Political Mind - prophetic or controversial ?

When I read first chapters of the George's Lakoff „The Political Mind” during this year holidays I was almost elated. It played the tune that sounded true not only in American tuning but also in European one and in my Polish tuning as well. I found it almost prophetic and eye openning.

Having the subtitle „Why you can't understand 21st-Century Politics with an 18th-Century Brain” the book uncovers the role of specific language and its structural forms in politics and shows that this role is much deeper than we usually think — that it goes deeply into our brains and moulds our minds...

The book starts by the recall to Anna Nicole Smith case. Of course her life and death story was not the main reason of the interest. Rather the typical "frames" and "scripts" within which her story was told, are of the author interest. The frames and scripts of Anna Nicole Smith life were mostly untrue. Yet they spread to such extent that many people identified with them, despite their almost obvious unreliability. The narrative about Anna Nicole Smith was so important that Lakoff cites David Rieff: „understanding the importance of Anna Nicol Smith will help us understand politics”. And this leads us to interesting part of the book where „conceptual frames”, „semantic fields” or „specific scripts” are used to understand a phenomenon instead of the more deeper knowledge about the phenom itself.

This is typical to politics. And in the XXI century politics with pervasive use of digital media, these frames and scripts spread even faster than before. Lakoff tries to prove that it is not self-fuelling process. Behind most important political frames and narratives of American politics stand the conscious and systematic activity of conservatives. The book lists many examples where certain popular narratives (like that about „war on terror”) were just created to serve a particular goal. When Lakoff speaks about American politics, it is clear he stands on democratic (or how he called them "progressive") positions. He sees his mission, the mission of this book in uncovering the problem:

„Conservatives have excelled at articulating their values and ideas. It is time for progressives to do the same. My job here is to unlock the cognitive unconscious, to take progressive thought off the leash and to draw an accurate picture of conservative thought for the sake of comparison.”

He first finds the source of the polarisation in the family values. By almost equating the empathy with progressive values and authority with conservatives values, Lakoff tries to explain how our family upbringing can lead us to take a specific position on the political scene. Behind this conclusion is the assumption of the deep role of specific brain structures amplified by the specific family models (like Strict Father Model or Nurturant Parent Model) so that we select empathy or authority as the ground of our certain political choices.

This way of thinking is then extended in the analysis of the role of the brain in Political Ideologies. He uncovers certain metaphors that are used by politicians (purity, rottenness, light, darkness) when speaking about morality — and shows how deep is the importance of these metaphors in the formation of political ideology. The working of these metaphors is very often unconscious and some of them have deeply „embodied” aspect.

The central part of the book shows Lakoff way of thinking in practice. He analysies the role of some traumatic metaphors like „The War on Terror” or „Privateering” or some media created stereotypes (e.g. „sons of the welfare queen”) in politics and in achieving certain political goals.

To this moment I liked his book. Certainly its main purpose, i.e. to wake up our awareness of the the role of certain brain activities, particularly — unconscious activities and their role in our political decisions — is achieved. And I'm thankful to Lakoff for that. When I looked through his eyes on my domestic, Polish politics and discovered how many frames and (invented) narratives started to live their own life and influenced politics, even if they were based on false stories. Take the metaphor of „undercover agent” almost synonymic with an evil-doer of communist times and using this metaphor against Lech Walesa by his political opponents....

But on that level, or at these kind of reasoning the value of the book ends...

Let me now list issues which I have against the book. These issues are serious and, in my opinion, they diminish the value of the book — which could be a great contribution to the current political discussion. Could be. But is not.

