Gray Matters

Evolution of Nervous Communication

2009-09-18T01:05:00.002-04:00

Not a discussion between anxious people, but evolution of the nervous system.

Neurons

Origin of Intelligence

Origin of the Brain

Quantum Gaseous Domains

2008-01-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

I intended to post further on the reasons that I dismissed the Penrose-Hameroff everything-is-quantum model, Orch OR.

Heresiarch commented on the topic, and I have moved the comment here:

"As much as the academic establishment might try to resist the obvious, the indeterminacy of the quantum and the indeterminacy of organismic behavior fit hand-in-glove. Linking those two puzzle pieces together goes a long way toward resolving philosophy's difficulties in trying to reconcile mind and matter. And it's been a longstanding difficulty.

The Penrose-Hameroff model is a big step in the right direction."

I am simply posting an upgraded version of my response:

Admittedly, the academic establishment sometimes resists what later proves to be true, but it is fallacious to imply that Orch OR must, or even could, be correct because different correct hypotheses initially met resistance. Most neuroscientists and physicists think that such is not the case here, as the comments after Hameroff's talk suggest.

The Orch OR model illustrates the difficulty that arises when an expert in one field attempts to shift over to a completely different field that operates on an utterly different paradigm. When it comes to explaining consciousness, Penrose should stick to physics and Hameroff to "passing gas." (I'm not implying that he's flatulent, it's an old medical joke about anesthetists – now called anesthesiologists.)

Further, there is nothing obvious about linking quantum indeterminacy to organized "organismic behavior." To do so is to equivocate on the meaning of "indeterminate" – another fallacy of logic.

The element of neural behavior that could be misleadingly labelled "indeterminate" results from neural complexity and technical, experimental difficulties. This is utterly different than quantum indeterminacy, which reflects physicists' probabilistic characterization of quantum states.

Quantum states operate beneath the level of chemical interactions, which is why quantum chemistry is a legitimate area within the field of chemistry. This is helpful, for example in understanding neutrophilic substitution reactions or intermolecular interactions, even intramolecular interactions in large molecules such as proteins, but it is many orders of magnitude too fine-grained to explain consciousness. Biology operates on a substrate of chemical behavior, as does neurophysiology. Consciousness operates on a substrate of neurophysiology. The scale at which consciousness operates is many magnitudes greater than quantum physical behavior.

In a sense, attributing any biological phenomenon above the scale of quantum chemistry to quantum interactions is about as useful an explanation as goddidit. This may explain why heresiarch's brief comments included fallacies of logic.

Linking unrelated "puzzle pieces" together is never a step in the right direction.

Heresiarch provided a link in an attempt to promote his website. A quick blogsearch revealed that he appears to troll for this topic. I am dubious about anyone who hides their IP address, so I conclude that he may be directly connected with Hameroff, who is a prof at University of Arizona. I say this particularly because soon after the comment, someone in Mesa used google-reader to view this site. (I have not promoted this site and it gets very little traffic, largely I'm sure because there are happily much better neuroscience blogs out there – where do they find the time?) Do I sniff a sockpuppet?

Obviously, Hameroff has published extensively on-line to promote his pet theory. If a scientist has a valid theory that is likely to ultimately yield experimental verification, then that scientist has no need to self-promote across non-peer-reviewed websites and blogsites. This misuse of the Internet is employed by IDiocy-promoters such as Dembski.

Another parallel with ID creationism lies in the fact that the Orch OR theory has been out there for more than a decade without experimental verification.

Cognitive Science and its critics (ppt) (html), Orch OR fights back!, Common Misconceptions Regarding Quantum Mechanics

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

2008-01-04T23:25:00.000-05:00

As Arcanum puts it, "And now for something completely ridiculous, Stuart Hameroff." Hameroff's talk is noteworthy for the ridiculous concept, the speed at which he talks, and the reactions to his talk. Fortunately, Hameroff is followed by someone well worth viewing, V.S. Ramachandran.

