W.D. Hudson and Religious Beliefs

Some musings after reading the philosopher W.D. Hudson.


Yet again I've read Hudson's article titled, "What makes Religious Beliefs Religious." I've done this a few times over the years. It's the opening article in a Philosophy of Religion anthology I use. Hudson was a reader in Philosophy at the University of Exeter, and had quite the run of Philosophy articles in the 60s and 70s. He put out plenty of books too, apparently specializing in the study of Wittgenstein's philosophy as it could be applied to Religion.

In the article noted, he argues that religious belief is constituted by the concept of 'god'.  This special "constitution" relationship applies to particular claims (one's that can't be logically doubted) when they are made within a larger universe of discourse.  What's that mean? Well, take an example--in the universe of discourse about physics, it would make no sense to doubt that there are physical objects.  A physical science system is constituted by physical objects; or, more accurately, the concept of the former is constituted by the concept of the latter.  One can't make sense of a physical science system without importing the concept of physical objects.  So, in his big move on religion, Hudson likewise thinks one can't make sense of religion without importing the concept of 'god'.

At first, I was going to write that I'm not so big on armchair philosophizing--namely, where one deeply contemplates one's navel for a bit, and then comes back from The Brink to report one's own psychological feelings about connotations of words and meanings of statements.  But that would have been a lie, since I do it farily regularly. 

Even so, I certainly don't trust that method as a way of discovering what's true of reality.  Nor do I think it's the most reliable way to "do" philosophy, whatever that special activity is supposed to be.  Instead, my position is this: armchair philosophizing is merely a starting point for creative thinking, a way to begin setting-up the more rigorous project of mathematical and/or scientific reasoning.   (People used to freebasing too much Wittgenstein would vigorously disagree with this, I'd bet.  That's why one should take Wittgenstein only as supplement, and not as sustenance.)

I'll develop no extended response to Hudson, but I will leverage some of his arm-chairing to show the limitations of this method of philosophy.  Consider this snippet, appearing as it does toward the very end of the article:

"There are, no doubt, some logical limits on what can be discussed within any particular universe of discourse; it is difficult to conceive, for instance, of what a treatise on the chemistry of moral judgements or the morality of chemical equations could be about."[1]

I'll grant him it's futile to think about the morality of chemical equations.  Of course there is the morality of consequences, such as whether one should reveal deadly chemical equations to unscrupulous parties.   "Here, my terrorist friend, is an equation to make a bioweapon from baking soda and algae--overnite!"  But how bonkers to think that there's a moral principle about the equations themselves, such as whether 'Na + Cl2 -> 2NaCl' is more righteous than 'Cu + S -> CuS' due to some inherent property of the symbols or their arrangements.

In contrast, it seems much easier, even preferable, to concede there is a chemistry of moral judgement.  Maybe one is taken by this kind of approach:

1.  All types of brain states are electro-chemical, material states.
2.  All moral beliefs are types of brain states.
3.  So, all moral beliefs are electro-chemical, material states.

In this case, a treatise on the chemistry of moral judgements might look a whole lot like a treatise on genetics and neuro-pharmacology. Hudson's armchair philosophizing fails him. It may be hard to understand the chemistry of judgements, but it's no longer so hard to conceive what such a universe of discourse is about.  In fact, it's becoming frighteningly easy.


O.

References

[1] W.D. Hudson "What Makes Religious Beliefs Religious" Religious Studies 13 (1977) pp. 221-42.

Mirror Neurons/Systems Present Method Problems for Science

Giving empirical explanations for what mirror neurons are supposed to be doing in the brain ain't as easy as one might wish.

Mirror neurons are "a particular class of neurons, originally discovered in the ventral premotor cortex, that code goal-related motor acts such as grasping. Specifically, mirror neurons require action observation for their activation; they become active both when the subject makes a particular action and when it observes another subject making a similar action."[1] For example, implant wires in the appropriate region of a monkey's brain, and you can detect when these kinds of neurons fire. So when a monkey watches a researcher bring an object to his mouth (e.g. an ice cream cone), the same neurons will fire as if the monkey were bringing food to its own mouth.

