The New Brain: Computer Culture and the Human Spirit

a sermon by Reverend Lynn Thomas Strauss

Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, January 28, 2007

This morning I want to explore the relationship between spiritual health and technology. I want to share some of the interesting questions that are being raised in the field of brain science. I invite you to join me in thinking about our brains, our minds, our computers and our human spirit.

I started paying more attention to my brain a few years ago during the sniper attacks here in Montgomery County. It was in the fall of 2002 when two men traveled around our community shooting at and killing people from inside of their car. They sighted innocent people as they went about their ordinary tasks at the gas station, in the parking lot of Home Depot, and at the bus stop. These murderers were on the loose killing people at random over a period of a week or so.

During those days, we all became afraid and extra careful…almost to a point of irrationality. After pulling up at the gas station, we got back inside the car as the pump filled our tank…we avoided being alone or standing apart from the crowd. We stayed indoors, whenever possible.

When I went into a store, or took my morning walk, I began to imagine that someone might be across the street or across the park…aiming a gun at me. I began to be afraid in my own neighborhood.

I began to be afraid to go outside alone. I began to feel paranoid. It felt odd.

I didn’t feel like myself. I felt my brain was changing, adjusting to new dangerous circumstances…I could actually feel the change happening.

It seemed that if this danger continued very long…my brain would change permanently. I was experiencing neuro-plasticity. Recent research on the human brain shows that our brain continues to adjust to environmental changes throughout our lives.

On the joyful side of brain change, for the past year and a half, I have spent one day a week with my grandson Noah, who is 19 months old now. I have watched the amazing development of his language and logic skills. I have participated in all manner of games of repetition, and response. It is crystal clear how fast and flexible his developing brain truly is…how profoundly he can be modified by his environment. Babies confirm how adept are the mirroring properties of our neural networks.

There is a research facility in Manchester England called Baby Lab which uses new brain imaging technologies to efforts to discover how babies think. When at the inaugural Laura Bush invited the founder of the company called Baby Einstein into her box…she was acknowledging the Emerging field related to brain research.

And finally, I bring to my reflections this morning, my worry as a parent of a 22 year old. Ethan has grown up with computer games and technologies as a significant part of his childhood and adolescence. Ethan is also an avid fan of televised sports. I worry about how the constant use of digital technology might be affecting the brains of the next generation.

Studies have shown that exposure to visual images of killing and death of characters in movies and in video games, does de-sensitize children to violence. Even though my son always says, “I know it’s not real, mom”, I still fear the visual images of violence that fill his head.

And the rise of hyperactivity and attention disorder in children and youth may be linked to the pace and stimulus of pixels and the constant dividing of the screens with more and more information coming at us.

Multi-tasking has become a necessary skill. How else to keep up with email, voice mail, cell phone messages, text messages, instant messages, and blogging in addition to television culture and the latest movies…not to mention classroom studies.

Knowing the potential of the brains’ plasticity-the information technology, participation in a world wide web and all the other technologies we use every day, must certainly be affecting changes in our brains.

Every author I read for this sermon was intrigued by the age old question of human consciousness. Where does awareness of self reside?

There is a science of consciousness devoted to the question; “How do know we are an I, or are we?” These are the same questions theology asks about soul.

Massachusettes Institute of Technology Professor, Sherry Turkle writes in her book “The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit” about the way in which computers have become our mirrors. We humans so unsure of who we are and of our place in the world have always been on a search for mirrors. We look for mirrors in nature, in science, in religion, in literature, in philosophy and now in a machine.

By our mirrors at different points in history, we humans strive to understand our place…the status of humanity. Before Copernicus we thought the earth (and human beings) was the center, before Darwin we thought our species was in the center, before Freud we thought our ego was in the center, and before Bill Gates, we thought our intellect was in the center. But with each advance of technology and theory…we had to adjust our place in the universe. Now machines that compute challenge our sense of who we are and what our value or status is as humans.

Alongside brain research and more immediate in everylife is computer technology. Our advanced relationship to a machine.

