brain structure - early days

Having recently re-read Daniel Goleman's (2013) “Focus – the hidden driver of excellence”, I am aware of not being focussed at this present moment - the brain state is high level monkey mind with the robot on autopilot.

I have also recently re-read Matthew Lieberman's (2013) “Social. Why our brains are wired to connect”. With his team he has invented social, cognitive neuroscience (SCN).

Both books attempt to graft the new findings of neuroscience to what went before. Given the novel brain scanning machines the notion of the neural correlates of conscientiousness (NCC) are observable facts rather than speculative hypotheses.

There is the inevitable churn of the unconscious as it processes thoughts, feelings and moods (TFMs) which come from both inside and outside.

I have not yet bothered to figure the details of brain structure. There are millions of neurones and billions of synapses making and breaking connections. And it is well to remember that the system evolved ie without forward intention. It is thus functional but higgledy/piggledy. And it is still an infant discipline with new insights appearing all the time.

For the moment I loosely monitor what is going on so as to answer such questions as :-

Why do brains exist?

When did brains begin to evolve?

What makes the human brain so clever?

Who are the main people in neuroscience?

Where do they work?

How are they funded?

AND

What are the neural correlates of my doodles?

What patterns can be identified?

Why does the ability to produce them exist?

Why does doodling give rise to a non-egoic frame of mind (flow?)

turnip jumper

While driving through the countryside the other day I saw sheep eating turnips. Attention was grabbed by a feeling of Interbeing and Oneness. A sheep is a turnip's way of becoming a woolly jumper. The connecting steps include:-

turnip – sheep – shepherd – wool mill – woolly jumper

But each step is part of another set which is part of another set:-

soil – water – seed – farmer – weeding – harvesting – turnip

comet wipes out the dinosaurs – mammals evolve – sheep are domesticated – shepherds ensure that the sheep are well fed, healthy and safe from predators - sheep provide meat and wool

sheep's wool processed – wool spun into thread – thread dyed – thread fed into giant weaving machines – wooly jumpers advertised and distributed

Life is an ongoing process of churn. The energy from sunlight agitates materials (atoms) which for a while are part of living things (biotic phase) and for a while are part of the non-living environment (abiotic phase). “Round and round and round in the circle game.” (Joni Mitchell)

For some fascinating examples Google for [biogeochemical cycles].

See elsewhere on this blog - link 

Cracking paradigms

There can be no end to filling attention with the theories of others. If omniscience (all knowing) was ever an option it is no longer so.

We can imagine a pragmatic minimum of theory. It is based on the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) that an individual needs to ensure the survival of their self and of their various social groups.

Our ancestors got bye in a simple way as foragers. But with the advent of settled agriculture and then city states etc, division of labour flourished along with associated modules of KSA.

At the bottom of this article I have listed the top level topics which I used in my long and varied professional life as an educator bent on changing minds. Towards the end of my working days I served as a facilitator of lifelong learning rather than as a chalk and talk teacher. The task was to gather, summarise and distribute the KSA in one place to another with a view to informing ongoing discussion and debate so as to crack norms and shift paradigms.

I am now retired and no longer paid to promote the KSA for third party agendas. But old habits hang around. I spend most of my time absorbing the KSA associated with evolutionary psychology, neuroscience and mindfulness. I churn out wee stories about every three days and publish them to this blog which, presently, has 28,182 page views and visitors from all parts of the planet.

anarchy

anthropology

archaeology

astronomy

atheism

biology

botany

chemistry

counselling

curriculum development

development/aid

ecology

economics

editing

education

engineering

ethics

evolution

geography

history

management consultancy

mythology

neurology

philosophy

physics

plain language

politics

psychiatry

psychology

religion

school inspection

science

sociology

teacher training

technology

zoology

remarkable marks

To be comfortable reading non fiction books I need a pencil. I can therefore highlight interesting words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs by drawing a line in the margin. If there are some very interesting parts I put two or three lines in the margin. And, for exceptionally interesting parts, there can be a wiggly line. If a highlight is quotable I put a 'Q' beside the line. If there is a definition I put 'Def' beside the line.

If I want to refer to a highlighted part in the future I write its page number on one of the blank pages near the front of the book - and sometimes write a word or two to indicate the topic.

I very seldom write notes in the margins but I do sometimes write a jargon word or phrase from another discipline.

When I re-read a book I use a different pencil or pen. Some parts might therefore get re-marked – possibly several times.

NOTES:

There is the option of using highlighter pens with an elaborate colour coding system. I find them too gaudy for my taste.

There is also the option of noting the date of reading and of re-reading. You can use the blank page where you give the page number of interesting parts. I have not been systematic in doing this.

