I have been reading a fair bit lately and I have a few books on the go such as ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley,’ Louder Than Words’ by Benjamin K. Bergen and I’ve just finished reading for the second time ‘Super Brain’ by Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E.Tanzi. There’s so much more books I want to read. I wish I could have that instant matrix-learning just like when Keanu Reeves’ character Neo utters “I know Kung fu” after martial arts has been uploaded to his brain. If only, perhaps someday.




Since I’ve been reading a great deal I should probably write reviews so I can mentally track back, it will help me retain and learn from what I have read.  I’ve decided to write a review on the book ‘Super Brain’. Super Brain has been described as a book about ‘unleashing the explosive power of your mind’1 and maximising the potential of the human brain in practical and actionable ways. It is co-authored and written by Deepak Chopra a public speaker and licensed physician and Dr Rudolph E. Tanzi a Professor of Neurology at Harvard and one of the world’s foremost experts on the cause of Alzheimer’s.
Overall I did think it was a good read and it is a good book that reminds us how powerful our brains could be. I enjoyed the first half of the book which describes the science and origins of our most ingrained reactions, I also enjoyed the dispelling of long held myths such as “aging in the brain is irreversible” and “the brain’s hard wiring cannot be changed”. I particularly liked the stories of geniuses, polyglots, savants and how their stories offer reasons to reject these long held myths. This reminded me of Oliver Sacks' work and his recounts of case histories of patients lost in the bizarre neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks is considered “one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century” (The New York Times) and if you get a chance read “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.” It’s an extremely fascinating read and a humbling meditation on the beauty of imperfection.

I did find that the Super Brain at times lacks cohesion and this is most likely because it is co-authored. Twice upon reading I’ve struggled to read the last third of the book as I believe it descends to a typical self help book. I find the abstract mindfulness and meditation mantras do not cohere well with the scientific examples. It felt at times that the neurological theories, especially the quantum mechanics theories were included purposefully to provide more validity to abstract spirituality concepts. However, validity is dispelled when scientific research is not backed with citations or references. This is a little leery for this book especially when it claims in the blurb that is draws “upon the very latest findings of neuroscience”.  All legitimate scientific works provide citations and references. I particularly disliked the arguing and the blatant distaste towards atheism and attacks on certain professionals and their beliefs. I find it highly hypocritical for a book that advocates open mindedness throughout, there’s a lack of open mindedness and respect of others’ beliefs.

In conclusion, this is not an essential read however it is an excellent reminder that when we are an active observer of our mind we have the ability to control our mind and when we take full control we can achieve amazing things. 

[1. Sub title of Super Brain]
[Illustration by Owen Davey]


Fairly recently, Harald Jezek commenced a discussion about the definition of reality on TED debates which I participated a great deal in. The debate included the statements:

What is reality?

Did you ever think about what it is that makes reality real?

How is our reality created ? Isn't it the perceptions our brain creates based on our sensory inputs?
But what if we lack a sense ? How does reality change for somebody who cannot hear or see? Or take it even a step further, assume you are deprived of all your senses, What would reality mean in such a case? And last but not least, let's assume you are born without any senses. What would that mean to your reality ? So what is reality and what are we as part of this reality?

























Debate:
http://www.ted.com/conversations/21159/what_is_reality_2.html

My responses:
http://www.ted.com/profiles/2227000

Towards the end of the debate, those who participated were asked to provide a final post summarising our own view on the topic. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to provide my final post so I thought I would post it here. I generally agreed with Harald’s closing statement however, I wanted to elaborate on my reasoning.

Shared Reality
I’m definitely in agreement with “there are different aspects to reality.” One aspect is a ‘shared reality’. Harald nicely describes it as, “the reality we deal with on a daily basis and which we share to a large degree. For example we agree upon common things, such as when we see a car we all agree it’s a car, a tree and a house if a house.” I do follow parts of Copenhagen interpretation where reality is described as “our senses are constituted to give us an impression of a material world, but that this reality is a reflection of something of a different nature.” I believe our physical senses each have a spectrum, these senses perceives the sea of energy from a certain limited standpoint and makes up an image from that. This image is just an interpretation. Our interpretations are solely based on the ‘internal map’ of reality which is a result of our collective experiences. Copenhagen interpretation also states, “There is no deep reality.” Initially I was in accordance to this statement however; Harald Jezek and Esteban Trevino made me realize that “our universe will still be here regardless of us being around to observe it or not. Best proof for that is probably that the universe is much older than we are. So, obviously it was around long before we showed up to observe it.” I also came to the realisation that it is a very narcissistic view to believe that one particular state of space time (i.e. the occurrence of consciousness during the big bang) was chosen purely so it could inhabit material bodies simply so we could exist. Such mentality would not have formed the great theory of evolution or disprove that the earth was not the center of the universe. This reality may not be considered a deep reality however, it is a reality nonetheless. One could even dispute it maybe a deep reality because it is a collective reality, it is something that is shared amongst a large number of conscious entities.

