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Billy O’Connor
Professor of Physiology
Graduate Entry Medical School,
University of Limerick.
Ireland.
October 23rd 2018
Brain, belief,
and the nature of
Frankenstein

http://inside-the-brain.com/2010/12/
Read more on Inside-the-brain website, Facebook and twitter

Mary Shelley uses an elaborate narrative structure
She builds a series of concentric screens that obscure her originating voice.
This acts to slow down the narrative, allowing time
for extended meditations by both the creature and
Frankenstein on the nature of mortality, the
responsibilities of God and parents, and the very
principles of life itself.

Victor
Frankenstein
The Creature
Robert
Walton
Generating meaning from Frankenstein
Just as we
wonder whether
Victor or Robert
should be
praised or
dammed for
their pursuit of
knowledge - we
also have to
wonder that
about the
creature as well.
Whether we talk
about mad
scientists, the
monsters they
create, or artic
explorers, seeking
knowledge is a
way of becoming
human both in the
best and worst
senses of the
word.
The great question of this novel is; who more human - Victor or the creature he created?
Epistemology and Ontology
(knowledge and meaning)

When technology commands the worship only a God receives
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through and pour a torrent
of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy
and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child
so completely as I should deserve their's.” - Victor Frankenstein

Shelly endows her creature with the features of the infinite. She sets him free among the
archetypal landscapes of the sublime; among the Alps, and the frozen wastes of the
North Pole. And like power itself, he has superhuman strength. – Anne k. Mellor

Is their such a thing as objective truth?
A thing and its opposite can both be true - Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC)
Shelley makes us aware that concepts such as beliefs, deities, ethics, feelings,
ideas, judgements, morals, property, social entities, good, evil, truth, etc. originate
in the human brain.
The ability to adopt a
double-minded (shared)
focus of attention can be
within ourselves and/or
with others.

Knowledge, truth, culture are a collection of discourses
Science itself is not “truth.” It is discourse.
There are many modes of discourse other than science which affect human
life.
There is the discourse we call art.
The discourse of interpersonal relationships.
The discourse of politics (few theories trump political reality).
The discourse of spirituality and religion (personal truth).
And many others.
Each of us gets to choose the discourse or discourses we will engage in.
Science is one among many.
Shelley mounts a powerful critique of the early modern scientific revolution; of
modern scientific thinking and psychology, and of the commitment of science to
discover the objective truth, whatever the consequences.

In the end Victor and his creature are fused into one being..
Hence naming the creature “Frankenstein” - as popular folklore would have it -
uncovers a profound truth within the novel’s narrative. This “mistake” actually derives
from a critical intuition about the relationship between Victor and his creature.
..during their final race across the icy wastes of the North Pole.
“Miserable as you
were, my wretched-
ness is superior to
yours for remorse is
the bitter sting that
rankles in my
wounds and torchers
me to madness.”
- as the creature
observes Victor’s corpse
Victor has become
his creature, his
creature has
become his
maker; they are
each other’s
double.

Frankenstein: the take-home message
We must rid ourselves of the itch for certainty and power.
In this context Shelley provides a literary analysis of the psychology of
modern, scientific man; of the dangers inherent in scientific research,
and of the horrifying but predictable consequences of an
uncontrollable, technological exploitation of nature
and the female.
Her purposes are primary ethical rather than epistemological; she
wants to understand the moral consequences of our ways of seeing
the world, of our habit of imposing meaning
on that which we cannot truly know.

Shelley’s answer to the philosophical questions raised in
Frankenstein is both a radical scepticism and a categorical moral
imperative.
When we write the unfamiliar as monstrous, we literally create the
evil, the injustice, the racism, sexism and class prejudice that we
arbitrarily imagine.
Politicians and media take note!

Read widely
Education Mind set Skills

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Brain, belief and the nature of Frankenstein

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