Brain Surgery Linked To Sensation of Spirituality

the3stars writes "'Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy. Their study provides the strongest evidence to date that spiritual thinking arises in, or is limited by, specific brain areas. This raises a number of interesting issues about spirituality, among them whether or not people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma." One critic's quoted response: "It's important to recognize that the whole study is based on changes in one self-report measure, which is a coarse measure that includes some strange items."

Comments

Frist

[Hognoxious]

Frist ... where was I? ... my brain has disapno carrier

Re:Frist

[EricTheO]

Reminds me of my favorite misunderstood song lyric: "I can see clearly now my brain is gone."

Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[elrous0]

Yeah, you can make someone a lot happier with a lobotomy too. And stupid people who don't *use* their brains are often amused by the human equivalent of shiny keys (aka "reality television"). And people who drug themselves into a brainless stupor are are often in a complete euphoria (even a rat-infested, filthy trailer becomes paradise with just a little dab of meth).

But the rest of us, stuck with all of our fully-functional brains, are forced to sometimes contemplate serious matters that aren't so happy. Sure, we sometimes get depressed. But humanity probably wouldn't make much scientific, intellectual, or cultural progress if everyone was walking around every day drugged-up and lobotomized, with stupid goddamn grins on their faces.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[Hatta]

It's not quite so simple. Remember that Newton was highly religious. It would be hard to describe him as not having a fully functional brain.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[JerryLove]

Why would that be hard to do? Geniuses often have brain abnormalities leading to schitzophrenia, paranoia, depression, or autism. Why would religion be any different?

Also, it would be a mistake to confuse tendancies with hard-fast rules. That a part of the brain affects congnative decisions doesn't remove the role of cognition.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[jollyreaper]

Yeah, you can make someone a lot happier with a lobotomy too.

Not me. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[__aastpl2241]

at the time of newton if you were a declared atheist, you would have gone into serious serious problems, falling apples and math would have been your last concern

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[Mister Whirly]

So I'm really suspicious of a test that says one person is "feeling" more spiritual than another person since that isn't even how it works.

Wow, a religious person having a hard time believing something that can be scientifically proven that contradicts their own personal views that cannot be scientifically proven. There's a first.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[hey!]

Well, a lobotomy reduces the patient's capacity for introspection and self-consciousness. So what you write is true of lobotomies.

That said, it's premature to characterize these results as "blissful ignorance". In fact the researchers pinpoint two areas: the right angular gyrus and left inferior parietal lobe. It's intriguing that both of these areas are related to arithmetic abilities, but that's all the result is -- intriguing. We don't know whether it's the same thing going on in both cases, or whether either case is related it any way to what we think of as "spirituality".

You can look at the things these areas of the brain are supposed to do and make all kinds of interesting conjectures, but it could be something as simple as some of these patients not being able to understand the sense of the questions being put the them, or others not being able to monitor the kinds of emotional sensations they're being asked to report on. One area is believed to be used in the understanding of metaphors, the other in terms of bodily awareness.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[HTH NE1]

or do you realize [God] is there and strive to live differently as a result?

Sometimes living differently isn't better, especially for those around you.

Put another way: don't make me strive to live differently; you wouldn't like me when I live differently.

I profess nothing more than what Jesus did: Love everyone even if they hate you.

Have you tried professing it without name-dropping Jesus?

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Again. No universal definition of "spiritual" exists. An australian abo, a Buddhist, or a Muslim Sufi all see it differently.

I, and probably most of the people on Digg or Reddit, don't hate religious people OR Christians. I suspect that they DO hate it when small groups of "spiritual people" of sect X decide to legislate political matters based on unprovable, mythologically based views of the world. This affects everyone directly and has provably cause great harm to gays, jews, puritans and anabaptists.

Whether the universe was created by an omniscient superbeing(s) or not, does it matter? None of them have shown up this morning offering to help me with anything, any more than I would show up at an anthill 100 miles north and offer to help ant number 3432. Besides, if they DO exist, all bets are off. They can effect your memory and make you believe anything they want.

Spirituality can well be a "feeling." There's no commonly accepted criterion. Many of my spiritual moments have include "feelings."