First, I understand George Lakoff is scientist. While there is nothing bad in scientists to have political opinions and express them openly, it is quite disturbing when the certain political views and biases put shadow on the science the scientists cultivates. As an example take the way in which Lakoff calls political oponents of the US scene. He does not call them „democrats” vs. „republicans” or even „liberals” vs. „conservatives”. He calls the first „progressives” and the later — „conservatives”. By making this delicate and almost unnoticeable shift, he puts a certain frame and certain narration into motion. He tries to amplify his own political agenda by the scientific method (brain science and linguistics) he tries to say it is objective! His „progressive” narration about Democrats is like many narrations and metaphors a bit untrue, to say the least. It ignores the fact that the first, and only one by name, Progressive Party was actually formed by a split in Republican Party! Of course, we can't call today's republicans „progressives”, but we shouldn't speak about political opponents using certain frames and labels that are not quite true... (BTW, I am, like Lakoff, on the side of Democrats :-) )

Second, I'm very sympathetic to the current progress of brain science. I'm far from the understanding of the mind as something disembodied and purely logical. But the current state of the brain science does not allow now for many conclusions that Lakoff makes. For example by literally painting the metaphors as the results of certain synaptic connections — and speaking of abstract context as of result of the another physical connections is such great oversimplification that authors conclusions (even after his acknowledgment of the oversimplification) about important political consequences of brain structures seems to be naive.

I'm not a brain scientist. I'm physicist and chemist. But I read a lot about brain science and I know the simple fact — our current science is still very far from understanding the mind and the brain — its home and cradle. The way Lakoff reduces politics to brain mechanisms is naive — to say the list.

Finally, I was shocked by the naivety of the final chapter „What if it works” where Lakoff gives quite bombastic predictions how fantastic would be the politics if we all apply his way of thinking about brain and politics. This is perhaps the worst part of the book, and in some sense it close to the bombastic parts of Neuro Evolution... I know it was typical to scientists of Enlightenment age (which, ironically, he critisises) to predict bright future if their theories worked ...

But we also know from history how it often ended, despite beautiful words and lips full of empathy. This is why I find the book controversial to the same extent as it is prophetic ....

Last warning — Nicolas Carr's "The Shallows"

How many of us, heavy Web users, haven't noticed something strange that recently has happened to us and to our ability to concentrate, to focus for a longer time, to our power for deep reading? I'm sure not many.


So when I started reading Nicholas Carr's „The Shallows. What the Internet is Doing to our Brains” I immediately knew that this is one of the most important books I recently read. Not for being just „interesting”, but for forming the very strong, and maybe — the last — serious warning...

„I used to find it easy to immerse myself in a book or a lengthy article. My mind would get caught up in the twists of the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spent hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration starts to drift after a page or two. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel like I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.”

This is deeply true. I feel it myself. Even when I listen to my audiobooks, I have that feeling very often, too often...


So what has really happened?


Nicolas Carr's book tries to answer this question. And is doing it in a very deep and convincing way. To write the book, the author almost had to cut his strong ties with digital world, move to mountains of Colorado, and drastically limit all distractions coming from the excessive use of the net...

He first recalls the famous Marshall McLuhan book „Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”. It was McLuhan, who first noticed and explained the famous inference: „The medium is the message”. It was he who proved that on a longer time scale „the medium's content matters less than the medium itself in influencing how we think and act”. It was McLuhan who discovered that „The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts. Rather they alter patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance”.

McLuhan, who died in 1980, did not witness the birthday of Web in 1989. Yet his insights based on the analysis of media existing in sixties and seventies are actual in the Web era.



What exactly does it mean?


To understand it better, Carr recalls the idea of our brain adaptabillity and plasticity first proposed by William James in XIX century. It was James, who in his „Principles of Psychology” wrote: „ ... the nervous tissue seems endowed with a very extraordinary degree of plasticity”. This idea was endorsed by Freud in 1895 in an unpublished manuscript where „he argued that the brain, and in particular the contact barriers between neurons, could change in response to a person's experiences”. Such views were later dismissed and criticised and almost forgotten, until late seventies, when, thanks to many researchers, and among them Michael Merzenich, proved the brain plasticity in a series of experiments. The strong support for the brain plasticity theory came from Nobel prize winner, Eric Kandel, whose landmark research of Aplysia (the sea slug) resulted in conclusion that „synapses can undergo large and enduring changes in strength after only a relatively small amount of training”.


Having said so, Carr analyses the history of the „Tools of the Mind”. He explains how cartography has changed our perception of space in the past, how clocks did so to our perception of time, and the Guttenberg invention — to our knowledge and to the oral tradition.


