Neuroscience and the Extended Mind

I’ve been reading a great deal recently about human cognition and the tools we use to support it. Where is the mind? In our brain, one supposes, unless it is placed in a vat, like in some scene from science fiction, viewed through Perspex, pink flesh and electrical wires trailing. That’s the identity thesis; where the brain is always to be found within the skull of the person to whom it belongs. And yet; the extended mind hypothesis holds that the mind is not to be found exclusively within the skull, but extends beyond the skin of the person, out into the world.

Opposition to cognitive enhancement still holds true; for all the resistance to drugs, and the fear of cognitive enhancement, the preference for talk therapies over chemical regulation, psychopharmacology and deep brain stimulation holds unprecedented possibilities, as yet not openly investigated. There is too much fear, an insistence on the inchoate prejudice of the internal, that the mind is to found only within the skull. What are we capable of?

New developments in cognitive science and in technology make this more of a possibility than it once was.  Humans have externalized information for centuries. Now the boundaries become blurred, what will become possible?

Texts on the subject:

Fukuyama, F. (2002). Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution  New York:Farrar, Strauss and Giroux

 Hurley, S (1988) Consciousness in Action Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press

 Adams, F and Aizawa, K.  (2008) The Bounds of Cognition. Malden, MA: Blackwell

Paralympic Pride

I’m a hypocrite.  I was taken aback by the groundswell of support for the Olympics; the huge, jingoistic outpouring of national pride, the plebs manipulated by the ruling class,  flung an enormously expensive spectacle to distract them whilst the government viciously cuts into the State, the corporate sponsorship of athletic excellence by the obsesity promoting fizzy drink and fast food conglomerates, and yet I’m looking forward to the Paralympics.

Apart from running, Iwas never  particularly interested in sport, and yet now I find myself partly immobilised, I am hugely active. Every day  I do physiotherapy, studiously going through my exercises, I swim and I horse ride.  Every minute, every second of the day, I am conscious of what my body is doing. Am I breathing properly? Is my back straight enough? Am I doing my stomach exercises? Are my legs tighter than usual, can I walk the length of the house with my sticks today, or are my feet going to give up on me? That’s what trying to recover from a neurological illness is like, and some people never recover. That’s something that has to be faced; as yet, medicine has no answers, so the only thing to do is to keep persevering.

That is why I am going to be watching the Paralympics. Because these athletes are incredible people, and because my own body has been damaged and I can’t wait to see their strength and what they can do with their bodies.  Unfortunately, not everyone thinks like me, or admires athletes who have pushed their way through illness and accidents, near death and paralysis, constant barriers and countless setbacks to become the elite. No, some people think they are freaks.

 I’m talking to you, Alexander Boot,  who believes that the Paralympics is a ‘sick spectacle’, a ‘freak show getting freakier by the minute’,  full of people ‘debasing themselves for cheap notoriety.’ I read his words with incredulity, but Boot’s own sordid preoccupations become unfortunately clear. He believes that ‘paraplegic sex ought to be turned into another competitive event’.

When I read this, I thought it was some kind of sick joke, a parody of a dirty old man, but no, Boot is for real.

The paralympians are successful athletes, admired, highly respected and yes, inspirational.  Now,  I was under the impression that a freak show is what used to happen where people considered to be outside the societal ‘norm’ were stared at as strange figures of fun , and laughed at.  Then they were hidden away from society, so that they wouldn’t offend society’s ‘aesthetic sense and the notion of human dignity’ according to Alexander Boot.

A closed man cannot empathise with the dedication, the determination, and yes, the anger. Some people might be uncomfortable with it, but there’s nothing wrong with focused anger. Anger is what propelled me, whilst paralysed in hospital for two years, to get my arms and hands moving again, to force myself through the pain to write my first novel. My interests lie in literature, not sport, but I imagine that it is this anger, the determination to succeed against all costs , to prove wrong those who don’t believe in you nd to be the best that drives many of the paralympians.

So tell me, Boot. What exactly is wrong with drawing attention to disabled people achieving, considering that disabled people still don’t have full equality in society, despite the fact that most people will find themselves with some kind of disability during their lives. The human body is fragile.  What do you object to? Do you think that disability is something to be ashamed of, and that disabled people should hide themselves away, so that people like you are not offended?

 In public space, disabled people, like everybody else, encounter idiots. The problem is that those idiots seem to imagine that they can behave more invasively to wheelchair users. There are physical barriers, hostile stares, people gawp, are condescending and make stupid comments. Or, when encountered by someone with a disability, they appear to momentarily lose all social skills. It’s fascinating to watch.

