Thursday, October 13, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Mind Wide Open
Every time I read Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson I remember why its been such a staple in my life for the last five years. Its personable with anecdotal stories of his experiences delving into his own mind. He's funny and you can just tell he writes how he talks making it that much easier to understand this complex topic and also be able to relate to it by going "Oh yeah I've experienced that before!". Now that I am on this neuroscience kick I figured it would be good to start with what I already have so I decided to reread Mind Wide Open and take notes on it. So here are some of my favorite excerpts.
-There are four current theories of consciousness:
1. Inanimate objects, like broccoli and teakettles, are conscious in some different way from us. That qualia (the brains representation of both the external world and the body's mental state - the "faceness" of a loved one, or the "emotioness" of the emotional feeling) is a property of matter itself, and the human brain is simply the most advanced qualia recording apparatus yet evolved.
2. Something unique exists in the configuration of cells that makes consciousness happen in brains and not broccoli.
3. A mystery substance not yet understood by science - quantum behavior perhaps, or some kind of spiritual life force - that turns a bunch of interconnected cells into a feeling brain.
4. One of the properties of consciousness is that it cant explain itself regardless of how far we come scientifically.
I find this extremely interesting, I suppose I have never considered consciousness before or where it comes from. This is definitely a topic I intend to delve into further, Johnson offers a couple of recommendations on books to look into if you're interested in this topic; The Feeling of What Happens by Damasio, Consciousness Explained by Dennett, The Race for Consciousness by Taylor, and The Emperors New Mind by Penrose.
-For language to evolve, humans needed a viable theory about the minds of other people - otherwise, they'd just be talking to themselves. What a great thought! It's funny, but oh so true. We really had to have realized that other people have the same emotions and feelings as we do to have found the need for language to communicate with one another.
-The bigger the society in which the individual lives, the bigger its neocortex is relative to the rest of the brain. To thrive in a complex society, you need a big brain and vice versa.
-When you track a projectile flying through the air, your brain intuitively calculates its point of origin by imagining its trajectory in reverse. Ha!
-Sue Carter studied prairie voles, who are well known for being monogamous for their whole lives (very uncommon, less than 5% of all mammalians are). When she injected oxytocin into their brains they formed even more tenacious bonds than usual. And when she injected a oxytocin blocker they instantly became polygamous and didn't form any pair bonds. Well now I know how monogamy happens... or doesn't. Us humans obviously dont have nearly enough oxytocin to keep us totally loyal and monogamous. I wonder once this information becomes more well-known if people will seek having more oxytocin put into their brains to become truly monogamous with their partner. Would that be romantic? The new true way of getting married?
-Speakers are 46% more likely to laugh than listeners and only 15% of the sentences that triggered laughter were humorous in any way. And you're 30 times more likely to laugh when you're with people than when you're alone.
-Laughter is an instinctive form of social bonding, the largest amount of human laughter occurs in childhood - rough&tumble play, chasing, etc. Its a way of pair bonding with parents and reinforces parenting through the "tougher" years. And thus we have childhood to thank for laughter. Thank you childhood!
-Sadness is marked by a decrease of activity in the prefrontal cortex, while happiness triggered an increase in such activity. Prefrontal cortical activity is a strong predictor of idea generation and overall liveliness of thought. One of the side effects of the way the brain creates the feeling of sadness is a reduction in the overall umber of thoughts that the mind produces. Isn't that interesting? Now is it sadness that causes us to decrease our prefrontal cortical activity or is it a decrease in prefrontal cortical activity that causes sadness? That is one thing that I suppose we will never truly know, but at least you know the next time you are feeling blue and not having many grand ideas that once the sadness passes you will regain your super awesome powers of having the best ideas ever.
-Only using ten percent of your brain is a sign of efficiency, not underachievement. Arguing that we'd be better off with one hundred percent is like raving how great Shakespeare would have been if he'd managed to use all 26 letters in each of his words, instead of a small fraction of the alphabet. I myself have heard someone saying the same thing before (how if only we used 100% of our brain...) and even then I thought they sounded ridiculous, but I couldn't place why or an argument to say otherwise. But I love how Johnson stated his argument, its a good metaphor. I'm pretty sure our brains would overheat and explode if we used 100 percent of it constantly.
-There are four current theories of consciousness:
1. Inanimate objects, like broccoli and teakettles, are conscious in some different way from us. That qualia (the brains representation of both the external world and the body's mental state - the "faceness" of a loved one, or the "emotioness" of the emotional feeling) is a property of matter itself, and the human brain is simply the most advanced qualia recording apparatus yet evolved.
2. Something unique exists in the configuration of cells that makes consciousness happen in brains and not broccoli.
3. A mystery substance not yet understood by science - quantum behavior perhaps, or some kind of spiritual life force - that turns a bunch of interconnected cells into a feeling brain.
