cognition
The Mind – Brain dichotomy: What it means to have a mind
Feb 28th
Researchers at Harvard, Gray et al, are conducting an ongoing mind survey, and have also reported some findings from that online survey, based ona asmaple of more than 2,000 people.
The survey attempts to make one think about different forms of entities that may have a mind and to assign different degrees of consciousness/ mind on them.
Gray worked alongside fellow psychologists Heather Gray and Daniel Wegner on the study, which presented respondents with 13 characters: 7 living human forms (7-week-old fetus, 5-month-old infant, 5-year-old girl, adult woman, adult man, man in a persistent vegetative state, and the respondent himself or herself), 3 non-human animals (frog, family dog, and wild chimpanzee), a dead woman, God, and a sociable robot.
Participants were asked to rate the characters on the extent to which each possessed a number of capacities, ranging from hunger, fear, embarrassment, and pleasure to self-control, morality, memory and thought. Their analyses yielded two distinct dimensions by which people perceive the minds of others, agency and experience.
The participants attribute different degrees of these factors to the characters based on a forced choice between a pair of characters on a particular ability related to a mind capacity like feeling fear or making moral decisions. I believe they than id factor analysis or some such statistical method to come up with two independent dimensions or factor underlying the concept of mind: Agency or Experience.
Agency seems to be related to the fact that people (entities with mind) can take volitional actions and are thereby responsible for their actions. They can thus also be judged morally based on their actions and the choices they make.
Experience seems related to the fact that people (entities with mind) have an ability to feel and are emotional entities that have subjective experience of emotions like pain, fear and hunger and also have desires, longings and feelings etc.
The ability to perceive qualia surprisingly didn’t come out as a separate entity and consciousness or ability to perceive qualia is supposedly covered under the Experience factor.
These dimensions are independent: An entity can be viewed to have experience without having any agency, and vice versa. For instance, respondents viewed the infant as high in experience but low in agency — having feelings, but unaccountable for its actions — while God was viewed as having agency but not experience.
“Respondents, the majority of whom were at least moderately religious, viewed God as an agent capable of moral action, but without much capacity for experience,” Gray says. “We find it hard to envision God sharing any of our feelings or desires.”
The regular readers of this blog will remember that one of the important distinction that I hypothesized between Schizophrenia and Autism was that due to agency: with schizophrenics attributing too much Agency; and Autistic attributing too less Agency to others (other people or other entities that may have mind). Also as God is perceived as having too much Agency, but not much Experience, thus when the Schizophrenia end of spectrum kicks in, they may also attribute too much agency to themselves and feel God-like or Divine. The negative symptoms related to less of experience would also fit the fact of being God-like or being an angel/ special person and thus not having too much emotions. The Autistic end of the spectrum however would be guided by too-less-mind sort of attributions and thinking; and thus they may view themselves and others as brains and not minds. They might thus be more capable with inanimate objects and rules of nature (thus making them good scientists/ engineers/ systemizers) ; but poor at social/ ethical aspects that require attributing minds to animals for example.
One should also distinguish between the two dimensions of Agency and Experience. Thus Autistic may have a defect due to Agency, but may have mirror neurons or other systems that confer on them the ability to feel , not only subjective feelings of self – but empathetic feelings of others too.
Also, it has been this blogs contention that the Dimension of experience is best seen as a dimension on one end of which is the Bipolar patients and on the other end of which is the Deprosanalisation/ apathetic / derealization spectrum. while the Bipolar feels too much emotions and motivations; the depersonalised/ derealized person may show too less emotion/ motivation.
Thus in mind at one end we have people having too much mind/ believing in too much mind (and exemplified by Schizophrenic and Bipolar ) and at the other end we have too people having too much brain/ believing in too much brain (exemplified by Autistic/ depersonalised people). One gives great Art, the other great Science.
Returning to the current study:
“The perception of experience to these characters is important, because along with experience comes a suite of inalienable rights, the most important of which is the right to life,” Gray says. “If you see a man in a persistent vegetative state as having feelings, it feels wrong to pull the plug on him, whereas if he is just a lump of firing neurons, we have less compunction at freeing up his hospital bed.”
This is exactly one of the pertinent point made by the film Munnabhai MBBS- that coma patients have feelings and have a right of life. While I have featured the effects of Lage Raho Munnabhai earlier; I would also like to pay tribute to its prequel/ precursor.
On that note, let us keep our antennas up for how thinking about us as entities with Agency and Experince can lead to Art; while thinking of us as brains can lead to good scince. I’m sure you’ll agree that we need both of these concepts about us humans.
