MIND &/or BRAIN
I AMBIGUOUS
INTELLIGENCE
The
question of what constitutes ‘thinking’ overlaps the issues of
MIND/BRAIN.
Defining, delineating and explicating self-awareness, rationality, and
logic has been a perplexing challenge since time immemorial.
‘’Discovery’ of the subconscious has enormously complicated these tasks.
Advances in neurology add a new dimension to the discourse.
A finitude of time and competence precludes diving into that thicket.
There is, though, something of a commonsensical nature that can be said
about one common, if overlooked, feature of human behavior: the
intelligence regression phenomenon.
Let’s
begin with the elementary observation that the largest part of
human behavior is habitual – when not purely instinctive. We don’t
really think consciously about what we are doing or why. We just do it –
whether the initial impulse arises from our reptilian brain, from
socialization, or early training via a combination
of inducement and coercion, i.e. manipulation of the pleasure-pain
instinct. Beyond prosaic habit formation, many adults find themselves in
vocations wherein their behavior is scripted. Think of the 800-callers
from India, an even wider range of sales personnel
making a pitch, even a candidate on the hustings delivering a stump
speech. Or a priestly personage bestowing blessings. Those ritualized
behaviors we accept as a natural given the calling and function and
setting. The ultimate script non-thinker, of course,
is the actor. S/he literally memorizes volumes of dialogues and body
movements as laid down in detail by the writer and the director. Indeed,
too much thinking by the actors can mess things up.
What interests us here is that scripted behavior seems to be growing
more common. Or. more accurately, quasi-scripted behavior
in roles and places where it is counter-productive. That phenomenon, I
contend, can lead us to say and do stupid things – things that are
either inherently illogical/self-contradictory
or run counter to the goals sought. A striking example is the
prosecutorial show put on by Secretary of State William Blinken and
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at their meetings with senior
Chinese officials at Anchorage and Geneva a while ago. Let’s
leave aside the outright lies and misrepresentations that have become
standard fare and/or the fact that the actors have a domestic political
audience in mind as much as they do their opposite numbers.
First,
an across-the-board denunciation of the regime your counterparts
represent conveys the clear message that you view it as illegitimate,
innately untrustworthy, not an interlocutor valable with whom you can do
business. Since you have a long agenda of very serious items to talk
about, what is the point of creating circumstances
where it is near impossible to negotiate them? That is stupid.
Second, you instruct them that they must sign onto the Western (i.e.
American) American designed “rule-based” system of institutions and practices as a precondition of establishing a non-hostile relationship.
Yet, it is the United States that is the world’s leader – by objective
measures – in the breaking of formal rules: from the invasion and
occupation of Iraq, to the infringement on Syria’s sovereignty, to the
arbitrary imposition of sanctions in violation of
international treaties, to the abrogation of arms control accords. In
effect Washington is demanding that the PRC submit to our
interpretations of their behavior while insisting on the prerogative of
America to do whatever it pleases. Since it is self-evident
that China never would accede to such dicta, what is the point of
playing Athens in a modern-day Melian dialogue when the other side is
the powerful PRC and not feeble Melos? That’s stupid.
Third,
the Chinese are ultra-sensitive about their national status,
past humiliations at the hands of the Western powers, about ‘face.’
These feelings are deeply entrenched for well-known civilizational and
historical reasons. So, the repeated insistence that China must accept
tutelage from the West as to what is acceptable
behavior domestically as well as externally in order to qualify for
membership in the various international clubs run by the U.S., will
immediately get their hackles up. That is stupid.
Fourth,
after announcing a comprehensive campaign to stymie China’s
economy through a series of unilateral measures, President Biden sends a
string of envoys to Beijing – most recently Treasury Secretary Janet
Yellen, Secretary of Commerce Gina
Raimondo – to
present a proposal to maintain commercial dealings that lie outside the
implicit sanctions regime, i.e. those that benefit the American
economy. This non-starter seems based on the casual assumption that the
United States’ overwhelming superiority allows it
to have its cake and eat it too. The premise is manifestly false.
