Huh

I’m reading of black swans and I found myself wondering how an appropriate valuing of randomness would be applicable to the Arrow of Time problem. For those unsure what I mean by the Arrow of Time problem, answer me a question; Why won’t an ice cube, after melting, turn back into an ice cube regardless of how cold you make the molecules that made up the ice cube before it melted?

Mathematicians and others often think of risk in terms of areas of randomness that they put boxes around and try to tame. Their mistake is in where they think the boxes go. We can sometimes put boxes around what we actually can predict, but what we can hope to predict is a much smaller subset than what we can’t. The boxes are our small hovels of comfort and they are surrounded by randomness, not the other way around. In fact, from the quantum level, through the geologic, biological, psychological, social, global all the way to the Universal level, randomness is a much larger part of any and all systems than non-randomness. But, for purposes of the Arrow of Time it is the boundary between randomness and non-randomness that I think is interesting.

Let’s take a moment and look at the “non-randomness” portion of the equation. This is the point where something happens, an event, something effects something else. This last point is key. Something happening is defined as a relationship between at least two entities. For that briefest of moments, randomness is quieted and there is a generation of information. Something happened. Now, if one assumes that the universe is computing, meaning at the very least, it is recording what happened (regardless of whether that recording is retained or not) then, at the local level, anything that is effected by that “happening” will be confronted with the Arrow of Time. Something happened at moment X and that thing, due to the randomness that engulfs it before and after “it” happened will not, in all likelihood go back to its unchanged state. Meaning, again only at the local level, there is an Arrow of Time. All these potential states hit a bottle neck and one state was chosen and then, just as quickly, we are back to randomness. But, like our Ice Cube above, the odds of the locally related future possibilities have been changed.

On a global level there is not an Arrow of Time, at least not in the foreseeable future (sorry, that was meant to be humorous). Other than the event there is only randomness, there isn’t anything to record. Without anything to record there isn’t an arrow of time because there aren’t any events to… time, be aware of, interact with, observe… The Arrow of Time flows on a riverbed of events, no events, no flow.

Of course, if the universe isn’t recording, then my argument dies an ignoble but quick death.

I’ve been musing about Evolutionary Psychology (EP) and evolution in general. This article in Discover Magazine
starts to address one of my concerns. As some of you know, EP argues most of present day human behavior (dating, organizational behavior in the work place or the neighborhood, family relationships, creating art…) can be explained by human psychology shaped over a hundred thousand year history spent by Homo Sapiens in small tribes on either the African Savannah or (most recently) along the human migration routes. Now, I actually don’t disagree with the main thrust of this argument. I accept the idea that how we behave, what we believe and our over all psychology has evolved to maximize our genes’ ability to reproduce (for an introduction to this line of thinking check out: Why Beautiful people have more daughters). However, I’ve always thought this line of thinking, in addition to being overly reductionist, also argues for a strangely abridged form of evolution. I’ll deal with reductionism in a future post. Here, I want to address the idea that homo sapiens’ psychological evolution has (from the present day perspective) effectively stopped as of 10K years ago. The theory posits 10K years is a blink of the eye relatively speaking, so that while we might be still evolving, we wouldn’t see the changes caused by the industrial revolution, urbanization, agriculture… in so short a period of time. However, as the above article points out, evolutionary adaptations and mutations may be speeding up, due to increasing population (and therefore more opportunities for mutations and adaptation) as well as the increasing speed of communication. The article gives a variety of examples, mostly focusing on physical adaptation and mutation, but I want to focus on the idea of culture as a means for evolutionary change in EP.

As I’ve explored in previous posts, an individual’s brain is constantly changing (neuroplasticity), remapping, finding new connections… Further, this constant change can result in changed behavior and perceptions. If these changes are communicated to others who adapt and or change their behavior accordingly, a cascade of changes can occur throughout large swaths of humanity. Some readers will recognize the concept of memes, ideas that “try” to reproduce throughout a culture. While I’m unaware of any good science supporting the theory of memetics (though I’d think it could be tested in online communities) my hunch is the underlying idea has some merit. In short, due to more people communicating more ideas more efficiently, cultures are changing at an increasing pace. The more a culture changes, the more individual’s behaviors are altered which then alters the individual’s brain, causing a cascading back up the line. According to this hypothesis, one of the key changes to the individual and the culture at large, will be an increasing importance placed on competing in the “cultural environment”.