Coming to XX century computers, he calls them „The Medium of the most General nature”. And its true as „Everything from Beethoven's Ninth to a porn flick can be reduced to a string of ones and zeroes”. And here we come to the net and its most important difference from any mass media — it is bidirectional. People are no longer passive receivers of messages — they can send them! And this interactivity makes the net exceptionally attractive... However, the very nature of online information deeply changed our perception of text:

„A page of online text viewed through a computer screen may seem similar to a page of printed text. But scrolling or clicking through a Web document involves physical actions and sensory stimuli very different from those involved in holding and turning the pages of a book or magazine”

The most important factor changing our brains is related to the nature of hyperlinks:

„Links don't just point us to related or supplemental works; they propel us toward them. They encourage us to dip in and out of a series of texts rather than devote sustained attention to any one of them. Hyperlinks are designed to grab our attention. Their value as navigational tools is inextricable from the distraction they cause”

What is more, this distraction, this silent stimuli we offer to our brains when we are online is almost unnoticeable. We are unaware of it. It does not pain. Paradoxically, we tend to think about the Web, called by Cory Doctorow an „ecosystem of interruption technologies”, about blogs, tweets and FaceBook notes almost only in positive sense. Yet we do not notice the danger:

„The Net's cacophony of stimuli short-cuircuts both conscious and
unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively. Our brains turn into simple signal-processing units, quickly shepherding information into consciousness and then back again.”

Even more profound changes happened in our perception of books. Carr devotes a distinct chapter to books, and their transformation from paper to electronic books. And he notices the dangers here, as well:

„I fear that one of the great joys ofbook reading — the total immersion in another world, or in world of the author's ideas — will be compromised. We all may read books the way we increasingly read magazines and newspapers: a little bit here, a little bit there.” (Steven Johnson)

There is also a big change in writing style. Authors stray from typical narration to a sort of presentation, where they even do not expect readers to read the book but to skim through it...
Carr seems to say, that some of these changes are not so bad, but — are we really sure they are not ? Are we able to assess their net result ? Certainly we are not. At least not yet. But I'm worried the results will not be good for our culture ...

The danger of Google

The one of the most frighteing chapters of the book is entitled „The Church of Google”. He first notices the close proximity between the Taylorism and Google faith in software algorithms: „Google doesn't believe that the affairs of citizens are best guided by experts. It believes that those affairs are best guided by software algorithms”. This approach, confronted with Google mission „to organize the world's information” , backed up by Google's almost messianic faith in its cause, and powered by Google conviction that it „is more then a mere business; it is a 'moral force'” — is really dangerous. And we witnessed this 'moral force' in action many times...

One of the case was related to Google Books. In this very case we could see how this 'moral force', working hard with its lawyers could get the practical monopoly over millions of so-called orphan books....

I do not see Carr as specifically biased against Google — he only points the most important aspects of this greatest and the most dangerous monopoly ever created — monopoly over human knowledge ...

Depending on the direction Google will take in the near future, on their approach to potential AI development, we, as civilization can both profit or sustain a big loss ...

„Google is neither God nor Satan, and if there are shadows in the Googleplex they're no more than the delusions of grandeur. What's disturbing about the company's founders is not their boyish desire to create an amazingly cool machine that will be able to outthink its creators, but the pinched conception of the human mind that gives rise to such a desire.”

What's going on with our memory?

The yet another danger comes from the degradation of human memory that is the result of the totalization of the influence of global search engines (and of course of Google as the most improtant player) and milions of devices (like common GPS driving aids) and software programs. Don't take me wrong: Carr DOES NOT say not to use them. He says we just may not abandon memory and memorization, because of their fundamental importance:

„The offloading of memory to external data banks doesn't just threaten the depth and distinctiveness of the self. It threatens the depth and distinctiveness of the culture we all share.
(...)
Culture is more than the aggregate of what Google describes as „the world's information.” It's more than what can be reduced to binary code and uploaded onto the Net. To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, and culture withers.”

Are machines as we are?

