Author: James Brown

I have chosen to answer these two questions: 
Does modern science lend support to Buddhist ideas about the human predicament?
The answer is – Yes. Science builds on the original ideas of the Buddha.
The concept of suffering is well defined in Buddhism but only recently ‘discovered’ by evolutionary scientists. Suffering, as defined in this course is a want of physical or mental satisfaction to a perceived need. Suffering may be a minor irritant, such as the felt need for regress for a slight inflicted by another member of your community, or important, like the immediate need for water. The Buddha taught that the ability to recognize both of these types of suffering arise from the human mind and that it’s possible to control the automatic reaction to them. A person that recognizes these sufferings for what they are, creations of the mind, can methodically deal with them as they arise. Rather than striking out immediately to an insult, you many want to formulate a response that makes better use of your resources for maximal effect. When the suffering is a physical need for water you can allow that to take precedence over minor suffering to keep yourself healthy. 
The study of evolutionary psychology in just the last few years has been able to make it clear that these responses are a result of the mind being modified by evolution over millions of years. For example: The perceived slight from an evolutionary perspective can be understood as a challenge to your place in the community, and therefore right to mate successfully. Keeping the response to this challenge in balance will allow you to protect your genetic future with the best prospects of success and still maintain your place in the community. The physical need for water can be traced to changes in the salinity level of the fluids surrounding the neurons in the brain and their direct response to it. 
Evolutionary physiology recognizes these responses as evolutional adaptions to keep the organism healthy and able to fulfil its role as an agent of progeneration. With the scientific knowledge of the origins of these elements of suffering an individual is better able to balance the response.
Its seems that the Buddha was able to come to these conclusions about the predicament of human nature 2,500 years before science arrived at the same conclusion. The Buddha was able to do this by simple, direct, consideration of the problem. Modern science uses the tools of modernity, such as neural action response and FMRI, to come to the same conclusions.
Does modern science lend support to Buddhist ideas about the human mind?
The answer is - Yes to some extent. 
The Buddha in his discourse on the Not-Self, taught that the mind consists of five ‘bundles’ or aggregates. They are Form, Feeling, Perception, Mental Formations and Consciousness. He then pointed out that for these five to make up the Self the collection would have to exhibit both permanence and control over the body. He examines each in turn and concludes that:
 “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not myself”
This actually seems to be a weak proof for the hypothesis of the Not-Self. For example, the proposal that Self requires permanence ignores the possibility of a Self that is modified over time. The Buddha uses this same argument when he says that you are not exactly the same person now that you were when you’re a baby. He accepts this as proof of impermanence but that alone doesn’t seem to be enough to rule out Self. Why must complete, static non-changing be a hallmark of the Self.  The Buddha points out that you have no control over the Form, Feeling, Perception and Mental Formations of the mind but then goes on to propose a way that, through understanding of the root cause of suffering, the Mental Formations of the mind can be accommodated. This seems like a measure of control to me.
Modern science can accept the classification of the major functions of the mind into the five bundles but after that goes about disproving The Self in a different way. Neurological Science has learned how the individual components of the brain operate. It’s now known how ions flow in and out of neuron cell membranes, how the neurons form new connections for long term memory creation, how they communicate with each other over several trillion connections and how neural transmitters are created, released and recovered.  Evolutionary psychology has also demonstrated that many of the functions of the brain are designed to fool the individual into surviving situations in spite of logic. The built-in evolutionary ability to find faces in noise and thereby to see the lion in the bush even when there in none shows a positive outcome of this type of deception. Nowhere in this detailed study of the brain has there been any hint of any operation that is not strictly deterministic. There is no agent of Free Will and therefore no ‘Self’.
“There is no ghost in the machine”
So modern science and the Buddha came to an agreement on the Non-Self at least. From there as Buddhism veers off into religion and science delves more and more into the fine grain details of the brain the two seem destined to never again meet in agreement. 
I consider the discourse on the Not-Self the single triumph of logic contained in Buddhism.