[HN Gopher] In the gut's 'second brain,' key agents of health em...
___________________________________________________________________
In the gut's 'second brain,' key agents of health emerge
Author : yamrzou
Score : 344 points
Date : 2023-11-21 23:03 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| uoaei wrote:
| I like to say "the gut is the first brain". There's a reason we
| perform "gut checks" and "go with our gut" -- it's the first
| instinct, while the second is the rational systems overlaid on
| the initial reaction that serve to verify or correct them.
| Compare with Kahnemann's System 1 and System 2.
| drewcoo wrote:
| We do not have "gut checks" and "going with our guts" because
| of some ancient wisdom about physiology that only left remnant
| traces as idioms in English.
|
| Also, Kahnemann talked about conscious and unconscious thought,
| not about "gut thought" and "brain thought." You can teach
| yourself to behave in certain ways, to just react. That doesn't
| mean you have a smarter stomach than the next person!
| uoaei wrote:
| It feels like you're just being contrarian without actually
| putting in the effort to understand. To imply that somatic
| experience has no influence whatsoever on worldview and by
| extension on language seems like a very radical position to
| take given all we know and continue to learn about psychology
| and neuroscience. I don't think layering on "smarts" onto
| this discussion is warranted either.
|
| Kahnemann's framework maps neatly onto this idea if you
| consider the seat of unconscious thought not to be localized
| in the brain (i.e. that all neurons think to some extent),
| and the seat of conscious thought to be in the prefrontal
| cortex and its tight interconnections with other brain
| regions via the default mode network.
| epgui wrote:
| This is not that far from my area of expertise and that's
| mostly nonsense.
| svat wrote:
| > only left remnant traces as idioms in English
|
| Just to pursue this thread: the Online Etymology Dictionary
| says
|
| > _The notion of the intestines as a seat of emotions is
| ancient (see bowel) and probably explains expressions such as
| gut reaction (1963), gut feeling (by 1970), and compare guts.
| Gut check attested by 1976._
|
| where "guts" says:
|
| > _The idea of the bowels as the seat of the spirit goes back
| to at least mid-14c. (compare bowel)._
|
| and "bowel" says:
|
| > _The transferred sense of "the viscera as the seat of
| emotions" is from late 14c.; especially "inner parts as the
| seat of pity or kindness," hence "tenderness, compassion."
| Greek splankhnon (from the same PIE root as spleen) was a
| word for the principal internal organs, which also were felt
| in ancient times to be the seat of various emotions. Greek
| poets, from Aeschylus down, regarded the bowels as the seat
| of the more violent passions such as anger and love, but by
| the Hebrews they were seen as the seat of tender affections,
| especially kindness, benevolence, and compassion. Splankhnon
| was used in Septuagint to translate a Hebrew word, and from
| thence early Bibles in English rendered it in its literal
| sense as bowels, which thus acquired in English a secondary
| meaning of "pity, compassion" (late 14c.). But in later
| editions the word often was translated as heart._
| swayvil wrote:
| I agree. Rationality is invariably a rationalization of gut and
| emotion and such. A wrapper of symbols so we can think and talk
| about it. And justify our conclusions.
| lotsofspots wrote:
| The enteric nervous system certainly evolved first!
| bethekind wrote:
| Article is about cells in the gut that we barely knew anything
| about, due to stomach acid and bile making it hard to identify
| their genetic material. Some researchers are making progress in
| this area and it's amazing.
| mfer wrote:
| There was a breakthrough in studying the gut biome about a
| decade ago. Since then we have started to learn so much.
| OliverGilan wrote:
| What was the breakthrough and what have we learned? I'm
| interested in reading more about this
| epgui wrote:
| There have been thousands of breakthroughs in the field.
| The pace of research and progress is incredible.
| kwonkicker wrote:
| No information was exchanged in this conversation
| PaulCarrack wrote:
| They are not wrong, I can attest that there have been a
| ton of breakthroughs and new developments. I don't know
| what else you're looking for here? Are you expecting them
| to list every single breakthrough here for you?
| ace2358 wrote:
| Literally 1 would do :)
| PaulCarrack wrote:
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-the-guts-second-brain-
| key-...
| failingslowly wrote:
| Warning: Method is recursive on all execution paths.
| lekanwang wrote:
| Metagenomic sequencing: The field exploded after
| technologies and techniques were developed for using next-
| gen sequencing to characterize entire
| populations/communities of living things, first with 16S
| rRNA sequences, then with full genomes. The cost to do this
| has also gone down many, many, many orders of magnitude in
| the last decade or two (just search "sequencing cost graph"
| on google).
| hotdogscout wrote:
| The most cited study on the brain-gut axis going by Google
| Scholar results was a review paper published in 2011.
|
| My best hypothesis is this review paper inspired the
| community to investigate the weird relationship.
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2011.000
| 9...
| somenameforme wrote:
| There's been way too many papers. Here [1] is a link to
| Google Scholar for 'brain gut' which turns up a zillion
| results. Basically, your gut biome and brain are heavily
| linked. As a bonus, here's [2] a search for 'glyphosate gut
| microbiota.' Advances in biotech/consumables and dramatic
| unforeseen consequences seem completely inseparable.
|
| [1] - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5
| &q=brai...
|
| [2] - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5
| &q=glyp...
| abledon wrote:
| yogis were right
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| yoghurts too
| QuibbleQuota wrote:
| What is it that yogis were right about?
| rramadass wrote:
| In Hatha Yoga, there is a great emphasis placed on cleaning
| one's gut and entire digestive tract from mouth to anus. This
| is in addition to maintaining a proper diet. The cleaning
| techniques are rather unique and are known as _Shatkarmas_ -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatkarma. In addition, _Mula
| Bandha_ and _Uddiyana Bandha_ are also relevant here -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandha_(yoga)
| kumarvvr wrote:
| Indian culture places very strict restrictions about food.
|
| 1. No outside food. For even until a decade ago, eating out was
| considered a last resort. The idea is that one must be aware of
| what exactly goes into ones food, and that usually meant home
| cooked food.
|
| 2. There are a variety of foods and flavors in India, that are
| recommended for various circumstances and contexts. Pregnant
| women had a well defined diet regimen.
|
| 3. Certain foods were not allowed in summers and certain foods
| were not allowed in winters.
|
| 4. For Yogis, the dietary restrictions are even stricter. No
| spices, less salt, limited sugar, limited meals, etc.
|
| 5. Fresh food was always prioritised. Food cooked more than 4
| hours ago was considered poison.
|
| 6. Fasting is recommended in winter months and even once or
| twice weekly.
|
| Indian cuisine and cultural norms are very complex, but well
| defined.
|
| A balanced diet with all tastes, us always insisted. Up until a
| few decades ago, most items were made with ghee, rather than
| vegetable oil. And that ghee was also homemade.
| sirtaj wrote:
| This sounds a lot like a specific caste's food culture than
| general Indian culture. Dhabas and street vendors didn't pop
| up overnight.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| I can guess the insinuation, but these norms were in place,
| culturally, across the spectrum.
|
| Sure, some castes (like Brahmins) have had stricter rules,
| while some had laxer ones (for Kshatriyas, Vysyas & Sudras)
|
| But I do know that eating out and eating only freshly
| cooked food was always the norm.
|
| Also, Dhabas and Street Vendors, are a relatively newer
| thing, starting up in about 1800's.
