[FRIAM] is this true?

Fri Mar 8 17:46:32 EST 2019

Thanks, David, 

I would, of course, agree with your conclusion.  Where I might fuss is where I might suspect you of confounding events within the brain with things the brain does.  Now that’s a wildly tricky distinction because in some sense is everywhere in the body.  I might find myself insisting, if we argued over this, that in fact we have to take the body as a unit therefore “behavior of the brain” is a nonstarter, but I am not yet prepared to take that position. 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2019 9:37 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] is this true?

Not necessarily "a crock."

Pretend, anthropomorphize a bit, that the brain is an entity with at least three observable behaviors: 1) establishing and/or modifying physical 'circuits' in response to stimuli of category A; 2) 'activating' specific subsets of the overall circuitry in response to stimuli of category B; and 3) 'emitting' electromagnetic wave forms in response to stimuli of category C.

Ignore for a moment the fact that all three categories of stimuli and all three behavioral responses probably occur simultaneously in most cases. [Maybe not the rewiring, as that seems to have multiple unique constraints.]

We then collect a lot of data of the sort, stimulus X(n) evoked behavior Y, with Behavior Y being an instance of 'rewiring' (p), 'local activation' (q), or 'emission' (r).

If we observe that stimulus X(1) and stimulus X(6) evoke an instance of (p) we might, being a bit careless with our language, state that the two different stimuli "change the brain in the same way." Being a bit more careful, we might say only that Stimuli X(1) and X(6) belong in the same category A, B, or C.

Given this framework, I would venture a guess that Therapy and Drugs, as stimuli, would not evoke the same behavior. I would expect Therapy to result in behaviors of the 'rewiring' type while Drugs evoke 'activation' type.

This would allow me to address Nick's concern, "odd dualism by which some brain changes are REALLY brain changes and some are not" by asserting that there is no 'real/unreal' dualism, but there is a useful category distinction to be made.

davew

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019, at 9:41 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Sorry.  See correction, below.  The point is, if the therapist convinces the patient, by rational argument, to do the Right Thing, whatever the right thing would be, we don’t tend to think of this as a brain change.  But of course it is.  So, what is this odd dualism by which some brain changes are REALLY brain changes, and some are not?  Thus, we see again, as we must always see, (};-)] that brain state materialism is a crock. 

N

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Nick Thompson [mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2019 8:30 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] is this true?

Of course therapy alters the brain.  How on earth else could it work?  So, the question wouldn’t come up if people didn’t suppose that some brain alterations and [NST==>are<==nst] not REALLY brain alterations.  I don’t know how those people make that distinction.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2019 6:20 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] is this true?

Therapy and drugs can certainly change a life.  I had a friend who worked for a research organization at the University of Pittsburgh.  He had a Ph.D. in psychology.  At the time I worked in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon. He became interested in my work and wondered if there were opportunities for him there.  He investigated and was offered a position.  As a faculty member your job was to find a problem solve it and publish the results and then seek funding for further work but usually you had the freedom to pursue whatever problem you wanted to within reason.  He was not used to this lack of structure and he became unhappy.  One night he called me and was in desperate straits.  I did what it could to encourage him.   He entered therapy with a psychiatrist.  Over the months he became more productive.  After making some contributions in scheduling and planning software as I recall, he went to work for a startup and did some excellent work developing visualization tools.  He was head of a group of a dozen or more developers and scientists.  The group became a separate business.  After a couple of years it was bought by a fortune 50 company and he was made head of the division it became.

I don't know whether or how his brain changes but his life certainly did.

Frank

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 4:58 PM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm> > wrote:

ketamine would not be the first drug that was utilized to augment therapy. MDA, MDMA, even LSD were all studied as ways to enhance, optimize, therapy.

An therapy, some kinds of it anyway, have also been demonstrated to produce very mild altered states of consciousness — somewhat less than hypnosis, somewhat greater than attending an old fashioned Catholic Mass.

davew

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019, at 3:25 PM, glen ∅ wrote:

>From https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/opinion/ketamine-depression.html

> After all, therapy and prescription drugs like antidepressants change the brain in surprisingly similar ways.

Does therapy exhibit changes in the brain similar to drugs (like antidepressants or not)?  I wish the author had provided a citation or 2.

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