Richard Miller - Religion as a Product of Psychotropic Drug Use (The Atlantic)

This article is excerpted from Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs by Richard Miller. He offers here a very surface level look at the possible influence of entheogens on religion.

From The Atlantic.

Religion as a Product of Psychotropic Drug Use

How much of religious history was influenced by mind-altering substances?

Richard J. Miller Dec 27 2013


The notion that hallucinogenic drugs played a significant part in the development of religion has been extensively discussed, particularly since the middle of the twentieth century. Various ideas of this type have been collected into what has become known as the entheogen theory. The word entheogen is a neologism coined in 1979 by a group of ethnobotanists (those that study the relationship between people and plants). The literal meaning of entheogen is "that which causes God to be within an individual" and might be considered as a more accurate and academic term for popular terms such as hallucinogen or psychedelic drug. By the term entheogen we understand the use of psychoactive substances for religious or spiritual reasons rather than for purely recreational purposes.

Perhaps one of the first things to consider is whether there is any direct evidence for the entheogenic theory of religion which derives from contemporary science. One famous example that has been widely discussed is the Marsh Chapel experiment. This experiment was run by the Harvard Psilocybin Project in the early 1960s, a research project spearheaded by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. Leary had traveled to Mexico in 1960, where he had been introduced to the effects of hallucinogenic psilocybin-containing mushrooms and was anxious to explore the implications of the drug for psychological research. What is the true identity of the drug used by the gods in the Hindu Vedas, or the "drug of forgetfulness" in The Odyssey?

On Good Friday 1962, two groups of students received either psilocybin or niacin (a nonhallucinogenic "control" substance) on a double-blind basis prior to the service in Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Following the service nearly the entire group receiving psilocybin reported having had a profound religious experience, compared to just a few in the control group. This result was therefore judged to have supported the entheogenic potential of hallucinogenic drug use. Interestingly, the experiment has subsequently been repeated under somewhat different and arguably better controlled circumstances and the results were substantially the same.

***

It may be easy for some to accept the idea that entheogenic substances played a role in the genesis of religion. However, when we move from generalities to specifics we are on less firm ground. There has been a great deal of speculation concerning the actual identity of drugs used for religious purposes in the ancient world. For example, what is the true identity of the drug soma used by the gods in the ancient Hindu Vedas? Or the identity of nepenthe, the "drug of forgetfulness" mentioned in The Odyssey? Although it is impossible to answer such questions in a definitive scientific sense, one can speculate about the various possibilities.

For example, consider the work of R. Gordon Wasson and the story of Amanita muscaria, the "fly agaric"—certainly the world's most famous mushroom. Wasson made several journeys to Mexico to research the Mazatec people and write about the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in their ancient rituals, but his experiences there led him to tackle a different subject—the identity of the drug soma.

To understand the significance of soma one must consider some of the oldest religious texts known to man. These are the ancient Vedas, Sanskrit texts that represent the oldest Hindu scriptures. The most ancient of these texts—the Rigveda, a collection of over a thousand hymns—was compiled in northern India around 1500 BC. A parallel but slightly later development in ancient Persia was the composition of the religious texts of Zoroastrianism, the Avesta. People who understood the identity of the plant soma could use it to empower themselves and to communicate more effectively with the deities.

In both the Rigveda and the Avesta there is frequent mention of soma (or haoma in the Avesta). In these episodes soma is described as a plant from which a drink or potion could be produced that was consumed by the gods, giving them fantastic powers which aided them in their supernatural feats. People who understood the identity of the plant soma could use it to empower themselves and to communicate more effectively with the deities.

Consider the following from the Rigveda:

We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the
Gods discovered.
Now what may foeman's malice do to harm us? What, O Immortal, mortal man's deception?

Or:

Heaven above does not equal one half of me.
Have I been drinking Soma?
In my glory I have passed beyond earth and sky.
Have I been drinking Soma?
I will pick up the earth and put it here or there.
Have I been drinking Soma?

But what actually was soma? There were suggestions that it was ephedra or possibly cannabis, but Gordon Wasson concluded that it was Amanita muscaria. Amanita muscaria or the "fly agaric" is a large mushroom that is instantly recognizable. This is due to its strikingly attractive appearance and its wide use in popular culture. It has often appeared in animated films (such as the Nutcracker scene in Fantasia, or in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), as well as being used in numerous types of kitschy household products and for illustrations in children's stories.

There are numerous details provided in the Rigveda suggesting how soma was prepared and used, which Wasson interpreted as indicating that Amanita muscaria was the true source of the drug. However, the most interesting and influential evidence that he considered originates from reports concerning the use of Amanita muscaria in the eighteenth century. In particular, in 1736 a Swedish colonel named Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published an account of the behavior of the Koryak people living in the Kamchatka region of Siberia. Von Strahlenberg had fought in the Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia, was captured by the Russians, and was incarcerated for twelve years. It was observed that the drinking of drug-containing urine could continue for up to five cycles passing from one individual to another before the urine lost its capacity for intoxication.

Among other things he described the use of Amanita muscaria as an intoxicant by the local people. He also noted the following unusual behavior: "The poorer Sort, who cannot afford to lay in a Store of these Mushrooms, post themselves, on these Ocassions, round the Huts of the Rich, and watch the Opportunity of the Guests coming down to make Water; And then hold a Wooden Bowl to receive the Urine, which they drink off greedily, as having still some Virtue of the Mushroom in it, and by this way they also get Drunk."

Von Strahlenberg's observations on urine drinking and other behaviors were considered extremely sensational when they were published in Stockholm and soon thereafter in other parts of Europe. Indeed, they were used to satirical effect in the writings of the English playwright and novelist Oliver Goldsmith who imagined the consequences of introducing such habits into London society. The use of Amanita muscaria by numerous Siberian tribes, as well as their habit of urine drinking to conserve the mushrooms' effects, was subsequently confirmed by other numerous travelers over the years.

Several 18th-and-19th-century reports described the use of Amanita muscaria by different Siberian tribes, and particularly by witch doctors or shamans who used it to achieve "an exalted state to be able to talk to the gods." Interestingly, it was observed that the drinking of drug-containing urine could continue for up to five cycles passing from one individual to another before the urine lost its capacity for intoxication. This was apparently often done because of the relative scarcity of the mushroom, and so preserving its hallucinogenic properties in this way had important practical benefits.

The use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, presumably Amanita muscaria, by the inhabitants of Siberia appears to be a very ancient practice. This is suggested by the discovery of several Stone or Bronze Age rock carvings (petroglyphs) in 1967 in northern Siberia near the Arctic Ocean. These seem to represent mushrooms and women with mushrooms growing out of their heads. This is an area inhabited by the Chukchi people, who were one of the subjects of the 18th-and 19th-century reports on Siberian mushroom use, so it may be supposed that they had used mushrooms continuously over many years. Indeed, the use of Amanita muscaria for its hallucinogenic actions continues in Siberia to this day, in spite of attempts by the previous communist government to stamp it out by resorting to measures such as dropping shamans out of helicopters. 

 

The precise psychological effects produced by Amanita muscaria are reported to vary a great deal depending on the individual and the social context. However, one interesting property noted in these early reports was a tendency to disturb the scale of visual perceptions so that a tiny crack in the ground might appear like a giant chasm. In particular, this was noted by the British mycologist and writer Mordecai Cubitt Cooke. Although he was responsible for writing books with riveting titles such as Rust, Smut, Mildew and Mold, Cooke also wrote one of the earliest books on psychotropic drugs, The Seven Sisters of Sleep, in which he described some of the properties of tobacco, opium, hashish, betel, coca, belladonna, and the fly agaric. Such books and observations were widely read and discussed in Victorian society. One story is that the book was read by the Reverend Charles Dodgson—better known to the world as Lewis Carroll—and so appeared as the mushroom which Alice could eat to alter her size at will in Alice in Wonderland.

