by

The Myth of Mental Disorders

Comorbidity of Mental Disorders with Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse

(Regier et. al. 1990)

This was an epidemiological study on the comorbidity of mental disorders and drug and alcohol abuse. The mental disorders concerned in this study are: schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, anxiety disorders, and affective (mood) disorders. Previous studies have shown that patients with addictive disorders may appear at different rates within the population than people with addiction disorders and mental disorders in combination. It was also noted that mental disorders are more prevalent in the population than alcohol disorders, and there are even less patients with drug disorders. Weissman et al conducted a study on comorbidity concerning alcohol abuse and various mental disorders. He found that on average alcoholism has a life prevalence rate of 6.7 percent. He also concluded that people with alcoholism have a 70 percent chance of having a mental disorder at some point in their lives.

The current study is a more comprehensive study in that it incorporates data from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The study also incorporates drug abuse (drugs other than alcohol) as well as more mental disorders including Bipolar I, Bipolar II, and Major Depressive Disorder. The authors of this epidemiological study believed that there would be a high statistical association between drug and alcohol abuse and the prevalence of mental disorders.

Trained interviews conducted highly structured assessments on 20,291 participants. The first wave of data collection took place between 1980 and 1984. During the interview participants were asked about present symptoms of mental disorders and drug and alcohol abuse as well as previous symptoms (6 months, 1 year, and lifetime). Symptoms caused by acute drug use or withdrawals (hallucinations, depression, delusions, and anxiety) were not considered symptoms of a mental disorder to avoid skewed data. Participants were selected from mental hospitals, nursing homes, and penal institutions (all above the age of 18). The sample also represented the general population by gender, race, age, etc.

The results from this study are highly conclusive but I will highlight the aspects that I found most interesting. Participants that resided in prison had a high percentage of mental disorders (55.7 percent) compared to participants in nursing homes who only had an occurrence of mental disorders at 14.3 percent. Although schizophrenia only effects 1.5 percent of the population 47 percent of schizophrenics are affected by some type of substance abuse disorder and are 4.6 times more likely to have an addiction disorder. The study also concluded that 83.6 percent of people with antisocial personality disorder have an addiction disorder, but that percentage could be confounded by the fact that substance abuse is considered criteria for diagnosis of the disorder (which I will address later in the paper). People with anxiety disorders abuse alcohol more than other drugs (19.4 percent) which makes sense because of its agonist effects on GABA and opiate receptors. Life long prevalence of solely mental disorders is much higher than that of comorbid combinations (life long prevalence of mental disorders is 16.2 percent, mental disorder and alcohol abuse is 3.1 percent, mental disorder and drug abuse is 1.5 percent).

Although the quantitative data may seem very objective I think that the more you analyze it becomes subjective. I believe that the field of abnormal psychology is inherently enmeshed in societal norms, politics, and philosophy. I can call a television a black, rectangular shaped, image-producing box, that consumes electricity or I can call it a television. We can diagnose a human being with disorders until we are blue in the face but I believe looking at patients (or clients) in a holistic manor, and as individuals, is not only a moral imperative but more useful in treating them. We can say that someone has an alcohol, drug, gambling, or any addictive disorder but differentiating the substance or action is frivolous. In Gabor Mate’s book (who I was lucky enough to meet at conference in New York) “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” he explains that the focus should not be on the drug addiction but on the problems causing the addiction. Addicts are simply self-medicate a deeper underlying problem. It should be no surprise then that people with mental disorders use substances to medicate their emotional pain. I think inventing a name for a particular substance abuse is pointless.

I believe that a person’s mental disorder and substance abuse should not be seen as two separate disorders but symptoms of one underlying problem. A good point that was made in the article is the fact that one of the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder is substance abuse. Abusing a particular drug albeit alcohol or any narcotic should not be seen as a disorder because the usage of any substance is just a symptom of a deeper psychological disorder.

Another interesting point in the study was that alcohol abuse is much more prevalent than drug use. This could be simply explained by its legality and it is more socially acceptable. Does it really matter what the substance of abuse is? Most substances inhibit or excite similar receptors and reward circuits in the brain. It is not the heroin or codeine that makes you feel good but the opioid receptors in your brain. Its not the THC that makes the addict feel better but the increased dopamine. My point is that I don’t think addictions should be differentiated based on substances or even addictions concerning behaviors such as gambling. Whether it is gambling or heroin use the behavior is compulsive, and only an attempt to fill a void or dull some emotional pain. Drug abuse, as well as addictive behaviors are, arguably, equally destructive. I know someone who was diagnosed with PTSD and when his primary care provider asked him at the VA if he uses drugs or alcohol he admitted to drinking a couple beers a night, smoking roughly half a pack of cigarettes a day, and maybe once a week will consume cannabis to help him sleep. The doctor ignored the daily alcohol use, as well as the cigarette use, but put a note in his medical record: marijuana abuse. This is a perfect example of how politics or culture can influence how mental health is approached. Marijuana’s illegality influenced the doctors opinion on what the word abuse means.

