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The Spiritual Brain
A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul

Chapter One

Toward a Spiritual Neuroscience

In June 2005, the historic World Summit on Evolution was held on the remote island of San Cristobal in the Galápagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador. The unassuming location, Frigatebird Hill, was chosen because it was the very spot where Charles Darwin first docked in 1835 to probe the "mystery of mysteries"—the origin and nature of species, including (and perhaps especially) the human species.

These isolated Pacific islands lying on the equator later became a stopover for pirates, whalers, and sealers who drove the unique life forms that Darwin studied to the brink of extinction. But still later, under government protection in the twentieth century, the islands evolved into a sort of shrine to materialism—the belief that all life, including human life, is merely a product of the blind forces of nature.¹ In the materialist's view, our "minds"—soul, spirit, free will—are simply an illusion created by the electrical charges in the neurons of our brains. Nature is, as Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins famously put it, a "blind watchmaker."²

The Galápagos meeting was quickly hailed as the Woodstock of Evolution. The scientists present, a "Who's Who of evolutionary theory,"³ were well aware of their own importance and the significance of the proceedings. "We are simply stunned to be here," wrote one science journalist, recalling that the elite audience listened to the familiar tale of evolution "rapt,like children hearing the retelling of a favorite story."⁴

According to the favorite tale, human beings are merely "a bizarre tiny clade," in the words of one attendee.⁵ And the mission of the next summit promises to tell that tale to the whole world.⁶ However, to judge from the growing dissension around the teaching of evolution, the world has heard it already.

A Series of Mindless Events?

A key figure at the conference was American philosopher Daniel Dennett. Dennett, who bears a striking physical resemblance to Charles Darwin, is a world-famous philosopher of mind. He is the favorite philosopher of those who think that computers can simulate human mental processes. Curiously, for a philosopher of mind, he hopes to convince the world that there isn't really any such thing as a mind in the traditional sense. He is best known, perhaps, for saying that "Darwin's dangerous idea" is the best idea anyone ever had, because it firmly grounds life in materialism. As he understands it, human beings are "big, fancy robots" and, better still:

If you have the right sort of process and you have enough time, you can create big fancy things, even things with minds, out of processes which are individually stupid, mindless, simple. Just a whole lot of little mindless events occurring over billions of years can create not just order, but design, not just design, but minds, eyes and brains.⁷

Dennett insists that there is no soul or spirit associated with the human brain, or any supernatural element, or life after death. Thus, his career focus has been to explain how "meaning, function and purpose can come to exist in a world that is intrinsically meaningless and functionless."⁸ He came to the Galápagos to testify to that view.

Of course, many -people are dismayed by ideas such as Dennett's and hope that they are false. Others welcome them as a means of freeing the human race from restraints imposed by traditional religions and philosophies. Let us progress, they say, toward a more humane system that both expects less of humans and blames them less for their failures—failures they can't help anyway, really.⁹

The question addressed in this book is not whether materialism is good news or bad news. Rather, the question is, does the evidence from neuroscience support it? As constitutional law professor Phillip Johnson, long a foe of materialism, which he terms "naturalism," writes: "If the blind watchmaker thesis is true, then naturalism deserves to rule, but I am addressing those who think the thesis is false, or at least are willing to consider the possibility that it may be false."¹⁰

True or false, materialism was the dominant intellectual current of the twentieth century and provided the impetus for most major philosophical and political movements of the day. Indeed, many thinkers today see the primary purpose of science as providing evidence for materialist beliefs. They reject with hostility any scientific evidence that challenges such beliefs, as we will see in our discussion of the psi effect in Chapter Six. Every year, thousands of books are published, in dozens of disciplines, advancing materialist views.

Not this one. This book will show that Professor Dennett and the many neuroscientists who agree with him are mistaken. It will take you on a journey different from the one he has made. Not to the Galápagos Islands, but inside the brain. It will show you why he is mistaken. In the first place, the materialists' account of human beings does not bear up well under close examination. In the second place, there is good reason for believing that human beings have a spiritual nature, one that even survives death.

But first things first. Why should you embark on this journey unless you see the need for a nonmaterialist account of human nature? A new account is needed because the materialists' account is inadequate. It is failing in a number of areas. So let us begin by outlining some of the failures. Let's start with this question: What would you be left with if you accepted the materialists' explanation of you? Would you recognize yourself? If not, why not? What is missing?