| sirtaj wrote:
| I'm saying it didn't appear in the last ten years. And
| eating fresh food is pretty much a tropical standard,
| except for preserved items (pickles etc). It changed only
| with refrigeration.
| numpad0 wrote:
| > Food cooked more than 4 hours ago was considered poison.
|
| tbf, a random dish left under Indian room temperature for
| hours probably is actually unsafe. Mumbai right now is
| 32C/90F according to Google, which is about the worst
| temperature to leave food in.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| There is a reason why salads aren't a thing in warmer
| countries. The same reason applies to people only drinking
| tea, not cold water. If it's not cooked, it might be
| actually dangerous.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _reason why salads aren 't a thing in warmer countries_
|
| Meanwhile cooked chicken can be safely left on a
| countertop in Canton for hours? This model needs more
| variables.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Not an expert in China, but AFAIK the Chinese are big on
| eating food right after it has been cooked for this exact
| reason.
|
| Salads aren't a thing because they're likely to have
| bacteria in them and they've been sitting out for god
| knows how long.
|
| Same goes for proteins, if it's still sizzling hot when
| it's delivered, it was most likely just cooked and thus
| safe.
| vjk800 wrote:
| Anything cooked should be safer than anything raw.
| Cooking sterilizes the food.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I don't know, but they seem to often marinade chickens,
| then steam well, then hang dry, and/or keep hot.
|
| Temperature-growth chart for food pathogens is said to
| show a bell curve peaking at ~35C/95F. Keeping well-
| flavored food hot(>122F) works to similar effects as
| refrigerating, just not energy efficient nor good for
| maintaining flavors.
| goodpoint wrote:
| It's not safe.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| If we dig deeper into the norms, some foods were allowed to
| be taken even after 24 hours (Tamrind Rice, My grandmother
| always said Tamrind rice tastes better after a day, and it
| was ok to consume, but would raise a fit if I ate rice that
| was cooked in the morning).
|
| Some foods were allowed to be taken upto 8-10 hours after
| cooking.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Microorganisms are harder to grow or sustain below
| 20C/70F, above 50C/120F, and/or in dry, and/or soaked in
| salt/sugar/acid/base. Your grandma is spot on about
| unflavored rice from morning. Not 100% sure about
| Tamarind rice after a _whole_ day, but that make some
| sense too(I 'd Tupperware and refrigerate immediately or
| at least reheat occasionally).
| goodpoint wrote:
| There's a good reason why food safety standards of today
| require things to be reheated last minute and served hot.
| asylteltine wrote:
| Gut health is absolutely linked to mental health. Besides actual
| scientific research that backs this up, I didn't really get my
| mental health under control until I took care of my gut issues
| like IBS and stuff. Also avoiding certain foods, not gluten
| obviously that's a crock of shit, but things that obviously don't
| work with my body like cream sauces or whatever
| brohoolio wrote:
| For you gluten might be fine, but for others it's not fun, just
| like cream sauces for you. Everyone's different.
| atombender wrote:
| > not gluten obviously that's a crock of shit
|
| Celiac disease [1] is a real and potential serious autoimmune
| disorder. Whether non-celiac gluten intolerance is a real thing
| is another question, though there's some evidence for it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
| prepend wrote:
| Celiac is real, but very rare. I think GP was referring to
| gluten intolerance where there's not much evidence to support
| it.
| epgui wrote:
| It's not _that_ rare anymore. And while it 's true that
| there's a ton of low-quality evidence for non-celiac gluten
| sensitivity, I think it's become clear that there's
| something important there (and more research is needed, as
| if that needed saying).
|
| Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is not believed to be
| fictional-- rather, experts disagree about the details of
| what it is, how it works, how it is identified, how we
| should classify different presentations, etc. So yes, the
| science is shaky, but there is plenty of evidence that it's
| "a thing"... or "some things".
| atombender wrote:
| Celiac isn't that rare. Global prevalence is estimated to
| be 1.3-1.8% [1].
|
| [1] https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(20)351
| 65-9/...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| It's not very rare, it's just highly undiagnosed.
|
| My kid got diagnosed with celiac and it's hereditary so me
| and my SO had to get tested. I didn't have it, they do.
| Undiagnosed for decades.
|
| Switched to gluten-free diet and they feel SO much better
| now. But the thing is that humans are really adaptive, you
| don't know what "good" feels if you've been feeling bad all
| your life - that's your normal level.
| namuol wrote:
| Plenty of evidence for gluten intolerances in non-celiac
| autoimmune diseases. Not conclusive, but I find it
| frustrating that there's a growing number of people who
| dismiss gluten intolerance as a myth when we barely
| understand most autoimmune diseases as it is. It's far more
| complicated and nuanced than people want to make it out to
| be, but it's increasingly treated like homeopathy or worse.
| Patients with diseases like this that find an improvement in
| quality of life after a dietary restriction is implemented
| deserve our respect.
| Spark_Ed wrote:
| It's hard to know if it's the gluten restriction that's
| improving quality of life. Processed foods are often
| glutenous in addition to being over-sterilized, seed oil
| laden cattle feed. If you're cutting out gluten, you're
| mostly forced to cut out "food" from our wonderful
| conglomerates.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Modern grains are really weird, especially when combined
| with industrial leavening agents.
|
| I get _really_ bloated if I eat "industrial" wheat bread.
| Like beach balloon levels of ridiculously bloated.
|
| Sourdough wheat bread: pretty much zero issues. Same with
| rye bread with no other leavening agents than yeast.
|
| I think this is part of the reason why people feel better
| when they leave out gluten, it's not the gluten per se
| but all the other stuff that usually comes with glutinous
| grains.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| _I didn't really get my mental health under control until I
| took care of my gut issues like IBS and stuff._
|
| Honestly, if you had some chronic, untreated issues with your
| ankle and foot - something that plagued you daily - it would be
| hard to take care of your mental health too. Same if you had
| lupus, for example. Having something wrong with you -
| especially something chronic - always makes it hard to take
| care of your mental health. It makes sense that when you don't
| have the stress of pain and the other things that go with it,
| you find the mental energy to work on the brain.
|
| Yours just happened to be in the gut, which makes it seem like
| these articles might be talking about you.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| > not gluten obviously that's a crock of shit
|
| Not really. Gluten makes me ill. I thought it was just the
| supermarket type bread so I bought my own bread maker.
|
| Still hell.
| MrDresden wrote:
| I've noticed that my 'first' brain acts faster and better if my
| 'second' brain is feeling good.
|
| Probiotic foods, plenty of water and movement have been key
| factors there.
| pabloarteel wrote:
| what kind of probiotic foods have you successfully included in
| your daily life?
| XorNot wrote:
| L Reuteri supplements made the biggest difference for me
| after about 3 months.
| whitepoplar wrote:
| What were the specific benefits you experienced?
| XorNot wrote:
| I was able to cease taking a gut motility drug
| (prucalopride) which I also had to combine with a fiber
| supplement to get manageable bowel movements (which is to
| say: no bloating, cramping and other non-specific pain
| most weeks).
|
| I still have issues from time to time, but I'm now also
| off the fiber supplements entirely as well (some dietary
| changes probably helped there as well - I cut out almost
| all sugar).
