cc
My name is Jeff Hardin. I'm a professor in the Zoology
Department and Religious
I'm also the faculty director for the Biology core curriculum
here on the UW-Madison Campus.
Ron Numbers and Executive Director, Ron Binsley,
I'd like to welcome you to our
of the Isthmus Society, faentitled Neuroscienceion
of the Spirit.
as a Metanexus local initiative, The Isthmus Society was founded
between the sciences and dedicated to promoting dialogue
campus and within the Madison religioncommunity.-Madison
And we gratefully acknowledge the support of several sponsors.
First, the Metanexus Institute; second, the Lubar Institute
for the Study of the Abrahamic
New College Madison. Religions; and third,
support, which makes all this We're verypossible. for their
We're also grateful to you
to be with us today. for braving the elements
for a real treat. Before we begin, just one brief
reminder. If you'd like to receive email
notifications of upcoming Isthmus Society events, we would
like to get your email, so that we can send those to you.
We have a sign up here in front which we would appreciate
you adding your email address to
In addition you can go to the onIsthmus Society Web site,g.
which is isthmussociety.org where you can find information
about the Isthmus Society,
and upcoming events. its board members
will be helpful for today's Ipresentation, which you cant
download afterwards.
an explosion in our understanding of how the brain
functions.
of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century on synaptic
connections in the brain, to Roger Sperry's pioneering
work on interactions
brain in the mid-20th century. between various portions of the
single neuron recordings, PET scanning, functional MRI
imaging of the brain
These kinds of approaches have while it is active.
of how the brain works. And the question that we present
ourselves, that presents itself to us because of all of these
enhancements in our understanding of brain function
is what is the significance of our understanding of brain
function in a modern scientific sense, for our understanding
of religious perspectives on the human person, and for
our understanding of what people
what we traditionally consider are doing when they engage in
So, that's what we want to to be religious activities.
We have some outstanding address today.
address that. Our two plenary speakers will
each speak for approximately
And our first plenary talk, Dr. Nancey Murphy,
a Christian philosopher from
in Pasadena, will talk to us Fuller Theological Seminary
understanding of neuroscience might affect historical
conceptions of the human person,
as our idea of the soul. including such things
Dr. Richard Davidson from the UW-Madison Psychology Department
will talk about some of his work
of the brain when it is engaging in analyzing functional states
which at least some people in certain kinds of activities,
the religious dimension have of the human person.t of
And then following our two
have a response by Steve Wald from the UW History of Science
Department. And he'll provide some
reflections on what we've heard this afternoon.
And following that, we'll open
which can be posed to any of it up for general questions,
So that's the rough schedule our panel participants.
And let me begin then, by introducing our first speaker,
Dr. Nancey Murphy.
Nancey received her bachelor's A native of Nebraska,
and then went on to do from Creighton University
University of California PhD work in philosophy at the
PhD in 1980. Berkeley, and received her
for punishment, she went on Tfor a second doctorate,on
a Doctorate of Theology at the
also at Berkeley, which she Graducompleted in 1987.ion,
Since 1989, Nancy has been
Philosophy at Fuller Theological a professor of Christian
And Nancey's first book, Seminary at Pasadena.
of Scientific Reasoning" "Theology in an Age
the Templeton Foundation, the American Academy of Religion
and I think really established
speaks to philosophical issues her reputation as someone who
religion and science. Nancey currently serves on the
board of the Center for Theology
in Berkeley. and the Natural Sciences
committee for conferences on She's a member of the planning
by the Vatican Observatory. She's also an ordained minister
in the Church of the Brethren.
publications include, Som"Bodies and Soulsent
or Spirited Bodies,"
a Co-edited volume entitled, by Cambridge University Press;
Systems, Organisms, Persons," from Oxford University Press;
and "Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? A Philosophical and
Neurobiological Perspective on Moral Responsibility and
Free Will," from Oxford University Press.
That last work was Co-authored
Warren Brown. So it is our great privilege
to have Nancey brave the weather
Nancy. from Pasadena to be with us.
Well, since I'm not going to have a white Christmas,
I'll thank you for this Advent
Thanks so much to the Isthmus Society for the invitation to
be here, and your co-sponsors.
especially to Ron Binsley, who Thanks also to Jeff, and
to find a time that hProfessor Davidson and I could
be together on the same day.
in a whole calendar year, Anor something like that.day
And I want to thank Steve in advance, assuming that you're
going to say very nice things about my paper.
( laughter )
Well, I titled my talk How's that for a set up?
And I begin with a question. "Science and the Soul."
I know, muscle, bones, fat, Whaall that stuff you studyof?
in biology class. But is that all?
Most Christians, throughout most
that there is another part, ofgenerally called the soul.ed
This second part has been considered quite important.
It is often thought of that which is saved for eternal life.
It is thought to account for the
in relationship with God. Other religions have similar
concepts. The doctrine of reincarnation
in eastern religions
of an immortal soul that lives presupposes the existence
of different bodies. a number of lives in a series
is developing an understanding Increasingly though, our culture
that sees us as purely physical. of the human person
from sciences such as biology. Contributions to this view come
pointed many in this direction The theory of evolution already
Philosophers are increasingly arguing such a view.
The most dramatic evidence now
It seems to be the brain that does most if not all of what was
once attributed to the mind or
So, we're heading for a major conflict between science
and religion, huh?
My goal in this lecture to convince you that there is
another option for Christians.
account of the human person I is compatible with Christiant
teaching. In fact, more compatible with
original Christian teaching than dualism.
Note that I can only speak
my own Christian tradition. With some adjustments, what
I say here will be relevant to Jewish thought.
Also, I had a chance to lecture on this same topic in Iran
recently. And although all of the Muslims
in the audience were dualists,
that there are actually a lot of precedence in Islamic
thought for physicalism.
four parts. First, I'll say a few words
about the historical background that makes it appear that
a conflict is brewing here
and Christianity. Second, I'll take a brief look
at the Bible and consider what
does not say on this issue. Third, I'll comment on one major
theological problem:
if there is no soul? What about life after death
on human distinctiveness And finally, I'll reflect
and Christian teaching. So, section one, how history
has set us up for conflict. First, we do have to recognize
the fact, which I mentioned at the beginning, that most
Christians throughout most of their history, have held some
form of body-soul dualism.
at least from the 5th through Ththe 19th centuries.e,
This view has had repercussions throughout Christian theology,
but it shows up most clearly
by theologians and ordinary believers alike, that we humans
come apart at death.
The body molders in the grave The suntil the resurrection God.
of the dead, at which time body and soul are to be reunited.
This fact about the mainstream
would be enough to raise of Christian thought
But one particular strategy for reconciling Christianity
with Darwin's theories
It has sometimes been said that hit is okay to believe that the
human body evolved from lower life forms, so long as one
maintains that the soul did not.
said to be a special creation And in factof God.oul is often
Pope John Paul II in an address to Pontifical Academy of Science
presented to views of one of his
He said, "Pius XII stressed this essential point.
'If the human body takes its
matter, the spiritual soul origin from pre-existent living
Theories of evolution which consider the mind as emerging.
from the forces of living matter
about man.'" are incompatible with the truth
Many Evangelical Protestants End of Pius XII.
Anyone who has adopted this strategy to reconcile scientific
and theological accounts of human origins ought to be
very nervous about current
To show you why, I need deveto insert here a notence.
about terminology.
philosophers talk about the mind Contemporary scientists and
Religious folk and its relation to the brain.
In my introduction, geI was supposing that thesel.
are the same. As a matter of fact, although
we have two different words in English, they could be used
interchangeable at the beginning
I've just found that if you ask contemporary believers, though,
what the soul is, they will not have very definite replies.
Therefore, it's helpful to look back at earlier writers
who did have a definite idea. My favorite is the Medieval
Theologian Thomas Aquinas.
capacities, or faculties of the He psoul, that closely matchgher
what contemporary cognitive scientists and philosophers
would describe as mental capacities or operations.