***

The influence of Wasson’s writing can be seen in the subsequent development of an entire sub-genre of entheogenic literature, much of which has little to recommend it from a scholarly point of view. The idea is that if Amanita muscaria is identical with soma, which had a strong influence on the development of Hinduism, then why not every other religion as well?

Pride of place here goes to John Marco Allegro's 1970 publication, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Allegro considered the possibility that ancient peoples would have been particularly concerned with two things—procreation and the supply of food. He suggested that they may have viewed rain as a type of heavenly semen that then impregnated the earth, allowing the growth of crops and the success of the harvest. Plants absorbed this holy semen—and some plants more than others. Amanita muscaria was such a plant that, when consumed, allowed a person to commune more closely with God. According to Allegro, the Bible is really just a series of myths that describe the secrets of the Amanita muscaria fertility cult rather than real people.

Allegro also suggested that the information concerning the use of Amanita muscaria as a religious fertility sacrament was subject to great secrecy, the provenance of a priestly sect. He speculated that these practices developed very early on in human history, even prior to the time when writing first came into existence during the ancient Sumerian civilization. He further suggested that the existence of the mushroom was secretly encoded in the use of particular Sumerian word roots.

This secret encoding of the mushroom fertility cult down through the ages eventually led to the development of the concept of Jesus to encapsulate the identity of Amanita muscaria around the time of the sacking of the second temple by the Romans. Thus, according to Allegro, Jesus never actually existed. He purported to demonstrate, using philological analysis of the structure of the ancient Sumerian language, that the name Jesus actually meant something along the lines of "semen" and that Christ meant something like "giant erect mushroom penis." According to Allegro, the Bible (and the New Testament in particular) is really just a series of myths that describe the secrets of the Amanita muscaria fertility cult rather than real people.

However, as fate would have it the stories caught on in a big way and their mythical origins were forgotten. The "Jesus myth" rapidly spread and became Christianity. Although Allegro's reasoning was mostly philological, he did occasionally refer to the other types of evidence such as the famous fresco in the Abbaye de Plaincourault in France that appears to show Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with the serpent coiled around a giant Amanita muscaria. It was reasoned that this fresco, painted around 1290, gives credence to the idea that the secret mushroom fertility cult was still in existence in the Middle Ages.

Allegro's hypotheses were very interesting and his arguments were certainly consistent. However, they were not well received. Many Christians took exception to the fact that he believed that Jesus never existed and was really just a code word for a giant phallus-shaped magic mushroom. Allegro was generally excoriated in the press and in many academic circles. Nevertheless, his work did strike a chord with some individuals and many subsequent publications have endeavored to describe the role of Amanita muscaria in the genesis of virtually every religion known to man.


~ This post is adapted from Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs.

Robert Stolorow Interview - Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis

From New Books in Psychoanalysis, this is a cool interview with Robert Stolorow, one of the founders of intersubjective systems theory in psychoanalysis.

Robert Stolorow: World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis

by Tracy D. Morgan on January 6, 2014

In this interview with one of the founders of intersubjective psychoanalysis, Robert Stolorow discusses his interest in Heidegger and the implications of that interest for the psychoanalytic project overall. What do “worldness”, “everydayness”, and “resoluteness” bring to the clinical encounter? What is the role of trauma in bringing us to a more authentic place?

Stolorow is interested in pursuing both what Heidegger can do for psychoanalysis and what psychoanalysis can do, in a sense, for Heidegger. The development of “post-cartesian psychoanalysis” has embedded within it a critique of Freud’s intrapsychic focus. Analysts of the post-cartesian stripe seek to unearth “pre-reflectivity”, those modes of being that are part and parcel of us but remain out of our awareness. There is also expressed an interest in contextualism–and towards that end this book looks at Heidegger’s forays into Nazism as evidence of his own limits, precipitated perhaps by the loss of Hannah Arendt’s love and admiration. But for Stolorow, analytic work is best done by employing the tripartite perspective of phenomenology, hermeneutics and contextualism. Whereas Descartes separated mind and body, psyche and world, Stolorow argues for the importance of bringing those very same things back together.

 

Interview with Robert Stolorow [ 1:04:46 ]  Play in Popup | Download

From the open-access Frontiers in Psychology: Consciousness Research, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich looked at the reflective (volitional) aspects of consciousness across three different states - waking, dreaming, lucid dreaming (becoming conscious of the dream while in the dream).

From the abstract:

Overall, experienced volition was comparable for lucid dreaming and wakefulness, and rated significantly higher for both states compared to non-lucid dreaming. However, three subscales showed specific differences across states of consciousness: planning ability was most pronounced during wakefulness, intention enactment most pronounced during lucid dreaming, and self-determination most pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming. Our data confirm the multifaceted nature of consciousness: different higher-order aspects of consciousness are differentially expressed across different conscious states.

In essence, lucid dreaming is clearly a higher order state of consciousness. Nice research that will hopefully be replicated by others so that lucid dreaming becomes a more widely accepted phenomena.


Full Citation: 
Dresler M, Eibl L, Fischer CFJ, Wehrle R, Spoormaker VI, Steiger A, Czisch M and Pawlowski M. (2014, Jan 2). Volitional components of consciousness vary across wakefulness, dreaming, and lucid dreaming. Frontiers in Psychology: Consciousness Research; 4:987. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00987

Volitional components of consciousness vary across wakefulness, dreaming, and lucid dreaming

Martin Dresler, Leandra Eibl, Christian F. J. Fischer, Renate Wehrle, Victor I. Spoormaker, Axel Steiger, Michael Czisch, and Marcel Pawlowski

Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany

Abstract 

Consciousness is a multifaceted concept; its different aspects vary across species, vigilance states, or health conditions. While basal aspects of consciousness like perceptions and emotions are present in many states and species, higher-order aspects like reflective or volitional capabilities seem to be most pronounced in awake humans. Here we assess the experience of volition across different states of consciousness: 10 frequent lucid dreamers rated different aspects of volition according to the Volitional Components Questionnaire for phases of normal dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness. Overall, experienced volition was comparable for lucid dreaming and wakefulness, and rated significantly higher for both states compared to non-lucid dreaming. However, three subscales showed specific differences across states of consciousness: planning ability was most pronounced during wakefulness, intention enactment most pronounced during lucid dreaming, and self-determination most pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming. Our data confirm the multifaceted nature of consciousness: different higher-order aspects of consciousness are differentially expressed across different conscious states.

Introduction

The ability to engage in volitional behavior has traditionally been closely associated with human consciousness: to freely act implies to make conscious decisions (Dijksterhuis and Aarts, 2010). However, consciousness is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon; its multiple facets differ across species, vigilance states, or health conditions. A striking variation in consciousness is experienced every day during the sleep–wake cycle: during wakefulness, human subjects are normally alert, aware of external and internal stimuli, able to reflect on their perceptions, emotions and thoughts, and capable to volitionally act according to their intentions. While most of these properties of waking consciousness fade during the process of falling asleep, many basal features of consciousness reappear during dreaming. Dream mentation may occur in all sleep stages, but is most intense and vivid during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (Hobson et al., 2000). The dreamer perceives and interacts with a hallucinated dream environment and often experiences strong emotions (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002). However, typical dreaming is deficient of many higher-order aspects of consciousness: the dreaming subject experiences highly impoverished self-reflective capabilities and therefore does not recognize that he is dreaming. Instead of volitionally and systematically acting according to his intentions, the dreamer is a rather passive subject in the chaotic flow of the dream narrative. In contrast, the rare state of lucid dreaming is characterized by full-blown consciousness including all higher-order aspects: the dreamer regains metacognitive abilities and memory, becomes fully aware of his current state of consciousness, and experiences volition and fully realized agency (Metzinger, 2003; Windt and Metzinger, 2007). As phrased by Van Eeden (1913), who coined the term lucid dreaming: “the sleeper remembers his day-life and his own condition, reaches a state of perfect awareness, and is able to direct his attention, and to attempt different acts of free volition.”

