I am pleased to announce that the Open Directory Project has added a new category for Neurotheology, which after due deliberation was set up as a subcategory of Psychology and Religion under the Psychology tree.

Like many specialized categories, Neurotheology ends up being less an index of web sites (since there are few, if any, websites dedicated to the topic), and more an index of web pages (“deeplinks”). And it is a relatively limited resource for the topic, because much of the information in the field is still in printed form.

(The same holds for the other category which I’m editing, about the medieval Japanese religious leader and philosopher Dogen.)

The project says about itself:

The Open Directory follows in the footsteps of some of the most important editor/contributor projects of the 20th century, [such] as the Oxford English Dictionary. Its data is made available for free to anyone. It’s the most widely distributed data base of Web content classified by humans. Its editorial standards body of net-citizens provide the collective brain behind resource discovery on the Web. The Open Directory powers the core directory services for the Web’s largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Google.

Normal users who submit URLs play an important role in the directory building process. Those URLs are then reviewed by editors like me for inclusion. The “Submit URL” link is on each page of the directory. Send in your suggestions now!

Materialist conception of universe. As adjective “hylomorphic”, refers to having material form.

The late Pope John Paul II, while clearly lacking in knowledge of Buddhism, also, it is worthy of note, called early in his papacy for a fruitful concord between science and faith, between the Church and the world.

Generally I’m skeptical of science and religion initiatives, finding them superficial and sterile. “Hey look, I’m a pious Catholic who believes that God could have used evolution to create the world!” “No, look at me, I’m a microbiologist who believes that Jesus rose from the dead!”

But the Pope’s call for cooperation between science and religion bore fruit in the form of a collaboration between the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, involving a series of conferences, one of which, held in June 1998 in Poland, dealt with relations between the cognitive neurosciences and Christian theology.

This conference resulted in the volume entitled Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, a fascinating, if somewhat overblown and uneven mix of papers from every imaginable perspective. I recommend Dr. Michael Arbib’s essays in this books, entitled “Towards a Neuroscience of the Person” and “Crusoe’s Brain: of Solitude and Society”, although his rather reductionist perspective will not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Everyone’s talking about Science Magazine and its list of 125 big questions. Personally I like “Why is time different from other dimensions?”, but that’s down around #50. The interesting question, way up at #2, asks what is the biological basis of consciousness. That’s right up our alley, although it’s questionable if “scientists have a good shot at answering the question over the next 25 years”, which is supposed to be one of the criteria.

But the editors completely missed a key point: what is the value of solving these questions? In the absence of other metrics, let’s think in terms of economic value. If Science had adopted this perspective, they certainly would have included our question: what is the biological basis of religion/religious experience/religious behavior? Whether morality is hard-wired into the brain did make it onto the list, but that’s a little different.

The economic value of understanding this neurotheology question can be summed up in just one word: terrorism. Why do people fly airplanes into buildings or strap on explosives to blow up themselves and some people on a street in the name of religion? It must be more than just the 72 doe-eyed virgins whose ministrations await them in heaven. Just a wild guess, but given the money being spent on the “war on terror”, solving this problem should be worth at least a trillion dollars. The consciousness problem is intensely interesting, but what’s the payoff?

Transliteration refers to conversion between phonetic alphabets. In Japanese I write ��, and I can transliterate this into the Roman alphabet as hana. In English I write cherry, and I can transliterate this into the Japanese katakana syllabary as �ェリー.

Transliteration tries to accomplish two quite different things. The first is to write a word in another alphabet so that when it is pronounced according to the rules of the language using that alphabet, it sounds as much as possible “like” the original word in its original language. The second is to provide a unique, bidirectional orthographical mapping from one alphabet (that I don’t know) to another (that I do). Among other reasons, when entering text into a computer this lets me use a keyboard mapping I am more familiar with. Even many Japanese prefer to input Japanese content using the Roman alphabet keyboard mapping.