Thomas' list includes the five
internal senses, and I'll come back to these in a moment.
As well as emotion, the appetites, intellect and will.
It's enlightening to look at
to see just how many of these ccapacities, which Thomas
attributed to the soul
by neurobiologists. Most significant in my view
are localization studies, that is, research indicating
not only that the brain is involved in specific
mental operations, but that very specific regions or systems
correlate with very specific
Here is just a small sample of cognitive abilities.
Vision depends on the transmission of signals from
the retina to the visual cortex,
Smell involves transmitting signals from six kinds of
receptors to the olfactory
Some of the most intriguing pieces of research involve
Thomas' interior senses.
of examples. Here are just a couple
in Latin is called One of the interior senses
the ability to collate the sensus communis, which is
external senses in order the deliverances of the five
This sounds remarkably like to rethe neuroscientist'sect.
so-called binding problem.
is called the vis estimativa, which is the ability to
recognize something as useful,
straw for building nests, or friendly or dangerous.
Joseph LeDeaux is well known
of emotion. fWhat he writes abouts
emotional appraisal is relevant to distinguishing this
estimative of power from the sensus communis.
"When a certain region
the temporal lobe, animals of the brain is damaged, namely
to appraise the emotional significance of certain stimuli,
but without any loss in the capacity to perceive
the stimuli as objects. The perceptual representation
of an object, and the evaluation
are separately processed of the significance of an object
In fact, the emotional meaning in the brain.
to be appraised before the perceptual systems
have fully processed
It is indeed possible for your brain to know
that something is good or bad before it knows
exactly what it is."
the vis estimativa So, in Thomas' terms,
from the sensus communis is a separate faculty
Memory has been much and it works faster.
Long-term memory is conceived of as the result of patterns
of connections
Short-term memory is believed to be enabled by a system
of recurrent pathways, such that
recycled and fed into the informatprocess again.ed then
The hippocampus is known to be
short-term to long-term memory. Language abilities are
associated with two regions of the neocortex
called Broca's Area and Wernikee's area.
Recall of words is
Different regions seem to be even more precisely located.
proper names, common nouns, and even color terms.
The parietal lobes are involved in memory of faces.
The ability to recognize other
as a result of brain damage, people's emotions can be lost
to be a specific region responsible for this capacity.
Antonio Demasio has recently
localized brain damage, whose injuries or illnesses have
resulted in the specific loss of moral character.
That is, their intellectual capacities remain unaffected,
but they are unable to act
what reason tells them. This is particularly important
from a theological
For Thomas, it was the will, point of view.
to the good that accounted for the ability to be attracted
relationship with God. human ability to be in
disproves mind body dualism Note or body soul dualism.earch
One can still argue that it is
that is responsible for these tfunctions, and that for some
reason, they are simply well-correlated
with brain activity.
burden of proof has shifted to the dualists to explain why
we need to postulate
when accounts in terms an additional entity, the mind,
increasingly more powerful. oSection two, what the Bibleng
says and doesn't say
The issue at hand has been about the person.
studies in the 20th Century. an important one in biblical
there was considerable agreement By the middle of the century,
the importance of distinguishing among Christian scholars on
the original Hebraic views in theology between
or Hellenistic views. One instance of such
a difference was a contrast between Greek dualism
and a Hebraic conception
holistic and physicalistic. ofScholars no longer draw there
distinction so sharply between
but nonetheless, there remains Greek and Hebrew thought,
the Hebrew scriptures do not promote dualism.
Now, if this is true, how could people have been
so mistaken for so long,
One answer is translation. for over 14 centuries.
the Hebrew bible was primarily Early Christian's access to
called the Septuagint. through a Greek translation
Hellenistic ideas on Hebrew texts simply bye
the choice of translations. Then, the Greek was translated
into English, with the same meanings that Greek philosophers
would have given to those terms.
a few lines from the Psalms, To illustrate, let me read you
in the old King James Version. as they were translated
leave my soul in hell." Psalm 25: "Oh, keep my soult
and deliver me, let me not be ashamed."
Psalm 49: "They that trust in their wealth like sheep,
they are laid in their grave, death shall feed on them,
but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave."
So these passages fit quite nicely with the view
that while the body may decay in the grave,
God saves souls.
body soul dualism. It sounds exactly like
other references to the soul However, there are a lot of
don't fit the dualist picture in the Hebrat all.ptures that
Psalm 7: "Oh Lord my God, in Thee do I put my trust.
Save me from all them that
my soul like a lion, persecute me, lest he tear
Psalm 22: "Deliver my soul rendering it in pieces."
Psalm 35: "Without cause, they have hid for me their net
in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul."
So this doesn't sound right.
of being torn or stabbed. SouAnd it is bodiesle
that people throw in pits.
from Leviticus: "And if any of the flesh of the sacrifice
of his peace offering is eaten
it shall not be accepted. It shall be an abomination,
and the soul that eateth of it
Souls eating meat? shall bear his iniquity."
Well, it's widely agreed now, that the Hebrew word translated
soul in all of these cases, "Nephesh," didn't really mean
what later Christians had meant by soul.
In most cases, it's simply
to the whole living person. Here is how a more recent
version translates
Here is the King James: s"For though wilt not leave.
my soul in hell." New International Version:
"Because you will not abandon me to the grave."
King James: "Oh keep my soul
let me not be ashamed." New International:
"Guard my life and rescue me. Let me not be put to shame."
And finally, that strange Leviticus passage.
King James: "The soul that eateth of it
shall bear his iniquity." New International:
"The person who eats of it
So the Hebrew word Nephesh will be held responsible."
or just used as a way is translfor a personon, life,
to refer to him or herself. It's also used of animals.
And here it's best translated as living being.
So those who have seen
in the Old Testament, including many early translators
have been reading it
not getting it out of the texts. back into the texts,
what does the New Testament teach about body soul dualism?
This is a more difficult
I have concluded is, nothing. questioLet me explain. answer
There are a number of issues
has clear teachings. on which the Bible
the bible says in order to put forward those teachings.
For example, when Isaiah
and Judah from the four corners sof the earth, he doesn't meanel
to teach that the earth has four corners.
That's a conception of geography
assumed in making his prophecy. I believe that the New Testament
has a lot to teach about
but does not mean to teach what it means to be human,
how many parts we're made of: specbody and soul,bout
body, soul and spirit,
Just as in our own day, there were, in New Testament times,
a variety of ideas
The various New Testament abauthors used different ideasn.
in order to make clear their
So if we try to go through teachings in other matters.
it teaches on this subject, thewe'll end up frustratedhat
and confused. Helpful support for this
conclusion comes from New Testament scholar
James Dunn. Dunn distinguished between what
he calls aspective and partitive
Dunn writes, "In simplified terms, while Greek thought
tended to regard the human being
Hebraic thought saw the human being more as a whole person,
existing on different dimensions.
As we might say, it was more characteristically Greek
to conceive of the person partitively; whereas
it's more characteristically
aspectively. Hebrew to conceive of the person
a school having a gym. This is to say, we speak of
But we say I am a Scott, The gym is a part of the school.
is an aspect of my whole being." my Scottish-ness
were interested in the question, So, the Greek philosophers
that make up a human being? In contrast, for the biblical
authors, each "part"
thought of from a certain angle. stands for the whole person,
stands for the whole person in relation to God.
What the New Testament authors
is human beings in relationship ato the natural world,n
to the community, and to God. Paul's distinction between
spirit and flesh
between soul and body. is not our later distinction
of living. Paul is concerned with two ways
with the spirit of God, and the other in conformity
to the old eon before Christ. So, it's better to say that
we have a spiritual dimension to our lives
and a fleshly dimension.
of flesh and spirit. We're not composed
holistic, physicalist account Sof the person, drawn froma
contemporary science is not at all incompatible with the
picture we see of the nature of the human person in the Bible.
