The science of the mind is not unique in this regard. As the historian Daniel Boorstin (1983, /) 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 on stable ground led to the incorrect inference that we are the center of the universe, so too is the modern notion that the human brain is a solitary, autonomous instrument whose connections with other brains is a matter of deliberate choice and of no real import.
The human brain, the organ of the mind, is housed deep within the cranial vault, where it is protected and isolated from others, so it may seem obvious that the brain is a solitary information processing device that has no special means of connecting with other brains. But we are fundamentally a social species. Faces, expressive displays, and human speech receive preferential processing in neonate as well as adult brains. When a person feels rejected by others, their brain shows the same pattern of activation as when they are exposed to a physically
painful stimulus. Permit a person to cooperate with others, and their brain shows the same pattern of activation as when they are given a rich reward such as delicious food or drink. We may not be aware of it, but human evolution has sculpted a human need for social connection, along with neural circuits and hormonal processes that enable and promote communication and connection across brains. As we shall see in the chapters to follow, our sociality is an important part of who we are as a species and it plays an important though often invisible role in the operations of our brain and our biology. Among the questions we examine is whether our social brain also contributes to the ubiquitous human quest for spirituality.
The Chicago Social Brain Network
For hundreds of years, theology and philosophy were the hub disciplines of scholarship, and other fields of inquiry orbited around this dyad and were tightly constrained by it. Over the past three centuries, the sciences have come into their own, displacing theology and philosophy at the center of the academic universe. In so doing, they have produced extraordinary advances in everyday life. People may reminisce about the good old days, but thanks to science and technology the amount of total income spent on the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter dropped from 80% in 1901 to 50% in 2002/2003. Yet there remains an inchoate sense that something is missing in our lives, something intangible and elusive. Science has improved our material lives, but improvements in material life may not be enough to optimize human well being.
Can these two very different ways of seeing the world be used
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