Tags:
More From TheMouseTrap
- Guest Post: Matters of the Monkey Mind
- The Male and The Female Brain: from Back to Front and from Left to Right
- The Mouse is dreaming that it is in a Trap!!
TheMouseTrap Recommends
- What is Yoga – The Key to Living a Wild and Precious Life (storyteller)
- The Fight of Heart and Mind (suniljoseph)
Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder: The propensity towards psychosis
Feb 23rd
Schizophrenia, as we all know, is one of the most dibilating psychological disorder. It was primarily conceived of as a behavioral disorder, characterized by socially inappropriate and bizarre behavior, but much attention has been focussed nowadays on the cognitive component and the cognitive pathology underlying schizophrenia and it is not unusual for it to be characterized as a thought disorder nowadays .
Bipolar , or Manic Depressive disorder, on the other hand, has been primarily conceived of as a mood or affective disorder , characterized by excessive swings of emotion and motivation. One of my earlier post had tried to analyze the cognitive components involved in the Bipolar condition, and relate it to that found in unipolar depression.
While in my earlier posts, I have discussed the differences between the social and communicative difficulties of Autistic and Schizophrenic probands, especially in relation to their different cognitive styles, and how a milder form of such thinking can lead to different types of creativity, I had also promised for a similar dichotomous discussion of bipolarity at one end of the spectrum and depersonalization/ derealization/ ‘Alienation’ on the other hand- this time the important dimension being the feeling/emotion/motivation dimension.
While that discussion still awaits, I have come across a fascinating article by Lake et al(freely available, registration required) that tries to analyze the schizophrenic and bipolar type I disorders and concludes that there is no such thing as schizophrenia – the psychosis underlying schizophrenia, schizoaffcetive and Bipolar disorders is actually due to a not-yet-diagnosed Bipolar disorder in the patient. The extreme case of a Bipolar manic behavior would be a full-blown psychotic episode and in absence of proper assessment is likely to be diagnosed as schizophrenia. The article hopes, that identifying Bipolar in early stages would prevent unnecessary neuroleptics / anti-psychotics administration to the patient and prevent the significant side-effects of such medications and the rapid-cycling of the bipolar disorder itself, as mood stabilizers like Lithium and Valproate would not be given early on in the absence of bipolar diagnosis.
The other rationale for a single unified diagnosis of Bipolar is to prevent stigma associated with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. There has been well-documented research on the creativity-bipolar linkages; a similar research exists for creativity and schizotypal individuals- but due to the chronic, dibilating and adverse effects of a full-blown schizophrenic diagnosis , the literature about creativity and full-blown schizophrenia is limited (and perhaps inconclusive). The comprehensive ill-effects of a wrong diagnosis are given below:
For patient
-
Less likely to receive a mood stabilizer or antidepressant
-
Without a mood stabilizer, cycles increase and occur more rapidly; symptoms worsen
-
More likely to receive neuroleptics for life, increasing risk for severe and permanent side effects
-
Greater stigma with schizophrenia
-
Less likely to be employed
-
More likely to receive disability for life
-
More likely to “give up”
??For clinician
-
Increased risk of liability if patient given long-term neuroleptics instead of mood stabilizers develops tardive dyskinesia or commits suicide
The article takes a case study of a patient named Mr. C and tries to analyze how and why different diagnosis are made for the same patient depending on the presented symptoms and why Bipolar diagnosis occurs late in the cycle. Going through the case study may prove disheartening to many, and may make them skeptical of the whole psychiatry profession-leading to some anti-psychiatry rants too- yet one should realize that psychiatry is both an art as well as a science- asking the right question to get the patient (and disorder/ medication) history is very important. To appreciate this I would strongly recommend every body to read the “Selection of Antidepressant ‘ series on Corpus Callosum, which gives a fairly good idea of how psychiatrists make diagnosis in practice.
It is instructive to recall that we have earlier reported on a study that leads to common genetic markers for Psychosis and Mania- implying a single diagnosis, rather than a separate diagnosis of bipolarity or schizophrenia.
The article cites the following DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for Schizophrenia and explains how each is explicable as symptoms of extreme manic episode resulting in psychosis /depression.
