No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism

by Chris Niebauer

I ask two students to sit in chairs, one right behind the other, with both students facing the same direction. Student A is in the back, facing Student B's back. I then have both students either close their eyes or don a blindfold. As the experimenter, I take Student A's right hand with my right and guide their index finger to tap the nose of Student B, who is seated in front of them. At the same time, I also use my left hand to tap on student A's nose. I control the tapping so that they are in perfect synchrony. Consider the message being sent to Student A's brain: my hand is two feet in front of me touching a nose. Incredibly, and without fail, Student A's brain then makes a radical revision based on the physical evidence; it assumes its own real nose is two feet long. Afterward, Student A sometimes reports that they felt their nose slowly grow two feet, and sometimes it seems to have grown instantly. The experience is often so profound and surprising that, even in a roomful of others, Student A will let out a scream.