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81 of 91 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent in parts, but like 'religion', weak in others., June 15, 2002
The thesis here is that spiritual and religious experience is essentially something the brain *does*, not something that comes from 'God'/'external being'. The author argues that spirituality and religious impulses have emerged in the evolving brain by default amongst evolving social organisms- in this particular book relatively recently in hominid evolution. Key processes include the growing hominid awareness of death, which, when coupled with an innate anxiety function necessary for survival, ultimately led to spirituality, religious and mystical experience. The author ties together his own spiritual journey with ideas strung together from the likes of Jung, Kant, Plato, Freud, Darwin and E.Wilson, but unfortunately, in my view, leaves out many ideas concerning group conflict-something with which 'groupish' primates are very much affected. One trouble with emphasising 'awareness of death' in the evolution of religious impulses, is just how relevant the 'fear of death' is to say, teenagers-and yet teenagers can have a quite developed 'spiritual impulse'. (eg The average age of 'religious conversion' quoted in the book is 15.2 years, from a study of 15,000). The association of prayer with healing is discussed, (ie essentially placebo, but also stress reduction), 'near death experiences' (neurochemistry evolved to reduce anxiety), 'speaking in tongues' (glossolalia-not explained here, but possibly, in my view, an infant/childhood mechanism overlapping into adulthood-like crying tears), and others such as guilt, morality, etc are discussed in the light of evolutionary theory as applied to human behaviour. One major point I think the author misses though, is that like consciouness itself, 'spirituality' is likely a holisitic and/or emergant brain function, there may in many cases therefore be no specific 'part' as such. Another problem I had is that he vastly under-rates 'thinking' in other biological organisms. For example, in describing pantheistic mysticism "one feels that totality of the world is the greatest power and one can see themselves as part of that totality. During this experience a person has a sense that he is part of all that is around him" (p111). Why couldn't this be a kind of territorial instinct?-it could therefore be in other animals. In describing monastic mysticism-"a person experiences a surrendering of personal identity to a singular or central point of consciousness" (p110)-again why can't this be present amongst other social, hirearcheal organisms? Also, theistic mysticism-"seeng or feeling the presence of a personification or a named force which intones a higher power" (p110). There is no discussion of the possiblility of any of these experiences having biological origins more ancient than recent hominid evolution. There may be a difference between the ability to be 'spiritual', and to ability to formulate abstract concepts. (How does a bat really 'think'?). His argument against spirituality in other animals is wholly the lack of religious rites (p84), but 'religious rites' do not necessarily constitute spirituality-as anyone disillusioned with conventional religion will happily tell you (He alludes to this on p149). Another example of his gross under-rating of thinking in other animals is on p117, where chimps are given foot-noted recognition that they can see themselves in the mirror only because they have "evolutionary proximity to our species". The association of schizophrenia and (some) religious belief is also not mentioned, although the association is obvious and has been pointed out by others (eg Jaynes). In his discussion on 'religious conversion', for example, he suggests "when the ego is so riddled with anxiety that it ruptures, natural selection has installed our species with a physiologically based "religious spare"of "cognitive transformation", which often leads to "rapturous contentment". The cost of carrying this spare (in the gene pool) is "the small price of personal identity". However, there may also be more adaptive 'cost' than this-such a descriptive transformation is surprisingly similar to those who suffer schizophrenic breakdown through stress-there may *possibly* be a relationship, which is important. It is also possible that schizophrenia itself has biological precursors in other organisms-dissociating/splitting under stress may be adaptive. These points aside, his journey from religious skepticism to scientific explanation is tinged with individual strength and understanding, (notwithstanding what I would call his human arrogance). I liked his distinction between 'spirituality' and 'religion' (p149)-this is not widely recognised. I also think his points about different kinds of spirituality/mysticism are good- it seems our words for 'religion'/spirituality are woefully inadequate-which of course reflects our lack of understanding of the functioning of our own brains. Sociobiological in outlook-p156 quotes E.Wilson-"scientists and humanists should consider together the possiblity that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the philosophers and biologized." I happen to agree, but with much caution-frameworks which have stood socially for thousands of years need to be challenged/complimented very carefully, with verifiable science and open discussion. The book is a strong attempt to understand human nature. Very good, very controversial, with gaps and weaknesses likely to be strengthened in future years through ongoing brain research. Other books recommended in this general genre of 'sociobiology' are "Consilience" (broader philosophy of science, religion, sociobiology), and "Why God won't Go away" (neurological basis of spirituality).
