Brain Science Is a Discipline That Leads to Ultimate Forgiveness
Whatever your brain is like, that is what your life is like.
—Dick Swaab, Dutch brain scientist
We Chinese have an old saying that no person is perfect; in fact, from a scientific standpoint, it should be: no brain is perfect. No one on earth has a perfectly flawless brain. Of course, put another way, we can call this a manifestation of biodiversity. All our thoughts arise in our brains; our language and behavior are controlled by our brains. If something is wrong with our brain, our language and behavior will inevitably be affected, showing some degree of abnormality.
Homosexuality was regarded as immoral for a long time, and discrimination against homosexuals still exists even now. In some religious cultures, homosexuality remains a rejected practice. But sexual orientation is determined in the womb and never changes throughout life. The brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals differ greatly in structure and function, and these differences already form in utero.
Some therapists once claimed homosexuality could be treated, but unfortunately, so-called treatment outcomes were ultimately discredited. Homosexuality is simply a natural variation within the human species; that we like to pass moral judgment on such a normal phenomenon of biological evolution and variation is itself an immoral act.
Mentally ill patients suffered much abuse and discrimination for a long time. In fact, all psychotic patients suffer from abnormalities of brain structure and function. If we understood the brain structure of patients with various mental illnesses and the suffering they endure in real life, it would be hard not to feel compassion for them.
Even various criminals—they, too, formed an antisocial personality because of abnormal brain structure, ultimately taking the road to crime. Although their crimes are unforgivable, from the perspective of brain science they are also victims who should be forgiven and pitied. They commit crime not because free will decided it, but because abnormal brain structure causes abnormal behavior.
The various people we meet in daily life may have all kinds of unappealing shortcomings—some like to ridicule, belittle, insult, or attack others, or use cold violence—and these unappealing shortcomings may even be acknowledged by those around them. But some of their behaviors and thinking habits are likewise caused by abnormalities in their brain structure.
The reason some people are more aggressive than others is that, already in their mother's womb, they were in a highly dangerous survival environment. Perhaps because their mother was in poor health, they failed to receive enough glucose and other nutrients in utero. These factors left them in a state of anxiety and fear while still in the womb, highly sensitive to the environment; after birth they show greater aggressiveness and more impulsive behavior.
Some people's brain developmental problems are even more astonishing—for example, people with body integrity identity disorder (BIID). They believe a part of their own limb does not belong to them; their lifelong wish is to have that superfluous part (say, a leg) amputated, so that they will feel they are in a healthy state. Such patients' brains developed some deviation early in life, causing their body-image perception to go wrong. Many BIID patients eventually achieve their amputation dream through various means, having their originally healthy limbs cut off. Surgeons will of course not agree to do this, but they can deliberately destroy their own limbs so that surgeons are forced to amputate.
Ordinary people may think that depressed patients (only those with depressive mood lasting more than a year and unrelieved can be diagnosed with depressive disorder) are simply not thinking straight. In fact, their brain structure differs from that of non-depressed people. Their amygdala is more active, and their prefrontal cortex may be damaged. It may be congenital—they inherited familial depression genes, as with Churchill and Hemingway, whose fathers were both depressives. Or they may have suffered adverse influences in the womb; all of these lead to difficulties in emotion regulation when coping with life. Their illness cannot be relieved by a few words of advice.
The brain structure of religious believers also differs from that of non-believers; religious believers' prefrontal cortex, posterior-lateral parietal cortex, and cingulate cortex all differ from non-believers. Some people, when they have spiritual experiences, often have abnormal activation of the middle temporal lobe, briefly entering a psychotic state. If we discuss such topics from the standpoint of brain science, we are easily attacked by religious people, but this is indeed an important finding of modern brain science.
Among scientists there are many religious believers, but brain scientists are the least likely to be religious, because brain scientists study the very domain of human consciousness; every abnormal behavior can ultimately find an answer in brain science.
Various addictive behaviors are likewise accompanied by changes in brain structure. Some people are more prone to addiction—such as smoking, heavy drinking, drug abuse, binge eating, and sexual addiction—while others are not. Those susceptible to addiction have a congenital degree of brain damage that causes them to need external stimulation to soothe their emotions.
Addictive behavior further changes their brain structure; addictive substances affect brain structure through chemical messengers they and the brain itself produce, making patients more prone to Alzheimer's disease and similar conditions. A recent American study shows that smoking reduces brain tissue; the more one smokes each day, the smaller the brain volume.
Perhaps, so far, the most harmless addictive behavior for the brain is reading and learning various scientific subjects. This kind of addiction not only does no harm to the brain but exercises the frontal-lobe function and improves rationality. People who regularly read popular-science works have better self-care ability in old age and a clearer mind.
Romance also closely resembles insanity; two people in love lose their reason. At different stages of love, a great deal of brain activity occurs. Love, sexual arousal, forming a bond with a partner and maintaining a long-term relationship, and maternal and paternal behavior—all have as their underlying cause the activation of some brain region. People in the throes of passion easily enter a psychotic state, because passionate love is accompanied by activation of the stress-response axis and changes in testosterone levels, causing those in love to lose their reason. This makes it easy to understand why some people commit suicide after a breakup.
Romance is also an important cause of mental breakdown in some patients with latent mental illness. Their brain structure is abnormal, making them far more sensitive or blunted than ordinary people. In love, their stress response worsens their mental illness, ultimately leading to breakdown. So many patients with personality disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia handle romantic and marital relationships poorly. Their relationships break up extremely easily, and they frequently break up with lovers or divorce their partners.
Moral behavior is also related to brain structure. In 1848, an American railroad construction foreman named Phineas Gage was in an accident while blasting rock: a large iron rod pierced his brain, severely damaging the prefrontal cortex of his left hemisphere, but he survived miraculously. Only from then on, although he remained conscious, his personality changed enormously. Gage had originally been a conscientious person, but after the accident he became short-tempered, capricious, aggressive, and foul-mouthed; his company, unable to bear it any longer, dismissed him. Afterward, brain scientists found that the frontal lobe is the important part governing our moral behavior.
We habitually believe that morality is the result of cultural education, and religious people in particular tend to believe that the world's morality is the result of religious instruction. In fact this is not so; morality is a natural phenomenon widespread in the biological world. We can see in animals their altruistic behaviors of sympathizing with companions and caring for offspring and mates; it is humankind that, from ancient times to today, has not treated its own kind so well.
Morality is closely related to brain structure; when our brain's structure and function are abnormal, we are more prone to behaviors that most people regard as immoral. But if we consider that this is a result of biological neurology, we become more tolerant of these so-called immoral behaviors. No one wants their brain structure and function to differ from the majority; they are simply born unlucky, unable to possess normal brain structure and function. They have already suffered greatly from social exclusion, and others actually have no right to condemn them.
Studying brain science also allows us to know ourselves more deeply. Some of our socially maladaptive behaviors relate to abnormalities in our own brain structure and function; when we recognize this, we can make targeted adjustments and changes to reduce the behavioral patterns that harm ourselves and others due to abnormal brain structure and function. We can choose a way of life that is relatively less harmful.
Further development of brain science will lead to ever-greater social tolerance; behaviors once hard for people to understand or forgive may ultimately become widely accepted by society. Studying brain science also makes our own mindset ever calmer; the more behaviors we are able to understand, the less likely we are to generate negative emotions when we encounter those behaviors in real life.