Inner Reality

Another aspect to reality is ‘inner reality’. Inner reality is our individual reality and “this can be something simple like the perception of a taste, odor or a color.” The debate questions reality for those with limited or without senses. I believe that ‘shared’ and ‘inner reality’ would still apply to those without or with limited senses and my reasoning would be, take cellular life or plant cells for instance. If we believe that consciousness is an ability to be aware of external forces then cellular life and plant cells would still fall in this category. Their awareness is still considered very rudimentary, but cells do sense in a chemical way light, heat, foreign cells, pH condition in liquids and other states of matter than can be good or bad for their survival. Awareness (consciousness) can be reduced to very minimal states. In addition, I do believe that those without any senses still experience a ‘shared’ and ‘inner reality’. There was a study published in 2011 in Frontiers in Human Neurosciences, Tristan Bekinschtein which found that people in vegetative coma states (i.e. absence of awareness of self or environment, but where autonomic functions such as respiration are preserved), where patients showed signs of brain activity in response to linguistic stimuli. Patients still had consciousness, despite not having the means to express it.

Objective Reality

Lastly, another aspect to reality is ‘objective reality’, which includes the laws of nature. These may include Newtonian laws, Quantum physics and other laws which have not been discovered. It is a reality that exists regardless of whether we are here or not to contemplate on it. Objective reality starts to become complex when you start to think of the singularity event. As the beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Stephen Hawking contends that time began with the big bang, assuming by time he means physical time, since you can’t have physical time before the existence of physical reality. However, Hawking does not preclude the existence of a metaphysical time prior to singularity. Complexity is further added when taking in consideration the possibility of Multiverses. Brian Greene’s system classification of the Landscape Multiverse describes that the laws of physics in these universes are fundamentally different than the universe we inhabit. Subjective and Objective reality is established by Newtonian and Quantum laws however, these laws may not apply in these universes hence, other physical/metaphysical or unknown laws would apply to these other universes’ realities.

Duality of Map-or-Territory

There was also talk about another possible aspect to reality that includes the three dimensions of mind, body and spirit, “duality of map-or-territory”, the “simultaneous distinctive cohesive structure between the territory and map”. In truth, I was struggling to fully understand the correlation to reality however, I could see possible connection to quantum entanglement. An example of what I believed that best describes this connection was Stuart Hammeroff’s description of these dimensions during outer body experiences occurring during near death experiences. He describes how when quantum coherence and quantum computations driven by metabolism ends (when the blood stops flowing), quantum information leaks out to the universe at large because it exists in the Planck scale (it exists in the most fundamental level). Coherence is lost and it leaks out to the universe at large. He states it doesn’t dissipates entirely because of entanglement and plus the universe is holographic. It remains in the phase relationship and can persist in the subconscious dreamlike level outside the body. Hammeroff also describes when an individual dies, quantum information/consciousness or protoconsciousness is not destroyed it, it may sort of dissipate or hang together due to quantum entanglement and can exist in some sort of afterlife hence, the possibility of reincarnation. Esteban mentioned in the debate that “Humans even have the capacity to create stuff or rearrange the existing stuff.” This was in regards to humans having the ability to create their own reality. Joe Dispenza nicely describes this notion with the correlation of mirror neurons, neuroplasticity and quantum entanglement. Hammeroff's and Dispenza’s theories are appealing notions however, I’m yet to fully understand it or believe it.

Image Credit: Bookishly: Inspired by Literature.
Illustration by Freak City

Lately I’ve been contributing to TED debates. I’ve always been tempted to contribute in the past because a lot of the information they feature I take a great interest in. However, this temptation is quickly dampened by the sensation of feeling unqualified in front of elite intellectuals who generally take part in the discussions. I finally overcame this feeling and took the courage to write a response to one of TED’s featured debates about human behavior and genes. Fortunately it was the top rated response out of 125 and it has sparked and revived writing again. I haven’t written for awhile so I thought I would write an extensive version of my response to the TED debate.