Section three,
Here is where the difference what about life after death?
will have a big impact. betweIt's one thing to readlism
the scholars' commentaries
It's quite another to talk about on the history.
I mentioned a minute ago that one of the clearest places
dualism has had an impact is on what Christians think will
happen at death.
personally when mother and I This was brought home to me very
for the first time. w"He's not really here,"e
she said. "Oh, yes he is,"
I thought.
I kept my thoughts to myself. I recognize the comfort it
brings to imagine that
but just gone. loved ones are really not dead
the majority of contemporary However, I stand with
a view is not part of original scholars in saying that such
about life after death. The original view was that
the whole person dies, but that the whole person will later,
at the end of history,
The model of this death and resurrection, of course,
is that of Jesus. Paul writes to the church
of Corinth that if Christ has not been raised, your faith
is futile, and those who have died in Christ have perished.
But in fact, Christ has been
the first fruits of those raiswho have died.ad,
In our day, it is difficult to talk about resurrection.
This has to do with the question
historical evidence for such of how there could ever be
If we find resurrection unimaginable, that's just about
right, because we can't have any
the life of the present age. clear idea of something beyond
of suggestive pictures We get only a variety
The problem was difficult in Paul's day, too,
but for different reasons.
body was already available at the time in some Jewish circles,
so this was a conceivable prospect for Jews,
but simply disbelieved by many. However, it must have appeared
positively ridiculous to many of the Gentile Christians whose
exposure to Greek philosophies
religions had led them to believe that they already had a
soul, destined for immortality. And that the religious quest
was to liberate the soul
of the body. from the encumbrances
to have the body restored Whafter the liberationpe
that comes with death?
two different accounts So, we can see that there are
available in Western of life after death
One is the more common notion philthat humans possessons.
an immortal soul, which will
The other is the now strange survive death.
person will be raised, expectation that the entire
at the end of history. or one might say re-created
a hybrid in which the soul Many Christians have worked out
state, awaiting the return survives in an intermediate
I'm claiming though, that the original Christian view
was simply death
On this view, nothing of value followed by bodily resurrection.
a physicalistic account of the person, and such
an account appears to be closer to original Christian teaching.
Section Four, human distinctiveness.
I now turn to my final topic. This is a reply to the question,
if humans are, as evolutionists tell us, closely related
to other animals, and if
suggests, we have no immortal soul distinguishing us frome
the animals, then what makes us distinctively human?
The way to put this question is not in terms of special parts,
but in terms of special capacities.
Let me go back to Pope John Paul's address to the
Pontifical Academy of Science.
of the soul as did Pius XII, He spoke not of the creation
to the spiritual." but of "The moment of transition
point, he says, but it can Science cannot determine this
level, a series of valuable detsigns indicating what istal
specific to the human being.
analysis can reflect on what is distinctively human.
The Pope lists metaphysical knowledge, self-awareness
and self reflection,
aesthetic experience, and religious experiences.
But only theology, he says, can bring out the ultimate
meaning of these characteristics
What then are the capacities according to the creator's plan.
of our humanness? thWhat does it look likee
to reflect scientifically on this question?
And what does it look like to reflect theologically?
A number of scientists studied
from these studies, we could the higher primates, and
we can do and they cannot. construct lists of things
differences are matters of As it turns out, most of the
and total absence deof certain characteristics.nce
However, small differences
to produce huge differences in bain final outcome.teract
For example, apes can be taught rudimentary forms of language.
There's a debate over the question whether chimpanzees
possess self-awareness, one of the distinctives listed
by the Pope.
in a mirror? Do chimps recognize themselves
in a mirror? Do they recognize themselves
but ours are more finely Higher animals have emotions,
Animals can be angry, but they modulated.
indignation. can't experience righteous
are associated with our sense of what it means to be human,t
and animals share rudimentary forms of them.
What matters is the way that these enhanced capacities
interact in human life. For example, put together
our clear sense of self with
subtle linguistic abilities and we have immensely different
capacities for inter-personal relationships.
Now what does theology have to
Here, the question is not sso much what it is that makess?
us different from animals,
presupposed. although differences have to be
it about us that makes us The quimportant to God?what is
I would list pretty much
did, but here I'll focus on the sjust one, our capacity Pope
to be in relationship with God. A number of neuroscientists have
began to study the role of the
and that's what you'll hear brabout next, I understand.ce,
What are we to make of this?
affects people's brains? Does this mean that God
number of my students who object I've been surprised by the
there would be no way for God thto relate to us.l
It is true that Christians
that their relationship with God have for centuries believed
This is an inheritance takes place within their souls.
It's a common notion found from Augustine.
have both and outer acrosand an inner self.mans
What Augustine added was
as an inner space, and most peculiarly, that he created
the image of one's true self
that inner space. The metaphor of entering into
one's own self or soul, in order
whole of Western spirituality tofrom that point onward.he
But notice how strange it is, I, the real I, am somehow inside
of myself, not just that I am my soul and my soul is inside
my body, rather, the real I is inside my soul.
So, let us grant that this
of envisioning our relationship with God, but it is clearly
only a picture or metaphor. How does a physicalist envision
the interaction between God and humankind?
And here I have to say that the brain imaging studies
of people at prayer is not entirely wrong-headed.
If one is a physicalist, as I am, it's not surprising that
brain regions are involved
In fact, some regions in would have to be.nce.
My objection to some of the earlier studies though, is that
they usually don't begin
understandings of religious witexperience itself.ve
St. Ignacius Loyola, who
in the 16th Century, was one founded the Jesuit order
of the ways in which of the most sensitive observers
Using typical dualist imagery, God interacts with humans.
and knowing in some manner he wrote on rules for perceiving
which are caused in the soul. Putting aside the imagery,
contemporary commentators speak of movements of one's heart,
motions affecting one's interior life, a certain impetus
in one's life, or a feeling for or against some course
of action.
attributed to the Holy Spirit. Some of these are to be
with love for God, or with Those that "inflame the person
faith, hope, and charity sorrow for sin, that increase
interior joy that attracts and produce an inner,
Another set of movements which to heavenly things."
are "movements towards things Ignatlow and earthly.tion
The unquiet of different
lack of confidence, hope and agitations and temptations,
all lazy, tepid, sad, and lovas if separated from one'self
creator and Lord."
was preparing a lecture on Now it just happens that I
experience, and in that morning's New York Times,igious
there was a long article on a small part of the brain
called the Insulae. All mammals have these brain
structures. They collect information
on bodily conditions, such as hunger, cold, injury and
produce motivations such as finding food or seeking shelter.
Damage to the Insulae can lead to apathy, loss of libido,
and even of the ability to tell fresh food from rotten.
Now, humans have evolved
system of reading bodily states two innto a new level.ake this
For one, humans have a hugely expanded area in the front.
It is here scientists say that simple bodily states
are recast as social emotions.
in the Insulae as disgust. A bad taste or smell is sensed
is transformed into delight. A sensual touch from a loved one
in love and hate, Thegratitude and resentment,ved
self confidence and embarrassment,
trust and distrust, empathy and contempt,
approval and disdain, pride and humiliation,
truthfulness and deception, guilt and atonement.
Second, human insulae's have
of neuron called von-economo a large number of a special kind
crucial for turning feelings neurons that appear to be
into actions and intentions. and emotions
brain structure that is Sessentially involved in whatd
Ignacius would call movements within the soul.
On the one hand, repentance for sin, impulses toward
what is perceived as good.
to fulfill bodily cravings, On thlack of confidence,ations
and feeling lazy, tepid and sad.
is that God affects us If the physicalist hypothesis
then this is the location bor structure where God,
is very likely to be active.
writer Maurine Conroy, Contemporary spiritual
own conversion writes, "All this after describing Ignacius'
God moving deep within him occurred from the inside out.
affective responses, changes in deep seeded attitudes, thoughts,
and feelings and a shift in behavior."
