Primitive Prehuman Ancestor's Newly Constructed Face "Mesmerizing" - But Does It Indicate Emergence Of a "Soul"? No

The first relatively reliable "human like" face of one of our primitive primate ancestors (cf. WSJ, 'Human Ancestor's Face Is Found', August 29, p. A3) is a remarkable milestone.  It's even been described as "mesmerizing"  by  one paleo-anthropologist. This is given that the reconstructed face (left side of image) is incredibly lifelike yet derived from a skull (right side)  of a creature nearly 3.8 million years old "that stood on the cusp of apes and humans."

As the cited WSJ article points out (ibid.):

"The fossilized head bones reveal for the first time the blunt snout, broad cheeks and narrow forehead of a distant human relation called Australopithecus anamensis, who may have vied for survival in the primeval scrub of East Africa at the same time as the iconic human ancestor 'Lucy' and her kin".

According to paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile- Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, who led the international team that uncovered the nearly complete cranium in Ethiopia::

"What we see is a very primitive face."

Added William Kimbel, director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University:

"It helps fill out a picture of the earliest human skull in a period that until now has been almost vacant in the fossil record.  It provides a baseline from which we can eventually see the emergence of the human face."

Some religionists, of course, may also see this as the biological cue for the emergence of the human soul.  As I wrote in my recent published  letter to Physics Today,  e.g.

Readers' thoughts on science and religion: Physics Today: Vol 71, No 6

on science and religion and why they are so mutually antagonistic:

"Pope Francis, while he acknowledges Darwinian evolution, is still not prepared to accept the wholly naturalistic process dependent on natural selection—mutation. Instead we read, “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve,” and “He [God] created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws [emphasis added] that He gave to each one so they would reach fulfillment.”

In other words, Francis accepted Darwinian evolution, but with a proviso: that a deity had to allow humans to develop according to "internal laws He gave each one...to reach fulfillment" .  In other words the attachment of an essential "individuality" meant there had to be an interjection of a "soul" at some point. As I went on to write: 

"if the role of random evolutionary forces is neglected and the creation of “souls” is given prominence, then the door of inquiry is left open to supernatural agents."

But of course this was precisely the Pope's intention. Because minus  an individual "soul" there is no meaning or basis for an afterlife and without an afterlife the hold of mainstream religion collapses. Declaring "sins", advancing dogmas and so on then becomes an irrelevant pastime for the clergy of whatever religion.

Frank Zindler, in a piece in The American Atheist ('Spirits, Souls and Clones') wrote:

"Catholics must believe that only a scheming deity can make a human soul. They must believe that it is this soul that makes a body human.... If it be admitted that our bodies evolved from the bodies of animals possessed of neither souls nor spirits, and that injections of souls or spirits are unitary acts of a god operating within the limits of space and time, embarrassing questions leap to mind.

It is certain that we are descended, generation after generation, from ancestors who are less human-like as the line of descent is traced back to Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Australopithecus, or even more primitive primates. Nevertheless, it is also clear that no particular generation in this line differed any more from its parent generation than do we from our parents. So how did god decide which generation had become just human enough to warrant the infusion of souls?"

As I also wrote in a blog post last month (July 12):

"As we all know, and can be grown-up enough to say, neither the descendants of apes, or apes themselves possess "souls". There is only a brain, but it is ample to generate consciousness as I already showed in my 'Materialist Model of Consciousness'. Thus, when a human (or ape) dies, that's it. He is gone and there is nothing left - nothing to "punish" and nothing to go on. This hard fact may be why so many evangelicals refuse to accept evolution: they don't want to accept: a) they have no souls, and b) when they're dead, that's it, finito.....

