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Introduction to Mind-Altering Parasites

September 2, 2010 /

My wife on mind-altering parasites:

There are dozens of similar behavior-altering parasites, each as fascinating as the next. Most of these parasites are specialized to a single species of host. The large majority infect insects or creatures on the low end of the evolutionary scale. There are some exceptions, including Toxoplasma gondii which lives in cats and infects humans. Toxoplasma gondii also infects rats and makes them lose their fear of cats- an infected rodent will waltz right up to cat’s hangout spot, only to be eaten and live inside the cat’s intestines long enough to get back to its preferred host, a human. Studies are still being done on the effects of Toxoplasmosis, but it seems to produce introverted and anti-social tendencies in the host, along immune and neurological problems.

Prime Surrealestate: Mind-Altering Parasites

Wilhelm Reich and Alternative Psychology

September 2, 2010 /

reich panels

My wife’s intro to Wilhelm Reich and alternative psychology:

The underpinnings of the human mind and our behavior as an extension are naturally fascinating. It’s no surprise that Sigmund Freud caught on fast in the 1940?s and was a household name by the 1960?s. But what once held so much potential became more of a racket for years and years of expensive and sometimes cruel treatments that may never leave patients cured, or worse, the mentality that pharmaceuticals alone can cure all of our social problems. Traditional psychotherapy is characterized by a therapist who acts as an authority figure, and generally, a session includes the patient talking extensively as the therapist silently analyzes. It can take months or years to get anywhere, because as many therapists have noted, patients tend to exhibit defense mechanisms for their inhibitions, anxieties, and neuroses. Some will even express hostility towards the therapist. A good therapist has to be able to work past the defenses, known as resistances and negative transferences. Only then can breakthroughs happen.

Alternative psychology opts to take a different, and usually faster approach to breakthroughs- and many practitioners include the use of body language analysis, or the incorporation of movement or exercise as therapy techniques.

Prime Surrealestate: Wilhelm Reich and Alternative Psychology

See also: The Reich biographical comic book

Slackers Better at “Fun” Activities

August 31, 2010 /

Word search

The researchers first screened participants of comparable academic ability, categorizing them as interested in achievement or interested in fun. They then had the students look at a computer screen that flashed words related to high achievement (for instance, “win,” “excel” and “master”). In subsequent tests of ability such as a word-search puzzle, the participants who were interested in achievement performed significantly better than did those who were not.

That experiment confirmed conven tional assumptions, but the next one had a confounding outcome. Participants were again primed with high-achievement words and asked to complete a word-search puzzle. But instead of describing the task as a serious test of verbal pro ficiency as before, the researchers called it “fun.” The results of that simple seman tic change were profound: not only did the supposed slackers perform better on the task this time around, their scores actually surpassed those of the high-achievement crowd.

Scientific American: Slackers Better at “Fun” Activities

I read a similar study years ago that I’ve never been able to find. Researchers in that study found that different groups did better on tests that were called “work” and called “games.” Some people did better at “work” than “games,” other did better at “games” than “work.”

Photo by Sarah Le Clerc

(via Kyle)

See also: Brain network links cognition, motivation (Also via Kyle)

Loneliness May Lead to Theism and Animism

August 31, 2010 /

lonely

And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I’m lonely—
I’ll make me a world . . . (Johnson, 1927/1990, p. 17)

Physicists have the scientific tools to suggest that Johnson may have gotten his poem profoundly wrong, but psychologists have the scientific tools to suggest that Johnson may have gotten his poem profoundly backward. In three studies, people who were chronically disconnected from others (Study 1) or momentarily led to think about disconnection (Studies 2 and 3) appeared to create humanlike agents in their environment— from gadgets to pets to supernatural agents such as God. These studies go beyond simply demonstrating that social disconnection leads people to seek companionship from nonhuman agents, showing that social disconnection can alter the way these agents are conceptualized or represented. Lonely people cannot make themselves a world, of course, but they can make themselves a mindful gadget, a thoughtful pet, or a god to populate that world.

MindHacks: Solitude conjures imaginary companions

Am I correct in believing that many religious practices include extended isolation as an initiatory or even ongoing practice for the priestly classes or even rank and file?

What the Brain is Doing When it is “Idle”

August 31, 2010 /

Idle brain

Until recently, scientists would have found little of interest in the purposeless, mind-wandering spaces between Mrazek’s conscious breakfast-making tasks — they were just the brain idling between meaningful activity.

But in the span of a few short years, they have instead come to view mental leisure as important, purposeful work — work that relies on a powerful and far-flung network of brain cells firing in unison.

Neuroscientists call it the “default mode network.” […]

That’s in sharp contrast to the pattern struck by the brain when hard at work: In this mode, introspection is suppressed while we attend to pressing business — we “lose ourselves” in work. As we do so, scientists see the default mode network go quiet and other networks come alive.

LA Times: An idle brain may be the self’s workshop

I’ve noted before that the bored brain uses more energy than an engaged brain (and that also boredom can be lethal). It seems clear that we also need enough idle time as well.

Intel Developing Improved Mind Reading Computers

August 25, 2010 /

brain imaging

The current crop of thought-controlled devices relies on users imagining movements, but, according to the Telegraph, Intel is working on technology that will “read” what words users are thinking:

Preliminary tests of the system have shown that the computer can work out words by looking at similar brain patterns and looking for key differences that suggest what the word might be.

