Category: Brain
Jumpstarting the Mind to “Wake Up”
Many scholars who study the mind describe individuals as having an original sense of wholeness, or self. As a child, this sense of self is active, adaptable, energetic, curious, and creative. It is unencumbered by problems, with an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions. Along the way, we develop an ego, and living a joyful, stress-free, and fear-free life turns problematic. We experience worries, anxieties, uninhibited thoughts, fears, overwhelming feelings, and seeing no way out of difficult circumstances. When these negative experiences persist and affect our mood, thinking, and behavior, they disrupt the normal flow, joy, and unity of life and obscure its natural wonder. When the interruptions and disruptions become unmanageable, they are the basis for physical and mental disorders, autoimmune and emotional disturbances, heart problems, addictive behaviors, and suicidal ideation. Even worse, if negative ideations become a recurring issue, the inevitable consequence is psychopathology.
What is the source of this problem? The major reason seems to be that out of the original unity to which we are born, a separate ego crystallizes during development. Individuation or ego-self differentiation is a normal aspect of development, but the schism between what is real and what is not creates problems when not understood. Ego creates an illusion of separation, as it emerges from the normal push-pull dynamics of resisting and accepting what life presents. Many justified reasons, including our initial dependency and the potential harm negative experiences have on an immature mind, make our tendency to resist life more prevalent than our acceptance of it. Over time, resistance becomes stronger, reified, and real to the point we identify it as our true self and as our exclusive response to life.
Numerous solutions to the ego-self differentiation problem have been put forth from behavioral, psychological, and spiritual perspectives. The most enduring solutions are those that help us understand the source of the conflict and, from that point of view, its solution. In my book, Transforming Anxiety into Creativity, I recognize and understand the problem by combining a neuroscience background with a personal understanding of the mind based on knowledge and experience with Zen Buddhism. The solutions I present are easy to understand and available. Yet, they are difficult to put into action, as they call for a genuine change in perception and awareness.
What is the principal message? That awakening and self-realization are psychological and spiritual solutions to ego-self differentiation. From a spiritual viewpoint, awakening or “waking up” refers to understanding one’s true nature, the unity of life, and our role in this greater sense of connection. It means you wake up from the illusion, the dream-like experience in which you feel separated from life, to the recognition that you are and always have been integrated with it. This recognition of unity is a remembrance, a going back to what you once knew.
Far too few people recognize the source of their mental suffering and the ability they have to do something about it. As Henry David Thoreau put it, “The mass of men leads lives of quiet desperation.” Likewise, many descriptions of the spiritual awakening experience are too confusing to be helpful. These descriptions, however, boil down to the notion that one must first recognize “that belief in my thoughts is not in any way definitive of my true inner self.” This simple yet powerful insight starts the process of de-identification with the egoic mind.
When de-identification takes hold and you can honestly say, “I don’t believe that thought,” it is like the sudden giving way to the bottom of a pail of water. The filters through which the world is experienced are metaphorically cleared and cleansed. Your ego or “I” momentarily disappears in a rush of awareness, liberated from identification with resistance to life. The expansive consciousness, obscured by the limited ego, is suddenly liberated and appreciated. You become conscious of being conscious and encounter unlimited awareness. The experience brings a sense of freshness to the wonder of sense perception and of who you are.
This awakening experience is a process, one that can be gradual (including multiple small awakenings) or fast(er). Neither fast nor slow is better or worse, they only differ in the timing of the changes experienced. Our culture makes us skeptical of fast means since they bring to mind miracle-like processes, with not enough time to understand them. Thus, there is more discussion and focus on slow means. Like seeing a therapist, we recognize it may take a dozen or more years to resolve the issues. Slow solutions, like mindfulness meditation, spiritual study, ethics, and prayer, seem rational, are more likely to lead to a positive outcome, provide longer lasting solutions, require less effort, etc. In reality, our deceptive egoic mind creates these “explanations.” De-identification with thoughts means its own disappearance and so it wisely favors a slower demise. Yet, with one immediate change in perspective, which we are all capable of doing, we can jumpstart the mind to wake up.
