Mind wandering is the brain exploring the problem space

Explorations Outside the Box

Mind wandering is the brain exploring the problem space. It’s where the brain goes when we are not intentionally focusing on something (or, to be precise, when those parts of the brain are not engaged in processes that are experienced as intentionally focusing on things, with the understanding that “experiencing” is also a product of the brain). Problem spaces being what they are, the human animal is not always in a cheerful mood when its mind is wandering. Not necessarily unhappy – but maybe a notch or two down on the happy-ometer.

But there are also times when exploring the problem space is exhilarating, a real joy: following leads that may or may not bear fruit, discovering unknowns that had been unknown, making progress here and there (of the two-steps forward, one back sort – or vice versa). And coming to a better understanding of all the hurdles along the way. Finding patches of light that promise of further clearings within the thicket of one’s mind.

Of course the brain journey will include plenty of dead ends and a tendency to keep trying  tried-and-false pathways because the process has got stuck on repeat and we can’t yet see another way out of the rut. Then it’s good to take a break from all this exploring and reconnect with the perceptual world. The brain will keep working on the problems behind the scenes even when we are smelling the roses.

Strong opinion: a 6 on the scale of 0-10 does not constitute “unhappiness”, pace that highly over-rated paper, “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind” (a title that misrepresents the actual findings). For me, 6’s are fine. Nor do I care that people are slightly happier when perceptually engaged with their environment as opposed to when their attention is following the rabbits in their mind. Yes, engaging with the world, especially in ways that give pleasure, can get us out of a funk. And “being present” has its own rewards

Happiness is a good thing. By that I mean that it’s reasonable to want to occupy the 6-10 range on the happy-ometer more often than not.

It’s just that there is so much else that matters.

Disentangling Poverty, Social Mobility, Wage Stagnation, and Inequality – Part III: Poverty and the Remaining Necessities

Politics and Economics

Here I’m exploring how big the BIG (Basic Income Guarantee) needs to be to be an effective anti-poverty benefit in the US – that is, to cover the basic necessities of food, housing, clothing, healthcare, and transportation. Food and housing were discussed in the last post.

Let’s move on to clothing. Clothing is an increasingly small part of the American budget and I’m going to assume that there is no right to anything more than what could be bought through really cheap discounters and used clothing stores.

Then there’s healthcare. I’m going to say for the purpose of this discussion that with Obamacare – between the expansion of Medicaid, subsidies and tax credits – health insurance for the poor and near-poor is pretty much taken care of. It’s another matter whether individuals take advantage of government-sponsored healthcare benefits.

Regarding transportation; no one has the right to a functioning car, car insurance and fuel. Of course, lack thereof may make some people poor – but a basic income can’t be conceived as sufficient for all circumstances. The amount calculated for BIG inclusion should be sufficient for public transportation. Again, the size of the BIG can’t be determined by the expenses of a subset of the whole, or the temporary circumstances of given individuals. BIG should not be conceived as the exclusive remedy covering all contingencies.

Basically, then, my version of a BIG would help with housing, transportation and clothing, with the lion’s share going to housing. Healthcare and food needs would continue to be provided through existing programs.

How much would such a BIG cost? The answer depends in part on what the government and economy can afford. Some argue that the BIG would be affordable because it would be funded mostly by replacing existing safety net programs. Is that a good idea?

 

 

Awareness and the Brain, Part II

Scientific Encounters

“First, attention is a physical process in the brain, whereas awareness is in the form of knowledge that the brain can potentially report. Second, although the content of awareness and the content of attention overlap most of the time, it is sometimes possible to attend to a stimulus without being aware of it. In that case, the brain’s reportable knowledge about what is currently “in mind” becomes dissociated from what it is actually attending to, suggesting that like all representations constructed by the brain awareness is an imperfect model.”

— Yin T. Kelly, Taylor W. Webb, Jeffrey D. Meier, Michael J. Arcaro, and Michael S. A. Graziano Attributing awareness to oneself and to others (2014) PNAS Early Edition (approved February 21, 2014) www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1401201111

“Awareness is the brain’s simplified schematic model of the complicated, data handling process of attention.”

– Consciousness and the Social Brain by Michael S. A. Graziano; (2013) Oxford University Press. p. 156 (Kindle)

We are animals with brains. Awareness evolved because it helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Brains produce awareness. Awareness tracks attention, most of the time. Awareness is a constantly updated experience of our dynamically changing state of attention. Attention enhances signals and reflects competition among signals in the brain. Attention is a form of brain behavior. Awareness allows the brain to understand that behavior, its dynamic and consequences. Awareness is “experienceness” (Graziano 2013).