Question

Are there any human behaviours that can’t be logically derived from selfish gene promotion?

 We do it with animals in biology all the time, we study animals and realise that the more closely related they are, the more likely they are to help each other. So why, if humans arose under the same conditions (evolution) should we treat ourselves any differently in study?. Arrogance?

 Take sharing between friends, one friend shares with another in a time of excess, so that in a time of inexcess the other might reciprocate. This way both fair better than they would alone. Could this be a 'selfish' act?

http://www.ted.com/conversations/21126/are_there_any_human_behaviours.html

My Response

The selfish gene is one theory that implies that genes can promote selfish, as well as, altruistic behavior (read ‘The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins’ to get an understanding of this theory). However, there are other theories that also describe how human behavior have possibly been shaped or can be shaped. Selfish gene theory is not the only one. Another theory is mirror neurons and the link to empathy.

Watch TED talk Jeremy Rifkin: The empathic civilization. Rifkin describes a study that discovered that all primates are soft wired with mirror neurons. Rifkin suggests that we are all soft-wired to experience another’s plight, as if we are experiencing it ourselves. This suggests we are actually soft-wired not for aggression, violence, self-interest and utilitarianism but we are soft-wired for sociability, attachment, affection and companionship. So our first drive is to actually “belong”. This drive to belong triggers empathic behaviour. For more information about ‘mirror neurons and empathy’, I wrote a lengthy blog post about this 3 years ago in December 2010 http://ccrandomramblings.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/empathic-neurons.html

From the original statement “Are there any human behaviors that can't be logically derived from selfish gene promotion?” this sounds like there is advocacy towards nature in the nature vs nuture debate i.e. our biology dictates our behavioral traits. Supposedly if this was the case, in a sense human behavior can be shaped through influencing our biology such as influencing genetic code, or neural pathways. There are theories that support that our biology can be changed by environmental forces. There’s the Epigenetic theory that supports the theory that genes are collaborative, not determining an individual’s traits in an independent manner, but rather determine traits in association with the environment. Consequently environmental forces influence the expression of genes. In addition, Neuroplasticity is another example of where human biology is capable of changing through behavior and the environment. Neuroplasticity refers to changes in neural pathways and synapses which are due to changes in behavior and environment.

Just wanted to note that the selfish gene theory describes an organism is expected to evolve to maximise its inclusive fitness i.e. the number of copies of its genes passed on globally rather than by a particular individual. The word “Selfish” is used to describe the selfish replicating behavior of genes. Genes that get passed on are the ones whose consequences serve their own implicit interests which are to continue being replicated as this tends to result towards an evolutionarily stable strategy. Selfish gene theory implies that these genes possibly encourage altruistic acts as altruistic behavior promotes survival of species /genes through species cooperation. The theory also implies that genes can also encourage selfish acts as it promotes survival of a vessel or survival of genes within a vessel. It's also important to note as British journalist Andrew Brown describes, "'Selfish', when applied to genes, doesn't mean 'selfish' at all. It means, instead, an extremely important quality for which there is no good word in the English language: "the quality of being copied by a Darwinian selection process." This is a complicated mouthful. There ought to be a better, shorter word—but 'selfish' isn't it."

In regards to “So why, if humans arose under the same conditions (evolution) should we treat ourselves any differently in study?” Selfish genes was derived from Darwin’s evolution theory. Darwin’s study of Galápagos finches played an important part in the inception of the theory of evolution by natural selection. In a sense we don’t treat ourselves differently in study, you can say that through the study of different species we have derived our own knowledge of human evolution. As Richard Dawkins beautifully states in ‘The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution’, “Despite the Great Chain of Being's traditional ranking of humans between animals and angels, there is no evolutionary justification for the common assumption that evolution is somehow 'aimed' at humans, or that humans are 'evolution's last word'.” If humans were too ‘Arrogant’, such a non-prejudice theory would not have been formed or would be widely accepted.

Image Credit: Julia Suits

 

Books that make you really think, feel and wonder at the same time are a rarity. Something that I read today that falls in this light is the graphic comic novel “Daytripper”, written and drawn by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon. Inks and watercolours are a challenging medium however; this novel shows the hardness and subtlety of inks effortlessly mastered. The colouring was amazingly done by Dave Stewart, lots of tonal gradients and subtle colours flowing into another.

