Breaking the Godspell

Embracing meme theory is a bit like finding out that the Earth is really a supercomputer created by mice in order to calculate the ultimate question to Life, the Universe, and Everything (the answer, of course, being 42). In his new book,Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomena (Viking Books, 2006), Daniel C. Dennett strives to ease readers into the general principles of memetics and how contemporary religion may be rooted in what he calls a “Good Trick.”

“Many of us brights,” (that’s a Dennett neologism for a nonbeliever. See his essay entitled “The Bright Stuff”), “have devoted considerable time and energy at some point in our lives to looking at the arguments for and against the existence of God. . . But not I,” says Dennet. “I decided some time ago that diminishing returns had set in on the arguments about God’s existence, and I doubt that any breakthroughs are in the offing, from either side. . . So what, then, is the point of religion?”

Dennett believes it is “high time that we subject religion as a global phenomenon to the most intensive multidisciplinary research we can muster, calling on our best minds on the planet. Why? Because religion is too important for us to remain ignorant about.” Ironically, the Dalai Lama has spearheaded a somewhat similar campaign on the religious side. Last month he kicked off a series of religious teachings by ordering Buddhist monks to question superstition and learn more about science.

Though Dennett neglects to specifically address Buddhism in his book, he’ll have ample opportunity to probe it with Professor Robert A. F. Thurman in a public conversation this February 13th at the Miller Theatre on the campus of Columbia University. This event is part of the Theatre of Ideas Lecture Series and is one of many talks Dennett will be delivering during his 2006 book tour which begins next week.ༀ

Event Coverage:
• Click here to hear an MP3 of what was said at Columbia.
• Click here to read a transcription (thanks Rob Hogendoorn!)
• Click here to see images on flickr.
• The Columbia Spectator: “Questions of Faith.”
• Science & Theology News had this to say.
• “The Case Against Religion,” by Spiros Antonopoulos.

Book Reviews:
• Leon Wieseltier’s “The God Genome” in the NYTBR.
• Rubert Sheldrake’s “The Unbearable Brightness of Being Right.”
• George Johnson’s book review in Scientific American.
• The San Francisco Chronicle’s review.
• The Guardian’s“Should we treat religion as a science?”
• Eliot Fintushel’s “A Religious Inquiry: But who’s listening?”

Responses to Wieseltier’s Review
• Dennett’s March 5th “Letter to the Editor.”
• Owen Flanagan’s response to Wieseltier in his “Letter to the Editor.”
• “Responses to the Review of ‘Breaking the Spell’”
• “Still Breaking the Spell.”
• “The Meme’s Eye View.”

Related News:
• Dennett’s interview in the NY Times Magazine.
• Dennett’s essay “Common-Sense Religion” in The Chronical Review.
• Dennett’s interview on meaningoflife.tv
• Dennet’s interview with BBC’s Jonathan Miller

World.Wide.Wisdom.

In his youth, the fourteenth Dalai Lama-Tenzin Gyatso was supposedly quite fond of guns. According to professor of Buddhism Robert A. F. Thurman, the Nobel Prize laureate was (perhaps is still?) captivated by the technology and mechanics of firearms. Incongruent as it may seem, we are all familiar with the NRA mantra: “guns don’t kill people—people kill people.” Similarly, Buddhist philosophy does not attribute any intrinsic killing properties to a “gun” in of itself. Guns—and technology as whole—are void of being intrinsically either good or bad. It is what we might call the emptiness of technology and it is particularly evident in Tibetan Mind Science today.

In 1994 Erik Davis authored an article for Wired Magazine entitled “Digital Dharma.” India at that time had just begun to take step towards becoming the outsourcing repository it is today. Most Indians—let alone cloistered monastics—had little to no contact with digital technology. Yet, amidst the cornfields of Southern India, Davis located a small band of Tibetan monks who were fast digitizatizing the Buddhist canon. “[I]f Buddhist philosophy is to survive and thrive in the 21st century,” Davis wrote, “the dharma must be reformatted for the future.” According to the then ACIP (The Asian Classics Input Project) director Michael Roach, that means not just digitalization, but creating powerful interfaces. “[T]he future of authorship in this tradition will rest with those who design the roadways through huge databases. If you have a hundred thousand pages online, it becomes overwhelming. What do you do with it? You need an interactive system.” To that end ACIP has launched an ambitious hypertexting project and is partnering in a joint multimedia venture called the Tibetan Knowledge Consortium. (For a listing of other Indo-Tibetan digital resources see the links on the sidebar of this blog).