In the last chapters of this amazing book, Carr describes human reactions to the software initiatives aimed at Natural Languge processing and imitating the primitive AI. In particluar he writes about ELIZA software, created by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966. The striking fact was that reactions to Eliza were as it was almost human! „What shocked him was how quickly and deeply people using the software „become emotionally involved with the computer,” talking to it as if it were an actual person.” Later, when Weizenbaum expressed his views (and his warnings) in the book „Computer Power and Human Reason”, most of leading computer scientists called his views as heresy! One of the strong proponents of AI, John McCarthy wrote a mocking review calling it „an unreasonable book” protomting unscientific „moralization”...

This and other examples (like British Edexel — automated marking of exam essays), illustrate the great danger the humanity faces, if it does not counter the effects of digital and computing technologies by „meditative thinking”.

„The tumultuous advance of technology could, (...) drown out the refined perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that arise only through contemplation and reflection.”

Carr ends his book by the very deep observation, that is also an unintentional tribute to the wisdom of Clarke and Kubrick:

„... people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That's the essence of Kubrick's dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”

So far, this was my longest review I ever wrote. And this was one of the most important books I ever read....

The Neuro Revolution - Two reviews in one post

I have just read Zack's Lynch „The Neuro Revolution”. As before — seems to me the full review will come in due time :-)

However, I must say, that I have very mixed impressions. And I must say frankly, it is quite bombastic, utopian book with very little knowledge about the field itself ...

It is perhaps characteristic, that I found the similar tendencies of utopian thinking in this book, as it was in Lakoff's „Political Mind”...

If there is some value in reading the book, it is in really good number of references to significant events and other books and other people of the field...

Going to Munich today... No more time ....

Two weeks later:

I honestly tried to add a bit more about the book, but finally I didn't find it reasonable...

Particularly, in the light of another book related to brain science I read ("Shallows"), I found Lynch's book quite naive and utopian...

When he writes about such things like neuroenablers, oxytocin or concepts like neuroteology or neurocosmetics, he does not deliver any deeper information, but a kind of superficial hype of pseudo-science...

See, as an example, how he writes about the potential of neuroscience for business and society:

„In a neuro-society, corporate wealth will flow in a more lateral way, decreasing the gap between the haves and have-nots bolstering the middle class and reducing poverty. That development will add to our social capital making prosperity last longer. Neurotechnology will also provide new tools for management, it will become less seed of the pants and start being something of the science.(...) But many people who get to be managers, are often the fiercest competitors and they don't always have a good emphatic skill set. In the future more people will have better tools in training, perhaps in neurofeedback even in exquisitely targeted neuropharmaceuticals ....”

Not only Lynch's visions are utopian and inhumane but also scary ... All of this seems to be very strange, even more, when one discovers how active Lynch is on the public scene and how high is his influence (See his blog...)

So what is the book's value? Is there any?

As I wrote before — there is some value in it as a source or collection of some very good references.

For example, thanks to the book I found an interesting TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor and discovered for myself great scientist Vilayanur Ramachandran. The another reference was to an article about Neuropsychology of Religious Experience.

Some books, referred to by Lynch, like Steven's Mitchen:
„The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body”
, „Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth” by Andrew Newberg, or „Proust was a Neuroscientist” by Jonah Lehrer will certainly be on my next-reading list !

So, I suggest not to read it from cover to cover but to harvest it for indeed quite good references :-)

A Small book about the greatest mistery. The Brain: A Very Short Introduction

There is no question: the mystery of brain is a challenge for science. Not just for the neuroscience.

The challenge that most surely will not be met in any predictable time.
The amazing little book: "The Brain: A Very Short Introduction" is a title in the Oxford University Press Series "Very Short Introductions" aimed at general readers and beginners alike.

Michael O'Shea's "The Brain" is a kind of the popular review of the state of art of brain research. Using simple terminology the book covers the structure of the brain, signal transmission, evolutionary transformation of the brain, senses and effectors and the current understanding of the complex problem of memory. It also contains some analysis of very recent advances in robotics when it comes to its relation to neuroscience. And many, many more fascinating topics...

Among them is the very recent notion of "wireless-like", non-synaptic communication in the brain. Called "volume signalling" or GasNets, allows remote neurons to communicate without any synaptic connections.

