[HN Gopher] The brain is not an onion with a tiny reptile inside...
___________________________________________________________________
The brain is not an onion with a tiny reptile inside (2020)
Author : optimalsolver
Score : 217 points
Date : 2023-09-18 12:12 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (journals.sagepub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (journals.sagepub.com)
| mrangle wrote:
| The inarticulate abstract was a red flag. I read 2/3 of the paper
| before giving up when finally, after untold quantity of
| adjectives, assertions, and halfway through, the supposed first
| couple of arguments made an appearance and were mostly
| indecipherable as such. The paper reads like what a high school
| junior thinks that a research review(?) is supposed to look like.
| Also, it is clear to me that the authors began with a conclusion
| around which they attempted to wrap support. The psych field
| needs low quality papers like Alaska needs snow.
| mrkeen wrote:
| What was wrong with the abstract? * Widespread
| misconceptions: a) "Newer" brain structures were added
| on top of "older" brain structures. b) The "newer"
| brain structures provide more complex functions. *
| Psychologists have been publishing these in textbooks. *
| Neurobiologists have known these to be wrong for some time.
| mrangle wrote:
| The core statement of the abstract is that the author's
| conclusions are the "clear an unanimous" views of "those
| studying nervous system evolution".
|
| This statement is incorrect on its face. Worse, it would be a
| bad scientific statement in any paper. Last, it is at once
| superfluous and incomplete even if it were true. Instead, a
| good abstract would briefly list the points of the author's
| preferred theory rather than waste the reader's time by only
| deferring to a loosely defined general authority in support
| of an assertion. Which is abstract writing 101, at least in
| fields for which writing standards are somewhat kept. Maybe
| that isn't the psychology field, but it should be.
|
| The last sentence of the abstract reads as if written by said
| high school junior. Science authors generally don't use the
| word "mistaken" to describe another theory, especially in the
| context of theories of brain evolution nor for anything else
| for which literally every theory can only be a theory.
| Including that preferred by the author.
|
| Good papers don't introduce their arguments / pov halfway
| through, or further. Good papers don't lean on deference to
| authority 1/2 paper before presenting what is supposed to be
| their evidence or theory. Good papers almost completely
| exclude adjectives when describing theories, conclusions, or
| data, let alone negative adjectives that are doing all of the
| work in making their yet-unsupported point.
| nickdothutton wrote:
| I think some people's brains have trouble understanding the
| purpose and value of models (it's their predictive power). For
| some use cases it doesnt matter of the model is "correct" so much
| as whether or not it has predictive value. I'm sure someone else
| here can phrase it far better than I.
| sebringj wrote:
| I can think of it like the wheels are still there, the frame,
| engine, body etc but the design and materials have been
| completely refined and overhauled to be modern future tech today.
| The car even has new stuff like electronics and wifi. Meaning
| there are still base conceptual things there but they are not the
| same...knowing that reasoning by analogy is flawed but still
| satisfying to me to feel like I understand it enough.
| 1lint wrote:
| I'm surprised by how much this publication reads like an advocacy
| piece for a specific viewpoint, rather than an objective review
| of existing literature. Just from reading the paper, it is clear
| that there are many experts in the field that take the opposing
| viewpoint that is being attacked in the paper, especially
| considering that their hypotheses have been published in widely
| circulated textbooks.
|
| When it comes to research publications in general, I very much
| prefer to hear an objective, good faith presentation of the major
| viewpoints, with the author taking an opinionated but measured
| take in the conclusion as they review the overall weight of the
| literature. I'm sure there are issues with this "triune brain"
| model, but at a certain level every model is inaccurate; the real
| question is whether a model is useful in its framework, and the
| answer has a degree of subjectivity such that I do not think it
| is fair to categorically reject the perspectives of opposing
| experts in the field.
| [deleted]
| moab9 wrote:
| There's a rat in there.
| dicroce wrote:
| Not that the opinion of some random on the internet means
| anything, BUT....
|
| I think the neocortex for the most part lets other parts of the
| brain control themselves... and really only has high level
| access. I think emotions are one of these lower level semi
| autonomous subsystems... but so are things like autonomous body
| control, balance, each of the senses etc, etc... The neocortex is
| playing the "Human" video game and controlling things from a high
| level... but cannot directly control every aspect of these
| subsystems... and honestly, this is how complexity is dealt with
| (if the neocortex could control it all, the whats the point of
| the other subsystems)?
| user3939382 wrote:
| It may not be true from the perspective of evolutionary biology.
| But 90% of the time I've heard this referenced (our "primitive
| brain") it's a useful device for discussing the parts of our
| psychology we have in common with more primitive members of the
| animal kingdom. That's not to contradict the article whatsoever,
| which is explicitly addressed to psychologists who, I concur,
| should be educated and clear on the distinction between a
| rhetorical device and real biology.
| robg wrote:
| The autonomic nervous system is real biology that most
| psychologists don't start with. While this article is based on
| textbook descriptions of the evolution of the brain in the
| skull, not seeing much on how the autonomic nervous system _is_
| primal specifically for survival.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I'd be more inclined to agree if it weren't an increasing issue
| in my life that laymen do not understand they're parroting back
| a rhetorical device and use this information to make all kinds
| of ridiculous conclusions.
| toomim wrote:
| Like what?
| teucris wrote:
| Increasing? This has always, and will always be an issue. My
| approach is to roll with it - rather than banish them
| altogether, I treat all devices like this as such and no
| more, holding others to the same standard. This, hopefully
| shifts the meaning away from the scientific and towards the
| domain of "quaint sayings." For instance, I invoke the
| concept of the "lizard brain" quite commonly as a way of
| expressing how base instincts can override my better
| judgement. But I'm careful to never imply there (in the words
| of the article) "a scala naturae view of evolution in which
| animals can be arranged linearly from 'simple' to the most
| 'complex' organisms."
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| if only psychology was a real science where hypothesis are
| thoroughly tested and tests are independently reproduced.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, the main problem with this is, it would require human
| experimentation to be efficient. You know, those babies raised
| in this way, those in that way. And by the age of 2 cut open
| and everything meassured.
|
| Or do you have other ideas how to do proper testing?
|
| Because otherwise experiments with control groups, electrodes,
| MRT etc. are a thing in psychology. But you can only achieve so
| much with it.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| The study of psychology is done in neuroscience. But the
| research is extremely different. Neuroscience is like
| studying quantum mechanics and electromagnetism to understand
| the movement of electrons in a wire, while Psychology is
| comparable to UI/UX research.
|
| Many people are working on bridging neuroscience and
| psychology but it hasn't happened yet.
| wslh wrote:
| BTW, is there something new and interesting about the
| connection between quantum mechanics and the brain? There
| are many articles/papers in [1] but it would be great to
| hear from someone in the field.
|
| [1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2019&q=quantu
| m+bra...
