Every Sunday Morning, a place where various things get thrown out, shot at, cut open, and dissected. Topics of interest: psychological, and medical anthropology, privatization, globalization, excess, language, humor, hip-hop culture, jazz, brain and mind, memory, urban space development, Los Angeles, the Chicago Bulls, UCLA Bruins, FC Barcelona, and mankind.
Spent most of undergrad criticizing the sciences in a minor that I thought would be devoted to just that.
But here I am, 2 years later, needing to learn it...
I bought the book In Search of Memory by Eric Kandel because:
a) I had been given a 2nd Barnes & Noble Giftcard thanks to my friend Nancy b) I figured I would probably take a class in auto repair...(or just rent a book from the 'brary) c) I wanted something that would encourage my interest in memory studies d) I didn't want something that I felt comfortable with and could read in an entire day
Yes, I've figured out something specific...I like the brain...and specifically I like memory.
Memory, because of its multifacetedness.
Short-term working memory has implications for intelligence, which is what I've always been interested in. Long-term memory shows what really lies deep within ourselves. Memory is a reflection of what we give meaning to, what we place importance on. Highly emotional, highly subjective states are what we remember most, because they are packed with meaning, and ultimately that's what we go on.
Overall, I didn't understand a lot of the biological language, but certainly, I became more interested in learning about them. I was interested in the insights he had into the science profession, the mind. Generally speaking, it's stuff you've heard before in the public discourse...our brains are plastic, you can learn a lot no matter what age you are, just in more detail.
On the book's interesting points:
1) Interesting stuff he said about the work of scientists.
First was a comment on scientific research work. He often described those he held in esteem as "creative", as if they were artists, rather than neurological or molecular biologists.
"There are scientists...who are very strong technically but who do not necessarily have the deepest insights into the biological questions they are studying (68)."
Then he mentioned the motviation of scientists; they are no different than any other human beings.
"If pure scientists were motivated by curiosity alone, they should be delighted when someone else sovles the problem they are working on---but that is not the usual reaction. Recognition by their peers and esteem come only to those who have made original contributions to the common stock of knowledge.(68)"
Scientists have a need to prove and validate themselves just like any other human being. However, the specialized, high-level language they use to describe their work, their findings, etc. makes it appear as if they are disconnected from the regular world.
2) On Learning: "Different forms of learning give rise to different forms of memory." (198) I have no clue as to what he's referring to here, but it could be interesting some day.
3) On Synapses and Learning: He mentions the strength of synaptic connections as being the key to learning.
Very important chapter in the book of neuro-bio for unbelievably moronic wankers.
"We found that learning leads to a change in the strength of synapctic connections---and therefore in the effectiveness of communication---between specific cells in the neural circuit that mediates the behavior.(200)
Strength---the long-term effectiveness of synaptic connections---is regulated by experience. This view implies that the potential for many of an organism's behaviors is built into the brain and is to that extent under genetic and developmental control; however, a creature's environment and learning alter the effectiveness of the preexisting pathways, thereby leading to the expression of new patterns of behavior.(202)"
He connects the idea that we have built-in knowledge to Immanuel Kant as opposed to John Locke's tabula rasa.
4) On Synapses: "Synaptic connections between two neurons can be...strengthened or weakened---by different forms of learning. Thus habituation weakens the synapse, whereas sensitization or classical condition strengthens it (204)."
So from this it sounds like habits make you have less synaptic connection because the synapse grows in itself, which means weaker connections between neurons, which means less likely to associate with another thing, which means that your habit becomes more engrained and exaggerated.
In contrast, being sensitized to something means stronger synapctic connections between neurons, which means more likely to associate with another thing, which means that your sensitization and association becomes more engrained and exaggerated.
In conclusion, associative and explicit learning arises from sensitization, while implicit learning arises from habituation.
5) On Neuro-bio: "Long-term memory required the synthesis of a new protein (212)." As opposed to the electrical charges that keep firing from neurons.