(There is a third, less important goal in some transliteration systems: to reproduce structural aspects of the original alphabet. The example I’m familiar with is Japanese. The syllabary is organized into rows (vowels) and columns (consonants). The “ha” column contains ha, hi, hu, he, and ho. The “hu” sound is perceived by most English speakers as being closer to “fu”. Thus, a transliteration system which emphasized phonological fidelity would represent this syllable as “fu”, whereas one emphasizing source-alphabet structural integrity would represent it as “hu”. Does this problem exist in other transliteration systems?)

The above is just a basic introduction to transliteration; another is at Wikipedia. What motivated me to post about the topic is the horribly garbled discussion that recently appeared in William Safire’s column in the New York Times, our national newspaper of record.

Safire starts off on the wrong foot, revealing a weak understanding of the distinction between orthography and phonology, making absurd statements such as “The closest I can get in Roman spelling [he means English spelling] to the sound of [Putin’s] name is…”. He then lapses into bemusement at the fact that if for some unknown reason the French were to use the English-style transliteration of Russian President Putin’s name, it would come out sounding like the French word for “prostitute”, and so gee, that must be why they adopted their own weird transliteration. How confused this all is is analyzed in detail by our friends at Blogos.

In a follow-up article, Blogos expresses shock that “there are still people out there, writing columns in some of the most influential newspapers in the world, who think that computers and the Internet can only work with roman alphabets”.

But that’s not exactly where our famed pundit is confused, if you read his closing paragraph closely:

Here’s the problem for globocrats: most computer operating systems are based on the Roman alphabet, Maybe the United Nations will find a new raison d’etre (that’s ray-ZON DET-ra) in standardizing a system to encode Roman and Cyrillic letters and Chinese and Japanese characters to make them computer-friendly on all the world’s screens.

Now he’s started talking about “encodings”, something else he plainly does not understand. It turns out there is a widely-implemented encoding making all the world’s characters “computer-friendly”, called Unicode. Clearly Safire has no idea what is going on in multilingual computing, and one must certainly question his judgment in writing such nonsense in a national newspaper without a minute’s worth of checking. The problem is not that these characters cannot be displayed on “all the world’s screens”, since they can; it’s that, once displayed, they still cannot be read by people that don’t know the alphabets. He continues:

…For users of tomorrow’s Internet to accurately cross cultures, experts in phonetics and transliteration will first have to create and agree on a standard system.

Ignoring the fact that Safire now is confusing “cultures” with languages and writing systems, he’s apparently saying that there could be, or should be, some type of orthographical Esperanto that would magically meet the two conflicting objectives of transliteration systems: to be faithful to the original orthography while also being pronounced by native speakers of any world language, according to their language’s phonological rules, in a way which is close to the phonology of the original word. Sorry, all the “transliterati” in the world won’t be able to pull off that trick.

Only then will President Poutine get his real name back.

Bill, he doesn’t need his name back, he never lost it. It’s a Russian name written in Cyrillic. The French didn’t “take it away”, they just tried to write it in their alphabet so people can read it.

So much for our reigning language maven, of whom, I should add, I am a great fan and faithful reader of his column.

Young which are unable to care for themselves, naked, immobile, and/or blind, requiring extended care from their mother; or a species wihch gives birth to such young, such as humans.

I must be getting cranky. I’ll pick up a book and find myself arguing with the author right from the first page, sometimes even the first sentence. That’s what happened with Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil, a book on Buddhism by Stephen Batchelor (shown), who is a Buddhist teacher and writer. He starts:

This is a book for those like myself who find themselves living in the gaps between different and sometimes conflicting mythologies—epic narratives that help us make sense of this brief life on earth.

Hmmm. I don’t “find myself” living in any such “gaps”.

Whether the myths we inherit from the past come from a monotheistic religion such as Judaism or Christianity or a nontheistic tradition such as Buddhism, they share the view that a human life is fully intelligible only as part of an immense cosmic drama that transcends it.

