The thing is - I like films about the Nazis. If the Holocaust is depicted realistically, it’s heart-wrenching. Life is Beautiful, which included comic scenes, was bitter-sweet and inspiring. So, as I say, I like these kinds of films. But recently, an independent theater near me showed a documentary about a Jewish ghetto during the years of the Holocaust. Real film footage. Sounded interesting, but it was real long. The cameraman goes up the stairs, into a room, down the stairs, outside, inside, up some more stairs. An hour later, the same thing.
The film was showing in the Upper West side of Manhattan. As you might imagine, a theater in the upper-west side of Manhattan showing an independent film about a Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust is going to have a lot of older Jewish people in the audience. And they’re going to be watching the film intently, seriously. After all, many are sure to have lost family members in the Holocaust. It’s serious business.
Now for the pretzels. I had a plastic bag of them, the little snack-size ones. I'd eat a few, and the woman a few chairs over to the left would shoot me a look. The pretzels were crunchy, and the plastic bag did crackle. So, I’d dip my hand into the bag real slow to at least avoid the crackle, like a pickpocket carefully positioning his hand to pull out a wallet. She shot me another look, and I stopped my mouth movements mid-pretzel. But I didn’t want to put the bag away out of pure intimidation.
After about 10 minutes, she turned to me and in a loud stern whisper asked if I’m almost finished. I ate one more pretzel, maybe two, and then I put them away. As the film ended, I wanted to pass her seat and tell her that she was like a Nazi. Then I did some mental calculus. What she had said to me was inappropriate, but it wasn't completely outside the bounds of social norms. What I was thinking of saying to her was kind of nutty. It's not something a normal person says to another, especially not in a movie theater. On the other hand, I'm Jewish, and maybe as one Jew to another, I could get away with it. I decided there was no way I could say it and still leave the theater like a normal person.
5/25/13
5/19/13
In the harsh light of nighttime anxiety
I wake up in the middle of the night with a concern about work. My thoughts race, looking at the problem from every angle -- from the left, from the right, from the inside, from the outside. I try to fall back to sleep, but my mind turns to something else, something trivial, but nonetheless anxiety-provoking. It is only now after my first cup of coffee that I realize that the issue was a small one.
Looking back upon my nighttime worries with daytime perspective, none were about life-or-death situations. And yet I remember turning in bed, my heart beating fast, the amygdala fear circuits of my brain firing in overdrive, my anxiety heating up. Lying in bed, I naturally assumed that the pounding of my heart was triggered by the threatening situations occupying my thoughts. I now consider the probability that my sensations of fear caused threatening auras to surround my thoughts. Nearly any thought that would have entered my mind at that moment would have been swallowed up by my nighttime anxiety machine and molded into a form that could be used as a prop in a horror film.
We all hold the underlying assumption that it is our thoughts that trigger our emotional responses. We assume that to be the direction of causality. We don’t normally consider the fact that our thoughts take on the tint of our emotional state, just as objects on a stage take on the hue and intensity of the colored lights that shine down upon them. When the color coming from the floodlights changes from blue to harsh red, one almost forgets that the objects on the stage are still the same.
Related posts:
Looking back upon my nighttime worries with daytime perspective, none were about life-or-death situations. And yet I remember turning in bed, my heart beating fast, the amygdala fear circuits of my brain firing in overdrive, my anxiety heating up. Lying in bed, I naturally assumed that the pounding of my heart was triggered by the threatening situations occupying my thoughts. I now consider the probability that my sensations of fear caused threatening auras to surround my thoughts. Nearly any thought that would have entered my mind at that moment would have been swallowed up by my nighttime anxiety machine and molded into a form that could be used as a prop in a horror film.
We all hold the underlying assumption that it is our thoughts that trigger our emotional responses. We assume that to be the direction of causality. We don’t normally consider the fact that our thoughts take on the tint of our emotional state, just as objects on a stage take on the hue and intensity of the colored lights that shine down upon them. When the color coming from the floodlights changes from blue to harsh red, one almost forgets that the objects on the stage are still the same.
