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Invisible Forces and Powerful Beliefs:
Gravity, Gods, and Minds
By the
Chicago Social Brain Network
FT Press
Upper Saddle River, NJ
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Invisible Forces and Unseen Powers:
Gravity, Gods, and Minds
Preface
1. Invisible Forces Operating on Human
Bodies
Gravity is an invisible force that holds us
to the surface of the earth, and the fact
that gravity is invisible does not place it
beyond scientific scrutiny. Similarly,
humans are a quintessentially social
species whose need for social connection
produces invisible forces on our brain,
behavior, and biology that are subject to
scientific investigation. Among these are
forces that compel us to seek trusting and
meaningful connections with others and
to seek meaning and connection with
something bigger than ourselves. The
story of these invisible forces speaks to
who we are as a species.
From Selfish Genes to Social Brains
2. The Social Nature of Humankind
The human brain has evolved under the
guidance of selfish genes to produce
more than a brain that is capable of
powerful, isolated information
processing operations. The human brain
also evolved with inherent capacities for
social cognition, compassion, empathy,
bonding, coordination, cooperation,
values, mortality and a need for social
connection that extends beyond kin and
even other individuals.
From Inclusive Fitness to Spiritual
Striving
3. Science, Religion, and a Revised
Religious Humanism
The dialogue between science and
religion, if properly pursued, can usher in
a new era of religious humanism in the
leading world religions. Their central
beliefs and practices largely would
remain intact, but their views of nature
and their concerns with health and wellbeing
would be refined through their
conversations with the sciences. How
this model would work is discussed in
terms of the relation between love and
health in Christian theology – especially
the tension between the agape, caritas,
and eros models of Christian love.
The Status of the Body Politic and the
Status of the Body Itself
4. Health by Connection: From Social
Brains to Resilient Bodies
Most people feel socially connected most
of the time. Felt connectedness is
typically taken for granted, but the
effects of its absence, as experienced in
feelings of isolation, demonstrate that
our evolutionary heritage as a social
species has potent implications for health
and well-being.
From Relationships to People and
Groups to Relationships with God
5. Psychosomatic Relations: From
Superstition to Mortality
It has long been recognized that mental
states can impact health and well being,
but the causal pathways have only
recently begun to be understood.
Thoughts, beliefs and attitudes can have
powerful effects on physiological
functions, health and disease. Examples
range from superstitious beliefs
associated with voodoo, bone pointing,
or other black rituals to the more positive
states associated with spirituality. The
present essay considers these disparate
psychological states and how they might
translate into physiological effects
having real health implications.
The Mind and Body Are One
6. The Suspension of Individual
Consciousness and the Dissolution of
Self and Other Boundaries
A special case of social interaction
concerns two or more individuals
engaging in temporally coordinated
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actions that imply particular timing
patterns such as synchrony or rhythmic
turn taking such as applauding in unison
or the ‘wave’ that is produced by
thousands of individual sports fans in a
stadium. A model to explain such
synchronized behavior is proposed in
terms of the neural processes that are
jointly recruited. One of the main
implications suggested by this model is
that taking part in or being part of a
synchronized social interaction gives rise
to a qualitative shift in subjective
experience due to the difficulty of
applying an individual centered
explanation to collectively produced
spontaneous co-action.
You and I as One
7. Action at a Distance: The Invisible
Force of Language
Language forms the fabric of our social
institutions and makes tangible the nature
of our relationships. Although the
function of language is typically viewed
in terms of the information content that it
provides, some of the social function of
language may depend on the way it
affects us. The idea of language impact
– how language directly affects our
emotions and social connections – may
be fundamental to the way the social
brain functions to connect people.
Systems and Signals for Social
Coordination
8. Hidden Forces in Understanding
Others: Mirror Neurons and
Neurobiological Underpinnings
Specific brain regions in the monkey
contain individual brain cells, or neurons,
that respond to both observation and
execution of identical hand and mouth
actions. Brain imaging in humans has
demonstrated that our brains have
similarly localized regions with similar
properties. These areas respond to
execution of goal-directed actions of the
hand and mouth and during observation
of the same or similar actions.
Interestingly, these brain regions in the
human are also responsive to observation
and imitation of facial movements, and
appear to be sensitive to their emotional
content.
Connecting and Binding Social Brains
and Minds
9. Empathy and Interpersonal Sensitivity
Empathy is thought to play a key role in
motivating prosocial behavior, guiding
our preferences and behavioral
responses, and providing the affective
and motivational base for moral
development. While folk conceptions of
empathy view it as the capacity to share,
understand and respond with care to the
affective states of others, neuroscience
research demonstrates that these
components can be dissociated. Empathy
is not a unique characteristic of human
consciousness, but it is an important
adaptive behavior that evolved with the
mammalian brain. However, humans are
special in the sense that high-level
cognitive abilities (language, theory of
mind, executive functions) are layered on
top of phylogenetically older social and
emotional capacities. These higher level
cognitive and social capacities expand
the range of behaviors that can be driven
by empathy.
