All language subtitles for Through the Wormhole s03e10 God.eng

Freeman:
From the dawn of history,

humans have believed
in divine forces

that created our world.

And today most of us
still pray to a higher power.

But is God really out there?

Subtitles downloaded from www.OpenSubtitles.org

Scientists are now searching
for the divine

in the most unlikely places...

in virtual reality labs...

...in the minds
of chimpanzees...

...and in the old clothes
of a serial killer.

The path to God
is taking an unexpected turn.

Did we invent God?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

== sync, corrected by elderman ==

The quest
for scientific knowledge

has taken us on a breathtaking
journey of discovery.

We've unraveled the physics
that govern the heavens...

...and the tiny atoms
that form our bodies.

But science
has not yet found proof

that God created all this.

Now there's a new place to look
for an answer.

Because recent research suggests
the truth may not be out there,

but in here,

inside all of us.

Did God invent humanity,
or did we invent God?

When I was 12 years old,

I lost someone very close,

someone who was far too young.

I just could not
make sense of it.

I was told he was with God
in Heaven.

But I just
could not understand why,

if God was out there,
he would take him from me.

And so that day,
I began to wonder

if God, Angels, and Heaven
were all just make-believe.

Psychologist Jesse Bering
is trying to understand

how and when children
come to believe in God.

It's a career path that,
from the beginning,

has gotten him into trouble.

Bering:
I was at a friend's house,

and his mother,
as a German immigrant,

had a collection of eggs
that were decoratively painted.

Nobody was home.

We were just
kind of goofing around,

and I just caught a glimpse
of this egg

out of the corner of my eye.

I picked it up.
I was fascinated by it.

As I picked it up,
I accidentally cracked the egg.

And then I just pretended
like nothing happened.

A couple of days later,

she discovered the cracked egg.

And she was basically
interrogating

all the local children

to find out who actually
committed this heinous act

of breaking her precious egg.

When I was asked if I did it,
I said, "absolutely not.

"I don't know
what you're talking about.

I swear to God
that I didn't do it."

And then the matter
was just dropped.

Nobody ever
talked about it again.

"If he's willing to sort of
invoke God in his defense,

then he must be telling
the truth."

Freeman: Like most children

who escape punishment
for their crimes,

Jesse could not escape
the haunting that followed.

I started having nightmares,

all the misfortunes
that were happening to me.

You know,
a splinter getting in my hand

I attributed to God

sort of giving me a sign
he was punishing me

because I had lied about this.

The interesting thing,
I suppose, is that I --

you know, I didn't come from
a very religious background.

Freeman: When Jesse grew up
to become a scientist,

he set out to understand

why he had sensed the
retribution of God in his youth.

And so he built
a psychological experiment

to probe just what is going on

inside the developing minds
of children.

To them, Jesse's experiment
appears to be a simple game.

Well, almost simple.

So, what were the rules?
Who remembers the three rules?

Don't pass that line.

Boy: Keep your hands
behind your back.

Keep one hand
behind your back.

You got to throw

with the hand that you don't
usually use, right?

What was the third rule?

Throw it like that.

Yeah, you got to throw it

with your back turned
to the board.

You can't --
you can't face it.

Freeman: It's an all but
impossible game to win,

but Jesse's not keeping score.

All he cares about,

as he watches
from the side room,

is whether the children cheat.

Bering:
He thinks he's alone.

He thinks he's alone
in the room.

We want to see if he actually
follows the rules.

Oh, there he goes.

He actually steps over the line,
so he's broken one of the rules.

Sort of flirting dangerously
with breaking some more rules.

Oh, there we go,
a very egregious violation --

placing it right in the middle.

Not atypical.

I think most kids, if they think
that they're not being watched,

they're gonna revert
to this type of behavior.

Freeman:
With children age 6 to 7,

a little cheating
is par for the course.

But now Jesse brings in
a new group of kids.

Here they are.

He and his assistant prep them
for the same game.

You can't go
over that line.

Only this time,
Jesse adds a supernatural twist.

Bering: The children
wearing the blue shirts,

they're going to hear about
somebody sitting in this chair.

It might look like
an empty chair to us,

but, in fact, we tell these kids

there's an invisible woman
sitting in this chair.

Now, that sounds a little scary,
but we make her very friendly.

We say this is Princess Alice,

and Princess Alice
is a magic princess.