This seems like a funny thing for someone with Zen training to say (Batchelor was a Zen monk in Korea for three years, after also studying Tibetan Buddhism). I don’t think Buddhism says that human life is “fully intelligible”, with or without any “immense cosmic drama”.

Both believe hidden powers to be at work—whether of God or karma makes little difference—that have flung us into this world to face the daunting task of redeeming ourselves for the remainder of eternity.

No, I don’t think Buddhism holds that there are “hidden powers”. And certainly it’s wrong to equate God, whoever/whatever He/She is, with karma. We were not “flung” into this world (if we were, from where?). And what exactly are we supposed to be “redeeming ourselves” from?

For me this is overly reminiscent of the unlikely creation myth I was taught as a child. That particular cosmology held that a flesh-and-bones God and his wife, living on a distant planet, copulated and created non-physical “spirit children”, including me. The spirit children embodied some kind of eternal essence of each person, which had existed from the “beginning”, in exactly what form is unclear. Those spirit children hung around until humans down on Earth themselves copulated, creating physical bodies that the spirit children came down and inhabited, deprived of their “premortal” memories, to be subjected to a test of obedience and faith to determine their eventual eternal status. I’m not kidding, there are really people that believe this.

Batchelor then goes on to facilely, relativistically, and post-modernistically conflate modern day science with such fairy tales:

A dominant myth of modernity is provided by the scientific understanding of the world, so compelling that we refuse to acknowledge anything mythical about it at all.

Sure, it’s useful to have a perspective of science as a contingent belief system. But science is fundamentally distinct from religious myths in its nature.

Human knowledge is invariably limited and partial…Whatever a person knows is mediated through his senses, his reason, his brain. No matter how well it can be explained, reality remains essentially mysterious.

But this misses the point that at their heart the mythic explanations are different from the scientific ones in their nature. And something merely being mysterious does not mean that the explanation has failed, or that the explanation is a “myth”—unless you want to call any belief system a myth.

I do not believe in God any more than I believe in Hamlet. But this does not mean that either God or Hamlet has nothing of value to say.

But Hamlet is a fictional character in a play—we all know that. We don’t need to “believe” in him or not. We know that his lines were written by Shakespeare. God, on the other hand, cannot be defined. We cannot even say what it means to “believe” in Him/Her. We don’t know what He has said or is saying, or what relationship what is written in the Bible has to this “God” idea.

Whew. That was all just in the first three pages. The rest of the book is mainly about the Devil, which is not a useful metaphor for me in any of the cultural or religious guises presented here. I guess I should have thought about that before buying the book, since the title, after all, is “Living with the Devil”.

I’ve adopted a new pattern for reading books. I skim them, I jump around, I skip parts. Sometimes I just put them down—life is too short. And, sad to say, that is what I ended up doing with this book as well.

Stigmatics are people in whom the stigmata, the wounds inflicted on Jesus when he was crucified, are reproduced. Since the phenomenon first appeared in the Middle Ages, about 500 stigmatics have been reported.

What explains stigmatism? Is it Jesus reminding us through His messengers of the pain He suffered as He redeemed mankind? Is it a biological process tied to religious mentational activity—the biotheological phenomenon par excellence ? Or is it simply fraud?

We know that emotions can cause skin eruptions. The medical term for this is psychogenic purpuras, bruising and bleeding from the skin from emotional stress. However, these look like bruises, or spots—not wounds. And the bleeding is subdural—under the skin.

There are substantial grounds for doubting supernatural explanations, besides the fact that some stigmatics themselves admitted they were frauds (such as Magdalena de la Cruz, 1487-1560). There is no video or other objective, scientific account of a stigmatic episode. It seems unusual that stigmatism would have emerged in the 1200s, right when there was an emphasis on the crucifixion, and then largely died out over the last few hundred years. Furthermore, stigmata appear in people’s palms, whereas it now seems likely that the actual wound was in Jesus’ wrist. Virtually all stigmatics are Roman Catholic.

