Rational Philosophy

Bill Clinton and dumb ideas, memory loss and wisdom, and enhancing mental sharpness.

“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
Plato

Brain researchers should be studying Bill Clinton; Bill is a smart man, by all accounts. Why then does he sometimes say stupid things? As Hillary battles on against the odds, Bill, speaking off the cuff outside Lynn’s Paradise Cafe in Louisville Kentucky, said that not counting the votes in Michigan and Florida would be dumb, even though the states were disenfranchised prior to their primaries, and despite the fact that Obama didn’t campaign in either state and took himself off the ballot in one.

Brain researchers have in fact been finding that, Bill Clinton’s apparent example to the contrary, older minds may well be wiser minds. Aging brains pay more attention to what may seem to be extraneous information, mulling over it and absorbing it much better than younger minds. This seems to indicate that younger minds tend to power through information happily dispensing with seemingly spurious data, sticking to the highways. Whereas older minds have learned that the journey itself can be as informative and valuable as the destination.

(I’m quite prepared to believe that Bill Clinton has as much fun with his illogical statements as he does with his logical ones. He doesn’t really expect anyone other than those blindly partisan to his wife’s cause to agree with him, but he doesn’t really care. Why he doesn’t really care is a much more interesting question, and I can only hazard guesses.)

Other scientific evidence points to the benefits of activities that improve brain function. Exercise, diet, mental stimulation, engaged and engaging social and family contacts — all can contribute to our ability to stay sharp. As the article points out, and as I’ve written about here before, the idea that the brain inevitably declines and can’t grow new cells or forge new pathways has been debunked and cast aside. A very exciting turn, and one that can give us some optimism in these times of dumbness in high places.
As Socrates said and as Plato reported, “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.” This seems in keeping with the concept that as the brain gets older it is less likely to discard seemingly irrelevant information. It understands better that wisdom comes through accepting fallibility, rejecting absolute knowledge.

Socrates was also saying that we can never know anything. We can only perceive and infer. To claim absolute knowledge is to posture, to attempt to overpower someone with the assertion of knowing.

Bill Clinton cannot know what the voters in Florida and Michigan would have done if the delegates from those primaries were to be seated and the candidates campaigned accordingly. He can only posture and infer. While it’s understandably frustrating for Hillary to have perhaps missed out on a couple of wins and some delegates from those states, it is far from fair for her to convert this frustration into a claim of victory.

Related posts from around the Internet:

Alzheimer's Plaques And Tangles

 Why Brain Fitness Training Works to Combat Cognitive Decline

For a rational, science-based explanation of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist And What We Must Do To Survive.

New findings of brain research, exoneration through DNA analysis, and relationship twists.

My four year-old son gloms on to new interests with great intensity and with a level of focus that seems infinitely unflagging. Depending on the interest, his mother and I either rejoice (relatively speaking) at his fascinations, or despair. But neither state lasts long. Just when we think he’ll be a Thomas The Tank Engine junky all his life (despair!), he moves on to Lightning McQueen (better). And as we begin to worry that he’s reciting all the words to the Cars movie, he drops that and moves on superheroes. Now we’re anxiously awaiting the next new thing while we try to figure out how to dissuade him from wearing his superhero costumes — complete with capes and masks — everywhere he goes.

For children, new habits are old hat. But as we grow to adulthood, we tend to narrow our focus and stick to things we feel comfortable with. But according to research findings (and this one passes the ‘duh!’ test) when we stretch ourselves and try new things, form new habits, we create new pathways in the brain, and even new brain cells, that can lead to innovative thinking.

The NY Times article is light on references, but points to a couple of interesting concepts:

1. That research in the 1960s indicated that we’re born with the capacity to tackle challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively.

2. That when we reach puberty our brains tend to close off half of that capacity, maintaining the approaches that have worked best for us so far.

These seem like very dubious claims. I’ve always felt that true analysis has to begin with innovation. Sure, spoon fed bookwork can be achieved with almost no innovation — if we’re told to tackle a problem in a certain way — but if we’re faced with a true challenge, one that comes without a prescription, don’t we have to think innovatively in order to get the analytical ball rolling?