4. One of the properties of consciousness is that it cant explain itself regardless of how far we come scientifically.
I find this extremely interesting, I suppose I have never considered consciousness before or where it comes from. This is definitely a topic I intend to delve into further, Johnson offers a couple of recommendations on books to look into if you're interested in this topic; The Feeling of What Happens by Damasio, Consciousness Explained by Dennett, The Race for Consciousness by Taylor, and The Emperors New Mind by Penrose.
-For language to evolve, humans needed a viable theory about the minds of other people - otherwise, they'd just be talking to themselves. What a great thought! It's funny, but oh so true. We really had to have realized that other people have the same emotions and feelings as we do to have found the need for language to communicate with one another.
-The bigger the society in which the individual lives, the bigger its neocortex is relative to the rest of the brain. To thrive in a complex society, you need a big brain and vice versa.
-When you track a projectile flying through the air, your brain intuitively calculates its point of origin by imagining its trajectory in reverse. Ha!
-Sue Carter studied prairie voles, who are well known for being monogamous for their whole lives (very uncommon, less than 5% of all mammalians are). When she injected oxytocin into their brains they formed even more tenacious bonds than usual. And when she injected a oxytocin blocker they instantly became polygamous and didn't form any pair bonds. Well now I know how monogamy happens... or doesn't. Us humans obviously dont have nearly enough oxytocin to keep us totally loyal and monogamous. I wonder once this information becomes more well-known if people will seek having more oxytocin put into their brains to become truly monogamous with their partner. Would that be romantic? The new true way of getting married?
-Speakers are 46% more likely to laugh than listeners and only 15% of the sentences that triggered laughter were humorous in any way. And you're 30 times more likely to laugh when you're with people than when you're alone.
-Laughter is an instinctive form of social bonding, the largest amount of human laughter occurs in childhood - rough&tumble play, chasing, etc. Its a way of pair bonding with parents and reinforces parenting through the "tougher" years. And thus we have childhood to thank for laughter. Thank you childhood!
-Sadness is marked by a decrease of activity in the prefrontal cortex, while happiness triggered an increase in such activity. Prefrontal cortical activity is a strong predictor of idea generation and overall liveliness of thought. One of the side effects of the way the brain creates the feeling of sadness is a reduction in the overall umber of thoughts that the mind produces. Isn't that interesting? Now is it sadness that causes us to decrease our prefrontal cortical activity or is it a decrease in prefrontal cortical activity that causes sadness? That is one thing that I suppose we will never truly know, but at least you know the next time you are feeling blue and not having many grand ideas that once the sadness passes you will regain your super awesome powers of having the best ideas ever.
-Only using ten percent of your brain is a sign of efficiency, not underachievement. Arguing that we'd be better off with one hundred percent is like raving how great Shakespeare would have been if he'd managed to use all 26 letters in each of his words, instead of a small fraction of the alphabet. I myself have heard someone saying the same thing before (how if only we used 100% of our brain...) and even then I thought they sounded ridiculous, but I couldn't place why or an argument to say otherwise. But I love how Johnson stated his argument, its a good metaphor. I'm pretty sure our brains would overheat and explode if we used 100 percent of it constantly.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Pictures of The Mind
Pictures of the Mind: What the New Neuroscience Tells Us About Who We Are By Mariam Boleyn-Fitzgerald. A book I asked for for Christmas, received a couple months ago and finally started to read about a week or two ago. WHAT a read! I found it so interesting I took notes on it and I will share with you some of the most interesting of findings.
-People who experience less pleasure in response to food might overeat to compensate, whereas people who experience more pleasure stop because they are satisfied. How fascinating! They did MRI scans that came up with this conclusion, a conclusion that is basically the exact opposite of what we have always thought about the obese.
-Happiness circuits are among the most plastic circuits in the brain. Now isn't that a lovely insight?
-There is something called a "dark network" which is basically a network that is buzzing when we are doing nothing at all and goes dark when figuring out a problem or doing an activity. Its thought to play an important role in learning, memory and in maintaining energy equilibrium in the brain. Isn't that interesting? Even when we think we aren't using our brain, we are. and it turns out to be an important part to our very existence as an intelligent race.
-The larger a persons neural response to increases in the public good the more likely they will give [money] voluntarily. Not that astounding of a discovery, but an interesting study nonetheless.
-Scientists are incredibly close to "erasing" (taking away the emotional aspect of) memories. Most notably this could be used in helping people with PTSD and not having the emotional responses to memories of war, rape, violence, etc. The book talks about scientists who have already been able to achieve this with a drug and other scientists who have serious ethical issues with it. Does this effect the real "you"? By doing this can it make you not learn from your experiences? Personally, I think its a chance for people who are truly suffering from PTSD to have a second chance to live a normal life. This erasing method doesnt actually make them forget the memory, they recall it just fine, they just aren't traumatized by it any longer and that is something that those patients could really use.