The talks comprised session 4 of the Beyond Belief 2006 conference: "Science, Religion, Reason and Survival"

Our Brilliant Cousins

2007-12-05T19:33:00.001-05:00

This is fascinating news – National Geographic has a video of experiments that demonstrate that 5 year old chimpanzees outperform adult humans on a measure of short term memory.

Here's a short version of the video. In the actual test, the numbers switched to white squares as soon as the first number was touched.

More National Geographic news videos.

Soul Pseudoexplanations

2007-11-01T15:41:00.000-04:00

We're all familiar with optical illusions and the fact that our brain can be fooled in its attempts to make sense of the world.

Our brains construct a cross-correlated internal representation of external reality through experience. By cross-correlated I mean that if we see a wall within our reach, it is quite reasonable to expect that we could also touch the wall, hear it if we struck it, even smell it if we cared to get up close.

We are perceptually unaware, though, of the neural processes that are involved in constructing perception, let alone consciousness.

We are unaware of the mechanism that leads to release of adrenaline from the adrenal gland upon sensing of danger–though we are certainly aware of the physiological effect of circulating adrenaline.

Similarly, even though we are aware of emotions, we are unaware of emotional mechanisms. We recall information or events without awareness of the neural basis for memory formation. We are unaware of actin-myosin sliding although aware of muscle contraction–or of cellular secretion of hormones, or of mitosis. The examples of disconnection between cellular mechanisms and perception of those mechanisms are as numerous as our cellular activites. The apprehension problem lies partly because of matters of scale–we have evolved to be aware only of the large scale effects of cellular actions and it could not be otherwise.

Out of this divorce between mechanism and experience came mind-body dualism and the conceptualization of a motivating 'soul' beneath physiological mechanisms. Dualism is the 'common sense' idea that some kind of supernatural mechanism is intimately connect to and drives the physical. Dualism is a soul-of-the-perceptual-gap pseudoexplanation.

By extension, out of mind-body dualism came the equally ridiculous notion that some kind of transcendental 'intelligence' can operate in the universe independent of a neural substrate. Regardless of what overly argument-driven philosophers might believe, the evidence indicates that intelligence is an evolved, neural-based phenomenon. Period. End of story. Or, it should be.

(By argument-driven, I refer to the phenomenon of looking only at whether or not the construction of an argument follows the rules of logic, and whether or not the premises conform to Newtonian-level intuition.)

"The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true." Michael Ignatieff

I think that Berlin's comment also applies to some philosophers and definitely to theologians and apologists.

The potential for mistaken conceptualizations based on 'common sense' or intuitive reasoning ultimately led from philosophy, which sought to answer questions purely by 'thinking' about them, to experimental science that acknowledged, and compensated for, the limitation of pure rationalism. Science evolved philosophically to discard, by expert consensus, old outmoded metaphysical explanations for the physical. Philosophy, divorced as it can be from empirical testing of premises, has not necessarily discarded unsupported theories.

Theists, who must ignore the lack of evidence or counterevidence, have monopolized on this deficiency in philosophy. They call it theology or apologetics. Some of these arguments appear quite logical, but there is an inherent problem with arguments constructed purely on definition or analogy. Any philosophy that seeks to explain the physical, regardless of whether it defines itself as supernatural or ineffable, must cede the field to scientific explanations, where available, because only science can test, confirm, or falsify the physical.

Stephen Jay Gould was, I believe, quite incorrect about his appeasement position termed "non-overlapping magisteria".

apologetics, biological evolution, cell biology, cognition, intelligence, intelligent design, logic, molecular biology, neuroscience, philosophy, science, theology, Gould

Resource information on DID

2007-10-23T15:37:00.000-04:00

Canadian Mental Health Association Understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder ~
Merck Manual Dissociative Identity Disorder ~
Bryn Mawr College Dissociative Identity Disorder ~
Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD) Questions and Misconceptions ~
Child Abuse & Neglect: Dissociative Identity Disorder ~
A Patient with Dissociative Identity Disorder 'Switches' in the Emergency Room ~

