The Alphabets, the Brain - and God. The Linkean Thesis
During my doctorate thesis exploring the so-called "neurotheology" (perspectives of brain sciences on religion), I gathered and tested various works and hypotheses on the subject, most of whom turned out to be very exaggerated. But then, I found a thesis which had been presented by German neuroanatomist Prof. Dr. Detlef Linke (1945 - 2005, University of Bonn) back in 1995 on an interdisciplinary conference and had been published in 1999 in a German booklet ("Religion und Identität"). At first, it seemed to me to be simplistic and I expected to falsify it within days.
But instead of discovering sound counter-evidence, I found the opposite: Various cases which were beyond the colleague's reach but nevertheless supported his clear-cut hypothesis. After weeks of respective trials, I wrote a letter to Detlef Linke. But I was too late. His widow wrote me that he had waited for years for any serious reaction to his observations from the scientific study of religion - but that he had just passed away. So, I decided to commemorate the scientist by bringing his fascinating thesis to a wider public by lectures, noting it in publications and blogging about it. Please apologize any faults that might have occured to me while summarizing and illustrating Linke's main points in English.
The Linkean Thesis in a Nutshell
Detlef Linke habilitated about the processings of speech in the brain and he noted that both the left and the right hemispheres tended to focus on different tasks while deciphering alphabetical scripture.
Then, he pointed out that early Hebrew had been an alphabet, whose reading demanded the insertion of vowels. Thus, readers of Hebrew (and other alphabets lacking vowels) would have to strain their right hemispheres - resulting in right-to-left reading patterns and feelings of stress if confronted with pictures, music or other right-hemisphere-tasks.
Therefore, readers in Hebrew would increasingly tend to avoid pictures and other distractions. And as a consequence, they would then experience "joyful", balanced and even trance-like emotions (Linke's descriptions reminding me of the Flow-concept) - finally resulting in concepts about a single, transcendent and non-portrayable God. According to him, the secret of the specific, Israelite thrust towards an iconoclastic Monotheism was rooted in its scripture!
But then, the Bible was translated into Greek - that is: an alphabet including vowels. Therefore, the right hemisphere was relieved from its task of insetting vowels, resulting (among other things) in a reversion of the reading direction from left-to-right (dextrograde). And concerning religious experiences, readers of the Greek Septuagint would lack the positive emotions that had been induced by Hebrew reading and recitation. Although offering about the same contents, the scripture would become silent to Greek-reading Jews and Monotheistic Proselytes.
Thus, according to Linke, Greek-reading Monotheists would feel a growing demand for passionate emotions, dramatic pictures, music and interactions while reading their Holy scriptures. The message of the suffering messiah Yeshuah - soon translated into the Greek-Roman form of Jesus Christ - fit in, combining evolved Monotheism with specific experiences and spreading especially among the readers of alphabets with vowels. Christianity would emerge as a distinct tradition out of its Jewish roots, offering pictures, musics, passionate liturgies and later a relaxed (Trinitarian) interpretation of Monotheism.
As noted, I was very sceptical about this "simplistic" correlation. But then, it happened to fit in - for example - with the Arabian history, too. Like Hebrew, early Arabic had been read without vowels and sinistrograde. Although many Arabians adopted Monotheist traditions from Jewish and Christian sources, they tended to object against pictures and music while worshipping. The Quran and the resulting religion of Islam combined Jewish and Christian narratives with the strong rejection of any pictorial "idolatry", a reform of the Jesus passion narrative and forms of worship focussing on Arabic recitation.
While Christians translated their version of the Bible into Hundreds of alphabets with vowels, Jews and Muslims insist on the liturgical uniqueness of their original forms. And while literally Hundreds of Christian traditions emphasized the importance of Holy Scripture, none of them evolved trance-like recitations that we observe among traditional Jews and Muslims.
Among the other cases I found had been a study of psychologist Prof. Dr. Reinhard Leichner (University of Darmstadt), who had tested the effects of hemispheric loads of music on the perception of pictures. Although he had never heard about the Linkean Thesis before, his findings fit in neatly.