Seeing into My Mind and Other Minds
10. Seeing Invisible Minds
Other minds are inherently invisible.
Being able to "see" them requires
learning about other minds, attending to
other minds, and projecting one's own
mind onto others, and seeing minds in
other agents can mean the difference
between treating others as humans versus
as objects.
Inferring Minds When None Can be
Seen
11. Anthropomorphism: Human
Connection to a Universal Society
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The human motivation for social
connection extends beyond the boundary
of the human in the (often
misunderstood) religious language of
anthropomorphism. In this chapter, an
infamous sermon from colonial
America—“Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God”—is used to illustrate the
way anthropomorphic language works to
incorporate human society in a web of
ethical obligations that connect to the
natural environment and, by imaginative
extension, to the universe as a whole.
Personifications of God
12. How Does God Become Real
Becoming a person of faith is not so
much about acquiring certain beliefs
but about learning to use one’s mind
in particular ways; the often intensely
private experience of God is built
through a profoundly social learning
process.
Belief and Connection
13. Theological Perspectives on God as
an Invisible Force
The beliefs that religious individuals
hold about the way God operates in
human life are potential factors affecting
perceived social isolation. My paper
discusses a specific type of such belief
that is common in the history of
Christian thought: the belief that God is
an invisible force of a rather impersonal
sort working for the good in everything
that happens. The paper argues that this
sort of belief has as great or greater
potential than belief in God as a personal
friend to give one the sense that one is
never alone, but the conception of God
as pervasive can also lead to inattention
and disconnection.
The Elusiveness of Meaningful
Connection
14. Visible Efforts to Change Invisible
Connections
Despite the human need for social
connection, many individuals are lonely
because they are unable to create
meaningful social bonds. Interventions
designed to reduce loneliness have not
been successful, suggesting that a better
understanding of loneliness, social
connection, and the obstacles to forming
meaningful connections with others is
needed.
Reflections on Invisible Connections
15. Social Brain, Spiritual Medicine?
Science and religion are inextricably
intertwined in the practice of medicine.
Science has provided modern medicine
with extraordinary diagnostic and
therapeutic capacities that can be
employed to care for patients. Religions
provide a fuller vision for the worthiness
of caring for the sick, a framework to
guide the application of medical science
in that endeavor, and practices that
strengthen the human capacity for
treating patients as the mindful persons
they are.
Invisible Forces
16. Epilogue
Invisible forces that connect individuals
to society, or to each other, have effects
at both ends of the connection. As
humans we are fundamentally individual
and fundamentally social. We
encompass both the pursuit of rational
self interest of Homo economicus and the
pursuit of approval, belonging, and
intimacy of Homo socialis, the former
grounded in eros, the latter in agape.
These forces acting together represent a
signature feature of Homo sapiens (the
wise ones) and have contributed a record
of influence and impact– both positive
and negative –that is unmatched in
biology.
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Preface
We view our past through a
reverse telescope, making it seem like
contemporary events are a much larger
part of our history than they are.
Hominids have been estimated to have
evolved about 7 million years ago, with
our species having evolved only within
approximately the last 1% of that period.
The human brain was sculpted by
evolutionary forces over tens of
thousands of years, whereas the human
achievements we take for granted, such
as civilizations, law, and art, have
emerged only during the past few
thousands of years. A mere 300 years
ago, theology and philosophy were the
principal disciplinary lenses through
which the world was viewed, and from
which explanations and instruction were
sought. Advances in science over the
past 300 years have transformed how we
think, act, and live. Nearly every aspect
of human existence, ranging from
agriculture, commerce, and
transportation to technology,
communication, and medicine, has been
transformed by contemporary science.
We have no hesitation to accept
scientific explanations of physical
entities being influenced by invisible
forces such as gravity, magnetism, and
genes. But when human mentation and
behavior are the objects to be explained,
deterministic scientific accounts seem to
many to be less satisfying.
For some, science and modernity
are akin to the apple in the Garden of
Eden, responsible for our fall from
Grace. For others, theology and religion
represent little more than the stuff of
superstition with no place in an educated
society.
About six years ago, we had the
opportunity to create a most unusual
group of scholars to examine questions
about the invisible forces acting on,
within, and between human bodies.