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| Sorry I didn't mean to come off as if I'm in research, I
| just have a BS in neuroscience. No longer doing anything
| with the degree
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Ok, I see (maybe formally wrong) neuroscience as a part of
| psychology. (At least some psychologists I talked to, had
| this position)
|
| And the reason why bridging is not really happening,
| because of the ethical restrictions. But this is my
| hypothesis. The other hypothesis might be, that too many
| careers depend on models that would not hold up by
| experiments, but I really cannot judge here because of lack
| of knowledge.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| It's more of the former - it's not ethical to do the
| experiments that would prove or disprove the hypothesized
| links. There's plenty of real work to do, not a
| conspiracy lol
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Ok, I see (maybe formally wrong) neuroscience as a part
| of psychology. (At least some psychologists I talked to,
| had this position)
|
| They might believe this in the same way that some UX
| people might view all of software as a subset of UX,
| because everything ends up as an experience for some user
| somewhere.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > Or do you have other ideas how to do proper testing?
|
| Well, for starters don't call them studies, call them
| "hunches" or "intuitions" or whatever you like to indicate
| that there is actually no real evidence to prove your thesis.
|
| Occam's razor tells us to believe that it's much more
| plausible that psychologist publish massaged data to keep
| getting funded, than because it's actually very hard to admit
| that "we don't know for sure, this study proves nothing".
|
| Have you ever heard of my fellow Italian professor Francesca
| Gino?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Unless you want to start growing test subject humans in vats,
| it's not exactly something that's as simple as "testing right"
| -- the problem isn't lack of will or skill. We can't just throw
| rats at this problem like many scientific fields do.
| jiofj wrote:
| Which is why it's not a real science. No one is saying that
| "scientists" working on psychology are negligent, but that
| it's impossible for psychology to meet the requirements of a
| real science.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I think it's a little harmful to start saying "real
| science" -- this is something that _is_ at times meant to
| discredit psychology entirely, so it 's an unfortunately
| loaded phrase.
|
| I think they're still doing science, it's just much more
| difficult given physical and ethical constraints.
| mrkeen wrote:
| The arguments in this thread:
|
| * Psychology is not a "real" science because it doesn't
| produce quality evidence.
|
| * But quality psychological evidence is (too) hard to
| produce.
|
| See how the second point doesn't really refute the first?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You're missing the point that calling something "not
| real" is very often used as a method to discredit it.
| Saying "not real" discredits the fact that there are more
| barriers here.
|
| That's my primary issue with this. Phrenology can also be
| called "not real science" but it doesn't seem fair to
| paint both with such a broad brush. There's more nuance
| involved than an off-the-cuff "not real."
|
| Though at this point it all feels too belabored to carry
| on.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| yeah, exactly, it's not real science. Doesn't matter why.
|
| Atomic bombs are very dangerous too and not very easy to
| "test them right", but atomic physics is a real science.
|
| Anyway, the problem in psychology is that psychologists often
| lie and fabricate false evidence, not that the rats aren't
| enough.
|
| There are multiple studies about it, published by scientists,
| most of them agree that _" Don't trust everything you read in
| the psychology literature. In fact, two thirds of it should
| probably be distrusted."_
|
| There's a point where a field can't keep going on shielding
| behind the false myth that "the problem is that we can't test
| on humans".
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "There are multiple studies about it, published by
| scientists, most of them agree that "Don't trust everything
| you read in the psychology literature. In fact, two thirds
| of it should probably be distrusted.""
|
| Can you link a study, that makes such a claim?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Sorry if I misunderstood, it's just that at times "real
| science" is used to discredit psychology as a field
| entirely so there's a bit of defensiveness involved.
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| Exactly, and the irony is that there are a lot of cognitive
| neuroscientists doing human participant research all the
| time. It's honestly easier than doing the ethics for animal
| research these days. I don't understand all the comments
| from everyone saying it's impossible to do reliable
| research with human participants, haha.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I have not read the paper yet, but what a great title - a very
| welcome change from the formulaic 'verbing the noun: towards a
| metastatic model of semantic construction' that has become so
| widespread over the last couple of decades.
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| I think it's easy to underestimate how different our brains are
| relative to different classes of animals, and there is a lot of
| convergent evolution going on.
|
| For example, even low level auditory perception, such as how the
| brain evolved to localize sound directions, evolved independently
| in mammals and birds:
| https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.000...
| (this is because their common ancestor didn't have a tympanic
| ear).
|
| So the Triune brain really isn't the best model for explaining
| what is going on in the brain. Models such as reinforcement
| learning don't fully explain what is going on in the brain
| either, but I think explanations such as how dopamine flooding
| the reward system can mess with predicted rewards and contribute
| to addiction, etc. are more useful.
| alex01001 wrote:
| brain is a receptor for consciousness, it doesn't create it.
| Consciousness is "broadcasted".
| [deleted]
| FeteCommuniste wrote:
| That's a spicy take. Is there any evidence to support it?