On a closer look, however, the situation is less clear: on the one hand, during alert wakefulness, the experience of volitional capabilities may be strikingly impaired as seen, e.g., in pathological cases such as delusions of alien control in schizophrenic patients (Lafargue and Franck, 2009) or in alien hand syndrome (Biran and Chatterjee, 2004). On the other hand, during altered states of consciousness such as hypnosis (Oakley and Halligan, 2013) or even non-lucid REM sleep (Takahara et al., 2006), volitional behavior can be observed. Moreover, lucid dreaming is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, but might occur in different degrees from pre-lucid reflections to full-blown lucid control dreams (Tyson et al., 1984; Barrett, 1992; Kahan and LaBerge, 1994). Descriptions of higher-order aspects of consciousness in lucid dreaming, including volitional capacities, rely mainly on anecdotal evidence, but have rarely been studied systematically. Two recent exceptions are the Metacognitive, Affective, Cognitive Experience questionnaire (MACE; Kahan and Sullivan, 2012) and the Lucidity and Consciousness in Dreams scale (LuCiD; Voss et al., 2013) which have been used to assess metacognition during different states of consciousness including lucid dreaming.

Here, we assessed different aspects of volition during normal dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness with an adapted version of the Volitional Components Questionnaire (VCQ; Kuhl and Fuhrmann, 1998) in lucid dreamers. We hypothesized that experienced volition would be generally higher in both wakefulness and lucid dreaming compared to non-lucid dreaming. We exploratively tested if the subscales of the VCQ would differentially vary between the three states of consciousness.

Materials and Methods

Ten healthy subjects (mean age 28.1 ± 9.8 years, age range 19–47 years, five female) recruited at the University of Munich or from a volunteer database of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry participated in this study. They all were experienced lucid dreamers with a reported mean frequency of 1.9 ± 0.7 lucid dreams per week. Lucid dreaming ability was verified in five of the subjects in a sleep laboratory with full polysomnographic recordings, exploiting the classical eye signaling technique (LaBerge et al., 1981). For the other five subjects, lucid dreaming ability was assessed by self-report.

To measure volition in different states of consciousness, we adapted the German short version of the VCQ (Selbststeuerungs-Inventar, SSI-K3; Kuhl and Alsleben, 2012). The VCQ is an instrument to measure different aspects of volitional competence; it specifically aims at assessing the subjective experience of volitional components supporting central coordination of goal-maintenance and self-maintenance (Kuhl and Fuhrmann, 1998). The short form includes 13 subscales consisting of four items each. The test subjects have to rate the extent to which the item applies to themselves on a four-point Likert scale from 1 (not at all) to 4 (wholly). The validity of both the long and short versions has been repeatedly demonstrated (Forstmeier and Rüddel, 2008). Since several of the 13 subscales are not meaningfully applicable to the dreaming state, as they, e.g., ask to evaluate time frames of several weeks, we chose to restrict the study to six subscales: self-determination, planning ability, intention enactment, powers of concentration, self-access, and integration. As a measure for the general experience of volitional capacity, an overall score consisting of the mean of all six subscales was calculated. Where necessary, questions were adapted to be applicable to the dreaming state, e.g., the integration subfactor item “On many days I feel the opposite of what I felt before” was changed to “I often feel the opposite of what I felt before.” The sequential order of questions was adopted from the original questionnaire.

Subjects were asked to complete the questionnaire at least once for each of the three states of consciousness: in the morning after awakening from a non-lucid dream, in the morning after awakening from a lucid dream, and after a normal day of wakefulness, i.e., before going to bed in the evening. Specifically, subjects were instructed to rate their general experience during the respective state, using the preceding dream or day as an anchor or reminder thereof. For those individuals who completed the questionnaire more than once for one of the three states of consciousness, we used the mean score of the given state for further analysis. For wakefulness, four subjects contributed multiple questionnaires adding up to a total of 15; for non-lucid dreaming, five subjects contributed multiple questionnaires adding up to a total of 20; for lucid dreaming, four subjects contributed multiple questionnaires adding up to a total of 14.

For statistical analysis of the VCQ overall score, we performed a repeated measures ANOVA with the three factor levels non-lucid dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness. For specific comparisons between the three states of consciousness, we performed post hoc two-sided paired t-tests. For statistical analysis of the six subscales, we first performed a repeated measures MANOVA with the three factor levels non-lucid dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness. For further analysis of the subscales that revealed significant results in the following ANOVAs, we subsequently performed two-sided paired t-tests to analyze specific differences between the states of consciousness. All significance levels were set at p = 0.05.

Results

The ANOVA for the VCQ overall score revealed a significant effect of the state of consciousness (F2,18 = 4.4, p = 0.027, η2 = 0.33). Subsequent t-tests demonstrated that both wakefulness (t9 = 2.7, p = 0.026, r = 0.66) and lucid dreaming (t9 = 2.3, p = 0.044, r = 0.61) differed from non-lucid dreaming, however not from each other (t = 0.5, p = 0.618, r = 0.17). Hence, volition was strongly experienced during wakefulness and lucid dreaming, but considerably less so during non-lucid dreaming. For comparisons of the overall results, see Table 1.

TABLE 1

TABLE 1. Experienced volition during wakefulness, lucid dreaming and non-lucid dreaming according to theVolitional Components Questionnaire (VCQ) overall and subscale results.

The MANOVA for the subscales of the VCQ revealed a significant effect of the state of consciousness (F12,26 = 8.9, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.80), which turned out to be significant for the subscales self-determination (F2,18 = 15.4, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.63), planning ability (F2,18 = 31.2, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.78), and intention enactment (F2,18 = 7.3, p = 0.007, η2 = 0.45), but not for powers of concentration (F2,18 = 0.1, p = 0.942, η2 = 0.01), self-access (F2,18 = 0.6, p = 0.573, η2 = 0.06), or integration (F2,18 = 0.7, p = 0.503, η2 = 0.07). Subsequent t-tests demonstrated that self-determination was significantly more pronounced during both wakefulness (t9 = 5.6, p < 0.001, r = 0.88) and lucid dreaming (t9 = 5.2, p < 0.001, r = 0.87) compared to non-lucid dreaming, however did not differ between the two former states of consciousness (t9 = 0.9, p = 0.461, r = 0.28). Planning ability was most pronounced during wakefulness compared to both lucid (t9 = 6.5, p < 0.001, r = 0.91) and non-lucid dreaming (t9 = 5.7, p < 0.001, r = 0.88), but did not differ between the latter two states (t9 = 0.8, p = 0.407, r = 0.25). Intention enactment turned out to be most pronounced during lucid dreaming compared to both wakefulness (t9 = 3.9, p = 0.004, r = 0.79) and non-lucid dreaming (t9 = 3.2, p = 0.011, r = 0.73), while the latter two states did not differ from each other (t9 = 0.2, p = 0.862, r = 0.06). For subscale comparisons, see Table 1.

Discussion

Comparing the experience of volition as assessed by the VCQ during three different states of consciousness, we found volition to be generally most pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming as compared to non-lucid dreaming. A more differential picture appeared when the subscales of the VCQ were analyzed separately.

For both lucid dreaming and wakefulness, self-determination was rated higher than for non-lucid dreaming. This subscale is probably the most prototypical volitional component, asking to what degree the subject experiences being able to act freely according to his will. The fact that the result of this subscale is in line with the overall score confirms the hypothesis that volition is generally more pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming compared to non-lucid dreaming.

