Ray, glad to see you came through the storm ok and are back online!
Barry
On Nov 1, 2012, at 1:47 AM, Ray Harrell wrote:
http://www1.georgetown.edu/departments/justice_peace/research/theses/theses2005/nagle_mary.pdf
This is from my hometown. Many of the trials Mary faced were the
same for me and my friends including the allergies, the inability to
manipulate symbols in memory and of course the cancer caused by
heavy metal pollution. People who never smoked have squamus cell
carcinoma of the lungs. Squamus cell is caused by sunlight but
the sun don't shine in the lungs or where I had my cancer. The
Doctors and scientists in this little play, taught me to mistrust
them when I was young in the Tri-state area. That was a good
lesson considering the health issues missed completely by most of my
"regular" doctors. On the other hand the people who found my
health problems were immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and
Africa. I owe them my life, vision, breath and heart.
Now, I think what these neurologists are calling "empathy" is a
little too simple for the tool that actors use with great skill and
that traditional healers call the entrance into the Dark world.
These scientists seem unsure of what exactly they are calling
empathy. I would also suggest that students are not the ideal
selection for knowing what the human learning process is capable
of. Can you imagine making judgments about the potential for
concert pianists drawn from six year olds with undeveloped hands?
There is a big lack of knowledge and information and most of all the
researchers seem afraid of bad judgment. That fear makes them all
touchy/feely around the word empathy. That is not true empathy
based in reflective action and genuine knowledge but just stage
fright. Medical science is still poor at their defining of the
mechanisms of empathy and they are positively primal when they try
to define the system of emotions. They don't even define the
different between emotion and the Interoceptive processes. English
has a problem with "feeling." On the other hand a person who has
inadequate information about the long term effects of a given
situation often falls back on what he/she calls logic, but I call
idiocy and Ruskin called stupid self interest. (The paper I sent
by Ruskin last week adequately explained what I mean.) But our's
is an age of self stimulation and inadequate dialogue. A time
when "tweets" are considered great truths and pulp newspapers are
the closest we have to philosophy. It's a bad time to be
practicing the science that makes the extraordinary ordinary. But
that is the root of the word virtuosity. The prior to science that
makes science a possibility.
Without virtuosity taught to Galileo Galilei by his father Vencenzo
and the great scholars of the Florentine Camerata di Bardi, science
would have never had Galilei.
Science as predictability and generic process is forgotten and the
Domain of science is turned into a mechanistic universe that is
inadequate at best and terminal under most circumstances. In other
words it's just bad systems thinking and resembles nothing more deep
than office politics. It's so political and subjective that the
whole concept of Formal Knowledge is tossed on the garbage heap with
the Artist. Consider how science is letting politics run its
world in the areas of space, weather satellites, stem cells and
evolution.
Scientists and Economists have destroyed the brand to the point that
Italians are jailing scientists and America doesn't know what to
think as the climate goes to hell. The graduate students that I
teach come to school with no concept whatsoever of the role of
organizational domains in the individual, in society or in the
organizational groups like churches and synagogues where they will
work. They have been so convinced, by bad preachers and arrogant
physicists, that the function of art and religion is nothing more
than superstition. Their books are simple minded and ignorant.
Even as a high school student reading "Why I'm not a Christian" by
Bertrand Russell I found his arguments silly and shallow. Now let
me say that I like Lord Russell, especially when he stood up to the
world and pointed out the U.S. and Russia had a much greater
capacity for Evil than Hitler because Hitler didn't have the
potential to destroy the whole world and we did. But his
religious discussion was flawed and his understanding of the purpose
of the God function was evangelical fundamentalism and is the same
for Richard Dawkins. We've seen such scientists effects on
American Culture and religion. Now they have ruined us they are
turning on themselves just as Hitler turned on the German Jews with
simpleminded lies. The great existential Theologians like Paul
Tillich and Martin Buber are much more in tune with the current
exploration of God as a choice of what one finds fundamental to
their lives rather than arguing about what one is incapable of
knowing or proving. Tillich called it "Ultimate Concern."
Period, end of discussion. Dawkins has an Ultimate Concern as did
Russell and that is the "God" they chose for their lives, end of
story.