And then, there is an observation of the German Jew Moses Mendelssohn (1729 - 1786), who once summarized his comparative and intercultural analyzes: "Methinks that the changes of scriptural characters which have taken place at various times of culture, always had a very important part concerning the revolution of human insights and especially concerning those manifold variations of opinions and terms in religious topics."
Of course, all of this could be mere coincidence. But then, it could be the chance for a new perspective on religious history and the evolutionary interaction of biology and culture(s). I can't wait for the day when the Linkean Thesis will be tested experimentally!
* German Version "Gehirn und Alphabete - Die Linkesche These"
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Marshall McLuhan rises again. Thank you Michael for sharing this most fascinating observation. Who would ever think that simplifying the reading of documents by increasing the complexity of the alphabet (by adding vowels) would sever such significance from the scriptures?
Yes, after having read Detlef Linke, I delved into the works of Marshall McLuhan, Robert Logan and Leonhard Shlain, all of whom assumed correlations between reading experiences and culture(s). If Linke's very specific hypothesis could be tested empirically, this might contribute to fresh discussions and studies about the fascinating topic in general! At least, that's what I would hope for.
To extend this observation, the effects noted are only for the individual reading the texts. Perhaps the custom of the Cantor of singing Jewish prayers is to enable the audience to experience dual-hemisphere stimulation? It is likely this dual-hemisphere phenomenon contributes to our enjoyment of many multi-media experiences, including mantras to accompany meditation.
ON GOD AND TIMELESSNESS
Today’s scientists are like religious gurus of earlier times. Whatever they say are accepted as divine truths by lay public as well as the philosophers. When mystics have said that time is unreal, nobody has paid any heed to them. Rather there were some violent reactions against it from eminent philosophers. Richard M. Gale has said that if time is unreal, then 1) there are no temporal facts, 2) nothing is past, present or future and 3) nothing is earlier or later than anything else (Book: The philosophy of time, 1962). Bertrand Russell has also said something similar to that. But he went so far as to say that science, prudence, hope effort, morality-everything becomes meaningless if we accept the view that time is unreal (Mysticism, Book: religion and science, 1961).
But when scientists have shown that at the speed of light time becomes unreal, these same philosophers have simply kept mum. Here also they could have raised their voice of protest. They could have said something like this: “What is your purpose here? Are you trying to popularize mystical world-view amongst us? If not, then why are you wasting your valuable time, money, and energy by explaining to us as to how time can become unreal? Are you mad?” Had they reacted like this, then that would have been consistent with their earlier outbursts. But they had not. This clearly indicates that a blind faith in science is working here. If mystics were mistaken in saying that time is unreal, then why is the same mistake being repeated by the scientists? Why are they now saying that there is no real division of time as past, present and future in the actual world? If there is no such division of time, then is time real, or, unreal? When his lifelong friend Michele Besso died, Einstein wrote in a letter to his widow that “the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Another scientist Paul Davies has also written in one of his books that time does not pass and that there is no such thing as past, present and future (Other Worlds, 1980). Is this very recent statement made by a scientist that “time does not pass” anything different from the much earlier statement made by the mystics that “time is unreal”?
Now some scientists are trying to establish that mystics did not get their sense of spacelessness, timelessness through their meeting with a real divine being. Rather they got this sense from their own brain. But these scientists have forgotten one thing. They have forgotten that scientists are only concerned with the actual world, not with what some fools and idiots might have uttered while they were in deep trance. So if they at all explain as to how something can be timeless, then they will do so not because the parietal lobe of these mystics’ brain was almost completely shut down when they received their sense of timelessness, but because, and only because, there was, or, there was and still is, a timeless state in this universe.
God is said to be spaceless, timeless. If someone now says that God does not exist, then the sentence “God is said to be spaceless, timeless” (S) can have three different meanings. S can mean:
a) Nothing was/is spaceless, timeless in this universe (A),
b) Not God, but someone else has been said to be spaceless, timeless here (B),
c) Not God, but something else has been said to be spaceless, timeless here (C).