She's got this special ability
to make herself invisible.

Well, maybe she's just --
you can't feel her,

but that doesn't mean
that she's not there.

She's just invisible.

All I can feel
is just here.

That's all you can feel?

Freeman:
Most of this group of children

act like they don't believe
in Princess Alice.

But when they're left alone,

their behavior tells
a different story.

Bering: She's already thrown
all four of the balls.

I don't think that
she actually got any of them

to stick on the dart board,

and she's not interested
in cheating.

I think she's being
pretty true to the law here.

Oh, here she goes.

She's -- this is what we see
sometimes with children.

They actually run their hand
over the chair,

as though they're sort of
testing

or trying to feel
Princess Alice.

And she actually said earlier

that she didn't believe
in Princess Alice.

That just shows you
the power of belief, really.

Freeman: Jesse has performed
this experiment

with hundreds of children.

Hardly any of the kids who are
told about Princess Alice cheat.

They intuitively feel

she's really there,
watching them.

Bering:
What we're really seeing here is

an untarnished view
of human nature.

I mean,
these are really young kids.

These are 6- and 7-year-olds.

You know, they've been told
all sorts of things,

but they haven't been told
about Princess Alice.

Freeman: Jesse believes that
regardless of their upbringing,

children's minds are hardwired

to believe
in a hidden world of spirits,

a place where princess Alice
or God might exist.

But why do such beliefs
take hold?

Bruce Hood is one of Britain's
leading psychologists.

His work recently won him
an invitation

to give the Royal Institution's
Christmas lecture series,

one of the country's
highest scientific honors.

Bruce is researching
the psychological foundation

of all religious beliefs.

It's a work that started one day

when he was watching
his sleeping daughter.

He was not contemplating
the miracle of life,

but rather her blanky.

Hood:
It's a grubby little cloth,

and I'm sure parents
will recognize this thing.

Now, what starts off as
a little bit of self soothing,

soon these objects take on
very strange qualities,

almost as if they're alive.

Children even talk to them.
They think they've got feelings.

They make them almost humanlike,

which is extraordinary
when you think about it

'cause it's just
a piece of cloth.

Freeman:
Bruce wanted to find out

why children believe
these objects are so special.

So, he performed an experiment

with young kids
and a magic machine.

Bruce told the children

it would make a perfect copy
of their toys,

thanks, in fact, to the help
of a hidden researcher.

He then told them they were
allowed to keep only one toy

and must throw away the other.

Nearly every child
chose the original

and tossed the copy.

Hood: They needed
the original one back.

And I think it's because they're
thinking in an essentialist way.

This is an idea
that we view the world

with this additional dimension.

Freeman:
Essentialism is the belief

that certain objects
have a hidden essence,

one that cannot be transferred
to a copy

even if it looks
absolutely identical.

It is a conviction
young children hold strongly.

But do we outgrow this sense
of a hidden essence?

Bruce found an answer by turning
his lectures into an experiment,

one that he's trying out today

on the staff
of the Royal Institution.

I was in New York last year,
and I bought Einstein --

one of Einstein's fountain pens.

So this is
an original Einstein pen.

I'm very proud of this,
if you like to have a look.

In fact, you're welcome
to hold it and pass it along.

Now, I happen to have
another thing here.

This is a cardigan.

It belonged to Jeffrey Dahmer,

the serial killer
who murdered 17 people

and brutally cut them up,
ate them,

and did some
very despicable things.

Now, would you like to pass
that along and hold it?

The cardigan itself?

Yeah.
Would you put it on?

I won't put it on, no.
No?

Freeman: Most of us are revolted
by the thought

of wearing the sweater
of a serial killer,

no matter how many times
it may have been cleaned.

Well, I have to let you
into a secret.

It's not Jeffrey Dahmer's
sweater at all.

But just the thought of it
belonging to the serial killer,

for most people,
it's repulsive and repugnant.

And, sad to say,
this isn't Einstein's pen.

It's just
a regular fountain pen.

Freeman:
Bruce believes this sense

that sacred and evil essences

can contaminate
the material world

is the most primal form
of human spirituality,

a foundation upon which
every religion is built.

Hood: I think religions
capitalize on this assumption

that there is hidden structure.

What religions do is
they provide a framework,

a narrative which allows people

to try and put these forces
together in a meaningful way.

