neuroscience
What is God?: Mystics
The thing that happens We are not going to argue about it. We are going to describe it. You are sitting — or walking, or washing dishes, or in one documented case being struck by lightning — and the boundary between you and everything else dissolves. Not metaphorically.... Is everything a projection?: Materialists
The hallucination machine In 2013, Anil Seth told a TED audience: "We’re all hallucinating all the time. When we agree about our hallucinations, we call it reality." He was summarizing thirty years of computational neuroscience into a sentence, and the sentence landed because it... Is everything a projection?: Psychoanalysts
The template We have watched the same shadow material project onto three relationships in the same patient. Mother onto boss, father onto lover, sibling onto colleague. The precision is uncanny. The patient is not inventing a new response to each person.... Is everything a projection?: The Story
The patient, the monk, the scanner In 1895, Freud sat across from a patient who was convinced her doctor was in love with her. He was not. But the conviction was total — she had assembled an airtight case from materials that existed only in the space between her history and his... What is enlightenment?: Skeptics
The epistemological problem In 1901, the Canadian psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke published Cosmic Consciousness, cataloguing thirty-six cases of higher awareness. His evidence consisted entirely of first-person reports. The book was a bestseller.... What is enlightenment?: Neuroscientists
Off the chart In 2004, we put Matthieu Ricard in a scanner. A molecular biologist who left the Pasteur Institute to become a Tibetan monk, 50,000 hours of practice.... What is consciousness?: Panpsychists
Following the math In 2008, Giulio Tononi followed the math past where most neuroscientists get uncomfortable. Integrated Information Theory arrived at a conclusion he stated flatly: consciousness is a fundamental property of any system with nonzero integrated information.... What is consciousness?: Materialists
The iron rod In 1848, Phineas Gage survived an iron rod blasting through his frontal lobe and became a different person. Responsible Gage became impulsive, profane, unable to hold a job. His skull is in a museum at Harvard.... What is consciousness?: The Story
The bet In 1998, neuroscientist Christof Koch wagered philosopher David Chalmers that within twenty-five years, science would discover the neural mechanism producing subjective experience.... Journal Submission: How to Change Oneself
How To Change Oneself: Why Rational Control Fails and Emotional Understanding Works Abstract At first glance, personal change appears straightforward: identify an unwanted behavior, decide to act differently, and implement the new behavior.... Your brain does not just see the world. It edits it.
Your brain does not just see the world. It edits it. Sometimes those edits turn into full blown illusions. See my article on how bias snowballs change perception and why that matters for situational awareness.... PLANTS ARE NOT CONSCIOUS
This is my response to a post to a Facebook group post about the idea that plants and animals without brains have consciousness; that plants, and other life forms without nervous systems like ours, might also have it.... is "The Body Keeps the Score" misleading, or even flat out disproven? I think this is an extremely important topic. So many people's ideas about trauma rest on the writings of Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score author)—but what if they just don't hold up to scrutiny, and the "science" they reference doesn't exist or is misinterpretted? This substack article is provacative, but I like it because it's someone who might be coded "left" or "hippie" by a bunch of other beliefs.. Admittedly, I skimmed, and I got recommended it because i have my own views about the trauma mindset's shadows, but would be super curious people's thoughts.
here are some juicy tidbits:
much of this science is uncertain at best, and in some cases was discredited decades ago.
polyvagal theory, which van der Kolk heavily references, has been disproven. Paul Grossman, from Universitätsspital Basel in Switzerland, writes in this paper that the basic premises of polyvagal theory “have been shown to be either untenable or highly implausible based on the available scientific literature.”
I wish we talked more about the legions of people walking around who have trauma histories who have managed to lead healthy, happy lives. In my first few years as a therapist, I noticed that contrary to the trauma narratives we see reflected in pop culture, people who have traumatic experiences are often not irrevocably damaged by it, but instead use internal and external resources to overcome it. They form healthy relationships, have meaningful careers, and raise loving families. These trauma survivors are not unicorns.
and
Part two debunked Peter Levine’s claims that trauma is stored in your body and needs to be released.
"Levine makes claims that are not supported by research and makes promises he cannot keep. He has contributed to fears that everyone has the residue of trauma lurking in their bodies by broadening the definition of trauma until it applies to any stressful experience. By exaggerating the degree to which traumatic memories are repressed, Levine (along with van der Kolk) has promoted the widespread fear that hidden trauma is causing somatic symptoms, even for those who have no memories of unpleasant experiences.
