Challenging biological determinism - Research into neuroplasticity

[Leananshee]

Here's a review of The Mind and the Brain - Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force: http://www.discovery.org/a/2161

Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz at UCLA writes to a general audience about his method of treating OCD patients by getting them to use their will through directed therapy to rewire their own brains and resolve their OCD symptoms - measured by fMRI. He also talks about using similar techniques to help stroke patients regain use of limbs, help people suffering from "phantom limb" syndrome to no longer have pain in missing limbs, and goes on to theorize that there is a "mental force" beyond the wiring making these things possible. The reviewer states - quite correctly, that these assertions are far from complete, but they are certainly worth greater exploration.

This of course goes directly against biological determinists, who think that the wiring is all that there is. They would say that Schwartz's patients are using their brain to affect the mind, turning around again to affect the brain, though the prevailing theory is that the brain creates the mind and not the reverse.

Evolutionary psychologists would go so far as to say that most of our brain is permanently hardwired, and in 200,000-250,000 years of Homo sapiens sapiens being here, especially in the last 10,000 years we haven't really evolved. Here were the links given:

http://www.salescognition.com/articl...yNicholson.pdf

http://persquaremile.com/2011/08/17/...d-for-density/

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/s...-survival1.htm

What I would say to this is that humans have affected the evolution of multiple species, and not just by eradication, but by domestication and their modification of the environment, measurably in far less than 10,000 years. What makes anyone think we haven't altered our own evolution? And, while we could likely procreate with our ancestors from 200,000+ years ago, we as a species are longer lived, taller, and more resistant to diseases than they, all of which are passed on. Evolution is a slow process, yes, but it happens in small steps like these; and while there likely is an operating system that's evolved in humans over the years, if it can be shown that a stroke victim can re-map major parts of the motor cortex that are presumably "hard-wired", if some victims of accidents missing their entire frontal cortex still have a personality because the brain remapped the damaged regions to other areas, who can say what is PERMANENTLY hard-wired in the species, or what "hard-wiring" even means in the human brain?

 

[Stone]

Using agenda driven sources ( Discovery Institute and Dembski ) as scientific authorities are not convincing, imo.
William A. Dembski is seen in the scientific community as a rep for Christian fundamentalism in promoting Intelligent Design/creation science and as a scientist, mostly a fraud.

 

[Leananshee]

Yeah, unfortunately there aren't many reviews of the book worth posting, most of them being from similar sources. The shame of it is that Schwartz isn't making a religious argument here, yet who jumps on it? But Schwartz says right out in the book that his theories go directly against biological determinism, so the chances of any of them reviewing his book fall between slim and nil.

Reading through multiple garbage reviews, I tried to find one that at least legitimately represented the book. I was actually shocked, knowing Dembski, that he actually points out the failings in Schwartz's arguments regarding connections to quantum mechanics. I've railed against him numerous times trying to pass "intelligent design" off as actual science, I certainly didn't expect his review to be accurate. And he still sticks his little slant in there, don't get me wrong.

I should have mentioned all that before, seeing as how I'd intentionally posted this in the philosophy section because I wanted to keep religion out of the debate. I just think that, despite Schwartz being pigeonholed, the results of his research are astounding, and while the ramifications are way oversold they are worth looking into further.

 

[Stone]

Schwartz , however, did pigeon hole himself by signing the Discovery Institute's ( a pdf file)
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism

Schwartz has aligned himself to a religious consideration and the direction and quality of his 'science' becomes very questionable at this point.

I think you'd do better by following up the references in the Wikipedia articles on neuroplasticity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activity-dependent_plasticity
than relying on Schwartz, imho.

 

[Leananshee]

Didn't know he'd signed on to that. And while I'll say that creation "science" is junk, not all scientific discoveries have been made by die-hard atheists.

Nevertheless, I was looking at the research itself, not his religious leaning (which in his case is Buddhist and not hard-line Christian. He mentions it but I can tell you from the book leaves it out; I'd have recognized it if left in). In his case, what I'd say is that his research has resulted in a lot of patients being able to lead "normal" lives without being slaves to the drug companies, which is remarkable for the psychiatric field.