Fifth,
the Biden government is considering deploying American military
forces to Taiwan - perhaps armed with tactical nuclear weapons. The aim
would be to install what amounts to a tripwire designed to deter the
PRC from an assault against the island. Ethnically and historically,
Taiwan has been part of China for 1,500 years,
excepting the brief interlude of Japanese occupation of ‘Formosa’ from
1896 to 1945. The founder of the present government on Taiwan, Chiang
Kai-Shek, always insisted that the island he ruled was an integral
territory of a sovereign Chinese state. That principal
was formally accepted by those two notorious ‘pinko’ doves, Richard
Nixon and Henry Kissinger, in 1972 – and then legally confirmed by the
United Nations Security Council. If deterrence were to fail, and war to
break out over Taiwan, the probable result would
be a conflagration leaving untold numbers and cripple United States’
economy. Such a deployment decision by Washington would be very stupid.
Finally,
a set of policies seemingly designed to place the U.S. in the
role of marriage broker between Moscow and Beijing surely will be
inscribed in the history books as strategic stupidity par excellence.
Serial futile tries at the same objective over several months – without
the slightest modulation of script - goes beyond
simple stupidity; it is an ingrained pathology.
This
pattern of anti-diplomacy by the most senior America officials
has multiple causes. They include: ignorance, marination in the
all-pervasive consensual thinking of the country’s foreign policy
establishment, dogmatic faith in a cartoon version of American
‘exceptionalism,’ and political pressures back home. Question:
are Blinken, Sullivan and their cohort all just ‘stupid?’ The results
of an IQ test surely would indicate the answer is ‘NO.’ Indeed, I
strongly suspect that were they given an exam in which their choices
were presented in abstract, hypothetical terms, their
responses might very well diverge from their real-world conduct. The
answer likely lies elsewhere.
(Admittedly,
an IQ exam taken in mid-life may well register a lower
score than the one taken when 19. A plausible guess would be up to 10
points lower. That is due mainly to the mental clutter and debris
accumulated over the years that impedes clear thinking. Secondarily,
distractions of various sorts could result is less
concentrated attention to the exercises. Imagine sitting for the exam
just a few hours after watching a ‘debate’ among 16 would-be
Presidential candidates struggling to close their neuronal
junctions!)
We should view them as actors in a scripted drama.
When
the script was composed – over a period of 4 administrations – they
themselves might very well have made some contribution to it. Whatever
modicum of thinking was done, it happened at that stage. At this time,
at this place, however, they are essentially
actors whose words and moves have been laid down in advance. As to the
interventions of their Chinese or Russians counterparts, they are
anticipated and contingency plans made – and pains taken to ensure that
any divergences from script as are necessary involve
the smallest of verbal adjustments. Like the Indian guy on the 800
number call who interposes a few unscripted words in reaction to some
unexpected verbal ejaculation into his performance by the party at the
other end of the line. What is exceptional about
these on-stage/off-stage roles is that the actors play the part in
their ‘real’ lives as well. They easily become the character on-stage
because they previously already were, in effect, following a script,
albeit with somewhat greater flexibility and latitude
for improvisation for years – in other government posts, at think
tanks, on the air.
Like
an actor in the Stanislavsky tradition, the script-bound official
‘lives’ the character. Blinken and Sullivan in this case surely don’t
see themselves as playing a role. They implicitly assume that they have
made an array of judgments and analyses that have led them to say and do
what they are saying and doing. Perhaps reality
is a blend of the two. That should not be encouraging.
The
consequences of scripted behavior could be profound. However, its
frequent occurrence should not surprise us. Its great attraction is
that one is absolved from the effort and responsibility of thinking – in
an age where thinking is out of fashion. The phenomenon is
noticeable not just among politicos and their
appointees. Think of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of University Presidents,
corporate CEOs, economic ‘experts,’ baseball managers, New York
Times columnists, etc, etc. *
The
one exceptional group I can think of is composed of world-class
classical musical artists. Most interviews invariability produce
intelligent, original and rational conversation. Anybody have any ideas
about this? If so, I’ll gladly pass them along.
