neuroscience

Are humans unique?

Well, humans certainly are unique enough to ask the question and ponder the possibility of our uniqueness. Animals could care less about such philosophizing.

I was inspired to write this post from reading The Hannibal Blog entitled “How humans are (not) unique.”

Certainly, all living creatures are unique and fulfill unique roles in Nature’s economy. Many brain researchers currently state that most of the things we believed made us psychically unique have been observed in other species—such as aggression (and murder), empathy, pleasure anticipation, the Golden Rule and Theory of Mind.

Hmmm? Theory of Mind? Really?!!

It seems that our current Theory of Mind suggests that humans possess the same facilities as other species with the only difference being an added layer of complexity.

This seems odd because my studies into neuroscience suggest there is as yet no complete theory of human cognitive architecture. However, some pioneering researchers are beginning to suspect that brain complexity goes deeper than the substrate of neural (synaptic) pathways and that the neuron itself may have its own “nervous system.”

Scientist/theologian Emanuel Swedenborg beat everybody to the punch on this important topic of brain complexity! He was the first to put forward a neuron theory (brain cells and their connections) and formulate a multi-level theory of mind. His model of mind and consciousness was based on discoveries that led him to believe that the cognitive functions of sensing, imagining, reasoning, intuition and even spiritual experience were totally discrete operations and acted within their own structures (substrates). Each structure within this scaffolding and hierarchy of human consciousness possessed its own unique geometrical principle by which constraints of action were lawfully removed so that new powers of abstraction could be obtained from the sensory data of the circumfluent universe.

The difference between the complexity of animal minds and human minds is not continuous but discrete. In humans, there is no finite ratio between seeing physical objects, seeing mental ideas, and seeing (recognizing) “truth.” These distinct cognitive functions operate in different layers of the brain and neuron.

My upcoming book Proving God spends two chapters covering these new geometrical powers and the discrete qualities of different human cognitive functions, which rely on these forms (classical and non classical) of bio-structure.

Posted on February 16, 2010by

http://www.provinggod.com

The next great religion will have science agreeing with faith

       God has been working to share with the human race a new, unifying paradigm between   science and religion for more than two hundred years now. The problem with this new heavenly revelation is that it is anti-intuitive and will catch most people by complete surprise—because it will challenge both current scientific and theological models of reality.

Rather than people widely embracing this new heavenly dispensation, God’s divine effort to correct humankind’s flawed ideas of fundamental reality will be seen as a threat by most of those who have a vested interest in defending contemporary institutions. This defensive thinking will have to be pushed to the wayside in order to make room for new ideas coming from heaven. And that will cause an intense battle over entrenched worldviews (reputations and careers will be on the line).

Most scientists shun religion because they despise any kind of “truth system” which simply requires mere belief rather than rigorous testing and rational discernment (blind faith). Theologians, on the other hand, believe that there is an invisible, spiritual and metaphysical element to the design of the cosmos.

This division means that both approaches to reality have flaws.

In order for there to be a rational system for uniting science and theology together, all new universal laws have to be discovered in which both truth systems can share an inner consistency. In other words, both systems will have to point to similar first causal principles.

Scientist/theologian Emanuel Swedenborg made a lifelong search for these inner consistencies. He discovered that universal scientific truth contained and reflected doctrinal and theological concepts—like a mirror. In terms of causal links between heaven and earth, spiritual truth flows into and terminates into scientific/natural law (one is prior and the other posterior). In other words, correct scientific constructs correspond perfectly to spiritual constructs. Swedenborg called this unifying model of top-down causal reality the science of correspondences.

This is not only a difficult notion to sell to contemporary thinkers but it has also caused some confusion among many Swedenborgian academicians. The reason is, that although these scholars accept Swedenborg’s theological discoveries as superior to other faith systems, many feel his science is dated. They will point to the fact that Swedenborg only had 18th century ideas and calculus to work with rather than the New Paradigm mathematics of quantum mechanics or multi-dimensional string theory.

Wrong!

In my award-winning book Proving God I challenge this notion because Swedenborg was not satisfied with the scientific thinking of his era and developed some of his own new scientific doctrines to help him find a causal link between the physical human body and the human soul (who is trying to do that today?). To accomplish this great feat, he took the mathematics of his time (calculus of fluxions) and elevated it through ever-new analyses of infinities. This brilliant and primogenital approach to multi-level fluxions and kinetics allowed him to lawfully remove spacetime limitations to various processes and trajectories until they became non-material! This orderly approach is how he discovered the dynamics of correspondences and the inner consistencies between physical, mental and divine activity.