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I recently read about that idea in the book "Notes on
| Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness,
| and Being".
|
| It's an interesting idea. I'm not sure why the parent is
| being downvoted.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Notes-Complexity-Scientific-
| Connectio...
| kbelder wrote:
| >It's an interesting idea. I'm not sure why the parent is
| being downvoted.
|
| Probably because he stated it as a fact instead of an
| interesting fringe theory.
| fieldbob wrote:
| To figure this out one has to sit in meditation and find out for
| one self This is metaphysics not psychology, perhaps you are
| asking the wrong people.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| Why is science not suitable to answer this question?
| mistermann wrote:
| Inappropriate methodology, culture(s), conventions, etc.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| For all the good work he did, this is the one misstep in Sagan's
| career that likely caused the most disruption: he was big on the
| "reptile brain inside a mammal brain" hypothesis and described it
| quite convincingly on _Cosmos._
|
| We don't have a great strategy yet for undoing the work of an
| effective science educator when they teach things science goes on
| to disprove.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| ITT a lot of fully justified scorn for pearl-clutching
| performative polemics.
|
| An interesting application of weasel words and passive voice in
| the article..
| crazygringo wrote:
| After reading this article as well as the relevant Wikipedia
| entry [1], I still don't get what's supposedly "wrong" with the
| triune brain model.
|
| In fact, this article seems to set it up as a bit of a straw man.
| The main rebuttals in this article are 1) that evolution is
| branched rather than linear, 2) that larger brains aren't
| necessarily more complex, and 3) that evolution modifies existing
| brain structures in addition to adding new layers.
|
| But all of that seems rather obvious, and doesn't really refute
| the triune brain theory at all.
|
| Isn't it scientifically true that we have a basal ganglia which
| evolved from reptiles, a limbic system also present mammals, and
| a neocortex that works similarly to that in other primates,
| dolphins, and elephants? And each of those map to certain types
| of behaviors, that we see in these species?
|
| The triune brain hypothesis doesn't seem "wrong", it just seems
| like a simple categorization that is useful for making big-
| picture distinctions.
|
| Am I missing something? I literally don't understand what is even
| being "refuted" here, because the refutations don't seem to match
| the claims at all.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain
| [deleted]
| cosmojg wrote:
| > But all of that seems rather obvious, and doesn't really
| refute the triune brain theory at all.
|
| > The triune brain hypothesis doesn't seem "wrong", it just
| seems like a simple categorization that is useful for making
| big-picture distinctions.
|
| Right, but having worked in the field, I can assure you that
| there are, in fact, too many practicing psychologists,
| cognitive scientists, and even neuroscientists who believe the
| triune model of the brain to be literally and, sometimes,
| absolutely true. These are the types of people whom the linked
| paper is trying to reach.
|
| Misunderstandings based on these oversimplified models are
| driving the current debate around modular versus distributed
| computation in the brain[1]. Obviously, a more accurate model
| of the brain would account for both ideas, but there is growing
| concern in the neuroscientific community over the amount of
| grant money going toward defending older, dead-end modular
| models instead of improving newer, more promising distributed
| models, mostly as a result of entrenched interests prioritizing
| the maintenance of prestige over the pursuit of truth.
|
| In short, putting bad models on blast is good and necessary for
| the advancement of science. You can get a lot done with the
| plum pudding model[2] of the atom, but you can get far more
| done with the Bohr model[3] which emerged only after
| Rutherford, Bohr, and several other physicists published
| several iterative takedowns of the former, and yes, they too
| had to deal with entrenched interests who operated under the
| assumption that the plum pudding model was literally and
| absolutely true. It took a decade of experiments and several
| increasingly correct models before academic consensus shifted
| enough to accept the existence of subatomic particles and
| academic consensus began its collective investment in quantum
| mechanics. We're now in a similar place with neuroscience in
| the tension between modular computational models, which
| includes the triune brain model, and distributed computational
| models, which are showing promise in rescuing fMRI studies with
| their strong modular tradition from the replication crisis[4].
|
| [1] https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-
| sciences/fulltext/S136...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_pudding_model
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_model
|
| [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457304/
| JohnAaronNelson wrote:
| Thank you for your contributions. Am I correct that you are
| asserting there are substantial numbers of practicing
| psychologists that literally and absolutely believe inner
| structures of the brain are _unchanged_ over hundreds of
| millions of years, _and_ they can _and_ will be reached by
| this paper?
|
| If anyone doesn't understand "All models are wrong, but some
| are useful" I don't know if you'll reach them with this
| paper.
|
| Maybe it needs to be said. It's possible the most useful
| papers are those that assert obvious things in ways that
| refute our basic models so we can see things differently.
| It's also possible this is a clickbait paper that isn't
| saying anything new, just trying to be controversial.
| civilized wrote:
| Looking at this as an amateur, it seems like the key question
| here is "does the human brain have substructures that are
| similar enough to brain structures from ancestral species that
| it makes sense to consider them as the 'same' entity with the
| same name?"
| hasmanean wrote:
| Humans have this ability to obfuscate any issue. When there is
| a simple pattern for things some people always take edge cases
| and argue that the pattern is really not true. They don't
| understand how models of the world work. Of _course_ it's not
| ideal but it's a useful framework for understanding things.
|
| I imagine the reason Newton's laws never developed before was
| because of all the influential know-it-alls who took empirical
| data (moving objects stop! Gaseous balloons rise!) and drew the
| wrong conclusions from it (gases want to rise up to be with all
| the other gases...solids want to be at rest.)
|
| It took Newton to do a thought experiment of a projectile
| moving in outer space to deduce his laws of motion.
|
| The fact is that newtons laws aren't really observable on
| earth, unless you have the imagination to see it and do the
| mental bookkeeping of accounting for friction as a separate
| force.
| xzsinu wrote:
| The triune model of the brain is not just a simplification,
| but one that promotes antiquated biases about human
| intelligence in how human intelligence differs from non-human
| intelligence, how intelligence is distributed among humans
| themselves, and what is essential to defining human
| intelligence itself.
|
| The lizard, small mammal, human distinction maps pretty
| deceptively onto Aristotle's distinctions between the souls:
| vegetative (plant), sensitive (animal), and rational (human).
| So if one is trying to pinpoint the seat of intelligence, it
| seems to follow that we can ignore the two lower sections of
| the brain in favor of the higher one. Franz Joseph Gall, the
| founder of phrenology, himself did that, writing off the
| cerebellum as relevant only for producing the sexual drive
| [1].
|
| Scientific theories of self-control which were nothing more
| than Christian dualist arguments evolved out of Gall's work
| and argued that intelligence involved suppression of the
| lower faculties, which provided cover for eugenicist and
| supremacist arguments throughout the 20th century and still
| shows up today in popular theories about how the 'limbic
| system' subverts the rational capacities of individuals and
| is used to manipulate the masses (Elon loves this theory).
|
| Current work funded at the intersection of artificial
| intelligence and neuroscience still prioritizes the neocortex
| as the seat of rationality, with some like Jeff Hawkins (Palm
| founder turned brain scientist) arguing that "intelligence is
| an algorithm found in the neocortex". Singularity arguments
| rely in part on the assumption that intelligence in humans is
| mostly limited by the other parts of the brain, not empowered
| by them, and that a form of intelligence freed of embodiment
| will inevitably exterminate those that are embodied by right.
