The most fascinating talk at the Templeton-Cambridge event was given by Chris Frith, a neurologist at University College in London, author of Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World
A few ideas that came from this talk:
Why Schizophrenics Can Tickle Themselves
Studies show that before we move our arm, we visualize the arm movement before the limb even budges, Frith explained.
One of the reasons people don’t laugh when they tickle themselves is that they know what’s about to happen. Schizophrenics don’t have that capacity — and so when they tickle themselves, they laugh, as if someone else is tickling them.
Does Our Brain Believe a TV Stabbing Is Like a Real Stabbing?
According to one experiment, the same part of the brain shows electrical activity if you see someone’s face being touched as if your own face were actually touched. In another study, people who witnessed someone else’s hand being restrained had slower hand response times themselves.
This would seem to indicate a great human capacity for empathy. When we feel someone else’s pain we are, on some level, literally feeling their pain.
As a parent of teens, the first thing that rushed into my mind was a renewed terror about violent video games and movies. On some deep chemical level, are the murders they see on the computer screen experienced in their brain as real violence?
More research needed.
If I Don’t Have Free Will, No One Will Mind If I Cheat on This Math Test
In one experiment, a group read a passage saying that free will was an illusion. Another group was given an unrelated paragraph. Scientists then gave them a math test in which it was very easy to cheat (they were told that, thanks to a glitch, they could get the answer by hitting the space bar.)
The people who had just heard the suggestion that free will was an illusion were more likely to cheat. Apparently, they felt that since they lacked free will they weren’t really responsible for their actions.
What implication does this have for religion? At a basic level, Frith said, “Teachings of this kind [about ethics] do indeed have direct affects on behavior.”
My mind drifted to the Christian doctrine that humans are all inherently sinful, and the way politicians or religious leaders sometimes seem to use the idea to justify immoral behavior. Or the doctrine of salvation through faith, and the classic question of whether that provides a get-out-of-jail-free card for bad behavior.
Both doctrines could theoretically lead to a weakening sense of personal responsibility. To be sure, there are countervailing doctrines that reimpose ethical constraints but these psychological experiments at minimum show that these beliefs can really affect human behavior.
Frith’s book is Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World