Of course, there are reported aspects to stigmata that do not and probably could not have a scientific explanation, including the fact that they heal instantly, have no odor (or sometimes smell like perfume), bleed only on holy days , and even have a blood type different from the sufferer. If we want to adopt a non-supernatural explanation, we simply have to reject these reports as being pious falsehoods, as we would also reject reports of crying statues of the Virgin Mary.

What we do know is that self-mutilation and flagellation are associated with a variety of psychological disorders which in turn may involve religious manifestations. Cutting has been reported to be the most popular type of self-mutilation. Such disorders have been associated with eating disorders—which also appear in religious contexts, where they are sometimes hailed as miracles allowing saints to survive with no food intake. Both psychopathologies are much more common in females than males, which foots with the fact that 90% of known stigmatics have been female.

There are also reports of unusual mental activity during stigmatic episodes. Some stigmatics reportedly speak to visions of Christ and angels during their trials, and smell strange scents. Many female stigmatics were reported to be “ecstatics”—which apparently means they were in dissociative or schizoid episodes some or all of the time. Today, most of these girls would be on high doses of antipsychotics drugs.

The work of Ross and McKay on adolescent female self-mutilators, who carved themselves with words, letters, and symbols, is reminiscent of variant stigmata involving the names of Jesus and Mary appearing on the body. (St. Francis, an early stigmatic, also had unusual wounds: the skin formation on his palms is said to have actually replicated the shape of the head of the nail on the palm side and, on the reverse side, that of the shaft.)

Stepping back, the relationship between the corporeal and the divine is one of the most complex and profound in our psychosocial spaces. The physical body is our vehicle for experiencing the ultimate, and its gift to us. It is not surprising, that we would find intriguing phenomena at this boundary, or that world religions mark and celebrate it with ceremonies and rituals involving the body, including flagellation—not to mention circumcision.

Fakir Musafar is an artist who is exploring this realm in a non-religious context, the founder of the so-called Modern Primitive Movement, attempting to show that “deviant” self-mutilation is actually on the same spectrum as something as mundane as, say, nose-piercing. According to Musafar, “body play [as he calls it] offers a method for achieving spiritual grace, an enhanced state of awareness, and a communion with some form of higher power,” and “rituals involving self-mutilation practiced by other societies have many beneficial effects to offer those who approach the practice of body play with awareness and respect.”

Musafar says:

…we are doing more than just pushing steel needles through flesh. Something is happening in the emotional and psychic world of both the piercer and the piercee. It’s more than hanging rings there just for looks. In many cases, some of the people we pierce actually experience some kind of transformation. A self initiation. And these changes mean magic…as the people who have done this for thousands of years have discovered, it can be transmuted into ecstasy, bliss and other states of grace.

But most people would still distinguish esthetic body modifications from pathological self-mutilation, especially the type where significant damage is done to the body. The majority of such patients suffer from a psychotic disorder, and have their own “reasons” for engaging in the behavior, according to A. R. Favazza, who also notes that “the most common reasons provided by patients have historically been associated with religion, demonic influences, guilt over sexual thoughts and activities, or heavenly commands.”

Ian Wilson is the author of The bleeding mind: An investigation into the mysterious phenomenon of stigmata. He believes that stigmata are a manifestation of undiscovered abilities of the mind to influence the very shape and functioning of the human body, related to the ability to heal warts with your mind (or increase your breast size). According to a review on amazon.com, Wilson thinks the “phenomenon is a psychological one, with a pathology related closely to multiple personality disorder. Stress and poverty in early life are a common thread running through the lives of many stigmatists. Nearly all suffered some sort of personal catastrophe before the onset of the stigmata, and nearly all had a predisposition to trance states and other altered modes of consciousness. Aparently stigmatists identify so closely with the life of Christ and visualize Him so clearly that some undiscovered physiological mechanism imposes Christ’s marks of suffering on the body of the stigmatist.”

