Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0014
J. Parrington
{"title":"Depression and Anxiety","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0014","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter highlights clinical depression and anxiety. What seemed like a major step forward both in the understanding of depression, and how to treat it, occurred in the 1950s, when evidence emerged that depression might be due to low levels of the neurochemical serotonin. In particular, neuroscientists discovered that certain chemicals that alleviated the symptoms of depression appeared to work by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin into certain neurons in the brain. The chapter then looks at the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are now used to treat far more conditions than clinical depression. Recently, doubts have surfaced about the appropriateness of doctors prescribing SSRIs for such different conditions, the effectiveness of these drugs, and the mechanisms by which they affect brain function. One problem in determining the true effectiveness of SSRIs for the treatment of depression is how little is understood about the biological basis of this disorder and how drugs like SSRIs alleviate it. A complicating factor for any attempt to identify a biological basis to depression, or for that matter any mental disorder, is the important role that the social environment plays in the genesis of such disorders.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126600954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0019
J. Parrington
{"title":"Music and Rhythm","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0019","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter evaluates how music has been an important part of human culture for a very long time. One explanation for the centrality of music in human society is that it plays a key role in coordinating activity. Rhythmic sound ‘not only coordinates the behaviour of people in a group, it also coordinates their thinking—the mental processes of individuals in the group become synchronized’. This may explain how drums unite tribes in ceremony, why armies used to march into battle accompanied by bugle and drum, religious ceremonies are infused by song, and speech is punctuated by rhythmic emphasis on particular syllables and words. The chapter then assesses what modern neuroscience can reveal about how music affects the brain, and considers the role that music plays in the creation of meaning. It illustrates these general arguments with reference to music ranging from the classical music of Mozart and Beethoven, to mid-twentieth century jazz, through to modern pop music. The chapter also looks at how music can help us cope with some of the alienation that many people feel in modern society, and ways in which music has addressed the issue of mental illness.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114257442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0018
J. Parrington
{"title":"Resistance and Rebellion","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0018","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines how ideas can change in a mass movement such as a strike, and why in some periods of history such activities can seem few and far between, while in others widespread industrial militancy is a central feature. It looks at moments in history when resistance to the status quo reached such a scale that a fundamental shift occurred in the structure of society—so-called revolutions. In so doing, the chapter relates the actions of a mass movement to what might be going on in the heads of its individual participants. It also asks what mental processes might underlie the apparently rapid shifts in social consciousness that seem to be a key feature of any genuine mass progressive movement of the people. A survey of past protest movements reveals a number of typical characteristics that may provide clues as to how human consciousness—here particularly meaning conscious awareness of oneself and one’s place in society—develops in such circumstances. The chapter also looks at how reactionary social movements can come to power, such as in Nazi Germany, and asks why some people join or acquiesce to such movements, while others actively resist them, and how this might reflect different aspects of human brain function.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132238647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0002
J. Parrington
{"title":"Mind and Matter","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses different views on the basis of human consciousness. A major problem with much popular speculation about the biological roots of consciousness is that those who advocate a gene-based view of consciousness often appear to have little understanding of modern genetics, while speculation about how brain structures shape that consciousness often bear little resemblance to emerging knowledge about the complexity of an actual human brain. There is a common thread here, which is that idealised genes and brains have been substituted for real ones. Unfortunately, because of this tendency, it is not clear how much we have really advanced forwards from René Descartes and his belief that the human mind was an unknowable entity, or for that matter, the behaviourists with their view that the human mind could be treated as a black box. In contrast, to understand human consciousness, there is a need to understand real genes, real brains, and how these have evolved in humans compared to other species.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128788125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.4324/9780080461762-7
J. Parrington
{"title":"Emotion and Reason","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.4324/9780080461762-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780080461762-7","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter studies the relationship between emotion and rational thought. Emotions have been found to be linked to chemical changes that can affect both mind and body. The brain is connected with the rest of the body through direct nerve connections to the organs, but also by brain regions like the hypothalamus, and glands linked to it such as the pituitary, that secrete hormones into the blood. As such, some scientists now argue that even human consciousness cannot be thought of as a product solely of the brain, but also of the body. A chemical that plays dual roles in the brain and the rest of the body is dopamine, which is vital for our control of movement and it also regulates many higher mental functions in humans, such as learning, concentration, planning ahead, and pleasure-seeking behaviour. The chapter then looks at the implications of Lev Vygotsky’s view of the interaction between rational thought and emotional responses for education. One important concept in this regard is what Vygotsky termed the 'zone of proximal development.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129621014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0010
J. Parrington
