Zadok Paper S100 Winter 1999
The Nature of Humans-Mind and Brain; Body, Soul and Spirit
by Alan Gijspers

The methods of knowing and the limits of a science

The mind-brain or mind-body issue covers many disciplines including philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience-even computer science and artificial intelligence. From my very fragmentary reading, there seems to be very little fertilisation across these disciplines. Arthur Koestler1 laments the gulf between the arts and the sciences while Fulford suggests that a dialogue between psychiatry and philosophy would be very productive.2 Such a dialogue does not always occur, however, as scientists in an attempt to be rigorous to their methodology eschew large tracts of learning from other disciplines. Philosophy is sometimes rejected as irrelevant. Yet the way the questions are posed is intimately bound up with the types of solutions to the mind-brain problem.

As someone wisely said, "If you trawl with five inch nets you will never pick up the small fish in the ocean". The way we ask the questions will determine the answers we find and as we look at different points of view we will see, for example, that what often passes as science actually has presupposed hidden metaphysics. Even within the sciences there are differences in the way we study our disciplines. For example, McGartland and Polgar describe a dual-aspect approach to psychology and in particular to the condition of depression.3 They describe an empirico-mathematical or reductionistic approach which reduces the problem to component parts and a cultural understanding or holistic approach. The authors are careful to point out that the two approaches are complementary, neither side giving the whole picture. Both are scientific in that they are based on experimental observations. Both construct theories on the basis of the data, but one tends to base psychology in the sciences and the other in the humanities. The former is called natural science (Naturwissenschaften), based on explaining, and the other the science of the spirit (Geistenwissenschaften), based on understanding. Both viewpoints are necessary to fully understand the complex dimensions of human behaviour. One could be regarded as studying the objective behaviour (from the outside looking in) while the other looks at subjective feeling (from the inside looking out). There are parallels between the mind/brain issue but clearly it is too simplistic to regard the holistic approach as mind study and the reductionistic approach as brain study.

As scientists who are also Christians, we are committed to the most rigorous scientific knowledge. Yet we are also aware of the limitations of science4 and its place in a wider taxonomy of knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Indeed, the Hebrew/Christian tradition espouses wisdom centuries before science (based on rationality and empiricism) was added to the Christian tradition.
Medical practice well illustrates the limitations of a strictly scientific approach. I can illustrate this firstly by a psychiatric paper by Sadler and Hulgus5 which looks at the doctor/patient interaction. As well as the scientific approach to the clinical problem, they propose to add the dimension of values and pragmatics (or wisdom). Second, doctors often use journal articles about clinical problems, which may not strictly be data driven and hence, strictly speaking, not 'scientific'. Nevertheless, they can be enormously illuminating because of their evaluative skill and the way they dispense clinical wisdom. An example would be the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who writes about purpose in life in his book, Man's Search for Meaning.6 There is an intuitive wisdom about his writing.

Another example of intuitive knowledge is found in Walt Whitman's poem:

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When sitting I heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.7

The heavens declare the glory of God, a glory beyond words.8 Interestingly, for our paper, that awe and glory leads the Psalmist to ponder on the glory and honour of being human. This is intuitive knowledge without data, without theory, but it communicates very powerfully. It does not just communicate aesthetics but conveys a truth beyond words. It is part of being human and this dimension is in danger of being lost by a narrow, strictly scientific approach.

The intuitive approach has been particularly invoked by those wanting to incorporate spirituality as a serious contribution to counselling. This is particularly so among those from 'Holistic' or 'New Age' schools. Some psychologists who are Christian are very worried about this trend9 and would want to test every approach by the scientific method. But I would suggest that the scientific approach is limited and that wisdom and intuition are part of the biblical understanding of how we know we know.

When this paper was discussed at a recent ISCAST (Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology) conference, a follower of Dom. Bede Griffiths (the late Catholic priest who entered deeply into dialogue with eastern mysticism)10 asked about the "inner journey" as an avenue for exploring the mind/brain, soul/body debate. However, while I believe there are deep truths to be uncovered by meditation, but the intuitive approach is not easily evaluated. Where are the criteria for truth? Are there any? Or do we here develop a postmodern approach to the problem of truth-a truth for you but not for me? Does an embrace of the intuitive, an embrace of an epistemology other than the scientific one, lead to intellectual quicksand?

Scientists are familiar with intuitive knowledge. A lot of mathematical understanding is like that. You look a at formulae and cannot 'see' the relationship, you go to sleep and wake up and it is all clear! But that knowledge is not a private knowledge. Although understood subjectively, it is capable of verification by others. Similarly, a spiritual experience can be compared with that of others or with the Psalmist's or with other Scripture. Thus, we should not confuse a subjective experience with a private experience. Some subjective experiences are shared by others, our inner experiences find resonance outside ourselves. What is more, the insights gained like this then can be integrated with other ways of apprehending truth. Consistency between various ways of knowing becomes important.

Thus I look to science for sound evidence of who we are but beyond science to intuition, to wisdom, to pragmatics to see more deeply into who we are. This does not mean accepting everyone's opinion just because it is another opinion. I would look for consistency between different viewpoints and for a common experience among others.

For a Christians, a simple acceptance of the biblical view of the nature of humans is not possible, because the Bible describes who we are in terms very different from how we understand ourselves. Science has clarified so much about ourselves and our bodies. It has forced us to reinterpret how we understand ourselves through the Bible. Yet at the same time the Bible still defines the parameters about the way we as Christians fundamentally understand ourselves in relation to God.

To: Biblical approaches to anatomy, physiology and psychology

Alan J. Gijsbers MBBS FRACP DTM&H PGDip Epi, is Specialist Physician at Turning Point Drug and Alcohol Centre and at the Department of Drug and Alcohol Studies St Vincent's Hospital. He is a Visiting Physician at the Epworth Hospital, a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Medicine at the Department of Psychological Medicine Monash University and Senior Fellow at St Vincent's Hospital Clinical School, University of Melbourne. He also contributes to a Dual Diagnosis Clinic at the St John of God and St Vincent's Collaborating Centre consulting on people with both Drug and Alcohol and Psychiatric Disorders. He is a fellow ISCAST and editor of their national bulletin. He also somehow manages to be a husband to his wife, Lois, and a father to three children.