The main objective of this work was to produce a scientifically reasonable definition of God. The rationale was to generate a definition for filling a small part of the spiritual vacuum of the 21st century and thus initiate a new understanding of the Intelligence that permeates the cosmos with mystery, love, order, direction and morals. This resulted in the following definition: “God may be a-humanly incomprehensible-eternal cosmic existence, intimately related to the endlessness of space, to the nature of the deepest common substance of matter and energy, to this common substance’s unceasing motion responsible for time, and to the basic laws of their allness, letting love transform this allness to an ordered Multiverse with a Soul: the—scientifically approachable—Soul of Multiverse inspired to guard these laws and equip their order with direction and morals while imbuing the cosmos with the potential of lives evolving, at the right spatial and temporal distances, to embrace the sense of the divine, thus justifying the existence of God.” The likely neural circuitry for sensing God in the human brain was identified as a network for spiritual data flow across the conscious and subconscious layers of the association cortical cognitive system exchanging data with the prefrontal cortical Self-Ken and modulated by inputs from the emotional and motivational systems of the brain. To study this mental process, the design of a God-Experience Monitor was also developed: a comfortably wearable combination of EEG and audiovisual-recorders tailored to at least partially capture the individual experiences of God anytime and at the very “genius loci” of such experiences.
References
[1]
Armstrong, K. (2009). The Case for God. Alfred A. Knopf.
[2]
Brierley, M. W. (2006). The Potential of Panentheism. In P. Clayton, & Z. Simpson (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (pp. 635-651). Oxford University Press.
[3]
Cohen-Zimerman, S., Cristofori, I., Zhong, W., Bulbulia, J., Krueger, F., Gordon, B., & Grafman, J. (2020). Neural Underpinnings of a Personal Relationship with God and Sense of Control: A Lesion-Mapping Study. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 20, 575-587. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00787-4
[4]
Collins, F. S. (2007). The Language of God. Free Press.
[5]
Collins, M. (1974). Carrying the Fire. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
[6]
Crick, F. H. C., & Orgel, L. E. (1973). Directed Panspermia. Icarus, 19, 341-346. https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(73)90110-3
[7]
Cristofori, I., Cohen-Zimerman, S., Bulbulia, J., Gordon, B., Krueger, F., & Grafman, J. (2022). The Neural Underpinning of Religious Beliefs: Evidence from Brain Lesions. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 16, Article ID: 977600. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.977600
[8]
Davies, P. (2021). What’s Eating the Universe. The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226816326.001.0001
[9]
Devinsky, O., & Lai, G. (2008). Spirituality and Religion in Epilepsy. Epilepsy & Behavior, 12, 636-643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2007.11.011
[10]
Dobrakowski, P., Blaszkiewicz, M., & Skalski, S. (2020). Changes in the Electrical Activity of the Brain in the Alpha and Theta Bands during Prayer and Meditation. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17, Article No. 9567. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249567
[11]
Eccles, J. C. (1994). How the Self Controls Its Brain. Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-49224-2
[12]
Einstein, A. (1935). The World as I See It. The Bodley Head.
[13]
Eliade, M. (1987). The Encyclopedia of Religion. Macmillan Publishing Company.
[14]
Gehrz, C. (2021). Charles Lindbergh: A Religious Biography of America’s Most Infamous Pilot (Chapter 12, p. 182). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[15]
Hansen, B. A., & Brodtkorp, E. (2003). Partial Epilepsy with “Ecstatic” Seizures. Epilepsy & Behavior, 4, 667-673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2003.09.009
[16]
Hawking, S., & Mlodinov, L. (2010). The Grand Design. Bantam Books.
[17]
Heschel, A. J. (1951). The Sabbath. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
[18]
Jadhav, N. (2005). Untouchables: My Family’s Triumphant Journey Out of the Indian Caste System in Modern India. Scribner.