So the most primitive hominid ancestor (Ardipithecus Kadabba) depicted at the lower left, from 6 million years ago - possessed no soul - nor did the evolutionary continuum following onward, i.e. to Homo Habilis and Homo Sapiens (upper right). Hence, when either died there would be nothing to go on, to survive in any afterlife.  Nor would there be some unexpected, magical "break out" point in between,  at which a soul suddenly manifests. "

The quotes  above highlight issues Mr. Zindler also  brought up in a previous American Atheist article, 'Spirit, Souls and Mind', i.e.  that the word "soul" like so many others ("demon", "ghost") was invented  but "refers to nothing in reality".    The central point made later in that article was (ibid.):

"The fact that nearly all words now meaning 'soul', 'spirit',  'life' etc. trace their origins to words meaning 'breath' or 'wind' leads me to conclude the derived meanings were an outgrowth of primitive people to solve a basic biological puzzle, namely, what constitutes the difference between a live body and a dead one?"

At a more fundamental level the answer is neural activity.  Live bodies have this, but dead ones don't.  If we then agree neural activity is mistaken for the presence of what had formerly been called "soul" we are getting somewhere. As this neural basis is more central than taking breaths or inhaling.   Did our prehuman ancestor display neural activity? Of course, at least while alive.  Did that mean it had a "soul" even given its more humanesque face (as opposed to ape face).? No.

Flash now to the announcement in today;'s WSJ ('Neural Activity Similar To Babies Observed In Engineered Models', p. A3)  that "miniature engineered reconstructions of the developing brain" have been made in a lab by which "patterns of neural activity" imitating very young brains, have been recorded.  This from "roughly half pea-sized balls of brain cells known as cerebral organoids"

Basically, "lab-grown human brain models"

These lab grown entities were extracted from human stem cells. Did they possess a "soul"? Well, no more than a human zygote in utero - which the RC Church raises Cain about in reaction to any abortion procedure - precisely became a soul is believed to exist therein.

We also learn:

"The work raises ethical concerns about eventually re-creating brain functions like pain perception and consciousness in the lab."

Raise ethical concerns though it may, the work gets closer to the Materialist Model of Mind I had posited nearly 9 years ago,  e.g.

A Materialist Model of Consciousness (III)

In which I proposed - as I had in my first book, The Atheist's Handbook To Modern Materialism, that :"soul' was rendered totally redundant and consciousness emerged from quantum considerations, in relation to certain molecular transport, for example of Ca ++ ions.   (Physicist Henry Stapp ('Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics') showed that application of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to Ca+2 ions -involved in neural transmissions at body temperature- disclosed the associated wave packet dimension increases to many times the size of the ion itself.)   In other words, there was a role for quantum mechanics.

The takeaway from the cerebral organoid  lab experiments is that electrical- neural activity can be artificially induced in engineered model cells.  Though yes, it might be too early to ascertain whether these organoids resemble an actual developing brain, the experiments do solve one issue: that it is in fact feasible to imitate neural activity from rudimentary brain cells and which has no "soul" component to it. 

Looking At A "Systems Approach" Argument For Why There Is No Afterlife

Christina Anne Knight, in her recent (July, p. 32)  Mensa Bulletin piece 'Why There Is No Afterlife - A Systems Perspective' - pulls no punches.  In this post I examine her idea more closely, and why it might have some ballast.  Basically,  Ms. Knight's approach is based on materialist (Darwinian) evolution, which is an argument I have also used in the past.

For example, as I wrote in my post ('Meeting Our Extended Hominid Family'   ) of February 23, 2010:

"As we all know, and can be grown-up enough to say, neither the descendants of apes, or apes themselves possess "souls". There is only a brain, but it is ample to generate consciousness as I already showed in my 'Materialist Model of Consciousness'. Thus, when a human (or ape) dies, that's it. He is gone and there is nothing left - nothing to "punish" and nothing to go on. This hard fact may be why so many evangelicals refuse to accept evolution: they don't want to accept: a) they have no souls, and b) when they're dead, that's it, finito."

The post was accompanied by the following graphic:


So the most primitive hominid ancestor (Ardipithecus Kadabba) depicted at the lower left, from 6 million years ago - possessed no soul - nor did the evolutionary continuum following onward, i.e. to Homo Habilis and Homo Sapiens (upper right). Hence, when either died there would be nothing to go on, to survive in any afterlife.  Nor would there be some unexpected, magical "break out" point in between,  at which a soul suddenly manifests. 