The novel is a beautifully written tale about Bras de Olivia Domingos, an aspiring writer working at a newspaper writing obituaries. The tale is told in ten chapters and each chapter presents a moment in time. It does not occur chronologically, it moves forwards or backwards from youth to old age, giving it another dynamic to time. Each moment represents a turning point in his life and ends with his death and an obituary.

Death in this novel occurs at a regular basis, instead of being fearful or shocked when it occurs, it is accepted and it teaches us to celebrate humanity. The addition of death punctuates the truth in every moment making it impactful. A moment can be an entire lifetime and so take in every moment of our lives which we tend to forget because we are too busy.

This is not your conventional super hero comic however, there is some supernatural element where death is reoccurring and how moments of Bras life are fused with dreams giving it a sense of immortality, in dreams anything is possible and this can be translated in real life. This is a powerful graphic novel which will speak to people from different walks of life. I highly recommend Daytripper.





More info on Daytripper 

I haven’t blogged in awhile, actually it’s been 6 months, half a year! I see the bad and good in this. Bad, because there’s a lack of regular meaningful thinking or, optimistically, lack in finding coherency in disjointed meaningful thinking. It could be seen as good because I’ve been reading, watching many things and all this time has given me the opportunity to delve further into what I’ve been reading and watching. I’m starting to see everything as a whole and it’s providing clarity.
Recently I watched two fascinating talks. One was a presentation by Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran, a presentation about “The neurons that shaped civilization”. This presentation triggered another talk that I watched a few days ago by Jeremy Rifkin on "The empathic civilization”. Both talks are not directly related but surprisingly in essence, similar. They both describe a research study conducted in Parma Italy by Rizzolatti and colleagues which lead to the discovery of “mirror neurons”. I found Rifkin’s description of mirror neurons intriguing, and I felt optimistic from hearing about this. I’ve always been at qualms with the notion of whether humans possess good innate biological traits? Are we genetically good (in a moral sense) organisms? I think I share the same philosophy as what Rifkins mentions “Enlightment philosophers” ideologies of humans, which is we are materialistic, self interested, utilitarian and pleasure seekers by nature. I’ve come to this conclusion from Darwinism, evolution, Selfish genes, genetics, neuroscience and pure observation of human behaviour. However, this talk challenged this ideology which is what made it so intriguing.





Rifkin’s talks about in the early 90s in Parma, Italy, scientists were using MRI brain scanning machines on a monkey trying to open a nut. They wanted to observe what neurons light up when the monkey opened the nut. Just by serendipity, a human by accident, enters the laboratory and sees the nut and opens it. The monkey observed the human doing this, they found that the same neurons light up for both human and monkey despite that the monkey was purely observing and not physically experiencing the act of opening a nut. From this Rizzolatti discovered “mirror neurons”. They found all humans, primates are soft wired with these mirror neurons. For example if an individual was experiencing anger, frustration, joy ...etc.... and if another individual was observing these emotions, the same neurons would light up, as if they were experiencing these same emotions. We are all soft-wired to experience another’s plight, as if we are experiencing it ourselves. This suggests we are actually soft-wired not for aggression, violence, self-interest and utilitarianism but we are soft-wired for sociability, attachment, affection and companionship. So our first drive is to actually “belong”. This drive to belong triggers empathic behaviour.

Rifkin’s explains the evolution of empathy:
  • Around the age of 2 a child begins to recognise themselves in the mirror.
  • Empathy starts to mature once a child can identify themselves, they start to observe others and feel that others share the same feeling. This increases the feeling of “selfhood”.
  • Around the age of 8 years of age a child learns about birth and death. They learn where they came from, that they only have one life. That life is fragile, vulnerable and that one day they are going to die. The child learns that every moment is precious; they have their own unique history. This allows the child to experience another’s plight in the same way, that the other person, other creature has one and only life.
Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgment of death and the celebration of life.
  • In the past, for Forager hunter societies, communication extended only to local tribe and shouting distance. Everyone on the next mountain was alien to each other and so empathy only extended to blood ties.
  • Then there was the great Hydraulic Agricultural civilisations, script allowed us to extend the central nervous system to annihilate time and space and to bring more people together. The differentiation of scales and increasing self-hood lead to the theological consciousness. Consequently, instead of associating with one’s blood ties we began association with religious ties.
  • During the 19th century Industrial Revolution, we extend markets now to larger areas and create the idea of the Nation State, allowing us to extend our families based on loyalties based on complex energy communication revolutions that annihilate time and space.
Rifkin’s raises a pivotal question, “Why stop here?” Why would empathy stop at the Nation State identity.