|
Schizophrenia diagnosis6 |
Seen in psychotic mood disorders |
|
Criterion A |
|
|
??Hallucinations and delusions |
|
|
??Paranoia |
Hides grandiosity4 |
|
??Catatonia |
|
|
??Disorganized speech and behavior |
|
|
??Negative symptoms |
All patients with moderate to severe depression4 |
|
Criterion B |
|
|
??Social and job dysfunction |
|
|
Criterion C |
|
|
??Chronic continuous symptoms |
Patients can have psychotic symptoms continuously for 2 years to life5,6,13 |
I would like to pause here and group the symptoms of schizophrenia according to the basis they have:
- A sensory basis (hallucinations etc, which may be due to senosrimotor gating as well as a lack of proper inhibition mechanisms; delusions of reference which may be due to inability to gate the inputs and thus end up treating everything as salient and consequently referring to self),
- A cognitive basis (delusions – which may be due to extremes of normal cognitive biases that we all have – a manic delusion of grandeur- that may also lead paradoxically to delusions of paranoia( fear and suspicion) as one thinks of oneself as very special and hence vulnerable to the evil out there in the world)
- A motor basis (catatonia – which may be due to problems with volitional control of motion- either too much control or too little- in one case ending up in the positions in which someone else has put them in- in the other remaining in the same position (samadhi in religious contexts) by exercising the will to move. Here again dopamine dysfunction would be relevant as it is involved in motor pathways.
- A social/theory of mind basis (disorganized speech(flight of ideas) as one assumes too much ToM abilities in others and believes that the specifics one has left unsaid- and the abstract way in which one is talking – is comprehensible to others; disorganized behavior- which may be due to not taking social appropriateness into account as one is presumably on a very important mission on Earth.
- An embodiment/ grounding basis and problems with agency(religiosity as one thinks of oneself as not grounded in the body and thus may lead to delusions of control and persecution (as a shadow that is embodied elsewhere is trying to control one) . Here metaphorical thinking and use of symbols as symbols for something else (an overarching idea) rather than referring to something out in the world may lead to loss with reality and magical thinking that takes too much correlation-is-causation kind of thinking and extends it to non-material and non-living things.
- An Affective basis ( related to the fifth point for those who believe that emotions are due to body states) : the characteristic anhedonia , alogia and avolition. Symptoms that are similar in many ways to the symptoms of depressive state.
- A Volitional basis (social and job dysfunction may be due to disturbances in the volitional system- too much goal direction (and where the goal happens to be not socially or work-place acceptable) leads to job dysfunction as does too less of goal-directed behavior.
- Chronic nature: once neuroleptics are started one gets caught in the downward vicious circle. Also the nature of the disorder is cyclic just like the Bipolar with Positive symptoms more prominent in one phase and negative symptoms more prominent in the other phase. In between there can be remission and proper functioning.
Thus, I agree with the broad assessment of Lake et al, that most cases of schizophrenia may be juts an undiagnosed psychotic bipolar episode. Yet, I believe that schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder and there may be one or more sub-types. In my view schizophrenia proper leans more towards ToM/ social/ cognitive/ agency dysfunctions while Manic depressive is more about affective and volitional and recurrent dimensions. In my developmental framework; while the schizophrenic struggle with the first five developmental tasks; the bipolar struggle with the next three. Yet their common psychotic style confers susceptibility to psychosis in both cases. This would be as opposed to the same developmental challenges also faced by those with Autism/ depersonalization/ derelaization etc., who have an entirely different take on these issues. While one leans towards science (whose utility is well established); the other leans towards arts (whose utility is doubted sometimes), but which in my view is very important.
We are getting evidence of how emotions can affect decisions towards a better outcome and how having a framework that gives one a sense of meaning and purpose is essential. Science and evolutionary thinking at times robs us of these finer appreciations of life- at that time we do need a counter-dose of Art to keep us more grounded and to make life more enjoyable and worth living- even if that costs some people their sanity!! Maybe we need both GOD and evolution; both science and faith to keep us sane and on the right course.
Hat Tip: Neurofuture
Tags:
Depression and Mania: The Bipolar thinking style
Feb 12th
PsyBlog has recently posted an article on Cognitive Therapy (CBT) and how it is useful in Depression treatment. this therapy has been shown to be equally effective in Depression as is medication, though this woks in a top-down fashion in the brain (revealed by brain scans), while anti-depressants work in a bottom-up fashion.
PsyBlog quotes the following irrational beliefs , as outlined by Beck, that are prominent in Depression.
* Over-generalization. Drawing general conclusions from a single (usually negative) event. E.g. thinking that failing to be promoted at work means a promotion will never come.
* Minimalization and Maximization. Getting things out of perspective: e.g. either grossly underestimating own performance or overestimating the importance of a negative event.
* Dichotomous thinking – Thinking that everything is either very good or very bad so that there are no gray areas. In reality, of course, life is one big gray area.
To me all of these beliefs are equally relevant for Manic thinking, although in the Manic case these beliefs would be about positive events and have a different spin.
- Over-generalization: a single instance of success at some endeavor disposing one to think that one can achieve anything in unrelated fileds. Also more co-incidence detection and more correlation-is-causation type of thinking that may ultimately lead to the Magical Thinking of full-blown Psychosis.