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Related posts:
5/12/13
Memory, Mental States, and Pavlov's Dog
Pavlov's dog heard a bell and then received its food. The dog eventually came to associate the bell with food, and would salivate as soon as the bell rang. Dogs and cats and rats and monkeys and humans and snails, and all other animals as far as we know, learn to associate one thing with another. Turn on the light of your fish tank before you feed the fish, and watch them swim to the bright surface to be first in line for the flakes. But there's more to it than this.
You go to the beach and remember something that happened when you were on the beach in the past. Maybe the beach calls to mind a childhood friend. Or you think of the friend and then suddenly think of the beach. We associate one thing with another.
When you have an experience - hearing a bell, walking on the beach, eating a hamburger - your brain enters a particular state. You can imagine the state of your brain at any given moment as a particular pattern like this:
Your brain shifts from one state to the next throughout the day. For each brain state, you experience a mental state of thoughts and emotions. For Pavlov's dog, the tone produced a particular brain/mental state, and the food produced another. Over time, the state caused by the tone was followed by the 'food' state, even before the food was presented.
Of course if you look inside the brain you don't really see an abstract mosaic. Instead you see something like this:
One pattern of neuronal activity, one mosaic, gives rise to the next pattern. Those patterns that are frequently repeated in sequence become more
likely to follow one another.
When you think of Pavlov's dog associating the tone with the bell, imagine one mosaic pattern in the dog's brain, a particular pattern of neural activity, that leads to the next mosaic pattern. The human brain is comprised of 100s of billions of neurons that make up very complex mosaics of a nearly unlimited number of different patterns. When you observe a brain state from the outside, using an imaging device like an fMRI scanner, you see an image of different brain regions with different activity levels. But from the inside, when you experience your own brain state, you experience thoughts and emotions. The mental experience is the inside view of the brain state.
The important thing about Pavlov's experiment was that a brain state produced by the bell eventually gave rise to a brain state associated with delicious food. One mosaic pattern was frequently followed by another, and the first eventually came to elicit the second. The only important thing about the salivation was that it was an outflow (literally) of a small portion of one of the mosaic patterns of the brain. The salivation was just an easy way to measure or 'index' the dog's mental state. If Pavlov could have gotten inside the mind of the dog to see how the dog felt and what it was thinking when the bell rang, that would have been even better. But Pavlov couldn't do that. So, instead he measured the salivation, the best index he had of the dog's mental state. It was better than nothing.
You go to the beach and remember something that happened when you were on the beach in the past. Maybe the beach calls to mind a childhood friend. Or you think of the friend and then suddenly think of the beach. We associate one thing with another.
When you have an experience - hearing a bell, walking on the beach, eating a hamburger - your brain enters a particular state. You can imagine the state of your brain at any given moment as a particular pattern like this:
 |
| Imagine that each square represents a neuron in the brain, and the color is its activity level. Red might represent a highly active neuron; blue for a neuron that is not active at all. |
Of course if you look inside the brain you don't really see an abstract mosaic. Instead you see something like this:
 | |
| Don't be scared. But yes this is the type of thing going on in your brain right now. And yes, a lot of neurons do look like trees. Some of the branches coming from the pyramids are the 'axons' that allow that neuron to activate other neurons. All this intercommunication between neurons gives rise to a pattern of neural activity, like the pattern of the abstract mosaic. |
When you think of Pavlov's dog associating the tone with the bell, imagine one mosaic pattern in the dog's brain, a particular pattern of neural activity, that leads to the next mosaic pattern. The human brain is comprised of 100s of billions of neurons that make up very complex mosaics of a nearly unlimited number of different patterns. When you observe a brain state from the outside, using an imaging device like an fMRI scanner, you see an image of different brain regions with different activity levels. But from the inside, when you experience your own brain state, you experience thoughts and emotions. The mental experience is the inside view of the brain state.