Traditions like Yoga, Vedanta and Buddhism agree that the end goal of awakening, or enlightenment, is already here and now, that it is our true nature — or the true nature of reality. Thus, not that we have to achieve or become it, we simply need to remove the obstacles (the egoic mind) to realize its expression. Thus, knowing that you once held this treasure differs from never having had possession of it. So, above all else, the path to awakening requires the conviction that what you aspire to is real, since you once had it. While you may no longer identify with such a mind, you have not lost it, and it is possible to recover. This journey to waking up is a voyage of rediscovery.
The two broad approaches to removing the obstacle of the egoic mind are to either emphasize the need to transform and purify the mind (or even transcend it altogether). This is the gradual approach carried out through practices such as meditation, spiritual study, ethics, devotion, etc. Or, the fast(er) approach, which emphasizes the “already present” aspect of enlightenment. This focuses the teachings more around inquiring into your true nature and simply living in the present with non-attachment.
Living in the present with non-attachment provides an immediate doorway for a return to the extraordinary mind you once had, the one associated with a joyful and creative life. This is not a novel idea, but there are now science-based explanations for why such a switch works. Bringing attention to the immediacy of the moment changes the focus of attention from the mind’s ruminations of the past and future to the awareness of present circumstances and holding such thoughts in awareness. Nonattachment means not getting emotionally involved with the thoughts, but observing each mental dustup that arises without judgment. This is the most important action to implement. When done correctly, living in the present with non-attachment stops anxious, unmanageable thoughts in their tracks. The effect is immediate and, with practice, long-lasting.
That turning point, a longer-lasting experience of the present moment, marks the awakening experience and a recognition of the original unity you once had. It is a rebirth in which you find yourself childlike, but with greater appreciation. The opportunity for true living opens up—an ability to see things as they really are, without resisting them, and a genuine enjoyment of life.
If you have questions, direct them to: jpineda@ucsd.edu.
A Neuroscientist’s Spiritual Journey: The Podcast
My passion at this point in life is to share my professional and spiritual insights with others. This podcast is one such attempt. Here is where you can find it:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmga5Z4JdHziQjtCdnVhYuw/videos
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-middle-way-with-dr-matthew-goodman/id1566423470
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/24QlEy5FOCTSQTWjsoOCRZ
In my creative endeavors, I try to explore how true seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinking can quiet the overactive mind and how this allows silence to become the fountain of creative thought. From such silence, I’ve experienced the emergence of a new perception and awareness. This awareness of unity is infused with intrinsic joy, love, and empathy towards others, and filled with a deep and uncompromising dedication to what is true and real.
Professionally, I am Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. Having joined the Department of Cognitive Science at UCSD as a founding faculty member in 1989, I remained for the rest of my 28-year academic career. My hope is that my work impacted and inspired generations of undergraduate and graduate students to take on hard questions in the neurobiology of the human mind.
I have authored many widely cited papers in animal and human cognitive and systems neuroscience and edited one academic book (Mirror Neuron Systems: The Role of Mirroring Processes in Social Cognition). This book is a collection of research on the functional significance of mirror neurons, which includes my work on autism. It is one of the most cited and downloaded books in the field.
For the last twenty years, I became interested in spiritual matters as a bridge to a fuller understanding of the mind. This led me to explore Zen Buddhism, train with a master teacher, and develop my creative side. This led to the publication of two books of poetry (Quieting of a Mind and Dawning of a New Mind) focusing on mind-brain relationships with an emphasis on spirituality, mysticism, environmentalism, and social activism. Most recently, I published the story of my journey and the bridging of science and spirituality (Piercing the Cloud: Encountering the Real Me).
Can Brain Evolution Teach Us Anything About Conflict?
The Russia-Ukraine war playing out on television these last two weeks has produced a helpless feeling of not being able to help. Yet, it has motivated me to explore alternative ways to be of use. This essay represents a small way of using what I know to consider future answers to such conflicts.