I think this study is an example of the semantic difficulties in the field of psychiatry. In Thomas Zsaz’s book “The Myth of Mental Illness” he details the dangers of the psychiatrists tendency to label behavior.  In pathologizing behavior we get distracted by symptoms, which should be seen as forms of language, we also dehumanize and collectivize the individual.

In conclusion I think that differentiating substances either alcohol or other drugs is meaningless. Also, claiming that drug abuse is a disorder within itself is a simplistic way of looking at human behavior. I think it would be more useful to think of drug abuse as a patients attempt to treat himself of his underlying mental disorder. Arguably drug abuse can be seen as a symptom of any mental disorder.

 

 

by

Kierkegaard and Thoreau

I find Kierkegaard’s ideas very interesting and existential philosophy is something that I have wanted to learn (or think) more about. He talked about levels of philosophical thinking starting with the aesthetic stage, ethics, and then the religious stage. The aesthetic stage is where I believe most people are at in this society. It’s basically mindlessness and the appreciation of individual pleasure. Deeper meaning, purpose and context aren’t necessarily an issue in the aesthetic stage. Mindlessly browsing the Internet for videos of dogs on skateboards or a person crying because their favorite character from Twilight cheated on his girlfriend are examples of aesthetics. The fact that most people are in the so-called aesthetic stage makes sharing the same species as these people miserable. It is hard to have conversations with people because life is without meaning. I believe when life becomes too easy or luxurious people stop caring about meaning.

I think evolution can be a good analogy when it comes to ideas. Struggle is the main pressure for natural selection to choose good genes. Philosophical ideas must be selected through an experience or of period of struggle. Armchair philosophy is idealistic but philosophy takes fieldwork.  When you look at life as a boring and mindless experience the only thing you can derive from it is amusement and quick, shallow pleasures. The next stage is the ethics stage. This is the stage of thought where life does have meaning and guidelines. You try to judge human behavior and its value. This however is not enough; you can passively judge behavior for its value but being an observer does not take much effort or create value. The religious stage incorporates a philosophical set of beliefs and living by them. I think of Henry David Thoreau as living the religious stage of philosophy. In his great book Walden, he lived religiously, without religion, to a set of philosophical guidelines. He lived in the woods of Massachusetts on a pond for 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days, (I believe its been a while). He had very little contact with society, lived off the land, and rediscovered nature and himself and gained a new appreciation for existence. Here again there is a struggle. He talked about how the winters were hard and food required labor but it allowed him to live with pure thoughts and intentions. One funny story from the book was an Irish man was telling Thoreau that meat is necessary for big strong bones. Thoreau tried explaining to the thickheaded Irishman that the Ox that pulls the plow to harvest vegetables eats only grass and is much stronger than the carnivorous human. These are the things that go unnoticed and unchallenged when meat is not a luxury but an expectation. When life presents no struggle why ask questions? Since reading that book I have wanted to live as simple a life as possible and disconnect from society (or at least the evils of it). But being indoctrinated for about 24 year it is hard to get up and leave, and my wife is not to keen on the idea either. I think that it would be a good experience even for a year or six months.

It is interesting that Adam Smith’s theories of free-market economics influenced Darwin’s theories in evolution. There seems to be a tendency in our reality of struggle and selection. In free-markets we have competition and consumers select the products (genes). In biology we have environmental pressures and organisms have to select genes. In philosophy we have ideas produced by experience (struggle) and better ideas of have be selected. I wonder if this type of existence is unique to earth.

by

GMO’s…..

Genetic engineering has to be approached with caution in my opinion. Biological beings have been genetically modified since the beginning of time but through modes of natural selection. Nature, the environment, and ecology were the dictators of gene selection by influencing certain organisms to reproduce. This created a natural and most efficient way of selecting genes. Scientist have now discovered how to modify genes resulting in different levels of immunity and morphology, gender, intelligence, etc. Because humans cannot plan for, or predict, things that nature or our world naturally regulates, the dangers of selecting genes based on current needs is irresponsible. The Ice nine bacteria which could prevent frost from growing on plants has been used irresponsibly to make profit. This sounds like a practical option to increase produce yields but it can have unintended consequences if implemented. GMOs are now being heavily used in the food industry but we are running into problems with lack of genetic variation which can cause extinction. The banana is likely to be extinct in the near future (possibly ten years) because of lack of genetic variation.

