Re: Evolutionary Psychology and Free Will

In a message dated 5/3/2006 10:00:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
lhaarsma@calvin.edu writes:
Most neuroscientists I know say that the biggest question confronting
the field is: Is it possible that we can understand consciousness
scientifically as a natural consequence of what the brain does.

  I've met a fair number of amateur and professional philosophers who are
thoroughly convinced that there is simply no way, under philosophical
naturalism, to explain consciousness in terms the laws of nature acting
on matter -- no matter how complicated those neural circuits are.

I posted the following to the evopsych list on yahoogroups today. I'm
commenting on an article titled: Watching The Brain Switch Off 'Self'
I thought it realted to what you were talking about.

The researchers, of course, do not consider that the religious experience
(selflessness) based in human biology as their study suggests, is also manifested
in the Christian "self-sacrifice."

I make this east/west connection in my essay in Sam Francis' Race and the
American Prospect.
In my paper True Religion, Biblical Symbols from a Darwinian Perspective I
show how the allegory of Adam and Eve describes the fall of man as the beginning
of his "self-consciousness," hence the return from the fall is to switch the
brain off "self."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060430004451.htm

Posted: April 30, 2006
 

Watching The Brain Switch Off 'Self'
Everybody has experienced a sense of "losing oneself" in an activity--whether
a movie, sport, sex, or meditation. Now, researchers have caught the brain in
the act of losing "self" as it shuts down introspection during a demanding
sensory task.

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The researchers--led by Rafael Malach and Ilan Goldberg of the Weizmann 
Institute of Science reporting in the April 20, 2006, issue of Neuron--say their 
findings show that self-related function actually shuts down during such intense 
sensory tasks. Thus, an "observer" function in the brain does not appear to 
play an active part of in the production of our vivid sensory experiences. 
These findings go against common models of sensory experience that assume that 
there is some kind of "homunculus", or observer function in the brain that "looks 
at" sensory brain areas. Thus the finding, they said, has significance for 
understanding the basic nature of consciousness and perception. 
The experimental challenge that the researchers faced was to design one task 
that could be used to activate specifically either sensory processing or 
introspection brain areas. Their solution was to ask subjects to look at the same 
pictures or listen to the same musical phrases, but to perform two different 
kinds of processing on them. To explore sensory processing, the researchers 
asked the subjects to use buttons to classify the images as animal/non-animal, or 
the musical passages as trumpet/non-trumpet. And to study introspection, the 
researchers asked the subjects to indicate whether emotionally they felt 
strongly or neutrally about the image or musical passage. 
During the tests, the researchers scanned the volunteers' brains using 
functional magnetic resonance imaging. In this widely used technique, harmless 
magnetic fields and radio waves are used to scan blood flow in brain regions, which 
indicates activity. 
The researchers found that regions of the brain activated during sensory 
processing or self-reflective introspection were quite distinct and segregated. 
Sensory processing activated the sensory cortex and related structures, while 
introspection activated the prefrontal cortex, they found. 
Importantly, the researchers found that activity in the self-related 
prefrontal cortex was silenced during intense sensory processing. 
As a result, wrote the researchers, "We propose that the role of self-related 
cortex is not in enabling perceptual awareness, but rather in allowing the 
individual to reflect upon sensory experiences, to judge their possible 
significance to the self, and, not less importantly for consciousness research, to 
allow the individual to report about the occurrence of his or her sensory 
experience to the outside world. 
"To conclude, the picture that emerges from the present results is that, 
during intense perceptual engagement, all neuronal resources are focused on 
sensory cortex, and the distracting self-related cortex is inactive. Thus, the term 
"losing yourself" receives here a clear neuronal correlate. This theme has a 
tantalizing echoing in Eastern philosophies such as Zen teachings, which 
emphasize the need to enter into a 'mindless,' selfless mental state to achieve a 
true sense of reality," they wrote.
The researchers include Ilan I. Goldberg, Michal Harel, and Rafael Malach of 
the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. This study was funded by 
the ISF Center of Excellence, the Benoziyo Center for Neurological Disorders, 
and the Dominique Center. 
Goldberg et al.: "When the Brain Loses Its Self: Prefrontal Inactivation 
during Sensorimotor Processing." Publishing in Neuron, 50, 329-339, April 20, 
2006. DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2006.03.015 http://www.neuron.org/ 
rich faussette