- Minimalizations and Maximizations: Here, again, things go out of perspective: Overestimating one’s own performance and underestimating the importance of external happenstances that might have led to success.
- Dichotomous thinking: thinking that things are mostly good/bad and unfounded optimism/faith/trust – the opposite of the depressive feeling. Although the reverse thinking that things are mostly bad (external environment is bad, I am good) can also kick in. The point is seeing the world in Black/white but not in shades of gray.
PsyBlog also has an earlier post on depressive thinking style in which it elaborates on the internal-locus-of-control predisposition in depressive probands. Thus, the depressive style is marked by the following internal, global and stable attributions: :
* It is my fault that I didn’t get the job. Here I have made an internal attribution.
* I think I am worthless: a thought that is likely to affect all areas of my life. Now I am making this attribution global.
* I see no reason for the fact that I am worthless to ever change. Now the attribution is stable
It is clear that the Manic person too makes the similar attributions: His success (maybe a single, lucky success) is due to his genius(internal attribution). His genius is not limited to one field- he is generally the most valuable, productive and creative genius and is an all-rounder(global attribution). His genius is not a short-lived entity- he will continue to remain a productive genius no matter what external circumstances / reality (stable attribution). He may thus have no drive to learn about external reality as he suspects that the external reality is not relevant and he can predict outcomes (which are bound to be good) based on his skills, expertise, grandiosity alone. An extreme form of this thinking may lead to the loss of reality characteristic of a full blown Psychotic episode.
While the minimalisations and maximizations are explained by the internal locus of control, the over-generalization is explicable by a propensity of jumping-to-conclusions sort of thinking that leads to global, stable over-regularizations. Another feature important in my view would be the mixing of contexts, where things from one context are referenced in another, dissimilar context. One could call this mixing up of metaphorical thinking where wrong analogies are applied and thus wrong (positive or negative) conclusions are arrived at. The third factor of dichotomous thinking is also very important though hard to pin down. Why should everything appear black and white in depressive or manic thinking and why in one case(depressive ), black is the color of self, while in Manic white is the color of self, remains a mystery. Answering how and when the switch from a grayish-world to a black-me-world(I’m a piece of shit) or white-me-world(I’m the next Einstein) happens would go a long way in making the bipolar patient control his moods and if he has to be sick then enable him to go for a manic episode (where the price may be insanity- a psychotic episode) instead of a depressive one (where there is a real risk of life).
Although the other wrong attributions and thinking styles also need to be addressed, the mechanism of the switching of mood/ black-white world view would help the most and should be the first one targeted in CBT/ medications.
Tags:
More From TheMouseTrap
- The ABCD of Psychology and Happiness
- Schizophrenia and Autism: The Two Cultures.
- The Rat Park: Addiction and Environmental factors
TheMouseTrap Recommends
- Addiction brain effects : Opiate addiction – Heroin, oxycontin and more (adijaffe)
- The Fight of Heart and Mind (suniljoseph)
Moral Intuitions (alternate title : Who framed roger rabbit?)
Dec 13th
Disclaimer: Haven’t seen the movie “Who framed roger rabbit”, nor know the storyline- just used the alternate title as it is eye-catching:-))
Classical Moral intuitions research has focused on identifying how we arrive at moral conclusions. The Kohlberg’s developmental theory is based around identifying the reasoning process, by which, the children arrive at a moral decision regarding a moral dilemma; or identifying an action that would be ethical in a given situation; or forming a moral judgment regarding a given event-outcome.
Much of the discourse is limited by the few example problems around which these dilemmas are framed. A good example is the famous Trolley problem, in which one has to decide whether it would be worth sacrificing a single person, in lieu of five or six others; and its variations involving whether one is in direct contact with the person and is performing an active action of ‘sacrificing’ the person by pushing him/her from the footbridge; or is merely a bystander and passively (from a distance) pulling a switch that would direct the trolley to a different track. Variations include whether the person (who if sacrificed could save five or six others) is related to you, or whether he is innocent (a child playing on an unused track) vis-a-vis those being sacrificed are careless and thus not worth saving ( stupid children playing on running tracks).
While some framing of this Trolley problem are in utilitarian terms- one life versus many others, other framings are in emotional & selfish versus sacrificial & rational terms -your child or your action vs other children and universal action (by universal action I mean the same action irrespective of whether you are in touch with the person (the footbridge case) or are merely pulling a lever).
The framing involving ‘good/ careful’ vs. ‘bad/careless’ in the good-boy-on-unused-track and bad-boys-on-used-tracks fascinates me the most.