Google search for DID ~
PubMed search ~

Technoratic tags dissociative identity disorder ~

Captive Conversions

2007-10-22T18:57:00.000-04:00

Further to a conversation about Jeffrey Dahmer's so-called conversion as revealed in an interview with Stone Phillips:

"The jail cell conversion from “sinner” to true believer may be one of the best examples of a “second chance” in modern life, yet the process receives far more attention from the popular media than from social science research. In this article, we explore prisoner conversions from the perspective of narrative psychology. Drawing on 75 original, life story interviews with prisoner “converts,” we argue that the conversion narrative “works” as a shame management and coping strategy in the following ways. The narrative creates a new social identity to replace the label of prisoner or criminal, imbues the experience of imprisonment with purpose and meaning, empowers the largely powerless prisoner by turning him into an agent of God, provides the prisoner with a language and framework for forgiveness, and allows a sense of control over an unknown future."¬ Maruna, S., Wilson, L. & Curran, K. (2006). Why God is often found behind bars: Prison Conversion and the Crisis of Self-Narrative. Research in Human Development, 3, 161 - 184. (pdf)

These authors say that:

"Being imprisoned can cause individuals to see the fragility of the web of meaning they previously took for granted. This realization can lead to reflection on issues of existence, life, and death, which are usually bracketed from everyday consideration."

Cohen and Tayler observe:

"One’s identity, one’s personality system, one’s coherent thinking about himself depend upon a relatively familiar, continuous, and predictable stream of events. In the Kafkaesque world of the booking room, the jail cell, the interrogation room, and the visiting room, the boundaries of the self collapse." ¬ Cohen, S., & Taylor, L. (1972). Psychological survival: The experience of long-term imprisonment. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. (p. 39)

Most serial killers come from severely abusive childhoods, typically suffering physical/sexual/emotional abuse in the home or extended family. Dissociative identity disorder arises only through severe, early, prolonged traumas commencing in early childhood—usually physical or sexual abuse. Whereas females with DID tend to be self-abusive, and many seek therapy, males with DID are more likely to be violent, to commit crimes, and to be incarcerated.

A very high percentage of survivors of childhood abuse were raised and abused in highly religious families. A significant percentage report that when, as children, they told their mothers that they were being abused, their mothers merely prayed over them or instructed them to pray. Some alter personalities who are devoutly religious, whether or not the host (chief) personality is religious. The religion-of-choice may not be the religion in which the child was raised. Thus, one alter personality may carry all of the religious 'hopes' for the personality system.

Some of the reported conversions during incarceration may result from more prolonged emergence of religious identities or an identity-consensus adoption of religious 'hope' bargaining.

dissociative identity disorder, jail, conversion, religion, Jeffrey Dahmer

Serial Abusiveness

2007-10-22T18:31:00.000-04:00

Serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer displayed sociopathic traits, though there is probably more to his urges than mere lack of feeling for other people. Sociopaths are often charming, social, and manipulative, but their lack of conscience does not typically include boyhood fantasies of lying next to an unconscious man or of sexual fantasies involving killing. Dahmer’s fantasizing about men”, not boys, seems odd in view of the fact he targeted younger boys when older.

There must be an explanation for Jeffrey's inclinations, and the classic explanations for psychological make-up point to genetic or environmental factors, or a combination of those. Dahmer’s behavior and background fit a pattern that has been described by other serial killers, making it likely that childhood abuse was likeliest stimulus to his perversion no matter how Dahmer himself might have explained it.

Most serial killers come from severely abusive childhoods, typically suffering physical/sexual/emotional abuse in the home or extended family. This man was not merely a conscience-deficient sociopath, he lost time during which he was dissociated and not in executive control of his actions.

Dahmer mentions losing something like six hours of time and of being disoriented when the police arrived and found one of the bodies. Since he was already convicted, that claim was not part of an insanity plea.