A couple of examples of human behavior not easily explained by traditional EP are suicide bombers and a typical adult’s love for their parents and grandparents. After all, a suicide bomber ultimately ends his/her chance at reproduction and thus the ability to pass on their genes. Spending resources (love, money…) on your grandparent would seem to be a waste of resources better spent on either one’s progeny or in finding a potential mate. Now, an immediate response to the Grandma problem is that if grandma spends time taking care of your kids you can spend more time gathering resources… but this hardly feels like a full explanation. After all, even the kidless take care of their parents and besides, how to explain the kidless themselves not to mention suicide bombers.

Okay, so far, so good but here’s where I start walking even further out on the plank of speculation. Perhaps, a person’s culture should be looked at as an environment subject to evolutionary pressures where the individual, motivated by the twin needs of self-preservation and reproduction, is competing. However, in this environment, self-preservation is measured as the amount people you respect, talk about and remember your stories, regardless of whether the physical you has passed away. Reproduction would be measured as the amount ideas (and stories) you feel are congruent with your beliefs (represent you) are spread through out the culture at large. Thus, culture, as exemplified by the preservation of stories (whether on Youtube or the family couch) provides the evolutionary environment, at least from an EP perspective. INOWs, as we become more and more capable of capturing a person’s life and ideas in a permanent form viewable by those who come after us and, as those ideas that we espouse become more easily transferred and reproduced by others there will be an increasing emphasis put on competing in the cultural environment as compared to competing in the physical environment. This of course has always been true, after all, many people have chosen fame over children in the hope that they would live on through their stories or for that matter, becoming (in)famous or taking care of one’s parents and grandparents. The difference now, is the ability to capture one’s stories and be assured that they will be available for viewing is greatly enhanced by the digital revolution. If this is true, we should expect more people trying to win in the cultural environment and fewer people focused on the physical environment, especially in those cultures with a lot of access to cheap storage and reproduction of stories and less true in those societies will less access. More and more, we are competing in the cultural environment to ensure the reproduction of our stories, sometimes at the cost of competing in the physical environment to ensure the reproduction of our genes. This may prove beneficial for grandparents who can better share how their kids are taking care of them and for the kids who can better advertise their commitment to care giving but also for suicide bombers who want to better communicate their ideas. Hell, perhaps that’s why I’m blogging right now, rather than teaching my kids how better to survive and reproduce. Andy Warhol would be proud.

One last thought, while I wrote I wouldn’t address reductionism I do feel the need to argue that I don’t believe the above discussion is adequate from a subjective viewpoint. INOWs, I don’t believe we take care of Grandma JUST to burnish our reputation but from an “Objective” standpoint, burnishing one’s reputation may be an adequate predictor of behavior. Like I said, this is a much larger point that I haven’t managed to condense.

I just checked out a great site for election data, fivethirtyeight.com, based on how high it’s listed by Google and the number of comments, I suspect I’m one of the last people to hear about it. Oh well. Anyway, I mention this because I’ve been wondering about early and absentee voting. It seems to me, the longer a candidate leads during early voting periods the harder it is for his/her opponent to catch up. For example, if candidate O leads candidate M by 5 points in a given state during the early voting period I’d expect the early results to represent that spread, assuming early voters are representitive of all voters in that state (historically early voters have been both more partisan and older). Still, if a candidate benefits from early voting it means the lagging candidate needs to corral not only a winning number of votes on election day but by a large enough margin to make up for the number of days s/he was in deficit during the early voting period. While it’s true McCain is doing better amongst older voters, Obama seems to be leading in the enthusiasm race, further, my understanding is, Obama’s campaign has done a better job of organizaing “early voters”. In short, I suspect Obama’s support may be understated by the polls since he has been leading in most swing states for all of the early voting period. We’ll see.

