Religious experience
A couple decades ago neuropsychologist Michael Persinger tried stimulating people’s temporal lobes artificially in an attempt to induce a religious state in them. By exposing temporal lobes to a weak magnetic field he was able to create the sensation of “an ethereal presence in the room.” In some circles Persinger’s findings have been widely heralded, but now Pehr Granqvist, a psychologist at Uppsala University in Sweden, questions the findings in a paper about to be published in Neuroscience Letters. According to The Economist, Dr. Granqvist believes Dr. Persinger’s work was not “double blinded”.
In a double-blind experiment, neither the participant nor the individual conducting the trials knows who is truly being exxperimented on, and who is a “control”. . .
. . . In the case of Dr. Persinger’s work, Dr. Granqvist claims that the individuals conducting the trials, who were often graduate students, knew what sort of results to expect, with the risk that the knowledge would be transmitted to experimental subjects by unconscious cues. Worse, he says that the participants were frequently given an inkling of what was happening by being asked to fill in questionnaires designed to test their suggestibility to paranormal experiences before the trials were conducted.
Therefore Dr. Granqvist set about conducting the experiment double blinded and found that the presence or absence of the field had no relationship with any religious or spiritual experience reported by the participants.
Dr. Persinger still stands by his findings of course. Perhaps more notably he argues that “Dr Granqvist and his colleagues failed to generate a ‘biologically effective signal’ in their subjets because of a failure to use the equipment properly.” I’ve written briefly about this topic before and I don’t expect the biological nature of spirituality to be resolved any time soon.
16 Responses to “Religious experience”
This reminds me of a number of studies attempting to measure to effectiveness of prayer on recovery from illness. The problem with trying to test God scientifically is that you’re not testing an impersonal force of nature. The experiment isn’t “triple blind.” God knows you’re testing him and can choose to skew the results accordingly. If, for his own reasons, God has chosen to remain invisible, we can’t force him to become visible through scientific experimentation.
“God knows you’re testing him and can choose to skew the results accordingly.”
I just laughed so hard, milk came out of my nose.
Oh, yeah – that God’s such the trickster.
You people are nuts.
My problem with the study is that the logic leading to the conclusion is faulty.
Phenomenon A is a putative cause of sensation B.
Stimulus C causes sensation B.
Therefore A is illusory.
Wrong.
Instead of A=”religious experience”, B=”sense of ethereal presence”, and C=”magnetic stimulation of temporal lobes”, use “hugs”, “comfort”, and “electrical stimulation of the amygdala”. Just because we can trick the brain in to having reactions to illusory stimuli, does not negate the veridicality of potential natural stimuli.
I would guess that most of religion is more psychological then neurological, though surely there is some overlap. It would be nice to get rid of pesky reason just by wearing a magnet hat, but that doesn’t sound likely. Until then anyone who wants to see god is still limited to faith and/or hallucinogenics.
But Funky, what the experiment does prove (if it’s replicable) is that the existence of B now cannot be seen as proof of or evidence for the existence of A. If comfort could only be caused by the delivery of hugs, than the existence of comfort would prove that hugs were veridical. However, comfort can also be caused by a number of other sorts of stimuli C, including I suppose brain stimulation. (Incidentally, not stimulation of the amygdala, which only deals with aversive reactions.)
Thus, if this experiment is borne out, the existence of religious feelings (phenomenon B) cannot be taken as proof of an actual paranormal religious/spiritual thing that is being experienced (phenomenon A). A may still exist, or it may not; we have no evidence either way.
I would guess that most of religion is more psychological then neurological..
Whether the psychological can be separated from the neurological (as opposed, say, to being the experience of the neurological) is a matter of no small debate among neuroscientists (and neurophilosophers). The answer is not as clear as any side might wish…
acm
“Whether the psychological can be separated from the neurological (as opposed, say, to being the experience of the neurological) is a matter of no small debate among neuroscientists (and neurophilosophers).”
That is not true. The consensus among neuroscientists (and, yes, neurophilosophers) is that the mind is what the brain does and nothing more. A few eccentrics, such as physicist Roger Penrose and Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist John Eccles, postulate alternatives, but they do not make up a sizeable enough minority to get a debate going.
“I would guess that most of religion is more psychological then neurological”
This statement implies that psychological experiences do not have neurological correlates. If you believe in some sort of dualism, fine. Otherwise, the statement is meaningless.
“Incidentally, not stimulation of the amygdala, which only deals with aversive reactions.”
Actually, that’s not true. While other regions are activiated in the experience of pleasure, the amygdala is also often involved.
“Thus, if this experiment is borne out, the existence of religious feelings (phenomenon B) cannot be taken as proof of an actual paranormal religious/spiritual thing that is being experienced (phenomenon A). A may still exist, or it may not; we have no evidence either way.”