-30-40% of people who have temporal lobe epilepsy have intense spiritual experiences. Like talking to god, or feeling connected with the universe, etc. I found this very interesting. It went on to talk about how the left hemisphere, the "logical" side of the brain, often tries to come up with "rational" explanations of things occurring in the right hemisphere that it cant account for, for instance a seizure in the temporal lobe making you feel all these emotions you cant explain, and thus the best explanation for such pleasurable experiences (which are in reality just chemicals being released in your brain) is a connection with god or the universe. There was also a particularly enjoyable quote from scientist Ramachandran, "God is the ultimate confabulation by the left hemisphere".
So there you have it! It is a spectacular book full of tons of really interesting information on a vast amount of different topics (in concerns to the brain of course). The book actually took an unexpected turn towards meditation and mindfulness at the end and how it actually does a lot of good things to our brain, and can produce high-frequency gamma activity, which is believed to be an indicator of neural synchrony. there is a lot of research being done currently on the link between meditation/mindfulness and happiness and other benefits.
Neuroscience is an up and coming field and there really are no limits to what we can study and what we will find. And thats a big reason why I am finding myself jumping in with both feet. Be expecting a lot of neuroscience related books in the future.
Coming next, my thoughts on Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson and my favorite passages. This book has been my favorite book for at least five or six years, I am rereading it once again to take notes, like Ive always wanted to, and to look at it with fresh eyes and a new-found passion.
-People who experience less pleasure in response to food might overeat to compensate, whereas people who experience more pleasure stop because they are satisfied. How fascinating! They did MRI scans that came up with this conclusion, a conclusion that is basically the exact opposite of what we have always thought about the obese.
-Happiness circuits are among the most plastic circuits in the brain. Now isn't that a lovely insight?
-There is something called a "dark network" which is basically a network that is buzzing when we are doing nothing at all and goes dark when figuring out a problem or doing an activity. Its thought to play an important role in learning, memory and in maintaining energy equilibrium in the brain. Isn't that interesting? Even when we think we aren't using our brain, we are. and it turns out to be an important part to our very existence as an intelligent race.
-The larger a persons neural response to increases in the public good the more likely they will give [money] voluntarily. Not that astounding of a discovery, but an interesting study nonetheless.
-Scientists are incredibly close to "erasing" (taking away the emotional aspect of) memories. Most notably this could be used in helping people with PTSD and not having the emotional responses to memories of war, rape, violence, etc. The book talks about scientists who have already been able to achieve this with a drug and other scientists who have serious ethical issues with it. Does this effect the real "you"? By doing this can it make you not learn from your experiences? Personally, I think its a chance for people who are truly suffering from PTSD to have a second chance to live a normal life. This erasing method doesnt actually make them forget the memory, they recall it just fine, they just aren't traumatized by it any longer and that is something that those patients could really use.
-30-40% of people who have temporal lobe epilepsy have intense spiritual experiences. Like talking to god, or feeling connected with the universe, etc. I found this very interesting. It went on to talk about how the left hemisphere, the "logical" side of the brain, often tries to come up with "rational" explanations of things occurring in the right hemisphere that it cant account for, for instance a seizure in the temporal lobe making you feel all these emotions you cant explain, and thus the best explanation for such pleasurable experiences (which are in reality just chemicals being released in your brain) is a connection with god or the universe. There was also a particularly enjoyable quote from scientist Ramachandran, "God is the ultimate confabulation by the left hemisphere".
So there you have it! It is a spectacular book full of tons of really interesting information on a vast amount of different topics (in concerns to the brain of course). The book actually took an unexpected turn towards meditation and mindfulness at the end and how it actually does a lot of good things to our brain, and can produce high-frequency gamma activity, which is believed to be an indicator of neural synchrony. there is a lot of research being done currently on the link between meditation/mindfulness and happiness and other benefits.
Neuroscience is an up and coming field and there really are no limits to what we can study and what we will find. And thats a big reason why I am finding myself jumping in with both feet. Be expecting a lot of neuroscience related books in the future.
Coming next, my thoughts on Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson and my favorite passages. This book has been my favorite book for at least five or six years, I am rereading it once again to take notes, like Ive always wanted to, and to look at it with fresh eyes and a new-found passion.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Harry Potter
So the last movie of the Harry Potter series came out and after having finally completed (visually) the series I just had to reread the books. and Im really glad I did! I must say they really hold up to rereading, and I mean several times. The amount of detail and characters and whatnot really brings you into its world and you can so see everything that is happening. I still stand by that the books are better than the movies (of course) just because of the amount of detail and getting to know the other more obscure characters and inter-relationships with one another. But really, the movies are still damn good, they really do the books justice and are just as visually as exciting and accurate as they are described in the books. And I think that is really quite a feat. I really cant wait to see if J.K. will continue to write. I really hope she does, and i dont mean more Harry Potter books (I already know thats not going to happen) but just a different series of sorts in a different world. She is a great author and really knows how to take you along the exciting and emotional rollercoaster with the characters. But we shall see, its not like she will ever "have" to work again.
Friday, September 2, 2011
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