Media Permaculture
Deep inner peace circuitry. Yeah. Hey, if there is one thing you can do to improve your life this year, please take 18 minutes to watch this incredible lecture by neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor talk about her stroke and how it taught her the brain’s access point to inner peace.
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I Heart NY designer Milton Glaser has some heads-up advice about how to treat your brain. If you click the link below you can see the other nine things he’s learned about life.
7 - HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
The brain is the most responsive organ of the body. Actually it is the organ that is most susceptible to change and regeneration of all the organs in the body. I have a friend named Gerald Edelman who was a great scholar of brain studies and he says that the analogy of the brain to a computer is pathetic. The brain is actually more like an overgrown garden that is constantly growing and throwing off seeds, regenerating and so on. And he believes that the brain is susceptible, in a way that we are not fully conscious of, to almost every experience of our life and every encounter we have. I was fascinated by a story in a newspaper a few years ago about the search for perfect pitch. A group of scientists decided that they were going to find out why certain people have perfect pitch. You know certain people hear a note precisely and are able to replicate it at exactly the right pitch. Some people have relevant pitch; perfect pitch is rare even among musicians. The scientists discovered – I don’t know how - that among people with perfect pitch the brain was different. Certain lobes of the brain had undergone some change or deformation that was always present with those who had perfect pitch. This was interesting enough in itself. But then they discovered something even more fascinating. If you took a bunch of kids and taught them to play the violin at the age of 4 or 5 after a couple of years some of them developed perfect pitch, and in all of those cases their brain structure had changed. Well what could that mean for the rest of us? We tend to believe that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind, although we do not generally believe that everything we do affects the brain. I am convinced that if someone was to yell at me from across the street my brain could be affected and my life might changed. That is why your mother always said, ‘Don’t hang out with those bad kids.’ Mama was right. Thought changes our life and our behaviour. I also believe that drawing works in the same way. I am a great advocate of drawing, not in order to become an illustrator, but because I believe drawing changes the brain in the same way as the search to create the right note changes the brain of a violinist. Drawing also makes you attentive. It makes you pay attention to what you are looking at, which is not so easy.
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This year’s most stimulating Super Bowl ads competed for mirror neurons. And the winners are (all the ads are viewable here):
WHO REALLY WON THE SUPER BOWL? By Marco Iacoboni:
If a good indicator of a successful ad is activity in brain areas concerned with reward and empathy, two winners seem to be the ‘I am going to Disney’ ad and the Bud ‘office’ ad. In contrast, two big floppers seem to be the Bud ’secret fridge’ ad and the Aleve ad. What is quite surprising, is the strong disconnect that can be seen between what people say and what their brain activity seem to suggest. In some cases, people singled out ads that elicited very little brain responses in emotional, reward-related, and empathy-related areas.
Among the ads that seem relatively successful, I want to single out the Michelob ad. Above is a picture showing the brain activation associated with the ad. What is interesting is the strong response — indicated by the arrow — in ‘mirror neuron’ areas, premotor areas active when you make an action and when you see somebody else making the same action. The activity in these areas may represent some form of empathic response. Or, given that these areas are also premotor areas for mouth movements, it may represent the simulated action of drinking a beer elicited in viewers by the ad. Whatever it is, it seems a good brain response to the ad.
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Tool Use Is Just a Trick of the Mind — Balter 2008 (128): 2 — ScienceNOW:
Don’t take that hammer for granted. Using tools may seem like second nature, but only a few animals can master the coordination and mental sophistication required. So how did primates learn to use tools in the first place? A new study in monkeys suggests that the brain’s trick is to treat tools as just another body part.
Today must be science day. Here is some evidence to suggest that in order for us to use a tool, our mind has to map it as an extension of our body, verifying McLuhan’s maxim that media are extensions of our nervous system.
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More evidence that the right brain is the source of creativity and problem solving.
One of the several differences discovered was that the creative solvers exhibited greater activity in several regions of the right hemisphere. Previous research has indicated that the right hemisphere of the brain plays a special role in solving problems with creative insight, likely due to right-hemisphere involvement in the processing of loose or “remote” associations between the elements of a problem, which is understood to be an important component of creative thought.