It's his claims as thought as a force in and of itself that make the rewiring possible that pigeonhole him. That he would observe what he thinks is mind operating on the wiring outside of the wiring itself, and would go so far as to draw from quantum mechanics to try to explain it, that's what did it. But that's what I'm hoping will spark some philosophical debate.

In any case, I think there's a strong case for evolutionary psychology, but have a bit of difference of opinion of what's macro and what's micro. These articles about neuroplasticity still contradict the notion of "hard-wiring". It's common sense that things like fight or flight are in our background and are passed on. But the articles presented are short sighted. For one, an argument that in the last 10,000 years there's been no evolution of the species, that the species was too spread out for it to occur, and there's been nothing to create need for it to occur. Well, last I checked the human population is 7 billion plus, which is more biomass than any other large species has taken on the planet. Plenty of material for differentiation, and the population mass itself could create a biological need. I've already noted that humans have accelerated the evolutionary process in other species, and likely has in homo sapiens sapiens. And there's the matter of the fact that humans today are taller, longer lived, and more resistant to disease than our ancestors, that are passed on, which should suggest that there have indeed been measurable evolutionary changes in our species.

 

[Stone]

So how does Schwartz scientifically distinguish free will from the limited ability of the brain to redraw it's neural blueprint?
In what way does he compare behavioral change to establishing a new neural pathway?

 

[Leananshee]

The behavioral change is the effect, the cause is the rewiring. And it should be noted that it wasn't believed until recently the brain could rewire itself, least of all through intent.

In the case of Schwartz's OCD patients, his therapy was in response to exposure/response prevention (a pretty name for aversion therapy), which he considered cruel and unusual. He used the fact that people with OCD realize their actions are abnormal but can't stop doing them.

His theory was that by focusing on the will of the patients he could use directed therapy (relabeling, reattributing, refocusing, and revaluing) which used basically the part of the brain that realized the disorder to affect the other. Doing that rather than using stimulus/response the wiring showed a marked and measurable change.

The other thing is, what is the limit of the brain's ability to do this? If a stroke patient can, through other forms of directed therapy, regain use of a limb by therapeutic remapping of the motor cortex, that's a major part of the brain that's supposedly "hard-wired". The brain should only either do this by itself or just remain damaged.

So basically he's treating "intent" or "free will" as a given, and getting positive results, in the form of neural pathways redrawing and the desired effects achieved.

Which is a different approach, to be certain, and does not prove in any way that free will exists. Great that he found a less brutal way to treat his patients that worked, but it doesn't solve the "free will" problem. The question I have is, what is being operated on to effect the measured changes? The approach worked, great, but what other explanations can we look at?

 

[Stone]

The behavioral change is the effect, the cause is the rewiring. And it should be noted that it wasn't believed until recently the brain could rewire itself, least of all through intent.

In the case of Schwartz's OCD patients, his therapy was in response to exposure/response prevention (a pretty name for aversion therapy), which he considered cruel and unusual. He used the fact that people with OCD realize their actions are abnormal but can't stop doing them.

His theory was that by focusing on the will of the patients he could use directed therapy (relabeling, reattributing, refocusing, and revaluing) which used basically the part of the brain that realized the disorder to affect the other. Doing that rather than using stimulus/response the wiring showed a marked and measurable change.

The other thing is, what is the limit of the brain's ability to do this? If a stroke patient can, through other forms of directed therapy, regain use of a limb by therapeutic remapping of the motor cortex, that's a major part of the brain that's supposedly "hard-wired". The brain should only either do this by itself or just remain damaged.

So basically he's treating "intent" or "free will" as a given, and getting positive results, in the form of neural pathways redrawing and the desired effects achieved.

Which is a different approach, to be certain, and does not prove in any way that free will exists. Great that he found a less brutal way to treat his patients that worked, but it doesn't solve the "free will" problem. The question I have is, what is being operated on to effect the measured changes? The approach worked, great, but what other explanations can we look at?

The behavioral change is the effect, the cause is the rewiring.

This is observation.
But what method did Schwartz use to prove a direct correlation?
How did he prove there didn't already exist an unused pathway and his therapy wasn't merely a discovery and learning issue?

I'm not arguing against the concept of free will. In the little I've read on Schwartz, I don't understand how he makes those leaps.

