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CRISIS OF BRAIN AND SELF
Author(s) -
Keyes C.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9744.1996.tb00951.x
Subject(s) - monism , faith , narrative , autonomy , dualism , vulnerability (computing) , psychology , epistemology , dimension (graph theory) , social psychology , psychoanalysis , philosophy , law , political science , linguistics , computer security , mathematics , computer science , pure mathematics
. Neuroscientific evidence requires a monistic understanding of brain/mind. Truly appropriating what this means confronts us with the vulnerability of the human condition. Ca‐muss absurd and Tillich's despair are extreme expressions of a similar confrontation. This crisis demands a type of courage that is consistent with scientific truth and does not undermine the spiritual dimension of life. That dimension is not a separate substance but the process by which brain/mind meaningfully wrestles with its crisis through aesthetic symbols, religious faith, and ethical affirmation. The validity of these activities does not depend upon human autonomy but instead upon the fact that they exist. Furthermore, they constitute the self, which Dennett calls a “center of narrative gravity.”