Continuing the thought from my previous post on oppositional defiant disorder, I came across this excellent new series of pharma ad deconstructions from Consumer Reports, AdWatch (What no embed? Come on guys, get on with the Web 2.0! At least put the videos up on YouTube to spread your meme). Just more evidence that drug companies are trying to pathologize our lives.
For fun I’m posting my own re-edit of pharma ads here:
A blast from the past (what’ya think of the punk/cholo crossover fashion?)
AlterNet: Health and Wellness: How Teenage Rebellion Has Become a Mental Illness:
Disruptive young people who are medicated with Ritalin, Adderall and other amphetamines routinely report that these drugs make them “care less” about their boredom, resentments and other negative emotions, thus making them more compliant and manageable. And so-called atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal and Zyprexa — powerful tranquilizing drugs — are increasingly prescribed to disruptive young Americans, even though in most cases they are not displaying any psychotic symptoms.
Back in the day (early ’80s) I remember that a lot of punks were treated by the society as if they were insane. Now, if the above article is correct, the problem of medicating rebellious youth for “oppositional defiant disorder” is epedimic. Damn, if punk were new today we’d be drugged and labeled as terrorists. Makes one nostalgic for the Reagan years.
The song by Suicidal Tendencies, “Institutionalized,” captures the problem perfectly:
Sometimes I try to do things and it just doesn’t turn out the way I wanted to. I get real frustrated and I try hard to do it and I take my time and it just doesn’t work out the way I wanted to. It seems like I concentrate on it real hard but it just never work out. Everything I do and everything I try never turns out. It’s like I need time to figure these things out. But there’s always someone there going. Hey Mike: You know we’ve been noticing you’ve been having a lot of problems lately. You know, maybe you should get away and like, maybe you should talk about it, maybe you’ll feel a lot better. And I go: No it’s okay, you know I’ll figure it out, just leave me alone I’ll figure it out. You know I’ll just work it all by myself. And they go: Well you know if you want to talk about it I’ll be here you know and you’ll probably feel a lot better if you talk about it. Why don’t you talk about it? And I go: No I don’t want to I’m okay, I’ll figure it out myself and they just keep bugging me and they just keep bugging me and it builds up inside and it builds up inside.
So you’re gonna be institutionalized. You’ll come out brainwashed with bloodshot eyes.
You won’t have any say. They’ll brainwash you until you see their way.I’m not crazy - institutionalized
You’re the one who’s crazy - institutionalized
You’re driving me crazy - institutionalized
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution
To give me the needed professional help to protect me from the enemy, myself
Click here to read the rest.
Incidentally, if this is any measure of the cultural Zeitgeist, apparently “Institutinalized” is featured in the video game, Guitar Hero 2. Here’s a clip that some gamer posted. Man, life is weird!
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I’m fairly certain that the mindfulness technique that derives from Buddhist meditation practice is designed to deal with what our society cannot: the inability of our caveman brain to moderate itself in the midst of so much abundant materialism and prosperity. As cognitive anthropologists have noted, we have dispositions that are easily manipulatable. For example, our brains are wired for sweets, but not necessarily processed sugar. It’s easy for advertising to play on this hardwiring, so that’s why it’s so crucial to have a mindfulness immune system. The following article shores up my feelings on the subject:
Fortunately, there are ways to go about PROOFING YOUR BRAIN.
1. Change your mindset to “postmore” by challenging culture’s ingrained assumption that “more” of everything is automatically better.
2. Grow your gratitude. Our poor, starved, frozen ancestors would cry tears of joy if they suddenly landed in our culture of abundance. Fostering our appreciation of this bounty can also block the consumerist “cool” pressure to deride so many of our fine, workable possessions as “so last year”.
3. Be enough. We’re constantly told that we aren’t rich enough, glam enough, cool enough, networked enough, etc. This has a powerful insidious effect on our primitive, socially competitive brain circuits. It’s like a toxic substance that turns rational brains into needy toddlers wanting “more, more, more!