Notice that she says
So the physicalist question is was it deep within his soul,
or deep within his brain. Some interpreters of the
neuroscientific study of religion take it to show
that religious experience is nothing but a brain event.
I'm often asked by media people to comment, and I always point
out that these studies say
or non-existence of God. nothing about the existence
a better way to put it But I've never found
Malcolm Geeves. Making inferences from brain
states could become risky business.
Consider for example the likely state of the brain
of Sir Henry Watton.
as a rest to his mind, Watton describes fishing
a diverter of sadness, a cheerer of his spirits,
a moderator or passions, a calmer of unquiet thoughts,
Geeves responds, "Such a a procurer of contentedness.
a brain state similar to some forms of religious meditation.
However, it would be hazardous
Sir Harry Watton's selective to suggest that because
his focus on fish, therefore it proved the existence of fish."
So, neither is brain imaging
or against the existence going to provide evidence for
So what are we to make or action of God.
My claim in this lecture is that biblical studies,
philosophy, and neuro-science are all pointing in the same
direction, towards a physicalist
Humans are not hybrids of matter account of the person.
They are purely physical and something else.
As I noted, it would be easy organisms.
reductionist's era of claiming at this point to fall into the
is nothing but a brain process. Instead, we should say that
it is our complex physical
social relations, that enable our morality, rationality, and
even our religious awareness. Neuroscience will help to
explain these capacities, but it cannot explain them away.
James Dunn's account of Paul's
makes a fitting conclusion. He says, Paul's conception of
the human person is of a being
dimensions. wAs embodied beings we areal
social, defined in part by our
into relationships, not as need for and ability to enter
dimension of our very existence. an optional extra, but as a
frailty and weakness Our 'flesh-ness' attests to our
The inescapable-ness of our death, or dependence on
satisfaction of appetite
to manipulation of these and desire, our vulnerability
At the same time, as rational beings, we are capable of
soaring to the highest heights
And as experiencing beings, we are capable of the deepest
emotions and the most sustained motivation.
We are living beings, animated
as a gift, and there is a dimension of our being at which
we are directly touched by
and behind the universe. the profoundest reality within
thankful acknowledgement Paul would no doubt say in
for I am fearfully with the Psalmist, I praise you,
Thank you. and wonderfully made.
Thank you, Nancey. ( applause )
is Dr. Richard Davidson. Our second plenary speaker
received his undergraduate A native of Brooklyn, Ritchie
and in 1976 he received his PhD degrfrom Harvard Universitysity,
in Psychology.
faculty here at UW-Madison Since 1984, he's been on the
departments, where is he in the Psychology and Psychiatry
Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry and director of the
Laboratories of Effective Neuroscience and the Waisman
Laboratory for Brain Imaging
Ritchie's lab specializes in and Behavior.
to emotion. And you will no doubt hear that
in his talk.
electro-physiology, Positron His lab uses modern quantitative
or PET scanning, and Emission Tomography
Imaging, or MRI, to monitor fbrain states as part of hise
research. In the early 1990s,
Ritchie made headlines when at the personal request
of the Dalai Lama,
on the effects of meditation he conducted research
Ritchie has won numerous awards. on the brain in Tibetan Monks.
Psychological Association Scientific Contribution Award
in 2000. In 2006 Time Magazine named him
as one of its 100 Most Influential People
for that year.
Ritchie was named Person of the Year by Madison Magazine.year,
You may have seen him in the Lotus position at
the local bookstore near you. ( laughter )
It's my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Richard Davidson.
( applause )
Thank you all very much. >> Thank you very much.
and to talk a little bit about It's a pleasure to be here
to this general theme. our work which is relevant
of the Isthmus Society I want to thank the organizers
I'll think we'll have fosome interesting discussion..
I know that my friends in the animal rights movement have
handed out a leaflet, which I will address in the questions
and answers period. They have been following me
around very persistently. And I welcome the opportunity
to address the issues,
which they raise, but I'll do that later.
What I'd like to do today is
which I actually don't to give you a feel for this area
between science and religion, because what this focus of mine
is really about, is the cultivation of certain virtues
of mind that have been important
And the study of how strategies in and methods in thosens.
contemplative traditions can
these qualities alike genuine happiness.of
This is the cover of a Time magazine that featured
some of our work on this topic. And this is the cover
of the National Geographic. This was a photograph taken in
our lab, and as was mentioned in the introduction, we have had
a remarkable project ongoing
stimulated by conversations in with the Dalai Lama totly
investigate the brain function
spent years training their mind. of meditating Monks who have
to us is that these are Scontemplative traditions,st
which have developed specific methods for training the mind
to cultivate virtuous qualities like happiness, like compassion,
kindness and altruism.
is to suggest that based on these contemplative traditions,
these are qualities which are best regarded as skills
which can be trained, and they
very fact of neuroplasticity. That is, the brain is the organ
that is built to change in response to experience, and
there are particular practices
to change in specific ways, whiincluding in the insulaeain
that Nancey beautifully set up
So, this is the cover of a for me.
that was held in Darsala, India, program that was a small meeting
to organize on the topic of tneuroplasticity, where weme
brought the world's leaders in this area, a small number
of them together with the Dalai Lama to talk about
the issues that are arising from this area of neuroscience,
which is really probably
I would say of all of neuroscience in the last decade.
The study of the mechanisms by which the brain can change
in response to experiencing and in response to training.
These are just some pictures
It is very unusual. This is unlike any other
scientific meeting when you're
It's a lot more intense than sitting next to the Dalai Lama.
doctoral orals. bThis is just a shotr
of the setting itself.
is to make two big points. So, what I want to do today
up here so I can see it. I'm just going to put this
in the extent to which they Texpress many of these virtuous
qualities like happiness, loving kindness, compassion,
clarity of attention. And these differences,
as I'll show you, are associated
biological characteristics. The second point is that these
qualities can all be regarded as the products of skills
that can be enhanced
And the contemplative practices, through mental training.
I've studied that are derived anfrom Buddhism, provides
very specific, highly detailed
transform the mind instructions for how to
And these are training and thereby change the brain.
and we have shown now induce plastic changes in the
brain which can be tracked
And there is no appeal to anything outside of mainstream
science to understand how this
that this information enriches happens, and I certainly believe
And it's been our experience in the study of these practitioners
that they are deeply interested in how their brains have changed
as a consequence of this
So, the rest of my talk is mostly going to be focused on
these issues. But before I introduce them,
I just want to talk a little bit
since it is a topic that about happiness in particular
of recent popular books. has been central to a number
happiness is also And aan unalienable right.untry,
So just to remind all of you
in 1776, it's a little hard ofto imagine with the currented
administration, but in fact,
or the pursuit of happiness is something that is very much
a part of our country.
a matter of life and death. These are actually data from
a longitudinal epidemiological
in Finland with approximately 30,000 individuals who were
studied over a 20 year period.
show, if you look in the column all the way over to the righty
is that if you just ask people
and follow them over a 20-year how happy or unhappy they are
themselves to be very unhappy, span, the individuals who report
have a more than 10-fold risk whaof committing suicidethey
within that 20-year period
themselves to be very happy. compared to those who reported
make a difference in a very real And so these are qualities which
Happiness is also associated way in the lives of people.
that is health enhancing. wThese are findings frome
a British study that appeared in the of the National Academy
of Science in 2005. And what is shows is that
on a number of major systemic biological systems,
including neuro-endocrine,
immune processes, that cardiovascular and
themselves to be very happy thhave a profile on theseort
biological indices
that will confer resilience thatin the face of certainand
biological challenges.
subjective states. So these are not ephemeral
which have consequences Tfor illness and health.es
One of the questions which is frequently asked is how
malleable is happiness. And there is a whole tradition
of research, which basically
with specific set points argues that we're all born
there is nothing much for twe can do about it. that
Some people are kind of grumpy, and other people are really
glowing, and that's just
do much to change these traits. And there is some evidence thaty
is consistent with these ideas. I'll show you in the next
three slides, evidence
these kinds of conjectures. wThis is not brain datat
that I'm going to show you, but I promise you it's real data.