In my last post I relied on an observer to determine whether a system is or is not complex. I have run across a potential work-around. It comes from “A Universe of Consciousness” by Edelman and Tononi. The authors, focused on a neurological explanation for consciousness, posit the necessity of viewing the human brain as a complex adaptive system. Using an interesting twist on information theory they propose measuring complexity using the system itself as the observer.

In effect they take a complex system, isolate it then split it in two . First they measure the entropy of each of the two parts,  then they measure how one part of the system affects the rest of the system and vice versa.  As they say, “If the system is isolated then from the point of view of that element, the only information available is given by the difference in the state of the rest of the system that makes a difference to the state of the element.” Their approach uses a statistical methodology to measure to what extent the entropy of the overall system is accounted for by the entropy of the subpart and vice versa. They argue high values of complexity correspond to an optimal synthesis of  functional specialization and functional integration within a system. For example, a crystal (as they point out) is functionally integrated but not complex due to a lack of functional specialization. Meaning all the molecules are tightly connected but there is zero molecular specialization, in effect, nothing happens the system is in a state of equilibrium. While a gas would be low in complexity due to a lack of integration, lots of stuff going on but what one molecule does will have very little affect on any other random molecule. In this case the system is chaotic. Now, I have to admit, I’m bothered by their use of the word “optimal” but, by effectively making the system it’s own observer they seem to have minimized the need for an external observer and potentially offered a quantitative measurement of complexity.

However, even if one accepts the above approach as a measurement of complexity I don’t think it addresses the need for an external observer to measure Emergence. My understanding is Emergence is different than complexity or rather Emergence is born of complexity. A new layer or pattern comes into being due to the complexity (is this the only criteria?) of the underlying layer. But, the ant hill (to take a typical example of emergence) is only seen as an emergent pattern if identified by the external observer. In fact, the ant hill itself, does not seem to meet the definition of complex as given above. Perhaps it could be called a “ceiling pattern” since the ant hill does not seem to give birth to any further complexity and therefore there’s no further evidence of Emergence. As I write this I find myself wondering if one might argue that there are two kinds of emergence, a “ceiling pattern” or perhaps non-complex emergence and Emergent Complexity. Perhaps the difference is, not only that Emergent Complexity gives birth to more layers of complexity but also it has the potential to be its own observer.

I’ve started this post eight different times, each time I tried a different tact and each time I gave up. Over the past year I’ve gained a real interest in Complexity theory. I’ve read multiple books, papers, blogs… on different aspects of Complexity, Chaos, Emergence and related topics. In fact, in some of these posts I’ve referenced Complex Adaptive Systems (I’m using John Holland’s nomenclature) yet I’ve never adequately defined my terms. So, this week I decided to reread and do some additional reading to actually define my terms since, and I’m ashamed to admit this, I wasn’t completely sure what I mean by complexity. It turns out, from what I can tell, no one else is sure what the definition should be either. So, in the spirit of arrogance that comes so naturally to blogging I’ve decided to lay out some definitions below in the hope that people will want to comment and help me refine them. Actually, even if people don’t comment I’ll probably refine them. Anyway, here goes, my definitions for Complexity, Atomic Part (I might want to change that) Emergence and Complex systems.

Complexity: the the measurement of an ideal observer’s ability to predict the outcome of the interaction of a system’s atomic parts.

Atomic Parts: The arbitrarily chosen component parts that appear irreducible, when compared against each other at some arbitrarily chosen level.

Complex system: A system that can not be reduced to the sum of it’s parts. Effectively it is a system that is greater than the sum of it’s parts or as Stuart Kauffman would say, “a system that gives you something for nothing.”

Emergence: The observed qualities (or perhaps regularities) as perceived by the ideal observer that were unpredictable when said observer was given a complete description of the observed system’s atomic parts.

Caveats:

1) You’ll note in an effort to simplify my understanding of these concepts I’ve (temporarily) discarded the notion that complexity or emergence exist with out an observer. I don’t like making this assumption but I’m having trouble finding any way around it.

2) The use of an “ideal” observer is meant to do away with the argument that the unpredictability of a system is a factor of ignorance on the part of the observer. I know there are mathematical proofs that appear to prove some class of systems as complex given near infinite computational resources but I must admit I don’t have the expertise necessary to evaluate said proofs.