There are subtle effects on the psychology of humans because of genetically modified foods. Americans especially are used to perfect looking foods. They expect tomatoes to be perfectly round, and red. Banana’s to be a perfect crescent shape and yellow. In the wild these traits would be rare. I saw an apple sit on the table of my work place for close to a week because it was slightly deformed and everyone was afraid to eat it. So because we are used to unnatural perfection of food we have a tendency to waste. People sometimes forget that an apple comes from a tree and is a plant, not manufactured in a “plant”.

Government does not fund research of environmental causes of certain diseases. The government and some researchers bias towards the genetic research which allows environments to stay the same or deteriorate even further, while focusing on changing the genetic makeup and allowing the organism to be more adapted to the deteriorating environment. Epigenetics are genetics that operate almost like light switches and are triggered by the environment. These may prove that research on environmental factors should be more heavily studied. I think modifying the environment i.e. (family structures, drug use, politics, housing etc.) is a much safer way of creating healthier people than modifying their genes (generally I think epigenetics are discussed with plant organisms but can be applied to humans too). Modifying human’s genes can have permanent and irreversible impacts whereas environmental changes like the ones I mentioned are modifiable.

Making crops genetically uniform to combat certain insects or other threats is also a risk. Genetic variation acts as a combatant towards random parasites: some plants will survive and some will not the ones that do pass on genes that are resistant to the parasite. One thing that we have found out is that bacteria evolves and can morph very fast. Insects also evolve very quickly to niches. Therefore it could be a constant battle. I can think of a dystopian novel on genetic engineering where insects, bacteria, and scientists are constantly battling each other: scientists trying to modify genes to create plants that are resistant to new bacteria and insects that adapt daily while the scientist needs to sleep and when he wakes up he has a new set of problems.

by

Evolution of Human Intelligence and The Stoned Ape Theory

This week’s lecture was very interesting because we talked about the evolution of human intelligence. One theory was that the hand or probably more specifically the thumb is what propelled human intelligence. The thumb may have allowed us to grasp things, which allowed us to manipulate the environment rather than submis to it. However, I think that the mind would have to come before the thumb because we would need the desire to manipulate the environment before we start selecting certain mates with that mutation (thumb). There was also talk about language separating humans from other species. I agree with this to some extent. We are, as far as we know, the only species that can use what Noam Chomsky calls transformational grammar, which is the ability to explain the deep structures of a sentence in many different ways. There has been a lot of research done on primates regarding language that is very shocking. One study is with a gorilla that has learned American Sign Language (over 1,000 words and she also understands over 2,000 spoken words). This gorilla can express past events and also make novel statements, which we thought only humans could do. Animals, and especially primates, have a very sophisticated language that we may not be able to understand and simply and arrogantly say they don’t possess. Their language may not be as “productive” as the human language but the word productive is very subjective. Studies also show that primates learn by emulation rather than imitation. Humans tend to imitate while learning but primates tend to go after results rather than specific behaviors. This is because of our highly social environments.

One pretty interesting but not very empirically based theory on human evolution is Terrance McKenna’s “Stoned Ape Theory”. His theory goes something like this: Primates lived in trees in Africa until it started drying up and they had to move done to the prairie lands. Living in the prairie lands required more attention because of predators and an adaptation in the foods they ate. When primates were foraging for food on the ground they stumbled upon mushrooms that gathered around herbivore dung, specifically the Psilocybin mushroom, which is psychoactive. These mushrooms were desirable because they increased sociability and eased communal tensions as well as increased awareness to the spatial environment. So he thinks that the mushroom is what inevitably increased intelligence. This is a pretty loose theory but still entertaining to think about. Also in high doses of psilocybin spontaneous vocalizations occur which McKenna believes to be the foundation of language.

Primatologists have found positive correlations between the neocortex size and group size of all primates. So if a certain species has larger social groups they tend to have a larger neocortex: showing a positive correlation. This is not true for all species though because the wasp lives in large numbers but has a small brain. One argument that I have is that maybe it isn’t the brain size that is increasing our intelligence. Our brain size hasn’t increased that dramatically over the past 1,000 years but I feel that our intelligence as a species has grown. So maybe intelligence grows separate of the brain. Maybe intelligence has more to do with cultural transmission. Or maybe our teaching practices and technologies have increased the ability to learn. Maybe humans haven’t become smarter but technology or cultural practices have allowed our ape-minded intelligence to surface.

