Head games, mind ****

This kind of stuff can be really worrying -makes you wonder how human beings managed to develop the means to destroy the world as we know it. Or in fact does is explain how once we can we are a danger to ourselves and everything else? Commenting on a new book (A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives by Cordelia Fine ) the author says;

“Your brain is vainglorious. It deludes you. It is emotional, pigheaded and secretive. Oh, and it’s also a bigot. This is more than a minor inconvenience.”

Theologically it is tempting to link this to the fall, but I fear that may be too simple since it would appear that this is actually part of good creation that is it is part of our nature in its innocency, although there may be ways of construing fallenness that could include it. I think that we actually have to start with the idea that the image of God is corporate in humanity and not primarily about individuals. It is corporate endeavour that mitigates the worst effects of the vainglorious brain. The corporate dimension of being human give us the tools to reflect on and to constrain the worst effects of a prejudicial brain, corporate discussion, peer-review etc enable us to filter ideas, concern for our place in social systems give us opposing inner forces to offset the worst potential effects of a narcissistic brain. However, we should probably note that this deluded and deluding brain is also, ipso facto, the source of originality, creativity, determination, courage etc. The real fallenness comes in when we have corporate structures that allow the vaingloriousness of a few with power to tread down others and which encourage the prejudiciality of the many to be expressed in scapegoating.

I will need to think about this more, but I suspect that the analysis is likely to be fruitful.
It may also be worth thinking about this article. One of the things that emerged from that study was,

Our study provides neurobiological evidence that an amygdala-based emotional system underpins this biasing of human decisions. Moreover, we found that people are rational, or irrational, to widely differing amounts. Interestingly, the amygdala was active across all participants, regardless of whether they behaved rationally or irrationally, suggesting that everyone experiences an emotional reaction when faced with such choices. However, we found that more rational individuals had greater activation in their orbitofrontal cortex (a region of prefrontal cortex) suggesting that rational individuals are able to better manage or perhaps override their emotional responses.

We need to think about this kind of stuff in relation to theological anthropology without getting back into seeing rationality as the pinnacle of the image of God or a naive creationism.
Science & Theology News - Head games:
Filed in: brain, mind, psychology, perception, prejudice, delusion, theolology, corporisation, fall, image_of_God,