As for Neurology. Its time is now but it has, like anthropology, a
checkered history. In the past it has been much more supportive
of conservative ideas that developmental. When I took my neuro-
anatomy course thirty years ago they really didn't know much more
than we did about the floor of the ocean. Now, a whole group of
sciences is making it more available, testable and even the
political conservatives who don't want to be the idiots of history,
have embraced the Arts now as the Foundations of perception and
technical processes. But for years the Arts have been butchered
by the neurologists who spoke of "correlation" between intelligence
and the arts. Oops now they call it "foundational" to the
development of intelligence and all of the failed artists for want
of food, clothing and shelter are on the garbage heap of
history. The official story is that these heroes were really
people addicted to playing with entertainment when the scientists
have a very poor definition of what they call entertainment.
Now what is more sensible as in sens-able then the sensorium being
essential to intelligence? How could they not have known it when
Ruskin fought with J.S. Mill and was correct although the world
followed Mill. How could they not know that technical systems
that develop the Sensorium, i.e. Art, are priors to all of the tools
that evolve in the human mind?
Can you imagine a preacher, banker, teacher, politician, scientist
or doctor being such with no perceptivity? If the instrument is
poor the system is ill equipped to do the work. Even the broken
instrument of Steven Hawking has some very highly developed senses
by which to gather and compare information. Without them he would
be as would we all, simple blank slates. Sometimes a venturi
effect can squeeze something so tight that reality enters another
realm but if there is simply no hole for any information to slip
through and be processed then there is no life as we know it for
intelligence to flower.
REH
From: Steve Kurtz [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 7:30 PM
Subject: Empathy represses analytic thought, and vice versa: Brain
physiology limits simultaneous use of both networks
This is very significant in my opinion.
Steve
Empathy Represses Analytic Thought, and Vice Versa: Brain Physiology
Limits Simultaneous Use of Both Networks
Science Daily
Increasingly we know how the mind operates. Yet we do not integrate
this knowledge when developing social policies. Ideology and
theology are more important.
The research is published in the current online issue of NeuroImage.
Sources:
Case Western Reserve University (2012, October 30). Empathy
represses analytic thought, and vice versa: Brain physiology limits
simultaneous use of both networks. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October
30, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/
2012/10/121030161416.htm
Anthony I. Jack, Abigail Dawson, Katelyn Begany, Regina L. Leckie,
Kevin Barry, Angela Ciccia, Abraham Snyder. fMRI reveals reciprocal
inhibition between social and physical cognitive domains.
NeuroImage, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.061
New research shows a simple reason why even the most intelligent,
complex brains can be taken by a swindler's story -- one that upon a
second look offers clues it was false.
When the brain fires up the network of neurons that allows us to
empathize, it suppresses the network used for analysis, a pivotal
study led by a Case Western Reserve University researcher shows.
How could a CEO be so blind to the public relations fiasco his cost-
cutting decision has made?
When the analytic network is engaged, our ability to appreciate the
human cost of our action is repressed.
At rest, our brains cycle between the social and analytical
networks. But when presented with a task, healthy adults engage the
appropriate neural pathway, the researchers found.
The study shows for the first time that we have a built-in neural
constraint on our ability to be both empathetic and analytic at the
same time
The work suggests that established theories about two competing
networks within the brain must be revised. More, it provides
insights into the operation of a healthy mind versus those of the
mentally ill or developmentally disabled.
"This is the cognitive structure we've evolved," said Anthony Jack,
an assistant professor of cognitive science at Case Western Reserve
and lead author of the new study. "Empathetic and analytic thinking
are, at least to some extent, mutually exclusive in the brain."
A number of earlier studies showed that two large scale brain
networks are in tension in the brain, one which is known as the
default mode network and a second known as the task positive
network. But other researchers have suggested that different
mechanisms drive this tension:
One theory says that we have one network for engaging in goal
directed tasks. This theory posits that our second network allows
the mind to wander.
The other theory says that one network is for external attention,
and the second network is for internal attention.