And it's based on tens of thousands of individuals
who are looked at aggregated together.
In the first question that
can buy you happiness, we asked is whether marriage
( laughter ) and here is the answer.
people actually get married, So, at ".0" here, is where
for happiness on the y-axis, and this is a proxy
And what the data show is that a measure of life satisfaction.
tens of thousands of people, on average, if you average over
in your happiness at the point you actually do get a bump
But look what happens as you go progressively further away.
And five years post-marriage, you're actually doing worse
than when you began.
Now, you know there are lots of counter examples.
I recently celebrated my 31st wedding anniversary,
so there are clear exceptions,
data show if you aggregate but these are what the average
of people. across tens of thousands
Does widowhood produce So, what about the flip side?
and here is the answer. What you see is that you take
a big hit, but remarkably,
they pretty much people bounce back, and
after a couple of years. get to their "set point"
that we are most obsessed with And of course the question
Whether money can buy in our cuyou happiness,question.
and here are what the data show.
If you do cross-national At least in the United States.
complicated. comparisons, the data are more
individuals who reside And I don't want to mislead you,
extremely poor, are in fact less happy than, on the average,
than people in the United States.
But if you just look
this is what you see. So these are data plotted
from 1945 to 2000.
per head, that's this And iline that's going up,ncome
and that's just a testament to economic success
in our country. If you superimpose on that
any kind of measure you want, this is the percentage of people
who report themselves to be very happy.
It's totally flat.
success of our nation at all. These are orthogonal when youc
look at it within this culture. And so many people, when they
see data of this sort say, okay,
and economic kinds of factors. these are major social
all stuck at our respective set points, or can happiness,
compassion, and loving kindness be enhanced?
And what I'll suggest to you
neuroplasticity, all of these qualities are best regarded
as skills which can in fact be enhanced.
And the data that I've shown
and they certainly represent you are interesting,
but if we took the cultivation what the average is,
the cultivation of qualities of happiness and
as seriously as we take the cultivation of certain cognitive
skills in this country. Or, if we took the cultivation
of these virtuous qualities even as seriously as most
middle class Americans
If we practiced the cultivation noof these mental qualitiese.
even a few times a week, because
it is my firm contention of plasticity in the brain,
which will be enhanced, and will have rippling effects
throughout our culture, and will make a real difference.
So what's the evidence
Well there is a lot of data now on neuroplasticity
which underscores that the brain
to experience. can change in response
in many different domains. And this evidence is present
to detail this evidence. Time does not permit me
a couple of these domains. I just will mention
It's obvious to anybody that Musical training is one case.
and have never played, if you pick up a violin
to play it well. you're not going to be able
Practice in playing the musical instrument we now know induces
discernable plastic changes in the brain.
These are both functional changes, as well as actual
structural changes. The anatomy of the brain changes
in response to musical training.
in motor skills, We also know that this occurs
You can't expect to play golf, in any kind of complex sport.
reasonably if you're doing it or tfor the first time.do it
We all know that it requires
kinds of skills. practice to cultivate these
discernable, objective, plastic Thchanges in the brain.ces
We know that maternal behavior
plastic changes in the brain toward offspring will induce
In fact, in studies that have been done at the animal level,
we know that the way a mother behaves toward it's offspring
will actually affect
in the brain of those offspring. the expression of genes
changes persist for the entire And those gene expression
So, a mother, by her behavior ltoward her offspring
will literally change the gene expression, wittingly
or unwittingly in her infant. And it's my contention that
if we are doing this mindfully
of enhancing these positive andqualities, we will changeoal
gene expression for the better
We also know that things and not for the worse.
the most important mechanisms of plasticity, and that is
neurogenesis. Neurogenesis is the growth
of new brain cells. This is a fact that was once
considered pure fiction.
taught that the brain was different from other organs
in the body.
injure our skin, it heals Wand new cells form.we
We're all taught that the brain is different, that cells
in the brain are on a program of irrevocable cell death,
and development is a process
We're born with a fixed complement of neurons,
this dogma held.
that were formed. AndWe now know that that isns
definitively wrong. It is a fact that there are
new brain cells that are grown
adult brain. every day in a normal human
and that process occurs Anthe entire life of a person.,
Neurogenesis
Now we know that stress, occurs throughout life.
neurogenesis. And the flip side of that, which
has not been systematically studied, but which clearly
is an implication, is that
and you cultivate calmness, you will actually facilitate
neurogenesis. Exercise, physical exercise in
animal models has been found to actually promote neurogenesis.
So, these are all ways in which plasticity has been studied
in the recent past. One of the important things
that we've been interested in is the extent to which people
can learn to better regulate
contemplative practices. their emotions through
is just a hypothetical figure Anof two individuals,ere
person A and person B.
some stressful life event which occurs around this point here,
and the way I've drawn this,
quickly compared to person A. pAnd you can plot different
physiological measures
very similar kinds of trends. oThey may be on different
time scales.
depicts are differences among Butpeople in how rapidlygure
they may settle, if you will, following a stressful event.
And clearly, the pattern
is a pattern that we would depicted for person B
with more resilience. And what I would suggest to you
is that this is a pattern which can be learned.
So, if I show you a picture like this, most American college
students cringe with disgust
If I instead gave you a simple when they're shown this picture.
cultivated compassion for those who are suffering, and where you
were trained instead of withdrawing from an image like
this, you would want to approach
immediate disposition to want to an image like this, and have an
It totally changes the way do everything you could to help.
to a picture like that. So these are data just showing
that the response in an important brain area for emotion
called the amygdala can be
one hour of training, dramaticone hour,lated by
based upon this kind of very simple reframing
of this kind of image.
the impact of more systematic So,training of the mindto
on brain signals that are associated with emotion,
as well as tension
And these are just some pictures that I'll talk about.
human beings who have spent from at least 10,000 hourskable
of their adult life in formal meditation,
training their mind.
a minimum of one All of these people have done
spent three continuous years, three-every single day,re they
seven days a week, for
often much more, in systematic a minimum of eight hours a day,
Many of these individuals have training of the mind.
So the range in our actual study spent much more time than that.
62,000 hours of formal practice. went from 12,000 to about
individuals. Another one of these
talking to these people. We spent a lot of time
next to me here, is a Anparticularly unusual monk.ng
He has been a Tibetan Buddhist
He also holds a PhD in Molecular Monk since 1967.
Institute, where he worked Biology from the Pasteur
And so he comes with very unusual credentials, and
has been a very important bridge
and the world bof contemplative practice.e
This is us in the lab,
some instructions for a meditation period.
And one of the really wonderful things about working with these
experts is that they are so highly trained, that the unusual
and often not so conducive
for meditating is really environment in the laboratory
at all. It's pretty irrelevant to them.
They can meditate in the most difficult of circumstances,
including in an MRI scanner.
came out of an MRI scanner. He was in there for more than
three hours, and most people
when they just first come out. don't look like this
And so he is really, he's been ( laughter )
so to speak, and he has been one of our star subjects
five or six times now, in the scanner probably
four to five hours at a time. maybAnd he really doesn'ts for
find that environment to be particularly aversive.
This is just another shot of monks who helped us actually
run our experiments.
with you a little bit of these Now, I'm just going to share
findings have already been data, and many of our early
There's still a lot that is in the works, but we began
with very simple paradigms, where we had practitioners
meditate and alternate
with a neutral resting period. those periods of meditation
the presentation of very strong emotional sounds, in certain
cases, for example sounds of a bloodcurdling scream.