But undiscovered physiological mechanisms don’t have much explanatory power, do they. Although Numenware tries to maintain a studiously objective stance on such issues, my hypothesis is that stigmata are cases of self-multilation as part of psychotic states with religious fixations, and that the reports of unique bleeding or healing patterns are simply pious falsehoods. Unfortunately, with the last known stigmatic, Padre Pio (the newly sainted Italian priest) having died in 1968, any experimental design to validate this hypothesis will be limited to studying historical accounts.

Links:

Skeptic’s Dictionary

Catholic Encyclopedia

Wikipedia

The Universe in a Single Atom is the Dalai Lama’s latest book, subtitled “The Convergence of Science and Spirituality.”

I liked this book. It was lots of fun. but pretty disorganized. It contains a lot of interesting stuff about the Dalai Lama’s childhood in Tibet, his exile to India, his international activities after that. But it’s also somewhat of a random mind dump.

If I had to say what the overarching theme of this book was, it would be honoring humanity. The Dalai Lama uses expressions such as “impoverish the way we see ourselves” with regard to e.g. scientific materialism, which he unfairly conflates with nihilism. He contrasts a view of ourselves as “random biological creatures” with that of “special beings endowed with the dimension of consciousness and moral capacity”, claiming that this decision will “make an impact on how we feel about ourselves”.

But…ummmh…we are random biological creatures. I thought Buddhism already accepted that. “How we feel about ourselves” is some grade-school self-esteem issue—do we need to affirm our unrandomness in order to feel good about ourselves?

“Humans may be reduced to nothing more than biological machines, the products of pure chance in the random combination of genes, with no purpose other than the biological imperative of reproduction.’”

Frankly, this sounds more like the Pope than the Dalai Lama.

In the interest of making my posts shorter and more readable, I will stop here, but threaten to analyze the remaining 90% of this book here later.

Convenience stores—shortened to “conbini” in Japanese—are ubiquitous in the Land of the Rising Sun. FamilyMart (website) is a giant in the category, with sales of nearly one trillion yen (US$10bn) and over 10,000 stores blanketing the archipelago.

Now “FamiMa”, as it’s known, is making a big push into the US, thinking an upscale, Japanese-focused concept can be successful here. The press release crows: “First lifestyle speciality all-in-one community to open in West Hollywood! LA gets the first taste of Famima’s “premium experience”. I’m honored. The new store is just up the street from my house, a 15-minute walk (Google map). The press release continues:

West Hollywood. California has always been a trendy place for firsts… design, fashion and food to name a few. Now add to the list, Famima!! A new lifestyle specialty all-in-one community store (Premium Grocer + Quick Service Restaurant + Convenience Store) concept that is thoughtful in its modern design and sophisticated in its product offerings is set to open on July 20, 2005 on the corner of Santa Monica and La Cienega Boulevards. With an appeal that is pop, hip, and Gen-X all in one, Famima!! is superbly positioned to be West Hollywood’s newest hot spot this summer.

Having visited the new store the first chance I got, I can say that the concept works well for me, compared to other “competitors” like 7-11 that basically make me want to kill myself every time I step foot in one. I like the range of foods they carry, including of course lots of Japanese candy (like Pocky) and instant noodles and even rice balls, magazines (which they need to beef up their selection of), and drinks. There’s a little restaurant which I didn’t try, fresh foods, coffee, and even stationery (although it seemed overpriced). The store is friendly and bright and attractive. It has stuff I want and need. I’ll be back.

FamiMa is going to roll out quickly in the US. The West Hollywood store is the first of 250 they plan to open over the next five years. I wish them well. But I have some suggestions. They don’t seem to understand that people drive cars over here, and need to be able to identify the store from the street, then quickly grab a convenient parking spot. And I’m not sure the “FamiMa” name works—maybe they should go back to “Family Mart” over here. I know they had to bring people over from Japan to staff the stores but they should make sure those people function a little better in English. And they need to work on their website. Finally, where is the Yakult? Good luck, FamiMa.