What is Mind?: Reality Continues to Knock on the Door

See Exploring The Mechanics Of Judgment, Beliefs: Technique Images Brain Activity When We Think Of Others for news on another major effort to understand the physical human being in ‘scientific’ terms. I don’t put scientific in apostrophes because of any intent of misguided irony but only because we should realize that ‘science’ is disciplined intellectual effort, exploration and contemplation of the world. It includes the disciplined study of music and literature and history and many other fields of disciplined study. I even claim it includes the study of theology proper and Holy Scriptures as well as philosophical studies in what might be misleadingly called ‘natural theology’.

Yet, I wouldn’t at all slight the importance of those fields we usually call ‘science’, such as biology and physics. We’re mortal, physical creatures. What we are in these mortal bodies subject to decay tells us much of what we will be if raised in perfected bodies no longer subject to death or decay. Why not try to understand us? And we have to remember that ‘us’ are defined in context of this world of black-holes and rattlesnakes. We should try to understand this entire world if we’re to fulfill our roles in Creation, and it’s a role which allows us to develop our minds so that our understanding mirrors God’s acts of creation and shaping.

The article referenced above tells of a systematic effort to make greater sense of the ‘mind-like’ aspects of the human being by studying the underlying physical events in the brain. I gather this is intended as a more general effort, one needed eventually though only time will tell if that effort can achieve success in this generation. By more general effort, I mean that the leading scientist apparently intends to study not just specific phenomena but rather the more total experience of ‘being human’.

So far, all mental or emotional aspects of human nature which have been seriously studied have been tied back to underlying physical events so that some sort of causation is implied and not just correlation. At the same time, those not familiar with the writings in this field should know that the best thinkers warn not to wall off the brain and mind from other parts of human nature. A greater understanding of mind should consider not only what Einstein and Melville did, it should also consider what Horowitz did at the keyboard and what Orr did on the ice. The entire physical human being, including toes and liver, will have to be understood to understand the ‘mind’ and to understand the various kinds or aspects of ‘intelligence’.

I’ve warned of the dangers of pretending the new empirical knowledge doesn’t affect Christian views of our selves and even the meaning of salvation: Staking Your Faith on Gaps in Empirical Knowledge. However distorted and even ideological the mainstream presentation of modern empirical knowledge often is, there is enough good stuff ‘leaking’ out through through magazines and the Internet and even the movies to let our children and our neighbors know when we’re speaking in terms that are in conflict with modern knowledge of human evolution, human nature, human history, and even modern physics. Actually what they know is that we’re speaking some sort of gibberish. (See Could Adam and Eve Have Made Christ Unnecessary for a Christ-centered critique of the ‘usual’ interpretation of that Biblical tale.)

I’ve also spoken about the psychotic, reality-denying, aspects of modern human thought in all fields: A Thomistic Take on Madness and Modernism. When we start creating separate realms of truth, living our lives by the standards of modern empirical knowledge when we wish to take advantage of medical technology and then speaking a conflicting language when we speak as Christians, we nurture in ourselves a mental condition similar to schizophrenia and produce words and lives frighteningly similar to what can be seen in modern art in its disordered worst.

Why would we do this? There’s a current cliche, “Math is hard, Barbie” that communicates the idea. More generally, “All serious learning and thinking is hard” and we’d rather watch TV and pursue careers that allow us to recycle thoughts and skills rather than go through the difficult and unsettling effort to deal creatively with modern empirical knowledge.