And when most people hear sounds
their brain gets high jacked, lif you will, by the strong
emotional stimuli.
to what you might think of And this is kind of analogous
of a cardiac stress test. as tYou know, when you go toent
a cardiologist and he or she
by going on a treadmill or on an exercise bike to
look at cardiovascular function.
the brain with strong emotional stimuli in a way that'sg
analogous to a physical stress. So, one of the things that has
been very important in our work is to study compassion
and the voluntary generation
This is so central to the Dalai Lama's message.
And compassion is a quality which we believe can be enhanced
through mental training.
mental training by changing certain circuits in the brain.
The Dalai Lama, since about age four, has been doing
very specific mental exercises
designed to enhance compassion. These are very simple exercises.
They don't require that you that you have any specific
religious belief. They will work in an atheist
and they will work
And so, they are specific tools for training the mind
to cultivate these qualities. And in the words of Matthieu
Ricard, this is what he said
experiment, "...is to generate that they were doing in this
and compassion permeate the whole mind, with no other
consideration, reasoning or discursive thoughts.
This is sometimes called
Now, you've seen those 'pure compassion.'"
where they warn kids commercials on television
Well, it's not that you shouldn't try this at home,
by all means try it at home.
being able to do this Tis not very good, unlessy
you have a lot of training. It's hard to hold the mind
in such a state without distraction, and a lot of the
mental training that these
to enable them to hold individuals do is preparatory
period of time. sucNow these are just rawong
brain signals that show changes in the brain during this
particular kind of meditation.
and this is a meditation period. This is a resting state
computer analysis to see You don't need even any fancy
this is brain electrical signals that there is a big difference,
begins to start meditating. There is a dramatic discernable,
robust, highly consistent and highly replicable change
in these brain signals
This has now been replicated that we see.
laboratories, and it's in two other independent
And it shows changes in the gamma frequency band of the EEG,
which is a very high frequency
in previous work, with states baof focused attention, with,
binding of perceptual input.
has been seen in the human But typically, when gamma
scalp in previous experiments, brain signal, recorded from the
very brief period of time. it only is observed for a very,
in these long-term practitioners These observations that we made
in the human brain. have nevAnd that is,en seen
for this kind of duration.
some of these parameters. I won't go into the details,
but I'd be happy to talk
and answer periods. One of the things we did is
find that the length of training
strongly correlates with over a practitioner's lifetime
So, this just shows that those the magnitude of these signals.
more lifetime hours of training, practitioners who have had
this is our practitioner this number here is 60,000
They show a much more with dramatic enhancementtice.
of these gamma signals. Relevant to Nancey's comments,
we see big time changes in the insulae when we look
with functional Magnetic
these emotional stimuli Rethat we probe the meditationto
periods with. The solid red line
is the meditation practitioners,
while they're meditating. theThe dotted red line iss,
the longtime practitioners
And the solid blue line is when they are not meditating.
age-matched controls who were a taught the same meditation.ts,
They've been meditating for two weeks.
They show a little change compared to their baseline
state.
practice, there is some change, but it is not nearly as robust
a change as we see
There are other parts of the in the long-term practitioners.
This is a very interesting area bof the brain called thel.
temporal-parietal junction. It has been linked very, very
strongly in previous studies
the perspective of another. There is a dramatic enhancement
of activity in this region of the brain when the practitioners
are doing compassion. Now, one of the questions
which we're frequently asked
We're now in the middle is can ordof a study.e do this?
We have initial data
that we've tested, where from one set of participants
of compassion training, just two weeks where we've
had people practice daily in an intervention that
we delivered over the Internet. And the comparison group was
taught cognitive reappraisal. This is derived
from cognitive therapy. They had the same length
of training.
It was delivered They had the same contact.
And so, there were two active groups, and we're interested
in changes in the brain that
two weeks of training. may be produced by just this
compassion training for these novice practitioners were these.
They were asked to contemplate
and in wishing the freedom and visualize in the suffering
for themselves, for a stranger, from for a person with whomone,
they've had some difficulty,
They repeated phrases andto themselves.s.
The most common phrase used is, "May you be free from suffering.
May you experience joy
These are said silently. and ease."
the visceral sensations, They are instructed to notice
of the heart when these phrases partiare repeated.e area
And they're specifically
the compassion emotionally instructed to feel
the phrases cognitively. and not simply to repeat
the design of this study. I won't go into these details,
but we challenged them with pictures of human suffering
of the sort that I showed you,
the brain scanner. when they're in
of questionnaires that were designed to get at
aspects of compassion.
This is a self-compassion scale. So this is one example.
as part of the human condition." "I try to see my failings
I try to approach my feelings with curiosity and openness."
And what we see is systematic changes on some of those scales,
where the group that received just two weeks of compassion
training shows significantly
scales, compared to the practitioners who are trained
in cognitive reappraisal. We also asked them a question
about the extent to which they
who they are shown want to approach the individuals
And the individuals who receive the compassion training show,
report a much greater willingness and interest in
approaching those individuals.
the insulae again. And finally, here comes
increased activation of the insulae, compared with
the cognitive training group, dramatic difference between
these groups in the magnitude of insulae activation.
Another scale that we used
here at Wisconsin, Carol Riff comeswho developed scales mine
of well being.
"When I look at the story Tof my life, I am pleased with.
how things have turned out."
and positive about myself." "And it turns out that amongt
those in the compassion training
the activation in the insulae, group, the greater
on these scales. the more they report well-being
show. So the greater the signal in the
insulae, the higher the levels
Now, one of the unusual things of well-being on the scale.
a study done on University we did in this study, this was
And we paid them a substantial of Wisconsin undergraduates.
in this study, because it chinvolved multiple sessions.ing
They had to log on every day
We paid them $165.00 to do the training.
And we told them at the end tof the study that they have.
an opportunity to donate
that they will receive, somewhere between zero and $165
to a charitable cause of your choosing.
And this was not
This was real. any kind of deception.
the transaction online. AnAnd what you can see here iste
that the greater the activation in the insulae among
the compassion group, the more they donated.
The more actual money they donated.
This is an astoundingly high
And so, it turns out that just correlation.
affect the brain in this way two weeks of compassion training
real behavior that may and produce changes in the
Now I'm not going to take time make a difference.
other than to just read this to talk about attention
And then I'm going to skip over onthis section on attentions.
in the interest of time.
plenty of time for discussion. I want to make sure there's
traditions, particularly But in the contemplative
there is a strong emphasis those derived from Buddhism,
really the foundational skill onthat enables everything elses
to happen.
to develop a clarity To stabilize attention,
And William James, in his remarkable chapter on attention
in The Principles of Psychology,
had a very clear insight
of training attention. about the potential utility
of voluntarily bringing back a He said, "...the faculty
over again, is the very root wandering attention, over and
and will. No one is compos suicter,
if he have it not.
improve this faculty would be the education par An ed excellence." h should
The italics are in the original.
"But it is easier to define this They are not mine.
directions for bringing it ideal than to give practical
William James clearly recognized about."
important for the cultivation that potenof virtue.ing was so
He didn't know how to do it.
really offer us prescription The contemplative traditions
And there's a host of evidence for exactly how to do it.
that these practices work. to indicate
and they change behavior. And there's a whole bunch of
data, all of which is published if you log onto our Web site.
You can download these articles.
and you'll find it. And there are dramatic changes
in attention
And I'll just mention one other finding I started earlier on
by suggesting that happiness
virtuous qualities may actually anhave beneficial effectsese
on your health. And in one study that we did,
we gave people an influenza vaccine, and we looked at
antibody titers mounted in
which gives you a good index response to the vaccine,
the vaccine is working. And this is a study that we did
in novice practitioners,
We administered the flu shot eight weeks of training.
a control group at the end to the meditators and to
And this is what the data show. The subjects in the meditation
group actually show significantly greater antibody
titers mounted in response
carefully matched control group. to the vaccine, compared to a
changes that were produced And we further found that
the magnitude of changes that were seen in the immune system,
suggesting that there were
in systemic biology that may be associated with the cultivation
of these virtuous qualities.
with some final reflections Soand conclusions.d
I've suggested to you that
and other related cocharacteristics are bests
regarded as trainable skills. Mental training to enhance
these skills changes
And this growing body of both the brain and the body.
underpinning for the evidence provides a scientific
of many of the great spiritual contemplative practices
a more widespread incorporation tradiof these practicesd to
into the major institutions of our culture, including
education, and medicine, and
And let me end with oone of my favorite quotes..
