February 29, 2024 • 58 mins
Dr. Sharon Dirckx joins Dan and Catherine to discuss the differences between the mind, the brain, and what we know about consciousness.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Clinical neuroscience is showing humans to be way
more complex than simply justtheir brain, although of course
the brain is very, veryimportant.
But brains don't think.
People think.
How do you get from brainprocesses to what it's like to
be you?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to Purposeful Lab and Lodge Center podcast.
I'm Catherine Hadre with myco-host, Dr Dan Kiebler.
Okay, episode three.
We've talked about the brain,the evolution of the brain,
We've talked about psychologyand the development of the brain
and adolescence.
Exactly Today we're going to betalking about the mind.
And where does the mind comefrom?
(00:45):
And we really couldn't bejoined by a better gas doctor,
sharon Derix.
She her background is she was aneuroscientist, a brain imaging
expert.
Now her focus is on Christianapologetics.
She's an adjunct lecturer atthe Oxford Center for Christian
Apologetics.
She is a doctorate in brainimaging from the University of
Cambridge and has held researchpositions at the University of
(01:07):
Oxford, uk and the MedicalCollege of Wisconsin here in the
US, but grateful to speak withher from across the pond.
She's the author of a few books, including the book that's most
relevant for these purposes AmI Just my Brain?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, that title Am I Just my Brain?
Sums up the million dollarquestion about consciousness.
How do we explain the richconscious experience that we
have Our mind, our feeling, ourperception that we have free
will, that we can do what wewant, we can deliberate about
our actions, that other peoplehave free will?
And how do we juxtapose thatwith this idea that the brain is
(01:46):
a physical organ that we candescribe and models physical
laws?
So are we just our brain or isthere something more?
Is there any material aspect tous?
Can we be reduced to the brain?
We'll get into that questionwith her.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Can the brain explain everything that's going on here
?
Well, I'm interested to hearwhat she has to say.
So here's our conversation withDr Derek.
Dr Sharon Derek, we're sograteful that you're joining us
from across the pond.
Thank you so much.
First off, do you mind walkingus through your background as a
(02:20):
neuroscientist and letting usknow what you're up to today?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Absolutely, and it's a pleasure to be here.
So I actually started myjourney in science studying
biochemistry.
That was my undergraduatedegree subject, which I loved,
and I loved discovering what washappening, in a sense, at a
(02:45):
microscopic level.
But I wasn't too interested inthe research involved in that
and wanted to study largersystems and somehow that led me
into neuroscience and brainimaging and actually this whole
(03:07):
technique of MRI magneticresonance imaging which is a
means of looking inside of thehuman body without cutting into
it, because it's able to harnessthe body's natural kind of
water and construct a 3D imageof the human body.
And then, of course, functionalMRI being able to look at brain
(03:28):
function when it's engaged indifferent mental tasks.
This fascinated me.
I discovered it actually whileI was still an undergraduate.
Some friends along the corridorwere studying MRI for their
third year physics project and Ibegan to kind of find ways to
(03:50):
kind of look into this and studythis technique myself, which
led me via an internship in thepharmaceutical industry in
Switzerland to a PhD inCambridge at an imaging lab on
the Edinburghx Hospital site aspart of the University of
(04:13):
Cambridge.
So that was kind of how I cameto be in that field and I ended
up.
I don't know if I ended upstudying initially some of the
methodology involved inneuroimaging.
It was at a time when thistechnique was really still
(04:37):
really being trying to beunderstood by scientists.
What was it measuring, howcould we improve the kind of
parameters to get the bestsignal out of the MRI scanner,
and so on.
So my PhD was quitemethodological.
It was involved in tweakingvarious parameters and seeing
the impact that it had.
(04:59):
And then I went from there to doa postdoc, actually in the US
at the Medical College ofWisconsin, and there I was
looking at something quitedifferent human cocaine abuse
this is an ethically approvedstudy by the US government and
looking at the impact thatcocaine had on the human brain.
(05:23):
And that was fascinating and amassive privilege to be involved
in.
And then I came back to the UKand did some more research after
my study in apologetics.
Yeah, so that's a little bit ofmy journey.
I don't know how it sounds tosomeone on the outside it might
(05:45):
sound a bit odd, but it's beenquite an adventure.
It's fascinating.
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So your background as a neuroscientist this is sort
of what we've been looking atthis season on the podcast is
looking at the human brain, theevolution of the brain and
behavior and how the braindevelops and so forth.
And a lot of times,particularly in the scientific
community, people think oh well,we can image the brain, so we
know that allows us tounderstand human behavior.
So if we could show whatregions of the brain are active
(06:15):
that can tell us, oh, we knowexactly, we can reduce behavior
down to just neurons firing inthe brain.
And then that leaves us withthis question of what is the
mind?
What is this consciousexperience I'm having?
How does that relate?
Is that something you thinkthat neuroscience can ever get a
grip on?
That question of what the mindis or its tools not appropriate
(06:39):
for that?
How does that, in your view,the limits of neuroscience or
what can it do?
Yeah well, great question.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
And I guess, as we get into the whole conversation
around, whether we are just ourbrains, as a lot of people think
we are, and of course, I wrotea book with precisely that title
Am I Just my Brain?
Exactly, one of the responsesthat we give is that we don't
just have a brain, we also havea mind, and of course, how you
(07:13):
define the mind depends on theview that you have.
I mean, a definition that I usedin my book was from the Oxford
English Dictionary, which saysthat the mind is the seat of
awareness, thought, volition,feeling and memory.
In other words, in addition toour brain with all of its
(07:34):
neurons and synapses andchemicals and physical processes
, we also have a mind, with allof its thoughts and feelings and
emotions and memories and so on.
And so we have this innerreality, which we can certainly
define in terms of what we thinkit is, but in terms of whether
(07:59):
the scientific method can accessit, Well, that's a whole other
question, and it's part of theresponse that I give to this
question that, yes, you canmeasure what's going on in your
brain perfectly well, but inorder to know what's going on in
your mind, measuring stuff inyour brain doesn't reveal that
(08:22):
to us.
You are the only one that canreveal to another person what's
going on in your mind, and sosome people would argue that the
sciences are not able to accessthe mind in the same way that
we can access chemical processesin the brain.
(08:42):
That's a different phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
But I think this sets us up nicely for this exact
conversation we'll be havingwith you.
Can you just continue to expandon what is what would be called
the materialist's approach tounderstanding the mind and this
idea that really, you know, thebrain and the mind are the same
thing?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, I mean.
So the important thing to sayis that there are lots of
different positions out there,and what I did in my brain was
try and summarize the field andcondense it into a few
understandable positions, and Ithink for a lot of people this
(09:22):
subject can seem veryinaccessible, and I tried to
make it accessible.
So I think that a materialistwould take one of two views One,
the first one being thatessentially, the mind is the
brain, which is to say thatthere isn't, yeah, that mental
(09:46):
states are brain states, mentalprocesses are brain processes,
which kind of means that therereally isn't anything.
It is like to be you, there'sjust brain activity.
And this is not a view thatevery materialist would hold,
but it is a view that somematerialists hold and they would
(10:10):
say that really, all of yourthoughts, feelings, emotions,
memories are coming from yourbrain.
In a sense, you are your brain.
Your thoughts, your behaviors,your decisions, your personality
, it's all driven by processesinside of your skull, which is
(10:32):
another way of saying, really,that there isn't such a thing as
the mind.
Mental states are brain states.
Mental processes are brainprocesses, which, when you
really boil it down and takethat view to its logical
conclusion, it's essentiallysaying that there isn't
something that it is like to beyou, it's just your brain.
(10:57):
But of course that has some verysignificant implications At a
logical level.
It's incoherent.
The person expressing there theview is saying that my first
person perspective on the worldis that there is no first person
perspective, there isn't a selfand you can't really even
(11:18):
express that without referenceto some sort of self.
So it's logically incoherent.
And of course we don't live asthough that is the case.
We treat people's kind ofspeech and views and opinions as
if they are coming from them,not from forces beyond their
control.
If it's coming from forcesbeyond your control, then what
(11:41):
are we to do with thatinformation?
What does it even mean if it'snot coming from you as a person?
And of course, where I land inthe book is that we don't live
as though this is the case.
Logically it doesn't make sense.
And also clinical neuroscienceis showing humans to be way more
complex than simply just theirbrain, although of course the
(12:02):
brain is very, very important.
But brains don't think.
People think using their brains, and so there's lots that we
could say.
There's another materialistposition, which is that the
brain creates the mind.
The brain generates the mind,but there are also problems with
(12:28):
that.
That we might want to come tolater, because you still have to
get around the problem of howdo you get from brain processes
to what it's like to be you.
Even if you put the word createin there, or generate, that
doesn't get you round what DavidChalmers refers to as the hard
(12:48):
problem how on earth donon-conscious neurons generate
conscious human beings?
This is not straightforward,it's not easy, it's not a
foregone conclusion, and sothere are all kinds of problems.
Even with that view, which isseen as a more moderate
materialist position, it stillruns up against the same
(13:09):
problems that the view of mentalstates being synonymous with
brain states.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, I think that experiential argument, I think,
is one of the strongest onesthat nobody actually behaves as
if they are just packing neuronsand we've evolved in a sense to
try to understand otherpeople's minds.
We want to.
We try to draw out what's intheir mind.
We don't try to draw out howare they working as an algorithm
(13:40):
.
We're drawn to that and thereason that we have these
conversations is because we wantto get to the truth, we want to
see what's the wisdom you havein your mind and learn from that
and other minds that we want toget to something.
That's true.
And nobody acts as if theyaren't in control of their
(14:01):
actions.
In a certain sense, we all knowfrom brain imaging that our
actions aren't always free, thatthere should be reflection of
things and so forth.
But at the end of the day, whenwe deliberate about something,
we really feel that we have thiscontrol over our actions, that
we're thinking, we're processingthem, and to deny that seems to
(14:22):
deny that we are very existence.
It seems to me and there arepeople that just deny that we
have that, daniel Dennett beingone who just says well, it's
just an illusion, but you haveto explain why we have that
illusion.
It's very, very.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
But the problem is, if actually it's illusory, then
how do we know that Dennett'sown opinion isn't a product of
that same illusion?
So it becomes impossible to sayanything meaningful about
anything, and any reference tothe eye or the self means
nothing.