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[Narcocide]

That's very true however FWIW I read somewhere that Newton had claimed he'd gained many of his initial insights about physics and mathematics while in process of re-translating the bible to English. Only having read a couple recent popular English translations myself, it seems a bit strange as a source for that type of inspiration but I'd also read that he was not the only huge figure in science that claimed this.

I think maybe it is possible that there are times in human history when in certain societies being extremely religious may have actually been an enlightening pursuit... perhaps one of the only few available. Keep in mind there wasn't a lot of funding of public libraries or schools or even literature going on outside the walls of the church back then.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[Labcoat Samurai]

Finally I'd like to conclude that spirituality is not a "feeling". I don't wake up one day and say I feel more spiritual than another day. Spirituality is your relationship with God. Do you dismiss God and go about your way, or do you realize he is there and strive to live differently as a result?

It absolutely is a feeling. People don't arrive at faith in god through logic. They may employ post hoc rationalization to obfuscate the issue and try to convince themselves and others that they did, but "realizing God is there" is a spiritual feeling, not an intellectual deduction.

I'm reminded of the study in skeptic magazine that, to paraphrase, found that people who believed in god tended to claim that they arrived at their belief in rational ways, but that they think others arrived at their faith through feelings and a desire for comfort and a sense of purpose. I thought that was interesting. It indicates that people recognize feelings as a big motivator for belief in god, but that they are also uncomfortable with admitting to being anything less than perfectly rational. Your denial of spirituality being a feeling coupled with your focus on god defining your life and how you should live it indicates to me that you're the kind of person who needs that comfort and purpose from an outside source, but is uncomfortable admitting to it.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[wealthychef]

Why do you think that happiness is the same as stupidity? In my experience, many people go from blissful ignorance (childhood) to unhappy ignorance (teenagers) to arrogant unhappiness (young adulthood) to resignation (midlife crisis) to mature joy. Some people skip various steps and there are others possible, of course. I'm just saying your view is extremely narrow and not particularly accurate. There are many very intelligent people who live very happy lives, laughing and loving their lives. Just because you are serene and have deep inner peace and happiness doesn't mean you never cry or don't get upset.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[wealthychef]

I think it's more subtle and complex than that. Religion is like a virus that has benefits to its host. It transmits certain successful memes and in exchange it replicates itself. It cannot be denied that simply telling people to "be good" does not motivate them to act wisely. But giving a loving environment to practice kindness and support for each other is what religion excels at. As an atheist, I wish I had more such structures for myself. I turn to mens teams and personal development for finding more evolved and kind people.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[Albinoman]

Newton was also known for his work in alchemy. He enjoyed his share of share of toxins (like mercury). Don't get me wrong, Newton was sheer brilliance. I'm able to be taught calculus, but to make that leap intuitively is absolutely amazing. That doesn't mean he wasn't damaged.

I saw a video by Neil deGrasse Tyson called "God of the Gaps", highly recommended. He points out that even the most incredibly brilliant people invoke God add the edge of their intelligence. For Newton, he managed to come out with incredible breakthroughs in motion, energy, gravitation, and math. But when Newton couldn't mathematically balance the "6 planets" in stable orbits, he decides it must be God. He quits trying to understand and explore it after that, as do a great many intelligent people in history. The disturbing thing is that it means that that once "God" is accepted as an answer, they are either unable or unwilling to explore that subject further. God is the antithesis of discovery.

Re:Yeah, it's called blissful ignorance

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

You are right. Alcohol is not the same as Spirituality. The differences:

  - Alcohol is cheaper than religion
  - Alcohol will get you laid
  - Alcohol lets you sleep late on sundays
  - Alcohol doesn't judge you, your condom, or your abortion.
  - You don't have to wear ridiculous hats to drink Alcohol.
  - Alcohol produces less brain damage than religion.

Thank you, I'm here all week.

Re:The church

[ircmaxell]

More news from the Vatican, "spreading the word of Christ" now involves a sledge hammer...

Ragu Soul

[handy_vandal]

The soul is to the body as "Italian-ness" is to Ragu Spaghetti Sauce: "It's In There!"

Re:The church

[Vendetta]

Hasn't it always?

What conflict?

