armchair neuroscience

I’m very behind on my reading and just finishing up some of the books that I got for Christmas last year. Anyway, I’ve been pretty much bedridden with a cold for the past week and am plowing through books. Here are some thoughts on Steven Johnson’s Mind Wide Open. Laughter: Yet another reason to know when to logoff. Johnson recounts a meeting with 20 or so people in a room together discussing ideas face to face while simultaneously conversing with each other in a chat room. Participants tended to make jokes or funny comments while chatting online but maintaining serious discourse face to face. The log of the chat was visible to all participants so the jokes were visible to everyone but didn’t interrupt the flow of the conversation. What’s interesting is that participants never actually laughed at the online-humor. The jokes were there but “only if you think the point of jokes is humor rather than laughter.” It wasn’t until the end of the session when moderator asked the meeting participants to close up their laptops that the room filled up with laughter. “The number of jokes per minute probably declined [with the laptops closed] but the room felt far more collegial and cohesive.. . with the humor stashed away on digital screens [the brain] had been deprived of the required chemicals triggerd by laughter. Jokes on their own simply weren’t enough.”

Drugs: Recently I’ve read several books that explore the connection between neuroscience and meditation. Most point to meditation as a mechanism for developing attention, concentration and awareness. However, Johnson makes a fantastic point that is missed by most the rest of the literature. Namely, that understanding brain chemistry (cortisol, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, etc.) allows us to recognize the side effects and subtle properties of our body’s drugs. You can’t erase the side effects by understanding them but “you can put them in context and anticipate the ways in which they will likely alter your judgement.”

Johnson uses two scenarios to illustrate his point. In the first scenario you knowingly take a dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms. In the second scenario you unknowingly take that same dose. “In each case, your brain chemistry is being altered by the exact same drug and yet the two experiences would most likely be dramatically different. . . the difference between the two situations is . . .the drug doesn’t change but your awareness of the drug and its effects does.” Knowing that the drugs are capable of producing hallucinations, you are not surprised by hallucinations and take them at face value.

I’d argue that understanding of your brain’s own drugs and their effects on perception, especially when combined with the augmented attention of meditation, is a way to see more clearly through the illusory nature of our joys, fears, comforts and anxieties.