Objective Thinking - Research Paper Example

Hardwiring Objective Experience Summary Scientists have been trying to determine how the firing of neurons produces a ive experience whereas Icontend we should be training the teenager to think objectively before their brain is hardwired as an adult. The paper is based on my own way of thinking which I devised and adopted as a teenager by studying patterns in language. It is based on mathematical principles. The basic difference between the two thinking approaches is whereas subjective thinkers seek to interpret what they receive through the senses; objective thinkers do not and are aware that they need to carry out further research work if they need to establish the truth. As a result of adopting this approach you live in a childlike bubble with the world outside oneself and you are only concerned with the effects you have on the outside world and vice versa. This paper aims to: 1. Define objective experience, as opposed to subjective experience; 2. Describe the experience of an objective thinker; 3. Explore the possibility of training adolescents to think objectively; and 4. Explore the connection between thinking objectively and language. Isolating Objective Experience Bothereau (2009), in explaining atomism and atelic conceptualization, subscribed to the theorization of experience, in which experience can be analyzed and understood as a theoretical entity. At the same time, it is everything and everywhere, observable as well as unobservable. Bothereau goes on to compare the theories in question to Whitehead’s (1920) sense-awareness continuum, in which sense-perception is possible only with a division of the continuum, of a part objectified experience. Many theorists, as well as those in the practical sciences like medicine, take into account two components of experience: the objective and the subjective. While the patient’s blood pressure is objective and can be validated using a sphygmomanometer, his experience of pain is subjective and cannot be perfectly transferred through Nagel’s observer empathy (1974, in Baars, 2996). Baars (1996) advocated for such practical criteria to understand subjectivity. Indeed, the common argument against physicalism is that an ideal, complete physical description of a living human being still leaves out that person’s subjective conscious experience, or what it was like to be that person (Rudd, 1997). Is it possible to eliminate subjective experience? Watt (2004) argued against the view that cognition and emotion are counter-posed to each other. Instead, cognition is an extension of emotion, which is an extension of homeostasis. The brain’s functions are made possible through integration of systems from top to bottom of the neuroaxis. Biologic proof is in the neural connections between thalamocortical brain systems and many subcortical (basal forebrain, diencephalic, and midbrain-reticular) systems. He goes on to explain that, past early infancy, much of human consciousness consists of emotion-and-cognition amalgams, citing music and art as examples of activating emotion by cognition. Sutherland (2001) also commented on the indispensability of emotion in decision-making, as concluded by many theories from stimulus-response and behavioralism, symbolic logic and representation in any medium, to naturalism. He recounted Damasio’s (1994) findings that patients with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex, the area of the brain that deals with social emotions, were completely unable to make decisions. If emotions, as judgments on what is perceived, are classified as subjective experience, and much of human consciousness consists of emotion-and-cognition amalgams, then it is not possible to completely disassociate subjective from objective experience. However, there are stoic individuals, or those who have mastered affective self-regulation (not affective elimination), at least for a time. The next question would then be whether it is possible to hardwire the brain to think primarily “objectively”, which will be explored in the latter part of the paper. The Experience of Primarily Objective Thinkers Set theory, initiated by Georg Cantor and Richard Dedekind in the 1870s, begins with a set and its objects. For example, Set A has objects {1,2,3}. 1. Given Set A = {1,2,3}, subsets include any combination of objects, including {{}, {1}, {2}, {3}, {1,2}, {1,3}, {2,3}, {1,2,3}}. 2. Union of the sets A and B, is the set whose members are members of at least one of A or B. The union of Set A {1, 2, 3} and Set B {2, 3, 4} is the set {1, 2, 3, 4}. 3. Intersection of the sets A and B is the set whose members are members of both A and B. The intersection of {1, 2, 3} and {2, 3, 4} is the set {2, 3}. 4. Symmetric difference of sets A and B is the set whose members are members of exactly one of A and B (elements which are in one of the sets, but not in both). For instance, for the sets {1,2,3} and {2,3,4}, the symmetric difference set is {1,4}. Rowe (2008) explained that there are three sets or classes of experience: (1) viewing reality without interpretation; (2) creating internal representations of what is happening; and (3) determining what is happening and establishing the truth. In turn, experience can be represented by a set of six classes of knowledge: time, place, action, reality, rules, and variable connections, where the last includes the effects of an individual’s actions on the world, which accounts for the differences in experience. The set of experiences that views reality without interpretation can be explained by the Direct Realist theory of perception, in which individuals are directly aware of external physical objects through the senses. However, Smythies (2003) recounted how Direct Realism was refuted by recent experiments in neuroscience and psychophysics that show that the brain computes the world as it most probably is. The brain as inter-mediator and interpreter follows the