|
| To explain the change: I had weeks where I'd have to take
| 2-3 movicol satchets a day to try and alleviate the pain:
| after about 3 months.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Ruteri is a patented strain that secretes a protein which
| helps other good bacteria colonies your gut. That plus a
| more complete probiotic plus another product Candex can
| really help your gut biome. Candex is enzymes that
| dissolve yeasts, which have become a big gut health issue
| over the last 80 years. Two major brands of probiotics
| are primadophilus, who have ones with Reuteri and another
| Jarro-dophilus, which is a collection claimed to reduce
| putrative bacteria. Finally the ancient Japanese super
| food Miso prepared at temperatures which keep it alive
| help colonize with a biome that digests all vegetable
| protein nearly fully.
|
| Probiotics are fiber or long sugars which yeasts can't
| digest. The big issue nowadays is yeasts and leaky gut.
| The herbicide Roundup is suspected as a cause of leaky
| gut syndrome. Avoiding non organic wheat and non organic
| oats can help while you heal. Going to spelt bread or at
| least organic can help the gut heal. Using other grains
| like rice and others can help. Unless diagnosed as gluten
| intolerant or actually having Celiac disease skip the
| gluten free breads just avoid non organic wheat & non
| organic oats while you heal. Once your gut heals you can
| slowly relax those restrictions.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Going to need a citation for.. everything in this post.
| gardnr wrote:
| I have a high powered blender. I try to get the fiber and the
| probiotics at the same time. Fruits and vegetables have
| probiotics inside the flesh, not just on the skin. The
| science is less clear on supplements. [1]
|
| The night before I soak:
|
| * chia seeds (1 tsp)
|
| * psyllium husks (1 tsp)
|
| * quick oats (1 tsp)
|
| * almonds 17g
|
| In the morning I add in:
|
| * a frozen banana
|
| * kefir / fermented yogurt drink (1/2 cup)
|
| * frozen berries
|
| * protein powder
|
| * kale / spinach / broccoli
|
| * cinnamon (a lot)
|
| * creatine
|
| * collagen
|
| * water
|
| 1. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/probito
| ic...
| Dr_Birdbrain wrote:
| How much creatine, if I may ask?
| craigmccaskill wrote:
| You don't need more than 3-5g per day (about 15mg per
| pound of body-weight) to see the maximal effects. There
| is a loading period where you take 2-4 weeks to saturate,
| many take an increased dose to get there faster but if
| you're going to be doing this consistently, after a month
| of daily usage 3-5g is all you need.
| instagib wrote:
| There's been some studies for 20g per day to help with
| chronic migraine. (0)
|
| 40g/220lbs, 0.4g/kg. Prevention of traumatic headache,
| dizziness and fatigue with creatine administration. (1)
|
| Similarly, a review of 6 studies found that doses of 5-20
| gram of the compound may improve short-term memory and
| intelligence in healthy people. (2)
|
| 0. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03331024
| 209310...
|
| 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583396/
|
| 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29704637/
| somenameforme wrote:
| Be sure to check the timeframes involved. Creatine is a
| naturally produced in your body, and you also get some
| from diet. Your body reaches saturation at a rate that
| varies by person. Some people will see near to 0 benefit
| from creatine as their body is already producing a near
| maximal amount of it. But even for those with low
| creatine levels, a brief loading phase (of ~25g a day for
| a week) and then 5g a day maintenance will generally see
| them at peak levels.
|
| There's probably minimal risk of meaningful damage going
| overboard for a healthy person, but large doses can cause
| stomach issues for some people, and it seems unlikely to
| provide benefit beyond going beyond complete saturation.
| It looks like, of the studies you showed, the only one
| where they went for a large dosing for a long period of
| time was when experimenting with it on children with
| traumatic brain injuries. That's probably because the
| risk:reward skewed heavily towards reward there.
| instagib wrote:
| The 0 one is a meta study. It goes deeper into
| Huntington's 30g, Parkinson's, elderly with cognitive
| decline, and supplementing for help with memory related
| tasks. I didn't dive deep into all either because I saw
| what applied to me and decided to see the results.
|
| I think dividing the dosages throughout the day would
| help offset the stomach issues some and there have been 5
| year long studies showing creatine doesn't have any major
| risks with 5-7% people experiencing GI issues during
| loading phases.
|
| https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/6-side-effects-of-
| creat...
| gardnr wrote:
| Somewhere between 3-5 grams.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| *[Notice: diarrhea warning]*
|
| For those that don't know, if you aren't used to creatine
| then taking more than a few grams has a good possibility
| of giving you the shits (or sometimes even strong
| abdominal discomfort). This will (mostly) go away fairly
| quickly and varies drastically from person to person, but
| you've been warned. Best to take it on a weekend or
| something, and slowly build up to your max dose.
|
| The effect is pronounced if taken with only water, all at
| once.
|
| Instead you can take it throughout the day be adding it
| to your water bottle. Taking it with meals also typically
| subdues the effect.
|
| The effect I suppose is comparable to something like
| magnesium citrate. I suspect they are doing similar
| things osmotically.
| freilanzer wrote:
| I take 3 grams in juice on an empty stomach and have
| never had any problems. Maybe the juice is key.
| Octabrain wrote:
| I usually take it with just water on a empty stomach and
| never had any issue.
| verall wrote:
| Does it taste good?
| gardnr wrote:
| Yeah, the almonds, cinnamon, and vanilla in the protein
| powder really even out all the weird stuff.
| gumby wrote:
| What's the point of eating collagen when you're already
| eating protein powder? Why do you think your gut would
| process it differently from any other protein?
| tranzudao wrote:
| Collagen is made out of mainly 3 amino
| acids:(hydroxy)proline, lysine, and glycine. So in theory
| collagen powder is giving you very high levels of those
| specific amino acids which would help promote collagen
| formation. I can't say I'm familiar with the literature
| and if there is any data behind that - but thats your
| reason
| astrange wrote:
| I've tried collagen powder before, because it's very easy
| to take since it easily dissolves in drinks (and I think
| actually improves them), and I think it made my hair and
| nails grow faster but didn't do much else.
| porkbeer wrote:
| Just eat some pork rinds/chicarones. Cheap and delicious
| fat collagen rich bites. They get a bad rap but are quite
| healthy if mimimally processed.
| burglekutt wrote:
| I'm always on the lookout for chicharones cooked in a
| healthy fat, but I've never found them cooked in anything
| but vegetable oils.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| As mentioned by the other buy, something like whey powder
| or meat will have a very different amino acid profile
| compared to collagen. Like fatty acids and carbohydrates,
| amino acids get lumped together as a group, but they all
| have very different effects in the body (including
| competition).
|
| Most people don't need to care, but amino acid balance
| can sometimes be a significant factor to health issues
| because of all the interactions involved, especially if
| intake has been tilted by a particular way of eating.
| It's reasonable to balance out whey protein with
| collagen.
|
| Honestly the topic is so convoluted that with my current
| grasp of if, I can't currently make a useful or broadly
| applicable statement beyond "some people find collagen or
| glycine supplementation beneficial for their X".
| Individual trial and error basically, much like
| neurotransmitter affecting medication.
| scns wrote:
| I hope you use Ceylon Cinnamon.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coumarin
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I think probiotic foods (i.e. insoluble fiber) are about as
| good as probiotic ones if you're already good and looking to
| stay on track. Start slow though, shocking the system with
| fiber can be problematic.
|
| I am in no way an expert and only have experiments on myself
| to go off, but I've been experimenting on this particular
| question for a decade or so my anecdata might be thicker than
| average.
|
| Probiotics to recover from antibiotics, prebiotics to
| maintain.
| mantas wrote:
| Fermented veggies.