3) When speaking of the arbitrariness of component parts or chosen level, I’m enforcing my belief that there are in fact “levels” of a system that are internally cohesive when judging whether parts of the system are irreducible. Example, if one were to look at a human society one could just as easily argue that humans are the component parts as that human brains (or organs) or atoms are the irreducible component parts. I suspect that a part is irreducible if if possess a high enough (any?) level of complexity but, for purposes of this discussion, it seems it circular to argue this point.

4) Given the above definitions, Complexity can be an emergent property of a system, though I’d argue, that complexity will not necessarily emerge. If complexity doesn’t emerge, I’d call the Birthing System a Final Complex System and the Emergent System would be a Simple System. However, as I write this I wonder if any system is ever final since, depending on where you look, it would seem that it will birth some form of complexity even if not at a different level. Example, the interaction of ants is a complex system, the resultant ant hill is a simple system but future ant hives that come from the original ant system will, of course, be complex systems.

5) I’m still wrestling with whether complexity is a qualitative measurement, a quantitative measurement or both. In other words we can argue some system is more or less complex based on, potentially, how many complex systems it births, how many atomic parts and kinds of interactions said system starts with, how hard it is to predict Emergent phenomena…

So there it is, my first take on this issue. In my next post I’ll give some fuller descriptions of complex systems and why they’re of interest.

In a previous post I argued for the idea of regulation within an economy. Today I want to take one example from the current economic crisis, of a types of regulation I think are beneficial. First a quick overview of the economic crisis. For those interested, I’d point to some good podcasts on the issue: Fresh Air’s show with Michael Greenberger and This American Life’s show, called “Another frightening show about the economy” both of which give a more in depth discussion than this blog. And, while both shows utilize overlapping sources, I’ve found other resources echo their conclusions. With that out of the way, here we go.

The first point I want to make, the overarching point, is the ability to trade across political boundaries, the use of information technology and financial engineering has resulted in both more prosperity and more risk. We are all connected in a real time complex adaptive system which can change direction quite quickly and without any predictability.  Credit default Swaps are the nexus of the current economic crisis and highlight the advantages and disadvantages of our current global economic system.

In the late nineties companies started offering Credit Default Swaps (CDS) as a form of insurance to buyers and sellers of corp. bonds. A CDS is basically a contract wherein a buyer gets insurance from a seller against a third party’s default on a bond. Kinda like house insurance where I insure my house against burning down by paying the insurance company money each month in exchange for them promising to make me whole if disaster should strike. So far so good, but a CDS can also be used for speculation, in other words, I can buy insurance against your house burning down even though I don’t have any ownership stake in your house whatsoever. Kinda strange, I know, but here’s the thing, if I have a hunch your house is going to burn down it would be cool to make money on my hunch. But, what if I’m not 100% convinced your house will burn down? No problem, I turn around and sell a CDS to someone else, this way I’m covered. If your house burns down someone pays me and I pay someone else, if it doesn’t burn down then while I’m paying the premium on the first CDS I’ll be collecting revenue from my sale of the second CDS. If I’ve done it right, my hunch came earlier than someone else’s, my premium being paid out will cost me less than the premium I’m receiving. These latter type of transactions, where everyone “netted” their trades (both a buyer and a seller of risk) was the rule rather than the exception. In fact, of the $5 Trillion in corp. debt there is an estimated $62 Trillion in CDSs. In other words, for every $1 of corp debt there is approximately $10 of speculation. That’s what’s called leverage and it’s all interconnected. As you can guess, if one party fails to pay off their obligation it will ripple and multiply throughout the system. On the other hand, if leverage works, it means credit is easier to get, more things are built, more investment is made, more jobs are created…

In 1998 regulators started arguing the CDS market should be regulated. The counter argument, made by both the Clinton administration as well as Phil Gramm Republicans, was the buyers and sellers of these products are sophisticated consumers, and, as such, let the free market work. In 2000 Phil Gramm slipped an amendment into an omnibus bill making it law that CDSs would not be regulated. As I understand it, not one senator (Democrat or Republican) opposed the amendment. But here’s the rub. The economy is situated within a larger interconnected system. If there is a disruption because of these financial instruments then a large number of “innocent bystanders”, people who had no part of the transaction, will be harmed. Meaning, there’s a role for government to at least regulate this market enough to know if harm is coming and to minimize some of the chances for harm.