For wakefulness, planning ability was rated higher than for both lucid and non-lucid dreaming. This subscale asks for how well organized the subject pursues his plans and intentions. The fact that this subfactor is most pronounced during wakefulness compared to both dreaming states might be interpreted as a sign for a more spontaneous execution of intentions during dreaming.

For lucid dreaming, intention enactment was rated higher than for both wakefulness and non-lucid dreaming. This factor asks for how promptly and determined intentions are executed. On first sight, this seems to be a surprising finding, demonstrating that a component of volition is more strongly experienced during a state of sleep than during wakefulness. However, on second sight a strong feeling of being able to enact one’s intentions during lucid dreaming seems reasonable, as the dreamer is aware that in contrast to the constraints of waking life, during dreams all potential obstacles are not real and hence can easily be overcome. This interpretation would also be in line with the former finding of a comparably low level of experienced planning ability during lucid dreaming: organized planning might be possible during lucid dreaming in principle, however is rarely actually performed since intention execution is possible without such effort.

Neither powers of concentration, nor self-access, nor integration differed between the three states of consciousness. The first of these subfactors asks for how easily the subject gets distracted from his current line of intentional thought. The failure to find any difference between the three states of consciousness is rather surprising, since concentration and goal-directed thinking are generally thought to be strongly impaired during non-lucid dreaming (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002; Metzinger, 2003). The subfactor self-access asks for the quality of access to one’s intentions and feelings in stressful situations. It might be speculated that in such situations, also during wakefulness and lucid-dreaming, self-reflection might be impaired, thereby leveling potential differences of self-access that would occur in non-stressed situations. The subfactor integration asks for the occurrence of seemingly contradictory behaviors and emotions. It is rather surprising that non-lucid dreaming does not differ from the other two states, since incongruities and inconsistencies are generally associated most strongly with the dreaming state (Mamelak and Hobson, 1989). However, such inconsistencies are typically attributed to the dream plot rather than to the dreamer, whose mental complexity is narrow and “single-minded” compared to a much broader repertoire of behaviors and thoughts experienced during wakefulness or lucid dreaming (Rechtschaffen, 1978). Hence, compared to a bizarre and highly incongruent dream plot, the single-mindedness of dream cognition might be experienced as relatively straightforward.

In the following, we will try to embed the topic of volition in a broader discussion of the multiple facets and neural correlates of human consciousness.

Basal Vs. Higher-Order Aspects of Consciousness

The enquiry into consciousness has long been the domain of philosophy, however recent years witnessed a growing interest also among neuroscientists in the problems surrounding consciousness. While there is still little agreement on a specific characterization or definition, it seems clear that consciousness is a multifaceted concept, with its different aspects varying dramatically between species, vigilance states, or health conditions. A common categorization differentiates between basal and higher-order aspects of consciousness: the concept of basal (or primary) consciousness comprises perceptions and emotions, whereas higher-order (or secondary) consciousness is proposed to constitute reflections on these (for a review cf. Morin, 2006). As phrased by Edelman (2003, p. 5521):“Higher-order consciousness allows its possessors to go beyond the limits of the remembered present of primary consciousness. An individual’s past history, future plans, and consciousness of being conscious all become accessible.”

A striking variation in consciousness is experienced every day during the sleep–wake cycle: awake human subjects are normally alert, aware of external and internal stimuli, and able to reflect on their perceptions and emotions and to volitionally act according to their intentions. These experiences and capabilities fade during the process of falling asleep, however the progress through the sleep cycle is associated with a reinstatement of essential features of consciousness: REM sleep evokes the most vivid and intense dreams, in which the sleeper perceives a hallucinated environment and often experiences strong emotions.

However, the dreaming state instantiates only basal aspects of consciousness, being deficient in reflective thought, metacognition and volitional capabilities: the internally generated perceptions and emotions experienced during dreaming typically show many cognitive abnormalities, with a bizarre dream plot full of gaps, delusional thought, and a complete lack of insight into the current condition (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002; Metzinger, 2003). Rechtschaffen (1978) called this persistence of a single train of related thoughts and images without disruption from other simultaneous thoughts or reflections the “single-mindedness” of dreams. He pointed out that without reflectiveness, there could hardly be volitional control. Nevertheless, some rudimentary processes of reflection and volition have been reported to occur during dreaming (Kahan et al., 1997; Wolman and Kozmová, 2007), even though less often than for waking episodes (Kahan et al., 1997; Voss et al., 2013). Our results confirm these findings, suggesting a generally weaker experience of volition during non-lucid dreaming compared to wakefulness, however with some components being similarly expressed during wakefulness and dreaming.

Lucid Dreaming as Higher-Order Consciousness

In contrast to the restricted consciousness of normal dreaming, the rare state of lucid dreaming is characterized by full-blown consciousness including all higher-order aspects: the sleeping subject is no longer deluded by the dream narrative, but becomes fully aware of the true nature of his current state of consciousness (LaBerge et al., 1981). This wake-like intellectual clarity comprises a restored access to memory functions including increased availability of self-related information, and fully realized agency, enabling the dreamer to volitionally execute his intentions within the dream narrative (Metzinger, 2003; Windt and Metzinger, 2007). Lucid dreaming can be trained (LaBerge, 1980; Purcell et al., 1986), which makes this phenomenon a promising research topic despite its rarity in untrained subjects (Schredl and Erlacher, 2011).

In comparing lucid and non-lucid REM sleep, the distinction between basal and higher-order consciousness is of great value, since the contrast between lucid and non-lucid dreaming strikingly mirrors the conceptual contrast between basal and higher-order consciousness (Dresler et al., 2009; Hobson, 2009): while all basal features of consciousness like perceptions and emotions are present in normal dreaming, metacognitive reflections and the insight into the current state of consciousness is – by definition – bound to lucidity. Since also in non-lucid dream reports some reflective thoughts have been reported and since also during daydreaming and other phases of wakefulness active reflections are frequently absent, it has been argued that metacognitive activity differs only quantitatively and not qualitatively between dreaming and waking consciousness (Kahan et al., 1997; Kahan and LaBerge, 2011). However, this absence is only a “local,” not global feature of such phases: it is hardly imaginable, at least for non-pathological cases, that the day-dreaming subject misinterprets the daydream for reality once paying attention to his current state. For the dreaming state, in contrast, this is completely normal – unless the dreamer eventually achieves lucidity through these “prelucid” reflections (Tyson et al., 1984).

Lucid dreaming may even be critical to fully understanding the neural correlates of higher-order consciousness, because in contrast to, e.g., coma–wake, anesthesia–wake, or sleep–wake comparisons, there is no major shift in vigilance state as defined by formal neurophysiological criteria: lucid REM sleep still is REM sleep proper according to the classical Rechtschaffen and Kales (1968) or new AASM (Iber et al., 2007) sleep scoring criteria. When compared to wakefulness, pathological or pharmaceutically induced loss of consciousness also reduces the brain’s basal metabolism, as does deep sleep. Dreaming therefore provides the only phenomenon we know of, that can contrast basal consciousness with full-blown higher-order consciousness within the same vigilance level (Spoormaker et al., 2010), allowing for comparison of cerebral activity by means of EEG, PET, or fMRI without differences in the basal activity state.

Neural Correlates of Lucid Dreaming

On the phenomenological level, REM sleep is the sleep stage associated with the most vivid sleep mentation (Fosse et al., 2001). On the neurobiological level, it is associated with strong activation of visual association areas and limbic structures such as the amygdala, while the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and parietal areas are deactivated (Maquet et al., 1996; Braun et al., 1998). This activation pattern has been proposed to underlie the visual hallucinations, emotional intensifications, and metacognitive impairments experienced in most dreams (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002; Schwartz and Maquet, 2002). In particular diminished activity in the DLPFC during REM sleep has been related to cognitive aspects of dreaming such as impaired directed thought, volitional control, and a complete lack of insight into the current state of consciousness (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002; Schwartz and Maquet, 2002).