Conclusion: Scripting
obviates the need for thinking. An
actor doesn’t think about his next words or movements; they’ve been
memorized. If Ronald Reagan had accepted the offer to play Rick
in Casablanca, he couldn’t have decided to alter those memorable lines
to Ingrid Bergman: ‘We’ll never have Paris again. Time
to find closure on La Gare de Lyon, erase it from your memory. Your
future is Stockholm!” A far-fetched analogy? Not really. Reflect on the
behavior of successive American Ambassadors to the United Nations.
Whether it be John Bolton, Susan Rice, Samantha
Power or Nikki Haley – the same high-octane verbiage was thrown at
Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Assad and whomever else got in our way.
We are hard-pressed to tell them apart on the transcripts alone. Today,
our ambassador is career diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield
who harbors no known political ambitions. Yet, her forays into the
Security Council ring match those of her Mixed Martial Arts
predecessors.
II THINKING
Watson: “I am inclined to think…..
Holmes: “By all means do!”
Back
in the days when the New York Review of Books took seriously its
reputation as the stellar journal of English-reading intellectuals, the
editors upon occasion published long, prolix essays on the recondite
topic of the Mind-Brain relationship. I
recall John Searle of Berkeley as one of the protagonists. Through dint
of supreme effort and disciplined concentration, one could just about
stagger to its end – by which point one had forgotten everything read
before the penultimate paragraph. It all bore
an uncanny resemblance to the great theological dispute
on whether the Son was OF the Father or IN the Father. So,
why did one bother to read the stuff? Because it was there – like
climbing K-2. The test of one’s claim to being a truly omnivorous
‘intellectual.’ Hence, were a colleague to ask: ‘Have you read….?, you
honestly could answer ‘Yes.” “What did you thing of
it?” ‘Highly instructive and heuristic….
That
all came back to mind recently in the course of an animated exchange
with a psychiatrist friend over whether the most appropriate term to be
used in describing the Trumpites in Congress was “Mindless” or
“Brainless.” He made a powerful case for the latter. My preference was
for “Mindless.” Being persons of good will, we eventually
found “common ground” in agreeing on the compromise of
‘Witless.” Barack Obama would have been proud of us. Anyway, that
exchange set me pondering whether in fact there is any reason to
separate conceptually mind from brain. Neither neurologist nor
psychiatrist,
I began with pretty much a blank slate. Here is what I came up with.
For me
the interesting question is very simple; can the Brain alone do the things we humans do?
The
obvious answer is 'NO' - as one can illustrate. Therefore, there is
something else - however we conceptualize it. Beyond that, it's always
struck me as a game of words chasing words. At
heart, I personally am averse to scholasticism. Somebody has said: " I
believe we need the construct or concept of "mind" to converse
meaningfully about what we do, hope, feel. Frankly, why should we be
particularly interested in conversing meaningfully about those things?
Rather, shouldn’t the focus be on what we do in the
way of hope, feeling and behavior? Increasingly, I've come to the view
that any resemblance between the two is purely coincidental.
My
first, impromptu thought was that Mind is not a mere extension of the
Brain,
although it depends on the brain. The human race could not survive and
thrive relying on the instinctive behavior programmed in the brain
alone. If one goes into shock from experiencing an event that evokes an
earlier experienced trauma, the ensuing sensations
do depend on the Brain's neurological activity but that activity is
neutral as to the conscious experience.
The
Mind’s dependency on the brain – as receptor of data from the external
environment, as storage manager, and as activator of engagement with
the external world – is undeniable. It does not follow that the Brain is
the initiator of action physical or mental. Consider the body’s
response to an extremity of heat or cold. The Brain
signals that information to the Mind by registering the physical
effects in unmistakable ways. But its remedial responses are restricted
to a set of ‘pre-programed’ automatic activities, e.g. the body sweats.