It doesn't feel invalidating to me, I think we're looking with curiosity at a topic that isn't backed by hearty public research. The more I think about the way I experience and have healed and explored very intense (mostly traumatic) childhood experiences, the more convinced I... is "The Body Keeps the Score" misleading, or even flat out disproven? I think this is an extremely important topic. So many people's ideas about trauma rest on the writings of Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score author)—but what if they just don't hold up to scrutiny, and the "science" they reference doesn't exist or is misinterpretted? This substack article is provacative, but I like it because it's someone who might be coded "left" or "hippie" by a bunch of other beliefs.. Admittedly, I skimmed, and I got recommended it because i have my own views about the trauma mindset's shadows, but would be super curious people's thoughts.
here are some juicy tidbits:
much of this science is uncertain at best, and in some cases was discredited decades ago.
polyvagal theory, which van der Kolk heavily references, has been disproven. Paul Grossman, from Universitätsspital Basel in Switzerland, writes in this paper that the basic premises of polyvagal theory “have been shown to be either untenable or highly implausible based on the available scientific literature.”
I wish we talked more about the legions of people walking around who have trauma histories who have managed to lead healthy, happy lives. In my first few years as a therapist, I noticed that contrary to the trauma narratives we see reflected in pop culture, people who have traumatic experiences are often not irrevocably damaged by it, but instead use internal and external resources to overcome it. They form healthy relationships, have meaningful careers, and raise loving families. These trauma survivors are not unicorns.
and
Part two debunked Peter Levine’s claims that trauma is stored in your body and needs to be released.
"Levine makes claims that are not supported by research and makes promises he cannot keep. He has contributed to fears that everyone has the residue of trauma lurking in their bodies by broadening the definition of trauma until it applies to any stressful experience. By exaggerating the degree to which traumatic memories are repressed, Levine (along with van der Kolk) has promoted the widespread fear that hidden trauma is causing somatic symptoms, even for those who have no memories of unpleasant experiences.
I've had similar experiences. I still don't believe that trauma is stored in the body. I think it's in the brain, but connected to patterns of body activation. Parts of the brain which are not the pure cognitive mind.. the brain is much more than verbal ideas and beliefs.... looks like I've been wrong and spreading misinformation about the disproven "triune brain theory".
The final—and most important—problem with this mistaken view is the implication that anatomical evolution proceeds in the same fashion as geological strata, with new layers added over existing ones. Instead, much evolutionary change consists of transforming existing parts.
- From https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963721420917687#con1
I have definitely made this mistake, many many times.
I'm not sure yet the implications of recognizing instead that "all vertebrates possess the same basic brain regions, here divided into the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain;" in some ways it seems like a nuance, but in other ways I think it'll shift how I see things and talk about things.
more quotes in case you don't read the article:
neural and anatomical complexity evolved repeatedly within many independent lineages
the correct view of evolution is that animals radiated from common ancestors (Fig. 1c). Within these radiations, complex nervous systems and sophisticated cognitive abilities evolved independently many times. For example, cephalopod mollusks, such as octopus and cuttlefish, possess tremendously complex nervous systems and behavior (Mather & Kuba, 2013), and the same is true of some insects and other arthropods (Barron & Klein, 2016; Strausfeld, Hansen, Li, Gomez, & Ito, 1998). Even among nonmammalian vertebrates, brain complexity has increased independently several times, particularly among some sharks, teleost fishes, and birds (Striedter, 1998).
The idea that larger brains can be equated with increased behavioral complexity is highly debatable (Chittka & Niven, 2009).
I'm not sure yet the implications of recognizing instead that "all vertebrates possess the same basic brain regions, here divided into the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain;" in some ways it seems like a nuance, but in other ways I think it'll shift how I see things and talk... looks like I've been wrong and spreading misinformation about the disproven "triune brain theory".
The final—and most important—problem with this mistaken view is the implication that anatomical evolution proceeds in the same fashion as geological strata, with new layers added over existing ones. Instead, much evolutionary change consists of transforming existing parts.
- From https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963721420917687#con1
I have definitely made this mistake, many many times.