Superb scholars who individually had
made major contributions to their own
disciplinary field – fields as divergent as
neuroscience and medicine to
philosophy and theology – were invited
to form an interdisciplinary network of
scholars to consider such questions. The
development of these discussions even
over the first few meetings truly
astonished us all. We decided to share
what we learned through the present
book, which represents a different
perspective, one in which our
understanding of human nature is
enriched by serious insights and scrutiny
that each perspective has to offer.
Theology and religion have always
relied on unseen forces as the basis for
explanations of human behavior and
experience. Science has been able to
explicate those forces even if along
different lines than originally conceived.
As we start to consider some of the more
complex aspects of human nature,
science and theology may be able to
work together to shed light on some of
these complexities.
We begin this preface and each
chapter with a word cloud produced
using Wordle at http://www.wordle.net.
In the case of this preface, it illustrates
key concepts that are found in this book.
In the case of the chapters, the word
cloud in each provides a visualization of
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the key terms and ideas expressed in that
chapter. Each chapter, in turn,
represents a contribution led by a
particular member to the network but
broadened to reflect the interactions of
the network on that topic. Perusal of the
word clouds across chapters makes the
flow of ideas more visible. Together,
the chapters speak to who we are as a
species and the nature of the invisible
forces that make us such a unique
species. For instance, humans seem to
strive for social connections in a variety
of ways from friendships to
identification with groups to religious
affiliations. A major thesis of this book
is that we are fundamentally a social
species, and that this journey is less a
march toward isolation and autonomy
than it is a march to competence,
interdependence, coordination,
cooperation, and social resilience.
Guiding us through this journey are our
social brains, which have evolved to
create anything but a blank slate at birth.
We owe a debt of thanks to many
for their contributions and support over
the years, but we owe special thanks to
Barnaby Marsh for approaching us with
the idea of forming such a network and
for his many contributions to the
network, and to the John Templeton
Foundation for their support and for their
encouragement to pursue questions,
ideas, and conclusions of our science
regardless of where they led.
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Chapter 1 1
Invisible Forces Operating on Human
Bodies
We may believe we know why
we think, feel, and act as we do, but
various forces influence us in ways that
are largely invisible to our senses.
Gravity is an invisible force that holds us
to the surface of the earth, and
magnetism is an invisible force that we
use in everyday life. The fact that
gravity and magnetism are invisible to us
does not place them beyond scientific
scrutiny. Similarly, there are a host of
forces that, over the course of human
evolution, have emerged to influence our
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Because many of these forces are
1 The Chicago Social Brain Network is a group
of more than a dozen scholars from the
neurosciences, behavioral sciences, social
sciences, and humanities who share an interest in
who we are as a species and the role of
biological and social factors in the shaping of
individuals, institutions, and societies across
human history.
The scientists and scholars in the
Network differ in background, epistemologies,
beliefs, and methods. After five years of
working together, we found a common set of
themes to have emerged in our work despite the
differences among us. These themes, which
provide a different perspective on how we might
think about human history, experience, and
spirituality, are examined here and explored in
more detail in subsequent chapters.
elemental, we will be dealing with an
area of human behavior that has also
been addressed for centuries by various
religions. Among these are forces that
compel us to seek trusting and
meaningful connections with others and
to seek meaning and connection with
something larger than ourselves. The
story of these invisible forces speaks to
who we are and what our potential might
be as a species. In short, it is the story
of the human mind.
The mind can be thought of as
the structure and processes responsible
for cognition, emotion, and behavior. It
is now widely recognized that many
structures and processes of the mind
operate outside of awareness, with only
the end products reaching awareness,
and then only sometimes. But clearly we
know a great deal about the mind from
what we experience through our senses.
It is just commonsense that we know the
shape or color of an object from simply
seeing it.
Or do we? It is obvious that the
tops of the tables depicted in the top
panel of Figure 1 differ in size and
shape. You may be surprised to learn
that your mind is fooling you, that the
tops of the table are precisely the same
size and shape. If you don’t believe it,
trace and cut a piece of paper the size of
one table
top and
then place
it over the
other.
Selfevident
truths can sometimes be absolutely false.
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The science of the mind is not
unique in this regard. As the historian
Daniel Boorstin (1983, 1) noted:
Nothing could be more obvious
than that the earth is stable and
unmoving, and that we are the
center of the universe. Modern
Western science takes its
beginning from the denial of this
commonsense axiom . . .
Common sense, the foundation
of everyday life, could no longer
serve for the governance of the
world. When “scientific”
knowledge, the sophisticated
product of complicated
instruments and subtle
calculations, provided
unimpeachable truths, things
were no longer as they seemed.”
(p. 294)
And just as the observation that we roam