12 ms·

While the article doesn't state it explicitly, this seems to imply that there exists a level of feedback from our body to our state of mind that we might not be

by hliyan 6y ago

While the article doesn't state it explicitly, this seems to imply that there exists a level of feedback from our body to our state of mind that we might not be comfortable with: we think our thoughts are always our own and our thoughts give rise to our emotions, but sometimes our thoughts may actually be the result of something happening in our gut, heart, lungs or skin. We can never fully be sure because our mind seems to maintain a perfect illusion of executive control.

curiousllama 6y ago
I would argue that is more than sometimes. Ever get hangry? Or depressed 3 hours after you finish your coffee? Or irritable when someone wakes you up at 4am? Those thoughts you have (“WHO THE HECK calls at 4am?”) is driven by a physiological need (sleep) not logic, as it might be during the day.
- social_quotient 6y ago
  Aside: In the age of cell phones - is the old adage of 4am calls a dying thing? Speaking for myself I can remember when that was a thing and now that you mention it, it’s no longer a thing because my phone is on silent all the time. What’s counterintuitive is that in the age of instant access to everyone, always connected living, it’s significantly more difficult to get my attention at 4am than it used to be. Same for everyone else?
  - silverpepsi 6y ago
    Yes but I don't know how interesting it is, it will soon be forgotten. Basically I see a lot of observations like this, where people reminisce how things "used to be" based on the technological limitations of first gen tech. One guy was complaining on my Facebook about how the battery went dead on his car remote and he misses the day when you could start the car with a physical key. Well, from a UX perspective, the key was never intrinsically desired. What is actually desired is that "only authorized users can access the car and start the engine, and without any delay in doing so". Unfortunately for him, his new car didn't have as expensive of tech as mine. In my Lexus even if the battery is completely dead, you can hold the key fob close to the steering column and it can still read the chip. The ultimate version of the technology will have no flaws or caveats and just always work for authorized users without them needing to remember to carry an object or have batteries. So yeah the first versions of phones had terrible UX, they sounded when the owner shouldn't have been disturbed. But what we must remember is that this state of affairs should have never come to exist in the first place. It's just at the time, no one knew how to remedy it. This type of thing will soon be forgotten except for an obscure reference in history books explaining why some time period story makes sense (why the father got enraged at being woken up). Meanwhile, until then, bringing it up in conversation will be a good way to signal to young people that you are "really, really old". It is barely a blip no the radar once humans have had phones for 1000 years.
    - social_quotient 6y ago
      Good response and cool feature on the Lexus! Every problem is the result of a previous solution. What I’m curious about here is the fact that I can’t be woken up at 4am now. It’s an interesting artifact that I kinda see as a missing feature. Do I want to wake up at 4am for the right call, yes. But unless I’m missing something the caller priority can’t override my default silent mode. Before now, we trusted known and sometimes unknown people to not call at 4am unless it was critical, now I can’t do that. Maybe the unknown people broke the social contract for known callers but I kinda miss it. As my kids age, I kinda feel like I’ll need it at some point.
      - silverpepsi 6y ago
        I distinctly remember in the 90s thinking there should be a voice prompt for a password to incoming callers after a certain hour heh This actually has been solved on my phone at least, there is an option that it will ring through on silent if the caller attempts multiple times within a certain interval. This will result in you being 15 mins late to the emergency, but is pretty much guaranteed to work since in any big enough disaster they're sure to try multiple times. :) I think the phone should just explain to the person "press 1 to override silence", then you could enable it for known callers only.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  Happens so often. Every parent probably understands on some level that there's body»mind feedback happening. Oh they're cranky? Did they eat enough? Need to drink water? Not sleep well? Personally I find myself in a bad mood if I ate something too spicy the previous night.