But computers are more than, much more than machines, Professor Turkle calls computers the first psychological machine. Computers aren’t merely analytical, they are also evocative. They are threatening and fascinating. Like “Hal” in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Computers are profoundly compelling. They evoke a philosophical conversation in us.

Computers are evocative because they make us think about our relationship to them. They make us think about what is really real. When we turn on a radio or a television- we don’t wonder how to influence them or how to make these machines do something more for us. We just switch them on or we simply turn the channel.

But sitting in front a computer, at least in the early days…felt quite different. Am I the only one who remembers feeling afraid. I was afraid of pushing the wrong button and crashing the whole thing….I was afraid of losing everything in my document. I was afraid if I didn’t learn to control it, I would break it, and it cost a lot of money.

I was afraid I would look dumb or incompetent. Predictably, our flexible brains have adapted to the challenge.

Computers have changed our behaviors too. They are evocative because they offer a chance to fill our emptiness…our sense of isolation and disconnection. The promises of the world wide web are big promises. We can be connected constantly.

We can interact with others constantly. We can find out anything we need to know, anytime, anywhere…all on our own…with our computer all knowledge is at our fingertips. You have to wonder- if electricity failed us- could we go back?

Computers also evoke our artistic side. We can create beautiful documents. We can draw and create graphs and spreadsheets, and Christmas cards. We can insert photographs, and compose music, and on and on…yes,…the computer is an amazingly creative tool. It can be quite thrilling to manipulate.

Computers also promise to fill our romantic needs. We can lose ourselves in it…spending hours and hours in romantic fantasies. We can find that special someone, if we just put in the right data, and take a chance. We can develop relationships either virtual or real.

Is there a problem with computers becoming mirrors to understanding our place in the universe, helping us know who we are?

I guess only if you spend too much time in front of the mirror.

New technologies raise new ethical questions. The new field of neuro-ethics is asking how brain scans should be used. What are privacy boundaries…what are legal boundaries?

The lack of boundaries inside the computational world is both part of its fascination and part of its threat. Time is not a boundary in the world of the computer…especially in games or simulations….young people are fascinated by entering other worlds in time…both past and future worlds have a special appeal.

Perhaps computer time merely reflects what happens in the brain. Research shows that our brain spends much more time in the past and in the future…reviewing, integrating past actions and events and testing the possible outcomes of future actions. We all know that we have to literally be called back to the present.

One way to call people back to the present moment is with humor. Did you see the cover of the most recent New Yorker…a toddler enters his parents bedroom…mommy and daddy are still in bed, barely awake…they look in surprise at their toddler who is holding up his cell phone camera to take a photograph of them in bed.

Boundaries of public and private can also be blurred on the internet. Strangers can find out everything about you. You can have intimate conversations with people you will never meet. People who might be quite shy in “real” life, can create a wide circle of friends on the internet.

This week I emailed an old friend in Cape Town South Africa. For no extra cost, we exchanged messages and family photos. It was great to get back in touch. The internet has changed our assumptions about degrees of separation or connection. Ethical questions arise. We need to bring our values to the conversation.

Does the computer open or close exploration of self and the world? Many people really experience an opening of doors. Teachers use interactive programs to share classroom projects with students across the globe. They are able to explore together, though they will never meet one another.

Blogging is growing in popularity. Should you read your young adult children’s blogs? It’s a question to ponder.

I loved reading in the Posts comment page this week…writing about the new presidential candidates- Eugene Robinson analyzed the form and content of candidates blogs under the headline… “Throwing Their Blogs into the Ring”.

Thinking about boundaries and ethics brings up the question of rules.

With all the open boundaries on the net…I am perplexed about the about the games that the young people play that are so heavily rule-bound. It seems a contradiction to me that the games have so many rules. The player has control and options, but only up to a point. The objects cannot be endlessly manipulated like in imaginary play off line. The games do seem to promise a touch of infinity…they never end. There are always new levels to reach. Always the promise of power and perfection.

The interplay between the real and the imaginary is also being revealed in brain research that shows that the same area of the brain lights up When subjects play the piano…and when they imagine playing the piano.