[Matey-O]

You are a thing. A Marvelous machine. If you are poked and prodded we can illicit love, hunger, fear...why NOT spirituality? It does not make the phenomena any less real, you've just figured out how to manipulate the machine to do it on command.

Re:What conflict?

[HeckRuler]

Agreed.
Simply because we've found the switch to turn it on doesn't lessen it's meaning. It puts a damper on the whole mind-body-soul trifecta, but that's been a wash for a while now. People are a sub-set of animals, your mind exists as a configuration of your brain, and those warm fuzzies you get from spiritual enlightenment will one day be regulated with a drug. The original purpose and meaning of spiritual enlightenment remains, just without the mysticism. Kind of like sex after it was discovered that it makes babies.

Of course, I'm a little worried about the day that religious nuts can literally over dose on god.

Not a new idea

[Idiomatick]

Neuroscientist VC Ramachandran (sp?) a bunch of years ago was dealing with patients that had temporal lobe epilepsy. The temporal lobe is in control of 'meaning', it is the part of your brain that recognizes objects for their significance. He found that after an episode the patients had overwhelming feeling of spirituality. The idea is that they were seeing meaning and importance in everything down to individual blades of grass. One of his patients refused any support since he believed he was a prophet and that it was his link to god. (I since have read that many prophets historically have been epileptics such as Ezekiel and Mohamed).

You can find the guy in NOVA (secrets of the mind). He also gave a talk or two on www.TED.com .

Re:Not a new idea

[sznupi]

I can certainly vouch for this.

In my early teen years I was diagnosed with a form of this epilepsy. The thing not mentioned in the post above is that such form of spirituality goes away somewhat if the condition is dealt with quickly, as happened in my case. Few years later I stumbled upon some info and came to realize that I'm almost a textbook example (for short summary, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome )

What many of you can't really grasp, without experiencing it, is how real it feels - basically the question about existence of spiritual part of reality doesn't come into it at all; it's just present, that's...obvious. Only after it lessens the grip, you might ask yourself "what was that all about"?

The thing that it's often exploited by religious "guidance" certainly doesn't help to escape. And with TLE being one of more underdiagnosed forms of epilepsy (heck, it was almost a chance in my case), I wouldn't be surpised if statistically significant number of deeply religious people had a mild form. In case of such, you end up arguing against what is...very much real.

Try LSD

[Anonymous Coward]

It does the same thing.

Re:Flamebait

[Ethanol-fueled]

It's possible for theists to become atheists and vice-versa. Born-again Christians, after all, are among the most rabid religious fanboys.

It's not a predisposition to religion so much as it is predisposition to zeal.

Do you see God?

[Gandhi of War]

*whack*
How about now?

TED Talk Covers Similar Case with Stroke

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

This is my favourite

[Cryacin]

people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma

I need spirituality like I need a hole in my head!

Weeellll... that's one way to get it I guess.

Re:This is my favourite

[Mister Whirly]

They already have it. It is called MDMA, which you already seem to be aware of. Get some of the pure crystalline form and I guarantee you a religious experience. (Not just some random pill that could contain any number of substances.) Listening to the first Stone Roses album also helps.

Re:This is my favourite

[Arthur Grumbine]

people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma
Weeellll... that's one way to get it I guess.

Definitely adds a very interesting potential to the story of Saul (St. Paul) who was famous for persecuting the Christians before he was thrown from his horse on the road to Damascus, and saw "a light from heaven", after which he heard Jesus speak to him and was converted. The official story is that he saw the light first, and was then thrown from his horse - but head trauma has a funny way of messing with the memory of the sequence of events...

Re:This is my favourite

[hazem]

Here is an interesting lecture by Robert Sapolsky, "Evolution, religion, schizophrenia and the schizotypal personality", http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/06/evolution-religion-s.html

It's an interesting talk about how while schizophrenia may be the result of a full expression of a recessive gene, the schizotypal may be a mild expression of the same gene, leading to people like shamans. That would tend to support your "born with a strong propensity"...

His recent graduation day talk at Stanford was, while not related (on the uniqueness of humans), even more interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrCVu25wQ5s

Re:Flamebait

[CorporateSuit]

Plus it would help with the prejudice that religious people have against atheists.

