Comments on: A Study On Belief In The Brain

By: Damian

Damian — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:32:55 +0000

As a follow-up, the unanalysed results of this study have been published and you can view graphs of personal attitudes, as well as psychological and religious beliefs. The original purpose of this study was to help them choose the kinds of questions they will ask in a future fMRI study. There were around 5000 respondents, most of whom were atheists. I'm not sure if there is anything we didn't already know here but I'm interested to see what comes out of the fMRI study. For anyone unfamiliar with fMRI, it's a technology used to scan people's brains and can see which parts become active when the subject performs different tasks.

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:34:40 +0000

Did both A and B. it’s interesting how the questions switch around. I would say its easy to make mistakes and click the opposite button to what one really believes. This surely can’t be a mistake in the way the survey is set up, so I wonder if the way we respond (i.e. differences in “out-of-character” responses) might be part of the the research.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:57:23 +0000

I just did Survey B, it was quite interesting the way it rearranged questions and switched topics suddenly – I got the impression they were trying to judge what types of questions would illicit the stronger responses, and whether rephrasing questions could change the strength of reaction to the question. Fascinating stuff

By: Damian

Damian — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:25:28 +0000

Yeah, I think the questions are more to determine how strongly people feel about certain truth claims so that the right kind of questions can be used in the final study. And from what I understand this study is not about awe and wonder but about what parts of the brain fire depending on (A) the type of question and (B) the type of person.

I found that there were some questions where I had to answer with an “I don’t know” but where I’d imagine some people may have had strong feelings at either end of the scale.

I don’t think this particular set of questions is going to be used to say anything either way about Christians or atheists.

Thanks for taking the time!

By: Dale Campbell

Dale Campbell — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:03:36 +0000

Just did survey A and found it almost as frustrating as taking a survey of Christians by Christians…
I kept wanting to object to the form of the question and/or give a response other than the ones offered…

As for the physical aspects of belief and faith, I still am not convinced (but am open to being shown otherwise!) we can distinguish any difference in neural activity between, for example, the awe and wonder of a believer while appreciating the beauty of creation and the awe and wonder of a non-believer while appreciating the same aspects of reality.
Again, I’m not suggesting a ‘gap’ in our physicality where the mind ‘fits’, I would say our mind is fully ‘em-brain-ed’. But, nonetheless, my view is that the ‘whole’ of us is somehow ‘more’ (though that still doesn’t quite express it) than the sum of our biological parts… In this sense, (and only this sense!) I’m quite happy with the language of a ‘soul’ (being). Again, not a dis-embodied ‘spirit’ that floats around forever after you die, etc. but a thoroughly embodied ‘seat of being’… (and yet, this again falls short of expressing the idea…)
-d-