The important thing about Pavlov's experiment was that a brain state produced by the bell eventually gave rise to a brain state associated with delicious food. One mosaic pattern was frequently followed by another, and the first eventually came to elicit the second. The only important thing about the salivation was that it was an outflow (literally) of a small portion of one of the mosaic patterns of the brain. The salivation was just an easy way to measure or 'index' the dog's mental state. If Pavlov could have gotten inside the mind of the dog to see how the dog felt and what it was thinking when the bell rang, that would have been even better. But Pavlov couldn't do that. So, instead he measured the salivation, the best index he had of the dog's mental state. It was better than nothing.
5/6/13
Habits of Mind
When you perform a movement followed by another, the two movements become linked together gradually. If you repeat the two movements enough times, performing the first movement will automatically lead you to perform the next. I play a melody on the piano, a sequence of notes, of finger movements. If I repeat the melody enough, each finger movement on the keyboard leads me to play the next one without requiring conscious attention. The neurons in my brain that are active as I play one note automatically activate the neurons that lead me to play the next. The linking together isn't in my fingers, it's in my brain.
Neuroscientists have discovered a lot about how the activity of one neuron (say 'neuron 1') becomes 'linked' to the activity of another neuron (call it 'neuron 2') when the activation of neuron 1 is repeatedly followed by the activation of neuron 2. A specific group of neurons becomes active as I play the first note of the melody I've learned, and another group of neurons becomes active as I play the second note of the melody. The activity of those two groups of neurons become linked as I practice playing the melody.
But in some areas of my brain, the activity of groups of neurons gives rise to thoughts and feelings, or their combination, i.e., mental states. The particular thoughts and feelings I have at one moment are different than those I experience at another. Throughout the day, I pass from one mental state to another. If I'm in a particular mental state and purposely bring myself to another mental state, and I do this often enough, does my brain form a link between those two mental states as it does between my two finger movements? This is difficult to study experimentally. However, it is likely that when you shift from one mental state to another, the link between the two states strengthens very slightly. It may take many repetitions for them to become strongly linked (just as it takes many repetitions for links to be formed as as I play notes on the piano). If so, the mental states you enter into today may become a larger part of your repertoire of mental states tomorrow, and the day after that.
I think that the brain acquires habits of mind just as it acquires habits of behavior.
Neuroscientists have discovered a lot about how the activity of one neuron (say 'neuron 1') becomes 'linked' to the activity of another neuron (call it 'neuron 2') when the activation of neuron 1 is repeatedly followed by the activation of neuron 2. A specific group of neurons becomes active as I play the first note of the melody I've learned, and another group of neurons becomes active as I play the second note of the melody. The activity of those two groups of neurons become linked as I practice playing the melody.
But in some areas of my brain, the activity of groups of neurons gives rise to thoughts and feelings, or their combination, i.e., mental states. The particular thoughts and feelings I have at one moment are different than those I experience at another. Throughout the day, I pass from one mental state to another. If I'm in a particular mental state and purposely bring myself to another mental state, and I do this often enough, does my brain form a link between those two mental states as it does between my two finger movements? This is difficult to study experimentally. However, it is likely that when you shift from one mental state to another, the link between the two states strengthens very slightly. It may take many repetitions for them to become strongly linked (just as it takes many repetitions for links to be formed as as I play notes on the piano). If so, the mental states you enter into today may become a larger part of your repertoire of mental states tomorrow, and the day after that.
I think that the brain acquires habits of mind just as it acquires habits of behavior.
5/1/13
How much of the brain do we use?
It is a myth is that we only use 10% of our brains. Look at an fMRI of a person
engaged in a cognitive task. The whole brain is active -- no dark
holes of inactivity waiting to be triggered by a spiritual awakening.
How did such an outrageous claim take hold when there's no evidence to
back it up? Because we like the idea. It means that we can be much
more than we are. And I think that's true. We can be much more empathetic, more creative, more focused, more open to experience. It doesn't have to do with how much of the brain we are using, but to how we are using it.
4/26/13
Doing what feels 'natural' to you
A conversation with my brother-in-law stuck in my mind. Valentin was practicing jazz guitar, and working on playing chords in a particular rhythm. In jazz, when a guitarist plays background chords rhythmically while another instrument, like a trumpet, improvises or plays the melody of the song, we say that the guitarist is "comping" the chords. Tini (we call him that) was practicing a particular rhythm that some guitarists use for comping.