Awareness is a type of representation. All representations are simplifications, however: not perfectly accurate but good enough to “keep track of the essentials” (Graziano 2013, Kindle p 1144).

None of this is magic. Awareness belongs to the masses. There is not an elite who possess awareness in greater abundance than the hoi polloi. Awareness is something the human brain does.

 

Organic Versus Conventional Farming and the Greater Good

The Environment

While organic farming methods can be as or more productive than conventional methods, for many large scale crops, organic just doesn’t compete. For instance, in the US, organic corn, soybean and wheat crop yields are much lower than conventional yields. So don’t expect organic to be a major player anytime soon – at least in the US. That’s not such a bad thing though – conventional farmers are increasingly adopting conservation practices that have greatly reduced the negative externalities of modern agriculture. For instance, no-till is standard practice for over a third of major field crops in the US. Farmers are also finding ways to decrease fertilizer and pesticide use and to reduce chemical run-off (e.g., buffer zones). Purists may remain unimpressed but not me. The badness of artificial chemicals (as opposed to natural ones) is a matter of dose, not absolutes. If our farmers can keep reducing that dose while maintaining or increasing productivity, the net good is served. Less land needed for agriculture, more land spared for wild ecosystems.

 

Awareness and the Brain, Part I

Scientific Encounters

In some circles, “awareness” is a higher state of consciousness imbued with magical properties, a kind of portal onto the true nature of the world. This magical awareness allows one to overcome the barriers of mind and body to participate in the “really real”, to use Clifford Geertz’s phrase for the sense “upon which the religious perspective rests”. With this religious sense of awareness, comes great revelation.

Such an idealized conception of awareness draws power from its conceptual other, its “as opposed to”: the “waking sleep” of ordinary consciousness, where one is stumbling about in the dark forest of illusion. In this waking sleep, we’re not really awake – that is, not truly aware – although we probably think we are. The standard example used by those wanting to convince us of how unaware we are is that of driving to work. See? Somehow you got to the office but can’t remember a single thing about the trip. That’s because you weren’t aware. You were asleep at the wheel and didn’t know it.

Not being the religious sort myself, I’m skeptical.  I have questions.  Is memory-on-demand proof of awareness? If so, does that mean that with awareness, comes great remembering? And what are we talking about here? Declarative memory, yeah – but what type: visual memory, auditory memory, verbal memory, emotional memory, spatial memory, memory of physical sensations? At least one bit of a memory trace out of the thousands of percepts being experienced every second? Are we also in a state of awareness while we are remembering? What neurological evidence is there to distinguish real awareness from illusory awareness? And if we weren’t really aware when we thought we were, what were we instead?

I don’t mean to imply there are no neural correlates to certain kinds of religious experience – there probably are, insofar as religious experience is a thing – that is, something that has common elements among its various manifestations. When people are in the grip of some sort of religious ecstasy, their experience may very well correlate with certain patterns of brain activation and neurotransmitter release. Ditto when people are feeling serenely unattached. Or when feeling a sense of profound understanding. These brain patterns may or may not be connected to any specific revelatory content (that is, specific beliefs about the nature of what is). That’s for science to find out and me to wonder.

And I do not doubt that the brains of people who are experts in religious experience exhibit certain neural regularities that distinguish them from novices or worse.

Coming up: more questions! Starting with: what is “awareness” in the brain? Are there different types of awareness? Are they different levels of awareness? Are some sorts of awareness better than others? What makes them better?

Reference: Geertz, Clifford (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. Chapter: “Religion as a Cultural System.” Basic Books.

Tropes of Derision

Explorations Outside the Box

Tropes of Derision are mocking words and phrases used by The Unsympathetic Observer to frame its object as unworthy of respect or compassion. This is the first of an occasional series.

Whine: selfish and self-pitying.

Be inconvenienced: implies opposition is based on convenience and people’s unwillingness to give up their comfort and selfish ways (see: An Inconvenient Truth). Those who resist our message are not principled – they’re just spoiled and lazy.

Rant:  all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Can be used to dismiss anything said with a degree of passion.

Hysterical:  characterized by emotion uninformed by reason or reality. Can be used to dismiss anything said with a degree of passion.

Rambling: nothing being said here, just a bunch of words strung together. No need to pay attention.

So-called: obviously not corrected called

Hype: don’t believe it

Nefarious: always used sarcastically, to highlight the absurdity of an over-reaction by the Idiots

Greed: wanting more than one needs, applied selectively

Orthodox or Conventional: hidebound, unimaginative, conformist (as opposed to the Consensus, which is something we should respect).