Hear Voices? It May Be an Ad - Advertising Age - News:
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — New Yorker Alison Wilson was walking down Prince Street in SoHo last week when she heard a woman’s voice right in her ear asking, “Who’s there? Who’s there?” She looked around to find no one in her immediate surroundings. Then the voice said, “It’s not your imagination.”
Indeed it isn’t. It’s an ad for “Paranormal State,” a ghost-themed series premiering on A&E this week. The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an “audio spotlight” from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium. The technology, ideal for museums and libraries or environments that require a quiet atmosphere for isolated audio slideshows, has rarely been used on such a scale before. For random passersby and residents who have to walk unwittingly through the area where the voice will penetrate their inner peace, it’s another story.
No Holosonics is not a company from Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, or plot device for a PK Dick novel. Nor is it a CIA front company (at least as far as we know). But we do know that they supply the latest and creepiest marketing technology that allows advertisers to blast audio into our innocent craniums. Is it not enough that ads are shoved in front of our eyeballs every minute? I know this technology has been justified as being great for museums, which may be true, but beaming from a billboard? This is downright unethical. As Gawker put it,:
So when they hit your head, it sounds like the call is coming from the inside the brain-house.
The billboard says 73% of Americans believe and I’m assuming that that means 73% of Americans believe in ghosts. So if that’s true, why try to convert the skeptical/not crazy 27% by beaming voices into their heads? That’s just greedy. Also it leads to a lingering sense of serious mental violation. How soon will it be until in addition to the Do Not Call list, we’ll have a Do Not Beam Commercial Messages Into My Head list?
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The Simian Think Tank - STT Blogs » Psy-Ops and Coercion:
The secret of mind-control is simple–so simple that Rushkoff can sum it up in one sentence: “In whatever milieu coercion is practiced, the routine follows the same basic steps: Generate disorientation, induce regression, and then become the target’s transferred parent figure” (64). Hard-sell car salesmen, CIA interrogators and psychwar ops, and cult leaders have long used this technique. Under coercion, millions of otherwise rational people can be persuaded to act against their own interests–whether by shelling out big bucks for an overpriced lemon, betraying a comrade and a cause, or allowing a gang of criminals to destroy their nation’s Constitution and launch criminal wars of aggression.
I think the above statement (in bold) is generally valid. The paragraphs is from an article in response to why people so quickly believe the official version of 9-11. I’m still not convinced that it was an inside job– a) because focusing on the past doesn’t help us deal with the situation as it exists right now, and b) the government is run by bureaucrats (i.e. people) who make lots of mistakes. With that said, I still believe it was deployed quite effectively as a kind of mega-spectacle slight-of-hand trick. Regardless of who was behind it, they were successful at unleashing a massive wave of paranoia that is eating America alive. If you visit the WTC site and you’re sensitive enough, then you will understand that 9-11 was most certainly one of the most explosive acts of black magic in the history of humanity.
“Generate disorientation, induce regression, and then become the target’s transferred parent figure”:
In a typical Evangelical megachurch ritual you will see people blasted with multimedia in such a way that their nervous systems are over-stimulated (see my post on BattleCry) causing group hysteria and disorientation.* But I want to go back to my basic premise, which is that manipulation is more effective when people have low self-esteem or a lack of a strong center. These techniques don’t impact all people the same way. We need to move from generalizing the “pubic” as if they are a mass of playable clay. I think if you talk to any person one-to-one you will find their view of the world is generally nuanced and complex (with the exception of the Neocons, of course). From an ecological perspective, this means we need to reinforce the psychic immune system through education, proper nutrition, critical pedagogy, and strong doses of place, i.e. nature when available.* Note: with my critiques of religious spectacles, some have accused me of being anti-Christian and intolerant. That is not the case. I am anti-manipulation. I fully support people having the choice to believe what they want as long as it doesn’t involve killing or controlling people who disagree with them.
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Look first, then read on.
If she goes clockwise, you’re right-brained, and if it goes counter clockwise you’re left-brained. Concentrate and make her change directions. Ack!
Via Souljerky.