The digitization of texts has most famously and ambitiously been taken up by Google—a full ten years after ACIP launched its initiatives. The announcement of their contract to scan the university libraries of Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, and Michigan, and the subsequent launch of Google Book has led to heated debates about copyright infringement (see Battle Over Books and Steven Johnson’s subsequent analysis), and pessimism about the future of printed matter (see “Science in the web age: The real death of print” in this week’s Nature).

The diversity and plethora of digital resources for Buddhist enthusiasts is astounding. On-line dictionaries(see THDL Collaborative Dictionaries), geographical maps(see THDL Geography Collection), rare artwork(see Himalayan Art Resources), web radio(see Lamrim radio), ancient manuscripts (see Gene Smith & TBRC), and more. The platforms are multifarious and are pushing the very limit of what is possible on the web today. In turn, or perhaps as a consequence of, Buddhist thought and culture is prospering in the West. In Tibet, however, technology seems to be having an opposite affect on indigenous Buddhist practice and culture.

According to a recent article in the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun (a subsidiary of The International Herald Tribune), increased availability of modern technology has jeopardized traditional Buddhist culture and religion. “In the midst of this rush to modernize,” says Kazuto Tsukamoto, “Tibetan Buddhism stands at a crossroads.” According the Tsukamoto, the number of senior Tibetan monks with a “geshe” degree (what might be considered a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy) is dropping below the already low post Cultural Revolution numbers. Informants in Tibet told Tsukamoto that finding a geshe in Tibet is as “difficult as finding a star in the daytime.” Conversely, the Tibetan exile community boasts literally thousands of monks studying for their Geshe degree at numerous monasteries all over the Indian subcontinent. In fact a handful of Westerners have recently graduated from the rigorous 15 year program and are currently teaching in the United States.

Despite Tibetan enthusiasm for increased availability of solar energy and novel services such as cellular text messaging in Tibetan, such technologies, the Dalai Lama says (see Charlie Rose interview below) are intentionally being used to disempower Buddhist culture and assimilate Tibetans into China’s Han population. In short: technology doesn’t kill Buddhism—people kill Buddhism.ༀ

Web:
• See this related news (originally reported in Reuters) about what recently happened at a peaceful sit-in at Drepung Monastery in Tibet.
• Don’t miss “Kung Fu Monks Go Modern” in the LA Times.

JAN UPDATE:
• Jack Romano, CEO of Simon & Schuster, weighed in with “The fine print in Google’s plan.”
• See also the NYTimes“China, Still Winning Against the Web.”

FEB UPDATE:

“So Long, Dalai Lama: Google Adapts to China”
“Google loses Internet users over Tibet”

Meditation Rx

Opponents and supporters of the Dalai Lama’s recent lecture to the Society for Neuroscience on “The Neuroscience of Meditation” (see “Convergence & Conflict”&“Dalai Lama in the House”), will want to read Dr. Sara Lazar’s study on meditation and cortical thickness in the latest issue of Neuroreport.

Lazar, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, presented her team’s findings to the SFN in a slide presentation just two days after His Holiness’ controversial lecture. Their hypothesis was “that meditation practice might also be associated with changes in the brain’s physical structure.” In an interview with Newsday, Lazar explained that “[p]eople who meditate always talk about lasting effects that go beyond the meditation session. If so, the implication is that different brain wiring supports this change.”

With the assistance of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Lazar’s teams examined the brains of 20 participants who had “extensive Insight meditation experience.” Lazar’s report states that “prefrontal cortical thickness were most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might offset age-related cortical thinning.” And that “the thickness of two regions correlated with meditation experience. These data provide the first structural evidence for experience-dependent cortical plasticity associated with meditation practice.”

According to Lazar, this thickening “gives credibility to the claims of meditators.” She explains that “[i]t is not just sitting there quietly, but meditating, that is having a profound effect on key brain structures.” The thinning of the prefrontal cortex has traditionally been accepted as an inherent part of the aging process. Obviously the implication of this report is that attention based meditations have a marked affect on the deterioration of brain tissue.

See also:
༄ mindhacks.com, “Meditation Can Alter Structure of the Brain”
༄ SfN News, “. . . Meditation May Boost Brain Size. . .”
༄ Fox News, “Meditation May Alter Brain, Delay Aging”
༄ UPI Press, “New study shows meditation feeds brain”
༄ The Boston Globe, “The power of Om. . .”
༄ The LA Times, “Building up the brain.”
༄ Australian Doctor.com.au, “Regular meditation slows the ageing . . .”

