December 14, 2003
FRANCIS PHELAN OFF THE HOOK:
Humanity? Maybe It's in the Wiring (SANDRA BLAKESLEE, 12/09/03, NY Times)
Neuroscientists have given up looking for the seat of the soul, but they are still seeking what may be special about human brains, what it is that provides the basis for a level of self-awareness and complex emotions unlike those of other animals.Most recently they have been investigating circuitry rather than specific locations, looking at pathways and connections that are central in creating social emotions, a moral sense, even the feeling of free will.
There are specialized neurons at work, as well — large, cigar-shaped cells called spindle cells.
The only other animals known to have such cells are the great apes. These neurons are exceptionally rich in filaments. And they appear to broadcast socially relevant signals all over the brain. [...]
In humans, the experience of any intense emotion — love, anger, lust — activates the anterior cingulate. It is active during demanding tasks and when people make errors. The harder the task, the more activation.
Spindle cells probably first appeared 10 million to 15 million years ago in a common ancestor of apes, hominids and humans, Dr. Allman said. Today these rare neurons are 5 to 40 times as abundant in humans as in apes. Spindle cells may help people register the general appropriateness of transactions or events, he said. They are a teaching system that takes output from social emotion circuits — I feel good about this, I don't feel good about that — and sends it all over the cortex for further action to occur.
Spindle cells are not present at birth. They appear around age 4 months and gradually increase during the second and third year of life, the same time that guilt and embarrassment appear. As children develop a sense of moral judgment, the frontal lobes and spindle cell system continue to expand.
No neuroscientist would make a leap to say that this is where the conscience or sense of free will is lodged. But if one imagined a single location for these fundamental aspects of human nature, this would be the place.
Which would suggest that Peter Singer is about one/third right, and infanticide should be allowed for the first four months of life, though not the full year he's argued for. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 14, 2003 09:34 AM
If all this research about interconnection and brain chemicals is correct -- and on the physical level the evidence is getting stronger every day -- then ID is in big trouble.
Of course, we've known this for a long time. The Four F's response, which is as well established as anything in neurology, told us that decades ago.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 14, 2003 02:53 PMHarry:
Why? We have to be designed in one fashion or another--what makes this one unintelligent?
Posted by: OJ at December 14, 2003 03:29 PMBecause too often we Fight when we ought to Flee, and vice versa. Or even worse. The same chemicals have to handle a variety of functions, sometimes at odds.
This is OK most of the time, but has a tendency to break down in a crisis. An Intelligent Designer would not have done that.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 14, 2003 08:26 PMWhy? If the designer makes it so that you always have to follow the rules there's no point. If you could make your children do exactly what you want them to at every decision point in their lives, would you make it so?
Posted by: OJ at December 14, 2003 08:35 PMIntelligent Design requires a design and an intelligence, doesn't it?
Our existence seems far too shambolic for either of those, but fits the catch-as-catch-can nature of mindless evolution pretty well.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at December 15, 2003 09:03 AMJeff: Only if you think an intelligent designer would have created flawless automotons. Leave it to me, and I'd like to see my creations excel and screw up. More fun to watch.
Posted by: Chris at December 15, 2003 09:33 AMBecause too often we Fight when we ought to Flee, and vice versa.
That may be the best scientific explanation of man's fallen state that I've ever heard. Nice work.
Posted by: Timothy at December 15, 2003 03:02 PMAh, yes, the Idea of God as a boy pulling the wings off flies for amusement. I recall making that connection one hot day in religion class in 1958, while the flies buzzed in the window and the nun droned in the front.
You could be right, Orrin, but if so, then God doesn't love us.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 15, 2003 04:08 PMDid you not love your children when you told them what to do and what not to do before they were mature enough to understand the reasons?
Posted by: oj at December 15, 2003 04:16 PMSure, I loved 'em so much I didn't even threaten to turn them into pillars of salt, slit their throats or burn in hell.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 15, 2003 10:59 PMBut you did tell them behaviors that were required even though they couldn't comprehend why, eh? And that doesn't mean you didn't love them?
Posted by: oj at December 15, 2003 11:08 PMNo, I treated 'em like little adults from the time they could talk. I explained why we do what we do, and whether they understood some or all of it, they got in on ground floor.
The trouble with telling people how to act is that the tellers never stop, even when the tellees are 85 years old.
And there's a big difference between telling and torturing.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 16, 2003 03:01 AMOJ:
Having the ability to excel or screw up is one thing.
Unfortunately, your designer must also have a penchant for pointless pain. The lower back, for instance. A source of considerable pain that any competent engineer--one operating with a goal, anyway--could have avoided.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at December 16, 2003 07:24 AMHarry:
Yes, but they were as mature as you eventually--you're unlikely to be as mature as God any time soon. We're still wayward children.
Posted by: oj at December 16, 2003 08:35 AMThe question is not whether God made a considered decision when he invented his Universe. If he invented it, I'm happy to concede he did it on purpose.
In his mature throught, he invented evil. Not the sort of thing to win friends.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 16, 2003 08:43 PMYou can only be friends with your equals--we're aren't his.
Posted by: oj at December 16, 2003 08:49 PMThe household cats aren't my equals. I don't torture them.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at December 17, 2003 03:09 PMEat veal?
Posted by: OJ at December 17, 2003 03:33 PMYes, but if I were a calf, I wouldn't worship the farmer.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 17, 2003 05:55 PMHarry:
stand at a barbed wire fence and the whole herd will come to you.
Posted by: oj at December 17, 2003 06:25 PMOJ:
No, in fact I don't eat veal.
Most dog owners don't visit random, pointless, pain upon their pets, and do view them as friends.
Despite not being equals.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at December 18, 2003 07:28 AMThey visit pain upon them that has a point--at least to the owner--as does God seem to upon us.
Posted by: oj at December 18, 2003 02:53 PMA prolapsed uterus has a point?
A God that would have the power to prevent such a thing, yet decline to do so, seems hardly the model for a source of morality.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at December 19, 2003 08:14 AM