Mirror neurons fire both when an animal sees or hears an action and when the animal carries out the same action on its own. Follow up studies showed the same kind of results in humans, though humans have a far more subtle and flexible set of such neurons. Further studies would show that mirror neurons are found in several areas of the brain, such as the premotor cortex, the posterior parietal lobe, and the superior temporal sulcus [see map]. But that might be several areas too many, as Greg Hickok of Talking Brains blog points out.

Mirror neurons have been associated with all sorts of social behaviors, such as detecting other minds, learning in children, aesthetic responses to dance and music, and even to why males like pornography. [2] Yet Hickok objected "if the mirror neuron system is really important for action understanding, then damage to action execution should result in action understanding deficits. I have pointed out that this prediction doesn't hold, either in apraxia or with more force in aphasia. "[3] If you're just brushing up on your brain malfunction vocabulary, recall that apraxia is an inability to make purposeful movements, while aphasia is an inability to use or understand language, spoken or written, because of a brain lesion.

Hickok also points out the common reply--namely, that of lots of areas with their own mirror neurons are working together--is not a good answer the problem, since this makes an alleged mirror system too powerful of an explanation. The matter was noted by a well-known philosopher of mind during discussions of the issue:

"At this point in the talk, Pat Churchland, who was my host, jumped in and said (and I paraphrase here), 'Now wait a minute. If mirror neurons are all over the brain then don't they lose their explanatory power? Aren't we now just back to our old friend, the How Does the Brain Work Problem?' "[3]

Hickok found this charge convincing, and now worries if mirror neurons' function can be empirically outlined at all, at least as distinct from other subsystems in the brain. Hickok's blog entry[3] and some of the comments therein are definitely worth a read.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] "Auditory Mirror Neurons" Mixing Memory Blog Oct. 2, 2006 (Accessed March 20, 2010) -- This is also a good article in itself about pianists and nonmusicians responses to watching others press keys on a silenced piano.

[1] Glossary of Terms Nature Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2002 (Accessed March 20, 2010)

[2] As an aside, I don't know who has the weirder job in this experiment, the researchers or the participants: Alison Motluk "Mirror neurons control erection response to porn" NewScientist June 2008 (Accessed March 20, 2010)

[3] Greg Hickok "Mirror Neurons - The Unfalsifiable Theory" March 19, 2010

On Brains, Science, and Political Positions

Recently I was sent an article by my old friend (literally, on both attributes) and theology teacher from seminary. The article was by George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics at Berkeley, and titled, "Obama, Tea Parties, and the Battle for our Brains."[1] The grand theolog rightly sniffed-out that something was fishy about this article, but he couldn't quite identify the problem.  (Since I was his T.A. some decades ago, he apparently thinks he can still simply assign me tasks at whim and I'll drop everything and jump right on them. Dang it -- apparently he's right!)

At the general level, the article is not too surprising: that the metaphors we use to mentally frame issues are often tied to how our brain processes bodily states. And since conscious mental states are also processed by the brain, it's not surprising that there would be shared processing structures, or similar processing structures involved in both mental processes and body-monitoring processes.

Again, that people use different metaphors to frame common issues, and then fight to understand one another is also well known. People have preferred metaphors, and words are not limited to strictly defined or precisely understood meanings. Yet, happily, metaphorical language can be decoded into less-metaphorical or even non-metaphorical language, the latter being what scientists do when they utilize mathematics and logic to explain and predict phenomenon. Reasoning with analytical languages give us the precision, understanding, and control of concepts that would otherwise be unavailable with natural languages.