Dalai Lama in ‘Da House

Pandemonium is the only word to describe the hallways of the Washington Convention Center in the moments leading up the Dalai Lama’s inaugural lecture on the “Neuroscience of Meditation” yesterday at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. With the exception of a large a sign that did little more than indicate the eastern wing of the building, thousands (myself included) pondered the logic behind the amoeba-like queue that was quickly growing.

As a Gotham straphanger I am no stranger to a large crowd. And so perhaps it was my New York pride that exacerbated my suspicion that these amateurs would surely stampede at the slightest sign of danger. After climbing a broken escalator and negotiating gridlocked walls of people, I decided to hedge my bets and seek refuge in a viewing room.

Arriving in the “ballroom,” I caught the last five minutes of a power-point presentation on the cerebral asymmetry of monkey brains, the high-point of which was the speaker’s virtuoso performance of monkey vocalizations. The tweed horde from the hallway quickly spilled into the half empty theatre and claimed every free seat. “Do you think the Dalai Lama will be speaking in English” a neuroscientist from Texas asked me. My only reply was, “that’s a good question.”

I had just come off three days of listening to the Dalai Lama converse with scientists at the Mind and Life conference just a few blocks east from where we sat. In that context His Holiness seemed to prefer Tibetan, with occasional remarks in English. Translation for that event was provided by Dr. Thubten Jinpa, whose eloquent English has engendered the envy of the Dalai himself. Given the political hype around this event, it seemed only prudent to enlist his help.

Soon there was a live video feed projecting the image of a podium on the two story screen before us. Within minutes a woman approached it and began to introduce His Holiness. Stumbling over her words, as if shell shocked by the mob, the reassuring presence of Tenzin Gyatso was soon beside her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said as he probed about the floor behind her, as if looking for a lost a contact lens. I giggled out-loud, but with no sign of Thubten Jinpa my good humor turned to worry. “Was he going it alone?” “Did he appreciate the controversy surrounding his presence?” I asked myself.

He did of course, and suggested as much when he admitted the whole event was giving him “stress.” His initial words were plagued by a hacking cough, that caused him to search the podium in vain for something to drink. The “antidote” (a small Poland Springs bottle) arrived in the hand of Thubten Jinpa — stage left and ready for on-the-fly translation. As I watched him drink directly from the bottle, my mind’s eye saw Mean Joe Green downing a refreshing bottle of coke in that old television commercial. Turning to the crowd as if to say “thanks kid,” the words that left his lips were: “truth is more important than beautiful words and nice appearances.” It was clear the Dalai Lama had every intention of handling this crowd mano a mano.

In the lecture that followed, the Dalai Lama reiterated many of the points he had made in his New York Times Op-Ed that same day. He told the audience about his days a child in the Potala curiously looking up at the night sky thinking, “how?” “What are these things?” He talked about his encounter with biology, and how he used to wonder to himself, “why does my own body have hair in some places and not in other?” He restated his belief in the common quest for knowledge and the conflict between science and Buddhism on the subject of subatomic physics. True to his conviction in the primacy of truth, he said, “if these authors [of ancient Buddhist texts] were to write these texts today they would write them differently.” And then he added, “I hope my senior colleagues don’t see me as rebellious Buddhist.”

Regarding the “relationship between the mind and the brain,” he said, “there are mysterious issues on Buddhist side and Neuroscience. . . We spend billions of dollars on outer space and still so much to explore on inner space.” The locus of human suffering, he told the members of the SFN, was “wrong perception. . . ignorance.”

The Dalai Lama also expressed his advocacy for research on human emotions and specifically on how to cultivate the positive ones on the “basis of understanding brain mechanisms.” He said, “in order to transform my mind, I spend a few hours — at least— in analytical meditation everyday.”

Returning to a theme from the Mind & Life conference, he mentioned his belief in the importance of a good educational system, and warned that, “we are neglecting the development of the heart.” “Loving Kindness,” he told the SFN, “are fundamental human values.”

The questions that followed were excellent and required more time than he was permitted. Nevertheless, he did address the issues of animal cruelty in scientific experiments, drug addiction, prescribed usage of mood altering drugs like prozac, the mind-body problem, and intelligent design. Though he may not have fully answered all of these, his responses were permeated by a powerful modesty and sincere willingness to consider multiple viewpoints. When someone asked him “what’s the best . . .” He quickly replied “best, cheapest, easiest . . . I don’t know.” Then he the dropped his microphone and apologized.