Keystone XL, Global Warming, And Symbolic Gestures

The Environment

Today the Obama administration officially rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline. As President Obama acknowledged, this decision was mostly symbolic. The existence of the pipeline itself would have made little difference in the battle against climate change, nor would its economic payoffs have been all that great. Obama said rejecting the Pipeline would strengthen his hand in upcoming international talks on climate change, making the US more credible in the fight.

In other words, the administration’s decision was about PR: “see, we’re serious!” But the people that need to come on board – the people who are skeptical either about the seriousness of global warming or about the efficacy of government actions to combat global warming – can see through all this condescension. Condescension feeds the skepticism. And those who already believe don’t need symbolic gestures. I basically agree with the Washington Post editorial A disappointing but long-awaited decision on the Keystone XL pipeline . Check it out.

Mindfulness, Thoughts and Thinking, Part I

Observing Mindfulness

“IGNORE YOUR MIND: Don’t give thoughts a second thought ”  http://www.themindfulword.org/2015/ignore-mind-thoughts/

“When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/mindfulness

“We are not interested in engaging in the content of our thoughts; mindfulness of thinking is simply recognizing we are thinking.”  https://sites.google.com/a/audiodharmacourse.org/mindfulness-meditation/week-4-thinking/about-mindfulness-of-thinking

As the above quotes illustrate, one finds little respect for “thoughts” in mindfulness discourse. In fact, pace the ubiquitous assertion that being mindful involves being “nonjudgmental”, the process of thinking and the appearance of thoughts (from fragmented to pretty coherent) is clearly devalued as “just thoughts”. A few more examples of the lowly status of “thoughts” from Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophic Living (Kindle pages):

“It is remarkable how liberating it feels to be able to see that your thoughts are just thoughts and that they are not  ‘you’ or “reality”. 1898

“This feeling, this apprehending, is another way of knowing for us, beyond merely thought-based knowing.” 387

Of course, thoughts can cloud our judgment and lead us astray. Of course, thoughts aren’t the whole of us. Of course, thoughts are not the same thing as reality. Of course, thoughts can be wrong. Of course, we can become stuck in a way of thinking. These are not uncommon observations about thoughts. However, Kabat-Zinn appears to think (!) an appreciation of the limitations of thoughts and thinking is rare in the wider society. “In reality” he says, we are:

“…totally unaware of the tyranny of our own thoughts and the self-destructive behaviors they often result in.” 1053

In mindfulness discourse, “awareness” confers privileged access to reality, a special state of being that exists in parallel to thinking, feeling, and sensing. But in the parallel world, thinking has a particularly low status. In fact, “awareness” is often discussed in contrast to thinking, as something that is “beyond merely thought-based knowing” (as in the quote above) whereas developing a basic trust in our emotions and the signals from our bodies are an integral part of mindfulness training. So, even though the parallel world includes thoughts, feelings and sensations, the latter two tend to be regarded more highly than “mere” thoughts.

That thoughts are often wrong doesn’t necessarily make them less valuable in specific cases: even wrong thoughts can start us on a path that leads to something we do value, like insight – about ourselves or maybe a gnarly scientific problem we’ve been trying to understand.

(One does find an occasional nod in mindfulness discourse to the value and necessity of thoughts and thinking, with the insistence that “observing” thoughts does not mean to inhibit them. That is a whole other discussion, which I’ll be taking up later).

This doesn’t mean that all thoughts are equal – only that thoughts and the process of thinking (whether automatic or effortful) have variable value, depending on lots of things. Some thoughts are not useful (unproductive rumination), some are clearly useful (remembering it’s Mom’s birthday) and many are in the gray zone. There is a time to inhibit thoughts, a time to assume the stance of uncommitted observer as thoughts come and go and a time to indulge the interplay of thoughts as they pursue their own mysterious ends.

However, being open to thoughts – whether they just pop up, are part of a loosely managed stream, or are the product of persistent effort and purpose – is part of a scientific worldview. Thoughts are sources of information about the world, just as emotions and the senses are. That doesn’t make them necessarily right, or necessarily welcome at all times.

Practicing non-judgmental awareness, letting go of thoughts and gently redirecting attention to some meditative object is probably good for the heart and the brain (considered physically and metaphorically). The evidence suggests it certainly can be. Aerobic exercise is also good for the heart and brain. But just because exercising 30 minutes a day is good for you doesn’t mean exercising all day long is even better. The same with mindfulness practice: it can be very useful to practice “state regulation” and to assume the non-judgmental stance of an observer, but not necessarily to do so at all times – in other words, as a way of living and being. This is partly a matter of what is possible and partly a matter of what is desirable, about which more later.

