by Ted Laurenson
This was a terrifically interesting conference and got, I understand, good reviews from almost all attendees. The subject (even broader than those of most IRAS conferences) begged for months of lecture and dialogue, while the title alone conveyed a piece of information known by no one to whom I have spoken -- that Congress at some point declared the '90s to be the decade of the brain.
There was less orthodox theology here than at past conferences I have attended, probably because of the explicit materialism of the theme. Larry Greenfield's presentation of his thoughts on "God's Brain and Ours: A Challenge for Theology" in the last lecture constituted the conference's major theological exploration, in a way that tied in well with the other themes. Conceiving a mind-brain problem for the deity -- basically, if "mind" is a product of the "brain", then where is God's brain -- Larry left me wondering how his thoughts differed, on a theological level, from a humbled recognition of the sanctity of the universe and the impenetrable mystery of its existence. Where and how a sacred being's neurons pulse amid the quarks and the hadrons seemed a largely mystical inquiry to me, but also one that inspires us with nature's grace.
Larry's theme keyed off the classic philosophical question that springs to mind when one is focusing in the brain -- "the mind-brain problem." Originating in Cartesian Dualism, the assertion of this dichotomy represents one of the great philosophical attempts to reconcile the "dematerialized" phenomenon of a "soul" with the "mechanism" of the body; but it has always seemed to me that the question must sound better in French. Unless one believes that the only way to account for the phenomena we experience as our souls is to assume a dematerialized essence that will survive us, one need not (to my mind) be much troubled by the soul's not being "there" in the brain. Marya Schechtman's unwillingness to invoke dematerialized essences (other than to describe their philosophical history) did not, however, keep her from presenting an extraordinarily attractive discussion of a variant of the issue in "The Story of the Mind: Psychological and Biological Explanation." If we all had Marya as our philosophy professor, there would be fewer unexamined lives. But, in the absence of essence, it's hard (for me, anyhow) to get interested in the "problem" of the difference between the "psychological" and "biological" realms. I believe them to be two aspects of the same phenomenon, and find the mystery of their interaction no more difficult than the commonplace observation that how we feel internally is vastly affected by the quality of our interpersonal interactions, and vice versa.
Yet, of course, there is something here -- fundamentally, the meaning of what's different about being a human being. And that is where the conference began after interesting introductions on Saturday night by Ursula Goodenough and Barbara Whitaker-Johns. Terry Deacon, in "Why a Brain Capable of Language Evolved Only Once," presented the view that the disproportionately extensive development of the human cortex, in comparison even to the great apes, has resulted specifically from brain-language coevolution and the demands imposed on certain types of neural capacity and interconnections in order to have a brain that can handle a primarily symbol-based interaction with the world. Terry's presentation fitted in well with conference co-chair Rodney Holmes' lecture, which shared the title of the conference and laid out an evolutionary perspective on the nature and capabilities of the brain.
Not surprisingly, Terry's insistence on the uniqueness of the human brain's abilities inspired fascinated questioning that was fostered by a wonderful presentation by Duane Rumbaugh on "Language Comprehension in the Great Apes and Human Child Development: An Intellectual Continuum." Followed by Lauren Adam's lecture on Monday morning on "Language, Affect, and Culture in Early Childhood," which demonstrated the bubbling readiness of human babies to acquire language skills, Duane's description of the abilities of a bonobo [sp?] (a Chimpanzee sub-species) to demonstrate complex linguistic comprehension if exposed to language from birth (by having been brought up in the Rumbaugh's home) left us all scratching at the boundaries. These presentations were followed by the first "Loyal Rue Show," an innovative (for IRAS) panel discussion, chaired by Loyal, among Duane, Lauren and Terry on Monday night, which allowed a variety of audience questions and dialogue among the speakers. There, Terry admitted the difficulty of drawing absolute distinctions but stuck to his guns on the view that humanity's expanded cognitive capacities give rise to a true difference in quality, not just quantity, in linguistic capabilities. The next study of bonobo capabilities will concentrate on raising one (or several) animals from birth in the linguistic environment of American sign language. Because this would allow active outward communication in a completely human language, it should provide a much better indication of the full linguistic capacities of these remarkable animals. (Duane did say, however, that it isn't easy to raise a bonobo in your house, even for researchers as dedicated as he and his equally famous wife, [name], who would have spoken at the conference if she were not in Zaire working to save the bonobo).
The basic characteristics of complex symbol systems could receive only superficial attention here, and background disputations on such matters as Terry's rejection of the need to invoke a Chomskyan universal grammar to account for human language skills received no attention at all. Likewise, the role of symbols and symbol systems in fostering human religious capacity and our perception of a soulful essence could have absorbed days of discussion but got little more than a nod. Don Keyes ("Crisis of Brain and Self") framed the issues of spirituality and symbolism, together with human ability to evaluate the world as offering hope against meaninglessness, in relation to Christian views of the autonomous source of God's grace outside the individual. To me, this interesting talk only alluded to the fundamental question of whether it is our human facility with symbols and symbol systems that begets consciousness (whatever that is) and the feeling of individual essence -- the soul -- that may go with it.
In "Neural Transplantation in the Human Brain: Potential Applications to Disease," William Freed showed us just how little can yet be done to grow new neural tissue (and yet how greatly knowledge has advanced) and disillusioned us about any possibility of transfer of full brains (with the accompanying mind and soul) a la Frankenstein. Mary Mahowald then led us through the basics of the critical issues that we all might confront in "Biomedical Ethics and Determination of Personhood," followed by another panel discussion with Loyal on Tuesday night.
Troubled souls, minds and emotions were set before us by Cyril D'Souza in "Schizophrenia: A Glimpse at Its Neurobiology and Effects" (featuring a riveting film of a man proclaiming an awareness of his illness at the beginning of an interview, then progressively succumbing to it) and by David Olds, in "From Affect to Personality: Psychiatry at the Interface." David presented an amazingly comprehensive rundown of emotional disorders and their current treatments in one concentrated lecture, offering substantial hope in many situations.
The rest of the conference included, for me, the examination and explication of a number of aspects of the religious, philosophical and anthropological views presented in Gene d'Aquili's book (with Charles Laughlin, Jr.) "Biogenetic Structuralism," now 20 years old, and the exploration of terrific poetry in Bob Schaible's workshop "Poetry and the Meanings of Mind." (Jane Kenyon's poem "Having it Out with Melancholy" more effectively portrays the terrors of depression -- and the hope offered its sufferers by successful chemical intervention -- than any other description I have ever encountered.) And there was more: films, discussions, workshops . . . No thought was final; many connections were unexplored. All and all, frustrating and invigorating in the best way. What else would one expect of an attempt to fit a decade into a week?