6) On Science and Evolution: Evolution does not have any higher purpose than its immediate adaptation for something.
"Evolution does not require new, specialized molecules to produce a new adaptive mechanism" (234).
...The Biochemical actions underlying memory did not arise apecifically to support memory. Rather neurons, simply recruited an efficient signaling system employed for other purposes in other cells and used it to produce the changes in synaptic strength required for memory storage.
7) On Evolution and Neuro-bio: The stuff that makes us what we are...our genes are ALSO subject themselves to the environment in which they live (264).
8) On Memories: A characteristic of age related memory loss is the inability to consolidate long-term memories (266).
9) On Synapses and Memory: The growth and maintenace of new synaptic terminals makes memory persist (276).
10) On Perception: Sensation is an abstraction not a replication, of the real world (Mountcastle via Kandel 302)
11) On the Hippocampus: Hippocampus is concerned with perception of the environment and represents a multisensory experience (308).
12) On Dopamine: Blocking dopamine blocks the stablization of the spatial map in an animal (313). Dopamine seems like the chemical for explicit learning and memory whereas serotonin represents the chemical for implicit learning.
13) On the Amygdala and Hippocampus: "Damage to the amygdala, which is concerned with the memory of fear, disrsupts the ability of an emotionally charged stimulus to elicit an emotional response. In contrast, damage to the hippocampus, which is concerned with conscious memory, interferes with the ability to remember the context in which the stimulus occurred. (342)"
14) Depression compromises the memory (361).
15) What science lacks are rules for explaining how subjective properties (consciousness) arise from the properties of objects (interconnecte nerve cells) (381).
Reflections:
1) On learning: As he was talking about studying analogs of learning, I was thinking about how people in general, learn. I think at the most ideal level, we learn by figuring out meanings. And then once we "learn" that it means something, we commit it to memory.
He mentioned habituation, sensitiation, and classical conditioning as the basis or most primordial form of learning.
2) On Habituation: Then I began thinking about habituation in my own world. The cycles of the world. I began thinking about the habits of people in the housing developments. What were their habits? What are the habits of the people in the middle and high classs? How did they develop them? What was the geography and environment that forced them to exhibit those habits that they did have?
3) On Sensitization: Then he mentioned sensitatization, and I began thinking about that in my own world. "After hearing a gun go off, a person will show an exaggerated response and will jump when he hears a tone or senses a touch on the shoulder (169)." Essentially, the gun going off acts as a sign and/or a symbol for someone to elicit a response.
4) On Brain studies of the past: I was curious about how this idea ever made sense in American Education in the 1950s:
"We were taught that the map of the somatosensory corex discovered by Wade Marshall is FIXED and IMMUTABLE throughout life." When and why did they think that it was fixed and mutable (216)? Was that informed by religion?
5) On Hippocampus and Spatiality: I also wondered about the hippocampus and spatial information that he mentioned(282).
6) On Intelligence: I was wondering how this fuses into Jeff Hawkins theory of brain and mind in his book On Intelligence.
7) On Fear: Fear is the easily most detectable emotion across species (339). It seems as though this is the emotion that what we give most the meaning to, and so we respond accordingly. It's really a disjointed event from anything were used to, so were likely to give a response out of the ordinary.
He brings in a dose of the breakthrough psychologit William James:
"We do not experience fear until after we have run away from the bear. We first act instinctively and then invoke cognition to explain the changes in the body associated with that action." (340)
Essentially, what he says is that emotion happens afterward, after an event. After the event is finished we build meaning off of that emotion via language expression which is then encoded into our memories.
8) On Learning: I began thinking of the social/asocial aspects of learning.
Learning is a very social activity, and that social activity is one way we build meanings. Learning in isolation is the most fruitful, but it's very difficult because we don't have the benefit of other people affirming your correctness in a belief or whatnot. You're forced to come up with your own meanings, definitions, labels for things and events which might be valid, but might not be recognized by anyone else.
