Postmodernism and Neurotheology. Some Current Issues Around the Phenomenon of Religious Experience

Ivo A.  Dochkov

doi:10.46324/PMP2401037

Ivo A. Dochkov Faculty of Philosophy, University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. St. Cyril and Methodius https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9668-0113

DOI: https://doi.org/10.46324/PMP2401037

Keywords: postmodernism, neurotheology, neuroscience

Abstract

The human experience of consciousness and the divine has long been a source of fascination and curiosity. In recent decades, two seemingly disparate fields have emerged one after the other to rethink our experiences in new contexts: postmodernism and neurotheology. It was already obvious to Aristotle that logic is a reflection of language. This immanent coherence and the status of "truth" have been well-rethought by the neurosciences. Neurotheology offers a new field of research on key problems related to paralogisms, the aetiology of belief, and social beliefs in the direction of generating a new field of solutions. It attempts a kind of technical revision of why thinking suffers from deficiencies with a rather Cartesian approach. The other line of reasoning also provides interesting perspectives - the consideration of consciousness as a function of the universe. If successfully tested - this thesis would fundamentally change the perspective of psychology in the direction of a complete transformation and fusion with neuroscience. The big winner in the duel of positions is ethics - it would have to rethink its basic definitions, with all the social implications that entails. The advent of brain implants and large language models (which, driven by intellectual inertia, we call "artificial intelligence"), and advances in medicine and pharmacology certainly contribute to the possible realization of some, if not all, of these scenarios.

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