Psychiatric diagnosis is much more difficult than medical diagnosis because individuals can exhibit symptoms from several categories. However, the DSM-IV description of DID indicates that dissociative amnesic episodes such as those that Jeffrey described are conditio sine qua non for the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. DID arises only through severe, early, prolonged traumas commencing in early childhood—usually physical or sexual abuse. In other words, Jeffrey's adult behavior indicates that matters were far worse in Jeff's childhood (probably in the home) than the videos indicate.

His father, Lionel Dahmer said that he was a cheerful child until they moved to Ohio, after which he became shy and socially withdrawn. The boy became fascinated with dissection of dead animals, which he collected as road-kill. In a video of Dahmer’s boyhood he displayed weird body language when wafting around the garden at about age 7 in what appear to be pink pyjamas. He moves like a girl, yet he appears very masculine in other clips.

Lest I give DID an undeservedly bad name, I should point out that it is quite common (2-6% depending on the study) and that most patients with DID do not commit horrendous crimes, or any crime at all. Females with DID tend to be self-abusive, and many seek therapy, whereas males with DID are more likely to be violent, to commit crimes, and to be incarcerated. Personality systems also typically include workers, reporters, helpers, protectors, sluts, etc. Because different personalities play different roles, they can be very persuasive.

A very high percentage of survivors of childhood abuse were raised and abused in highly religious families. A significant percentage report that when, as children, they told their mothers that they were being abused, their mothers merely prayed over them or instructed them to pray. Some alter personalities who are devoutly religious, whether or not the host (chief) personality is religious. The religion-of-choice may not be the religion in which the child was raised. Thus, one alter personality may carry all of the religious 'hopes' for the personality system.

Some of the reported conversions during incarceration may result from more prolonged emergence of religious identities or an identity-consensus adoption of religious 'hope' bargaining.

Similarly, the alarming frequency of pedophilic priests reflected a similar phenomenon–devout Catholics with no interest in adult women might well have hoped that entering the priesthood would 'cure' them of their unwelcome urges.

Dahmer’s claimed conversion to God was probably as faked as much of his presentation of self. Lionel Dahmer is reported to have been a staunch creationist throughout Jeffrey’s childhood. Even if Jeffrey had been a believer throughout his life, nothing short of incarceration would have stopped him from killing those boys and young men.

Dahmer’s evolution-made-me-devalue-life pitch was some kind of ploy. Since the father was interviewed at the same time, I suspect that the father influenced (or convinced) Jeffrey to take that line with Stone Phillips in the interview. Some might consider it unlikely that an abuser could exert a prolonged, powerful influence over a victim. However, continued obedience, and even love, are quite common in the victim-perpetrator relationship. Think of this phenomenon as lifelong Stockholm syndrome.

It is likely that many jail 'conversions', religious alters, pedophilic priests, praying look-the-other-way mothers, and televangelists reflect the fact that we have inherited both the intergenerational impact of difficult lives and the empty promises that religionists have repeated about "remedies" that cannot help.

dissociative identity disorder, Jeffrey Dahmer

DID/PTSD not FMS

2007-10-21T13:38:00.000-04:00

Translation of post header: dissociative identity disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder are not false memory syndrome.

False memories are utterly different in secondary manifestations, in type of content, and in brain activity compared to the recovery phase of repressed traumatic memories. Repressed traumatic memories, and not false memories, are often associated with the psychogenic symptoms noted in supposed "alien abduction" experiences. The phenomenon is attributable to the fact that it's easier for children to imagine that the original attacker was an alien or a monster or a robot rather than a loved one.

The whole nonsense called False Memory Syndrome was concocted by a psychology researcher cum lawyer who may well have emotional issues of her own. The False Memory 'Mythology' has been usurped and distorted by defence lawyers who are interested in winning cases and not in ascertaining truth.

The experimental work on false memories employs studies in which, for example, subjects are shown photos of car wrecks with a body lying on the ground in front of the car, and then asking subjects whether they noticed either "A broken headlight" or "THE broken headlight".

