There Is No Ghost

I admit it, I have a huge intellectual crush on Jonah Lehrer. Editor of Seed Magazine and author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist, he has a great response to Brooks' piece in NYT. Here's a very Buddhist quote from his book:

If neuroscience knows anything, it is that there is no ghost in the machine: there is only the vibration of the machinery. Your head contains 100 billion electrical cells, but not one of them is you or knows you or cares about you. In fact, you don't even exist. The brain is nothing but an infinite regress of matter, reducible to the callous laws of physics.

Neural Buddhists

David Brooks' most recent article in NYT hits the nail on the head in terms of post-religious spirituality. Despite one glaring error regarding evolutionary theory (the "Genes are not merely selfish" line), Brooks perfectly recaps the impact advances in science and cognitive neuropsychology are having on spirituality.

The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.