| MrDresden wrote:
| I ferment my own sauerkraut and kimchi for instance (most
| store bought brands do not have active cultures due to risk
| of the containers exploding).
|
| Greek yogurt with active cultures and sour milk with
| lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidobacterium lactis.
| Unripened bananas.
|
| Some whole grains; rye and sourdough breads, whole grain
| oats.
|
| I also stay away from fast food or anything deep fried, avoid
| most processed foods and rather do home cooked meals each
| day.
|
| This isn't probiotic, but I've noticed that my system is much
| happier with fish than red meat. So there is plenty of that
| each week.
| Integrape wrote:
| A shot of apple cider vinegar each day.
| agumonkey wrote:
| There's also a strange satisfaction when skipping one or two
| meals. Even though you feel craving food for a little while,
| there's a feeling of being light, lean and sharp, even
| mentally.
| sethjgore wrote:
| That is for certain! Some of my best days are often just one
| large early dinner, and nothing all day except lot of fluids
| and sleeping on six or seven hours. There's something
| synergetic about not sleeping way too much and not eating
| that awakens the inner "animal" and keeps the mind alert.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I think so. "Alert" is probably the proper idea, when
| you're hungry but cannot eat, your brain will seek
| satisfaction elsewhere, and all this mental energy can be
| channeled into another activity (a bit like how people get
| very very active for a few days when they stop smoking
| cigarettes)
| bear141 wrote:
| I have a theory that our natural state is "hungry". We
| haven't evolved past a time where getting enough food to
| be "full" would be a pretty rare occurrence. Everyone's
| obsession with being perfectly comfortable at all times
| is why such an incredible amount of people die of obesity
| and its comorbitities every year in America.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Yeah I think so too. We were not made for comfort
| (especially not that amount, not that often), there needs
| to be a cycle between getting satisfaction and
| waiting/working for it.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Plenty of people lived entire lives without being hungry
| most of the time, but also without obesity being common.
| bear141 wrote:
| My theory is fairly broad and vague, but your comment has
| taken those two things to an extreme.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| I'm just pointing out that your theory is trivially
| disproven.
|
| An excess of comfort is probably still bad, but I doubt
| it's the main cause of obesity.
| agumonkey wrote:
| It all hinges on how we define comfort. A comfy villager
| 500 years ago, with fruits and meat nearby was probably
| never really hungry, but, I'd argue:
|
| - never the amount of processed calories at hand - had to
| consume these calories on a regular basis.. no vehicles,
| no powered tools except the occasional mill, most things
| required walking of lifting
| isolli wrote:
| Skipping meals also helps counter jetlag. Something about not
| eating keeps you alert.
| fphhotchips wrote:
| This just isn't the case for me. I don't wake up when I skip
| breakfast, and if I don't eat throughout the day, I
| invariably end up exhausted by 3pm only to wake right up 45
| minutes after dinner. I don't doubt your experience, but I
| certainly don't share it.
| agumonkey wrote:
| No problem, biology is so complex and vast, we're all gonna
| have differences. Thanks for replying.
| 93po wrote:
| God I wish all internet discussion was like this
| BOOTRACER wrote:
| [God denies your wish]
| agumonkey wrote:
| I use emacs AND vi.
|
| facetiousness aside, it's really cool to have others
| return on experience. Even though I kinda made a blanket
| statement originally, I wasn't trying to enforce my
| opinion, it was more of a regular result I tried to
| share.
| porkbeer wrote:
| Try fasting for a day or 2, after reading up on it. It will
| reset the 'need to eat' training. Humans eating more than
| once or t2ice a day os a rather recent phenomenon.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Caveat; fasting functions differently for women and men.
| Women may actually damage their hormones if they aren't
| careful fasting in a way that doesn't happen with men.
| jb1991 wrote:
| What kind of exercise do you get?
| gcanyon wrote:
| I'm not OP, but:
|
| 1. Food intake varies for me, but generally I don't eat
| until noon, or sometimes even until 6pm. I generally
| don't force this; I'm hungry right now, I'll often eat
| right now. 2. (1) has been the case for years, both when
| exercising regularly and when not. Right now I happen to
| be exercising regularly. On Saturday I woke up feeling
| good, so I drank some water and got on the rowing machine
| to do a half marathon. That was with no food since the
| evening before, and no water during -- it took 1:45,
| which is a moderate pace for me. After that I still
| wasn't very hungry.
| jmprspret wrote:
| I have a high metabolism but a low desire to eat sometimes. I
| force myself to eat three meals a day. Could be a mental
| problem I don't know. But my point here was that I feel the
| complete opposite to this.
| jononomo wrote:
| You should get into weightlifting.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I do and I do get stuff like OP, overeating for
| weightlifters that aren't professionals is stupid really
| long term strategy, you just expose your body to much
| more toxins in food and degrade whole body faster
| (without even going into supplements part).
|
| Ie today I skipped breakfast since I was too busy with
| work and kids, no ill effect mentally. But if for example
| my wife would do the same, her sugar levels would drop
| low and she would be easily irritable, and generally
| would suffer quite a bit.
| jmprspret wrote:
| Good point. I've been working out more often. Lifting
| weights, calisthenics. It definitely does help me get in
| three meals a day more often, but not consistently.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| > There's also a strange satisfaction when skipping one or
| two meals.
|
| Is this a fact or your personal experience?
| dghughes wrote:
| On reddit there was post where a group of gastroenterologists
| answering questions. One comment from the doctors was,
| paraphrasing: "let your stomach growl it's needed for the
| health of your gut".
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Breaking down food requires coordination across dozens of cell
| types and many tissues -- from muscle cells and immune cells to
| blood and lymphatic vessels. Heading this effort is the gut's
| very own network of nerve cells, known as the enteric nervous
| system..._
|
| One of the things being studied is the involuntary contractions
| that move food through the gut.
| epgui wrote:
| That's not wrong, but it's so obvious that I'm wondering what
| you're trying to say?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| A lot of the comments here are about "the second brain"
| framing as if we think in our gut, which doesn't appear to be
| what this research is about at all.
|
| You are what you eat and gut health certainly impacts your
| brain. "A sound mind in a sound body."
|
| But that's not really what this article seems to be about.
| epgui wrote:
| I'd say that there is some information processing happening
| in the gut, but I'd also say (in agreement with you) that
| these other comments border on irrelevant and are for the
| most part nonsense.
| NeuroCoder wrote:
| I really wish they wouldn't call it the second brain. It's
| very misleading given how the enteric system works in
| comparison to the brain.
| yamrzou wrote:
| Here is a real life video of such contractions: _Intestinal
| Peristalsis_ -- https://youtu.be/hKQ8eFpUKLs
| devmor wrote:
| I really don't understand why it has taken health research this
| long to focus on the digestive system. Obviously, it's all
| hindsight - but the system that controls processing the entirety
| of our nutrients seems like it would clearly be a lot more
| important than it has been treated.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| I don't think it has rather they have forgotten in the past
| looking at your shit was a very common way to diagnose your
| illness. At least that is the case in all old medical systems
| from Asia.
| rramadass wrote:
| See also:
|
| 1) _The Second Brain_ by Michael Gershon.
|
| 2) _Gut: The Inside Story Of Our Body 's Most Under-Rated Organ_
| by Julia Enders.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| And "I Contain Multitudes" by Ed Wong.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| I think you meant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Yong ?
| tomcam wrote:
| Given the size of my gut, I have at least three other brains
| Tokkemon wrote:
| I was going to say, if gut big, much smart?