  - byecomputer 6y ago
    The past few days my roommates have been gone, and my cat always talks my ear off when someone's not around that he thinks is supposed to be. And it's like, he probably has no grasp on why he's upset--he doesn't really have "thoughts" like we do and he's oblivious as to why he's having the emotional response he is... he just knows he's antsy and he wants to stop being antsy. Anyway, only mentioning it because I realized that's how I likely am a lot of the time: oblivious to myself but obvious on the outside.
ta8645 6y ago
I have the opposite feeling of not having control over my thoughts, they seem to bubble up into my consciousness as if by magic. My best ideas and most deeply felt epiphanies have always felt like gifts to me rather than as personal accomplishments.
- cghendrix 6y ago
  I have the same view about my creative ideas. It’s usually when I’m on a walk when they come to me.
mpweiher 6y ago
Do you think your gut, heart, lungs or skin are less "you" than the mind-meat between your ears?
- chiefalchemist 6y ago
  To your point, a human is a complex and highly integrated system. The separation of mind from body makes study convenient, but it is unfortunately a false paradigm.
- hliyan 6y ago
  I believe it was Daniel Dennett who said, "You can't cut my mind from my body and expect to leave a clean edge"
- PeterisP 6y ago
  There are approaches that would draw a distinction between the parts of your mind that are under your conscious control, and the other parts of your mind (which would likely include gut etc as described in this article but also a big part of "the mind-meat between your ears") which influence a lot of your behavior and decision making, clearly are part of the "whole you" but are not part of the "conscious-you". I.e. the thesis of such approaches (or at least some of them) is that if you define "you" narrowly as the things exposed to and controlled by your consciousness, then "that you" does not include a lot of your behavior and there is a bunch "decision-making hardware and software" both in your brain and your gut that is less "you" (for that definition/understanding of "you"). I can recommend a pop-sci overview of some of these ideas in a book by R. Kurzban "Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind" - there's a bunch of speculation, and we don't have a consensus on many (most) consciousness-related things, but it raises some interesting ideas that seem reasonable from that perspective.
wenc 6y ago
I think emotions often do arise from non-cognitive parts of our brain, and those parts are likely influenced by our physical body. I'm not a neuroscientist -- and am interested in opinions of those better informed than I am -- but I've read that executive function is controlled by the "upper brain" (cerebral cortex) while our baser flight/flight instincts are controlled by the "lower brain" (amygdala). While most of us think that the executive part of the brain is always in control, in practice we are very much influenced by the lower brain, especially in conflict situations -- we have instinctive responses around whether a person is someone to nurture, to attack or to run away from. And this is all occurring at sub-executive levels. In couples counselling, the goal is often to mitigate interpersonal conflict by employing techniques to quickly move the interaction from the "lower brain" (fight/flight) to "upper brain" (executive function). The usual techniques prescribed are to slow things down by mirroring the other person's words (i.e. restating and asking if they got it right), validating them without agreeing, etc. By doing this, the interaction turns from an antagonistic one to a cooperative one. (I've personally tried applying these techniques to heated online discussions and have had some success). This might also explain why when folks are under stress or under threat, their executive function is impaired -- possibly the brain is spending all of its "budget" on the lower brain.
