Monday, January 22, 2018

Banter 36: The Neurobiology of Decision Making

Monday, February 26th, 7pm
at Jill Alexander's home in CFalls



A somewhat randomly decided upon NPR podcast on decision making to start our wheels turning:

https://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=490989663:490990032

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Contributions to read/view beforehand:

Mitch's:

There was a desire, at the last banter, to tackle a science oriented topic as a change of pace from art, literature, philosophy etc.

Unfortunately, none of us are neurobiologists (I don’t think?). This topic is, especially, overwhelming because, at first glance, it seems so narrow and specialized.

Since I know others are struggling, and I am one of the first to post, I am taking the liberty to try to help frame the discussion.

If I am taking this down a path that is not of interest to you, just disregard me and come with your unique materials.  What I love about this group is that we almost always have good discussions even when (especially, because?) each individual comes at the topic from a completely different perspective.

If someone knows the neurobiology of the brain, in depth, that will be great to bring to the banter, but I don’t think the intent is that we all, individually, dive into research on how neurons fire in the pre-frontal cortex when making a decision.  That would be more of a lecture series than a banter.  There is room, even with this topic, to bring in our own personal experience and thoughts and opinions. When we leave, maybe, we will have enlightened ourselves on practical applications from making more conscious decisions through awareness of how our brains process them.

There is a risk that we will find ourselves diving into ‘Free Will’, which he have covered, in several different formats. We should try to re-frame those discussions more into the science of subconscious versus conscious decision making. Granted, that comes dangerously close to the question of whether or not we act at our own discretion, but I think we can determine when our discussions veer into philosophy and become incompatible with the science topic (see what I did there?).

Focus on the science of the brain and not the philosophy of the ‘mind’. If this topic was on the heart, we would be discussing how the heart works as a muscular pump, and not about how it is the source of the ‘soul’. Be a reductionist, focus on a part of the brain or a part of decision making, and we’ll bring it into the larger context.

Don’t focus just on big decisions (career changes, moves, life partners etc.).  The brain is a decision making machine and, with the exception of the autonomic processes, everything it does is, arguably, a decision. 

Here are a few angles that may be in line with the topic without you having to take a crash course in neuroscience to find a contributions.  

- What biological processes make us ‘feel' some decisions in the gut, heart and head?
- How did the brain evolve to make decisions (reptilian vs. mammalian brain)?
- When does our biology force us, unconsciously, into poor or irrational decisions?
- How do you make decisions?  How much of that do you think you are, truly, processing consciously?
- Are all decisions just an evolutionary/biological processing of risk vs. reward?
- How and where in the brain are subconscious vs. conscious decisions made?
- Can we make better decisions if we are more aware of how our biology is contributing to them?
- What are the literal chemical and biological processes involved in decision making?

Anyway, I hope that helped.  My contribution follows...I picked it because I like the guy's beard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg6XUYWj-pk

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Isaac's:

Article from The British Psychological Association, Research Digest, "Reduced Neural Empathy for Women Wearing Revealing Clothes" by Christian Jarrett, Feb. 2018, https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/02/06/reduced-neural-empathy-for-women-wearing-revealing-clothes/
Screenshot 2018-02-06 10.51.34.pngThe participants watched women being rejected in a ball-passing game (the black blocks over their eyes did not appear in the actual study); from Cogoni et al 2018

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 Sabine's:

 One to evoke damp-eyed response:  TEDxUppsalaUniversity, "Reason Leads to Conclusion, Emotion Leads to Action" with Malin Forsgren,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYj5Ulr2aFU

 One to provoke chuckling: TED2016, "Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator" with Tim Urban,  https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator

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 Kirk's:
I find the contributions on the blog website so far are very interesting and frame a discussion that everyone can make a contribution. Who has not had to make a big decision at some point in their lives?
As I understand it bad decisions are often caused by hubris, so it is important to know that humans are ¨not-so-different¨ from our cousins in the animal world.
This second contribution is from the Harvard Business School. It says we
should judge possible outcomes statistically, based on the best available
information and if we do not know statistics go online  to Khan Academy.
Humans, potentially have a great advantage over animals, who have to use just their own experience or the experience their family group.


https://hbr.org/2018/01/3-ways-to-improve-your-decision-making.

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Annette's: 



Though so many strong thoughts have come to me while turning this topic, what keeps returning is the idea of seeing/looking at or for the mountain from afar (abstract and metaphorical) vs being on the mountain (physical) and what decisions are required (or not) respectively.  

Our decisions are influenced by, and often based on, what we have learned through experience, repetition, our physical reality, problem solving, deduction and what we perceive to be true (and I'll throw in the ol' gut and heart for myself).