It doesn't take a trained psychiatrist to realize that more study subjects claim to have remembered "THE broken headlight". Obviously, if the experimenters had asked whether the subject remembered seeing "A body" or "THE body", this would make little difference to accuracy of reporting! The only value of such research is to teach those who question anyone professionally (police, social workers, psychiatrists, etc) to avoid leading questions, particularly concerning the small details.

Many experimental subjects are immune to implantation of memories. Some studies recruit parents to tell their child of an event, such as disliking soft-boiled eggs, that the child supposedly experienced but does not recall. Hypnosis is not used for this. Some imaginative kids are able to visualize the described event and to come to believe that it actually happened. It's easy to understand how this can happen – when we read a novel, we visualize the characters, the places, and the events about which we read, otherwise novels would be as boring as manuals on programming VCRs (well, maybe it's just moi).

Now, think about how different the experience of being beaten or sexually traumatized would be in comparison to recalling broken headlights or imagining that you disliked soft-boiled eggs. Fortunately for most of us, the experiences are worlds apart.

Any competent therapist who treats traumatized patients will honestly assure you that the therapeutic work involves letting the patient recover the memory without any leading questions. The patient already 'contains' all the information that they need to heal, it is simply that they have not yet been able to consciously access and process it while it remains repressed. The timing of such access should be left to the patient, with the therapist providing only the occassional gentle exploration of related material.

As a matter of fact, therapists find that if they ever try to clarify a detail concerning a recovered memory and get it slightly wrong, their patients are utterly clear on which detail was accurate. When victims of childhood trauma recover a memory, they don't just remember it the way you or I would consciously recall a faded 'episodic' memory of an event, they RELIVE it with all the intensity and sensations of the original event. It's upsetting to witness, and there is no way on earth that a therapist could either implant such a memory or that they would wish to. It is much more upsetting to endure the traumatizing event and the recovery of the memory, but patients become increasingly infuriated by lay denial, and even more by professional denial, of their personal, though painful reality. Such denial is often a present day replication of the denial that permitted their abuse to continue without hope for comfort or rescue.

The more obviously accurate instances of reliving of traumatic material by adults who have experienced traumatic events such as major military conflicts. The condition was formerly called 'shell shock', which was certainly appropriate in reference to the major conflicts of the 20th century. However, terminology has been updated to posttraumatic stress disorder, which more accurately reflects the fact that a variety of life or self-threatening situations can precipitate difficulties. The process of recovery from adult traumas is very similar to that from childhood traumas, although individuals older than around 8 years do not develop the dissociative identity schisms employed by younger children.

The intensely vivid nature of such previously repressed traumatic memories results from their 'storage' in the emotional limbic system, rather than in the associative neocortex. Once a memory has been accessed by the conscious neocortex, its quality fades to that of a conscious episodic memory, and its perceived time-frame recedes appropriately into the past. It is this transfer from the limbic emotion-bound memories to conscious cognitive memory that permits healing from the trauma and paves the way for personality integration in those with dissociative identity disorder (earlier known as multiple personality disorder). The 'information' transfer from limbic to frontal association areas has been well documented with fMRIs.

To treat the condition effectively, a therapist must recognize the clinical picture, particularly because untrusting patients may go to great pains to hide or deny their real mental experiences and symptoms. Because recognition is so critical to therapeutic success, competent therapists grow utterly frustrated with the impact of denialist nonsense on their patients. Another tragic component of this prevailing denial is the prevalent misdiagnosis and mistreatment by incompetent psychiatrists and psychologists who are afraid of the diagnosis and so ignore it.

Don't take just 'my' word for all this any more than you'd believe lawyers or psychologists-with-issues. Instead look up a reputable site on childhood abuse, repressed memories, posttraumatic stress disorder, or dissociative identity disorder, and read those who help victims rather than helping perpetrators.

Destroying Descartes' Dualism

2007-09-27T11:26:00.000-04:00

Science of the Soul? ‘I Think, Therefore I Am’ Is Losing Force

. . . as evolutionary biologists and cognitive neuroscientists peer ever deeper into the brain, they are discovering more and more genes, brain structures and other physical correlates to feelings like empathy, disgust and joy. That is, they are discovering physical bases for the feelings from which moral sense emerges — not just in people but in other animals as well.