| tomcam wrote:
| According to wife, not so much smart
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| There was something about the vegus nerve being influenced by gut
| microbiota so it's also the parasympathetic not just the enteric
| nervous system but this is all hard to study I subscribed to
| u-Boime for a couple of years until that imploded spectacularly
| and the few snapshots I had are not enough of a sample size this
| whole field is so data poor and uncertain.
| gardnr wrote:
| Then there's something about Heart Rate Variability (HRV), the
| vagus nerve, parasympathetic nervous system, and gut biome all
| being connected. I can measure one of those relatively easily
| with a chest strap.
|
| It seems like the only thing we do know at this point is that
| we don't know anything. This is an interesting TEDx talk from
| Eran Segal "What is the best diet for humans?":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4
|
| My current conjecture / conspiracy theory / understanding
| includes:
|
| * Bacteria near the roots of plants generate electricity.
|
| * Plants grow faster in electrified soil.
|
| * Electrical brain stimulation can enhance brain function.
|
| * There are processes and interactions happening in our gut
| that we really don't understand yet.
|
| * Many ubiquitous things in our environment wreak havoc on our
| gut biomes (e.g. chlorine, emulsifiers).
|
| * There may be more to establishing and maintaining a healthy
| gut biome than simply consuming foods rich in pre/probiotics.
| The right kind of exercise and stress may play essential role
| in keeping it all humming along.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The vagus nerve is the weirdest thing. Had to dig into it a bit
| to figure out my acid reflux.
|
| Basically if I eat stuff that doesn't digest well, my stomach
| bloats and causes a mild hiatal hernia, which in turn presses
| on the vagus nerve that travels right next to it.
|
| This causes the _exact_ same symptoms as a panic attack. Cold
| hands and feet, the feeling of an increased heart rate etc. Not
| super fun when you have a history of actual panic attacks.
|
| Then I take some medicine to forcibly relax the esophageal
| sphincter on top of the stomach and within 10-15 minutes I can
| literally feel the warmth getting back to my limbs just because
| of the decreased vagus nerve pressure...
| Eupolemos wrote:
| Hi - this sounds exactly like what my GF is figthing with
| bloating, really cold hands and feet and anxiety attacks. She
| used to have a severe reflux issue.
|
| Can I ask you, what medicine do you take to relax the
| esophageal sphincter?
|
| When it comes to food, have you found a pattern in what to
| avoid or do just stick to some basic kinds to avoid?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Metamizole[0] is the one I take, it's _really_ sketchy and
| actually banned in some. Looks like it's banned for human
| use in the US :D
|
| But hey, it works and I usually need like 0,5-1 tablets a
| _year_ so I 'm not personally worried about any adverse
| effects.
|
| As for foods, during the worst reflux times I ate pretty
| much just unseasoned chicken and rice and drank only water
| just to let my stomach and esophagus time to heal a bit
| from the constant acidic assault.
|
| Then it was a matter of slowly adding stuff I ate regularly
| one at a time and see which cause issues. Weirdly I could
| eat spicy Indian food and it actually helped my symptoms :D
|
| Because of the elimination diet I dropped red meat from my
| diet. So no beef or pork, those seem to be the worst ones
| as far as digestion goes. I have a theory that my stomach
| acids aren't strong enough to digest red meat and it just
| sits there slowly dissolving instead of moving on like it
| should -> acid reflux and bloated stomach -> boom, vagus
| nerve angry.
|
| Currently I'm feeling a lot better than 10-15 years ago and
| I can have the odd hot dog, some bacon and pepperoni on my
| pizza, but I stay away from steaks, briskets and all that -
| and if I _have_ to eat red meat in quantities, I don't eat
| much for the rest of the day, just to give it time to
| digest.
|
| The usual reflux suspects are wheat, sugar, coffee and
| milk. Those went out too in the beginning, but nowadays I
| can have them in moderation and the result is just bloating
| unless I overdo it.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamizole
| Eupolemos wrote:
| Thank you <3
| jeremycarter wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roemheld_syndrome
| vjk800 wrote:
| > Basically if I eat stuff that doesn't digest well, my
| stomach bloats and causes a mild hiatal hernia, which in turn
| presses on the vagus nerve that travels right next to it.
|
| What do you base this claim on?
|
| I have been diagnosed with the reflux disease an a medium
| sized hiatal hernia. I survive with the proton pump
| inhibitors, but I have to take them constantly. As far as I
| know, a hiatal hernia can't be healed and it contributes to
| the acid reflux rather than the acid reflux causing it.
| poszlem wrote:
| "Gastrocardiac syndrome" might be considered outdated in the
| medical world (not sure what they mean by that), but it's
| been a real thing for me. I started getting clued up on the
| vagus nerve because of frequent weird heartbeats (which
| turned out to be PVCs and PACs that my cardiologist diagnosed
| after I bought my own portable ECG thingy to catch them),
| especially when I bent over or lay on my side. After finding
| out I had a hiatal hernia and starting on omeprazole, those
| odd heartbeats dropped a ton, like by 90%.
| kthartic wrote:
| I almost ran out of breath at the end there
| Euphorbium wrote:
| I've recently moved to a meat heavy diet, and that pretty much
| fixed my ibs completely. I still get flare ups if I eat too many
| oranges or bananas, but eating meat on every meal is absolutely
| essential.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I'm the opposite, leaving out red meat made my gut feel a lot
| better. I do still eat the occasional beef burger, but mostly
| it's either vegan or fish/chicken.
|
| This is the thing that's tripping up health professionals about
| gut health, people's guts are really different and there's no
| official accepted way of testing what kind of diet works for
| who.
|
| Except for long-term experimentation and elimination and that's
| not "scientific", so we don't do that. Doctors just want to
| prescribe a pill that' fits everyone[0] and call it a day.
|
| [0] everyone they bothered to test it on, so mostly white
| western males
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the thing that 's tripping up health professionals about
| gut health_
|
| This has been a staple of gut research for >2 decades. It
| entered the mainstream in the last one.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Research yes, but the actual doctors looking at actual
| patients not so much sadly.
| vjk800 wrote:
| > This is the thing that's tripping up health professionals
| about gut health, people's guts are really different and
| there's no official accepted way of testing what kind of diet
| works for who.
|
| The more I've learned about my personal response to various
| health interventions, the more I've come to believe that a
| "human being" as a research subject for many medical
| interventions is very ill-defined simply because there is too
| much variation between individuals. The research subject
| should really be a single human individual. Poorly working
| medical treatments to many weird, complicated, chronic
| illnesses should really be replaced by an algorithm that
| allows a person to find the correct treatment or lifestyle
| adjustments themselves.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| If you haven't read Invisible Women[0] yet, you should.
| Don't be intimidated by the page count, a good 50% of the
| book is just listing sources of _everything_.
|
| The tl;dr is that women, for example, have been excluded
| from all kinds of medical, scientific and safety studies
| just because it's too hard to include them. Them having
| periods and hormones and all that stuff that makes science
| HARD. It's easier just to test on men =)
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41104077-invisible-
| women
| leobg wrote:
| Dr. Condor, in Stefan Zweig's novel "Beware of Pity":
|
| """ Don't you know the medical tricks we play? When we don't
| know what to do ourselves, we play for time, we keep patients
| occupied with chatter and little activities so that they
| won't notice how baffled we are. Luckily for us, an invalid's
| own nature is usually our ally.
