NeuroSpirituality

I recently came across an interesting article in Science Daily about new research into the link between brain activity and religious or spiritual attitudes within individuals. It has been established that spiritual attitudes, like all other feelings or opinions, must originate from the brain somehow, but there has never been actual empirical evidence of the link until recently. Scientists, using neuroimaging technology, had established a general idea of the area of the brain whose activity they influenced spirituality. In a recent study of brain tumor patients, researchers were able to pinpoint it further. In the study, scientists measured the levels of spiritual activity (which they called self-transcendence or ST) of the patients before and after they underwent surgery to remove their tumors. They combined these tests with an advanced technology designed to record exactly where in the brain the surgeons made their incisions, and from these two pieces of data, they were able to build a quite the precise picture of which areas of the brain effected ST and how. The main discovery that they made was that selective damage to the left and right “posterior parietal” regions of the brain induced a dramatic increase in ST levels. From this they postulate that other abnormalities in personality traits (like the ones that cause personality disorders) may be caused by damage or dysfunction in other areas of the brain. This research could conceivably lead to new treatments or diagnoses for certain forms of mental illness.

I found this study to be fascinating and potentially very useful, but I feel like the scientists involved in this research were possibly looking at their discovery in the wrong light, or at least not seeing all of its implications. The thing that I found most interesting about the experiment was the researchers’ concept of “self-transcendence”. It is defined in the article as: 

“a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one's self as an integral part of the universe as a whole.”

This concept, quite frankly, strikes me as a desirable characteristic in human beings, and one that has been generally on the rise in the early part of the 21st century. With the recent boom in information technology, global connectedness and awareness is higher among individuals than it ever has been. Various social networks have essentially become barometers for how the (developed) world is thinking and feeling at any given time. I associate this ST concept with ideas such as empathy and global consciousness, ideas that have become buzz-words in the realms of politics and global activism in recent years. Almost every world-wide issue from global warming, to energy reform, to chronic poverty (or chronic greed depending how you look at it), can be solved or at least helped out by the general rise in ST across the population of the world that seems to be taking place. 

However, the scientists who are researching the origin of this particular trait see its increase as a chemical imbalance just like any other in the brain. They put it into the same category as other known mental illnesses and disorders, thus unconsciously giving it a stigma of being harmful and undesirable. What if instead of associating ST with other personality traits, and possibly making assumptions about it that are not necessarily true, they treat it as its own distinct trait associated with its own distinct portions of the brain? This should be the case anyway in my opinion, since most personality disorders have distinct behavioral characteristics while ST seems to me to be a completely internal, mental concept. What if these scientists tried to find reasons why ST levels would fluctuate naturally and look into ways that they can help or hurt humanity on an individual and global scale? I am in no way saying that we should seek ways to artificially alter our brain chemistry for the sake of global warming or any other societal issue. I am merely suggesting that maybe we all (or at least our world leaders) could use a couple of incisions in our posterior parietal regions..... at least for the next 50 years or so until we as a species, for lack of a better term, get our shit together.

        Another article that explores similar concepts like (the need for) increased global consciousness and awareness and its implications for the future of civilization can be found here. It is an interview with author Jeremy Rifkin about his new book The Empathetic Civilization. In this book he argues that to solve the imminent problems facing humanity, more than the tangible changes that we must make in our lifestyle, there must be a massive shift in the prevailing global concepts of human nature and human relations throughout all of civilization. In the interview, he explores ideas of what this change should entail and how it could actually happen, realistically and convincingly. He is much smarter and more eloquent than I am and this interview is much more worth your time (albeit much longer) than what you just read.