The very fact that the Paralympics exist at all is due to the persistent efforts of Ludwig Guttman, the Jewish neurologist who fled Nazi Germany and forced a change in attitudes to disability and in  the rehabilitation of patients with spinal injuries. He was the first to understand that sport could help patients who had been disabled to become mobile and to have pride in themselves again- a pride in themselves as people, as equals, and a pride that Alexander Boot doesn’t believe they are entitled to. Is Alexander Boot also disparaging the work, and the legacy, of this wonderful, eminent neurologist?

 The language he uses shows how uncomfortable he is with people with disabilities. Well, I’m not comfortable with nasty, prejudiced, closed minded individuals who disparage the achievements of incredible people. The paralympians have had extra barriers to overcome and they have pushed themselves to the limit.  That doesn’t seem to be something Alexander Boot can understand, although perhaps he might consider how he offends our aesthetics, with his  greasy comb over, this bitter,  old man, writing  nasty articles mocking those who achieve. People like Oscar Pistorius, or Martine Wright, who lost her legs in the  July 7^th bombings and survived to compete in the British volleyball team.  She calls herself one of the lucky ones. So, do you think that she is a freak, Alexander Boot?

 Check out this narrow minded old toad here (hint, he’s a homophobe too)  : http://alexanderboot.com/content/freak-show-getting-freakier-minute

Members of the British Paralympics Team:  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/22/introducing-team-gbs-london-paralympians_n_1820754.html?utm_hp_ref=paralympics

http://www.paralympics.org.uk/gb/news/im-the-lucky-one-now-says-eager-wright#

Oscar Pistorius: http://www.oscarpistorius.com/

Los apoliticos intellectuales

Un día
los intelectuales apolíticos
de mi país
serán interrogados
por el hombre
sencillo
de nuestro pueblo.

Se les preguntará
sobre lo que hicieron
cuando
la patria se apagaba
lentamente
como una hoguera dulce
pequeña y sola

No serán interrogados
sobre sus trajes,
ni sobre sus largas siestas
después de la merienda,

Nada se les preguntará
sobre sus justificaciones
absurdas
crecidas a la sombra
de una mentira rotunda....


Intelectuales apolíticos
de mi dulce país
no podréis responder nada.

Os devorará un buitre de silencio
las entrañas,
Os roerá el alma
vuestra propia miseria,
y callaréis,
avergonzados de vosotros.

One day

the apolitical intellectuals

of my country will be interrogated

by the simplest

of our people.

They will be asked

what they did

when the county was being snuffed out

slowly

like a sweet fire

small and alone.

Noone will ask them

about their dress,

their long siestas

after lunch,

no one will want to know

about their sterile combats

with the “idea of nothing”

They won’t be questioned

on Greek mythology,

or regarding their self-disgust

when someone within them,

begins to die

the coward’s death

They’ll be asked nothing

about their absurd

justifications,

born in the shadow

of the total lie.

On that day

the simple men will come.

 Those who had no place

in the books and poems

of the apolitical intellectuals,

but daily delivered

their bread and milk,

their tortillas and eggs,

those who drove their cars,

who cared for their dogs and gardens,

and they’ll ask:

“What did you do when the poor

suffered, when tenderness

and life

burned out of them?”

Apolitical intellectuals

of my sweet country,

you will not be able to answer.

A vulture of silence

will eat your gut.

Your own misery

will pick at your soul.

And you will be mute in your shame.

–Otto Rene Castillo

All in this together!

Do you believe what the government and the state media tell you? Do you pay your taxes, while the privatised companies and the ultra-rich and the huge corporate monopolies hide theirs off shore and pay a fraction of what they owe? Do you criticise the status quo, but then shrug your shoulders and go out for dinner?

The behaviour of last summer's rioters rioters was revolting. They may not have been able to properly articulate their dissatisfaction with their lives; on high rise estates, in a time of high unemployment, with little hope of aspiration, social mobility and hope for the future, whilst the super rich formulate global policies and plot the domination of their monopolies. But it was then that Britain became suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the stark disparity between the haves and the have nots.

Jurgen Habermas is German's most important living philosopher, and he is calling now for a halt to the mania for privatisation, for his criticism of the extensive outsourcing of activities which have been primarily the responsibility of the state to private companies, who are largely unaccountable for their actions. Opendemocracy calls the constant references to ‘outsourcing’ and ‘mutuals’ the ‘language of privatisation.’ Privatisation is expanding rapidly. Hospitals, schools, prisons,even the police. The grip of the private security group G4s tightens its hold on the land.Serco is the private company which has the multimillion pound contract to run the National Citizen service. Voluntary bodies will lose. They will have to close. The voluntary sector will ie off.  Not so Big Society, Dave? As for the treatment of the disabled, no government, no group of people have ever so disgusted me.  When ATOS, ironically sponsoring the paralympics, to lend a gloss of legality to their activities, is holding the blind,  wheelchair users, amputees, the chronically ill, fit for work, using a tick box computer programmer with no access to medical notes, when even the readers of the  right wing newspapers, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, begin to criticise the government and make clear their sympathy and solidarity with the people the government is victimising, those people that the government vilified for so long as scroungers, then there is a problem with government policy. People aren't quite as nasty as Cameron thought. 