The 21st century is well on its way to becoming the era of translational biological information. This means we are applying the vast amount of knowledge gathered over the last century to change the world for the better. Our modern economy, law, politics, and the military reflect this process. These are several of the many institutions in society that owe a great deal to the growing understanding of the mind. Advertising, marketing, focus groups, negotiations, ethics, law, and intelligence work—all rely on awareness of how we think and decide. From genetics to personalized medicine, the study of the human mind sits at the edge of a truly transformational time. We know well the link between malnutrition and depression, while we learn more every day about the role depression plays in mild cognitive impairment. Other findings, such as the effects that microbiome bacteria in our stomachs have on cognition, are nothing short of extraordinary.
For the past century and a half, we have learned that changes in our brain result in modifications to the mind and to our personality. Tools to study and learn these brain-mind relationships, such as deep brain stimulation, have moved us from indirect to more direct mapping. We have discovered ways to know how people decide and think, and how it is we communicate with each other. A more recent development in neuroplasticity is that modifications to our personality can cause changes to our brains. Mindfulness meditation to manage stress rewires unhealthy circuits in the brain, such as the HPA axis response.
What such insights have produced is not only a better grasp of how information processing affects perception and cognition but how, through extensive training, we can extend our personal and sociocultural boundaries. Neurotechnology, one of the new sciences in this contemporary world, has developed methods for treating and repairing soldiers injured in battle. It has figured out how we move cursors across a screen through the power of thought and how to control an advanced prosthetic arm in the same way. Neurotechnology restores the sensation of touch to an individual with severe neuro-degenerative injury.
The consequences of this new science, however, are not always positive. In the name of national security and warfare preparation, neuropsychological training also eases individuals into controversial tasks, such as killing. Thoughts control the flying of drones. Pharmaceuticals help soldiers forget traumatic experiences or produce feelings of trust to encourage confession in an interrogation. Thus, the weaponization of biological information raises ethical concerns.
The dual use of scientific information for good and bad ought not to prevent us from extracting lessons on how to avert conflict. Given all the current clashes, it is an opportune time to ask whether there is anything in the biological treasure trove of knowledge that can help us deal with conflict or even how to avoid it.
Optimal prediction in decision-making is one innovative way to prevent conflict. Imagine being able to anticipate the plans of others, especially adversaries, and forestall, or prevent those efforts? Could we have stopped the Ukrainian war had we known that Russia would invade the country? Is it possible to stop any conflict if we know the problem before it happens? The rational answer would seem to be yes. Interestingly, the human brain evolved for “optimal” prediction in decision-making, turning Homo sapiens into one of the most successful species to survive a violent and uncertain world. It sounds reasonable, therefore, to ask whether there are lessons in this evolution that we can extract for more general use?
Recent developments in cognitive neuroscience, based on neurologically inspired theories of uncertainty, have led to proposals suggesting human brains are sophisticated prediction engines. This means the brain generates mental models of the surrounding environment to predict the most plausible explanation for what’s happening in each moment and updates the models in real time. According to Andy Clark, a cognitive scientist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, “You experience, in some sense, the world that you expect to experience.”
We assume the major function of “looking into the future” through prediction, preparation, anticipation, prospection or expectations in various cognitive domains is to organize our experience of the world as efficiently as possible. The brain-mind is optimally, not perfectly, designed to cope with both natural uncertainty (the fog surrounding complex, indeterminate human actions) and man-made uncertainty (the man-made fog fabricated by denials and deceptions). We do this by conserving energy while reducing uncertainty. This ability evolved to support human intelligence through continuously matching incoming sensory information with top-down predictions of the input. Analysis of the temporo-spatial regularities and causal relationships in the environment produce top-down predictions or expectations—something known as Bayesian inference.
The brain uses this knowledge of regularities and patterns to make a model or the “best guess” about what objects and events are most likely to be responsible for the signals it receives from the environment. This “best guess” goes through an iterative process of minimizing the mismatch (i.e., correcting the error) between expectancy and reality until it reaches an optimal solution. Mental models are forms of perception, recognition, inferences about the state of the world, attention, and learning, which are beneficial for more pertinent reactions in the immediate situation.
In this perspective, mental states are predictive states, which arise from a brain embodied in a living body, permeated with affect and embedded in an empowering socio-cultural niche. The result is the best possible and most accommodating interaction with the world via perceptions, actions, attention, emotions, homestatic regulation, cognition, learning, and language.
