Neuro-reconnection

A continuous and/or intense practice of therapies (including psychotherapy) and/or meditation and/or psychiatry may lead to better psychical conditions of people. Suitable behavior is understood by physical conditions, a greater understanding of themselves and/or own troubles, a suitable positioning before life, relief of symptoms of anxiety, distress, sleeplessness, depression, etc.

But the religious practice can also improve quality of people’s life. Praying, masses, cults, etc., compose this set of activities which may be influenced by a soul or a spirit.

“Psychotherapy is a way for treatment of disturbs and mental disorders and is made with interaction between a professional and a patient, where, by talk, patient knows better his/her troubles, and, hence, learn how to solve them. At this interaction, patient also learns how to adapt and behave better in social environment where he/she lives, improving own quality of life and emotional intelligence as a whole. With long-term effect, new skills and expertise are required in terms of personality, improvement of self-esteem, a more effective positioning before life”. These words were taken from my article “A psicoterapia como neurorreligação” [Psychotherapy as neuro-reconnection], not yet translated into English:

http://neurorreligacao.blogspot.com.br/2016/10/a-psicoterapia-como-neurorreligacao.html .

“In 2005, Sara Lazar, by Massachusetts General Hospital, showed by magnetic resonance images that meditation increases cerebral prefrontal cortex thickness – region associated to planning of complex cognitive behaviors. Right insula thickness – linked to body sensations and to emotions – also showed be more thickly in RR practioners related to control group. It was the first evidence that meditation is associated to changes at brain infrastructure”, as I told in my article “A meditação como neurorreligação” [Meditation as neuro-reconnection], not translated into English:

http://neurorreligacao.blogspot.com.br/2016/10/a-meditacao-como-neurorreligacao.html .

So, doesn’t religious practice also lead brain to the same path, changing structures and/or working of specific cerebral areas, or in set, affecting, part of it or as a whole, people’s behavior and/or personality?

In my opinion, I think so, but an analysis of how brain works before and after continuous and intense practice, with devices similar to CT by single-photon emission (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is required.

I don’t know whether this type of experience has ever been performed at any moment but I propose a new term, Neuro-reconnection, which is the result, the effect of one or several metal practices (together with physics, if required), aiming a better psychic or emotional condition, and, consequently, an improvement of quality of people's life. If you notice, this name comes from neuroscience, neuron, neurotransmitters, and reconnect, adapt for a better life as a whole.

Neuro-reconnection is a term which comprehends all mental effort diversities, mixing with our rationality, emotions and feelings, to improve our behavior from structural and functional changes of cerebral areas.

Neuroscience has achieved so many advances I can tell something like this. I’m neither neuroscientist nor psychologist, I’m physicist, but I study several science branches and I wrote several articles about these subjects, related below, and others not yet translated:

The Material Basis of Feelings

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n12/opiniao/sentimentos_i.html

The Material Basis of Feelings - II

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n13/opiniao/material_i.html

Our Feelings. Why Do We Have Them?

http://neuro-reconnection.blogspot.com.br/2015/08/neuro-reconnection.html

Our Feelings. Why Do We Have Them? - II http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n15/opiniao/sentimentos2_i.html

- In my blog “Religious Relativism - My Thoughts On This Subject”:

General text -

http://relativismreligions.blogspot.com.br/2012/08/introduction.html

Social environment for religious belief education -

http://relativismreligions.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/social-environment-for-religious-belief.html

Social environment for religious belief education

This article is a complement required for everyone who reads this blog. It generally describes about, in addition to natural environment, social environment, which forms individuals, values, behavior rules, character, personality and, what really matters here, the religious belief education in people.

In my article “Paradox of religious twin”, found in this blog, I introduced it slightly, but I felt I needed to write only about this subject.

The large majority of people don’t know deeply what Theory of Evolution is and its mechanisms. In the simple example which describes changes in environment with natural selections for those who are more effective it’s already complicated, figure out if it’s about brain, the evolution of nervous system. It’s even hard to tell that all our feelings were created and formed by evolution¹, and faith, as being among them, is the strength for their belief base where these are relatives, depending on where people were born, grew up, and had their education and formation of their personalities.

So, first we have faith, the ‘understand’, like “rough” feelings. As we grow up, we learn with our parents, friends, schools, church, anyway, our social environment about religious values. Will people who born in Brazil, in Catholic Christian families and learned, like majority of friends, relatives, etc., about God, Christ, Bible, redemption, Ten Commandments, etc., have, from one moment to another, faith in values from other religions, themselves and some polytheists as Hinduism? No! Some people may change their religion, but then we can talk about a statistician fact: Will 2.3 billion of Christians in the world convert to Hindu from one moment to another? And will 1.2 billion of Hindus convert to Christian? I mean in total number of followers or in the great majority and, therefore, exceptions, few people are not considered because they are isolated cases.

Then comes another question: Can Christian people be considered happy, whether they are practicing Christianity or not or were practicing it, only because they perform it spiritually? ². No! The same way, can Hindu people, and not only them, but also Islamic, Buddhist, Shintoist people, etc., be considered happy and performed spiritually? No! And every single religion considers the own truths as absolute, as I mentioned in the introductory text of this blog, and about others, they call them as Pagan, even when they respect each other.