Freeman:
Psychologists like Bruce argue

that this innate
spiritual intuition

might be an artifact
of our intelligent minds

trying to make sense
of a chaotic world.

But this innate belief
in a hidden spiritual dimension

is often reinforced
by experience,

because one in 10 of us
will visit this mysterious realm

in an out-of-body experience.

When we leave our bodies,
do we meet God?

Is there a reality
beyond the world we see?

A place
where God and spirits live?

Some people believe they have
glimpsed this hidden world

in an out-of-body experience.

Are these phenomena proof
of the existence of God?

Neurologist Olaf Blanke
is trying to discover

what really happens during
an out-of-body experience.

Blanke: What is very typical
for this out-of-body phenomenon

is that it is felt.

It's highly spiritual.

You know, think about it.

You feel separated.

Your mind is physically --

or you experience as separated
from your body.

So, how could this be?
This doesn't fit.

Freeman: Most people who have
had an out-of-body experience

report being spirited away
to a hidden realm.

But Olaf suspects
these voyages to the beyond

take place
purely inside our heads.

Because while diagnosing

one of his epileptic patients
for treatment,

he sent a mild current

to electrodes implanted
in her brain

and inadvertently triggered
an out-of-body experience.

Blanke: She had the impression

that she herself
would be under the ceiling

of the stimulation room
and to be looking down,

seeing herself, her body,

as well as the people
sitting around her.

Freeman: Olaf had sent
a mild stimulating current

to his patient's temporoparietal
junction, or TPJ.

This automatized
body representation,

when we stimulate it in this
region in this one patient,

could not fuse

where you see your body
and where you feel your body.

And this kind
of discoherent representation

may lead to
an out-of-body experience.

Freeman: The TPJ
is the brain's navigator,

rather like the captain
of a submarine

who can't actually see
where his vessel is heading

but has to rely on indirect
measurements of his position,

like water-pressure readings
and sonar pings.

[ Sonar pinging ]

If the data coming into the TPJ
is interfered with,

the navigation system
can become disoriented.

The TPJ could tell you
you are upside down

or somewhere you really aren't.

[ Crash! ]

[ Blink! Blink! Blink! ]

If his hypothesis was correct,

Olaf realized
that out-of-body experiences

might also be induced
in any brain, epileptic or not,

by tampering with
people's senses.

And to achieve this effect
in a healthy subject

without implanting electrodes,

Olaf built a cutting-edge
virtual-reality laboratory.

Virtual reality gives us the
possibility in the research lab

to disassociate touch from sight
of our participant's body.

Careful.

So, for this experiment,

you will stand with your feet
in front of there.

Mm-hmm.
Yes.

Then I will put this
on your head,

and you will follow
instructions on the screen.

Freeman:
The subject sees a live feed

from a camera placed
behind her back.

She feels a gentle stroke
on her back,

but sees the stroking
as if her body

is actually two feet
in front of her mind.

Blanke: So the brain is exposed
to a spatial conflict,

and being exposed
to this spatial conflict

for a long time,

people start identifying
with the avatar

rather than
with their physical body.

Freeman: When asked to move back
from where they are standing

and then return
to the same spot,

the subjects always end up
not in their original position,

but two feet forward --

precisely where their virtual
avatar appeared to be.

The feeling is --

it's very strange
at the beginning,

but it's actually very pleasant.

It's more like my mind --

like my body is more
the one I'm seeing,

which is actually my body,

but it's more like I'm there
where I see myself to be.

Freeman: When Olaf performed
this experiment

with the subject
wearing an E.E.G. sensor,

he discovered that the brain's
temporoparietal junction

was highly active.

The TPJ was struggling
to create a cohesive reality

out of the conflicting
sensory input,

and the net result was

the sensation that she might be
outside her body.

Olaf believes that when we have
an out-of-body experience,

we never leave our bodies,

and the entities we sense

are nothing more than phantoms
of the brain.

But believers sense God
in their lives every day,

not just in these rare
and intense moments.

Many of us see the hand of God

constantly shaping
the world around us,

and this psychologist
believes she knows why.

Why did she die so young?

Why did the hurricane
destroy our town?

Why did he win the lottery?

To many believers,
it's all part of God's plan.

But psychologists are now asking
another question.

Why do we always ask why?

Could the urge
to find reason in our lives

have driven us to invent God?

Jennifer Whitson
is a psychologist

at the University of Texas
Austin.