Example: I watch a bunch of NBA basketball, but since I don't really have cable, it's often over the internet via international TV where they're speaking some other language other than English. So I don't watch a lot of basketball in English, which is good.
I don't have annoying commentators like Jeff Van Gundy telling me, indoctrinating me, on how unathletic, but intelligent the whiteboy Kirk Hinrich is, I just see what's on the basketball screen and make meaning out of what's happening all by myself. Therefore I learn what's happening in isolation, relatively speaking vs. other fans. I gain my knowledge of the game by my own observations, interpretations, and analysis. I "learn" what's happening basically on my own.
Realizing that I can learn either socially or asocially kind of annoyed me. Institutions seem to have a monopoly on social learning and will charge the hell out of you just for that. If you're not learning via an institution (and paying at least 20 dollars a unit), you feel like you don't know any avenue to learning what you need to learn.
The library is there, but it's limited and you still wouldn't know where to look.
But I digress.
9) On the feelings of disjointedness vs. fluidity: From Leo Tolstoy: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" (349).
From this quote, I became concerned with the idea of disjointedness in the unhappy family and explicitness vs. fluidity and implicitness in the happy family. Everything seems to be a disruption for the unhappy family whereas, everything seems to work in harmony for the happy family.
The discourse about the unhappy family, and explicitness triggered personal memories of the kids in the housing developments yet again. What types of disjointedness have they experienced and how have they dealt with them? I would think a quality of disjointedness towards long-term ventures, not because it's innate, but because it's been learned.
10) On Working Memory: "When normal individuals are challenge by a task that requires working memory, metabolic function in their prefrontal areas increases dramatically (354)."
Working memory seems to be a tool of social moderation --- they say "intelligence" is just working memory, and prefrontal areas with which it is associated with are associated with planning and judging.
Doubts and Questions:
1) On Kandel's Observations and Reductionist Methods: I wondered if Kandel just colored in stereotypical sexist interpretations in his interpretation of results for the differences between male and female brains.
"He [Some scientist named O'Keefe] has found clear differences in the way women and men attend to and orient themselves in the space around them. Women use nearby cues and landmarks. Thus when asked for directions, a woman is likely to say, "Turn right at the Walgreen's drugstore, and then drive until you see a white colonial houe on the left with green window shutters. Men rely more on an internalized geometric map. They are likely to say 'Drive five miles north, then turn right and head east for another half mile.' Brain imaging shows activation of different areas in mean and women as they think about space: the left hippocampus in men, and the right parietal and right prefrontal cortex in women. (315-316)"
That's pretty much a hegemonically sexist thing to say: women are the fluffy, artistic, right-side thinkers, while males are the logical, left-side thinkers.
I consider myself a male and masculine and all that other shit, but I definitely don't give directions like the cold hard-cut logical male. I currently don't have the means to argue against what he says, but I just know that what he says doesn't seem to represent the truth.
2) On Kandel's Memory and Perception of this growing epidemic of "disorders of memory"...disorders of memory are more evident today than they were when I began practicing medicine fifty years ago because people are living longer now (327)"
This brings up other questions related to medical anthropology and health care that cut across time and space.
Perhaps more people are just diagnosing more, prescribing more, just to make more money, which gives off the feeling that "disorders of memory are more evident today."
After all, the guy is in the pharmaceutical biz...
Also, people probably are living longer, but how is he sure that a connection can be made between the fact that there are more memory disorders and a longer life expectancy?
Anthropology has a history of leading the charge in chastizing "other" cultures for breeding "undesirable" attitudes.
When I say this, I have in mind Oscar Lewis' "Culture of Poverty" in which he uses the same judgmental terms as the "dominant" society uses to characterize low-income folks. He only defines these low-income folks based on what they do NOT have in comparison to the non-impoverished classes. He calls their living conditions "marginal", and makes the conclusion that they do not have a "cosmopolitan world view."