The Right Brain vs Left Brain | The Daily Telegraph:
LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safeRIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking
Our Ancestral Mind in the Modern World: An Interview with Satoshi Kanazawa | Open Culture:
DC: Evolutionary psychology portrays us as having impulses that took form long ago, in a very pre-modern context (say, 10,000 years ago), and now these impulses are sometimes rather ill-adapted to our contemporary world. For example, in a food-scarce environment, we became programmed to eat whenever we can; now, with food abounding in many parts of the world, this impulse creates the conditions for an obesity epidemic. Given that our world will likely continue changing at a rapid pace, are we doomed to have our impulses constantly playing catch up with our environment, and does that potentially doom us as a species?
SK: In fact, we’re not playing catch up; we’re stuck. For any evolutionary change to take place, the environment has to remain more or less constant for many generations, so that evolution can select the traits that are adaptive and eliminate those that are not. When the environment undergoes rapid change within the space of a generation or two, as it has been for the last couple of millennia, if not more, then evolution can’t happen because nature can’t determine which traits to select and which to eliminate. So they remain at a standstill. Our brain (and the rest of our body) are essentially frozen in time — stuck in the Stone Age.
One example of this is that when we watch a scary movie, we get scared, and when we watch porn we get turned on. We cry when someone dies in a movie. Our brain cannot tell the difference between what’s simulated and what’s real, because this distinction didn’t exist in the Stone Age.
RU Sirius went to the Singularity conference and reported that he enjoyed the nerdy convergence. The singularity folks may be a nice crowd, but I’m not sure if I agree with their views of the human mind. Correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that singularity excludes the body as part of the mental equation. We should remember a few things: our eyes are attached to our feet (think of how your body is involved with looking), and also that all our nerve endings are connected to the brain. Downloading a mind without a body just seems absurd to me.
Anyhow, the best thing about his post (linked below) is the extended quote of the wonderful Richard Brautigan poem, “Machines of Loving Grace.”
Reality Sandwich | Party Like It’s 2049:
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
?of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers live together in mutually?
programming harmony?
like pure water touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)?
of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning
blossoms.
I like to think
?(it has to be!)
?of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all
watched over by machines of loving grace.
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Astronaut Alan Bean’s paintings make the moon look like New Mexico (link)
Cosmic Log : The right-brained astronaut:
“To do art well, you’ve got to be kind of holistic and look at everything at once,” Bean said. “It’s different. You don’t stay alive as an astronaut or a pilot looking at everything at once. You better be a serial kind of guy.”
If you have been following my previous posts about the right- and left-brain, then you’ll appreciate this article about Alan Bean, one of 12 earth beings to walk on the moon (that we know of, at least). In the interview he talks about his post-astronaut career as a painter and the different functions of the brain. In essence, you need your left-brain to operate a spacecraft, but the right-brain to paint it.
I’m not much of an art critic, but there is something intriguing about Bean’s paintings. If you click here you can see some of the work (though I warn you the Website is a huge, disorganized mess– so much for rocket science!). My mental map of the moon has always been through photography, so I find the paintings to have a psychological quality that is quite different and strangely religious, displaying both a love for the moon, but for science as well.
The painterly style is reminiscent of cowboy art, something as a punk rock youth I totally abhorred, but in my sunset years I have come to appreciate. Bean’s landscapes are like the New Mexico desert, extending the wild frontier myth to space. Like cowboy art, these images portray fairly mundane activities that are designed to foreground the environment. In the above image humans look rather small.
On his Website he states that acrylics are space age:
Bean prefers to paint his motifs with acrylics, because acrylics are as high tech as his subjects. Although developed in the 19th century, acrylics occurred first on the art scene during the beginning space age and are the most important innovation in artistic materials since the invention of oil paints.
Additionally, “the base layer of all of his paintings contain small pieces of his space suit and the command module and also very small amounts of Moon dust.”
He covers his painting surfaces with acrylic modeling paint so he can put a space boot print on the surface along with imprints of the geology hammer he used on his mission. So not only does he make representations of the moon, the paintings themselves become the moon and the record of his experience. Way cool!
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