Every person from the religions mentioned grow up in a social environment where he/she learned truths from local religion in absolute way, as I mentioned in the third paragraph… Their feelings were directed, channelized to be accepted, respected, to be believed in what these religions passed on rite, information, concepts, dogma, etc., i.e., in all a form of religious education. And when I say focused feelings, I mean: first you teach a child about religion (yours, of course), beliefs, “truths”, etc. After then, he/she believing and trusting on these teachings, he/she starts having faith from what has been learned, follow his/her local religion with devotion, veneration.

Where do first beliefs of these religions mentioned in the text come from? From eternal search from human being looking for answer without immediate solutions until today: Who has created everything around us? Who are we? Where do we go after death? Is there any life after death? Etc. This happens everywhere in the word at all time. Not for nothing there have been registered more than sixty thousand religions and sects in our history around the world. And what would be the social environment when first belief had been created? There were some? Which would be?

Yes, there were, they were our ancestors who had passed from age of hunter-gatherer, groups of people, to tribes and after for something more similar to the structures of the cities today. They also wondered, philosophized and formulated answers about these existing issues. But it’s not only this: morality, ethics, rules, etc., grew together with beliefs. Is “Ten Commandments” like something to try to live better in the society? “Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill…” About sixty thousand years ago, human being have cared about “beyond death”, like archaeological records showed in a funeral from Neanderthal. If they were worried only about preparing funeral, this also happened because they also mediated about other questions from their existence.

The odyssey of man on Earth has been followed by attempts to answer to these deep issues since the day he had become aware of himself and the world around himself. Who I’m, what I’m doing here and what’s everything around me, who is the other, certainly started everything that came after: beliefs, religions, ethics, morality, rules for behavior, etc.

We are, in great majority, the fruit from environment we live. Social environment.

        

       

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Notes:

1 – Check my articles at electronic magazine "Cérebro & Mente" - "Brain & Mind" www.cerebromente.org.br -, from neuroscientists from UNICAMP - Campinas – São Paulo State - Brasil:

"The Material Basis of Feelings"

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n12/opiniao/sentimentos_i.html

 "The Material Basis of Feelings - II"

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n13/opiniao/material_i.html

"Our Feelings. Why Do We Have Them? (2) - II"

www.cerebromente.org.br/n15/opiniao/sentimentos2_i.html

These articles are also available at "System, Evolution Theory and Neuroscience"
http://sysevotheneu.blogspot.com.br

Obs.: in portuguese: "Sistemas, Teoria da Evolução e Neurociências"

http://sistemaevolucaoneurociencia.blogspot.com.br

2 – In this article, I mean "spiritually" but, actually, everything is psychological, emotional, phenomena studied from Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience.

General text

In my blog http://orelativismodasreligioes.blogspot.com, I defend the following ideas: each religion puts its faith as absolute truths, rejecting others. This is fact. The individual’s social environment will also influence on his/her faith. Example: no one born believing on Jesus Christ, Allah (Muslin God), many Gods from Hinduism, Shintoism, etc.

But what’s absolute is our capacity of believing, having faith, but why? Look, no one would survive without believing in a force majeure which made us, which created Universe, fauna and flora of planet, what exists after death, etc. We would be afflicted by an existential empty to be collapsed in our minds with anxiety, depression, etc.

And what about nonbelievers? Well, they believe themselves! They have faith, but not beliefs. Without this feeling, they don’t have goals, nothing would be north, i.e., their minds and their lives wouldn’t tolerate.

This “believe” and faith, natural from us, humans, come from cerebral working of limbic (emotion, feelings) and cortex systems (logical part): without them, our more complex system, brain, wouldn’t work well. They were acquired from us through evolution to not collapse our mind, meaning survival of own species. Is transcend in "thoughts" of our material world, including feelings.

When child born, she/he comes to the world with no information in mind, without any culture from country of birth. This environment, including parents and schools, will teach what exists in supernatural, for her/him exercise their religion, which is the same of everyone living around. One day, he/she may change their belief, but she/he will take many things learned from their childhood and teens for the rest of their lives.

All nation who ever existed invented religion and beliefs since human’s adopted from intelligence, consciousness and sentimental-emotional part. By 60,000, as indicated in the book "On Human Nature” by Edward O. Wilson. This author mentions the afraid of death and what comes after as two of main causes of creating religion. We can also talk about: what we do in our world, what’s the meaning of our lives, if there’s any reason for being here. If humans aren’t able to “evoke” the answers for these questions for any force majeure, their minds would collapse.

I think that any smart and self-assured human, in the universe, in addition of self-love, would need to believe something and have faith.

Conclusion: this subject is strong evidence, I think, of inexistence of God and divinities.

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Note:

Check my articles at electronic magazine "Cérebro&Mente" - "Brain&Mind" www.cerebromente.org.br -, from neuroscientists from UNICAMP - Campinas – São Paulo State - Brasil:

"The Material Basis of Feelings"

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n12/opiniao/sentimentos_i.html
"The Material Basis of Feelings - II"

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n13/opiniao/material_i.html
"Our Feelings. Why Do We Have Them? (2) - II"

www.cerebromente.org.br/n15/opiniao/sentimentos2_i.html

These articles are also available at "System, Evolution Theory and Neuroscience" http://sysevotheneu.blogspot.com.br/

Obs.: in portuguese: "Sistemas, Teoria da Evolução e Neurociências"

http://sistemaevolucaoneurociencia.blogspot.com.br/