In contrast to normal dreaming, the regaining of wake-like metacognitive capabilities during lucid dreaming is related to increased EEG gamma-band activity over dorsolateral prefrontal areas (Voss et al., 2009). fMRI data have confirmed increased activation of the DLPFC during lucid dreaming, as well as of bilateral frontopolar and parietal areas (Dresler et al., 2012). These brain regions have been related to self-focused metacognitive evaluation (Stuss et al., 2001; Schmitz et al., 2004), supervisory modes (Burgess et al., 2007), and self-referential processing in general including the experience of agency (Cavanna and Trimble, 2006). Their activation during lucid dreaming is in line with the notion that lucidity consists in an increased availability of self-related information, leading to a much higher degree of coherence and stability of the phenomenal self during lucid dreaming (Metzinger, 2003). Our findings fit well into this literature, demonstrating that volition is similarly experienced during wakefulness and lucid dreaming as compared to non-lucid dreaming.

Neural Correlates of Volition

As is the case for consciousness, volition is a multifaceted concept, hence not traceable to one specific brain region. However, several cortical areas have repeatedly been demonstrated to be related to volitional processes. While most studies show motor areas to be involved in volitional action, this research mainly focuses on willed motor actions (Haggard, 2008), which seem to share similar neural substrates during wakefulness and dreaming (Erlacher and Schredl, 2008; Dresler et al., 2011). In contrast, more general or abstract intentions are thought to rely on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Roskies, 2010). In addition, early stages of intentional action have been related to anterior prefrontal brain regions. Such processing of complex information, only broadly determined by specific task demands, is then thought to travel posteriorly to enter later stages of intentional action (Brass et al., 2013). The subjective experience of volitional agency has been associated with parietal brain regions (Roskies, 2010). Hence, in line with our findings, general aspects of volitional control and the subjective experience thereof rely on brain regions that are highly active during lucid compared to non-lucid dreaming.

Consciousness in Humans and Non-Human Animals

Higher-order aspects of consciousness are traditionally thought to be most pronounced in humans (Edelman, 2001). In particular volitional capabilities have been proposed to be a distinctive human attribute (Dijksterhuis and Aarts, 2010; Frith, 2013). If the contrast between ordinary and lucid dreaming mirrors that between basal and higher-order consciousness, data on the neural correlates of dream lucidity might shed new light on this debate. Indeed it turns out that cerebral regions showing increased activity during lucid dreaming also show extensive volumetric expansion in humans as compared to non-human primates (Van Essen and Dierker, 2007; see Figure 1). Recently the hypothesis was proposed that only animals possessing higher-order aspects of consciousness may develop psychotic states – “in other words an animal needs to have a highly developed mind in order to go out of it” (Hobson and Voss, 2011, p. 993). Neuroimaging data on lucid dreaming support this claim: areas activated during lucid dreaming (Dresler et al., 2012) do not only mirror human vs. non-human primate brain differences (Van Essen and Dierker, 2007), but also show striking overlap with brain areas associated with insight deficits in psychosis (Dresler et al., in revision).

FIGURE 1 

FIGURE 1. Brain areas subserving the transition from basal to higher-order consciousness in REM sleep dreaming mirror those with strongest volumetric expansion in humans compared to non-human primates. Left: during lucid dreaming, the dorsolateral prefrontal and frontopolar cortices, parietal lobules, and inferior/middle temporal gyri among other cortical regions are strongly activated as compared with non-lucid REM sleep (republished with permission of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, from Dresler et al. (2012); permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.). Right: neuroanatomical differences between humans and non-human primates (Van Essen and Dierker, 2007; reprint with permission of Cell Press). Color-coded are regional volumetric expansions in the human relative to the macaque brain hot colors depict up to a 32-fold volumetric increase in humans. Right lateral view.

Limitations
A couple of limitations have to be kept in mind for the interpretation of our study’s results. First, we used an adapted version of VCQ that was not specifically validated for its use in different states of consciousness. This applies in particular to the overall score combining the six subscales. While the original version was created to evaluate time frames of several weeks, for our adapted version only items were chosen that are applicable to shorter episodes like dreams. Second, whereas the ratings for lucid and non-lucid dreaming were collected after awakening from the respective dream phase in the early morning, the ratings for wakefulness were collected after a full day of wakefulness in the evening. Thus, the length of the rated episodes differed, and it cannot be excluded that chronobiological influences affected the ratings. Third, the order of data collection was not randomized, but started for all subjects with the wakefulness ratings, followed by the non-lucid dreaming ratings, which were finally followed by the lucid dreaming ratings. Thus, order effects might have influenced the results. However, several subjects completed more than one questionnaire and did so after a complete round of ratings. Since the scores from these repeated ratings did not differ from the first ratings, it is rather unlikely that rating order affected the results. Fourth, gender differences for content and recall have been reported for non-lucid (Schredl et al., 2004) and lucid (Schredl and Erlacher, 2011) dreams, however our small sample size does not allow a reliable analysis of possible gender effects on state-dependent volition. An explorative analysis did not reveal gender effects (p > 0.2) or gender × state interactions (p > 0.4).

Conclusion and Future Directions

Our study confirmed the multifaceted nature of consciousness: volitional components of higher-order consciousness are differentially expressed among different conscious states. On a coarser level, the generally wake-like expression of volition during lucid dreaming is well in line with the neural activity pattern observed during this state. Up until 15 years ago, using lucid dreaming for the study of consciousness was not seen as experimentally advantageous (Crick and Koch, 1998). However, neuroimaging research into the neural correlates of lucid dreaming and its association with metacognitive and volitional processes has proven lucid dreaming to be a highly promising approach for the investigation of higher-order aspects of consciousness. Neural correlates of lucid dreaming show a remarkable overlap with areas and networks subserving self-reflective thought and volitional capabilities. In addition, these areas show the strongest differences between human and non-human primates, strengthening suggestions that higher-order aspects of consciousness are most pronounced in humans.

While research into lucid dreaming is currently hampered by the rarity of the phenomenon, systematic training (Stumbrys et al., 2012), and new technical approaches for its induction like transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS; Noreika et al., 2010; Stumbrys et al., 2013) might lead to research programs beyond a collection of case studies. In such research programs, subjects might be asked to actively engage in metacognitive processes and volitional acts during lucid dreaming, thereby tracing higher-order consciousness from its state-dependent absence to the regaining of the ability to engage in higher-order conscious thought to its actual execution. Using neuroimaging methods in combination with refined measures of the degree of lucidity, e.g., by exploiting scales that assess several dimensions of volition and insight during dreams (Voss et al., 2013), the specific involvement of several brain regions in distinct higher-order aspects of consciousness may be disentangled. Such studies would further refine the neural correlates underlying the multiple facets of human consciousness.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References available at the Frontiers site

Attachment and Resilience: The Power of One: Dr. Erica Liu Wollin at TEDxHongKong2013

Nice TEDx Talk on the nature of attachment failures in very young children.