At the outset, let me clarify that in regards to moral dilemmas of this sort, my personal position is reasonably clear. In a discussion some years back with some good friends (not over a cup of coffee; but over an intranet discussion group:-) , while we were discussing this dilemma, I had surmised that while we may debate endlessly what the action should be, the most reasonable guess one can make is that there would be no action at all. In the Trolley switch case, this means that the person my get so much frozen by the decision pressure and inability to arrive at a conclusion, that he/she may not pull the switch at all (the switch that would direct the train/ trolley to the unused track ). Instead, he may just remain frozen- just like one gets frozen sometimes in times of extreme fear- a third reaction apart from the usual fight or flight response. Yet, dilemmas, such as these, and our ‘hypothetical’ responses to these may somehow tell us more about how we reason about moral situations- whether it is post hoc (just like it is claimed that Consciousness is post hoc)- and if so, why would we be constructing different post-hoc moral reasons for the same dilemma when it is framed in different terms. (Hauser’s research shows that the intuitions are different in the classical trolley (switch) versus the personal contact (footbridge) cases.)
Marc Hauser’s lab is doing some excellent research in this field and though I have taken their Moral Sense Test, I have a feeling that I have stumbled on a new type of framing and dilemma (that was not present in their tests…though one can never be sure:0) that may enable us to reflect a bit more on our moral reasoning process.
I’ll frame it first in neutral terms, and then try to refine it further. Let’s call this the Aeroplane problem. Suppose that you are traveling in an Aeroplane, and there is only one doctor present on board, and the Air hostess staff is not sufficiently educated in all first aids. Suppose further that you are way above ground, with any emergency landing at least 20 minutes distant. Suppose, that their are two people on the Airplane, who start getting a third heart attack (they are both carrying medical histories/ badges that tell that it is the third and potentially fatal heart attack (BTW, why is the myth of 3rd heart attack being fatal so enduring?) ), and the heart attacks are almost simultaneous, and only the lone doctor on board can give them the first-aid and resuscitation (CPR) that could ensure that they both remain alive, till the airplane makes an emergency landing (the emergency landing may itself risk the life of all passengers slightly). Now, when all other details are unknown, it is potentially futile to ask which one to attend- you may as well choose one patient and concentrate all efforts on him/her.
Suppose, one of them is an octogenarian, while the other is a teenager. Now, which one should the doctor choose? Suppose one is an old lady, while the other is a young brat, which one should the doctor choose?
Suppose the Doctor has Asthma, and no body else knows how to administer the oral inhalation medicine correctly except for the doctor; then should the doctor take care of a patient or should he/she take care of himself/herself? what if there is only one patient and one doctor? What if there is one doctor and many patients? Would the decision be easy?
Suppose further, that out of the two persons, one is faking heart attack symptoms, while the other is genuinely suffering; should the doctor be able to find out who is who? Would this make the dilemma easier? Would we (the airplane travelers) respect the doctor’s decision and let him /her attend to the person s/he thinks is genuinely suffering from heart attack?
Suppose further, that both the patients are terrorists and the doctor says that both are faking symptoms, potentially to hijack the plane; would we listen to the doctor and let him not attend to any of the potential causalities? Or would we try to help ourselves, potentially causing bedlam and fulfilling the plans of the terrorists?
I am sure by now you can conceive of other similar scenarios!! (one that comes to my mind is both the doctor and patient are accomplices and terrorists on-board to cause bedlam and mayhem and hijack the plane. Please let’s add as many scenarios in the comments as possible.)
Now let us take a moment to reflect on our moral reasoning process. I believe most of us would be prone to go with our intuitions and would think about rationalizing our decisions later. Thank god, we do have some moral intuitions to guide us in time of indecision/ threat perception.
Suppose that instead of framing the last few scenarios in an anxiety provoking setting (involving terrorists and what-nots), we framed this in terms of forward-looking, futuristic terms.
Suppose that one of the patients is a very promising child (has an IQ of 200/ or is a sport prodigy and is as well-known as Sania Mirza) while the other is again a famous scientist indulging in some ground-breaking research (Say Marie Curie, whose Radioactivity discovery is definitely a very useful discovery); then who should the doctor choose? Should she look at their achievements or potentials? Or should she remain immune to all this and dispassionately ignore all (ir)relevant information? or should s/he be affected by age, gender, race, achievement, potential etc?
