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P a r t O n e
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Forming a
Foundation
The Context
for Using
Your
Ownerâs
Manual
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Part One. Forming a Foundation
The Context for Using Your Ownerâs Manual
1. Getting Started
A Framework for Exploring Mind-Brain Concepts
2. Brain Basics
A Refresher Course in Hardware and Hormones
3. The Trouble with Drugs
Of Crutches and Cures
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| âFew minds
wear out; more
rust out.â âChristian Nestell Bovee | A Framework for Exploring Mind-Brain Concepts |
World War II started something. The pain and tragedy of head injuries catapulted brain research into the foreground of scientific and pseudoscientific investigation. From the popular claims of split-brain research to the profound findings of neurotransmitter studies, discoveries by increasing numbers of researchers and readers have focused on learning how the brain works.
This explosion of research has given birth to a new field of knowledge: cognitive science, also known as brain science. One feature that makes this field unique is its interdisciplinary natureâit is made up of more than one traditional field of study. The research has been conducted by investigators from seven broad fields, although some subdivisions of these fields are more germane to cognitive science than others; for example, psychopharmacology is more germane than social psychology. The fields are
1. Biology
2. Chemistry
3. Psychology
4. Information science
5. Philosophy
6. Anthropology
7. Linguistics
Prior to World War II, communication among scholars in these fields was minimal. But the momentum increased noticeably soon after the war ended. Most people seem to date the beginning of cognitive science as a formal interdisciplinary field of study from September 1948 (Gardner, 1985), when scientists assembled at the Hixon Symposium, titled âCerebral Mechanisms of Behavior,â at the California Institute of Technology. Presenters included John von Neumann and Karl Lashley, representing mathematics and psychology. Many regard this meeting as the death knell for the behaviorism of B. F. Skinner, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Edward Lee Thorndike, and John B. Watson, which had held sway until then. No more would strict stimulus-response explanations of human behavior be ascendant. With the rise of cognitive science came the doctrine that human behavior consisted of more than conditioned responses, that the human mind was indeed able to create, to choose, to reflectâin short, to explore the universe between stimulus and response. Stephen Covey (1990, p. 69) suggests that between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. Or, as Richard Restak (1991, p. 50) observes, we are moving from Socratesâs âknow thyselfâ to Kierkegaardâs âchoose thyself.â In a recent resounding affirmation of Kierkegaardâs dictum, filmmakers have given us the award-winning What the Bleep Do We Know?âan intense plea for self-determination of the worldâs citizens (check their website at www.whatthebleep.com for study groups and so forth).
Emerging from over 30 years in the relative obscurity of academia, cognitive science had its coming-out with the publication in 1982 of Morton Huntâs The Universe Within: A New Science Explores the Human Mind. His highly readable volume introduced many to this new field. Drawing from examples in areas such as problem solving, creativity, decision science, epistemology, moral development, personality theory, artificial intelligence, logic, linguistics, learning theory, and memory, he showed how cognitive science has brought previously isolated fields together into one common alliance committed to describing how the mind works. He related how this alliance of scholars is collaborating to describe the mindâs functioning from both the detailed, microscopic, bottom-up perspective, as in cellular neurobiology, and the big-picture, global, top-down perspective, as in discussions of primary personality traits. The excitement of this multipronged scientific movement lies in the moment when the bottom-up, or molecular, studies become recognized as equivalent to the top-down, or molar, studies.
An example of such a âmeeting at the middleâ can be found in Hans Eysenckâs The Biological Basis of Personality (1967), in which he begins to establish the relationship between the reticular activating system (RAS) in the brain (a molecular structure) and the personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism (molar behaviors). Paul MacLean (1990) describes the bottom-up perspective as âobjectiveâ and the top-down approach as âsubjective.â For an excellent and timely discussion of this molecular-molar relationship, see Cacioppo and Berntson (1992).