A predictive machine requires a high inter-dependence of processes, such as perception, action, and cognition, which are intrinsically related and share common codes. Besides the feedforward, or bottom-up, flow of information, there is significant top-down feedback and recurrent processing. Given the levels of ambiguity and noise always present in the environment and our neural system, prior biases or mental sets become critical for facilitating and optimizing current event analysis. This occurs whether it concerns recognizing objects, executing movements, or scaling emotional reactions. This dynamic information flow depends on previous experience and builds on memories of various kinds, but it does not include mnemonic encoding. Indeed, the more ambiguous the input, the greater the reliance on prior knowledge.
The predictive model of the brain has been successful in explaining a variety of mental phenomena, such as inattention and distraction, beliefs and desires, as well as neural data. Sometimes, though, the brain gets things wrong because of incomplete or inaccurate information, and this discrepancy can cause everything from mild cognitive dissonance to learning disorders to anxiety and depression. But our survival is proof positive that whatever strategies we learned are highly effective in navigating a world of uncertainty.
Here are eight lessons regarding the predictive brain that may be helpful in dealing with conflict:
- Recognize your use of mental models. To deal with uncertainty in the world requires creating mental models in which we map our understanding and expectations about cause-and-effect relationships and then process and interpret information through these models or filters. Mental models become critical for facilitating and optimizing our responses to current events.
- Understand your mental models. Recognize that complex mental processes determine which information you attend and, therefore, mediate, organize, and attribute meaning to your experience. Your background, memories, education, cultural values, role requirements, and organizational norms strongly influenced this dynamic process.
- Withhold judgment of alternative interpretations until you have considered many of them. Expertise, and the confidence that attaches to it, is no protection from the common pitfalls endemic to the human thought process, particularly when it involves ambiguous information, multiple players, and fluid circumstances.
- Challenge, refine, and challenge again all your mental models. Discourage conformity. Incoming data should reassess the premises of your models. Remain humble and nimble. Be self-conscious about your reasoning powers. Examine how you make judgments and reach conclusions. Encourage “outside of the box” thinking.
- Value the unexpected. It reveals inaccuracies in your mental models. You cannot eliminate prediction pitfalls because they are an inherent part of the process. What you do is to train yourself on how to look for and recognize these obstacles, view them as opportunities, and develop procedures designed to offset them.
- Emphasize factors that disprove hypotheses. Increased awareness of cognitive biases, such as the tendency to see information confirming an already-held judgment more vividly than one sees “disconfirming” data, does little by itself to help deal effectively with uncertainty. Look for ways to disprove what you believe.
- Develop empathy and compassion. Put yourself in the shoes of others to see the options faced by others as they see those options. Understand the values and assumptions that others have and even their misperceptions and misunderstandings. Then, act.
- Change external circumstances instead of trying to eliminate everyone’s biases. Mental models are resistant to change primarily because they reflect the temporo-spatial regularities and causal relationships found in your environment. Restructure the setting and it will affect your perceptions.
Our Evolving Sense of Awareness
Despite the mountains of information about mind and its relationship to brain, there remains a mystery at the core of our being. The holy grail of this mystery is awareness, the ability to hold something “in consciousness.” Neuroscientists and philosophers have called our first-person experience of the subjectivity that arises from this holding function the “hard problem.” This is because, unlike most other problems in science and life, this one has proven resistant to rationality and the scientific method. Recently, however, one promising approach has helped constrain, at least for me, the multiple ideas about awareness by placing its understanding within an evolutionary context.
In his “attention schema” theory, the neuroscientists Michael Graziano has proposed that awareness evolved in stages. The assumption behind this perspective is that each level in the progression provided fitness value and survival benefit to a species. Initially, according to Graziano, “awareness” involved bottom-up signal-to-noise mechanisms that selectively enhanced signals. The existence of some of the earliest neurotransmitter systems, namely the dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin systems that perform such a function, is consistent with this idea.
