You Are An Illusion
Imagine if this were true - you are merely an illusion created by 100 billion neurons! How do we prove that we exist? This is the premise of a recent Time Magazine article titled, The Mystery of Consciousness.
This piece was written by a Professor of Psychology at Harvard, Steven Pinker, who I presume is an atheist from the general irreligious tone of the article. There is an uneasy feeling that this article exudes. Here are some thoughts that ought to prompt us to beware the consequences of such writings.
- Would we prefer death to a state of blankness (unconsciousness)? Could answers to this question change our policies toward unresponsive patients? Could new policies make the Terri Schiavo case looks like child’s play?
- Consciousness doesn’t reside in a soul but is the result of the activity of the brain.
Pinker believes that out thoughts and feelings are merely the result of physiological activity of the brain. Looks like we are no different than the dog we walk in the evenings. He even derides out-of-body experiences as simply the result of hypoxia. Of course, near death experiences are not essential proof of the existence of a soul or central to Catholic faith.
There are certain flaws to just reducing people to a series of electrical impulses in our brains. How do we account for each of us having a unique personality? Or for that matter, if it’s just electrical stimuli, why do we have different experiences when we face the same situation? I would surmise that these indicate that the “I” is real and not an illusion as Pinker alludes to.
Pinker is confident that reducing our existence to an illusion strangles our hope of life after death and undermines the notion that we have a free choice. Probably the answer lies here. If we have all the same impulses in our neurons in the same set of scenarios, why do we make different choices. In fact why do humans have the ability to make choices but not animals. This should decimate the premature celebration of neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists and evolutionary biologists and get them back to their drawing boards. There’s more to life that just electrons rushing around neural highways.
Finally it’s an insult that Pinker uses the 9/11 Islamists with their warped idea of human life as the justification that all religions devalue earthly existence for the sake of heavenly immortality. Christianity upholds the dignity of human life while on Earth. We Christians call it love and it’s easier to love a fellow human being than an electrical equipment.