Suppose further that instead of well-known celebrities like Abdul Kalam , or Sachin Tendulkar, who are present in the plane, the younger patient is a product of genetic engineering, destined to become a great scientist/ artist/ whatever; while the older patient is working on a top-secret classified dual use research which potentially could help humanity overcome the impending fuel crisis (and related arctic melting, ozone hole etc crisis-she is working on a hydrogen powered (water as fuel) engine, which could be used in automobiles as well as in outer Space like Mars, where only water may be available for refueling). Also, both these persons are not well-known currently and not recognizable by the doctor/ crew/ passengers. Death of the older person would put humanity back by at least 40 years- only after 40 years would someone like the younger patient that the doctor saved (in case the doctor let the older patient die), could have worked out the designs for using water as a fuel again. Now which one should the doctor attend to? Should s/he attend to the young one or the old one? The future or the present?
Should she take the time out to see the credentials (the proof that this child is genetically modified to have a good IQ/ whatever and the proof that this scientist is indeed working on classified research that may potentially help millions) of the patients or should she just act on her intuitions? Why is the reasoning different here as compared to the threat-scenario?
What if the instead of Science frames above, we used frames of Art(I mean artistic frames and not the frames that visual artists use for paintings:-)….Art is much more than visual art:-).
Suppose, that one of them (the older one) could become a Paul Gauguin; while the other (younger one) could become a Van Gogh (again I mean an artist like Gogh and Gauguin, not their works of arts:-) ), now which one should the doctor choose? Why does it become irrelevant as to who should be saved if the frame is of Art, but a question of life-and-death if the frame is of Science?
Finally, some things to note and think about: the Airplane problem is entirely framed in life-saving context (doctor helping save a life); while the Trolley problem is entirely in death-prevention context (someone acting messiah and preventing death of five Vs One; good vs careless etc). Again, Doctors usually give rise to feminine frames with one assuming a doctor to be a female; while the Foreman’s are usually entirely male. I hardly believe that framing is all of the problem; or that the framing is done deliberately: the framer of the problems/ dilemmas is equally susceptible to the same framing effects that the readers have experienced-while formulating a problem (a moral dilemma) one may fall prey to the same sorts of Frames that we become susceptible to when thinking about the problems (the moral dilemmas). Thus, the aphorisms, that (paraphrasing) “It is equally important to ask the right questions, as it is to find the answers to the problems”. Translated in the language of the scientific research world, this becomes that “it is important to design good experiments/ observation-study-setups and be very careful about the study designs.”
Returning back to the issue of framing of moral problems, if the frame exists it is also because of our history: just like the moral intuitions – that at times help us survive and at times let us fall prey to frames- are due to our shared evolutionary history: so too the frames we use to cast and perceive the moral dilemmas are rooted in our history ( Nothing profound- what I mean by shared history is that someone formulated the problems in those terms, silly!!.)
I believe the problem is more with our inability to detach ourselves form frames and take more reasonable perspectives and know when to use our intuitions and when reason. As the saying goes “It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.” Mark Twain (1835-1910). Alternately, another related saying that comes to mind(paraphrasing) ” God, give us the ability to change what we can, humility to accept what we cannot and the wisdom to know what is what”. We perhaps cannot change the historical frames or intuition that are in place, but we can definitely change our moral reasoning powers and following a developmental framework have compassion and understanding towards those who might not be employing the highest levels of moral reasoning.
Finally, If you are interested in my moral intuitions, I hypothesize, that the doctor (in the plane) would not be affected by Age, gender, race, potential, achievement etc would overcome his/ her Implicit Associations and would not try to find-out or gather-information deliberately to determine which life is more valuable- He/she would end up rushing between the patients and helping both at the same time; but if he/she is an intelligent doctor, would definitely save his/her life first, if suffering from Asthma, so that he/she could take care of others. This might seem like a rationalization (saving one’s life so that one can help in whatever small way others), but one should use intelligence, even before emotions or moral instincts take center stage.
I believe that in the Airplane Scenario described above, there is a potential for a histrionic/hysteric reaction of the crew and travelers, as everyone tries to help the patients, (especially if no doctor is on-board) and that this may be the reverse of the bystander-effect like phenomenon I have hypothesized might happen in the Trolley problem (freezing and taking no action when a train is approaching towards five or six humans or towards a lone human). To make more sense of preceding line please read comments by Mc
Ewen on Mind Hacks post titled ” “Mass Hysteria” closes school”. Also, a solemn and personal request, please do not jump to conclusions, read or try to co-relate things out of context- or try to make sense of psychological concepts based on everyday usage of terms. If you do not understand any concepts mentioned above, read related literature and focus on that aspect alone- to the exclusion of other distracting eye-catchers. In case of any persisting confusions, feel free to ask your local psychiatrist/ psychologist/ psychology professor as to what those concepts mean.