The next step in the progression likely concerned the interaction between signal enhancing mechanisms and top-down biasing and switching mechanisms that developed for greater control of the processing associated with the enhanced signal. The circuit in the basal ganglia, involved in the integration and selection of voluntary behavior, is a good example of this. Here, the neurotransmitter dopamine operates on striatal neurons to perform a switching function, controlling the flow of information in the direct and indirect pathways of the circuit.
According to the principles of control theory, an even more effective way to control a complex variable is to have an internal model of that variable. This allows the system the ability to simulate its dynamics, monitor its state, and predict its function, at least a few seconds into the future. Thus, Graziano suggests that the next critical jump in the evolution of awareness was the development of an internal model of attention (a simulation) that allowed the brain to attribute to itself a “mind” aware of something. I would add that, at this level, evolution moved from nonconscious to conscious control and subjectivity. The awareness that “I am attending to this thing” was born from such bidirectional interactivity.
Adapting this internal model of attention to social attribution led, at some later stage, to ascribing awareness to other beings. Finally, because of language, culture, and other social developments, humans became extremely good at modeling others, perhaps too readily. Such an ability likely explains our readiness to anthropomorphize or attribute consciousness to characters in a story, puppets and dolls, thunder, oceans, empty spaces, ghosts and gods.
Justin Barrett calls this the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device, or HADD, and it appears to be a consequence of our hyper-social nature. The readiness to simulate and attribute a “mind” to animate and inanimate things may explain the sense some of us have of a rich spirit world surrounding us. Undoubtedly, this aspect of awareness provides side benefits, such as aesthetic experiences, including our sense of wonder about our mysterious world.
My Unease With Science
I don’t know how my smartphone works. But I am not bothered by the limits of my knowledge since there is at least one engineer or a small group of engineers who know the inner workings of this miracle machine. If the phone breaks, I know I can find someone to repair it. And as long as I am able to use it to perform useful functions, I feel content.
What, then, is my “unease with science”? I would say it’s more about the attribution of knowledge in a larger sense. I am concerned that individually and socially, we are rapidly outgrowing the ability to comprehend all that we know. The invention of books and computers has allowed us to maintain the façade that knowledge is captured in a way that is accessible and understandable. My discomfort is that soon, if we haven’t already, we will be unable to fully comprehend that accumulated knowledge. Answers continue to get more and more complex, and knowledge so widely distributed that for the most part, we will be at a point where no one, not a person, groups of individuals or even computer systems will know how things work. If something breaks, no one will be able to fix it. This is the limit and consequence that is making me anxious.
As a newly minted neuroscientist in the 1990s, I embodied the optimism of youth that through science we would find answers to all problems. In my particular case, I was certain neuroscience would learn everything about how the brain worked in the 20-30 years following my Ph.D. It was simply a matter of time and increased knowledge. This exciting and limitless vista stretched before me as I settled down into building a career, a lab, and a reputation.
Thirty-plus years later, I remain optimistic about the power of science to answer a multitude of questions. But the vast panorama of unanswered questions remains limitless. While we seem to have learned a lot, the most interesting questions remain unresolved. I feel my frustration wrapped in a thinning veil of optimism. In turn, I have become sensitive to the limits of what once was science’s limitless potential. And what are those limits from my neuroscience perspective? The primary and most notable problem I see is a lack of holistic comprehension. Science has uncovered a multiplicity of independent bits of knowledge but no sense of how to fit it all together. I blame this on the lack of a language of integration, one related to the workings of the holistic mind. I have an intuition about what awareness, attention, and consciousness are, but have little understanding of their underlying neurobiology and how they relate to the rest of what I know. Most troubling, I have no or at least a very primitive language to talk about such processes.
Many will argue this kind of criticism of science reflects a defeatist attitude, i.e., giving up the fight while it is still too early to concede. Such obstacles, they will argue, are solvable by the old strategy of acquiring more knowledge and/or constructing the right vocabulary. Investigations can still produce revolutionary ideas about what questions to ask and how to ask them. This optimism arises from the fact that scientists have encountered limits before and have consistently overcome them. For instance, we learned to re-conceptualize the universe and matter. This occurred in classical physics and led to quantum mechanics. Likewise, we learned to analyze brain function using non-invasive methods like fMRI, allowing scientists to study the living, working brain. In this and many other examples, we breached and expanded boundaries. Yet, my pessimism persists since things are feel different now. But how?