second set of experiences, in which internal representations are created by the individual. This can be explained by symbolic interactionism, a term coined by Herbert Blumer (1969) based on the work of George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley, which explains that people act based on the meaning that things have for them, which is derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation (http://family.jrank.org/pages/1673/Symbolic-Interactionism-Importance-Meanings.html). Then, there is the third set of experiences, in which one seeks to determine what is happening and establish truth, living in a child-like bubble. It is a process by which the individual practices affective self-regulation, detaching from experience in order to measure or validate it. Training Adolescents to Be Objective Thinkers A longitudinal study by Giedd, et al. (1999) of the MRI scans of 145 individuals, ranging from 4.2 - 21.6 years of age, showed that cortical gray matter changes, such that there is a pre-adolescent increase, followed by a post-adolescent decrease. This is the second over-production of gray matter in the life of a human, the first being in the first few years after birth. Though having more synapses seems like a good thing, the brain consolidates learning by pruning away unused synapses while strengthening those often used by wrapping myelin around them. In Giedd’s terminology, this is the “use it or lose it principle” (Spinks, 2002). According to the Society for Neuroscience (2011), areas of the brain associated with basic functions, like the motor and sensory areas mature early, while those involved with planning and decision-making, including the pre-frontal cortex, or the cognitive/reasoning area of the brain that helps control impulses and emotions, mature into one’s twenties. During adolescence, the brain is still strengthening or pruning connections between reasoning- and emotion-related regions. Another series of MRI studies showed that adolescents process emotions differently than adults. Young teens activate the amygdala, the area of the brain that mediates fear and other “gut” reactions but, as they grew older, shift to activating the frontal lobe, thereby increasing reasoning (NIH, 2010). Therefore, in order to strengthen or “hardwire” objective thinking, it must be practiced during adolescence. Conversely, the brain can be trained to minimize subjective thinking. Objective Thinking and Language Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the real world is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation (Edward Sapir, in Whorf, 1941). If one’s language habits determine one’s perception of reality, can language habits be trained? Neuro-lingistic programming, developed by Bandler and Grinder under Bateson in the 1960’s-‘70’s is a method that uses speaking patterns, voice tones, word selection, gesticulations, postures, eye movements, and other non-verbal cues to transform beliefs and change behaviour (www.crystalinks.com). However, it focuses on subjective experience and is often criticized as being technological hokum rather than protoscience. Conclusion Though objective experience can be studied in isolation from subjective experience, it is questionable whether all experiences can be made simply objective, without personal interpretation. However, individuals can become “objective thinkers” in that they become more rational beings, instead of being ruled by their emotions. These objective thinkers live detached from their world, in child-like bubbles, measuring and validating experience. Neurological studies of adolescents have shown that this stage of growth is conducive to “hardwiring” the brain for certain functions, including language. References www.crystalinks.com http://family.jrank.org/pages/1673/Symbolic-Interactionism-Importance-Meanings.html Baars, B.J. (1996) Understanding subjectivity: Global workspace theory and the resurrection of the observing self, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3 (3), pp. 211- 216, [Online], www.imprint.co.uk [21 Jan 2011]. Bothereau, F. (2009) Atomism and atelic conceptualization, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16 (9-10), pp. 221-228, [Online], www.imprint.co.uk [21 Jan 2011]. Giedd, J.N., et al. (1999) Brain development during childhood and adolescence: A longitudinal MRI study, Nature Neuroscience, 2 (10), pp. 861-863, [Online], www.math.tau.ac.il [21 Jan 2011]. National Institutes of Health (2010) Teenage brain: A work in progress, NIH Publication No. 01-4929, [Online] www.nimh.nih.gov [21 Jan 2011]. Rowe, D. (2008) A mathematical treatment of reality, New Scientist. Rudd, A.J. (1997) What it’s like and what’s really wrong with physicalism: A Wittgensteinean perspective, Journal of Consciousness Studies, [Online], www.imprint.co.uk [21 Jan 2011]. Smythies, J. (2003) Space, time and consciousness, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10 (3), pp. 47–56, [Online], www.imprint.co.uk [21 Jan 2011]. Society for Neuroscience (2011) The adolescent brain, [Online], www.sfn.org [21 Jan 2011]. Spinks, S. (2002) Adolescent brains are a work in progress: Here’s why! [Online], www.pbs.org [21 Jan 2011]. Sutherland, K. (2001) Consciousness and emotion: JCS reviews a new consciousness studies journal, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8 (12), pp. 79–82, [Online], www.imprint.co.uk [21 Jan 2011]. Watt, D.F. (2004) Consciousness, emotional self-regulation and the brain: Review article, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 11 (9), pp. 77–82, [Online], www.imprint.co.uk [21 Jan 2011]. Whorf, B. (1941) The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language, in Spier, L. (ed.) Language, Culture, and Personality, Essays in Memory of Edward Sapir, Menasha, WI: Sapir Memorial Publication Fund, [Online] http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/Secondary/Whorfframe2.html [21 Jan 2011]. Read More