Mr. Lakoff is a cognitive scientist and reports on studies that are well attested, and there's no reason to suspect his accuracy in recounting of those results. However, he seems to be defending a troublesome argument:

1. The vast majority of political reasoning by people is by metaphorical framing.
2. And those people who reason with metaphorical framing are people who are hearing only what they want to hear. Whether affirming or denying how they've framed the issue, the very re-statement of their frame simply reinforces it.
3. Therefore, the argument goes, people on the liberal and conservative sides of political issues are generally hearing only what they want to hear.

Furthermore, as an additional argument, he thinks conservatives of one brand or another are committed to eliminating any contrary positions, and any riding-the-fence positions, thus leaving their ideology as the only one around. After all, on Mr. Lakoff's analysis, conservatives think their position is the only one that "should" be around.

What can one make of all this? On my view, Mr. Lakoff draws a false dichotomy between what he misleadingly labels "real" reason and "false" reason, where the former is how people (allegedly) really think, and the latter is what is traditionally associated with Enlightenment ideals of reasoning. I would point out straightway how suspicious one should be of this bifurcation, as if somehow humans didn't use metaphorical framing during the Enlightenment era, or that humans are not deeply engaged in using the traditional kind of reason in science everyday. (Recall my math usage observation earlier.) Although I think the argument above is often an accurate portrayal of how the general populous operates, premiss one allows for other kinds of thinking (which Mr. Lakoff himself is doing), and premise two is plainly too strong; that people use metaphorical framing does not mean they are locked into it; it's just that people are generally ignorant, unwise, and easily manipulated -- a view of the citizenry that our U.S. founding fathers, themselves Enlightenment figures, mind you, were quite happy to maintain.

Mr. Lakoff wants his readers to think that there is a direct, uncomplicated circuit between metaphors and words in our brains, and even that "every word is neurally connected." This is complete poppy-cock. First, that every word has a location for a convenient connection has not been shown, not even partially, not even remotely. (Where is the word 'trinity' stored in my brain, or 'infinity'? Is 'stairway' stored as one word or two?) This is idle speculation tossed about as good science. Second, even if there were found circuits between metaphors and words, there would be a host of other branching circuits modulating and interfering with how that information is exchanged. Indeed, the average single neuron has 7,000 connections to it, so I hardly think that a simple, on/off mutual inhibition of brain circuits explains why, in Mr. Lakoff's words, "There is no moral system of the moderate or the middle." This claim is laughably simplistic, and all the more surprising coming from a scholar of Mr. Lakoff's level. Contrary to what computerniks wish, neurons are not like on/off switches, but fire in analog fashion and modulate the signals among one another with great subtlety and by means of complicated, even recursive feedback loops.

Granted, people can be pig-headed and stubborn, but they are not merely slaves to stimulus-response conditioning when it comes to abstract philosophical matters like politics. On the supposition that humans do have some level of free will, they can chose to reason using several different modalities, not just by their metaphorical framing. Oh but that they would pause for a while and recognize (or learn) that traditional reasoning has it's place in politics too, and can be beneficial for everyone in the political community!

REFERENCES

[image] ABC news

[1] George Lakoff, "Obama, Tea Parties and the Battle for Our Brains" Feb. 22 2010 Truthout (Accessed Feb. 27, 2010)

"The Core of Evil": Edgar Allan Poe Updated for the 21st Century

"The Core of Evil": Edgar Allan Poe Updated for the 21st Century


I. Preface

(Audio version) Because the English language, like all languages, evolves over time, sometimes even the best-written works can slowly become inaccessible to modern readers. Advances in science and technology give even well-attested words different connotations. Add to this the challenge of reading Victorian Era prose (1837-1901), and some works by classic authors can appear especially opaque. In this close paraphrase, I have made only a minimum number of changes necessary to bring the author's meaning forward into today's categories of thought. Where a change is made, it is to make the original thought more engaging, and thereby more accessible, to today's basic world-view than it could otherwise be when given the original work. Ultimately, the deepest and most insightful writers about the human condition take only the slightest tweaks to bring their positions back with a vengeance.