My argument is not that new ideas, revolutionary concepts, and methods won’t allow us to penetrate boundaries. This is different from what John Horgan argues in his book The End of Science. Rather, the limit I am concerned about is that the understanding we need is already beyond our capability to absorb it conceptually. The limits of science are limits in our own processing capacity. The accumulation of scientific knowledge during the last one hundred years already crossed that boundary long ago. Yet, we have persisted because of the power of distributed knowledge, computational capacity, and especially the illusion that “if others know, then I know.”
The latest savior to delay the inevitable crash into this limitation of science is artificial intelligence or AI. But inevitably, AI will change from a tool we use for our benefit and that we control, to a system that will be impenetrable to human understanding and beyond our control. Perhaps we have already crossed aspects of this AI threshold – such as the one where at some point in a health crisis, I may become more dependent on artificial life than on other humans. It’s not yet true in most aspects of life, but comes pretty close in others, such as in the automation of tasks across a broad range of industries. I feel an unease about crossing this threshold. It is the same uneasiness about reaching the limits of science knowledge.
At its core, my unease with science is really my unease with not-knowing, the sense that answers lie beyond my comprehension. Trusting what we don’t understand, and trusting a “science” that is beyond us, is difficult for most of us. We see examples of this in the hesitancy to m-RNA based vaccines in this time of the coronavirus pandemic. Interestingly, it may be the most intelligent – those especially trained to be skeptical and to question everything – who experience this unease the most. For it raises issues of control, agency, and faith in technology. All these are crucial issues for our society to discuss before making the ultimate commitment to paths where there is no possibility of return. Individually, and later socially, we can become comfortable with not-knowing, lose the uneasiness with science, and simply enjoy the process of trying to find the answer!
As John Horgan points outs in his book: “No matter how much they learn, biologists will never really know how matter first became animate, just as cosmologists will never know how the universe began. Moreover, we will never find a final, definitive answer to the question of who we really are. Science-lovers should be grateful for the persistence of these mysteries. As long as they endure, so will our quest for self-knowledge.”
Can Science Explain Auras?
Radiant Human aura photography by Christina Lonsdale. Photo courtesy of Radiant Human/the Whitney Museum of American Art.
In medicine, the term aura refers to a perceptual disturbance experienced by someone suffering from epilepsy or migraine. This is not, however, what I want to talk about today. Rather, the focus of this essay is on the psychic aura. As a boomer wading through the 1960s and 70s, I associated the term “aura” with spirituality and the visible energies around a person. But I had thought little about such things for the past 40 years. That is until I read Michael Crichton’s short story “Cactus Teachings” in his book Travels during this past Christmas holiday. It was a book given to me by my brother-in-law, Roger, who had enjoyed it and found Crichton’s stories resonant with what he heard in my poetry.
Crichton is a Harvard-trained doctor who gave up the practice of medicine to write. And he has produced some of the most popular and iconic stories of the past half-century, including Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and The Terminal Man. I admire and respect him as a scientist, medicine man, and writer. I was, therefore, fascinated to read that in the 1980s, he had encountered and learned the art of seeing auras. He did this as part of a two-week experience in personal growth, meditation, and psychic healing. His experience intrigued me and triggered my old curiosity regarding auras. Suddenly, the topic became top-of-mind.
As part of my daily walks and hikes, I began trying to visualize auric energies around those I encountered. Unexpectedly and delightfully, even though I had to convince myself they were there, I experienced subtle light rings right away. I caught glimpses of greens and blues initially. The experience reminded me of a faded but partial rainbow around the head of some people. I saw auras around animals and trees, although these were more monochromatic and usually just a simple light band around the object. I observed nothing around non-biological objects such as cars or cement telephone poles. Nor could I detect the bands surrounding people on television or on my computer screen. But an eye blink, saccade, or attentional blink, and the faint tracings would disappear.