Tini told me that he'd stopped practicing the rhythm because it didn't feel natural to him. Tini has good instincts, and trusts his intuition. But his decision made me think about the idea of 'doing what feels natural'.
That rhythm feels unnatural to him. But might it feel very natural to him if he were to practice it for say 50 hours over the next few months? Should we trust our intuitions about what is natural and unnatural for us? If I had stuck with what felt natural, would I ever have learned to ride a bicycle, or to eat spicy red curry chicken?
Things can feel natural because they're consistent with who I am – the inner Jon - my innate being. But things can also feel natural when they've become a habit. When something feels unnatural, it can be hard to know whether it goes against the grain of who I am, or whether it’s just something I’m not used to ... yet. Can we always tell the difference?
Tini told me that he'd stopped practicing the rhythm because it didn't feel natural to him. Tini has good instincts, and trusts his intuition. But his decision made me think about the idea of 'doing what feels natural'.
That rhythm feels unnatural to him. But might it feel very natural to him if he were to practice it for say 50 hours over the next few months? Should we trust our intuitions about what is natural and unnatural for us? If I had stuck with what felt natural, would I ever have learned to ride a bicycle, or to eat spicy red curry chicken?
Things can feel natural because they're consistent with who I am – the inner Jon - my innate being. But things can also feel natural when they've become a habit. When something feels unnatural, it can be hard to know whether it goes against the grain of who I am, or whether it’s just something I’m not used to ... yet. Can we always tell the difference?
4/23/13
Taking pleasure in the misfortune of others
I've heard a number of people from Spain describe what they perceive to be an unattractive quality of their own culture - jealousy of someone else's possessions or successes, pleasure in another's misfortune.
This morning I was reading a blog post by Spanish author Antonio Munoz Molina. He writes about the closing of a Spanish company that produces and distributes independent films in Spain. Another casualty of the economic crisis there. It will leave the movie-goers mostly with the big-budget films imported from overseas, mostly the United States. Molina says that surely there will be Spaniards who are happy to hear the news, people who resent the 'cultured' groups that prefer the independent films. And here he mentions the Spanish tendency to take pleasure in others' misfortune.
But I wonder, how does a Spaniard know that this negative trait is particularly prevalent among Spaniards, as opposed to Italians, Americans, Mexicans, Chinese?
I love Spain, the feel of life there, the warm, easy-going, and considerate personalities of so many of the people. And I was surprised the first time the topic of Spanish envy came up in conversation. I was in a bar in Spain, and over the loud rockabilly music in the room, Rosa's brother was talking about Spaniards' jealousy of others' possessions. In a way it was a relief to know that Spaniards aren't perfect either. But still, I wonder, how do they know that this is a particular characteristic of their country as opposed to a universal human emotion that some people feel some of the time? I sometimes think that the true Spanish characteristic isn't envy, or taking pleasure in others' misfortunes, but self-criticism.
This morning I was reading a blog post by Spanish author Antonio Munoz Molina. He writes about the closing of a Spanish company that produces and distributes independent films in Spain. Another casualty of the economic crisis there. It will leave the movie-goers mostly with the big-budget films imported from overseas, mostly the United States. Molina says that surely there will be Spaniards who are happy to hear the news, people who resent the 'cultured' groups that prefer the independent films. And here he mentions the Spanish tendency to take pleasure in others' misfortune.
But I wonder, how does a Spaniard know that this negative trait is particularly prevalent among Spaniards, as opposed to Italians, Americans, Mexicans, Chinese?
I love Spain, the feel of life there, the warm, easy-going, and considerate personalities of so many of the people. And I was surprised the first time the topic of Spanish envy came up in conversation. I was in a bar in Spain, and over the loud rockabilly music in the room, Rosa's brother was talking about Spaniards' jealousy of others' possessions. In a way it was a relief to know that Spaniards aren't perfect either. But still, I wonder, how do they know that this is a particular characteristic of their country as opposed to a universal human emotion that some people feel some of the time? I sometimes think that the true Spanish characteristic isn't envy, or taking pleasure in others' misfortunes, but self-criticism.
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