The Mind-Brain Dichotomy
As we slip into the content proper of this book, you will notice that the terms brain and mind are used interchangeably. IBMer E. Baird Smith has a comedy routine in which he asks, âIs your mind a part of your brain, or is your brain all in your mind?â In the 19th century, English scholar Thomas Hewitt Key played with this semantic difficulty by asking, âWhat is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.â This semantic puzzle needs attention! Dealing with the historical debate between mind and brain is beyond the purpose of this book. Understandable treatments are available in Gardner (1985) and Hunt (1982). In the seventeenth century, RenĂ© Descartes argued for dualism, with âmindâ a kind of software and âbrainâ a kind of hardware; he apparently developed this idea as a result of a rift with the church authorities, who allowed him to continue his work so long as he stuck to the body and let the church take care of the mind and spirit. Later, behaviorists like Skinner argued for monism (nothing exists other than cells), whereas current thinking argues for an interactionist approach, which describes the intimate, sensitive way in which mind (ideas and images) and body (cells, chemicals, and electricity) directly and immediately influence each other. As a simple example, we know that a joyful disposition (mind and spirit) can increase the number of âhelper cellsâ in the immune system (brain and body) and, conversely, that a reduction in the number of helper cells can dampen a joyful disposition. We also know that using our memory and skills tends to preserve nerve cells (âuse it or lose itâ) and that, conversely, losing nerve cells over time interferes with memory and skills.
To say âuse your mindâ or âuse your brainâ is to say the same thing. It is like saying âuse your computerâ versus âuse your word processing program.â The features of one influence the features of the other. Ira Black (1991, p. 8) argues that our mental software and hardware are one and the same when he speaks of the âessential unity of structure and function.â When the computer is turned off, the word-processing program cannot function. Yet just because the computer is turned on, that doesnât mean the program is being used, or being used to capacity. When the brain is dead, the mind cannot function. Yet just because the brain is alive doesnât mean the mind is being used, or being used to capacity. In a sense, then, the best definition of mind is that it is the state that occurs when the brain is alive and at work. Richard M. Restak, who wrote the books and television series The Brain (1984), The Mind (1988), and Receptors (1994), despaired of a crisp, clear definition that could distinguish between the two, concluding, âMind is the astounding interplay of 100 billion neurons. And moreâ (1988, p. 31; Note: More recent research puts this number at 23 billion, not 100). J. A. Hobson (1988, p. 230), in The Dreaming Brain, writes, âI believe that when we have truly adequate descriptions of brain and mind, dualism and all of its dilemmas will disappear. We will speak of the brain-mind as a unity, or invent some new word to describe it.â To talk of the brain is to refer to the more molecular aspects of a phenomenon, while to talk of the mind is to refer to the more molar aspects.
Cognitive and cognition are our only words that refer to both brain and mind, and the public finds them smacking of the ivory tower. We do need a new word that the public will acceptâperhaps something like processor or reactor, main, or brind. Candace Pert, discoverer of the endorphin receptor, refers to the bodymind, thus enlarging the discussion. She teaches that the brain and nervous system are so widely represented throughout the body with mutual receptors that it does not make sense to speak of them separately. Meanwhile, a good discussion of the nature of the mind and various states of consciousness is available in Daniel Dennettâs Kinds of Minds (1996).
Human or Animal: Whatâs the Difference?
Humorists, philosophers, scientists, theologiansâall have made stabs at defining the difference between humans and animals. Consider:
No animal admires another animal.
âBlaise Pascal
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
âMark Twain
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
âSir William Osler
The parade of quotes could quickly become tiring. I will, however, summarize both the popular and scientific efforts to describe this difference by one top-down and one bottom-up observation. The top-down observation: humans can learn to write, whereas animals canât. The bottom-up observation: humans have a proportionately greater area of uncommitted cerebral cortex, or cortex in which unused synapses are available to be committed to new learning (see fig. 1.1). The cerebral cortex (see chapter 2 and appendix A) is the part of the brain that houses the rational functions, such as problem solving, planning, and creativity. The comparison between a ratâs brain and a human brain is dramatic. All but a sliver of the ratâs brain is âcommittedâ to motor, auditory, somatosensory, olfactory, and visual functionsâthat is, survival activities. These committed, or dedicated, areas canât be used for any other function, such as memory or problem solving, in much the same way that a word-processing machine canât be used for other computing functions. In contrast, well over half of the human brain is uncommitted and thus available for formi...