This paper probably touched off a chain reaction or chain web of events. It contributed to the Moynihan Report, a report by the liberal senator Moynihan whose report put a focus on the deterioration of the black-American family. This focus on the division and disintegration turn was something that Ronald Reagan seized upon in his campaign ads. Born was the stirring image of the welfare queen and its partner-in-crime, the self-help, pull-yourself-by-the-bootstraps discourse. I really wish someone would vandalize or burn that man's library in Simi Valley. LA Graffiti and gang violence...talk about your complete misplacement of energy and efforts. Crips, Bloods, Truchas, Mafia, Mobsters, 18th Street, Triggs, Wa-Chings, Maravillas there's a property on 40 Presidential Drive, Simi Valley, CA that needs some claiming.
But I digress.
The point is that once "poverty" became a "culture", as if it was a way of life people "chose", it became easy for regular people to say that those low-income people should simply "not choose" that way of life. As a result, anything associated with the black family just became lumped and interrelated with each other in popular discourse. Blacks in poverty? Easy, you can blame that on the fact that most of them are lazy and don't have a father figure.
People outside of academia have generally failed to look at root causes or look further into to why they've made the observations they've made. Unless they have been in the culture and/or they can understand or even make an attempt to understand, people did not and generally still do not take the extra step to look into what makes so many of them lazy and/or even better, what supplants laziness, what they are not lazy in, and/or why it appears they are lazy.
If anthropology can criticize "others", the field of anthropology can lead the charge in chastizing "this" culture for breeding "undesirable" attitudes.
My first course in Psychological anthropology asked the question of whether or not "culture" can make someone "sick." Even though I had been an anthropology major for 2 years to that point and not having been a fan of the perceived dominant tenets of American culture since a high school history class, I had never thought of this question.
And so now in an era of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds using steroids, Olympics stars like Marion Jones going to jail for using drugs, and the sport of cycling being dented every year because of some kind of drug scandal, what does this say about us and our most prominent cultures of excess and poverty?
However not to be completely mudslinging at these dominant cultures, and to differ a bit from their approach, maybe we should also ask, what are the root causes, and what gives people so much opportunity and space to consume what it does in excess?
Another question separate from focusing on the culture of excess but rather the culture surrounding "enhancement" is why there is such a moral code and imperative ascribed to sports as opposed to none whatsoever in the fields of academia or medicine? We don't care at all that a seizable chunk of them take brain enhancers. No one would call that "cheating." The Onion makes fun of that fact.
...a physiological state when what you do socially (other than yak up a carpet or break anything) is acknowledged by watchers that there isn't any meaning to what you are doing.
Almost everything is dismissed by the fact that you are drunk/high. We use it in everyday talk to dismiss anything we do that is considered "stupid".
In a society with so much information and by implication so many meanings for everything said and done, getting high or drunk is more of an impetus for people to drop all those meanings as quickly as possible.
One way to act on your instinct, your subconscious without anyone really challenging you. A passive-aggressive response.
This reminds me of an observation in this book I read in intro to Anthro Linguistics called "Constructing Panic." The book is about a woman with agoraphobia, which is a fear of being in a place or situation where it may be difficult to escape or obtain help. The observation was about how this woman would always accept what her husband told her. She would always accept what he said and do what he asked of her.
However, whenever she felt a panic attack coming, she would suddenly become a dominant figure. Her panic attacks would take priority, and she would ask her way out of anything. For instance, a family vacation that she didn't want to take. She was passive and complicit in the trip, until they were on the road, and she experienced a panic attack. She kept emphasizing how she needed to get away. End result, they need to go home, see a doctor, she gets her way. It takes almost a medical "condition" for her to get her way, but in the end, she gets her way.