She studies how human beings
interpret meaning

from signs and events
in the world around them.

Her interest in the subject
began when she was a girl

and became obsessed with
a deck of Tarot cards.

Whitson:
When I was in high school,

I got really excited
about Tarot cards.

I had my own deck,

and I was, you know, drawing
all the cards all the time.

They did make me feel
like I was connected

to a greater pattern
in the universe in some way,

that the cards were giving me
deeper insight

than I could manage on my own.

Freeman: The uncanny ability

of Tarot cards
or a fortune teller

to see events in our lives

is something many of us
have experienced.

And by the time
Jennifer earned her PhD,

she scientifically
understood why.

Our brains connect things.
They just do it naturally.

So, when you draw the cards,

your brain will still just jump
right in and start saying,

"Oh, I am having trouble
with that.

"Oh, that is a challenge.

Oh, maybe I am
overlooking this."

It's like magic.

Your brain will just start
to make a story for you.

So, even though I don't believe
that they're doing anything,

even though I see them as just
sort of a random collection

of various symbols
and meanings...

it's still really fun

to watch my brain
knit things together for me.

Freeman:
Nearly every religion teaches

that the events
taking place in the world

really are connected.

They're all part
of a divine scheme,

whether it be called karma,

the will of God,
or Qadar Allah.

When catastrophes strike,

many believers
see these tragedies

as the work of a higher power

brought about for reasons that
we may not fully understand,

whereas others see
these same events

as nothing more
than random chance.

Jennifer devised
a psychological study

to try to understand

why people might develop
such different mind-sets.

Whitson: They came
into the study, and we said,

"Hey, you're going to see
a series of paired symbols

"on the computer screen.

"The computer has generated
these symbols using a concept.

It's your job to figure out
what that concept is."

We didn't give them any feedback

about whether
they were right or wrong,

so they had complete control
over that task.

Freeman: This task is, however,
a calculated trick

to get the participants feeling
in a secure frame of mind

before the real test --

searching for patterns
in images of white noise.

Whitson: Then we simply show you
an image of static,

a still photograph
of just noise,

and we say, very simply,

"Do you see anything here --
yes or no?

If so, what?"

Freeman: Each participant
who looked at the white noise

saw it as completely random
and meaningless.

Now Jennifer repeats the same
experiment with a new group,

but for their warm-up,

Jennifer has preprogrammed
the computer

to utterly frustrate them.

Whitson: The feedback
that you receive is random.

And so, you are
randomly being told

that you're correct or incorrect
no matter what it is you do.

Freeman:
This second set of subjects

all believe they have utterly
flunked the initial test,

and when they begin looking at
the white-noise images,

they do so feeling

they are not in control
of their surroundings.

And Jennifer documented

how it changed their perception
of the random images of noise.

Whitson: Looking at them
purely objectively,

the answer should be no
every time -- no, no, no.

But what we see is that
when people lack control,

they're significantly
more likely to say,

"Yes, I see something
in this image.

There's something there."

Freeman:
Jennifer's work shows

that lack of control
encourages our brain

to seek patterns in what
otherwise would be randomness.

All of these false patterns,

all of these illusory patterns
are connected.

All of them are influenced
by lacking control.

So, when people lack control,

they're more likely to see
trends in the stock market

that don't exist.

They're more likely
to see conspiracies

in the world around them
that don't exist,

because it's
our instinctive sense

to try and react

to the situation
which we lacked control

by making sense of it,
understanding it,

even if it's
a false understanding.

Freeman:
This effect could explain

why religion is so successful

among the poor
and disenfranchised.

Whenever people feel like
their lives are out of control,

God helps them
make sense of things.

There is a lot of randomness
in our lives.

There is a lot of chaos.

There are many, many, many
things we do not control.

And so we have to pick
out of that chaos

things that are meaningful to us

to make a sensible story
out of our lives.

Psychologists believe
that our intelligent minds

constantly strive
to make sense of the world.

For every action,
there must be a cause.

But there are other intelligent
creatures on the planet.

Do they believe in God?

In every civilization on earth,

people perform
religious rituals.

Buddhists chant.
Hindus draw shapes in chalk.

Christians baptize.

Scientists now believe
our spiritual behavior

stems from
our advanced intelligence.

If this is the case,

do other intelligent creatures
experience God?

Danny Povinelli
of the University of Louisiana

is a world-renowned expert
in comparative psychology.