This is a quote from
in a letter offering some advice Albert Einstein, who wrote this
"A human being is part of a twhole, called by us thed,
Universe, a part limited
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings,
as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical
delusion of his consciousness.
prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and
to affection for a few persons
Our task must be to free nearest us.
by widening our circles of ourselves from this prison
creatures and the whole comof nature in its beauty."ving
And let me end by just
to the many people in my lab. exI just sort of stayde
out of the way these days.
who really do the work. And also to His Holiness,
the Dalai Lama. Thank you.
( applause )
We'd like now to open it up >> Thanfor some questionsitchie.
from the audience.
how we ought to do this. And Ron, I'm not sure exactly
up front, I suppose, so that the Should we bring some chairs
during all of this. spYou can stand to stand?and
Okay, Nancey can stand
And it would be very helpful and Ritchie is mic'ed.
And actually if people could to use the mic, yeah.
understand it after hearing it, rethat would be helpful I
to everyone.
for Dr. Davidson. Surely training and skills are
very important. You demonstrated that
beautifully, but I don't know if you want to suggest that
that's all there is to these
I would think that there's great traditions.
meditated 10,000 hours that doesn't have core beliefs
in certain truths of Buddhism,
10,000 hours that doesn't obelieve certain Christianr
beliefs, or somebody works in a lab for 10,000 hours,
unless you believe something
The best example of this, I think, is the life of the Buddha
who after years of meditation,
He's going to die under the reachBode tree.end.
And enlightenment for him was four noble truths, not
of healing, not of meditation,
the way that reality is. but thoughts about this is
didn't mean to suggest this, So, I'd just say, maybe you
that couldn't be left out. but that would be something
you reach a dead end. You won't reach the 10,000 hours
unless you do have
I think it's a very good some core beliefs.
you raising it. I certainly didn't mean
to suggest that these kinds of training practices are all
there is to these traditions. And I think the belief systems
to which you refer may be very, very important.
From a scientific perspective,
as to how important they are for it's still an open question
of changes of the sort that the prodI'm describing.in kinds
That is, the enhancement
qualities. for these kinds of virtuous
his book on secular ethics, has argued that you can take these
practices and take them from
give them to all people, their religious context, and
effects irrespective and they will have beneficial
Now, that has not been studied of their beliefs.
We don't really know the extent to which that is true, but
that is something that he has staked out a very strong claim
about.
your view that these beliefs And so, I certainly share
to these traditions. are extremely central
production of these kinds of How important they are for the
Two more questions to raised. changes Compassion--t know.
Compassionate.
something like, perhaps, It seems also possible to say
in some contexts. And perhaps even other--
would be able to--
Well, I think that actually tthat these two questions?
are importantly related.
within an ethical framework. These practices are embedded
associated with that ethical And there is a belief system
that emotions like hatred frare destructive.ds
And that's not something
From the perspective of neuroplasticity though, it
certainly, I think, is possible to cultivate emotions
like hatred, and certainly
have been masters I of cultivating fear.s
( laughter )
I think, unfortunate examples Anof how destructive emotionsn,
have been cultivated
And so, I completely agree in our culture.
But I also think that it is why when these practices are taught,
even if they're taught
they are typically taught and I certainly believe they
should be taught within an ethical framework that
places certain values on these
I have a question for Nancey. I've never thought very highly
of the soul, so I'm not too sad that it doesn't exist.
( laughter )
about the reaction But I am concerned a little bit
Are there traditions within Christianity that you think
would be the most receptive to this physicalist approach,
or do you think that this idea
the time of death, some notion of needing, especially at
is so powerful and so strong that consciousness continues
and philosophical evidence, and scientific evidence, that
you're going to lose big time.
there's just a range >> Well, to a great extent,
the board in religions, as to amohow anxious they are aboutoss
holding on to whatever they've
But I do find that been taught at the beginning.
as you well know, are very open thto these ideas, becauses,
they have taught
throughout their history. >> That's one small cult.
That's not a cult.
people to speak to. Other people that I also find
easy to talk to about these issues are Catholics, because
if you've got a background
you talk about the soul, in official Catholicism, and
but as a form of the body you can kind of start working
toward a physicalist position from there, because it's not
a radical dualism.
open to what I have to say Other groups that I find very
traditions, the Mennonites, arthe Quakers, the Brethren,on
because when you tie
on the soul and saving the soul for another realm to a neglect
of the physical world that
physicalism to an appreciation we're living in now, and tie
means our own relatedness fto other people, which meansh
our relatedness to the physical earth.
There is a lot of hope
anthropology will help us recover a more full-scale ethic
than has been exhibited in many of the centuries of Christianity
where the emphasis was so much
for another world, on saving souls
If the soul or the mind is really just a manifestation
of the body,
Well, you'll just have to buy whamy most recent book,ll?
it's called...
Thank you for the opportunity for the commercial.
That is a huge issue. I started working with my
colleague in neuro-psychology,
about 15 years ago. WAnd we got together a group,
and we put out a little book
to the Soul?" And we all claimed that we
were non-reductive physicalists.
and I knew that we really didn't But I'm a philosopher,
of how you can avoid have the answer to the question
And so, Warren and I decided reductionism.
book on neuro-psychology that we would work on a serious
particularly aiming to answer and pthe questionsmind,
of moral responsibility and free will.
And what we concluded is, it's not so much an issue
of determinism, it's an issue of
reductionist, and so that's whexactly what we focused on.cal
And I do think that not so much because of our own work,
but because there were so many
over the last 7-10 years resources being developed
into question. that are calling reductionism
to gather enough resources there I believe that we've been able
physicalism equals reductionism tequals no human freedom.
It's called,
Just to quickly follow up, "Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?"
of Benjamin Libet? do you address the work
my impression is that there >> Nowere a number of othercause
neuroscientists and philosophers
I would like to address whmy question to you, Richard.y.
Respected geneticists that
that perhaps 80% of our behavior I know have estimated for me
and some minor portion, 20% isis from our environment.e
And you're discussing environmental practices
that can alter our behavior,
Do you think there are genes compassion, loving kindness.
In the mouse, a gene that govern these behaviors?
maternal nurturing. wAre there genes that imposed
a basic nature on us, and are you modifying them?
Are there people for whom compassionate training
is impossible?
the elements of the question, you began by suggesting
that some have argued that 80%
by our genotype, and so how can environmental influences
of the sort that I'm describing play such an important role.
And the second part of the
the issue of genes question was directed toward
An example was given of genes that appear to be important
to maternal behavior, and does that have anything to do
with the kind of work that I was describing.
And finally, the last part
there individuals for whom of the question was, are
just won't work? compassion training
questions. So, those are all wonderful
the first question. I think that assigning a number
to the percentage of our behavior that is
"genetic" is frankly, rubbish.
It is inconsistent Just pure rubbish.
in molecular genetics. with what we now understand
there is a whole burgeoning The rfield of epi-genetics.cause
Epi-genetics is the study of
And we know that you can take, modulation of gene expression.
the animal level, if you take a rat that's been genetically
bread to be high anxious, and you cross-foster it,
you raise it with a mother who
And in the rodent world, exhibits a lot of nurturance.
of licking and grooming, it's expressed as high levels
be bad for humans to do, probably something that wouldn't
( laughter ) either.
it changes the gene expression So, if you do that,
for the gluco-corticoid receptor of the specific gene that codes
of stress neurobiology. wAnd so it basically doesn'trt
matter that that rat
for high anxiety. You have literally changed
the expression of the very genes
for this trait of anxiety. that the genotype is specifying
I don't want to leave you with the misleading impression
that genotype doesn't matter. I think it does matter.