To read a copy of his prepared address click here.

See also:
༄ New York Times, “Our Faith in Science”
༄ New York Times, “Science, Faith, and Enlightenment.”
༄ Washington Post, “Dalai Lama Gives Talk on Science”
༄ Nature Neuroscience Blog, “Throngs at Dalai Lama SfN Lecture”
༄ BETTERHUMANS News, “Dalai Lama: Buddhism, sicence share goals”

JANUARY 26 UPDATE
༄ Wired Magazine, “Buddha on the Brain”

Meditation in Gym Class?

Effusive optimism and cheer permeated the closing statements at Mind and Life XIII: The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation, at DAR Constitution Hall on November 10th in Washington D.C. Scientists and Buddhists had just spent three days examining the various ways in which Buddhist meditative practices may be useful to contemporary western medicine. “It is no surprise the wise leadership of the Society for Neuroscience invited the Dalai Lama to speak,” said Dr. Bennet M. Shapiro, who described Buddhist meditation as a “rigorous technology for investigating the mind.” His parallel to physical culture was seconded by neuroscientist Richie Davidson who called for “mental education” classes alongside phys-ed in our school systems. In an interview the following morning on N.P.R., Davidson reiterated his point: “most Americans now realize that if they go to the gym or exercise several times a week, they will observe systematic changes occurring in their body. Meditation,” he said, “is exercising the mind in a particular way.” It was, therefore, with a certain sense of karmic-irony that the first stop the Dalai Lama made after leaving Constitution Hall was the Booker T. Washington Public Charter School for the Technical Arts, where he made a monetary donation in the amount of $10,000.

See also these related stories:
༄ The Washington Post, ”. . . a Meeting of Brain and Mind”
༄ The Washington Post: ”. . . D.C. Focuses on Meditation”

Dalai Lama Visits White House

On Wednesday the the thirteenth Dalai Lama-Tenzin Gyatso met with President Bush and Condie Rice in our nation’s capitol. Previous to this historic meeting, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that he thought they would probably “talk about issues relating to Tibet.” This meeting is extremely timely because it coincides with mounting controversy over the Dalai Lama’s presence at the Society for Neuroscience on Saturday (see “Convergence & Conflict” entry below), as well as the President’s own trip to Asia next week. Regarding the latter McClellan said, “the president will continue to talk openly and candidly with leaders he meets with, including when he goes to China, about the importance of freedom of religion [and] . . . the importance of promoting human rights and human dignity for all.”

Convergence & Conflict

The decision to invite the Dalai Lama-Tenzin Gyatso to deliver the inaugural lecture in a new series at the Society For Neuroscience’s Annual Meeting this November has stirred controversy in the press and led to a petition of protest from scientists. Entitled “Dialogues between Neuroscience and Society,” the SFN describes the new series as featuring ”. . . leaders from fields outside of neuroscience whose work relates to subjects of interest to neuroscientists.” Rumor has it that the SFN has invited the architect Frank Gehry to deliver next year’s lecture.

The story was first reported in July by David Cyranoski in a Nature article entitled, “Neuroscientists See Red Over Dalai Lama.” Cyranoski subsequently wrote a follow-up piece entitled, “Dalai Lama Gets Go-Ahead,” that was accompanied by a correspondence from a reader in August.

More recently Benedict Carey picked up the story and reported it in The New York Times in his article “Scientists Bridle at Lecture Plan for Dalai Lama.” Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace chimed in with an Op-ed that you can read here. See also this NYT “Letter to the Editor” from a neuroscience nurse.

See also:
༄ The Guardian,”. . .Dalai Lama Lecture Angers Neuroscientists.”

Is Karma Intelligent Design?

The Dalai Lama’s new book, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality received a mixed review from George Johnson in the New York Times Book Review (Sept. 18th, 2005). Johnson, a well known commentator on science and religion, tragically likens Buddhist causality to Intelligent Design, and asserts that Buddhist philosophy of mind was “rejected long ago by mainstream science.”

Buddhists love a good a debate and have responded strongly. B. Alan Wallace of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies posted this essay on the Mind & Life Research Network list-serve. Professor of Philosophy W. Teed Rockwell submitted this letter to the New York Times. I also chimed in with my own letter to the NYT Book Review that was subsequently published.

If you’ve got something to say, let us know about it. Post a comment here, or email me.

Buy The Universe in a Single Atom