Not allowing these instruments is draconian and counterproductive. Insurance has a long history of being useful in capitalist economies, it encourages risk taking and provides people with a partial shield against bad luck. Even the kind of speculation involved in CDSs where the owners of the bond were not involved has it’s advantages. It encourages the spreading of information and the interconnection of agents that allow for more leverage.

However, historically insurance as an industry has been regulated. Companies have to have a certain amount of capital reserved in case they are forced to pay off insurance policies. Further, there is a certain amount of transparency in the transactions so other players can adequately gauge risk and reward. These are the kind of regulations that should have been in place for the CDS market. As written right now, a CDS is a private contract between two consenting parties. There is no way for anyone to see how much was paid for a CDS or even how many players own or sold CDSs. Further, there is no mechanism to make sure the sellers of a CDS are adequately capitalized.

These last three points are key, without a transparent pricing system, if there’s a shock to the system (like the sub-prime crisis) there’s a lack of trust in the marketplace. No one knows who’s balance sheet is real, further due to the interconnection of all these transactions a bank failure in Indonesia can hurt an American hedge fund six steps removed. The lack of a central clearinghouse means no one knows where these, as Buffett called them, “financial weapons of mass destruction” are located. The govt. has no idea how bad things can or will get and neither does anyone else. Finally, because CDSs were not regulated there was no way of making sure a seller was adequately capitalized and it encouraged more players into the market thus increasing the likelihood there would be this kind of a crisis.

Which brings me back to regulation. In a complex adaptive system, like an economy, regulation must allow for changes, growth and the death of individual agents but minimize the risks of the whole system suddenly going through a radical reorganization. Not because radical reorganizations are neccesserily bad in and of themselves but because humans and human society needs time to react and adjust. Further, regulation should minimize some of the more extremes of group psychology (like panic) while also combatting harmful concentrations of power and knowledge.  In retrospect, we can only wonder if things in the CDS market would be as bad if pricing was transparent, purchases were registered with a central clearinghouse and sellers were forced to be adequately capatilized.

If you ever see three ducks sleeping on a log, watch them for a bit. The duck in the middle will comfortably sleep, pretty much staying in one position. The two ducks on the outside will sleep with the eye closest to the middle closed and the eye on the outside open then, after a little while, the ducks on the outside will stand up and turn 180 degrees, close the eye that was open and open the eye that was closed. Only half of the duck’s brain is sleeping at one time. Other birds, reptiles, insects, sea mammals… do this as well, (it’s called logging in dolphins because they look like logs floating in the water). The animals sleep half a brain at a time (uni-hemispheric sleep) so the other half can watch for enemies (Dolphins also need to make sure they continue breathing since they’re conscious breathers, they have to come to the surface to breath). Uni-hemispheric sleeping raises a couple of questions.

1) How do you get to be the duck in the middle? Seems like it’s a lot more restful.

2) How do ducks, dolphins and other uni-hemispheric sleepers solidify long term memories whose neuronal maps span both hemispheres?

The current working assumptions, as I understand them, is that sleep is universal (every animal from insect to mammal sleeps or does something that looks like sleep) and sleep seems to serve multiple purposes; cleansing of neurotransmitters to allow more learning the next day, REM sleep allowing the brain to consolidate what is learned during the day and mechanisms during REM and Non-REM sleep for forgetting the non-useful data. If something is learned it will be represented by a “neural map”, effectively a grouping of neurons that may span different areas of the brain, including both hemispheres. During sleep this grouping (since it has been deemed valuable) will be strengthened. For example, if a rat is run through a maze during the day and is rewarded with food, then, during sleep, it will dream it’s running through the maze in order to consolidate its learning on how to get the reward. What confuses me, is how is this learning effected by uni-hemispheric sleeping? In other words, if a given neuronal grouping crosses hemispheres is learning consolidation improved, lessened or is there no difference?