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55 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Spiritual Journey, January 30, 2000
Just as I did, as a teenager Matthew Alper asked the big questions: Who is "God" and what is my relation to him? Which, if any, of the hundreds of religions and sub-religions is correct? Why do religions change so much over time? How come every person's religious view is different from everybody else's? Just as I did, Alper began a personal search for the answers to these questions. He looked everywhere. Like me, he found that the answers to the big questions of "faith" lie not "out there" but within us. He then continued his search far beyond mine, came to many well-reasoned conclusions, then documented and explained his findings in 'The "God" Part of the Brain'. This work draws on many scientific disciplines, including evolution, psychology, anthropology and history, to put into clear perspective the origin of the human need to seek a higher power and, more important, the effect this need has on humanity and its cultures. I found the book to be a "revelation" of sorts in that it finally makes sense out of the din of competing religious views. In this book Matthew Alper shows an enviable commitment to truth, exacting logic and scholarly research as well as a vast intelligence as he explains his search and the answers he found. I did not want the book to end! It explains a very important part of what it means to be human. 'The "God" Part of the Brain' has already made a very great, very positive impact on my life.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A thoughtful, engaging story with a limited perspective on god, December 17, 2006
This review is from: The "God" Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God (Hardcover)
The God Part of the Brain is the story of Matthew Alper's search for god. The short version of my review is that I think the author has articulately shared his genuine, open-minded search for an answer to the Big Question. It's a great read. He's smart and well read, and he presents a lot of interesting material. Few people tackle the question of god with as much humility, rigor and seeming lack of agenda as well as he does. Few people attempt to blend science and spirituality with the balance of open-mindedness and rigor that he does. I recommend it highly as a personal account of someone on the search. However, I do not recommend it as a book with much to say about the answer to the Big Question for someone else. He comes up with a conclusion, and I'm afraid my review is going to be a spoiler. So if you want to enjoy the explorations and follow him as he asks his questions with equally open mind, I would stop reading this review now. In my opinion his conclusion is a direct result of his process. His result was pre-ordained by his methodology and the decisions he made along the way. He walked himself into a box canyon and then concludes the canyon leads nowhere. I could see the result coming a thousand miles away. I don't think he had an agenda ... the book is personal enough for me to believe he has an open mind ... I just don't think he let his mind far enough out of the box. To appreciate where I'm coming from as a reviewer, I've signed up for the belief that we all create our own reality. And I believe that in just about every way one can believe it. So, in chapter 5 the author struggles with what he knows for certain about god, he comes to the conclusion that god is a word. At one level this is brilliant. It is just about the only thing one can say with certainty ... that "g ... o ... d" are 3 letters that form a word and exist as a concept. But this is where he starts to put god in a box. He now believes that god IS a word, and if we create our own reality, we now know that he is doomed to discover that god is only conceptual, which is what he discovers. Once he tried to anchor his search in certainty, all the aspects of god that can be experienced but not "known" by the mind got excluded from the search. I almost put the book down at this point, but the tale of his search was interesting enough. Once he put god in a box, his mind then jumps to a lot of conclusions to support the box. Although the book is filled with excellent questions and a generally rigorous approach, he takes a few key left turns very quickly and doesn't seem to recognize them. For example, he devotes a whopping 4 pages to plant medicine (e.g., mescaline, psilocybin) as chapter 10. The end of those 4 pages concludes with, "In essence, the fact that there exists a certain class of drugs - molecular combinations - that can evoke a spiritual experience supports the notion that spiritual consciousness must be physiological in nature. Herein lies the basis for an ethnobotanical argument against the existence of either a spiritual reality or a soul." What? Because a physical thing can cause an experience, the experience must be physical? At this point his argument is circular. It's like saying that because I'm in a physical body, the spiritual body doesn't exist. This sounds like a reasoned argument, but it's just an opinion, obviously one this reader disagrees with. But again ... I don't fault his search or even his conclusion; I just don't think his conclusion encompasses what is possible. For example, he never considers the possibility of viewing the plant itself as spiritual. If I try to summarize where else I think he put himself and his conclusion in a box, it shows up in chapter 19. He discusses Kant (which I have not read) and agrees with Kant's perspective that humans are "forever bound to our relative human perspectives which are framed by the way our brains process information." So far, so good. But then he "applies the same argument to spirituality" and concludes that all our spiritual beliefs "constitute nothing more than manifestations of the way our species happen to process information and therefore interpret reality." The problem is this: he does not equally apply his conclusions to himself, the I. Yes, we are bound to our perspectives. Yes, spirituality is a fabrication of those perspectives. But there is a paradox he skips over ... I, also, am a fabrication of my perspectives. I don't exist as I think I do. But that doesn't mean I am not real. It also doesn't mean that the spiritual experience is not real. He's willing to accept the physical reality of himself in spite of his limited perception, but he turns the same argument against the existence of the spiritual. Again, the conclusion he arrives at is a simple function of how he applies his arguments. He buys into the standard argument that belief in an afterlife is a result of humanity being conscious of, and afraid of, death. This argument always ignores the fact that many of the people who have come as close as humanly possible to the experience of death, but not died, are often the people who have the least fear and hang-ups around death. Talk to someone who has survived a terminal cancer diagnosis. By and large they are not the ones locked up at home afraid to live. It's the people who keep death at arms distance who are afraid of it. This argument never holds water with me. So, as you can tell by my review, the spoiler is that he concludes we are physical beings and nothing more. I would say that this is the reality he has created for himself and he has done a magnificent job showing just how to create that reality. But if you are looking for a more expanded sense of self, there are other approaches that can lead to a different conclusion that are also completely consistent with rigor and the scientific method.
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