When using a Kindle it is easy to highlight parts and to skim through them afterwards – but I prefer skimming real books

No wearisome study

“Of making many books there is no end;

and much study is weariness of the flesh.”

Ecclesiastes 12:12

• UNESCO monitors both the number and type of books published per country per year. In 2013 there was more than 2 million of themⁱ.
• UK publishers released more than 20 new titles every hour over the course of 2014, meaning that the country published more books per inhabitant than anywhere else in the world.ⁱⁱ
• According to a new report from the International Publishers Association (IPA), UK publishers released 184,000 new and revised titles in 2013.
• Using search in books on Amazon.co.uk, the returns were 66,943 for [brain], 21,224 for [neuroscience], 18,187 for [mindfulness] and 276 for [consilience].

The flesh would definitely weary if I tried to address them all. But I have filters based on reputable authors who are positively referenced by pre-existing favourite authors.

Some are tenured academics and scientists - sometimes paired with journalists. Some are credible freelance philosophers. The more user friendly characters appear on youtube lectures and debates.

BUT, at present, there is a realisation that this is a topic on which more work could be done – but I cant be bothered (CBB). SO, to avoid weariness of the flesh, I will switch attention to another mindful activity. Bye for now.

i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per_year

ii http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/22/uk-publishes-more-books-per-capita-million-report

Serendipitous blogposts

Many of my blogposts deal with eternal topics and are thus timeproof. The reader can dive in at any point and thus find something possibly apt and useful. There are several diving boards.

The tabs at the top of every page. [Existential soft rock] is a link to the blog that preceded this one. [compilations] contains a link to a separate website where, for free, you can download various collections of blogposts on given themes.

There are two [search] boxes – one on the right column and one in the footer.

Also on the right column is the [blog archive] giving the title of every post, and a machine generated list of [popular posts].

At the bottom of each page there is a box for comments. I greatly appreciate your comments.

Where anarchy gets real

As a thoughtful teenager I was aware of hypocrites in hats on Presbyterian pews. The unca guid exhorted the youth to do as they said and not as they did. It was the roller coaster 60s. Many of the eternal verities were crumbling in urban centres but not so much in rural areas. It was tough trying to figure what to do and how to be. Which reality ruled?

At a technical level there were rules that had to be obeyed eg drive on the left, stop at red lights and pay your taxes. Hard science and engineering were resolutely rational and evidence based wherever possible and, when not, were governed by the best working hypotheses currently available. I was schooled in that hard nosed tradition. Politics, economics, the social sciences, and the humanities were emotional and subjective. I was fascinated by their soft, wet mode of thinking but in my formative years I felt that 'reality' was with the scientists.

As a science teacher in the 1970s in Scotland and Jamaica my bible was the Scottish Education Department Curriculum Paper 7. Despite its liberal and progressive methodology (stage managed heurism) I saw my job as chalk and talk. Get as many kids as possible up to speed about what we have discovered in the hope that some will be fascinated and become lifelong learners sitting on giants' shoulders.

When I became a teacher trainer and curriculum developer I forsook teaching for the promotion of lifelong learning. I saw this involving (a) research into what was happening in many other countries with a view to intelligently choosing from a wide range of options, and (b) sometimes being original. In Belize we developed new curricula for social studies and for home room; and, in Lesotho, there was a lot of stuff about education leadership, management and administration.

BUT – I began to realise that, while formal education is useful for reproducing society ( Ref the “hidden curriculum”) it is not a good tool for transforming it. (Ref Bourdieu and Passeron). Given my awareness of the hegemonic and oppressive establishment, my interest shifted to non-formal, adult education. The goal was to use plain language to inform large chunks of civil society, especially non-government organisations. They could thus more meaningfully participate in masterminding and implementing their development in an increasingly globalised world.

For the ten years or so before retirement I worked with civil society organisations on (a) plain language versions of many Tanzanian poverty reduction texts (Ref hakikazi.org) and (b) various aspects of social development in Scotland (Ref CCSD.co.uk and the Banffshire Partnership Ltd). I also served as advisor and plain language editor for several International Labour Office (ILO) publications.

SO – natal enculturation had me noticing the nae sae guid Presbyterian hypocrites; professional training biased me to hard dry thinking although there was a passing affection for the soft wet variety; life made me realise that in changing minds (ie education) teaching had to be balanced with facilitation of lifelong learning; and both informal and formal education systems need plain language materials.

The formal education system is part of the hegemony that reproduces society. The informal system holds the potential to transform society by giving power back to the people in civil society.

AFTERWORD: there is new thinking due to (a) advances in neurology and evolutionary psychology, (b) the rapid growth of the internet, (c) the effectiveness of bottom up social networks with crowd funding, and (d) the increasing popularity of mindfulness meditation.