And I think there's a role herefor and I actually don't
(15:03):
mention this in my book, butthere's a role here for
intuition.
We have a sense that we existand we live as though we do.
There's actually a whole kindof globe full of people that are
of that viewpoint.
And do our intuitions tell usanything about reality?
Do they lead us to truth?
And I think we need to.
(15:24):
What I'm trying to do in myapproach to this subject is take
what is said in philosophy andin the lecture theatre seriously
, but also take it out of thatarena into reality and look at
how do we actually live, what dohuman beings do in the clinic
as well, and look at a holisticview of human beings and try and
(15:46):
reach conclusions about humanidentity, taking all of that
into account.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That being said, now that we've heard these different
arguments from what amaterialist might think of what
the mind-body relationship is,can you walk us through your
response and again your years ofstudying the brain?
What is your take on themind-body relationship?
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, thank you.
So initially I think I set outto propose one particular
viewpoint that I thought wasgoing to kind of solve the
solution, but solve the questionof am I just my brain?
What I ended up doing wassaying you know, there are
(16:32):
actually lots of other ways ofdescribing human beings than
simply choking it all down tothe chemicals inside of their
head, and so I mean, I've putforward the view already that
non reductive physicalism, oremergentism, that the brain
creates the mind.
That's one of the views that Ipropose as an alternative, the
(16:54):
challenge being that people thathold that view still have to
solve how non conscious neuronsgenerate the conscious mind.
But, of course, if God exists,then we didn't just start with
physical neurons, we startedwith a conscious mind, and so
there are a number of Christiantheists that solve the problem,
(17:15):
but through the existence ofGod's, with that particular view
.
Two other viewpoints that I havefound helpful.
One is substance dualism, thatsays that we don't just have a
physical brain, we also have anon physical mind, and these two
things work very closelytogether, but they are distinct
(17:36):
entities and therefore nonphysical.
The non physical mind can bringabout changes in the physical
brain and vice versa.
And of course, the challengethat substance dualists have to
resolve is how on earth does anon physical mind influence the
physical brain and how do wemarry that with the sciences
(17:57):
that seem to show these twothings as seeming to look at the
same thing and being so, sointegrated?
So that's another view.
And then another position thatis growing in popularity is
panpsychism, which comes fromthe Greek pan meaning all, and
suke meaning soul, andessentially is saying look,
(18:19):
let's not start with physicalbuilding blocks to try and
explain the mind.
Why don't we make human, thehuman mind, primary and
fundamental and build a casefrom there?
And this view basically sayseverything has, possesses
consciousness.
In effect, there is kind ofmind infused throughout the
(18:41):
universe and throughout physicalthings, and so there are levels
of consciousness, yes, inhumans and in every living thing
, and even down to the atomicscale.
And that's a fascinating viewand it certainly puts back on
the table the centrality and theimportance of human
(19:02):
consciousness that we can't deny, this most central facet of
what it means to be human.
But it tries to explain it andit's a really helpful view.
But the challenge that peopleholding this view need to
resolve is how do you explainthe very different levels of
(19:23):
consciousness that human beingshave, even compared with the
most advanced primates.
So every view has itschallenges.
But one of the things I wantedto say is there are lots of ways
of thinking about the mindbrain relationship.
It's not simply that we have toaccept that neurons explain
(19:46):
everything.
So, those were some of theapproaches that I took in my
book.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah, it seems like, no matter what approach you take
, you get down to thatfundamental, hard problem
consciousness that there isnever.
How do you relate somethingthat's clearly non-physical,
something that I can onlyexperience my consciousness, you
can experience yours, but Ican't hand you a pound of my
consciousness or something.
(20:12):
But how do we reduce that tomaterial world?
So even in panpsychism thereisn't an obvious.
I just say, well, it just is,it's rather, we don't have to
explain it, just really it'sthere, it doesn't.
It's a fundamental property ofexistence.
So all of these trying to goback and forth between the brain
and consciousness, theredoesn't seem to be an obvious
(20:35):
route to do that.
There's a mystery there at theheart of the human person and I
just want to get your take on.
You mentioned briefly thatneuroscience, modern
neuroscience, is showing howbehavior is more than just the
brain.
It's limited, what it shows,that it's more complex than what
we might originally havethought.
What is your take on whatneuroscience is opening up to us
(20:59):
?
Because often you get the ideaneuroscience is showing that, oh
, when you think of God, thisarea of your brain is lit up so
we can explain God.
So you get that.
Very trite arguments aboutreduction in this, what would
you say would be a more accurateunderstanding of where we are.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, great question.
And I think that what theneuroscience is showing is that,
clearly, mind and brain areconnected.
My time spent in brain imaging.
If you put someone in an MRIscanner and you give them a
mental task that uses their mindfor example, their working
memory, you know, memorize thesenumbers as they appear on the
(21:37):
screen and then retell them toyourself a minute later, what
you see is networks in theirbrain light up corresponding to
the use of their mind.
Clearly, mind and brain areconnected and there is no doubt
about this.
And but just because they'reconnected does not necessarily
(21:59):
mean they are identical orsynonymous or that one overrules
and overpowers the other, andthis is an error that is being
made all the time.
And, of course, you know,crossing the boundary between
what empirical science can tellus and what is a philosophical
(22:22):
position that we are holding andbringing to the data is
something that happens all thetime as well.
And I guess in the area of, youknow what's happening in the
brain during religiousexperience or when we pray.
Of course, there are networksin the brain that are active
(22:42):
when people are praying andactually, you know, christians
believe that we are physical andspiritual beings, so that is
actually exactly what we wouldexpect.
We're integrated physical andspiritual beings, and the
presence of activity in thebrain doesn't negate the
genuineness of the experienceitself of what is actually
(23:06):
happening.
We didn't get to talking aboutit earlier.
I probably should havementioned it earlier, but
philosophers talk about thisthing called qualia, and qualia
are, if you like, qualitativeexperiences that are impossible
to describe physically.
One being you know, like, forexample, the smell of coffee if
(23:26):
we were to try and describe thesmell of coffee but all you have
at your disposal are physicaldescriptions.
You can't actually get to thesmell itself.
You know the chemical structureof caffeine or the physiology
of it as you digest it.
Are brilliant and elegantscientific descriptions, but
(23:48):
they don't get you to the smellitself, and they use this to
make the point that actually,life is full of qualia, and the
biggest qualia of all being theexperience of what it is to be.
You can't be captured inphysical descriptions, and,
similarly with religiousexperience, the experience
itself is very distinct to thenetworks in the brain that are
(24:11):
active, and just because youhave brain activity does not
negate the validity of theexperience itself.
Just like in a romantic love,there are all kinds of studies
that are conducted to see what'shappening in the brain during
the process of someone being inlove, and of course we see all
(24:35):
kinds of reward networks to beactive, and none of that is used
as evidence to undermine thegenuineness of the fact that
that person is experiencing aromantic affection towards
another human being.
Of course that's extremely validand it's happening in parallel
to what's happening in theirbrain, and of course we wouldn't
(24:57):
use it to question the validityof the relationship itself.
The relationship and itsexistence is the reason why
there's activity in the brain,and the same goes for religious
experience and what's happeningwhen we pray.
This is simply telling youwhat's happening in your brain
while somebody is connectingwith the divine.
It doesn't undermine the divine.
(25:20):
It's a reflection that we'reintegrated physical and
spiritual beings, and soChristians and people of faith
don't need to be afraid of itand afraid of this kind of data.
We should be more concerned ifthere's nothing happening in our
brains when we're praying andengaged in this kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And speaking of that integration, can you speak to
how changes to the body doaffect mental function?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think we see this interaction between
mind and brain working soclosely all the time.
You know there's the you knowthere are obviously things in
terms of, like healthy fetaldevelopment.
You know, you see that as thehuman brain develops, then
levels of consciousness and thedevelopment of their mind and
(26:09):
its capabilities happens inparallel with the development of
their brain.
And we also see that outside,after birth, you know, in the
development of children and soon.
Then we also see it when, whendisease and damage come to the
brain, brain injury or braindegeneration, that there is a
(26:32):
parallel thing happening in themind.
As the brain degenerates, youknow mental memory and
personality are affected, and so, you know, changes in the brain
do affect the mind.
Of course.
One of the points, though, thatI make in my book and when I
(26:54):
speak about this is that that isgenerally the case, but it also
isn't the whole story.
There are instances where whatis happening in the mind doesn't
seem to match up actually withwith what you see in the brain.
Can say more about that maybelater in our conversation, but
(27:14):
there are obviously.
In general, when we look atclinical medicine, brain, brain
states and mental states do seemto work in parallel.
There does seem to be a closecorrelation, but there are some
exceptions to that rule.
And then, of course, similarly,the mind can affect the brain,
(27:36):
and this is another reason whyyou are more than just your
brain, because the mind ispowerful in its impact on the
body and brain.
It's something that scientistsof philosophers refer to as
downward causation, even just atthe most basic level of all of
the kind of self help books thatsay change your mind and you
(27:56):
change your life.
You know, there's something inthat.
That's the thing, that thatactually the mind has a powerful
effect on the body and brain.
We see it in the placebo effect, we see it in psychosomatic
illness, we see it in, you know,sports psychology, that math,
sports matches are lost, and onenot simply on the physical
(28:18):
ability of the person but onwhat's going on in their mind
while they're playing as well.
And there's so much we couldsay about the mind brain
interaction.
It seems that both can affectthe other.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
It's not one way traffic.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It's actually a very dynamic relationship.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, that's what we talked about how habit formation
, like I'm going to do this andyou decide I'm going to do this
over and over again, makes iteasier to and changes, you see,
physical changes in the braincan be associated with, you know
, and those.
You know.
This two ways street is very,very true.
I think one of the things thatyou hear often is that, oh well,
(28:55):
if we, you know that our freewill, you know, is limited or
doesn't exist because we canshow.
Oh well, you know, the brainhas fired in this pattern and
that's why you have thisconscious experience, because
there is a correlation betweenyou know certain, you know
psychological damage or notbeing, you know getting
attention when you're younger.
That affects then your behaviorlater on.
(29:17):
So everything is justdetermined by your past
experiences.
Right, and so you know as youknow.
So there is a certain aspect ofthis causation where the way
the brain is structured affectsour behavior.
But you also have this otherdirection that you're not
limited.
Yeah, right, and is that?
(29:37):
Is that what you?
How would you respond to peoplethat?