II. Introduction

As a Philosopher of Mind, I was immediately struck that Poe is offering something like an analysis of consciousness in his The Imp of the Perverse, an essay which initially addresses psychology-like themes but which then transitions into a short-story. It appears that freewill, non-conscious (or, perhaps, sub-conscious) processing, and personal identity issues seemingly all make appearances within this work. In Poe's time, the relationship between mind and brain was not understood, and it is only haphazardly understood even today, if at all, and with many controversies at immediate issue for anyone who cares to skim the literature. Phrenology, transcendentalism, and various strains of religious metaphysics all melded together into victorian folk-views of mind, which persons would have been perfectly comfortable talking about ghosts, spirits, and other such (to our minds) Halloween-appropriate entities.

-- B. Montgomery 7/9/2009 ]

III. "The Core of Evil"

In the consideration of the mental faculties and neuro- impulses -- of the basic movements within the human "soul," to use an antique term, the popular notions of psychology have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible emotion, has been equally overlooked by all the religious advisors and ethics counsellors who have preceded such psychologists. In our pure intoxication with science, we have indeed all overlooked it. Even so-called intellectuals have suffered its existence to escape their senses, solely through want of belief -- of faith; -- whether it be faith in God-imparted revelations, or faith in the seemingly magical properties of Quantum theory or String cosmology. The idea of this propensity has never occurred to us, simply because of what it demands of us to confront. We saw no need to account for something apparently outright extraneous. We could not understand, that is to say, we could not have understood, had the notion of this basic movement within ever imposed itself; -- we could not have understood in what manner it might be made to further the technological advancement of greater society or its individual citizens, either immediately or at some distant, space-colonized future.

It cannot be denied that the popular views of the human mind and, in great measure, all transcendental mumbo-jumbo about the human soul has been concocted by means of arm-chair speculation. The intellectual or logical person, as contrasted with the understanding or observant one, set himself to imagine essential designs -- as if to dictate purposes to God Almighty. Having thus fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Deity Itself, out of these intentions the arm-chair speculator built innumerable systems about what is this thing called Mind. In the matter of common sense thinking, for example, we first determined, naturally enough, that it was the design of God that humans should eat. We then assigned to every human a neural structure, or brain module, perhaps; and this tiny, electro-chemical sub-section of neurons becomes the scourge with which God compels humans, whether dieting or not, into eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that humans should continue the species, we discovered all sorts of brain structures consistent with our expectations.

And so as with equally aggressive ideals about how the mind works,--so too, in short, with any other pet psychological theory about ethics or creativity we happen to come up with. And in these arrangements of some Grand Theory of human action, psychologists, whether right or wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their predecessors: deducing and establishing every thing from their preconceived notions of humanity, and upon the ground of the objects of God, if they are pious; or of the more mysterious fathoms of physics theories, if they are not.

It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify (if classify we must) upon the basis of what humans usually or occasionally did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than upon the basis of what we took it for granted God intended them to do. If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in God's inconceivable thoughts by which God put all of reality together? If we cannot understand God by studying the concrete examples of biological creatures, how then in God's metaphysical relations which were brought to bear in designing it all?

Induction -- that is, straight-forward observation should have brought popular psychology to admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more nuanced, scientific term. In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, an instinctive drive with no accompanying evolutionary goal. Through its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a biological contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the claim as to say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we should not.

In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable, but, in fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to irresistible action. Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of philosophical analysis, or scientific resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive impulse-elementary part of human nature.

It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the defensiveness of popular views of the mind. But a glance will show the error of this idea. The defensiveness of what we might dub, 'folk psychology' has for its essence, the necessity of rationalizing our own behaviors. It is our safeguard against injury to our self-concept. Its principle regards our psychological well-being; and thus the desire to be well is coordinated simultaneously with its development. It follows, that the desire to be well-adjusted individuals must be balanced simultaneously with any principle which shall be merely a modification of animal-like aggression toward others, but in the case of that something which I term 'perverseness', the desire to be well-adjusted individuals is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment, a primitive self-destructive combative emotional disposition exists in every human being, everywhere.