{"title":"Creativity and Imagination","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter describes another aspect of human uniqueness—the links between consciousness, creativity, and imagination. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky believed that human consciousness is transformed by social interactions, particularly through language, in a similar fashion to how tools have allowed us to transform the natural world. Vygotsky saw imagination as no less influenced by this social input than other aspects of consciousness. To deal with a changing environment, he argued that the human brain ‘combines and creatively reworks elements of this past experience and uses them to generate new propositions and new behaviour [making] the human being a creature oriented toward the future, creating the future and thus altering his own present’. Vygotsky thought that imagination was particularly stimulated in the developing child through the process of play. Some aspects of adult human culture have attributes in common with play, including the link with imagination.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122879479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0013
J. Parrington
{"title":"Sanity and Madness","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0013","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explains that the central difficulty in diagnosing and treating mental disorders is reaching a level of agreement about their underlying basis. In this respect, proponents of the view that mental disorders are primarily biological in origin were particularly excited by the Human Genome Project, as they believed this would make it possible to truly get a grip on the nature of such conditions. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have now been used to study a range of mental disorders. However, GWAS findings have been contradictory and confusing and this chapter looks at the reasons why, and at a number of possible biological causes of schizophrenia. The chapter then considers a very different way of explaining schizophrenia, one based on the idea that it is not genetics but the social environment that determines whether an individual succumbs to this disorder. A version of this hypothesis sees schizophrenia as primarily the result of defective family relations, and the disorder as a consequence of those distorted relations, but also as a response to wider pressures in society. One psychotherapy approach claimed to have a very good level of success in the treatment of schizophrenia is called 'Open Dialogue.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123733893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0004
J. Parrington
{"title":"Individual and Society","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter investigates the relationship between the individual and society, which has been hotly disputed among philosophers and politicians through the ages. Recent studies have questioned the idea that human beings are naturally solitary individuals. Instead, they suggest that socialising with others is so central to our species that rejection is registered in the same brain regions that respond to physical pain. Other studies have undermined the idea that human beings are inherently selfish, indicating instead that altruistic acts trigger activity in the ‘reward’ region of the brain that is stimulated when a person experiences pleasure. Studies like these raise the question of how the human brain became so attuned to social cues in this way. Here there are two issues to consider. One is evidence that primates in general have evolved to be highly sensitive to social interactions with other members of their species, and this has been accompanied by enhanced brain growth in order to handle these more sophisticated interactions. Yet while social interaction may be hardwired into our brains because of evolutionary changes in our primate ancestors, some features of our strong tendency towards social interaction may be specifically human. The chapter then looks at Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s novel ideas about human consciousness.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125010885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0023
J. Parrington
{"title":"Mind and Meaning","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0023","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter addresses how religion might have originated and why it still maintains such a strong hold on the human mind, even amidst the science and technology of the twenty-first century. Since this book is concerned primarily with aspects of consciousness that can be examined scientifically, the approach here is to ask what material reasons one can find to explain belief in the supernatural, and link this to this book’s theme, which is how culture has shaped the human mind. One suggestion is that such belief arose as a by-product of response mechanisms that evolved to protect our species in its first phase of existence. Another feature of human beings is what has been called our ‘theory of mind’—the capacity to understand that other humans have thoughts and desires, and have some idea what these might be. Yet while helping humans to survive, such attributes may have led to supernatural beliefs. This chapter looks at the relationship between religion and other changes in society and social consciousness. It also looks at the question of how non-religious individuals find meaning in life, and why meaning is so central to the unique ways in which human beings navigate life.","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114459458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mind ShiftPub Date : 2021-04-22DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0021
J. Parrington
{"title":"Fact and Fiction","authors":"J. Parrington","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198801634.003.0021","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter assesses how much novels can reveal about the various mechanisms underlying human consciousness. Some might say, very little, and argue that only scientific study can uncover such mechanisms. However, because language plays such a key role in shaping human consciousness, the fictional explorations of the human condition that we find in novelistic literature can greatly add to our scientific understanding by concretizing that condition in its diverse forms. The chapter also explores a related question: how much do novels draw on new insights about the nature of consciousness, so increasing their ability to inform us about the human condition, and its relationship to changing forms of society? The best novels have a complexity and ambiguity of meaning that itself reflects the many contradictions in society and the individual psyche within that society. Importantly, this means there can be multiple readings of great novels, with different readers interpreting them in various ways. The chapter then examines several novels that have multiple interpretations and which also illuminate and enhance our understanding of different aspects of consciousness. These include Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898), William Golding’s Pincher Martin (1956), and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled (1995).","PeriodicalId":307422,"journal":{"name":"Mind Shift","volume":"302 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134483266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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