You can find there fascinating short stories of discoveries as well. For example I was amazed by the description of the essence of Eric Kandel remarkable discoveries about memory (BTW, watch fantastic interviews with Eric by Charlie Rose).

I also found a very good, non-naive passages about relation of modern neuroscience and computer science. Some simple analysis presented by the author make the pretentious claims of strong AI proponents just ridiculous.

Finally, I dare to express my personal view on this field of science. I must only emphasize that I'm not a specialist. However, I think that the modern neuroscience ignores the fact that the brain IS a computing device. Paradoxically, Micheal O'Shea is the coordinator of "Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics". Yet, when you read the book you will notice that neuroscience is still analysing the "hardware" of the brain - and ignores the brain "software". There are some parts of the book that suggest the "non-linear" software of the brain could be analysed. But there is no example in the book - what it could really mean.

I know that the brain "software", when discovered, will be entirely of different kind than current "Turing machine" software - we write and use. It is certain, that the brain runs something that can not be even remotely compared to the current "programs". Yet, so many facts support that simple conclusion about the brain science - we still analyse brain hardware, we are not even ready to accept the brain software existence....

The Soloist - A true story of the true power of music

Nathaniel Ayers was at the footsteps of his potential great musical carrier, when, while at Juilliard School of music he was struck by the sudden outburst of schizophrenia. Then for thirty years he was leaving on Los Angeles streets as a homeless bum, playing for money on his violin with two strings broken....

He was discovered by journalist and columnist, Steve Lopez, and they both went through the painful process of getting Ayers out of the darkness of his illness. Though never totally recovered, Ayers, with the help of selfless attitude of Lopez finally found his home, his studio and started to live more or less normal life.

The book "The Soloist" is very well written, fascinating account on these events. It is captivating, once started it is quite hard to stop reading it - what I witnessed, reading it all over my trip to Paris, in metro, on the plane - just everywhere....

"'Do you know what Sibelius is saying here?' Mr. Ayers asks. 'He's saying. I love this music' Do you hear it? 'I love this music. I love this music'"

You can watch the real Lopez and real Ayers here:



Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Foundation is here: http://www.naayers.org/

And the movie website is here: http://www.soloistmovie.com/

Last but not least - there is no better real life illustration of the ideas of Musicophilipa than in "The Soloist". Both books gave me incredible experience during this visit to Paris, one was read in paper, the other listened to in audio...

Paris, St. Placide, June, 25, 4 AM.

Musicophilia - a tractate on musical brain

Olivier Sacks, professor of neurology and psychiatry, the author of famous book "The Man who mistook His Wife for a Hat" wrote another incredible tractate. Musicophilia is the book that should shake our views about musical perception and the role of music for the understanding of human mind.



The book is written in the form of reports and accounts and conclusions about cases of severe mental illnesses and their relation to music or musical perception.

He analyses many forms of strange mental behaviour, from certain types of seizures that can be called "musical seizures", musical hallucinations through haunting musical "brainworms" to deep analysis of relation between music and blindness, musical savantisms or Williams syndrome.



Olivier Sacks does not attempt to paint the big picture of relation between music and brain. He is modest and shows a lot of moderation and scientific discipline when it comes to interpretation of these facts. However, we, his readers could indulge in comments, conclusions and judgments. One conclusions is almost certain - the musicality - the perception of music can not be reduced to the quality of hearing or simple audition. There are indirect proofs that music is much more deeply rooted in our brains - in the biological and physical foundations of our minds. As he writes: "There are undoubtedly particular areas of the cortex subserving musical intelligence and sensibility (...) The emotional response to the music it would seem is widespread and probably not only cortical but subcortical..."

After reading this book there is no doubt the music is much more important and more fundamental to our life than we ever expected.


Some of us had already knew that, other had some vague gut feeling of this truth - but Sacks shows how deeply true are all these hunches...


This review has been written in Paris. I finished listening to the book in this city full of music at 6 AM in the morning of sleepless night. It is incredible, how listening to this book interwoven for me with reading of "The Soloist". Both say the same, but from different perspective...