Another issue with intelligence is that a lot of times we think of intelligence as productive. We think of intelligence in only ways that we see human intelligence evolving i.e. technology, science, and innovation. Intelligence can also be emotional and spiritual rather than physical. We think because we can explain nature so well that we are intelligent but at the same time what is it doing to human nature. I think as intelligence grows so doe’s mental illness and stress. You don’t see to many aborigines suffering from narcissistic personality disorder or whatever other disorders smart psychologists come up with. People who are intelligent often have issues with depression and drugs, stress and anxiety. So we have to look at the value of intelligence. I’m not saying intelligence is bad but trying to say that maybe its not the only type of intelligence. Other species or even cultures have different types of intelligence.

Terrance McKenna’s Stoned Ape Theory about 10 minutes long

by

The NSA Debacle

Edward Snowden has been called a patriot, a traitor, and everything in between. There has been some serious controversy about this man since May of this year when he leaked information regarding mass surveillance by the National Security Agency. Snowden wrote a couple of expose’s regarding the “boundless informant” system, which is used by the NSA to collect meta-data from phone calls, emails, and other forms of communication. Snowden claimed that this system is responsible for monitoring up to 60 million phone connections and 10 million Internet data sets per day in Germany alone. He has been charged with three felonies under the Espionage Act of 1917, which makes him the 8th person under the Obama administration to be persecuted for such crimes (more than double of all other presidents combined). This motivated Snowden to flee the country and find political refuge in Russia. Obama claims that the surveillance procedures of the NSA are “a reasonable compromise between freedom and security” (1).

            Before I dive into the subject I want to briefly mention the redundancy of this topic. By no means is this a new issue in the short history of America. The first episodes of invasion of privacy in American would be the “Writs of Assistance” which allowed British soldiers to randomly search the houses of colonists during the Revolution. After winning the Revolution, the founding fathers wanted to make sure that these injustices never occurred again so they created the 4th amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizures and also requires a warrant by a judge to search someone. However, only twelve years after writing the Constitution the Alien and Sedition Acts were enacted which blindsided the fourth amendment. Since then we’ve seen things like the Cipher Bureau (Black Chamber), Project SHAMROCK, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Industrial Espionage, Thin Tread, Trailblazer, The PATRIOT Act, and the NDAA under the Obama administration to name a few. These are only the issues that Wikipedia and other sources provided me, but as we know there are a lot of things that the government hides from us so we can safely assume that there are plenty of other surveillance modalities being used.

Let’s start with the idea that every individual human is born sovereign from any government. Every person on this earth was born without choice. They were brought into this world unable to pick their location of birth, nor their government. I think this fundamental idea is overlooked because we live in a world of presumptions. When a baby is born it is immediately stamped with a social security number so that it’s production and efficiency can be tracked throughout its life. The child then repetitively “pledges allegiance” to a flag every morning in school. Then it goes through 12 years of public education where he or she learns about American exceptionalism and how every conflict that America has involved itself in has been in the best interest of the world at large. With this type of training how can we possibly live in a reality without presumptions?

We presume that the government knows best when it comes to national security. When the president says that it is in our best interest to give government the power to murder U.S. citizens without trial (NDAA) we assume that he knows what he is talking about. How much safety does surveillance actually provides us? Thin Tread was a program not much different than the one Snowden exposed. This program was active during the Clinton administration and was terminated 3 weeks prior to September 11th. The program “analyzed data to identify relationships between callers and chronicle their contacts, identified U.S. phone numbers and other communications data, and used more sophisticated methods of sorting through massive phone and e-mail data to identify suspect communications” (2). This surveillance program failed to inform us of the attacks that would happen only weeks after it was terminated. Stephan Molyneux has reported that our current government has the ability to turn on web cams and even listen through our cellphones when we believe these devices to be turned off (3).

This may sound cynical but I think the idea that surveillance is done to protect people may be more accurately stated as a protection of assets. September 11th was a tragic event for every American and motivated many including myself to deploy to war in retaliation. However, when the government claims that we are fighting and surveilling in defense and protection it is not of people but of material property. On September 11th we lost 3,000 lives, which is horrific and significant, but we have lost more than double that in the lives of soldiers, and over 120,000 Iraqi civilians during the Iraq invasion. The cost of war certainly trumps the 3,000 that died over a decade ago. I think for many rich and powerful people loosing the World Trade Center was more of a loss than the people inside it. Money was lost and stock markets tanked. This, unfortunately, I believe is the reason for endless war and surveillance, not the protection of human life. If human life was precious and to be preserved they would not be used as pawns of war.

