Schoreder\'s the Hidden Face of God

Rethinking the Universe

Conflicts between religion and science are neither new nor novel. In the 1600s, Galileo was hauled before a court and convicted of heresy for saying (and publishing) that the earth revolved around the sun instead of the opposite. There have been trials on the teaching of evolution, controversies about physics and even states that battle schools and parents for including certain scientific concepts in the public school curriculum. Yet, the more science discovers the details of biology and physics, the more it seems that within each tiny creation there are similarities -- almost a microcosm of the entire universe within one molecule. To some, like Gerald Schroeder, this indicates that existence is about universality - and universality is about a way to describe the existence of everything. This in turn, is more of a cosmic journey, both macro and microcosmic as the merging between science and religion increases into differing explanations of the same phenomenon. "All that we know of the putative Creator is found within the physical creation. With this in mind, it is incongruous to describe a theology without the insights of science" (Schroeder, 2001, p. 1).

One summative example of this supposed exterior dichotomy, yet internal similarity, is the nature of the brain's neural network. Essentially, for decades it was thought that there was only an ancillary connection between the biology and chemistry of the brain and behaviors. Certainly, the brain of humans, for instance, is incredibly complex, and there is not a complete understanding of how thoughts, behaviors, and psychological or social characteristics are part of the biology or physiology of the brain -- with 15-33 billion neurons linked with 10,000 or more synaptic connections there are millions of potential interactions that can occur. This is not to say that behavior is only based on biology, certainly cultural and social issues can contribute to behavior, but that there is a link behavior and the brain that is more complex than ever. In fact, the new connectionist approach of cognitive studies believes that thought comes from the brain's architecture and is generated by a complex interaction between billions of cells called neurons. Using modern parlance, these complex cells form a linked network that is so complex that it can change its own connections through learning and experience, not just genetics. In this, the neural network is a biologically-based set of interconnected neurons that supports cognition, dreaming, creativity and complex connections that even allow us to envision a higher power, imagine a trip to space, and find new and innovative solutions to philosophical issues (Schroeder, pp. 93-101). From a human perspective, the importance of understanding neural networks is that their complexity drives both inference and causation -- a function that is complex in and of itself, but that really defines the nature and organization of life.

One can thus think of the brain as not only a part of the universe and the center of human cognition, but as a microcosm of the universe itself. We can understand this better when we think of a scientific term -- neuroplasticity, that explains the way the brain evolves over time. Of course, this does not mean that the brain is plastic in feel, but the way our experiences continually reorganize through the neural network as we learn new things, experience new adventures, or even have trauma. The idea is the development of the brain structure through chemistry is part of natural development and over time helps the human organism evolve and try new ideas, think about non-material or imagined objects, and relate stories and materials to future generations.

We know that the brain never stops evolving. Learning is a continual process, and memory is the process in which knowledge is retained over time -- stored for future use. There appear to be at least two ways the brain is modified during learning, all which can be influenced if the brain is damaged or has any type of trauma: 1) A change in the internal structure of the neurons of the brain, particularly in the synapses, and 2) An increase or decrease in the number of synapses between neurons. Any stimuli causes a positive effect (more neurons or more connections) and any trauma a negative effect (fewer neurons or fewer connections). However, the overall nature of plasticity in the human brain is during brain repair following any injury, plasticity changes are focused towards maximizing function in spite of any damaged brain areas. For example, in research studies in which one area of the brain was damaged, brain cells surrounding the damaged area underwent significant changes in both shape and functionality that allowed them to "evolve" to take on the functions of the damaged cells. This has not been widely studied in human subjects, but the data indicate that similar, though less effective due to the complexity of the human brain, changes that attempt to make the holistic brain function again (Schroeder, pp. 105-15; Kalat, 2013). Interestingly, this patten seems true of the way the universe works as well, but on a macro-basis.

The brain's primary function is to organize connections and interpret stimuli. Neural pathways are formed across hemispheres during this information processing. Brain imaging scans show which regions of the brain are "hot" and active during specific stimuli, music for example. Children who have consistent stimuli use both hemisphere of the brain simultaneously, which strengthens the connections of the corpus callosum (the thick bundle of nerves between the brain's two hemispheres). Synapses connect prior knowledge and experience to new knowledge and experience, which then forms more robust neural networks and continues the process of brain evolution. The "brain-mind" connection then becomes a more fundamental part of the "philosophy of the mind" which then looks at the nature of consciousness. This forms the basis of why we think the way we do, how we process those thoughts, and how those thoughts create something from nothing that may become tangible. Certainly, Nietzsche cynically noted, "If horses had Gods, Gods would be horses," implying that the notion of a creator is part of the individual creation, but new science tells us that brains cause minds, that there is a direct correspondence between the brain and mind, that neural activity correlates with consciousness and that there is a relationship between the physical and the mental that both defies and buttresses a scientific understanding of the universe (Schroeder, pp. 152-60).