Dean Pomerleau, a senior researcher at Intel Laboratories, said that currently, the devices required to get sufficient detail of brain activity were bulky, expensive magnetic resonance scanners, like those used in hospitals.

But he said work was under way to produce smaller pieces of equipment that can be worn as headsets and that can produce the same level of detail.

Telegraph: Computers that read minds are being developed by Intel

Making brains: Reverse engineering the human brain to achieve AI

August 25, 2010 /

Brain

An introduction to the concepts and problems with reverse engineering the human brain:

The ongoing debate between PZ Myers and Ray Kurzweil about reverse engineering the human brain is fairly representative of the same debate that’s been going in futurist circles for quite some time now. And as the Myers/Kurzweil conversation attests, there is little consensus on the best way for us to achieve human-equivalent AI.

That said, I have noticed an increasing interest in the whole brain emulation (WBE) approach. Kurzweil’s upcoming book, How the Mind Works and How to Build One, is a good example of this—but hardly the only one. Futurists with a neuroscientific bent have been advocating this approach for years now, most prominently by the European transhumanist camp headed by Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg.

While I believe that reverse engineering the human brain is the right approach, I admit that it’s not going to be easy. Nor is it going to be quick. This will be a multi-disciplinary endeavor that will require decades of data collection and the use of technologies that don’t exist yet. And importantly, success won’t come about all at once. This will be an incremental process in which individual developments will provide the foundation for overcoming the next conceptual hurdle.

Sentient Developments: Making brains: Reverse engineering the human brain to achieve AI

How Can You Control Your Dreams?

August 19, 2010 /

how to control your dreams

Scientific American has an interesting interview with Deirdre Barrett, assistant clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and author of The Committee of Sleep: How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use their Dreams for Creative Problem Solving-and How You Can Too

So how can you problem-solve in a dream?

Although any kind of problem can make a breakthrough in a dream, the two categories that really crop up a lot are things where the solution benefits from being represented visually, because the dreams are so vivid in their visual-spatial imagery, and when you’re stuck because the conventional wisdom is just plain wrong.

You may have heard the example of August Kekulé and the benzene ring, which represents both these themes. He was thinking that in all nonchemical molecules, the atoms were lined up in some kind of straight line with 90-degree side chains coming off it. Once he knew the atoms in benzene, he was trying to come up with arrangements of them that were straight lines with side chains and it just wasn’t working. Then he dreamt of the atoms forming as a snake, eventually reaching around with the snake’s tail in its mouth. It seems exactly related to the fact that the prefrontal lobes that control censorship are, on average, much less active during dreams.

If you want to problem-solve in a dream, you should first of all think of the problem before bed, and if it lends itself to an image, hold it in your mind and let it be the last thing in your mind before falling asleep. For extra credit assemble something on your bedside table that makes an image of the problem. If it’s a personal problem, it might be the person you have the conflict with. If you’re an artist, it might be a blank canvas. If you’re a scientist, the device you’re working on that’s half assembled or a mathematical proof you’ve been writing through versions of.

Equally important, don’t jump out of bed when you wake up—almost half of dream content is lost if you get distracted. Lie there, don’t do anything else. If you don’t recall a dream immediately, see if you feel a particular emotion—the whole dream would come flooding back. [In a weeklong study I did with students that followed this protocol] 50 percent dreamed of the problem and a fourth solved them—so that’s a pretty good guideline, that half of people would have some effect from doing this for a week.

Scientific American: How Can You Control Your Dreams?

(via Kyle)

Lab Rats Always Pick Saccharin Over Cocaine

August 6, 2010 /

Sodium Saccharin

Sci at Neurotic Physiology writes about a study with some surprising findings: lab rights ALWAYS pick saccharin over cocaine. Sci notes a few minor issues with the study, but highlights the broader implication:

Well, this could be a bug, or a feature, of self-administration in rodents. If it DOES turn out that saccharin is more rewarding than cocaine in rats, and this is not the case in humans (you could probably test parts of thing in some humans, which would be interesting), well, this could be a difference between humans and rats. It could ALSO be an issue with the self-administration model itself. Some people have criticized drug self-administration in rats, because it doesn’t lead to the rat banging on the lever constantly in desperation or other things we would assume are associated with addiction. This could be just that rats aren’t in for that sort of thing. It could ALSO be that there are problems with the doses we give the rats, the schedules they can administer drug under, or even the environments the drug is administered in.

Neurotic Physiology: What Is Sweeter than Cocaine?

(via Social Physicist)

During Effective Communication, Participants’ Brains Synchronize

August 3, 2010 /

neural coupling

Researchers studying human conversation have discovered the brains of listeners and speakers become synchronized, and this “neural coupling” makes for effective communication. In essence, the participants’ brains connect in a kind of “mind meld.”

Psychologist Uri Hasson from Princeton University wanted to find out which areas of the brain were active during speaking and listening to a conversation to test a hypothesis that there is more overlap between these brain areas than generally assumed. It has been noted, for example, that people taking part in conversations will often subconsciously imitate each other’s grammar, rates of speaking and even gestures and posture.

PhysOrg: Good conversation results in a ‘mind meld’

(via Kyle)

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