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Triumphalist Strains within Mindfulness Discourse

Observing Mindfulness

Triumphalism is a sense of superiority and expectation of ultimate triumph, often reflected in exultation about the achievements of one’s religion or ideology (as confirmation of progress towards an ultimate triumph). Granted, triumphalism is an “observer’s category” and is generally used pejoratively. Few people would call themselves triumphalist. Still, the idea of triumphalism captures something that is quite real.

Here are a few quotes from an excellent exemplar of the triumphalist spirit within the mindfulness movement, Jon Kabat-Zinn from Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness ( Kindle page numbers):

“…the scientific investigation of mindfulness and its effect on health and well-being has grown tremendously … exploding scientific evidence for the efficacy of mindfulness…240-252 [my italics]

“…the research in this area is expanding exponentially.” 313 [my italics]

“In MBSR, we try to inspire people …We do this by touching on the ways in which new scientific research and thinking are transforming the practice of medicine itself… This transformation in medicine is sometimes referred to as a paradigm shift, a movement from one entire worldview to another.” 3289-3322 [my italics]

“The most rigorous of the physical sciences [physics] has had to come to terms with new discoveries showing that, at the deepest and most fundamental level, the natural world is neither describable nor understandable.” 4323 [my italics]

“This new way of being in relationship to stress and potential stressors can be hugely liberating.” 5602 [my italics]

“Science is now searching for more comprehensive models that are truer to our understanding of the interconnectedness of space and time, matter and energy, mind and body, even consciousness and the universe, and what role the human brain…. plays in it all.” 3330 [my italics]

Here is the narrative of a relentless but inevitable march towards the triumph of mindfulness as a scientifically-validated way of being, the current scientific embrace of mindfulness foreshadowed but radically discontinuous with what came before (at least in the West). Hence, the emphasis on newness: no incrementalism here – we’re talking a movement “from one entire worldview to another”. Just as the gap between the mindful and the rest is unbridgeable in modern society, there is no straight line from the old science to the new science.

It’s really quite odd. That the world is “interconnected” is not exactly new or revolutionary. Ditto for the idea that at some level the world is indescribable or beyond understanding. These perspectives go way back and own nothing to the mindfulness movement.

Regarding the apparently widespread and growing scientific support for the benefits of mindfulness, neuroscientist and meditation researcher Catherine Kerr says: “It is not like any of this is grossly inaccurate. It is just that the studies are too cherry-picked and too positive.” I would add that the triumphalist spirit, borne of religious and ideological fervor, encourages such selectivity because it is essentially anti-scientific. Science starts with a tentative proposition that something may be the case. Triumphalism starts with certainty that something is the case – and in time the essential truth will be revealed to all.

Mind wandering: our brains exploring the problem space

Explorations Outside the Box

Mind wandering is the brain exploring the problem space. It’s where the brain goes when we are not intentionally focusing on something (or, to be precise, when those parts of the brain are not engaged in processes that are experienced as intentionally focusing on things, with the understanding that “experiencing” is also a product of the brain). Problem spaces being what they are, the human animal is not always in a cheerful mood when its mind is wandering. Not necessarily unhappy – but maybe a notch or two down on the happy-ometer.

Except, perhaps, for those who love wandering in the problem space, following leads that may or may not bear fruit, discovering unknowns that had been unknown, making progress here and there (of the two-steps forward, one back sort – or vice versa). And coming to a better understanding of all the hurdles along the way. Finding patches of light that promise of greater clearings within the thicket of one’s mind.

Of course, there will be plenty of dead ends and a tendency to keep trying the tried-and-false because the process has got stuck on repeat and we can’t yet see another way out of the rut. Then it’s good to take a break from all this exploring and reconnect with the perceptual world. The brain will keep working on the problems behind the scenes even when we are smelling the roses.

Strong opinion: a 6 on the scale of 0-10 does not constitute “unhappiness”, pace that highly over-rated paper, “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind”. For me, 6’s are fine. Nor do I care that people are slightly happier when perceptually engaged with their environment as opposed to when their attention is following the rabbits in their mind. Yes, engaging with the world, especially in ways that give pleasure, can get us out of a funk. And “being present” has its own rewards

But the title of this paper is overly categorical and misrepresents the actual findings. It seems that the authors wanted a catchy title, accuracy be damned.

Sure, happiness is a good thing. By that I mean that it seems worthwhile to want to occupy the 6-10 range on the happy-ometer more often than not.

It’s just that there is so much else that matters.