Hard-Wired
Yes, I realize I begin most of my posts with “There’s a great article in the New York Times,” but whatever. The Sunday NYT mag is great.
So, anyway, there’s a great article in the New York Times that talks about monogamy, behavior, and chemicals in the frontal lobe. Granted, it wasn’t in humans, it was in rodents, but still. We’re not *that* far off.
That such a “moral,” values-laden behavior such as morality can be influenced by a molecule floating in the brain gives me pause about free will, destiny, and chemical determinism. All those human qualities that I find so endearing… do they merely appear in my close friends because they have a certain proportion of neurotransmitters in their heads? Do I get along with some people because our neurotransmitters match up, or complement each other, while others just don’t?
I was just talking with my friend Carlos last night–he was telling me about a friend who is just so honest and transparent–you can just see her goodness in her eyes. But what is that? More of an honesty chemical in part of her brain? Here comes blasphemy: maybe we’re not souls, but different proportions of chemicals.
I have always been interested in the concept of consciousness, which philosophers and scientists have steered away from for years.
Got forbid, when the predominately secular and atheist scientific community determines what consciousness is, “consciousness” may not be a word that is all that different than “soul.”
And I believe that as the decades, or centuries, pass what we do discover about ourselves will be far different than what either the secular community of scientists and philosopers or the clergy expected.
At this stage of evolution our minds are too puny to ‘figure it all out.’ Our brains evolved primarily to enable us to find food before we are eaten ourselves. This philosophizing thing, this science thing are but unexpected byproducts of our evolution.
Perhaps philosophy, science and theology, which were all one study before a splitting that occurred as science began to take center stage in the era of Descartes, will once again be united.
There are a few philosophers who have conjectured that everything is pure thought and the experience of this world is determined by the structure and complexity of the subject having it.
Are we creations of Thought, using us to look back upon Itself?
I believe Bishop Berkely, a Catholic, said a century or two ago that all is thought and there is no matter.
So maybe everything is one great thought studying itself through the “filters” of all sentient life.
This is beginning to sound Zen-like. But why shouldn’t neurotransmitters play a key rold in our interrelationships as a species? Are our bodies just filters through which thought looks back upon things?
But the chemical thing does open the questions of free will and determinism. But some philosophers seem to believe that the bizzare philosophical implications of quantum physics may somehow save us from determinism and return free will to us.
Charles
Yeah baby. I’m sure you’ve heard me say “we’re all only as good as the chemicals floating around in our system.” Admittedly, you said it more eloquently.