Because that argument that wedon't have free wills, really,
you know, it's a very strongargument in the culture of
neuroscience.
I think, whereas we can explaineverything you do, based upon
you know what your brain stateis at this time, based on your
past experiences.
So I love to get your thoughtson that.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, I think that I would.
I definitely above the view.
I'm not going to deny thatthere are levels of determinism
in our makeup.
You know, at the very basiclevel we're determined by the
genes from our parents and thereare personality traits and, as
well as our, you know, physicalappearance, and there are all
(30:19):
kinds of things that are to someextent determined by things
that are beyond us and beyondour control.
But does that mean that we haveno ability to bring about
meaningful change in the worldat all?
I think that's a very differentquestion and I think, again, the
(30:40):
answer that you give to am Ijust my brain impacts whether
you believe that to be true.
Of course, if we are.
I mean, I had a conversationjust last week with a student
that believed that they wereentirely determined by forces
beyond their control andtherefore they had no free will.
And I said to them then whatdoes your question even mean to
(31:01):
me?
And because it's not comingfrom you, it's coming from
forces beyond your control, it'snot being held by you and he
said yeah, that's what I believe.
And I said but we're not livingas though that's the case,
because we're actually having aconversation, because the
appropriate response to yourquestion, if there's no free
(31:22):
will, is to ignore it and tocontinue on or to just simply do
nothing.
But we're living as though it'scoming from you and I'm
responding to you, and so on.
We don't live as though there'sno self.
We don't live as thougheverything we think, even
thoughts, like everything youthink, that's not coming from
you, that's coming from forcesbeyond your control.
(31:43):
We don't live as though that isthe case.
We award grades to high schoolstudents on the basis that they
learn the information and theyperformed in the exam and they
deserve the grade, good or bad.
We reward bravery in war.
We punish crime.
We have law courts that do thatprecisely on the basis that the
(32:05):
person was the bearer of theiractions, however determined they
may be by certain factors intheir background and upbringing,
but there's still a sense thatthey could choose and they had
alternatives in that moment andtherefore can be held morally
responsible.
You see, there are hugeimplications for justice, for
(32:25):
legal decisions, around moralresponsibility, if there's no
free will and we don't live asthough that is the case, and so
I think there's a lot ofproblems with that view.
I don't think the neurosciencenecessitates that we hold that
view either.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Well, the fact that we have that brain plasticity
and have the ability to rewireour brain until the day we die,
I think speaks to how we canchange our habits and change our
behavior and we're notdetermined by that.
One thing I've heard, Sharon,people say is the brain is like
the hardware and the mind is thesoftware.
(33:01):
What do you think of thatcomparison?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
You know, we need analogies and we need things
that we can get a hold of,because these can be quite
abstract things for people, andparticularly if someone wouldn't
necessarily count themselves tobe a philosopher that's
spending a lot of their timethinking about this, or a
neuroscientist or whatever.
And so whatever analogies wecan come up with that help
(33:28):
people to grasp kind of what'sgoing on is helpful, and to some
extent the software hardwareillustration is helpful.
Of course, every analogy breaksdown.
It doesn't have it's, it's nota full, a full kind of
explanation.
I'm not an IT specialist.
I'm married to one, thankfullyand so I don't really understand
(33:50):
whether hardware and softwarefully interact with each other.
I think that they seem to justoperate in parallel, that the
hardware sustains the software.
I don't know that software canbring about changes in the
electronics.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I don't think electronics can ultimately
generate software programs, youknow so.
I think it's helpful in ithelps us understand the
different categories, but it hasits limits as well.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
You know one thing I'd be curious to get your
thoughts on again, as we'retalking about the mind and brain
, we hear sometimes thesestories of near death
experiences in our culture.
What does that speak to?
You know?
What is that, in your opinion,reveal about the mind?
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, I think this is one of the examples in the
clinic that I have been thinkingabout, that.
You know, if they're true, theyperhaps indicate that we are
more than just our brains.
I mean the concept of thenear-death experience that we've
been around since the 70s, thesort of 50 years of data and
(35:10):
story that have been gatheredand collected and actually
studied fairly systematically bysome cardiologists and
neuropologists and psychiatrists, with studies in the UK, the
Netherlands, the USA, and Iguess what it is is an instance
(35:31):
of, if you like, a kind ofreligious kind of aspect to
something happening in aclinical context.
So it's sort of theintersection of these two kinds
of conversation.
And of course what we're seeingis people upon resuscitation
(35:55):
who have been in a state ofreversible clinical death, have
reported being conscious duringthat time, of being clinically
dead with no detectable brainsignal and no heart signal, and
have reported, you know, andover the years the features of a
near-death experience seem tobe kind of quite common, have
(36:19):
commonalities between people,and this is fascinating.
And you know, I think if you arejust your brain, this kind of
data set makes no sense, itseems strange and of course a
materialist would say it'sultimately, there must still be
(36:41):
some activity in the brain thatis giving rise to this, and we
need to take that seriously.
But one thing that we can say isthat, you know, there's
something about the lucidity andthe vividness of these
experiences that people report,and some of the things that they
(37:04):
report that can be corroborateddon't seem to be indicative of
a brain in shutdown.
You know, if these are the lastmoments, the last bits of
activity in a dying brain, andyet here they are, seeing whole
landscapes and meeting deceasedrelatives that they didn't
necessarily know had even diedor even existed in one case, and
(37:31):
extraordinary things that theycould never have known in the
natural.
How do we explain that for abrain in shutdown?
There seems to be adisproportionality there.
However, I guess if God exists,if there's a non-physical realm
in addition to a physical realm, then we at least have a
(37:53):
framework for making sense ofnear-death experiences.
Not that we have all of theanswers and it doesn't answer,
you know, there are still lotsof questions around this but we
do have a framework because ifGod exists, we believe there's a
non-physical realm, a spiritualrealm as well as a physical
realm, and so and we alsobelieve that death isn't the end
(38:14):
of the physical body, thatdeath isn't the end of the
person, and so there is aframework for making sense of
near-death experiences.
I think they're fascinating andI think I want to think about
them a bit more.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, they are interesting, I think.
At the very least, like yousaid, they put in question how
well do we understand theconnection between the brain and
the mental activity, and thatalone just gives us a pause for
humility and to step back andrather than say we have all the
answers here because it doesn'tmake sense from really any sort
of perspective that we sort ofoutline.
(38:49):
So it's very fascinating.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, and well along the lines shared, if they're
right.
I'd like to you know you canhear some more of your personal
story.
I'm sure that you're aChristian apologist today, but
my understanding is you werepreviously agnostic.
Do you mind walking us throughyour journey a bit and how your
time as a neuroscientisteventually led you to God?
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, yes, I.
So I grew up kind of not reallyin a very loving but sort of
religiously neutral homeware.
Questions about faith were justnot part of our daily life.
That wasn't kind of good or bad, it just was the way that it
(39:36):
was.
And I actually one of mymoments that I remember from my
childhood was having anawareness of my own
consciousness.
I was sort of sat by a windowlooking out at the rain and a
bit bored, and suddenly had aseries of questions come to mind
why can I think?
Why do I exist?
(39:58):
Why am I a living, breathing,conscious being?
I suddenly was thinking aboutmy own existence and those
questions seem to come fromnowhere, they just bubbled up to
the surface and and then thatwas it for a few years and I,
yeah, essentially arrived atuniversity.
(40:18):
Well, I knew that I love thesciences from my teenage years
and I went to university and Iarrived there as an agnostic At
A level.
At high school, my teacher, myA level biology teacher, had
given me a book by RichardDawkins called the Selfish Gene
and I essentially kind of, youknow, just absorbed this view
(40:41):
that we're material beings andour ultimate purpose is in kind
of our genetic, kind ofusefulness and passing that on
to future generations.
And I essentially absorbed thisview and arrived at university
assuming that God didn't existand that you couldn't be a
(41:05):
scientist and believe in God atthe same time.
And I actually, in the veryfirst few days of being at
university, went to an eventcalled Grilla Christian, where
there were four Christians in arow and you could ask any
question that you wanted, and Iactually put my hand up about
(41:25):
halfway through the evening andasked my own question surely you
can't believe in God and be acredible scientist at the same
time?
And actually I was given theanswer Well, yes, you can, and
that I'm asking someone tochoose between God and science.
It's a bit like asking someoneto choose between the processes
(41:47):
and programs underlying Facebookor Instagram and the existence
of Mark Zuckerberg or KevinSystrom, and actually we think
about that for a moment andrealize that those two things
can perfectly well existtogether.
In fact, together they give youa more complete understanding
(42:08):
of Facebook or Instagram, andtrying to understand Instagram
just by means of the processesand programs leaves you with
only a partial understanding.
You need to actually speak tothe CEO, the founder, in order
to fully understand it, and sothat was really helpful to me.
That opened up a whole horizonof asking more questions and
(42:32):
grilling more Christians, and itwas actually about halfway
through my time studyingbiochemistry that I came to
realize that it made sense to me.
The evidence around theresurrection of Jesus Christ
that actually the reason whythere was an empty tomb there
were a set of people that werereally convinced that they'd
(42:54):
seen the risen Jesus Christ, andso I looked into all of that
and became persuaded that it wasbelievable and changed my views
at the age of 20.
So that's kind of how I came tofaith.
I then continued and moved intothe area of neuroscience and
(43:16):
did my PhD after that, so thatwas kind of the process involved
in that.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Yeah, I love that answer that Zuckerberg and.
Facebook analogy there thatworks pretty well for the God
and the universe.
You've been at Cambridge anddoing an apologetic work at
Oxford and being at these large,prestigious universities,
there's always a sense of, oh,there's this conflict between
science and faith.
The more educated you get.
(43:43):
What has been your experienceat these places in terms of a
person of faith who's involvedin science?
You see this, you get a lot ofsort of pushback or what's the
dialogue like that.
You've been able to engage withother people, particularly
those that disagree with yourposition at these places.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah, I think.
I mean I'm not working for theuniversity, but I think that
Oxford is a wonderful place forthe exchange of ideas and there
are many opportunities to engagein healthy debates and
conversation where, for the timebeing, different views are
welcome at the table, and I hopethat that will be upheld.
(44:33):
And alongside, of course, manypeople that think science and
faith are in conflict are, thereare many scientists who believe
in God and are actually at theforefront of their fields in the
scientific realm, and we'rejust on a panel at the weekend
with somebody who has a, youknow, a Royal Award from the
(44:57):
Royal Family for their servicesto science, looking at black
holes and the night sky and soon.
And there are actually manyformidable people like Professor
John Lennox, who is EmeritusProfessor of Mathematics at
Oxford University, who debatedRichard Dawkins in 2006.
(45:17):
And many people say, actuallyhe won that debate on the basis
of highly credible argument.
You've got someone likeAlistair McGrath, again Emeritus
Professor of Science andReligion for 10 years at Oxford
University, who also has engagedRichard Dawkins and other
(45:38):
eminent thinkers and, of course,very much holds the view that
science and religion have amutually enriching relationship
with each other.
And there are many peoplehistorically who held these two
things together.
Eminent scientists, like youknow, johannes Kepler, isaac
(46:01):
Newton, boyle of Boyle's Law,and so this is actually, if you
look back in the annals ofhistory, you see many people who
who actually were theists, whobelieved in God.
It was actually their belief inGod that drove forward and
inspired their science,precisely on the basis that
there's order in nature, becausethere's an order behind it.
(46:27):
And if there's, if God exists,we should expect to find
principles and laws and theoriesthat we can actually study and
make sense of.
That makes actually way moresense than if, if God doesn't
exist, it's all random and it'sall subject to kind of.
You know, it's the basis fororder in nature and indeed order
(46:48):
in the human mind is much morequestionable if God doesn't
exist.
So, there's so much we can sayabout that, but there are many
eminent people in Oxford who areGod-fearers and who engage in
healthy debate on this question.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
Yeah, that's usually that faith in science that
people have.
It really makes more sense ifyou have this faith that there's
an order and an intelligibilityand that my intelligibility can
understand that and that's whyyou know this myth of science
and religion conflict really isthat, and I think most credible
historians of science, inparticular with the last 30, 40
years, which is sort of put thatto bed in academia, but it
(47:27):
still persists in the popularimagination, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
So yeah, it does.
Yeah, and I think I mean whereI kind of landed in my thinking,
the question that I had as achild, that I didn't even ask to
be asking why can I think it isa really good question, you
know, when all is said and done,whatever you think the
mind-brain relationship is, whycan we think in the first place?
(47:53):
And this is a question thatthat science can't answer and
was never intended to answer,and we need to step beyond the
scientific method in order tofind answers to it.
And if God doesn't exist, thenyou have to try and explain the
conscious mind from a universeof non-conscious matter and
(48:14):
non-conscious neurons.
But if God does exist, we didn'tstart simply with non-conscious
matter.
We've lived in a consciousuniverse all along.
You know, the first verse ofGenesis says in the beginning
God created the heavens and theearth.
So before there was anythingphysical, there was mind in a
(48:35):
conscious community of Fatherand Son and Holy Spirit, which
is what Christians refer to asthe Trinity.
And so we have a way of solvingthe hard problem.
We didn't start with matter, westarted with a conscious being,
and humans are made in theimage of this God, in his kind
of reflection with his imprints.
And so why can we think?
(48:56):
We can think because God thinks, because God is a thinker, and
it's good and right that wethink, because we're made in the
image of a thinking God as well.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
I think just to kind of close it out and you've
already shared so much beautifulreflection there but can you
speak to how your research onthe brain has led you closer to
God and, in fact, what more haveyou learned about God because
of your research and because ofscience?
Speaker 1 (49:30):
I think that my day to day as a when I had just come
to faith, still as abiochemistry student, I was
really kind of in awe of thefact that I was studying parts
of the natural world that wereyet to be discovered.
It was actually a while ago andit was at a time when the Human
(49:52):
Genome Project was just gettinggoing, when we didn't really
know how long it was going totake and there was just so much
more to understand and Iremember thinking, wow, god
knows about that already andit's our privilege and our joy
to study it and to discover it.
I remember being really kind ofbowled over by that and the
(50:14):
fact that I could do that andalso be in a friendship with the
maker of it all himself.
That sort of blew my mind andwas a whole new dimension on
what it meant to be a scientist.
And as I moved intoneuroscience with that Christian
faith, it was again justwonderful to continue to study
(50:39):
the world that God has made.
If I'm honest, I learned moreabout what it means to trust God
when the data didn't alwayscome that doesn't always come
when you wanted to.
It was kind of a bit lastminute for me and there were
some relational tensions in myPhD.
There's a gritty reality tothese things as well.
(50:59):
It's not this beautiful, serenekind of study of the natural
world.
So for me, my PhD and my earlyyears in neuroscience were more
about trusting this God that Ihad come to put my faith in, and
it was just a privilege to workwith people to study the
(51:21):
natural world, to use technologythat was emerging and that was
changing the world.
And yeah, I guess that's what Iwould say.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
But a privilege for us to have you on the program.
Thank you so much for joiningus and hopefully we can have you
back on at some other time.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Thank you so much.
I've loved being here.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Well, she is a fascinating personal journey, of
course, but her professionaljourney as well, I thought,
brought so much insight to whatwe're discussing this season on
consciousness.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Yeah, she's this unity of science and faith and
having a science background ondoing Christian apologetics.
I think one thing I reallyappreciated about her discussion
was that her honesty about thishard problem of consciousness.
No matter what view you take,there's still an open question
of how does this relate from thematerialist view to this view
(52:16):
that the consciousness emergesfrom the brain.
There's still that hard problemthat we don't fully understand
and we need to have somehumility about jumping to
conclusions about this.
But one of the things that shedid say that I think is worth
reiterating is the idea that webring philosophical and
theological assumptions to ourscience and usually people think
(52:38):
, oh, if you have some belief inGod, that's going to corrupt
your science.
But actually having a belief ina creator that's brought order
to the universe actuallyresonates and helps you
understand the science betterthan the opposite view, which is
just randomness and chance, andI think a lot of people think
the exact opposite thing Peoplebelieve in God's going to
(52:59):
corrupt your view of sciencewhen in fact know it.
It really puts it on a moresolid foundation, actually.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Suppose that proper framing and lens and everyone,
regardless whether or not theyknow it, has some kind of
philosophy in some kind of biasthat they're carrying with them.
But again, you set us up inepisode one talking about how
humans are unique and that wewant to know what is on
someone's mind.
And so to delve into more.
What is the mind?
Where does it come from?
(53:26):
Really interesting, and I thinkwe're going to have more
philosophical questions the nextfew episodes, especially that
we'll be able to get into.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Yeah, the next two episodes will be bringing in
philosophers to talk about whatis the human person, what is the
soul, what is consciousness?
Because, as you point out, alot of these questions get very
the science can only go so farand it opens up these
philosophical questions so wehave to think about it a
rational, reasonable way.
(53:55):
But the science can't answerthose.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Well, speaking of questions and answers, that
takes us now to the office hoursegment of the show.
So some questions for you.
This is actually significantnews in the science world, if
I'm understanding this right,because the FDA recently
approved ground breaking CRISPRgene editing therapy for sickle
(54:18):
cell disease.
Specifically you I mean you arean expert in cell biology Can
you explain what is CRISPR geneediting?
And anytime I hear about geneediting, my ears always perk up
and I always wonder okay, arethere any bioethical concerns
here?
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah with.
Crispr is just a technologythat allows us to do very
precise genetic editing to fixsmall genetic problems within
cells in a very cost effectiveand time effective manner.
So if there's a defect in thegene in the cell, you can, using
(54:55):
the CRISPR technology, you cancut out that defect and replace
it with the proper sequence,right?
I mean, obviously there'sethical issues if you're using
these on human embryos, forexample, but in this case this
is they're taking cells from anadult person blood stem cells.
They have a defective gene inthem.
They fix that with the CRISPRtechnology and then take the
cells that are fixed and putthem back into the person, the
(55:18):
person's own cells.
So now they have cells that areable to produce the hemoglobin,
produce proper red blood cellsand hopefully cure the sickle
cells.
So it's a great, you knowadvance, you know it's.
I think there's other thingsthat this technology will be
able to do to fix and helppeople with certain genetic
(55:40):
disorders.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
Wow, that's really exciting.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
So this is good news, like all around.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
Okay, here's another question Again.
Ai and the future of AItechnology continues to be a
major topic of conversation.
So lots of buzz, especially onthe impact of AI on specific
fields.
I'm curious how do you see AIimpacting scientific research in
particular?
Is it going to be a huge asset?
(56:06):
Are there some concerns there?
Speaker 3 (56:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be a huge asset.
I think there's obviouslyconcerns about you know how you
use the data and the informationyou get from an AI system,
particularly in biology.
We're talking today to ourguests about neuroimaging, so
you get all this data.
You can get huge amounts ofdata from different people about
their images of the brain indifferent conditions, but how do
(56:29):
you process this data and findpatterns in that right?
So AI is really good at takinglots of data and finding
patterns to that.
And so you know, in biology,right now we're in the era of
what's called big data.
We have, like you know, lots ofgenetic data.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
Spreadsheets and spreadsheets.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
Exactly whether it's neuroimaging data, genetic data,
and so you have these bigamounts of data and sorting
through and seeing patterns andconnections.
Ai is really good at that.
So getting the AI tools to beable to extract, sort of find
these patterns and these bigdata sets that we're getting, I
think is really going to behelpful in advancing medicine.
(57:04):
But you know AI, you know whatthe patterns it extracts.
You've got to then have humanslook through those and make sure
we're not missing something andlook through the AI, the
ethical implications, treatmentsand so forth that come out.
So it's not like AI pushingbutton and it tells you what we
need to do or it answers thequestion, but it's going to be
very helpful Giving us an ideaof how to approach a lot of
(57:27):
problems and make sense of allthe data we're getting.
Speaker 2 (57:30):
That makes sense, not to replace anyone, but to use
it as a tool to sift through allthe data that is out there,
right yeah?
Speaker 3 (57:39):
So you know we're going to have a judgment, human
judgment, to figure out andjudge what AI is pulling out.
Can't teach AI that yet atleast All right.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
Well, thank you again for answering those questions.
And again, just a reminder forour listeners and viewers you
can send in a question as welland hear it right here on the
podcast.
Email us atinfoatmogesthennardcom.
You can also leave us avoicemail with your question for
Dr Dan Kebler to answer at949-257-2436.
(58:09):
And again, make sure to go tomagesthennardcom to get up to
speed with the latest on thepodcast, see the latest episodes
and make sure to subscribe onyour favorite platform as well.
That does it for this episode.
We'll see you next week.
Clinical neuroscience is showing humans to be way
more complex than simply justtheir brain, although of course
the brain is very, veryimportant.
But brains don't think.
People think.
How do you get from brainprocesses to what it's like to
be you?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to Purposeful Lab and Lodge Center podcast.
I'm Catherine Hadre with myco-host, Dr Dan Kiebler.
Okay, episode three.
We've talked about the brain,the evolution of the brain,
We've talked about psychologyand the development of the brain
and adolescence.
Exactly Today we're going to betalking about the mind.
And where does the mind comefrom?
(00:45):
And we really couldn't bejoined by a better gas doctor,
sharon Derix.
She her background is she was aneuroscientist, a brain imaging
expert.
Now her focus is on Christianapologetics.
She's an adjunct lecturer atthe Oxford Center for Christian
Apologetics.
She is a doctorate in brainimaging from the University of
Cambridge and has held researchpositions at the University of
(01:07):
Oxford, uk and the MedicalCollege of Wisconsin here in the
US, but grateful to speak withher from across the pond.
She's the author of a few books, including the book that's most
relevant for these purposes AmI Just my Brain?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, that title Am I Just my Brain?
Sums up the million dollarquestion about consciousness.
How do we explain the richconscious experience that we
have Our mind, our feeling, ourperception that we have free
will, that we can do what wewant, we can deliberate about
our actions, that other peoplehave free will?
And how do we juxtapose thatwith this idea that the brain is
(01:46):
a physical organ that we candescribe and models physical
laws?
So are we just our brain or isthere something more?
Is there any material aspect tous?
Can we be reduced to the brain?
We'll get into that questionwith her.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Can the brain explain everything that's going on here
?
Well, I'm interested to hearwhat she has to say.
So here's our conversation withDr Derek.
Dr Sharon Derek, we're sograteful that you're joining us
from across the pond.
Thank you so much.
First off, do you mind walkingus through your background as a
(02:20):
neuroscientist and letting usknow what you're up to today?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Absolutely, and it's a pleasure to be here.
So I actually started myjourney in science studying
biochemistry.
That was my undergraduatedegree subject, which I loved,
and I loved discovering what washappening, in a sense, at a
(02:45):
microscopic level.
But I wasn't too interested inthe research involved in that
and wanted to study largersystems and somehow that led me
into neuroscience and brainimaging and actually this whole
(03:07):
technique of MRI magneticresonance imaging which is a
means of looking inside of thehuman body without cutting into
it, because it's able to harnessthe body's natural kind of
water and construct a 3D imageof the human body.
And then, of course, functionalMRI being able to look at brain
(03:28):
function when it's engaged indifferent mental tasks.
This fascinated me.
I discovered it actually whileI was still an undergraduate.
Some friends along the corridorwere studying MRI for their
third year physics project and Ibegan to kind of find ways to
(03:50):
kind of look into this and studythis technique myself, which
led me via an internship in thepharmaceutical industry in
Switzerland to a PhD inCambridge at an imaging lab on
the Edinburghx Hospital site aspart of the University of
(04:13):
Cambridge.
So that was kind of how I cameto be in that field and I ended
up.
I don't know if I ended upstudying initially some of the
methodology involved inneuroimaging.
It was at a time when thistechnique was really still
(04:37):
really being trying to beunderstood by scientists.
What was it measuring, howcould we improve the kind of
parameters to get the bestsignal out of the MRI scanner,
and so on.
So my PhD was quitemethodological.
It was involved in tweakingvarious parameters and seeing
the impact that it had.
(04:59):
And then I went from there to doa postdoc, actually in the US
at the Medical College ofWisconsin, and there I was
looking at something quitedifferent human cocaine abuse
this is an ethically approvedstudy by the US government and
looking at the impact thatcocaine had on the human brain.
(05:23):
And that was fascinating and amassive privilege to be involved
in.
And then I came back to the UKand did some more research after
my study in apologetics.
Yeah, so that's a little bit ofmy journey.
I don't know how it sounds tosomeone on the outside it might
(05:45):
sound a bit odd, but it's beenquite an adventure.
It's fascinating.
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So your background as a neuroscientist this is sort
of what we've been looking atthis season on the podcast is
looking at the human brain, theevolution of the brain and
behavior and how the braindevelops and so forth.
And a lot of times,particularly in the scientific
community, people think oh well,we can image the brain, so we
know that allows us tounderstand human behavior.
So if we could show whatregions of the brain are active
(06:15):
that can tell us, oh, we knowexactly, we can reduce behavior
down to just neurons firing inthe brain.
And then that leaves us withthis question of what is the
mind?
What is this consciousexperience I'm having?
How does that relate?
Is that something you thinkthat neuroscience can ever get a
grip on?
That question of what the mindis or its tools not appropriate
(06:39):
for that?
How does that, in your view,the limits of neuroscience or
what can it do?
Yeah well, great question.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
And I guess, as we get into the whole conversation
around, whether we are just ourbrains, as a lot of people think
we are, and of course, I wrotea book with precisely that title
Am I Just my Brain?
Exactly, one of the responsesthat we give is that we don't
just have a brain, we also havea mind, and of course, how you
(07:13):
define the mind depends on theview that you have.
I mean, a definition that I usedin my book was from the Oxford
English Dictionary, which saysthat the mind is the seat of
awareness, thought, volition,feeling and memory.
In other words, in addition toour brain with all of its
(07:34):
neurons and synapses andchemicals and physical processes
, we also have a mind, with allof its thoughts and feelings and
emotions and memories and so on.
And so we have this innerreality, which we can certainly
define in terms of what we thinkit is, but in terms of whether
(07:59):
the scientific method can accessit, Well, that's a whole other
question, and it's part of theresponse that I give to this
question that, yes, you canmeasure what's going on in your
brain perfectly well, but inorder to know what's going on in
your mind, measuring stuff inyour brain doesn't reveal that
(08:22):
to us.
You are the only one that canreveal to another person what's
going on in your mind, and sosome people would argue that the
sciences are not able to accessthe mind in the same way that
we can access chemical processesin the brain.
(08:42):
That's a different phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
But I think this sets us up nicely for this exact
conversation we'll be havingwith you.
Can you just continue to expandon what is what would be called
the materialist's approach tounderstanding the mind and this
idea that really, you know, thebrain and the mind are the same
thing?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, I mean.
So the important thing to sayis that there are lots of
different positions out there,and what I did in my brain was
try and summarize the field andcondense it into a few
understandable positions, and Ithink for a lot of people this
(09:22):
subject can seem veryinaccessible, and I tried to
make it accessible.
So I think that a materialistwould take one of two views One,
the first one being thatessentially, the mind is the
brain, which is to say thatthere isn't, yeah, that mental
(09:46):
states are brain states, mentalprocesses are brain processes,
which kind of means that therereally isn't anything.
It is like to be you, there'sjust brain activity.
And this is not a view thatevery materialist would hold,
but it is a view that somematerialists hold and they would
(10:10):
say that really, all of yourthoughts, feelings, emotions,
memories are coming from yourbrain.
In a sense, you are your brain.
Your thoughts, your behaviors,your decisions, your personality
, it's all driven by processesinside of your skull, which is
(10:32):
another way of saying, really,that there isn't such a thing as
the mind.
Mental states are brain states.
Mental processes are brainprocesses, which, when you
really boil it down and takethat view to its logical
conclusion, it's essentiallysaying that there isn't
something that it is like to beyou, it's just your brain.
(10:57):
But of course that has some verysignificant implications At a
logical level.
It's incoherent.
The person expressing there theview is saying that my first
person perspective on the worldis that there is no first person
perspective, there isn't a selfand you can't really even
(11:18):
express that without referenceto some sort of self.
So it's logically incoherent.
And of course we don't live asthough that is the case.
We treat people's kind ofspeech and views and opinions as
if they are coming from them,not from forces beyond their
control.
If it's coming from forcesbeyond your control, then what
(11:41):
are we to do with thatinformation?
What does it even mean if it'snot coming from you as a person?
And of course, where I land inthe book is that we don't live
as though this is the case.
Logically it doesn't make sense.
And also clinical neuroscienceis showing humans to be way more
complex than simply just theirbrain, although of course the
(12:02):
brain is very, very important.
But brains don't think.
People think using their brains, and so there's lots that we
could say.
There's another materialistposition, which is that the
brain creates the mind.
The brain generates the mind,but there are also problems with
(12:28):
that.
That we might want to come tolater, because you still have to
get around the problem of howdo you get from brain processes
to what it's like to be you.
Even if you put the word createin there, or generate, that
doesn't get you round what DavidChalmers refers to as the hard
(12:48):
problem how on earth donon-conscious neurons generate
conscious human beings?
This is not straightforward,it's not easy, it's not a
foregone conclusion, and sothere are all kinds of problems.
Even with that view, which isseen as a more moderate
materialist position, it stillruns up against the same
(13:09):
problems that the view of mentalstates being synonymous with
brain states.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, I think that experiential argument, I think,
is one of the strongest onesthat nobody actually behaves as
if they are just packing neuronsand we've evolved in a sense to
try to understand otherpeople's minds.
We want to.
We try to draw out what's intheir mind.
We don't try to draw out howare they working as an algorithm
(13:40):
.
We're drawn to that and thereason that we have these
conversations is because we wantto get to the truth, we want to
see what's the wisdom you havein your mind and learn from that
and other minds that we want toget to something.
That's true.
And nobody acts as if theyaren't in control of their
(14:01):
actions.
In a certain sense, we all knowfrom brain imaging that our
actions aren't always free, thatthere should be reflection of
things and so forth.
But at the end of the day, whenwe deliberate about something,
we really feel that we have thiscontrol over our actions, that
we're thinking, we're processingthem, and to deny that seems to
(14:22):
deny that we are very existence.
It seems to me and there arepeople that just deny that we
have that, daniel Dennett beingone who just says well, it's
just an illusion, but you haveto explain why we have that
illusion.
It's very, very.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
But the problem is, if actually it's illusory, then
how do we know that Dennett'sown opinion isn't a product of
that same illusion?
So it becomes impossible to sayanything meaningful about
anything, and any reference tothe eye or the self means
nothing.
And I think there's a role herefor and I actually don't
(15:03):
mention this in my book, butthere's a role here for
intuition.
We have a sense that we existand we live as though we do.