An appeal to one's own heart is, after all, the best reply to the kind of deceptive, folk-psychology bullshit in currency today. No one who trustingly consults and thoroughly questions his own inner-self, will be disposed to deny the entire radicalness of the propensity in question. It is a more obvious truth about human nature even than it is paradoxical fact about the mind. There lives no person who at some period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to tantalize a listener by subtly evasive talk. The speaker is aware that he displeases; still, he has every intention to please, such a person might usually be curt, precise, and clear, the most concise and illuminating language is struggling for utterance upon his tongue, it is only with difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the thought strikes the speaker, that by certain intricacies and complexities and by little additions now and then this anger of the listener may be carefully stocked. That tiny seed of a thought toward evasiveness in the speaker is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and embarrassment of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences) is then indulged.

Or again, suppose we have a task before us which is of some urgency to be performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. Maybe even the most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole mind is begging to take on the task. It must, it shall be undertaken today, and yet we put it off until tomorrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, obstinately persisting in the error of our own fault; wrongly self-willed or stubborn, and without our even being aware of it. Tomorrow arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do that to which we've committed ourselves so strongly, but with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving gathers strength as the moments tick by. The last hour for action is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us, -- of the definite with the indefinite -- of the substance with the shadow. But, if the wrestling with ourselves proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails, -- we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is an ominous sound for our happiness. At the same time, this odd and irrational delay on our part is a funeral song, somber notes to the ghost that has so long overawed us. But then it suddenly flies away at the last possible second -- it disappears -- we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now surely! Alas, by that time it is however, by far, too late for action!

We now stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genie in the Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge, there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genie or any demon of a fairy-tale, and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which electrifies the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is equal to the idea of what would be our sensations during the first few seconds of a fall from a great height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation- for the very reason that it involves that one most despicable and loathsome of all the most despicable and loathsome images of death and torture which have ever presented themselves to our imagination -- for this horrid, contemplated act do we now most vividly desire, we both loathe it and yet lust for it. And because our reason violently claws us away from this brink, therefore we want it all the more so. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of a person who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a jump to his own doom. To indulge, just for a moment, in any attempt at the thought, is to be inevitably lost; for even a tiny bit of reflection would urge us to halt such an insane commitment to act, and therefore it is, I claim, that we cannot halt it. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to drag ourselves backward from the abyss, we will plunge, and be destroyed by our own now fragmented will.

Examine these similar actions as much as we will; nevertheless, we shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the perverse. We perpetrate them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no reasoned motivation nor rational goal; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct instigation of some unholy, medieval demon, were it not occasionally for the blind luck of random chance allowing people to occasionally live through such horrid acts.

I have brought up this whole issue, that in some measure I may answer your question, that I may explain to you why I am here as I am now, that I may assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause for my wearing these orange coveralls, and for my tenanting this cell on death row. Had I not been so careful to expand on the issue, you might either have misunderstood me altogether, or, like other slack-jawed ignoramuses, have fancied me insane. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many uncounted victims of this perversity, this Seed of Evil found in every human being.

It is impossible that any one's deed could have been wrought with a more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading some french memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a scented candle accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not irritate you with impertinent details. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bed-room night-stand, a cotton wick of my own making for the one which I there found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and The Coroner's verdict was -- "Death by accidental aerosol poisoning."

Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of the fatal wick I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no shadow of a clue by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a feeling of satisfaction arose in my heart as I reflected upon my absolute security from detection. For a very long period of time I was accustomed to revel in this feeling. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere financial advantages accruing from my dastardly deed. But there arrived at length a barely discernible moment, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing thought. It harassed because it haunted. I could scarcely get rid of it for an instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the recurrence in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the burden of some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an advertisement repeated ad nauseam on the radio or TV. Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in itself happens to be good, or the music's style to be our preferred. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually catch myself pondering upon my security from detection, and repeating, in a low undertone, the phrase, "I am safe."