The Brain cannot on its own conceive of, or initiate
meliorative actions beyond perhaps moving the body into the cooler
shade – much less conceiving of and directing the hands to construct a
permanent shelter. That is the prerogative of the Mind.
This
is not to say that the Brain is a completely passive participant
in mental activity. Think of information and memory. The Brain
inventories it as well as stores it. The Brain is librarian as well as
hard drive. As studies have shown, it does at times link discrete bits
of data in nodes and clusters. (Synaptic clusters and memory
engrams are the scientific terms generally used. Here they are lumped
together into the shorthand ‘clusters’). The latter encompass several
nodes that interact with each other. They thus are made available in
semi-organized form to be accessed by the Mind.
The decision as to what to look for is that of the Mind. Those
initiatives/searches are remembered by the Brain much as a website
(Amazon, Google, Facebook) remembers your previous activities on that
site. In response, it automatically searches for related
clusters and creates meta-clusters that can form quite complex
matrixes. Moreover, this Brain activity includes bringing forward at the
interface of the unconscious and conscious the clusters thereby created
so that the Mind becomes aware of them and can make
use of them. Intelligence of the IQ type perhaps can be measured in
terms of the formation speed, number, accuracy and refinement of those
clusters.
A
fascinating insight into the Brain-Mind symbiosis is provided by
physical
archeologists and paleoanthropologists. They now have identified 6-8
hominin whose brain capacity was equal to, or greater than that of homo
sapiens. One other was proportionally on a par. Yet, we won the
evolutionary competition despite our being physically
inferior on some counts (e.g. Neanderthals. Denisovans,
Harbin/'DragonMan', Jebel
Irhoud man, Flores man, Hunan man). The
key factor seems to have been the larger development of that section of the brain, (the right
lateral posterior cerebellum) associated
with higher level language functions and communication. The homo
sapiens skull case, distinctive for being more rounded than elongated as
is that of the other hominins, evolved to accommodate that section of
the brain. That is to say, those others may have
had equivalent capacity to calculate, to process sensory data and to
conceptualize – but were limited in their ability to verbalize it. That
would have been a major disability in regard to the refinement of ideas,
their transference within groups and trans-generationally
and – therefore – above all the capacity to sustain reasonably complex
societies and the cooperation that they institutionalize.
Clinical
neurology offers some confirmation of this hypothesis. There
are deep strokes that leave the individual able to read, to comprehend
speech, to think. However, they have lost the ability to express
anything but a few repeated sounds either verbally or in writing. They
are bereft of critical neurological connectors. (The
latter activity is precluded anyway by a loss of manual dexterity).
Conceivably, that approximates the condition of our hominin rivals.
Perhaps, they’d be a whiz at figuring out those MENSA-type abstract line
configurations we see in magazines. They only would
be able to indicate with a few staccato sounds the right choice,
though, without exclaiming “A piece of cake! Next stop MIT!” - and
convey to his seatmate a strategy to get there.
Another
order of ‘thinking’ problem is created by mental “pop-ups.”
Either random eruptions emerging from the inventory shelves, or crude
substitutions for more valuable (to the Mind’s task) clusters or
‘conditioned’ pop-ups stimulated by certain thoughts/feelings that
recur. This last can result in “stupidification” – persons
becoming stupider over time by the density and frequency of mental
slogans and trite, ambiguous phrasing. Think of a public figure like Ted
Cruz (Harvard Law) or Mike Pompeo (No. 1 in his class at West Point).
However they might score today on an IQ test (albeit
probably somewhat lower than the score they registered at the age of
19, as noted), their thought and behavior in purely logical terms has
seriously declined. As soon as the Brain registers phrases such as:
“We have a rock-solid commitment to the protection
of a democratic Taiwan;” “Russia continues to show its aggressiveness
in moving its territory ever closer to NATO bases;” “the best guarantor
of world stability and predictability is the rule-based international
order;” "we cannot give guarantees to Iran that
we will adhere to provisions of a revised nuclear agreement for the
duration of the Biden presidency because they are untrustworthy;“ “The
U.S. is Number One, & it’s going to stay Number One – you better
believe it:” “Fuck the EU…” the Brain immediately reaches
for the cluster of jejune, trite phases which is ready at hand. This
can be a degenerative process – leading over time to what has been
labelled Acquired Stupidity Syndrome by some nonconformist
psychiatrists.