And it should be noted that it wasn't believed until recently the brain could rewire itself

There is an interesting Time article here you might like to read:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580438,00.html
This page goes to addressing the observations from a scientific pov:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580438-4,00.html

Other articles of interest, imo:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/brain-blindness-1021.html
http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/health/2009/fall/first-evidence.shtml

Obviously, this counters the absolutism of biological determination/wet robot.

 

[Leananshee]

This article gets into it in more excruciating detail: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569494/

Still reading through it myself, it gets a lot more involved than the general explanation given in the book.

And absolute or not, we are born with some things wired in. Common sense experience can tell us that.

In a nutshell, Schwartz is saying that he isn't seeing bottom-up causation in the rewiring process; moreover, quantum mechanics have to be considered because the brain is an electrical system. Attention (observation) affects the state of that system.

 

[porterjack]

In a nutshell, Schwartz is saying that he isn't seeing bottom-up causation in the rewiring process; moreover, quantum mechanics have to be considered because the brain is an electrical system. Attention (observation) affects the state of that system.

Thats no nutshell, that there is s deep, deep dark hole

 

[Leananshee]

So why do you say that? I retain my healthy skepticism. His results speak for themselves, but his rationale? Well, I'm reading into it. It piques enough curiosity to look into, but my gut feeling says this is more interesting philosophically than scientifically.

This is one of those avenues of inquiry a pure materialist won't go down because of belief. But it's one that others should tread carefully down and pursue empirically, leaving bias aside. The question remains whether that's been done here, and are there results worth further pursuit?

 

[Stone]

This article gets into it in more excruciating detail: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569494/

Still reading through it myself, it gets a lot more involved than the general explanation given in the book.

And absolute or not, we are born with some things wired in. Common sense experience can tell us that.

In a nutshell, Schwartz is saying that he isn't seeing bottom-up causation in the rewiring process; moreover, quantum mechanics have to be considered because the brain is an electrical system. Attention (observation) affects the state of that system.

OK....I skimmed the article.
A lot words used for filler and buildup, imo.
But in the end, his theory is about influence on the brain being generated by quantum mechanics, according to the article.
How is this not considered an influence on 'free will'?
Free will is the absence of influence to make decisions.

Also troubling is that two of the authors support Intelligent Design, one of which, Beauregard, seems to be trying to prove scientifically that there is a soul through these arguments.....a spiritual brain, as he calls it. ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Spiritual-Brain-Neuroscientists-Existence/dp/0060858834 )

Like I tried to infer earlier.......these guys just aren't the best examples of 'scientists' to be using .

 

[Leananshee]

I'm still in the process of reading it more in depth.

Regarding neuroplasticity, I don't have a problem with Schwartz. There he has done a great deal of good. There are others that are likely better sources, to be sure. Like I said, regarding the rest I keep the skeptic goggles on. I've just never heard of anyone in this field making a connection with quantum mechanics to look to a why his findings are what they are.

Even if they want to prove humans have souls, though, if they pursue it empirically (ie the evidence supports it or does not) fine. Intelligent Design doesn't do that, to be certain, they try to prove an established viewpoint through pseudo-science, looking only for evidence to support their "theory". And again, a pure materialist won't even consider the "mental force" or "soul" or whatever you want to call it a valid inquiry in the first place. The fact is, though Schwartz kept most of his Buddhist faith out of his research, his therapy does stem from mindfulness practice. And it worked, not that I'm going to run out and become a Buddhist or Christian or anything else because of it.
I do think that research like this is interesting because it sheds light on human experience. Such as this guy looking into a connection between religious experiences and drug experiences: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104240746 I'm an agnostic, not an hard-core atheist, so I'm not going to have the same knee-jerk reactions anytime someone mentions something religious in nature. I will still have the skeptic goggles on, to be certain, as I have with the one we've been discussing.

 

[Stone]

I'm still in the process of reading it more in depth.

Regarding neuroplasticity, I don't have a problem with Schwartz. There he has done a great deal of good. There are others that are likely better sources, to be sure. Like I said, regarding the rest I keep the skeptic goggles on. I've just never heard of anyone in this field making a connection with quantum mechanics to look to a why his findings are what they are.