PS: I believe that the post has become difficult-to-read, this was not done intentionally. Again, there might be spelling mistakes/ grammatical errors- don’t get alarmed/ confused that this reflects racing thoughts etc- just point them out and I’ll fix them- most of the times the editorial errors (some of them quite funny) are due to lack of time to revise/ lethargy to read. Also, this is also a part of my ongoing series, where I have posited that their may be gender differences in cognitive styles. Some of that may also be a required reading.
Tags:
More From TheMouseTrap
- The Five Moral Foundations
- Development of Perspective Taking : a pre-requisite for different stages of Moral Development
- The Varieties of Altruistic Experiences
TheMouseTrap Recommends
Schizophrenia, Religion, Autism and the Indian culture (alternate title: Life, The Universe and Everything)
Dec 5th
In continuation of my focus on the Schizophrenia-Autism dichotomy, I’ll like to highlight two articles that seem to support my view.
The first is a blog post by, John Horgan, speculating whether religiosity is the inverse of autism.
The anthropologist Stewart Guthrie proposes that religious experiences—and particularly those involving visions or intuitions of a personal God–may stem from our innate tendency toward anthropomorphism, “the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things or events.” Guthrie called his book on this theory Faces in the Clouds, but he could have called it Jesus in the Tortilla.Recent findings in developmental psychology dovetail with Guthrie’s theory. By the age of three or four all healthy children manifest an apparently innate ability to infer the state of mind of other people.
Psychologists postulate that autism stems from a malfunction of the theory-of-mind module. Autistics have difficulty inferring others’ thoughts, and even see no fundamental distinction between people and inanimate objects, such as chairs or tables. That is why autism is sometimes called “mind-blindness.”
But many of us have the opposite problem—an overactive theory-of-mind capacity, which leads to what the psychologist Justin Barrett calls “hyperactive agent detection.” When we see squares and triangles moving around a screen, we cannot help but see the squares “chasing” the triangles, or vice versa, even when we are told that the movements are random.
This is compatible with this blog’s Schizophrenia-is-the-inverse-of-Autism theory for the following reasons:
1. Too much belief in agency in Schizophrenics (the hyperactive Agent detector conceptualized above) vs too less belief in agency in Autistics – characterized by me earlier as a Fantasy/Imagination Vs Reality orientation - has a direct relevance to whether one attributes anthropomorphic agency to non-living things and events (and thus Nature or God) or even fails to attribute intention to humans and animals and assumes them to be mere automata. I believe while a schizophrenic mindset can be characterized by a suspension-of-disbelief and too much causality and intention attribution (thus leading to the mindset compatible with religious/ spiritual leanings), the autistic mindset would lead to too much skepticism, too much even-causal-happenings-are-only-coincidental mindset and a reductionist, atheistic mindset that attributes no intention to humans, least of all animals, and believes that they are just advanced machines. I guess both are extremes of delusion, in one case one characterizes that as the GOD delusion; but the other extremist who sees no role of agency or intentionality (even in humans) is hauled as a great scientist!!
2. Another prominent dimension on which the Schizophrenics and autistic differ is the Literal-Metaphor dimension. I would like to frame that in terms of a Reference-Meaning use of a linguistic word and the consequent distinction in linguistics between a symbol as a referent of something and a symbol as signifying a meaning. For an excellent commentary on this difference, please do read this classical paper.
Meaning, let us remember, is not to be identified with naming. Frege’s example of ‘Evening Star’ and ‘Morning Star’ and Russell’s of ‘Scott’ and ‘the author of Waverly’, illustrate that terms can name the same thing but differ in meaning. The distinction between meaning and naming is no less important at the level of abstract terms. The terms ’9′ and ‘the number of the planets’ name one and the same abstract entity but presumably must be regarded as unlike in meaning; for astronomical observation was needed, and not mere reflection on meanings, to determine the sameness of the entity in question.
It is my contention that while the Schizophrenics are meaning obsessed; the Autistics are more reference obsessed, and thus have problems with metaphorical and figurative speech. From linguistics one can stretch the Meaning-Reference distinction and conceive of too much meaning orientation in schizophrenics ( and a meaningful life requires a GOD that gives a meaning to our lives) versus a nihilistic orientation in autistics that views the life/ evolution as purposeless. As many evolutionists famously claim – there is no meaning inherent in evolution, life or humans – rather that the question of meaning is invalid. Life just is.