It sets initial propensities. But I also very fervently
believe that we have
kinds of experiments to know just not undertaken the right
of human plasticity are, and the what the further reaches
can be altered in the brain. extent to which gene expression
the answers to that I at this point in time.ow
So, I think the healthy response
There is a recent major behavior genetic study,.
which just came out of the UK.
a couple of weeks ago. It was just published
longitudinal study with monozygotic and dizygotic twins
to look at issues of inheritability.
And one of the major insights from that study is that
the stability of behavior from one age to the next
appears to be more under
but the change in behavior genetic control,
appears to be strongly from one age to the next
Not surprising, but there's every compelling evidence.
to indicate that. And so, you know I think
that we need to do the right
intensive training, I think, kind of training, and
Another question that you asked, are there some people
for whom compassion training
I don't really think we know may not work?
There may be a group of people the answer to that.
would be called psychopaths, who, in psychiatric jargon,
may not be helpful. But these are individuals who
have documented abnormalities in certain brain circuits
that in part underlay empathy and other such qualities,
and so it may be that this kind of training wouldn't be
particularly effective
Although it hasn't been tried, in those individuals.
with any certainty. so >> I'm not quite suresay
how to this.
is the nature of identity then, Iand the continuity of one'st
existence, in the case where
reductionistic to physicality. we reduce things without being
say, well I'm the same person Becalthough I lost my arm,ple
I lost my leg,
whatever part. I lost my frontal lobe,
if it's physical. AnAnd so, it seems like thist,
issue kind of overlaps
that you've made today, perhaps the three of you.
Well, philosophers
for personal identity for years. have debated the criterion
simpler question of just what Acounts as you being you over
the course of your lifetime.
you've got the more complicated Fquestion of what would
constitute me being me
when I'm decidedly after the resurrection,
at least I hope. going to be different,
is that there isn't Wany single criterion.e
Our bodies obviously change immensely from birth,
to full maturity, to death. And so you've got, in a sense,
a continuous spacio-temporal
But we know that the actual materials of it are almost
all replaced within a seven-year
the same criteria as for a physical object.e
The other major criterion is the memory criterion.
But when we find an amnesiac
after five years, and doesn't have a scrap of memory
will still recognize, this is Uncle Joe.
So, the bodily criterion
when the memory criterion isdoesn't work anymore.in
So actually, we're always using a combination of these,
all the time, but it doesn't
to be identical. matter, because they tend
When we've got peculiar thought experiments, well,
what if we switch my brain
which is me from then on? There aren't any answers to that
question, because it's just a thought experiment.
But when I talk about what
after the resurrection, that's a very serious question.
And I think that we all know
people having pretty stable whatpersonalities over time.out
I always joked that if my late
body, I would still know from all of the personality traitss
that it's Jim, you know,
So you know, character, also our personal relationships
with others constitutes as who we are.
And if you believe in God,
then God's relationship to me is the primary thing that would
constitute me as who I am.
the continuity of consciousness. But then there is also simply
you don't have to go and look Whenin your appointment booking
and look up your business card
So I'm assuming that after to find out who you are.
that I am I. resurrection, we'll just know
very frequently on the benefits of decreasing personal suffering
within the self,
but I can see potential for increasing personal suffering
if one cannot respond constructively to the object
of great suffering. And so I wonder to what end
is all of this? Is is simply to make ourselves
more comfortable, or is there some larger, activist moral
framework in which we're called to reduce some sort of quotient
of suffering by some sort of
Wonderful question. I think most people heard it,
but let me just repeat
And the question was being asked the essence of it.
the first part of the question whether, initially,
negative impact of this kind had to do with the potential
with the suffering of others, of traiand not being ablewhelmed
to appropriately act. And the second part,
related part, is this kind of training embedded in a framework
of relieving the suffering
and sort of a call to action. Let me just first begin
to answer that with an empirical
And that is that one of the surprising parts of the brain
which is strongly activated by compassion training
of the sort that I described, which I didn't have time
to go into, are the motor areas of the brain.
Despite the fact
are perfectly still. that the practitioners
when we first observed it. And this was a real anomaly
when we have discussed this with And we've observed it repeatedly
According to their view, the long-term practitioners.
because they understand thisthe practice to bense
one of action preparation.
prepared to act as soon as suffering is encountered.
And so, the purpose of these
to make one feel better, practices is not at all
the suffering of others. but it is explicitly to relieve
so it very much is a call Tto action, and the changes,
that are observed in these
I think, is a very interesting motor regions of the brain,
with the disposition neural-- that may be associated
rather than to simply withdraw. And I also want to just say
that I think compassion is very different than empathy,
the way empathy has been defined
it is the experience in the psychological literature,
that another is experiencing. If you are with someone
who is in pain, and you are experiencing the same pain,
it may not be the most adaptive emotional state for you
to actually help that other individual
to relieve their suffering. And so, we think that compassion
is probably very different
the cultivation of empathy than empathy, although
developmental stage in the may be a very important
My question and comments accentuation of compassion.
I'm one of those animal rights is directed to Mr. Davidson.
But don't worry, I'm not people you mentioned earlier.
where you live. You don't have to call the cops
on me.
like all those slides But that you were showing,on,
they were all, I'm assuming,
I didn't see anything that was based on human studies.
on human primates, so I really, obvioand other people,g done
medical experts, etc.,
who really fail to see any kind alsoof a direct link betweents,
studying non-human primates and human beings, as well.
I really seriously doubt
the primates-- that if you stop studying
the primates, you really won't If you stop studying
I mean, you've made a lot of great strides, and you've
gotten a lot of great results by just studying the humans.
So why continue?
that is involved with primate I meanexperiments, etc.f money
I appreciate the opportunity
And it's a question which will inevitably persist.
And I really welcome
to address it directly. Let me just first say that
99% of the research that we do
The work that we do with is with humans.
is really a tiny slice non-human primates
But I feel that it is a very important slice.
It's a slice that I'm proud of. It's a slice
that I will defend. And it's a slice
that I think is crucial.
in addition to the kind of work that I describe, we also
are working on some devastating human diseases.
One of the diseases that we study is depression.
Depression is the second
and mortality worldwide. most common cause of morbidity
like Autism. We also study other disorders,
devastating disorders that are These are very costly,
of human suffering. reWe have made a decision, ands
I've made a personal decision that and when I study those
disorders, will do everything I can in ways that I think
are the most beneficial to help promote new knowledge,
to develop better treatments
suffering of these individuals. wIn my best judgment, theree
are certain kinds of studies
crucial in order to advance in non-hthis science. that are
I don't do these kinds
I do them extremely selectively. of studies routinely.
I do them with as much awareness But when they are done,
as much intelligence in terms of making these decisions.
And also with as much gratitude and compassion for the beings
that we are working with
to help us better understand who are dedicating their time
I should also say that the work that we do
with non-human primates has pioneered the development
of methods that are,
non-invasive methods. Now I know that you've been--
That in the literature you
that we do that involve lesions receiveof the brain.studies
I can tell you that there are now treatments for depression
that are being based
that actually involve surgery to the brain for patients
who have intractable
whose lives have been devastated mood disorders,
And so I am proud of this work..
I feel it really does importantly contribute
to the alleviation of suffering.
and I try to do it I do it extremely judiciously,
and awareness. with an attitude of gratitude
of animal research that's done I think that a lot
I have spoken out in many iforums to help reform the way.
animals are treated in research.
general, be doing a much better job than we're currently doing.
And so my use of these animals
as usual. But, I think it's necessary.
And in fact, I would say
the cessation of animal research that those who advocate
The elimination of research in animals are irresponsible.
With that, let me thank all of our speakers
for an outstanding session. Thank you all for coming.
( applause
)