Even if they want to prove humans have souls, though, if they pursue it empirically (ie the evidence supports it or does not) fine. Intelligent Design doesn't do that, to be certain, they try to prove an established viewpoint through pseudo-science, looking only for evidence to support their "theory". And again, a pure materialist won't even consider the "mental force" or "soul" or whatever you want to call it a valid inquiry in the first place. The fact is, though Schwartz kept most of his Buddhist faith out of his research, his therapy does stem from mindfulness practice. And it worked, not that I'm going to run out and become a Buddhist or Christian or anything else because of it.
I do think that research like this is interesting because it sheds light on human experience. Such as this guy looking into a connection between religious experiences and drug experiences: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104240746 I'm an agnostic, not an hard-core atheist, so I'm not going to have the same knee-jerk reactions anytime someone mentions something religious in nature. I will still have the skeptic goggles on, to be certain, as I have with the one we've been discussing.

I'm still in the process of reading it more in depth.

Then especially research the two formulas posted.
I couldn't find mention anywhere but in the article.

Like I said, regarding the rest I keep the skeptic goggles on.

Why not with Schultz?
What makes him special as a scientist that his claims concerning quantum involvement shouldn't/wouldn't be challenged?

I've just never heard of anyone in this field making a connection with quantum mechanics to look to a why his findings are what they are.

You just posted an article of which one of the three authors is a proponent of ID and delves deeply into a religious/spiritual connection to the conscious mind on a scientific level.
There is no data in the article nor any tests that corroborate speculation about a quantum connection. It's being used as fodder for the Discovery Institute and their ID/creation science agenda. Your first link in this thread went directly to DI for a review.

Here's the connection:

Is this a good argument for mind being fundamentally distinct from brain? It depends what you are looking for. If you want a knock-down argument against materialism and materialist accounts of mind, this won’t do it. But if you are looking for consilience, in which multiple lines of independent evidence converge on the same target, then Schwartz’s argument is a good one to have in your arsenal, for it fits nicely with biological arguments for intelligent design

It becomes a religious argument, disguised with just enough 'science', to sell as new finds.
I've even seen this done with time dilation in an attempt to create the Universe in 6 days.
ID proponents and creation scientists are sneaky b'tards ..........imo, of course

And again, a pure materialist won't even consider the "mental force" or "soul" or whatever you want to call it a valid inquiry in the first place.

He better damn well not if he considers himself to be an honest scientist. If it can't be studied, it can't be described in a scientific manner......period.

I do think that research like this is interesting.....

I find the topic very interesting.

I will still have the skeptic goggles on, to be certain, as I have with the one we've been discussing.

If you're challenging biological determinism as an absolute, I think you'd have a better argument using different sources than Schwartz and Beauregard. Because they have religious agendas, they're too easily seen as damaged goods as scientists.

 

[Leananshee]

Why not with Schultz? What makes him special as a scientist that his claims concerning quantum involvement shouldn't/wouldn't be challenged?

Absolutely nothing whatsoever. I think that they should be challenged, he should be raked over the same coals every other scientist has to be. That's why I posted it.

It becomes a religious argument, disguised with just enough 'science', to sell as new finds.
I've even seen this done with time dilation in an attempt to create the Universe in 6 days.
ID proponents and creation scientists are sneaky b'tards ..........imo, of course

Yes, I know. I've been fighting them for years, trying to keep their junk "science" out of the public schools, because it's a religious agenda and I am staunchly against the church continuously trying to weed its way into the state. Not to mention trying to push abstinence-only sex ed while the teen pregnancy and STD rates skyrocket. Don't get me started on them.

That said, I go back to an example I've long used - acupuncture. It used to be viewed by 'legitimate' sources as little more than voodoo, not even 'science'. And yet now it's being used in the mainstream, even to anesthetize patients who can't be "put under" any other way. Now who finally decided that was a legitimate avenue for research? I'd like someone to research "auras" to shut the hippie-dippies up once and for all. In all likelihood people have 'em, but they're nothing more than the electromagnetic field of the body - absolutely nothing "metaphysical" about them.

That's why I'm interested in this - so this guy has managed to create a system that helps patients under the presumption that there is a free will. OK. Great. It's helping patients, and without drugs, so awesome. And now, the capital B But:

As said before, he's already presumed there IS a free will. Now I'm already expecting a lot of fluff here. But what I'm interested in is to see if he tripped over something worthwhile.