Attachment and Resilience: The Power of One: Dr. Erica Liu Wollin at TEDxHongKong 2013
 
Erica Wollin

Currently based in Hong Kong, Dr. Erica Liu Wollin is a board-licensed psychologist in California and a registered psychologist in Hong Kong. She has been a clinical supervisor for the doctoral program at Alliant International University/City University of Hong Kong since 2007. Trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), an effective treatment for traumas and phobias, Dr. Wollin holds counseling interests in therapy, adoption and attachment, grief and loss, eating disorders, and mental health. Raised in the US, Dr. Wollin received her Psy.D. and M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Wheaton College. Dr. Wollin will be speaking about the power of attachment, which is our `connection with early caregivers. With this year’s theme revolving around relationships, her discussion will focus on the psychological side of human relationships, for when attachment does not occur effectively, a number of challenges can arise. She will also discuss the protective factors which nurture human resilience in the face of adversity, including the power of the presence of one who cares about us.

From the UC Berkeley graduate lectures page:

Tanya Marie Luhrmann's work focuses on the way that objects without material presence come to seem real to people, and the way that ideas about the mind affect mental experience.  Her previous studies have analyzed phenomena such as witchcraft, charismatic Christians, and psychiatrists.  Her widely acclaimed third book, Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry (2001), offered an ethnographic study of the American psychiatric community and examined how economic and ideological pressures in psychiatry shape the experiences of psychiatrists and patients alike.  Of Two Minds was awarded the Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing and the Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology.  In her most recent book, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (2012), Luhrmann looks at the ways in which practitioners within American evangelical Christian communities come to experience God as a being with whom they can engage in direct communication with through acts of prayer and visualization.  When God Talks Back was named both a New York Times Notable Book and a Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year.

Enjoy - this is an interesting talk.

Witches, Psychiatrists, and Evangelicals with Tanya Luhrmann - Conversations with History

Published on Jan 6, 2014

(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Stanford's Tanya Luhrmann for a discussion of her work as a psychological anthropologist. Professor Luhrmann looks back at her formative experiences and reviews her insights on how different communities—witches, psychiatrists, and evangelicals—learn to experience their world through practice and adjustment to the ambiguities of the modern world. Series: "Conversations with History" [1/2014]

 

Dan Siegel has a new book out on the "power and purpose" of the teenage brain - Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. Yesterday morning, Siegel appeared on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show.

Daniel Siegel: "Brainstorm: The Power And Purpose Of The Teenage Brain"

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Monday, January 6, 2014

Ninth-grade honors English students Jennifer Smith, left, Ruth Thomas, and Jaleesa Thomas, no relation, work on laptop computers during class at Philadelphia High School for Girls in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 10, 2007. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Adolescence is universally recognized as a trying time for parents and children. But new brain research suggests this period of immature and often reckless behavior is more than just a stage for parents and teens to endure. It is a vital time for adolescents to chart the course for the adults they will ultimately become. One brain researcher points out that it is during our teen years that we learn how to navigate the world outside the safety of home, how to connect deeply with others and how to safely take risks. He says that by understanding how the brain functions, teens can improve their own lives and those of their parents. Diane and her guests discuss the power and purpose of the teenage brain.

Guests

Daniel Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine and co-director, UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center.

Read An Excerpt

Excerpted from "Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain" by Daniel Siegel. Copyright © 2013 by Daniel Siegel. Excerpted by permission of Tarcher/Penguin. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Gary Marcus - Hyping Artificial Intelligence, Yet Again

Over at The New Yorker, psychologist and cognitive scientist Gary Marcus (author of Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind [2008] and The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates The Complexities of Human Thought [2004]) does a nice job of stripping away the hype from artificial intelligence promotion. I am grateful for Marcus.

Hyping Artificial Intelligence, Yet Again

Posted by Gary Marcus
January 1, 2014

According to the Times, true artificial intelligence is just around the corner. A year ago, the paper ran a front-page story about the wonders of new technologies, including deep learning, a neurally-inspired A.I. technique for statistical analysis. Then, among others, came an article about how I.B.M.’s Watson had been repurposed into a chef, followed by an upbeat post about quantum computation. On Sunday, the paper ran a front-page story about “biologically inspired processors,” “brainlike computers” that learn from experience.

This past Sunday’s story, by John Markoff, announced that “computers have entered the age when they are able to learn from their own mistakes, a development that is about to turn the digital world on its head.” The deep-learning story, from a year ago, also by Markoff, told us of “advances in an artificial intelligence technology that can recognize patterns offer the possibility of machines that perform human activities like seeing, listening and thinking.” For fans of “Battlestar Galactica,” it sounds like exciting stuff.

But, examined carefully, the articles seem more enthusiastic than substantive. As I wrote before, the story about Watson was off the mark factually. The deep-learning piece had problems, too. Sunday’s story is confused at best; there is nothing new in teaching computers to learn from their mistakes. Instead, the article seems to be about building computer chips that use “brainlike” algorithms, but the algorithms themselves aren’t new, either. As the author notes in passing, “the new computing approach” is “already in use by some large technology companies.” Mostly, the article seems to be about neuromorphic processors—computer processors that are organized to be somewhat brainlike—though, as the piece points out, they have been around since the nineteen-eighties. In fact, the core idea of Sunday’s article—nets based “on large groups of neuron-like elements … that learn from experience”—goes back over fifty years, to the well-known Perceptron, built by Frank Rosenblatt in 1957. (If you check the archives, the Times billed it as a revolution, with the headline “NEW NAVY DEVICE LEARNS BY DOING.” The New Yorker similarly gushed about the advancement.) The only new thing mentioned is a computer chip, as yet unproven but scheduled to be released this year, along with the claim that it can “potentially [make] the term ‘computer crash’ obsolete.” Steven Pinker wrote me an e-mail after reading the Times story, saying “We’re back in 1985!”—the last time there was huge hype in the mainstream media about neural networks.

What’s the harm? As Yann LeCun, the N.Y.U. researcher who was just appointed to run Facebook’s new A.I. lab, put it a few months ago in a Google+ post, a kind of open letter to the media, “AI [has] ‘died’ about four times in five decades because of hype: people made wild claims (often to impress potential investors or funding agencies) and could not deliver. Backlash ensued. It happened twice with neural nets already: once in the late 60’s and again in the mid-90’s.”

A.I. is, to be sure, in much better shape now than it was then. Google, Apple, I.B.M., Facebook, and Microsoft have all made large commercial investments. There have been real innovations, like driverless cars, that may soon become commercially available. Neuromorphic engineering and deep learning are genuinely exciting, but whether they will really produce human-level A.I. is unclear—especially, as I have written before, when it comes to challenging problems like understanding natural language.

The brainlike I.B.M. system that the Times mentioned on Sunday has never, to my knowledge, been applied to language, or any other complex form of learning. Deep learning has been applied to language understanding, but the results are feeble so far. Among publicly available systems, the best is probably a Stanford project, called Deeply Moving, that applies deep learning to the task of understanding movie reviews. The cool part is that you can try it for yourself, cutting and pasting text from a movie review and immediately seeing the program’s analysis; you even teach it to improve. The less cool thing is that the deep-learning system doesn’t really understand anything.

It can’t, say, paraphrase a review or mention something the reviewer liked, things you’d expect of an intelligent sixth-grader. About the only thing the system can do is so-called sentiment analysis, reducing a review to a thumbs-up or thumbs-down judgment. And even there it falls short; after typing in “better than ‘Cats!’ ” (which the system correctly interpreted as positive), the first thing I tested was a Rotten Tomatoes excerpt of a review of the last movie I saw, “American Hustle”: “A sloppy, miscast, hammed up, overlong, overloud story that still sends you out of the theater on a cloud of rapture.” The deep-learning system couldn’t tell me that the review was ironic, or that the reviewer thought the whole was more than the sum of the parts. It told me only, inaccurately, that the review was very negative. When I sent the demo to my collaborator, Ernest Davis, his luck was no better than mine. Ernie tried “This is not a book to be ignored” and “No one interested in the subject can afford to ignore this book.” The first came out as negative, the second neutral. If Deeply Moving is the best A.I. has to offer, true A.I.—of the sort that can read a newspaper as well as a human can—is a long way away.