I think there are more cost effective ways to keep people safe besides surveillance. One of them would be to stop beating our war drums. I think the surveillance is necessary at this point because of all the trouble that we are causing around the world. Who would we spy on if we had no enemies? But if we continue to maintain our current and pre-September 11th foreign policies surveillance may be necessary. Imagine the money saved in military spending and surveillance spending if we just adopted a new strategy of peace? Imagine the lives saved?

Another issue is transparency, which is also a presumption. If I walked up to a police officer and asked to see some identification I may be arrested for harassing a law enforcer. Yet, at any time, I can be asked to identify myself by a police officer. This concept extends to the federal government. The government has the luxury of to spying on us but if we spy on them it is considered espionage or treason (if we expose our findings). The government has enacted whistleblower laws that protect people that expose government corruption but corruption is not clearly defined. Well, as a matter of fact, it can probably be defined as such: anything the government does is without corruption. My definition may be circular but the point is clear.

Although our constitution is not perfect it is the law of the land at the moment. And if the government expects its citizens not to break laws neither should it. The fourth amendment protects our privacy and if the government wants to invade our privacy they should first abolish the 4th amendment (not that I think they should). People often think that there are certain circumstances where the constitution can be ignored but the fact is the founding fathers systematically wrote the constitution to protect us from this coercion. There is no reason to spy during times of peace so why even write that in the constitution? It was written to protect us from times when protection is needed such as war and other forms of tyranny.

The government has had the propensity to get itself involved in markets that the private sector was doing an adequate job with such as education and healthcare. There are arguments that the free market wasn’t doing a good job in the health care sector but from my understanding it was semi-efficient until the government inserted itself in the 60’s. Prices for education have skyrocketed while the quality has decreased. These tendencies run parallel with surveillance. Surveillance can be left up to the private sector where people protect themselves from threats, which would allow much more freedom and privacy. What happens if the government decided to socialize social networking such as Facebook or Twitter? It may sound crazy at this point but I could see it happening someday in the future: government run social networking. The government already uses information from these networks because the third party doctrine allows them to collect any data that has been forfeited to another person (Stored Communications Act).

In summary, I think that mass surveillance is a gross violation of humanity. I think it strips people of privacy and instills an underlying feeling of fear or reason to worry. Just looking up resources for this paper I wondered if my webcam has turned on to take pictures of me; or if my IP address has been stored in some database in the basement of the NSA. People should feel secure enough to browse the web and talk on the phone freely. Speaking ill of the government shouldn’t feel like a risk but an obligation. We spend millions of dollars on surveillance in Afghanistan but we still experience ambushes and car bombings. If people know they are being spied on they will find other ways to make plans. I’m sure most people knew before May of this year that the government has a problem minding its own business, so enemies were probably more discrete about planning potential attacks. I think that protection is just a word used as a decoy to sell the idea of surveillance to the citizens of the U.S. We are rapidly approaching George Orwell’s dystopian ideas of human society; if we haven’t already surpassed it.

 

(1) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/22/snowden-espionage-charges This is a link talking about Snowden’s predicament and how he is the eighth person under the Obama administration to be charged with espionage.

(2) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0518-07.htm This link is a description of Thin Tread (which turned into Trailblazer) a surveillance system prior to September 11th.

(3) http://podbay.fm/show/552010683/e/1374537000?autostart=1 This is a pod cast by Stephan Molyneux (one of my favorite modern day thinkers). He talks a lot about modern society and politics. In this podcast he gives a brief history of government’s invasion of privacy and the Snowden case.

