The Physiology of some Phases of the Poetic Mind

1878 ◽  
Vol 24 (106) ◽  
pp. 233-243
Author(s):  
Frederick Treves
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Structural Position ◽  
Correct Conclusion ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Experienced Physician ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

To take one other example as illustrating a somewhat different aspect of this question. An experienced physician arrives in a moment at the diagnosis of a case presented to his notice, but a well read and well informed student may ponder long before attaining a correct conclusion under exactly similar circumstances. In what does the difference between the mental processes in the two individuals consist? It will be said to be a matter of experience merely; but what does this statement imply? In the process of arriving at a diagnosis of the case many facts will have to be observed, many points criticised, and many arguments weighed and valued. Now in the case of the senior observer all these facts, these points, these arguments will perhaps have been passed through the mind some hundreds of times before, in reviewing similar cases; the various steps whereby his final opinion is attained will, by frequent exercise and repetition, have become separately organised in the brain, and, however rapidly his conclusion may have been arrived at, the various steps will have been undertaken. But inasmuch as their influence is exercised automatically, he remains unconscious of their agency, until he stops to analyse the various reasons that have—to a very great extent unconsciously—laid the foundations of his diagnosis and the various details on which his opinion has been founded. The process may involve no more consciousness than is displayed in the movements of the envelope folder; one is aware that the envelope is folded, and the other that he has arrived at a definite opinion; but neither may be awake to the separate steps of the process until they deliberately investigate the details of the preceding movements. In the case of the immature observer, frequent repetition has not as yet made certain processes necessary to the diagnosis of the case familiar to his mind, and in consequence they have attained no sound structural position in his nerve centres; so, like the novice in the mystery of envelope folding, he has to consider each step, and proceed with deliberation, and under the acute guardianship of consciousness.

The Physiology of some Phases of the Poetic Mind

1878 ◽  
Vol 24 (106) ◽  
pp. 233-243
Author(s):  
Frederick Treves
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Structural Position ◽  
Correct Conclusion ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Experienced Physician ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

To take one other example as illustrating a somewhat different aspect of this question. An experienced physician arrives in a moment at the diagnosis of a case presented to his notice, but a well read and well informed student may ponder long before attaining a correct conclusion under exactly similar circumstances. In what does the difference between the mental processes in the two individuals consist? It will be said to be a matter of experience merely; but what does this statement imply? In the process of arriving at a diagnosis of the case many facts will have to be observed, many points criticised, and many arguments weighed and valued. Now in the case of the senior observer all these facts, these points, these arguments will perhaps have been passed through the mind some hundreds of times before, in reviewing similar cases; the various steps whereby his final opinion is attained will, by frequent exercise and repetition, have become separately organised in the brain, and, however rapidly his conclusion may have been arrived at, the various steps will have been undertaken. But inasmuch as their influence is exercised automatically, he remains unconscious of their agency, until he stops to analyse the various reasons that have—to a very great extent unconsciously—laid the foundations of his diagnosis and the various details on which his opinion has been founded. The process may involve no more consciousness than is displayed in the movements of the envelope folder; one is aware that the envelope is folded, and the other that he has arrived at a definite opinion; but neither may be awake to the separate steps of the process until they deliberately investigate the details of the preceding movements. In the case of the immature observer, frequent repetition has not as yet made certain processes necessary to the diagnosis of the case familiar to his mind, and in consequence they have attained no sound structural position in his nerve centres; so, like the novice in the mystery of envelope folding, he has to consider each step, and proceed with deliberation, and under the acute guardianship of consciousness.

scholarly journals Evolution in the Brain, Evolution in the Mind: The Hierarchical Brain and the Interface between Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-377
Author(s):  
Leonardo Niro Nascimento
Keyword(s):  
Brain Evolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Evolutionary Models ◽  
Anatomy And Physiology ◽  
Psychodynamically Oriented ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Shed Light

This article first aims to demonstrate the different ways the work of the English neurologist John Hughlings Jackson influenced Freud. It argues that these can be summarized in six points. It is further argued that the framework proposed by Jackson continued to be pursued by twentieth-century neuroscientists such as Papez, MacLean and Panksepp in terms of tripartite hierarchical evolutionary models. Finally, the account presented here aims to shed light on the analogies encountered by psychodynamically oriented neuroscientists, between contemporary accounts of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system on the one hand, and Freudian models of the mind on the other. These parallels, I will suggest, are not coincidental. They have a historical underpinning, as both accounts most likely originate from a common source: John Hughlings Jackson's tripartite evolutionary hierarchical view of the brain.

Ordering Disorder

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Graham
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Type A ◽  
The Other ◽  
Brain Disorder ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
The Brain

The basic claims of the chapter are, first, that mental disorders are not best understood as types of brain disorder, even though mental disorders are based in the brain. And, second, that the difference between the two sorts of disorders can be illuminated by the sorts of treatment or therapy that may work for the one type (a mental disorder) but not for the other type (a brain disorder). In the discussion some of the diagnostic implications and difficulties associated with these two basic claims are outlined.