This is analogous to Ms. Knight's argument, i.e.:

"It is a safe assumption that most people do not believe trilobites or velociraptors are at present hanging out with 72 virgin members of their species in some species -specific version of paradise.....Therefore, if we accept that none of our extinct, nonhuman forbears or members of other contemporary species have attained an afterlife, why should anyone believe that Homo sapiens are destined for a different fate?"

Then asking the $64 question:

"What evolutionary adaptation occurred that permitted the existence of something within humans to survive death?"

She then answers the question by naming what most of us already understand  as that manifestation of sentience known as consciousness,  but pointing out "it is not exclusive to our species."

Adding:

"The emergence of consciousness occurred within a hierarchic evolutionary context. So does it even make sense to conceive of the conscious mind outside of systemic structures that supply it contextual meaning?   In other words if I am a product of nature and nurture, what good is an afterlife in which the physical context that shaped my personality is no longer relevant?"

To fix ideas, in a post in which I skewered the concept of a "natural afterlife" (Feb. 9, 2014) I noted the fundamental unit of neural dynamics:

In this 'cartoon' graphic we are looking at an electro-chemical signal (action potentials in (B) ) which are conveyed to the receptor neurons in the region of the temporal lobes. The waveform really represents changes in permeability, we note that when an axon is in its resting state it maintains a constant potential difference, or ‘resting membrane potential’ of –70 mV. When it is excited, it rises to a peak voltage of around 40 mV. This is sketched as the wave pulse peak in (B) with the ‘baseline’ value of (-70 mV) included for reference. One could say that (A) portrays the axon segment shown in a kind of equilibrium condition, or one conducive to a dream state. Only levels of partial consciousness are available in these states.  Generally, a full peak voltage of 40mV is associated with some level of consciousness.

Now, we go to the driver of consciousness localized at the site of the synaptic cleft or terminal.















In the diagram, we focus on Axon 1 and note that when the action potential arrives at the terminal it’s depolarized. This depolarization enables Calcium ions (Ca+2) already within the terminal to diffuse out into the mediating space. These ions follow a concentration gradient, unlike the case of the Na+ ions in the sodium pump. As the ions migrate, then diffuse to the post-synaptic cell (at Axon 2), they leave a channel in their wake that allows quantal releases of neurotransmitter (shown as a solid dot). These, like the Ca+2 ions diffuse across to the post-synaptic cell(s).

One neurotransmitter is acetylcholine. If the transmission of this or any similar chemical is rapid firing will occur, if not it won’t. Note also that Axon 2 must have a way of eliminating neurotransmitters almost as soon as they arrive. For acetylcholine, the enzyme cholinesterase acts to break it down into choline and acetate. In these inactive forms the neuron is spared being in a state of maximal and continuous excitation that would otherwise destroy it.

Generalizing the electrical cable analogy, the synapses act as switches in the system, the ‘on’ or ‘off’ positions denoted by information, in the form of chemical messages, to cross the synaptic cleft and trigger firing of the post-synaptic neuron(s) or not. Most probably there are bundles of similar neurons linked together by their respective connections, to perform critical functions. One might refer to the neuronal super-assembly or 'super-circuit’ within which considerations such as networks, and optimization of paths as well as 'adjacency and order' take precedence. Again, this is almost absurdly oversimplified since there really are no neurons that have only one connection to another. Indeed, we expect the typical neuron to have something like 10,000 connections to others.

What happens if this entire neural dynamic is terminated? We can begin to grasp the effects by first noting from the above diagrams that all waves of polarization and de-polarization cease. Hence, all synaptic activity ceases. There is no more firing of neurons, nor is there any movement of neurotransmitters across axons. 

Consider the same  electric cable analogy described above in terms of what happens at death. Well, the putative electrical signal cable is cut. What happens if an electrical cable to your home is cut? Well the service is terminated...there is no energy "leakage' or  residue that continues after cutting because this would violate the physical laws we know. The electrical energy cannot continue to propagate into your home devoid of the cable within which it's carried. In the same way, all the brain's potential energy terminates at death, there are no 'residuals' left to continue anywhere. Hence, there can be no afterlife.