Overhyped stories about new technologies create short-term enthusiasm, but they also often lead to long-term disappointment. As LeCun put it in his Google+ post, “Whenever a startup claims ‘90% accuracy’ on some random task, do not consider this newsworthy. If the company also makes claims like ‘we are developing machine learning software based on the computational principles of the human brain’ be even more suspicious.”

As I noted in a recent essay, some of the biggest challenges in A.I. have to do with common-sense reasoning. Trendy new techniques like deep learning and neuromorphic engineering give A.I. programmers purchase on a particular kind of problem that involves categorizing familiar stimuli, but say little about how to cope with things we haven’t seen before. As machines get better at categorizing things they can recognize, some tasks, like speech recognition, improve markedly, but others, like comprehending what a speaker actually means, advance more slowly. Neuromorphic engineering will probably lead to interesting advances, but perhaps not right away. As a more balanced article on the same topic in Technology Review recently reported, some neuroscientists, including Henry Markram, the director of a European project to simulate the human brain, are quite skeptical of the currently implemented neuromorphic systems on the grounds that their representations of the brain are too simplistic and abstract.

As a cognitive scientist, I agree with Markram. Old-school behaviorist psychologists, and now many A.I. programmers, seem focused on finding a single powerful mechanism—deep learning, neuromorphic engineering, quantum computation, or whatever—to induce everything from statistical data. This is much like what the psychologist B. F. Skinner imagined in the early nineteen-fifties, when he concluded all human thought could be explained by mechanisms of association; the whole field of cognitive psychology grew out of the ashes of that oversimplified assumption.

At times like these, I find it useful to remember a basic truth: the human brain is the most complicated organ in the known universe, and we still have almost no idea how it works. Who said that copying its awesome power was going to be easy?

Gary Marcus is a professor of psychology at N.Y.U. and a visiting cognitive scientist at the new Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. This essay was written in memory of his late friend Michael Dorfman—friend of science, enemy of hype.

Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty

Neuroscience vs. Philosophy on Free Will

This article is from 2011, but Nature just posted it in their news feed. This piece continues the debate of articles posted in the last week on free will (see here and here). Smith mentions a then-new $4.4-million project funded by the John Templeton Foundation to bring together neuroscientists and philosophers to research free will.

However, the key ideas in this article that support free will in at least a limited sense (as noted in the 2nd link above) comes from neuroscientists.

In response to Haynes's 2008 study¹  that modernized Libet's earlier experiment (from the 1980s), which could only predict a left or right button press with only 60% accuracy at best, Adina Roskies, a neuroscientist and philosopher (Dartmouth College) argues that

"all it suggests is that there are some physical factors that influence decision-making", which shouldn't be surprising. Philosophers who know about the science, she adds, don't think this sort of study is good evidence for the absence of free will, because the experiments are caricatures of decision-making.

The other response which resonates with me is from Michael Gazzaniga, author of Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain (2012).

Neuroscientists also sometimes have misconceptions about their own field, says Michael Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In particular, scientists tend to see preparatory brain activity as proceeding stepwise, one bit at a time, to a final decision. He suggests that researchers should instead think of processes working in parallel, in a complex network with interactions happening continually. The time at which one becomes aware of a decision is thus not as important as some have thought.

One of the important insights into consciousness and brain function was that the brain generally functions in parallel processes, not linear. However, when asked to deliberate on a choice (activate and employ free will), the system slows down considerably and works in serial processes. For more on this cool research, see Zylberberg et al, 2010 (The Brain’s Router: A Cortical Network Model of Serial Processing in the Primate Brain. PLoS Comput Biol 6(4); doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000765).

The upshot here is that neither side can prove or disprove free will at this point.

Citation:
Smith, K. (2011, Aug 31). Neuroscience vs philosophy: Taking aim at free will. Nature, 477, 23-25.  doi: 10.1038/477023a
 

Neuroscience vs philosophy: Taking aim at free will

Scientists think they can prove that free will is an illusion. Philosophers are urging them to think again.

Kerri Smith | Nature Neuroscience


The experiment helped to change John-Dylan Haynes's outlook on life. In 2007, Haynes, a neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, put people into a brain scanner in which a display screen flashed a succession of random letters1. He told them to press a button with either their right or left index fingers whenever they felt the urge, and to remember the letter that was showing on the screen when they made the decision. The experiment used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal brain activity in real time as the volunteers chose to use their right or left hands. The results were quite a surprise.

"The first thought we had was 'we have to check if this is real'," says Haynes. "We came up with more sanity checks than I've ever seen in any other study before."

The conscious decision to push the button was made about a second before the actual act, but the team discovered that a pattern of brain activity seemed to predict that decision by as many as seven seconds. Long before the subjects were even aware of making a choice, it seems, their brains had already decided.

As humans, we like to think that our decisions are under our conscious control — that we have free will. Philosophers have debated that concept for centuries, and now Haynes and other experimental neuroscientists are raising a new challenge. They argue that consciousness of a decision may be a mere biochemical afterthought, with no influence whatsoever on a person's actions. According to this logic, they say, free will is an illusion. "We feel we choose, but we don't," says Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist at University College London.

 

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You may have thought you decided whether to have tea or coffee this morning, for example, but the decision may have been made long before you were aware of it. For Haynes, this is unsettling. "I'll be very honest, I find it very difficult to deal with this," he says. "How can I call a will 'mine' if I don't even know when it occurred and what it has decided to do?"

Thought experiments

Philosophers aren't convinced that brain scans can demolish free will so easily. Some have questioned the neuroscientists' results and interpretations, arguing that the researchers have not quite grasped the concept that they say they are debunking. Many more don't engage with scientists at all. "Neuroscientists and philosophers talk past each other," says Walter Glannon, a philosopher at the University of Calgary in Canada, who has interests in neuroscience, ethics and free will.

There are some signs that this is beginning to change. This month, a raft of projects will get under way as part of Big Questions in Free Will, a four-year, US$4.4-million programme funded by the John Templeton Foundation in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, which supports research bridging theology, philosophy and natural science. Some say that, with refined experiments, neuroscience could help researchers to identify the physical processes underlying conscious intention and to better understand the brain activity that precedes it. And if unconscious brain activity could be found to predict decisions perfectly, the work really could rattle the notion of free will. "It's possible that what are now correlations could at some point become causal connections between brain mechanisms and behaviours," says Glannon. "If that were the case, then it would threaten free will, on any definition by any philosopher."

Haynes wasn't the first neuroscientist to explore unconscious decision-making. In the 1980s, Benjamin Libet, a neuropsychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, rigged up study participants to an electroencephalogram (EEG) and asked them to watch a clock face with a dot sweeping around it2. When the participants felt the urge to move a finger, they had to note the dot's position. Libet recorded brain activity several hundred milliseconds before people expressed their conscious intention to move.


Libet's result was controversial. Critics said that the clock was distracting, and the report of a conscious decision was too subjective. Neuroscience experiments usually have controllable inputs — show someone a picture at a precise moment, and then look for reactions in the brain. When the input is the participant's conscious intention to move, however, they subjectively decide on its timing. Moreover, critics weren't convinced that the activity seen by Libet before a conscious decision was sufficient to cause the decision — it could just have been the brain gearing up to decide and then move.

Haynes's 2008 study1 modernized the earlier experiment: where Libet's EEG technique could look at only a limited area of brain activity, Haynes's fMRI set-up could survey the whole brain; and where Libet's participants decided simply on when to move, Haynes's test forced them to decide between two alternatives. But critics still picked holes, pointing out that Haynes and his team could predict a left or right button press with only 60% accuracy at best. Although better than chance, this isn't enough to claim that you can see the brain making its mind up before conscious awareness, argues Adina Roskies, a neuroscientist and philosopher who works on free will at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Besides, "all it suggests is that there are some physical factors that influence decision-making", which shouldn't be surprising. Philosophers who know about the science, she adds, don't think this sort of study is good evidence for the absence of free will, because the experiments are caricatures of decision-making. Even the seemingly simple decision of whether to have tea or coffee is more complex than deciding whether to push a button with one hand or the other.