Take a look at the comments for this article, keeping in mind that the article points out that its definition of "Spirituality" is neurologically different from "Religious" and let me know what the atheist club looks like.

Re:Flamebait

[IorDMUX]

So, this is proof that religious people aren't using their whole brain then?

You keep using that word.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Not quite precise...

[XanC]

You're thinking of Blaise Pascal.

Re:The church

[amirulbahr]

Some people around here seem to think the Pope is in charge of all of the Christian world. A post like that getting modded insightful shows the audiences ignorance in this regard. The truth of the matter is that the most fervent bible bashing, science hating, ultra-conservatives come from the ranks of American new age evangelicals.

The Catholic Church does not preach creationism. I went to Catholic schools and there was no blurring of the line between religion and science education.

I too am worried when people start giving scientific reasoning and religious dogma equal weight. I hate when people think they can solve their problems just by saying a prayer. Worst of all is when people look to trivial tricks and oddities and claim they are miracles as though the universe around them isn't miraculous enough as it is. I am not however too worried about the Catholic Church trying to take down science and reasoning as it doesn't have a recent history of doing so and even if it did most Catholics would resist that because they haven't been brought up that way.

Religious epiphanies from temporal lobe seizures

[__roo]

It's pretty well known that religious epiphanies and other feelings of religiosity, spirituality, or sensations of a "presence" can sometimes be linked to neurological events such as some temporal lobe seizures. (Wasn't this the plot for an episode of House?) It's common enough that there's a section on religious and paranormal experiences in the temporal lobe epilepsy Wikipedia page. There was a good BBC documentary a few years ago on this called "God on the Brain" (here's a transcript).

Re:Flamebait

[cjb658]

It's just a metaphor.

Picture = 1000 words

[200_success]

Put more simply...

You're missing some awesome footage.

[copponex]

Of course, I'm a little worried about the day that religious nuts can literally over dose on god.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STFT0C5Hu8M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2STDH14aJVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjMRgT5o-Ig

Good to know...

[bobdotorg]

Good to know that I might finally reach Zen nirvana, at least for a moment, as the zombies gnaw through my brain.

Re:Enough of the faith bashing

[dissy]

Wow.

While I do not look for opportunities to attack people who do not believe in God, I have had enough of this shit.

So you don't look for such opportunities, yet are making one right now.

Just because people believe in God(sorry, but he does exist and only a fool would attempt to "prove" otherwise), it does not mean they have an "altered mental status".

Are you sure? What is 'altered' to you? Just different from what you believe?

What you feel you believe does not change reality.
When doctors poke a piece of brain and consistently get the same reaction, it doesn't at all matter what you 'feel'. Either you agree with reality and are called 'right', or you state that what is happening in front of your eyes is not actually happening, and people call you 'wrong' (Among other bad names no doubt)

This sounds like someone's attempt to demean a group of people.

Well, sorry you read it that way, but it is not. "Action A gets reaction B" is all it is attempting to say.
And really not even that, only that in their very small sample and crude methods this can be inferred but is not enough to be considered 'proof'

Far from demeaning anyone, they are stating the results of a freaking survey!
Would you prefer they LIE about what their subjects told them to say?

What if I decided to go out and prove that homosexuality was from brain trauma? I will guarantee that people would ask for my head on a plate.

Actually almost every church in America would be behind you 110% and even help you try to prove that.

Since a majority of humans believe a creator, or some entity/force outside of humanity(essentially, the spirituality this study links to), then I would tend to believe that the minority is missing something.

Well, the majority of humans also felt slavery was perfectly OK. Guess the majority is right.

Another majority of people felt before that a specific minority shouldn't even exist, and began rounding them up for mass extinctions. You feel that is OK too since the majority must be right?

Most people also thought the sun orbits the earth. Guess since the majority thinks it, reality will bend to make it true.

As you admit to being one of those types who feels the mob is always correct no matter if they actually are or not, that says way more about you than if you believe in a god or not.
You are a horrible human being, and it has nothing to do with your belief in god, but how little you care about your fellow man.

Now go ahead and mod this as the flame it is (Because just like you, I've had enough of this shit as well)