3. Many schizophrenic delusions can be explained by an extreme manifestation of religiosity/ spirituality. As Szasz famously said, ” If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you you have schizophrenia”. Both a belief in GOD and his ability to listen to our prayers (the religious belief) and the converse belief that God can talk to us , many times in symbolic ways, but sometimes in the form of actual auditory hallucinations are a manifestation of the same cognitive mechanism that attributes too much agency, causality and meaning. Many schizophrenics, indeed do suffer from delusion of Grandeur, whereby they think of themselves as GOD-like; or the delusion of persecution and paranoia whereby they are persecuted by Satan like evil figures. thus both hallucinations as well as the common delusions are explainable by the religiosity orientation. this time the GOD delusion is different – one believes that one is a god-head. In non-religious cultures, these being-GOD delusions may take the non-religious forms of being a famous historical person (who had great agency and effect on Human history and is presumably now active via the agency of the deluded schizophrenic), and the persecution delusions may not refer to Satan- but to their non-secular counterparts- the CIA and the government!! Of course the pathological forms of an Autistic mindset, that may have nihilistic orientations, and out of boredom and feelings of meaninglessness, may resort to meaningless acts of violence like the Columbine Massacres is one direction which needs further study.
I would now like to now draw focus on the Cultural differences post where I had speculated on the different incidences rates of Schizophrenia and Autism in the East Asian and American cultures based on the differential emphasis on holistic and contextual versus analytical and local processing and cognition and also presented some supporting evidence. The well documented religious/spiritual inclination of Oriental cultures versus the Scientific/materialistic orientation of the American and western cultures may be another factor that would affect and explain the relative incidences of Schizophrenia and Autism in these cultures.
In a culture like India, in which the people believe in 18 crore (180 billion) Gods and Deities, believe in reincarnation and believe that every human being is potentially divine, if a human errs towards an extreme and starts developing funny ideas of being a God herself, then that may not ring the alarm bells immediately. Rather some form of that delusion may even be encouraged (that is why in India names are kept after the Gods and Deities; while its rare to find the name Jesus in West, you can find millions of Rams in India). If the same GOD-delusion develops in an American, then his idea of being Jesus (or an angel) would definitely be detected early, lead to an earlier ‘label’ and an earlier hospitalization.
That said, I would now like to draw attention to an article today in the Times Of India, that pointed me to some more literature that unequivocally shows that not only are the incidence rates of schizophrenia less in India (and other third world (Asian) countries), the prognosis is manifold better in Indian patients as compared to American patients.
The success story of schizophrenics in India was propagated by mental health professionals based on the WHO research DOSMeD in 1979. This was carried out in 10 countries including developing ones such as India, Nigeria and Columbia. The findings showed striking differences in the prognosis of schizophrenia between developed and developing countries. The underlying causes for the diversity were associated more with family and social variables than clinical determinants. Majority of patients in developing countries showed remission over two years; only 50 per cent of them had a single relapse though around 15 per cent never recovered. Patient outcome in developing countries was superior to that in developed economies.
This difference has been hypothesized to be due to the strong family structure (and I do believe that it is an important factor) and the social cushion, support and acceptance that a family provides to the patient and shields him/her from stressful situations that may trigger a relapse.
This theory of a family-protective-advantage has come under attack recently, but I think the attack is flawed because it clubs countries not according to Cultures, but according to developmental status. Indeed, the other factor that may be affecting a better outcome in schizophrenic patients may be the cultural differences like the different cognitive/perceptual styles and a more tolerance for religious/spiritual/ mystical ideas. By shielding a person from stigmatization and isolation, based on eccentricities exhibited along these dimensions, one may be preventing or delaying relapse, and ensuring better outcome by not pushing the person over the edge. In the pats, it was not infrequent, for those who had psychotic experiences to be labeled as shamans and to be treated with respect, rather than stigma and isolation; thus ensuring that they were not exposed to social stresses in the future.
I have taken a somewhat deprecating attitude towards the extreme autistic orientation characterized by no intentionality, causality, spiritual beliefs, but I am a strong believer in the fact that though the extreme manifestation of Autism/Schizophrenia makes one dysfunctional, a pronounced autistic/ schizophrenic orientation does endow one with creative faculties – either to understand and manipulate the world (the Sciences) or to understand and manipulate the subjective experiences (the Arts) . In particular, as the readers of this blog would most likely be scientists, and because I belong the the scientific community and have failed to see how a scientific orientation is incompatible with an artistic/symbolic/spiritual orientation , I have taken a harder line for the extreme Atheist and nihilism zealots.
I believe one can, and must, utilize the different types of cognitive abilities these extreme manifestations and disorders caricature. Do let me know what your think!
Tags:
More From TheMouseTrap
- The epigenetics of Autism: Oxytocin factor and implications for schizophrenia
- Schizophrenia and Autism: The Two Cultures.
- Autism, the middle cingulate and reputation management
TheMouseTrap Recommends
- What is Yoga – The Key to Living a Wild and Precious Life (storyteller)
- The Fight of Heart and Mind (suniljoseph)
Recent Comments