And that is where anarchy gets real.

Existential ease

I am existentially most at ease when playing with ideas. Not the gossipy kind but rather the serious stuff for which there is evidence, and the support of knowledgable and respected minds

The stimuli can be external or internal. The external stuff pours in through the sense doors. The internal stuff is drawn from the memory banks with deposits from nature and nurture. The unconscious churns the two sets of stuff and generates stories with an imagined past, present and future.

There are vast amounts of external stuff which can be rooted in (a) the local present or in (b) the wider world with its cosmic time span.

Most of the external, serious stuff is processed by the media, ie text, radio and TV. “News” is delivered as a sequence of fast-paced items that are little more than sound bites. It quickly delivers breaking stories and can be a channel for bias and propaganda. Most of the messages pass over the heads of the people most of the time. “Edutainment” serves the same hegemonic purpose but in longer units of time.

The media flood needs to be filtered. People are free to watch only certain types of TV programme and to read only certain types of newspaper. The ICT revolution also means that people can have their own idiosyncratically programmed playlist. Which is a good thing. But it can mean that people create their own gated communities which is not a good thing.

I could make a list of recommended, hard-nosed books and talks that contribute to the consilience that is emerging at the interface between positive, economic, behavioural, evolutionary, social, and cognitive psychology; evolutionary biology and neurology; and flow and mindfulness.

I searched the blog for “books”

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/hurray-for-happiness.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/why-austerity.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/viral-winds-of-change.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/fast-change-of-mind.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-non-egoic-cowherd.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/daniel-goleman.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/good-reads-in-2013.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-happiness-question.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/respecting-practice-of-mindfulness.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/goodly-repetition.html

There could be another list of books and talks about the changing face of politics and economics in the light of globalisation and climate change.

I could make a themed list on Amazon

But I can't be bothered (ICBB) – and I am easy about it.

how its made

How its made – an awesome set of documentaries - science begets technology and mechanisation

How It's Made is a documentary television series that premiered on January 6, 2001 on Science in the U.S., and Discovery Channel in Canada. The program is produced in the Canadian province of Quebec by Productions MAJ, Inc. and Productions MAJ 2.[1] In the UK it is broadcast on Discovery Channel, Quest and DMAX.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjHsPBHX1NNbIqTy4eXVTig

Tough reclusion

In setting myself up as a recluse I cut down on social involvements that use time. But it is not easy to “Make the world go away.” There are many calls for attention in modern cultures.

The default mental condition is monkey mind. The mindbrain evolved that way. The traffic from the sense doors has to be monitored to embrace the good, avoid the bad and ignore the neutral. There are two systems, fast reaction and slow response.

Some reactions have to be very fast eg when a snake appears on the path - or when you make an emergency stop while driving. Fractions of a second make the difference between life and death. The unconscious will have reacted before the self-conscious gets to know about it. Biases, intuitions, and rules of thumb shorten reaction times.

When there is no danger the mindbrain has two types of slow responses. It can churn the sensory inputs with memories of past reactions and responses and then create stories of what might happen in the future. Forewarned is forearmed.

When influenced by language the slow response system can create myths and magic. Imagine the beginning of language. There would have been words for a limited number of concepts dealing with aspects of being a forager, a tool maker, and a social animal etc. As the cultures evolved new words were needed to label new 'realities'. Metaphor and analogy facilitated the process. For example there was need to placate (a) the biological father whose purpose was to provide for his children and thus (b) a heavenly father who protects his people even when he works in mysterious ways.

NOTE: We are social animals. We have to live and work together. We are hard wired to fit into a social framework the details of which are provided by enculturation.

In foraging systems the ancestors are with the Gods in the transcendent world. Communicating between worlds is a specialist action reserved for shamen many of whom use psychedelic drugs to enter altered states of consciousness.

As settled agriculture and then city states evolved, the division of labour became more refined. The role of the shaman was taken over by the Priests who claimed a monopoly as the vehicle through which God spoke to his people and vice versa. In time, in the West, this led to such notions as papal infallibility and the Divine Right of Kings.

William James (1842 - 1920) reviewed the varieties of religious experience and famously noted that whether or not God really exists, those who believe he exists behave differently. And, more recently, neurologists have identified a part of the brain that lights up when the patient is thinking religious thoughts. It is contentiously called the God Spot. It seems possible that this is the part of the mindbrain affected by psychedelic drugs, psychotherapy and mindfulness.

For the last 200,000 years we have been hard wired with a framework to learn a language but the particular language that we learn depends on our particular culture. AND

For the last 200,000 years we have been hard wired with a framework to learn a religion but the particular religion that we learn depends on our particular culture. AND

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) (Philosopher) reckoned that “God is dead” and thus opened the door to alternative ways of thinking

Maurice Bucke (1837 – 1902) (Psychiatrist) wrote “Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind”

Bob Marley (1945 – 1981) (Rastaman) recommended that you “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.

