david jhave johnston

The Hedonistic Imperative : Chapter Five

1. For White males ages 25-29: 1,666 per 100,000.


2. For Latino males ages 25-29: 3,606 per 100,000.


3. For Black males ages 25-29: 12,603 per 100,000. (That's 12.6% of Black men in their late 20s.)

1. South Africa under apartheid (1993), Black males: 851 per 100,000


2. U.S. under George Bush (2004), Black males: 4,919 per 100,000

1. Individuals require lesss energy and time to complete development


2. Less energy is needed to sustain life both as individuals and as populations


3. It is easier to find protection from predators and other environmental extremes.


4. A greater number of ecological habitats are available for exploitation than is true for large animals.


5. Muscular action is much more efficient.


6. Solar heat can be used to heat the body because of high surface-volume ratios


7. Random dispersal by wind action is accomplished with great ease


8. Individuals can fall great distances without serious injury because gravity has less effect.“

• Delta (0.5-3Hz) sleepy


• Theta (4-7 Hz) meditative, unconscious processing,


• some negative emotions: frustration


• theta reflects active process in hippocampus (HC) i.e. during REM


• alpha (8-12 Hz) relaxed


• beta (13-30 hz) cognitive and emotional activation


• gamma ( >30 hz) higher cognitive functioning

1. 2-DG technique : radioactive glucose uptake and distribution


2. PET scans: 1979 positron-emitting molecules triangulated to computationally reconstruct images of various planes of brain


3. fMRI : functional magnetic imaging


4. monitoring neuronal DNA expression : “when certain neurons change their firing rate, their DNA rapidly expresses new growth-regulatory genes called proto-oncogenes”  -- example: cfos gene

• ancient reptilian (seeking, sexuality, some aspects of fear)


• 3 names, same thing: basal ganglia, striatal complex, corpus striatum  


• substructures: caudate nucleus, globus pallidus, nucleus accumbens, entopeduncular nucleus, ventral tegmental area, substantia nigra


• limbic mammalian (emotional brain: fear, anger, sociality)


• surrounds reptilian core, intimate with visceral organs


• originally called “nose brain” or rhinencephalon


• “endowed with several arching pathways: fornix and stria terminalis”


• major areas: amygdala, hippocampus, septal area, preoptic, hypothalamus, and central gray of the mesencephalon


• modulatory control over reptile behaviors and generates emotions “including maternal nurturance, associated caressive behaviors, separation distress vocalizations, playfulness, competition…. “


• neo-cortex (propositional logic, cognitive representations)


• 6 celled layer, wired into cylindrical columns,


• specialized for certain data types


• “elaborates the appraisal processes that can trigger emotional responses” (pg 72)


• column: “ a vertically oriented functional grouping of about 4,000 interconnected neurons with comparatively weak connections to immediately neighboring modules.

• nigrostriatal system (dorsal striatum)


• ascends from  substantia nigra to the dorsal striatum (also called caudate putamen)


• mesolimbic/mescortical pathways (ventral striatum)


• ascends from ventral tegmental are (VTA) to the ventral striatum (also called the nucleus accumbens)

1. limbic:  emotionality is “situated in deep subcortical areas of brain”


2. “removal of discrete brain areas [in humans]…modified emotionality”


3. electrical stimulus can elicit “a variety of emotional behavior patterns” (w. hess)

1. The categorical approach: innate emotions have biologic basis (Panksepp aligns)


2. social-constructivist: denies existence of basic emotions


3. componentional: hybrid position, emotions are “learned states constructed … from more elemental units of visceral-autonomic experiences…”

1. genetically predetermined, respond unconditionally to life-challenge


2. activate or inhibit motor subroutines proved adaptive by evolution


3. change the sensitivities of sensory systems


4. outlast the precipitating circumstances (resonate)


5. can come under the control of neutral circumstances


6. reciprocally connected with executive functions of consciousness

• seeking : search for food water warmth (reward-reinforcement)


• – dopamine emanating from ventral tegmental area (VTA)


• lust: search for sex and companionship


• nurturance: need to care for offspring


• panic: separation anxiety


• fear: survive, avoid pain (flight-fight)


• rage: tendency to vigorous self-defense, territory


• play: urge to vigorous socializing

(Soltysik, Jelen, 2005) The authors use stimulus-shock association techniques in random alternation with a stimulus that signals there will be no shock following the normal stimulus. It is discovered that rats are actually relieved when they are not harassed ( in stronger terms: tortured ); when they see the signal that there will be no mandatory shock, the rats sigh with relief. Safety as a deep physiological need eliciting physiological responses is mentioned.

Stefan Soltysik and Piotr Jelen, In rats, sighs correlate with relief, Physiology & Behavior, Volume 85, Issue 5, 7 August 2005, Pages 598-602.
( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6T0P-4GP1VKP-2/2/83d7f8145d6cacf1d52b26d457be2e14 )

“The electrodes for recording heart rate (not reported here) and diaphragm EMG activity were implanted under chloral hydrate (360 mg/kg body weight) anaesthesia [6]. Thin wires covered with silicone and uninsulated at the tip, were implanted for bipolar chronic recording of the diaphragm activity. The end of the double wire was threaded through the diaphragm close to its attachment to the chest wall, looped back and connected to the wire forming a loop that could not be pulled out accidentally from the muscle. The wires were connected to the socket, fastened to the skull of the rat with rustproof screws and dental cement. The implanted electrodes did not restrict the freedom of the animals' movements and did not influence their behaviour. This implant was not the source of pain or discomfort and the animals had two weeks after the surgery for a full recovery and removal of the stitches from the surgical incisions.”

(my emphasis)

//***commentary***//

The penetration of consciousness down into life forms (rats!) conventionally considered to be unconscious is an evident extrapolation of this research. Since it is not simply common human knowledge in 2005 that animals experience pain, fear, and relief (and yes, sighs), then another obvious conclusion is that humans project their own violence onto other species, yet reserve or introject faculties of sensitivity and consciousness for ourselves.

I am disturbed that the researchers recognize the rats were feeling emotions (the experiment sets out to conclusively prove that these sighs are not simply respiratory reflexes, and the experiment succeeds) yet , did not at the end of their experiments conclude (in Dr Seuss fashion): “We would not do this to our kids, we would not do this to a dog, we would not do this to ourselves, so we shouldn't do it to rats......”

The reasons for cruelty (the failure of love) are complex and intertwined; they form the roots of war and violence and the more subtle occlusions of compassion which invisibly maim time. The small bodily-defined local range of human awareness, the limits of empathy, the constraints (cultural and neurological) of imagination, all contribute. Denial is efficient. Survival is a priority which takes several forms: eat, investigate, create, destroy. In the case of animals who nourish us, dependency and our own vulnerability fuel this denial. We cannot attribute agency to that which we eat. ( And this is reinforced in language of taunts: “what a cow!”, “gross pig”, “chicken shit!”.) So obviously, with a clever bit of conceptual blindness, even an experiment which proves the emotional reality of animals cannot allow that proof to enter consciousness fully for that would involve a cathartic clash with an entrenched cosmology that is inherent within our physiognomy as predators.

1. ineffable; that is, they cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any other means than direct experience.


2. intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.


3. private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible.


4. directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness; that is, to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale.