I wanted to highlight this lecture by Dr. Andrew Newberg, as I find this field to be incredibly exciting and I anxiously look forward to the field evolving more over time.
In this lecture, Dr. Newberg (back in 2010) outlines his ideas for the principles for this field he refers to as “Neurotheology” (some neuroscientists prefer “spiritual neuroscience”, while others prefer “Neurotheology”, and a few would rather not call it anything).
I would be interested in folk’s thoughts on Dr. Newberg’s ideas.
Thanks for putting those up; I should have included those as, indeed, they are brilliant reads and I encourage anyone interested in what goes on in the brain during spiritual practices and experiences to read through his publications.
I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture. My concern is how genetic dispositions are transferred from parent to child, i.e., did I inherit genes that code for my own personal religious convictions?
That’s a very good question.
My suspicions are that genes lend tendency through neurological design bias, but that due to the plasticity of our neurology being rather high, that genetic bias only goes fractionally so far; that experiential interaction has more impact on the form of neurology than genetic lending in most cases (some genetic lending impacts neurology very strongly to cause malformations which render the individual incapable of comprehending religious or spiritual interaction, so in these cases the genetic lending trumps experiential interaction).
Hi Jayson. I haven’t had time to watch the movie yet but I have read Newberg’s book. Right now I’m reading “My Stroke of Insight” by Bolte-Taylor a neuroscientist who suffered a CVA that put her in touch with a more spiritual reality she attributes to right brain consciousness. Supports the OP thesis.
I have read (and listend to many of her lectures) that case; it’s pretty interesting, and some of Dr. Newberg’s studies have supported the idea of neurological alteration from spiritual practices in individuals; specifically PFC and right side thalamus activity increase (in meditation practices). If the exercises are chronic, then increase in activity in the regions is more dominant and residual when doing other activities. So there is a correlation between the incident of Dr. Taylor which forced off-loading processing to her right hemisphere due to reduced functionality in her left hemisphere, and Dr. Newberg’s repeated finding of (often) right hemisphere activity increase during many (but not all) spiritual practice engagements (specifically in long-term practitioners).
What I want to see more study in neurotheology for is the evolutionary motives for various behaviors; or to at least look at the actions from this mindset for testing.
An example of what I mean by this is to test a null hypothesis against the hypothesis that behaviors like prayer are activities individuals may use (not all of the time, but some of the time) as an asset tool to put the pattern seeking want of the brain to functional use to problem solve vexing issues that otherwise ‘overwhelm’ the individual too much for them to solve with direct attention, and does so by imbuing the matter with great emotional value through focused ritual mantra-like activity (prayer).
That’s just one example, but I think things like this are entirely possible to achieve in testing; to test if such may or may not be possible.