|
| The truth is, neglected sub-regions such as the "lizard"
| cerebellum actually contain the vast majority of neurons,
| have been shown to have evolved disproportionately larger
| within early hominins [2], and are theorized to be equally
| involved in abstract cognition as in bodily manipulation [3].
| This is something of a paradigm shift that has only been able
| to take shape since the late 20th-century (through the work
| of Jeremy Schmahmann, Peter Strick and others[4]), even
| though hints of it have been present in the data since it was
| collected, and that's because of how compelling the triune
| brain model has been. Research in this direction can directly
| address mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, but it has to
| be funded first [5].
|
| [1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnana.2019.0
| 004...
|
| [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25283776/
|
| [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03
| 043...
|
| [4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089662
| 731...
|
| [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UUqKuhvTk0
| [deleted]
| feoren wrote:
| Your argument seems to mostly rest on the idea that people
| can "poison" a fundamental idea by misinterpreting it and
| drawing silly conclusions from it. It sounds like if I
| argued that "1 + 1 = 2 and therefore we should do
| genocide", you'd be (rightly) abhorred by the conclusion,
| and the next time you saw someone using 1 + 1 = 2 as the
| basis for a completely different argument, you'd villainize
| them as using an argument that "promotes genocide" or "has
| been used to justify genocide". I really don't care what
| the founder of phrenology thought, nor Christian dualists,
| nor even Jeff Hawkins.
|
| In general I think this effect contributes to a lot of
| "over-debunking". We see way over-simplified, yet very
| loosely accurate, mid 20th century scientific models like
| the triune brain, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", the
| left-brain vs. right-brain, and the idea that differences
| in language contribute to differences in cognition; and
| then silly people take these models _way_ too far and use
| them to justify dubious things; and then they become over-
| debunked to the point that speaking them aloud immediately
| ostracizes you as some outdated bigot; while the whole time
| the models themselves have been reasonably OK high-level
| starting points for discussion that obviously need revision
| for any lower-level details.
|
| > The truth is, neglected sub-regions such as the "lizard"
| cerebellum actually contain the vast majority of neurons,
| have been shown to have evolved disproportionately larger
| within early hominins [2], and are theorized to be equally
| involved in abstract cognition as in bodily manipulation.
|
| The relative number of neurons is not evidence for or
| against the model, nor the fact that they were larger in
| early hominins. Showing their involvement in abstract
| cognition is more interesting, but that's only evidence
| against the triune brain if you make the _exact same
| mistake_ that you 're criticizing, which is assuming that
| "abstract cognition" is some high-level uniquely human (or
| primate) trait. If that exact "abstract cognition" also
| exists in reptiles and birds (and it appears to), then the
| fact that the cerebellum contributes to that cognition is
| _not_ evidence against Triune Brain.
| mistermann wrote:
| > They don't understand how models of the world work. Of
| course it's not ideal but it's a useful framework for
| understanding things.
|
| Based on the rather casual way the author is using language
| in this piece, I'd bet that the researchers forgot that what
| they are describing are (nested) model(s) of reality...or
| that that level of precision is "pedantic" (the consequence
| being the confusion in this comment section).
| EricMausler wrote:
| I'm not sure which side you are arguing for?
|
| Is the simple metaphor of 3 layers in the brain equivalent to
| saying gasses want to be together and solids want to rest?
|
| I think part of the debate in the comment section is on what
| kind of order / pattern we are trying to capture with the
| analogy. Does it make more sense to be analogous to the
| structural observations, or a more functional equivalency?
|
| You could say an ocean is like a desert in that they are vast
| and empty with respect to surface structures observed by a
| human traveller, but obviously from a functional
| /environmental perspective the two almost couldn't be more
| dissimilar
| achrono wrote:
| No, your self-appellation aside, you are not missing anything
| unless there is some really secret 'nuance' hidden in the
| paper.
|
| If the triune brain model _was_ completely false (as stated by
| the caricature of "brain is not an onion with a tiny
| reptile"), it would not be straightforward to even identify the
| neocortex -- how do you know it is 'neo', _what_ is it a 'neo'
| of and so on?
|
| So the fact that we can meaningfully talk about these areas of
| the brain suggests that there is in fact continuity and
| building-upon happening in our evolutionary journey, although
| of course it's not like the cartoon they show (which I have
| never seen before from anyone seriously talking about this
| topic, I might add).
| tiberious726 wrote:
| It's not TFA's actual thesis, but here's a _much_ more powerful
| rebuttal of the triune brain and similar mental models if
| you're interested (from the perspective of what is the sheer
| idea of rationality) Matthew Boyle's "Tack-on Theories of
| Rationality":
| https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8641840/Additive...
| rexpop wrote:
| > we have a basal ganglia which evolved from reptiles
|
| And do living reptiles, today, not also "have a basal ganglia
| which evolved from reptiles?" seems we've a name collision,
| here. Perhaps we should refer to our ancestors as "proto-
| reptiles," or else our contemporaneous cousins as "post-
| reptiles" whose brains have had just as many years' time to
| depart from our common reptilique ancestor.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| We're reptiles (as are all mammals, all birds, etc).
|
| My understanding of that is that all reptiles have a basal
| ganglia, because it was inherited from the common ancestor of
| reptiles.
|
| And non-reptiles don't have a basal ganglia because _their_
| ancestors didn 't have one.
| dillydogg wrote:
| What? Mammals appear in a separate branch of amniotes apart
| from Reptiles/Birds/Crocodilians
|
| Mammals and reptiles share a common ancestor with an
| ancient amniote, not a reptile
| gowld wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsid
|
| > Synapsids[a] are one of the two major clades of
| vertebrate animals that evolved from basal amniotes, the
| other being the sauropsids, which include reptiles
| (turtles, crocodilians and lepidosaurs) and birds.
|
| > the only extant group that survived into the Cenozoic
| are the mammals.
|
| > The animals (basal amniotes) from which non-mammalian
| synapsids evolved were traditionally called "reptiles".
|
| > It is now known that all extant animals traditionally
| called "reptiles" are more closely related to each other
| than to synapsids, so the word "reptile" has been re-
| defined to mean only members of Sauropsida (bird-line
| Amniota) or even just an under-clade thereof
| csours wrote:
| > "The triune brain hypothesis doesn't seem "wrong", it just
| seems like a simple categorization that is useful to the
| layperson."
