In Saturday’s session, Alasdair Coles, a neurologist at Cambridge, surveyed the scientific research on brain functioning and religion. Most interesting were the studies shwoing that Alzheimers patients become more artistically creative as their disease progresses. Bruce Miller, the researcher who performed this study, theorized that the left hemisphere is the “bully part of the brain” that suppresses the creativity of the right part. When the left brain degenerates (as happens with Alzheimers) the right brain is given a brief moment to flower and dominate.
These paintings, of the same bridge, were made by an artist named Carolus Horn as Alzheimers became more advanced:
Coles then wondered allowed whether future research might suggest a similar pattern with religion – that the left brain suppresses the religious instinct among some people. “The normal human brain is a conflicted series of modules. We suppress a series of talents that are only revealed when the bully part of the brain [fades]. Perhaps in every brain there’s a religious part of the brain that’s being suppressed.”
For those figuring what questions to study, I’d add the question of whether certain rituals or chanting or even drugs might be more likely to achieve some of that same effect.
Beliefnet
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posted April 19, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Always figured there was something fishy about the Alzheimer Cure Foundations, now I know. They’re trying to suppress artistic creativity (aka Hitler, Stalin, etc). These oppressives simply must be stopped!! We cannot sit idly by while money is funneled to cure this ever-important disease.
posted April 20, 2009 at 3:11 am
That is pretty cool.
As my art has progressed so has my UH! What was I talking about?
Just kiddin.
On the more serious side I do agree with Tom that a cure must be found. I don’t know about Hitler or Stalin being ARTSY though. I think they got what they deserved if not less than though their day is yet to come…
posted April 20, 2009 at 5:53 am
The answer to the final question: Yes, tools such as chanting and some types of drugs do permit aspects of the brain which are normally held in check to emerge in a more pronounced fashion. Some people seem to hold a different balance between the physical brains which together constitute the wetware from which emerges our personal identities. It is not impossible to alter one’s own state, with or without chemical stimulants. Religious ritual, fasting, runner’s high, sunrises, a child’s smile, a beautiful woman smiling: All these are state changing stimulae. The artist and the mystic seem able to move more smoothly between states, to be more open to changes of state, and then to create forms to express them to others.
posted April 20, 2009 at 6:02 am
I’m not an artist by any means, but I do enjoy viewing art.
To my mind and view, these pictures lose artistic value; they become less detailed, more primitive, and perspective decreases greatly.
I would have guessed that it was a reverse of a talented child’s paintings of a bridge over a few years, had they not been explained.
posted August 10, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Alzheimer’s is a serious disease and it tends to hurt the children and family more than the person, becasue they have horrible guilt issues and associate fear of unknown and worry about what will happen to their Mother/Father… if not them selves.
Were these paintings done upside down or reversed, because the top paintings were far superior to the bottom paintings… I don’t see how becoming a more rudimentary and childlike sketcher shows anything valid regarding the theory of Coles and or religion. It might even prove the opposite!