Over time, the Mind of this person lodges itself in the neurological
neighborhood populated by those low-grade clusters. Some
neglected items - potentially valuable - unconnected to the Mind’s
conscious or even subconscious activity, gather dust in distant cells.
In other words, they are relegated by the Brain
to the equivalent of the satellite storage sites in the boondocks where
university libraries exile unreferenced holdings. They are not shredded
and incinerated. In theory, they are accessible upon request. In
practice, they are inert, mute and unattended –
accessible only with the greatest conscious effort.
This
phenomenon is accentuated when small group dynamics come into play.
Dense interaction with others whose thought processes are slow and
superficial, whose behavior lacks logic and coherence, will militate
toward more rapid and deeper deterioration in an individual’s functional
intelligence. In the terms that we used above,
clusters weaken or dissolve, new nodules and clusters are less likely
to form, and the clusters that assemble simplistic (cliched) bits of
information/ideas will move toward the fore of the subconscious.
Moreover, this devolutionary shift will occur in response
both to the individual’s own consciousness and stimuli received from
others. That is to say, the etic reinforces the emic.** This role of
groups in lowering the practical intelligence of members is not at all
rare – it is observable in various settings quite
frequently. How many times have we heard the exclamation: “I can’t
understand how so many bright (IQ) people such a disjointed/confused/
misleading report/strategy/policy!”
Social media, of course, contribute significantly to this entire process
– accelerating and accentuating it. That holds for the
politically literate class as well as for the general public. Zuckerberg
and his accomplices were aware of this phenomenon – instinctively and
based on a primitive understanding, and they
exploited it in order to ensnare their prey.
Currently,
heavy pressure is being generated by the National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) to direct resources and research in the field of
psychiatry on brain neurology. Notable progress in mapping brain
functions and their relation to
mental activity, especially abnormal mental states, has generated a
movement to downplay traditional approaches to understanding behavior
and mental illness. However, there are crucial issues to be resolved
about the significance of observed correlations between
a neurological/chemical state in the brain and a psychological state in
the mind; how important is the attempt to make a crisp distinction
between the two? When we focus on one or the other, aren't we prone to
make the cardinal mistake of confusing the locus
of analytical attention with the point of causal primacy? That is
fundamental – even elementary. Changes in either will register in the
other.
For
causal primacy cannot be determined on the basis of a priori
assumptions.
The ability to trace shifts in mood/emotion through close examination
of neurological activity or chemical balances cannot tell us that
observable changes in body and mind are due to occurrences in one place
or the other. The more exact the correlation, the
more likely that this error will be committed. As for treatment,
couldn't one start at either place? or, based on the patient's history
make a reasonable estimate as to where causal primacy lay and place the
main effort at amelioration there – at least at
first?
*In
the instance cited above, the analogy with scripted theatre gains
verisimilitude from the appearance and mannerisms of the principal
actors. Blinken and Sullivan look to have been assigned their roles by
central casting. Blinken is Hollywood’s notion of what
a Secretary of State looks like – a real-life incarnation of Matt Damon
or Brad Pitt. Sullivan is the perfect pairing: the hard-driving,
rapacious hawk with the lean and hungry look who knows how to keep his
scruples in check – for the greater good of the
nation’s security. These days, no film director could imagine
portraying either a Secretary of State or National Security Director as
an elderly man wearing a 3-piece suit to mask his bulging mid-section.
We only see that in films noir from 1949 on You Tube.
Then there is Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin as a facsimile
of Admiral James Greer - James Earl Jones - in The Hunt For Red October.