I'm not sure yet the implications of recognizing instead that "all vertebrates possess the same basic brain regions, here divided into the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain;" in some ways it seems like a nuance, but in other ways I think it'll shift how I see things and talk about things.
more quotes in case you don't read the article:
neural and anatomical complexity evolved repeatedly within many independent lineages
the correct view of evolution is that animals radiated from common ancestors (Fig. 1c). Within these radiations, complex nervous systems and sophisticated cognitive abilities evolved independently many times. For example, cephalopod mollusks, such as octopus and cuttlefish, possess tremendously complex nervous systems and behavior (Mather & Kuba, 2013), and the same is true of some insects and other arthropods (Barron & Klein, 2016; Strausfeld, Hansen, Li, Gomez, & Ito, 1998). Even among nonmammalian vertebrates, brain complexity has increased independently several times, particularly among some sharks, teleost fishes, and birds (Striedter, 1998).
The idea that larger brains can be equated with increased behavioral complexity is highly debatable (Chittka & Niven, 2009).
Thank you. I thought about it some, and I can see how Polyvagal theory has been helpful for me, for tracking where my nervous system is at subjectively, even if it makes some wrong predictions or doesn't match what we know from bio.... looks like I've been wrong and spreading misinformation about the disproven "triune brain theory".
The final—and most important—problem with this mistaken view is the implication that anatomical evolution proceeds in the same fashion as geological strata, with new layers added over existing ones. Instead, much evolutionary change consists of transforming existing parts.
- From https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963721420917687#con1
I have definitely made this mistake, many many times.
I'm not sure yet the implications of recognizing instead that "all vertebrates possess the same basic brain regions, here divided into the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain;" in some ways it seems like a nuance, but in other ways I think it'll shift how I see things and talk about things.
more quotes in case you don't read the article:
neural and anatomical complexity evolved repeatedly within many independent lineages
the correct view of evolution is that animals radiated from common ancestors (Fig. 1c). Within these radiations, complex nervous systems and sophisticated cognitive abilities evolved independently many times. For example, cephalopod mollusks, such as octopus and cuttlefish, possess tremendously complex nervous systems and behavior (Mather & Kuba, 2013), and the same is true of some insects and other arthropods (Barron & Klein, 2016; Strausfeld, Hansen, Li, Gomez, & Ito, 1998). Even among nonmammalian vertebrates, brain complexity has increased independently several times, particularly among some sharks, teleost fishes, and birds (Striedter, 1998).
The idea that larger brains can be equated with increased behavioral complexity is highly debatable (Chittka & Niven, 2009).
I've also heard some strong scientific critiques of the polyvagal mode but that doesn't put the thing to rest. It just means there's more worked need to pragmatically trace the subjective use of those anatomical structures and that the effectiveness of any particular polyvagal... looks like I've been wrong and spreading misinformation about the disproven "triune brain theory".
The final—and most important—problem with this mistaken view is the implication that anatomical evolution proceeds in the same fashion as geological strata, with new layers added over existing ones. Instead, much evolutionary change consists of transforming existing parts.
- From https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963721420917687#con1
I have definitely made this mistake, many many times.
I'm not sure yet the implications of recognizing instead that "all vertebrates possess the same basic brain regions, here divided into the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain;" in some ways it seems like a nuance, but in other ways I think it'll shift how I see things and talk about things.
more quotes in case you don't read the article:
neural and anatomical complexity evolved repeatedly within many independent lineages
the correct view of evolution is that animals radiated from common ancestors (Fig. 1c). Within these radiations, complex nervous systems and sophisticated cognitive abilities evolved independently many times. For example, cephalopod mollusks, such as octopus and cuttlefish, possess tremendously complex nervous systems and behavior (Mather & Kuba, 2013), and the same is true of some insects and other arthropods (Barron & Klein, 2016; Strausfeld, Hansen, Li, Gomez, & Ito, 1998). Even among nonmammalian vertebrates, brain complexity has increased independently several times, particularly among some sharks, teleost fishes, and birds (Striedter, 1998).
The idea that larger brains can be equated with increased behavioral complexity is highly debatable (Chittka & Niven, 2009).
Does this also mean the Polyvagal ideas are wrong? I have lately found it very useful (which doesn't mean it's actually true), to think in terms of a triple-model of activation (Freeze -> Fight -> Grounded) and track how much of each I seem to be...