One day, while sauntering around a mall, I caught myself up short in the act of murmuring, half aloud, certain customary words. But in a fit of irritability, I now said them thus; "I am safe -- I am safe- yes -- if I'm not fool enough to make open confession!"

No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an electric chill creep toward my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity, (whose nature I earlier took some trouble to explain), and I remembered well that in no instance had I ever successfully resisted their attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of which I had been guilty, confronted me, as if it were the very ghost of him whom I had murdered -- and beckoned me on to death.

At first, I made an effort to shake off these nightmarish thoughts. I walked vigorously -- faster -- still faster -- at length I ran. I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well understood that merely to think such, in my situation, was to be lost. I still more quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the crowded stores, stumbling down escalators, racing through the expansive mall-ways. At length, people took alarm, and security took pursuit. I felt then the consummation of my fate. If I could have torn out my tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears -- a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned -- I gasped for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The long imprisoned secret burst forth from some deepest, hidden part of my mind.

They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before concluding the brief, but pregnant sentences that consigned me to the injection chamber and to hell.

Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial conviction, I collapsed into blackness.

But why shall I say more? Today I wear this orange, and sit alone in a steel and concrete cell, and am here! Tomorrow I shall be cell-less! -- but where?

The End



REFERENCES

[ * ] Poe's original (p. 1845/46) story can be found here:

Edgar Allan Poe "The Imp of the Perverse" Classic Literature About.com (Accessed July 7, 2009)

[ * ] I was motivated to do an updated translation of Poe's essay by an article I recently read in The New York times:

Benedict Carey "Why the Imp in Your Brain Gets Out" New York Times July 6, 2009.

[ * ] Mr. Carey's story relies on the following recently published scientific paper:

Daniel M. Wegner, "How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion" Science 3 July 3 2009:Vol. 325. no. 5936, pp. 48 - 50. DOI: 10.1126/science.1167346

[ * ] If you enjoyed this paraphrase, and can think other Victorian Era English essays which might be effectively translated into 21st century concepts, I hope you'll take the time to link them by means of your comments. -- B.A.M.

O.

Oxytocin: love potion #9.1

Supposed you were to pick-out an arbitrary person from your country. Would you trust them? The development of trust is essential for appropriate social interactions, thus why Paul Zak investigates how people come to trust one another. There is a neurochemical, oxytocin, which influences an individual's propensity to trust a stranger under neutral conditions.[1] Oxytocin has been identified as relevant to a whole host of activities, and probably also to the advantages of social ties:

"Social ties are known to reduce morbidity and mortality, and those who engage in more social interactions are less stressed physiologically. Animal models identify a prominent role for the neuroactive hormone oxytocin (OT) in facilitating various social behaviors, including social recognition, maternal attachment, and, in some species, pair bonding. Recent work has demonstrated that oxytocin infusion and social support during public speaking reduces stress responses."[2]

So where does this magic neurochemical come from? "Oxytocin is a nine amino acid peptide that is synthesized in hypothalamic neurons and transported down axons of the posterior pituitary for secretion into blood. [It] is "also secreted within the brain and from a few other tissues."[3] The hypothalamus releases oxytocin into the blood by means of the pituitary gland, though it can also be delivered directly to parts of the brain or spinal cord, there binding with special oxytocin receptors which allow it to influence physiology and behavior.[4]

After understanding at least some of the natural effects of oxytocin, the question of whether it can be artificially administered to affect behavior or solve some medical problem becomes an issue. There are some studies on harnassing oxytocin for medical use:

"Adults diagnosed with autism or Asperger's disorder who received oxytocin injections showed an improved ability to identify emotional content on a speech comprehension task, while those on a placebo did not.[4]"

Eric Hollander, the medical doctor doing this research, thinks such "findings suggest that oxytocin might facilitate social information processing in those with autism, and provide preliminary support for the use of oxytocin in the treatment of autism."[4]