The result is perhaps the strongest challenge yet to the worldview summed up by Descartes, the 17th-century philosopher who divided the creatures of the world between humanity and everything else. As biologists turn up evidence that animals can exhibit emotions and patterns of cognition once thought of as strictly human, Descartes’s dictum, “I think, therefore I am,” loses its force.

René Descartes', lacking the knowledge that science offers us, conjured up another unsuccessful version of the ontological argument in which he conceived of a body-mind dualism connected at the pineal gland.

I'm never sure whether dualists interpret the evidence so as to exclude reductionist materialism because it is counterintuitive or because they wish to believe in the possibility of the continuance of their personal consciousness after physical death. I expect that it is both, and I think that their assumptions are unfounded.

I'll illustrate with a simple example. If your family doc taps your patellar tendon below the knee to test your 'knee-jerk' reflex, the neurophysiological and muscular responses are quite simple and could easily be fully 'tracked' in an animal model. (patellar reflex)

There is no need to invoke a 'knee-muscle-spirit' to explain what has happened. Your experience, though, is not directly of stretch of the Golgi tendon organ, neuronal firing, and actin-myosin sliding. You feel the tap and feel an involuntary muscle contraction. Modern dualists would undoubtedly accept the physical explanation for this experience without even thinking that a spirit-mechanism need be invoked.

However, dualists conveniently ignore the fact that this simplest reflex lies on a spectrum of neurophysiological activity/experience that extends up to consciousness. They ignore the extremely high likelihood that experiences that result from the complex, emergent system that is our plastic, input-programmed brain represent the same types of phenomenology.
They ignore the fact that the brains of different individuals become active in predictable neuroanatomical areas when those individuals engage in equivalent behaviors. If our brains were mere antennas for the mind, then we should expect to see idiosyncratic neuranatomic responses.

They conveniently ignore Occam's razor, which indicates that the most parsimonious, not necessarily the simplest, explanation is always to be preferred. They usurp the fact that highly complex physical phenomena are difficult to tease apart, and they distort this techical 'uncertainty' into metaphysical argumenta ad
ignorantiam that permit the desired conclusion.

Scientific methodology was 'invented' to counteract precisely such wishful unthinking. For my comments above, Sam [Harris] might join Lee Siegel in declaring atheism damaging to imagination. However, I think that trying to conceptualize how things and people really function is more difficult than simplistic, intuitive, flights of fantasy. That's what makes it interesting!

~ salient, here. [I have added italic emphasis and links]

biological evolution biology brain cognition genes morality neuropsychology neuroscience philosophy research science sociobiology Rene Descartes

Natural Selection for Altruism

2007-09-17T22:17:00.000-04:00

Morality has a neural basis, and both morality and rationality depend on limbic-prefrontal connections. Morally loaded behaviors such as altruism are found in our primate lineage, where they provided selective survival advantages for the natural group.

So much for the religious mythology that God handed down absolute moral edicts! Well, anyone endowed with the logical-empirical cognitive attitudes that render the thinker resistant to religious inculcation could have told the sociologists and neuroscientists that small children exhibit concern for others and that much of our moral framework is learned.

Reactions to Haidt's article: on Edge by Michael Shermer, David Sloan Wilson, Sam Harris, and PZ Myers . Bulldust about atheism and morality . Haidt Hype . Misunderstanding the New Atheism . NewScientist "If morality is hard wired in the brain - What's the point of Religion?" . Morality Gene?

biological evolution cognition genetics morality natural selection neuropsychology neuroscience philosophy psychology science

Focus on emotion and disorders of emotion

2007-09-10T16:43:00.000-04:00

Regulation of emotion is becoming better understood, but despite the societal costs of disorders like depression and anxiety, their causes remain unclear. Five review articles in this issue provide perspective on this literature. . . more.