The Physical Basis of Mental Disease

1912 ◽  
Vol 58 (242) ◽  
pp. 465-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivy Mackenzie
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disease ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Pathological Process ◽  
The Body ◽  
Normal Brain ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Nervous Disease ◽  
Perfect Adaptation ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

In bringing forward some evidence which would point to the biological course followed by some forms of nervous disease to be considered, I would first of all accept as a working hypothesis two generalisations which apply to all forms of disease. The first of these generalisations is that there is essentially no difference in kind between a physiological and a pathological process. The distinction is an arbitrary one; the course of disease is distinguished from that of health only in so far as it tends to compromise the continuation of a more or less perfect adaptation between the organism and its surroundings. There is no tendency in Nature either to kill or to cure; she is absolutely impartial as to the result of a conflict between organisms and a host; and it is a matter of complete indifference to her as to whether toxins are eliminated or not. In the same way diseases of the mind are the manifestation of a perfectly natural relation of the organism, such as it is, to the environment. If the mental processes are abnormal, it goes without saying that the brain must be acting abnormally whether the stimuli to abnormal action originate in the brain itself or in some other part of the body. For example, if a child with pneumonia be suffering from delirium and hallucinations, as is not infrequently the case, this must be considered a perfectly natural outcome of the relation of the brain to its environmental stimuli outside and inside the organism. The actual stimuli may originate in the intestine from masses of undigested food and the stimuli may play on the brain rendered hypersensitive by the toxins from the lungs; the process and its manifestations, as well as the final outcome, are matters in which nature plays an impartial part. It cannot be admitted that there is any form of nervous disease which does not come under this generalisation. It has been argued by some authorities that because insidious forms of insanity are marked only by the slightest variation from the normal course of mental life, and that because the mental abnormalities are only modifications, and often easily explainable modifications, of normal mental processes, that the so-called insanity originates in these processes, and not in the material substratum of the organism. The fallacy of such an interpretation is obvious; it is tantamount to saying that slight albuminuria is the cause underlying early disease of the kidneys, or that a slight ódema may have something to do with the origin of circulatory disease. It is only natural that in the milder forms of mental disease the abnormal manifestations of brain activity should resemble normal mental processes; and even in the most advanced forms of mental disease there must be a close resemblance between abnormal ideation and conduct and perfectly normal ideation and behaviour. Even in advanced cases of Bright's disease the urinary elimination is more normal than abnormal; the abnormal constituents do not differ so much in kind as in degree from those of urine from healthy kidneys. It is not to be expected that in kidney disease bile or some other substance foreign to the organ would be the chief constituent of the eliminated fluid. The signs of insanity in any given case are the natural products of normal brain action mingled with the products of abnormal action. This does not, of course, preclude the possibility that under certain circumstances these abnormal products, such as delusions, hallucinations and perverted conduct, may not themselves be the direct stimuli to further abnormalities. The suicidal character of pathological processes is well seen in other organs of the body. A diseased heart, for example, is its own worst enemy; it not only fails to supply sufficient nutrition to the rest of the organism, but it starves itself by its inability to contract and expand properly, thereby increasing its own weakness. In the same way, certain phenomena of abnormal brain processes are in all probability due to the recoil on the brain of its own abnormal products in the matter of ideation and conduct.

Mind, Intelligence and Spirit

1998 ◽  
pp. 164-169
Author(s):  
Pascual F. Martínez-Freire
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Chinese Room ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Personal Project ◽  
Important Quality ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

The mind is a collection of various classes of processes that can be studied empirically. To limit the field of mental processes we must follow the criteria of folk psychology. There are three kinds of mind: human, animal and mechanical. But the human mind is the paradigm or model of mind. The existence of mechanical minds is a serious challenge to the materialism or the mind-brain identity theory. Based on this existence we can put forward the antimaterialist argument of machines. Intelligence is a class of mental processes such that the mind is the genus and the intelligence is a species of this genus. The capacity to solve problems is a clear and definite criterion of intelligence. Again, like in the mind, the human intelligence is the paradigm of the intelligence. There are also three kinds of intelligence: human, animal and mechanical. Searle’s Chinese room argument is misleading because Searle believes that it is possible to maintain a sharp distinction between syntax and semantics. The reasonable dualism in the brain-mind problem defends the existence of brain-mental processes, physical-mental processes, and nonphysical-mental (spiritual) processes. Constitution of the personal project of life, self-consciousness and free volitions are examples of spiritual processes. Usually the intelligence has been considered the most important quality of human beings, but freedom, or the world of free volitions, is a more specific quality of human beings.

scholarly journals Your Mind on Music: Muffins, Magic, Mozart, Myth

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Jean Emmerson
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
Adolescent And Young Adult ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This article begins with questions that arose during my experiences as a young musician touring with a band. I explore answers to these questions through examining the difference between the mind and the brain and describing selected research on the effects of music on the brain. I then review the literature on the presence and power of music in adolescent and young adult life. Lastly, I apply these findings to learning.

scholarly journals Must Psychoanalysis be Scientific?