Attempting to prove the existence of supernatural phenomena based on personal accounts of feelings strikes me as foolish, since the brain is so easily misled. Trying to disprove such phenomena based on this research seems equally foolish. Proving one cause does not disprove another. My original logical illustration accounts for this. If you wish to prove the falshood of A, then you must generate a scenario in which some evidence D should appear but does not. An example of this would be the tests that disproved the existence of the ether.
This brings me back to my original argument, Funk. We’re talking about a conscious entity. If you’re predicting how many fingers I’m going to hold up (evidence D) and I hear your prediction, I can choose whether to make your predictions right or wrong and any conclusions you reach are going to be erroneous.
That is not true. The consensus among neuroscientists (and, yes, neurophilosophers) is that the mind is what the brain does and nothing more.
Posted by: Tierney at January 10, 2005 05:43 PM
Still, there is a difference. The chemical balance in the brain can induce certain types of behavior, but the specific nature of that behavior is going to be determined by psychology (and by association things like culture and family). A person in Texas and in China may have the same chemical patterns, but the physical manifestation will be completely different.
“Still, there is a difference. The chemical balance in the brain can induce certain types of behavior, but the specific nature of that behavior is going to be determined by psychology (and by association things like culture and family). A person in Texas and in China may have the same chemical patterns, but the physical manifestation will be completely different.”
This a completely false statement. What is behavior if it’s not a manifestation of complex biochemical processes? If you wish to invoke a duality, a soul, or something similar, that’s fine. You wouldn’t be alone. However, if you do not, every psychological experience must correspond to neurological processes. There is likely a many-to-one correspondence so that there may be many causes for similar experiences, thus identifying causal processes is rather tricky. Genetic factors can affect neurological development (i.e. organization of connections) and external stimuli influence new connections made, but it is untrue to say that family or culture can have a distinct influence aside from “chemical balance”.
The “mind” is indeed what the brain does, but does that make it any less spectacular? This is what I don’t understand about religious people. Offering a rational explanation of phenomena and how they operate does not detract from the majesty of nature. Why do religious people run like hell from any attempt to analyze nature and all that dwells in it (including us and our consciousness) and bury their head in the sand when conclusions are reached – even when those conclusions do not conflict with their preconceived notions? Is it really any surprise that all feelings are the result of processes in the brain? What else did you expect? Even if there is a ’soul’ in the traditional sense of the word, mustn’t this make physical contact at some point with the nuts and bolts of the body, that it may interact with the world? And if this is the case, and ’souls’ therefore do interact with the reality we can detect, measure, and analyze, then why can we not detect the ’soul’ itself? Perhaps we have, O religious ones, and perhaps you are simply to afraid that it does not conform with your ghost in the machine mentality.
Chuck, you’re comment is loaded with a lot of poor assumptions and begged questions. I’m a religious person who also happens to be a scientist in training. For me, examining and exploring the natural world is an act of fealty to my creator. I have great appreciation and respect for His handiwork. I see great beauty in the universe. I do not run from scientific analysis and scrutiny of the universe. My faith does not interfere with my scientific pursuits but informs it. I derive my sense of awe and curiousity as well as my moral and ethical ques from my faith.
Science and religion need not be at each other’s throat. However, when people attempt to use religion to answer the “how” and “what” questions science should answer, nonsense and foolishness result. St. Augustine rightly chastized the Manicheans for replacing sound astronomy with the errors of their faith.
“Trying to disprove such phenomena based on this research seems equally foolish.”
In the interest of clarity: that’s what I was saying. It seems to me that one can, instead, invoke parsimony to argue against the existence of the soul: that is, if it’s possible to account for human behavior by talking solely about the brain, and it’s also possible to account for it by talking about the brain plus some ghostly stuff that doesn’t follow any known physical laws, that the first option makes more sense. Your mileage, of course, may vary.
“Actually, that’s not true. While other regions are activiated in the experience of pleasure, the amygdala is also often involved.”
I PubMedded this, and you are indeed correct, and I’ll look things up before I spout off about them next time. However, the fact that the amygdala is a part of the brain circuit involved in the processing of pleasure by no means implies that it is a center of such processing, nor that activation of the amygdala would give rise to pleasurable feelings such as comfort. The amygdala could, for example, handle the “arousal” part of the experience of pleasure, and experiencing arousal by itself would by no means approach the experience of comfort.
I guess I wasn’t trying to get as much mileage from the amygdala as you presume. Any appropriate pleasure center would have done.
Fourty-two
There’s an interesting discussion going on in this In the Agora post about experimentally reproducing religious experiences. I thought that the skirmishers might find it interesting.