**This question is probably best answered by someone with some
background or involvement in psychology/neuropsychology/cognitive
science**

I would like some information/opinions regarding our "sense of truth".

I'm not particularly interested in a philosophical approach to this question
-(i.e.  What is truth?  What is knowledge?  Philosphy of Mind.  etc.).
 Nor a behavioral look (how are family/peers/society involved in the
construction of our "sense of truth")

I'm interested in psychological approaches
-(i.e. How do mental systems "believe"?  Do beliefs exist in the mind
as sentence-like constructs or as something more abstract?) ... I
suppose some of these can't be attended to without hitching into the
"Philosophy of Mind" somewere.

and ESPECIALLY nitty-gritty neuropsychological stuff
-(i.e.  A look at the neurophysiology of belief.  A look at "belief"
via fMRI scans or the measurement of brain-waves.  Are there some sort
of "neurological patterns" which are tagged with some sort of
preferential status?  How do these patterns
relate/interconnect/correspond?).

So I'm interested in a more physiological look at our "sense of what's
true", rather than a philosophical look.
Basically, I would just like to "open up a brain and take a peek at truth".

PS:  I am ... let's call it "an ambitious layperson".  So don't assume
too much prior knowledge.
PSS:  I'm living out of the US at the moment, so while books &
published papers could be helpful to me eventually, at present I
greatly prefer digital information.

---

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 18 Apr 2004 12:55 PDT

Hello again, Brian...

I 'believe' I could answer this to your satisfaction, with
a minimum of reference to the philisophical perspective,
by referencing my own experiences with one such system,
which relies less on philosophy, as such, and more on a
technology of consciousness and belief, known as Avatar.

Though I cannot, in words, explain how this technology
is effective in changing beliefs to those you prefer,
I can tell you that it is effective.

In exploring this effectiveness, I have used a feedback
device based on GSR (Galvanic Skin Response), one of the
technologies used in lie detectors to provide a measure
of the physiological realities associated with belief
and truth.

Using such technology to measure physiological changes
can quickly determine if you are fooling yourself in
regards to what you believe, since they will show a
response which often belies what you say is true.

I would, however, be speaking primarily from personal
experience, rather than referencing what you call 
'digital information'. If you are looking for documented
evidence of the nature of physiological 'truth', I 
would submit that researching the pros and cons of
lie detectors in assessing this might be useful.

I look forward to your feedback...

sublime1-ga

---

Clarification of Question by sasquatch77-ga on 18 Apr 2004 15:25 PDT

Avatar is a technology for changing your beliefs?  And you've recorded
it's effectiveness as evidenced by GSR?  That really piques my
interest ? but unfortunately it's probably not what I'm looking for.

Generally speaking, I'd just like to hear some theories re: what is
happening in the mind/brain when it "believes" something.  Like what
constitues a belief.  I realize this is a very broad and abstract
question even though I'm trying to confine it to theories within
neuro/psychology.  But that's fine - I'd just like to find some
opinions, theories on the subject.

I'm assuming that reading up on lie-detectors (for example) will
merely tell me about external cues (GSR, blood-pressure, respiration,
etc.) as to whether or not something is being believed - but it won't
tell me what's happening inside the mind/brain.

There are some interesting studies examining the relationships of the
ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the lateral/dorsal lateral
prefrontal cortex to belief:

"We are currently undertaking a series of fMRI studies in which normal
controls are confronted with a conflict between rational and emotional
responses within the domain of deductive and inductive reasoning. In
one recent study we explored the interaction between belief and
reason. We have shown (Goel & Dolan, 2003) that within the context of
reasoning involving inhibitory or misleading beliefs, the crucial
element in the modulation of reasoning by beliefs is the preferential
engagement of VMPFC. Where the VMPFC is preferentially engaged,
subjects are more likely to generate responses based upon their
belief-biases. This contrasts with correct logical reasoning that
requires relatively greater activation of L/DLPRC. The involvement of
VMPFC and its strong associations with affective processing indicates
that belief-bias effects on reasoning may be a special instance of the
modulatory effect of emotion on cognition (Damasio, 1994). The fact
that the response of the VMPFC is specific to inhibitory belief trials
and is deactivated (with respect to facilitory belief trials) during
correct inhibitory belief trials (while L/DLPFC is activated) suggests
a reciprocal relationship between VMPFC and L/DLPFC."