“Mist around a mountain: all reality is there.” ― Marty Rubin

Seeing/looking at or for the mountain from afar as experienced by me from the great windows of Skamania Lodge:
I was on an overnight just outside of Portland in The Gorge on the Washington side.  It was a rainy, stormy foggy cloudy time.  I went running in the mud, listening to a dreamier version of a running playlist I had made.
I went to write and to be alone, to listen and see.

As I looked across the mighty Columbia - which I could not see - into the deep magical white swirling low clouds, that were covering the mountains, the straight ups from deep cuts - which I could not see - I was thinking, if I had not seen the mountains before, I would not know that they were there behind that white. If I was driving down the Gorge I would think what a strange an magical place, a road alongside myth.  They say there is a wide and windy river and a hungry mountain and the greenest green.  This winding road is still captivating, puts me in a world, swallows me, but the open Gorge is bigger and makes me feel like a bird.


AGNES OBEL "The Curse"

AGNES OBEL "The Curse" Lyrics
And the people went into their hide, they oh
From the start they didn't know exactly why, why
Winter came and made it so all look alike, look alike
Underneath the grass would grow, aiming at the sky

It was swift, it was just, another wave of a miracle
But no one, nothing at all would go for the kill
If they called on every soul in the land, on the moon
Only then would they know a blessing in disguise

The curse ruled from the underground down by the shore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before
The curse ruled from the underground down by the shore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before

Tell me now of the very souls that look alike, look alike
Do you know the stranglehold covering their eyes?
If I call on every soul in the land, on the moon
Tell me if I'll ever know a blessing in disguise

The curse ruled from the underground down by the shore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before   
And the curse ruled from the underground down by theshore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before

I kept thinking about how the body and its varying abilities is a part of decision making and for some this is a central life focus and others an occasional annoyance.


Me:
I've had very poor eyesight my entire life.  Over the years I developed tools to help me decide what things were without the use of my eyes.  
If I were to lose something in a bag, I would close my eyes and feel every object in the bag very patiently.  Often, I would find the "lost" object in one or two rounds. Using my tactile skills, I could make a decision on what the object in my hand was, and if it was the one I was looking for.   This was a more reliable option (and less anxiety inducing) than dumping the bag out on the floor and searching for the object by sight. 
When I would wonder if something was made of glass or another material, I would immediately tap it to my teeth.  Granted, this had it's roots in impulsivity, then grew to a compulsion-but it served a purpose.  My teeth told a truth that my eyes could not-that the object in my hand was in fact made of glass or another substance.
There many times that I reached my hand into the bottom of a bag and went straight through a mushy pear or came out covered in red lipstick.  This taught me to go slow and move gingerly. Although sometimes, that lost object WAS the pear or the lipstick!

I was able to decide what an object was using the tools that served me best and that had been honed over time.

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Jivan's:
Mitch asked the question, "How can we make better decisions if we are
aware how our biology is contributing to them?"  I think the answer is
we don't know.

The neurobiologist sees all the neurons firing up in parts of the
brain, but what do they have to do with making a decision?

Aliens see cars on the earth  making a right or left turn.  "What
causes a car to make a right or left turn?"  They abduct the car and
discover cylinders inside the engine.  They celebrate like the
neuroscientists are doing these days.  They are a little closer to the
answer but they haven't discovered the human being inside making the
turn.

How can I make better decisions?  What is this "I" in the first place?
It seems to be a label for part of my mind that expands and
contracts.  Sometimes it feels like "I" is the decider.  Sometimes it
feels like the mind is the decider, especially when presented with a
chocolate chip cookie.

Will the neurobiologist ever find out what causes me to make a right
or left turn?  NO.  If they discover in the future a little being
inside my brain making the decisions, then they will have to find out
what causes the little being to make the decisions.  They can never
know what I am feeling by looking at neurons.


Also, take a look at Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?"
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Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Banter 35: Where does music come from?

Sunday, January 21st, 7pm
Sabine's house

A weathered, grandfatherly Costa Rican man once told me it came from frogs, which seemed likely as a 4-year old Naya and I walked one night between the small restaurant we had eaten Gallo Pinto at and our pension up a hill a couple miles away in Monteverde.  The frogs, the frogs.

A dear friend of mine who is a singer, in mentioning this to her the other night over appetizers with Jeff, said, "Don't you all know it came from that time a fairy opened a particular flower?"

Jeff said, "Spotify."