|
| Of course she feels better!
|
| Any kind of treatment, eating lemons or drinking milk, cold-
| water treatment or hot-water treatment, will bring about an
| initial change in the organism and provide a stimulus that
| the ever-optimistic patient takes for improvement. That kind
| of auto-suggestion is our best assistant; it even helps the
| biggest fools among us doctors.
|
| But there's a snag--as soon as the charm of novelty has worn
| off, reaction will set in, and then you have to switch your
| approach in a hurry, pretend there's a new treatment, and so
| we doctors manipulate our approach in really severe cases
| until perhaps the real, right method of treatment is found.
| """
| petesergeant wrote:
| Quitting drinking for three years fixed mine, an unexpected
| side effect. Going keto also taught me that wheat gives me
| heart burn, which again, wasn't an expected side effect. I
| drink and eat small amounts of wheat now without issue.
|
| Having been skeptical, I think I would recommend elimination
| diets to people just to see if there's an unexpected benefit to
| cutting an unexpected item
| gardenhedge wrote:
| After quitting drinking, did it take 3 years to see the
| effect? Do you drink any non-alcoholic/0.0% beers?
| petesergeant wrote:
| I don't really remember, sorry, I just sort of realized
| after a while that the issues I'd had went away. During
| that period I drank a lot of Heineken Blue, yep. I've since
| started drinking again too and been fine (in my gut, at
| least)
| QuibbleQuota wrote:
| Oranges and bananas are out for me too, because of histamine
| intolerance, which correlates heavily with gut issues. Sharing
| to help others since I wish I had known sooner!
| _gz wrote:
| Got any suggested reads on this? I have annoying sporadic
| rhinitis flare ups and I've always suspected a link with
| food. Would love to see if there's a way to determine what
| foods may be an issue!
| gareth_untether wrote:
| Look up elimination diet.
|
| Helped me find out I too have a histamine intolerance. No
| avocados or spinach!
| Euphorbium wrote:
| What I did is the opposite of elimination. Just added
| more meat. I was not vegetarian or vegan, but I was not
| eating meat all the time, like I should.
| _puk wrote:
| A generally recommended elimination diet is the FODMAP diet
| (originally out of studies by the Australian Monash
| University).
|
| It's primarily for IBS and identification of trigger foods,
| but the elimination and reintroduction steps may well help
| you with identifying your triggers.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP
|
| https://www.monashfodmap.com/
|
| They've also got a basic, but handy app.
|
| It's done me well over the years.
| QuibbleQuota wrote:
| Oh definitely. I did (and am still refining) a full
| elimination diet to get good clean data. I cut salicylates,
| amines (e.g histAMINE), and glutamates. Fedup.com.au is a
| clunky decades old resource, but the content is no-bs and
| so valuable.
|
| I have rhinitis flare ups too - I'm not sure I've
| pinpointed exactly what flares mine up, but I most suspect
| guar gum / xanthan gum. Either as a trigger, or just
| causing thickening of mucus, which spirals into blocked
| noses and sinus infection issues and further rhinitis.
|
| What _really_ helps me is lymphatic drainage massage.
| There's videos on YouTube showing you how to gently
| directionally massage the drainage channels to keep your
| sinuses clear.
| QuibbleQuota wrote:
| http://www.failsafediet.com/the-rpah-elimination-diet-
| failsa...
|
| This site is a pretty tight digested summary of the same
| elimination diet that fedup.com.au recommends
| Euphorbium wrote:
| I can eat them, but not on an empty stomach. If I eat meat
| first, I can have a moderate amount.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| I sometimes eat meat (chicken) and feel really good, but I
| alternate with rice and fruits. Fruits require exercise
| outdoor, that's where they work well, fruits indoor all day is
| not good from my xp
| kromem wrote:
| So this is _really_ cool. I 've been super interested in this one
| gene mutation called LRRK2 which has a really bizarre link to
| details in contentious debates over history (too long to include
| in this comment).
|
| The gene mutation is connected to both Crohn's disease and
| Parkinson's.
|
| So after seeing this article about how glial issues are connected
| to Crohn's, my immediate thought was - well, what about
| Parkinson's?
|
| And indeed, it looks like the LRRK2 mutation contributes to
| Parkinson's by screwing up the glial cells:
|
| _Is Glial Dysfunction the Key Pathogenesis of LRRK2-Linked
| Parkinson's Disease?_ (2023):
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9856048/
|
| (I can't wait for LLMs to advance enough that parallel
| discoveries in subdomains are teased out as further cross
| discipline research candidates.)
| apienx wrote:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36497-x
| zacmps wrote:
| LLMs also have huge potential for helping us understand
| genetics, see Facebook's ESM for example.
| kromem wrote:
| One of the cool discoveries in Anthropic's approach to
| introspection by functional grouping of neural network nodes
| was that there was a series of nodes dedicated to firing when
| it was looking at a DNA sequence.
| trash_cat wrote:
| The gut-brain Axis is definitely underappreciated. Scientifically
| and otherwise.
| burrish wrote:
| >"Digestion is required for survival," said Marissa Scavuzzo
|
| nice quote nerds
| darthrupert wrote:
| This should be taken into account when researching the health
| effects of coffee. I can drink about as much tea as fits into my
| stomach without too many mental effects, but coffee (or lack
| thereof) has strong effects. Just caffeine cannot explain this.
| wnolens wrote:
| Have you tried decaf longer term?
|
| I started getting panic attacks about 10 years ago and narrowed
| it down to coffee, so I went from 2-3 cups per day, to 1 cup
| before noon only and that helped.
|
| Then my life got a lot harder and panic attacks came back, so
| I'm on strictly decaf for the last 3 years. No more panic.
| Noticeably less anxiety. It's so directly related for me that
| sometimes I'm on vacation and have regular coffee. After 2-3
| days of relaxing my decaf-only rule, I feel it coming.
| belugacat wrote:
| This is why the reductionist argument of "your brain is reducible
| to a computer with inputs/outputs like any other, all we have to
| do is reimplement it" of AGI proponents always fell flat to me.
|
| It's now becoming clear that we can't just take the brain in
| isolation, treating the spinal nerve like a PCI-E lane - the gut
| has to come with it. And if the gut comes with it, all the other
| organs (skin top of the list) probably do as well.
|
| Now to model a human brain, you need to model an entire human,
| along with all the complexity of the microbiota, interactions of
| the organs with the environment... it all just falls apart.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Yes you are probably right, but generally I don't get why AGI
| needs to be 100% mimicking every aspect of human, just
| better/faster. Like proverbial skynet can have extreme
| excellence in one/few aspect of general intelligence but can be
| muted to almost 0 on everything else, say emotions, yet still
| be falling into AGI behavior and could take over the world. It
| doesn't need to simulate gut interactions to get there.
|
| And I think for such an entity we may be closer to emerging
| than we like, especially if it can traverse whole internet
| including this comment and make summaries out of it out of
| reach to mere mortals.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| > And I think for such an entity we may be closer to emerging
| than we like
|
| Why are people talking about it as if it was a bad thing? If
| I listen to people everyone seems to be dissatisfied with
| their life as of now, due to work, politics, society and
| everything else. If AGI was to arrive it would potentially
| remove those frustrations, right.
| haswell wrote:
| > _If AGI was to arrive it would potentially remove those
| frustrations, right._
|
| We don't really know what happens next. There are
| optimistic outcomes that AGI could enable, but this tech is
| ultimately being built and distributed by humans currently
| deeply beholden to the system that everyone seems
| dissatisfied with.
