Revealing the Mind through Neuroscience, Spirituaity, and Psychedelics

Like many modern students, I am convinced that physical reality is far from being fully explained, that despite my stubborn will towards rational objectivism, our brains are wired to infer that there is some higher reality, even to the point of fabricating religious narratives or constructing cultural consolants to quell our need to create meaning. For years, I answered to this higher call with faithful piety, and in my deconstruction of faith I turned to neurobiologists like Andrew Newberg, who suggests that our capacities for self-transcendence and self-awareness have evolved as possible by-prodcucts of our longing for sexual reproduction and metaphorical immortality [1]. 

[2] "Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science" was a saving grace of sorts during my post-religious existiential crisis. In this autobiography, the author journeyed from fundamentalist Christian culture to online atheism before settling in a space of beautiful agnosticism.

My favorite neuroscientist and renowned atheist, whom I mentioned in last week's blog, also concurs with the conclusion that the cross-cultural idea of God as an ineffible, omnipresent being is suggestive of our deepest experience of sublimity and selflessness [3]. Francis Crick and Christof Koch, arguably the most influential neuroscientists to date, have explained, in less religious terms, that complex consciousness likely arose from our desire to create the most accurate model of physical reality from which we can coordinate our motor reactions; no serious scientist or philosopher, they state, still believes in an immaterial soul/mind as separate from neurological function [4]. 

[5] Sir Francis Crick was a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist who was instrumental in deciphering the helical structure of DNA, and, unto his death bed, progressed the study of theoretical neuroscience and consciousness.

[6] Carl Jung, a proponent of analytical psychology and extreme believer in the power of the unconscious mind, resisted the completely materialistic explanation that had begun to pervade science, rationalism,  and the Western world. As a psychology major, I appreciate his perspective more than the hard physicalists.

Yet I believe that Carl Jung echoes my sentiments when he states that modern man is ascending in consciousness [7], even stating in the parent work of "The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man" that "we overestimate physical causation and believe that it alone affords us a true explanation of life" [8]. Further, I assert that curiosity and empiricism may work in parallel, that we come to know more about the mind and nature of consciousness by studying both cognitive psychology and variances in artistic expression [9]. We may then pursue invaluably important questions like "Is all physical matter fundamentally connected and possessive of some degree of consciousness?" [10] 

[11] This data graph is famously taken from the Global Consciousness Project which supposdely demonstrates that human consciousness interacts with random event generators (REGs) throughout the world, apparently causing them to produce syncronized, non-random patterns. True randomness would follow a jagged line roughly mapped out over chance expectation. Instead, the jagged red line plots the highly significant Z-scores of REGs.

Here I will advocate for the embrace of meditation and psychedelics, which can provide profound experiences in altering consciousness at the societal level and may be combined with art as therapeutic practices. 

[12] Like certain forms of meditation, psychedelics such as psilocybin or LSD reduce activity in the Default Mode Network. This forces stronger connectivity in other regions, overall allowing for new pathways that consider the self and others or past and future to be formed in a manner similar to development in childhood.

[13] Psychedelic art may be influenced by or follow the ingestion of psychedelic substances. In this particular painting we see depicted the popularized Stoned Ape Theory in which some believe that homo erectus made the intelligent leap to homo sapiens once discovering magic mushrooms, which increased sensory perception and complex thought.

[14] This is the album cover for Faces by the late artist Mac Miller. I would undoubtedly say that it is the most creative project that I have ever listened to, although it may be a disturbing exploration into untamed speech for some listeners. My personal favorite is the song that was inspired by a trip on LSD, "Colors and Shapes", and we can see the psychedelic influence in Miller's work since his 2012 album Macadelic. 

 

[1] Newberg, Andrew, and D'Aquili, Eugene G.. Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. United States, Random House Publishing Group, 2008.

[2] McHargue, Mike, and Rob Bell. Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science, Hodder and Stoughton, London, England, 2017.

[3] Harris, Sam. Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 2015, pp. 43–44.

[4] Crick, Francis, and Koch, Cristoff. “Consciousness and neuroscience.” Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) vol. 8,2 (1998): 97-107. doi:10.1093/cercor/8.2.97

[5] “Francis Crick.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 25 May 2021, https://www.biography.com/scientist/francis-crick.

[6] “Carl Jung.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 26 June 2020, https://www.biography.com/scholar/carl-jung.

[7] "The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man". Volume 10 Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 10, edited by R. F.C. Hull, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014, pp. 74-94. 

[8] Jung, Carl. G., and W. S. Dell. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Translated by W. S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes, Harcourt Publishers Group, 1955., pp. 182.

[9] Gardner, Howard E.. Art, Mind, and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity. United States, Basic Books, 2008.

[10] Hunt, Tam. “The Hippies Were Right: It's All About Vibrations, Man!” Scientific American Blog Network, Scientific American, 5 Dec. 2018, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-hippies-were-right-its-all-about-vibrations-man/.

[11] Nelson, Roger. “The Global Consciousness Project.” Princeton University, The Trustees of Princeton University, 2020, https://noosphere.princeton.edu/.

[12] Hyman M.D., Mark. “How Psychedelics and Meditation Affect the Brain.” YouTube, 22 Nov. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9DMkSVf6nA.

[13] Jim Figora. “The Stoned Ape Theory.” Fine Art America, 12 Dec. 2021, https://fineartamerica.com/art/psychedelic.

[14] Rindner, Grant. “The Making of 'Faces,' Mac Miller's Most Crucial Project.” GQ, Conde Nast, 15 Oct. 2021, https://www.gq.com/story/mac-miller-faces-making-of.