Monk

Sure, we need the brain for consciousness: "Chop my head off, and my IQ descends." But it's not the whole story. There is more to perceptions, memories, and beliefs than neural impulses can explain.

-- Marc Parry at "The Chronicle of Higher Education" reviewing Raymond Tallis's "Aping Mankind"

I have been fond of including in my blog from time to time some news items on the new findings and thrills from neuroscience and neuroimagery, finding the roots of our feelings and behavior in our brain. So, I thought I should include this hyper-critical take on the field by Raymond Tallis in his new book "Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis, and the Misrepresentation of Humanity".

Tallis is more of a physician and a prolific amateur philosopher, but he has apparently kicked up a little dust storm, and at least has genernated some interesting discussion. Interesting to note at the outset, too, is that Tallis does not attack neuroscientific materialism from a Christian or religious perspective and the idea of a soul, being an atheist. The problem for him is that he does not really have an answer of his own, but he feels that a lot of questions have been brushed aside too lightly.

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A new book is out with a materialist account of consciousness, and which seems to equate consciousness with spirituality: “Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness” by Nicholas Humphrey, an evolutionary psychologist. I am not in the market for such an account. I got my fill of such thought back in the early nineties, when Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained” helped to usher me into the atheist camp, as I took my place behind the materialist banner. Although I suppose I never left, so much of my emotional life is now sustained by art and even Christian literature, so that I don’t feel like a loyal follower. So, I want to keep this provocative paragraph from the book review:

What is it about consciousness, this “magical” ability to perceive and exult in beauty, meaning and a sense of awe, that confers an evolutionary advantage? His answer is simply that this magical show in our own heads which enchants the world is what makes life worth living: “For a phenomenally conscious creature, simply being there is a cause for celebration.” Consciousness infuses us with the belief that we are more than mere flesh, that we matter, that we might have a life after death, that we have a “soul”. All of these are illusions – the magic of his title – but they have real effects, by making us want to live. As for religion? In his book he argues, “Long before religion could begin to get a foothold in human culture human beings must already have been living in soul land.” “Yes,” he tells me, “I suggest that organised religion is parasitic on spirituality, and in fact acts as a restraint on it.”

I am intrigued by this idea that our consciousness endows us with a sense of specialness that leads us to believe that we have souls and shall enjoy life even after death. Yet, I sense a fundamental flaw with the idea that this consciousness makes us want to live - not in a speculative afterlife, but in this life that we know and suffer. It seems to me that we as humans, with our richly developed consciousness, often find ourselves feeling suicidal, wishing to die, whereas the lower animals without this higher consciousness are not given to these death wishes and are not as susceptible to suicide. This consciousness with all its cognitive power and wondrous sensitivity seems to be a double-edged sword, as we are given to ask ourselves whether this life is even worth living in the first place.