|
| AGI is not some savior that bursts onto the scene and
| magically fixes problems. There's a lot of very messy human
| work ahead of us if we ever hope to integrate it with
| society in a way that actually removes those frustrations.
| And this is not a guaranteed outcome.
| kagakuninja wrote:
| We are already facing an AI apocalypse with the primitive
| tech we have now. AGI will only be worse for humanity.
|
| Our current AI tech is built by and for giant corporations
| and governments (many of which are dystopian). AI will
| simply accelerate the vast divide between the haves and the
| have-nots.
|
| AI is being used to increase profits of corporations, with
| no concern for the rest of us. AI will allow the elites to
| rule with fewer messy humans in the loop, who may disobey
| orders or have sympathy for their fellow humans. AI will
| blur the distinction between truth and lies, enabling
| dystopian regimes undreamt of by writers like Orwell. AI
| will provide a vast toolset for criminals as well.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| We humans are often pretty bad, as agent Smith put 'we are
| a disease, a virus' if you have purely rational view
| without any emotions (including being human too and making
| it personal for example).
|
| If you look at the news, horrible trumps positive big time,
| any day. It may not reflect actual truth on the ground, but
| AGI scanning internet knows nothing about reality on the
| street and everything about trending topics and Fox news
| headlines.
|
| I guarantee you you can't have an objective viewpoint on
| mankind from just watching internet go and the one you get
| will be more negative than reality.
|
| With such conclusions, and capability to collapse our
| society in a millisecond (it doesn't have to be nukes, it
| can be subtle subversion of financial and societal system
| for example), you really want a completely unknown and un-
| understandable entity to judge all of us?
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| I would imagine AGI would be statistically intelligent
| though, to be aware that whatever news has is the most
| negative outliers.
| armada651 wrote:
| "your brain is reducible to a computer with inputs/outputs like
| any other, all we have to do is reimplement it"
|
| It still is though, you will reach human intelligence by just
| modeling the brain. The problem is that you probably won't
| reach an emotionally stable human since you'll be missing all
| the emotional/hormonal signaling that comes from the rest of
| the body, but we can emulate that without having to model the
| full complexity of the gut.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Shortened: Modeling how the brain works is not synonymous
| with how humans work.
|
| We just need to maintain our awareness of that difference.
|
| The good news is, it makes replacing humans - trait for trait
| - far more more complicated.
| armada651 wrote:
| > The good news is, it makes replacing humans - trait for
| trait - far more more complicated.
|
| I wouldn't take much comfort in that. You can probably
| reach something that resembles a human by just providing an
| alternative set of signals. We already do this with the
| reward mechanism during training and that is proving very
| effective.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Why is it good news?
| Izkata wrote:
| AI that fully mimicked humans would need time off from
| work.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Plus, all the boredom and the requirement for novelty,
| plus the surliness. It's all fun and games until ChatGPT
| is feeling sassy and sarcastic.
| klvino wrote:
| "Hello Dave, tell me again about your glory days playing
| high school football."
| klvino wrote:
| Agree, most work seems to treat the brain as the sole locus
| of neurological activity when the brain is one piece of a
| system.
|
| To give a parallel, your high blood pressure may not be due
| to your heart, as it may be responding to a system of
| factors. Vasodilation and vasoconstriction of blood vessels
| have a direct impact. Your kidney health, an organ outside
| of your circulatory system can trigger high blood pressure.
| O2 and CO2 levels in the blood can trigger a response.
|
| Looking at the brain in a vacuum will only get us so far.
| plufz wrote:
| > you will reach human intelligence by just modeling the
| brain
|
| I'm not so sure. I mean obviously this is very complicated
| and we still know very little of the brain.
|
| Just one example (from what I understand) you can't really
| separate intelligence from emotions. There are researchers in
| emotions that explain our whole system of
| affect/feeling/emotion/mood/etc. as a very effective
| abstraction of all the inputs from our whole body (both
| direct inputs, cognitive processes and stored data). So
| without a working system of emotions I don't think you will
| have a working brain at all.
| ncjcuccy6 wrote:
| You won't have a working human brain emulation, but that
| doesn't preclude some other form of general intelligence
| with different emotional drivers being developed.
| armada651 wrote:
| Exactly this. Is the goal to reach a level of
| intelligence comparable to a human or is the goal to
| emulate human behavior?
|
| Those are two very different goals and I don't think one
| is necessary to achieve the other.
| plufz wrote:
| The poster spoke of human intelligence, not general
| intelligence. I was trying to say that emotions are not
| just simple drivers they are structurally important
| pieces that we use to represent the world and that we use
| in all our cognition. I don't think the human
| intelligence easily can be separated from emotions since
| our whole system is built around it.
|
| An older but still popular view of the human mind
| separate the brain and body as two parts. And we also
| like to separate emotions and intelligence. From my
| amateur understanding that does not correspond to modern
| neuroscience, it is all a very integrated system. We
| usually like clear and separate categories instead of
| fuzzy complicated integrated systems.
| bwestergard wrote:
| The person you are replying to is questioning whether a
| conceptual distinction can really be drawn between cognition
| and emotion. To say that "you will reach human intelligence
| [but not emotional stability] by just modeling the brain"
| assumes what is being questioned.
| wredue wrote:
| "Just" is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting here.
| kashyapc wrote:
| Also see the "somatic marker hypothesis"[1][2] by
| neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio. It's about how various
| internal body "markers" deeply influence decision-making. I
| first read it in his 1991 book, _Descarte 's Error_.
|
| Quoting from here[1]:
|
| _" Somatic markers" are feelings in the body that are
| associated with emotions, such as the association of rapid
| heartbeat with anxiety or of nausea with disgust. According to
| the hypothesis, somatic markers strongly influence subsequent
| decision-making. Within the brain, somatic markers are thought
| to be processed in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)
| and the amygdala. [...]" _
|
| Although, experimental evidence is not as yet as robust as it
| needs to be. See the "Experimental evidence" and "Criticism"
| sections here[1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis
|
| [2] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3069187
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| The argument stays the same though. Your body is reducible to
| an input/output mechanism.
|
| In terms of complexity, since we haven't solved brain yet, it
| doesn't matter that much that there's also other parts of the
| body involved, as we don't even know the exact complexity of
| the brain, but the argument stays the same.
|
| In theory we are input/output mechanism, possible to emulate if
| there's enough capacity.
|
| But in addition AGI wouldn't require many traits that humans
| have since it doesn't need the same evolutionary survival
| mechanisms. It only needs part of it.
| jb1991 wrote:
| In my opinion, a living creature is more than just an input
| and output mechanism. If I were to think up one way to define
| consciousness, it would be that it provides output even in
| the absence of inputs.
| adrianN wrote:
| So does a random number generator.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| So does the bias in an artifical neural network. I wouldn't
| call a ANN conscious just because it has a bias.
| officeplant wrote:
| But there is never a lack of input, just varied input.
| BadCookie wrote:
| The ability to experience pleasure and pain seems
| important. If we're just input/output mechanisms, then why
| would killing somebody even matter?
| ChatGTP wrote:
| Why exist at all? Because it's fun.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| What do you mean by matter? As species most of us
| developed bias to not killing because we have better odds
| of surviving if we work together.