This post was inspired by a podcast by one of my favorite radio shows Radiolab. Another of my favorite shows, This American Life did a less scientific, though quite entertaining look at sleep.

In the previous two posts I’ve discussed neuroplasticity as a concept and Schwartz’s methodology for treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In this post I’ll look at the five steps to Schwartz’s underlying theory:

1) The OCD circuit locks up, firing the same message over and over. Schwartz doesn’t provide any firm answers why this happens but he’s supported by a good amount of science when arguing the “locking” metaphor is reasonably accurate.

2) The therapist encourages the patient to come up with an alternate idea, for example, rather than washing their hands they could go work in the garden. This idea activates the planning circuits in the prefrontal cortex. Initially this circuit will be considerably weaker than the circuit represented by the OCD enabled idea. As mentioned in the first post the relative strength of the circuits is partially determined by which circuit has fired more and, perhaps more importantly, which circuit has received more attention.

It is the next three steps that represent a radical departure from standard neuropsychiatry.

3) Here Schwartz focuses on the nerve terminal of the neurons in both the “wash hands” as well as “go to the garden” circuits. He points out the size of this part of the neurons (the ion channel) where neuro-transmitters cross, activating or suppressing the target neuron’s receptors is so small, its behavior may be determined by Quantum Mechanic rules. Schwartz argues the vesicle which will either release or not release the neurotransmitter is in a superposition of quantum wave function. Meaning, rather than being solidly in one state or another (release or don’t release), it’s actually in a probability state, both releasing and not releasing at the same time. The cat is both dead and alive.  Now, while it’s true the scale of these structures are small enough to be subject to QM rules, it’s not been proven they are subject to these rules.

4) While the Quantum rules allow for “release” and “don’t release” to co-exist, it’s also true the state representing the OCD compulsion (wash your hands) has a higher probability of being true. This is where Schwartz’s treatment comes into play.

5) By expanding mental effort, focusing their attention on the healthier alternative, the patient utilizes  (in Schwartz’s words) mental force to change the odds and increase the probability of that circuit being activated. This works because of the “Quantum Zeno effect”. Quantum Zeno is an effect, recognized by physicists, that roughly states, if an observer rapidly and repeatedly observes an event, those series of observations can freeze the properties of that event into one state rather than allowing it to change back into a wave function. In effect, Schwartz is arguing, by concentrating on the circuit the patient wants to activate s/he can increase the odds the circuit will be activated. If done enough and with enough attention that circuit will eventually extinguish the OCD circuit.

Schwartz can back up his theories with fMRI and PET scans showing the physical changes to the brain solely based on the patent’s use of these cognitive strategies. In this case it’s the mind that changes the brain, not the other way around. For a scientific materialist this presents quite a problem. If everything comes from matter and only matter can change matter than how is matter changed by simple thought? The ramifications of this theory provide an interesting argument in opposition to reductionist thinking. Perhaps there is not just a brain that gives rise to a sense of a mind, but rather something that exists beyond or in conjunction with the brain. A mind that can change the physical structures of a brain just as the brain can change the mental structures of the mind.

While I’m not knowledgable enough to question all the assumptions underlying this theory I do find it an interesting counterpoint to the more traditional scientific materialism. Needless to say, my three blogs barely do justice to Schwartz and Begley’s book, but hopefully, they’ll encourage you to read the book yourself.

Yesterday I offered a brief introduction to the concept of Neuroplasticity. In this post I’ll review Schwartz’s treatment methodology for sufferers of Obssessive Compulsive Disorger (OCD). Before I go further I need to mention Schwartz’s “Brain Lock” a book I haven’t read but which purports to provide readers with enough of the methodology to allow OCD sufferers to treat themselves. For this blog it’ll suffice to give a high level description of the treatment so tomorrow we can focus on why he believes his treatment works.