In short, activities which should be the responsibility of the state, of the British government to its citizens, are being farmed out purely for profit, to companies who have been justly criticised for their utter incompetence. One has only to refer to the farcical activities of G4S and the subsequent need to draft in the military during the recent Olympics for an example.

This government is imposing a massive programme of austerity: one which has been imposed by our hapless chancellor, George Osborne. And what are Mr Osborne’s credentials, exactly? He has, from the University of Oxford, a 2:1 in History. One would need a greater knowledge of economics to run a Chinese takeaway.

Libraries are being closed. Where, I would like to know, is a bright child, who has no support or encouragement at home, who has a volatile home life and no peace in which he or she can work, to go,  if his local library is closed? Where will he discover his aspirations, what he might do with his life,  how will he walk in the shoes of others, travel distant lands?

This government is enthusiastically going for privatisation in a way that was unsurpassed even by Thatcher. Cameron, Maria Miller, Chris Grayling, Michael Gove,; none of them have a clue. Yet they all worked really hard to get to government, didn't they? They were never given a leg up by their contacts and huge wealth. They completely understand where most people are coming from, don't they? What most amazes me about conservatives is how convinced they are that they deserve to hold a superior place in society, their arrogance, an their overbearing confidence in their ability to lead.Rich boys playing at power; they don't have a clue. They have no idea what it is like to have no opportunities, or indeed, any options at all. Decent people are concerned with a more equal society. 

Ultimately, the state is necessary and unfortunately, people do not do the right thing without governance and interference. Corporations won't pay takes, bankers will cheat, the media will pay bribes and the police will sneak them information. Companies won't pay fair wages, and private companies will make a killing out of healthcare that many people can't afford. Ultimately, it comes down to, do you believe in a fairer, more equal society. Do you care about the collective good. 

Yet the British do not revolt, at least not intelligently. The BBC, the mouthpiece of the British government, and the main newspapers, such as The Times, do not report on the closures. Leave it to The Guardian, which is preaching to the converted. We know, but we are on our own. Tell the truth to those  who believe what they are told, tell the sheep who like to fall into line, what the future holds for them too, and who knows; perhaps change will come.

Vaclav Havel was the Czech dissident who l became a politician. He was an intellectual, but he put his intellect to good use. He didn’t lounge around Prague reading Sartre when his country was oppressed. he spoke out and he fought against Communism. He believed that the role of the intellectual is to uncover injustice and speak the truth. There was a reason Hitler and Stalin hated intellectuals. I just wish that the intellectuals in this country would start talking about the injustices of this Tory led government. Perhaps, however, they are all too busy watching X-factor.

 The Deapartment of Work and Pensions: own report on fraud and error in the benefit system. By own estimates, only 0.5%. Less than corporate tax evaders and avoiders.  http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd2/fem/fem_apr10_mar11.pd

False Economydocuments the impact of the government's austerity cuts: http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/repost-benefit-fraud-the-levels-are-very-low

The wily Tory assassination of the poor; vilify the enemy and then demolish them: http://www.labourleft.co.uk/the-tory-assault-on-the-unworthy-poor-what-kind-of-society-do-we-really-want-to-be/

Centre for Welfare Reform: a clarification of benefits:http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/type/text/unimpressed-camerons-ideas-on-welfare.html#.UA1RFUNmL7M.facebook

UK Uncut: Treasury Minister Gauke ignores £13 trillion in tax havens to focus on tradespeople
http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/blog/press-release-gauke-blames-plumbers

Europe and the Journey Into Fear

Every so often, when I feel that I have read everything I have been able to get my hands on, all the classics, the post-moderns, the surrealists, everything by Camus, Greene, Thackeray, Orwell, Moravia, and I pick up books and put them down a few pages later because having discovered what great writing is, I have no truck with the mediocre, the mundane, or the just plain awful, I discover a novel that strikes that chord, that reveals to the reader an entire world, entire psychologies, and entire social systems, all competing for attention.