http://www.yorku.ca/vgoel/project2.frame.html

http://www.yorku.ca/vgoel/reprints/Goel_Dolan_Neuroimage2.pdf

To believe anything we have to use our brain. People believe in God
because they, through knowledge gained by study, have been convinced
that HE does exist. As physical beings, it is very difficult to get
your head around a spiritual concept, or the existence of a
personality who does not possess a physical body. Having said that,
the example in the Bible of the Nephilim, meaning 'Those who cause
others to fall down'. These were the physical progeny of spiritual
angels from heaven [ God`s realm ] and earthly women Genesis 6;1-4.
Given that the Bible is true from cover to cover, and a person
believes it totally, then it follows that it is possible to
de-materialize, or disappear, or the reverse, in our material world,
if you are an angel. We as persons do not have that power. And who
granted the angels that power.. It can only be God. And because the
angels went against God`s requirements, they were restricted to heaven
and their progeny were destroyed in the Flood. The same disobedient
angels, led by Satan, were eventually evicted from heaven by the
resurrected Jesus [ Revelation 12; 7-12 ...12.On this account, be glad
you heavens and you who reside in them, Woe for the earth and the sea
[governments and peoples] because the Devil has come down to you,
having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.] Because
He, the Devil, is here among us, explains all our grief and the
abundance of Satanic and spiritual thems in musin and film through His
influence. And on a bit lighter note, is time travel possible?. Satan
showed Jesus all the FUTURE kingdoms and promised them to Jesus, if
Jesus would do only ONE act of obeisance to him. And the angel showed
John the FUTURE which John wrote down in Revelation. So maybe all this
information is already in our brains and God in His own good time is
releasing it bit by bit. I hope so.

It seems to me that the neurophysiology of belief is simply a
mechanism for survival. Just another neural pathway to create learned
behavior, whether your believe that God is a Coca-Cola bottle, or you
don't believe anything at all...

All mind "functions" are a means of survival, even art. Art and other
types of creative functions is an exploration of our environment which
allows us to "think" better when the next similar situation arises.

There are a number of books currently out on this topic in relation to
religion (neurotheology), and also a good bit of research cropping up
in relation to marketing (neuromarketing).

For religion, the book which has received the most press coverage in
the last year or so has been "Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and
the Biology of Belief"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/034544034X/qid=1083696828/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-2118777-4572040?v=glance&s=books&n=507846),
which in my skimming I found to be a bit light in the end. However
clicking on it's Amazon link for "related books" brings up a whole
selection of similar literature relating the biology of belief:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/sim-explorer/explore-items/-/034544034X/0/ref=pd_sexpl_d_b/002-2118777-4572040

Neuromarketing on the other hand is designed to try and figure out why
the human brain makes the economic decisions it does and how it
responds to marketing (with corporate the hope that, if we know
exactly what buttons to push, they can thus be pushed with greater
precision).

One article on this in particular that I found interesting was in the
New York Times not too long ago, "There's a Sucker Born in Every
Medial Prefrontal Cortex." A link to it can be found here:
http://www.commercialalert.org/index.php/external/true/article_id/207

In fact, this site seems to have a great collection of neuromarketing
related articles which you may find useful for your endeavors, most
are not overly technical but are not terribly dumbed down either:
http://www.commercialalert.org/index.php/category_id/1/subcategory_id/82/article_id/202

Much of this seems to relate to your question, as best I understand
it. Stephen Pinker's "How the Mind Works"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393318486/ref%3Dpd%5Fgw%5Fqpt%5F3/002-2118777-4572040)
is generally considered an easy access approach to cognitive science
and questions of this sort, which you may find a bit simplistic for
your interests but then again, perhaps not.

There's no easy answer to your question -- they just don't HAVE any
way to look at "truth" in the brain, not in any real sense. But there
are a few things tangentially related to your query, which I have
posted above, that will perhaps prove interesting.

I know you didn't ask for books, but I cannot recommend highly enough
of Marc Galanter.

He's a psychiatrist and combines several approaches in his attempts to
explain people's faith and the role it plays in their lives (for
example, he describes sick people, or addicted people, whose
conversion helped them):

For example: 
Alcohol & Drug Abuse: Healing Through Social and Spiritual Affiliation 
<http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/53/9/1072> 

In his "Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion" he talks in the second or
the third chapter (sorry, a bit lazy now to go and have a look), about
the biological and physiological aspects of belief.

More publications here: 
<http://library.med.nyu.edu/cgi-bin/facbib-bio.pl?AU=mg50&RP=N&CP=Y>

thanks a bunch guys, for pointing me in some interesting directions

There is a forthcoming book by Jean-Pierre Changeux called The
Physiology of Truth that might interest you.