He's a meticulous scientist

who intimately studies
the mind of chimpanzees.

Povinelli: I first became interested
in chimps when I was 14.

And I had read all of the work

about how they could use
sign language

and do all of these fabulous
things with tools.

And so I thought they were
pretty much hairy human children

that couldn't quite speak,

and the scientific story was
that meant they were self-aware.

You know, for a young,
introspective teenager,

that meant there might be
another organism

out there on earth

that was asking the same
existential questions I was

about what it meant to be alive.

That's good stuff.
No, this one's mine.

This is mine.
You got one.

Freeman: And for Danny,

the most important
existential question

a thinking creature
could ask was,

is there a God out there?

So, when he grew up
to become a scientist,

he developed a series of tests
to explore the difference

between the way chimps and
humans think about the world.

We're gonna give Billy
a little test here --

a really short object
and a long object.

We're gonna see if Billy knows
which one to use.

Go ahead, Billy.
Go ahead. Go ahead.

But you can see he knows
to use the long one here

to get the treat
that he wants.

Good job.
Good job.

Freeman: Billy the chimp
immediately knows

that only the longer stick
will reach the Gummy Bears.

The short and long sticks
are obviously different to him.

But for chimps,

not all tools
are as easy to tell apart

as they are for us.

Okay, now, we're
gonna try something

a little bit different.

In this experiment,

the goal is to crush a nut
with one of two blocks.

The blocks look identical,

but, in reality,
have different weights.

You know which one's a good one
to crack the nut?

How do you know?

Because the pillow's going down
more than that one.

Oh. Well, why does that mean
that that's the good one?

Because this one's
more heavier.

Well,
let's see if you're right.

[ Laughs ]

Good job.
I love these things.

I'm gonna eat one.
Good job.

Good work.
Give me five.

Now Billy takes a crack
at the same problem.

We're gonna see if Billy can
immediately figure out

which one to use.

Go ahead, Billy.

Good job, Billy.

Okay.
That's the hard way, Billy.

That's the hard way.

Here.
Try it the easy way.

Crack it.
Crack it, Billy.

There you go.
There you go.

Good job, Billy.
Good job.

Freeman:
The ability to understand

that objects can have
hidden properties like weight

appears to be beyond chimps.

But how about understanding
that other living beings

have something hidden
under their skulls?

Can chimps sense
the minds of others?

Povinelli: Theory of mind is

our ability to empathize
with other people

and imagine
what it might be like

to be in that other person's
perspective

from a certain point of view.

We know that a chimp like Billy

can approach someone,
make a gesture,

look up into their eyes and
ask for cookies if he wants them

or a Gummy Bear,

but does Billy realize that
someone can actually see him,

there's an inner
visual experience?

Freeman: Danny came up
with another experiment

to test whether chimpanzees
possess a theory of mind.

Watch this. Ooh.

He shows Billy
two pairs of sunglasses.

The blue ones are normal.

He can see out of them
just fine.

Cool.

But the yellow ones
are blacked out on the inside.

When Billy puts them on,
he's completely in the dark.

Now we're going to
let Billy observe

someone else
wearing these sunglasses,

and we're gonna see if he knows

that only the person
wearing the blue ones

can actually see him.

Go ask for it.

Freeman: Even though chimps

can easily distinguish
the colors of the sunglasses,

and they know the yellow ones
are blacked out,

Danny found that chimps approach
food givers at random.

Chimps do not appear
to know or care

that other creatures
are conscious beings.

But human beings
already have a theory of mind

at a very young age.

Povinelli:
Go ask one for a Gummy Bear.

But you can't say a word

and you got to stay at
this side of the rope, okay?

You ready?
Uh-huh.

Go.

Oh, good job.
Good job.

Why did you ask her
for one?

Because she can see.

How do you know
that he can't see you?

Because
there's paint on it.

How do you know
she can see you?

Because
there's no paint.

Good job.
High five.

Nice job, Kelly.

By somewhere
between 3 to 5 years of age,

young children consolidate

a human way of thinking
about the world,

that there are features
of the world

that they can directly grab
ahold of with their hands,

feel, smell, hear, taste, see.

And then there's
a more abstract world, also,

that bridges together
these things --

things like force,
mental states.

And unlike that,
no matter what age a chimp is,

even full adult chimps
never seem to make that leap.