Ms. Knight in line with this basis,  writes (ibid.):

"The dying system decomposes into subsystem structures lower in the holarchic order that are sustainable within the systemic environment of the deceased system. A dead body becomes a nutrient source for other living systems and not a ghoulish distribution of functioning organs."

What is this "holarchic order" to which she refers?

She notes that the term  "holarchy" (first used by Arthur Koestler in The Ghost in the Machine) embodies  the "interdependence, interrelations and interaction of subsystems which results in a form of self-organization from which a larger system is an emergent product".  In other words, consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of the brain but this very emerged product.  But the extinction of such a system (and emergent product) occurs when the system fails to retain stability.  That is triggered when the key components die, e.g. neurons, neuronal sub-assemblies etc.

This is what Ms. Knight is getting at when she avers a conscious mind cannot exist outside of the function of the key systemic structures.  If then it is the impermanent character of all systems that "makes evolution a universal process"  then:

"If the conscious mind is located at the apex of this holarchic system , then the collapse of the substructure beneath it has terminal consequences."

Thus,

"The conscious mind becomes just another impermanent system subject to physical laws.  It does not survive death because it cannot exist outside the holarchic structure from which it emerged"

In other words, there is no conscious personal entity that survives the dissolution of the neural system with its synaptic connections, neurons etc. As I pointed out earlier.  

Is this plausible?  As I've repeatedly observed in my several  atheist books, it does represent - by the Ockham's Razor principle (simplest hypothesis is the most likely under several options) - the simplest answer for what happens when one dies. Thus, there is no "white light" waiting, no judgment of anything, just a big nothingness - analogous to what occurs with general anesthesia.

However, one specialist anesthesiologist by profession - Stuart Hameroff -   has offered a partial way out for those who think nothingness is too bleak an end.   

After 35 years of anaesthetizing patients and seeing the same results over and over Hameroff  was led to postulate that small structures in the brain called "microtubules" are at the root of apparent "escaped" consciousness and that they hold the key to what happens. He also surmises that at putative death (or even "near death") essential energy associated with the microtubules disperses out from the brain and becomes "entangled" in a larger, undifferentiated whole.

Hameroff cites certain aspects of quantum mechanics to explain his reasoning though, he leaves some ends open. In the brain, information persists through a phenomenon called quantum coherence. 

This means that a multitude of quantum wave states are stored in a multitude of microtubules. Precisely how this is done remains a speculative  area but the point is that if one is aware and conscious there is a high degree of locality. When one dies, those wave states presumably evacuate and one's consciousness enters the domain of non-locality.

Hameroff's basic argument then, is that death doesn't mean the final termination of consciousness, so much as the end of its localization. If that is so, you cease to be a "person" or an individual identity and instead merge with other dispersed quantum wave forms (I have called them "B-waves" or de Broglie waves) to enter an "oceanic" state. 

The difference between the individual and oceanic states is often depicted using an illustration similar to that below:

INDIVIDUALITY:

___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___  

DIRAC ENERGY SEA (IMPLICATE ORDER) 

This gives a nice analogy between the "ocean" and individual waves, i.e. localized beings, entities. Here the individual manifestations occur within the "explicate order" - in the language used by physicist David Bohm. This is contrasted to the oceanic or holographic view.

which he calls the "implicate order".  See e.g.

[PDF]

Wholeness and the Implicate Order

I have to reiterate again that Hameroff's conception isn't really any kind of recognizable "afterlife". Indeed, it is impossible to even remotely describe a putative nonlocal state (of being)  as experiencing an afterlife, if it perceives at all. 

It also leaves a decided negative slant on the question of preserving any sense of self. How can one if the self is no longer separable but one with an oceanic "sea"? It appears at first blush, however, to be: 1) consistent with Christina Knight's holarchic system approach (since B-waves are not apart from her holarchic system) and 2) only one step removed from the atheist's state of total obliteration and nothingness.