As I continued the practice, things changed quickly and significantly. I perceived more colors, typically yellow, green, violent, and blue bands of light. It was easier to see these bands with the sun over my shoulder. And if I successfully held the view of the aura constant for more than a second, the energy bands intensified and got brighter. Unexpectedly, I began observing light bands around non-organic things and faint traces of them on television figures. Everything seemed surrounded by an aura, if only I made the effort to see it. I was unprepared for this experience and didn’t know what to make of it.
On one of my outings, I noted that bicyclists racing down a hill seemed to extend the auric field slightly, both in front and behind them. The colors were more pronounced in the front than in the receding stream of air. It was then I realized that one explanation for this phenomenon might be the simple experience of light being refracted by particles surrounding our bodies, including water molecules.
I had purposely avoided reading the scientific literature until this point. When I started reading journal articles, I found that there were no real scientific studies because scientists deem the phenomenon not replicable. Neurologists contend people perceive auras because of defects within the brain itself because of epilepsy, migraines, synesthesia, or the influence of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD. However, when tested appropriately, researchers could not verify the findings related to the psychic aura. Hence, studies done under laboratory conditions have shown that this experience is best explained as either a visual illusion, or an afterimage.
Yet, those with no known clinical abnormalities or drug use, like Michael Crichton and I, cannot deny our experiences. There are several potential explanations. First, scientific tests may be incorrect. As an example, one test used to prove the unreliability of the phenomenon is to have someone stand (or not) behind a screen that blocks the body. The screen does not block the space around the body, and thus a person being tested ought to perceive the aura when someone is behind the screen. Researchers testing individuals claiming to detect auras beforehand found they could not correctly identify auras without knowing if someone was actually standing behind the screen. A second explanation is, of course, that the phenomenon is the product of imagination processes and therefore uniquely individualized.
There are problems with these hypotheses. First, the type of test described may be inappropriate because the auric phenomenon may depend on lateral inhibition in the visual system, which would require viewing of a body. If the body is not present to provide the contrast, there is no lateral inhibition and no aura. Lateral inhibition is something that happens because of how cells in the retina and other visual regions connect. So, when one cell is excited and fires action potentials, it turns off or provides inhibition to its surrounding neighbors. This lateral inhibition explains a well-known visual illusion phenomenon known as Mach bands, named after their discoverer, the physicist Ernst Mach (1838–1916). Mach bands reflect the exaggerated contrast between edges produced by the anatomy of lateral inhibition, by triggering edge-detection in the human visual system. Hence, a simple and testable explanation for auras is that lateral inhibition, combined with light refraction by particles surrounding our bodies, creates edge enhancement and rainbow-like experiences.
A rainbow requires water droplets or small particles floating in the air. The sun must be behind you and the clouds cleared away for the rainbow to appear. When sunlight strikes a water droplet, it refracts, and changes the direction of light because of the surface of the water. The light continues into the drop and reflects from the back of the drop to the front. When the beam hits the front, it refracts again. The water drops act like prisms to separate the light into its different wavelengths and as the color spectrum we experience in a rainbow. Science has shown that clouds of water droplets and other small particles surround our bodies. These can perform a similar light-refractory function and voila—a rainbow-like aura is visible.
Auras are a subtle visual experience. They may indeed require imagination to see. This may be why we need time to learn how to perceive this natural and wonderful phenomenon. On the other hand, photography can capture auric differences, so it can not be entirely imagination. The question I want to leave you with is: If science can explain psychic auras, are they any less fascinating?
The Good Monkey Mind-Chapter 3
Attached is Chapter 3 of my new book. I am sincerely looking for your feedback to improve it. Anything from typos to whether more should be explained or something removed that doesn’t make sense would be appreciated. I am trying to have each chapter stand alone, so if you find yourself saying, “I wish I had read the previous chapter” please let me know what explanation is missing. If it’s too academic, esoteric, or worse do let me know that as well.
The best way to provide feedback is to download the Word file, edit it directly with tracking on, and return to me via email (jpineda@ucsd.edu). Thank you for your time and effort. Know that any and all your comments are highly appreciated.
One positive bit of news. Academic Press has expressed interest in publishing the book, although no contract yet. Wish me luck.
