Doorkeeping at the Temple of the Mind

Every idea, thought, fact or insight that traverses the stage of our consciousness changes us. Literally, physically. Neural networks in our brain rearrange themselves in adapting to the new information. With eighty-six billion neurons and one thousand trillion connections, a whole lot of architectural rearranging is constantly taking place in our brain. We are in a continual process of rearranging the atoms that constitute our identity.

We don’t know exactly how the physical constitution of our brain is related to our spiritual self—but if that self survives death then what is taking place in our brains must have some kind of spiritual, durable counterpart. Otherwise, death would mean the erasure of everything we have ever learned and experienced. We may think of the self, the “I” that can observe the world and even our own thoughts (as mindfulness can train us to do more effectively), as something that transcends the physical world. But our thinking involves physical processes that can be measured and mapped neurologically. So we do not know how the physical configuration of atoms that make up the brain is related or mirrored or connected to the enduring self that is eternal—but we trust that it is.

And that means, to return to our original claim, that every idea, thought, fact, or insight that traverses the stage of our consciousness changes us—eternally. 

Generally speaking, our brains preselect the information reaching conscious awareness. That is fortunate, because if all the sensory data incoming from our (more than) five senses were not filtered and severely delimited, it would overwhelm us. We would flounder in a chaotic maelstrom of images, sounds, sensations, perceptions—bombarding us from all directions at every waking (and unwakeful) moment. 

Our sensory organs themselves do much of this filtering before mental processes continue the work. As one example, on a sunny day our eyes perceive only .0035 percent of the electromagnetic spectrum. Even within this narrow bandwidth, however, we are generally not consciously aware of the millions of visual cues bombarding our retina; in experimental conditions, we don’t even notice if up to 95 percent of the peripheries of our visual field are rendered in black and white rather than color. Evolution has trained us to mostly ignore what is static but respond attentively to movement (because it might signal prey or predator).

We have all had the experience in a social event of listening to the droning buzz of conversation, only to suddenly hear a familiar name (ours?) or topic of interest. Then, with focused attention, we suddenly draw the threads of that conversation out of the mix and discern every word. Without attention, however, our brains do enormous filtering work for us in a process called “auditory sensory gating.” Neuroscientist Charles Quairiaux explains: “Our sound environment is extremely dense, which is why the brain has to adapt and implement filtering mechanisms that allow it to hold its attention on the most important elements and save energy.” We seldom hear the air conditioning in the background or our own breathing, or a dozen other background sounds—unless we attend to them.

In myriad other ways, our brains monitor bodily systems and organs, allowing only the most urgent information to reach the level of conscious awareness. That’s a simple function of the efficiency necessary for living organisms to thrive in a competitive environment. “Our sensory systems limit the amount of information about the environment to a fraction of what is potentially out there, focusing on what is most significant” to our long-range survival or immediate situation.

How is all of this relevant to the life of discipleship? If we think in terms of analogies, we have arrived at a point in cultural history where our brains’ filtering mechanisms are no longer adequate to the task. 

Modern life is filled with more leisure than risk. Information that once required a lifetime of sacrifice and study is available with a mouse click. At the same time, social engineers have learned how to bypass our inherited tendency to focus on the needful or fruitful and channel our attention to what is frivolous and wasteful and destructive. 

Evolution was the primary driver of human development—but only until the introduction of language and culture. Part of what it means to be human is the ability to channel our attention in response to values rather than necessities. The philosopher Max Scheler writes that with this capacity, we can detach ourselves from bondage to the present, and from the pressure of mere biological needs. Animals are tied “to the boundary of their environment.” We can do something no other organism or other human before the advent of language and culture could do: we can admire, we can question, we can aspire to be other or different than we are. We can seek wisdom from those who have gone before and choose what parts of our cultural inheritance deserve our attention. Some variety of wonder or awe may possibly be experienced by other species (Jane Goodall thinks this is true for chimpanzees). However, studies have shown that the single most common variety of awe reported by other persons is the experience of being moved “by moral beauty.” That is a uniquely human response to the world.

Our brains do a pretty good job of “sensory gating.” Our unconscious circuitry has had countless generations to attune our awareness to what is most expedient for our physical survival. But our evolutionary past could not prepare us for this day when culture and language make available to us an avalanche of useless information that is deliberately orchestrated to find its way to our conscious awareness. Even as we have at the same time inherited the greatest repository of worthwhile knowledge and records of exemplary beauty the world has ever known. Attentiveness to what is edifying has never been faced with more competition—or attended by higher stakes.

We are biological organisms wired and evolved to thrive in an earthly environment. Scheler’s point is that we can break free of mere reactivity to that environment—yet only by consciously selecting the influences to which we want to be responsive. Arthur Peacock pushes this point even further. “Somehow, biology has produced a being of infinite restlessness, and this certainly raises the question of whether human beings have properly conceived of what their true ‘environment’ is.” Clearly, we are fitted to be actors rather than objects to be acted upon—yet contemporary forces have more resources than ever before to steer us toward the latter. Repentance in this light is but a religious term for the power—and allure—of aspiring to an eternal life of dynamic change and recreation in accordance with values we choose.

What we are reading, thinking, and inviting into the amphitheater of consciousness, neural connection by neural connection, is physically changing our brain. Τhese choices literally are “mind-changing” (metanoia/μετάνοια), thereby constituting a dynamic, ever-evolving identity. We are the doorkeepers at the temple of our own minds.

Terryl Givens is Senior Research Fellow at the Maxwell Institute and author and coauthor of many books, including Wrestling the Angel, The God Who Weeps, and All Things New. To receive each new Terryl Givens column by email, first subscribe and then click here and select "Wrestling with Angels."

Art by Georgiana Houghton.

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