|
| Yes. Anything this simple will be wrong. Almost everything you
| learn in school before graduate level courses will be wrong.
| Most of it won't matter to you unless you start working in that
| field.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| [1] is a nice book that explains in the first chapter why all
| science is wrong and gets replaced by a less wrong model, in
| steps. In fact the author argues that all those wrong models
| are perfectly fine and usable, for their period of time and
| applications.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Is_Not_What_It_Seems
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Almost everything you learn in school before graduate level
| courses will be wrong.
|
| From what I understand, in many fields its pretty clear that
| most of the stuff in graduate courses is, too, its just that
| then next step _toward_ right is less clear and more disputed
| than for the earlier wrong stuff.
| KMag wrote:
| "All models are wrong, but some are useful" - George Box
| xg15 wrote:
| > _and 3) that evolution modifies existing brain structures in
| addition to adding new layers._
|
| As I understood it, their point was that evolution does _not_
| add new layers, evolution of the brain always happens by
| modifying the existing structure.
|
| Which is why a "stratified" view of the brain with evolutionary
| older layers near the center and newer layers near the surface
| is incorrect.
|
| The implications of this belief then led to incorrect
| assumptions about both humans and (non-human) animals: That the
| human brain is an "animal brain plus something else" and
| therefore automatically superior - and inversely that animal
| brains are "human brains minus something" and therefore
| automatically inferior. The article argues against both
| positions.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| Is the neocortex not an outer layer? That is not present in
| reptiles? So how is the stratified model incorrect as a high-
| level structural categorization?
|
| The triune model doesn't claim our brain grows additively in
| rings like trees. It's merely an observation about the
| primary evolutionary origins of the _three_ parts. Just those
| three.
|
| And the superior/inferior characterization is not part of the
| triune model. You are free to interpret it that way if you
| want, but it's not part of it, so it's not a rebuttal.
| shevis wrote:
| > Is the neocortex not an outer layer?
|
| It seems like this is what they are refuting. It is not so
| much a new layer as it is an evolution of existing
| structure.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Of course it's a layer. It's a layer that itself is made
| up of 6 sublayers. This is not up for debate:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocortex
|
| It clearly states:
|
| > _The six-layer cortex appears to be a distinguishing
| feature of mammals; it has been found in the brains of
| all mammals, but not in any other animals._
|
| What it evolved _out_ of is entirely irrelevant --
| everything evolves out of something else in some fashion.
| civilitty wrote:
| While the neocortex does have distinct layers, the
| neocortex itself is not "layered" around the rest of the
| brain - it's deeply integrated all over the place with
| the rest of the brain and nervous system. There is no
| hierarchical relationship between the neocortex and
| different systems it integrates with.
|
| The reptilian equivalent to the neocortex is the dorsal
| ventricular ridge which evolved separately and in
| parallel. This presents two problems to the hypothesis:
| first the much simpler DVR serves much of the same
| purpose as the neocortex which was completely unknown at
| the time and second the most interesting bird species
| (the smartest ones) often don't have an equivalent
| structure at all. There isn't even a clear relationship
| between intelligence, complexity, evolutionary age, etc.
| After 250 million years of evolution any similarities are
| accidents of random convergence.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _Is the neocortex not an outer layer? That is not present
| in reptiles? So how is the stratified model incorrect as a
| high-level structural categorization?_
|
| Not sure about reptiles, but the author write this about
| mammals:
|
| > _Neurobiologists do not debate whether any cortical
| regions are evolutionarily newer in some mammals than
| others. To be clear, even the prefrontal cortex, a region
| associated with reason and action planning, is not a
| uniquely human structure. Although there is debate
| concerning the relative size of the prefrontal cortex in
| humans compared with nonhuman animals (Passingham & Smaers,
| 2014; Sherwood, Bauernfeind, Bianchi, Raghanti, & Hof,
| 2012; Teffer & Semendeferi, 2012), all mammals have a
| prefrontal cortex._
|
| I also read some interesting papers a few years ago about
| corvids - particular New Caledonian Crows: Those animals do
| not have a neocortex and hence were thought incapable of
| many higher-level cognitive tasks, such as planning, tool
| use, etc. Turned out the crows were in fact capable of
| them. One hypothesis I read suggested that, as crow brains
| are structured differently, another structure may have
| taken the role that the neocortex has in humans.
|
| So even if it's an anatomical distinction, it's an
| unreliable indicator of mental capacity.
| crazygringo wrote:
| OK, but again -- none of that refutes the triune brain
| hypothesis at all.
|
| Literally nobody is claiming that only humans have
| neocortexes.
|
| Nor is anyone claiming it's an indicator of mental
| _capacity_. The recent discoveries about crows were
| interesting, but that doesn 't have anything to do with
| the fact that the neocortex in mammals plays a
| particular, functional, well-recognized role.
| theptip wrote:
| The refutation is of the idea that it's a strictly
| chronological layering, with the old layers inside and
| intact.
|
| The correct view is that while the neocortex is indeed
| mostly new, the "older" more central structures were
| modified throughout evolution.
| JohnAaronNelson wrote:
| No one thinks the older structures are static. No one is
| arguing that. It's a simplified model about the origin.
|
| This argument is akin to saying we're not "newer" apes
| ala
|
| > The refutation is of the idea that it's a strictly
| chronological ordering of species, with the old species
| still inside and intact. The correct view is that while
| homosapiens are indeed mostly "newer", the "older" apes
| were also modified throughout evolution
|
| Obviously.
| theptip wrote:
| I mean... the quote from TFA that they are arguing
| against is
|
| > As Paul MacLean (1964), originator of the triune-brain
| theory, stated,
|
| >> man, it appears, has inherited essentially three
| brains. Frugal Nature in developing her paragon threw
| nothing away. The oldest of his brains is basically
| reptilian; the second has been inherited from lower
| mammals; and the third and newest brain is a late
| mammalian development which reaches a pinnacle in man and
| gives him his unique power of symbolic language.
|
| And they quote other textbooks that are making claims
| along these lines too; this is right at the beginning of
| TFA. So I think you are wrong that "no one thinks that".
|
| Of course they don't think the old brains are 100% static
| but there are claims that they are largely conserved.