1984 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 152-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. King
Keyword(s):  
Cell Membranes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biological Approach ◽  
Receptor Sites ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
True Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

In spite of the vast strides forward made by the brain sciences this century, the gap between our understanding of the brain and our understanding of the mind remains uncomfortably wide. At one end of the scale, physical scientists scratch patiently away at the chemistry of receptor sites on cell membranes, at the other, clinicians make brilliant deductions by sheer intuition, and in between is a hazy land. As the pendulum now swings back towards a biological approach to psychiatry, we hear again the old assertion that the only true knowledge can be obtained by objective observation; subjective intuition must therefore be suspect, an unreliable and intangible entity. What validity is there in this argument?

scholarly journals On the relation of hydrogen to palladium

1869 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 212-220 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hydrogen Gas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linear Dimensions ◽  
Hydrogen Bubbles ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Wire ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
A Charge ◽  
The Mind

It has often been maintained on chemical grounds that hydrogen gas is the vapour of a highly volatile metal. The idea forces itself upon the mind that palladium with its occluded hydrogen is simply an alloy of this volatile metal, in which the volatility of the one element is restrained by its union with the other, and which owes its metallic aspect equally to both constituents. How far such a view is borne out by the properties of the compound substance in question will appear by the following examination of the properties of what, assuming its metallic character, would have to be named Hydrogenium . 1. Density .—The density of palladium when charged with eight or nine hundred times its volume of hydrogen gas is perceptibly lowered; but the change cannot be measured accurately by the ordinary method of immersion in water, owing to a continuous evolution of minute hydrogen bubbles which appears to be determined by contact with the liquid. However, the linear dimensions of the charged palladium are altered so considerably that the difference admits of easy measurement, and furnishes the required density by calculation. Palladium in the form of wire is readily charged with hydrogen by evolving that gas upon the surface of the metal in a galvanometer containing dilute sulphuric acid as usual. The length of the wire before and after a charge is found by stretching it on both occasions by the same moderate weight, such as will not produce permanent distention, over the surface of a flat graduated measure. The measure was graduated to hundredths of an inch, and by means of a vernier, the divisions could be read to thousandths. The distance between two fine cross lines marked upon the surface of the wire near each of its extremities was observed.

Bio-centric Views of the Origin of Consciousness: The Search for the Solution to the Hard Problem

2018 ◽  
pp. 78-122
Author(s):  
Arthur S. Reber
Keyword(s):  
Distinct Type ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Two strategies are used to review the many efforts to solve (or resolve or dissolve) the Hard Problem. One searches for the neurocorrelates of consciousness, the effort to answer the question: “How does the brain make the mind?” The other looks for the first appearance of true consciousness in phylogenesis. Both approaches are reviewed and found wanting. The reason is they all begin with human consciousness and use it as the basis for the explorations. This, it is argued, has lead to a “category error” where the H. sap. mind is treated as a distinct type and not as a token on the same existential continuum as other minds. It also reveals the existence of the “emergentist’s dilemma” or the difficulty of determining how consciousness could spring into existence when one cosmic moment before, it didn’t exist. The chapter ends by anticipating criticism of these arguments and of the CBC and providing prophylactic arguments.

scholarly journals Emergence, a Universal Phenomenon which Connects Reality to Consciousness, Natural Sciences to Humanities

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Gabriel Crumpei ◽  
Alina Gavriluţ
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Cognitive Neurosciences ◽  
Mathematical Formalization ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Progress in neuroscience has left a central question of psychism unanswered: what is consciousness? Modeling the psyche from a computational perspective has helped to develop cognitive neurosciences, but it has also shown their limits, of which the definition, description and functioning of consciousness remain essential. From Rene Descartes, who tackled the issue of psychism as the brain-mind dualism, to Chambers, who defined qualia as the tough, difficult problem of research in neuroscience, many hypotheses and theories have been issued to encompass the phenomenon of consciousness. Neuroscience specialists, such as Giulio Tononi or David Eagleman, consider consciousness as a phenomenon of emergence of all processes that take place in the brain. This hypothesis has the advantage of being supported by progress made in the study of complex systems in which the issue of emergence can be mathematically formalized and analyzed by physical-mathematical models. The current tendency to associate neural networks within the broad scope of network science also allows for a physical-mathematical formalization of phenomenology in neural networks and the construction of information-symbolic models. The extrapolation of emergence at the level of physical systems, biological systems and psychic systems can bring new models that can also be applied to the concept of consciousness. The meaning and significance that seem to structure the nature of consciousness is found as direction of evolution and teleological finality, of integration in the whole system and in any complex system at all scales. Starting from the wave-corpuscle duality in quantum physics, we can propose a model for structuring reality, based on the emergence of systems that contribute to the integration and coherence of the entire reality. Physical-mathematical models based mainly on (mereo)topology can provide a mathematical formalization path, and the paradigm of information could allow the development of a pattern of emergence, that is common to all systems, including the psychic system, the difference being given only by the degree of information complexity. Thus, the mind-brain duality, which has been dominating the representation on psychism for a few centuries, could be solved by an informational approach, describing the connection between object and subject, reality and human consciousness, between mind and brain, thus unifying the perspective on natural sciences and humanities.

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