Indeed, for all intents, Hameroff's afterlife and the atheist's nothingness post -death may essentially be indistinguishable.   In the meantime, I understand (via an email from the Mensa Bulletin editor) there will be a response to Christina Knight's systems conception excluding an afterlife. When it arrives, I will examine it as well.

The Hard, Unadulterated Truth: Science Does Not Need Religion To Advance Or Improve

 

David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University has argued in a NY Times op-ed that Science "can learn from religion".   The question is: 'What?' For example he writes;

"I am no apologist for religion. As a psychologist, I believe that the scientific method provides the best tools with which to unlock the secrets of human nature. But after decades spent trying to understand how our minds work, I’ve begun to worry that the divide between religious and scientific communities might not only be stoking needless hostility; it might also be slowing the process of scientific discovery itself."

This, of course, is provably untrue given that religious precepts, principles, dogmas and claims offer no way to make valid scientific predictions.   None of them, for example, can help a solar physicist predict the next CME or X-9 class solar flare. As for the "endless hostility"  this has transpired because assorted religions - mainly Christian - insist on trying to condemn or ostracize scientific findings - whether Darwinian evolution, or the Big Bang.    More to the point, the consistent invocation of supernatural entities is an absolute non-starter for genuine science so these claims are not likely to be greeted with any amity by natural science.

DeSteno goes on:

"Religious traditions offer a rich store of ideas about what human beings are like and how they can satisfy their deepest moral and social needs. For thousands of years, people have turned to spiritual leaders and religious communities for guidance about how to conduct themselves, how to coexist with other people, how to live meaningful and fulfilled lives — and how to accomplish this in the face of the many obstacles to doing so."

Again, not really relevant or useful for most natural science.   The assertion - if true - that religions offer "a rich store of ideas about what humans are like" - may be of some use to psychology, but not to physics, astrophysics, organic chemistry or evolutionary biology. Again, none of those areas will benefit from any "guidance" that such religious traditions may offer.   As for guidance on "how to conduct themselves" there is already a vast store of such knowledge which is embedded in evolutionary ethics, most recently elaborated in Michael Shermer's  excellent book: 'The Science of Good and Evil" . As Shermer writes (p. 244):

“In provisional ethics moral choices correspond to scientific facts in being provisionally right or wrong, where moral or immoral means confirmed to an extent that it would be reasonable to offer provisional assent. It remains provisional because, as in science, the evidence might change. “

Shermer also emphasizes that provisional ethics rests firmly on the foundation of Darwinian evolution. Darwin, after all, “founded the study of evolutionary ethics  which belongs to a long tradition of ethical naturalism that dates back twenty five centuries to Aristotle. Because Darwin’s biological explanation of morality was grounded in natural inclinations, it has been called ‘Darwinian natural right’.”

Clearly then, there is no similarity between scientific ethics and supernaturally mandated bunkum, or the need to invoke religious traditions to figure out how humans can improve their behavior.. 

DeSteno carries on, oblivious to how his core arguments have already been rendered moot:

"Just as ancient doesn’t always mean wise, it doesn’t always mean foolish. The only way to determine which is the case is to put an idea — a hypothesis — to an empirical test. In my own work, I have repeatedly done so. I have found that religious ideas about human behavior and how to influence it, though never worthy of blind embrace, are sometimes vindicated by scientific examination."

The problem, however, is that religious ideas - which ultimately depend for their coherence on supernatural memes and agents- cannot offer empirical tests of their claims anyway. In any case, any and all potential hypotheses, say as might apply to human behavior, are already covered and explained under evolutionary ethics. The other problem is that the religious temperament and mind is too often grounded in premoralism.  This was best highlighted by Cheryl Mendelson in her book, 'The Good Life', which provides a key core perspective, (p. 157):

"The premoral mind confuses the disgusting with the wrong and retains an infantile fear of things sexual. Its rationality is overcome by emotion, fantasy, wish and projection.."