| lukeasrodgers wrote:
| - The superior/inferior characterize actually is part of
| the triune model, Maclean's book is replete with language
| like "advanced" vs "primitive".
|
| - The point of the criticism is not that the neocortex is
| not a "layer" at all, but that it is not the case that if
| you were to remove the neocortex layer, you would
| essentially get the brain of a lower-order animal--but this
| is what is implied by the triune theory.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Also, it's not clear why we should accept that the brain
| would develop with locked-in "old strata" to a degree that we
| do not see in all sorts of other organs and systems.
|
| As much as people joke about having a separate stomach for
| ice-cream, I've never heard anyone suggest that their "lizard
| stomach" would handle certain foods.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Because the brain physically, anatomically, has these "old
| strata". Lizard brains are pretty much just a basal
| ganglia. Humans have a basal ganglia, and then extra stuff
| on top. Mammals, and only mammals, have a neocortex
| "strata" to their brain as well.
|
| I am not qualified to argue for or against the Triune
| brain, but it seems easy to see why the brain is different
| from the stomach in this regard.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Because the brain physically, anatomically, has these
| "old strata". [...] Humans have a basal ganglia, and then
| extra stuff on top.
|
| IMO the key is distinguishing between these two ideas:
|
| 1. There is a gross anatomical structure that can be
| linked to ancient ancestors with certain characteristics.
|
| 2. Those structures in living creatures are somehow "not
| really modern" or are unusually tied to the needs or
| limitations of those ancient ancestors.
|
| Consider your fingers: They originate from fin-bones ~380
| million years ago, yet (unlike "lizard brain") nobody
| talks about possessing "fish fingers" except as a fried
| food product. We also don't create narratives explaining
| our finger operations or design in terms of what ancient
| fish required or were capable of.
| snek_case wrote:
| In addition to this... Sure, evolution modifies existing
| structures, but if you compare a cat's heart and stomach
| to a pig heart and stomach, the difference is not that
| big, even though the nearest evolutionary ancestor was
| tens (hundreds?) of millions of years ago. Once a
| structure is in place and works well, you can certainly
| tweak it, but it's easier to mostly just keep it.
|
| Humans have a neocortex, but if you play with a cat or
| dog, you can recognize and understand the emotions they
| are feeling. Fear, anger, joy, anxiety, relaxation, etc.
| That suggests the structures responsible for those things
| in us are probably not that different from them.
| civilitty wrote:
| Agreed. Mammals don't even have the same metabolic strategy
| as reptiles - we're endothermic while reptiles can't even
| self regulate body temperature. Other systems fundamental
| to life like our reproductive strategies are also
| completely different.
|
| The idea that major organs are strictly conserved over _250
| million years_ while something as fundamental as
| homeostasis drastically diverges is frankly a bit wackadoo.
| [deleted]
| hn8305823 wrote:
| I thought the line art evolution images were from Carl Sagan's
| original Cosmos series, but it looks like they are slightly
| different:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZpsVSVRsZk
|
| The drawing of humans is from the Pioneer Plaque which Sagan was
| involved with:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque
| DueDilligence wrote:
| [dead]
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| This is an example of an article that claims to debunk something
| that nobody said.
|
| Anyway it was informative and clarified things nicely. Just wish
| it had a better lead.
| mrkeen wrote:
| > article that claims to debunk something that nobody said
|
| About a third of the article was dedicated to who said it and
| when:
|
| >> As Paul MacLean (1964), originator of the triune-brain
| theory, stated: man, it appears, has inherited essentially
| three brains.
|
| >> This belief, although widely shared and stated as fact in
| psychology textbooks, lacks any foundation in evolutionary
| biology.
|
| >> The most widely used introductory textbook in psychology
| states that: ... The brain's increasing complexity arises from
| new brain systems built on top of the old, much as the Earth's
| landscape covers the old with the new. Digging down, one
| discovers the fossil remnants of the past
|
| >> we sampled 20 introductory psychology textbooks published
| between 2009 and 2017. Of the 14 that mention brain evolution,
| 86% contained at least one inaccuracy along the lines described
| above.
|
| >> For example, Dijksterhuis and Bargh (2001), [...] write
| that: when new species develop, this is done by adding new
| brain parts to existing old ones
|
| >> Examples of MacLean model of brain evolution appear in other
| areas, including models of personality (Epstein, 1994),
| attention (Mirsky & Duncan, 2002), psychopathology (Cory &
| Gardner, 2002), market economics (Cory, 2002), and morality
| (Narvaez, 2008). Nonacademic examples are too numerous to fully
| review.
|
| >> Carl Sagan's (1978) Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Dragons
| of Eden, and Steven Johnson's (2005) Mind Wide Open were both
| popular books that drew heavily on this idea
| mistermann wrote:
| If the authors are going to classify colloquial language (3
| brains) as literal, their own study is then open to the same
| attack, and there is _plenty_ of material from even the short
| skim of it I did.
|
| "Pedantry" is a double edged sword.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| has inherited essentially three brains.
|
| fossile remnants
|
| The quoted text give lie to the title. Nobody said it was an
| onion etc. Just that it was built new structures on old, all
| changing, integrated more or less well.
|
| Not being pedantic, I don't think? The title is disparaging,
| deconstructing the idea to the point of ridicule. It's
| reasonable to say "Nobody said that!"
| OhNoNotAgain_99 wrote:
| [dead]
| ivanhoe wrote:
| So now we've learned what brain is not - but what is the
| biologically/evolutionary correct model that explains the
| opposite impulses that we all are dealing with? And why some of
| those impulses need willpower and grow weaker under the influence
| of stress/alcohol/drugs, while others seem to grow stronger?
| sdwr wrote:
| Three-brain structure (Freud's id, ego, superego) is still the
| best simple explanation I know. Maybe the physical reality is a
| bit different, but it partitions actions so nicely.
|
| Id - base impulses, bubble up automatically and subconsciously
|
| Ego - the self, the "me". Where the story of identity comes
| from, what gets judged in court.
|
| Superego - rules imposed from on high that restrict behavior
|
| -----
|
| I think "opposite impulses" can be explained as a form of self-
| control. Let's say I see someone I'm attracted to, but want to
| maintain composure and stay in a neutral stance. Left to my own
| devices I'll flush, and my eyes will widen, maybe I'll get
| clumsy. Bringing an opposite-but-aligned emotion in maintains
| equilibrium (anger, disgust...)
|
| I see opposite-but-aligned impulses with my dog all the time.
| He knows I don't like him chasing squirrels. When he sees one,
| he gets activated + alert, but redirects his energy into
| running a few paces the other way. It's a bridge between the id
| (Go! Chase!) and the superego (Stay calm, don't pull!)