So what does all this mean for the human soul. If the computer is a mirror, a psychological machine, a machine that evokes conversation then are we humans, machines, or at least, machine-like….programmed for some things and not for others. If computational logic is linear, logical and rule- bound then what about emotion and passion?

Many such questions are being raised by the brain scientists. Even lay people can get in on the brain adventure. Paul Allen, co-founder of micro-soft has created the Allen brain Atlas (ABA). It is a web-based public access site showing 20,000 genes expressed in a mouse brain- the site gets 12 million hits a month.

Wow! Where will all this technology take us? The possibilities are mind-boggling. How will it affect our understanding of consciousness, of spirit, of human behavior. How will human evolution reflect our highly adaptable brain? Will we use wisely what we have learned?

In the meantime we compute and play our games.

Last week, I went to the home of one of our members to experience the game called “Second Life”. A stunning title. Second Life is a virtual world that the players create. It is a blank canvass upon which anyone can build a school, a team, a village, a shopping mall, a golf course…whatever you like.

When you sign on, you take a name and you have a virtual body, that can do lots of things…the best thing is that you can fly. We took a trip flying over the virtual land…we were headed to the “Second Life Unitarian Universalist Church”. A beautiful, spiritual setting had been created with a waterfall, a large beautiful chalice, and arch…a stream, lots of trees and a circle of stones upon which to sit…with a candle beside each stone.

There is also a way to fly up to some other spots and to see the huge question mark that floats over the whole area.

Every Thursday night the church holds a virtual worship service and people “come” to listen and talk. On the afternoon I was there, there were only a couple of others present. We engaged in an instant message conversation with her. She was very friendly, a member in real life of a UU church in Wisconsin. Very quickly we got into a theological conversation about good and evil.

My UU friend tells me that the topics of conversation at this site within Second Life are more erudite than most other meeting places in SL.

After an interesting back and forth, we moved on to further exploration of the site.

It was fun in a low key sort of way. I was happy to see how beautiful they had made the church. Still everything was pretty predictable. No surprises there….no innovations, really.

It seems ironic that the game “Second Life” pretty much seems to simulate this “First Life” that we call real.

And that the major purpose seems to be talking to strangers who you hope will become friends. And occasionally joining in a group experience In a setting that is natural and pretty. Sound familiar?

Technologies are neither good or evil…it is how we use them and how they affect us that matters. Computer technology has changed the world and it makes sense to step back and think about that.

Brain research will lead to amazing possibilities. It is not too early to begin the ethical conversations.

At its best, the web and the internet offer chances to think and dialogue about what matters to us most. It provokes discussion of boundaries, of democracy, of knowledge, of friendship, or morality.

At its best, the web and the internet reaffirm our social nature. Isolated individualism is not sufficient…there is an impulse to be part of a group and the net provides this opportunity ….infinitely.

The potential is there for radical democratic participation and for radical sharing of authority. The potential for community without the limits of language and geography and for every voice to be heard. These are powerful, wonderful, potentials.

To learn to use the power of this technology well and to protect those are vulnerable is a responsibility of all of us.

And in our own lives, we have the spiritual responsibility of making good decisions for our own well-being.

An image keeps coming to me…of a player piano. I’ve noticed them popping up in hospital lobby areas. I am always taken off guard. The piano plays, but no one is there- the keys move up and down , but no one is in control. Everyone sits and walks around ignoring this ghostly piano. I have to fight the urge to bang on the keys, or call for an explanation. I want the simulation to stop. I want the real thing.

In this amazing, fast-paced, world of techno-boom, I urge us to be mindful. To step back, to ask about ethics and values. To make discerning choices.

Perhaps one day a week, we should refrain from computer use. The human spirit needs balance and silence and empty space within which to be nurtured.

As our brains change and adapt to our environment, so do our emotions, our spirits, our happiness and well-being.

Let us be mindful of what we bring into our environment. Let us make room for silence, emptyness, beauty and wisdom.

Let us bring our passion and compassion into the real world…not merely satisfy our needs with simulation.

This is a moment in human history of real potential…let’s pay attention and make choices for fully embodied life.

Blessed Be