Getting high, getting drunk, one way to get your way, least in the short-term. You get your way. In this state, no one will be able to challenge you because it's sort of a physiological state, meaning it's kind of "natural" and that no one can do anything about you acting like that.
...same bizarre feeling of seeing dead people ...same disbelief of whether some things were real or not ...same blank staring at some exhibits and pretending to have a level of sophistication ...same wannabe physiologists talking aloud trying to explain why a body part looks the way it does
This time however, I was particularly struck by the blood flow and its relation to city planning. I think transportation planning can be like blood flowing through the body.
In transportation planning you just hope things can keep running smoothly, just as in your body, you just hope that things can keep running smoothly. However, inevitably there will be traffic, bumps in the road, potholes to hold up traffic, just as there will be little things in your body that will hold up optimal blood flow and probably make you sick.
I'm not sure exactly how that makes sense to anyone in the transportation planning discipline nor the neuroscience discipline, but I see the connection and I wonder what other insights I can glean from such a connection.
Whom should you thank for this insight?
1) a talk in January by a bunch of USC professors about the "expiration date" of cities, who spent the talk making a metaphor between the city and a living organism. 2) my desire to connect my two biggest interests of late: neuroanthropology and city planning.
In the world that we live in Everybody wants to be so cruel To be in the in-crowd Got the hottest clothes,the hottest shoes We're reading the tabloids And we're flossing in the club But the freshest thing you can do is Give someone your love - India Arie, Sergio Mendes
I sent the link below to a friend, and talked about it with another.
Even though the study was applied to children and adolescents, I don't see why it wouldn't be applied to adults as well.
With one friend, I was hinting at something, which I wonder how she will take it.
With the other friend, I was talking about it in relation to a person in her life whom she saw as insecure.
My view is this: materialism is a desire for concrete objects. Concrete objects by their nature are things you either have or you don't. If you were to desire a concrete object, you would just lament the fact that you don't have it.
I think from there, this attitude that you don't have something is where the self-esteem begins to sink.
The "don't have" is the operative in the statement: the fact that you "don't have", you don't possess something just manifests this view that ONLY if you HAD an object, you could do something. It follows that if you don't have something, you're useless. If you're useless, you then build this dependence, this fetish, likely on things which most of human history and human societies today have and still live WITHOUT.
Check India Arie's second verse to the same song:
"The clothes that your wearing It will one day be out of style The car that your driving One day will vax out in miles Your hair and your makeup And the time that it takes up It will take the same care of Ya give someone ya love"
This verse is stuck to my rib, and it's been dawning on me: Stuff doesn't last. Stuff are tools, not ends in themselves. They don't mean anything unless we give it meaning.
In context, assuming you don't have a view of cultural superiority, we probably wouldn't care that there's a certain elaborate clothing in one culture to show the high status of a person, just as they wouldn't care about our need for the hottest kicks, the most souped up cars.
Clothes and shoes you wear cause its almost human nature. The car is a thing to take you places. The house is a place where you store your stuff. I don't understand the status signs in them, nor do I really care.
He lives in an Frisco apartment, gives tons away without telling anyone, and went to a meeting with an international figure wearing glasses he had taped together.
That guy is hip-hop to the max.
BTW, over the weekend, interestingly enough there were links on ScienceDaily that described how money actually CAN buy happiness...if it's for others. Food for thought.
;">Increase Your Brain processing power now!...Exercise!...
by B.J. on 11/16/2007 08:45:00 AM
0 commentsPrint this postIncrease Your Brain processing power now!...Exercise!...Only 19.99 a month (unless you don't feel the need to give away the pieces of paper you earn to be trapped in the perpetual dick-waving contest called "gym membership" inside a box full overpriced equipment full of self-masturbatory narcisstic blowhards, and constipated-looking testosterone-blooded fuckheads.)
Maybe the next time you take a standardized test, instead of studying, you really should just take a run.
I notice that after every run I take, the music that ordinarily sounds fast, sounds much much slower after a run.