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I never understood why the superego isn't me.
| mrkeen wrote:
| You don't need to. 'Superego' is an invention. You could
| invent your own abstract idea and call it you. Or you could
| simply declare that the superego is you.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I mean in the construct of ego/id/superego, why is the
| "ego" me and not the "superego"?
| sdwr wrote:
| Superego is what you are supposed to do, id is what you
| want, and ego is where they meet in the middle.
|
| If you are identifying with the superego, maybe you are
| in a situation where you more "have to"s than "want to"s?
| arrosenberg wrote:
| It probably makes sense to think about it as base-me and
| societally-influenced-me.
| csours wrote:
| The problem is that the world does not owe you simple
| explanations.
| cperciva wrote:
| All models are wrong, but some models are useful.
|
| Asking if the model is wrong is asking the wrong question; the
| important question is whether it's useful.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's useful for padding a chapter or two into self-help books,
| if nothing else.
| fieldbob wrote:
| Donald hoffman says something exactly like that in this talk.
| David Bohm came the same conclusion science will never fully
| figure it out the answer is much spiritual and imaginative
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rafVevceWgs&t=5117s&pp=ygUVZ...
|
| Why? because ultimately we are talking about a empty field of
| space propagated by light, similar to holograms. Things that
| grow here things that stem from this world do you think they
| really are what they appear to be? Of course not. So what are
| they god damnit? perhaps its better to not answer the question
| and like a good old mystic leave it be and open a portal to
| another dimension and have this experience for one self
| mistermann wrote:
| The errors/issues here are _much_ higher in the stack than
| what Hoffman and Bohm are getting that at the levels you
| note, though Bohm in addition to that also spoke a lot about
| language and communication (which _is_ an important part of
| the issue here).
| OhNoNotAgain_99 wrote:
| [dead]
| derefr wrote:
| I feel like the "lizard brain" thought-paradigm _can_ actually be
| understood as communicating something true /useful/important...
| but it'll only make sense to people with a good understanding of
| "speciated evolution": namely, evolutionary biologists
| themselves; and software engineers who've worked with programming
| languages that use prototypical inheritance. Outside of those two
| groups, the actual "intuition" for what the claim is saying, gets
| lost.
|
| The "lizard brain" claim, as far as I understand it, was never
| that you have a complete copy of a "lower" brain inside your
| brain. Nor even that you have specific structures within your
| brain whose _implementation_ was evolutionarily conserved.
|
| Rather, what I understand the "lizard brain" claim as trying to
| communicate, is that you have one or more _components_ of the
| architecture of your brain, where the _APIs_ presented by those
| components to the rest of the brain, have been mostly conserved
| throughout evolution. The components themselves may have
| internally evolved, but the structural boundaries between those
| components and the rest of your brain have stayed stable in a way
| that allows biologists to recognize those same _components_ in
| the architectures of brains in vastly different species.
|
| To put that in concrete terms: you and a mantis shrimp both have
| e.g. "an amygdala." The gene code for "an amygdala" may have
| differentiated between the shrimp and you, but there's still a
| conserved part of the brain's architectural plan that says "put
| an amygdala here."
|
| Now for the overwrought OOP analogy:
|
| If you imagine HumanBrain as an OOP class, then it's an OOP class
| that is a subclass about 800 layers of inheritance deep; with the
| root of the inheritance hierarchy being some prototypical
| bilateral-vertebrate nerve-cord class.
|
| In this inheritance hierarchy, each layer can introduce new
| "features" -- components of the brain that have specific APIs; in
| other words, members of the class with known interface types,
| that other parts of the class can have their _implementations_ --
| but not their own APIs -- altered to work in terms of.
|
| Under this mental [heh] model, the "lizard brain" claim isn't
| about the LizardBrain level of the hierarchy itself; but rather
| is that one or more brain _features_ seen in the HumanBrain
| class, are features that were introduced _in or around_ the
| LizardBrain level of the inheritance hierarchy, and whose APIs
| have _stayed stable_ ever since.
|
| (Also, if you're wondering if any real-world computer software
| has ever done 800-layer-deep inheritance hierarchies such that it
| starts to actually reflect this kind of speciated evolution: yes!
| The programming of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LambdaMOO was
| exactly like that. Why? Because, unlike a regular codebase, but
| _like_ evolution, LambdaMOO was a gradual accretion of private
| objects "owned" by amateur coders, where each dev would
| implement the features they cared about by finding someone else's
| object with that feature, and forking it [i.e. prototype-
| inheriting from it] to suit their own needs. There was no common
| codebase that anyone could refactor, so it gradually came to
| resemble an actual biological process.)
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I can't help but think of Win32 APIs from what you describe. Or
| similarly that "teletype" is a thing in 2023.
| [deleted]
| dboreham wrote:
| Countering a widely held intuitive model by...asserting loudly
| and repeatedly that it's incorrect, while providing no supporting
| evidence.
| nemo wrote:
| It's surreal to see so may people reading the article with this
| takeaway, the "What's Wrong" section seemed very clear to me
| and elaborated for a while including a number of citations on
| why the simplistic layer model was flawed.
|
| > providing no supporting evidence
|
| I checked, there's seventeen separate citations for evidence in
| the "What's Wrong" section as well as several figures.
| 3seashells wrote:
| The what watches from those eyes who can not see and see anyway?
