Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson

Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life link
by Steven Johnson
May 3, 2005

Every time I read Mind Wide Open I remember why its been such a staple in my life for the last five years. Its personable with anecdotal stories of his experiences delving into his own mind. He's funny and you can just tell he writes how he talks making it that much easier to understand this complex topic and also be able to relate to it by going "Oh yeah I've experienced that before!". Now that I am on this neuroscience kick I figured it would be good to start with what I already have so I decided to reread Mind Wide Open and take notes on it. So here are some of my favorite excerpts.


-There are four current theories of consciousness:
1. Inanimate objects, like broccoli and teakettles, are conscious in some different way from us. That qualia (the brains representation of both the external world and the body's mental state - the "faceness" of a loved one, or the "emotioness" of the emotional feeling) is a property of matter itself, and the human brain is simply the most advanced qualia recording apparatus yet evolved.
2. Something unique exists in the configuration of cells that makes consciousness happen in brains and not broccoli.
3. A mystery substance not yet understood by science - quantum behavior perhaps, or some kind of spiritual life force - that turns a bunch of interconnected cells into a feeling brain.
4. One of the properties of consciousness is that it cant explain itself regardless of how far we come scientifically.
I find this extremely interesting, I suppose I have never considered consciousness before or where it comes from. This is definitely a topic I intend to delve into further, Johnson offers a couple of recommendations on books to look into if you're interested in this topic; The Feeling of What Happens by Damasio, Consciousness Explained by Dennett, The Race for Consciousness by Taylor, and The Emperors New Mind by Penrose.
-For language to evolve, humans needed a viable theory about the minds of other people - otherwise, they'd just be talking to themselves. What a great thought! It's funny, but oh so true. We really had to have realized that other people have the same emotions and feelings as we do to have found the need for language to communicate with one another.

-The bigger the society in which the individual lives, the bigger its neocortex is relative to the rest of the brain. To thrive in a complex society, you need a big brain and vice versa.

-When you track a projectile flying through the air, your brain intuitively calculates its point of origin by imagining its trajectory in reverse. Ha!

-Sue Carter studied prairie voles, who are well known for being monogamous for their whole lives (very uncommon, less than 5% of all mammalians are). When she injected oxytocin into their brains they formed even more tenacious bonds than usual. And when she injected a oxytocin blocker they instantly became polygamous and didn't form any pair bonds. Well now I know how monogamy happens... or doesn't. Us humans obviously dont have nearly enough oxytocin to keep us totally loyal and monogamous. I wonder once this information becomes more well-known if people will seek having more oxytocin put into their brains to become truly monogamous with their partner. Would that be romantic? The new true way of getting married?

-Speakers are 46% more likely to laugh than listeners and only 15% of the sentences that triggered laughter were humorous in any way. And you're 30 times more likely to laugh when you're with people than when you're alone.

-Laughter is an instinctive form of social bonding, the largest amount of human laughter occurs in childhood - rough&tumble play, chasing, etc. Its a way of pair bonding with parents and reinforces parenting through the "tougher" years. And thus we have childhood to thank for laughter. Thank you childhood!

-Sadness is marked by a decrease of activity in the prefrontal cortex, while happiness triggered an increase in such activity. Prefrontal cortical activity is a strong predictor of idea generation and overall liveliness of thought. One of the side effects of the way the brain creates the feeling of sadness is a reduction in the overall umber of thoughts that the mind produces. Isn't that interesting? Now is it sadness that causes us to decrease our prefrontal cortical activity or is it a decrease in prefrontal cortical activity that causes sadness? That is one thing that I suppose we will never truly know, but at least you know the next time you are feeling blue and not having many grand ideas that once the sadness passes you will regain your super awesome powers of having the best ideas ever.

-Only using ten percent of your brain is a sign of efficiency, not underachievement. Arguing that we'd be better off with one hundred percent is like raving how great Shakespeare would have been if he'd managed to use all 26 letters in each of his words, instead of a small fraction of the alphabet. I myself have heard someone saying the same thing before (how if only we used 100% of our brain...) and even then I thought they sounded ridiculous, but I couldn't place why or an argument to say otherwise. But I love how Johnson stated his argument, its a good metaphor. I'm pretty sure our brains would overheat and explode if we used 100 percent of it constantly.


Next up is Synaptic Self by Joseph LeDoux. I read a lot of articles online today and will make a post on those in the next day or two as well. I hope you are finding this all as fascinating as I am! Cheers!