Also, I have added a place on my webpage (https://the-unencumbered-mind.com/book-in-progress/) where you can go and easily download all the chapters I have written.
The Good Monkey Mind-Chapter 2
I am attaching Chapter 2 of my new book, The Good Monkey Mind, so that you can read and provide feedback. Whether it is finding typos or other grammatical errors, commenting on the graphics, or on the readability, it is all appreciated.
This is a particularly critical chapter since it develops the idea of how the monkey mind comes about. Please let me know if the argument is convincing or needs work.
Thanks to all those who have provided feedback on previous parts of the book. Remember that if your feedback is incorporated, you will be cited in the acknowledgment.
The Essential American Character
The historian Warren Susman discusses the changing views of character in Culture As History. He argues that the transformation we are witnessing in today’s culture is one from a culture of character to a culture of personality. We might note the prominence and value of character in presidential elections prior to 2016. Then, character became less important and personality more central when Donald Trump ran for president. The evidence suggests such transformation is happening throughout society. I would argue, however, that whatever is happening is not changing the essential nature of the American character, only obscuring it.
Character is a complex and multidimensional attribute that it is difficult to define and discuss. It is something we are strong in, or good at, or have a great deal of it. Most adults aspire for “excellent character,” but our current culture rarely emphasizes it beyond our childhood and adolescent years. We tend to confuse character with personality. Yet, these are distinct concepts. Character reflects deep-seated identification with truthfulness, idealism, morality, and orientation towards life. Personality, on the other hand, defines responsiveness to external events, such as how we respond to others because of how they view us. We might, for example, consider ourselves fortunate because people admire that we are rich.
As someone born outside the U.S. and integrated into American society, I have a unique perspective that may differ from native-born citizens. As an adolescent, I grew up with the idea that the U.S. was the land of Oz, with emerald cities paved with gold, and opportunities around every corner. As an adult, I became more cynical about these things, yet could not ignore my journey, which has been mostly positive. What I realized is there exists an essential core in the American spirit that is strong. This despite the winds of apathy, ignorance, and radicalism that are making a culture of character into a culture of personality.
What is at the core of this spirit? It begins with an openness that many around the world find unique and endearing. Americans are seen as transparent and friendly. They smile all the time, say visitors, and even say hello as they pass you by on the street. It is a remarkable openness characterized by warmth, friendliness, and humor. It is one of the first things that strikes anyone coming from another culture or who has been overseas for a long time. This openness combines with a generosity of spirit that is the expected response of a sincere heart. How much and how often individuals give to charities and to those in need illustrates this big-heartedness. There is also a level of American volunteerism that has few parallels in the world. In the society, an infrastructure has evolved to help others that echoes this generosity. Aside from charitable and non-governmental organizations and innumerable private foundations, there are the governmental treasures such as the National Institute of Health. Government grants have been an invisible driver of American ingenuity, technology, and free enterprise.
In all the endeavors I have engaged in since coming to this country, getting an education, becoming a scientist and an entrepreneur, and starting a creative writing career, I have always found a wealth of support and encouragement. This has taken the form of scholarships, grants, advice, and guidance that comprise the helpful culture that surrounds me. This leads to the other characteristics I find unique in the American spirit. One is an adventuresome quality thatengenders entrepreneurial and give-it-a-go attitudes at once child-like and infectious. Adventuresome behavior is combined with a steely confidence of success, one that says, “I can do this.” Finally, there is an almost preternatural forward-thinking mentality that has given rise to new technologies like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple and a thousand other ventures that have revolutionized the future of humankind.
We need to encourage such inimitable character. If we do not cultivate it as an important aspect of our identity, we are in danger of losing its meaning and significance. Fortunately, the essence of this character is in the ambience of the culture. While obscured by personality and social craziness, it is the default attitude children learn. It is up to us to become vigilant and identify those things that obscure this essential treasure. Then, we just need to get out of the way and let it express itself.
Thanks for reading. I am open to criticism so please respond if you don’t agree or have additional ideas about essential qualities of the American spirit with which you identify. I would like to compile a more thorough list.