The implication here is enormous: it means that  religions are most likely to condemn or outlaw actions they perceive to be "disgusting" and conflate  with "evil" or "immoral".  We already are aware of the RC Church's pathological fear of all things sexual - leading it to condemn dozens of sexual acts such as premarital sex, masturbation and use of artificial contraception.   To fix ideas, one can cite St. Augustine, who wrote ('The Adulterous Relations', II, 12): 

"It is impermissible and shameful to practice intercourse with one's wife while preventing the conception of children. This is what Onan did, the son of Judah, and that is why God killed him".

In fact, this is a gross misinterpetation of the Onan passage but is also what is probably responsible for engendering the masturbation bogey. Since from then, "spilling seed" was equated to "onanism" and onanism to masturbation.  Also, no surprise that from Augustine's passage the Church still regards use of artificial contraception as "mutual masturbation" and a mortal sin - one incidence of which can send the sorry soul to Hell if it dies before confessing.   This was confirmed in the Loyola University Ethics course I took over 1966-67, given by Fr. Alvin Holloway, e.g.

What was Fr. Holloway's science? Well, Church "natural law" which is no real science at all, simply postulating that any act which doesn't conform with the Vatican's conception of "natural" is mortally sinful. Or to cite Pope Pius XI's  encyclical Casti Connubii  the "sin" of artificial contraception entails making primary a sexual aspect that in reality is only "secondary". According to that pontiff:

"Since therefore the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature."

Which, of course, is BS.  Indeed, as biologist Elizabeth A. Daugherty  points out ('The Lessons of Zoology'. in Contraception and Holiness, p. 110):

"Why do we call secondary the ends of the sexual act which have been accorded in fullness to us, and why do we call primary the end which we share with the lower animals?"


Good question! But that seems to be the sort of input that DeSteno advises us to adopt to have less divisive relations with religion. Oh, I almost forgot, it was Julian Pleasants in the same monograph who pointed out that the Church once believed it "natural" that some men be enslaved because they were “unable to manage their own affairs” (ibid.)  So why be surprised when the same Church seeks to ordain all her members abide by a sexuality more fitting of lower primates?  

This leads us to DeSteno's next bit of codswallop:

"Consider the challenge of getting people to act in virtuous ways. Every religion has its tools for doing this. Meditation, for example, is a Buddhist technique created to reduce suffering and enhance ethical behavior. Research from my own and others’ labs confirms that it does just that, even when meditation is taught and performed in a completely secular context, leading research participants to exhibit greater compassion in the face of suffering and to forgo vengeance in the face of insult.

Another religious tool is ritual, often characterized by the rigid following of repetitive actions or by engagement with others in synchronous movement or song. Here, too, an emerging body of research shows that ritualistic actions, even when stripped from a religious context, produce effects on the mind ranging from increased self-control to greater feelings of affiliation and empathy"

Interesting here is how he omits the number one bogey tool for trying to force people to behave in "virtuous rays": Hell! 


And, of course, the invocation of "Hell" necessarily has meant the supplemental invocation of supernatural agents like "Satan" and "demons" to wield the tortures - inflict them on those who have not embraced virtue in whatever guise.

E.g.



                                                                                                                   



So, in other words, De Steno has dodged the main tool - not anything empirical - that's been used and still is to drive respective flocks to obey silly commands or dogmas.

To DeSteno's credit he does admit, citing Steven Pinker for insight, i.e.:

"When I broached this body of research with the cognitive scientist and religious skeptic Steven Pinker, he emphasized that it was by no means a vindication of religion as a whole. He made a point to differentiate between what he called religious practices and cultural practices, with religious ones being those more likely to have doubtful supernatural rationales (like using prayer to contact a deity for favors) and cultural ones having more practical justifications (like using ritual to foster connection and self-control)."

Adding:

"While I can see Professor Pinker’s point — and I agree with him that religion as a whole must be judged by its full set of positive and negative effects — the dividing line between cultural and religious can be blurry. The Jewish practice of Shabbat, for instance, stems from a divine command for a day of rest and includes ritualistic actions and prayers. But it’s also a cultural practice in which people take time out from the daily grind to focus on family, friends and other things that matter more than work."