Another interesting theory on the effects of oxytocin comes from Sue Carter, co-director of the Brain Body Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Oxytocin, acting in part through effects on the autonomic nervous system, might allow what other researchers have termed, 'immobility without fear.' She writes, "In other words, oxytocin may in general protect the nervous system from shutting down in the face of stressful circumstances, especially those that require holding still rather than fighting or fleeing."[4]

Given the above observation, perhaps well-timed injections of oxytocin would be of benefit to military members hoping to control stress during combat operations. The military is well known to use pharmaceuticals to enhance mission effectiveness, and this might be one more opportunity for such activity. Oddly enough, such use might also have the side-effect of making the soldier-recipients of these injections more trusting, generous, and social than they might otherwise be,[5] thus changing their whole attitude in evaluating the threat-level of enemy forces. "Make love, not war; do unto others, dude," is hardly an effective battle cry.

O.


REFERENCES

[1] Paul J. Zak "The Neurobiology of Trust" Scientific American (May 2008), p.95

[2] Paul J. Zak, Robert Kurzban, and William Matzner "The Neurobiology of Trust" New York Academy of Sciences. (2004) 1032: 224–227 (Accessed 10/16/2008)

[3] "Oxytocin" Hypertexts for Biomedical Sciences (Accessed 10/16/2008)

[4] Tori DeAngelis "The two faces of oxytocin" Monitor on Psychology 39:2 February 2008. (Accessed 10/16/2008)

[5] "Can oxytocin promote trust and generosity?" Monitor on Psychology 39:2 February 2008. (Accessed 10/16/2008)

Ethics: damned utilitarian if you do; damned by utilitarians if you don't

For sometime it has been known that the brain is divided up into specialized modules. For example, vision is processed in the back of the brain, while abstract reasoning and planning is processed primarily in the front of the brain. And more basic emotions, such as fear and anger, are controlled by the limbic system, which roughly occupies the center of the brain. However, even further advances in brain function have revealed some vexing issues for ethics.

Consider the an old standby, double-sided thought experiment that challenges those who think ethics is merely a version of risk assessment or a type of pain/pleasure accounting.

First, imagine that you're standing next to a fork in the train-tracks, and before you is a lever that changes the direction the train will take. Sadly, the train can not be stopped, and if left to progress along its path, it will run over and kill 5 people standing at the end of the tracks. But if you pull the lever the train will change directions, killing but a single person standing at the other side of that fork. What do you do?

Second, take the train situation again, but this time you're standing on a bridge which crosses over the tracks. Also, there's only one direction the train can go; still, at the end there are 5 people that will be killed. You know that the only way to stop the train is by throwing some sort of heavy object in it's path. Alas, the only heavy object at your disposal at the moment happens to be a very portly man standing next to you on the bridge. What do you do?

If you survey people, a bit under 90% will pull the lever to save the five people, and kill the one person in the first scenario. But over 90% of the people will refuse to push the portly man over the bridge to save the second group of five. The odd problem is that a merely bean counting view of ethics, attending to just the risks or the consequences, should result in the scenarios being assessed the same: one dies, and five live! But, in fact, this is not how people actually behave. Therefore, ethical assessment is not analogous, say, to financial assessment.

Brain scientists have an explanation for why this is so, and thus why ethics must be something other than bottom-line type thinking. Some of our reasoned ethical decisions are processed in one area (at least) in the brain, but some are also processed in a more specific part -- the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which has to do with guilt, shame, and compassion. Both general reasoning and the unique emotions particular to humans are essential marks of our species, but neither can be easily argued to trump the other for decision making. This is why the train experiments cause us such consternation. Ethics is a troublesome business, but when recent developments in brain science are thrown in, we recognize just how much subtlety there really is to moral choice.


O.

[image] by Gary Larson, from David O. Brink "Philosophy 13: Ethics, Fall Quarter, 2003" (Accessed July 14,2008)