Send materials that represent one thread you value with this topic, and they'll be posted below a week before we meet.
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Kirk's contribution

Why Music?: A Cynical Perspective

     Why are we Homo Sapiens? Why not Homo Neanderthals or some other species of homo? A new branch seems to be found every few years. The Neanderthal appear to have been bigger, stronger and perhaps more intelligent than Homo Sapiens and yet Homo Sapiens prevailed. It is speculative, but the prevailing view is that Sapiens was better at language and cooperative behavior than its cousins, the Neanderthals. Could music be another factor? Music is the ultimate crowd manipulator, particularly if the crowd has the same culture. If the leaders want the tribe to go to war they have one type of music. If they want the whole tribe to cooperate as beaters for the hunt, play a different kind of music. That is why societies have generally encouraged music as a valuable tool to manipulate the tribe.
       Musical manipulation can be a force for good or evil. We applaud a crowd singing "We shall overcome," but we are appalled with a crowd belting out some Nazi anthem.
       We owe a  lasting debt to the sponsorship of music by churches in the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. Listening to music in one of the great cathedrals of Europe is a fantastically moving experience. You are being brain-washed in a very pleasant way.  This was just the result the Church intended.


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Jill Fanning's contribution:

Cry and Drum
For native people in the Northwest, music consists of the songs.  The songs are for teaching, healing, inspiration and for fun and enjoyment.  They are also for dancing, hunting, fishing, painting, carving, cooking, berry picking, etc.
First there is the Cry, the deep cry of all living things.  The cry that comes from deep within the heart.  Then there is the Drum:  The heartbeat of Mother Earth, the movement of the tides, the wind, cycles of the seasons, the movement of the moon and sun.  Whatever moves is Drum.
When Cry and Drum come together, there is Song.
The Song is our life.

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 Sabine's contributions:

 1. Quick overview of embedded meaning and basic lyrics of the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd": 

This song suggests escaping (slavery) in the spring as the days get longer. It also refers to quails which start calling each other in April. The drinking gourd is a water dipper which is a code name for the Big Dipper which points to the Pole Star towards the north. Moss grows on the north side of dead trees, so if the Big Dipper is not visible, dead trees will guide them north.

When the Sun comes back
And the first quail calls
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the Drinking Gourd.
The riverbank makes a very good road.
The dead trees will show you the way.
Left foot, peg foot, traveling on,
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
The river ends between two hills
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
There’s another river on the other side
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
When the great big river meets the little river
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.

 2. A version of the above song I'd like you to listen to & watch visually:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loS4rqjRXBE

 3. My own thoughts tying some threads sloppily together:  


I think music comes from the need for safety, soothing, and meaning making in humans.  It gets refined and made more lovely via its sharing with other humans in times of need for safety, soothing, and meaning making.   The more it accomplishes this, the more it gets shared forward.  The song “Follow the Drinking Gourd” strikes me as a nice example to track how it was used historically (escaping as a slave in the U.S.), as well as how these girls in the above video seem to be using it against being washed under by strife in places mentioned in their revised song / spoken word, like Sofala (Mozambique), Soweto (S. Africa), Savannah (Georgia?), and Santo Domingo (D.R.). The safety, soothing, and meaning making that is conjured by the sounds of these girls, by their youth and profound skill, by the color of their skin, by our knowledge of the history of the song paired with their accents and skin tones, paired with the deep feeling they convey, and by the words, none of it would work on us to sooth, provide safety/shelter, or meaning making without the sounds being also as lovely and lilting and melancholy as they are.  

Being in a room or in a circle outside with song creates immediate stilling and presence in all there, even without a wish to be stilled or to be made present.  Song is particularly found in times where repetition and recycling isn’t irritating but is needed, such as a parent rocking and soothing a baby to sleep, at times of year or times of life that are challenging or represent significant change such as death, deep winter, oppression.  Song / music is of course used often in a celebratory way too, but more often strikes me to be composed and passed hand to hand to offer safety, soothing, and meaning making through the ages, across generations, and across cultures, again, as these girls seem to be doing.  Being human is rough and cold, and has been since we were still splicing our Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens threads together or apart, but moments of song, even in the worst of times, suspends the cold and the rough, replaces it with safety, soothing, meaning making for the duration of the song, sometimes a bit after the last note ends.

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 Jeff's contribution:

 School of Rock 

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 Isaac's contribution:

 "Rhythm and the Brain: Surprises from Cognitive Neuroscience"

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 Mitch's contributions: 
I was excited for this topic.  Listening to and enjoying live and recorded music has been one of my life’s passions.  I enjoy playing music, as well, but that is more of a personal meditation or a communal bonding thing.  Listening to music and producing music seem to activate different parts of my brain.

Though I am very interested in the subject, I find myself overwhelmed by it.  It feels subjective and confusing and very broad, like the ‘what is art?’ topic.  So I will ramble...




The where does music come from question is easy.  Music comes from sound, and sound comes from a wave that pushes air particles around.