This is because the brain and it's left-brain functions are working fast.
"In humans, exercise improves what scientists call “executive function,” the set of abilities that allows you to select behavior that’s appropriate to the situation, inhibit inappropriate behavior and focus on the job at hand in spite of distractions. Executive function includes basic functions like processing speed, response speed and working memory, the type used to remember a house number while walking from the car to a party."
What they're saying is that the brain works at a high level after a run or vigorous exercise.
It appears that the parts of the brain that do get enhanced are the ever-valued left-brained functions.
The left brain is the part of the brain that is logical, detail-oriented, and fast.
In philosphical terms, with the left brain you're examining the parts, not the whole.
In everyday terms, it's the part of the brain you use to make deductions in logic during the SATs, and making quick distinctions between wrong answers from right answers.
It makes quick decisions on the gun, on-the-go, on-the-fly. The part of the brain that doesn't become distracted and focuses on a task. You can see why it is heavily associated with maledom.
During vigorous exercise, you'd be training your brain's ability to make decisions in real time, on the gun, on-the-go, on-the-fly. Everything in your body is working according to that time-sensitive orientation. Everything is working fast. You're training your brain to recognize things in sequence, so that you improve your response/get better at what you do each time.
With everything working faster, your stimuli, such as the music I listen to, can be simplified to sound slower or look less than it is.
While exercising has shown that it can increase your brain processing speed, and can stave off dementia and shrinking of some other parts of your brain, I wonder what exercise can do for critical thinking, and the right-side of the brain though (right-side and critical thinking, heh, heh, now isn't that an oxymoron.)
Perhaps exercise stops critical thinking? Perhaps that's why some folks from France hate it when their president Nicholas Sarkozy goes out for his runs. Heck isn't GW Bush in the top 1% of his age group for fitness levels?
Maybe that's why Michael Moore is pretty damn on point, most of the time.
Or perhaps why the linemen in American football are considered the smartest group of players.
Perhaps that fat sedentary bastard you see cleaning up the donut store is actually preparing the next and last definitive iteration of Principia Matematica.
On to one psuedoscientific theory of mine (which reads more like a post for me to inspire me).
Neurons keep firing when you think. (At least that's what I heard while half-listening during one of these depressing, gloomy kind of days that kinda resemble the music video and mental images proudced by "Stan" by Eminem.) But as most people know, we all think at different rates. So to represent how we all think, I divided people into two categories people fall into: the thinker (slow-wit) and the doer (quick-wit).
Phenotypically, it appears that the doer thinks faster, when in actuality the thinker's mind is pumping more thoughts. However, the doer simply does things with less questioning. On the other hand, the multitude of thoughts makes the thinker hesitant to respond as quickly and then subsequently appear slow-witted.
Since I consider myself more of a thinker than a doer, I theorize that (without having taken any neuroscience classes and only a basic psych class in high school in which we touched on this subject) my neurons are plenty, scattered, tiny, and thick little things effective for thinking. The reason they are plenty and scattered are because my brain has had too much time to the point where it breaks down and analyzes every little thing and every little possibility.
Since they are plenty and scattered, it's initially hard for me to make even what most would consider the most basic connections. For example, it has been really hard (meaning it takes longer than usual) for me to understand math. But once I get it, I get it. And get everything else about that concept too. Sign, seal, and deliver it. This is where the thickness of the neurons comes into play. Since those neurons are thick, the knowledge it carries will be firmly implanted so that it doesn't get knocked around, and with that thick base the knowledge grows exponentially until I move on to a new topic.
In contrast, the doer's neurons seems like it consists of these lines of already-connected neurons effective for connecting things quickly. They need it if they're going to act on what they know right away. I think these are the people that are more mathematically inclined or get match much quicker and try to apply their thinking in terms of variables to humanistic things like politics. However, their mindset when it comes to politics tends to bend and curve.
Add me to your reading list.
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