, etcetera, etcetera.
Usually, even Beauregard’s best arguments suffer a fatal mousetrap that’s easily discovered.
This makes you wonder: did he simply miss the obvious pitfalls in many of his arguments, or did he choose to ignore them to write a compelling book?
Occasionally suffers from intellectual naiveté.
Just poking holes in materialism does not provide evidence for dualism.
How can a man taking a neuroscientific stance on complexity not discuss emergent properties?
Dawkins is quoted 4 times – but where are all the smart Dawkins quotes?
Favorite Pot-shot(s):
“But surely materialism could not be wrong? Great thinkers argue for it! Materialism is wrong in its assessment of human nature because it is not in accord with the evidence.” (p. 28)
“…materialist neuroscience does a very poor job of accounting for [religious/spiritual/mystical experiences]. As we have seen, the search for God spots, modules, circuits, and helmets has been a complete waste of time. The hope that neuroscience would quickly identify some simple materialist explanation for the spiritual nature of the human has failed and will continue to fail.” (p. 99)
I would like to believe that the mind can survive death. This is because, as the after-life state-of-being is completely unknown, it frightens me a little. Not a lot, because it’s inevitable and I’ve accepted that –- but let’s just say that I will be very pleasantly surprised if I found myself somehow still conscious following a decoupling of mind and body. It's truly a shame that the evidence doesn’t really support that outcome.
The mind -– that is, personality, sense of morality, emotions, memories, etc. -– can be altered from the outside. We can give you a full frontal lobotomy and wipe out your emotional responses, no matter how much your “mind” would like to produce them. If parasites burrow deep into your brain somehow and destroy your hippocampal area, you’ll be severely handicapped in forming and retrieving memories, no matter how much you might like to remember things. We can give schizophrenic patients dopamine-altering psychopharmacological drugs and see their debilitating symptoms lessen with treatment. This evidence -– and more -– leads me to believe that the mind is created by the body. Just like much of the current neuroscience community currently believes, I believe that most of my various mental states are a by-product of my chemical constituents at any given moment. Sure, I can influence these states mentally, but that process too seems like it fits the bill for a chemical state.
One interesting thing that Beauregard mentions within The Spiritual Brain is that perhaps the mind itself is healthy – but trapped within a malfunctioning brain. It’s interesting because I hadn’t considered that possibility, but more on that later. Beauregard starts by examining several ways in which modern neuroscience thinks it has defeated nonmaterialism.
“Today’s explanations have degenerated into notions that sometimes border on the frivolous, such as the supposed evolutionary fitness of religious people, theotoxins (poisonous chemicals in the brain), brain damage, memes, a God gene, or a God spot in the brain.” (p. 7)
All of these possible solutions are examined in their own right, but Beauregard’s arguments usually suffer from a fatal misunderstanding, an ad hominem attack or attacks based on straw-men theories from people who just want to sell books. What I mean to say is that God memes, theotoxins, God spots, and so on (ad nauseum) are mostly rubbish suggested by sell-out scientists who just want to publish hip and entertaining books. I say this because I've studied the evidence -- and you simply cannot reduce complex behaviors down to single genes or single areas or circuits within the brain.
The book is truly split into three sections, for the sake of analyzing Beauregard’s real input: first is the beginning, where Beauregard attacks many current neuroscientific lines of research into “biologizing” spirituality. Second, he starts blowing holes in materialist science that claims everything can be reduced to biology and chemistry. Third and finally, Beauregard offers some actually decent evidence for why a nonmaterial aspect exists within the brain.