All process obeys the same rules!

Swedenborg claimed to have had God’s help and guidance throughout his life. This amazing claim, while counter-intuitive to our terrestrial sensitivities, cannot be easily dismissed when you consider that he put all these ideas into a wide bookshelf’s worth of publications for everyone to carefully scrutinize. He also cannot be easily dismissed because he designed the first true fixed-wing aircraft as a young man and later contributed important discoveries in brain science, including the first brain cell (neuron) theory.

He had even anticipated the newest leanings in modern neuroscience that emotion and feeling (loves) drove the human mind and that the human brain and neuron has even deeper levels of structure, where the higher operations of abstract thought and reasoning take place. As I hinted earlier, Swedenborg didn’t stop there. He provided a multi-level model of neural substrates in the cerebrum that continued into the non-physical domain of spiritual process!

Then he was chosen by the Lord God to make actual observations of the spiritual world. These unprecedented observations took place for almost three decades and were recorded in dozens of books!

His approach to theology later in life was always as a critical scientist and offered lots of rational evidence that God’s Holy Word also contained a multi-level architecture that provided the template for top-down causation in the human mind and the created universe—as well as new revelations concerning God’s continuous efforts at human salvation.

Studying his ideas will change the course of your life!

Posted on August 30, 2012by

http://www.provinggod.com

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Existence is Relationship

Nothing exists by itself. This insight is actually supported by the discoveries of quantum physics called quantum entanglement, which includes the ideas of non-locality and non-separability. Yet, this holistic concept could just as easily find its expression in a Sunday sermon.

There is a unifying principle in the universe. Physicists seek it in a Grand Unified Theory (or Theory of Everything) and the clergy seek it in God. Therefore, the topic of unity in the universe seems to be a reasonable area where science and religion can begin to have a meaningful encounter with each other. I would even go so far as to say that to the extent to which science and religion cannot be unified one must hold their theories and theologies under suspect. This is the premise I take in my future book, entitled “Proving God.” So, for the purposes of this mini-discussion, I would like to provide a few examples of how existence is founded on relationship.

In the current scientific model of atomic structure everything is held together by an exchange of photons, gluons and quarks. In the human body and other forms of bio-complexity in nature, everything is held together by an exchange of labor. Human society is also held together through an exchange of labor and sharing our special talents as well.

Human cognition involves recognition of ratios and proportions, which are relationships (out of which springs mathematical reasoning). Neuroscience is moving closer to the idea that human affection focuses our attention and shapes our memory by forming new relationships between thoughts and ideas (which lead to creative imagination and abstract thinking).

Marriage between two people is a most intimate sharing of each other’s lives.

It seems that for anything new to come into existence, previous (a priori) things must coexist, that is, form relationships.

Love is relationship. Religion can be looked at as a lawful strategy for taking the unifying dynamic operating in the universe even further. Loving God and the neighbor represents the epitome of relationship forming. Scripture teaches us that all the law of the prophets hangs on these two expressions of love. (I cannot imagine a legitimate religion that is not founded on those two tenets.)

If there be a unifying principle in the universe, LOVE would make a good one! Here’s why. First of all, love is psychical and operates within the human mind. The mind cannot be said to operate in space. Therefore, love gives us a unifying principle of agency that can exist as a special initial condition of a pre-natal universe when time equaled zero (t = 0). Having its domain in pre-space, we are given a unifying principle whereby every created thing can be non-locally connected simultaneously—towards an eternal goal.

Love is the one force that absolutely necessitates the constants of law and a fine-tuned universe because it creates through self-similarity. This self-similarity (correspondence) finds its ultimate expression of unified relationship in the bio-complexities of living organisms and finally the human race through God’s covenant. Love also offers a new way to view top-down causation in a way that preserves self-consistency through discrete operations.

The manifest universe emerged out of a conscious living force. Physics (classical and quantum) has to be reformulated to reflect this principle or it will fail to find the answer to the nature of agency in the universe. Religion also needs a paradigm shift.

Any thoughts?

Posted on January 26, 2008by

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