Haynes stands by his interpretation, and has replicated and refined his results in two studies. One uses more accurate scanning techniques3 to confirm the roles of the brain regions implicated in his previous work. In the other, which is yet to be published, Haynes and his team asked subjects to add or subtract two numbers from a series being presented on a screen. Deciding whether to add or subtract reflects a more complex intention than that of whether to push a button, and Haynes argues that it is a more realistic model for everyday decisions. Even in this more abstract task, the researchers detected activity up to four seconds before the subjects were conscious of deciding, Haynes says.

Some researchers have literally gone deeper into the brain. One of those is Itzhak Fried, a neuroscientist and surgeon at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Tel Aviv Medical Center in Israel. He studied individuals with electrodes implanted in their brains as part of a surgical procedure to treat epilepsy4. Recording from single neurons in this way gives scientists a much more precise picture of brain activity than fMRI or EEG. Fried's experiments showed that there was activity in individual neurons of particular brain areas about a second and a half before the subject made a conscious decision to press a button. With about 700 milliseconds to go, the researchers could predict the timing of that decision with more than 80% accuracy. "At some point, things that are predetermined are admitted into consciousness," says Fried. The conscious will might be added on to a decision at a later stage, he suggests.

Material gains

Philosophers question the assumptions underlying such interpretations. "Part of what's driving some of these conclusions is the thought that free will has to be spiritual or involve souls or something," says Al Mele, a philosopher at Florida State University in Tallahassee. If neuroscientists find unconscious neural activity that drives decision-making, the troublesome concept of mind as separate from body disappears, as does free will. This 'dualist' conception of free will is an easy target for neuroscientists to knock down, says Glannon. "Neatly dividing mind and brain makes it easier for neuroscientists to drive a wedge between them," he adds.

The trouble is, most current philosophers don't think about free will like that, says Mele. Many are materialists — believing that everything has a physical basis, and decisions and actions come from brain activity. So scientists are weighing in on a notion that philosophers consider irrelevant.


Nowadays, says Mele, the majority of philosophers are comfortable with the idea that people can make rational decisions in a deterministic universe. They debate the interplay between freedom and determinism — the theory that everything is predestined, either by fate or by physical laws — but Roskies says that results from neuroscience can't yet settle that debate. They may speak to the predictability of actions, but not to the issue of determinism.

Neuroscientists also sometimes have misconceptions about their own field, says Michael Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In particular, scientists tend to see preparatory brain activity as proceeding stepwise, one bit at a time, to a final decision. He suggests that researchers should instead think of processes working in parallel, in a complex network with interactions happening continually. The time at which one becomes aware of a decision is thus not as important as some have thought.

Battle of wills

There are conceptual issues — and then there is semantics. "What would really help is if scientists and philosophers could come to an agreement on what free will means," says Glannon. Even within philosophy, definitions of free will don't always match up. Some philosophers define it as the ability to make rational decisions in the absence of coercion. Some definitions place it in cosmic context: at the moment of decision, given everything that's happened in the past, it is possible to reach a different decision. Others stick to the idea that a non-physical 'soul' is directing decisions.

Neuroscience could contribute directly to tidying up definitions, or adding an empirical dimension to them. It might lead to a deeper, better understanding of what freely willing something involves, or refine views of what conscious intention is, says Roskies.

Mele is directing the Templeton Foundation project that is beginning to bring philosophers and neuroscientists together. "I think if we do a new generation of studies with better design, we'll get better evidence about what goes on in the brain when people make decisions," he says. Some informal meetings have already begun. Roskies, who is funded through the programme, plans to spend time this year in the lab of Michael Shadlen, a neurophysiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who works on decision-making in the primate brain. "We're going to hammer on each other until we really understand the other person's point of view, and convince one or other of us that we're wrong," she says.

Haggard has Templeton funding for a project in which he aims to provide a way to objectively determine the timing of conscious decisions and actions, rather than rely on subjective reports. His team plans to devise an experimental set-up in which people play a competitive game against a computer while their brain activity is decoded.

Another project, run by Christof Koch, a bioengineer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will use techniques similar to Fried's to examine the responses of individual neurons when people use reason to make decisions. His team hopes to measure how much weight people give to different bits of information when they decide.

Philosophers are willing to admit that neuroscience could one day trouble the concept of free will. Imagine a situation (philosophers like to do this) in which researchers could always predict what someone would decide from their brain activity, before the subject became aware of their decision. "If that turned out to be true, that would be a threat to free will," says Mele. Still, even those who have perhaps prematurely proclaimed the death of free will agree that such results would have to be replicated on many different levels of decision-making. Pressing a button or playing a game is far removed from making a cup of tea, running for president or committing a crime.

The practical effects of demolishing free will are hard to predict. Biological determinism doesn't hold up as a defence in law. Legal scholars aren't ready to ditch the principle of personal responsibility. "The law has to be based on the idea that people are responsible for their actions, except in exceptional circumstances," says Nicholas Mackintosh, director of a project on neuroscience and the law run by the Royal Society in London.

Owen Jones, a law professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who directs a similar project funded by the MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, suggests that the research could help to identify an individual's level of responsibility. "What we are interested in is how neuroscience can give us a more granulated view of how people vary in their ability to control their behaviour," says Jones. That could affect the severity of a sentence, for example.

The answers could also end up influencing people's behaviour. In 2008, Kathleen Vohs, a social psychologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and her colleague Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist now at the University of California, Santa Barbara, published a study5 on how people behave when they are prompted to think that determinism is true. They asked their subjects to read one of two passages: one suggesting that behaviour boils down to environmental or genetic factors not under personal control; the other neutral about what influences behaviour. The participants then did a few maths problems on a computer. But just before the test started, they were informed that because of a glitch in the computer it occasionally displayed the answer by accident; if this happened, they were to click it away without looking. Those who had read the deterministic message were more likely to cheat on the test. "Perhaps, denying free will simply provides the ultimate excuse to behave as one likes," Vohs and Schooler suggested.

Haynes's research and its possible implications have certainly had an effect on how he thinks. He remembers being on a plane on his way to a conference and having an epiphany. "Suddenly I had this big vision about the whole deterministic universe, myself, my place in it and all these different points where we believe we're making decisions just reflecting some causal flow." But he couldn't maintain this image of a world without free will for long. "As soon as you start interpreting people's behaviours in your day-to-day life, it's virtually impossible to keep hold of," he says.

Fried, too, finds it impossible to keep determinism at the top of his mind. "I don't think about it every day. I certainly don't think about it when I operate on the human brain."

Mele is hopeful that other philosophers will become better acquainted with the science of conscious intention. And where philosophy is concerned, he says, scientists would do well to soften their stance. "It's not as though the task of neuroscientists who work on free will has to be to show there isn't any."

~ Kerri Smith is editor of the Nature Podcast, and is based in London.

References

• Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H.-J. & Haynes, J.-D. Nature Neurosci. 11, 543-545 (2008). | Article
• Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W. & Pearl, D. K. Brain 106, 623-642 (1983). | Article | PubMed | ISI
• Bode, S. et al. PLoS ONE 6, e21612 (2011). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort
• Fried, I., Mukamel, R. & Kreiman, G. Neuron 69, 548-562 (2011). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort
• Vohs, K. D. & Schooler, J. W. Psychol. Sci. 19, 49-54 (2008). | Article | PubMed