The new study shows that adults presented with social or analytical
problems -- all external stimuli -- consistently engaged the
appropriate neural pathway to solve the problem, while repressing
the other pathway. The see-sawing brain activity was recorded using
functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Jack worked with former Case Western Reserve undergraduates Abigail
Dawson, now a graduate student at the University of Otago in
Dunedin, New Zealand; Katelyn Begany, now a graduate student at the
University of California, Berkeley; and Kevin P. Barry, now a
graduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Other co-
authors are, from Case Western Reserve: former research assistant,
Regina L. Leckie and Angela H. Ciccia, an assistant professor of
psychological sciences; and Abraham Z. Snyder, MD, a professor of
radiology at Washington University in St. Louis.
Jack said that a philosophical question inspired the study design:
"The most persistent question in the philosophy of mind is the
problem of consciousness. Why can we describe the workings of a
brain, but that doesn't tell us what it's like to be that person?"
"The disconnect between experiential understanding and scientific
understanding is known as the explanatory gap," Jack said. "In 2006,
the philosopher Philip Robbins and I got together and we came up
with a pretty crazy, bold hypothesis: that the explanatory gap is
driven by our neural structure. I was genuinely surprised to see how
powerfully these findings fit that theory." Philip Robbins is an
associate professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri.
These findings suggest the same neural phenomenon drives the
explanatory gap as occurs when we look at a visual illusion such as
the duck-rabbit, he continued. The drawing of the head of the animal
can be seen as a duck facing one direction or a rabbit facing the
other, but you can't see both at once.
"That is called perceptual rivalry, and it occurs because of neural
inhibition between the two representations," Jack said. "What we see
in this study is similar, but much more wide-scale. We see neural
inhibition between the entire brain network we use to socially,
emotionally and morally engage with others, and the entire network
we use for scientific, mathematical and logical reasoning.
"This shows scientific accounts really do leave something out -- the
human touch. A major challenge for the science of the mind is how we
can better translate between the cold and distant mechanical
descriptions that neuroscience produces, and the emotionally engaged
intuitive understanding which allows us to relate to one another as
people."
The researchers recruited 45 healthy college students, and asked
each to take five 10-minute turns inside a magnetic resonance
imager. Meanwhile, the researchers randomly presented them with 20
written and 20 video problems that required them to think about how
others might feel and with 20 written and 20 video problems that
required physics to solve.
After reading the text or viewing the video, the students had to
provide an answer to a yes-no question within seven seconds. Each
student's session in the MRI included twenty 27-second rest periods,
as well as variable delays between trials lasting 1, 3 or 5 seconds.
Students were told to look at a red cross on the screen in front of
them and relax during the rests.
The MRI images showed that social problems deactivated brain regions
associated with analysis, and activated the social network. This
finding held true whether the questions came via video or print.
Meanwhile, the physics questions deactivated the brain regions
associated with empathizing and activated the analytical network.
"When subjects are lying in a scanner with nothing to do, which we
call the resting state, they naturally cycle between the two
networks," Jack said. "This tells us that it's the structure of the
adult brain that is driving this, that it's a physiological
constraint on cognition."
The finding has bearings on a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders,
from anxiety, depression and ADHD to schizophrenia -- all of which
are characterized by social dysfunction of some sort, Jack said.
"Treatment needs to target a balance between these two networks. At
present most rehabilitation, and more broadly most educational
efforts of any sort, focus on tuning up the analytic network. Yet,
we found more cortex dedicated to the social network."
Perhaps most clearly, the theory makes sense in regards to
developmental disabilities such as autism and Williams syndrome.
Autism is often characterized by a strong ability to solve
visuospatial problems, such as mentally manipulating two and three-
dimensional figures, but poor social skills. People with Williams
syndrome are very warm and friendly, but perform poorly on
visuospatial tests.
But, even healthy adults can rely too much on one network, Jack
said. A look at newspaper business pages offers some examples.
"You want the CEO of a company to be highly analytical in order to
run a company efficiently, otherwise it will go out of business," he
said. "But, you can lose your moral compass if you get stuck in an
analytic way of thinking."
"You'll never get by without both networks," Jack continued. "You
don't want to favor one, but cycle efficiently between them, and
employ the right network at the right time."
The researchers continue to test the theory, studying whether brains
will shift from the social network to the analytical when students
in the MRI see people depicted in a dehumanizing way, that is, as
animals or objects. The group is also studying whether disgust and
social stereotyping confound our moral compass by recruiting the
analytical network and depressing social network activity.
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