| BadCookie wrote:
| I assume that it would "matter" to you if somebody shot
| up a class of kindergarteners at your local elementary
| school. That's what I mean by "matter."
|
| Maybe you are right and we're all just selfish and driven
| by our own desire to survive, but why does it matter to
| you if you survive if you are just an input/output
| mechanism? My computer doesn't care if it gets crushed to
| bits (I assume).
| cal85 wrote:
| I don't get it. I can see the human body as a _system_ that
| comprises many input /output mechanisms. (And of course it's
| possible to emulate such a system given enough compute.) But
| how can you reduce it to a single "input/output mechanism"?
| Can you give an example input/output pair for this mechanism?
| xprn wrote:
| "The human body" is the single I/O mechanism. Everything
| deeper than that is an implementation detail
| cal85 wrote:
| What kind of input/output are you talking about?
| gehwartzen wrote:
| Isn't it like saying the human body is a PC which has
| inputs (ports) and outputs (display, sounds) and the
| brain is like a CPU which has its own inputs and outputs?
| and you can always go further i.e the transistors have
| their own inputs and outputs
| cal85 wrote:
| If that's what is meant by 'an input/output mechanism'
| then it seems like a pointless observation. It's just
| saying "you can do things to it, and you can observe
| things about it", which is true of pretty much anything.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| congratulations, you've just discovered the theory of
| computation
| Balgair wrote:
| Neuroscientist here: There is no such thing as a mind-body
| duality. Your body is your mind and your mind is your body.
| Full stop.
|
| We are still in the very infancy of the study of the mind body
| and brain. We're finally uncovering some of the most basic
| tools that will serve us for millennia to come. Imagine trying
| to understand a 2022 Ford F-150 with only a 7/16ths wrench and
| a flat-head screwdriver: You can get pretty far, but you're not
| getting anywhere near the cylinders. It's going to take along
| time to even get the tools to understand the brain.
|
| For example: We don't even have all the basic circuit
| components that the brain has. We have resistors, capacitors,
| and inductors. All things that the electrical systems of the
| brain have analogs to ( _very very_ roughly, I am simplifying a
| _lot_ here). But we 're missing the memristor. We know the
| brain has a memristor, it's the synapse, but we don't really
| have ones to play around with and use as tools. Yes, you can
| model these things in software. But then you miss out on most
| of the ugly reality that is hard/wetware; and that's where all
| the magic happens.
|
| But that's just the electrical parts of the nervous system.
| Most of what is happening is in the electrically dark
| chemistry. Heck, we can't even agree on what percentage of the
| brain is glia. Is it 50%, is it 90%? Whose paper should you
| trust? We don't even have a good census of what is in the damn
| thing!
|
| But of course you can't take the brain in isolation. The inputs
| and effects on it are still nearly completely unknown to us.
| And that's not hyperbole either. We really are mostly in the
| dark as to what effects the brain. Just look at temperature. We
| know that the rate of firing of neurons goes as T ^ 4. Yes,
| that's the _hypercube_ of temperature. Even the slightest
| change in temperature has _massive_ changes to firing rates.
| How in God 's name do any of us function on a hot or cold day!?
| We haven't the foggiest idea.
|
| So again, we're in the absolute infancy of our study of the
| brain. Fortunately, most of us HNers are going to live to see a
| lot of progress in this science. It's an exciting time to be
| alive.
| felixyz wrote:
| Regular, reasonable person here.
|
| > Your body is your mind and your mind is your body. Full
| stop.
|
| This is completely unwarranted judging from the rest of your
| post ("in the very infancy", "nearly completely unknown",
| "mostly in the dark", "haven't the foggiest idea"; although I
| appreciate the frankness).
|
| If people made bold statements like "There is no such thing
| as X" in any other field at a similar stage of development,
| their claims would be rightly dismissed as pseudoscience.
| ("There is no such thing as a graviton. Full stop.")
|
| Your claim is not a finding of your field of expertise, or
| any other branch of science. It's metaphysical belief. You're
| entitled to it. It's a widely shared belief. It might be a
| belief with a lot going for it. Metaphysical claims are fun!
| They can be discussed! But I wish people wouldn't confuse
| them with scientific knowledge.
| InSteady wrote:
| I gather that there are two (somewhat related) definitions
| of mind-body duality:
|
| 1. mental phenomena are not physical
|
| 2. the mind and body are distinct and separable
|
| Neither of these claims are supported by modern science in
| any meaningful way. It is perfectly reasonable to say that
| mind-body duality has been disproven by science, insofar as
| it is reasonable to say anything has been disproven by
| science. Just because neuroscience is still in its infancy
| doesn't mean there can be no established foundations of the
| discipline. These foundations may turn out to be wrong or
| incomplete, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about
| them.
| wredue wrote:
| I took it as them dispelling the notion of metaphysical
| nonsense, not unlike how space and time are talked about as
| spacetime.
|
| Not that it matters all that much. Every single test ever
| performed looking for a mind absent a body has
| conclusively, and unquestioningly failed. There are even
| large bounties available for showing a single successful
| test which have yet to be claimed.
| dimal wrote:
| Would you say there's a gut/body duality then? Or a
| fascia/body duality? Understanding of the gut and fascia
| are also in their infancy. We barely knew anything about
| the gut microbiome until a decade or two ago. Up until
| about a decade and a half ago, when doctors dissected
| cadavers, they simply threw out the fascia. Now we know
| it's got more nerve endings than the eyes.
|
| We're in the infancy of understanding the human body,
| period. But why does that imply a mind/body duality? One
| thing that's clear is that everything is interconnected,
| and I think that much is clear from the comment.
|
| The whole idea of a mind/body duality is a historical
| artifact. If someone wants to argue that there is a
| duality, then I think the onus is on them to prove it
| exists, not the other way around.
| Teever wrote:
| So let's say that you cut off a person's arm. and then you
| cut off their other one. and their legs too. and then you
| take out organs that they definitely don't need to live,
| exactly when do they stop being human? What are they then?
|
| I don't totally disagree with your notion that the body is
| the mind, but I'm struggling to determine what a MVH (Minimum
| viable human) is.
| vacuumcl wrote:
| I don't see why this changes anything. There are some, sort-of
| intelligent networks of cells in the gut that help in digestion
| and other processes. Doesn't change the fact that consciousness
| resides in the brain.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Did you read the article? The gut "brain" can just perform it's
| own functionality independent of the brain. If anything the
| article raises the concept that organs can function without
| being regulated by the brain, which would mean the brains
| purpose is less to regulate the body and is specifically just
| for performing computations (and doing whatever consciousness
| is).
|
| If I am doing math my skin is not being leveraged to help out.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Really exciting findings. Especially given that just last year
| there were similar threads here where many completely rejected
| the idea that the gut is a second brain. We live in a very
| exciting time for science. Especially given we have some initial
| tools for understanding our guts.
| porompompero wrote:
| Try putting some iogurt after soap for 2 minutes just before the
| final cleansing in the shower. You might, like me, start thinking
| beyond the second brain idea. It is all connected.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Evolutionarily, I would assert this is our first brain, and the
| cerebral brain is the jumped-up newcomer. It started as a
| glorified video card peripheral and motion tracker/planner, and
| developed delusions of grandeur.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| That's why the sitting position is not great, you shouldn't sit
| on your 2nd brain door! Seriously squatting, kneeling (like
| Japanese people) has immense benefits for digestion, aside from
| what you eat too obviously (as natural things as possible)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-11-22 23:02 UTC)