“We have the technology to extend the central nervous system to think viscerally as a family, not just intellectually. Is it possible that the new technology is allowing us to connect our empathy to the human race writ large in a single biosphere?”

“Is it possible we can extend our empathy to the entire human race as an extended family and to our fellow creatures as part of our evolutionary family and to our biosphere common community?”
I’m starting to think perhaps we are homo-empathicus by nature and it has been repressed allowing for secondary drives such as narcissism, materialism, violence and aggression to override.

I had an inkling awhile back that this maybe is correct (blog entry “Sharing is caring??” May 2nd 2010).
“Caring, sharing = acceptance = species compatibility = species survival. But then I dispute that perhaps the need for the survival as a whole species and not just survival of the vessel (i.e. the individual itself) can be altruistic.”
“...perhaps some species wants and desires could be mutually, intrinsically communicated, hence a mutual need of harmonious symbiosis which could be seen as altruistic.”
I think this empathic nature is the key to human evolution. It is “the invisible hand, it’s what allows us to stretch our sensibility with another so we can cohere in larger social units.” It is what will save our species and our planet. We need to rethink human nature and bring out our empathic sociability. Current ideas of human nature have brought about assumptions in which institutions have been created and based upon. These institutions include our educational institutions, business institutions, business practices, governing institutions. I do agree with Rifkin’s, we need to also rethink the institutions of society and start to prepare the groundwork for an empathic civilisation. To empathise is to civilise, and to evolve.

Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran presentation “The neurons that shaped civilization” also describes the discovery of mirror neurons from the research conducted in Parma Italy. Ramachandran talks about ordinary motor neurons which fire when a person does a specific action and that these motor command neurons have been known for some time. However, there are a subset of neurons which fire when looking at somebody else performing an action. It is as though these neurons are adopting this person’s (i.e. person performing the action) point of view, as if it’s performing a virtual reality simulation of the other person’s actions.

These mirror neurons are significant because they involve imitation, emulation. They allow us to mimic complex act, allowing one’s brain to adopt another’s point of view. Go back to 75,000 to 100,000 years and look at human evolution and the rapid skills unique to human beings emerging such as tool use, the creation of fire, language, theory of mind etc...etc... The emergence of a sophisticated neuron system allowed humans to imitate and emulate action and so a sudden accidental discovery of a new skill e.g. the use of fire; instead of the skill dying it was emulated, replicated and it was spread. It is possible that these mirror neurons have perhaps been the cause of these rapid skills, as a result lead to the acceleration of human evolution.

Ramachandran gives an interesting example, “If you remove the arm, you simply anesthetise my arm, so you put an injection into my arm, anesthetise the brachial plexus so the arm is numb and there is no sensations coming in. If I now watch you being touched, I literally feel it in my hand, in other words you have dissolved the barrier between you and other human beings. So I called them Gandhi neurons or empathy neurons. And this is not some abstract metaphorical sense, all that is separating you from him, from the other person is your skin. Remove the skin, you experience that person’s touch in your mind. You’ve dissolved the barrier between you and other human beings. And this is of course the basis of much of Eastern philosophy, that is there is no real independent self, aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world, inspecting other people. You are in fact connected not just via Facebook and the internet, you are quite literally connected by your neurons. There is no real distinctiveness of your consciousness from somebody else’s consciousness.” There are many that share this theory and have mentioned it in a past blog “Sharing is Caring??”;

“...an interview with John Hagelin, PhD Professor of Physics, Director of Institute of Science Technology at Maharishi University of Management. Hagelin mentions that we are fundamentally “waves of vibrations of this underlying unified super string field.” There are many people that share similar theories; there was a quote by Bill Hicks that “we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.”

Ben Stewart describes the earth as a “single living conscious organism” in the movie “Kymatica” (which I highly recommend, there are some things that I'm sceptical about however, it's worth watching because it gets you thinking). I think this description best illustrates this notion however, I wouldn’t limit it to just the earth. I have come to the conclusion that we have to stop seeing everything in classes, categories, distinctions, gender, nationalities, religions, blood ties, creatures, and start seeing everything as a whole organism coexisting in one consciousness. To bring about empathic sociability and come about in seeing one consciousness is the key to harmonious existence.
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