If you're challenging biological determinism as an absolute, I think you'd have a better argument using different sources than Schwartz and Beauregard. Because they have religious agendas, they're too easily seen as damaged goods as scientists.

Oh, agreed. I just haven't yet found anyone pursuing what I'm talking about from the same tack. I was more hoping to spur philosophical debate about this, including ways to refute or support the claims.

 

[Stone]

Absolutely nothing whatsoever. I think that they should be challenged, he should be raked over the same coals every other scientist has to be. That's why I posted it.

Yes, I know. I've been fighting them for years, trying to keep their junk "science" out of the public schools, because it's a religious agenda and I am staunchly against the church continuously trying to weed its way into the state. Not to mention trying to push abstinence-only sex ed while the teen pregnancy and STD rates skyrocket. Don't get me started on them.

That said, I go back to an example I've long used - acupuncture. It used to be viewed by 'legitimate' sources as little more than voodoo, not even 'science'. And yet now it's being used in the mainstream, even to anesthetize patients who can't be "put under" any other way. Now who finally decided that was a legitimate avenue for research? I'd like someone to research "auras" to shut the hippie-dippies up once and for all. In all likelihood people have 'em, but they're nothing more than the electromagnetic field of the body - absolutely nothing "metaphysical" about them.

That's why I'm interested in this - so this guy has managed to create a system that helps patients under the presumption that there is a free will. OK. Great. It's helping patients, and without drugs, so awesome. And now, the capital B But:

As said before, he's already presumed there IS a free will. Now I'm already expecting a lot of fluff here. But what I'm interested in is to see if he tripped over something worthwhile.

Oh, agreed. I just haven't yet found anyone pursuing what I'm talking about from the same tack. I was more hoping to spur philosophical debate about this, including ways to refute or support the claims.

Oh, agreed. I just haven't yet found anyone pursuing what I'm talking about from the same tack. I was more hoping to spur philosophical debate about this, including ways to refute or support the claims.

The science in the links I posted ( http://www.offtopicz.net/showthread...roplasticity&p=2225993&viewfull=1#post2225993 ) had actual investigation and scientific testing involved in the research and clearly defined what appears to be your objective.
Schultz is hardly alone in this field.

So far Schultz's claims on rewiring seem anecdotal as opposed to the links I provided, even though his claims obviously have merit.
Can you point to any scientific tests on patients, by Schultz, that explain/verify his conclusions?

BTW.....it's easy to google up articles refuting a quantum connection to the mind.....but their content is far and above my understanding of it.
Wikipedia has a surfacy article discussing both sides of the issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

But if you could prove the mind was a quantum computer, aren't you really augmenting the biological network with an 'outside' phenomenon that influences choice? ( yeah, I read what Schultz wrote about non-interference of choice and don't buy it ) and aren't you back with the same 'free will' issue, only now restated as 'quantum determinism'?

 

[Leananshee]

The science in the links I posted ( http://www.offtopicz.net/showthread...roplasticity&p=2225993&viewfull=1#post2225993 ) had actual investigation and scientific testing involved in the research and clearly defined what appears to be your objective.
Schultz is hardly alone in this field.

Schwartz. But while it's been shown that directed will is causing the rewiring, by multiple researchers, he seems to be the only one of them I read about speculating why that is.

So far Schultz's claims on rewiring seem anecdotal as opposed to the links I provided, even though his claims obviously have merit.
Can you point to any scientific tests on patients, by Schultz, that explain/verify his conclusions?

I can look for other papers he's written, but other than what I've put up, not at present.

BTW.....it's easy to google up articles refuting a quantum connection to the mind.....but their content is far and above my understanding of it.
Wikipedia has a surfacy article discussing both sides of the issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

But if you could prove the mind was a quantum computer, aren't you really augmenting the biological network with an 'outside' phenomenon that influences choice? ( yeah, I read what Schultz wrote about non-interference of choice and don't buy it ) and aren't you back with the same 'free will' issue, only now restated as 'quantum determinism'?

Depends. Seems like on the free will argument it's back to argument whether it exists or is an illusion. But you'd still have to determine whether will is the "outside phenomenon".