There's actually a whole kindof globe full of people that are
of that viewpoint.
And do our intuitions tell usanything about reality?
Do they lead us to truth?
And I think we need to.
(15:24):
What I'm trying to do in myapproach to this subject is take
what is said in philosophy andin the lecture theatre seriously
, but also take it out of thatarena into reality and look at
how do we actually live, what dohuman beings do in the clinic
as well, and look at a holisticview of human beings and try and
(15:46):
reach conclusions about humanidentity, taking all of that
into account.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That being said, now that we've heard these different
arguments from what amaterialist might think of what
the mind-body relationship is,can you walk us through your
response and again your years ofstudying the brain?
What is your take on themind-body relationship?
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, thank you.
So initially I think I set outto propose one particular
viewpoint that I thought wasgoing to kind of solve the
solution, but solve the questionof am I just my brain?
What I ended up doing wassaying you know, there are
(16:32):
actually lots of other ways ofdescribing human beings than
simply choking it all down tothe chemicals inside of their
head, and so I mean, I've putforward the view already that
non reductive physicalism, oremergentism, that the brain
creates the mind.
That's one of the views that Ipropose as an alternative, the
(16:54):
challenge being that people thathold that view still have to
solve how non conscious neuronsgenerate the conscious mind.
But, of course, if God exists,then we didn't just start with
physical neurons, we startedwith a conscious mind, and so
there are a number of Christiantheists that solve the problem,
(17:15):
but through the existence ofGod's, with that particular view
.
Two other viewpoints that I havefound helpful.
One is substance dualism, thatsays that we don't just have a
physical brain, we also have anon physical mind, and these two
things work very closelytogether, but they are distinct
(17:36):
entities and therefore nonphysical.
The non physical mind can bringabout changes in the physical
brain and vice versa.
And of course, the challengethat substance dualists have to
resolve is how on earth does anon physical mind influence the
physical brain and how do wemarry that with the sciences
(17:57):
that seem to show these twothings as seeming to look at the
same thing and being so, sointegrated?
So that's another view.
And then another position thatis growing in popularity is
panpsychism, which comes fromthe Greek pan meaning all, and
suke meaning soul, andessentially is saying look,
(18:19):
let's not start with physicalbuilding blocks to try and
explain the mind.
Why don't we make human, thehuman mind, primary and
fundamental and build a casefrom there?
And this view basically sayseverything has, possesses
consciousness.
In effect, there is kind ofmind infused throughout the
(18:41):
universe and throughout physicalthings, and so there are levels
of consciousness, yes, inhumans and in every living thing
, and even down to the atomicscale.
And that's a fascinating viewand it certainly puts back on
the table the centrality and theimportance of human
(19:02):
consciousness that we can't deny, this most central facet of
what it means to be human.
But it tries to explain it andit's a really helpful view.
But the challenge that peopleholding this view need to
resolve is how do you explainthe very different levels of
(19:23):
consciousness that human beingshave, even compared with the
most advanced primates.
So every view has itschallenges.
But one of the things I wantedto say is there are lots of ways
of thinking about the mindbrain relationship.
It's not simply that we have toaccept that neurons explain
(19:46):
everything.
So, those were some of theapproaches that I took in my
book.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah, it seems like, no matter what approach you take
, you get down to thatfundamental, hard problem
consciousness that there isnever.
How do you relate somethingthat's clearly non-physical,
something that I can onlyexperience my consciousness, you
can experience yours, but Ican't hand you a pound of my
consciousness or something.
(20:12):
But how do we reduce that tomaterial world?
So even in panpsychism thereisn't an obvious.
I just say, well, it just is,it's rather, we don't have to
explain it, just really it'sthere, it doesn't.
It's a fundamental property ofexistence.
So all of these trying to goback and forth between the brain
and consciousness, theredoesn't seem to be an obvious
(20:35):
route to do that.
There's a mystery there at theheart of the human person and I
just want to get your take on.
You mentioned briefly thatneuroscience, modern
neuroscience, is showing howbehavior is more than just the
brain.
It's limited, what it shows,that it's more complex than what
we might originally havethought.
What is your take on whatneuroscience is opening up to us
(20:59):
?
Because often you get the ideaneuroscience is showing that, oh
, when you think of God, thisarea of your brain is lit up so
we can explain God.
So you get that.
Very trite arguments aboutreduction in this, what would
you say would be a more accurateunderstanding of where we are.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, great question.
And I think that what theneuroscience is showing is that,
clearly, mind and brain areconnected.
My time spent in brain imaging.
If you put someone in an MRIscanner and you give them a
mental task that uses their mindfor example, their working
memory, you know, memorize thesenumbers as they appear on the
(21:37):
screen and then retell them toyourself a minute later, what
you see is networks in theirbrain light up corresponding to
the use of their mind.
Clearly, mind and brain areconnected and there is no doubt
about this.
And but just because they'reconnected does not necessarily
(21:59):
mean they are identical orsynonymous or that one overrules
and overpowers the other, andthis is an error that is being
made all the time.
And, of course, you know,crossing the boundary between
what empirical science can tellus and what is a philosophical
(22:22):
position that we are holding andbringing to the data is
something that happens all thetime as well.
And I guess in the area of, youknow what's happening in the
brain during religiousexperience or when we pray.
Of course, there are networksin the brain that are active
(22:42):
when people are praying andactually, you know, christians
believe that we are physical andspiritual beings, so that is
actually exactly what we wouldexpect.
We're integrated physical andspiritual beings, and the
presence of activity in thebrain doesn't negate the
genuineness of the experienceitself of what is actually
(23:06):
happening.
We didn't get to talking aboutit earlier.
I probably should havementioned it earlier, but
philosophers talk about thisthing called qualia, and qualia
are, if you like, qualitativeexperiences that are impossible
to describe physically.
One being you know, like, forexample, the smell of coffee if
(23:26):
we were to try and describe thesmell of coffee but all you have
at your disposal are physicaldescriptions.
You can't actually get to thesmell itself.
You know the chemical structureof caffeine or the physiology
of it as you digest it.
Are brilliant and elegantscientific descriptions, but
(23:48):
they don't get you to the smellitself, and they use this to
make the point that actually,life is full of qualia, and the
biggest qualia of all being theexperience of what it is to be.
You can't be captured inphysical descriptions, and,
similarly with religiousexperience, the experience
itself is very distinct to thenetworks in the brain that are
(24:11):
active, and just because youhave brain activity does not
negate the validity of theexperience itself.
Just like in a romantic love,there are all kinds of studies
that are conducted to see what'shappening in the brain during
the process of someone being inlove, and of course we see all
(24:35):
kinds of reward networks to beactive, and none of that is used
as evidence to undermine thegenuineness of the fact that
that person is experiencing aromantic affection towards
another human being.
Of course that's extremely validand it's happening in parallel
to what's happening in theirbrain, and of course we wouldn't
(24:57):
use it to question the validityof the relationship itself.
The relationship and itsexistence is the reason why
there's activity in the brain,and the same goes for religious
experience and what's happeningwhen we pray.
This is simply telling youwhat's happening in your brain
while somebody is connectingwith the divine.
It doesn't undermine the divine.
(25:20):
It's a reflection that we'reintegrated physical and
spiritual beings, and soChristians and people of faith
don't need to be afraid of itand afraid of this kind of data.
We should be more concerned ifthere's nothing happening in our
brains when we're praying andengaged in this kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And speaking of that integration, can you speak to
how changes to the body doaffect mental function?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think we see this interaction between
mind and brain working soclosely all the time.
You know there's the you knowthere are obviously things in
terms of, like healthy fetaldevelopment.
You know, you see that as thehuman brain develops, then
levels of consciousness and thedevelopment of their mind and
(26:09):
its capabilities happens inparallel with the development of
their brain.
And we also see that outside,after birth, you know, in the
development of children and soon.
Then we also see it when, whendisease and damage come to the
brain, brain injury or braindegeneration, that there is a
(26:32):
parallel thing happening in themind.
As the brain degenerates, youknow mental memory and
personality are affected, and so, you know, changes in the brain
do affect the mind.
Of course.
One of the points, though, thatI make in my book and when I
(26:54):
speak about this is that that isgenerally the case, but it also
isn't the whole story.
There are instances where whatis happening in the mind doesn't
seem to match up actually withwith what you see in the brain.
Can say more about that maybelater in our conversation, but
(27:14):
there are obviously.
In general, when we look atclinical medicine, brain, brain
states and mental states do seemto work in parallel.
There does seem to be a closecorrelation, but there are some
exceptions to that rule.
And then, of course, similarly,the mind can affect the brain,
(27:36):
and this is another reason whyyou are more than just your
brain, because the mind ispowerful in its impact on the
body and brain.
It's something that scientistsof philosophers refer to as
downward causation, even just atthe most basic level of all of
the kind of self help books thatsay change your mind and you
(27:56):
change your life.
You know, there's something inthat.
That's the thing, that thatactually the mind has a powerful
effect on the body and brain.
We see it in the placebo effect, we see it in psychosomatic
illness, we see it in, you know,sports psychology, that math,
sports matches are lost, and onenot simply on the physical
(28:18):
ability of the person but onwhat's going on in their mind
while they're playing as well.
And there's so much we couldsay about the mind brain
interaction.
It seems that both can affectthe other.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
It's not one way traffic.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It's actually a very dynamic relationship.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, that's what we talked about how habit formation
, like I'm going to do this andyou decide I'm going to do this
over and over again, makes iteasier to and changes, you see,
physical changes in the braincan be associated with, you know
, and those.
You know.
This two ways street is very,very true.
I think one of the things thatyou hear often is that, oh well,
(28:55):
if we, you know that our freewill, you know, is limited or
doesn't exist because we canshow.
Oh well, you know, the brainhas fired in this pattern and
that's why you have thisconscious experience, because
there is a correlation betweenyou know certain, you know
psychological damage or notbeing, you know getting
attention when you're younger.
That affects then your behaviorlater on.
(29:17):
So everything is justdetermined by your past
experiences.
Right, and so you know as youknow.
So there is a certain aspect ofthis causation where the way
the brain is structured affectsour behavior.
But you also have this otherdirection that you're not
limited.
Yeah, right, and is that?
(29:37):
Is that what you?
How would you respond to peoplethat?
Because that argument that wedon't have free wills, really,
you know, it's a very strongargument in the culture of
neuroscience.