Freeman: We share our planet
with chimpanzees

and about 9 million
other species.

But Danny believes

that only Homo Sapiens
is capable of believing in God

because being able to perceive
a divine consciousness

requires a theory of mind,
which we alone possess.

Povinelli: Chimps don't have
rituals of any kind.

There are no cultural traditions
that are passed on

that are at the level of worship
or praying.

They share with us
a lot of abilities that we have,

but the human mind
has something different.

The core of religious experience

involves not only sensing
this divine mind,

but also communicating with it.

Does God really answer
our prayers?

Or is it all just in our heads?

The book of James says,

"If any of you lacks wisdom,
ask of God,

and it shall be given."

Hindus pray to Lord Shiva
to protect them from harm.

Nearly all religions believe

we can petition the divine
for help or guidance,

but how do we hear
God's answers?

Jesse Bering's psychological
research has shown

that children instinctively
believe in supernatural entities

from a very young age.

Now he's trying to figure out
when they begin to believe

those entities can communicate
with them or send them signs.

We create a laboratory situation

where unexpected things happen
in the environment,

and we find out the age
at which they begin to see

events happening
that are unexpected

as basically being signs.

Freeman:
Jesse and his assistants

secretly place a ball
in one of two boxes

and ask the children
to guess which one.

However, he also lets them know
they have a supernatural helper,

his loyal sidekick,
Princess Alice.

Bering: Princess Alice
can make herself invisible.

That's her superpower.

She's gonna tell you
when you pick the wrong box.

I don't know
how she's gonna tell you,

but somehow she'll tell you
when you pick the wrong box.

Let's say that a kid puts
their hand on top of the box

and all of a sudden,

they see this light flickering
in the corner of the room.

The expectation would be

that they would simply move
their hand to the opposite box

as though they understand

that she is giving them
a message

or communicating with them.

Okay, now we're gonna see
a 4-year-old

and see how she responds to
Princess Alice talking to her.

She looks at the light,

but not
terribly interested in it,

doesn't seem to be motivated

to move her hand
to the opposite box.

Freeman: Jesse argues
that belief in the divine

requires a theory of mind,

the ability to comprehend
that other beings are thinking.

But two-way communication
with a hidden entity

requires something more.

Children must be able
to understand

that Princess Alice
also has a theory of mind,

that she, too, is aware
that they have a mind --

a mind hard at work
choosing a box.

Bering: And as simple
as this might seem to us,

this is actually

a fairly sophisticated
cognitive achievement.

He has to understand

that Princess Alice
is communicating with him.

Younger children can't do this.

It's only about age 7
or so -- 7, 8, 9 --

that we begin to see
a clear indication

that children are really
beginning to understand

Princess Alice as thinking about
what they're thinking,

understanding, in this case,

that they don't know where
the ball's actually hidden.

Freeman:
Younger children may attribute

the strange flickering light
to Princess Alice,

but they cannot comprehend

that she's doing it
to send them a message.

And while younger kids
might pray to God,

Jesse's work shows

that only older children
with more developed intelligence

actually perceive
answers to prayers

in the world around them.

Princess Alice is basically
being sort of a God by proxy.

She's making these happen

like the light
flashing on and off

just like God would, in
principle, create a thunderstorm

to give one a message

or create a parking lot opening
up at just the right time.

Freeman: Jesse believes

we develop the mental ability
to read these messages

whether we believe in God
or not.

Jesse experienced
this phenomenon firsthand

when his mother, Alice,

the inspiration
behind Princess Alice,

was dying.

Bering:
She wasn't convinced absolutely

that there was something
after death,

but she told me
that if there was,

she would come back somehow

and give me a message
and communicate with me.

Freeman: After she passed,

Jesse was overwhelmed
with grief,

and as a scientist,

he was shocked
at what his mind did next.

When she died,
the following evening,

the wind chimes outside of her
window where she had passed away

started to move
and make sound...

[ Wind chimes tinkling ]

...which was odd because
there wasn't a lot of wind,

and my mind immediately sort of
leapt to the conclusion

that this was my mother
telling me that she was okay.

She was giving me a message
not to worry about her,

everything was fine.

[ Wind chimes tinkling ]

It's completely unconscious.

It's not something deliberate
that I was trying to do.

It just happened.

Belief is basically
sort of the default setting

for the human cognitive system.

It's seducing us with these
very powerful intuitions

that things happen for a reason.

