Korean Journal of Cognitive Science (인지과학)

The Korean Society for Cognitive Science (한국인지과학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Theory of the Dead's Mind: Does the Mind of the Dead Transcend Time and Space?

죽은 사람의 마음 이론: 죽은 사람의 마음은 시공간을 초월하는가?

  • Kim, Euisun (Department of Psychology, Ewha Womans University) ;
  • Kim, Sung-Ho (Department of Psychology, Ewha Womans University)
  • 김의선 (이화여자대학교 심리학과) ;
  • 김성호 (이화여자대학교 심리학과)
  • Received : 2018.06.18
  • Accepted : 2018.06.28
  • Published : 2018.06.30
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

Current neuroscience views the mind-body problem from the monistic perspective which claims that the human mind is the result of brain activity and that the mind shuts down when the brain does. However, a considerable number of lay people still believe in the existence of the soul and the afterlife, concepts that are hard to explain from the monistic perspective. This study examines whether lay people think that the mind of the dead is capable of exceeding the physical constraints if they believe that such mind exists. After reading one of three vignettes which describes the state of the protagonist as alive, dead, or brain dead, the participants evaluated the protagonist's general mental capacity and transcendental ability to obtain new information. The participants rated that the dead protagonist had more 'transcendental ability to obtain new information' than the alive one if they evaluated high general mental capacity to the protagonist. In addition, unlike the alive condition, in the dead and the brain dead condition, there was a correlation between the general mind capacity rating and the transcendental ability rating. The results suggest that lay people expect the mind of the alive and the dead to be different, as they believe the latter's general mind capacity connotes transcendental ability. We also found that the participants' religiosity affected their beliefs about the transcendental ability of dead person.

현대 신경과학은 인간의 마음이 신체기관인 뇌 활동의 산물이며, 뇌의 활동이 멈추면 마음의 작용도 함께 정지한다는 심신 일원론을 지지한다. 그러나 상당수의 일반인은 여전히 일원론적 입장으로 설명하기 어려운 마음영속성과 사후세계에 대한 믿음을 갖고 있다. 본 연구에서는 죽은 사람의 마음이 단순히 작동정지하거나 약화된 마음이 아니라, 살아있는 사람의 마음과 구별되는, 시공간의 물리적 제약을 초월하는 마음으로 간주되는지 살펴보았다. 참가자들은 주인공이 교통사고 후 사망하거나, 생존하거나, 또는 뇌사상태가 되는 가상의 시나리오를 읽은 뒤, 각 상태의 주인공이 보유한 '일반적 정신능력'과 '초월적 정보수집 능력' 수준을 평정하였다. 연구 결과, 주인공이 사망한 조건에서는 주인공의 일반적 정신능력이 높다고 평가할수록 초월적 정보수집 능력도 높다고 응답하는 상관관계가 관찰되었으나, 생존 조건에서는 이러한 경향성이 관찰되지 않았다. 이는 죽은 사람과 산 사람에게 기대되는 정신능력의 속성이 서로 달라서, 죽은 사람이 소유한 높은 일반 정신능력은 초월적인 능력을 함축함을 시사한다. 추가적으로, 참가자의 종교적 믿음 또한 사망한 사람의 초월적 정보수집 능력에 대한 태도에 영향을 주는 변인임을 확인하였다.

Keywords

References

  1. Bering, J. M. (2002). Intuitive conceptions of dead agents' minds: The natural foundations of afterlife beliefs as phenomenological boundary. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2(4), 263-308. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685370260441008
  2. Bering, J. M. (2006). The folk psychology of souls. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29(5), 453-456. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X06009101
  3. Csibra, G., Biro, S., Koos, O., & Gergely, G. (2003). One-yearold infants use teleological representations of actions productively. Cognitive Science, 27, 111-133. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2701_4
  4. Demertzi, A., Liew, C., Ledoux, D., Bruno, M.-A., Sharpe, M., Laureys, S., et al. (2009). Dualism persists in the science of mind. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1157, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2008.04117.x
  5. Dennett, D. (1996). Kinds of minds. New York: Basic Books.
  6. Dennett, D. (1989). The intentional stance. MIT press.
  7. Frith, C., & Frith, U. (2005). Theory of mind. Current Biology, 15(17), R644-R645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2005.08.041
  8. Gomes, A., Parrott, M., & Shepherd, J. (2016). More dead than dead? Attributing mentality to vegetative state patients. Philosophical Psychology, 29(1), 84-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2015.1048328
  9. Gray, K., Anne Knickman, T., & Wegner, D. M. (2011). More dead than dead: Perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state. Cognition, 121(2), 275-280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.014
  10. Hamlin JK, Wynn K, & Bloom P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450, 557-559. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06288
  11. Heflick, N. A., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2012). No atheists in foxholes: Arguments for (but not against) afterlife belief buffers mortality salience effects for atheists. British journal of social psychology, 51(2), 385-392. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02058.x
  12. Kelemen, D. (2004). Are children "intuitive theists"? Psychological Science, 15(5), 295-301. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00672.x
  13. Kuhlmeier, V. A., Bloom, P., & Wynn, K. (2004). Do 5-month-old infants see humans as material objects?. Cognition, 94(1), 95-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2004.02.007
  14. Loughnan, S., Haslam, N., Murnane, T., Vaes, J., Reynolds, C., & Suitner, C. (2010). Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(5), 709-717. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.755
  15. Masumian, F. (1995). Life after death: A study of the afterlife in world religions. Kalimat Press.
  16. Musolino, J. (2015). The soul fallacy. Prometheus Books.
  17. Riekki, T., Lindeman, M., & Lipsanen, J. (2013). Conceptions about the mind-body problem and their relations to afterlife beliefs, paranormal beliefs, religiosity, and ontological confusions. Advances in cognitive psychology, 9(3), 112. https://doi.org/10.5709/acp-0138-5
  18. Sears, D. O. (1986). College sophomores in the laboratory: Influences of a narrow data base on social psychology's view of human nature. Journal of personality and social psychology, 51(3), 515. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.51.3.515
  19. Scholl, B.J., & Tremoulet, P. (2000). Perceptual causality and animacy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(8), 299-309. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01506-0
  20. Vail, K. E. III., Rothschild, Z., Weise, D. R., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2010). A terror management analysis of the psychological functions of religion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 84-94. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309351165
  21. Waytz, A., Gray, K., Epley, N., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Causes and consequences of mind perception. Trends in Cognitive Science, 14, 383-388. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.05.006
  22. Wegner, D. M., & Gray, K. (2016). The mind club: Who thinks, what feels, and why it matters. Penguin.
  23. World Values Survey (2010-2014). Four wave WVS/EVSs official integrated database [Data file]. Retrieved from www.worldval-uessurvey.org