Month: February 2019

My february random thought

The existence of human freedom has not been debated so much as the exercise of such freedom. If it is the exercise of freedom what has been a concern over human history (a topic for another day), its existence must be a given. Really?

Let us put that statement under the microscope.

We, human beings, are body and soul. Our physicality by itself does not explain who we are, but we are not “pure spirit” either, and our physical body has an impact on how we behave, live and even how our soul is.

Let me take you through some facts of common sense and the most recent science on the topic.

As the Snicker’s commercial says… “you are not you when you are hungry”. Interesting commercial! this is a very evident and common sense fact. When you are hungry you can be ill humored and your behavior is aimed at having something to eat. However, if you are hiking in a 10K challenge “hike for … disease-charity” the same hunger feeling can be tolerated in search of a higher goal. What a mix of spiritual and body needs!

Let us move to science now. Current research in neuroscience has benefited greatly from the possibility of imaging our brain and describing what parts of the brain are active when we do different tasks. This science says that our frontal lobe is the area most active when you are thinking or solving a problem and  the parietal lobe is the area where your sense of self originates. In a study with Buddhists and Franciscan nuns who experienced a sense of “oneness” in a contemplative state, the MRIs showed a sudden drop in the activity of the parietal lobe. This is the area that creates the distinction between the “self” and “other”

A common knowledge nowadays in western culture is that contemplative practices (from mindfulness to breath mediation and many other forms of meditation) have an impact in our wellbeing. It can produce increased empathy, better mood and better relationships. As we described before, different mental states have different (an identifiable with current technology) physiological correlates.

The question is: do these practices have a real impact in our behavior or is it nonsense? If the answer is yes and there is a real impact then I have another question: Is there a physiological correlate that can provide some evidence of such change in behavior? 

EEG shows us that electrical activity of meditators is different from non-meditators and MRIs show that the activity of the brain in states of flow is very specific, it shuts down our frontal lobe for example. Furthermore, we have evidence of changes in the depth of the gray matter and size of the nucleus accumbens (ufff) in long time meditators. This area plays an important role in the reward circuit of the brain but also the attachment (emotional attachment, rumination and addiction). Interesting!    

Hooray! Finally, there is evidence that spiritual practices can have an impact in our physicality. Eccles would have been delighted to see this!

But we can even go further, very recent experiments with a combination of low-doses of MDMA with assisted therapy in patients with PTSD have shown dramatic improvements in anxiety scores, furthermore a limited number of doses are necessary to produce long lasting effects.

In summary, we can see changes in behavior with certain practices. Those practices produce long lasting impacts in our physiology (altered traits, as D Goleman/R Davidson would call it), and combination of drugs and contemplative practices can even accelerate such changes and heal.

 So… why are we talking about freedom?

The definition of freedom from the Merrian-Webster is as follows: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. The founding fathers in their declaration of independence said “…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” They thought we had the right to be free, to freedom.

There is an inextricably interaction between our physicality, our beliefs and our actions. In the 70s the biological current of psychiatry advocated for a chemical explanation of mental disease. There is an interesting statement in a building in 72nd street and Broadway:” Depression is a flaw in chemistry not character”.

Where is the threshold? Where can we attribute the cause of our behavior to our physicality and where is that behavior an exercise of freedom?

The answer is probably nuanced. Yes, human freedom exists and as a consequence human responsibility for our actions. We need to own our behavior, because we are free beings. But we have to learn more about ourselves to be able to achieve our full potential, and take advantage of both spiritual and physical hacking!

We can modify the activity of our brain to have a better life through contemplative exercises.

Reading list