I think, whereas we can explaineverything you do, based upon
you know what your brain stateis at this time, based on your
past experiences.
So I love to get your thoughtson that.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, I think that I would.
I definitely above the view.
I'm not going to deny thatthere are levels of determinism
in our makeup.
You know, at the very basiclevel we're determined by the
genes from our parents and thereare personality traits and, as
well as our, you know, physicalappearance, and there are all
(30:19):
kinds of things that are to someextent determined by things
that are beyond us and beyondour control.
But does that mean that we haveno ability to bring about
meaningful change in the worldat all?
I think that's a very differentquestion and I think, again, the
(30:40):
answer that you give to am Ijust my brain impacts whether
you believe that to be true.
Of course, if we are.
I mean, I had a conversationjust last week with a student
that believed that they wereentirely determined by forces
beyond their control andtherefore they had no free will.
And I said to them then whatdoes your question even mean to
(31:01):
me?
And because it's not comingfrom you, it's coming from
forces beyond your control, it'snot being held by you and he
said yeah, that's what I believe.
And I said but we're not livingas though that's the case,
because we're actually having aconversation, because the
appropriate response to yourquestion, if there's no free
(31:22):
will, is to ignore it and tocontinue on or to just simply do
nothing.
But we're living as though it'scoming from you and I'm
responding to you, and so on.
We don't live as though there'sno self.
We don't live as thougheverything we think, even
thoughts, like everything youthink, that's not coming from
you, that's coming from forcesbeyond your control.
(31:43):
We don't live as though that isthe case.
We award grades to high schoolstudents on the basis that they
learn the information and theyperformed in the exam and they
deserve the grade, good or bad.
We reward bravery in war.
We punish crime.
We have law courts that do thatprecisely on the basis that the
(32:05):
person was the bearer of theiractions, however determined they
may be by certain factors intheir background and upbringing,
but there's still a sense thatthey could choose and they had
alternatives in that moment andtherefore can be held morally
responsible.
You see, there are hugeimplications for justice, for
(32:25):
legal decisions, around moralresponsibility, if there's no
free will and we don't live asthough that is the case, and so
I think there's a lot ofproblems with that view.
I don't think the neurosciencenecessitates that we hold that
view either.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Well, the fact that we have that brain plasticity
and have the ability to rewireour brain until the day we die,
I think speaks to how we canchange our habits and change our
behavior and we're notdetermined by that.
One thing I've heard, Sharon,people say is the brain is like
the hardware and the mind is thesoftware.
(33:01):
What do you think of thatcomparison?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
You know, we need analogies and we need things
that we can get a hold of,because these can be quite
abstract things for people, andparticularly if someone wouldn't
necessarily count themselves tobe a philosopher that's
spending a lot of their timethinking about this, or a
neuroscientist or whatever.
And so whatever analogies wecan come up with that help
(33:28):
people to grasp kind of what'sgoing on is helpful, and to some
extent the software hardwareillustration is helpful.
Of course, every analogy breaksdown.
It doesn't have it's, it's nota full, a full kind of
explanation.
I'm not an IT specialist.
I'm married to one, thankfullyand so I don't really understand
(33:50):
whether hardware and softwarefully interact with each other.
I think that they seem to justoperate in parallel, that the
hardware sustains the software.
I don't know that software canbring about changes in the
electronics.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I don't think electronics can ultimately
generate software programs, youknow so.
I think it's helpful in ithelps us understand the
different categories, but it hasits limits as well.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
You know one thing I'd be curious to get your
thoughts on again, as we'retalking about the mind and brain
, we hear sometimes thesestories of near death
experiences in our culture.
What does that speak to?
You know?
What is that, in your opinion,reveal about the mind?
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, I think this is one of the examples in the
clinic that I have been thinkingabout, that.
You know, if they're true, theyperhaps indicate that we are
more than just our brains.
I mean the concept of thenear-death experience that we've
been around since the 70s, thesort of 50 years of data and
(35:10):
story that have been gatheredand collected and actually
studied fairly systematically bysome cardiologists and
neuropologists and psychiatrists, with studies in the UK, the
Netherlands, the USA, and Iguess what it is is an instance
(35:31):
of, if you like, a kind ofreligious kind of aspect to
something happening in aclinical context.
So it's sort of theintersection of these two kinds
of conversation.
And of course what we're seeingis people upon resuscitation
(35:55):
who have been in a state ofreversible clinical death, have
reported being conscious duringthat time, of being clinically
dead with no detectable brainsignal and no heart signal, and
have reported, you know, andover the years the features of a
near-death experience seem tobe kind of quite common, have
(36:19):
commonalities between people,and this is fascinating.
And you know, I think if you arejust your brain, this kind of
data set makes no sense, itseems strange and of course a
materialist would say it'sultimately, there must still be
(36:41):
some activity in the brain thatis giving rise to this, and we
need to take that seriously.
But one thing that we can say isthat, you know, there's
something about the lucidity andthe vividness of these
experiences that people report,and some of the things that they
(37:04):
report that can be corroborateddon't seem to be indicative of
a brain in shutdown.
You know, if these are the lastmoments, the last bits of
activity in a dying brain, andyet here they are, seeing whole
landscapes and meeting deceasedrelatives that they didn't
necessarily know had even diedor even existed in one case, and
(37:31):
extraordinary things that theycould never have known in the
natural.
How do we explain that for abrain in shutdown?
There seems to be adisproportionality there.
However, I guess if God exists,if there's a non-physical realm
in addition to a physical realm, then we at least have a
(37:53):
framework for making sense ofnear-death experiences.
Not that we have all of theanswers and it doesn't answer,
you know, there are still lotsof questions around this but we
do have a framework because ifGod exists, we believe there's a
non-physical realm, a spiritualrealm as well as a physical
realm, and so and we alsobelieve that death isn't the end
(38:14):
of the physical body, thatdeath isn't the end of the
person, and so there is aframework for making sense of
near-death experiences.
I think they're fascinating andI think I want to think about
them a bit more.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, they are interesting, I think.
At the very least, like yousaid, they put in question how
well do we understand theconnection between the brain and
the mental activity, and thatalone just gives us a pause for
humility and to step back andrather than say we have all the
answers here because it doesn'tmake sense from really any sort
of perspective that we sort ofoutline.
(38:49):
So it's very fascinating.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, and well along the lines shared, if they're
right.
I'd like to you know you canhear some more of your personal
story.
I'm sure that you're aChristian apologist today, but
my understanding is you werepreviously agnostic.
Do you mind walking us throughyour journey a bit and how your
time as a neuroscientisteventually led you to God?
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, yes, I.
So I grew up kind of not reallyin a very loving but sort of
religiously neutral homeware.
Questions about faith were justnot part of our daily life.
That wasn't kind of good or bad, it just was the way that it
(39:36):
was.
And I actually one of mymoments that I remember from my
childhood was having anawareness of my own
consciousness.
I was sort of sat by a windowlooking out at the rain and a
bit bored, and suddenly had aseries of questions come to mind
why can I think?
Why do I exist?
(39:58):
Why am I a living, breathing,conscious being?
I suddenly was thinking aboutmy own existence and those
questions seem to come fromnowhere, they just bubbled up to
the surface and and then thatwas it for a few years and I,
yeah, essentially arrived atuniversity.
(40:18):
Well, I knew that I love thesciences from my teenage years
and I went to university and Iarrived there as an agnostic At
A level.
At high school, my teacher, myA level biology teacher, had
given me a book by RichardDawkins called the Selfish Gene
and I essentially kind of, youknow, just absorbed this view
(40:41):
that we're material beings andour ultimate purpose is in kind
of our genetic, kind ofusefulness and passing that on
to future generations.
And I essentially absorbed thisview and arrived at university
assuming that God didn't existand that you couldn't be a
(41:05):
scientist and believe in God atthe same time.
And I actually, in the veryfirst few days of being at
university, went to an eventcalled Grilla Christian, where
there were four Christians in arow and you could ask any
question that you wanted, and Iactually put my hand up about
(41:25):
halfway through the evening andasked my own question surely you
can't believe in God and be acredible scientist at the same
time?
And actually I was given theanswer Well, yes, you can, and
that I'm asking someone tochoose between God and science.
It's a bit like asking someoneto choose between the processes
(41:47):
and programs underlying Facebookor Instagram and the existence
of Mark Zuckerberg or KevinSystrom, and actually we think
about that for a moment andrealize that those two things
can perfectly well existtogether.
In fact, together they give youa more complete understanding
(42:08):
of Facebook or Instagram, andtrying to understand Instagram
just by means of the processesand programs leaves you with
only a partial understanding.
You need to actually speak tothe CEO, the founder, in order
to fully understand it, and sothat was really helpful to me.
That opened up a whole horizonof asking more questions and
(42:32):
grilling more Christians, and itwas actually about halfway
through my time studyingbiochemistry that I came to
realize that it made sense to me.
The evidence around theresurrection of Jesus Christ
that actually the reason whythere was an empty tomb there
were a set of people that werereally convinced that they'd
(42:54):
seen the risen Jesus Christ, andso I looked into all of that
and became persuaded that it wasbelievable and changed my views
at the age of 20.
So that's kind of how I came tofaith.
I then continued and moved intothe area of neuroscience and
(43:16):
did my PhD after that, so thatwas kind of the process involved
in that.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Yeah, I love that answer that Zuckerberg and.
Facebook analogy there thatworks pretty well for the God
and the universe.
You've been at Cambridge anddoing an apologetic work at
Oxford and being at these large,prestigious universities,
there's always a sense of, oh,there's this conflict between
science and faith.
The more educated you get.
(43:43):
What has been your experienceat these places in terms of a
person of faith who's involvedin science?
You see this, you get a lot ofsort of pushback or what's the
dialogue like that.
You've been able to engage withother people, particularly
those that disagree with yourposition at these places.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah, I think.
I mean I'm not working for theuniversity, but I think that
Oxford is a wonderful place forthe exchange of ideas and there
are many opportunities to engagein healthy debates and
conversation where, for the timebeing, different views are
welcome at the table, and I hopethat that will be upheld.
(44:33):
And alongside, of course, manypeople that think science and
faith are in conflict are, thereare many scientists who believe
in God and are actually at theforefront of their fields in the
scientific realm, and we'rejust on a panel at the weekend
with somebody who has a, youknow, a Royal Award from the
(44:57):
Royal Family for their servicesto science, looking at black
holes and the night sky and soon.