So, I take these strict categorizations with a large grain of salt. But I do like the idea of challenging ourselves to forge new pathways in the brain. And the more that I read about the studies in this area, the more excited I become about the prospect that people can change the way they think. (See Irony And The Plastic Mind and The Promise of The Plastic Mind.) We can respect the idea that we approach challenges with some mix of analysis, procedure, collaboration and innovation, even if we don’t consider them mutually independent strategies. And this gives a new dimension to our habit experimentation — if we tend to do a lot of things heavy on analysis, try something that’s heavy on innovation…

NPR reports on James Lee Woodward, the 17th Dallas man to be exonerated by DNA evidence. Woodward had spent 27 years behind bars, even forgoing chances of parole because he wouldn’t apologize for a crime he didn’t commit. The new Dallas DA — Craig Watkins — is determined to reexamine as many dubious convictions as possible in order to get the innocent out from behind bars. At an institutional level Watkins has begun to institute new habits of fairness and due process in the DAs office. And this seems to be a very important connection between these two articles. Just as we can stretch ourselves on a personal level to get ourselves out of a rut, to challenge ourselves to think more innovatively, so, too, the same thing can and does happen with society.

Institutions, after all, comprise people, people doing what they’re accustomed to doing, and what they are told to do, or implicitly or explicitly encouraged to do. It is the Craig Watkins of the world who act as catalysts for change within our institutions. (Sadly Watkins success at overturning old convictions with DNA evidence can’t be replicated in other parts of Texas — everywhere else the DNA evidence of these old cases has been discarded.)
(Of course, not all change is positive. The Bush administration has provided a striking example fo change for the worse, creating an institutional mindset in government that has set the country back several decades in terms of enlightened national and global policies.)

Coincidental to the main theme of this post, I came across an article on CNN.com that dips into the things that can happen in relationships when one partner makes a big change. The report gives several examples — the man who encourages his wife to become a nudist, the woman who ditches her fiance when he quits his high power job, and the man who loses his wife when he tells her he’s a cross-dresser.

What’s interesting about the CNN article vis a vis this post is that it points to a subtle way that we can forge new pathways in relationships just by being ourselves, by accepting our desire for something and being honest about it. Interestingly, the relationship experts don’t seem to unreservedly endorse honesty and self-expression. There’s a bit of finger-wagging going on. But in each of the three examples I found it hard to see that the relationship would be worth salvaging if it couldn’t survive the new challenge at hand.

I’ll end with the words of James Lee Woodward: “Time is what you make of it. You’re living no matter where you are.”

For a rational, science-based explanation of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

On the various uses (valuable or not) of the human (and primate) mind.

Scientists at Duke University have shown that it’s possible for a primate to control a machine using brain signals. The scientists trained a monkey to make a robot walk on a treadmill using its mind. The feat is impressive and the ramifications of the work could be enormous.

Cosmologists have shown (among other odd things) that the world around us is likely to be just a fleeting figment of our imagination. Since it computes to be cheaper (from a probability perspective) for a free-floating, fully populated brain to pop into existence than an entire universe (think The Matrix on acid), the cosmologists calculations indicate that it’s far more likely that I’m just imagining that I’m writing this blog entry than that I’m actually writing it… Very disheartening. With complex calculations and intense debate, theoretical cosmologists seem as fiercely certain of their predictions as they are of their ridiculousness.

There’s no accounting for the efforts of the human brain.

Meanwhile Allison Arieff, in a promising new monthly column for the NY Times, bemoans the endless torrent of flashier gadgets and electronic gizmos that replace one another in such quick succession. (Allison defends her own gadgetization “The culture of my workplace necessitates me having mobile e-mail and a calendar.” As far as I know columnists for the NY Times from 1851 until, ooh, probably around 2003 or 2004 accomplished their work without mobile e-mail and calendars.) Nevertheless, Allison strikes a resonant chord. Let the designers put their creative efforts into reducing the waste involved in new technology, or creating nifty new designs for lifesaving devices rather than snazzier cellphones. Good call, Allison.

One can easily imagine that the efforts of scientists researching the capacity for brains to control machinery will lead to both incredibly valuable innovations, as well as incredibly purile and perhaps dangerous innovations. The most obviously valuable use would be for those who currently have no control or limited control over their bodies. Being able to control machinery would give them the ability to move and act in ways that they currently cannot. Any catalog of purile uses I might devise can, I’m sure, easily be bettered. But how about cell phones that we can dial with our minds, or a TV channel changer that surfs without us lifting a finger..? As for dangerous innovations, the Pentagon is already trying to append robotics to people to make them stronger and more lethal. The success of the recent machine-mind research at Duke is a big step in that direction.

The world of innovation and thought must remain, by definition, a democratic place. Ideas don’t ask for permission to occur to us. Cosmologists will continue to follow their calculations into a fizzling fantasy-land until someone goes to the chalkboard to erase an invalid assumption and send them all tumbling. Designers of gadgets will keep designing flashier funkier gadgets until and unless, as Arieff points out, market forces direct them toward greener, leaner, less useless inventions. And mind-machine innovators will take the robot and run with it in as many directions as they can. Only demand, necessity and regulation can steer them in the right direction.

(As to wacky cosmology, I’ll cross-reference here my own thoughts on the philosophy of the universe and time.)