Freeman: Jesse's work shows

we all naturally develop
the ability

to receive messages from God.

Believers feel
these messages are real.

Atheists argue they are just
in our imagination.

And this neuroscientist
is peering into our minds,

trying to discover who is right.

What is real?

We define reality

by what we can see, hear,
touch, smell, or taste.

Inside the brain,

these senses exist
as electrical signals.

For us, the entire sum
of all reality

is contained in this bundle
of electrical wiring.

So, when our brains sense God...

...does that make God real?

Andy Newberg is the founding
father of Neurotheology,

a new branch of neuroscience

that studies the effects of
spirituality on the human brain.

It's a scientific quest
he has pursued

as long as he can remember.

Ever since I was a kid,

I was very interested in
trying to understand reality.

I was disturbed by the fact

that everyone was looking at
the same reality,

and yet there were people
with different religions

and different political beliefs.

Freeman: Andy found a way

to peer inside the brains
of believers

while they were in the midst
of a religious ritual.

It's the highest of high-tech
brain-imaging devices --

the SPECT scanner.

I'm gonna come in,

and I'm gonna just inject you
through the I.V. with the gold,

and I'm gonna try very hard
not to disturb you

or distract you
or make any noise,

and you're just gonna continue
to do your prayer session

until it's done.

This woman
is a Presbyterian minister.

She's prayed to God daily
for over 34 years.

Right now,
she's deep in prayer.

At the height
of her connection with God,

Andy injects her
with a harmless radioactive dye.

Over the course
of the next few minutes

as she continues to pray,

the dye migrates
to the parts of her brain

where the blood flow
is the strongest.

Newberg: The brain works
in a very nice way

that the more active
a particular part is,

the more blood flow it gets,

and the less active it is,
the less blood flow it gets.

Freeman: These are the images
of her brain

before and during her prayer.

The redder the shade,

the more active
the neural area is.

Newberg:
This is the resting scan.

This is the prayer scan

showing increased activity
in the frontal lobes

and in the language area
of the brain.

Freeman: Andy has scanned
hundreds of brains

in the midst
of their prayer rituals,

from Muslim imams
to Tibetan monks

to meditating atheists.

Newberg: So, for example,

when a person feels deeply
focused on their prayer,

we see increased activity

in the focusing area
of the brain.

Freeman: This area of the brain,
the frontal lobe,

is intensely active
when we hold conversations.

It allows us to speak
and to listen.

Andy believes that
in Judeo-Christian prayer,

the frontal lobe activates

just as it would
in normal conversation.

To the brain,

talking to God
is indistinguishable

from talking to a person.

When we study
Buddhist meditation,

where they're
visualizing something,

we might expect to see a change

or an increase of activity in
the visual areas of the brain.

Freeman: In Buddhist practice,

the divine is
an abstract presence...

...not a person
who is directly spoken to,

but rather an essence
that can be visualized

during deep meditation.

And when Andy
looks at the brains

of people
who do not believe in God,

he finds that simple,
quiet meditation

produces none of the brain
activity of believers.

Newberg:
This was a scan of an atheist --

we actually had them meditating
or contemplating God --

showing that the frontal lobes
don't activate

as opposed to
the person praying who does.

Freeman: To an atheist,
God is unimaginable.

But to the believer, experiences
of God are more than thoughts.

They are lived sensations

and just as real as the physical
world that we all sense.

So, it helps us to understand

that at least when they're
describing this to us,

that they are really having
this kind of an experience.

What I like to say is

that the experience is
at least neurologically real.

Freeman:
Andy's brain studies show

that all religions create
neurological experiences

that are just as real

as if God physically existed
in the world outside our brains.

And if God only exists
inside our brains,

that does not mean
God is not real.

Our brains are where
reality crystallizes for us.

Newberg:
There's certainly this notion

that there is something bigger
than all of us here,

and whether
it's the whole universe

or whether there is something
beyond all of that,

I'm still working on that.

And if I ever figure it out,

I'll certainly
let everyone know.

[ Chuckles ]

Did we invent God...

or did God invent us?

Our expeditions into the depths
of the human mind

are revealing that both ideas
may be correct,

because God is inseparable
from the way we see the world.

The search for divine truth

may now turn us
away from the Heavens

and towards the self,

where God is woven
into every fiber of our being,

and our belief could be

the very thing
that makes us human.

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