- TudorBirlea 6y ago
  Behavioural scientist here, maybe this helps: //> emotions are strongly connected to our physical body - most emotional episodes are initiated by physical stimuli (see danger - fear) and also our internal states influence our emotions (that 'hangry' feeling) //> most theories on emotions argue around what role the cognition plays; secondary and social emotions require cognitions, but most primary emotions are rather independent //> there are 2 kinds of neural networks guiding behaviour - approach and avoidance networks - that span wide. The distinction between the 3 brains is not necessarily supported by physical evidence, other than the fact that avoidance nets tend to stay in the lower brain, while approach start there and end up in the upper brain //> decisions are mostly taken by the subconscious, our conscious mind is mostly a witness with some influence. //> spot on the counselling - the goal is to move from avoidance schemas to approach schemas. Happy to provide further info
hammock 6y ago
Of course this is true. There are more neurons in the gut than the brain. That "gut feeling" is exactly that. And the vagal response is the most underrated thing ever
porpoise 6y ago
The same feedback is also implied by the mainstream consensus of depression as resulting from "chemical imbalance", and more prosaically from sentiments like "I can't control whom I find attractive" etc. Personally I don't think the feedback exists but it's a very powerful view
vmception 6y ago
> We can never fully be sure because our mind seems to maintain a perfect illusion of executive control. People that believe this have the hardest time with psychedelics. There is a reason so many people other people accept an interconnected network that doesn't have a central nexus, only nodes. [1] [1] If you want a source for that, you will need to advocate for the studies or even sponsor one yourself to the standard of review you prefer.
- selestify 6y ago
  > There is a reason so many people other people accept What are you trying to say in this part? Did you leave out some words?
  - vmception 6y ago
    > *There is a reason so many other people accept the concept of an interconnected network
allenu 6y ago
There's a great book, The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, that covers a lot of this. From what I remember, experiments have been done that show your body can react to stimuli before there is actual neurological activity, seeming to indicate that a lot of our rational thinking about reacting to things is an illusion, and is actually outside of our conscious control. We only justify our actions after the fact. I highly recommend the book; it was quite eye-opening to me when I read it.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  FYI that famous result was recently debunked: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will-bereitschaftspotential/597736/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will...
pessimizer 6y ago
> sometimes our thoughts may actually be the result of something happening in our gut, heart, lungs or skin. Where else would they originate? I can't imagine a brain without any senses having any thoughts at all. I think it's more that a lot of us are secret dualists.
wpm 6y ago
This concept is explored well in the book Blindsight, by Peter Watts. Available for free here: https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
kgin 6y ago
I've heard it explained in other settings that "explanations for feelings" are almost always just plausible guesswork by the executive function of the brain, no matter how certain it feels. The story that I remember was of an awake portion of a brain surgery, where doctors were stimulating parts of a patient's brain to make sure not to cut anything too important. The doctor stimulated one spot and the patient suddenly laughed. The doctor asked "why did you laugh just then?" and the patient replied "well, you all just look so funny standing around in your doctor outfits!". It was the best explanation the brain could come up with for the laughter, the closest thing to "funny" or "things that might explain my laughter" in that moment. But the guess was completely wrong, even though the patient felt certain it was the truth.