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight
| Octokiddie wrote:
| > Does it matter if psychologists have an incorrect understanding
| of neural evolution? One answer to this question is simple: We
| are scientists. We are supposed to care about true states of the
| world even in the absence of practical consequences. If
| psychologists have an incorrect understanding of neural
| evolution, they should be motivated to correct the misconception
| even if this incorrect belief does not impact their research
| programs.
|
| The hallmark of an incorrect model in science is that it makes
| incorrect predictions about the natural world (experiment). What
| incorrect predictions has psychology made based on the incorrect
| triune-brain theory?
|
| I'm going to guess zero, not because the model works, but because
| psychology has made no experimentally testable predictions based
| on it.
| robg wrote:
| The biggest I've seen is that talk therapies don't work well if
| an underlying sleep concern is not addressed. Sleep as the
| parasympathetic nervous system is predictable from a more
| primitive model whereas a cognitive - behavioral model assumes
| thoughts can drive recovery.
| speak_plainly wrote:
| The goal of cognitive science is to basically build the
| foundation (the understanding of how the brain works) that
| psychology lacks and is a field that psychologists are actively
| contributing to.
|
| Ultimately, psychology was created as a pragmatic branch of
| philosophy with the understanding that we would not know how
| the brain works for quite some time but that we could still do
| something of value and help people.
| corethree wrote:
| Not just psychology. Even the claims within this very paper are
| hard to test. Anything involving evolution is almost impossible
| to test. The "science" is mostly observational and descriptive
| and arrived at through logical guesses.
|
| If all of "science" involved strict rigor to the "scientific
| method" we'd have none of the social sciences like anthropology
| or evolutionary psychology.
|
| This paper is simply pointing out differences in view points.
|
| I think the general idea in psychology is real though, the
| paper gets into details which is a bit pedantic. In fact the
| paper literally states that they are all in agreement that all
| brains evolved from a common ancestor. This would be the
| "reptile" and for sure common features in our brain such as
| serotonin stem from this "reptile" brain.
|
| Psychology gets a lot of bad rep for the reproduction crisis,
| but evolution should largely be worse because we can't
| experimentally verify anything without time travel.
|
| So it's not like this paper is about true science defeating
| pseudo science. It's all really speculative.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Psychology can barely make any predictions. This isn't a
| meaningless technicality like the not-to-scale diagram of atoms
| used in old textbooks. Correcting poor assumptions to find new
| models of understanding is still important in this field.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I think there's a good chance you are right, but academically-
| minded people have a tendency to hastily dismiss hypotheses
| that run counter to what they believe is a correct theory. I
| can imagine someone dismissing the idea that a psychological
| pathology is related to a neurological one because the latter
| is in the "wrong" part of the brain for the symptoms the former
| presents.
| [deleted]
| kbenson wrote:
| > The hallmark of an incorrect model in science is that it
| makes incorrect predictions about the natural world
| (experiment).
|
| Sure, if you are insular and only care about how it affects the
| field and other scientists.
|
| Sometimes these incorrect models are incorrect in ways that are
| really attractive from a narrative standpoint. The hallmark of
| _those_ models is to be used to spawn hundreds of pop science
| books that expound on those models in unfounded ways and push
| people into useless behavior, sometimes at a societal level.
|
| Maybe scientists and psychologists aren't using the idea of a
| lizard brain in experiments and current theories, but I know
| there's at least some laypeople people that use it as a way to
| explain their behavior or make assumptions about other people's
| behavior, or to form their own ad-hoc explanations and models
| of behavior based on poor understanding of even what was
| previously reported to them. I would hazard it's actually more
| than some, and a lot of people do it, with this or some other
| poorly reported incorrect model of behavior or how the body
| works or how the world works.
|
| Incorrect knowledge should be corrected. Leaving it it as it is
| leads to myriad problems, small and large, eventually.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| Well said. Just because it may be hard to pin down the
| consequences of the wrong-but-attractive narrative, there
| probably are consequences, especially on the long term.
|
| The "chemical imbalance" narrative with depression is also
| probably wrong: https://theconversation.com/depression-is-
| probably-not-cause...
|
| Is it really so surprising that these simplistic narratives
| don't actually accurately describe how the brain works? We
| should be prepared to admit that the brain is complicated and
| we don't really know it's functioning at a fundamental level.
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| Most of psychology can't be _ethically_ tested. It doesn 't
| mean the entirely field is not empirically verifiable.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It means it hasn't been verified, which means you can't be
| sure a lot of it is useful at all.
| corethree wrote:
| Scientific rigor has it's limits. Certain fields need to
| make intuitive leaps of speculation.
|
| For example the entire field of astronomy is basically
| unverifiable bullshit. It's all speculation. We make
| guesses on what's going on with the stars outside of our
| solar system from twinkling light that comes from light
| years away.
|
| Any science to verify the claims made by astronomy with the
| amount of rigor you demand would involve light speed space
| ships to go to those stars and verify.
|
| If we could do this I think you'd find a ton of astronomy
| would be flat out wrong.
|
| Nonetheless the field is still useful and legitimate
| despite the high likelihood a lot of it is wrong and
| despite the fact we can't verify much.
| pc86 wrote:
| Is there a reasonable distinction between "it's not possible
| to test $X" and "it's not possible to test $X in any ethical
| way?"
| john-radio wrote:
| Yes
|
| edit: I was trying to jokingly reply "Yes {smiling-imp-
| emoji}" when I realized I've never seen an emoji on Hacker
| News before - looks like they get automatically removed!
| blowski wrote:
| Perhaps one distinction would be that ethics change across
| time and country. So it might be possible to run a test in
| 2020s UK that cannot be repeated in 2030s.
| [deleted]
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| That doesn't prevent modern researchers from using past data
| collected via less scrupulous means though. e.g. Pavlov's
| experiments
| robg wrote:
| Especially since the master reptile - the adrenal cortex - is
| located atop the kidneys. Fight or flight is first an electrical
| relay to the hands and feet and heart. The brain in the skull and
| consciousness reflects upon what's already happening in the
| periphery.
| Cpoll wrote:
| > The brain in the skull and consciousness reflects upon what's
| already happening in the periphery.
|
| I've read summaries of these studies as well, but... the
| adrenal cortex doesn't have any sensory-processing facilities,
| right? In the end it's the brain that informs the adrenal
| gland?
| ozim wrote:
| It is also super important for everyone to understand that.
| Because our body is not "brain -> body control" most of stuff
| just happens and brain reacts.
|
| For overall health it is also important to understand that body
| needs movement and all neural pathways are also somewhat
| independent and also contain "intelligence".
|
| I am not neurobiologist so hope I am not going into mumbo-jumbo
| too much but I workout at the gym quite often and can observe
| over-training or how muscles often could still work but your
| neural pathways are done and you cannot hold the weight even if
| muscle/tendons feel quite fine on its own.
|
| It is also quite common knowledge as I read on the internet
| stuff on training.
|
| So in the end I don't feel body-mind separation is useful as
| much and thinking that your whole body is also ones mind is
| super important.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-18 23:00 UTC)