My MA thesis is taking up all my time. Until it is finished I am unable to write creatively or take on paid work. I’m researching the legal implications of our increasingly sophisticated knowledge of neuroscience on memory, and I wake up at three every morning because whilst I’ve been sleeping my brain has been teeming with questions of memory implantation and lie detection and neuroscientific data, whilst all I really want to do is get on with my new novel which investigates the links between fascism, capitalism  and sport, and the corporatization of war.  

Journey Into Fear is a 1940 novel by the long neglected writer Eric Ambler. He wrote in the vein of Graham Greene, but his stories are more thrilling, less introspective and moralistic. I still prefer Greene’s writing, but Ambler is gripping. Set during the phony war, when France was still standing and Italy was neutral, the protagonist, Graham, is an engineer for a British armaments company, and the Nazis want him dead. Having been in Turkey on business, the Turkish authorities set him on a boat to Genoa, where he is surrounded by people he cannot trust.

The setting is claustrophobic; a filthy, tiny cabin on an Italian steamer, with only a couple of characters, all of whom are under suspicion. This is the classic tale of the hunted man.

In Journey Into Fear, Ambler was speaking for a generation that was now set firmly on the road to world war. Into this short novel, Ambler packed an array of intriguing characters; the debonair Turkish colonel, a sophisticated Spanish prostitute and her husband/pimp, a Romanian graduate of the fascist Iron Guard and assassin in the pay of the Nazis, and a Turkish secret agent. Graham is naive and out of his depth. Although it is obvious that Josette is a prostitute, that her financial situation is precarious and that the surly Jose is her pimp, his male vanity presumes that after knowing him for only a few days, she will be willing to lose work as a dancer and spend a week cooped up with him in the Paris hotel room of cliché, for mere affection of him.

But there is more to the novel than that. In the taut writing and in the successive dramatic episodes of Journey Into Fear, Ambler moves the plot relentlessly along with dry wit and acute social commentary. The world he creates is grey; each character is morally compromised, and the dark forces of Nazism swirl ever nearer. Ambler was a left wing writer, and his sympathies with socialist ideas lie close to the surface of his writing. His world is populated by the sleazy spirits of the European cafes and bars, mixing with  villains who are Nazis and fascists, bankers and industrialists, extreme capitalists with little regard for human rights and social justice, whilst his heroes are ordinary people trying to navigate this strange world. The only character that the hunted Graham comes to trust is the henpecked French husband Mathis, who tells him how he began using socialist commentary to irritate his reactionary wife;

‘For a time I was free. I could command my wife and I became more fond of her. I was a manager in a big factory. And then a terrible thing happened. I found that I had begun to believe these things I said. The books I read showed me that I had found a truth. I, a royalist by instinct, became a socialist by conviction.’

Mathis was a petit-bourgeois, but his experiences in the Great War of 1914-18  cemented his conversion. He explains his disillusion thus;

‘Have you heard of Briey, Monsieur? From the mines of the Briey district comes ninety per cent of France’s iron ore. In nineteen fourteen those mines were captured by the Germans, who worked them for the iron they needed.  They have admitted since that without the iron they mined at Briey they would have been finished in nineteen seventeen. Yes, they worked Briey hard. I, who was at Verdun can tell you that. Night after night we watched the glare in the sky from the blast furnaces of Briey a few kilometres away: the blast furnaces that were feeding the German guns. Our artillery and our bombing aeroplanes could have blown those furnaces to pieces in a week. But our artillery remained silent; an airman who dropped one bomb on the Briey area was court-martialled. Why?" His voice rose. "I will tell you why, Monsieur. Because there were orders that Briey was not to be touched. Whose orders? Nobody knew. The orders came from someone at the top. The Ministry of War said that it was the generals. The generals said that it was the Ministry of War. We did not find out the facts until after the war. The orders had been issued by Monsieur de Wendel of the Comite des Forges who owned the Briey mines and blast furnaces. We were fighting for our lives, but our lives were less important than that the property of Monsieur de Wendel should be preserved to make fat profits. No, it is not good for those who fight to know too much. Speeches, yes! The truth, no!"

It sounds familiar. I wonder what the truth is today, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in so many wars.  The petit-bourgeois read the mainstream newspapers such as The Times and listen to the BBC and believe what they are told, because they are under the illusion that we are living in a true democracy, and that what we are told is the truth. Sometimes, they wonder vaguely if it is the truth, but generally they tend not to question it, and if they do, they have endless debates based on the partial information and the half-lies that have been fed to them.  Ambler’s themes never go out of fashion, and all these people are still with us today. What Ambler wrote about is the material of reality; the people of the street, the evil of fascism and the greed of big business, joining together in a run down and decadent Europe ripe for revolt.

We have only to look at the disintegration of the decaying Greece to know this.