I was asked to talk at length and ignore the camera.

At last, a neuroscience book that doesn't make me want to grind my teeth and jump up and down in rage! In fact, the Plastic Mind, by Sharon Begley has actually made me feel enthusiastic about the brain sciences again. Begley's book is a summary of a meeting between the Dalai Lama and a number of leading western scientists at his home in Dharamsala, India in 2004. It was one of a series of 'Mind and Life' conferences, which have proved extremely fruitful in exploring the common ground -- and the differences -- in Western and Buddhist views of the mind.

The 2004 meeting was on neuroplasiticity -- which is the ability of the brain to change itself over a person's lifetime. The old dogma was that the brain did not change its shape after childhood was over. This dogma is now thoroughly dead, as a number of extraordinary stories show. For a start, chidren's brains are extraordinarily plastic, and there are cases of children having up to half their brain removed, and not having their IQ noticab
There is also evidence that thinking actually changes the brain. At UCLA, a number of OCD sufferers were given PET scans as they completed a course of mindfulness therapy. They found that this therapy actually altered the metabolism of the brain 'circuit' that seems to trigger the OCD!

There is also emerging evidence that meditative practice can dramatically alter people's emotional responses. Researcher Richard Davidson showed that it is possible for previously untrained volunteers to alter their fear-responses to photographic stimuli. He showed them photographs such as a baby with a horrific tumour growing out of its eye whilst asking them to try and generate feelings that the baby be happy, well and free of suffering.

Using an fMRI scan, he found that; "Simply by mental rehearsal of the aspiration that a person in a photo be free of suffering, people can change the strength of the signal in the amygdala" (the bit of the brain involved with the fear response). The Dalia Lama responded to this by saying;

"What seems to be very clear is that a purely mental process -- for example, deliberately cultivating this aspiration -- can have an effect that is observable in the brain level." (p.290).

In my view, data like this knocks the epiphenomenalist view, that thought is a mere acausal side-effect of brain function, stone dead. (although no doubt writers like Daniel Wegner, who think all conscious will is an illusion, would construct elaborate get-outs to 'prove' this data shows nothing of the kind....)

But for all practical purposes, (which is what, in my view, really matters in these debates), neuroplasticity has a tremendously positive message. It says that through beneficial practices, we can not only change our minds but change the physical processes in our brains! This is a tremendously important message: we are not automata, doomed to run on fixed programs for the rest of our lives. We are fluid beings, with a great capacity for positive change.