[19]
Kapogiannis, D., Deshpande, G., Krueger, F., Thornburg, M. P., & Grafman, J. H. (2014). Brain Networks Shaping Religious Belief. Brain Connectivity, 4, 70-79. https://doi.org/10.1089/brain.2013.0172
[20]
Ludvig, N. (1986). Az átkelés Extázisa (Extasy of the Crossing). Framo Publishing. (In Hungarian) https://www.antikvarium.hu/konyv/ludvig-nandor-az-atkeles-extazisa-904007-0
[21]
Ludvig, N. (2017). The One Millionth Report on Planet Earth. Self-Published via Shakespeare & Co. New York. https://shop.shakeandco.com/print-in-store/one-millionth-report-planet-earth-nandor-ludvig
[22]
Ludvig, N. (2022a). A Cosmological Neuroscientific Approach to the Soul of Multiverse. Open Journal of Philosophy, 12, 460-473. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2022.123030
[23]
Ludvig, N. (2022b). The Identity, Conscience, Will and Mission Domains of Soul across Human, Noospheric and Cosmic Scales. Open Journal of Philosophy, 12, 580-600. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2022.124040
[24]
Ludvig, N. (2023). Some Social Aspects of the Soul of Multiverse Hypothesis. Journal of NeuroPhilosophy, 2, 76-92.
[25]
Ludvig, N., & Kovacs, L. (2002). Hybrid Neuroprosthesis for the Treatment of Brain Disorders. US Patent No. 6,497,699, The United States Patent and Trademark Office. https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2002011703A1/en
[26]
Ludvig, N., Medveczky, G., French, J. A., Carlson, C., Devinsky, O., & Kuzniecky, R. I. (2010). Evolution and Prospects for Intracranial Pharmacotherapy for Refractory Epilepsies: The Subdural Hybrid Neuroprosthesis. Epilepsy Research and Treatment, 2010, Article ID: 725696. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3428620/ https://doi.org/10.1155/2010/725696
[27]
Ludvig, N., Medveczky, G., Kuzniecky, R. I., Illes, G., & Devinsky, O. (2011). System and Device for Seizure Detection. US Patent No. 7,885,706, The United States Patent and Trademark Office. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7885706B2/en
[28]
Ludvig, N., Tang, H. M., Baptiste, S. L., Stefanov, D. G., & Kral, J. G. (2015). Spatial Memory in Nonhuman Primates Implanted with the Subdural Pharmacotherapy Device. Behavioural Brain Research, 286, 293-299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2015.03.014
[29]
Ludvig, N., Tang, H. M., Gohil, C., & Botero, J. M. (2004). Detecting Location-Specific Neuronal Firing Rate Increases in the Hippocampus of Freely-Moving Monkeys. Brain Research, 1014, 97-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2004.03.071
[30]
Madhavan, D., Mirowski, P., Ludvig, N., Carlson, C., Doyle, W., Devinsky, O., & Kuzniecky, R. (2008). Effects of Subdural Application of Lidocaine in Patients with Focal Epilepsy. Epilepsy Research, 78, 235-239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2007.11.007
[31]
Marx, K. A. (1844). Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. First Published in Deutsch-Französishe Jahrbücher, 7 & 10 February 1844.
[32]
Mitchell, E. (2022). From Outer Space to Inner Space. New Page Books.
[33]
Moshé, S. L., & Ludvig, N. (1988). Kindling. In A. Pedley, & B. S. Meldrum (Eds.), Recent Advances in Epilepsy (Vol. 4, pp. 21-44). Churchill-Livingstone.
[34]
Sacks, O. (2012, December 12). Seeing God in the Third Millennium. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/seeing-god-in-the-third-millennium/266134/
[35]
Schjoedt, U., Stodkilde-Jorgensen, H., Geertz, A. W., & Roepstorff, A. (2009). Highly Religious Participants Recruit Areas of Social Cognition in Personal Prayer. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 4, 199-207. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsn050
[36]
Snyder-Beattie, E., Sandberg, A., Drexler, E., & Bonsall, M. B. (2021). The Timing of Evolutionary Transitions Suggests Intelligent Life Is Rare. Astrobiology, 2, 265-278. https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2019.2149
[37]
Walter, Y., & Koenig, T. (2022). Neural Network Involvement for Religious Experiences in Worship Measured by EEG Microstate Analysis. Social Neuroscience, 17, 258-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2022.2083228
[38]
Winston, D. (1987). Spinoza, Baruch. In M. Eliade (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion (Vol. 14, pp. 7-11). Macmillan Publishing Company.