Persistence of Untruths and Inflexibility

2007-09-10T16:33:00.000-04:00

From Differences in brain activity of conservatives & liberals: "This does not mean, however, that differences in ACC activity are directly correlated to political orientation. Although the brain mechanisms underlying conflict monitoring are already in place at a very early age, the environment is also likely to have a major influence political views."

From Underactive ACC and Conservativism: "I found the ACC-Conservatism study interesting because it provides a neural correlation with a behavioral pattern that I have observed repeatedly. I have long maintained that there is cognitive processing deficiency that underlies a commonly observed cluster of personality traits."

Posted in response to a study just published in Nature Neuroscience:

"Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern."

Amodio, D. M., et al. (2007). Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. Nat. Neurosci. doi:10.1038/nn1979. [Abstract]

Elsewhere: Red Brain, Blue Brain: Politics and Gray Matter :

Religious Indoctrination and Child Abuse

2007-09-09T14:25:00.000-04:00

I've decided to answer this comment as a post rather than burying it in the comments section:

Cephalis said...
"Shouldn't religious indoctrination of children be considered child abuse?"

Interesting question . . .

I'd say that holy-roller type inculcated fear could definitely have long-term emotional impacts. However, I think that including all religious indoctrination under the category of child abuse would broaden the definition of child abuse too much to be practical.

From a neuropsychiatric viewpoint and for the purposes of active intervention, I think that only physical and sexual abuse should be included in the category of child abuse. It is well established (despite denials by the usual collection of naysayers) that early, prolonged, severe physical and sexual child abuse have long-term developmental sequelae severe enough to require prolonged psychotherapy.

I have recently read a number of personal accounts by recently-come-to-atheism individuals who have experienced a sense of loss in losing their inculcated beliefs in the Loving Parent in the Sky. Many of those people talk more of the loss of the Church community and ritual rather than the actual belief. Of course, gradual awareness of lack of belief is not necessarily traumatic because it is a gradual, intrinsic progression, so the difficulties lie mostly in losing the social perquisities.

Reading of Mother Theresa's anguish over her crisis of faith might seem to prove an exception to the above. I think, though, that her case actually illustrates one of the drawbacks of religion in general. Assuming that Mother Theresa had some other, earlier reason for seeking comfort in religion, then she was seeking comfort and healing in entirely the wrong place (because there is no God to help those in emotional pain). Even if she had no early reason for seeking comfort, religion clearly failed her.

Religion fails dismally as a form of therapy because it offers ineffective affirmations and useless prescriptions (forgive and forget) rather than true growth. Thus, an individual in severe emotional pain will never find a way out of their pain solely through expectation that faith in God will fill the emptiness. In this sense, I think that religion further abuses adults who have suffered the classic forms of child abuse. Churches amplify this problem by cautioning their congregation not to seek help from secular therapists. (Churchpeople fear that secular therapists will attempt to destroy belief.)

Emotion and Religiosity

2007-08-31T18:08:00.000-04:00

We humans have all inherited remnants of the “reptilian brain”, by which I refer to the autonomic/emotional core that is found throughout the animal kingdom. (Technically, in the triune brain concept, the reptilian brain is the earliest, autonomic evolutionary development; the limbic, came later (mammals and above) and deals with emotion; and the latest, primate, neocortex deals with cognition.) The primitive elements of our brain can come under the influence of the rational, cortical brain, yet strong emotions can escape logical control. If they could not, we would probably never fall in love!

The apes that ultimately evolved into humans enjoyed survival advantages over those of their cousins who had not inherited genes for the Great NeoCortical Leap Forward. That is, in hominid evolution, those apes with the greatest cognitive advantage were able to survive, proliferate, and outnumber their rivals.

The persistence of religion, despite the far greater explanatory power of scientific knowledge, relies upon this emotional side of human nature. However, those who wish to impose their religious views on society are also well aware that the Idea of God must be instilled into children while they are still stuck in the magical-thinking stage. Let any child, even a child of average intelligence, grow to adulthood before attempting to convince them that some old book holds more “Truth” than empirical facts, and that mind will most likely have escaped religion’s clutches. Only early indoctrination can keep the synagogues, mosques, and churches filled with individuals willing to put an inculcated obsession ahead of humanity.