It can be shown that if it is true that God does not exist, and if S is also true, then S can only mean C, but neither A nor B. If S means A, then the two words “spaceless” and “timeless” become two meaningless words, because by these two words we cannot indicate anyone or anything, simply because in this universe never there was, is, and will be, anyone or anything that could be properly called spaceless, timeless. Now the very big question is: how can some scientists find meaning and significance in a word like “timeless” that has got no meaning and significance in the real world? If nothing was timeless in the past, then time was not unreal in the past. If nothing is timeless at present, then time is not unreal at present. If nothing will be timeless in future, then time will not be unreal in future. If in this universe time was never unreal, if it is not now, and if it will never be, then why was it necessary for them to show as to how time could be unreal? If nothing was/is/will be timeless, then it can in no way be the business, concern, or headache of the scientists to show how anything can be timeless. If no one in this universe is immortal, then it can in no way be the business, concern, or headache of the scientists to show how anyone can be immortal. Simply, these are none of their business. So, what compelling reason was there behind their action here? If we cannot find any such compelling reason here, then we will be forced to conclude that scientists are involved in some useless activities here that have got no correspondence whatsoever with the actual world, and thus we lose complete faith in science. Therefore we cannot accept A as the proper meaning of S, as this will reduce some activities of the scientists to simply useless activities.
Now can we accept B as the proper meaning of S? No, we cannot. Because there is no real difference in meaning between this sentence and S. Here one supernatural being has been merely replaced by another supernatural being. So, if S is true, then it can only mean that not God, but something else has been said to be spaceless, timeless. Now, what is this “something else” (SE)? Is it still in the universe? Or, was it in the past? Here there are two possibilities:
a) In the past there was something in this universe that was spaceless, timeless,
b) That spaceless, timeless thing (STT) is still there.
We know that the second possibility will not be acceptable to atheists and scientists. So we will proceed with the first one. If STT was in the past, then was it in the very recent past? Or, was it in the universe billions and billions of years ago? Was only a tiny portion of the universe in spaceless, timeless condition? Or, was the whole universe in that condition? Modern science tells us that before the big bang that took place 13.7 billion years ago there was neither space, nor time. Space and time came into being along with the big bang only. So we can say that before the big bang this universe was in a spaceless, timeless state. So it may be that this is the STT. Is this STT then that SE of which mystics spoke when they said that God is spaceless, timeless? But this STT cannot be SE for several reasons. Because it was there 13.7 billion years ago. And man has appeared on earth only 2 to 3 million years ago. And mystical literatures are at the most 2500 years old, if not even less than that. So, if we now say that STT is SE, then we will have to admit that mystics have somehow come to know that almost 13.7 billion years ago this universe was in a spaceless, timeless condition, which is unbelievable. Therefore we cannot accept that STT is SE. The only other alternative is that this SE was not in the external world at all. As scientist Victor J. Stenger has said, so we can also say that this SE was in mystics’ head only. But if SE was in mystics’ head only, then why was it not kept buried there? Why was it necessary for the scientists to drag it in the outside world, and then to show as to how a state of timelessness could be reached? If mystics’ sense of timelessness was in no way connected with the external world, then how will one justify scientists’ action here? Did these scientists think that the inside portion of the mystics’ head is the real world? And so, when these mystics got their sense of timelessness from their head only and not from any other external source, then that should only be construed as a state of timelessness in the real world? And therefore, as scientists they were obliged to show as to how that state could be reached?
We can conclude this essay with the following observations: If mystical experience is a hallucination, then SE cannot be in the external world. Because in that case mystics’ sense of spacelessness, timelessness will have a correspondence with some external fact, and therefore it will no longer remain a hallucination. But if SE is in mystics’ head only, then that will also create a severe problem. Because in that case we are admitting that the inside portion of mystics’ head is the real world for the scientists. That is why when mystics get their sense of timelessness from their brain, that sense is treated by these scientists as a state of timelessness in the real world, and accordingly they proceed to explain as to how that state can be reached. And we end up this essay with this absurd statement: If mystical experience is a hallucination, then the inside portion of mystics’ head is the real world for the scientists.