(4) http://podbay.fm/show/155974141/e/1370929971 This link is to a pod cast by Dan Carlin, a political commentator and historian. 

by

My Tribulations at Walmart

My field study took place at Wal-Mart in Somersworth, NH. I went in trying to perceive it as if the first time being in a department store. I do this often because it provides a fresh perception of how things are. I walked in and was initially overwhelmed with vibrant colors and confusing noise. The colors were not earthy and that of nature but more of a 21st Century industrial and modern feel. The colors consisted of bright reds, yellows, blues, and greens. These colors would be overwhelming to a member of a more archaic society. The store was massive, lacking windows and it was easy to get disoriented. It reminded me of a casino with their intentions to disorient the customer of time so they stay longer. The aisles were arranged almost like an efficient maze. I watched people push shopping carts, which reminded me of how less “civilized people” carry baskets made of natural fibers to carry food. I watched people go up and down aisles of food that were conveniently packaged in petroleum. The food was packaged in bright colors. It almost seemed as though the different brands were competing for the brightest packaging to grab the vulnerable consumers’ attention. People generally grabbed the food at arm level rather than bending down to get the cheaper “bottom shelf” foods. It seemed as though there was a hidden force making the decisions for the consumers, maybe a corporation.  People would grip the shopping cart handles with their hands, hands that were once used for killing prey or more brutish things but are now used for typing on keyboards.

            After collecting enough food for an entire week, in less than twenty minutes, the people would head towards the front of the building and get in line to check out. The carts would be filled with various foods. It was interesting to see cheese from Vermont and Italy, bananas and mangoes, coffee and teas, all in the same shopping cart. Foods from all corners of the globe were collected in the four square foot cart in less than twenty minutes of being at Wal-Mart. These resources had to be planted, go through a growing cycle, harvested, processed, and then shipped to Wal-Mart. It is amazing how quickly they can be gathered, purchased, and consumed once they hit the shelves.

People seemed to take this for granted. If anything they looked aggravated that the line was taking so long to check out. People seemed to be annoyed that after gathering their resources they couldn’t immediately consume them: they had to wait 1 to 5 minutes to pay for them first.  Instead of engaging in conversation with their fellow shoppers they tried desperately to avoid conversation by browsing for other last minute things to purchase such as gum, soda, beef jerky, or gossip magazines which are found near the cash registers. Something told me that the people had no interest in looking at these items but preoccupied themselves in order to avoid conversation. If they didn’t browse for more goods they simply pulled out an IPhone or Android to provide soothing and comforting distraction.

            Once they arrived at the cash register (or credit card register) they painstakingly greeted the Wal-Mart employee. Most of the people avoided eye contact at all cost. Eye contact usually shows an expression of interest. Once the employee was done ringing up the items the consumer proceeded to pay for the goods by swiping a plastic card. Males typically carried their credit cards in a wallet stored in the back right pocket of their pants while females stored their cards in a purse. It is interesting that both males and females generally need the same things when shopping but use two different tools to carry those items. It was most interesting to watch people as they waited to check out because you can see their animosity towards the person in front of them. If someone was taking too long to check out you can see the looks of disdain but when it was their turn to check out they typically didn’t move much faster. The closer you paid attention to the micro-expressions on the peoples’ faces the more disturbing it became.

            It is sad that this is how distribution is performed nowadays. There used to be a more personal way of exchange where you knew the producer and/or the merchant. As the purpose of life shifts from pleasure to profit peoples behavior shifts from genuine to self-absorbed. The saying “time is money” is so clear at Wal-Mart when the conveyor belt at the cash register is stacked a foot high with food and moving at a mile per hour. Although, most people have access to cheaper foods and resources today it doesn’t seem to have only positive effects on us. Maybe things have gotten too easy. Maybe we are forgetting what its like to be human. 

by

Cognitive Technology

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001394

The article suggests that fMRI and Statistical Parametric Mapping software does have the capability of predicting your visual thoughts. The experiment confirmed that there are universal patterns in the brain when individuals see certain images (whether it be a tool or dwelling in this case). The fMRI and the Statistical Parametric Mapping software were not only able to decipher between dwellings and tools but were able to predict specific items within a perspective category. This suggests that there are certain and universal neural patterns for recognition of specific images.

These results are fascinating because we are starting to see this type of technology everyday. Most smart phones make decisions (autocorrect) based on thumb placement which is amazing in and of itself. If technology were to start reading our minds rather than out thumbs amazing (or maybe scary) things will start to happen. I think that articles like this are just the very beginning of what technology will become. Most technology that we use today responds to physical inputs from out body but this article suggests that soon technology will be operated by out thought processes.

            To answer whether or not we should continue this line of research is more philosophical than factual. I believe that we should because it seems to be the natural trend of humanity. This type of technology can certainly make our lives easier and more prosperous but there are also dangers to this type of technology. As mysterious as the brain is it is actually an ancient organ operating in a very advanced world. I believe that technology will “out-smart” the human brain. Human brain size and capability is slowly evolving (millions of years) where as technology is evolving daily. This may pose a threat to humans because artificial intelligence that can conceptualize the same reality as humans may be able to create technology of its own.