And there are actually manyformidable people like Professor
John Lennox, who is EmeritusProfessor of Mathematics at
Oxford University, who debatedRichard Dawkins in 2006.
(45:17):
And many people say, actuallyhe won that debate on the basis
of highly credible argument.
You've got someone likeAlistair McGrath, again Emeritus
Professor of Science andReligion for 10 years at Oxford
University, who also has engagedRichard Dawkins and other
(45:38):
eminent thinkers and, of course,very much holds the view that
science and religion have amutually enriching relationship
with each other.
And there are many peoplehistorically who held these two
things together.
Eminent scientists, like youknow, johannes Kepler, isaac
(46:01):
Newton, boyle of Boyle's Law,and so this is actually, if you
look back in the annals ofhistory, you see many people who
who actually were theists, whobelieved in God.
It was actually their belief inGod that drove forward and
inspired their science,precisely on the basis that
there's order in nature, becausethere's an order behind it.
(46:27):
And if there's, if God exists,we should expect to find
principles and laws and theoriesthat we can actually study and
make sense of.
That makes actually way moresense than if, if God doesn't
exist, it's all random and it'sall subject to kind of.
You know, it's the basis fororder in nature and indeed order
(46:48):
in the human mind is much morequestionable if God doesn't
exist.
So, there's so much we can sayabout that, but there are many
eminent people in Oxford who areGod-fearers and who engage in
healthy debate on this question.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
Yeah, that's usually that faith in science that
people have.
It really makes more sense ifyou have this faith that there's
an order and an intelligibilityand that my intelligibility can
understand that and that's whyyou know this myth of science
and religion conflict really isthat, and I think most credible
historians of science, inparticular with the last 30, 40
years, which is sort of put thatto bed in academia, but it
(47:27):
still persists in the popularimagination, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
So yeah, it does.
Yeah, and I think I mean whereI kind of landed in my thinking,
the question that I had as achild, that I didn't even ask to
be asking why can I think it isa really good question, you
know, when all is said and done,whatever you think the
mind-brain relationship is, whycan we think in the first place?
(47:53):
And this is a question thatthat science can't answer and
was never intended to answer,and we need to step beyond the
scientific method in order tofind answers to it.
And if God doesn't exist, thenyou have to try and explain the
conscious mind from a universeof non-conscious matter and
(48:14):
non-conscious neurons.
But if God does exist, we didn'tstart simply with non-conscious
matter.
We've lived in a consciousuniverse all along.
You know, the first verse ofGenesis says in the beginning
God created the heavens and theearth.
So before there was anythingphysical, there was mind in a
(48:35):
conscious community of Fatherand Son and Holy Spirit, which
is what Christians refer to asthe Trinity.
And so we have a way of solvingthe hard problem.
We didn't start with matter, westarted with a conscious being,
and humans are made in theimage of this God, in his kind
of reflection with his imprints.
And so why can we think?
(48:56):
We can think because God thinks, because God is a thinker, and
it's good and right that wethink, because we're made in the
image of a thinking God as well.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
I think just to kind of close it out and you've
already shared so much beautifulreflection there but can you
speak to how your research onthe brain has led you closer to
God and, in fact, what more haveyou learned about God because
of your research and because ofscience?
Speaker 1 (49:30):
I think that my day to day as a when I had just come
to faith, still as abiochemistry student, I was
really kind of in awe of thefact that I was studying parts
of the natural world that wereyet to be discovered.
It was actually a while ago andit was at a time when the Human
(49:52):
Genome Project was just gettinggoing, when we didn't really
know how long it was going totake and there was just so much
more to understand and Iremember thinking, wow, god
knows about that already andit's our privilege and our joy
to study it and to discover it.
I remember being really kind ofbowled over by that and the
(50:14):
fact that I could do that andalso be in a friendship with the
maker of it all himself.
That sort of blew my mind andwas a whole new dimension on
what it meant to be a scientist.
And as I moved intoneuroscience with that Christian
faith, it was again justwonderful to continue to study
(50:39):
the world that God has made.
If I'm honest, I learned moreabout what it means to trust God
when the data didn't alwayscome that doesn't always come
when you wanted to.
It was kind of a bit lastminute for me and there were
some relational tensions in myPhD.
There's a gritty reality tothese things as well.
(50:59):
It's not this beautiful, serenekind of study of the natural
world.
So for me, my PhD and my earlyyears in neuroscience were more
about trusting this God that Ihad come to put my faith in, and
it was just a privilege to workwith people to study the
(51:21):
natural world, to use technologythat was emerging and that was
changing the world.
And yeah, I guess that's what Iwould say.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
But a privilege for us to have you on the program.
Thank you so much for joiningus and hopefully we can have you
back on at some other time.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Thank you so much.
I've loved being here.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Well, she is a fascinating personal journey, of
course, but her professionaljourney as well, I thought,
brought so much insight to whatwe're discussing this season on
consciousness.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Yeah, she's this unity of science and faith and
having a science background ondoing Christian apologetics.
I think one thing I reallyappreciated about her discussion
was that her honesty about thishard problem of consciousness.
No matter what view you take,there's still an open question
of how does this relate from thematerialist view to this view
(52:16):
that the consciousness emergesfrom the brain.
There's still that hard problemthat we don't fully understand
and we need to have somehumility about jumping to
conclusions about this.
But one of the things that shedid say that I think is worth
reiterating is the idea that webring philosophical and
theological assumptions to ourscience and usually people think
(52:38):
, oh, if you have some belief inGod, that's going to corrupt
your science.
But actually having a belief ina creator that's brought order
to the universe actuallyresonates and helps you
understand the science betterthan the opposite view, which is
just randomness and chance, andI think a lot of people think
the exact opposite thing Peoplebelieve in God's going to
(52:59):
corrupt your view of sciencewhen in fact know it.
It really puts it on a moresolid foundation, actually.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Suppose that proper framing and lens and everyone,
regardless whether or not theyknow it, has some kind of
philosophy in some kind of biasthat they're carrying with them.
But again, you set us up inepisode one talking about how
humans are unique and that wewant to know what is on
someone's mind.
And so to delve into more.
What is the mind?
Where does it come from?
(53:26):
Really interesting, and I thinkwe're going to have more
philosophical questions the nextfew episodes, especially that
we'll be able to get into.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Yeah, the next two episodes will be bringing in
philosophers to talk about whatis the human person, what is the
soul, what is consciousness?
Because, as you point out, alot of these questions get very
the science can only go so farand it opens up these
philosophical questions so wehave to think about it a
rational, reasonable way.
(53:55):
But the science can't answerthose.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Well, speaking of questions and answers, that
takes us now to the office hoursegment of the show.
So some questions for you.
This is actually significantnews in the science world, if
I'm understanding this right,because the FDA recently
approved ground breaking CRISPRgene editing therapy for sickle
(54:18):
cell disease.
Specifically you I mean you arean expert in cell biology Can
you explain what is CRISPR geneediting?
And anytime I hear about geneediting, my ears always perk up
and I always wonder okay, arethere any bioethical concerns
here?
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah with.
Crispr is just a technologythat allows us to do very
precise genetic editing to fixsmall genetic problems within
cells in a very cost effectiveand time effective manner.
So if there's a defect in thegene in the cell, you can, using
(54:55):
the CRISPR technology, you cancut out that defect and replace
it with the proper sequence,right?
I mean, obviously there'sethical issues if you're using
these on human embryos, forexample, but in this case this
is they're taking cells from anadult person blood stem cells.
They have a defective gene inthem.
They fix that with the CRISPRtechnology and then take the
cells that are fixed and putthem back into the person, the
(55:18):
person's own cells.
So now they have cells that areable to produce the hemoglobin,
produce proper red blood cellsand hopefully cure the sickle
cells.
So it's a great, you knowadvance, you know it's.
I think there's other thingsthat this technology will be
able to do to fix and helppeople with certain genetic
(55:40):
disorders.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
Wow, that's really exciting.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
So this is good news, like all around.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
Okay, here's another question Again.
Ai and the future of AItechnology continues to be a
major topic of conversation.
So lots of buzz, especially onthe impact of AI on specific
fields.
I'm curious how do you see AIimpacting scientific research in
particular?
Is it going to be a huge asset?
(56:06):
Are there some concerns there?
Speaker 3 (56:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be a huge asset.
I think there's obviouslyconcerns about you know how you
use the data and the informationyou get from an AI system,
particularly in biology.
We're talking today to ourguests about neuroimaging, so
you get all this data.
You can get huge amounts ofdata from different people about
their images of the brain indifferent conditions, but how do
(56:29):
you process this data and findpatterns in that right?
So AI is really good at takinglots of data and finding
patterns to that.
And so you know, in biology,right now we're in the era of
what's called big data.
We have, like you know, lots ofgenetic data.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
Spreadsheets and spreadsheets.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
Exactly whether it's neuroimaging data, genetic data,
and so you have these bigamounts of data and sorting
through and seeing patterns andconnections.
Ai is really good at that.
So getting the AI tools to beable to extract, sort of find
these patterns and these bigdata sets that we're getting, I
think is really going to behelpful in advancing medicine.
(57:04):
But you know AI, you know whatthe patterns it extracts.
You've got to then have humanslook through those and make sure
we're not missing something andlook through the AI, the
ethical implications, treatmentsand so forth that come out.
So it's not like AI pushingbutton and it tells you what we
need to do or it answers thequestion, but it's going to be
very helpful Giving us an ideaof how to approach a lot of
(57:27):
problems and make sense of allthe data we're getting.
Speaker 2 (57:30):
That makes sense, not to replace anyone, but to use
it as a tool to sift through allthe data that is out there,
right yeah?
Speaker 3 (57:39):
So you know we're going to have a judgment, human
judgment, to figure out andjudge what AI is pulling out.
Can't teach AI that yet atleast All right.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
Well, thank you again for answering those questions.
And again, just a reminder forour listeners and viewers you
can send in a question as welland hear it right here on the
podcast.
Email us atinfoatmogesthennardcom.
You can also leave us avoicemail with your question for
Dr Dan Kebler to answer at949-257-2436.
(58:09):
And again, make sure to go tomagesthennardcom to get up to
speed with the latest on thepodcast, see the latest episodes
and make sure to subscribe onyour favorite platform as well.
That does it for this episode.
We'll see you next week.
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