Epiphenom Blog on Damage to Brain Areas and Religious/Spiritual Beliefs

[chotki]

Found here.

Of course, one can only comment so much without looking at the studies themselves. Nevertheless, thoughts?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by chotki

Found here.

Of course, one can only comment so much without looking at the studies themselves. Nevertheless, thoughts?

Article says:

Johnstone et al suspect that the link between the right parietal lobe and spirituality comes about because damage to this part of the brain makes it harder to locate yourself in 3D space. So there is a tendency to feel that you are somehow merged or blurred in with your environment - hence the sensations of spiritual transcendence.

Perhaps, although my feeling is that it involves more than this. With a properly functioning brain, and assuming the brain acts as a "filter", then the perception of other realities, truths, god etc might well be partially obscured. Hence appropriate brain damage might reduce the effectiveness of this filter enabling us to become more aware of such truths.

That seems to me to fit in better with NDEs, the effects of psychedelic drugs and savants.

[MaxPower]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Article says:



Perhaps, although my feeling is that it involves more than this. With a properly functioning brain, and assuming the brain acts as a "filter", then the perception of other realities, truths, god etc might well be partially obscured. Hence appropriate brain damage might reduce the effectiveness of this filter enabling us to become more aware of such truths.

That seems to me to fit in better with NDEs, the effects of psychedelic drugs and savants.

Indeed, the acquired savant syndrome demonstrates that there are some cases in which damage to the brain actually enhances one's ability to perceive or internalize given parts of reality.