by hliyan 6y ago

curiousllama 6y ago

I would argue that is more than sometimes. Ever get hangry? Or depressed 3 hours after you finish your coffee? Or irritable when someone wakes you up at 4am? Those thoughts you have (“WHO THE HECK calls at 4am?”) is driven by a physiological need (sleep) not logic, as it might be during the day.

social_quotient 6y ago
Aside: In the age of cell phones - is the old adage of 4am calls a dying thing? Speaking for myself I can remember when that was a thing and now that you mention it, it’s no longer a thing because my phone is on silent all the time. What’s counterintuitive is that in the age of instant access to everyone, always connected living, it’s significantly more difficult to get my attention at 4am than it used to be. Same for everyone else?
- silverpepsi 6y ago
  Yes but I don't know how interesting it is, it will soon be forgotten. Basically I see a lot of observations like this, where people reminisce how things "used to be" based on the technological limitations of first gen tech. One guy was complaining on my Facebook about how the battery went dead on his car remote and he misses the day when you could start the car with a physical key. Well, from a UX perspective, the key was never intrinsically desired. What is actually desired is that "only authorized users can access the car and start the engine, and without any delay in doing so". Unfortunately for him, his new car didn't have as expensive of tech as mine. In my Lexus even if the battery is completely dead, you can hold the key fob close to the steering column and it can still read the chip. The ultimate version of the technology will have no flaws or caveats and just always work for authorized users without them needing to remember to carry an object or have batteries. So yeah the first versions of phones had terrible UX, they sounded when the owner shouldn't have been disturbed. But what we must remember is that this state of affairs should have never come to exist in the first place. It's just at the time, no one knew how to remedy it. This type of thing will soon be forgotten except for an obscure reference in history books explaining why some time period story makes sense (why the father got enraged at being woken up). Meanwhile, until then, bringing it up in conversation will be a good way to signal to young people that you are "really, really old". It is barely a blip no the radar once humans have had phones for 1000 years.
  - social_quotient 6y ago
    Good response and cool feature on the Lexus! Every problem is the result of a previous solution. What I’m curious about here is the fact that I can’t be woken up at 4am now. It’s an interesting artifact that I kinda see as a missing feature. Do I want to wake up at 4am for the right call, yes. But unless I’m missing something the caller priority can’t override my default silent mode. Before now, we trusted known and sometimes unknown people to not call at 4am unless it was critical, now I can’t do that. Maybe the unknown people broke the social contract for known callers but I kinda miss it. As my kids age, I kinda feel like I’ll need it at some point.
    - silverpepsi 6y ago
      I distinctly remember in the 90s thinking there should be a voice prompt for a password to incoming callers after a certain hour heh This actually has been solved on my phone at least, there is an option that it will ring through on silent if the caller attempts multiple times within a certain interval. This will result in you being 15 mins late to the emergency, but is pretty much guaranteed to work since in any big enough disaster they're sure to try multiple times. :) I think the phone should just explain to the person "press 1 to override silence", then you could enable it for known callers only.
0_____0 6y ago
Happens so often. Every parent probably understands on some level that there's body»mind feedback happening. Oh they're cranky? Did they eat enough? Need to drink water? Not sleep well? Personally I find myself in a bad mood if I ate something too spicy the previous night.
- byecomputer 6y ago
  The past few days my roommates have been gone, and my cat always talks my ear off when someone's not around that he thinks is supposed to be. And it's like, he probably has no grasp on why he's upset--he doesn't really have "thoughts" like we do and he's oblivious as to why he's having the emotional response he is... he just knows he's antsy and he wants to stop being antsy. Anyway, only mentioning it because I realized that's how I likely am a lot of the time: oblivious to myself but obvious on the outside.

ta8645 6y ago

I have the opposite feeling of not having control over my thoughts, they seem to bubble up into my consciousness as if by magic. My best ideas and most deeply felt epiphanies have always felt like gifts to me rather than as personal accomplishments.

cghendrix 6y ago
I have the same view about my creative ideas. It’s usually when I’m on a walk when they come to me.

mpweiher 6y ago

Do you think your gut, heart, lungs or skin are less "you" than the mind-meat between your ears?

chiefalchemist 6y ago
To your point, a human is a complex and highly integrated system. The separation of mind from body makes study convenient, but it is unfortunately a false paradigm.
hliyan 6y ago
I believe it was Daniel Dennett who said, "You can't cut my mind from my body and expect to leave a clean edge"
PeterisP 6y ago
There are approaches that would draw a distinction between the parts of your mind that are under your conscious control, and the other parts of your mind (which would likely include gut etc as described in this article but also a big part of "the mind-meat between your ears") which influence a lot of your behavior and decision making, clearly are part of the "whole you" but are not part of the "conscious-you". I.e. the thesis of such approaches (or at least some of them) is that if you define "you" narrowly as the things exposed to and controlled by your consciousness, then "that you" does not include a lot of your behavior and there is a bunch "decision-making hardware and software" both in your brain and your gut that is less "you" (for that definition/understanding of "you"). I can recommend a pop-sci overview of some of these ideas in a book by R. Kurzban "Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind" - there's a bunch of speculation, and we don't have a consensus on many (most) consciousness-related things, but it raises some interesting ideas that seem reasonable from that perspective.