'What turns sounds into music?’, is a much harder question.

I feel that all sound has the potential to be music.  It is all in the ear (and, to some extent, the mood) of the beholder.

If a tree falls in the woods and no-one is there to hear it does it make a sound?  I always hated that question. Of course it does.  If someone hears a tree fall in the woods, and it makes them feel something, is that music? That one is harder.

Some will argue that music must be rhythmic.  There is a view that most early music was drum based, cadenced and used for ritualistic dance. My gut feel is that this is a naive, first world view of early music in ‘primitive’ tribal cultures. I’m sure that lone humans with a drum or a flute played mournful, non-rhythmic music to themselves after being rejected by a love interest.  Early man must have practiced and experimented for their own pleasure. Instruments would have been noodled on just for fun in non-formal and conversational gatherings with no dancing involved.

Others feel that sound is only music when it is pleasing to their ears and creates feelings of joy and happiness. It is solely an escape. Sure, everyone appreciates a good minor chord ballad to cry over on occasion, but modern Pop(ular) music is all about making people forget their blues, get happy and dance. Blues, and rock and roll that sprang from it, may not, always, be ‘happy’, but the intent is to wallow in the sadness or angst and come out on the other side, moved to feeling better.  

I prefer music that makes me think, that transports me to places and enhances or alters my mood, for the better or the worse.  Combined with poetic lyrics, music transports you into the artists headspace, in ways that conversation or visual art cannot convey.

For me, the only requirement for any sound to be music, is for it to create a feeling in the listener.  The sound does not have to be created by humans, it does not have to rhythmic and it does not have to make the listener feel ‘good’.  Lou Reed’s ‘Metal Machine Music’ or Neil Young’s ‘Arc’ come to mind.  These are albums of nothing but feedback, guitar farts, clanks and drones that, I admit, at times, I would call noise.  When I am in the right space, however, they can become music…to my ears.

Maybe that is the key. For a sound to be music it must ‘move’ a person, physically and/or emotionally? Music, then, is manipulative.

If that is the case, then, is the sound of that first crack of a tree in the woods, after it causes a hiker to startle and jump in fear, music?  

To my dismay, music is also incredibly mathematical. To know that music is based on formulas takes some of the magic out of it for me. I can’t get into music theory because it makes music feel like a trick of the brain.  There is a good book on this topic called, ‘This is Your Brain on Music’ that I may re-read and reference during the banter.

A short, fascinating demonstration of how music is mathematical and how certain scales are ingrained in all humans can be seen in this cool Bobby McFerrin video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk

Could children who had never heard music sign along with Bobby’s jumps? Is the audience following him with their mathematical left brain, their musical right brain, or both? 

To end my incoherent ramble, I will throw in that I have been grappling with whether or not silence can be music. This brought me to ponder the John Cage composition, ‘4’ 33”’. This piece is the Duchamp ‘Fountain’ (urinal) of the music world. It is, simultaneously, snobbish, high art bullshit and a profound middle finger to the ‘what is music?’ question.  

If your feeling brave and want to see if it confronts you with anger, joy, boredom, confusion or all of the above, there is a performance at this link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4

Cage’s piece is, often, billed as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence.  From what I gather, that was not his intent. The concept was that the ambient noise all around us can be considered music if we listen closely and appreciate it.  The coughs, the shuffles of feet, the creaking of chairs and the humming heating units produce a once in a lifetime musical composition that can be appreciated if paid attention to.  To that end, I’ve decided that silence, cannot be music.  That sound waves must be produced and, from there, any sound can be considered music, if the receiver of it deems it so. 

It confronts me, but I do think ‘4’ 33”’ is ‘music’….but the movements are too short for me to get into them.


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From Jared (friend in Berkeley who came to some of the original banter nights & will come again):
Well, there's birdsong, church song, and work songs... medicine songs, folksongs, elevator songs, and movement songs... and so many more. In short, I think there are many, many answers to the "where" and "why," and the most compelling ones for me come from thinking about music beyond the music industry, or our culture's trappings. 
So I find myself thinking: what is music for indigenous peoples? What are the places of music in that context? What is the relation of music to everyday human activity e.g. work? What varies across cultures, and what is consistent? How does geography and ecology play into that?
Some examples of what I find inspiring and the kind of music I like to have in my life:

An album of Colombian jazz musicians visiting a tribe in the Amazon and recording in the jungle- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRs9aBYrXBw

Dear Oakland friends who are part of a choir singing for a (spiritual, not religious) "church for activists" that also goes and sings movement/political songs in the streets and at rallies-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKhjaN72dRQ

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 From Mike, lover of opera, without his permission or direction:







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