The Human Mind and Belief

By Eugene G. Breen

The human mind is all we have got to understand anything. There is enormous variety in the capacity and the spectrum of human minds. Some think little, some invent, some have the genius factor, and most are the basic model. They all have common characteristics such as desire for knowledge, for love, for happiness, for understanding of suffering and grief. Some ponder the bigger questions like, the meaning of life, the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and others don't or ignore them. The nature of knowledge and the capacity of the human mind to "know" are mysteries. The inexorible progress of humanity and striving toward more information and technical advancement begs the question the song asks "is that all there is?" What is the end game for man, the human mind and the world as we know it? These and other thought provoking issues have exercized the mind of man since forever. These pages, gleaned from the exposure to the mental suffering of thousands of patients, tries to make a user friendly guide to the human brain/mind, and what it means to be human.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491877258

Eugene G. Breen

Eugene G. Breen works as a psychiatrist in an inner city practice. He has penned two previous books in this series: The Human Mind and Belief – Opening Shots and The Human Mind and Belief 11 – Unplugged. The basic idea is that the human mind is the best hint there is to direct our understanding of what life and death are about and of what it means to be human. The philosophical underpinning is metaphysics and the psychology is optimistic realism. He writes in a conversational style and speaks to the lay person as well as the specialist. Humour and a light touch make challenging realities more palatable. The gaping hole that purely human thinking exposes about the origin and cause of the universe and man is gazed at, and believe it or not, instead of an infinite abyss, an enormous reality is discovered. The interface between philosophy and psychology and religion and science is explored and the reader is left to research the issues further.

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© 2013 by Eugene G Breen. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 10/03/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7724-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7725-8 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

In tribute to all those marvellous patients with mental illness who shared their inner world with me.

You can contact the author at www.mindandbelief.com.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1   Overview

Chapter 2   What? How? Why?

Chapter 3   Too Much Science

Chapter 4   If You Think Horse You Will Get Horse

Chapter 5   When does life begin?

Chapter 6   The Basis of Knowledge

Chapter 7   Man and Delusions

Chapter 8   The Human Mind and The Possibility of Belief

Chapter 9   Ends

Introduction

The philosophical and scientific debates about the existence of God, the credibility of human knowledge and the potential of the human mind, can be approached from many standpoints. The advancement of psychiatry and psychology, and the medical technologies now show the brain and its structures in real time. Much of the mystery and confusion concerning the nervous system and the brain and how they work are now less mysterious. We observe life and death and the trends in history and human thought and they all point to unchangeable realities which everyone ponders on a daily basis.

These include, when does life begin? Can the human mind tell us anything about what the mind is made for, what we are destined for, and whether it is the only show in town? Is there another intelligence light years beyond ours? Is death the final frontier or is it just a beginning? Can observation of the human mind and people’s actions and lives help us to get some inkling of why we are here, where we are going and how we get there? Taking human life and history as the raw material, and our minds as the instrument we have to probe them, we can attempt some answers. Human experience shows that truth is true because it is proven by acts. When science is based on truth the hypotheses are true and the experiments work. Matter functions according to precise laws and these laws when obeyed function. Incorrect data or equations do not work. This we know. Why this is so we don’t know. Who ever designed this system knows.

The average person looking at life and pondering these ideas comes to his own conclusions. We approach the issue of life, happiness, right and wrong from a human point of view to show that it is reasonable, and consistent, and an unfinished business. God is not invoked as a possible author of all, or as an explanation, until the obvious even becomes overwhelming and certain.

We may from our own study or observation come to the conclusion that the existence of God makes perfect sense, but we try not to use this knowledge in the effort of teasing out the issues to see where pure human thought takes us. These arguments are self evident and open to all to acknowledge and experience. There is nothing hidden in the logic and no reference is alluded to except the reference of common human experience to which everyone can attest.

Some have said that God is a delusion of the human mind, others that God is the opium of the people, but God is not a delusion, man is not a delusion, but man is frequently deluded, not only about God but about everything you care to think of. These observations are arrived at using our common human experience and reason and are assessable to anyone. The author’s experience of working as a psychiatrist and medical doctor for over 30 years is the point of departure and source of the argumentation used. It is also based on sound psychological data.

The beginnings of life are crucial from the point of view of seeing where it all begins, and as a consequence rallying to its protection as the most fragile seeds of life. Some politicians and scientists say the embryo is just a clump of cells and therefore you can do whatever you like with it. It is considered by some to be the same as an abscess or growth and no more. The fact that human life begins at fertilization or even before that is discussed, and the quality of life being both material or animal and spiritual or abstract, oozing into visual existence at fertilization and wafting through death to invisibility is looked at. Life seems to be a continuum, and the bit in the middle that we see and live in the body, that kicks off at fertilization and ends at death may be only half the picture. It makes no sense to say that life is initiated by the act of birth. Being born is a milestone like getting ones first teeth or one first hearing aid.

Scientists have attacked the idea of life beyond death but it is not unreasonable and in fact it makes good sense to consider that life is eternal and that people live for ever. It is not repulsive to common or uncommon sense and there is a good basis to accept this. Life beyond human experience i.e. spirits and God and supernatural life is logical given our minds make up and human experience.

The approach used as mentioned already is that of a psychiatrist and doctor using the knowledge of the profession of medicine and science and those of philosophy and humanities to draw logical conclusions to illustrate the absolute reasonableness of spiritual life and in particular of the existence of God.

Chapter 1

Overview

Scientists delving into the origin and cause of life and the universe posit that it all began with basic matter and energy. The emergence of life is described in terms of spontaneous occurrence in a primordial substrate. Things have moved on and highly complex life forms abound and man is the most developed life form visible to us. As such man is a key piece in the jig-saw of finding out what it is all about.

All of the history and philosophy and science and learning to date are an impressive armamentarium of human thought and achievement and catalogue the constant progression of human knowledge. One could ask what the end game is and whether there is a grand finale. The pattern to date is of exponential growth of knowledge and in the past 100 years much of this is in the sciences. It has now come to the stage that we know how things work and what they are composed of. We are drilling ever more deeply into matter to harvest more and more data. This is obviously great from the point of view of technical advancement and harnessing of nature but it is one vein of information in the multifaceted tissue of life. It