wenc 6y ago

I think emotions often do arise from non-cognitive parts of our brain, and those parts are likely influenced by our physical body. I'm not a neuroscientist -- and am interested in opinions of those better informed than I am -- but I've read that executive function is controlled by the "upper brain" (cerebral cortex) while our baser flight/flight instincts are controlled by the "lower brain" (amygdala). While most of us think that the executive part of the brain is always in control, in practice we are very much influenced by the lower brain, especially in conflict situations -- we have instinctive responses around whether a person is someone to nurture, to attack or to run away from. And this is all occurring at sub-executive levels. In couples counselling, the goal is often to mitigate interpersonal conflict by employing techniques to quickly move the interaction from the "lower brain" (fight/flight) to "upper brain" (executive function). The usual techniques prescribed are to slow things down by mirroring the other person's words (i.e. restating and asking if they got it right), validating them without agreeing, etc. By doing this, the interaction turns from an antagonistic one to a cooperative one. (I've personally tried applying these techniques to heated online discussions and have had some success). This might also explain why when folks are under stress or under threat, their executive function is impaired -- possibly the brain is spending all of its "budget" on the lower brain.

TudorBirlea 6y ago
Behavioural scientist here, maybe this helps: //> emotions are strongly connected to our physical body - most emotional episodes are initiated by physical stimuli (see danger - fear) and also our internal states influence our emotions (that 'hangry' feeling) //> most theories on emotions argue around what role the cognition plays; secondary and social emotions require cognitions, but most primary emotions are rather independent //> there are 2 kinds of neural networks guiding behaviour - approach and avoidance networks - that span wide. The distinction between the 3 brains is not necessarily supported by physical evidence, other than the fact that avoidance nets tend to stay in the lower brain, while approach start there and end up in the upper brain //> decisions are mostly taken by the subconscious, our conscious mind is mostly a witness with some influence. //> spot on the counselling - the goal is to move from avoidance schemas to approach schemas. Happy to provide further info

hammock 6y ago

Of course this is true. There are more neurons in the gut than the brain. That "gut feeling" is exactly that. And the vagal response is the most underrated thing ever

porpoise 6y ago

The same feedback is also implied by the mainstream consensus of depression as resulting from "chemical imbalance", and more prosaically from sentiments like "I can't control whom I find attractive" etc. Personally I don't think the feedback exists but it's a very powerful view

vmception 6y ago

> We can never fully be sure because our mind seems to maintain a perfect illusion of executive control. People that believe this have the hardest time with psychedelics. There is a reason so many people other people accept an interconnected network that doesn't have a central nexus, only nodes. [1] [1] If you want a source for that, you will need to advocate for the studies or even sponsor one yourself to the standard of review you prefer.

selestify 6y ago
> There is a reason so many people other people accept What are you trying to say in this part? Did you leave out some words?
- vmception 6y ago
  > *There is a reason so many other people accept the concept of an interconnected network

allenu 6y ago

There's a great book, The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, that covers a lot of this. From what I remember, experiments have been done that show your body can react to stimuli before there is actual neurological activity, seeming to indicate that a lot of our rational thinking about reacting to things is an illusion, and is actually outside of our conscious control. We only justify our actions after the fact. I highly recommend the book; it was quite eye-opening to me when I read it.

mensetmanusman 6y ago
FYI that famous result was recently debunked: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will-bereitschaftspotential/597736/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will...

pessimizer 6y ago

> sometimes our thoughts may actually be the result of something happening in our gut, heart, lungs or skin. Where else would they originate? I can't imagine a brain without any senses having any thoughts at all. I think it's more that a lot of us are secret dualists.

wpm 6y ago

This concept is explored well in the book Blindsight, by Peter Watts. Available for free here: https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

kgin 6y ago

I've heard it explained in other settings that "explanations for feelings" are almost always just plausible guesswork by the executive function of the brain, no matter how certain it feels. The story that I remember was of an awake portion of a brain surgery, where doctors were stimulating parts of a patient's brain to make sure not to cut anything too important. The doctor stimulated one spot and the patient suddenly laughed. The doctor asked "why did you laugh just then?" and the patient replied "well, you all just look so funny standing around in your doctor outfits!". It was the best explanation the brain could come up with for the laughter, the closest thing to "funny" or "things that might explain my laughter" in that moment. But the guess was completely wrong, even though the patient felt certain it was the truth.