But why the need to go outside Christendom to the Jewish Shabbat? What? He can't find any compelling cultural practices among the Christian religions? Say as opposed to blocking abortion or Planned Parenthood clinics, calling artificial contraceptives "abortifacents" and filling teens with dread if they go to sleep without making a "full act of contrition" - say if they masturbated once.  So given all of this backstory it's kind of choice to next read:

"My purpose here isn’t to argue that religion is inherently good or bad. As with most social institutions, its value depends on the intentions of those using it. But even in cases where religion has been used to foment intergroup conflict, to justify invidious social hierarchies or to encourage the maintenance of false beliefs, studying how it manages to leverage the mechanisms of the mind to accomplish those nefarious goals can offer insights about ourselves — insights that could be used to understand and then combat such abuses in the future, whether perpetrated by religious or secular powers."

Well, he's correct there! Certainly in respect to how religions "leverage the mechanisms of the mind to accomplish nefarious ends".   But one doesn't need to be involved in any religion or to read religious fare to grasp that leverage. I can recommend Howard Bloom's book, 'The Lucifer Principle', which explores in depth the gestation of memes in all religions, and how these memes can induce all manner of  vile behavior from burning heretics and "witches" to beheading "infidels". 

Then there is the best explication ever of mind viruses as memes, i.e. in Jacques Monod's book, Chance and Necessity'  (Chapter 5, 'The Kingdom and the Darkness',  Collins Books, UK, 1970 )  Basically, Monod ties the spread of inherently primitive, anti-human and perverse ideas to a kind of mind-to -mind infection. He does this also by appeal to actual empirical (biological-chemical processes). Hence the  basis for the "mind virus",  though that specific term is introduced later in Richard Dawkins' book, 'The Selfish Gene' .  See e.g. a summary here:

[PDF]

the selfish gene - Home page

old.unipr.it/arpa/defi/econlaw/SELFISH%20GENE.pdf

DeStenos babbles on:

"Science and religion do not need each other to function, but that doesn’t imply that they can’t benefit from each other."

This may possibly be so, but not until religion jettisons all of its supernaturalism, all the assorted memes, agents and McGuffins.  Else, there is nothing really that genuine science can learn from religion.

DeStenos does end his essay with a faint note of promise by reference to what Millennials are into:

"A yearning for a science-religion synergy is growing in some circles. Ms. Tippett cites as an example the Formation Project, an initiative designed by a group of millennials who are looking to cultivate their inner lives and form a community by combining ideas from psychology and neuroscience with practices from ancient spiritual traditions. In doing this, she points out, these young people are not blindly accepting any doctrine. They are asking questions and choosing what works based on evidence. In short, they are doing exactly what I think the communities of scientists and clergy need to do in a more rigorous way and on a much larger scale."

To which I say, 'Bravo!' if the millennials aren't seduced by supernatural hokum and bunkum, or have their critical thinking undermined in any way.  The point is that irrespective of how they combine these "ideas from neuroscience" with "ancient spiritual traditions" they ensure the former are not subtly corrupted or diluted by the latter. And before they plow ahead, I strongly suggest they read Jacques Monod's monograph.  I would also heartily recommend these young folks get their hands on: Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief' wherein the authors (Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili) show clearly why the brain's belief claims can't be trusted.

 Most critical is how the brain’s OAA (orientation and activation region) translates an image into a religious reality which is described in detail.This is in connection with a person given an image of Christ and asked to focus on it. Within minutes, neurological measurements, i.e. from PET and SPECT scans, shows how domination of the image- attuned brain proceeds. This is via electrical discharges spiraling down from the right attention area (right OAA) to the limbic system and hypothalamus “triggering the arousal section of the structure”. The authors’ test results and ancillary investigations are important as they are based on genuine empirical science- not a bogus substitute

DeSteno ends:

"Will it work? That’s an empirical question. But if we choose not to investigate it, we’ll never know. And I suspect we’ll be the poorer for it."

Fair enough. But if we do choose to investigate this supposedly "empirical" question, we agree to do so by rigorously empirical means - not baloney or specious supernatural mumbo- jumbo!  In other words, not "empirical" merely because a pro-religious writer opts to throw that word around.