Schwartz’s methodology, first designed for his OCD patients consists of: Relabel, Re-attribute, Refocus and Revalue. The underlying assumption is OCD is caused by over activity in the “OCD circuit” located in  the orbital frontal cortex, the anterior cingulate gyrus and the caudate nucleus. In effect, these areas combine to act as, in Schwartz’s words, the brain’s transmission. In OCD the transmission is jammed or locked in place and these areas continually broadcast an insistent warning (The doorknob is soiled, your hands are dirty, if you don’t count and alphabetize the cans in your pantry your mother will die…). Schwartz’s treatment is meant to weaken the blaring OCD circuit while strengthening an alternative circuit broadcasting a healthy message. If the patient is successful in leveraging the brain’s plasticity, they will eventually extinguish the OCD circuit. This is where the four “R”s come in:

Schwartz has his patients first relabel the OCD message as false signals and symptoms of their disease. Then he instructs the patient to re-attribute the signals as pathological symptoms and not representing a factual need to rewash their hands again. Once the Patient has sufficiently distanced himself from these signals, Schwartz advises them to refocus their attention on healthier thoughts. As an example, instead of washing their hands they might focus on working in the garden. Finally Schwartz would have them Revalue the OCD compulsions and obsessions, realizing they have no power or intrinsic value. For purposes of this blog I greatly simplified the process and hasten to encourage sufferers of OCD to read Schwartz’s book before deciding whether his treatment makes sense for them. It is worth noting, Schwartz claims a cure rate twice that of other approaches. I encourage people to not dismiss his claims lightly.

Up to this point in the book, Schwartz’s claims are substantiated by impressive amounts of research. When he gets into why he thinks his methodology works, the amount of supporting research is decidedly less substantial. This doesn’t mean his theory is wrong, just it is currently outside of the mainstream and somewhat unsupported by current scientific knowledge. Tomorrow I’ll outline Schwartz’s theory for how his methodology works.

I just finished “The Mind and The Brain” by Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley and I highly recommend it. The thesis is quite interesting and, at least initially, reasonably supported with research. The authors attempt to prove, not only the concept of adult neuroplasticity but also provide a mechanism for how neuroplasticity might work that leads to a potential reframing of the hard problem of consciousness and a strident rejection of scientific materialism.

Neuroplasticity describes the brain’s ability to rewire itself. Rewiring is the mechanism by which a brain both learns and forgets. Neuroplasticity is taken for granted in children. Most people are aware children go through stages of learning. If a child’s brain is monitored with fMRI and PET scans, scientists can see neuronal groups forming, reforming, strengthening and weakening. The mantra, based on the Canadian Psychologist Donald Hebb’s research, is “the neurons that fire together, wire together”. In other words, concepts are represented by groups of neurons that fire together in reaction to external or internal stimuli. The more these groupings fire together the stronger the connections and the more likely they will fire together in the future. As a child learns, neuronal groupings are formed and either strengthened or weakened depending on their success in promoting their own firing. If the concept is used often, the grouping is strengthened if it is used infrequently the grouping is weakened. Through many iterations the child’s brain, starting with relatively few and simple groupings, learns and rewires itself to account for more and more knowledge. As the wirings increase in sophistication the child’s fluency with the represented concepts is improved. For example, when a child first learns to walk she must use all her powers of concentration to succeed but, with success comes a strengthening of the neuronal groupings that provide the body with it’s directions. The brain literally wires itself to account for all the variables necessary for the child to walk and even run without having to think about the process.

So far, none of this is particularly new. However, starting in the eighties scientists started to question dogma arguing once a brain reaches a given level of maturity it’s ability to rewire itself is severely limited. Scientists acknowledged adults ability to learn new concepts but it was assumed this was mostly limited to the mental realm and, even then, hampered by limited neuronal real estate taken up by previous knowledge. Schwartz and Begley show how research by maverick scientists question then eventually disprove the idea neuroplasticity is as limited in the adult brain. Starting with monkeys and eventually moving to humans, scientists show adult brains rewiring themselves, allowing people to recover from Strokes, Obssessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and a myriad of other problems. Schwartz, a research professor of psychiatry at UCLA, was faced with the challenge of designing a behavioral methodology for treating patients with OCD. By refining his methodology and thinking, Schwartz creates a novel theory of mind leading to his emphatic rejection of scientific materialism.

Tomorrow I’ll attend to Schwartz’s methodology and his underlying theory.