More recently there have been advances in neurology, in mindfulness, and in positive,

social and experimental psychology; even in economics where there is talk of measuring human happiness.

There are grounds for believing that we are messing up the planet but that (a) there are many people who are able and willing to change their minds using mindfulness techniques and (b) they are acquiring ICT assisted grass root, bottom up, expertise in civil society organisation.

It is never too late to change your mind.

ERROR 1919 unsorted

//////////

This article revises ideas from an earlier article where personal names were given to various states of the mindbrain. (see below for a link). The characters are drawn from my subjective experience and are therefore idiosyncratic. Nothing stands still for long. The current theme of nastiness is revisited. Social living is not always nice.

/////////

Ian – welcome back

William* – my apologies. For the past few hours 'I' has been Zorba the zombie on ICT autopilot chasing up on error 1919.

Ian – but we do not need to know the techy details?

William – No.

Ian – So what were our various head voices thinking and feeling while Zorba held most of the attention?

William - Oliver the omniscient suggested being strategic but was ignored. Ulric the unconscious and Victor the vital force were energetically churning out wild stories for Stanley the story man. So there was footering and jumping from one thing to another. Alfred the awake and aware was dosing in a corner as was 'I' William the non judgemental witness.

Ian - did the error 1919 problem get solved?

William – only partly but it is to be assumed that Ulric is working on it and an answer will eventually pop out.

Ian – So what is happening now?

William - We are waiting. Ulric, Victor and Stanley scatter TFMs that are the basis of Zorba's autopilot in the attention centre. Alfred and Oliver make themselves available for taking over attention.

Ian – and you are the cool-dude witness.

Alfred – can I join this conversation?

Ian and William – surely

Alfred - I also bear witness to what goes on in the mindbrain. And I have a special interest in flow – ie in non-egoic action. What the Taoists call wu-wei.

Oliver – can I join in?

All – surely

Oliver - the Taoist's talk of nature's Way - of yin-yang - and of the impermanence of all created things.

Alfred – is there not a danger of group confirmation bias?

Oliver – an ever present danger.

Ian – we could arrange a group session where the various aspects of 'I' go head to head.

William – The mindbrain is an ongoing process, a policy that is forever a draft. Dynamic churn.

Oliver – there is no abiding 'truth'. Nature, nurture and chance are continuously shaping the world views of individuals and also of cultures. …

[next day]

Ian – where have you all been?

William - attention was grabbed by Zorba in a sequence of non-egoic zones. Draw a doodle, bake a cake, absorb a dharma talk; and a cornucopia of mundane bits and pieces.

Ian – The urge to doodle remains strong. Have you figured what it is about?

William – No. Ulric and Victor are involved but as far as I can see there is no master plan. The doodles bear witness to Ulric's churn and to Stanley's story telling.

Oliver – Alfred and me are also stumped. We might try brainstorming

Ian – what dharma talk did you absorb?

William – Eagleman on man's inhumanity to man. Nastiness can be experimented on in laboratory conditions. The notion is that evil is situational as much as it is dispositional. People are easily and powerfully influenced by membership of groups and even of crowds. It is presumably an adaptive feature from the evolutionary psychology point of view …

Ian – good morning illusory gentlemen.

All – good afternoon!

Ian – does anyone have anything worth saying?

William – The TFMs were mainly peaceful and content. Nobody has taken up the error 1919 challenge but this does not matter as there is no rush to get it sorted.

Alfred – I spent some time flat backing and minding the breath.

William – I saw you but, in doing so, attention was pulled away from the breath.

Oliver – I was aware of Zorba, Alfred and William winning and losing space in the attention centre.

Stanley – I was aware of Ulric and Victor being enormously active and busy. They appreciate the Taoist notion that “the reality that can be described is not the real reality”. They evolved long before language. They are not much concerned with words and sentences. When they have messages that need to be shared with the more linguistic parts of the mindbrain they are channeled through my stories.

Oliver – I am increasingly aware of the enormity of mindbrain workings. They exist to ensure the survival and evolution of DNA, genes, cells, individuals, families, groups, the species and the physical environment.

Ian – Yes. And what is 'known' to consciousness, contrary to what was thought after the Enlightenment, is virtually nothing; and it comes ready made from Ulric as a story told by Stanley.

STOP

Alfred - awake and aware

Ian – interviewer

Oliver – omniscient

Stanley – the storyteller

Ulric – the unconscious

Victor – vital force

William – witness

Zorba – the zombie

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/head-voices.html

*(NB not Walter as he was called in the last couple of posts.)