Catch ‘em young and many of them will never outgrow magical thinking because some are not genetically endowed with the cognitive powers to overcome illogic. Religionists seem unwilling to grasp the fact that atheists have escaped religious indoctrination through the operation of critical thinking rather than that atheists are victims of scientific cultism, naturally immoral, or incapable of emotional response.

Religionists, however, are scared of scientific knowledge because at some deep level that they are too scared to admit science refutes the creation mythology in Genesis. Religionists are so scared of knowledge that many, such as the creationist family in “God’s Christian Warriors”, are home-schooling their children to ensure that they cannot bite the forbidden fruit of secular knowledge. If the facts supported religionist beliefs, then creationists would not need to attack or defend against knowledge.

Cognitive Memory System

2007-07-01T17:02:00.000-04:00

The identified brain-wide distributed network, or cognitive memory system, comprises three major subsystems: the medial temporal lobe, the temporal cortex, and the frontal cortex. Humans memory types are extended into animals as episodic-like (event) memory or semantic-like (fact) memory.

The ultimate storage sites for explicit memories (for facts and events) appear to be cortical, but the medial temporal lobe plays a critical enabling role in storage. The unique configurational association between environmental stimuli and behavioral context, which likely form the basis of episodic-like memory, relies on neural circuits in the medial temporal lobe. Memory traces representing repeated associations, whichlikely form the basis of semantic-like memory, are consolidated in the domain-specific regions in the temporal cortex.

During recall, domain-specific cortical regions in the temporal lobes are reactivated and contribute to the contents of a memory. This reactivation process is mediated by various signals, including a top-down signal from the prefrontal cortex and a signal up from the limbic cortex. The active, top-down retrieval signal runs from the frontal cortex for effortful. Automatic retrieval spreads backward from the medial temporal lobe.

Strategic attempts for retrieval and encoding are mediated by the frontal regions, which also monitor outcome. By sending the top-down signal to the temporal cortex, frontal regions manipulate and organize to-be-remembered information, devise strategies for retrieval, and also monitor the outcome, with dissociated frontal regions making functionally separate contributions. The dissociated frontal regions perform functionally separate contributions.

Adapted from here.

Post Index

1990-09-10T19:09:00.000-04:00

Resource Index

Alphabetical

ю Captive Conversions
ю Cognitive Memory System
ю DID/PTSD not FMS
ю Destroying Descartes' Dualism
ю Emotion and Religiosity

ю Focus on emotion and disorders of emotion

ю Natural Selection for Altruism
ю Persistence of Untruths and Inflexibility

ю Religious Indoctrination and Child Abuse `

ю Resource information on DID
ю Serial Abusiveness

Post Date

ю Resource information on DID

ю Captive Conversions

ю Serial Abusiveness

ю DID/PTSD not FMS

ю Destroying Descartes' Dualism

ю Natural Selection for Altruism

ю Focus on emotion and disorders of emotion
ю Persistence of Untruths and Inflexibility
ю Religious Indoctrination and Child Abuse
ю Emotion and Religiosity
ю Cognitive Memory System

Resource Index

1990-09-10T15:58:00.000-04:00

DID : Resource information on DID ~

Gray Grey

1990-04-01T17:59:00.000-04:00

I have a professionally related interest in the neurosciences ranging from neurophysiology through to applied psychology. I am also interested in those "mind" problems that are tackled in philosophy of mind.

Static Atheist Blogroll

1990-01-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

A-Deistic
Adeistic
Avidity
Eine Kleine Nattermusing
eMusings
eVolition
Galaria
Godspell Follies
Gray Matters
Logodaedaly
MetaThoughts
Mimble Wimble
Naturalism
palimpsest
Salient
Science of Evolution
Sechuam
Sintheist
Tabula Flexuosa
Weltschauung